claim_id
stringlengths 1
234
| claim
stringlengths 14
491
| explanation
stringlengths 1
4.18k
| label
stringclasses 5
values | subjects
stringlengths 0
223
| main_text
stringlengths 18
41.7k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
29870
|
A double standard was at play in the FBI's raid of the office of Donald Trump's lawyer but not Bill Clinton's.
|
All in all, events proved the FBI had good reason to raid Cohen’s office, as they gathered evidence of multiple federal crimes (beyond just campaign finance violations) to which Cohen pleaded guilty. Bill Clinton’s payment to Paula Jones was a settlement of a civil lawsuit that did not involve any criminal matter or criminal wrongdoing, and thus it was of no legitimate interest to law enforcement. The only commonality between the two cases was that they involved payments by politicians to women, but for very different reasons and circumstances.
|
false
|
Politics, bill clinton, donald trump
|
A popular meme in March 2019 questioned why Bill Clinton had “paid Paula Jones $850K to go away” yet the FBI hadn’t raided his lawyer’s office. The meme was an obvious reference to two completely unrelated issues separated by decades: a 1994 lawsuit involving Clinton and a search warrant executed by the FBI in April 2018 at the office of President Donald Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen. In short, the major differences in the cases referenced by the meme — one of which involved an FBI raid on a lawyer’s office and the other not — were as follows: Clinton openly paid Jones $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit well after he became president and well after Jones had had a chance to air her allegations to the public, press, and court system, while Trump secretly used an intermediary to pay hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels just ahead of a presidential election in order to keep her allegations that she had an affair with him from reaching the public and influencing the election results against him. Nothing Clinton did in settling Jones’ civil lawsuit was illegal (or even potentially illegal), but Trump’s payment of hush money to Daniels through his lawyer was possibly an illegal act on the part of Trump and/or Cohen, hence the raid on the latter’s office but not the office of Clinton’s lawyer. On 6 May 1994, Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton just days before the statute of limitations would have expired. In her lawsuit, she maintained that on 8 May 1991, she was working the registration desk at Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Third Annual Governor’s Quality Management Conference was being held, an event Bill Clinton (then governor of Arkansas) attended to deliver a speech. Jones alleged that an Arkansas state trooper, Danny Ferguson, approached her at the registration desk, told her that Clinton would like to meet with her, and escorted her to a business suite in the hotel where Clinton was staying. According to Jones, once she entered Clinton’s hotel suite he complimented her on her physical appearance, put his hand on her leg, attempted to kiss her on the neck, asked her if she was married, and finally lowered his trousers to expose his erect penis and asked Jones to “kiss it.” When Jones rebuffed Clinton’s advances, she said, he told her to “keep this between ourselves” and suggested that, in her words, he “could damage her in her job and even jeopardize her employment.” Jones did not publicly discuss the incident until The American Spectator referenced it in a January 1994 article, apparently based on information provided by Trooper Ferguson: The American Spectator account asserts that a woman by the name of “Paula” told an unnamed trooper (obviously Defendant Ferguson), who had escorted “Paula” to Clinton’s hotel room, that “she was available to be Clinton’s regular girlfriend if he so desired,” thus implying a consummated and satisfying sexual encounter with Clinton, as well as a willingness to continue a sexual relationship with him. These assertions are untrue. The American Spectator account also asserted that the troopers’ ‘official’ duties included facilitating Clinton’s cheating on his wife … Since Jones (“Paula”) was one of the women preyed upon by Clinton and his troopers, including by Defendant Ferguson, in the manner described above, those who read this magazine account could conclude falsely that Jones (“Paula”) had a sexual relationship and affair with Clinton. Jones’ reputation within her community was thus seriously damaged. Several months later, Jones filed her lawsuit against Clinton and Ferguson, seeking a total of $750,000 in compensation for damages and attorneys’ fees on counts of sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and defamation. The issue of whether Jones could sue a sitting president went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, who upheld an appellate court decision that “the President, like all other government officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all other members of our society,” and allowed Jones’ case to proceed. However, Judge Susan Webber Wright of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas dismissed the lawsuit on 1 April 1998, holding that “the governor’s alleged conduct does not constitute sexual assault,” that “plaintiff’s allegations fall far short of the rigorous standards for establishing a claim of outrage under Arkansas law,” that “plaintiff has failed to demonstrate that she has a case worthy of submitting to a jury,” and that “there are no genuine issues for trial in this case.” When it came to light a few months later that Clinton had lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky during proceedings in Jones’ lawsuit, Jones filed an appeal to reverse the dismissal and have her claims reinstated. On 13 November 1998, Clinton settled the matter by offering to pay Jones $850,000 in exchange for her agreement to drop her appeal, without admitting to or apologizing for the conduct alleged by Jones. Porn actress Daniels (the stage name of Stephanie Clifford) said she first met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada in July 2006. The two engaged in sex in Trump’s hotel room, she claimed, and continued an “intimate relationship” into the following year. Daniels discussed her relationship with Trump in a 2011 interview for In Touch magazine, but the interview was not published at that time, reportedly because Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, threatened to sue over it when the magazine reached out to ask for comment. In January 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s personal attorney, Cohen, had arranged to pay Daniels $130,000 just weeks before the 2016 U.S. presidential election in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement related to her alleged 2006 affair with Trump. The following month, Cohen confirmed that $130,000 had been paid to Daniels, but he maintained that he had used his personal funds for the payment, and that “Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.” On 5 April 2018, Trump denied to reporters that he knew about the payment to Daniels. When pressed about why the payment had been made, Trump replied, “You’ll have to ask Michael Cohen” and asserted he didn’t know where the $130,000 had come from. Four days later, acting on a warrant from federal prosecutors in New York’s Southern District obtained in part on a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, FBI agents seized a variety of material from Cohen’s New York City office, home, and hotel room, including documents related to Cohen’s payment to Daniels and to Karen McDougal, another