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2193
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Drought-hit Australian towns prepare for 'unimaginable' water crisis.
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The little town of Guyra in eastern Australia lies next to a freshwater lagoon just half a day’s drive from Sydney, but its drinking water is due to run dry in 400 days’ time.
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true
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Environment
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The local authorities have been trucking in fresh water, built a pipeline to a local dam and will soon start drilling in the hope of finding new supplies. For Mayor Simon Murray, the biggest worry is that Guyra is not alone. “A lot of towns are forecast to run out at the same time - and then where do you get the water from?” he said, referring to an area that is home to some 180,000 people. It is part of a much bigger problem in a country unused to widespread financial hardship; Australia has enjoyed growth for a generation yet livelihoods are now at risk from drought worsened by climate change, a predicament more familiar to developing countries. Parts of northern and inland New South Wales, along with southern Queensland, have been in drought since 2016, severely depleting river and dam levels. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) says the drought is being driven, in part, by warmer sea-surface temperatures impacting rainfall patterns. Air temperatures have also warmed over the past century, increasing the ferocity of droughts and fires. In New South Wales, the government has provided some local councils with estimates of an end-date to water supplies in the worst-case scenario which change along with likely demand and supply. Dubbed “day zero” by locals, they are focusing some minds in a wealthy country where plentiful coal resources weigh against pressure for action on climate change. “Day zero - it’s a war-time phrase,” sheep and cattle farmer Richard Daugherty told Reuters on his property, located near the small town of Uralla, 200 km (124 miles) inland from Australia’s eastern coastline. But links between climate change and extreme weather events have become a political football in Australia. The conservative government has argued stronger environmental action would cripple its economy, pitting itself against its Pacific island neighbors which are particularly susceptible to warmer temperatures and rising seas. It came under fire from British naturalist Sir David Attenborough for supporting new coal mines shortly after school children around the globe protested against government inaction on climate change and world leaders met in New York for a climate summit. Prime Minister Scott Morrison did not attend the climate summit. He told the UN General Assembly that critics overlooked Australia’s work on curbing emissions and that the country would meet its Paris emissions reduction goals. He has also pledged A$100 million ($68 million) in extra funding to support drought-striken farmers. Guyra, population 2,000, lies in a region known as New England, where European livestock stations were established almost 200 years ago on land resembling the colonial power’s green countryside. Together with the North-West region, it produced A$2.6 billion ($1.76 billion) in agricultural production in 2017-18, according to commodity forecaster ABARES. Murray, who also oversees the bigger regional center of Armidale, said he first realized the scale of the problem when he noticed entire hillsides of hardy eucalyptuses dying. Some of the region’s biggest towns, which include Dubbo, with 40,000 people, Armidale, 25,000, and Tamworth, 62,000, are forecast to run out of drinking water mid-to-late next year, according to the latest government projections. “This is going to another level - it’s almost unimaginable,” Murray said. Most councils, including Armidale and Dubbo, are trying to extend the deadline by drilling into the earth to tap underground reservoirs in the hope they can access water suitable for drinking. Even Sydney’s biggest dam, Warragamba, has dropped to 50%, after almost being at capacity less than three years ago. The central bank has warned the drought is weighing on Australia’s economic growth. The value of farm production is forecast to decline by 5% to A$59 billion ($40.4 billion) in 2019–20, according to ABARES. There is already a steep daily cost to farmers, towns and governments that are paying to truck-in water that usually drops freely from the sky. Farmers in the Armidale area told Reuters they were now paying well in excess of A$250 ($169) to bring in 10,000 litres of drinking-quality water, which is almost double the cost of pre-drought prices. Australia’s east coast is forecast to continue sweltering for at least three more months, the country’s weather bureau said. Locals are making do. Joe George, 57, used to wash his fleet of nine school buses once a week, but now collects whatever rain falls onto his depot’s rusty roof for a monthly wash to meet his contractual obligation to provide clean vehicles. “Worst drought I’ve ever seen,” he said at the bus depot in Guyra. “We had a bad one in the early 80s but even that was nothing like this.” s
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31919
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Everyone with cancer has a pH that is too acidic.
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Wolfe’s use of the Warburg Effect to suggest that “every single person who has cancer has a pH that is too acidic” is a classic example of circular logic. Warburg’s main contribution to cancer research was the observation that cancer cells actually produce low oxygen and high acid conditions, not that they are caused by such conditions in the first place.
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false
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Medical, cancer, david avocado wolfe
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A meme stating that every person who has been diagnosed with cancer has a pH that is “too acidic” (and that cancer cannot live in an alkaline environment) has been popping up on social media since late 2016. This specific meme was posted by prolific internet misinformation artist and frequent abuser of the appeal to nature fallacy David “Avocado” Wolfe, who believes, among other things, that mushroom spores can levitate off the planet: Ignoring the fact that Wolfe never defines what “too acidic” means (which makes the statement completely meaningless), it is worthwhile to dive into the scientific history of claims that link pH to cancer, as it is a far more complicated subject than a single meme whose claim is so broad it almost defies debunking. An additional David “Avocado” Wolfe page goes deeper into the “logic” behind the meme: Many people who are reading this may have a high acidity level in his or her body. This is due to the typical first world diet of processed foods, refined sugars, and GMOs. However, many people do not know that an acidic body is a breeding ground for cancer. How long have we known this? Since 1931. That is right. 84 years. Of course, the first problem with the premise proposed by Wolfe is that it doesn’t mention which part of a human body’s pH is “too acidic” in cancer patients. The stomach (the place where all of that scary food goes), for example, has wildly varying pH levels that are extremely acidic (as low as 1.5 to 3.5). Blood, on the other hand, exists in a tightly regulated range that stays steady at around 7.4. Different parts of different tissues vary as well at both the macro and micro level. The only part of the body whose pH a person can affect through diet, however, is the digestive tract and the collection of systems related to excreting urine from your body. Your liver tightly regulates the pH of blood and extracellular fluid. Therefore, as stated in an October 2013 paper in the British Journal of Nutrition, unless one has specific pathologies that prevent their body from sustaining this function: [F]ood components trigger neither extracellular fluid acidosis nor alkalosis. Any influence of nutritional origin that slightly disrupts the acid–base equilibrium is at once corrected by biochemical buffering systems operating in both the extracellular and intracellular compartments. Then, as indicated above, come into play the homeostatic systems involved in the regulation of pulmonary ventilation and urinary acid excretion. This is important, as close examination of the (flawed) scientific rationale behind a dietary connection to cancer relies on the impossible premise that your diet can alter your blood pH. As the additional text of the meme makes clear, the main source of scientific rationale comes from the misrepresentation of work performed by Nobel Prize laureate Otto Warburg: Dr. Otto Warburg won the Nobel Prize in 1931 for proving that cancer can’t survive in an alkaline, oxygen-rich environment but thrives in acidic, low-oxygen environment [sic]. First, Dr. Otto Warburg, a prolific and truly impressive scientist, did not win his 1931 Nobel Prize for discoveries relating pH to cancer. According to the Nobel Prize commission, he won for his contributions to our understanding of the chemistry that makes cellular respiration possible: In our cells nutrients are broken down so that energy is released for the construction of cells. This respiration requires enzymes, substances that facilitate the process without being incorporated in the final products. Otto Warburg studied the respiration of sea urchins and other organisms at an early stage of development. By measuring oxygen consumption in living cells and studying which enzymes reacted, in 1928 he concluded that the respiration enzyme he was looking for was a red ferrous pigment related to the blood pigment, hemoglobin. It was Warburg’s interest in cellular respiration that led him toward cancer research, as mentioned in Nobel Prize biography: For his discovery of the nature and mode of action of the respiratory enzyme, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to him in 1931. This discovery has opened up new ways in the fields of cellular metabolism and cellular respiration. He has shown, among other things, that cancerous cells can live and develop, even in the absence of oxygen. Based on analyses of the veins and arteries of in vitro tumor cells, Warburg observed that cancerous cells, in particular, utilize a different method of respiration more readily than other cells, but can still produce roughly the same amount of energy. Instead of utilizing oxygen to break apart pyruvate (an example of aerobic respiration), he found that cancerous cells derive much of their energy from the fermentation of glucose (glycolysis) which produces lactic acid as a byproduct. These observations (known as the “Warburg Effect”) led him to formulate what famously became known as the “Warburg Hypothesis”, which he summarized succinctly in a 1956 paper in Science: Cancer cells originate from normal body cells in two phases. The first phase is the irreversible injuring of respiration. Just as there are many remote causes of plague — heat, insects, rats — but only one common cause, the plague bacillus, there are a great many remote causes of cancer — tar, rays, arsenic, pressure, urethane—but there is only one common cause into which all other causes of cancer merge, the irreversible injuring of respiration. The irreversible injuring of respiration is followed, as the second phase of cancer formation, by a long struggle for existence by the injured cells to maintain their structure, in which a part of the cells perish from lack of energy, while another part succeed in replacing the irretrievably lost respiration energy by fermentation energy. Because of the morphological inferiority of fermentation energy, the highly differentiated body cells are converted by this into undifferentiated cells that grow wildly — the cancer cells. The important takeaway from Warburg’s hypothesis is that, in his estimation, the causative agent that transforms normal cells into cancerous cells is not the acidic or low oxygen conditions, but an irreversible damage to a cell’s ability to derive energy from respiration. Yes, their ability to ferment glucose gives them a competitive advantage after the fact, but he never claimed these factors to be the cause. The problem with Wolfe’s use of Otto Warburg’s work is that it grossly misrepresents its findings. By Warburg’s analysis, it wasn’t so much that tumors survive better in low oxygen environments (though they do, thanks to their ability to derive energy without oxygen), it’s that they survive by utilizing a process that is advantageous in low oxygen environments. Warburg came to this conclusion in 1927 by comparing (in vitro) a tumor’s arteries (which transport glucose and oxygen to a tumor) and its veins (which carry blood that had passed through the tumor): In every case, the veins contain more lactic acid than the arteries, hence in every case lactic acid is formed as the blood passes through the tumor. This process (fermentation) produces lactic acid, and therefore by its nature increases acidity. That means, by his model, that both the acidity and the low oxygen would be a symptom, not a cause. It also bears highlighting that Warburg is talking about the pH of blood in veins and arteries here, which, as discussed above, cannot be modified by diet. The second problem with Wolfe’s selective use of Warburg’s work is that scientists have actually completed a great deal of research on the topic of cancer since 1956, and that work makes it even clearer that the causative agent in the formation of cancerous cells is not related to pH, and that both low pH and low oxygen are not a cause but a byproduct (and potentially a survival mechanism) of a series of not fully understood processes. A March 2016 review in the journal Trends in Biochemical Sciences provided the latest thinking on the role of the Warburg Effect in the development of cancer, arguing that it was a secondary process early in its progression but not the cause: It is likely that the Warburg Effect provides an overall benefit that supports a tumor microenvironment conducive to cancer cell proliferation. However, the Warburg Effect is thought to be an early event in oncogenesis that is an immediate consequence of an initial oncogenic mutation. In other words, the initial triggering event for the development of cancerous cells has more to do with genetic damage than it does to do with acidity or oxygen. The Warburg Effect, many now argue, is a result of that damage and may serve as a mechanism that allows the survival of cancerous cells at the expense of healthy cells. The effect of low oxygen is further exacerbated by the growth of the tumor as its size forces it to migrate away from a close proximity to the veins that supply the cells with oxygen. Later research on the relationship between pH and cancer has further complicated the myth that an alkaline diet reduces cancer risk. Recent studies have suggested, for example, that acidic conditions can lead to a faster and more aggressive progression of tumor development, leading to a wave of research into possible drugs that can alter the acidity of the area in which a tumor is growing. Importantly, though, these solutions are targeted pharmacologic agents that have the ability (unlike a nice glass of alkaline water) to affect the chemical processes that regulate a body’s pH. With respect to the viability of alkaline diets as a cancer prevention tool, a systematic review of over 8000 citations published in the journal BMJ Open concluded: Despite the promotion of the alkaline diet and alkaline water by the media and salespeople, there is almost no actual research to either support or disprove these ideas. This systematic review of the literature revealed a lack of evidence for or against diet acid load and/or alkaline water for the initiation or treatment of cancer. Promotion of alkaline diet and alkaline water to the public for cancer prevention or treatment is not justified.
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10317
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“I’ve gotten my life back”: Hopkins reports success with MS treatment
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The story describes a new method of administering an existing drug to a subset of patients in the early stages of a debilitating form of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The story discusses why this method of delivery may be an improvement over existing immunosuppressant drug regimens for difficult-to-treat MS cases. And it explains why more information about risk and efficacy of the high-dose treatment is needed before it can be accepted for clinical use. The story adequately describes the small, open-label, pilot-stage study of 9 MS patients. The story appropriately notes inclusion criteria for the study (i.e. patients in the early stages of aggressive MS) and cautions that the preliminary findings may not apply to other people with different subtypes of MS. The suggestion by a study researcher that results of this study could lead to a cure for MS seems premature, especially given the small number of people involved and outcomes at 2 years; however, the story does note the limited information available for HiCy therapy and the need for future randomized controlled trials with a larger group of patients. The story mentions the harms of treatment typically seen in patients taking the pulsed dose of cyclophosphamide, as well as side effects seen in the small group of patients in the HiCy trial. The cost of currently available low-dose, pulsed immune suppressing drugs could have been mentioned. It would be good to know if there would be a potential cost-saving for the patient with HiCy therapy. But the story does note the economics driving drug research and implications for the development of new treatments for people with difficult-to-treat chronic conditions. Overall, though, this was a solid report.
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true
|
"The cost of currently available low-dose, pulsed immune suppressing drugs could have been mentioned. It would be good to know if there would be a potential cost-saving for the patient with HiCy therapy. The story does note the economics driving drug research and implications for the development of new treatments for people with difficult-to-treat chronic conditions. The suggestion that results of this study could lead to a cure for MS seems premature, especially given the small number of people involved and outcomes at 2 years; however, the story does note the limited information available for HiCy and the need for future randomized controlled trials with a larger group of patients. The story mentions the harms of treatment typically seen in patients taking the pulsed dose of cyclophosphamide, as well as side effects seen in the small group of patients in the HiCy trial. These included: nausea and hair loss and increased risk of infection. The story also mentioned that some patients’ symptoms became worse before they improved. Researchers do not currently know the long-term effects of this high-dose, concentrated drug regimen. The story adequately describes the small, open-label, pilot-stage study of 9 MS patients and presents findings for the lay reader. The story appropriately notes inclusion criteria for the study (i.e. early stages of aggressive MS) and cautions that the preliminary findings may not apply to other people with different subtypes of MS. The story provides some data on study endpoints, i.e. brain lesions in 7 of 9 people improved and there was a statistically significant reduction in disability in most participants. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story includes U.S. prevalence data and describes different forms of MS, qualifying discussion of the novel treatment with a reminder that HiCy was only tested in very debilitated patients. As mentioned in the press release accompanying this story, the study included the ""worst of the worst"" MS patients. The story includes interview with study authors and participants, as well as Dr. Richert, VP of research and clinical programs for MS Society, who puts the results of this study in perspective. The story mentions other FDA-approved treatments for MS and compares the current use of longer-term pulsed intervals of cyclophosphamide with the higher-concentrated regimen–which lasted only 4 days and was less toxic. The story notes that this experimental delivery system was tested in people in the early stages of a particularly aggressive form of MS, and the treatment is not a long-term cure. The story mentions that high-dose cyclophosphamide (generic name for Cytoxan, Neosar, Revimmune) (HiCy) is currently being studied via clinical trials, and at this time the concentrated form of the immunosuppressant drug is limited to people in the early stages of an aggressive form of MS. The story mentions that cyclophosphamide is already used in a different dosing regimen for treatment of MS. The high-dose regimen is under study and more information about risk and efficacy is needed before it can be accepted for clinical use. The story describes the pros and cons of this new method of administering an existing drug to a subset of patients in the early stages of a particularly debilitating form of MS. The story discusses why this method of delivery may be an improvement over existing immunosuppressant drugs regimens for difficult-to-treat cases. There is similar language in the press release and news story; however, there is also some independent reporting and the story includes a perspective (MS researcher Dr. Richert) other than those of the researchers and participants from the HiCy trials."
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34296
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Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra was sued by his bandmates because he didn’t want one of their songs used in a Levi’s commercial.
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Unfortunately, neither the court nor the jury were asked to rule on what initially caused the litigants to move to trial, and we were not there when the alleged incident happened. As such, we rank the claim that a Levi’s ad dispute precipitated the lawsuit between members of the Dead Kennedys as unproven.
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unproven
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Entertainment, bands, dead kennedys, levi's
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In 1998, three members of the 1980s punk band Dead Kennedys sued their former frontman, Jello Biafra. Those three members — East Bay Ray, Klaus Fluoride, and D.H. Peligro — sued Biafra to recover unpaid royalties as well as to maintain rights over the band’s musical catalog. The case was acrimonious and both sides tell different stories about what ultimately lead to the breakdown in the former band members’ relationship. The bulk of the case alleged that Biafra, in his capacity as the owner of the record label that distributed the Dead Kennedys’ music, owed the rest of the band royalties from the sales of those albums. Two entities were involved: Decay Music, a publishing company which was formed in 1981 by the four members of the Dead Kennedys as an equal partnership; and Alternative Tentacles Records, a record label was founded by Ray, Biafra, and another man in 1979. The Dead Kennedys released their first single (California Über Alles) on Alternative Tentacles in the United States, but after that it was a label used for non-Dead Kennedy projects. In 1984, Decay Music (which comprised all four members of the Dead Kennedys) gave the rights to distribute Dead Kennedy music to Alternative Tentacles Records (which, by 1987, included only Biafra as an owner). The 1998 suit alleged two major failings on the part of Biafra: that as director of Alternative Tentacles he underpaid the other band members by raising the retail price of the records without increasing the royalty calculation, and that he failed to properly advertise or promote the band’s old catalog, leading the other members of the band to receive less revenue than they should have if Alternative Tentacles had been run properly. A February 2000 article in Spin describes a lack of formal legal agreements that made the case challenging to handicap at the time: Since the band’s business with Alternative Tentacles was mostly cemented with punk-rock handshakes rather than legal documents, it’s going to be hard to prove who’s right. In 2003, after a jury trial and an appeal, Biafra lost the case and was forced to pay $220,000 to his former bandmates — both for unpaid royalties and for fraud. In 2004, Biafra dropped a countersuit against the remaining members (who now tour without him), giving the rights to the Dead Kennedys’ former catalog to Decay Music. In interviews from during and after the trial, Biafra alleged that this dispute was not about the money itself (he says the royalty issue was an accounting error that they were working to resolve before the case even began), and he instead framed the issue as an objection to his former band members “selling out.” In a claim repeated many times (and disputed to this day), Biafra alleges that things soured between the bandmates when Biafra vetoed using their song “Holiday in Cambodia” in a Levi’s commercial: [Ray] went to two of my closest friends [Fluoride and Peligro] asking them to “persuade” me to sell out to Levi’s. When I asked about this and reminded him of what would happen to our reputation if this went through […] he said, “Why don’t you just go to the press and tell them we did it for charity?” Five percent to charity and keep the rest of the money. That’s what he wanted me to. I didn’t and they sued. They claim it was the accounting error that sparked the lawsuit, but we were all trying to settle that together. Until I wouldn’t do [the Levi’s commercial]. “They’re punishing me for sticking to the principles of the band and underground, independent culture,” Biafra argued when he lost the jury trial. In a 2003 Rolling Stone article, Fluoride argued that it was merely about recognizing the equality of decision making over their old catalog: We wanted Biafra to recognize our vote in how we wanted our music released […] No one seemed to understand that by Dead Kennedys and Decay Music controlling our own catalog, Jello still gets 100% of his record royalties and his music publishing, which is exactly what he is entitled to. We just wanted an equal say in all matters that pertained to the band. The other three Dead Kennedys have consistently denied that any dispute over licensing a song for a Levi’s ad played a role in bringing their lawsuit to trial, and have stated their belief that the argument was a “smokescreen” to hide the financial fraud committed by Biafra.
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15069
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States with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths.
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"Obama said, ""States with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths."" Research shows that the more gun laws a state has, the fewer gun deaths there are. Obama gets some wiggle room because he said ""tend to"" as opposed to making a definitive statement. The problem is, however, that this is an overly general statement. The research doesn’t prove a universal cause-and-effect relationship between gun laws and fewer gun deaths; it might just be a correlation. Some laws are more effective than others, and other cultural, demographic or socioeconomic factors might be the driving force behind the number of gun deaths in different states."
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true
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National, Corrections and Updates, Guns, Barack Obama,
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"In the wake of a Oct. 1 shooting spree in Oregon that killed 10, many -- including President Barack Obama -- are calling for more gun control laws. ""There is a gun for roughly every man, woman, and child in America,"" Obama said in remarks the day of the shooting. ""So how can you, with a straight face, make the argument that more guns will make us safer? We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence."" There is plenty of debate over the effectiveness of gun control laws, so we decided to dig into Obama’s sweeping claim: that ""states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths."" We ran this claim past several experts and found that the statistic generally holds up, but the implications are less clear. Cause and effect The meat of the claim comes from a 2015 National Journal investigation, which concluded that ""the states with the most gun laws see the fewest gun-related deaths."" The report considered seven types of gun control: handgun permits, background checks, handgun registries, ""stand your ground"" laws, concealed carry permits, open carry permits and gun purchase waiting period. It found that states that had generally more restrictive laws within these categories generally had fewer annual gun deaths. Here’s a chart by National Journal showing the states with the fewest and most gun deaths per 100,000 people, compared to each state’s’ gun laws (more blue = more restrictive laws). You should look at the chart that shows all 50 states. There are some limitations to this kind of research, notably that they do not determine cause-and-effect: whether a state has fewer gun deaths because of the law, said Adam Winkler, a University of California Los Angeles law professor and second amendment expert. Other demographic characteristics -- such as education level, marital stability, rural or urban -- might explain the fewer gun deaths in a particular state. Setting that caveat aside, Winkler said Obama’s statement is true. There are also a couple of outliers to National Journal’s report. For example, New Hampshire has some of the least restrictive gun laws but also the seventh-lowest gun death rate. An academic study published by the American Medical Association in 2013 found similar results: ""A higher number of firearm laws in a state was associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state."" In a commentary on the 2013 study, Garen Wintemute, director of UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, pointed out that the correlation between restrictive laws and fewer deaths ""essentially disappeared"" when firearm ownership rates were taken into account. ""Perhaps these laws decrease mortality by decreasing firearm ownership, in which case firearm ownership mediates the association,"" Wintemute wrote. ""But perhaps, and more plausibly, these laws are more readily enacted in states where the prevalence of firearm ownership is low — there will be less opposition to them — and firearm ownership confounds the association."" While wary of making such a general claim, Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said Obama’s claim is generally accurate. In many states, individual gun laws have shown to be associated with fewer gun-related deaths. He linked us to some of his own research showing, for example, a reduction in murders committed with firearms followed a handgun purchase permit law in Connecticut. In contrast, the repeal of a permit law in Missouri preceded a rise in firearm-caused murders. We looked for evidence to contradict Obama’s statement, and found several complaints from those who favor gun rights. James Agresti, a gun control expert for the conservative-leaning think tank Just Facts, wrote in an email to reporters that statements like Obama’s are ""meaningless"" and ""subjective and ill-defined,"" linking to a Just Facts article that said classification systems that evaluate gun laws state-by-state can be ""haphazard."" Agresti added that the claim ignores the number of lives saved by defensive gun use, and the fact that some states with highest gun-ownership rates also have low homicide rates. Overall, though, we found nothing that offered an outright contradiction to the National Journal analysis. States with laws that restrict guns do tend to have lower death rates, as Obama said. Suicide vs. homicide A notable critique of Obama’s claim is that these gun deaths include suicides -- which account for more than half of all gun deaths -- and Obama was delivering remarks in the context of how to prevent future mass shootings. While research does show that gun laws correlate with fewer firearm-caused suicides, there’s not universal agreement on the effect of gun laws on murders. In his commentary on the 2013 study, Wintemute noted that the vast majority of the observed decrease in gun deaths were suicides. Our friends at the Washington Post Fact Checker did a calculation of their own and found that when suicides are taken out of the picture, there’s not as clear a correlation between more gun laws and fewer non-suicide gun deaths. (They rated Obama’s statement as two out of four Pinocchios.) Obama’s use of this factoid is deceptive because he was selling gun control as a way to stymie murders, not suicide by gun, said David Kopel, a gun rights advocate and research director of the conservative Independence Institute in Denver. He likened it to a car salesman telling a family a car is ""safe, according to government studies."" The family takes this to mean the car will protect them in an accident, but the salesman was actually referring to the fact that studies have found the car to be safe for the environment. Experts do, though, see reason to believe that stronger gun laws will reduce homicides, as well, even if the research isn’t conclusive yet. One survey of about 150 researchers actively publishing work on guns found that 71 percent believe that strong gun laws reduce the number of homicides, compared with12 percent who disagree. While there are always exceptions, ""the research on the whole shows that if you make it more difficult for individuals -- especially individuals with a criminal background -- to obtain firearms you will prevent some gun-related criminal offenses,"" said Jay Corzine, a sociology professor at the University of Central Florida who studies homicide and violent crime. Our ruling Obama said, ""States with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths."" Research shows that the more gun laws a state has, the fewer gun deaths there are. Obama gets some wiggle room because he said ""tend to"" as opposed to making a definitive statement. The problem is, however, that this is an overly general statement. The research doesn’t prove a universal cause-and-effect relationship between gun laws and fewer gun deaths; it might just be a correlation. Some laws are more effective than others, and other cultural, demographic or socioeconomic factors might be the driving force behind the number of gun deaths in different states. Correction: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of James Agresti, to clarify his views and to provide links to his original commentaries."
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23426
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When the mayor of Providence's brother wrote over 100 grand in bad checks to the city, Joe Fernandez didn't have the guts to prosecute him. He let him off the hook.
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Kilmartin says Fernandez didn't prosecute mayor's brother for writing bad checks to Providence
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false
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Rhode Island, Ethics, Crime, Message Machine 2010, Peter Kilmartin,
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"Democratic Attorney General candidate Peter Kilmartin came out swinging against primary opponent Joseph Fernandez last week, accusing the former Providence city solicitor of not having the courage to prosecute John Cicilline, Mayor David Cicilline's brother, after John wrote two bad checks to the city. ""When the mayor of Providence's brother wrote over 100 grand in bad checks to the city, Joe Fernandez didn't have the guts to prosecute him. He let him off the hook,"" the Kilmartin campaign ad says. The facts of this case have been widely reported but the story broke two years ago. So let's review. In the spring of 2006, Providence was trying to collect back taxes from Felix Nelson Garcia for his storefront property on Cranston Street. John Cicilline, Garcia's lawyer, wrote a $75,000 check on his law office account to the city tax collector's office, to be used as collateral. Garcia was to pay the tax bill once he refinanced the property. To allow the refinancing to happen, the city lifted a lien on the property. When that check expired, Cicilline wrote a replacement check on the same account, which apparently never had sufficient funds to cash it. Cicilline maintained that the city knew that the money wasn't there. City officials said they agreed to the deal because Cicilline was a well-regarded criminal lawyer who was unlikely to jeopardize that distinction or do anything to embarrass his brother. (Cicilline was subsequently sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in June 2008 to shaking down drug-dealer clients. He is now disbarred.) The check was never cashed and the property changed hands without the city getting its money. The incident led to the firing of Tax Collector Robert P. Ceprano. ProJo.com reported the news of the bad check on Sept. 18, 2008. By then, Garcia's bill, with interest, had grown to $132,000. Five days later, Providence Police Chief Dean M. Esserman asked the state police to investigate. They spent nearly nine months on the probe, before sending the case to Attorney General Patrick Lynch. Two months later, Lynch's office decided against criminal prosecution. Now back to the campaign ad. During all of this, Fernandez, as city solicitor, was Providence's top lawyer. Neither Fernandez nor his office prosecuted the case. Kilmartin says Fernandez should have done that, implying that he didn't because John Cicilline is the mayor's brother. The Kilmartin ad leaves out a lot of important information. It is true that Cicilline wrote two bad checks totaling ""over"" $100,000. The actual total was $150,000. But the second $75,000 check was a replacement for the first check, which had expired. Cicilline never owed the city ""over $100,000,"" as the ad implies. As a result, the phrasing of the Kilmartin ad is technically true but grossly misleading. Second, and perhaps more important, state law prohibits any city or town solicitor from prosecuting a felony. That authority rests with the attorney general, who declined to take action after an independent investigation by state police. Robert Craven, a lawyer for the Kilmartin campaign and former state prosecutor, argued that Fernandez should have repackaged the case as a misdemeanor charge or filed a civil suit against Cicilline to get the money. (That wouldn't actually be a prosecution. Only crimes are prosecuted; civil cases are litigated.) The Fernandez campaign said that, by that time, the city solicitor's office had a conflict of interest because Ceprano (the fired tax collector who had been represented by Fernandez's office) had sued the city for wrongful discharge. To avoid the conflict, Fernandez hired Deming E. Sherman, of Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, to pursue a civil lawsuit to recover the unpaid taxes. David M. Zlotnick, professor of law at Roger Williams University School of Law, said Fernandez's sending the case to a private lawyer seems more than reasonable. ""If you refer the case to outside counsel, then the suit is going to get pursued."" In a later e-mail he said, ""There seems to be no effort to sweep this under the rug or avoid tackling a serious matter."" Sherman says Fernandez instructed him about a year ago to explore potential civil action against Scott L. Hammer, the private attorney who dealt with the Garcia account on the city's behalf. The campaign provided us with an April 21, 2009 letter from Sherman acknowledging that he would represent the city ""in connection with potential litigation against Scott L. Hammer and John M. Cicilline..."" Sherman said he has been actively pursuing a case against Hammer and depositions are still being taken. He would not say whether any action was planned against Cicilline, who has since been released from prison. And, for the record, the Kilmartin ad says, in big letters, ""Joe Fernandez failed to prosecute corruption - Providence Journal 4/1/09."" The Journal's story that day, headlined ""Deadline near for suit in Providence tax case,"" says no such thing. To sum it up: * Kilmartin's ad cites a dollar amount that is misleading. * He attacks Fernandez for not bringing criminal charges, when Fernandez, by law, had no authority to do so. * He faults him for not bringing a civil case, when Fernandez, for ethics reasons, turned the case over to a private lawyer to pursue potential civil action. His allegations against Fernandez fall into the realm of ridiculous, and we give him a"
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24531
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"Health insurance companies deny ""1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors."
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TV ad overstates health insurance denials
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false
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National, Health Care, Health Care for America Now,
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"Supporters of health care reform have portrayed insurance companies as insensitive and too quick to deny claims. In a recent television ad, Health Care for America Now, a group supporting the Democrats' health care reform bill, says insurance companies get wealthy by denying those claims. The group's ad mockingly explains ""how to get rich"" by showing a ""book"" written ""by America's health insurance companies."" Chapter 3 reads, ""Deny 1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors."" A news release issued by HCAN attributed this statistic to a study released Sept. 2, 2009, by the California Nurses Association titled, ""California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims."" (We checked another claim from the ad, about insurance companies paying CEOs $24 million per year.) In a news release summarizing the findings, the nurses' group — an influential union — explained that researchers from its staff and its affiliate, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, examined data disclosed by insurers to the California Department of Managed Care, the state agency that regulates HMOs. The researchers reported that from 2002 through June 30, 2009, six of the largest insurers operating in California rejected 47.7 million claims for care, or 22 percent of all claims. According to the nurses' group, during the first six months of 2009, PacifiCare denied 39.6 percent of claims; Cigna denied 32.7 percent; HealthNet denied 30 percent; Kaiser Permanente denied 28.3 percent; Blue Cross denied 27.9 percent and Aetna denied 6.4 percent. But the California Department of Managed Care told us the study was misleading. Lynne Randolph, the department's deputy director of communications, said that what the nurses' group portrayed as denials are not necessarily what most consumers would think of as denials. Most patients probably think of a denial as when their claim is rejected because the plan doesn't cover a treatment or a particular doctor, or because the patient has hit a limit on coverage. But Randolph said that a sizable chunk of the denials counted by the nurses' group — though the exact amount is unclear — are for other reasons that are simply part of the health care bureaucracy that do not really affect a consumer's care. For instance, a claim might be denied because it was sent to the wrong insurer. (This is a common occurrence in California, Randolph and other experts said, because the state has many complicated business relationships between health plans and groups of doctors, and it's easy for claims to be unintentionally misdirected.) In fact, a patient may never even know that a given claim has been sent to the wrong place. Yet in the data used by the nurses' group, these claims are counted as denials. For that matter, any claim denied during a given quarterly report is counted as a denial, even if that claim is eventually paid during a subsequent quarter. Claims could also be counted as denied because information on the form was missing or incorrect, even if that is later corrected and the claim is paid. And a claim sent simultaneously to two payers is counted twice, meaning that the same claim might be counted as both a completed payment and a denial. Asked whether the nurses' group remains comfortable with its 1-in-5 estimate, spokesman Charles Idelson said it is. He noted that in the wake of the study's release, the state attorney general's office announced an ""independent inquiry into how health maintenance organizations review and pay insurance claims submitted by doctors, hospitals and other medical providers."" And he added that the group has received hundreds of reports from Californians about denied payments. ""There's no doubt that these type of denials are occurring,"" Idelson said. Idelson added that even if the caveats cited by Randolph are valid, the fact that one of every five claims is denied at some stage adds to an administrative burden that hikes the cost of health care without improving care for patients. Randolph and Idelson actually agree on one point: Reliable statistics on why denials are made are not currently available. While the department undertakes periodic audits by sampling claims data, Randolph said, officials do not have good data on the causes of denials, forcing them to speculate. Idelson said he hopes the attorney general's investigation provides a better handle on the reasons for denials. The nurses' union numbers are significantly higher than other studies of denial rates. In 2007, America's Health Insurance Plans — a group representing insurers — conducted an internal survey of data from 19 health plans to determine the percentage of claims denied for ""reasons that could affect consumers, including non-covered services, authorization issues, or network issues."" The survey found that 2.36 percent of claims were denied. Specifically, 1.2 percent were denied due to non-covered services, 0.36 percent were denied due to benefit limits having been met, and 0.34 percent were denied due to pre-authorization, referral or utilization review issues. Smaller percentages were denied for the provider not being in the patient’s network, for issues with eligibility or pre-existing conditions and for issues related to experimental or unapproved treatments. A second study was produced by the American Medical Association, the main group representing doctors. The 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card found that for the biggest health insurers, rejection rates ranged from 2.65 percent to 6.8 percent — higher than AHIP's figures, but well below the nurses' study. It should be noted that all three groups have vested interests in the health care debate. In fact, it's also worth noting that the nurses' group has clashed with California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed the head of the California Department of Managed Care, although the department is mostly staffed by civil servants. Meanwhile, the state attorney general who is overseeing the investigation sparked by the nurses' report is Democrat Jerry Brown, a former governor who is running for an open gubernatorial seat next year. Now that we have the politics out of the way, let's recap. The Health Care for America Now ad said that insurers ""deny 1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors."" But that claim is based solely on one study in one state, and in our view it doesn't provide enough evidence to back up the claim. The independent state agency that collected the data used in the nurses' study has raised significant doubt on the group's interpretations of that data. Many ""denials"" that were counted were not really what most people would consider a denial. And studies by other groups show much lower denial rates."
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37986
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....There are people trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old. Let that sink in. #SaveOurChildren
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A viral Facebook post claimed that “there are people trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old,” even though people “can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes until we are 21.” The only mentions of anyone trying to “make the age of consent 4” were in Reddit posts mocking the post in question, and we were unable to locate any efforts — credible or speculative — to lower the age of consent to four. In short, there’s no basis for this claim, which appears to have been made up out of nothing at all.
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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A viral September 3 2020 Facebook post claiming that “there are people trying to make the age of consent four years old” racked up a six-figure share count (archived here) in one week:It read:We can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes until we are 21,but there are people trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old. Let that sink in. #SaveOurChildrenContemporary ContextUse of the hashtag #SaveOurChildren suggested the post was one of many baseless rumors during the summer of 2020 about then-current events and child trafficking — largely linked to QAnon conspiracy theories:How COVID-19 Triggered a #SaveTheChildren Child Trafficking PanicIt would be difficult to list every rumor in the summer of 2020 about child trafficking and pedophilia, but they were nearly constant, as disinformation entered the nooks and crannies of conversations on and off social media. For example, rumors circulated that Patton Oswalt described himself as a “proud pedophile,” that Victoria’s Secret bras featured a trafficking-related tracking chip, that 800,000 children disappear annually in the United States, that 39 missing children were located in a trailer in Georgia, that Oprah Winfrey condoned pedophilia on her show, that LOL Dolls were secretly priming children to normalize oversexualization, and what was perhaps the original viral expression of the rumors — that Wayfair.com was selling and shipping actual children in extremely overpriced cabinets:Wayfair Child Trafficking Conspiracy TheoryIn a bizarre summer during the even stranger year of 2020, social media was transfixed by claims that the majority of world events were a cover for the widespread abduction and trafficking of children, as the Facebook post above’s popularity clearly demonstrated.What’s Does ‘Age of Consent’ Actually Mean?In the Facebook post, a user claimed “people” were “trying to make the age of consent four years old” — so what’s an age of consent?Broadly, the age of consent is “the age at which one is legally competent to give consent especially to marriage or to sexual intercourse.” And again, the poster maintained “people” were trying to lower the age of consent to the age of four.We touched on the concept of an “age of consent” in a more wide-ranging fact check about things women could not do as recently as 1971, noting that while it was true the age of consent has historically been as low as ten, it was never “seven”:In a postscript claim, the post claims the age of consent for sexual activity in most states in 1880 was between ten and twelve years of age. A notable exception of the age of seven in Delaware is added, a claim that has been kicking around the internet for a while … One historian commenting on the thread noted that the referenced statute was “commonly misinterpreted,” and a legal site explains more about the law[. ][…]It was further true that the age of consent in most states was between 10 and 12 in 1880; in other Western countries, it was between 10 and 13.In July 2020, The Week examined ages of consent around the world at the time of publication. The outlet determined that the oldest age of consent in 2020 were in Bahrain and South Korea, while the lowest was in Nigeria:Nigeria has the lowest age of consent in the world, at 11. In most parts of Southern Africa, including Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, people can consent to sex from the age of 16 … Individuals aged below 20 in South Korea are not legally able to consent to sexual activity, and such activity may result in prosecution for statutory rape. At the other end of the spectrum, the Philippines has faced calls to raise its age of consent from 12, with a bill currently passing through parliament to increase it to 16.Nowhere in the world was the age of consent lower than 11 (Nigeria) or 12 (the Philippines).Citations for People Trying to Lower the Age of Consent to Four Years OldNo citations or supporting information was included with the post to support its claims “people” were “trying to make the age of consent four years old.”In a search for similar claims, we located a very different but still false claim that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had argued to lower the age of consent to 12. Incidentally, those fact checks were published in late July and early August 2020, at the height of the QAnon trafficking panic.As for specific references to anyone trying to lower the age of consent to four, we only were able to locate a Reddit post, shared to r/insanepeoplefacebook on September 9 2020:I’m pretty sure people aren’t trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old.. from insanepeoplefacebookSeveral commenters correctly said that the claim originated with QAnon:“This is qanon bullshit.they are trying to lure in soft hearted people to their cult of dumb.”“Honestly this whole Save Our Children Qanon ploy was ingenious. It got their foot in the door of sooooo many parents who would not normally be on board with reading cult propaganda”“Only a cult member would believe this kind of nonsense.”Another commenter lamented the damage done to discourse on at-risk children and efforts to stop actual child trafficking:What’s upsetting to me is as a CSA survivor, I’ve done education/activism work: These QAnon cultists have royally fucked up my ability to help anyone because every time someone brings up child abuse it’s 9/10 times them. They have so much energy but don’t want any resources on legit problems. They don’t want to donate. Nothing. They just want to recruit for their cult. It’s also extremely bizarre knowing they both believe shit like that but don’t think I, a survivor of early childhood abuses, might know more than they do. I’m tired of having these absurd people trying to speak for me.Also just so everyone knows, child marriage is legal in a few states in the USA, including under the age of consent, because somehow nobody has thought to fix that Puritan loophole. It’s not a huge number in developed countries but some religious fanatics do marry off their children, mostly girls, to much older adults. This is usually done however at the start of puberty, so even in these rarer modern cases in certain states, the historic legal age was pubescent. Which is still disgusting and must be corrected for our modern understanding of consent and seeing girls as people rather than property, but rarely are any child marriages besides betrothals that young (4yrs) in any culture, hence why it would be so unlikely for any country to legalize pedophilia. I have no idea where they’d even get this idea from. Again, QAnon continues to take away attention from legitimate issues and replace it with fever dream nightmare scenarios somehow worse than the existing reality.SummaryA viral Facebook post claimed that “there are people trying to make legal age of consent 4 years old,” even though people “can’t buy alcohol or cigarettes until we are 21.” The only mentions of anyone trying to “make the age of consent 4” were in Reddit posts mocking the post in question, and we were unable to locate any efforts — credible or speculative — to lower the age of consent to four. In short, there’s no basis for this claim, which appears to have been made up out of nothing at all.Comments
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2019
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Philadelphia tops list of U.S. most toxic cities.
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Philadelphia, Bakersfield and Fresno, California, are the most toxic cities in America, according to a new study that looked at air and water quality in metropolitan areas.
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true
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Health News
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A girl sits in the arms of a statue in Rittenhouse Square on a warm fall day in Philadelphia, October 17, 2010. REUTERS/Brian Snyder “Philadelphia doesn’t have great air, but other cities have worst,” said Morgan Brennan, of forbes.com, which conducted the report. “But the Philadelphia area has over 50 Superfund sites, really poor water quality, and a hefty amount of toxic releases.” New York City and Baton Rouge, in Louisiana rounded out the top five most toxic cities in the country. To compile the list, forbes.com looked at 80 of America’s largest metropolitan areas and examined the number of Superfund locations, unused areas which contain hazardous materials, as well as the local Air Quality Index (AQI) and Toxics Release Index, a measure of how much toxic material is released, recycled or managed by local industries. The Philadelphia metropolitan area includes more than 50 Superfund sites. Cities in California also have particularly poor air quality. In 2009, Bakersfield had 43 days in which the AQI passed 100 on a 500-point scale, with zero being the best possible score. Fresno had 29 days in which the AQI passed 100, and Los Angeles had 14. Most American cities can go an entire year without seeing the AQI pass 100. Los Angeles captured the No. 6 spot on the list, which can found on tinyurl.com/4mhhdbx. Brennan said that high levels of toxicity do not necessarily mean increased health risks for local inhabitants. “For the most part, just because a city ranks high for toxicity doesn’t directly mean that people in those areas are being exposed to or running the risks of cancers that are related to toxicity,” she said. “It’s very difficult to actually measure levels of exposure.” Brennan also said that many of the cities on the list have taken steps to mitigate the hazardous effects of high toxicity levels. “The good news is that most of these cities have some sort of initiative in place to improve air quality,” she said. “A lot of cities in California have introduced clean air initiatives, for example.” New York City has plans to clean up the Gowanus Creek Canal in Brooklyn, one of the most polluted waterways in the United States. Philadelphia had the worst water quality of the cities examined, followed by Fresno and New York City. The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit, suggests that consumers use a water filter to avoid drinking any contaminants when consuming tap water.
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33753
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Experiment proves water that has been boiled in a microwave oven is harmful to plants.
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As for the coda to the example quoted at the head of this page, there have been some cases in which the use of microwave-heated blood in medical procedures has been cited as causing serious problems, but not because microwave heating “corrupts the DNA.” Rather, conventional microwave ovens can heat blood too quickly and/or too unevenly (resulting in hemolysis), so standard (and slower) blood warming procedures are generally preferred or mandated.