woman who had alleged an affair with Trump. A month later, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a member of Trump’s legal team, said that Trump had personally repaid Cohen for the $130,000 payment to Daniels, and that the reimbursement had been “funneled through a law firm.” The following day, Trump contradicted his earlier claim that he didn’t know about the payment by acknowledging that he had repaid Cohen, but he asserted the money “had nothing to do with the campaign.” In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight charges, including five counts of tax evasion, one count of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of being a “willful cause” of an unlawful corporate contribution, and one count of making an excessive campaign contribution, the latter two stemming from the “hush money” payments made to Daniels and McDougal. Prosecutors held that the payments made by Cohen violated federal campaign finance laws because they were meant to benefit the campaign but did not come from campaign contributions and were not reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The payments therefore constituted illegal in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign that violated laws limiting such donations to $2,700 and requiring their disclosure to the FEC. Whether Trump himself could be charged with engaging in a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws for his involvement in the hush money payments is still a matter of legal debate, but the issue took a dramatic turn in February 2019 when Cohen revealed before Congress that he was paid reimbursement for the hush money directly from Trump’s personal bank account after Trump became president. “Cohen’s public testimony directly implicates Trump in serious campaign finance violations,” former FEC General Counsel Lawrence Noble told the Washington Post. “Assuming Cohen is telling the truth about the purpose of the checks, the checks are documentary evidence supporting the allegation that Trump had Cohen pay Daniels $135,000 in hush money and then reimbursed Cohen.”
|
14218
|
"Kelly Ayotte ""has voted to defund Planned Parenthood"" six times."
|
Hassan said Ayotte voted six times to defund Planned Parenthood. Ayotte has been a consistent critic of Planned Parenthood and has shown support for defunding the organization or opposition to continued funding in at least six votes. It’s worth noting that some were procedural votes and several were much larger bills that included a provision on Planned Parenthood funding. Hassan’s claim is accurate, but needs clarification.
|
true
|
Abortion, New Hampshire, Congress, Voting Record, Maggie Hassan,
|
"Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte faces a competitive reelection bid in New Hampshire and Democrats are already taking aim at her record on abortion and women’s health. Gov. Maggie Hassan, the only Democratic candidate in the race, is one of the latest to lob those criticisms. ""She has voted to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides healthcare to about 12,000 Granite State women,"" Hassan said in a recent interview with the Concord Monitor, referring to Ayotte. ""She’s voted to defund them six times."" Planned Parenthood, a women’s health care provider that also offers abortions, has become a lightning rod in recent years as elected officials in Washington and in New Hampshire have taken steps to cut the organization’s funding. The organization is no fan of Ayotte: Planned Parenthood’s political arm took out its first ad of the 2016 cycle this month targeting New Hampshire’s junior Senator. We decided to take a closer look at Hassan’s claim. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England runs five health centers across New Hampshire -- in Manchester, Claremont, Derry, Exeter and Keene. And roughly half of the patients who visit a Planned Parenthood clinic across the border in Vermont -- in White River Junction -- are from New Hampshire. The Planned Parenthood centers in New Hampshire all provide contraception, annual exams, STI testing and treatment, and pregnancy testing. The Manchester location, which saw 4,779 patients in 2014, provides surgical and medical abortions. The Keene location, visited by 1,871 patients in 2014, offers medication abortions, according to Kayla McCarthy, with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England. Altogether Planned Parenthood clinics in New Hampshire served just over 11,000 patients during 2014, according according to Vice President for Public Policy Jennifer Frizzell. Another 1,750 were seen in the White River Junction, VT clinic. That would mean Planned Parenthood clinics together saw roughly 12,000 New Hampshire patients in 2014, in line with Hassan’s claim. Now let’s look at how many times Ayotte has voted against Planned Parenthood funding. Ayotte, elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, has been a consistent opponent of abortion and critic of Planned Parenthood. We checked with Hassan’s campaign and they pointed us to six votes. Three votes took place all on the same day, Dec. 3, 2015. 1) That day the Senate voted 52-47 to block federal funding to Planned Parenthood and repeal the Affordable Care Act in one bill. Ayotte voted for it. 2) Ayotte voted against an amendment that would have stripped a provision from the bill to defund Planned Parenthood. (The amendment was defeated.) 3) Another amendment, proposed by Democrats, sought to continue federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but it was tabled (that is, set aside) and Ayotte voted in favor of tabling it. (President Obama ultimately vetoed the bill.) 4) Ayotte voted to advance a bill last August that sought to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood. But the legislation failed to get the 60 votes it needed to move forward. 5) Ayotte voted in April 2011 for a resolution to prohibit federal dollars from funding Planned Parenthood. It failed, 42 to 58. 6) And in March 2011 Ayotte voted for a bill to fund the federal government, that included dozens of other spending items, but blocked federal funding to Planned Parenthood. The bill failed, 44 to 56. Ayotte said at the time: ""Our country is in a fiscal crisis… Everyone is going to have to make sacrifices, including many private organizations that have relied on federal resources,"" according to her office. In all, these six votes show some level opposition to funding for Planned Parenthood. However, some of them were procedural, and not all offered a clean up-or-down funding decision, as Hassan’s statement suggests. Ayotte’s office said she supported several other government spending bills that did not defund Planned Parenthood. And in September 2015, Ayotte voted not to move forward with a temporary government spending bill that sought to block federal funds for Planned Parenthood. Ayotte said at the time she supported defunding Planned Parenthood, but didn’t want to shut the government down to do it. ""Kelly Ayotte has voted to direct federal funding away from Planned Parenthood in an effort to better use federal dollars to fill gaps in women's health services for low-income women and preserve access to women’s health services,"" spokeswoman Liz Johnson said. Our ruling Hassan said Ayotte voted six times to defund Planned Parenthood. Ayotte has been a consistent critic of Planned Parenthood and has shown support for defunding the organization or opposition to continued funding in at least six votes. It’s worth noting that some were procedural votes and several were much larger bills that included a provision on Planned Parenthood funding. Hassan’s claim is accurate, but needs clarification."
|
9399
|
This Chef Lost 50 Pounds And Reversed Pre-Diabetes With A Digital Program
|
This NPR story profiled a health app that’s comprehensive — providing both diet and exercise tracking, education about healthy habits, personal coaching, electronic nudging, and peer support. The story featured a patient success story (and one less successful one–which was good to see) and briefly described positive data from a pilot study, leading to a rather upbeat take. However, the article did not provide much context for the technology-based treatment program: How do similar programs compare? What are the costs? What are the long-term outcomes? We think such context, and perhaps a dose of skepticism, is absolutely necessary — especially in the weight loss arena where so many seemingly promising ideas wither over time. Lifestyle factors play a large role in the risk for diabetes, heart disease, and many cancers, and yet people’s personal habits have proven notoriously hard to change. Given that 70% of American adults have excess weight, interventions claiming to aid weight loss are most certainly newsworthy. At the same time, it’s of utmost importance for news stories to put a new intervention into the context of what’s been tried before — both successful and unsuccessful approaches.
|
mixture
|
diabetes,weight loss
|
No mention of cost in an article about a technology-based treatment program for improving diet and exercise. Readers learn that one person received a body weight scale when he signed onto the program, which raises a big question — how much does this program cost? What happens cost-wise if you don’t succeed? The program includes personal coaching as well. We always want health stories to mention costs, and for this story on a new, relatively untested weight loss plan, cost seems especially important. The company’s website doesn’t make this information easy to learn either, but does mention that the cost might be covered by health insurance. The story quantified the benefits of the treatment program in one study, informing readers that in a study of 200 people at risk for developing diabetes, “75 percent of the participants completed the Omada program and lost at least 5 percent of their body weight. And about 1 in 4 participants lost 7 percent of their body weight or more. ” Well give this a barely passing satisfactory, though we also wanted to know: What was the average weight loss? How long did it take to lose the weight? How successful are people at keeping the weight off? It’s also useful to point out that there was no control group to measure this program against. The article did not consider potential harms of the program, but because they do seem relatively minor, we’ll rate this N/A. Things we did ponder related to risks of using the app: The study results implied that 25% of participants dropped out, but readers are not told why. Was following the program too difficult or not specific enough? Will this be simply one way for people trying to lose weight to fail and give up on improving their health? Do people get any portion of their money back if things don’t work out? Evidence for the program was based on a pilot study, in which 200 people at risk for developing diabetes tried it out. That may be a good first step in studying a new program for improving diet and exercise, but it does not measure up to a randomized, placebo-controlled study — the gold standard of clinical trials. It’s good that the word “pilot” was used in the article, but we think it needs a bit more explanation. A better approach would be to describe the weaknesses of pilot studies more clearly for readers and warn that the positive results may shrink under more rigorous testing. The term “prediabetes” is controversial — it’s a warning sign that your weight and blood sugar are above the normal range, but not yet at the threshold for diabetes itself. Using the phrase “diagnosed with prediabetes” blurs that line and makes what is essentially a risk factor sound like a condition requiring treatment. The story quotes two people who have tried the program, the company CEO, and a doctor who helped run the Utah study. We think readers deserve to hear from independent experts in the field of weight loss or those involved in motivating patients to improve their diets and exercise routines. Their voices would add needed context for this ever-vexing area of health care. We did want to commend the story for including a personal story about the program that wasn’t fully positive, which helps balance the story out. The article very briefly mentions that other technology-based programs for improving diet and exercise exist, but does not go into much detail, especially on outcomes. We think it would be useful to have included outcomes from a well-studied program, such as Weight Watchers, or even Virta Health, which recently published some (more) impressive one year results with a similar sounding app. The article makes clear the Omada program is available and in use around the country and even links to the company website. The story made clear that the Omada program includes a suite of features, including education, diet and exercise tracking, coaching, electronic nudging, and peer support, delivered to one’s smartphone. What’s relatively new is an app taking such a comprehensive approach. The article does not appear to rely on a news release.
|
27833
|
Law enforcement's search for a prolific counterfeiter of one-dollar bills lasted ten years.
|
How the search for a prolific counterfeiter of one-dollar bills ended up lasting ten years.