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false
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Science, Microwaves, Toxin Du Jour
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The introductions of new, widely-adopted technologies are often accompanied by fears of possible deleterious effects from the use of such devices, everything from concerns that telephones would spell the end of regional accents to parental admonitions not to sit too close to the television (lest you ruin your eyes!). Usually these fears are largely allayed after a few years, as the technologies improve and become ubiquitous, and evidence of the feared negative effects fails to materialize. Nonetheless, even though the microwave oven has been a standard household appliance for several decades now, rumors continue to linger that microwaves somehow “change the molecular structure” of consumables and therefore make food products heated in them unsafe to eat. The sample “experiment” represented below is an expression of that sort of rumor, but it is pure junk science, both in its methodology and its conclusions: Below is a science fair project that my granddaughter did for 2006. In it she took filered water and divided it into two parts.. The first part she heated to boiling in a pan on the stove, and the second part she heated to boiling in a microwave. Then after cooling she used the water to water two identical plants to see if there would be any difference in the growth between the normal boiled water and the water boiled in a microwave. She was thinking that the structure or energy of the water may be compromised by microwave. As it turned out, even she was amazed at the difference. I have known for years that the problem with microwaved anything is not the radiation people used to worry about, It’s how it corrupts the DNA in the food so the body can not recognize it. So the body wraps it in fat cells to protect itself from the dead food or it eliminates it fast.. Think of all the Mothers heating up milk in these “Safe” appliances. What about the nurse in Canada that warmed up blood for a transfusion patient and accidently killed them when the blood went in dead. But the makers say it’s safe.. Never mind then, keep using them. Ask your Doctor I am sure they will say it’s safe too. Proof is in the pictures of living plants dying. Remember You are also Living. Take Care. First of all, there’s some doubt as to whether the photographs displayed above actually depict a real experiment rather than some digital fakery, as the “Day One” and “Day Five” photos appear to be remarkably consistent in camera angle, lighting, positioning, background elements, and everything else save for the appearance of the “dying” plant: Regardless, water heated in a microwave oven is no different in “structure or energy” than water heated with a gas flame, on an electric stove, or over a wood fire: It’s just water, plain and simple. More important, though, is the awareness that drawing valid scientific conclusions from experimentation involves conducting multiple trials under carefully controlled conditions, something not in evidence here. The extraneous factors that could have produced the exhibited results (i.e., one live plant and one dead plant) exhibited above are legion. For example: Rather than simply speculate, though, we performed the same experiment in a more controlled manner. We started out with three each of three different types of plants: one member of each set was given water that had been boiled on a gas stove, water that had been boiled in a microwave oven, or water that had not been boiled at all. All the water used in the experiment came from the same source, the same vessel was used for boiling water both on the stove and in the microwave, and all three types of water were stored in identical containers. The water given to all of the plants was at room temperature. The plants were kept in a carefully controlled environment that protected them from our pets and equalized (as much as possible) their exposure to environmental factors and watered in the manner described above for a period of time identical to that of the original experiment. As evidenced by the photos below (taken while the plants were briefly removed from the environment in which they were tended and placed in a setting better suited to photography), at the end of that time period all three plants in each set were fairly thriving. When a non-participating observer was asked to indicate (blindly) which plant in each set he thought had fared the best, in two cases he selected plants that had been given microwave-boiled water, and in one case he selected a plant that had been given unboiled water:
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6459
|
UN rights chief airs worries on climate change, migrant kids.
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The U.N. human rights chief said Monday she was “alarmed” that migrant children are still being held in centers in the United States and Mexico and warned that climate change has become an unprecedented threat to human rights worldwide.
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true
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Climate, Climate change, General News, India, Immigration, Israel, Environment, Environmental concerns, Chile, Michelle Bachelet, Europe, United States
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In her introductory address for the start of the Human Rights Council’s latest session, Michelle Bachelet aired concerns from unlawful killings and injuries of Palestinians by Israeli security forces to India’s actions against Kashmiris, But the rights chief, who is a former president of Chile, put her main focus on environmental concerns — calling variously for greater participation in the fight against climate change by businesses and greater space for environmental activists to express their views. “We are burning up our future — literally,” Bachelet said. “The world has never seen a threat to human rights of this scope. This is not a situation where any country, any institution, any policymaker can stand on the sidelines.” Alluding to a Swedish teenage climate campaigner, the human rights chief decried “verbal attacks on young activists such as Greta Thunberg and others.” Looking past personal criticism against her from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in recent days, Bachelet also reiterated her concerns about the “drastic acceleration of deforestation of the Amazon.” “The fires currently raging across the rainforest may have catastrophic impact on humanity as a whole,” Bachelet said, “but their worst effects are suffered by the women, men and children who live in these areas, among them, many indigenous peoples.” She urged authorities in Brazil, as well as Paraguay and Bolivia, to ensure “longstanding environmental policies” are carried out, “thus preventing future tragedies.” Last week, Bolsonaro praised the 1973 military coup by Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile that led to Bachelet’s father’s death a year later in captivity. Asked by The Associated Press to respond to those comments, she declined to comment. As for migrants’ rights in Central America and on the U.S.-border, Bachelet said she was concerned that policies by the United States, Mexico and others in the region “are putting migrants at heightened risk of human rights violations and abuses.” “Notably, I am alarmed that migrant children continue to be detained in centers in both the U.S. and Mexico, contravening the best interests of the child, which is a fundamental tenet of international law,” she said, She said at least 35,000 asylum-seekers have been “pushed back” to Mexican border areas to wait for their hearings this year. The Trump administration pulled the United States out of the council last year, accusing it of an anti-Israel bias and denouncing some member states that Washington says are repeat rights violators. On other issues, Bachelet flagged her concerns about “extensive arrests and police action” in the run-up to Sunday’s local elections in Moscow. She joined calls for “investigations into the allegations of excessive use of force by the police.” She expressed concerns about Kashmir, including restrictions on internet communications and peaceful assembly, and the detention of local political leaders and activists, and said she had “appealed particularly to India to ease the current lockdowns or curfews; to ensure people’s access to basic services” and ensure due process rights. As for Israel, whose government has repeatedly accused the council of anti-Israeli bias, Bachelet decried “very high levels of settler violence, and Israel’s failure to adequately protect Palestinians from such attacks or hold the perpetrators to account.” She cited a recent increase in demolitions of homes under an Israeli zoning and planning framework “which discriminates heavily against Palestinians.” “I continued to be alarmed by reports of unlawful killings and injuries of Palestinians by Israeli security forces across the entire occupied territory, accompanied by a lack of full accountability for instances of possible excessive use of force,” she said.
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5008
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Lawmakers decry perilous federal lockups for migrant kids.
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Lawmakers on Friday were calling for swift change after reports this week of more than 250 infants, children and teens being held inside a windowless Border Patrol station, struggling to care for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.
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true
|
AP Top News, General News, Immigration, El Paso, McAllen, Border patrols, Latin America, Health, Texas, U.S. News
|
It’s a scene that is being repeated at other immigration facilities overwhelmed with too many migrant children and nowhere to put them. “This facility wasn’t even on our radar before we came down here,” said law professor Warren Binford, a member of the team that interviewed dozens of children this week detained in Clint, about a half-hour drive from El Paso. Fifteen children had the flu, another 10 were quarantined. At another Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, attorney Toby Gialluca said all the children she talked to last week were very sick with high fevers, coughing and wearing soiled clothes crusted with mucus and dirt after their long trip north. “Everyone is sick. Everyone. They’re using their clothes to wipe mucus off the children, wipe vomit off the children. Most of the little children are not fully clothed,” she said. Gialluca said migrant teens in McAllen told her they were offered frozen ham sandwiches and rotten food. At both detention facilities, the children told attorneys that guards instructed girls as young as 8 to care for the babies and toddlers. State and federal elected officials Friday demanded change about conditions at Clint, McAllen and other Border Patrol stations. There was plenty of angry fingerpointing as well. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott slammed Congress as “a group of reprobates” for failing to provide adequate border security funding. “Every child who is not being taken care of adequately at the border, Congress is an accomplice to any harm they suffer,” he said. Oregon’s Sen. Jeff Merkley pushed the Department of Homeland Security to publish a remediation plan “to immediately end these abuses.” He gave them a deadline of July 12, tweeting: “Children are being held in appalling and unacceptable conditions. Detained children are being left to care for each other - including, in one case, a two-year-old who was left with no diapers. @DHSgov needs to tell us what their plan is to fix this, NOW.” Republican Congressman Will Hurd, whose district includes Clint, said the tragic conditions “further demonstrates the immediate need to reform asylum laws and provide supplemental funding to address the humanitarian crisis at our border.” His Democratic counterpart, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar of El Paso, said she has already asked the Customs and Border Protection commissioner for a “full accounting” of the situation. And Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand blamed the Trump administration’s mismanagement of the nation’s immigration system. “This is a dark moment for our country, and history will not be kind to the perpetrators of this cruelty,” Gillibrand said. “All Americans should be alarmed and demand an end to this immediately.” Border Patrol stations are designed to hold people for less than three days, but some children held in Clint and McAllen have been in there for weeks. Legally, migrants under 18 should be moved into Office of Refugee Resettlement care within 72 hours. But federal officials have said they have hit a breaking point. That’s in part because over the last year, migrant children have been staying longer in federal custody than in the past, leading to a shortage of beds in facilities designed for longer-term stays. The lawyers inspected the Border Patrol facilities as part of a Clinton-era legal agreement known as the Flores settlement that governs detention conditions for migrant children and families. In an emailed statement Friday, Customs and Border Protection said the agency leverages its limited resources to provide “the best care possible to those in our custody, especially children.” The statement said “our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis.” In addition, the agency said all allegations of civil rights abuses or mistreatment are taken seriously and investigated. Earlier this week, acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders urged Congress to pass a $4.6 billion emergency funding package that includes nearly $3 billion to care for unaccompanied migrant children. He said Customs and Border Protection stations are holding 15,000 people — more than three times their maximum capacity of 4,000. ___ Burke reported from San Francisco. Mendoza reported from Santa Cruz, California.
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6519
|
Choctaw historian to release new book on food sovereignty.
|
The published works of Devon Mihesuah fill a wide space between two bookends in her office at the University of Kansas.
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true
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Lawrence, Health, University of Kansas, Kansas, Nonfiction, Healthy eating, Native Americans, United States
|
The prolific author juggles her time between being a professor, writing (both fiction and nonfiction), and advocating for healthy eating in the Native American community, among many other interests. Mihesuah, a Choctaw historian, is KU’s Cora Lee Beers Price Teaching Professor in International Cultural Understanding. Her 17th book, “Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health,” co-edited with Elizabeth Hoover, is due out this summer. Mihesuah recently spoke to the Lawrence Journal-World in her office at Bailey Hall, surrounded by her books, photos, Native American artwork and a basket of Indian corn similar to what she grows in her own garden. Her membership in the Choctaw Nation is at her core, she said, and it drives her life’s work. She has been featured as one of the Choctaw success stories. Earlier this year she was interviewed on Gastropod for an episode called “Pick a Pawpaw: America’s forgotten fruit.” She talked about growing up eating pawpaws at her grandparents’ home in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She explained how Native American tribes also used the pawpaw tree bark for ropes and string, and ground up seeds to use to combat head lice. Mihesuah, who has a doctorate from Texas Christian University, arrived at KU in 2005 from Northern Arizona University, where she had been a full professor. That same year, her book “Recovering Our Ancestors’ Gardens: Indigenous Recipes and Guide to Diet and Fitness” was published. A year later, she launched the American Indian Health and Diet Project. The website has a mission to address the health problems faced by indigenous peoples. “You will find no fry bread recipes here,” Mihesuah wrote in the introduction on the website. Instead, those visiting the site can expect to learn about growing nutritious food, healthy eating habits and exercise. On her Facebook page “Indigenous eating,” she annually sponsors the “Week of Indigenous eating challenge.” “Everything I write has personal meaning for me,” Mihesuah said, as she pulled out her first book, published in 1992: “Cultivating the Rosebuds: The Education of Women at the Cherokee Female Seminary, 1851-1909.” The seminary building on the book cover has a physical connection to one of her most recent books, “Ned Christie: The Creation of an Outlaw and the Cherokee Hero.” Ned Christie, a Cherokee statesman, was accused of killing U.S. Deputy Marshal Daniel Maples across the street from the seminary. The seminary building still stands on the campus of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. “I get emotional about everything I write,” she said. And that’s including her fiction. She drew upon her family’s way of life and their gardens in her first novel, “The Roads of My Relations,” which covers more than two centuries in the lives of a Choctaw family. Every generation of her family has had a garden, she said, all the way back to the 1830s. Every time the Native American families were forced by the government to relocate, they would re-create the garden they had before. At the centerpiece of her first novel is a family trying to re-create its culture, history and homeland — all in the garden. During her time at KU, Mihesuah has bonded with other Native American professors in Lawrence, including Elizabeth Kronk Warner, who teaches law, and Sarah Deer, who teaches in women, gender and sexuality studies and the School of Public Affairs and Administration. “We try to get together for lunch as stress relief,” Mihesuah said. Kronk Warner, director of KU’s Tribal Law & Government Center, was recently appointed as the first female dean at the University of Utah law school, and she has an essay in Mihesuah’s “Indigenous Food Sovereignty” book. “What I like about her new book is there are chapters from academics and a section for short essays by indigenous people who work with food and sustainability, and they wrote what they knew,” Kronk Warner said. When Kronk Warner first arrived at KU, she was told that Mihesuah was a good person on campus to get to know. “She was at the top of the list as someone who was doing very good work,” Kronk Warner said. “She is amazing — a prolific writer and a fantastic leader in her field. She is a role model in terms of what she accomplished in her career.” Deer, who will be inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in September, knew of Mihesuah’s work before arriving at KU in the fall of 2017. “Before I knew her, I read her book ‘Indigenous American Women’ a hundred times, and it has been useful in my teaching,” Deer said. “Her books have a rigorous scholarship, but they are very readable.” Mihesuah said that when they catch up, they are usually asking one another where they have been or where they are going next. For Mihesuah, it will be a very busy spring finishing up the two online classes she is currently teaching. Plus, she will be heading to Oklahoma City where her Ned Christie book is a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award. In mid-May, she’s heading to Phoenix for the Southwest Intertribal Food Summit, where she’ll speak about food sovereignty. Then there is a trip to New Zealand, where she’ll talk about indigenous gardens. But she is never gone for long, especially in the growing season, because it’s her turn to tend the family’s garden. ___ Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com
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38920
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Photos of a dog’s badly burned paws with warnings about the dangers of walking dogs on hot asphalt have circulated social media sites.
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Warnings About Dogs Burning Their Feet on Hot Pavement
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mixture
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Animals
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Hot asphalt burns dog paws, but that’s not what the grizzly photos on social media sites show. The photos show the red, blistered paws of a dog that was left on a scalding rooftop in Pennsylvania back in 2011. Bernie, a two or three year old pit bull, suffered third degree burns on his feet, but he later made a full recovery: Bernie was placed under general anesthesia for the procedure, prior to which his feet were wrapped, and he was given antibiotics. The day after the injections, Wagner anesthetized Bernie again to check the progress. His pads were more irritated after the treatment, but Wagner says that is to be expected considering how many injections were done. Bernie’s pads were rewrapped, and the dog’s pain was appropriately managed, Wagner says. Bernie, who is estimated to be 2 or 3 years old, is now back with the rescue league, which is trying to find him a new home, but Wagner checks his progress every Monday. As of Sept. 6, Wagner says his feet are 95 percent healed. Dogs can burn their paws on hot asphalt, but the injuries won’t be as severe as Bernie’s unless a dog was forced to stand on the asphalt for a long time. Milder burns can actually be hard to spot, especially if a dog’s pads are black. Many people don’t notice that their dog’s paws are burned unless they are constantly licking them or limp when they walk. Veterinarians say that it’s best to avoid walking dogs on hot surfaces, and to be especially careful around lakes. Water softens dog pads and hot surfaces like boat docks and pavement can easily burn them. Comments
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38335
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Authorities have warned that fake Xanax pills have killed nine people in Florida and contain Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin.
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Fake Xanax Pill Kills Nine in Florida; 50 Times Stronger than Heroin
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mixture
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Medical, Warnings
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Warnings about fake Xanax pills killing nine people in Florida — but those fake Xanax warning were a year old when they were re-reported as breaking news in March 2017. The original report came out of Pinellas County Florida on March 21, 2016. Sheriff Bob Gualteieri warned at the time that a fake Xanax “super pill” had killed nine people, and he warned the public that buying Xanax on the street could have fatal consequences, local NBC affiliate WFLA reported: The lethal contents of this small, white pill are cleverly packaged. The pill looks just like a Xanax. But, looks can be deceiving. And, as it turns out, deadly. The fake Xanax is mixed with a powerful pain medication called Fentanyl, which is a highly addictive, strong pain medication commonly prescribed to cancer patients. The combination of Xanax and Fentanyl is so potent that it’s killing people within minutes. This first-of-its-kind tablet is a mystery for Pinellas County detectives and the Pinellas County medical examiner. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri calls this a public health emergency. He has a message for the people in his county. “You don’t have to take a handful of them. All you gotta do is take one, and you’re dead,” Gualtieri said. This dangerous new pill claimed the life of a 25-year-old woman in Dunedin over the weekend. The sheriff is working with other law enforcement agencies, including the St. Petersburg Police Department and the Clearwater Police Department, to warn people. Fast forward to March 2017, and the story was re-reported as breaking news by an organization aims to help people overcome addiction. Citing the 2016 report the website, Narconon-Suncoast.org, falsely reported on March 20, 2017, that, “In the last 3 months, 9 people have died in Florida from fake Xanax pills. Now dubbed the ‘super pill,’ addicts are buying Xanax off the street and they aren’t just getting Xanax. They’re getting a deadly mix of Xanax and Fentanyl.” From there, the report was picked up by a number of a additional addiction recovery sites. These reports caused concern that fake Xanax was causing a rash of overdose deaths in Florida in March 2017, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. While it’s safe to assume that police would still advise people not to buy fake Xanax on the street, there haven’t been any follow-up reports since March 2016 to indicate that the fake Xanax drug has killed more people. Given all that, we’re calling this one “truth” and “outdated.” Comments
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20374
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"Rosemary Lehmberg Says she ""created the first felony deferred prosecution program for nonviolent first-offenders"" in Texas."
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Lehmberg said the program she started in 2010 was the state’s first felony deferred prosecution program for nonviolent first-offenders. We found two similar, though not identical, programs in other counties. One was implemented the same year as Travis’, the other five years earlier. Since neither program shares all of the elements of Travis County’s, her claim retains an element of truth. But Travis County was not first.
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false
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County Government, Criminal Justice, Legal Issues, Crime, Public Safety, Texas, Rosemary Lehmberg,
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"In an online video, Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, who seeks re-election this year, says she has instituted reforms since she took office in 2009. ""My office is the most progressive DA’s office in the state,"" she says. ""I’ve created the first felony deferred prosecution program for nonviolent first-offenders, and it gives them a chance to stay out of the system with a clean record."" Vince Leibowitz, a campaign consultant for Charlie Baird, who is challenging Lehmberg in the May Democratic primary, questioned Lehmberg’s statement that her program was the first of its kind in the state and asked us to fact-check it. The Travis County program, which Lehmberg announced in May 2010, gives people who have committed certain felony offenses an opportunity to avoid being prosecuted for a crime by agreeing to meet certain conditions for a period of time. A March 23, 2012, Austin American-Statesman news article on the program points out that since the 1990s, people with drug addictions and no previous convictions for violent offenses could escape certain felony charges by completing the county’s drug court program, which requires a year of intensive treatment, drug testing and court appearances aimed at ending addictions. Lehmberg told us in a telephone interview that she started the felony deferred prosecution program to provide the same second-chance opportunity for nonviolent, first-time felony offenders who are not addicts. ""Sort of a parallel track,"" she said. The program is for people with no prior record who made a mistake and want to make it right, she said. If they complete the program, the charges are dismissed. Applicants must be facing third-degree or state jail felony charges such as theft, forgery, credit card abuse, tampering with a governmental record, and evading arrest, according to the program’s web page. Through their attorneys, clients apply using a form posted online that asks for basic information, including the defendant’s school and work history, an account of the crime and information about previous contact with the criminal justice system. The application is screened by lawyers in Lehmberg’s office, who typically make the decision on whether to accept an applicant. Offenders accepted into the program sign a form pleading guilty and enter into a written agreement with the office laying out the terms they must meet for a set time, up to two years, including not being re-arrested. Other possible conditions of participation are community service, counseling and paying restitution. While people are in the program, their cases are tracked by state District Judge Mike Lynch. The deferred prosecution program, also called a pretrial diversion program, started in September 2010. The Statesman article said that through March 12, 2012, 131 people had been accepted, with 26 having completed the program and eight having been discharged without finishing. So, is the program the first of its kind in the state? During our research, several prosecutors and experts told us that generally, prosecutors don’t have to develop a formal program like Lehmberg’s to practice ""deferred prosecution."" That’s because local prosecutors have long been free to decide not to proceed with a case. A common example: Dismissing the charges against a young adult in exchange for his or her joining the military. Such case-by-case arrangements are a form of deferred prosecution, Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley told us in a telephone interview. But typically, when someone is talking about a deferred prosecution program, he said, there are more formalized elements that have been put in place such as a list of qualifications and a screening process. Bradley, who has been a prosecutor since 1989, said he didn’t know whether Travis County was the first in the state to offer such a program for certain felony offenders. Most Texas deferred prosecution programs focus on misdemeanors, he said. ""It is unusual and rare at the felony level to have a deferred prosecution program,"" he said. Unlike counties such as Dallas and Bexar where the district attorney prosecutes both felonies and misdemeanors, Travis has a separate elected official, the county attorney, whose office handles misdemeanor cases. And that office had a diversion program long before Lehmberg launched her version, according to Lehmberg and the Statesman article. Lehmberg told us that it’s ""pretty common"" for prosecutors at both the felony and misdemeanor level to offer deferred prosecutions on a case-by-case basis. Narrowing the claim she aired in the video, Lehmberg said she is not aware of any other formalized non-drug-court deferred prosecution program for felony offenders that has an ""application and acceptance process"" like Travis County’s. She told us that before making her campaign video, she checked with some other Texas prosecutors and Robert Kepple, executive director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association, to determine whether another program like hers had been started. She found none. Kepple told us that the association did not know of any other program like Travis’ but that he had not researched the question specifically. Yet, we later learned of two programs that while not identical to the one in Travis County, appear to have similar goals and share some of its processes. One, in the East Texas county of Nacogdoches, started the same year as Travis County’s, in 2010. The other, in the South Texas county of Cameron, began about five years earlier. We were alerted to the Nacogdoches program by an email sent from Austin lawyer Oscar Buitron in response to the Statesman article. Like Travis County, Nacogdoches has a district attorney who handles felony cases and a county attorney in charge of misdemeanor cases. We were unable to reach District Attorney Nicole LoStracco but found a May 1, 2010, news article reporting that she was starting a pretrial diversion program. We also talked with Nacogdoches defense attorney John Heath Jr. who said he has had many clients in LoStracco’s program. The 2010 article, in the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, quoted LoStracco as saying that under the program, first-time felony offenders who meet certain qualifications could avoid a permanent red flag on their record. She said her program would be for people who realize that they made a mistake, are repentant, and are willing to learn from the mistake and move on. The article said LoStracco’s office had put in place ""guidelines"" for the program, including that first-time felony offenders who aren’t likely to commit another offense will be considered. The article also said that defense lawyers must approach the district attorney’s office to apply for the program and that candidates would be required to fill out an application. Participants would also have to write a confession and pay any owed restitution up front, according to the article. Ultimately, LoStracco told the Daily Sentinel, she will decide who qualifies for the program and is ""the only one in the DA’s office that can authorize someone to be put on the program."" The article said those in the Nacogdoches pretrial diversion program would be monitored by the local probation department. Conditions of the program could include community service, alcohol or drug testing, or counseling, the article said. On June 1, 2011, the Daily Sentinel wrote a news article reporting that in the year since the program’s start, 37 felony offenders had been placed into the program, with only two having been removed for failing to meet the conditions. Heath Jr., the defense attorney, told us that upon completion of the program, participants have the charges against them dismissed. We learned about the Cameron County program from a 2005 news article on the Brownsville Herald’s website that was sent to us by Tobin Lefler, director of Cameron County’s adult probation department. Armando Villalobos, the county’s top prosecutor, handles both felonies and misdemeanors. That means the county’s pretrial diversion program, which Villalobos began in 2005, is open to both misdemeanor and felony offenders. The Dec. 27, 2005, article says that Villalobos, of late a U.S. House candidate, launched the program to give eligible defendants a chance to avoid criminal records that could ruin their careers. In a telephone interview, Villalobos told us that ""a lot of felonies"" go through his program. A spokesman for his office said it did not have statistics on how many there have been. After examining the Travis County program’s web page, Villalobos said his program was similar. ""We don’t have anything as formal as a written application,"" he said. ""We have criteria, and we have forms they fill out if they are going to participate in the program."" First-time offenders who committed nonviolent crimes and did not resist law enforcement are eligible, according to documents Villalobos’ office shared with us. Villalobos told us that defense attorneys usually send a letter requesting that their clients be considered for the program. Prosecutors then review the request. Participants must meet conditions to stay in the program and agree to confess to their crime. As in Nacogdoches County, participants in Cameron County’s program are supervised by the local probation department. They also must pay a $500 fee to Villalobos’ office. People who complete the program have the charges against them dismissed, Villalobos said. Lehmberg, presented with our research, said she thought the Nacogdoches program was more similar to hers than the one in Cameron County, which also includes misdemeanors. She said there are some significant differences between the Travis County program and the others, highlighting the involvement of the local probation department in Cameron and Nacogdoches counties. She said the Travis program is geared toward people who don’t need that level of supervision. However, Lehmberg acknowledged that the programs have the same outcomes for successful participants: dismissal of charges upon completion. ""As far as being the first,"" Lehmberg said, ""the Nacogdoches program appears similar to mine. If she went first, so be it. I just didn’t know"" that. Our ruling Lehmberg said the program she started in 2010 was the state’s first felony deferred prosecution program for nonviolent first-offenders. We found two similar, though not identical, programs in other counties. One was implemented the same year as Travis’, the other five years earlier. Since neither program shares all of the elements of Travis County’s, her claim retains an element of truth. But Travis County was not first."
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23104
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"Ed Perlmutter voted for ""Viagra for rapists"" paid for with tax dollars."
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Ed Perlmutter voted for Viagra for sex offenders, paid for by health care bill? Nope
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false
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National, Health Care, Crime, Message Machine 2010, American Action Network,
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"A new campaign ad makes the startling claim that the new health care law will pay for Viagra for rapists -- and that Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., voted for the measure. The ad shows two young women chatting online about the new health care bill. Here's how their conversation goes: ""Hey, you have to check out the article I just sent you. Apparently convicted rapists can get Viagra paid for by the new health care bill."" ""Are you serious?"" ""Yes. I mean, Viagra for rapists? With my tax dollars? And Congressman Perlmutter voted for it."" ""Perlmutter voted for it?"" ""Yup. I mean, what is going on in Washington?"" ""In November, we need to tell Perlmutter to repeal it."" The ad is from American Action Network, a conservative advocacy group organized as a 501(c)4, which means it does not have to disclose its donors. Its chief executive officer is Norm Coleman, a former Republican Senator from Minnesota. Its president is Rob Collins, a former chief of staff to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. Perlmutter did vote in favor of final passage of the health care law. But did Perlmutter vote for Viagra for rapists? The short answer is no. Here's the long version: The health care law affects nearly every part of the health care system. It increases regulations for health insurance companies, reins in future costs in the Medicare program for seniors, expands the Medicaid program for the poor and creates new tax breaks so that individuals and small businesses can purchase insurance with partial government subsidies. It's this last measure that health care opponents have connected back to Viagra for sex offenders. Starting in 2014, some people will get tax credits to help them buy insurance policies. The credits are available to anyone who qualifies by having an income of between 133 to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four in 2010, that ranges from $29,327 to $88,200, and for a single person, it's $14,403 to $43,320. They'll have to buy their policies through government-sponsored exchanges, which will set rules so that insurers offer standardized policies. During the final negotiations for the health care law in the Senate, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., pointed out that because anyone can qualify for the tax breaks, it's possible that sex offenders will buy insurance policies with government subsidies. And they might ask for and be prescribed Viagra. That means tax dollars will be subsidizing Viagra for sex offenders, Coburn concluded. It's actually an issue that's come up before, though in a different context. In 2005, the federal government had to direct states to make sure that sex offenders were not being prescribed Viagra while on Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program for the poor. (Press reports indicated it was happening.) During the 2010 debate, Coburn asked the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service about whether the health care law had any specific clause to prevent similar problems. The service issued a memo concluding that it did not. So Coburn offered an amendment that would ""reduce the cost of providing federally funded prescription drugs by eliminating fraudulent payments and prohibiting coverage of Viagra for child molesters and rapists and for drugs intended to induce abortion."" But by the time the Senate took up the amendment on March 24, 2010, it was late in the process. The bill's sponsors said any changes, no matter how small, could effectively kill the bill, so they opposed Coburn's amendment for procedural reasons. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., urged his colleagues to reject the amendment, saying, ""This is a serious bill. This is a serious debate. The amendment offered by the senator from Oklahoma makes a mockery of the Senate, the debate and the American people... It is a crass political stunt aimed at making 30-second commercials, not public policy."" The amendment failed, 57-42, and the president signed the law six days later. Now, nearly seven months later, the commercial has turned up. We want to emphasize that the Viagra amendment came up in the Senate. Perlmutter is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He never got the chance to vote one way or the other on the amendment. The Perlmutter campaign was not amused by the ad's claims, calling them ""blatant lies."" ""It's so illogical it would be like saying the bill allows Martians masquerading as humans to see a proctologist,"" said spokeswoman Leslie Oliver in a statement. American Action Campaign e-mailed a factsheet that says by virtue of voting for final passage for the health care bill that did not include the anti-Viagra amendment, he was voting for Viagra. The ad itself flashes an editorial from the Washington Times, headlined ""Obamacare's Viagra giveaway."" The editorial said the Senate should have voted for the Viagra amendment and questioned whether Democrats were sincere in their procedural objections. We should note that the use of taxpayer dollars for sex-offender Viagra remains a hypothetical. While CRS concluded that there was nothing in the current law to stop it from happening, the earliest it could start is in 2014 -- so there's time for lawmakers to act or for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to write regulations to stop it from happening. Finally, whatever taxpayer subsidies for sex offenders might materialize after 2014, they would not go to all sex offenders -- only to sex offenders who get health care through the exchanges and who also qualify for subsidies. We've looked at similar claims made against U.S. senators. But this claim is different. The House never voted on the sex offenders amendment. Perlmutter never voted on it either."
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15073
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"Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger ""believed that people like me should be eliminated."
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"Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said that birth control activist Margaret Sanger ""believed that people like me should be eliminated."" He later clarified that he meant African-Americans. While Sanger indeed supported the eugenics movement, substantial evidence shows that she was not racist and in fact worked closely with black leaders and health care professionals. Carson’s statement bears no relation to historical reality."
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false
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Abortion, New Hampshire, Ben Carson,
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"Despite being dead for 49 years, Margaret Sanger, founder of the organization that became Planned Parenthood, has a way of turning up in the news. Her latest appearance came during remarks by Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson at a retirement center in Exeter, N.H. Answering a question at RiverWoods Retirement Community, Carson said that ""Planned Parenthood, as you know, was founded by Margaret Sanger. . . . Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist. She believed that people like me should be eliminated, or kept under control."" At a press conference later, he specified what he meant by ""people like me."" He said he was ""talking about the black race."" Claims like this have been examined by PolitiFact before. Back in March, New Hampshire Rep. William O’Brien claimed Sanger was an ""an active participant in the Ku Klux Klan."" And in 2011, businessman and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said Planned Parenthood’s early mission was to ""help kill black babies before they came into the world."" Carson’s statement pulls on the same threads. Sanger was indeed a believer in eugenics, but the basic concept that humanity could be improved by selective breeding was an article of faith for many in the years before World War II. Winston Churchill, Herbert Hoover, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells all supported the movement. African-American leader W. E. B. Du Bois backed many of its principles as well. Although the eugenics movement included some who had racist ideas, wanting to create some sort of master race, ""only a minority of eugenicists"" ever believed this, according to Ruth Engs, professor emerita at the Indiana University School of Public Health and an expert in the movement. At the time that Sanger was active, Engs wrote, ""the purpose of eugenics was to improve the human race by having people be more healthy through exercise, recreation in parks, marriage to someone free from sexually transmitted diseases, well-baby clinics, immunizations, clean food and water, proper nutrition, non-smoking and drinking."" It’s a far cry to equate eugenics with advocating the elimination of black people. For Sanger, her ideas were a matter a public health. As late as 1957, she put her views this way in an interview with Mike Wallace: ""I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world -- that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin -- that people can -- can commit."" Sanger was indeed a birth control activist, which means that she wanted women to be able to avoid unwanted pregnancies. She worked for women of all classes and races to have that choice, which she believed to be a right. Quoted in an article about the accusation that Sanger supported the Ku Klux Klan (she merely addressed a women’s auxiliary and later compared them to children because of their mental simplicity), Jean H. Baker, author of Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion, said Sanger actually opposed prejudice. Sanger ""was far ahead of her times in terms of opposing racial segregation,"" wrote Baker, a history professor at Goucher College, in an email. She worked closely with black leaders to open birth control clinics in Harlem and elsewhere."" Even authors who treat Sanger critically don’t believe she held negative views about African-Americans. Edwin Black wrote a comprehensive history of the eugenics movement, War Against the Weak, and is no fan of the activist’s beliefs. Ultimately, though, he writes, ""Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic."" It’s also worth noting that Sanger died in 1966, six years before the Supreme Court established a nationwide right to abortion services in Roe v. Wade. Those who point a finger at Sanger as a racist often cite a particular statement in claiming she harbored ill will toward black people. In a Dec. 10, 1939, letter, she wrote that ""We don’t want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs."" But PolitFact Georgia debunked those who would read the statement as something sinister. ""Sanger’s correspondence shows this sentence advocates for black doctors and ministers to play leadership roles in the Negro Project to avoid misunderstandings. Lynchings and Jim Crow laws gave blacks good reason to be wary of attempts to limit the number of children they bore. In Harlem, she hired a black doctor and social worker to quell those fears,"" the article says. She attracted an impressive roster of supporters, including DuBois; Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of National Council of Negro Women; and the pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Eleanor Roosevelt also backed the effort. ""For Sanger to launch a genocidal plot behind their backs and leave no true evidence in her numerous writings would require powers just shy of witchcraft,"" the PolitiFact piece notes. Finally, in 1966 Planned Parenthood gave its Margaret Sanger award to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights leader accepted, and sent his wife, Coretta, to accept. The speech he wrote for the occasion stated that """"There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts."" Sanger was still alive at that point, and her history and statements were well known (she had published an autobiography in 1938 and was never shy about sharing her opinions). If she had, in fact, been a supporter of eliminating black people, it’s doubtful King would have accepted that award. Our ruling Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said that birth control activist Margaret Sanger ""believed that people like me should be eliminated."" He later clarified that he meant African-Americans. While Sanger indeed supported the eugenics movement, substantial evidence shows that she was not racist and in fact worked closely with black leaders and health care professionals. Carson’s statement bears no relation to historical reality."
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9974
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Olive oil lovers show lower stroke risk
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This story explored the nature of an observational study about the stroke-reducing risks of olive oil. The story appropriately discussed other possible reasons for the findings and why a clinical trial is stronger evidence. With so much news coverage touting an apparent benefit from olive oil in this study (CBS had a headline about “huge decline in stroke risk”), it is refreshing to see so much time and space given to a clear-eyed evaluation of the evidence as this story provided.
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true
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Reuters Health,Stroke
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Not applicable. The cost of olive oil is not in question. This story did the best job of the three stories we reviewed in quantifying the potential benefits observed in the study. “Over the next five to six years, those intensive users suffered strokes at a rate of 0.3 percent per year. That compared with just over 0.5 percent among non-users, and 0.4 percent among moderate users. When the researchers factored in other diet habits, exercise levels and major risk factors for stroke — like high blood pressure and diabetes — heavy olive oil use was tied to 41 percent reduction in the odds of stroke.” There are better ways to try to communicate numbers of less than one percent. But we applaud the detail provided. Not applicable. Excellent. The story devoted almost 200 words to the potential limitations of such an observational study. Also a clear description of the cohort design. No disease-mongering of stroke in the story. The story included strong input from a researcher who wrote in an editorial on the study. The story at least mentioned other factors that could be at play – “no single food is consumed in isolation, he points out in his editorial. Olive oil is one part of the Mediterranean diet that has been tied to heart benefits. The diet also boasts plenty of fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fish and moderate amounts of red wine.” Not applicable. The availability of olive oil is not in question. The story attempted to put the new finding into the context of past research on olive oil and the Mediterranean diet. It’s clear the story did not rely on a news release.
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10493
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Treatments for kidney injury found to yield similar results
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This story described the results of a recent study which found that more intense treatment of acute kidney injury resulted in neither improved nor worsened outcomes. The story provided factual information about the study. It also indicated that there could be cost savings to the health care system if additional treatment which failed to provide benefit was avoided. However, the story failed to tell readers: whether both intensities of treatment are in general use and if not, which represented usual care; costs of individual treatment; anything beyond what appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. There was no evidence of any new interviews or any reporting. That’s not the best form of health care journalism.
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mixture
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"There was not explicit information in this story about costs to the individual undergoing care, though one could surmise that less intense treatment would cost less. The story included estimates of the impact from the results of the study on costs to the health care system. The story did mention that the two approaches to treating acute kidney injury did not have different outcomes and specifically mentioned death rates, recovery of kidney function and rates of other organ failure. The story also mentioned a death rate in one health care system of 50-80% from acute kidney injury. The story explained that ""There was no difference in death rates in both groups, and both also had similar rates of recovering kidney function and other organ failure."" But the story did not provide a clear picture of the view from patient perspective about how the two treatment approaches differed. The story explained explicitly that the results discussed came from a large, multicenter, randomized clinical trial. It mentioned where the results of the study discussed were going to be published. The story would have been more helpful if it had included a few words indicating the strength of the study design. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. There is no evidence that the newspaper interviewed anyone for this story. The perspectives of the study’s lead author and of the editorial writer both appear to be gleaned directly from the New England Journal of Medicine. The story would have been improved by including comments from interviews with clinicians about what this information means to people who may need to deal with acute kidney injury in the future. The story sketched out two modes of treatment for acute kidney injury which did not appear to differ from one another in terms of outcomes. It was not clear from the story whether one represented standard care or not. In addition, there was no discussion of whether there are choices to be made by patients who experience acute kidney injury. It is not clear from this story whether both intensities of treatment are in general use and if not, which represented usual care. In addition, treatment of kidney injury is complicated and it was not clear from this story how an individual would weigh in about treatment preference. It was not clear from the story whether both approaches to treating acute kidney injury were currently in use; are there regional differences; or whether there were other factors affecting the type of treatment a patient with acute kidney injury would receive. We can’t be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release."
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4028
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US officials: Don’t eat romaine grown in Salinas, California.
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U.S. health officials on Friday told people to avoid romaine lettuce grown in Salinas, California, because of another food poisoning outbreak.
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true
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Food poisoning, AP Top News, Health, General News, Salinas, California, Poisoning, U.S. News
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The notice comes almost exactly one year after a similar outbreak led to a blanket warning about romaine. Officials urged Americans not to eat the leafy green if the label doesn’t say where it was grown. They also urged supermarkets and restaurants not to serve or sell the lettuce, unless they’re sure it was grown elsewhere. The warning applies to all types of romaine from the Salinas region, include whole heads, hearts and pre-cut salad mixes. “We’re concerned this romaine could be in other products,” said Laura Gieraltowski, lead investigator of the outbreak at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said their investigation led to farms in Salinas and that they are looking for the source of E. coli tied to the illnesses. Salinas is a major growing region for romaine from around April to this time of year, when growing shifts south to Yuma, Arizona. After last year’s pre-Thanksgiving outbreak tied to romaine, the produce industry agreed to voluntarily label the lettuce with harvest regions. Health officials said that would make it easier to trace romaine and issue more specific public health warnings when outbreaks happen. Officials never identified exactly how romaine might have become contaminated in past outbreaks. But another outbreak in spring 2018 that sickened more than 200 people and killed five was traced to tainted irrigation water near a cattle lot. (E. coli is found in the feces of animals such as cows.) It’s not clear exactly why romaine keeps popping up in outbreaks, but food safety experts note the popularity of romaine lettuce and the difficulty of eliminating risk for produce grown in open fields and eaten raw. Industry groups noted that they tightened safety measures following last year’s outbreaks, including expanding buffer zones between growing fields and livestock. “It’s very, very disturbing. Very frustrating all around,” said Trevor Suslow of the Produce Marketing Association. The CDC says 40 people have been reported sick so far in 16 states. The most recent reported illness started on Nov. 10. The agency says it’s the same E. coli strain tied to previous outbreaks, including the one from last Thanksgiving. The CDC’s Gieraltowski said that suggests there’s a persisting contamination source in the environment. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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36373
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Facebook is donating $1 for every share of a photo to fund treatment of a puppy's tumor.
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In a barn in southwest France, farmer Valerie Fosserie squirts serum into a gosling’s mouth as a prelude to what she says is production of the world’s first ethically friendly foie gras.
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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The delicacy, long a feature on the menu of gourmet restaurants across the globe, is made by force-feeding geese to turn their livers to fat, a process long denounced as cruel by animal rights activists and increasingly viewed with unease by authorities in some western cities. In October, New York City, often considered the U.S. fine dining capital, prohibited the sale of foie gras, following similar bans in Chicago and the state of California. In response, French scientists at research company Aviwell near Toulouse have developed an alternative version of the delicacy that uses bacteria - ingested by the goose as a serum - to stimulate a natural, rather than forced, build-up of fat. “It’s the combination of certain bacteria that is capable of triggering in baby geese the natural composition, and completely biological growth, of fat in the liver,” company co-founder Remy Burcelin said. Aviwell raised 600 geese when it launched its project last year, and Fosserie has now become the first foie gras farmer to adopt the technique, which also doubles the birds’ average lifespan from three to six months. “It’s the future, because we see the animal welfare movement getting bigger and bigger,” she said. This next-generation foie gras will be aimed primarily at the U.S. market and Europe, where Britain, Finland and Poland have banned its production. But the French culinary establishment is taking note too. Toulouse chef Simon Carlier, who has been creating dishes with Aviwell’s foie gras for a month, described it as subtle and with an appealing density. It could be served cold or just with little garnishing. “We see a texture, which is less nauseating, let’s say. We can’t compare it to meat - but in some way, it’s easier to eat,” Carlier said. It will also be more expensive. While high-quality traditional foie gras sells for about 300 to 400 euros ($330-440) per kilo (2.2 lb), Aviwell’s version could fetch 1,000 euros. A naturally fatty goose liver weighs 300-400 grammas while that of a force-fed goose can weigh around 1 kg.
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5852
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Health officials: Rhode Island STD cases reach 10-year high.
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Rhode Island health officials say cases of sexually transmitted disease in the state are at a 10-year high.
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true
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Rhode Island, Sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Health, Gonorrhea, Syphilis
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State Department of Health data released to The Providence Journal show chlamydia cases have risen 55 percent from 2007, gonorrhea cases are up 78 percent and syphilis cases have more than tripled. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday released numbers showing record increases in infections from the diseases. The CDC said Rhode Island ranked 12th highest in the nation for the rate of syphilis, with 8.5 cases per 100,000 population. It ranked 27th for cases of chlamydia, with 467.3 cases per 100,000 population and 44th for the rate of gonorrhea cases, with 67.8 cases per 100,000. Rhode Island health officials say they’re not sure why there has been such an increase. They say it could be due to better testing or more people getting tested after getting insurance since health care reform. Dr. Philip Chan, director of the STD clinic at The Miriam Hospital, says it could be a combination of factors, including risky sexual behavior and more people meeting sexual partners online. The state health department has issued an advisory recommending more screening of certain patients at increased risk. ___ Information from: The Providence Journal, http://www.providencejournal.com
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5464
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Health chief requires FOIA from senator to release emails.