|
true
|
Business, controversy
|
Although the United States Secret Service is best known for its service in protecting the President and other assignees, this branch of law enforcement has a second area of responsibility, that of safeguarding the nation’s money supply from counterfeiting. Indeed, the Service was begun in 1865 for that very purpose, because at the close of the Civil War counterfeiting was so commonplace that an estimated one-third to one-half of the currency then in circulation was fake. Protection of the President was added to the Service’s duties only in response to the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. These days, the Secret Service’s jurisdiction in the financial crimes arena has been expanded beyond the counterfeiting of U.S. currency into forgery, theft of U.S. Treasury checks and bonds, credit card fraud, telecommunications fraud, computer fraud, and identity fraud. The Secret Service routinely rounds up and jails counterfeiters. It also each year destroys millions of dollars of phony U.S. bills, many long before they are loosed upon the public. Theirs is a quietly efficient organization geared for success, with most of the operations undertaken unfolding with clockwork precision. But this is a tale of a counterfeiting investigation that went against that norm, as it unfolded with anything but clockwork precision. This one case bedeviled the Service for a decade and came to a close only through a series of fortuitous events rather than via dogged and effective police work. In New York City in 1938, very poorly executed counterfeits of dollar bills began appearing in that city’s money supply. Turning up at a rate of no more than forty or fifty a month, these bogus bucks were produced on a small hand-driven printing press from a set of plates that could best be described as abysmally crude. And, as crude as they were, they got worse in subsequent editions as their maker sought to improve his product. One of the overhauls of his plates rendered the spelling of the surname of George Washington (whose portrait appears on the one dollar bill) as “Wahsington.” While the Secret Service was at that time routinely rounding up forgers who were doing far more damage to the money supply, they were baffled by this clumsy and unskilled counterfeiter. This hapless mystery man produced dollar bills and only dollar bills, and he never spread more than a handful of them in any given week. And he never seemed to pass his phony bucks more than once at the same place. The Secret Service dubbed him Mr. Eight Eighty, a moniker based on the file number assigned to his case. As the years passed, he came to be known as Old Mr. Eight Eighty, as his file maddeningly remained open while those of all others in its vicinity were closed, with the counterfeiters investigated in those cases being rounded up and jailed. For ten long and very frustrating years, Mr. Eight Eighty remained on the loose, his crudely rendered dollars surfacing in the New York money supply week after week. Attempting to collar him became a quest somewhat akin to the hunt for the Holy Grail for the Secret Service, because what had begun as little more than a lark had over the years escalated into a major manhunt as various agents assigned to the New York field office came to view this crossroader’s continued lack of capture as their personal failure. The pursuit of Mr. Eight Eighty amounted to the most intensive manhunt in the history of counterfeiting up until that time, and it may still stand as a record. Whenever one of Eight Eighty’s dollars surfaced, agents were dispatched to the business where it had been passed to question those working there about the person who might have given it to them. Time was also taken to educate shopkeepers about what to look for in spotting counterfeit currency, in hopes that if Mr. Eight Eighty came back, they’d make especial note of the person passing the bill then call the Secret Service with his description. Maps were dotted with push pins, each one serving to indicate the location of where a bill had appeared. However, such maps were hardly informative because while they did indicate the preponderance of the bills were surfacing in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the bills were also appearing all over the New York area and even well beyond. The region indicated by the cluster of push pins amounted to five square miles and contained a population of approximately a million people. Although the Secret Service hunted high and low, what eventually brought Mr. Eight Eighty to ground wasn’t anything they did, but rather what fate did to the sought-after mystery man. In January 1948, fake dollar bills and a few printing plates were discovered in a garbage-strewn undeveloped lot near Broadway and Ninety-Sixth Street by a group of small boys playing there. The kids thought little of their find, and ten days went by before one of their fathers caught them playing poker among themselves with the funny money and turned it over to the local police precinct. A detective at that station telephoned the Secret Service about the cash and was floored at the reception provoked by what he’d thought was rather mundane news (fake dollar bills, after all). A group of Secret Service agents was there in a trice to examine the bills, confirmed that they were Eight Eighty’s work, then paid a call on the man who’d turned in the false currency. Through him and his young son, they tracked the other children, finally locating the lads who had the plates in their possession. Another group of agents worked on the question of how the plates and the cash had come to be in a deserted lot. From those who lived nearby, they learned that a few weeks earlier there had been a fire on the top floor of a tenement overlooking the lot. They further learned that in an attempt to battle the blaze, the firefighters called to the scene had pitched a great deal of junk from the windows of a top floor apartment into the lot below. The occupant of that flat had not been at home at the time, although his aged mongrel had been, the dog expiring of smoke inhalation. A visit to that apartment settled all questions. In it, agents found the printing press, a pile of Eight Eighty’s famed dollars, and even a drawerful of misprints. They also found Mr. Eight Eighty. The mystery man, the subject of the large and relentless decade-long manhunt, was 73-year-old Emerich Juettner, better known as Edward Mueller, a senior citizen who had given up his job as an apartment superintendent in favor of becoming a junkman after his wife died. The dollars he printed and put into circulation spelled the difference between his being able to support himself and his dog and not being able to make ends meet. Mueller, a likeable and otherwise upstanding man, was charged with counterfeiting and sentenced to a year and a day in jail, but his term was knocked down to four months behind bars. Up until his arrest, neither his son nor his daughter had any idea of what their father had been up to or that he’d been in financial distress. The old man had valued his independence to the point of preferring to engage in a life of crime rather than turn to his children for help, children it appears who would have been all too willing to help their aging father. It took ten years to catch the likeable old codger not because the Secret Service was inept in its pursuit of Mr. Eight Eighty, but rather because three factors inherent to the case worked against it, two having to do with Mueller’s behavior and one with the denomination of the bill he chose to forge. Due to a peculiar turn of ethics, Mueller deliberately did not pass his fake bills at establishments more than once, for the express purpose of limiting the shortfall he caused any one person to no more than a single dollar. Instead of bilking the same places time and again, he spread his bogus bucks far and wide, thereby inadvertently avoiding one of the traps the Secret Service usually has going for it. Typical counterfeiters carelessly repeat their paperhanging at establishments already visited, and proprietors who have previously been burned by accepting fake bills tend to be far more observant afterwards of the currency handed to them and the people from whose hands it comes. The proprietors he left in his wake were rendered suitably alert to any future finagles, but because Eight Eighty didn’t retrace his steps, the quarry they hunted never came back into their range. Also, Mueller was unnaturally frugal in his bilking of others; he never put more of his fake dollars into circulation than he needed to augment his meager earnings and provide himself and his dog with enough to live on. Typical counterfeiters are greedy, dumping large amounts of bogus cash at locations that are close together within a short span of time, thus greatly increasing the chances that someone so swindled will remember what they look like. For example, a fellow seeking to unload a sizeable wad of phonies may well paper every business establishment along a street, all within the space of one afternoon; while any one shopkeeper might not remember what the fellow who spent $500 in counterfeit bills looked like, among a whole street of defrauded businesspeople at least a few will likely produce a very good recollection of the man’s appearance. Mueller was further protected by the denomination of the bill he forged. As amply demonstrated by the following trailer for the 1950 film Mister 880 that was based on this case, people pay precious little attention to the small denomination bills passed to them. As a general rule of thumb, as the value of the bill increases, so does the amount of scrutiny it is subjected to. A dollar bill, therefore, is barely glanced at, if at all: Mister 880 starred Burt Lancaster as the Secret Service agent in charge of the investigation and Edmund Gwenn, now best remembered as the Santa in Miracle on 34th St., as the counterfeiter.
|
29912
|
George Soros was arrested in Switzerland in February 2019.
|
Soros-obsessed conspiracy theorists have previously fantasized about his arrest, incarceration and even death.
|
false
|
Junk News, before it's news, george soros
|
George Soros, perhaps the most maligned and lied-about public figure alive, was once again the target of another garbled and malicious rumor in February 2019, when conspiracy theory websites reported the “breaking news” that he had been arrested in Switzerland — based on information provided by former U.S. President Barack Obama, who had himself been charged with treason against the United States and detained at Guantanamo Bay for a month. Soros, an 88-year-old financier and philanthropist known for championing and funding pro-democracy and civil society causes, has for years been the subject of widespread slander, misinformation and conspiracy theories, many of which we have examined and debunked. In October 2018, alleged domestic terrorist Cesar Sayoc was charged with mailing a pipe bomb to the homes of several prominent perceived liberal public figures and organizations, including Soros, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and Barack and Michelle Obama. Sayoc’s social media profiles indicated that he had an obsessive hatred of Soros, one fueled by years of false, inflammatory and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and allegations against him. On 3 February, BeforeItsNews.com — a junk news web site with a long record of publishing risible conspiracy theories and misinformation — posted the following incoherent account of the purported arrest of Soros by a fictional coalition known as “the Alliance” (or the “Earth Alliance”) and implicated Soros in a web of purported evildoing extending to ritual Satanic child abuse: George Soros was said [sic] arrested in Switzerland at 13:23 GMT on Feb. 3 2019. Evidently members of what was known as the Alliance stormed his retreat at Saint Margrethenberg, Switzerland based on a tip from local police. The Alliance was a military force working under orders of the Pentagon, GITMO Military Tribunal Judges and in conjunction with legal entities across the globe. Soros has been suspected to illegally influence US elections over the years, was thought behind thousands of immigrants forcing their way across the US Border, his organizations were believed to own and control software used in state voting machines and even worse, the multi billionaire was known to be a leader in the Vatican’s Ninth Circle Satanic Cult. He was thought behind regularly scheduled Satanic Child Sacrifice Rites and Human Hunting Parties organized under the Vatican and involving children and kidnapped teens across the globe … In something of a “grand slam” of conspiracy theories, the article claimed that the arrest of Soros was based on information provided by former U.S. President Barack Obama, who — purportedly charged with treason for his involvement in two other debunked but resilient conspiracy theories relating to the 2012 attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya and the “Uranium One” saga — had been detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: Evidently the Alliance had enough evidence supplied by former US President Barak [sic] Obama and other informants at GITMO to arrest Soros. Obama was believed to have been incarcerated at GITMO for at least a month, exposing crimes of upper echelons of the Deep State to save his own skin. Obama was thought to have been charged with High Treason for multiple crimes including Uranium One and the Benghazi massacre. Believed to be in poor health Soros was reported to have been prevented from committing suicide with a cyanide pill prior to capture. Presently he was thought to be under interrogation at a bunker near Gasternal, Switzerland. This conspiracy theorist fantasy was republished on blogs and web sites including FreedomForHumanity2016, ConspiracyDailyUpdate, and OperationDisclosure. The article cited no sources whatsoever, and no corroboration for its outlandish claims could be found in either Swiss, American or international news media or law enforcement statements.