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Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration is forcing state lawmakers to use the public-records law to get emails regarding a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at the Illinois Veterans’ Home in Quincy.
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true
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Freedom of information, Quincy, Health, Legionnaires disease, Illinois, Freedom of Information Act, Bruce Rauner, Disease outbreaks, Veterans, Public health
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Illinois Public Health Director Nirav Shah told a joint House-Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee that his agency denied Senate committee chairman Tom Cullerton’s demand for communication about the crisis under an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act. The Democratic-led committee is reviewing the Republican administration’s handling of the summer 2015 spread of Legionnaires’ disease at Quincy, which returned in 2016 and 2017. It’s contributed to the deaths of 13 residents — 12 in 2015 and one last fall — and sickened dozens more. It’s a respiratory illness caused by bacteria in water vapor that is inhaled. Shah and Veterans’ Affairs Director Erica Jeffries promised to turn over emails discussing the outbreak when Cullerton requested them at a Jan. 9 hearing. Cullerton, a Villa Park Democrat, said he followed up with a reminder note to Shah on Jan. 18. Shah considered the reminder a FOIA request. “The FOIA statute describes a process that any public body is to go through regardless of the requestor of that information and we are following that process,” Shah said. Shah’s agency denied the request, using a FOIA exception for “overly broad” requests that would be “unduly burdensome” on the agency. He’s invited Cullerton to narrow the scope of what he’s seeking. “I didn’t realize that as a senator, I had to file a full FOIA request for an agency that the General Assembly is responsible for doing an appropriation on,” Cullerton said. No public body is obligated to follow FOIA. The preamble to the law states a presumption that all government records are public. The law exists to ensure that taxpayers have recourse to get public records from reticent government bodies. “We’re asking you to answer a request to fix a problem where not just one person died ... 13 people died on your watch and you didn’t fix it,” said Sen. Michael Hastings, a Tinley Park Democrat. “And you want to play hide the ball?” Hillside Democratic Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch demanded, “We need those emails, and we need them now.” “There seems to be some type of cover-up,” Welch later suggested. “Your assumption that there is a cover-up at play is 150-thousand percent unfounded,” a defiant Shah responded. “It is totally rejected” Committee members were also flummoxed that Jeffries did not follow through on a promise last month to provide them with what turned out was a 2016 consultants’ report about replacing the Quincy home’s plumbing with new piping less conducive to harboring Legionella bacteria. Jeffries said she didn’t recall making that promise but Rauner’s office produced on Tuesday an updated review by the consultant, which Capital Development Board Director Amy Romano said is expanded over the 2016 edition. In response to a Jan. 12 FOIA request from The Associated Press for information on all proposed capital construction projects at the state’s four veterans’ homes for the past three years, the Capital Development Board indicated it had withheld as exempt “a report that provides recommendations and cost estimates to various options for a capital project at a Veterans’ Home.” It’s unclear if that’s the report Jeffries referenced. Democrats questioned why the administration took no action at the time. Jeffries said federal health regulators did not recommend plumbing replacement then, something Rauner said last month he will do after living at the home for a week. Sen. Cristina Castro, an Elgin Democrat, demanded to see the original report. Romano said she would “look into” providing it. The Associated Press has appealed the CDB’s FOIA denial to the state’s public access counselor in the attorney general’s office. ___ Contact Political Writer John O’Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/john%20o’connor ___ Sign up for the AP’s weekly newsletter showcasing our best reporting from the Midwest and Texas: http://apne.ws/2u1RMfv
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3953
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Health officials urge flu shots as virus becomes widespread.
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There has been one flu-related death and 24 hospitalizations in Rhode Island so far this flu season, according to state health officials.
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true
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Health, Rhode Island, General News, Flu
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The Rhode Island Department of Heath released the numbers Thursday and urged residents to get flu shots. During the last flu season, there were 39 deaths and 1,032 hospitalizations associated with the flu, according to the department. Health officials use a five-tier system to measure flu activity. The flu in Rhode Island is currently regional, which is just below widespread, the highest tier. But, the department said, neighboring Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as more than a dozen states, are reporting widespread flu. Vaccination is particularly important for the elderly, young children, pregnant women, healthcare workers and people with chronic medical conditions, according to the department.
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3449
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France: Groups want Notre Dame enclosed during lead cleanup.
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Environmental groups and one of France’s largest labor unions called Monday for a containment shield and other safety measures to ensure decontamination work at Notre Dame Cathedral does not expose workers and residents to unsafe levels of lead.
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true
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Paris, General News, Labor unions, France, Environment, Health, Travel, Notre Dame Cathedral, Europe
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The Paris regional administration suspended the job of removing hazardous substances from the fire-ravaged Paris cathedral last month under pressure from labor inspectors concerned about health risks for workers. The administration had said that when the lead-removal work resumed, stricter safety procedures, new equipment and allowing much fewer workers inside at a time would “prevent any release of polluting elements to the outside.” But representatives from environmental groups and the CGT union said at a news conference Monday they don’t think the government safeguards go far enough. They asked for a regularly updated chart showing the level of lead in the air. Labor and environmental groups are also pushing for the creation of a medical center to monitor of firefighters, workers and residents. Paris Deputy Mayor Anne Souyris said updated measurements of lead levels are set for release on Tuesday. The decontamination work is scheduled to resume Wednesday, starting with the square in front of Notre Dame and adjacent streets, Souyris said. Hundreds of tons of lead that was in Notre Dame’s spire and roof melted during the April 15 fire, which came close to destroying the cathedral. Lead levels remain elevated at some spots inside and in the soil of the adjacent park and forecourt, according to the Paris regional health agency. Those areas have been closed to the public since the fire. The environmental activists and union officials said they want a containment shield built over Notre Dame to keep more lead from being released into the atmosphere. “For the efficiency of the decontamination measures within the area, it is absolutely necessary that the site is confined”, Annie Thebaud-Mony, co-founder of health and environment group Henri Pezerat, said. Notre Dame rector Patrick Chauvet acknowledged that lead can escape into the environment from a big hole in the cathedral’s roof but ruled out building a containment shield before the decontamination work resumes. Paris authorities ordered new checks of schools and day care centers in the Notre Dame neighborhood and recommended blood tests for children under age 7 and pregnant women who live nearby. Children are especially vulnerable to health problems from lead poisoning and exposure.
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1939
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Preemies may face higher death rates as adults.
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Health problems are common among premature babies, who are more likely to die than their full-term peers during the first few years of life — and they may also face slightly increased death rates as young adults, a study said.
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true
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Health News
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"A nurse takes care of a 2-month-old premature infant lying in an incubator at a hospital in Enshi, Hubei province, China May 4, 2010. REUTERS/China Daily “This is an entirely new finding,” said Casey Crump of Stanford University, whose findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Even people born just a couple of weeks early had an increased risk of mortality.” Previously, preemies were believed to go on to have normal death rates once they have survived their early years. Crump, though, said the results, based on Swedish data, should not cause undue alarm. “The absolute mortality was still less than one per 1,000 people per year, so it’s very low,” he added. His team studied a group of nearly 675,000 Swedes born between 1973 and 1979. They found that children born before 37 weeks of pregnancy were much more likely to die before age five than others. That link disappeared in late childhood and adolescence, but then re-emerged in early adulthood — from 18 to 36 years. The health problems linked to earlier death included heart disease, diabetes and asthma. “It appears that some of these causes have a long period of development,” Crump said. Among young adults born at 22 to 27 weeks’ gestation, the death rate was 0.94 per 1,000 people per year. For those born between weeks 37 and 42, considered full-term, the rate was 0.46 per 1,000. According to Crump, between 12 and 13 percent of babies in the U.S. are now born preterm, and the rate of survival has risen fast over the past few decades. “I think it’s important to be aware of the potential for an increased risk of various health problems through the life course,” he said. ""It will be important for survivors of preterm birth to get regular health checkups and screening, and to avoid smoking and obesity to offset those risks."" SOURCE: bit.ly/qPuGqd"
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28768
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The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has classified kratom as a Schedule I substance as of 30 September 2016.
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What's true: The DEA has announced intent to place kratom alongside Schedule I drugs such as heroin. What's false: The proposed scheduling status is not necessarily permanent.
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mixture
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Medical, DEA, Home Cures, kratom
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On 30 August 2016, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) issued a press release announcing their intent to effectively ban a little-known herbal compound called kratom as of 30 September 2016. The DEA’s release held that kratom poses “an imminent hazard to public safety,” adding that 660 calls had been made to poison control centers about the substance over a five-year period. The notice reported that 15 “kratom-related deaths” had occurred between 2014 and 2016 and stated that the supplement was being reclassified as a Schedule I drug: The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) today announced its intention to place the active materials in the kratom plant into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in order to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety. Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine are found in kratom, which is a tropical tree indigenous to Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, and other areas of Southeast Asia. The announcement was made in the U.S. Federal Register and can be found by following this link. Kratom is abused for its ability to produce opioid-like effects and is often marketed as a legal alternative to controlled substances. Law enforcement nationwide has seized more kratom in the first half of 2016 than any previous year and easily accounts for millions of dosages intended for the recreational market, according to DEA findings. In addition, kratom has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. These three factors constitute a Schedule I controlled substance according to the Controlled Substances Act passed by Congress in 1970. The American Association of Poison Control Centers identified two exposures to kratom from 2000 and 2005. Between 2010 and 2015, U.S. poison centers received 660 calls related to kratom exposure. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that kratom abuse leads to agitation, irritability, tachycardia, nausea, drowsiness, and hypertension. Health risks found in kratom abusers include hepatotoxicity, psychosis, seizure, weight loss, insomnia, tachycardia, vomiting, poor concentration, hallucinations, and death. DEA is aware of 15 kratom-related deaths between 2014 and 2016. The DEA linked to a notice of intent published in the Federal Register [PDF] on 25 August 2016 which included further justification for the ban, alongside links to a document which in part detailed purported deaths associated with kratom. That August 2016 document (“Background Information and Evaluation of ‘Three Factor Analysis’ for Temporary Scheduling”) cited “published case reports [which] describe events where individuals sought medical care for the purported use of kratom,” along with incidents wherein deaths were purportedly linked with the herbal supplement. In nearly all cited cases from both the United States and other countries, the deaths involved numerous other substances. For example, a cluster of nine deaths in Sweden appeared to be attributed to a separate adulterant known as O-desmethyltramadol in a 2011 study of the fatalities: Both Kratom and an additional preparation called Krypton are available via the internet. It seems to consist of powdered Kratom leaves with another mu-receptor agonist, O-desmethyltramadol, added. O-Desmethyltramadol is an active metabolite of tramadol, a commonly prescribed analgesic. We present nine cases of intoxication, occurring in a period of less than one year, where both mitragynine and O-desmethyltramadol were detected in the postmortem blood samples. Neither tramadol nor N-desmethyltramadol was present in these samples, which implies that the ingested drug was O-desmethyltramadol. The blood concentrations of mitragynine, determined by ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, ranged from 0.02 to 0.18 μg/g, and O-desmethyltramadol concentrations, determined by gas chromatography with nitrogen-specific detection, ranged from 0.4 to 4.3 μg/g. We believe that the addition of the potent mu-receptor agonist O-desmethyltramadol to powdered leaves from Kratom contributed to the unintentional death of the nine cases presented and conclude that intake of Krypton is not as harmless as it often is described on internet websites. The DEA’s list of other kratom-associated deaths primarily described “polypharmacy” (mixing multiple drugs) as a factor in those fatalities, many of which involved benzodiazepines, sleep-inducing hypnotics such as zopiclone, and opioids such as fentanyl: A case report by Neerman et al. (2013), reported the death of a 17-year-old male. The decedent was found unresponsive in bed with no obvious signs of trauma … Laboratory analyses identified mitragynine and therapeutic levels of dextromethorphan, temazepam, 7-amino-clonazepam, and a slightly elevated level of diphenhydramine in blood samples. The cause of death was determined by the Medical Examiner as “possible Kratom toxicity”. A case report by Karinen et al. (2014), reported the death of a middle-aged man in Norway … Laboratory identified mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine, zipiclone, citalopram, and lamotrigine in blood samples. The cause of death was deemed to be intoxication with “Kratom”, possibly in combination with other substances detected. A case report by McIntyre et al. (2014), reported the death of a 24 year-old man … He was described as being “out of it”, tired and depressed the night before his death, and took a “sleeping pill” before bed. Prescription bottles of mirtazapine, omeprazole, and a single capsule of loperamide were found with his possessions. Laboratory analyses identified mitragynine, along with therapeutic levels of venlafaxine, diphenhydramine, mirtazapine, and ethanol. The cause of death, as determined by the Medical Examiner’s Office, was mixed drug intoxication—primarily mitragynine. In 2013, a 36 year-old man in Denver, CO, was transported to the hospital after he apparently suffered a seizure. He was pronounced brain dead 3 days later at the hospital … The cause of death, as determined by the Medical Examiner, was severe hypoxic encephalopathy complicating apparent mitragynine toxicity. In 2014, a 29-year old male in Palm Beach FL, was found unresponsive on the floor of his closet. He was reported to take a Kratom extract. Laboratory 24 analyses of blood samples identified mitragynine along with venlafaxine, fentanyl, amphetamine, and caffeine. The cause of death, as determined by the Medical Examiner, was multiple drug toxicity. In 2015, a 27-year old male in Dekalb County, GA, was found lifeless on his kitchen floor … The decedent had a history of opioid abuse and was recently hospitalized for an overdose. Laboratory analyses of blood samples identified the presence of mitragynine, along with fentanyl, benzodiazepines, and cannabinoids. The cause of death, as determined by the Medical Examiner, was intoxication with fentanyl and mitragynine. In 2015, a 22-year old male in San Diego, CA, was found unresponsive and not breathing in bed. Life-saving efforts were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at the scene. A plastic bag filled with packaged syringes, two empty plastic containers marked “Royal Kratom” and “Maeng Da”, empty packets of “Prop 100” and “Tren 100”, an empty vial of injectable testosterone, marijuana wrapped in cellophane, and half of a Xanax tablet were found at the scene. An unlabeled bottle with pink liquid was found in his car. Laboratory analyses of blood samples identified the presence of mitragynine, along with methadone and alprazolam. The cause of death, as determined by the Medical Examiner, was mixed mitragynine, methadone, and alprazolam intoxication. The DEA’s assertions about kratom-related deaths were contradicted by Pascal Tanguay, director of a Washington D.C. based drug harm reduction organization, who said of kratom in 2013 that: There’s never been a single death associated with kratom. People have been chewing this for thousands of years with no cases of overdose, psychosis, murder, violent crime. Never in all of recorded history.” A Forbes editorial opposing the addition of kratom to the DEA’s Schedule I noted that the listed deaths overwhelmingly included strong or dangerous coingestants, positing that mention of poison control calls (also cited by the Centers for Disease Control) was misleading: The DEA plays a similar trick when it cites a report on kratom-related calls to poison control centers that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published in July. From January 2010 through December 2015, the DEA notes, “U.S. poison centers received 660 calls related to kratom exposure.” It adds that “during this time, there was a tenfold increase in the number of calls received, from 26 in 2010 to 263 in 2015.” Reported symptoms included “agitation or irritability, tachycardia, nausea, drowsiness, and hypertension.” An average of 110 cases a year may sound like a lot, but it’s not. It represents about 0.004 percent of the 3 million or so calls received by poison control centers each year. By comparison, exposures involving analgesics accounted for nearly 300,000 calls in 2014, while cosmetics and personal care products, cleaning solutions, antidepressants, and antihistamines each accounted for more than 100,000. The DEA not only fails to put the number of kratom-related calls in perspective; it does not mention that two-thirds of the cases were deemed “minor” or “moderate,” while only 7 percent (eight per year) were described as “life-threatening.” The CDC noted a single death in six years, “reported in a person who was exposed to the medications paroxetine (an antidepressant) and lamotrigine (an anticonvulsant and mood stabilizer) in addition to kratom.” A Huffington Post reporter who consulted with a pharmacology expert about the DEA’s classification of kratom alongside heroin and other Schedule I narcotics wrote that: Walter C. Prozialeck, a professor of pharmacology at Midwestern University who wrote a comprehensive literature review on kratom for the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association, said he disagrees with the DEA’s characterization. “Even though the ‘mytragines’ may have some affinity for opioid receptors, their actions are quite different from those of classic opioids, like morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, heroin, etc.,” Prozialeck wrote in an email to HuffPost. “After looking at the literature, I would certainly not classify them as classic ‘opioids.’” Prozialeck described kratom as largely benign in an earlier interview with HuffPost, and said it doesn’t produce much in the way of psychoactive high in low to moderate doses. He called for additional research and cautioned against mixing the drug with other substances ― a concern the DEA notice also raised. But he said kratom doesn’t have a particularly high potential for recreational abuse and agreed with advocates who say the positive effects appear to outweigh the negatives. Published research on kratom is scarce, but most medical literature notes that the substance has been widely used for over a century (to address chronic pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms) and is typically not associated with adverse outcomes unless additional substances are a factor. A 2008 study held that adverse outcomes overall for kratom use were “poorly described,” concluding: One striking finding of this report is the extent to which kratom attenuates potentially severe opioid withdrawal, yet cessation of kratom administration itself appears to be associated with modest abstinence symptoms. The pharmacological bases underlying this effect are uncertain. For example, mitragynine is theorized to stimulate contributions from adrenergic and serotonergic pathways that augment analgesia, but formal binding data have been obtained only for mu-, delta- and kappa-opioid receptors [5,6]. To delineate more clearly the in vitro pharmacology of kratom, we conducted high-throughput molecular screening of mitragynine activity at central nervous system receptors (Novascreen Biosciences Corp., Hanover, MD, USA); these studies identified that mitragynine extensively inhibits radioligand binding at several central nervous system receptor systems (Table 1). The clinical implication of these results is that mu-opioid agonism may avert withdrawal symptoms, while kappa agonism attenuates reinforcement and produces aversion [7]. In addition, mitragynine, through its putative alpha-2 adrenergic agonist activity, may mimic adjunctive therapies for opioid withdrawal such as clonidine. Mitragynine, therefore, may exert several convergent pharmacological effects that could attenuate opioid withdrawal symptoms and blunt cravings. Per the DEA, kratom will be classified as a Schedule I narcotic as of 30 September 2016 under the terms of the Controlled Substances Act. Experts expressed mixed opinions about the move, with several stating kratom was improperly described as an opioid by the DEA, and a We The People petition beseeched the White House to intervene and stop the ban. A cited list of kratom-related deaths is not restricted to the United States and is largely populated by incidents of toxicity involving multiple drugs (such as fentanyl and zopiclone), and scant published research on kratom is available for review. The DEA cited 660 calls to poison control centers in five years, use of kratom as an opioid substitute for drug cessation, increasing popularity of the herbal supplement, and potential for abuse as reasons for the temporary Schedule I classification, but kratom users cited opioid-free pain relief for severe conditions such as fibromyalgia, self-reported drug cessation success, and a lack of demonstrated harm as reasons to oppose the classification. On 26 September 2016, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress sent a letter [PDF] to the DEA requesting the agency delay finalizing the move placing kratom on Schedule I. In a separate letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shaun Donovan [PDF], the congressmen and women urged him to step in and stop the DEA from acting on 30 September 2016. Neither office immediately responded to the letters.
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10435
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Looming ruling on breast cancer drug splits patient advocates
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"In December, an FDA advisory panel will decide if it should revoke the approval of the drug Avastin for treating metastatic breast cancer based on the results of two major trials suggesting that the serious side effects outweigh the time that patients live without the disease getting worse. This story met many of our criteria, but failed to provide important details about the trials, including the patient population and how many women developed serious side effects in each treatment group. While the story included various viewpoints on whether this drug should continue to be used as a first-line therapy for metastatic breast cancer, it focused largely on the drug’s success in just one patient. This personal story is misleading to readers. Two major trials found that Avastin is not particularly effective for treating metastatic breast cancer and it causes serious side effects. The story missed this main issue by devoting an extraordinary amount of space to just one woman’s success story. Metastatic disease is very difficult and one treatment is not likely to work for everyone; however, it is not compelling to argue that the FDA should approve every drug because not all patients will respond to the same treatment regimen. It would have been more insightful if the story suggested that the median is not the message and that if this or other drugs work for a subset of women, then researchers should find markers to help predict which patients will benefit from which therapy. This is another example in which an honest application of our criteria may render a score out of whack with our general impression. We urge journalists and consumers not to fixate on ""the star score"" but to read our full reviews."
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true
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The story mentions that Avastin is associated with serious side effects, such as high blood pressure and internal bleeding; however, it did not provide data on how many women in each treatment arm experienced these side effects. The story briefly mentioned the two trials, RIBBON-1 and AVADO, on which the FDA will base their decision whether to revoke approval of the Avastin. The story could have mentioned that both were double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials and enrolled women with HER-2 neu negative tumors. It also would have been helpful if the reader knew that the women in the trials received another chemotherapy agent in combination with Avastin or a placebo. But a bigger issue is
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31113
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Malia Obama was arrested while attempting to purchase marijuana in Chicago.
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None of site’s articles are truthful — including this one about Malia Obama’s arrest in Chicago.
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false
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Junk News, chicago, doctored photos, land of the free
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On 5 May 2017, the The Last Line of Defense web site (and subsequently related shill sites such as USA Politics Now) published an article reporting that Malia Obama, the daughter of former president Barack Obama, had been “arrested with a gang of thugs in Chicago” on charges related to dogfighting: Malia Obama may have done irreparable harm to her career this morning when she decided to join a gang of thugs in Chicago for a day of drinking, drugs and dogfighting at a public park in Chicago. Malia was arrested along with seven others and charged with wanton endangerment of animals, public intoxication and possession of a controlled substance. She was found in the company of mostly older men when police arrived after being called by a concerned citizen complaining about a loud group of people watching dogs fight in the park … According to the Secret Service, Malia had slipped away late last night after being told open air parties at public parks were too dangerous. She wasn’t seen again until she showed up in the 12th precinct jail. her parents haven’t been available for comment. In August 2017 the “Land of the Free” fake news site ran the same false story, changing Malia’s alleged offense from a dogfighting-related one to a drug-related one: Apparently, Malia’s weed habit has gotten worse because she was just caught in a massive marijuana bust in her home city of Chicago, Illinois. Malia was caught buying weed edibles from two of her thug friends as well as enough pot to make thug rapper Snoop Dogg look like an amateur, according to sources within Chicago’s elite Drug Task Force. These reports of the former First Daughter’s arrest were completely fabricated, and the image appended to them as “proof” that Malia Obama had been arrested in Chicago was a photograph of an October 2013 dogfighting ring bust which was digitally altered to insert a picture of her face in place of one of the original suspects: The Last Line of Defense (The Resistance) is a fake news site that consistently dupes social media users with fabricated stories, despite the presence of a disclaimer disclosing its “satirical” nature: The Resistance may include information from sources that may or may not be reliable and facts that don’t necessarily exist. All articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney. Pictures that represent actual people should be considered altered and not in any way real.
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15082
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We sell 40 percent of our guns without a background check.
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"Kelly said, ""We sell 40 percent of our guns without a background check."" The figure he’s citing comes from a 21-year-old survey with a small sample size before a key gun law took effect. Even its authors say they’re not sure if it holds true today. Still, there are few credible alternative statistics because of a two-decade dearth of gun violence research funding."
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mixture
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PunditFact, Guns, Mark Kelly,
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"As the country grapples with Thursday’s mass shooting at an Oregon community college, a retired astronaut whose wife survived a killing spree four years ago is leading the charge for stricter gun control. Mark Kelly is married to former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who was severely injured in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson that left 10 others dead. Following the assassination attempt, Kelly and Giffords created Americans for Responsible Solutions, a super PAC that supports gun control. ""One thing is really clear. We sell 40 percent of our guns without a background check,"" Kelly said during CNN’s State of the Union on Oct. 4. ""That means felons, people who are dangerously mentally ill have easy access to guns."" The 40 percent figure was often invoked by gun control advocates who wanted stricter background check laws after the Newtown, Conn., elementary school mass shooting. We and other fact-checkers have pointed out that it’s based on outdated research. We wanted to know if there had been any updates that would give this statistic more weight. The 21-year-old statistic, recently reproduced in an unpublished survey, is still the best figure available, experts told us, thanks to a two-decade ban on federal funding of gun violence research. Virtually all iterations of the 40 percent claim can be traced to a 1994 survey by Duke University’s Philip Cook and the University of Chicago’s Jens Ludwig. Kelly’s source is a 2013 white paper that cites Cook and Ludwig’s survey as its source, according to a spokesperson for Americans for Responsible Solutions. The survey was based on a small sample (251 people) and counted background checks on firearm purchases before the 1996 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required federal background checks on firearm purchases, was enacted. There’s debate among researchers on whether the 40 percent figure still holds true today, and Cook and Ludwig have both said that no one knows the current percentage of guns sold without a background check. Robert Spitzer, a SUNY Cortland political science professor and author of The Politics of Gun Control, noted that the background check statistic is ""notoriously slippery,"" because gun sales that don’t go through a federally licensed seller are, as you would expect, not subject to formal record keeping. ""How would a researcher identify a sufficiently large and representative sample of non-background check gun purchases/exchanges, given the absence of a paper trail?"" Spitzer said. ""My general sense is that 40 percent might be on the high side but is certainly possible."" Nevertheless, it’s the best estimate we have, said Jon Vernick, co-director of the Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, adding, ""There's no good reason to believe that the number has changed substantially — though we can't know for sure."" Ludwig told PolitiFact that he can see why people use the 1994 survey as the benchmark, ""even though everyone recognizes the estimate is now old."" So why is the most recent statistic on gun purchases without background checks about two decades old? There’s very little funding for research on gun violence. Problems with methodology also play a role, but the 1996 appropriations bill, experts said, is mainly to blame for the lack of research dollars. Strong-armed by the powerful gun lobby, Congress wrote in a provision that effectively banned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching the roots of gun violence. ""None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control,"" the bill reads. ""It basically was a shot across the bow by Congress on the part of the NRA,"" Mark Rosenberg, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Control and Prevention, told the Washington Post. ""All federally funded research was shut down."" As a result of the attack on CDC funding, all government funding for the issue was stifled, agreed David Hemenway, director of Harvard University’s Injury Control Research Center. Private foundations, too, were wary of putting dollars toward a controversial and politically divisive topic, he said. (There are fewer than five foundations providing the funding today, said Garen Wintemute, director of UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, to Slate.) Just a few years ago, it looked like things were about to change for gun violence research. In the wake of the Newtown shooting in 2012, President Barack Obama issued a proclamation directing the CDC and other federal agencies to look into the causes of gun violence. In spite of the presidential pressure, the 20-year moratorium on gun violence research wasn’t really lifted, and researchers haven’t exactly heeded Obama’s call. Six days after the Charleston, S.C., church shooting on June 17, 2015, House Republicans blocked an amendment that would have funded CDC gun violence research in the next fiscal year. Instead, the appropriations bill ""continues the general provision to prevent any funds provided from being spent on gun research."" Advocates of the funding ban say the research is inherently biased to support stricter gun control and is irrelevant to the mission of the CDC. In the words of outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, ""a gun is not a disease."" Hemenway has managed to get around the lack of federal and private funding for gun research with a recent project financed by the Fund for a Safer Future, a program aimed at reducing gun violence. He told PolitiFact that the Harvard Injury Control Research Center conducted a 2015 national survey with a sample size over 3,000 that confirmed the 40 percent of sales without a background check figure. However, this study has not been published, and we could not read it for ourselves, so we cannot factor it into this fact-check. Our ruling Kelly said, ""We sell 40 percent of our guns without a background check."" The figure he’s citing comes from a 21-year-old survey with a small sample size before a key gun law took effect. Even its authors say they’re not sure if it holds true today. Still, there are few credible alternative statistics because of a two-decade dearth of gun violence research funding."
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30450
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Swedish-born producer DJ Avicii died under suspicious circumstances while he was trying to use music videos to expose a pedophile ring
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The inaccuracy of Neon Nettle’s reporting is not surprising, as Neon Nettle is a fake news site with a special fascination for peddling fabricated and sensationalized stories about pedophiles.
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false
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Junk News, neon nettle
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On 20 April 2018, news broke that the Swedish-born producer and DJ known as Avicii had been found dead in the country of Oman: Publicist Diana Baron said in a statement that the 28-year-old DJ, born Tim Bergling, was in Muscat, Oman. “The family is devastated and we ask everyone to please respect their need for privacy in this difficult time,” the statement said. Avicii was a pioneer of the contemporary Electronic Dance Movement and a rare DJ capable of worldwide arena tours. He won two MTV Music Awards, one Billboard Music Award and earned two Grammy nominations. His biggest hit was “Le7els.” His death comes just days after he was nominated for a Billboard Music Award for top dance/electronic album for his EP “Avicii (01).” He was nominated alongside his peers, who have taken EDM mainstream of late — The Chainsmokers, Calvin Harris and Kygo. A few days later, the Neon Nettle web site published an article suggesting that Avicii’s death was somehow connected to his supposed attempts to “expose a pedophile ring”: As the music world mourned the loss of Swedish DJ Avicii who died at 28 years old last week, speculation to whether he was trying to expose a pedophile ring in his video ‘For a better day’ has been gaining momentum. Why Avicii’s death doesn’t make sense There has been no official report on his exact cause of death but despite this, Avicii’s death has a bunch of eerie similarities with the recent deaths of two other music legends, Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington. Avicii hinted at exposing a child trafficking ring in his video ‘For a better Day’ … The DJ has either stumbled on something that was too close to the truth of human trafficking, or he was planning to a follow up on the second video with more information. However, this “reporting” of Neon Nettle’s was a combination of misinformation and extremely questionable speculation. For starters, Neon Nettle attempts to draws parallels between the passing of Avicii and the deaths of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington in July 2017, two other musicians whom Neon Nettle asserts “were allegedly working together to expose a pedophile ring operating in the music industry” at the moment of their untimely deaths. However, this posited connection was nothing more than a fabricated story published by Your News Wire, Neon Nettle’s partner in fake news crime. Additionally, Avicii acknowledged at the time of its release that his 2015 video for the song “For a Better Day” was intended to call attention to the issue of child trafficking (particularly in war-torn countries); it wasn’t a coded attempt to furtively “expose” a particular child trafficking ring: Leading DJ Avicii has turned his attention to fighting child trafficking as he made his debut as a director with a pair of disturbing videos. The Swedish house DJ, one of the biggest stars on the global club circuit, said he was hoping to use his music for a greater social cause. “The promise of a better life often traps families and children into being used as tools for some of the most despicable people on Earth,” he said in a statement, as he released the videos. “It’s an issue about which I hope to start a louder discussion, especially now with the huge number of families on the move from war-torn countries looking for safety and shelter.” “For a Better Day,” which will appear on Avicii’s upcoming album “Stories,” features a video full of unsettling imagery as hooded traffickers go on a killing spree of adults in their way, including a politician portrayed by actor Krister Henriksson. The video shows two children rushing through fields to escape, only to be forced barely clothed into a traffickers’ car. Finally, just as in the cases of Cornell and Bennington, the implication that Avicii was somehow “done in” to prevent his “exposing a pedophile ring” is unfounded. Although Avicii’s cause of death has not yet been announced, he was known to have health problems, and officials stated that two post-mortem examinations had been conducted which “confirmed that there is no criminal suspicion of death”: In 2016, he retired from live performances after suffering multiple health issues including acute pancreatitis due to drinking alcohol. Just two years before, he had his gallbladder and appendix removed, and he cancelled tour dates in order to recover. While the exact cause of death has not been revealed, SkyNews reported that there was no foul play involved in Avicii’s death. A later statement from his family strongly suggested Avicii had committed suicide: Our beloved Tim was a seeker, a fragile artistic soul searching for answers to existential questions. An over-achieving perfectionist who travelled and worked hard at a pace that led to extreme stress. When he stopped touring, he wanted to find a balance in life to be happy and be able to do what he loved most – music. He really struggled with thoughts about Meaning, Life, Happiness. He could not go on any longer. He wanted to find peace.
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9719
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Portable gluten test promises to ease dining woes
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This feature story describes a start-up company’s plans to soon begin marketing a pocket-sized device said to quickly detect gluten in any food with “99.9 per cent” accuracy. To its credit, the article makes clear that the device, called Nima, is neither FDA-approved, nor meant to diagnose or manage celiac disease or “gluten intolerance.” And it goes to some lengths to put gluten-related health problems in perspective and avoid disease mongering, making clear that Nima’s gluten test is designed only to help those dining out test restaurant and party foods for a protein with the potential to make them sick. However, the story offers no quantitative or other evidence for the accuracy of the device; doesn’t discuss harms; and it could have done a better job of noting that the “gluten free” food craze has lured huge numbers of customers with no documented history of celiac disease to buy expensive (and often taste-free) products. The story surprisingly did not mention that the device’s developers had a National Institutes of Health “Innovation” grant (SBIR), and it could also have been strengthened by noting there is at least one other company that claims to also have quick “gluten tests” for sale to consumers, and at a far lower price than the $179 introductory price for Nima mentioned in the piece. A reader (and certainly these reviewers) might also well consider the story premature, given that the company is taking only “pre-orders” for a product it says won’t be available until mid-2016, and that is still being tested. As the story points out, people with celiac disease, an immune system disorder, experience miserable GI and other medical symptoms, and possible intestinal damage, when they ingest even small amounts of gluten protein, which is abundant in products made with wheat, barley and rye. For them, eating anything they didn’t carefully prepare themselves at home poses a risk, and having a two-minute test might indeed help them avoid some kinds of gluten exposure. Products that provide more freedom to consumers with dietary restrictions are potentially quite useful, and it is very likely there will be more such products to follow (the story mentions development plans). Individuals with celiac disease could avoid much, if not all, of the problem, by eating only unbreaded fish, meat, and chicken; ordering unsauced green veggies; and avoiding pastas, breads, croutons or any salad dressing other than oil and vinegar they mix at the table. But that’s a tough diet, and it’s difficult to avoid cross-contamination of gluten products in restaurants. Even gluten-free menu choices (and supermarket products) may not be as gluten-free as advertised.
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mixture
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Gluten
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The story clearly states the cost of the “pre-order” version of Nima and the cost of “test pods.” The story references a company official who says that Nima can tell if the food sample has 20 parts per million or more of gluten. But the story never provides any data tor numbers to back this up. The inventors claim that they are doing “a huge amount of testing,” to “be sure” of “99.9%” accuracy, but there are no test data given in the story. One could argue that since the company owns up to the fact that it has carefully elected not to seek FDA approval, it has no requirement to offer hard data about the product’s accuracy or benefits for peer review or to the public. But we hold news stories to a higher standard. Clearly the company has done some testing — what have those tests found? The story had an obligation to push for and analyze those numbers, or make it more clear to readers that we have no idea how accurate this test might be. Without any evidence one way or the other about the “mini chemistry test’s” accuracy, it’s hard to know if there might be any false positive or negative readings, and thus any harms from eating food that has more gluten than the test user thinks. The story doesn’t discuss this. Except for the testimonials of the inventors, there are no data. But the story is pretty transparent about the fact that the company has elected not to seek FDA approval, which suggests that there are no publicly available data on the device. Our feeling is that this criterion shouldn’t count for or against the story, so we’ll rate it Not Applicable. The story offers federal prevalence data for celiac disease, although as noted above, it could have made clearer that a lot of people who think they are gluten-intolerant likely are not. The problem of misperception about dietary intolerance is real, and results in restrictive diets for no reason. Importantly, the article quotes the CEO of the Celiac Disease Foundation as skeptical about the value of gluten sensors in general, along with purported “treatments” for the disorders. And she makes clear that she “would never comment on a device that’s not FDA-approved.” Bravo! The article would be stronger if it mentioned not only the availability of other tests on the market, but also ways that those with celiac disease can reduce their risk of harm when they travel, eat out, or go to parties. There is increasing availability of restaurants with the “GF” notation on the menu, indicating gluten free choices. The availability of the product is a bit vague, but it’s there. The timeline of “the middle of next year” is provided for availability. This is not the only product under the sun designed to quick-test for gluten, although to be fair, it’s unclear whether another product would be better/worse/as good. A quick online search identified a number of consumer kits available. It is unclear why a story focusing specifically on this particular device is news. The story uses information from the company, but did do further reporting, including interviews with a company founder and the Celiac Disease Foundation CEO.
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27354
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A teacher trained in the use of firearms accidentally discharged a handgun in a California classroom, causing minor injury to a student.
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Both accidents added fuel to an ongoing national debate over proposals by the Trump administration, the National Rifle Association, and other gun rights advocacy groups to arm teachers to defend their students in the event of school shootings. According to a March 2018 poll of National Education Association members, educators “overwhelmingly reject” such proposals as “ill-conceived, preposterous, and dangerous.” Supporters of the proposals say arming and training teachers and other school personnel would make classrooms more safe, not less.
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true
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Politics Guns, armed teachers, california, gun safety
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On 13 March 2018, one day before a scheduled nationwide student walkout protesting Congress’s inaction on gun violence in the United States, reports surfaced that a teacher trained in the use of firearms had accidentally fired his handgun in a California high school classroom, injuring at least one student. According to a local press coverage, the incident occurred during a gun safety class at Seaside High School in Seaside, California. The Monterey County Herald reported: Police were called to Seaside High School on Tuesday afternoon after a report that a teacher accidentally fired a hand gun in a classroom full of students. The teacher was identified as Dennis Alexander, a reserve police officer for Sand City, according to a press release from the Seaside Police Department. Alexander was believed to have been providing instruction related to public safety awareness when he fired a single shot from a semi-automatic handgun into the ceiling. According to Seaside Police Chief Abdul D. Pridgen, a student was struck in the neck by debris or a fragment after the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling. The student was not seriously injured. Pridgen said class resumed after the incident was brought under control. The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) released a statement the same day which read, in part: The safety and well-being of students and staff are high priorities for the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District. Today, an accident occurred in the Administration of Justice class at Seaside High School. During class, the teacher, who is also a reserve police officer, accidentally discharged his firearm during a lesson while it was pointed at the ceiling, and debris from the ceiling then fell. Upon learning of the incident, school site administration, the District Office, and the Seaside Police Department immediately began investigating, including interviewing students in the class. It was determined that there was no immediate threat to students or staff, and school remained in session. Due to the nature of this personnel incident, we are unable to share any other details at this time. The teacher has been placed on administrative leave for the duration of the on-going investigation. California law prohibits firearms on campus, and MPUSD’s Board of Education policy prohibits any person other than authorized law enforcement or security personnel from possessing weapons, imitation firearms, or dangerous instruments of any kind in school buildings, on school grounds or buses, or at a school-related or school-sponsored activity away from school, or while going to or coming from school. The school district informed us that the teacher has been with Seaside High School since 1994 and formerly taught mathematics, though more recently his only responsibility was teaching the Administration of Justice course during which the accident occurred. MPUSD declined to comment further, noting that the matter is still under investigation and there have been “multiple and differing accounts of the incident and the response immediately following.” Some early press reports said that as many as three students had suffered superficial injuries, but according to the most recent coverage only one student, a 17-year-old male, was confirmed injured. Chief Abdul D. Pridgen of the Seaside Police Department said the wound was caused by a bullet fragment or debris falling from the ceiling. The student was treated at a local hospital and released. MPUSD superintendent Daniel “PK” Diffenbaugh told KSBW-TV News that among the questions that need to be answered is why a teacher was pointing a loaded gun at the ceiling in front of students. “Clearly in this incident protocols were not followed,” he said. Coincidentally, a similar incident occurred the same day at a middle school in Alexandria, Virginia. Police reported that a school resource officer accidentally discharged his pistol while sitting down in his office at George Washington Middle School. No injuries were reported, and the officer, a five-year veteran of the police department, was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. The accident brought the total number of confirmed gunfire incidents in U.S. schools so far in 2018 to 32, according to the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
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10091
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Ah, there’s the rub: Medicine catches up with what clients always knew about the health benefits of massage
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The story discusses massage therapy for physical and emotional well-being. One of the reasons massage isn’t covered as frequently by insurance as other alternative therapies, such as acupuncture and spinal manipulation, is that there is relatively little evidence of benefit in well controlled studies. The article implies that the problem is licensing. Massage proponents argue that licensure might lead to insurance coverage. But the story doesn’t discuss the lack of studies examining massage for certain conditions compared to placebo and active treatments. Personal testaments should not be enough to drive health care policy in a time when health care costs are rising – at least in part because of the widespread use of tests and treatments of limited or no value. It is likely that massage may be better for certain conditions than others. The fact that there may be benefit in premature infants doesn’t directly translate into adults with shoulder pain. It is also likely that the alternative treatments vary dependent upon the condition. While the story notes that there are medical studies which have looked at the benefits of massage for certain groups of people, no data from these studies are cited. The story does not mention things that can go wrong during a massage, especially with people who are already injured, or who have orthopedic or other biomechanical issues. Practitioners who are not adequately trained might risk further injury to these massage clients. Oversight of massage practice via licensure might prevent some of these harms; however, the story only focuses on the negative public image of massage (i.e. ties to the adult entertainment industry). Though the story does not provide the actual cost of massage for those described, it does mention that massage is often not paid for by insurers. Again, one of the points of the article is that by accrediting massage therapists, insurers will be more likely to cover treatment by such providers. The story cites both a massage therapist and an orthopedic surgeon to provide perspective on the role of massage in prevention and treatment of injury. However, the story is weighted heavily on information from those in the field of massage, so another perspective on massage as possible adjunct to evidence-based treatments would provide balance to the story. As is mentioned, massage has its place, but it is not a panacea.
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mixture
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The story does not provide the actual cost of massage for those uses described. Granted, these costs are likely to vary quite a bit, but the story could have provided a range of costs. The story does explain that massage is often not paid for by insurers. Indeed one of the points of the article is that by accrediting massage therapists, insurers will be more likely to cover treatment by such providers. It would have been useful to know the cost of treatment for the man who had massage for his shoulder (to distinguish from the $120,000 mentioned for surgery). The story mostly provides personal testaments of the benefits of massage. No studies are cited discussing the role of massage in healing these types of injuries. Quantitative data from one study re: weight gain for premature infants is noted, however, there is no context for these numbers and an incomplete description of this study. The fact that there may be benefit in premature infants doesn’t directly translate into adults with shoulder pain. It also implies that massage is better than physical therapy (PT can include manual techniques such as massage and mobilization – the difference is the person doing it) and spinal manipulation. The story focuses on the many benefits of massage and discusses licensing for practitioners in Michigan. The story does not mention things that can go wrong during a massage, especially with people who are already injured, or who have orthopedic or biomechanical issues. Practitioners who are not adequately trained might increase harms to these massage clients. Oversight via licensure might prevent some of these harms. The story only focuses on the negative public image of massage (i.e. ties to the adult entertainment industry). The story discusses massage therapy for physical and emotional well-being. It is likely that massage may be better for certain conditions than others. The fact that there may be benefit in premature infants doesn’t directly translate into adults with shoulder pain. One of the reasons massage isn’t covered as frequently by insurance as other alternative therapies, such as acupuncture and spinal manipulation, is that there is relatively little evidence of benefit in well controlled studies. The article implies that the problem is licensing. That may be true to some extent, but a lack of evidence is an important reason as well. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story cites both a massage therapist and an orthopedic surgeon to provide perspective on the role of massage in prevention and treatment of injury. The story weighted heavily on information from those in the field of massage, so another perspective on massage as an adjunct to other treatments would provide balance to the story. As is mentioned, massage has its place, but it is not a panacea and not without some risks. The story focuses only on massage. If people who have had shoulder injuries are interviewed as examples of the healing benefits of massage, then further discussion of how this and other complementary therapies can be integrated with evidence-based medical treatments would be helpful. It is likely that massage may be better for certain conditions than others. It is also likely that the alternative treatments vary dependent upon the condition. Massage is widely available, but as the article points out there are no requirements placed upon practitioners of massage therapy. So even though the individuals in this article reported benefit from massage, it is possible or even likely that the benefit they observed may not be generalizable to all massage therapists. There are also different types of massage and again the response may differ based upon the technique. Thus, even though it is widely available, it doesn’t mean that the same type of treatments or the quality of providers are the same in different regions. Massage is not a new treatment for relaxation and short-term relief of muscular discomfort. Information in this story does not appear to be taken directly from a press release.