|
3025
|
New Mexico health officials report first child flu death.
|
Health officials in New Mexico have confirmed the first death of a child due to the flu this season.
|
true
|
Health, General News, Flu, New Mexico
|
The state Health Department says the 1-year-old boy from Roosevelt County is among the 52 people who have died of pneumonia and flu-related illnesses since the season started in October. Health officials are warning that flu is still spreading in all regions of the state and that peak activity hasn’t been reached. They say this season is already unusual for how early the illness became widespread. During the first week of January, the percent of visits to outpatient medical clinics for flu-like symptoms was higher and earlier than the peak in the 2017-18 season, which at the time was the most severe season in a decade. Flu hospitalization rates also are higher than expected for this time of year, especially in young children. Officials say the rate of hospitalization for flu in New Mexico is more than double the national rate for newborns to 4 year olds. Officials said even if a person has had the flu this season, getting a flu shot can still help prevent getting sick again with another strain.
|
36473
|
The media lied about the Momo challenge and real Momo videos have been located and shared.
|
‘Real Momo Videos,’ Viral Hoaxes, and Ostension
|
mixture
|
Analysis, Disinformation, Social Media, Viral Content
|
In the aftermath of the March 2019 U.S. media frenzy surrounding the Momo challenge, a number of “real Momo videos” have opportunistically surfaced and quickly racked up large share counts.We came across several of the likely many surviving “real Momo” videos on Facebook that were posted by concerned parents, although given the nature of the Momo and the fears around Momo’s challenges, it is likely these posts will eventually be removed.The examples we found were shared on Friday, March 1 2019. One posted that day is here, and is archived here. The second can be found as of March 5 2019 here, and is archived here. In the first post, the caption is short and to the point:A parent finally caught MOMO on their kids device. This is some sick shit. (The persons name on the video was also sharing this just as I’m doing he did not create the video)The second post included captioned screenshots. Lengthy accompanying commentary suggested that the media is ignoring or covering up the truth of the Momo challenge, saying that the screenshots proved otherwise:So since the media(BBC) is lying to everyone again saying that Momo is a hoax, I decided to share my screenshots of each frame, please read on:It may be a hoax on the What’s Up App, because I never checked that out, but I watched an episode of Peppa Pig, which YouTube has since taken down….I actually did screenshots of each frame. Momo came in the middle of the cartoon at 3:02 and was only there for 17 seconds….Momo left out at 3:19 and the cartoon resumed playing….I will be posting the screenshots on my wall and will make it public if you want to share it…..It’s very disturbing what Momo tells these children….and the fact that it’s hidden in the middle of a cartoon and if the parents weren’t watching during those short 17 seconds, they would never even see what their children were violated by….Momo actually tells them to slit their wrists and Momo won’t come see their parents in one of the frames….I’ve included this one, if your child is scared enough they may try to slit their wrists to try to protect their parents and that’s only one of the things Momo says…..It’s a very sick person that did this….If anyone wants me to send the screenshots to them via pm I can do that, just let me know….I think the media is now trying to downplay it, to try to calm everyone down, but they are lying to everyone…..This is how the cartoon starts, then in pops Momo at 3:02 and Momo goes out at 3:19….and the cartoon resumes….So the pictures should come out in the order of the frames hopefully when I post this….In the set archived here, still images show a Peppa Pig cartoon. Then Momo appears to recite a sinister rhyming threat. In the video post, Momo instructs children to find a “fun sharp toy,” and to drag it lengthways across their arms. She tells them it’s the “easy and fun way” to cut themselves, to “be brave for Momo,” and if they don’t, “Momo will come get you while you sleep.”High share counts on both posts reinforce the idea that the clips and screenshots demonstrate that the media has been lying about or trying to downplay the reality of the challenge, and further reinforces the notion that parents and schools were right to worry about Momo all along. The clip with screenshots referenced the BBC, which published at least three reports (one a video) saying that the Momo challenge was a hoax.Rumors of the Momo challenge were not new in 2019, although that was when they really took hold in the United States. Numerous reports from mid-2018 described a “Momo challenge” was spreading on WhatsApp and Facebook, but early versions did not involve the supposed splicing of messages into children’s videos.This boom-and-bust rumor cycle is a predictable pattern. Schools and police departments have good (but in this case, a bit misguided) intentions, urging parents to ensure that they and their children know all about the “Momo challenge.” Evidence of the purported challenge subsequently emerges, “proving” that the rumors were right all along.What is actually occurring is a phenomenon that is well documented and well known in folklore circles as pseudo-ostension. The term “ostension” (showing or demonstrating something) is also “used by those who study folklore and urban legends to indicate real-life happenings that parallel the events told in pre-existing and well-established legends and lore” as a term specific to that genre of research.Ostension can be observed in a slightly different form as quasi-ostension, when unrelated happenings are chalked up as related to circulating urban legends. Incidents involving purported gang initiations often fall into this category, for example. Local and global media panics are primed for examples of quasi-ostension. But Momo challenge posts are more likely to represent pseudo-ostension:Acting, true to life or not, is a series of signs and stands for the objects (actions) it signifies. Netiher is the delusion of the magician ostension but at the most pseudo-ostension, imitation of ostension. Through a whole series of signs, the magician strives to create the illusion that the lady in the show really levitates although she does not, at the same time it is made plausible for the audience through a series of theatrical signs.This suggests that Momo is more the face of parental fears than one of the actual myriad threats that lurks within the heart of the internet.An example