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35248
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Images show mass graves being dug in New York to bury victims of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic in 2020.
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What's true: Drone footage showed people in hazmat suits digging trenches and burying coffins on New York’s Hart Island. At the start of April 2020, Hart Island saw burials increase from about 25 a week to 25 a day. What's false: Not all local people who die from COVID-19 are automatically buried at this site. For more than 150 years Hart Island has been used as a burial site for deceased people with no next of kin to claim them.
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true
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Fauxtography, COVID-19
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In April 2020, images supposedly showing mass graves being dug in New York to bury those who died during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic started to circulate on social media: NYC Mayor confirms they are now burying many #Covid19 corpses in mass graves on Hart Island. Today alone there were at least 40 coffins. The bodies are wrapped in body bags and placed in pine boxes, with their names scrawled on the top. Source: NY Post #TrumpBurialPits pic.twitter.com/2yb2pVVt3U — Jake Morphonios 🇵🇸 🇹🇭 😷 (@morphonios) April 10, 2020 A drone video supposedly showing these mass graves was also passed around social media: This drone footage captures NYC workers burying bodies in a mass grave on Hart Island, just off the coast of the Bronx. For over a century, the island has served as a potter’s field for deceased with no known next of kin or families unable to pay for funerals. pic.twitter.com/wBVIGlX6aK — NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 9, 2020 While the above-displayed media is genuine — large trenches are being dug on Hart Island in order to accommodate an influx of deceased individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic — there were some misconceptions on social media about these “mass graves.” For starters, some readers seemed to be under the impression that all people who died of COVID-19 in New York would be buried in these graves. But that’s not the case. New York City Mayor Press Secretary Freddi Goldstein told CNN that this burial site, as it has been for the last 150 years, will be used to bury the deceased who have not been claimed by their next of kin. CNN reports: Only people who have not been claimed by relatives or a loved will be buried there, Goldstein highlighted. Despite the new rule from the medical examiner, Goldstein said as long as morgue officials make contact with a relative within 14 days, they will not be moved to Hart Island. “These are people who, for two weeks, we have not been able to find anyone who says ‘I know that person I love that person I will handle the burial,'” Goldstein said. “These are people who we have made zero contact with the family.” Goldstein said that the city morgue typically sends bodies to Hart Island if they go unclaimed for 30 to 60 days. As of this writing, because New York has seen an increase in deaths as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the medical examiner’s office said that they will send bodies to Hart Island after two weeks. Goldstein said: For decades, Hart Island has been used to lay to rest decedents who have not been claimed by family members. We will continue using the Island in that fashion during this crisis and it is likely that people who have passed away from COVID-19 who fit this description will be buried on the Island in the coming days. Hart Island has also seen an increase in burials. According to Jason Kersten, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, which typically oversees the burials, said that prison inmates typically bury about 25 bodies on Hart Island each week. Kersten, who said that inmates are not currently working to bury the deceased due to social distancing rules, said that Hart Island is now seeing about two dozen bodies a day: Reuters reported: Typically, some 25 bodies are interred each week by low-paid jail inmates working on the island, which sits off the east shore of the city’s Bronx borough and is accessible only by boat. That number began increasing in March as the new coronavirus spread rapidly, making New York the epicenter of the global pandemic.
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2283
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Activists submit signatures for California condoms-in-porn vote.
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A campaign to require condom use in pornographic film productions in California has submitted enough signatures to election officials before Monday’s deadline to put a ballot measure before state voters in 2016, organizers said.
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true
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Health News
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“Unlike most politicians, voters are not squeamish about this issue, seeing it as a means to protect the health and safety of performers,” Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and a backer of the measure, said in a statement. “It’s only fair that adult film performers be afforded the same safeguards as other Californians in their workplaces.” Organizers said they collected 557,138 signatures from registered voters, more than the 365,880 they needed by Monday for the initiative to be on the ballot in November 2016. The signatures must still be verified within 30 working days by election officials. In 2012, the foundation successfully backed a voter-approved measure in Los Angeles County to force the use of condoms in local pornographic film shoots. Porn producers fought that measure in U.S. District Court, arguing it went against their clients’ right to freedom of expression. But in December a regional U.S. federal appeals court upheld the requirement. The new proposal, if approved by voters next year, would mandate that state and municipal officials ensure condoms are used on pornographic film sets statewide. Much of the U.S. adult movie industry, which is worth an estimated $9 billion to $13 billion a year, is based in Los Angeles, especially its San Fernando Valley suburb. Several high-profile adult film performers in the area have suffered HIV infections, shaking the sector and local health officials. AHF has said porn actors are 10 times more likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease than the public. In the past, producers have argued that some viewers do not want to see visible contraceptives in porn films, saying they distract from their customers’ fantasies by reminding them of real-world worries such as pregnancy and disease.
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16147
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"Benjamin Crump Says ""99 percent of the time police officers aren't charged when they kill young people of color."
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Crump said 99 percent of the time police officers aren’t charged when they kill a young person of color. With the caveat that police officers are rarely charged at all, the limited data and the opinions of criminologists back up Crump’s claim. But there is no hard data for either the number of police officers indicted for homicide of a person of color or for the total number of people killed by police, so we cannot say with certainty whether this happens 99 percent of the time.
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mixture
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Criminal Justice, Human Rights, PunditFact, Benjamin Crump,
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"Even before the grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., announced its decision in the police shooting death of teenager Michael Brown, the lead lawyer for the Brown family challenged the grand jury process. Attorney Benjamin Crump said the ground rules were skewed in favor of police officer Darren Wilson. All one needed for proof, Crump said, was to look at the statistics. ""The process is completely unfair,"" Crump said on ABC’s This Week on Nov. 23, 2014. ""Ninety-nine percent of the time police officers aren't charged when they kill young people of color."" We called Crump’s office to learn what statistics he relied on to back up his claim about 99 percent of police killings of minority youth. We did not hear back. We contacted a number of criminologists and other experts in fatalities at the hands of law enforcement officials. All of them told PunditFact that the data don’t exist to prove Crump right or wrong. At the same time, they said his number probably has a measure of accuracy, even if it doesn’t show what he thinks it does in terms of racial bias. Criminologist Candace McCoy at City University of New York said a simple fact dominates any assessment of Crump’s statement. ""It is very rare for an officer to get indicted at all, no matter what the race of a victim,"" McCoy said. How rare is hard to pin down Ideally, we would know the number of police officers indicted for homicide of a person of color and the total number of people killed by police. We lack accurate figures for both. The closest we can get to the number of officers charged with homicide comes from Philip Stinson, a criminal justice researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Stinson looked at records from 2005 to 2011 and found that in those years, there were a total of 81 cases where at least one officer was charged with murder, nonnegligent manslaughter or negligent manslaughter. It’s important to note that this is a count of cases, not officers. You could imagine that a single death might involve more than one person from a law enforcement agency. While we could take 81 as a minimum figure, Stinson also told PunditFact he has no information on the race of the person who died. ""I understand his (Crump’s) sentiment, and perhaps that is true historically,"" Stinson said. ""But I don’t think there is any empirical research that would support his summary statistic of 99 percent."" But let’s just say we took the 81 figure and compared it to the total number of deaths at the hands of law enforcement. That would give us some idea of how often an officer is charged when they kill someone. Unfortunately, we hit another data problem. There are two sources, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and both undercount the number of people killed by police. There are many reasons. Top among them: Some reporting is voluntary, and often the person recording the death doesn’t even know whether an officer was involved. The consensus among experts is that the numbers are too low, but it’s unclear by how much. With that in mind, we find that the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Reports show 2,695 justifiable homicides by law enforcement from 2005 to 2011. By definition, those are deaths in which officers followed the rules in using lethal force. If we add to that the 81 deaths to approximate the deaths that were not justified, we get 2,776. That would mean that officers are charged in about 3 percent of the cases when someone is killed. We went through a similar process with the CDC’s National Vital Statistics data and wound up with pretty much the same result. So when Crump said 99 percent of the time police are not charged in the killing of a person of color, he might have been in the ballpark. To flip his approach, he would be saying police are charged 1 percent of the time, while the flawed numbers we have say 3 percent -- regardless of race -- might be closer to the truth. But criminologist David Klinger at the University of Missouri-St. Louis said Crump’s claim about race is misleading. ""Because it doesn’t include the all-important question, ‘Compared to what?’ "" Klinger said. ""If cops were routinely indicted in the wake of shooting old white guys, and they were only rarely getting indicted for shooting young people of color, he would be making a valuable point. That, however, is not that case."" Criminologist Lorie Fridell at the University of South Florida echoes the thoughts of her peers. ""Since officers are rarely charged in deadly force situations, that statistic, although not documented, is probably not too far off and would probably hold true for non-minority victims of police deadly force as well,"" Fridell said. The question of how often law enforcement officers are charged in the death of a young person of color is distinct from the debate over whether police are more likely to kill minorities than whites. There is a body of evidence that says blacks are more likely to be victims of lethal force than whites, but other analyses find a more complicated set of connections involving race, income, serious crime and policing strategies that make violent encounters between blacks and police more likely. Our ruling Crump said 99 percent of the time police officers aren’t charged when they kill a young person of color. With the caveat that police officers are rarely charged at all, the limited data and the opinions of criminologists back up Crump’s claim. But there is no hard data for either the number of police officers indicted for homicide of a person of color or for the total number of people killed by police, so we cannot say with certainty whether this happens 99 percent of the time."
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38330
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President Donald Trump has repeated the claim that Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of America’s Uranium to Russia while secretary of state on the campaign trail and while in office.
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Hillary Clinton Sold 20 Percent of World's Uranium to Russia
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false
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Government
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Claims that Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of America’s uranium capacity to Russia. But Clinton played a role in the deal’s approval process, and stakeholders of the uranium transaction made financial contributions to the Clinton Foundation while its approval was in flux. President Trump deflected questions about his campaign’s or administration’s possible ties to Russia during a lengthy press conference on February 16, 2017. The president accused the Obama administration of mishandling Russia and pointed out that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded on President Obama’s watch. The president then pivoted to Hillary Clinton, repeating an old accusation from the campaign trail that she had sold 20 percent of the country’s Uranium to Russia: We had Hillary Clinton try to do a reset. We had Hillary Clinton give Russia 20 percent of the uranium in our country. You know what uranium is, right? It’s this thing called nuclear weapons. And other things. Like lots of things are done with uranium. Including some bad things. But nobody talks about that. I did not do anything for Russia. I’ve done nothing for Russia. Hillary Clinton gave them 20 percent of our uranium. Hillary Clinton did a reset, remember, with the stupid plastic button that made us all look like a bunch of jerks? Then, on March 28th, Trump again turned to the Clinton-Russia uranium claim after reports surfaced that a Senate committee would question Jared Kushner, a senior White House advisor and son-in-law of the president, about meetings that he had with the former chairman of Russia’s largest state-run bank, which faces U.S. sanctions: Why doesn't Fake News talk about Podesta ties to Russia as covered by @FoxNews or money from Russia to Clinton – sale of Uranium? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2017 Trump was referring to a series of transaction from 2009 to 2013 in which a division of Rosatom, the Russian state’s energy conglomerate, purchased a controlling stake in the Toronto-based company Uranium One. Because Uranium One had holdings spanning the world, from Southeast Asia to the American west (it controlled 20 percent of American uranium production capacity), the deal made Russia the foremost controller of the uranium supply chain in the world. Because the sale had national security implications, it had to go through a series of approvals. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), heads of various federal agencies (including then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) making up the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission, and President Obama, CNN reported in 2010: The NRC must approve the transfer of the NRC license for its Irigaray-Christiansen Ranch recovery facility in eastern Wyoming, McIntyre said. “Generally, we look at whether the new ownership would have the technical expertise and the financial wherewithal to maintain the site and clean up when operations cease,” he said. Further, the sale needs to be reviewed by the Committee on Financial Investment in the United States, an inter-agency panel that advises the president on any transaction that could jeopardize U.S. national security. Committee officials declined to discuss the sale, saying they are prohibited by law from disclosing such matters. And the sale may require approval of the Federal Trade Commission because it involves a stock transaction, and the Federal Communications Commission because one of the sites has a radio license, the NRC said. Of course, Hillary Clinton voted to approve the sale, along with President Obama and other agency heads. At the time, as Trump has noted, the Obama administration was in the midst of a “Russia Reset” in which there were active steps being taken to unfreeze relations between the country. And it has been noted that uranium along the border Kazakstan appeared to be Russia’s focus of the deal, the Globe and Mail reported in 2010: But that is precisely the deal’s strength, says the Moscow official behind the deal. Vadim Zhivov, CEO of the Russian uranium miner ARMZ, argued that Kremlin involvement would bring greater stability, security and profitability to Uranium One’s extensive operations in Kazakhstan, considered the world’s largest source of readily accessible uranium. “Given Russia’s long-term relationship with Kazakhstan, an 8,000-kilometre land border and a long history of good relations with [them] I think the Russian Federation is the least likely player to be affected by any political changes that will happen there, and it will be important for any company doing mining operations there to have a state partner,” Mr. Zhivov said. So, the idea that Hillary Clinton personally sold, or personally approved the sale of Canada’s second-largest Uranium producer to Russia’s state-run energy conglomerate is misleading at best. Clinton played a role in the approval process, but she hardly made the sale, and it’s not clear what she could have done to stop the transaction. However, the uranium issue has continued to dog Hillary Clinton. The right-wing oppositional research firm the Hoover Institute uncovered proof in 2015 that the Clinton Foundation took in millions of dollars from officials at the center of the Russian uranium deal. The report appeared in the book “Clinton Cash,” and on the front page of the New York Times in 2015: At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One. Beyond mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world, the sale gave the Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States. Since uranium is considered a strategic asset, with implications for national security, the deal had to be approved by a committee composed of representatives from a number of United States government agencies. Among the agencies that eventually signed off was the State Department, then headed by Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well. And shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One, Mr. Clinton received $500,000 for a Moscow speech from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin that was promoting Uranium One stock. Clinton critics have pointed to the fact that the Clinton Foundation took in millions of dollars from key players in the Russian uranium deal, and that Clinton was personally paid $500,000 to deliver a speech in Moscow after the acquisition was announced, as proof of corruption and profiteering. At the very least, it’s hard to argue that it was bad judgement for the Clintons to accept money from anyone involved in the deal. When it comes to the specific claim that Hillary Clinton sold 20 percent of America’s uranium to Russia, however. She played a role in the approval process, but she didn’t have veto power, and she didn’t broker the deal. Comments
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37717
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Pennsylvania state Rep. Russ Diamond (R) released a statement opposing the use of face mask that mimicked remarks by Dr. Rachel Levine regarding transphobic harassment.
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Did a Pennsylvania Lawmaker Release a Statement Mocking the State Health Secretary?
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true
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Fact Checks, Politics
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A Pennsylvania state lawmaker came under criticism for attempting to compare the transgender community to people refusing to follow guidelines against spreading the COVID-19 pandemic.A statement from State Rep. Russ Diamond allegedly standing up for the “unmasked population” prompted Gov. Tom Wolf to urge Diamond’s fellow Republicans to censure Diamond on July 30 2020.“There are no words that adequately describe my disdain for the antics Rep. Diamond displayed in his latest missive,” Wolf said in his own statement.The uproar around Diamond began a day earlier, when he posted a release that intentionally mimicked remarks from state health director Dr. Rachel Levine addressing transphobic harassment directed at her. She said, in part:The LGBTQ community has made so much progress under Governor Wolf and his leadership during his time in office, but I want to emphasize that while these individuals may think that they are only expressing their displeasure with me, they are, in fact, hurting the thousands of LGBTQ Pennsylvanians who suffered directly from these current demonstrations of harassment.Your actions perpetuate the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, and specifically transgender individuals.It is only one month ago that the Supreme Court prohibited discrimination in the workplace due to sexual orientation and gender identity, but LGBTQ individuals can still be denied housing, and public accommodations in most places in Pennsylvania, that do not have local nondiscrimination ordinances.In addition, the most vulnerable among us continue to suffer, including LGBTQ individuals of color, LGBTQ youth, LGBTQ seniors, and LGBTQ immigrants. Transgender women of color continue to not only be harassed, but are more likely to suffer, violence, and even murder.Diamond’s statement substituted the “maskless community” — in other words, those who refuse to wear face coverings in public settings amid a global pandemic — for LGBTQ Pennsylvanians:I want to emphasize that while these individuals may think that they are only expressing their displeasure with me, they are, in fact, hurting the thousands of unmasked Pennsylvanians who suffered directly from these current demonstrations of harassment.Your actions perpetuate the spirit of intolerance and discrimination against unmasked individuals, and specifically individuals like myself who are outspoken about it.It is only one month ago that the Department of Health promulgated a mask policy which specifically included exemptions for medical conditions which do not need to be documented. But unmasked individuals still are being access to public accommodations in places in Pennsylvania that are not honoring those exemptions.In addition, the most vulnerable among us continue to suffer, including unmasked individuals of color, unmasked youth and seniors, and unmasked immigrants.Statement on Hateful Comments Toward Unmasked Community pic.twitter.com/uqrqZ7Tt6X— Russ Diamond (@russdiamond) July 29, 2020The state policy on the use of masks in public spaces does provide exemptions for respiratory issues as well as for mental health issues and people who need to read lips in order to communicate. But those opposing similar policies have taken to spreading disinformation claiming that masks themselves cause illness, or creating fake cards or “passes” they claim cover exemptions set forth by the American Disability Act and other legislation.In rebuking Diamond, Wolf called his statement “Abhorrent, disrespectful, [and] dangerous” as well as an attack on Levine and LGBTQ communities.“Virtually no thinking person disputes mask-wearing as an effective means to stop the spread of COVID,” the governor said in his statement. “Proud non-mask-wearers such as Rep. Diamond are not displaying their freedom, but rather their ignorance and lack of respect for themselves, their families, neighbors and communities when they don’t wear a mask, and are likely leading to more spread of this dangerous virus.”Diamond responded online by calling on Wolf to fire Levine and then resign — while also falsely calling her gender identity a “lifestyle.”“Secretary of Health Rachel Levine made a strong statement in defense of her lifestyle and condemned hatred and intolerance. I, of course, condemn all hatred and intolerance,” Diamond’s statement read. “However, I found it ironic that Levine fails to see that her own policies, and those of the governor, are creating similar hatred and intolerance across Pennsylvania.”Diamond has denied that he was intentionally mocking Levine, but he has not directly addressed whether he was comparing transgender communities with people willingly opposing face mask guidelines.“The release accurately speaks to those who have attacked, maligned, and threatened me, as well as others, since I first questioned the ridiculous mask policy months ago,” he told the news outlet Spotlight PA. “Her policy allows for exceptions that apply to a lot of people, yet all we hear is ‘you MUST wear a mask. '”For her part, Levine called Diamond’s statement “another example of harassment against LGBTQ individuals.”“Never mind using my words as a comment on me,” she said during a press briefing in Lancaster. “Really, what I worry about is the other LGBTQ individuals in the commonwealth who regularly face intolerance and harassment and sometimes overt violence.”Comments
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10958
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Study Shows Proposed Merck Drug For Diabetes Lowers Blood Sugar
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The article describes a new drug that may help improve blood sugar in people with diabetes more so than other drugs (e.g. metformin alone) or with reportedly fewer side effects. Overall, the story does address what type of evidence the claims are based on and what the reported benefits are, although context is lacking. Readers might think this is an important new medicine, when in fact, it is likely not any more effective than existing drugs currently on the market. Importantly, side effects or harms of treatment were minimized. Actual rates of low blood sugar episodes with the new drug were not reported, yet were noted to be a serious side effect of older drugs. Readers aren’t able to judge how much better the new drug may be at reducing the chance of this important side effect. The article also reports that there appear to be no serious side effects of the drug, which may be true for the moment, but caution should have been given to these findings, given that the only study was performed by the manufacturer and the study was short-term. Considering the immense health burden diabetes represents, lifestyle changes to improve blood sugar should have been mentioned as part of the treatment options.
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false
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The story does not mention projected costs for the new drug. The story could have provided some insight into the costs of available drugs to treat Type 2 diabetes. The likelihood of this new drug in combination with metformin being less exepnsive than available drugs is very low. The story reports the benefit in terms of an intermediate outcome, A1C. The study tells how many participants achieved an A1C < 7% by taking the new drug plus metformin vs. metformin alone. However, the story could have pointed out that the study was short-term (6 months), so it's not clear what long-term outcomes might be. While the absolute benefits are provided, the story lacks context. The story describes a serious side effect of low blood sugar and tells readers that the number of low blood sugar episodes with the new drug is lower than that for older drugs. Yet, this could be a serious complication and the actual rate of this complication is not reported. The story does describe actual rates of some side effects for the new drug when combined with an existing drug (metformin). These included diarrhea (10% of participants) and nausea (8% of participants). The story describes sore throat, headache, and runny nose as “less common,” with no quantification. Yet the story does not mention side effects for the new drug individually, so readers don’t know whether these side effects reported may be related to the existing drug metformin. The story also claims that there appear to be no big safety problems, which is probably a premature statement given the relatively long lag time often needed to see safety problems. The story explains that participants received either the new drug or placebo, implying this is a randomized, controlled trial (although whether participants were randomized is not explicit). The study also measured a relevant, although intermediary, endpoint of A1C, which is a measure of average blood sugar over the past 2 to 3 months. The story discloses that this is a study done by the manufacturer, which is not without bias, but is common when studying new drugs in order to get FDA approval. Additional context could have been provided around this drug in comparison to existing, effective drugs. This drug is compared to placebo, which is okay and necessary for FDA approval, but a better comparison is to other, existing drugs to lower blood sugar. The story provides a brief description of the nature of type 2 diabetes, namely that it is more common with age and among those who are overweight, which is true. The story does not obtain independent comment on the study findings. The story does mention some other medications to lower blood sugar, such as sufonylureas and insulin. However, lifestyle interventions are very important for controlling blood sugar (as well as blood pressure and cholesterol) and are not mentioned at all. This is an important treatment area that should not be overlooked in diabetes. The story says “Merck is expecting the FDA to approve Januvia by mid-October. The company has also submitted an application for a single tablet combination of Januvia and metformin, known as MK-0431a. The FDA is expected to make a decision on that drug by the end of March 2007.” On the first statement, the story should not simply take the word of Merck on the date of – or the certainty of – expected FDA approval. And on the second statement, the story doesn’t say who expects the FDA approval of the second drug. Who said that? Who’s the source? The story describes a study evaluating a new drug, which works differently than other drugs for lowering blood sugar. However, while it may work differently, its effects are not different and appears to offer no distinct advantages over what is currently available. It is unclear where the author obtained the information. The reuslts have not been presented as yet and the authors were not quoted. It appears that the source was the drug company; no information was given from experts in the field to place this new agent in context. Nonetheless, because we can’t be sure the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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"Back door gun control is in full effect in the United States"" due to ""Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency."
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"West wrote that ""back door gun control is in full effect in the United States"" due ""to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency."" But there is no evidence that it was a clandestine effort at back door gun control. Rather, the EPA’s settlement with Doe Run -- which concluded a case that began years before Obama was elected president -- had to do with emissions of a chemical that can cause serious injury and death to adults and children. And ammunition experts shot massive holes in the notion that the smelter’s closure would cut production, reduce supply or raise the cost of ammunition."
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false
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Environment, Health Care, Public Health, Florida, Guns, Allen West,
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"Former Congressman Allen West has taken aim at a surprising gun control villain: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ""It seems that back door gun control is in full effect in the United States. Why? Thanks to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we can no longer smelt lead from ore in the United States. ...,"" wrote the Republican and retired Army lieutenant colonel on his website Dec. 1. ""So America, back door gun control is moving forward and while we are all distracted with Obamacare and Iran nuclear negotiations, our Second Amendment rights are undergoing an assault by clandestine infiltration."" Here’s West’s explanation in a nutshell: The Doe Run lead smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri will close its doors this month due to air quality restrictions. ""What this all means,"" West wrote, ""is that after December 2013, any ammunition that will be available to US citizens will have to be imported, which will surely increase the price and possibly come under government control."" Is West correct to conclude that the EPA’s actions are ""back door gun control""? A reader asked us to check West’s claim, so we did. (A hat tip to the Blaze, which published its own fact-check between the time we spotted West’s claim and the time we published it.) Lead’s dangers Lead is a serious health hazard. According to the Mayo Clinic, ""even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect mental and physical development. At very high levels, lead poisoning can be fatal."" Lead contamination can be found in air, water and soil as well as homes from old paint. Lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust in older buildings are the most common sources of lead poisoning in children. Adults who work with batteries, home renovations or in auto repair shops also may be exposed to lead. The health dangers prompted the U.S. to phase out leaded gasoline in the 1980s. As Doe Run announced at the time, the company reached a settlement with the EPA and the state of Missouri in 2010 which included paying fines and ceasing smelting operations in Herculaneum. But the news is gaining fresh attention now because the actual closure date of Dec. 31 is looming. West’s blog cited an Oct. 29 post by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton on noisyroom.net which slammed the feds for ""back door gun control"" in driving the plant to closure. (The Blaze reported that West’s initial post failed to cite noisyroom but later updated with attribution.) Monroe-Hamilton sent us to a post she wrote Dec. 3 in response to the controversy, in which she said what she wrote was an ""opinion piece."" But the long history of lead-control efforts casts serious doubt on the idea that the closure was driven by anti-gun concerns. Ever since the EPA was created in 1970, one of its missions has been to limit pollution from smelters which are ""terribly toxic sites,"" said David Rosner, a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University who studies the politics of pollution. The Doe Run smelter, he says, was shut down because it was a major polluter -- not as a way of curbing guns. ""It had nothing to do with gun control or bullets,"" Rosner told PolitiFact. ""The idea of linking this to an issue of gun control or a surreptitious way for the government trying to shut down the gun industry is nuts. This was an EPA decision because of children who were being poisoned by what had come out of that plant."" While West, who represented South Florida for one term, pointed the finger at ""Obama’s"" EPA, the EPA’s case against Doe Run actually began decades ago. The St. Louis area failed to meet federal clean air standards for lead in 1987 -- during the Reagan administration -- due to emissions from the smelter, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 1989. Reagan wasn't the only Republican president to advance the anti-lead effort. In 2008, under President George W. Bush, the EPA adopted tougher air quality standards for lead that were 10 times more stringent than the past. In 2010, the EPA reached a settlement with Doe Run. In November, Doe Run issued a news release about the closure: ""Although the United States is home to a number of secondary lead smelters, which recycle lead from various sources, the Herculaneum facility is the last primary lead smelter in the United States,"" according to the release. The release explains that the company isn’t shutting down entirely. While the company is closing its primary smelter, which extracts lead from ore, it will continue to operate as a secondary lead smelter -- essentially a recycler for lead contained in other products. According to the company, more than 80 percent of all lead produced in the United States is used in either vehicle batteries or in stationary batteries for backup power used by the military and in telecommunications and medical applications. ""In the U.S., the recycle rate of these batteries is approximately 98 percent, making lead-based batteries the most highly recycled consumer product,"" the company release said. ""These batteries are recycled at secondary lead smelters. We own such a smelter in southern Missouri."" The company added that lead is used in ammunition and other materials. Doe Run spokeswoman Tammy Stankey emailed PolitiFact to say that the company ""will continue to supply our ammo customers using secondary lead."" We interviewed experts on lead or ammunition to ask about the impact of the plant closure. Most said there should not be major concerns. Michael Bazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, confirmed that lead used for ammunition made in the U.S. comes almost exclusively from recycled sources. ""While no one should ever be pleased about the closure of any industry, in this case there should not be a noticeable effect on consumers. ... We should not see any effect on the civilian marketplace,"" Bazinet told PolitiFact. The foundation’s general counsel, Lawrence Keane, echoed that view in an interview with the Washington Times Others agree. While Doe Run is the last ""primary"" lead smelter in the U.S. there are plenty of ""secondary"" processing of lead in the U.S., Richard Lowden, a research engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory told PolitiFact in an email. ""Primary lead is of higher purity and is needed for specialty applications such as unique types of lead-acid batteries,"" Lowden said. ""Secondary lead is slightly less pure and is used in most applications -- over 80 percent of domestic consumption, including bullets. The U.S. imports very little lead, with the main foreign sources being Canada and Mexico. I do not believe shooters have to worry about a source of lead for bullets."" Florida Bullet, a Clearwater-based company that supplies ammunition to most law enforcement agencies in Florida, isn’t worried about the smelter’s closure. The bullets the company sells, made by Federal and Speer, ""use reclaimed lead, so this is not going to bother us as far as production goes,"" said the company’s president, Tom Falone. ""We don’t foresee this being a problem for us."" When we asked Michele Hickford, West’s spokeswoman, why he blamed Obama if the EPA had zeroed in on the smelter long before Obama was president, she said, ""The plant closed under Obama. Regardless of what this lead plant is used for, the EPA net is tightening on the entire industry, and if you follow it to its logical conclusion, the industry will be shut down eventually. This is yet another example of the Obama administration circumventing the legislative process to achieve its goals."" Our ruling West wrote that ""back door gun control is in full effect in the United States"" due ""to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency."" But there is no evidence that it was a clandestine effort at back door gun control. Rather, the EPA’s settlement with Doe Run -- which concluded a case that began years before Obama was elected president -- had to do with emissions of a chemical that can cause serious injury and death to adults and children. And ammunition experts shot massive holes in the notion that the smelter’s closure would cut production, reduce supply or raise the cost of ammunition. !"
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In June 2020, Weis Markets banned its employees from wearing any representation of the American flag because it was considered controversial amidst the political climate. They also banned the flag from being displayed on merchandise.
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Malaysia’s health authorities on Sunday said they are working with UNICEF to bring polio vaccines to the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, where the country’s first polio case in nearly three decades was detected last week.
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false
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Business
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A three-month-old infant was diagnosed with polio on Dec. 6 after being admitted to hospital with a fever and muscle weakness, the first such case since 1992. It comes after the Philippines, north of Borneo, reported its first cases of polio since 1993 in September. Malaysia’s health ministry had said the child was infected with a polio strain that shared genetic links with the virus detected in the Philippines. “We are planning to work with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, to get vaccine supply at a low cost for an immunization program for non-citizen children in Sabah,” Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement. Noor Hisham said the plan is to have UNICEF subsidize the cost of the vaccines, and to administer the vaccinations with the help of selected non-governmental organizations and the Philippines government. No new cases have been detected so far, though authorities are still waiting for the results of stool samples taken from people who had close contact with the infant and the surrounding area where the child lived, Noor Hisham said. “The health ministry would like to stress that the best way to eradicate polio is through immunization. Contagious diseases such as polio know no boundaries,” Noor Hisham said.
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MRIs urged in breast cancer detection
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This 5-star story is an example of excellent health journalism. The story provides a thorough review of the pros and cons of MRI breast cancer screening. The reporter cites unbiased sources who provide evidence-based advice. What is particularly noteworthy in this story is the discussion of the value of early screening and treatment, and whether this screening is finding cancer that would cause harm. This is not a concept often found in stories such as this. The story notes annual incidence of breast cancer, as well as the estimated risk of a woman developing breast cancer during her lifetime, depending on whether she is at higher or lower risk of the disease. The story notes who might benefit from the additional screening—i.e. only those women at higher risk–and provides the downside of overzealous screening for breast cancer in lower-risk women. The story does an excellent job detailing the pros and cons of MRI screenings for breast cancers for any woman who is considering this as an adjunct to, or in lieu of mammography. The story lists data that 5 percent to 25 percent of MRI tests (not just those for breast cancer) are wrong, causing psychological distress and unnecessary treatment. The story reviews various methods of screening for breast cancer and notes the follow-up procedures (i.e. biopsies and other surgeries) and the medical decisions that must be made if there is a suspicion of cancer. The story lists the additional cost of this screening and notes that it may not always be covered by insurance. The story also mentions the cost to public health for these expensive diagnostic tools. All in all, an excellent job by a veteran reporter at a top newspaper.
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true
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The story lists the costs of this screening tool and notes the cost may not always be covered by insurance. The story also notes the cost to public health spending for additional, and sometimes unnecessary, diagnostic tools. The story provides a good review of the benefits of MRI screening for women at high risk of breast cancer and breast cancer recurrence. The story does an excellent job detailing the pros and cons of MRI screenings for breast cancers in high risk women, and for any woman who is considering this as an adjunct to, or in lieu of mammography. What is particularly noteworthy here is the discussion of the value of early screening and treatment, and whether it is finding cancer that would cause harm. This is not a concept often found in stories like this. The story lists data that 5 percent to 25 percent of MRI tests (not just those for breast cancer) are wrong, causing psychological distress and unnecessary treatment. The story describes the trial design of the MRI screening study cited and provides quantitative evidence from this trial. The story also notes the false positive rates of MRI screenings, but does not list the false positive or false negative rates for the study cited. The story does not engage in disease mongering or test mongering. The story notes who might benefit from the additional screening – only those women at higher risk – and provides the downside to overzealous screening for breast cancer in lower-risk women. The story also notes annual incidence of breast cancer and the estimated risk of a woman developing breast cancer during her lifetime. The story again does an excellent job citing several clinicians and researchers not affiliated with the American Cancer Society or the recently published article in NEJM on the benefit of additional screening in women recently diagnosed with breast cancer. These sources provide balance and sound, evidence-based advice on MRI screening for breast cancer. The story reviews various methods of screening for breast cancer and notes the follow-up procedures (i.e. biopsies and other surgeries) and the medical decisions that must be made if there is a suspicion of cancer. The story mentions that MRI screening should be performed at centers that also do breast biopsies. These centers may not be available to all women. The story also notes the cost of MRI screenings, which may not be covered by insurance, making them unavailable for some women. The story reports on evidence published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting women diagnosed with breast cancer should consider having their other breast screened via MRI. According to the source article, mammography and physical examination missed cancer in about 3% of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients. The story also reports that the American Cancer Society has recently revised screening guidelines and recommendations that women at higher risk of breast cancer and women whose breasts are difficult to read via mammograms undergo MRI screening. The story includes a great deal of independent reporting and does not appear to be driven by any news release.
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30865
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"Seven ""key witnesses"" to the 1 October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas have suspiciously died in a cover-up."
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According to police radio traffic which can be found archived at Broadcastify, Paddock did not exchange gunfire with police. When they breached the door and went inside, Paddock was already down.
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false
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Politics Conspiracy Theories, las vegas conspiracy theories, las vegas mass shooting, neon nettle
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On 2 November 2017, the disreputable web site Neon Nettle reported falsely that seven “key witnesses” to the mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip one month earlier had died under “suspicious circumstances”, and that there was a “sinister” plot afoot to snuff out people who made statements in the immediate aftermath of the massacre that appeared to support the conspiracy theory trope that there was more than one shooter that night. Law enforcement leading the investigation into the massacre have concluded that Stephen Paddock, 64, was the lone gunman on 1 October 2017, when he opened fire with a modified weapon from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino onto a crowd below attending an outdoor country music festival. Neon Nettle, along with other conspiratorial web sites, have been aggressively pushing the idea that Paddock had an accomplice. Conspiracy buffs have decided that the Las Vegas shooting was yet another massive cover-up — a “false flag,” or government-engineered catastrophe meant to facilitate a nationwide gun-grab in the service of an ominous global cabal waiting in the wings to seize world power. With great paranoia, Neon Nettle reported: In the month that followed the incident, a staggering seven key witnesses have died in very suspicious circumstances. Whether this series of disturbing deaths and disappearances are purely coincidental or whether there is something deeply sinister afoot has yet to be determined.In cases like these, however, there’s no such thing as coincidence. None of the deaths of “key witnesses” mentioned in the Neon Nettle story were linked, other than the fact some of them were part of a crowd of at least 22,000 people attending the outdoor Route 91 Harvest Festival when the shooting took place. Among the seven named, two died in an apparent car accident. One appears to have been misidentified by conspiracy theorists. A third is, in fact, not dead, while another had serious medical complications. In another instance, the deceased had no link whatsoever to the mass shooting, while the final “key witness” named, in display of sheer laziness by Neon Nettle, is Paddock, the shooter. Dennis and Lorraine Carver: Lorraine Carver allegedly wrote on social media that her husband protected her from “shooters”. Carver and her husband Dennis were killed on 16 October 2017 in a car accident near their home in Murrieta, California, when their car veered off a curve in a road at 10:50 P.M., striking a metal gate and catching fire. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Danny Contreras: On 23 October 2017, police and fire personnel discovered the body of Danny Contreras, 35, who died of multiple gunshot wounds in a vacant home in Las Vegas. Police said they believe the homicide was narcotics-related. According to Neon Nettle, a now-suspended Twitter account apparently being used by a person using that name posted that he was lucky to have gotten out of the concert alive after being chased by two men with guns. However there is no evidence that the homicide victim was the same person who wrote the tweets — comparison of an image on a fundraiser for the murdered man launched on 25 October 2017 in North Las Vegas and the profile picture of the man pointed out by Neon Nettle appears to demonstrate that they are in fact two different people. Chad Nishimura: Neon Nettle initially and falsely reported Nishimura, a Mandalay Bay hotel worker “disappeared” after he told a local news station he had valeted Paddock’s car and said Paddock “didn’t have any crazy bags with him that I can remember.” The conspiratorial web site is now reporting Nishimura was murdered outside the Las Vegas church, Iglesia La Luz del Mundo. A man named Hector Antonio Lemus-Flores, 45, of North Las Vegas, was murdered on 16 October 2017 outside that church. Neon Nettle simply transposed the details of Lemus-Flores’ death onto their story to falsely claim the victim had been Nishimura, who is alive. Kymberley Suchomel: 28-year-old Suchomel passed away in her sleep a week after the massacre. According to her grandmother, who found her in bed in her Apple Valley, California home on 9 October 2017, Suchomel had seizures and was taking medication for a tumor. Suchomel was apparently experiencing trouble sleeping as sounds and images from the massacre would terrorize her at night. She drew the attention of conspiracy theorists with a now-private Facebook post attributed to her in which she said there was more than one shooter, writing: We couldn’t hide because they (and I do mean THEY) were chasing us. John Beilman: On 4 October 2017, Beilman, 60, shot and killed his severely-disabled 27-year-old daughter in the backyard of their Fairport, New York home before turning the gun on himself. There is no connection between that tragedy and the Las Vegas massacre — a link between the two deadly incidents was established exclusively by disreputable conspiracy sites like WhatDoesItMean. According to RationalWiki, the work on that web site is of such quality that “even other conspiracy nutters don’t think much of it.” The seventh “key witness” included on Neon Nettle’s list is the shooter himself, Stephen Paddock. After shooting at the crowd for 10 minutes, Paddock turned his weapon on himself. Of course Paddock wasn’t a “witness.” He was the perpetrator. He was included in the list perhaps as an effort to ramp up the cloak-and-dagger effect or simply beef up the body count — Neon Nettle implied there had been suspicious circumstances for his death as well: Reports varied about how Paddock was killed with some initial statements saying he was killed in a police shootout, with the “official” story now saying he turned a weapon on himself.
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2048
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Deep-sea sharks protected as EU sets fish quotas.
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European fisheries ministers have agreed minor cuts to quotas for some vulnerable deep-sea fish and more stringent measures to protect rare sharks.
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true
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Environment
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The European Union is trying to nurse its fish stocks back to health after decades of over-exploitation. Deep-sea fish are particularly vulnerable as they reproduce so slowly. The ministers’ decision late on Monday affected just 80 million euros ($104 million) worth of fish, but was seen as an important test case in a series of bruising encounters with European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki. Damanaki, who started her political career in a 1973 uprising against the then Greek dictatorship, has pledged to put the long-term health of fisheries ahead of short-term profits. Earlier this month, fishing nations led by France rejected her advice that bluefin tuna catches should be halved to give the species a fair chance of survival. In the event, quotas were cut by 4 percent. At Monday’s meeting, catch quotas for deep-sea sharks were set at zero, with zero tolerance from 2012 for the sale of sharks netted while trawling for other species. But conservationists, including WWF and the Pew group, said many sharks would still be scooped up accidentally, then dumped overboard, particularly by French and Spanish boats trawling the deep seabed northwest of Scotland and Ireland. The Atlantic’s main scientific authority, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), says all northeast Atlantic deep-sea species are fished beyond safe biological limits. Ministers admitted that the ICES advice, and that of the EU’s own experts, was worrying. “Both advices indicate that most deep-sea stocks are in a precarious situation, and that fishing opportunities for those stocks, in order to assure their sustainability, should be reduced,” they said in a statement. But worries about the livelihoods of fishermen — mainly French, Spanish and Portuguese — prevented deeper quota cuts. “In spite of several years of commitments to the U.N. to manage deep-sea fisheries sustainably, EU ministers failed to deliver,” said Matthew Gianni of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. “Deep-sea fishing will continue at more or less the same level as in recent years to the detriment of deep-sea species and ecosystems,” said Gianni, who was a deep-sea trawlerman off California before the industry declined in the 90s. The ministers agreed to curb important deep-sea fisheries on the eastern continental slopes of the Atlantic in 2011-12: by up to 7.5 percent annually for black scabbardfish and 13 percent for roundnose grenadiers. Quotas for forkbeards and blue ling were unchanged. Fishermen land about 40,000 tonnes a year of about 70 species of deep-sea fish from the northeast Atlantic, representing about 1.2 percent of total EU fishing. Ministers agreed to continue a ban on fishing for orange roughy, a vulnerable, sluggish red fish that can live for more than 100 years. The orange roughy fishery only became commercialised about 25 years ago, as depletion of inshore species forced fishermen to search further offshore with new technology.
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3665
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Rwanda avoids US-style opioids crisis by making own morphine.
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It was something, the silence. Nothing but the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.