from 1991, well before social media caught on, perfectly describes pseudo-ostension in action. In 1991, Ebony magazine published a letter written by woman who claimed she was an HIV-positive woman from Dallas who was intentionally having unprotected sex with as many men as possible, followed by a local radio broadcast of a phone call from a woman who said she was the real culprit, adding “I’m doing it to all the men because it was a man that gave it to me.” This caused a huge upswing in men seeking HIV screening in the Dallas-Fort-Worth area; both the letter-writer and the caller were eventually identified:The police also announced they had learned the identities of two women who had contributed to the discomfort and distrust generated by the C. J. story. One is a 15-year-old girl who wrote a letter to Ebony magazine, in which she claimed to be C. J. The other is a 29-year-old woman who works at a local medical school. She has been identified as the most prolific of a half-dozen callers to local broadcast news media claiming to be the avenging C. J.Chief Hawkins said in an interview today that handwriting analysis had confirmed that the teen-ager wrote the letter. She said her motive was an attempt to raise community consciousness after losing a family member to AIDS, he said. The police are taking no action against her.The 29-year-old woman “said it started as a joke,” Chief Hawkins said.“She said she truly did care about people and didn’t mean for it to take the turns it did,” he said.In this example, individuals who heard and believed the referenced urban legend felt it important to “raise awareness” of the purported risk described in unfounded circulating urban legends. To do so, they falsely claimed to be party to or even be perpetrating incidents of the legend, thereby lending credence to an otherwise untrue — but popular — story. As is often the case, once a frightening urban legend reaches critical mass, people will begin to “act it out,” or else claim they participated in an event or know someone who did because they truly believed it would help others take the claims seriously.Here is what we know: during peak Momo angst, Momo was perhaps the most discussed topic in North America and parts of Europe. During that time, every major and minor news organization carried stories about the purported Momo challenge, which was not labeled a hoax early in the news cycle. During the frenzy, many sought out Momo videos to see what the fuss was about. New purported Momo videos appeared after that peak — tracking with a phenomenon well known to researchers of urban legends and folklore.
|
11572
|
Less Frequent Mammograms May Lower False-Positive Results
|
The first sentence mentions “A slightly higher risk of being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer” but two lines later we’re told this “wasn’t statistically significant.” So why was it in the lead? And why state it as a definitively “slightly higher risk”? The story converts 61% (false positives from annual screening) into “more than half” but then gives the actual percentage – 42% who had false positives from biennial screening. “More than half” could be 51% or higher. That was too vague and unhelpful. The story frames this “as the latest volley in an ongoing debate.” Not really. This was science at work – a new study published in a journal. The story says the US Preventive Services Task Force 2009 mammography recommendations “startled the world.” Not really. It didn’t startle anyone who follows this science closely. The framing of this story was odd and troubling. Rather than build in drama (“latest volley…startled the world”), journalists would be better off giving the data and getting out of the way with flowery phrases. The critical question is whether you can do less frequent screening, subject women to fewer harms and get similar results in terms of detection of “early stage” cancer. This study’s data seems to suggest that answer is yes.
|
mixture
|
HealthDay,Screening,women's health
|
The article fails to provide any information about the psychological & financial costs that result from false-positive mammography recalls & false-positive recommendations for biopsy. This article focused on the significant reduction in false-positive mammograms among women who are screened for breast cancer every two years rather than every year. Rather than stating that “more than half who received annual mammograms were called back at least once because of a false-positive,” it would help readers to know that the percentage was actually 61.3%. And it was misleading in the lead sentence to say “but the trade-off is a slightly higher risk of being diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer…” while qualifying that two lines later – “But the increase in breast cancer diagnoses wasn’t statistically significant.” This piece briefly noted the anxiety caused by recall mammography but failed to point out that recall mammography may also cause inconvenience & that biopsies cause pain & scarring. The article should also have mentioned the financial costs of recall mammograms & of biopsies. The competing WebMD piece did mention anxiety, inconvenience, pain & scarring. The article should have stated that few women underwent screening for the entire 10-year period and that the recall rates are influenced by the skill of the radiologists who read the mammograms. There is no disease-mongering. The piece includes a relevant quote about the benefits of the study from Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The article did remain focused on the key information regarding the reduction in false-positive recall mammograms & recommendations for biopsy that result from undergoing screening mammography biennally rather than annually. Because readers are appropriately concerned about any possible effect less frequent screening may have on stage at diagnosis, this article should have included the crucial information that the slightly higher risk of being diagnosed with a later stage breast cancer was statistically insignificant. That important fact was not addressed until two paragraphs after mentioning the higher risk. Readers who read only the first paragraph or who skim an article may have easily missed the clarifying information about statistical significance in the third paragraph. Screening mammography is widely available throughout the United States. This is not a new procedure. This article includes a quote from the Principal Investigator, Rebecca Hubbard, Ph.D & from a breast surgeon. It clearly does not rely solely on a press release.
|
5897
|
Legionnaires’ disease found in person who didn’t attend fair.
|
Public health officials in North Carolina are reporting a case of Legionnaires’ disease in a person who didn’t attend the Mountain State Fair, but was at a building on the fair site.