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true
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Opioids, International News, General News, Africa, Health, Rwanda
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For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away her spine. She could no longer walk. Her life narrowed to a dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side. A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda’s groundbreaking effort to address one of the world’s great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people in the poorest nations have no access to opioids at all. Companies don’t make money selling generic morphine to the dying, and most in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford the expensive formulations like oxycodone, prescribed so abundantly in richer nations that thousands became addicted to them. Rwanda’s answer: plastic bottles of morphine, produced for pennies and delivered to homes across the country by health workers like Mukantagara. It is proof, advocates say, that the opioid trade doesn’t have to be guided by how much money can be made. As a palliative care worker, Mukantagara, 56, has long been a witness to death. She watched her sister die of cancer decades ago, in agony without relief. She settled on the edge of Uwizeyimana’s bed. Uwizeyimana was feeling better. “Now I think everything is possible,” she said. They held hands and prayed. Uwizeyimana is not the youngest among the 70 patients Mukantagara sees. Many have cancer. Some have HIV. A few have both. The work is never easy, she said. But with morphine there is a chance for death with dignity. Twenty-five years ago, the killing of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate ethnic Hutus left this country with an intimate knowledge of pain. Those who survived struggled to recover from ghastly machete wounds and cruel amputations. As Rwanda rebuilt itself, resilience was essential. Pain was to be endured, ideally without showing suffering. But medical advances meant more people began living into old age and facing diseases such as cancer. Some thought their pain was punishment from God, recalled Dr. Christian Ntizimira, a palliative care advocate. Yet many doctors remained reluctant to use opioids. In much of the world, the use of opioids was exploding. Consumption has tripled since 1997, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. But the increase was in expensive formulations that are profitable for pharmaceutical companies, according to an AP analysis of INCB data. The use of morphine, the cheapest and most reliable painkiller, stagnated. The use of morphine for hospice patients is undisputed -- when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued guidelines in 2016 calling on doctors to cut back on the flood of prescriptions that fed the addiction crisis, it exempted end-of-life patients. The problem in the United States took hold when companies began campaigning for opioids to be used for chronic conditions like back pain — patients who could be customers for decades, said Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford University professor who has been a witness against pharmaceutical companies. “What makes me mad is the confusion this causes,” said Lukas Radbruch, a German doctor and professor of palliative medicine, who fears the American addiction crisis is causing a backlash and the poorest people in the world will suffer. The INCB reported that some 90 percent of opioids are consumed by the richest nations, where just 17% of people live. In developing nations, cost, onerous regulation and culture aversion to opioids prevents most from accessing them even on their deathbeds. “People should have medication like an American person,”said Diane Mukasahaha, Rwanda’s coordinator of palliative care. “We all are human beings. The body is the same.” Stefano Berterame, chief of the narcotic control for the INCB secretariat, said the agency has implored pharmaceutical companies to help. Commercially made morphine is on average nearly six times more expensive in many poor counties than it is in wealthy ones, the INCB has reported. Experts attribute it in part to countries with low opioid consumption lacking the negotiating power to import drugs at bulk prices. So a some African countries -- Rwanda, Kenya, Malawi -- began to make morphine on their own. They looked to Uganda, where the nonprofit Hospice Africa Uganda was making liquid morphine in a process so basic it was mixed for two decades at a kitchen sink. But the Ugandan operation relies so much on donor support that it nearly shut down this year, founder Dr. Anne Merriman said. By putting production and distribution under government control and covering the costs for patients, Rwanda has become the new model for Africa. The liquid is produced from imported powder, said Richard Niwenshuti Gatera, a pharmacist and director of the production facility. Like all opioids, morphine can be addictive. But the government has control over the supply to prevent what happened in the United States, pills were shipped to tiny towns in quantities far exceeding justifiable medical need, said Meg O’Brien, whose Treat the Pain organization helps poor nations produce morphine. The drug is reserved for the sickest people and there is no marketing effort to expand use. There have been no reports of abuse, said Mukasahaha. The movement is spreading slowly across Africa: Twenty-two of 54 countries now have affordable morphine, according to Hospice Africa Uganda. At a rural home, Mukantagara carried a bottle to 52-year-old Faina Nyirabaguiza, who has cancer. Each of her movements signaled pain. She settled on a wooden bench, rubbing her wrist. Mukantagara poured the green liquid into the bottle cap. Nyirabaguiza drank three. “Maybe it will help me,” she said. “My wish is to die. Really, I’m suffering.” On the nurse’s ride back to the hospital, her vehicle passed a pickup truck with a coffin in the back. Women ran alongside it and sang. ___ This story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. ___ The Global Opioids project can be seen here. https://www.apnews.com/GlobalOpioids
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10784
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Study: Cholesterol drug lowers blood clot risk
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Overall this story did a good job on an interesting study. The story was well written and provided a reasonably balanced view of the study. There were several aspects of the study that could have provided readers with several important provisos. The results reported were based on a secondary outcome measure of the JUPITER study. The study was not designed to examine the effects of Crestor on the risks of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) as a primary outcome. The population under study was not otherwise healthy individuals as was implied. 41% suffered from metabolic syndrome, a condition that increases the risk of VTE. The study results were reported as absolute numbers. The absolute number of VTE events was calculated using both provoked (potentially caused by other conditions such as cancer, surgery, hospitalization or trauma) and uNPRovoked. The true absolute number of uNPRovoked events was 44. The story also failed to explain that the rate of VTE was 18 per 10,000 in the statin group versus 32 per 10,000 in the placebo group. So the story may make the benefit appear larger than it really is. However, to its credit, the story did not use the 43% relative risk reduction figure that dominated some news coverage of this study. The story also could have been improved by more fully describing the potential harms and side effects of statins. The story mentions muscle problems and bleeding as potential harms, but does not mention kidney problems as a potential serious harm and the other side effects people experience, such as constipation and nausea.
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true
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The story mentions the daily cost of Crestor as well as the CRP test. The story does not adequately quantify the benefits of statins. The story uses language that makes the benefit appear larger than it is. By not presenting the rate of VTE in the study population, the story does not give the reader the adequate context to understand these numbers. In this study, the rate of VTE was 18 per 10,000 in the statin group versus 32 per 10,000 in the placebo group. The story does not adequately describe the harms or side effects of Crestor. The story mentions muscle problems and bleeding as potential harms, but does not mention kidney problems as a potential serious harm and the many side effects people experience, such as constipation and nausea. Interestingly, the subjects treated with Crestor had a small but statistically significant increase in diabetes seen during the trial. The story adequately describes the current study, however there are a few subtle points that are important to note. The story could have mentioned that VTE was not the primary endpoint of the original trial and that the population studied was not exactly healthy. 41% suffered from a condition known as metabolic syndrome (a condition that increases the risk of blood clots). So extrapolating the results of this single study to the general population is a bit of a stretch. The story doesn’t exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of venous thromboembolism (VTE). The story quotes multiple experts and indicates which experts were related to the study or not, and notes potential conflicts of interest. The story indicates that many doctors believe that other statins other than Crestor may provide similar benefits. Clearly Crestor is widely available. Whether the CRP test is also widely available is not clear. Using statins to treat inflammation is not a new idea and the story portrays it appropriately. Since the story quotes multiple experts, the reader can assume the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.
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9568
|
New Ways to Fight Super Lice
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The treatment of childhood cases of head lice infestations is a popular news media perennial at the start of the school year, and this Wall Street Journal story falls into that category. It covers the usual elements — prevalence of the infestations among school age children, over-the-counter and prescription treatments, home remedies (which generally don’t work) and reassurance about the pesky but essentially benign health impact. This story also takes a look at the rise of “lice-combing” salons and newer medications meant to stand in when older medications are ineffective. We were impressed by the depth of the sourcing, along with the details that helped readers assess any potential conflicts of interest among said sources. One thing we wished had been more detailed: How the evidence stacks up for each of the treatments. As the article itself makes clear, head lice infestation is a widespread, unpleasant, and disruptive — albeit relatively benign — condition that costs millions of families money, aggravation and time in efforts to prevent and treat. Adding to the nuisance of ridding scalps, tresses, clothing and home furnishings of the pests, some of the historic over-the-counter medicinal treatments have lost their power owing to drug-resistant mutations in the lice. Newer prescription medicines are effective, but worry an apparently growing number of parents who work hard to avoid what they consider unnecessary chemical exposure. Thus, parents are certain to be looking for the best and latest information about treatments.
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true
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lice
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The article does a good job of noting the cost of the combing salons, as well as cost of the medicinal shampoos and other drug treatments, specifically noting also that insurance may not cover the costs. The article cites data from a recent review article in a medical journal that outlines the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the medicinal treatments. “The medications have been found to be from 68% to 87% effective after one or two applications. Most don’t require combing,” the story says. We do wish they story explained what “67% effective” means for a typical person, however. The careful reader will note that the evidence for the effectiveness of the featured combing salons is mostly anecdotal, and it would have greatly strengthened the article to have been more explicit about this, as well as including more solid proof that standard lice medications are not as effective as they used to be. The article notes that various organizations and experts consider the chemical/medicinal treatments to be highly safe as well as effective. The story needed to be more explicit about the quality of evidence for each of the treatment options mentioned–combing, going to a delousing salon, over-the-counter treatments, prescription treatments. Only the latter are mentioned in the context of research. The story references a review article that compares the different approaches, but it provides no details on what kind of evidence the review is based on. No disease mongering here, and we were glad the story pointed out that there are no adverse physical health effects from lice. The article does a very good job of noting the conflicts of interest of those quoted. The story explored alternatives. Good job on this. It’s clear that businesses that assist with combing are easy to find, and over-the-counter shampoos are even easier. What appears to be “new” is the explosion of combing salons and newer prescription shampoos, as well as the review article published last week that evaluates them. This story doesn’t appear to rely on a news release.
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11303
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Peanuts, peanut butter may hold key to preventing obesity
|
Carrying a misleading headline, and some not-quite-accurate and confusing descriptions of the study, this news release describes research designed to evaluate the impact on overweight or obese teens of complying with a healthier snacking regimen — one involving peanuts and peanut butter. It could have been markedly strengthened by less emphasis on quotes stating the obvious and questionable (“…unhealthy eating habit(s) can lead to an unhealthy weight”; “snacking is more common during the adolescent years”), and more emphasis on the design, context and hopeful outcome of this small, but rigorous randomized controlled intervention trial. Families, students, schools, and public health specialists are in a frustrating battle to prevent and address obesity and its damaging consequences. As this release notes, this may be especially true in poor, urban and minority children and teens whose diets are more likely to be composed of fast food meals, and sugary, greasy, nutritionally deficient snacks after school. Widely publicized efforts — like New York City’s ban on large-sized soda pop sales — to introduce teens (and adults) to healthier diets, haven’t seemed to do much to increase desire for carrot sticks, fruit, and yogurt in these populations. So any study that suggests a) it really is possible to get teens to try, and to stick with a nutrient-rich snack like peanuts instead of unhealthy snacks; b) that providing such snacks may reduce body mass index despite the peanut’s high energy content; and c) a snack may find favor with adolescents’ famously picky food preferences, is bound to get attention, even if the good results are modest and the trial relatively small.
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false
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Academic medical center news release
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The release didn’t address costs, but we won’t penalize it because peanuts cost, well, peanuts. That being said, the release could have been improved by the addition of some context about the high costs of eating well, especially in urban food deserts and among families without the time, transport, and resources to buy, cook, and eat fresh food. The release confuses or misses some key points about the study and the data it obtained and set out to measure. The intervention was not a “12-week” study, but lasted six months overall. Moreover, the goal of the study was not to measure the impact of eating peanuts on weight loss. It was to compare the weight loss or BMI-reduction outcomes in Mexican-American children who were either high adherents or low adherents to a suggested (and freely offered) snack of peanuts or peanut butter on a daily basis at the end of the school day. And the study also included educational and physical activity components. The release is unclear about the actual number of students in the comparison groups who lost weight. It is silent on how much the teens weighed on average or across a range at the start and end of the study in the comparison groups, and it tells us nothing about the number of calories in the snacks or how much physical activity was involved. The published abstract did not either, but presumably the full study was available in the preparation of the release. The release does note that students who got the snack more regularly decreased their overall BMI by .7kg/m2 compared to those who did not get the snack regularly, but most readers will not do the math or understand what the figure means. It needs to be pointed out that the 0.7kg/m2 drop was not deemed statistically significant, even by way of the often-denigrated p value where it was found to be 0.21 (a value less than .05 is traditionally deemed “significant”). It’s also worth noting that the absolute difference in weight between the two groups was the high adherence kids GAINING 1.54 pounds less than the low adherence kids — a difference deemed not to be statistically significant either (P 0.63). The release notes that care was taken not to give these snacks to children who had nut allergies. The release really needed more information about the nature and quality of the intervention. For instance, it did not note that adherence was measured by responses to a peanut food frequency questionnaire (a measure that can be weak depending on who is filling it out and under what circumstances) or that skin fold tests did not significantly decrease. And it offers a quote suggesting the kids might not be eating a good meal at school. There’s no data offered that tells the reader how many study participants ate school-provided lunches or other meals during the school day, and no real effort to explore or explain how other variables might have affected things. It’s important to note that this was a secondary analysis and it’s impossible to conclude that it was the peanut snacks and not some other aspect of the intervention (which included nutrition education and physical activity). The study states that the authors, “did not collect other nutrition education or physical education data to control for adherence to the intervention program in the analysis.” No mongering, but the quotes from the lead researcher used in the release made a lot of assumptions about the study population’s lack of supervision, “structure” at home, inactivity and eating habits without providing supporting evidence. The release notes that the participants are part of an ongoing study of obesity interventions, but never says the study was federally funded, or how the snacks were paid for (or donated). The release quotes a researcher who says “there hasn’t been a lot shown to be very effective on a large scale” for childhood obesity. That’s true enough, but we thought the release needed to go a little bit further to earn a Satisfactory rating. This is a very active area of study, and the release could have given a few examples of what — besides peanuts — has been tried and what the results have been. It’s common knowledge that peanuts and peanut butter are available in every grocery and convenience store in the United States. The release doesn’t make clear what’s novel about the research. Prior to this research it was already widely accepted that choosing healthy snacks (along with physical activity) over unhealthy ones is helpful in preventing weight gain. The news release doesn’t cross the line it its claims. However, the selected quotes used in the release make broad statements that appear to make more judgments about the study population than about the data gathered in the study.
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6782
|
Measles epidemic in Madagascar kills more than 900, says WHO.
|
The World Health Organization says that an epidemic of measles in Madagascar has caused more than 900 deaths.
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true
|
World Health Organization, Madagascar, Immunizations, Health, Measles, Africa, Epidemics
|
According to WHO figures, there have been more than 68,000 cases of the disease in which 553 deaths were confirmed and another 373 suspected from measles since the outbreak began in September. Those most at risk are infants from nine to 11 months old. The epidemic is blamed on a low immunization rate for measles across the island nation over a period of many years, according to WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic. The vaccination rate is estimated to be less than 60 percent, according to figures from WHO and UNICEF figures, he said. Madagascar has launched a nationwide campaign to try to bring the outbreak under control, through mass vaccination campaigns and surveillance.
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9068
|
Northwestern Medicine offers new Minimally Invasive Breakthrough Treatment for Enlarged Prostate
|
This news release was remarkably short on details and long on promise about an apparently new method to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in men. Sadly this was a missed opportunity to educate readers about how the surgery was studied and how it compares to the other common methods to treat enlarged prostates — including competing minimally invasive approaches. Promotional language describing this procedure as a “breakthrough” and “first line option” isn’t backed up by evidence. [Editors note: Our rating for the ‘harms’ criterion of this review has been changed to Not Satisfactory and the star score decreased from two stars to one star. See below for an explanation.] If this minimally invasive surgery to relieve the symptoms of BPH was supported by solid comparative evidence of the procedure’s benefits and harms, it could indeed be an advance for men suffering from this condition. A lot of unanswered questions emerge from this news release: How was the procedure studied? How did it compare to alternative treatments? How did it compare in terms of benefits and harms? And how much does it cost?
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false
|
Benign prostatic hyperplasia
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There was no discussion of the costs of the procedure or the patented system used, nor of the downstream costs associated with recovery from the procedure. There was also no data on how long patients were followed and how many required a repeat intervention–either repeat UroLift or other invasive treatment. This outcome has implications for both costs and effectiveness. We learn that “data from clinical trials showed that patients receiving UroLift implants reported rapid symptomatic improvement, improved urinary flow rates, and sustained sexual function. Patients also experienced a significant improvement in quality of life.” All is good, but what was the magnitude of benefits and, more importantly, “compared to what”? We learn about a range of adverse effects ranging from blood in the urine to incontinence. “Most symptoms were mild to moderate in severity and resolved within two to four weeks after the procedure,” we are told. We’ll award a satisfactory grade here because the release at least mentions some adverse effects associated with the procedure. But as with the benefits description, we again receive no sense of what this is compared to (drugs? surgery? watchful waiting? ), how common these problems were, or what the release means when it describes them as “mild to moderate in severity.” Update: This rating has been changed to Not Satisfactory in order to be consistent with how this criterion has been applied in the past. As stated in the description of our review criteria, a news release or story may be rated Not Satisfactory if it: This is not satisfactory because even though we are told the “UroLift System has an excellent safety profile and provides men suffering from an enlarged prostate a beneficial first-line treatment alternative to drug therapy or more invasive surgery,” we are left with a complete absence of information related to the quality of the research that underlies these assertions. If the UroLift System “provides fast and meaningful relief from BPH symptoms, improving overall quality of life for our patients,” we need more than ‘trust us, we’re experts’ assertions. We need to know long-term (at least 1 year) comparative effectiveness and safety data compared to medical therapy, “more” invasive surgery, and the numerous available minimally invasive procedures that treat this condition. While the release doesn’t disease-monger, it could have been more informative — for example by accurately describing how severe/bothersome the symptoms were for patients treated with this device. The release is silent on issues related to conflict of interest. The studies cited in the release were funded by the device manufacturer. The Northwestern urologist quoted in the release has received small payments (amounting to $121.50) from the manufacturer for food and beverages. These could have been acknowledged in a footnote. We learn that there are some alternatives (drugs and surgery), but we aren’t told that there are numerous other minimally invasive procedures available–laser treatments, microwave thermotherapy, radiofrequency ablation, vaporization, etc. The release is overly dismissive of drug therapy, which has been shown to be effective, well tolerated, and safe. Pushing this treatment as a first line treatment is inappropriate–and the absence of data from head-to-head trials with either other minimally invasive procedures or the gold standard (transurethral resection of the prostate or TURP) means that the relative value of the new technology is quite uncertain. The FDA “cleared” this surgical implant system in 2013 and it is available at Northwestern University, but there are no details about its general availability in other regions or health systems. We are left wondering. The release offers some details on how this system is different from drugs and other surgical type treatments, so this merits a passing grade. The description is mostly free of unjustified language, except for the headline, which uses one of the 7 words you shouldn’t use in medical news: “breakthrough.” Is it proper to call something a “new breakthrough” when it has apparently been on the market for four years? And when its effectiveness compared with other approaches hasn’t been properly established?
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2026
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Anti-abortion group releases more video of Planned Parenthood.
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An anti-abortion group released on Friday three more undercover videos, which it said show Planned Parenthood employees helping a man posing as a pimp get abortions and birth control for underage girls.
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true
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Health News
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The footage, said to be filmed in January at Planned Parenthood clinics in Falls Church, Charlottesville and Roanoke, Virginia, is the latest in a series of videos made public by Live Action, a California-based group that opposes abortion. Live Action said in a statement that the videos are evidence Planned Parenthood is “willing to aid and abet the sexual trafficking and exploitation of minors and young women.” Planned Parenthood said the undercover videos are part of a coordinated lobbying effort to advance legislation that would take away funding from the family planning organization. The three videos, one at each clinic, show a man saying he’s involved in sex work and manages teenage girls ask questions about prices and identification requirements for sexually transmitted disease testing, birth control and abortions. In each case he asks if the conversations are confidential. In the videos, Planned Parenthood employees answer questions about health services offered at the clinic and explain requirements associated with different procedures. “It’s very clear to us that these tapes show health professionals doing their job,” said Planned Parenthood spokesman Stuart Schear of the new footage. “What the tapes don’t show is that after these unusual encounters, these health professionals went to their superiors and reported they had unusual encounters with a suspicious individual and Planned Parenthood managers reported their suspicions to local authorities,” Schear said. Planned Parenthood has said previously that the FBI is reviewing evidence and photos related to the encounters. All of the undercover videos were filmed during the same week. The first one, released on Tuesday, focused on a clinic in central New Jersey. The New Jersey clinic employee captured on film was later fired for her behavior. Planned Parenthood said it notified both local and national authorities after the string of unusual visits, which occurred within one week in at least 12 centers in six states, including New Jersey and Virginia. In January, Planned Parenthood said it alerted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that a series of health centers had been approached by visitors whose comments indicated involvement in sex trafficking of minors. Live Action’s founder, Lila Rose, said her group will send the Virginia footage to state law enforcement officials and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli said in a statement released Friday that he plans to review the footage, noting that what he has seen so far “is very disturbing.” Meanwhile, New Jersey’s Attorney General Paula Dow is aware of the video and has referred the matter to the Division of Criminal Justice for review, spokesman Paul Loriquet said earlier in the week.
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10718
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Cutting Edge Healing: Super Bowl Player Gets Help
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"Is this news? Or an ad for an uNPRoven, costly idea sold to an uninformed public? This was a very incomplete report on platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy for tendonitis (and maybe other problems?). The story was filled with anecdotes but lacked any data. Viewers were not given any sense of the track record for this approach, how often it’s been done, how widespread it is, and what has been found about benefits and harms in trials. Compare the ABC story with a New York Times story this same week. The Times discussed costs and failure rates – two things the ABC story never touched on. Instead, the ABC story was cheerleading, using terms like ""groundbreaking…great…miracle"" to describe the procedure. It didn’t put the PRP approach in the context of surgical or other nonsurgical options. It simply delivered throwaway lines like this ""may keep us from going under the knife."" But there are thousands of Americans who pursue other nonsurgical options for the kinds of problems the story describes. People who weigh benefits and harms and costs – something this story didn’t do."
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false
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"No mention of costs. The New York Times, in a piece also this week (curious: did they both get the same news release, or did ABC just react to the NYT piece or are we to believe this is mere coincidence?) was able to report that ""the procedure costs about $2,000 — compared with $10,000 to $15,000 for surgery."" No evidence on trial data is given. So we have no idea how often it works and with what kind of results. As stated above, the New York Times was able to report that several doctors emphasized that platelet-rich plasma therapy as it stands now appeared ineffective in about 20 to 40 percent of cases, depending on the injury."" The ABC anchor says the therapy is ""basically safe."" Is that akin a little bit pregnant? No details given on safety. The New York Times piece cited above reported, ""several doctors emphasized that platelet-rich plasma therapy as it stands now appeared ineffective in about 20 to 40 percent of cases, depending on the injury."" So that’s $2,000 for a treatment that fails 20-40% of the time. Some people might consider that a harm. The story had plenty of time to give context, but delivered none. No mention of studies, of how often this has been done, on what’s been reported on benefits and harms. Just anecdotes. In fact, one physician-promoter says in the piece, ""The anecdotal stories are that things are getting better a lot more quickly."" Network news time should be used up on anecdotes; it should dwell on data. Cuba Gooding, Jr. might say, ""SHOW ME THE DATA."" What, exactly, is this treating? The story never explains. It does say it’s not just for professional athletes and then tells viewers about a woman ""who injured her elbow while golfing."" What was the injury? What, exactly, is being treated? At another point we’re told it’s for shoulder arthritis. Is it for knees, hands, ankles – anything a weekend warrior might experience? Sprains? Tendinitis? Tendon ruptures? This is blatant disease-mongering. No independent source is interviewed, just true believers in the therapy. No meaningful comparison was given between this therapy and surgical or other nonsurgical options. Just throwaway lines like ""may keep us from going under the knife."" Well there are thousands of Americans who pursue other nonsurgical options for the kinds of problems the story describes. People who weigh benefits and harms and costs – something this story didn’t do. The story gives no indication of how available this procedure is. Is it only available at the two NY facilities mentioned in the segment? We know that’s not the case, but viewers wouldn’t. The piece calls this a ""new remedy"" but really doesn’t give us any information on ""how new"" – how often it’s been done in how many people with what results. We can’t be sure whether the story relied on a news release. We do find it curious that both the New York Times and ABC did the same story in the same week."
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14037
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"Priorities USA Action Says Donald Trump mocked ""someone with a disability."
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"In an ad from Priorities USA Action, parents of a disabled child said Trump ""mocked"" a disabled reporter at a campaign rally. Trump did mimic the man’s oddly angled right hand while flailing his arms and shouting in a strange voice. Disabled people and advocates said the candidate clearly was mocking him. Trump’s excuses for his comments are at odds with the evidence. Trump said he didn’t remember the man so he couldn’t know he was handicapped. But Kovaleski said he and Trump knew each other well because the reporter regularly covered the New York businessman for years. Archived reports support that. Trump also talked about the reporter with familiarity as a ""nice reporter"" and a ""poor guy"" who ""you gotta see."" Trump’s denials that he did not mock -- or even know -- the disabled reporter don’t add up."
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true
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Colorado, Disability, Priorities USA Action,
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"A super PAC backing Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton has launched a $20 million campaign that accuses her Republican opponent Donald Trump of ""mocking"" a disabled news reporter. The emotionally charged ad focuses on an Ohio couple, Chris and Lauren Glaros, talking about raising their daughter, Grace, who was born with a spinal defect. ""When I saw Donald Trump mock a disabled person, I was just shocked,"" Lauren Glaros says in the ad, produced by Priorities USA Action. Last fall, Trump was broadly criticized for appearing to physically mimic New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Nov. 24. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition which limits the movement of his joints. The ad shows a photo of the reporter, whose right hand is sharply angled at the wrist. The ad cuts to a video clip of Trump at the rally. ""You gotta see this guy,"" says Trump, wildly flailing his arms, his right hand flopping at an odd angle as he shouts in a weird, agitated voice: ""Ahh, I don’t know what I said! Ahh, I don’t remember!"" ""When I saw Donald Trump mock somebody with a disability, it showed me his soul, it showed me his heart. And I didn’t like what I saw,"" the father, Chris Glaros, adds. The TV ad (which you can watch in full at the bottom of this fact-check) is airing in seven crucial swing states -- Colorado, Ohio, Nevada, Virginia, Florida, New Hampshire and Iowa. PolitiFact is fact-checking the obvious question: Did Trump mock the man’s disability? But first, we want to separate Trump’s parody of the reporter from the reality. Kovaleski is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who speaks with a normal voice and doesn't wave his arms around. (Watch a video of Kovaleski talking about his ground-breaking reporting on the murder cases against former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez.) Trump tweeted about the ad on Sunday: ""Clinton made a false ad about me where I was imitating a reporter GROVELING after he changed his story. I would NEVER mock disabled. Shame!"" The Trump campaign did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment. PolitiFact also contacted Kovaleski, who declined comment. Here’s why Trump singled out this reporter. At the time of the November rally, Trump was taking heat for his widely debunked claims that he watched in Jersey City, N.J., as ""thousands and thousands of people were cheering"" the collapse of the World Trade Center following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. To defend this account, Trump seized on a Sept. 18, 2001, story by Kovaleski -- who then worked for the Washington Post -- and another reporter. Near the bottom of the story, they wrote that ""law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river."" But the reporters couldn’t verify the celebrations actually occurred. ""I certainly do not remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating. That was not the case, as best as I can remember,"" Kovaleski later told the Washington Post Fact Checker. Remember, Kovaleski wrote that ""a number of people"" -- not thousands -- were allegedly seen celebrating. This why Trump, believing that Kovaleski was backing off the 2001 story, wailed in his impersonation, ""Ahh, I don’t remember!"" Trump’s behavior sparked public outrage. The New York Times rebuked Trump in a statement: ""We think it's outrageous that he would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters."" Colleagues and friends defended Kovaleski. ""@sergenyt is one of the best reporters — and best people — I know. This is despicable,"" ESPN reporter and author Don Van Natta Jr. wrote on Twitter. People who share Kovaleski’s condition -- formally known as arthrogryposis multiplex congenita or AMC -- and their families launched a social media campaign with the hashtag ""AMCStrong."" Trump denied making fun off the reporter’s disability. ""I merely mimicked what I thought would be a flustered reporter trying to get out of a statement he made long ago,"" he said in a statement at the time. ""I don't buy that. (Trump) clearly was mocking his disability,"" said Julie Reiskin, executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition, an advocacy group, when we asked her about it. ""That was very, very obvious, because he disagrees with all kinds of people at other times, and he doesn't use that voice or wave his arms like that."" Reiskin stressed that she was just giving her view of how Trump acted, because her nonprofit group can't endorse or oppose any candidate. Reiskin said Trump’s rally display ""portrays people with disabilities as incompetent. That if you can't control your speech or part of your body that you're not competent, which is very destructive"" to the image of disabled people facing stereotypes and discrimination, she added. U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, recently withdrew his support for Trump after Trump said an Indiana-born federal judge of Mexican descent was incapable of fairly presiding over a class-action lawsuit against Trump and his defunct Trump University. But Kirk also referred to Trump’s comments. Kirk suffered a serious stroke in 2012 and uses a wheelchair after years of rehabilitation. ""Donald Trump’s latest statements, in context with past attacks on Hispanics, women and the disabled like me, make it certain that I cannot and will not support my party’s nominee for president,"" Kirk said. During the rally backlash, Trump insisted in a statement he couldn’t have known the man was disabled because ""I have no idea who this reporter, Serge Kovaleski is, what he looks like or his level of intelligence. … Despite having one of the all-time great memories I certainly do not remember him."" Kovaleski countered that as a reporter for the New York Daily News in the late 1980s and early 1990s he regularly covered Trump. He told the Washington Post he was sure the businessman remembered him -- and his condition. ""Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years,"" Kovaleski told the New York Times. In fact, Kovelski recalled spending the day with Trump in 1989 when the reporter and other journalists flew with the billionaire on the ""inaugural voyage"" of the Trump Shuttle airline. ""Flying out of La Guardia, we spent a big chunk of the day flying up and down the east coast with Trump chatting with me and the others on the plane,"" Kovaleski told the Daily News. He added that a furious Trump called the next day and screamed at him"" because Kovaleski had reported that the Trump Shuttle took off late on its debut flight after Trump had run many ads saying it would be the most on-time airline in the industry. The Daily News story looking back at Kovaleski’s history with Trump included an archived image of his bylined Trump Shuttle story (""Wings of Don"") with a photograph of Trump cutting a ceremonial ribbon. In addition, Trump spoke familiarly about Kovelski at the rally, calling him a ""nice reporter."" He also described him as ""the poor guy"" and indicated he knew Kovaleski’s appearance (""you gotta see this guy"") before launching into his imitation. Still, the candidate repeatedly denied knowing the reporter. ""Serge Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago -- if I ever met him at all, which I doubt. He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes,"" Trump said, getting in a shot at the New York Times, in a statement. Our ruling In an ad from Priorities USA Action, parents of a disabled child said Trump ""mocked"" a disabled reporter at a campaign rally. Trump did mimic the man’s oddly angled right hand while flailing his arms and shouting in a strange voice. Disabled people and advocates said the candidate clearly was mocking him. Trump’s excuses for his comments are at odds with the evidence. Trump said he didn’t remember the man so he couldn’t know he was handicapped. But Kovaleski said he and Trump knew each other well because the reporter regularly covered the New York businessman for years. Archived reports support that. Trump also talked about the reporter with familiarity as a ""nice reporter"" and a ""poor guy"" who ""you gotta see."" Trump’s denials that he did not mock -- or even know -- the disabled reporter don’t add up.
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2869
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Almost 40,000 cleared to start using water in West Virginia.
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West Virginia officials on Tuesday lifted more of a ban on drinking tap water for customers who had been affected by a chemical spill that left the state’s water supply nearly unusable for hundreds of thousands since last week.
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true
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Environment
|
A total of about 38,000 customers can now use tap water, with residents of the Southside, Southridge and George Washington areas near state capital Charleston cleared to drink or wash with their tap water, West Virginia American Water said in statements. Downtown Charleston and nearby Kanawha City were given the go-ahead on Monday. Consumers were instructed to flush their systems before using the water, which had been barred for use except for toilets since the chemical discharge into the Elk River on Thursday. More than 300,000 consumers were affected after as much as 7,500 gallons (28,000 liters) of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or crude MCHM, leaked into the river. Asked at a news conference if there were enough regulations to prevent such spills, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said the plant had not been inspected since 1991 and there were ample rules on the books. “Somebody ought to be held accountable here,” he said. “What we try to do is look at those regulations that we think are cumbersome, are over the top, and that are costing the economy jobs. That’s where our focus continues to be.” Officials said on Monday that it might be several days before the entire system, with its hundreds of miles (km) of pipe, was safe to use. The crude MCHM chemical, which is used in coal processing, leaked into the river from a tank at a Freedom Industries site about a mile upriver from an American Water treatment plant, the biggest in the state. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency in nine counties, including Charleston, shutting down schools and businesses. Freedom Industries, which makes specialty chemicals for the cement, mining and steel industries, has apologized for the incident. Water tainted by crude MCHM smells faintly of licorice. Contact with the water can cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, rashes and reddened skin. A total of 231 people had visited emergency rooms with symptoms, and 14 had been admitted, officials said. The fouled water has flowed downstream into the Ohio River, and utility spokesmen in Kentucky and Ohio said they were monitoring water quality to be sure consumers were not affected. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia are investigating the spill. West Virginia American Water is a unit of American Water Works Co Inc.
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25979
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Florida state Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen “turned her back on President Trump, refusing to ban sanctuary cities.”
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Florida state Rep. Heather Fitzenhagen, R-Fort Myers, actually supports banning sanctuary cities. She was absent for a 2018 vote banning sanctuary cities but voted for a sanctuary cities ban in 2019.
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false
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Florida, Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee,
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"An ad in a Florida Senate primary race portrays Republican Heather Fitzenhagen as a liberal who ignored an immigration enforcement priority of President Donald Trump. ""Fitzenhagen turned her back on President Trump, refusing to ban sanctuary cities,"" says the narrator. The ad makes a series of other claims about her record on immigration and abortion, calling her ""Planned Parenthood’s favorite politician."" We wanted to focus on the sanctuary cities attack given its importance in Florida and to President Donald Trump, who promised to cancel all funding to sanctuary cities but did not do it. The ad is sponsored by the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which backs state Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, for the Senate seat. Fitzenhagen, of Fort Myers, was running in a crowded primary for Congress but then switched at the last minute to challenge Rodrigues in the August primary. In attacking Fitzhagen’s sanctuary cities record, the admakers focused on a vote that Fitzhagen missed and ignored a later bill that she supported. There’s no federal definition for a sanctuary city, and the details vary from place to place. 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 federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement has asked the jurisdiction to do so. (ICE’s request is formally known as a detainer.) In Florida, legislators debated various sanctuary cities bans starting before Trump took office and ultimately passed one in 2019. The ad cites a 2018 House vote on a sanctuary cities bill, HB 9, that would have required state and local governments and law enforcement agencies to support and cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. The final vote passed along party lines with Republican support 71-35. It died in the Senate. So how did Fitzhagen vote? She didn’t. Fitzenhagen told us that she was absent because her father was in the hospital. The next year, state Sen. Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, sponsored SB 168 to ban sanctuary cities. At the outset of the 2019 legislative session, Gov. Ron DeSantis called on legislators to ""prohibit sanctuary cities in Florida."" The bill required local law enforcement and state agencies to honor a federal enforcement’s request for an immigration detainer. The bill also gave the state Attorney General the power to pursue civil action against any entity that violates the law. A spokesperson for the attorney general told PolitiFact that the office had not received any complaints that merited action. Fitzenhagen voted in favor of SB 168 on May 1, 2019, and it passed 69-45. The bill then passed a vote in the state Senate and returned to the House for final passage. Fitzenhagen voted in favor of it again. ""I support prohibiting sanctuary cities,"" Fitzenhagen told us in an email. ""Further, I fully stand behind my vote on SB 168 from 2019, which is a strong immigration bill that supports Trump’s federal immigration mandates and bans sanctuary cities."" We also found that Fitzenhagen voted in support of bills that would have prohibited sanctuary cities in 2016 and 2017. A spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee said those bills were not included since they did not become law. An ad said that Fitzenhagen ""turned her back on President Trump, refusing to ban sanctuary cities."" The ad cites a vote on a sanctuary cities bill that Fitzenhagen was absent for in 2018. It’s not accurate to say that because Fitzenhagen was absent for a vote that she refused to ban sanctuary cities. Fitzenhagen told us that she missed the vote because her father was in the hospital. Counter to the ad’s message, Fitzenhagen voted in favor of a sanctuary cities ban in 2019."
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41086
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US-Patent 5676977 is for AIDS.
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This number is for a now-expired patent for an ineffective AIDS cure.
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mixture
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online
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US-Patent 8835624 is for the H1N1 virus. The patent with this number was for a strand of DNA that binds to the H1N1 virus, not the virus itself. US patent number 20120251502 is for Ebola. This application number was for a strain of the Ebola virus but the application has now been abandoned. The virus was not created by those who filed the patent. US patent number CA2741523 is for swine flu. This is the application number for a patent for the Ebola virus made to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. This patent has not been granted, and doesn’t mean the Ebola virus was created by someone. 0070031450 A1 is a US patent for BSE (mad cow disease). There is a patent application number one digit away from this that mentions BSE, but is not a patent for BSE itself. ATTC VR-84 is a patent for Zika virus that comes from the Rockefeller Foundation. This is the name of a certain strain of Zika virus, which was first isolated in the 1940s in a lab funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. This strain was not patented. US patents 7897744 and 8506968 are for SARS. The first number is the US patent number for the SARS virus. The patent application was made by the CDC, but after the outbreak in 2002. The second number is a patent for a SARS vaccine which has now expired. US patent 10130701 is for coronavirus. This number is not a patent for the new Wuhan virus, Covid-19. It’s a patent for a weakened version of a virus in the same family as Covid-19, a family which includes the common cold and SARS. Claim 1 of 8
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9617
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Ovarian cancer blood tests: Available, not widely used
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This is a story about the apparent underuse of two blood tests—ROMA and OVA1—that are FDA approved to help clinicians decide whether surgery to investigate abnormal growths should be performed by a gynecologic oncologist (“gyn-onc”) trained to remove malignant ovarian cancer, rather than an obstetrician-gynecologist or a general surgeon. The gist of the story is that the tests have not been widely adopted in the ensuing years, “largely because they haven’t been recommended by the physician groups that write the care guidelines.” The story hit on a lot of important notes–it told readers the cost of these tests, and it included comments from independent sources. What is not clear is the extent to which clinical evidence supports the increased use of the two tests. We’re told they accurately picked up about 90 percent of cancer cases. But we’re not told how that compares to standard methods of detection. As the story notes, surviving ovarian cancer is an uphill battle–it is often a deadly disease caught too late. Any procedure that increases the probability of survival is worth careful consideration.
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true
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ovarian cancer,screening tests
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Costs are mentioned reasonably early in the story, and with specificity. This was good to see. Benefits of these tests are touted, but not quantified. An officer of the National Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance, an advocacy group, testifies that the outcomes of women who have surgery from a gynecologic oncologist “are much better.” But we don’t know what that means. Is it longer survival? Later the story explains that combining the two blood tests with assessment by a clinician “better determined the patients who should be referred to a [gynecological oncologist], identifying well over 90 percent of the women who actually had cancer.” (Note that this statistic reflects only referral to a gyn-onc, not patient survival.) But how does that compare to the standard assessment tools? A 2016 study described as publication “of the first clinical utility data” demonstrating that use of OVA1 resulted in referral of ovarian patients to gynecologic oncologists offers similar outcomes but is not mentioned in the story. We’re told that experts fear that these tests could lead to unnecessary surgery or delayed diagnosis, and that’s sufficient for a Satisfactory rating. The story could have delved into a bit more of the specifics: What is the evidence for these concerns? What are the false positive and false negative rates? These details are useful because the point of the story is that clinicians are not using these tests to try to improve outcomes of ovarian cancer patients. Are the possible debits–or uncertainties driven by lack of clinical data–contributing to these decisions? There isn’t sufficient information on the evidence behind these tests. The FDA has approved ROMA and OVA1 for use, but the studies that led to that decision are not discussed. Nor is there sufficient discussion of why the physician groups that write guidelines haven’t endorsed the tests. Their concerns are raised, but the evidence is not presented or analyzed. A late diagnosis of ovarian cancer is way too common, and the outcome is grim. At the same time, the anecdotes seem to highlight the sad aspect of the disease without necessarily providing a relevant case in which the tests described would have helped (any more than a basic blood test would have). The companies responsible for developing and marketing these two tests are front and center in this story, with scientists affiliated with the companies clearly identified. At least two sources in the story—one of them a scientist affiliated with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network—appear to be independent of the companies. The story makes it clear that no effective early detection screening test exists. Existing strategies—the CA125 blood test and vaginal ultrasound—are mentioned and then discounted, in part via a personal narrative of a young woman who received a late diagnosis of cancer. While data-driven specifics aren’t included on why standard methods aren’t sufficient, this is enough to rate Satisfactory. A direct comparison of survival stemming from existing diagnostic tests relative to survival stemming from ROMA and OVA1 would have strengthened the story. If those numbers aren’t available, that should have been pointed out. The story makes it clear that the two blood tests have been available since 2009. The story mentions that the tests are combinations of existing tests with a “proprietary” formula (essentially a risk prediction tool) to translate the results to likelihood of cancer. But, the article should have talked about whether the tests, other than CA-125, have been used before. This appears to be an enterprise story, and does not rely on a news release.
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5848
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Health officials concerned about STDs in central Oregon.
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A big jump in cases of sexually transmitted diseases in central Oregon is causing concern and testing health agencies with fewer resources, according to health officials across multiple counties.
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true
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Sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Health, Oregon, Gonorrhea, Syphilis
|
Chlamydia cases have been rising since 2010, increasing from 432 cases in Deschutes County a decade ago to 675 last year, The Bulletin newspaper in Bend reported . The number of cases in Crook County has nearly doubled and the number in Jefferson is up 52 percent. Syphilis cases are also on the rise, and gonorrhea diagnoses rose from single digits in the early part of this decade to 65 cases in Deschutes County, 49 in Jefferson and 14 in Crook County last year. “It’s been an increase that I haven’t seen before in all my years of public health in Central Oregon, said Karen Yeargain, communicable disease coordinator for Crook County Health Department. “And it’s been sustained. It hasn’t gone away.” The trends match patterns across the state and country, but for reasons that remain unclear, both Deschutes County and Jefferson County have been well above the national average for STD transmission rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in September that the number of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases in 2016 surpassed 2 million for the first time ever. While those conditions can be cured with antibiotics, left untreated they can lead to serious health consequences including infertility, life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, stillbirth and an increased risk for HIV transmission, CDC officials said. Public health officials say the evolution of HIV infection into a manageable condition has reduced the perceived risk of unprotected sex for many, allowing chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis to spread more rapidly. The emergence of dating apps for phones hasn’t helped. While some of the increase might be attributed to better monitoring or easier testing for the diseases, epidemiological studies have concluded there has been a real increase in the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. And it comes at a time when health departments are least equipped to deal with it. “Unfortunately we’ve had large federal, state and local cutbacks to STD prevention programs and services over the last decade,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors. “And this is having a direct impact on the people’s lack of awareness about their risk of getting STDs.” It’s also left smaller health departments struggling to keep up. Jefferson County Health Department relies mainly on part-time staff who must find extra time to do partner notification. “When the nurses are doing that, they’re not able to provide direct services (to patients),” Jefferson County Health Director Michael Baker said. “It takes away from the other services we provide.” ___ Information from: The Bulletin, http://www.bendbulletin.com
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14769
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More than 60 percent of people in America support Planned Parenthood and only 11 percent approve of Congress.
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Richards said that more than 60 percent of people in America support Planned Parenthood, and only 11 percent approve of Congress. Richards had a bead on Congress, which was wallowing in 11-percent approval territory in November 2015. In addition, most polls suggested more than 60 percent of Americans opposed the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood. Still, there’s clarification missing. While more people look favorably on Planned Parenthood than not, polls indicated, that was the opinion of 40 percent to 53 percent of Americans--not more than 60 percent.
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true
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Abortion, Congress, Texas, Cecile Richards,
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"In a Dec. 15, 2015, interview with actress and writer Lena Dunham in Lenny Letter, Dunham’s feminist email newsletter, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards discussed testifying to Congress, running Planned Parenthood in the wake of the shooting in Colorado Springs and her experiences fighting for reproductive rights. Their conversation came as Republicans in Congress continued to seek an end to any federal aid to Planned Parenthood in the same year videos released by an anti-abortion group purported to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the use of fetal tissue in medical research. Federal funding to Planned Parenthood does not go toward abortions and is instead used to fund the organization’s other services, such as sexually transmitted disease testing and treatment, mammograms and contraceptive services. In the interview, Dunham asked Richards about changes in the politics of abortion rights over Richards’ nine years as president of Planned Parenthood. Richards, eldest daughter to Ann Richards, the late former Texas governor, replied by mentioning the partisan realignment of legislatures in 2010, which mostly benefited Republicans, and the Republican Party’s national shift to the right. ""But if you look at the people in this country,"" Richards continued, ""they are supportive of safe and legal abortion. They support Planned Parenthood. I was just looking at the recent numbers. More than 60 percent of people in America support Planned Parenthood, and only 11 percent approve of Congress."" Those numbers, Richards said, show that ""just because the politics are going one way, it’s not because that’s where the people are."" Where the people are is a pretty broad assessment. We focused on whether Richards was right about the relative popularity of Planned Parenthood and unpopularity of Congress. Congressional approval Congress hasn’t been widely admired very often. As we noted in a December 2014 story, the Gallup polling organization started inquiring into attitudes toward Congress in 1974. Its results show Congress never proving very popular, except after the 9/11 attacks, when there was a spike to 84 percent of respondents approving of the job Congress was doing. The most recent Gallup poll available at the time of Richards’ interview placed public approval of Congress at 11 percent. (After that, according to Gallup, support edged up to 13 percent.) The poll, conducted from Nov. 4 to Nov. 8, 2015, asked respondents, ""Do you approve or disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job?"" A whopping 86 percent disapproved, and 3 percent had no opinion. Eleven percent approval was a low point for Congress in 2015. Twenty percent approved of Congress in February 2015, and 19 percent approved in May 2015. Approval of Congress declined starting in May 2015, reaching 14 percent in August 2015 and 13 percent in October 2015, before hitting 11 percent the next month. A poll released Dec. 3, 1015, by Rasmussen Reports placed public support for Congress even lower: 9 percent of likely voters said Congress was doing a good or excellent job according to Rasmussen’s methodology, which in 2015 often returned lower favorability numbers than Gallup’s polls. Support for Planned Parenthood funding In reviewing the other end of Richards’ claim, we recognized two ways to gauge ""support"" for Planned Parenthood. Polls in 2015 inquired into U.S. attitudes about ending federal aid to the group and about general feelings about the group which, we’ve noted, provides family planning and other women’s health services, including abortions. Planned Parenthood, asked for the factual backup to Richards’ statement, pointed us to several surveys showing support for the group itself and support for its funding as well as opposition to shutting down the government rather than continuing its aid. An Oct. 14, 2015, PolitiFact Wisconsin fact-check found True this September 2015 claim by Wisconsin Democrat Gwen Moore: ""60 percent of all Americans do not want to see Planned Parenthood defunded."" Three September 2015 surveys--similarly cited by Planned Parenthood when we made our recent inquiry--seemed to back Moore’s claim: • A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of adults asked: ""Would you favor or oppose totally eliminating federal funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventative health services?"" Sixty-one percent of respondents opposed eliminating federal funding to Planned Parenthood. • A USA Today/Suffolk University poll of likely voters asked: ""Do you think all federal funding for Planned Parenthood should be cut off: yes or no?"" Sixty-five percent said no. A similar poll conducted in December 2015 saw that number down slightly at 58 percent. • A Pew Research Center poll tied Planned Parenthood funding to a possible government shutdown in its question but got a similar result: 60 percent of adults said any federal budget agreement to avert a government shutdown would have to maintain funding for Planned Parenthood. Another survey, however, did find support for eliminating Planned Parenthood’s funding. Released Dec. 2, 2015, the poll from the Robert Morris University Polling Institute found that 53.3 percent of respondents supported defunding Planned Parenthood, and 31.5 percent opposed it. The RMU polling institute speculated in its news release that the starkly different response stemmed from the wording used in the polling question. The RMU poll asked respondents: ""Congressional Republicans favor shifting Planned Parenthood federal funds to community clinics that perform the same services, but do not perform abortions. Would you say you support or oppose this plan?"" Other polls generally asked a version of the question, ""Do you think all federal funding to Planned Parenthood should be cut off?"" without mentioning clinics, services, or abortions. The RMU poll stood alone in finding support for defunding Planned Parenthood. Support for Planned Parenthood Survey questions asking directly about support for Planned Parenthood in itself — rather than its government backing — had positive responses, at lower numbers than the 60 percent mark. These polls all asked a version of the simple question, ""Is your opinion of Planned Parenthood favorable or unfavorable?"" An Oct. 6, 2015, poll by Rasmussen Reports, which Planned Parenthood also shared with us, found that 53 percent of likely voters had a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, with a margin of error of 3 percent. A Bloomberg National Poll in November 2015 got 50 percent favorability for the organization, with the same margin of error. A Sept. 28, 2015, poll from Quinnipiac University delivered lower numbers: it found that 44 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, compared with 39 percent unfavorable, with a 2.5 percent margin of error. The lowest favorability ratings came from a September 2015 CBS News/New York Times poll, which found 40 percent in favor and 27 percent not in favor. Thirty-one percent in that poll said they did not know enough to answer the question. By email, Planned Parenthood media relations assistant Claire Barnes pointed to an Aug. 5, 2015, NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that put Planned Parenthood’s favorability ratings in context. The poll found Planned Parenthood’s 45 percent favorability rating was higher than favorability ratings for the NRA, the Supreme Court, Bernie Sanders, President Barack Obama and several Republican presidential candidates included in the survey. Our ruling Richards said that more than 60 percent of people in America support Planned Parenthood, and only 11 percent approve of Congress. Richards had a bead on Congress, which was wallowing in 11-percent approval territory in November 2015. In addition, most polls suggested more than 60 percent of Americans opposed the federal defunding of Planned Parenthood. Still, there’s clarification missing. While more people look favorably on Planned Parenthood than not, polls indicated, that was the opinion of 40 percent to 53 percent of Americans--not more than 60 percent. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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24469
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"A ""massive"" federal computer network will make your medical records available to ""millions of people"" with a ""complete lack of privacy and confidentiality,"" while doctors and hospitals who don't take part face ""stiff penalties."
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Seniors' group warns about risks of electronic health records
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false
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National, Health Care, Technology, Privacy Issues, Senior Citizens League,
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"Could Big Brother — or garden-variety snoopers — soon get their hands on your medical data? The Senior Citizens League, a group that boasts 1.2 million members and is affiliated with the Retired Enlisted Association, recently sent out a mailing saying it was possible. According to a copy obtained by the Huffington Post, the group sent a four-page letter, along with a questionnaire and a cover letter signed by former Rep. David Funderburk, R-N.C., to seniors, expressing two related concerns about Democratic health care reform plans being debated on Capitol Hill. One is that they could lead to the rationing of care. The other is that the government is assembling a ""national government computer network"" that will contain Americans' medical files. We've already addressed the question of rationing , so we'll focus here on the plans for a computer network. Here's what the Senior Citizens League letter said: ""The key to these changes is a massive national government computer network, which is now being created. When it is complete, your complete medical record will be available 24 hours a day to health care workers at computer terminals in pharmacies, doctors' offices and hospitals across the country and to government workers. ... To ensure that all doctors, hospitals and pharmacies participate and place their records in the new system, a portion of the economic stimulus legislation passed in February includes stiff penalties for doctors and hospitals which do not participate. The complete lack of privacy or confidentiality that comes when millions of people can see your records and the virtual certainty of computer errors has raised concern among many Medicare beneficiaries."" First, a little background on health information technology, or HIT for short. Computerizing medical records has long been a goal of policymakers across the ideological spectrum. The idea is to shift from paper-based records to electronic ones, so that doctors can access information about their patients more quickly and easily and make better clinical decisions as a result. Supporters hope that HIT will reduce the frequency of medical errors, unnecessary diagnostic tests and inappropriate treatments. While the biggest impact would likely be felt within a patient's small circle of physicians, nurses and pharmacists, planners also envision scenarios in which an emergency room doctor treating a patient traveling far from home would be able to quickly receive medical records about that patient. Officials also hope that, in the longer term, streamlining record-keeping could bring down the rapidly escalating cost of health care. In 2004, President George W. Bush issued an executive order creating incentives for the use of health information technology, to be spearheaded by a new federal official, the national coordinator for Health Information Technology. President Barack Obama went further when Congress passed his economic stimulus package in February 2009. The stimulus included several items designed to promote HIT, including $19 billion over four years to fund electronic infrastructure improvements and the widespread adoption of electronic health records by providers. The goal under both presidents has been to create electronic health records for each person in the United States by 2014. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology describes the Nationwide Health Information Network as a ""network of networks."" All the experts we spoke to, including the Department of Health and Human Services, emphasized that it is not a single database residing at, say, a federal agency. It's more accurately viewed as a network to link many separate databases where records already exist, such as regional databases or medical offices, along with efforts to establish common technical standards so that these far-flung repositories of data can exchange information as needed. ""While providers will eventually be required to actively exchange patient information between electronic health records, there is no law or regulation calling for the development of a national patient information database,"" said Brian Wagner, the senior director of policy and public affairs with the eHealth Initiative, a group that represents companies and professional organizations with a stake in HIT. The Senior Citizens League excerpt raises two main questions about HIT. — Who would have access to the network? Could it be as many as ""millions"" of people? Our experts agreed that such loose access is certainly not the goal of the program, and they added that intensive efforts are being taken to prevent that from happening. On its Web site, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology says it understands that a lack of trust in the system would be a serious problem. ""Coordinated attention at the federal and state levels is needed both to develop and implement appropriate privacy and security policies,"" the office says. Portions of the stimulus bill stiffened existing privacy protections from the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, which governs how medical records can be used. The stimulus extended the list of mandatory protections and penalties to business associates of medical providers who were already covered by them. In the case of privacy breaches, patients now must be notified, and the penalties for violations were increased. Most important, providers and associates covered by HIPAA must limit disclosure of private health information to the minimum number of people necessary to accomplish a valid purpose. Those purposes generally involve treatment, payment or medical administration. ""It's not going to be available at Kinko's for all the world to see,"" said Len Nichols, director of the health policy program at the centrist-to-liberal New America Foundation. Wagner said that the network won't be structured in a way that allows any medical professional to fish around for data on anyone they like. Users would still have to request specific information from another doctor, and provide a good reason why they need it. The main difference under a functioning system of HIT would be that that record would be sent electronically rather than faxed or mailed, potentially saving hours or days. One upside is that, unlike paper-based systems, electronic health records create audit trails every time they're accessed, meaning that HIT systems can actually afford greater privacy protections for patients. ""The level of access to this information will also be limited based on each person’s role in the provision of care,"" said HHS spokeswoman Nancy Szemraj. ""Depending upon the type of violation, fines can reach up to $1.5 million per privacy violation."" The notion that there will be ""unauthorized, limitless access to patient health information in an electronic health record is absolutely incorrect,"" she said. Still, everyone agrees that vigilance is needed. Deven McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy & Technology, calls it ""absolutely critical to have policies to say who can access information and for what purposes. Are they in place today? No. Are there active efforts going on today to change that? Absolutely."" — How stiff are the penalties for noncompliance? They're not immediate, and providers will have many opportunities to benefit from carrots before they face any sticks. Between 2011 and 2014, the stimulus provides bonus payments to encourage health care providers to implement ""meaningful"" usage of HIT for Medicare and Medicaid. In 2015, the penalties begin. Providers who haven't instituted meaningful use of HIT would see their Medicare reimbursements (though not their Medicaid payments) reduced by 1 percent in 2015, 2 percent in 2016 and 3 percent in 2017. The secretary of Health and Human Services can increase these penalties by an additional point or two if implementation significantly lags. So let's summarize. The Senior Citizens League has a point that HIT presents unprecedented challenges in privacy and security, and that strategies to keep up with these threats continue to evolve. However, the group significantly overstates the degree to which HIT is intended to collect medical data in one place and the extent to which users will be able to poke around records that they don't have a legitimate need to access. It's inaccurate to say that there will be a ""complete lack of privacy or confidentiality;"" laws against unauthorized use are already in place, and federal officials have explicitly made privacy a high priority. Finally, the penalties against nonparticipation that the group cites begin in 2015 — after several years in which providers can receive financial bonuses for participating."
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38824
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A new Facebook Drug Task Force monitors all posts and reports illegal drug activity to authorities.
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Facebook Drug Task Force Now Monitoring All Posts
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false
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Crime / Police
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A fake news website is behind the false reports of a new Facebook Drug Task Force. National Report, a website that published fake news stories, reported that the Facebook Drug Task Force would be launched on October 1: Beginning October 1st, Facebook will be implementing a drug task force designed to arrest those who buy and sell narcotics while using the online social networking site. Facebook is calling the group the Facebook Drug Task Force, or FDTF, and will be monitoring all postings and messages created by its users. Chairman and chief executive of Facebook, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, spoke with CNN about the FDTF. “The task force was created to keep users of Facebook safe,” Zucckerberg said. “The FDTF will be working directly with the Drug Enforcement Agency and local law enforcement agencies. We’re gonna put away the bad guys.” National Report has become known for duping readers into believing that the fictitious and satirical stories it publishes are true. But, according to the website’s disclaimer, that’s not the case: National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental. Advice given is NOT to be construed as professional. If you are in need of professional help, please consult a professional. National Report is not intended for children under the age of 18. But many people missed the memo and panicked when they read that previous posts about drugs could make their way to the DEA. High Times reported that hoards of “rattled readers and stupefied stoners” had emailed the magazine with concerns about the false report: Perhaps fueled by the already controversial nature of Facebook’s latest messenger upgrade, which has many users in upheaval over privacy issues, the news of Mark Zuckerberg and his computer cops planning to bust people who use Facebook to communicate with their drug dealers caused the story to go viral and of course, panic ensued. It did not take long before the HIGH TIMES inbox was full of emails from rattled readers and stupefied stoners, some of who believe that George Orwell may have been the first prophet since Jesus Christ, and that big brother was going in for the kill. However, while we certainly appreciate the paranoid enthusiasm, nothing The National Report publishes is real news. Therefore, there is no reason to delete your Facebook account over fears that a Social Media SWAT Team will swoop in at the first mention of weed. Still, that doesn’t mean that Facebook users can post about drugs with impunity. There are many reports from across the country of actual drug task forces making arrests after reading about drug use Facebook, like this one from suburban Milwaukee: A 17-year-old has been arrested and charged with drug possession after a friend posted on the teen’s Facebook page that he needed drugs. A police officer also recognized the two from a video of a drug party in June. A Greenfield police officer was patrolling in his car Aug. 30 when he noticed two men he recognized from his assignment as a police school liaison officer at Greenfield High School. Earlier in the day, he had seen one of them post a statement on the other’s Facebook page that indicated he wanted drugs. The teen behind the page, Justin J. Cervera, had replied, asking the guy to call him. The same officer had previously seen a video of the two apparently smoking marijuana with other juveniles in June 2011, called “Reefer party for my birthday.” He stopped the two on the street and Cervera emptied his pockets, revealing a white prescription bottle with drugs. Cervera was arrested and was charged Thursday with possession of narcotics and marijuana. He faces up to four years in prison and $11,000 in fines. So, there isn’t Facebook Drug Task Force, but there are plenty of drug task forces that use social media to find and arrest people who post about drugs. Comments
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254
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GSK's two-drug HIV Dovato treatment meets main goal in study.
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GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s two-drug HIV regimen Dovato was successful in suppressing the AIDS-causing virus in patients over 48 weeks at the same level of a previous three-drug treatment in a late-stage trial, the drugmaker said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
|
Dovato, a combination of dolutegravir and lamivudine, was approved in the United States in April for newly-diagnosed patients, boosting the British drugmaker’s prospects against Gilead Sciences Inc, which currently leads the HIV treatment market. Liberium analyst Graham Doyle said the study results will add to the data package supporting Dovato as GSK aims to convince doctors that two drug therapies are just as effective as triple therapies. GSK is betting that a shift to using two drugs rather than three will boost its sales by offering patients a therapy with fewer potentially toxic side effects. The study evaluated the effectiveness of Dovato, a combination of dolutegravir and lamivudine, in adults with the HIV-1 virus who switched to the regimen from at least a triple combination containing Gilead Sciences’ Descovy, the British company’s HIV drugs division ViiV said. ViiV also said adults who used Dovato did not develop any resistance to the treatment. GSK already has a two-drug regimen Juluca on the market, but only for HIV patients that have received prior treatment. Pfizer Inc and Shionogi & Co Ltd also have small stakes in ViiV, which accounted for about 39% of GSK’s group operating profit last year, according to UBS analysts. The HIV-1 category has the most widespread strains of the virus, which severely affects the body’s immune system.
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8731
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Iran coronavirus death toll reaches 26, many Friday prayers canceled.
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Iran said on Thursday its death toll from coronavirus had risen to 26, by far the highest number outside China, and the total number of infected people now stood at 245, including several senior officials.
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true
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Health News
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The outbreak prompted authorities to call off Friday prayers in the capitals of 23 of Iran’s 31 provinces, including Tehran and the Shi’ite Muslim holy cities of Qom and Mashhad as well as some other infected areas, state TV reported. Iran’s state news agency IRNA said Iran had banned Chinese citizens from entering. Those infected officials include Masoumeh Ebtekar, the vice president for women and family affairs, and Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi. Ebtekar’s case was said to be mild and she had not been admitted to hospital. “In the last 24 hours, we have had 106 (new) confirmed cases ... The death toll has reached 26,” Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur told state TV, calling on Iranians to avoid “unnecessary trips inside the country”. Iran has also imposed some restrictions on access to shrines in Qom and Mashhad, Health Minister Saeed Namaki told state TV, adding that visitors to the holy sites should “pray and leave”. “Gatherings are not allowed inside the shrines,” he said. Iranian authorities said hundreds of people initially suspected of having the virus had tested negative and been discharged from hospital. Authorities including President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that Iran had no plans to quarantine any cities or districts, despite the sharp rise in numbers in a short time. The government extended the closure of universities and cinemas and a temporary ban on cultural, sports events and conferences for another week. The death rate among confirmed cases of the virus has been running at around 10% in Iran compared to around 3% elsewhere. Iran only announced its first infections and deaths from the coronavirus on Feb. 19. Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program, said in Geneva that “the most likely factor is obviously this disease came unseen and undetected into Iran; the extent of infection may be broader than we think”. Ryan said it appeared that, so far, more severe cases had been detected, but that more milder cases would be detected in future: “I don’t suspect it has anything to do with clinical care, more to do with surveillance.” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said “some 20,000 coronavirus test kits and some other material” would be delivered to the country from China by Iran’s Mahan Air flight on Friday.
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12171
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Austin is the safest big city in Texas.
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"Adler called Austin the safest big city in Texas. As we’ve said before — and as experts keep stressing — using crime data to declare one city ""safer"" than another is fraught with peril. That said, FBI statistics suggest the five-county Austin region in 2015 had a lower violent-crime rate than other Texas regions. But El Paso had a lower violent-crime rate than Austin in the first half of 2016. Adler’s claim adds up to a statement that’s partly accurate while lacking important context."
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mixture
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Crime, Texas, Steve Adler,
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"Austin Mayor Steve Adler, urging transgender members of the military threatened by President Donald Trump to come to work for the Texas capital’s law enforcement agencies, ran out several tweets including a July 26, 2017, post stating: ""Austin is the safest big city in Texas partly because we know our differences make us a stronger community."" A reader asked us to check: Is Austin the state’s safest big city? Mayor cites Texas Monthly We asked Adler how he reached his conclusion. By email, Adler spokesman Jason Stanford advised that Adler relied on a Texas Monthly ""Daily Post"" story on FBI crime statistics published the day that Adler tweeted. The story includes a headline declaring Austin the state’s safest city. In the main, the story says that according to data compiled by the FBI covering 2015 and part of 2016, Odessa by far had the state’s highest violent crime rate, 1,070.1 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents, up 25 percent from 2014. The FBI classifies as violent crimes murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. ""It’s long been noted that Austin is something of a fairytale land where violence is rare, and at least compared to the rest of the state, that tends to bear out,"" the story says, going on: ""Although Austin’s violent crime rate of 287.7 per 100,000 is slightly up from 2013, it’s grown at a much slower rate than any comparably safe city over the past couple of years, putting Austin in the top spot for safe Texas cities."" FBI says don’t compare jurisdictions We noticed, though, the story didn’t mention a consistent FBI advisory against employing its statistics to compare jurisdictions. Since at least 2011, the FBI has said it ""strongly discourages"" using FBI Unified Crime Reporting statistics to compare communities. That note said: ""Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale."" The FBI admonished in May 2017: ""Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place."" When we asked FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer to evaluate Adler’s claim, Fischer replied by email: ""Since crime is a sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors, the FBI discourages ranking the agencies and using the data as a measurement of law enforcement effectiveness."" Fischer passed along elaboration from FBI analyst Loretta Simmons: ""Comparisons lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents. Valid assessments are possible only with careful study and analysis of the range of unique conditions affecting each local law enforcement jurisdiction."" Austin, big city? Another consideration is whether Austin fairly ranks as a big city in comparison to, say, Houston, Dallas or San Antonio. This year, before rating U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s description of his hometown as the nation’s safest city, we noted that CQ Press--which annually reports on crime rates using FBI statistics--enables adjustments based on population density--and if you impose a density of at least 2,720 residents per square mile, Austin and El Paso fall out of its big-city crime rate rankings. That density squeeze, we found, left San Antonio with the No. 6 lowest crime rate nationally, Dallas at No. 12 and Houston at No. 17. Austin region’s violent crime rate Another wrinkle: The crime rates cited by Texas Monthly were not city-specific, instead taking into account metropolitan statistical areas. This means the touted Austin figures reflected crimes tallied through Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties. That said, the Austin area in 2015 had a lower violent-crime rate than any of the state’s other regions, we confirmed in our own break-out of what’s posted by the FBI. Austin’s rate of 287.7 violent crimes per 100,000 residents greatly trailed the Odessa area’s No. 1 state rate of 1070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. Meantime, the Austin region’s murder/nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 2.2 per 100,000 residents ranked third behind the rates for less-populous Wichita Falls (1.3 per 100,000 residents) and Brownsville (1.6 per 100,000 residents); the Longview area had the state’s highest rate (10.1 per 100,000 inhabitants). LOWEST VIOLENT CRIME RATES, TEXAS METRO AREAS, 2015 REGION VIOLENT CRIME RATE Austin-Round Rock 287.7 per 100,000 residents Tyler 295.7 College Station-Bryan 315.5 McAllen-Edinburg-Mission 298.1 Brownsville-Harlingen 299.8 Midland 322.3 Sherman-Denison 327.1 San Angelo 329.3 Dallas-Plano-Irving 330.6 Wichita Falls 334.5 More recent FBI data Our own look into FBI crime reports further showed that in January 2017, the agency released its preliminary report tabulating crimes in each U.S. city of 100,000 population or greater in the first half of 2016. From those figures, we roughed out the violent crime rate for each of 35 Texas cities (not metro areas) listed in the report. Our finding: Austin (population about 948,000 as of July 2016) ranked 21st in the state with a violent-crime rate of 209 incidents per 100,000 residents--trailing cities including El Paso (population about 683,000) with 195 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants); Laredo (192 violent crimes per 100,000 residents); Midland (186 violent crimes per 100,000 people); and the capital’s northern suburb, Round Rock (73 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants). See our chart here. When we alerted Stanford to what we found, he replied by email that Adler compares Austin solely to the state’s biggest cities, specifying Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth. El Paso safer? Separately, our web search turned up an April 2017 ranking of Texas cities for public safety by Pittsburgh-based Niche, a self-described ""blend of data scientists, engineers, parents, and ‘yinzers’ who are passionate about helping you discover the schools and neighborhoods that are right for you."" Starting from FBI statistics, Niche says, it based the public-safety grades on each city’s assault and robbery rates and, to lesser degrees, local rates of murder, burglary, vehicle theft and larceny plus resident responses to questions about local crime and safety. Niche ranked Austin No. 22 nationally among ""best cities to live in America"" though the city landed a public-safety grade of C+ -- like El Paso, Brownsville, Midland, Laredo, Wichita Falls and Tyler. Faring better, Plano, Richardson, College Station, and McAllen each had a public-safety grade of B-minus, per Niche, with Round Rock ranking fifth nationally thanks to its public-safety grade of B. Criminologist: Comparisons ‘chancy’ We also queried Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox about Adler’s claim. By email, Fox said he’s determined that per FBI figures, Austin in 2015 had the lowest homicide rate among 51 U.S. cities with at least 300,000 residents and at least 20 homicides; Austin’s rate was 2.5 for every 100,000 residents, narrowly besting San Diego’s 2.6 rate, according to a table Fox provided. Among Texas cities Fox evaluated, Houston had the highest homicide rate, 13.3 per 100,000 residents. Does that arguably make Austin the safest big city in Texas? Fox said by phone that such judgments are hard to cement because cities differ in many ways including, for instance, how suburban they happen to be. ""There are a whole bunch of reasons cities differ that have nothing to do with safety,"" Fox said, ""that have nothing to do with police and how they’re doing their job. That’s why it’s chancy to make those kinds of comparisons."" Our ruling Adler called Austin the safest big city in Texas. As we’ve said before — and as experts keep stressing — using crime data to declare one city ""safer"" than another is fraught with peril. That said, FBI statistics suggest the five-county Austin region in 2015 had a lower violent-crime rate than other Texas regions. But El Paso had a lower violent-crime rate than Austin in the first half of 2016. Adler’s claim adds up to a statement that’s partly accurate while lacking important context. – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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9099
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Studies explore the potential benefits of red raspberries
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This news release from the National Processed Raspberry Council (NPRC) summarized findings from eight recent studies on the potential health benefits of raspberries. Based on presentations from the 2017 Experimental Biology conference in Chicago, the release described studies that looked at the effects of raspberries on blood sugar control, satiety, gut health, type 2 diabetes, and inflammation. The studies were all summarized in only a paragraph, and all lacked important numbers that would quantify the benefits of the interventions. There were no mentions of relative risk, absolute risk, or other common measurements. However, the news release gets points for using a balanced tone, inserting some caveats about the research and disclosing a very obvious conflict of interest. Raspberries are a common and easily accessible fruit. The trade group’s goal here appears to be aimed at garnering interest in processed raspberries for their health benefits. If this were proven true, raspberry consumption would be a convenient and nutritional way for people to keep common ailments in check. But the research findings mentioned here should be taken with a grain of salt. They are a mix of human, in vitro (lab dish) and animal studies, many of them small pilot studies that don’t come close to proving cause and effect. There may be less science here than seems to meet the eyes. All eight studies were published in a journal “supplement” in the April 2017 FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) Journal. Medical journals often publish such supplements dedicated to a particular topic which are sponsored by a special interest group. Most supplements are not peer reviewed. This release also highlights a pitfall of trying to cover unrelated studies in a single release. Explanation of the studies are capped at a few sentences and leave numerous unanswered questions about limitations.
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mixture
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National Processed Raspberry Council (NPRC),raspberries
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The news release doesn’t refer to costs. Despite the claim that these studies support future research of red raspberries and their potential to reduce “inflammation, obesity, and type 2 diabetes risk,” none of the study summaries include actual numbers putting the benefits in context. Some of the results were called “significant,” but without numbers putting the findings in context the word is meaningless. The news release didn’t mention any harms from eating raspberries, but that may be because there are no documented harms. Unless you are allergic, it seems safe to eat raspberries in moderation like any other fruit or vegetable. Still, out of eight studies it’s reasonable to think one of them examined potential harms or made a statement about the lack of harms. Even noting “there were no observed harms” would be helpful. In the introduction and in the study summaries, the release did a good job of using conservative language and emphasizing that some of the trials were inconclusive or preliminary. We especially applaud their frankness in this sentence of the release: “While this emerging research is promising, and contributes to the overall understanding of the health benefits of red raspberries, conclusions cannot be drawn at this time.” The news release did well to distinguish between trials that were done in humans and in mice, and in once instance it pointed out that a study had only taken place over the course of three meals. Though they should have included numbers and data, their inclusion of the study limitations here were helpful. There was no disease mongering. The news release was transparent about the conflict of interest—it was released by the National Processed Raspberry Council (NPRC). On its website, the NPRC says its mission is to “promote the consumption of processed raspberries based on research results.” The studies were all funded by the trade group, and that’s noted on the EurekAlert! sidebar, where the release is hosted. The news release also included a blurb at the bottom acknowledging that the NPRC “represents the processed raspberry industry.” Many news releases have conflicts of interest—at least the NPRC was honest about it. The news release was focused on raspberries, and raspberries alone. It would have been useful to know if other related berries (maybe blackberries, elderberries or lingonberries) have been found to have similar benefits. Availability generally isn’t an issue—raspberries are a common fruit known to most who shop at grocery stores. However, prices (and therefore access) can fluctuate widely depending on where you live. This news release was a summary of new research presented at the 2017 Experimental Biology conference in Chicago. But just because the research was new, doesn’t mean the ideas are. Though the studies looked at five different health issues (blood sugar, satiety, gut health, type 2 diabetes, and inflammation), the release itself didn’t indicate whether these discoveries were new, or simply building on past research. As previously mentioned, the news release did a good job of keeping sensational language in check. The release kept a cautious tone, and made note of caveats and limitations in each study.
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940
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Shaken communities take stock of damage after Southern California quakes.
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High desert communities in Southern California on Saturday assessed damage and braced for potentially dangerous aftershocks from a major earthquake that shook buildings, ruptured gas lines and sparked fires near the remote epicenter of the second temblor in as many days.
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true
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Environment
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The powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the Mojave Desert town of Ridgecrest south of Death Valley National Park as darkness fell on Friday, jolting the area with eight times more force than a 6.4 quake that struck the same area 34 hours earlier. California Governor Gavin Newsom placed the state Office of Emergency Services (OES) on its highest alert and requested federal assistance. He told a news conference in Ridgecrest on Saturday that he had just got off a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking a presidential emergency declaration. “I have full confidence that the president will be forthcoming, in immediate terms, with the formal declaration,” Newsom said, flanked by first responders. There were several minor to moderate injuries, OES Director Mark Ghilarducci told reporters. “No reports of any fatalities, so I think we’re very lucky there,” he said. There were reports of building fires, mostly as a result of gas leaks or gas-line breaks, Ghilarducci said. State officials said all roads damaged by the quakes had been repaired and reopened. Violent shaking also caused water-main breaks and knocked out power and communications to parts of Ridgecrest, home to about 27,000 people some 125 miles (200 km) northeast of Los Angeles. Officials warned there was sure to be a significant number of aftershocks, including possible powerful ones, and advised residents to ensure they had necessary supplies. “I’ve said this ad nauseam: be prepared for the worst,” said Newsom, who on Saturday met victims in the hospital and visited a hardware store where the earthquake hurled products from shelves and left ceiling tiles scattered across the aisles. Standing outside her damaged home in Ridgecrest, life-long resident Sierra Wood said it was heartbreaking and scary. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this,” she said. “I mean - they say that it’s happened and you’ve heard about it. But once you’re in it, it’s completely different, it’s terrifying. It’s terrifying.” Her husband, Keith Wood, said the aftershocks were grueling. “It’s like when, when do we get a break from it?” he said. “When is enough enough? Mother Nature has had her way. Give us a break now, OK?” The sprawling U.S. Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake just northwest of Ridgecrest was evacuated of all non-essential personnel following the quake. The facility, which at more than 1.1 million acres (445,000 hectares) is larger than the state of Rhode Island, reported no injuries. Authorities were assessing any damage to buildings or other infrastructure, according to a post on the base’s Facebook page. Friday’s earthquake was widely felt across Southern California, including greater Los Angeles, where shaking in some areas lasted about 40 seconds. Low-level rumbling extended as far north as the San Francisco Bay area and beyond to Reno, Nevada, and as far east as Phoenix, Arizona. Seismologists said the initial quake on Thursday, and scores of smaller ones that followed it, proved to be foreshocks to Friday’s larger temblor, which now ranks as Southern California’s most powerful since a 7.1 quake that struck near a U.S. Marine Corps base in the Mojave Desert in 1999. The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday’s quake was immediately followed by at least 16 aftershocks of magnitude 4 or greater and warned of a 50 percent chance of another magnitude 6 quake in the coming days. Geologists put the chance of another magnitude 7 tremor at 10 percent over the next week. There were hundreds of aftershocks of 2.5 magnitude or greater in the area surrounding the epicenter, according to USGS data. Victor Abdullatif was helping clean up broken bottles and other debris inside his father’s liquor store, the Eastridge Market, which sustained damage to its ceiling, and found the periodic aftershocks unnerving. “They’re still scary because you almost don’t know, ‘Is this going to be a full earthquake?’ You have to kind of have faith that it’s just an aftershock,” he told Reuters. The last major destructive quake to hit Southern California was the 6.7 magnitude Northridge quake in 1994, which struck a densely populated area of Los Angeles. It killed 57 people and caused billions of dollars in property damage. The comparatively limited damage from Friday’s quake, which packed greater force than the Northridge event, was a function of its location in a remote, less developed area. Its ground motion, however, startled seismically jaded Southern Californians over a wide region. Pools in Los Angeles sloshed wildly, and TV cameras at Dodger Stadium were shaking as they filmed the night Major League Baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres. A television anchorwoman ducked out of sight during a local newscast as shouts of “get under a desk” were heard in the background.
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11290
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Hot Chemotherapy Bath: Patients See Hope, Critics Hold Doubts
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This story opens readers’ eyes to a debate that flared up before attendees of a recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology – but a debate that most of us wouldn’t know about. The sidebar story, “Some Stealth Marketing by a ‘Hot Chemo’ Company,” was an important addition. This is an important piece of enterprise journalism. The “chemo bath” approach has been around for many years, but the use of heated solutions is relatively new and has limited data to support it use. Despite the limited evidence, the approach is gaining in acceptance. Anyone who’s heard about is smarter after reading this piece.
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true
|
New York Times
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Good job on this, stating “The cost of the surgery and Hipec, including hospitalization, ranges from $20,000 to more than $100,000, doctors said. While Medicare and insurers generally pay for the operation, the heated treatment may not be covered. But doctors added it may be if it is described merely as chemotherapy.” The story explained: “One randomized trial done more than a decade ago involving 105 patients in the Netherlands did show a striking benefit. The median survival of those getting surgery and Hipec, plus intravenous chemotherapy, was 22.3 months, almost double the 12.6 months for those getting only the intravenous chemotherapy” That being said, the story also included the proviso that newer drugs are now available that have been shown to increase survival. The story explains that one study showed that “8 percent who got the surgery and Hipec died from the treatment itself.” And it stated: Includes one expert statement: ““We’re practicing this technique that has almost no basis in science.” No disease mongering. Many different voices with different perspectives were heard in the story. Various comparisons were made – on both sides of the debate. A proponent of the new method said: ““there are no long-term survivors with systemic chemotherapy — zero.” But the story also said: “critics say that …new drugs have come to market that allow patients with metastatic colorectal cancer to live two years with intravenous chemotherapy alone” The story states that “an increasing number of the nation’s leading medical centers has been offering the costly — and controversial — therapy to patients with the more common colorectal or ovarian cancers” and names some of them. The growing use of the approach was clear in the story. And the fact that one randomized trial was done fully a decade ago. The story benefited from independent reporting.
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30474
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Anna Mae Dickinson survived a variety of infamous tragedies, including the sinking of the Titanic, the Hindenburg explosion, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
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The story about the Anna Mae Dickinson, or “luckiest woman to ever live,” was invented for a 2006 article chiding New Yorkers who felt that it was “too soon” to make a movie about the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. This article, which featured a fictional interview in a non-existent publication, was later boiled down into a meme which used an image of non-Titanic survivor Grandma Moses.
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false
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History, 11 september, grandma moses, hindenburg
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A photograph purportedly showing Anna Mae Dickinson, dubbed “the luckiest woman to ever live,” has been making the rounds for several years along with a story about all of the deadly incidents that she was purportedly lucky enough to survive during her lifetime: Anna Mae Dickinson is quite possibly the luckiest woman ever. She survived the sinking of both the Titanic and Lusitania, the Hindenburg explosion, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and, when she was 97, the destruction of her apartment during the 9/11 terror attack. Whether Anna Mae Dickinson was supremely lucky for surviving all those historic disasters or supremely unlucky for being present at so many disasters is a matter of debate — or rather, it would be if she had ever truly existed. Anna Mae Dickinson’s story can’t be traced all the way back to the Titanic disaster. Rather, it can be dated back to an unsourced 2006 article posted to a web site called InstaPunk. The article was published shortly after the release of director Oliver Stone’s 2006 movie World Trade Center. The article seemingly poked fun at New Yorkers who felt that it was “too soon” to release a film about the 9/11 terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and used a fictional interview with a nonexistent Anna Mae Dickinson published in a nonexistent newspaper to underscore its point: As Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center rolls out into theaters across the country, New Yorkers are clearly struggling with their emotions about the picture and its all-too-real premise. […] As sad as all this is, it pales in comparison to the trauma experienced by Anna Mae Dickinson, resident of Lower Manhattan and, at 102, the oldest and last surviving victim of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic. Her story is told in a moving piece in the New York Intelligencer: She was eight when she lost her father and narrowly escaped death herself on the Titanic. She was 11 when she lost her Aunt Olivia in the torpedoing of the Lusitania. She was 31 when she lost her first cousin Alfred in the Hindenberg explosion. She was 37 when she lost her nephew Thomas in the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And she was 97 when her tiny apartment was shaken and battered by the collapse of the twin towers on September 11, 2001. […] Then, finally, the bitterly hard question of the day: How does she feel about them making a movie of that devastating day? This time, Anna Mae answers loud and clear, with no need for assistance from her nurse: “Too soon,” she cries. “Too soon. The wounds are all still too fresh. They had no right to make that disgusting movie about our poor ship when some of us were still alive to feel the pain.” And then she commences to sob like an eight-year-old girl. […] So if New Yorkers think they’re exquisitely sensitive, maybe they should take a minute to think about the titanic example set by Anna Mae. For many of the 9/11 survivors, it will be a long, hard, distracting road to the age of 102, and the truth is, too many of them aren’t dwelling nearly enough in the past to make their grief last so long and so monotholically. The article contained details that offered clues that the story was intended as satire. For instance, it reported that all of the clocks in Dickinson’s home were permanently frozen at 2:20, the time that the Titanic sank into the ocean. It also claimed that the interview with Anna Mae Dickinson was originally published in a publication called the New York Intelligencer, but we found no record of a publication by that name. A column called “The Daily Intelligencer” is published in New York magazine, but we found no mention of Mrs. Dickinson in their pages. Furthermore, a list of passengers aboard the Titanic does not include anyone named Anna Mae Dickinson. The final nail in this claim’s coffin, however, comes from a simple reverse image search of the included photograph. The woman in this picture is not Titanic/Hindenburg/Lusitania/Pearl Harbor/September 11th terrorist attack survivor Anna Mae Dickinson. This is actually a photograph of American folk artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses (better known as Grandma Moses).
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33702
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The Swiffer WetJet poses a general danger to dogs and other household pets.
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Also, given this message’s similarity to a different, unfounded e-mail warning about another Procter & Gamble product, Febreze, we’d have to consider the possibility that someone with a grudge against Procter & Gamble is maliciously trying to damage the company by deliberately spreading false information about their products.
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false
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Critter Country, ASP Article, cats, Crusader Habit
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I recently had a neighbor who had to have their 5-year old German Shepherd dog put down due to liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until a few weeks ago, so they had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The liver levels were unbelievable, as if the dog had ingested poison of some kind. The dog is kept inside, and when he’s outside, someone’s with him, so the idea of him getting into something unknown was hard to believe. My neighbor started going through all the items in the house. When he got to the Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a warning which stated “may be harmful to small children and animals.” He called the company to ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and was astounded to find out that antifreeze is one of the ingredients. (actually he was told it’s a compound which is one molecule away from anitfreeze).Therefore, just by the dog walking on the floor cleaned with the solution, then licking it’s own paws, and the dog eating from its dishes which were kept on the kitchen floor cleaned with this product, it ingested enough of the solution to destroy its liver. Soon after his dog’s death, his housekeepers’ two cats also died of liver failure. They both used the Swiffer Wetjet for quick cleanups on their floors. Necropsies weren’t done on the cats, so they couldn’t file a lawsuit, but he asked that we spread the word to as many people as possible so they don’t lose their animals. On its web site, Procter & Gamble describes its Swiffer WetJet cleaning system as an all-in-one, ready-to-use mopping system. According to the entry in its “Swiffer Q&A” section devoted to the question of whether the product is safe to use around pets: Q: Is Swiffer safe for animals? What if my pet licks the floor or his paws? A: Your pet will be fine if it licks its paws after walking on a newly wet floor mopped with WetJet or Wet cloths. You can always offer water or milk to help remove the perfume taste from your pet’s mouth. But even drinking large amounts of the Swiffer solution would not be expected to cause more than temporary and minor intestinal upset. In direct response to the e-mail’s claims, Procter and Gamble posted a rebuttal: Q: Are the ingredients safe?A: We’re glad you came to us for the facts about the rumor circulating. Swiffer Wet cloths and WetJet liquid solution do not contain antifreeze or any ingredient similar to it. In fact, Swiffer products have been safely used in over 15 million U.S. homes — many with pets — for nearly five years. Independent veterinarians and scientists evaluated the Swiffer Wet Cloths and WetJet cleaners and found them safe. The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has even posted information about this rumor on their site. Here’s a link to their home page: http://www.aspca.org We have pets too, and their health and well-being is very important to us. Please help us put animal lovers’ minds at ease and stop this rumor by sharing the truth with others. The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center also issued a statement declaring this rumor to be unfounded: Veterinary toxicologists at the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center have reviewed the claim described in a widely distributed email alleging a relationship between the use of Swiffer Wet Jet and liver failure in a dog. The email alleges that exposure to the ingredients in Swiffer Wet Jet caused a dog’s death. The Swiffer Wet Jet system contains water (90-100%), propylene glycol n-propyl ether or propylene glycol n-butyl ether and isopropyl alcohol (1-4%). These ingredients are safe to use around pets when used according to label directions and would not cause liver damage at product concentrations. Propylene glycol n-butyl/propyl ether differs significantly from ethylene glycol, the potentially toxic ingredient present in most antifreeze products. Ethylene glycol is frequently implicated in causing renal failure in dogs following antifreeze ingestion. Propylene glycol n-propyl ether and propylene glycol n-butyl ether are very safe ingredients at levels used in cleaning products and do not cause kidney or liver failure. If this warning is as unsubstantiated as it appears to be, then why did someone write it? One possibility is that most pet owners are of course quite distraught when beloved, apparently healthy animal companions die for no obvious reason, and in their grief they understandably try to make sense of the otherwise unexplainable by finding something to which the deaths can be attributed. Unfortunately, this emotional reaction often leads people to lay the blame on agents that may have only a coincidental connection to events. For example, a pet owner re-carpets his home, and a week later both his dogs suddenly die. In this circumstance, many people would quite naturally assume that the new carpeting — which draws attention as the most substantial and visible change to the household — must have been connected to the death of the dogs, but much more evidence would be necessary to draw that conclusion. Quite possibly a factor (or combination of factors) unrelated to carpeting was the cause, and the timing of the dogs’ deaths was completely coincidental. Or the connection may have been tangential — perhaps after the new carpeting was installed, the residents took to removing their shoes upon entering the house; the dogs, now having convenient access to those shoes, began to chew or lick them, thereby picking up some kind of toxin or illness-causing biological agent carried in from the outside on those shoes.
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35710
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British media personality Piers Morgan penned a scathing open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, marking the end of their years-long friendship.
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This is a terrifying illustration of how dangerous your rhetoric can be.
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true
|
Politics, COVID-19
|
In late May 2020, Snopes readers asked whether a “brutal” open letter written by British media personality Piers Morgan to U.S. President Donald Trump, ending their years-long friendship, was authentic. Morgan’s letter is real and was published on April 27, 2020, by the British tabloid Daily Mail. The letter is scathing, however it appears Morgan and Trump’s friendship was already on the outs when Morgan wrote it. Morgan’s letter was largely a critique of Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, and read in part: You are the most powerful person in America and your words carry enormous weight and consequence. Within hours of you suggesting it might be a good idea to use bleach, one public health hotline in one state – Maryland – received 100 phone calls asking about whether they should use household detergent to combat the virus, and was forced to issue an alert warning people not to try it. New York City’s Poison Control Center took 30 similar calls from the moment your briefing last Thursday night ended to 3pm the next day – and was also forced to release an alert saying that using bleach ‘can put people at great risk.’ This latest debacle came after you previously and repeatedly hyped up an anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, as another ‘cure’ – until it turned out to cause more deaths in COVID patients than those who weren’t treated with it.
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10826
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Bone Drug Zometa Flops Overall as Breast Cancer Treatment
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This story offered a solid, informative overview of a randomized controlled trial called AZURE—which assessed the benefits and risks of zoledronic acid as a treatment for early stage breast cancer. Its clarity, and cautious interpretation of this clinical trial, make it stand out in comparison with the other story we reviewed on this topic. The story accurately described the main conclusions of the study and did not oversell the promise of a subgroup analysis showing that zoledronic acid might give post-menopausal women a survival advantage. The story pointed out specific adverse events, including bone disease in the jaws of some women in the trial.It pointed out financial support from the pharmaceutical company that sells the drug being studied. The article wasn’t perfect. It didn’t explain the regulatory status of zoledronic acid for women with early breast cancer. It expressed the survival advantage of the subgroup of post-menopausal women in relative rather than absolute terms. But then so did the study summary provided by the drug company which sponsored the trial. Journalists have limited access to study information at meeting presentations. And the author of the Healthday article was careful to point out that the results of AZURE should be regarded as preliminary. Zoledronic acid and other bone-density enhancing bisphosphonates have been employed as treatments for osteoporosis and to prevent skeletal complications among women with metastatic breast cancer. However, their role in the prevention of recurrence among women with early stage breast cancer isn’t clear. Animal studies suggest that bisphosphonates may have direct anti-tumor effects in bone. Proponents of zoledronic acid believe it may provide a significant advantage for women with early stage breast cancer—in terms of recurrence and survival. But the results of studies in humans have been contradictory. A large randomized controlled trial from Austria (the ABCSG-12 trial) published in 2009 suggested that the addition of three years of zoledronic acid to hormonal therapy following surgery for early stage breast cancer provided a 32% advantage in disease-free survival, compared to subjects who did not receive this drug. All the women in the ABCSG-12 trial had chemically induced menopause. The AZURE trial attempted to confirm the benefits of zoledronic acid in a different study population, one that included both premenopausal and postmenopausal women with early stage breast cancer. AZURE and other trials are important not only to assess any benefits of zoledronic acid but also to study its adverse effects—which include the potentially devastating side-effect of osteonecrosis of the jaw bone.
|
true
|
Cancer,HealthDay
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We won’t require a discussion of costs in this story because the use of zoledronic acid for early stage breast cancer is still up in the air. However, since the drug is already being sold for other indications, the story would have been better if it had told readers something about the costs of using the drug for approved indications. The article accurately framed the only potential benefit documented by the AZURE study: that it might provide a recurrence and survival advantage among a subgroup of post-menopausal women… and that this results is something to be studied further. The article accurately reported on the incidence of a serious side effect among the women taking zoledronic acid. The article accurately characterized the main conclusions of the study and the results of a secondary subgroup analysis. It also told readers that an earlier trial reached a different conclusion and that other studies are underway, thus helping make clear that these results are just part of a larger picture. The story emphasized—through the quote of an independent expert—that the subgroup analysis indicating older women with early stage breast cancer might get some benefit should lead to further research rather than changing standard practice now. There was no hint of disease-mongering in this article. The article quoted an independent source. It also addressed conflicts-of-interest among the researchers. The story did point out that the women in this trial did receive standard therapy (and it did so more clearly than the other story we reviewed), though it did not specifically say what that treatment entails. We will give the story a satisfactory rating since it is not clear that there is a proven alternative that would provide the type of recurrence and survival benefits seen in a previous study of zoledronic acid for early stage breast cancer. The article did not make it clear that the FDA has not yet approved zoledronic acid as adjunctive treatment for women with early breast cancer. The article made it clear that zoledronic acid is already in use for other applications. The article did not appear to be overly reliant on a news release.
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8901
|
Tests of new AIDS gel show promise for women.
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A gel that uses a popular HIV drug to protect women from the AIDS virus is safe and acceptable to women, although it is too early to know if it actually prevents infection, researchers reported on Monday.
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true
|
Health News
|
A researcher archives plasma samples from an HIV clinical trial in a file photo. A gel that uses a popular HIV drug to protect women from the AIDS virus is safe and acceptable to women, although it is too early to know if it actually prevents infection, researchers reported on Monday. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne The gel uses the drug tenofovir, sold under the name Viread by Gilead Sciences Inc.. The study, released at a meeting of AIDS researchers in India, is a welcome piece of good news for the struggling field of microbicides. It involved 200 sexually active HIV-negative women in the United States and India. “The gel is safe to use, and well tolerated by HIV-negative women. That’s a key message in our findings,” said Dr. Craig Hoesley of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “This sets the stage for larger studies to see if tenofovir can prevent HIV infection.” Microbicides are products, such as gels or creams, that can be applied vaginally or anally to prevent transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS. Just last week a study showed one candidate, called Carraguard, did not protect women from infection. Two other potential microbicides have made women more likely to become infected — a spermicide called nonoxynol-9 and a product called Ushercell, made by Toronto, Canada-based Polydex Pharmaceuticals. The tenofovir product appears to be safe, said the research team, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found. It is the first potential microbicide to use a licensed AIDS drug. It was a phase II clinical trial designed to show safety, not that it was effective. “It is a critical time for all of us engaged in HIV prevention, and I truly believe we are turning a corner,” said Sharon Hillier of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who led the study. Women make up 46 percent of the 33.2 million people infected with the AIDS virus, according to the United Nations Agency UNAIDS. Hillier said it is not clear how long tenofovir stays in a woman’s vagina. “Currently, there are very encouraging studies suggesting that even when tenofovir is gone from the vagina the drug itself is there in the vaginal tissue,” Hillier said in an e-mail. “The important thing we learned is that covert use, or secret use, is not an important parameter for women, and that in fact we found that 12 percent of the women who used to the gel said it made sex more pleasurable and none of the women said that the gel made sex less pleasurable.” Eighty percent of the women told to use gel within two hours of having sex said they had done so. “We asked women ‘How acceptable is this as a prevention option, is it too messy, is it a nuisance, and will you use it?’ Our study showed they will use it and they’re not bothered by the gel,” Hoesley said.
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29169
|
"Most states that have legalized marijuana use have subsequently banned marijuana users from owning guns as a ""back-door"" gun control measure."
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What's true: Under federal law it is illegal for a marijuana user to buy or possess a firearm, even if that user lives in a state which has legalized marijuana use. What's false: It is not the case that states have been legalizing cannabis use and subsequently legislating to bar cannabis users from owning guns. Rather, a pre-existing and unchanging federal prohibition on controlled substances, including marijuana, prohibits the possession or purchase of firearms by anyone who uses those controlled substances, including marijuana.
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false
|
Politics, gun control, marijuana
|
Several states legalized either recreational or medical marijuana use in 2018, including Vermont, Michigan, Utah, and Missouri. Those measures brought to 10 the number of states where cannabis use has been made legal for recreational purposes (along with the District of Columbia), and 33 states now have full medicinal marijuana programs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In January 2019, however, one viral social media meme sounded the alarm over the wave of cannabis liberalization seen in the United States in recent years, suggesting that those laws were being used a “backdoor” to stricter gun control: Before you celebrate legalization of marijuana, just know: Nearly every state that has legalized it has also legislated that you lose your right to own a gun if you are prescribed it, or buy it recreationally. Pot legalization is turning out to be a back-door way for the government to get you to voluntarily give up your gun rights. Word to the wise… It is true that individuals who buy or possess marijuana, even for medical purposes, and even in states where it is legal, could be prevented from legally buying or owning firearms. However, the circumstance is the result of a longstanding federal ban on marijuana, one which long predates state-by-state efforts to liberalize marijuana laws rather than being part of a conspiracy to use looser drug laws as a “backdoor” for firearm confiscation. It is not the case most states that have legalized marijuana use have subsequently “legislated that you lose your right to own a gun” if you buy cannabis or have a prescription for it. Rather, would-be gun-buyers are required, on penalty of felony prosecution, to disclose their marijuana use in forms they must submit to licensed gun sellers. Even if that drug use is legal in the state in question, licensed gun sellers are legally prohibited from selling firearms to a would-be buyer who also admits to using cannabis. Three pieces of federal law govern these issues. First, under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, marijuana and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the psychoactive component in cannabis) are Schedule I controlled substances, which means that federal law regards them as having a “high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use.” As a result, federal law prohibits the cultivation, sale, possession, purchase and use of such plants and products, regardless of what the laws of various states have to say on the matter. (In December 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Agriculture Improvement Act, which made it legal for license holders to grow and sell the cannabis plant hemp, but only when it has a THC content of 0.3 percent or less — that is, only for use as food or in the making of textiles, clothing, and so on.) Second, federal law also dictates that it is illegal for anyone who uses any controlled substance (including marijuana and THC) to buy or possess a firearm. Title 18, Section 922 of the United States Code states: “(g) It shall be unlawful for any person…(3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act)…to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.” Third, the same federal law also makes it illegal to sell or give a gun to anyone known or suspected to be a cannabis user. Title 18, Section 922 of the U.S. Code states: “(d) It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person…(3) is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act) …” Title 18 Section 922 also sets out legal requirements designed to enforce the ban on drug users possessing or buying guns, requiring licensed firearms dealers to perform background checks on would-be purchasers, and requiring would-be purchasers to submit a sworn statement of their legal eligibility to buy firearms. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has implemented the latter requirement as Form 4473, the “Firearms Transaction Record.” As part of that federally mandated process, anyone attempting buy a gun from a licensed seller must truthfully answer a series of Yes/No questions, including: “11.e. Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” The form includes two pieces of guidance about that question, making its potential legal ramifications clear. First, the question about drug use is accompanied by a disclaimer: “Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.” Second, the applicant is required to affirm in writing: “I understand that a person who answers ‘yes’ to any of the questions 11.b. through 11.i. … is prohibited from purchasing or receiving a firearm.” A marijuana user could, in theory, answer “No” to question 11.e., but that respondent would be violating federal law by doing so, as Form 4473 warns: “I also understand that making any false oral or written statement, or exhibiting any false or misrepresented identification with respect to this transaction, is a crime punishable as a felony under Federal law, and may also violate State and/or local law.” In 2011, the ATF issued guidelines for licensed firearms dealers, clarifying that they were forbidden by law from selling a gun to anyone who used marijuana, even if such use was legal in their state. Furthermore, the ATF& guidelines instructed licensed sellers that they could not sell to anyone with a medicinal marijuana card, even if that person answered “No” to question 11.e., and regardless of whether the would-be buyer was actually a marijuana user or had yet been prescribed marijuana for medicinal purposes. “… If you are aware that the potential transferee is in possession of a card authorizing the possession and use of marijuana under State law, then you have ‘reasonable cause to believe’ that the person is an unlawful user of a controlled substance. As such, you may not transfer firearms or ammunition to the person, even if the person answered ‘no’ to question 11.e. on ATF Form 4473.” In 2012, a Nevada woman named S. Rowan Wilson challenged those guidelines in federal court after a licensed gun dealer in the town of Moundhouse refused to sell her a gun when she left question 11.e. blank on her Form 4473 due to her possession of a medicinal marijuana card. The case made its way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which in 2016 definitively ruled in favor of a U.S. District Court that had dismissed Wilson’s challenge, thereby upholding the federal ban on selling firearms even to medicinal marijuana users in states where medicinal marijuana use was legal. It’s true that in recent years many states have legalized or decriminalized the use of marijuana for recreational or medicinal purposes. It’s also true that federal law, supported by administrative orders and court rulings, prohibits marijuana users from owning, possessing, or buying firearms, and prohibits anyone from selling or giving firearms to a person they know or suspect to be a drug user or even the owner of a medicinal marijuana card. However, these two sets of facts came about separately. It is not the case that states have been legalizing cannabis use and subsequently legislating to bar cannabis users from owning guns as part of a “backdoor” plot to crack down on firearms possession, as a January 2019 meme claimed. Rather, individual states have been legalizing cannabis use against the background of a pre-existing and unchanging federal prohibition on controlled substances, including marijuana, and several federal laws which prohibit the possession or purchase of firearms by anyone who uses those controlled substances, including marijuana.
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4084
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Minesota officials report state’s 1st vaping death.
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Minnesota health officials are reporting the state’s first vaping death amid a national outbreak of serious lung illnesses linked to the practice.
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true
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Health, Lung disease, General News, Minnesota
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The state health department says the victim was more than 65 years and had a history of lung disease. State epidemiologist Ruth Lynfield says the state began looking at the case after the patient died and found the lung injury was associated with vaping THC products. THC is the high-inducing component of marijuana, and many of the vaping illnesses around the country have been linked to use of THC-laden liquids. Minnesota has 17 people with confirmed or probable cases of vaping-related lung injury. Another 15 possible cases are under investigation. U.S. health officials said Friday they have identified 450 possible cases in 33 states, including three deaths in Illinois, Indiana and Oregon.
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37536
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"Close-up of U.S. President Donald Trump's coronavirus prepared remarks show he crossed out ""corona"" in ""coronavirus,"" writing ""Chinese"" in its place."
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Trump Crosses out ‘Corona’ on Virus Prepared Remarks, Writes ‘Chinese’
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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"On March 19 2020, a number of tweets purportedly showed a close-up of United States President Donald Trump’s prepared remarks on the progress of a coronavirus pandemic, where he apparently used a marker to cross out the “corona” of “coronavirus” and add “Chinese” in its place:Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out ""Corona"" and replaced it with ""Chinese"" Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House. #trump #trumpnotes pic.twitter.com/i2mvBhHCUa— Looposhi (@22loops) March 19, 2020In the March 19 2020 tweet above, the user wrote:Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out “Corona” and replaced it with “Chinese” Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House. #trump #trumpnotes“Today” in that context was also March 19 2020. At 10:28 AM, @WhiteHouse streamed President Trump’s live briefing with its Coronavirus Task Force, resulting in a one-hour, 21-minute-long clip:LIVE: Press Briefing with Coronavirus Task Force https://t.co/uvFZaWbcME— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 19, 2020CNBC reported on the briefing shortly after it aired, describing how Trump described COVID-19 as a “Chinese virus,” not a coronavirus:President Donald Trump emphatically blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic [on March 19 2020], and again made a point of using the term “Chinese virus.”“The world is paying a very big price for that they did,” Trump said, referring to his claim that Chinese officials did not fully share information sooner about the coronavirus outbreak after it began in China.“It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference.He argued that American officials would have been able to act faster if China’s government had fully shared information about the outbreak, which began around the city of Wuhan.“It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier,” the president said … in [then] recent days, Trump [had] repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and did so again at the beginning of his news conference.PBS also highlighted Trump’s rhetoric:“It’s a war,” he said. “I view it as a, in a sense, a wartime president. It’s a very tough situation.”No longer able to run for reelection on a healthy economy, he was taking on the mantle of a wartime leader after played down the severity of the crisis for weeks. The president also employed more nativist, us-vs-them rhetoric at the briefing, continuing his recent habit of referring to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus,” which has been sharply criticized as racist. “It’s not racist at all,” Trump said. “It comes from China, that’s all.”Although the images frequently circulated without links or with creative additions, they originated from a legitimate source: Washington Post staff reporter Jabin Botsford. Botsford shared the photographs shortly after 2PM on March 19 2020, zooming in on the portion of prepared remarks where “Corona Virus” could be seen.On the fourth of six visible lines, “Corona” was marked through with a black line; “CHINESE” was handwritten in in its place:Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out ""Corona"" and replaced it with ""Chinese"" Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House. #trump #trumpnotes pic.twitter.com/kVw9yrPPeJ— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) March 19, 2020Clips of the President of the United States saying “Chinese virus” in place of “coronavirus” were commonplace, and the photograph circulated without context in many iterations. However, the image was originally shared by photojournalist Botsford a few hours after the coronavirus briefing on March 19 2020 ended, and the image was authentic, not manipulated, and reflected in the rhetoric."
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6974
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DuPont to pay $50M over mercury-contaminated Virginia rivers.
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Chemical giant DuPont will pay more than $50 million but admit no fault under a proposed environmental settlement after releasing toxic mercury for decades that made its way into Shenandoah Valley waterways, state and federal officials announced Thursday.
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true
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Water quality, Wildlife, Virginia, Environment, Business, Terry McAuliffe, Waynesboro, U.S. News, Pollution
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The deal would resolve alleged violations of civil environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act, related to the pollution from a company factory in Waynesboro. It would amount to the largest environmental damage settlement in Virginia history and the eighth largest in the nation, officials said. The money would go to projects including wildlife habitat restoration, water quality enhancement and improvements to recreational areas. “In bringing this settlement to a close, we are finally righting a wrong that has impacted the South River and the South Fork of the Shenandoah River for so many decades,” Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe said at a news conference announcing the settlement. Wilmington, Delaware-based Dupont Co. used mercury in its process of making synthetic fiber at the plant between 1929 and 1950, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality. Strict storage and disposal regulations weren’t in place at the time, and some of the mercury seeped into the South River and flowed downstream to the South Fork of the Shenandoah River. DuPont discovered the mercury — which accumulates in fish and is especially dangerous to pregnant or breastfeeding women and young children — in the facility’s soil in 1976, officials say. The pollution impacted over 100 miles of river and thousands of acres of floodplain and riparian habitat, affecting fish, mussels, migratory birds and amphibians, the Department of Justice said in a statement. The pollution also has limited some recreational fishing in Waynesboro, a city of about 20,000 in the Shenandoah Valley. The terms of the settlement are outlined in a proposed consent decree that was filed in federal court in Harrisonburg on Thursday. It is subject to a 45-day public comment period and must be approved by the court. The amount of money proposed is “quite impressive,” but mercury is very persistent in the environment and very difficult to remove, said Dr. Thomas Benzing, a professor of integrated science and technology at James Madison University who works with a team of researchers who have been monitoring the mercury levels since 2001. If the settlement goes forward, DuPont would pay slightly more than $42 million toward projects including streamside plantings and erosion control to improve water quality and fish habitat; mussel propagation and restoration; migratory songbird habitat restoration and protection; and recreational fishing access creation or improvement. The company also will pay for renovations at the Front Royal Fish Hatchery to improve production of warm-water fish such as smallmouth bass, at an estimated cost of up to $10 million. “Every dollar is going to be used to clean up the land, the source issues and the water, to where it would have been” if not for the pollution, said Assistant Attorney General John Cruden of the Justice Department’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division. No one from DuPont — which is awaiting final regulatory approval for its merger with Dow Chemical in a deal to create DowDuPont, a $130 billion conglomerate — spoke at the announcement. But Mike Liberati, South River project director for the DuPont Corporate Remediation Group, said in a statement that DuPont “is committed to a long-term presence in the Waynesboro area and to maintaining transparency with its citizens.” The first phase of remediation, involving part of the riverbank in Waynesboro’s Constitution Park could be complete in February. Soil there containing the highest concentrations of mercury is being excavated and hauled away and replaced by clean topsoil, Liberati said. “It’s going to be a long-term project. It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight,” Benzing said.
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3225
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Brazil reckons with new oil spill mystery: When will it end?.
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Brazilian authorities said on Monday that they have no way of knowing how much more oil will wash ashore the country’s northeastern coast, despite President Jair Bolsonaro’s ominous warning during a Sunday night TV interview that “the worst is yet to come.”
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true
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Brazil, Environment, Rio de Janeiro, General News, Latin America, Caribbean, Jair Bolsonaro, Oil spills
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In the interview, Bolsonaro also stuck to the government’s assertion that a Greek freighter caused the oil spill scattered across beaches along 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) of coastline even after the shipowner’s denial of any leakage from its vessel. “All signs point to this Greek cargo ship. All of them,” he told Record TV, adding that the leak, “by all accounts looks like it was criminal.” Brazil’s government has been striving to investigate the cause of the spill that has hit 321 beaches along the northeast coast since early September, hurting fishing and tourism. Authorities have described the spill as one of the country’s worst environmental disasters. The crude’s density renders it invisible from above, making it hard to track its origin or to have a clear picture of the amount of oil yet to reach Brazil’s coast. Some 4,000 tons of oil has been collected from northeastern beaches thus far, according to a statement Sunday from the Navy, Brazil’s environmental regulator, and the national petroleum agency. “To say how much oil there still is very difficult to say,” Commander Leonardo Puntel of the Brazilian Navy said at a press conference on Monday. “Since the oil is underwater, we don’t know if there’s still a lot or a little. There is effectively no correct and accurate way to monitor these oil spots,” he said, adding that they have seen a decrease in oil arriving onto beaches in recent days. He called the disaster “unprecedented.” “There is no case in the world of a large-scale oil spill where the origins are totally unknown. This case has no parallel, we don’t know who polluter is,” Puntel said. Brazil’s defense minister, Gen. Fernando Azevedo e Silva, also stressed how challenging it is to calculate the spill’s scope. “It is not detectable by satellite. ... It is imperceptible. We do not know how much will still come,” he said. David Zee, an oceanographer at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said that the 4,000 tons of collected oil is “just the tip of the iceberg,” both because the cleanup effort is mostly limited to sandy beaches in populated areas and also because a large portion of spilled oil is likely spread deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Furthermore, when currents bring oil to sandy shores, it is relatively easy to collect, while is nearly impossible to remove from corals and mangrove forests, which make up part of the affected area, Zee said. Brazilian prosecutors have named Greek shipping company Delta Tankers Ltd as a suspect of the leak’s origins. The company issued a statement earlier saying it found no evidence of leakage after reviewing the ship’s cameras and sensors. “This material will be willingly shared with Brazilian authorities, should they contact the company regarding this investigation. So far, no such contact has been made,” the statement said. Federal Police officer Franco Perazzoni said at Monday’s press conference that the company will be officially notified via Interpol. Brazilian prosecutors said previously that Delta’s oil tanker, named Bouboulina, was navigating through Brazilian waters at the time and location of the spill. The ship was carrying oil from Venezuela to Malaysia. In a search order seen Friday by The Associated Press, Brazilian prosecutors said “there is no indication of another boat” that could have discharged the Venezuelan crude into the sea. Brazilian armed forces along with environmental protection agencies and petroleum authorities are leading an operation to clean, monitor and investigate the oil spill. Several public universities are conducting research about the spill’s origins and impact. Television footage has also shown volunteers flocking to beaches to help with the cleanup, often without government supervision. Of particular concern at the moment is the Abrolhos national marine park, home to Brazil’s largest coral reefs. Authorities said Sunday night that they had removed the fragments of oil that had appeared in the park and so far no new traces had been found. “A very small amount of oil arrived on November 2, on November 3 only a few fragments remained, today there’s none,” Puntel said in the Monday press conference. “Will more oil fragments come? Maybe.”
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8541
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Moscow, in U-turn, to assume all pneumonia patients may have coronavirus.
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The city of Moscow’s health department said on Thursday it would begin regarding all pneumonia patients as potential sufferers of the new coronavirus and route them to hospitals accordingly, after doctors raised concerns about the accuracy of tests used to diagnose the virus.
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true
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Health News
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The policy change was made at the request of doctors at hospitals specially designated to treat the new coronavirus, which often causes pneumonia. Tests for COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, were producing accurate results only 70%-80% of the time, the doctors said. The policy change is likely to add weight to arguments made by critics who say the official number of new coronavirus cases in Russia is lower than the real figure, because many cases have been classified as simple pneumonia. Reuters reported last month that a sharp spike in the incidence of pneumonia in Moscow had fuelled concerns about the reliability of official data on the number of cases, which at the time was well below levels seen in other European capitals. “The accuracy of existing tests used to detect COVID-19 is at 70%-80%,” Denis Protsenko, chief doctor at Moscow’s main coronavirus hospital, Kommunarka, was cited as saying in a statement, published on the website of the city’s health department. “In some cases, the tests give false negative results, and the proportion of such results is significant,” Protsenko was cited as saying. The doctors, members of a new clinical committee bringing together the heads of Moscow hospitals treating COVID-19 patients, said most pneumonia cases were being caused by the new coronavirus. The proposal would mean that patients diagnosed with pneumonia, who had not yet received COVID-19 test results, would be treated as coronavirus patients and taken to appropriate hospitals. “Based on the consensus of the members of the COVID-19 clinical committee, a Department of Healthcare order has been issued to change the principles of patient routing, diagnosis and clinical decision-making during the admission stage,” the city’s health department head Alexei Khripun was cited as saying. Russia has reported 10,131 confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, with 6,698 in Moscow.
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10684
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Ladies: 5 ways to feel sexy again
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Along the way the story engages in some pretty egregious disease-mongering, relies almost exclusively on positive anecdotes instead of data, and manages to avoid quoting anyone with a remotely skeptical view of these therapies. This story is a good example of the problem of reporting on complementary and alternative therapies. Because the evidence base is thin, anecdotes are often relied upon, to the detriment of any helpful information for patients. While some women do suffer from a recognized disorder known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, sexual desire is by its nature a very personal issue that varies greatly from woman to woman and even within the same woman at different times. Journalists have to be careful not to pathologize the normal range of sexual appetites, especially when there is money to be made by suggesting normal habits are somehow dysfunctional and require treatment.
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false
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"No information about costs here — significant considering that the therapies discussed have very little evidence to show that they work and will be paid for out of pocket. We can understand why this story was a bit short on data showing the benefits of these treatments, since there really aren’t any. But that’s no excuse to fill the void with rosy anecdotes from patients and alternative medicine providers. The story could have earned a satisfactory by seeking out a skeptical perspective and spending a bit more time on the potential downsides of these approaches. Unfortunately, it didn’t. There is growing recognition that many alternative treatments, despite being ""natural,"" can produce serious side effects. But this story doesn’t even nod in the direction of harms, despite discussing approaches, including vaguely described ""herbal combinations,"" that may carry unknown risks. Notably, the FDA has repeatedly warned consumers against herbal dietary supplements marketed for sexual dysfunction, as these have been shown to contain Viagra or similar substances that can cause harm in some patients and can interact uNPRedictably with other medications. While it’s hard to argue with the libido-boosting approach described by one source in this piece (she sat ""quietly in a chair massaging her lower abdomen"" for six minutes every day, the story tells us, in all apparent seriousness), we think anecdotes such as this should never be the only evidence cited in support of a health claim. The story does note that there are ""no large-scale studies"" saying whether the alternative therapies discussed work or not, but it relies almost exclusively on the perspective of patients and alt med practitioners to inform us about these treatments. When it does reference studies from well regarded medical institutions, it does so with throwaway lines that convey very little useful information about the research. (Example: We learn that a study about the herb ginkgo biloba showed it was ""useful in helping women who had sexual dysfunction brought on by antidepressants"" — but that’s the full extent of the discussion.) The article passes along a claim that has been repeated ad nauseum in the run-up to the FDA’s decision about flibanserin: ""nearly 40 percent"" of women say they have sexual problems, usually a lack of desire. However, the story neglected to mention some important details about this statistic: Exaggerating the prevalence of a disorder and pathologizing minor or transient changes in function are the hallmarks of disease-mongering. When there are two sides to an issue, it’s not enough to source a story with three views from the same side, as this story did. While it is undeniable that many patients find great comfort and benefit from alternative medicine approaches such as those discussed in this article, it is equally clear that many of these treatments have very little evidence to support their use, and have the potential to cause harm. Of course, the same is true for many ""conventional"" medical practices, which is why we always think it’s a good idea to include at least one truly independent source to comment on claims made in a health story. Before rushing out to try maca root supplements or herbal combinations, women might want to explore whether there’s an alternate explanation for their symptoms, whether it’s a relationship problem, a physical health issue (e.g. thyroid disorder, depression, sleep deprivation), or perhaps the side effect from a medication. This story didn’t mention any of these possibilities or how they might be treated. The article notes that an FDA panel voted against approval of flibanserin, an investigational drug for treatment of low sexual desire in women. The availability of the alternative libido-boosting therapies discussed in the article isn’t really in question, but the story does provide links to organizations which maintain lists of alternative health providers. The novelty of the treatments discussed in this story isn’t in question. We can’t be sure to what extent this story may have relied on a release, so we’ll call it not applicable."
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16480
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"Mike Wise Says NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell interviewed domestic abuse victim Janay Rice with Ray Rice present and for ""every domestic violence agency, every law enforcement agency, that’s a no-no."
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"Wise has a problem with Goodell meeting with Ray and Janay Rice together as Goodell sought information about the February elevator incident and aftermath that would inform Rice’s discipline by the league. First, there’s little debate that the meeting occurred, as it has been widely reported and not challenged by the NFL. Second, Wise also claimed that ""in every domestic violence agency, every law enforcement agency"" a meeting like that would be ""a no-no."" That’s for the most part correct as well, though experts we spoke to questioned whether it’s the right parallel to draw. Questioning victims separately from suspects in domestic violence cases does appear to be a widespread practice both encouraged by domestic violence advocates and many police and state policies after an incident occurs. But Goodell was not conducting a criminal investigation -- that already had occurred, and he had access to that information. Also, there are occasions when couples involved in domestic violence cases are interviewed together later, allowing police and prosecutors to judge how they act with one another so they can assess credibility and potential prosecution, one expert told us. Setting aside whether the comparison is apt, Wise’s claim is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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true
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Criminal Justice, Sports, PunditFact, Mike Wise,
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"The Sunday news shows broke from their usual coverage of Washington’s inner-workings to examine another institution fraught with controversy: the National Football League. The heat is on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for his discipline of former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, who was shown in a video leaked last week punching out his now-wife Janay Rice in an Atlantic City, N.J., casino elevator in February. The video’s release prompted more voices to question Rice’s initial two-game suspension as too lenient, including Goodell, who announced Rice’s indefinite suspension amid fallout from the video. To some sports pundits and victim advocates, that’s not nearly enough to prove Goodell is for real about punishing players accused of domestic violence. Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise said Goodell should lose his job on CNN’s State of the Union. ""The thing that bothered me most is Roger Goodell at one point tried to play essentially a marriage counselor with the victim and the perpetrator, Janay and Ray Rice,"" Wise said. ""He put the victim and the perpetrator together. Every domestic violence agency, every law enforcement agency, that’s a no-no."" Wise continued: ""She is sitting, telling her story in front of the person who essentially abused her. And it’s the tone deafness of those types of things that show me that this commissioner does not take domestic violence seriously enough."" PunditFact wondered if Wise is right: Did Goodell talk to victim Janay Rice with Ray Rice present? And does that violate the policy of domestic violence advocacy organizations and law enforcement agencies? The meeting lead-up and fallout An NFL spokesman declined to comment, citing the investigation by former FBI director Robert Mueller of the NFL's actions. The meeting in question occurred June 16 at the NFL’s headquarters in New York, three months after a New Jersey grand jury indicted Rice on charges of third-degree aggravated assault from the elevator incident. Ray Rice, who married Janay Rice on March 28, was accepted into a pretrial intervention program to avoid time behind bars in May. The purpose of the mid-June meeting was to discuss disciplinary action by the NFL. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King broke the first details about the meeting, citing anonymous inside sources that the NFL has not contradicted. The meeting included not just Goodell and Ray and Janay Rice, but also Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome, Ravens President Dick Cass, and two NFL executives, King reported. In the meeting, Janay Rice asked Goodell to be lenient to Ray Rice, the source told King, saying major discipline could ruin the running back’s career. On July 24, the NFL announced it would suspend Rice for just two games, setting off early waves of criticism. King’s story is important because it informed the subsequent chorus of columns and punditry that slammed Goodell for not talking to the couple separately. The popular sports blog Deadspin quoted two domestic violence victim advocates -- Rene Renick, vice president of programs and emerging issues with the National Network to End Domestic Violence, and attorney adviser Viktoria Kristiansson of prosecutor resource group AEquitas -- who said Goodell’s combined meeting with the couple was inappropriate. ""Even having the two of them in the room and thinking that she can speak freely in that kind of a situation is crazy,"" Renick told Deadspin. ""There is no way she can speak freely. And if there was any chance that she was afraid or coerced, she couldn't have said that. She would have been probably in a whole lot of danger."" A columnist for the Ravens’ hometown paper, the Baltimore Sun’s Dan Rodricks, interviewed a local social worker and counseling professor who echoed that point. And Wise, too, wrote a July 29 column that went into more detail about Goodell’s meeting with the couple than Wise discussed on CNN. In an interview with PunditFact, Wise said the meeting was ""ethically irresponsible"" and shows Goodell’s background lacks professional mental health training. ""I have no qualms whatsoever about maintaining that law enforcement agencies and domestic violence advocates on the whole support not interviewing a perpetrator and the abused together, especially when deciding matters of discipline for the perpetrator,"" Wise said. Law enforcement policies Ruth M. Glenn, interim executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, confirmed to PunditFact what other domestic violence advocates told other news organizations: Goodell should not have talked to Janay Rice in front of her husband. ""When that incident is being reviewed, investigated, whatever it is, there should never be an opportunity where that inquiry occurs when they’re both present,"" Glenn said. ""Absolutely, it doesn’t make it any different if it had happened a day before."" Glenn said the domestic violence prevention community has pushed for years for law enforcement agencies to adopt policies that call for interviewing victims and suspects separately (example of model policies and checklists here.) We found plenty of examples of law enforcement agencies that expressly say to separate the victim, suspect and witnesses involved in the dispute, including Santa Clara County (Calif.), Kentucky, Michigan, South Carolina and New Jersey. (We didn’t have time to check each district or state by our deadline, and the U.S. Department of Justice did not offer a comment, but we are comfortable saying this policy is widespread.) Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg noted that detectives always question witnesses separately. Still, while separation may be required in the immediate aftermath of an incident, it isn’t always maintained throughout the legal process, said said Charles H. Rose III, Stetson University College of Law professor. Sometimes couples in domestic violence cases are interviewed together so officials can judge how they act with one another. ""By the time Goodell was involved it was no longer necessary to have them be interviewed apart,"" Rose said. ""In effect, the wagons had already been circled."" Also left unsaid by Wise: Goodell was not initiating a law enforcement investigation. That already had occurred. ""You cannot apply a law enforcement paradigm to an employment issue,"" Rose said. ""Different standards, different law, and different results."" Goodell’s goal for talking with Ray and Janay Rice may not have been analogous with a law enforcement investigation, cautioned James Acker, a University at Albany-SUNY School of Criminal Justice professor. ""If it was, then for the same reasons, such a joint discussion would not likely be appropriate,"" Acker said. ""On the other hand, for all I know, the context was quite different. Perhaps Goodell already had received a factual account elsewhere; perhaps he wanted to attempt to gauge the Rices' relationship and try to form an impression of them together."" Our ruling Wise has a problem with Goodell meeting with Ray and Janay Rice together as Goodell sought information about the February elevator incident and aftermath that would inform Rice’s discipline by the league. First, there’s little debate that the meeting occurred, as it has been widely reported and not challenged by the NFL. Second, Wise also claimed that ""in every domestic violence agency, every law enforcement agency"" a meeting like that would be ""a no-no."" That’s for the most part correct as well, though experts we spoke to questioned whether it’s the right parallel to draw. Questioning victims separately from suspects in domestic violence cases does appear to be a widespread practice both encouraged by domestic violence advocates and many police and state policies after an incident occurs. But Goodell was not conducting a criminal investigation -- that already had occurred, and he had access to that information. Also, there are occasions when couples involved in domestic violence cases are interviewed together later, allowing police and prosecutors to judge how they act with one another so they can assess credibility and potential prosecution, one expert told us. Setting aside whether the comparison is apt, Wise’s claim is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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25763
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Facebook post Says Kamala Harris wants to eliminate beef.
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Kamala Harris co-sponsored a bill to protect workers at meatpacking plants from the spread of COVID-19. Harris said the government should offer incentives and dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of meat, but she didn’t say she wants to eliminate beef altogether.
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false
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Agriculture, National, California, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Hundreds of Facebook users have shared a post that says that Kamala Harris, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, wants to put an end to beef production. The post shows a picture of meat and claims that the California senator worked with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey to go after animal agriculture. ""Kamala Harris wants to eliminate this right here. If you raise beef or eat beef, you can't vote (for) the Democratic Party this election. She has worked with Cory Booker on eliminating animal agriculture and is on record starting that meat is killing the planet. That shows her ignorance,"" the post says. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Despite what this post alleges, Harris hasn’t said she wants to eliminate beef. In July, Booker, who is a vegan, introduced legislation to protect workers at meatpacking plants, which became deadly hot spots amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill would suspend waivers and rules that permit companies to ramp up production, and Harris was one of its cosponsors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in July that 16,233 COVID-19 cases in 239 meat and poultry processing facilities were reported in 23 states across the country. It’s not just Facebook users who are weighing in on Harris’ policy recommendations for meat consumption and production. President Donald Trump’s YouTube account recently shared a video clip from Harris at a CNN climate change town hall during the Democratic primaries in September 2019. At an August 2020 speech in Iowa, Vice President Mike Pence criticized her town hall remarks and said, ""We’re not going to let Joe Biden and Kamala Harris cut America’s meat."" But Pence’s statements were misleading. Here’s what Harris said at the town hall. ""As a nation, we actually have to have a real priority at the highest level of government around what we eat and in terms of healthy eating,"" Harris said in response to a question at the CNN town hall. The agriculture sector contributed 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2018, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Cattle produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as part of their digestive process, and the management of manure can also add to emissions. Harris added that the government should create incentives and change dietary guidelines to reduce the consumption of red meat, as opposed to banning it altogether. ""I love cheeseburgers from time to time,"" Harris said. A viral Facebook post says that Kamala Harris wants to eliminate beef. Harris didn’t say that. She and Cory Booker support legislation that would prevent meatpacking companies from ramping up production, but they didn’t propose eliminating beef. Harris even said that she enjoys a cheeseburger every now and then."
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23716
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"He has ""ushered in $3 billion in new investment."
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Cicilline says he ushered in $3 billion in Providence development
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false
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Rhode Island, Candidate Biography, Economy, David Cicilline,
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"Rome wasn't built in a day. But Providence was built in just a few short years. By one man. Or so Mayor David Cicilline would like you to think. Since he launched his campaign for Congress, the Providence Democrat, who took office in 2003, has repeatedly taken credit for billions in economic development throughout the city, making it a centerpiece of his election bid. His claim is specific: ""By restoring trust in city government, Cicilline has ushered in $3 billion in new investment and restored vibrancy to downtown and the 25 neighborhoods of the city."" He's been saying it for nearly five years and it has become a central part of his campaign message. But that's a lot of investment for a city whose entire annual budget was less than $620 million last year. Our interest sufficiently piqued, we called the Cicilline team for a breakdown. A Rose-Colored History After multiple requests, the mayor's administration finally provided us with a list. It was so exhaustive it suggested that Cicilline was responsible for nearly every major piece of Capital City development in the seven years since he took office -- and in a few cases, projects that began before he got near City Hall. Frequented the Auto Zone on Manton Avenue or the expanded fitness center at Brown University? Thank Cicilline. How about the parking garage at Rhode Island Hospital or the Walmart on Charles Street? Or what about the storage units on Reservoir Avenue, or the West River endoscopy offices? The mayor also takes credit for the construction of new condos, retail stores and several not-yet-built office buildings, as well as public projects including work on schools and roads. The list goes on. Over 100 projects in total. The biggest item that he says he ""ushered in"" is the $610-million I-Way project, the relocation of a portion of Route 195 in downtown Providence. But the I-Way planning began more than a decade ago; the federal environmental impact statement was completed in 1996. The earliest phases of construction began in 1999, three years before Cicilline took office, and the financing came mostly from the federal government. When we asked the Cicilline administration to defend the I-Way claim, they agreed it was an overstatement. Cicilline spokeswoman Karen Watts said in an email that the mayor ""agrees with you that including the whole of the highway project in this list isn't correct."" But the administration insisted the rest of the list is accurate. What about the combined sewer overflow project, a two-decade effort to build a three-mile long underground tunnel to contain sewage overflow during storms? He takes credit for $275 million of the $359 million development. According to the Narragansett Bay Commission's website, the planning for this project dates to 1993. Construction began in June 2001, more than 18 months before Cicilline took office. The sewer project and the I-Way alone make up almost 30 percent of Cicilline's claim. So even if the rest of the list is valid -- which we don't think it is -- the accuracy of the statement has slipped significantly. ""The bigger projects, the 195 and the combined sewer, those were things that were going to happen, but the mayor pushed and got the changes needed [for them],"" Providence Planning Director Thomas Deller said in an interview. ""....Can we take credit for it? No, it was something that was going to happen. But it may have happened a little faster [with Cicilline as mayor] or a little slower"" without him. The problem is that the mayor did take credit for it. He said he ""ushered"" it in, remember? The Cicilline team argues that while they may not have actually brought in every dollar for every project themselves, they created a predictable, trustworthy environment that made small business owners and developers want to invest there. ""The fact of the matter is that [the person] who is in office and who works for them has a lot to do with decisions about how projects move forward,"" Deller said. ""The point the mayor was trying to make is how we work aggressively to make things happen."" We don't fault the mayor for claiming credit for hotels or developments such as the new Blue Cross headquarters. In several instances, it's clear his administration played an active role in making those developments happen. But he doesn't deserve credit for every permit issued. It was not a one-time slip of the tongue either. $3 Billion Claim Repeated Cicilline has been using the $3-billion figure at least since January 2006, when he cited it in his State of the City address. In the years since, he has been quoted saying it more than a dozen times in The Providence Journal. The claim came out of the ""A Vision For Providence"" study, a 2005 report that highlighted economic development, neighborhood by neighborhood. What's interesting is how the claim evolved. In those early mentions, Cicilline said that economic development in the city hit $3 billion. Over the years, the statement morphed into one in which Cicilline took credit for bringing those projects in. And when projects such as the One Ten Westminster condos fell through, the Cicilline administration just replaced that item with another, so the final $3 billion figure never changed. Again, it's fair for a mayor to take credit for some of the economic development that occurred during his tenure. But not to exaggerate his role in those projects. On his campaign website, Cicilline clearly implies that he had a hand in making the developments happen. Not only that, he takes credit for ventures that predate his term in office, and he repeats the claim in public. We presented our research to Deller, a Providence City Hall veteran. At the end of a long conversation, his response: ""If this were 2005 and I thought there would be a Truth-O-Meter sometime in the future, I might not have put it that way."" That's really all you need to know. ."
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9133
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Online cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is effective for military
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When claiming something is “effective” always have back-up. Researchers at the University of North Texas announced that cognitive behavioral training for insomnia (CBTi) delivered through the internet was more helpful than no CBTi for military personnel, but that in-person therapy was better than both, according to a small randomized study. The release doesn’t put the benefit of the therapy in any context for readers so we can know how much the online training helped — was it a little or a lot? A discussion of cost and study limitations would have made the release much stronger. For military personnel who face unique job demands, a safe and effective treatment for sleep disturbances seems to be a high priority. This study tried to assess if cognitive behavioral therapy could be delivered as effectively via the internet, versus in-person, or minimal contact (infrequent phone calls) intervention. Since military personnel are often deployed in locations where in-person CBTi might be difficult to arrange, such research could lead to better deployment of resources. Since insomnia is linked to “post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and substance abuse, absenteeism and occupational accidents,” according to Daniel Taylor, University of North Texas professor of psychology and director of UNT’s Sleep Health Research Laboratory, it is an important condition to try to improve for these serving military personnel.
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mixture
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cognitive behavioral therapy,insomnia,University of North Texas
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Obviously there are likely major differences in costs associated with in-person CBTi versus internet-delivered CBTi so it is unfortunate these were not discussed in this release. The only mention of cost was that of the $1.16 million grant the University received for the 6-week study. There were numbers to back up the claimed benefits. The only references to benefits are very vague: “the study participants who received in-person cognitive behavioral treatment for their insomnia reported significantly greater improvements in sleep quality — as determined by the sleep diaries and activity monitors — than those who received the Internet therapy. Both groups had greater improvements in sleep quality than those who did not receive cognitive behavioral therapy. ” The release could have given some stats from the sleep diaries kept by the participants or data collected from the the activity monitors (he “Actiwatch”) they were asked to wear. The release provides somewhat better context for understanding benefits when describing an unrelated study in civilians in which “cognitive behavioral therapy led to significant improvements in sleep efficiency, with the research subjects’ use of sleep medication declining from 87.5 percent before therapy to 54 percent afterward…” There are no harms mentioned in the release. According to the scientific paper, “AEs [adverse events] determined to be related to the research included one patient with an increase in insomnia after primary care physician reduced hypnotic medication and six patients with skin irritation from wearing the Actiwatch.” While these appear to be minimal, releases should still try to address any potential harms. The release describes the 3-armed nature of the randomized trial and the number of study participants (100). Unfortunately, the release doesn’t describe any limitations of the research. The published report suggests the trial may have been under-powered. Researchers wrote that they intended to have 63 participants per treatment group in order to have the recommended power of 80 percent to observe how the intervention affected sleep efficiency. Instead they had 33 per group. The release should also have mentioned that the Internet CBTi participants were more than twice as likely to drop out of treatment and that a high percentage of participants did not complete the 6-month follow-up to assess longer term results: “Dropout from the study was higher at the 6-month follow-up assessment (42%–59%).” No signs of disease mongering here. The release also provides some context on what chronic insomnia is and how it is a risk factor for other health conditions. The release names the funding source. The researchers reported no conflicts of interest. The release describes how two types of CBTi (online and in-person) compared. It mentions medications are used as a therapy for about 10 percent of the deployed military but that they can leave people groggy and with slow cognitive processing and reaction times — which are dangerous in conflict zones. The extent to which Internet-delivered CBTi is available for military personnel or the general public isn’t mentioned. The release doesn’t claim novelty. It references previous work that showed CBTi helped reduce the dependence on sleeping medications in the general population. There was no inappropriate or unjustifiable language used to describe this study.
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3947
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Flu hospitalizations spike across Wisconsin with 11 deaths .
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Wisconsin health officials are urging people to protect themselves as flu numbers spike across the state.
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true
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Madison, Wisconsin, Health, Flu, Infectious diseases
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The Department of Health Services reported Friday that Wisconsin has seen 459 hospitalizations and 11 deaths due to flu complications this season. The number of hospitalizations is three times higher than last year at this time. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has elevated Wisconsin to its high flu category. South-central and southwestern Wisconsin have been hardest hit. And physicians said it could get worse before it gets better. “The best thought is that we are still going to be seeing it rise before we see it fall. Generally, the flu season lasts anywhere between four and 12 weeks, with eight kind of being the average,” said Dr. Joseph McBride, an infectious disease specialist at UW Health in Madison. “I would imagine we are going to remain pretty high throughout January, but we’ll see.” In Milwaukee: 131 people have been hospitalized with the flu compared with 17 at this time last season. “We know that it’s hitting some families pretty hard,” Aurora Health Care pediatrician Dr. Kevin Dahlman said. State Health Officer Jeanne Ayers urged anyone who has not had an annual flu shot to get one.
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3427
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Oklahoma AG calls company ‘kingpin’ in state’s opioid crisis.
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Consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson was a “kingpin” company that helped fuel the most devastating public health crisis in Oklahoma history, the state attorney general argued Monday during the close of his case against the opioid drug manufacturer.
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true
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Chronic pain, Norman, Opioids, Health, General News, Marketing campaigns, Business, U.S. News, Oklahoma
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Mike Hunter said the New Jersey-based company and its subsidiaries, including Janssen Pharmaceuticals, created a public nuisance by launching a “cunning, cynical and deceitful” marketing campaign that overstated the benefits of opioid drugs for treating chronic pain and understated the risk of addiction. “There was a simple reason for the crisis: greed,” Hunter said. “The greed of the pharmaceutical companies caused the crisis.” After closing arguments, Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman asked both sides to present written summaries of their cases by July 31 and said that he would then take about a month to issue his ruling. Oklahoma’s case is being closely watched because it’s the first state case to proceed to trial. It could help shape negotiations over roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments that have been consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio. Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson argued they participated in a lawful and strictly regulated industry and that their marketed products represented only a tiny fraction of the opioids used in Oklahoma. Oklahoma’s attorneys have pointed out that two former Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries, Noramco and Tasmanian Alkaloids, produced much of the raw opium that is used by other manufacturers to produce the drugs. Larry Ottaway, an attorney for the company, said opioid drugs serve a critical health need — to address chronic pain that affects thousands of Oklahomans every day. “This problem of untreated chronic pain afflicts people here in Oklahoma,” Ottaway said. “These drugs help these patients function.” During his closing argument, Ottaway played brief clips from a half-dozen Oklahoma doctors who testified about the desperate need some of their patients have to deal with chronic pain. “I trust you to do the right thing,” Ottaway told the judge. “I trust you like I trust these Oklahoma doctors, and I think you should trust them as well.” Attorneys for Oklahoma also outlined a plan developed by state mental health and addiction specialists to abate the opioid crisis that would range between $12.6 billion for 20 years or $17.5 billion over 30 years. Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson say that estimate is wildly overinflated. Included in the abatement estimate is a need for the state of Oklahoma to hire 1,734 new employees at a cost of about $123 million each year, Ottaway said. “The state’s plan is simply untenable,” he said. “It seeks billions of dollars for services already being provided.” Before the start of the trial on May 28, Oklahoma reached a $270 million settlement with Oxycontin-maker Purdue Pharma and an $85 million deal with Israeli-owned Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. ___ Follow Sean Murphy at www.twitter.com/apseanmurphy ___ This version corrects the spelling of the last name of Johnson & Johnson attorney Larry Ottaway.
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33449
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Maternal figures were typically absent in Walt Disney's animated films because he felt responsible for his own mother's death.
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Fourteen non-governmental organizations (NGOs) including Amnesty and Global Witness have opposed plans by the London Metal Exchange to ban cobalt tainted by human rights abuses, a letter seen by Reuters showed.
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false
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Disney, Walt Disney
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Cobalt is a key ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles, a fast-growing sector of the auto industry, and in metal alloys used to make jet engines. It was singled out in LME proposals to embed responsible sourcing principles into metal brands deliverable against its contracts, which include copper and zinc. Most of the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, often from artisanal mines where several organizations have cited human rights abuses. The LME plan outlined last October involves suspending cobalt brands trading at a significant discount to its contract on the grounds that they may be seen as tainted. Now, objections by NGOs to a consultation on its plans could leave the exchange at risk of legal challenges from banned cobalt producers, metal industry sources say. The LME will publish its proposals this quarter. “The LME received 39 responses to its recent discussion paper on responsible sourcing,” the exchange said. “The LME’s role is now to identify a path forwards which balances the diverse views of its stakeholders (including civil society organizations), while achieving the LME’s stated aim of helping the broader metals industry embrace key principles of responsible sourcing and environmental stewardship.” The letter from the NGOs said the LME should not immediately ban cobalt brands and that it should work with firms that produce them to ensure responsible sourcing. “It is short-sighted and irresponsible of the LME to single out cobalt and tin as higher risk metals above others, or to single out (artisanal) material as implicitly higher risk,” the letter signed by 14 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said. All companies involved with the exchange should implement responsible sourcing practices in line with the OECD Guidance, the letter dated Dec. 3 said. The OECD Guidance says companies should report in detail about their supply chains and advises on ways in which they can uncover and address human rights and corruption issues. “Heightened supply chain due diligence on cobalt, as with all other LME metals, must be triggered by assessment of all supply chain risks, including corruption risks,” the NGO letter said. Sources say the business of an exchange is to facilitate trade between buyers and sellers. “The NGOs don’t understand the difference between end consumers and the LME. The LME is a market of last resort, you can’t choose which metal to take or reject,” a metal trading source said. “Consumers can choose where they source their cobalt from, people buying on the LME can’t, that’s why there is such a deep discount between LME cobalt prices and (Fastmarkets MB)” Cobalt prices published by Fastmarkets MB at around $44,000 a tonne are $12,000 a tonne higher than those for the LME’s contract, which was launched in 2010. However, the NGOs say singling out low-priced cobalt typically produced by artisanal miners ignores other “serious red flags” such as corruption by large-scale miners of all metals. “Is the LME trying to create a reputational green wash that allows it to say its members source responsibly because they tick some boxes,” said Sophie Pickles, who leads Global Witness’ work on conflict mineral. The director of “mines to market” at NGO Pact, Karen Hayes, said the LME’s plan lacked detail on implementation. “We are more than willing to work with the LME or any companies seeking to comply with the LME’s responsible sourcing standards,” she said.
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9268
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Study paves way for steroid treatments with fewer side effects
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Adrenal gland disorders such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia are controlled by steroid treatments, usually cortisol, which can lead to weight gain, high blood pressure and diabetes. Researchers here are testing another of the body’s steroids, corticosterone, and find in basic studies that it may avoid some of those symptoms. This release does a nice job of explaining the outcomes of these studies and comparing them to typical outcomes of cortisol use. But it is less adept at reminding readers that the research to date is far shy of the clinical studies needed to determine the efficacy of this new treatment. We all want to avoid treatments that may fix one problem but produce others. The effort to come up with a safer steroid replacement for cortisol is worthwhile, if early in the game. Identifying possible new treatments that reduce or eliminate debilitating drug side effects is a laudable goal and worthy of news coverage. But it is important to keep in mind that the road from promising early results in an animal model or in a small number of patients for a brief period of time is a difficult one.
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mixture
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steroid treatment,University of Edinburgh'
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Although this is basic research at the moment, the study does compare health outcomes between corticosterone and an existing treatment. It could well have also offered a preliminary cost assessment. The release does a brief but nice job of explaining the effects of corticosterone on fat cells. We would have liked to have seen a bit of quantification of the differences between cortisol and corticosterone. The study demonstrated statistically significant differences on fat cells but the duration of the study in a small number of patients with Addison’s disease was 330 minutes. Although the research article from which this release stems notes that “adverse effects will need to be compared not only for metabolism and obesity but also for immune suppression and osteoporosis,” the release makes no mention of possible harms. On the one hand, the release mentions use of both mice and men (!) — well, patients with Addison’s disease — hinting at the multi-methodological nature of this study. On the other, though, it fails to share the full nature of the study, which employed three targets — mice, human epithelial cells, and a small, blinded study of 12 men with Addison’s disease — which offered a nice, linear evidentiary trial. Data from just a 12-person cohort is far from what one might regard as strong clinical evidence on behalf of this new therapy. The claims made appear out of line with the evidence. ‘These findings suggest that corticosterone could provide a safer alternative to traditional cortisol replacement therapy for conditions such as Addison’s disease and congenital adrenal hyperplasia.” “The researchers say that, with further research, these findings may one-day lead to improved therapies for other conditions that respond to steroid treatment, including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.” “Dr Mark Nixon, of the BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh, said: “The discovery of this selective corticosterone pump in fat cells could lead to a completely new approach in our search for safer steroid medications.” There was almost no caution about the difficulty of translating these results into something clinically useful. Where is the caution that these things might not come to pass? The researchers make it clear that they are not trying to cure a health problem but, rather, seek to offer a safer treatment regimen for individuals with adrenal gland disorders. The text offers information about funding sources. The reader must infer that the two sources in the release were involved in the research, but their full identifications make that relatively easy to do. Possible conflicts of interest are nowhere to be found. The text offers an extended comparison of the side effects of the current use of cortisol and those of the possible new treatment. The research article is clear that corticosterone is available only for research purposes at this time, but the release is not specific about that, instead employing phrases such as “An improved therapy…is a step closer”) that suggest unavailability but also encourage the reader to conclude that the treatment is just around the corner. The text notes that scant attention has been paid to the use of corticosterone. While the sources in the story are optimistic while somewhat guarded, often employing conditional tense verbs (“could provide a safer alternative”), and the release lead sentence makes it clear that this new treatment is not yet available, the release headline (“Study paves way for steroid treatments with fewer side effects”) seems overly optimistic about a new treatment that has not yet survived clinical testing. It’s not until you read to the end of the release that you find more tempered language: “The researchers say that, with further research, these findings may one-day lead to improved therapies for other conditions that respond to steroid treatment, including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.”
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9933
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Doctors Test Ways to Grow Knee Cartilage
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The article describes two potential treatments for knee problems: using stem cells donated from bone marrow to re-grow cartilage pads and using cartilage plugs, approved for use in bone, to fill in gaps in cartilage. The story does a good job of describing the evidence (either an ongoing clinical trial using stem cells to re-grow cartilage pads or the fact that cartilage plugs are an “off-label” use of an existing technology), although there are limitations to what we know or will know, which could have been clearer. For example, although the first-ever clinical trial of stem cells is ongoing, the number of participants is small and more studies will be needed before this would become widely available. The description of harms of either of these approaches could have been improved. For instance, letting a quote by the lead researcher (who has a conflict of interest) stand stating that there are no safety problems with the stem cell technique is a bit misleading. It’s hard to believe there would be no side effects at all and the fact that this is new technology and that harms may not be known is different than they don’t exist, which is implied. Yet the topic is an important one because better treatments for age-related arthritis of the knee are needed. Unfortunately, the techniques discussed in this article are only precursors of the types of treatments that may help the large number of older individuals suffering from knee arthritis. Even if these treatments provide benefit and are approved for use by the FDA, it will require future studies and many more years to bring successful treatments to the average patient.
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true
|
Costs of either new treatment approach are not discussed, nor whether they might be covered by insurance. Since the first-ever clinical trial of stem cells to regrow cartilage pads is ongoing, benefits cannot be quantified. A similar challenge in reporting benefits of cartilage plugs is that this approach doesn’t appear to have any studies that support its use in cartilage (vs. bone), since this is an off-label use. While benefits aren’t reported, it doesn’t appear that there are any to actually describe just yet. The stem cell technique is quoted by the lead researcher as having “no safety problems.” While this is suspect, since this is the first clinical trial, side effects or harms in humans may not be known. The article could have countered this quote with a statement that no side effects have been reported yet, which is different than that they don’t exist. A potential harm talked about by someone not apparently involved in the research is that too much cartilage may be re-grown and there may not be a mechanism to turn it off, leading to unforeseen problems. For the cartilage plugs, harms of treatment are not discussed, although a question about their benefit–whether they even work in cartilage–is raised. The story describes on-going research using stem cells to re-grow the cartilage pad, or meniscus, in the knee. The ongoing research is described as a clinical trial, with either a “dummy” or active injection given to patients (so there is a placebo or control group and this also implies patients don’t know which one they’ve received, or that they’re “blinded” to the intervention), and that researchers are blinded to which intervention patients have received. What’s described is a randomized, controlled trial, which is the gold-standard in research. The other technique–cartilage plugs–is being used for treatment that doesn’t appear to have any research to support it, or at least not when used in cartilage (vs. bones). But, the article describes these circumstances to readers. The article provides a brief overview of knee injury or disease (arthritis) and the numbers of people who experience this. The article nicely states that the “holy grail” is repairing the cartilage of knee bones associated with arthritis – typically age-related wear and tear. None of the treatments mentioned are anywhere near this. So for current patients suffering from knee pain due to degenerative arthritis, the options are conservative medicines (like ibuprofen) or knee replacement surgery. This article suggests an intermediate, less invasive approach. The current cartilage repair procedures aren’t thought to work very well (thus the search for new ones). These aren’t the first attempts to repair cartilage. Others have been tried, but generally haven’t offered much benefit to patients. For the stem cell research, the article does quote a source who is apparently uninvolved with the research. This source provides some balance in noting that it’s not clear whether this works, and specifically, whether this process can be turned off once enough cartilage is re-grown. For cartilage plugs, the same source comments with skepticism over whether these really work. Currently, the standard treatment option for meniscus tears is surgical removal of jagged edges that don’t heal, which is mentioned in the story. Treatment alternatives for injured or damaged articular cartilage (vs. use of articular plugs) are described and include total knee replacement and surgery to “rough up” the edges to stimulate natural repair. Framing around what these new treatments hope to provide could have been improved, e.g. many of the intermediate procedures talked about in the article are trying to provide an option in the middle of either a very simple approach, like medications, or a pretty aggressive approach, like joint replacement. There are two treatment options discussed in the article. One uses stem cells from donated bone marrow. This technique is reported as part of the first-ever clinical trial using stem cells to regrow a cartilage pad in the knee, so readers know this option is not available yet outside of this research study. The second treatment approach uses cartilage plugs to fill in gaps or injuries to knee cartilage. The story states these cartilage plugs are FDA-approved for use in bones, but not cartilage, so the use described is “off-label.” The article describes the stem cell option as new, which does appear to be true. It also describes the off-label use of cartilage plugs, implying this technique itself may not be new, but is being used in a new capacity. There have been prior attempts to repair cartilage that are not mentioned in the article, but these attempts have not provided much benefit. There is no obvious reliance on press release material.
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7148
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Lawsuit challenges Vail development in bighorn sheep habitat.
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Vail residents fighting to protect habitat for a beleaguered herd of bighorn sheep as developers push to build housing for resort workers have taken their case to state court.
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true
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Sheep, Environment, Vail, Lawsuits, Financial markets
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A lawsuit filed this week in Eagle County District Court contends Vail town officials violated local rules when they approved a Triumph Development project to build high-density worker housing along Interstate 70 where the bighorns forage during winter. The residents also argue that a Vail Resorts employee on the local Planning and Environmental Commission, which approved the project on a 4-3 vote, should have recused himself due to a conflict of interest. Their lawsuit asks Judge Russell Granger to send the case back to town officials with instructions for proper decision-making. “Developers tried to come up with mitigation. But it doesn’t seem the mitigation measures are sufficient to comply with the code,” which requires the implementation of “all necessary mitigating measures,” attorney Kim Perdue said Thursday. “My understanding is that there are other sites … that would be better for residents and also not have catastrophic impacts on this herd,” Perdue said. This battle pits the mountain resort’s economic demands against the needs of wildlife, in this case Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, Colorado’s state animal. Bighorns once numbering more than 2 million around the west have been declining, hammered by disease — including sickness spread by domestic sheep — as development eclipses bighorn habitat. The Colorado bighorn population has dwindled to about 6,800, down from about 7,600 in 2012 and 8,000 in 2001, state data shows. Vail Valley bighorns have decreased to about 5% of their historic numbers, along with other species, and the herd that forages east of Vail has been reduced by 40% over the past 12 years to around 50 bighorns. Meanwhile, mountain resort operators around the state have been developing properties and struggling to ensure enough housing for workers as tourism and recreation industries expand. Triumph Development has proposed to construct the housing for Vail on 5.4 acres at one end of a 23.3-acre parcel that Vail obtained from the Colorado Department of Transportation. Local governments have broad discretion. The lawsuit targets town decision-making on narrow grounds, alleging that proposed “mitigation” measures are not sufficient to comply with town rules aimed at protecting the natural environment and wildlife. The developers’ proposals included the construction of a berm between the housing complex and a meadow where bighorns forage, limited lighting and restricted dog ownership. Residents walking to town would have to use an underpass designed for vehicles to cross I-70. The lawsuit also alleges town officials gave improper guidance to planning and environmental commission members by asserting they had no choice but to allow the development of the property, owned by Vail, because otherwise their action would amount to an illegal “regulatory taking” of the property. Vail officials declined to comment on the lawsuit. “We received the complaint, and we have forwarded it to our insurance carrier for review,” assistant town manager Patty McKenny said. Former Mayor Rob Ford, a longtime resident opposing the construction, said even people who recognize a need for affordable worker housing have been questioning Vail leaders’ decision-making. “It was not transparent. Residents were lied to. It is a poorly planned project, a crummy project,” Ford said. The conflict has escalated over the past two years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists have provided guidance, warning that bighorns likely would suffer harm and questioning whether mitigation is possible. Vail officials have countered that the resort needs housing for service workers, in part to create a sense of community and reduce worker driving. Only 20% of Vail’s 8,500 workers live in town. Others commute as far as 75 miles. Houses in Vail cost $1.3 million on average. Renting an apartment typically costs around $1,200 a month. The Vail Homeowners Association has opposed the development. A 40-member group called Citizens to Protect Our Wildlife asked Gov. Jared Polis for help. The local chamber of commerce asked Polis to stay out of the matter unless he planned to support the construction. ___ Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
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69
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Merck wins European approval for first-ever Ebola vaccine.
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U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co Inc on Monday received approval from the European Commission to market (bit.ly/2NZ0QMB) its Ebola vaccine, less than a month after a European medicines panel backed the first-ever vaccine against the deadly virus.
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true
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Health News
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The vaccine, Ervebo, is approved for individuals aged 18 years and older and has already been used under emergency guidelines to try to protect against the spread of a deadly Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo. The shot is also being reviewed by U.S. health regulators and a decision is expected in the first quarter of next year. The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever and spreads from person to person through direct contact with body fluids. It kills around half of those it infects. Since the middle of last year, the Congo Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people, making it the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, after the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,300. “The EU is supporting international efforts to combat Ebola on all fronts, from vaccine development to delivering humanitarian aid on the ground,” EU Ebola Coordinator Christos Stylianides said in a statement dated Nov. 10. Merck has said its priority was to get regulatory approval of its Ervebo manufacturing site in Germany so that licensed supply of the vaccine “can be used to support global public health preparedness”.
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37715
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This is Brian. Brian is an Antifa street rioter. Brian has an allergy. Brian is allergic to hitting a woman in front of a REAL MAN. Don't be like Brian.
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A Facebook post claiming a man with a black eye was “Brian,” an “antifa street rioter” who was justly harmed for “hitting a woman” in the presence of a “real man” was composed of lies from start to finish. The man’s name was not Brian, it was Devin Norman. Norman was never accused of “hitting a woman,” rather, he was injured in an altercation over the alleged threatened outing of a bisexual acquaintance. Scott, the man accused of attacking Norman, did not allegedly strike Norman for “hitting a woman,” but for reasons he said related to the content of his messages with Norman. In other words, everything about this photograph is false — except for the photograph itself.
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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On July 6 2020, Facebook user John Sargent shared the following image, which he claimed showed an “antifa street rioter” named Brian — heavily implying that “Brian’s” injuries were from receiving a righteous beatdown after he “hit a woman”:The ClaimSargent wrote:This is Brian. Brian is an Antifa street rioter. Brian has an allergy. Brian is allergic to hitting a woman in front of a REAL MAN. Don’t be like Brian.The FactsA reverse image search rapidly revealed the photograph was taken no later than March 2015; anti-fascism (or “antifa”) did not become a subject of widespread discourse in the United States until late 2016.A prominent early appearance of the image involved LGBTQ publication The Advocate, which published “After Brutal Beating of Gay Man in Miss., Suspect Outs Himself,” in March 2015:An alleged antigay hate crime in Mississippi may turn out to be something else entirely now that the suspect has come out in an interview.James Scott admits he attacked Devin Norman in the parking lot of a Corinth Walmart [in March 2015]; Norman was kicked in the head several times and suffered scars and broken bones. Scott says he didn’t attack Norman because Norman is gay; instead he claims he and the victim were sending photos to each other and Norman threatened to post them on Facebook.The article clearly identified the bruised person (Devin Norman) as a gay man, and the alleged assailant as a closeted bisexual man.On March 22 2015, WMC-TV did not use the image, but reported:CORINTH, MS (WMC) – Twenty-six-year-old Devin Norman has fractures in the bones of his face and bruises to his eyes.Corinth police say 22-year-old James Scott attacked Norman at the Walmart in Corinth [in March 2015].“I never thought of him as the kind of violent type,” said Norman. Norman says Scott should be facing hate crime charges, since he used gay slurs and attacked him because of his sexual orientation.Norman says Scott grabbed him by the back of his neck and punched him after he tried walk away.A day later, the same news organization followed up with alleged attacker James Scott. Scott claimed the altercation occurred after Norman allegedly threatened to “out” him on Facebook:CORINTH, MS (WMC) – A man charged with beating up a gay man in Corinth, Mississippi says he snapped, not because the man was gay, but because of what he feared the man would reveal to the rest of the world.James Scott … says Norman scared him by threatening to post lewd pictures and messages between them to Facebook for the world to see.“I was screaming, and I said, ‘Don’t you dare post that. Don’t you dare post that on Facebook,'” Scott said.Scott says he has been in the closet as a bisexual, and he was afraid of how posting those messages would change his life.“I was in fear for what my kids were going to think. I wasn’t ready to tell anybody,” Scott said.Police in Corinth, Mississippi indicated they did not believe that it was a hate crime.TL;DRA Facebook post claiming a man with a black eye was “Brian,” an “antifa street rioter” who was justly harmed for “hitting a woman” in the presence of a “real man” was composed of lies from start to finish. The man’s name was not Brian, it was Devin Norman. Norman was never accused of “hitting a woman,” rather, he was injured in an altercation over the alleged threatened outing of a bisexual acquaintance. Scott, the man accused of attacking Norman, did not allegedly strike Norman for “hitting a woman,” but for reasons he said related to the content of his messages with Norman. In other words, everything about this photograph is false — except for the photograph itself.Comments
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35090
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The phone number 1-866-211-9966 connects callers with the United Way's COVID-19 Community Economic Relief Fund.
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What's true: The displayed phone number is a valid one related to the United Way of Central Indiana's COVID-19 fund. What's false: The assistance connected with that phone number is local to a particular region of the U.S. and is not available to persons residing outside the Indianapolis area.
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mixture
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Politics, COVID-19
|
In mid-March 2020, amidst the economic dislocation created by the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic, a message popular on social media offered a handy phone number persons needing help with bills, rent, and food could call to connect them with a United Way COVID-19 Community Economic Relief Fund: In case anyone needs this: United Way has a COVID-19 Community Economic Relief Fund to help out those who need it. They will help with bills, rent, and food. You can call 1-866-211-9966 and provide zip code and will be given a list of local agencies to provide assistance. However, as the United Way of Freeborn County (MN) pointed out in a Facebook post, “The number listed is the direct line for Indiana 211, and the assistance it refers to is related to the United Way of Central Indiana’s COVID-19 fund. This specific assistance is not available for people outside Indianapolis”: Rochester, Minnesota, radio station KROC also reported that although persons needing assistance finding food, paying housing bills, accessing free childcare, or other essential services due to the current pandemic may be able find such assistance by calling 211, the phone number given in the post displayed above is specific to central (or southwestern) Indiana: The post that is circling the internet is for Central Indiana only with the phone number for the Indianapolis 2-1-1. I spoke with Emily Johnston from the Olmsted County United Way. She told me people are welcome to dial 2-1-1 here in Minnesota in order to figure out what resources are there for them. They can help with finding food, paying housing bills, or other essential services. As of right now, there is no Coronavirus response fund [here] yet but they are working on something. The United Way supports 211, a free and confidential service available 24/7 that helps people across North America find local resources they need, including information and other help connected with the COVID-19 pandemic:
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25790
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“Central Park actually used to be a town called Seneca Village” founded by African Americans in 1825.
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Seneca Village was located in what later became Central Park, and many of the earliest residents were African Americans. The village was evicted through eminent domain before the park was built. It’s worth noting that Irish and German immigrants were also residents of Seneca Village and that Seneca Village only accounted for a fraction of what became Central Park. However, the gist of the story is accurate
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true
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History, Race and Ethnicity, New York, TikTok posts,
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"A viral TikTok post says New York City’s Central Park once was a town called Seneca Village. The video, which was later removed from the platform, boasted over 3 million views. It’s preserved in this tweet. In the video, TikTok user Hannah Stater said in part, ""Central Park actually used to be a town called Seneca Village that was founded by freed African American slaves in 1825."" She added that the residents were evicted and that this history is not well known because it’s ""uncomfortable."" This description is largely accurate. From 1825 to 1857, Seneca Village consisted of the land between 82nd and 89th Streets and 7th and 8th Avenues. The land was purchased by a white couple, John and Elizabeth Whitehead, in 1824. It was soon subdivided into smaller plots. Columbia University's Seneca Village Project has identified Seneca Village as the first significant community of African American property owners in Manhattan. On Sept. 27,1825, Andrew Williams, a young African American, purchased three lots from the Whiteheads for $125. The same day, trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church purchased six lots near 86th Street. Those trustees included Epiphany Davis, an African American store clerk, who purchased twelve lots for $578. These transactions provided the nucleus for Seneca Village. There were three churches, a school and several cemeteries. The land ""was occupied by various groups, including the African American and Irish residents of Seneca Village, as well as scattered small German farmers and Irish households,"" Elizabeth Blackmar, a Columbia University historian, told PolitiFact. By 1855, the community had grown to 264 residents, as German and Irish immigrants integrated into the village, according to the New York Times. Map of Seneca Village circa 1857 By the 1840s, lower Manhattan, the original core of the city, had become unsanitary and overcrowded. Affluent and civic-minded New Yorkers grew concerned that commerce and industry were sullying the island. According to the New-York Historical Society, some leading residents resented an influx of poor immigrants and considered how to create new neighborhoods for wealthier New Yorkers. Between 1849 and 1853, New Yorkers debated how a ""grand"" park might be constructed to stretch from midtown to northern Manhattan could be created. ""In the summer of 1853, the city government authorized taking the land between 59th and 106th Streets, between Fifth and Eighth Avenues, to lay grounds for a public park. The city claimed the right of ‘eminent domain,’ which permits the state to take private land for public use, with compensation afforded to the land owners,"" wrote the New-York Historical Society. Seneca Village was directly in the path of the planned park. ""All residents were forced to vacate beginning in 1856,"" the historical society wrote, ""Approximately 1,600 people, spread over 7,500 lots of land, were directly affected by this decision. Nearly 300 of them lived in Seneca Village."" The New-York Historical Society has noted that to ease evictions, popular newspapers and magazines at the time portrayed the site of the future park as a ""wasteland"" occupied by ""squatters,"" ""shanties,"" ""bloodsuckers"" and ""insects."" But many of the residents fought to keep their land and requested higher compensation. Ultimately, Seneca Village residents were given final notice to leave in the summer of 1856. Residents were compensated for their land, but many didn’t want to leave or said their land was undervalued in the process, according to a history from the Central Park Conservancy. ""That's how Central Park was made, with most newspapers cheering the removal of ‘the insects,’"" wrote the New York Times. Some Seneca Village residents moved to different parts of the city, to Long Island, or out of New York state. Williams’ family ultimately settled in California. ""By 1857, a substantial community with deep spiritual and familial ties— some that went back more than thirty years—had vanished without leaving much evidence of its past,"" the New-York Historical Society wrote. The TikTok video said, ""Central Park actually used to be a town called Seneca Village"" founded by African Americans in 1825. Many of the earliest residents of Seneca Village were African Americans, and they were evicted through eminent domain before the park was built. The brief history on the TikTok does leave out some of the details, including that Irish and German immigrants were also residents of Seneca Village and that Seneca Village only accounted for a fraction of what became Central Park. But the gist of the story is accurate."
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39629
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This is a photograph of a letter from C. Dennis Packee of Reiman’s Harley-Davidson in Kewanee, Ill., to Christopher and Jamie Walters. The letter explains that Reiman’s will store the Walters’ motorcycles at no charge. It is their way of saying thank you to military members on deployment.
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The world’s first Ebola vaccine was recommended for approval by European drugs regulators on Friday in a move hailed by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “triumph for public health” that would save many lives.
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true
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Military, Miscellaneous
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The vaccine, developed by U.S. drugmaker Merck & Co, is already being used under emergency guidelines to try to protect people against the spread of a deadly Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo. It protects against the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus - the one that most commonly causes outbreaks. The shot is also being reviewed under a fast-track system by regulators in the United States, with a decision expected in the first quarter of next year. “This vaccine has already saved many lives in the current Ebola outbreak, and the decision by European regulators will help it to eventually save many more,” the WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. The Congo Ebola outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people since the middle of last year. It is the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history, after a 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,300. The Merck vaccine, which the company has now brand-named Ervebo, is likely to get a full marketing license from the European Commission in a few weeks. Roger Perlmutter, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said the company’s priority now was to get regulatory approval of its Ervebo manufacturing site in Germany so that licensed supply of the vaccine “can be used to support global public health preparedness”. Merck’s vaccine is being used in Congo in a so-called “ring vaccination” approach, in which people who may have been in contact with someone newly infected with Ebola are traced and offered the shot to protect them. Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust global heath charity said the Merck shot had already saved “countless lives” in the country. “Having this vaccine available under research conditions has been key in preventing the ongoing outbreak in the DRC spiraling into a repeat of the 2014-16 epidemic, where 11,000 people died,” she told Reuters. Health authorities in Kinshasa said last week they planned to introduce an experimental second Ebola vaccine, developed by drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, in the country’s eastern provinces in November. The Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever and spreads from person to person through direct contact with body fluids. It kills around half of those it infects. There are currently no licensed treatments for the deadly infection, but scientists said in August they were a step closer to being able to cure it after two experimental drugs showed survival rates of as much as 90% in a clinical trial in Congo.
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11069
|
Schering-Plough reports data on hepatitis C drug
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"This story reports on preliminary results suggesting that the protease inhibitor, boceprevir, reduced viral loads in hepatitis C patients who were previously unresponsive to other drug therapies. However, this piece does not tell the reader much about the study methods, specifically, that boceprevir was administered along with standard drugs, nor do we know much about the study population. The story should have also highlighted that the results were modest and have not yet been published in a medical journal. So we’re hearing company results that haven’t undergone rigorous peer review. Also, rather than accepting ""scientist-speak,"" why didn’t the story explain what difference a change in “sustained virologic response” meant in peoples’ lives? Furthermore, the principal investigator is not challenged when he says the drug results in a ""cure of up to 55%."" Cure? What does that mean to him and what does it mean to readers? If the story had included any independent perspective, perhaps some of these questions could have been answered. Instead, it read like a Schering-Plough/Merck news release. It may have been intended as a business story, but that’s irrelevant the way people encounter stories on the web, as we did in this case. And who says that shareholders don’t need the above questions answered as badly as patients/consumers?"
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mixture
|
"Since this drug is not yet available, we can understand that cost information was not included. But since the story points out that Merck is acquiring boceprevir for $41.1 billion, couldn’t it at least have mentioned the high cost of current hepatitis C treatment, as well as the high cost of its complications? The story stated that after 28 weeks of treatment, 25 percent had a ""sustained virologic response"" (SVR) and after 48 weeks 55 percent did. But why not use absolute numbers – how many out of how many? It tends to gloss over the fact that was mentioned but not emphasized – that this was only in 50 patients. There was also no attempt made to explain what a change in virologic response actually meant in peoples’ lives. Finally, the story doesn’t challenge the researcher’s use of the term ""cure."" What does that mean to him? And what does it mean to readers? The study points out the potential adverse effects associated with this drug. While the story indicates that these data were presented at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases conference, it does not explicitly state that the results are preliminary and have not been published in a medical journal. Unlike published articles, this study has not gone through a rigorous review process. It would have been helpful for the story to mention the details of the main study and also to acknowledge that this is a report of a subgroup analysis. The story should have also emphasized that such a retrospective study with such a small population (n=50) should be interpreted with caution. The story provides no background on hepatitis C, so this criterion is not applicable. This story only includes a quote from the principle investigator, Paul Kwo (not Quo, as written erroneously in the story). This story compared boceprevir with another investigational drug called telaprevir. A discussion of other treatments for hepatitis C is not warranted given that this subset of patients did not respond to the standard drug therapies. However, the story failed to make it clear that boceprevir is used in conjuction with two standard drugs. This story makes it clear that boceprevir is an experimental drug currently in development. The story makes it clear that this is an experimental drug and not the only one of its kind in development. We can’t be sure of the extent to which the story was influenced by a news release. We do know that no independent source was quoted."
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11120
|
Low-dose combination of Avandia and metformin decreases progression to diabetes by two-thirds with few side effects
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A well-constructed, balanced story that was missing just one piece of information: cost. Had the article discussed the price tag of this approach, it would’ve aced our criteria. Type 2 diabetes represents a significant public health problem that is now reaching epidemic proportions in many countries. Although lifestyle changes have been shown to be valuable in reducing the risk in prone patients, other prophylactic measures would be welcome. Single-drug treatments and standard-dose drugs taken in combination have been shown to reduce risk but with both a clinical and financial cost. This study is interesting and worthy of consideration because it reports on a low dose combination strategy for risk reduction. The story is an excellent summary of the study and places the results in context. However, it does miss out on an important consideration, that of cost. Ideally, preventing an illness in a population should cost less that the treatment of the illness. A bit more digging by the reporter would have been worth the effort to the reader.
|
true
|
"Costs and the cost-effectiveness of this strategy are not discussed. Any discussion of a preventive strategy should include comments on cost. Avandia and metformin, at the doses used in the study, cost about $195 a month, according to drugstore.com. We get absolute benefits, relative benefits, and the all-important number needed to treat (NNT). Very nice. While harms weren’t quantified, the story provided a good amount of detail, context, and caveat about the safety of this regimen. We get many important details about the study: the number of patients, the enrollment criteria, randomization, placebo control, half doses, and the length of follow-up. It also describes some limitations of the study, such as its inability to detect rare adverse events due to its size. It’s an important caveat, particularly with a cardiovascular cloud hanging over rosiglitazone. The author also points to the editorial’s observation that the approach didn’t affect the problems in the pancreas that underly diabetes and which must be addressed by such a strategy. The author is very specific about the thresholds for the patient population, and who was considered at high risk to progress to diabetes. We note that it was judiciously limited in its use of the term ""prevention."" Props to the author for citing the editorial written by two independent experts and published in the same issue of the Lancet. This article selects several of their many cogent comments. Ideally, another independent source outside the publication would’ve been consulted, too. The story describes how GSK has a dog in this fight, funding the study and manufacturing Avandia. The story also provides the institutional affiliations of Zinman and the two editorialists. While it’s probably covered in the GSK funding source, we’ll point out that several investigators had other financial ties to GSK, too. The article talks about the effectiveness of lifestyle changes and the challenge of implementing them. It also reviews the barriers to using full-dose rosi because of adverse events. It’s clear Avandia and metformin are currently available. We’re told of similar prior studies and the novelty of attempting a low-dose regimen to block progression. We don’t see evidence that the article relied on any news releases."
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29344
|
Peanut butter can be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease.
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What's true: A preliminary and limited study demonstrated a correlation between the early stages of Alzheimer’s and the reduced ability to detect odor in a person’s left nostril compared to their right, utilizing peanut butter as the source of odor. What's false: This study, which was published in 2013 and had a sample size of only 94 patients (of which only 18 had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's), was not large enough to be conclusive; later attempts to replicate its results have failed or were based on similarly limited sample sizes.
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false
|
Medical, alzheimer's, david avocado wolfe, peanut butter
|
On 7 December 2016, celebrity spokesperson for the United States’ number-one selling kitchen appliance David “Avocado” Wolfe (who believes, among other things, that the oceans contain salt to prevent water from levitating away from the planet’s surface) published an article titled “Here’s How You Can Use Peanut Butter To Diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease!” In it, he states: Using just a scoop of peanut butter and a ruler, clinicians have discovered a way to change lives and provide an early diagnosis for Alzheimer’s. […] The study involved participants with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. Participants were asked to close their eyes and attempt to detect an odor with one nostril at a time. Researchers used a small container of peanut butter to measure the distance from each nostril that the participants were able to detect the odor. The study found that people with Alzheimer’s disease have a harder time detecting odors from their left nostril when compared to their right nostril. […] So why peanut butter? Because it has a strong, familiar smell. People with Alzheimer’s can lose their ability to smell even before memory problems arise. This article cites a single 2013 study (titled “A brief olfactory test for Alzheimer’s disease”) published in the Journal of the Neurological Sciences which reported the observation that individuals diagnosed with early stages of Alzheimer’s disease consistently displayed a reduced ability to smell out of their left nostril, relative to their right. The study, which measured the distance away from each nostril from which a patient could first smell a 14g container of peanut butter, reported: A left nostril impairment of odor detection was present in all the patients with probable AD. This pattern of odor detection was not present in the older control group in which detection distances were symmetric across the nostrils and was absent in the patients with other dementias whose detection distances were either symmetric or asymmetric with a right nostril impairment. This idea is not as crazy as it might sound at first blush. That damage to one’s olfactory senses correlates with some forms of dementia is not new science, and it has a well-established basis, as covered in a 2015 review on the topic: The areas that evidence early neuropathy in Alzheimer’s disease, particularly in the mesial temporal lobe, are areas that, in addition to their well known importance for memory function, are also critical for the processing of olfactory information. The authors of the 2013 study indicated that their results should be considered preliminary, as their sample size was too small to be conclusive. They called for further research into the question, as its utility as a non-invasive diagnostic would be groundbreaking. In 2014, another team of researchers grabbed the baton and attempted to replicate the results of the 2013 study. They concluded: The present study throws into question the findings of Stamps et al. that AD is associated with lateralized asymmetry of olfactory dysfunction. While the possibility exists that such asymmetry might occur in a few well-selected cases, our research clearly indicates that such a phenomenon is not a general one and cannot be relied upon in diagnosing AD. A 2015 study further complicated this story when it demonstrated a positive correlation, similar to the 2013 study, between mild cognitive impairment (which often, but not always, leads to Alzheimer’s) and asymmetry in nostril olfactory function. This study, however — like the 2013 paper — utilized a small sample size, and argued that more research was necessary for any conclusive clinical application to be developed. This is a common tactic employed by Wolfe: He frequently cites out-of-date preliminary studies without proper context to make a highly shareable tidbit of what is ultimately false or misleading information. In the case of this peanut butter test, it is best to follow the advice of the 2013 study’s lead researcher, Jennifer Stamps, herself, when she was interviewed about her preliminary findings by NPR in 2013: Don’t try this at home. Having slight differences between your left and right nostrils is normal, and you might end up freaking out over nothing.
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41041
|
Covid-19 starts with a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. It then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and the lungs, causing pneumonia, which takes about 5 or 6 days. With pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty breathing. The nasal congestion makes you feel like you’re drowning.
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This is a roughly accurate description of the most common symptoms, although not everyone with Covid-19 gets pneumonia. The symptoms may not come in this order or at these times. There have been no reports of sufferers experiencing nasal congestion that makes them feel they are drowning.
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unproven
|
online
|
If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold. These are the symptoms for the common cold, but they don’t rule out Covid-19. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. Some Covid-19 patients do get pneumonia, and one of the symptoms is a dry cough. A runny nose doesn’t rule out Covid-19. The new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. There’s no evidence for this. There’s evidence that similar viruses transmit less well in the heat, but many countries with reported Covid-19 cases are experiencing temperatures higher than this. If someone with the new coronavirus sneezes, it travels about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. Environmental factors impact how far droplets from a sneeze can travel, but it is likely to be several metres. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. It’s not yet known exactly how long the virus survives on surfaces. It can survive for 6-12 hours on fabric and will be killed by normal laundry detergent . There’s no evidence the virus can survive in clothing and be transmitted this way. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. There’s no evidence that the temperature of liquids consumed can protect you from viruses. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes. There is no evidence yet on how long the virus can survive on the skin. But it is important to regularly wash your hands. You should gargle as a prevention with salt in warm water. There’s no evidence this will prevent or cure the virus. Covid-19 starts with a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. It then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and the lungs, causing pneumonia, which takes about 5 or 6 days. With pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty breathing. The nasal congestion makes you feel like you’re drowning. This is a roughly accurate description of the most common symptoms, although not everyone with Covid-19 gets pneumonia. The symptoms may not come in this order or at these times. There have been no reports of sufferers experiencing nasal congestion that makes them feel they are drowning. Claim 1 of 11
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