|
true
|
Health, General News, North Carolina, Legionnaires disease, State fairs, Public health
|
The state’s Health and Human Services Department reports the person attended the Quilt Show at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in late September. To date, it’s the only case of Legionnaires’ disease in an individual who didn’t attend the fair, but was at the WNC Ag Center after it ended on Sept. 15. Health officials visited the WNC Ag Center Sept. 25 and 27 and didn’t identify any sources of aerosolized water. The N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services suspended rental of the Davis Event Center after Legionella bacteria were found in one of six samples.
|
26436
|
Kennedy Center, PBS donated to Democrats after getting COVID-19 stimulus money.
|
The Kennedy Center and a nonprofit that funds PBS received money from the $2 trillion federal stimulus law in response to the coronavirus. Both Kennedy and PBS are nonprofits that are prohibited by law from making political donations. Federal election records show they have not made any such donations.
|
false
|
Campaign Finance, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
|
"When it came to the $2 trillion relief package for COVID-19, maybe few things fueled more political criticism than the $25 million that went to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Some Republicans blasted the earmark as federal largesse. But worse than the Kennedy money are coronavirus kickbacks that followed, claimed a post shared 54,000 times on Facebook. ""So, the virus bill gives $25 million to the Kennedy Center (and) $200 million to PBS,"" the post says, referring to the Public Broadcasting Service. ""In return, the Kennedy Center donates $5 million to the Democratic Party and PBS donates $25 million to the Democratic Party. This is flat-out money laundering and quid pro quo. Prove me wrong."" With apologies, we will. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The Kennedy Center opened in Washington, D.C., in 1971, eight years after the assassination of the 35th president for whom it is named. It is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. Among its most celebrated moments is the late Aretha Franklin’s performance of ""(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,"" in 2015. PBS is a private nonprofit owned by its more than 330 member public television stations and serves as an alternative to commercial broadcasting. It is funded mainly by those stations and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit created and funded by the federal government that manages federal funding for public media. The children’s show ""Sesame Street"" (which moved to HBO after 45 years) and the dramatic series ""Masterpiece"" (formerly ""Masterpiece Theatre"") are among PBS’ most popular shows. The largest of the coronavirus stimulus packages adopted into law so far is the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, which was enacted March 27. ""Keeping workers paid and employed, health care system enhancements and economic stabilization"" are the primary aims of the overall bill. Features include payments of $1,200 per individual, subject to income limits, a $600 bonus added to weekly unemployment insurance checks and forgivable loans for small businesses to help them meet their payrolls. The $25 million in CARES money for the Kennedy Center is for such purposes as ""deep cleaning,"" maintenance, telework upgrades, employee compensation, rent and utilities. The center is a federal entity funded by ticket revenue and congressional appropriations, so receiving funding through a congressional bill isn’t unusual. The Democratic House leadership had said in a statement that the Kennedy Center had lost more than $20 million in unrecoverable costs from canceled performances and could ""become completely insolvent and potentially unable to reopen."" Because of COVID-19, the Kennedy Center closed March 12 and has canceled performances through at least May 22. Meanwhile, it was the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS, and not PBS itself, that received $75 million in CARES funding — not $200 million. It is for ""stabilization support"" for stations seeing declines in non-federal revenues. As with the Kennedy Center, it is standard practice for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to receive its funding from congressional legislation. ""Public media stations are the backbone for most communities’ emergency alert, public safety, first-responder and homeland-security services,"" the same Democratic leadership statement said. ""If stations are forced to cut jobs, reduce content and services, or close, the nation’s ability to deliver emergency alerts will be significantly diminished."" There actually isn’t a legal way for the Kennedy Center or PBS to show their appreciation for politicians through campaign contributions. Because the Kennedy Center and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and tax-exempt organization with the Internal Revenue Service, they are prohibited from making political contributions. 501(c)(3) is the section of the Internal Revenue Code that applies to charitable organizations that can receive tax-deductible donations. Aside from donating, they cannot attempt to influence legislation ""as a substantial part of its activities"" and cannot participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates. Fact-checkers Lead Stories, Snopes and FactCheck.org each reported that the Kennedy Center did not make a $5 million donation. So did the Reuters news agency. Our search of Federal Election Commission records also show no political contributions at all being made by the Kennedy Center or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting or PBS. We also checked the Federal Election Commission records for any contributions made by employees of those three entities on or after March 27, the day President Donald Trump signed the CARES bill into law. We didn’t find any. A Facebook post shared more than 54,0000 times claimed that the Kennedy Center gave $25 million and the corporation that funds PBS gave $5 million to the Democratic Party after the two entities received millions from a federal stimulus law in response to the coronavirus outbreak. Both nonprofits are barred by law from making political contributions and we found no evidence that they have."
|
7516
|
US to screen airline passengers from China for new illness.
|
Three U.S. airports will screen passengers arriving from central China for a new virus that has sickened dozens, killed two and prompted worries about an international outbreak, health officials said Friday.
|
true
|
AP Top News, San Francisco, New York City, Health, Ebola virus, Wuhan, New York, China, Asia Pacific, U.S. News, General News
|
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials say they will begin taking temperatures and asking about symptoms of passengers at three U.S. airports who traveled from the outbreak city of Wuhan. Officials estimate roughly 5,000 passengers will go through the process in the next couple of weeks at New York City’s Kennedy airport and the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports. The first direct flight was expected Friday night at Kennedy, and the next expected Saturday morning in San Francisco. Doctors began seeing a new type of viral pneumonia — fever, cough, difficulty breathing — in people who worked at or visited a food market in the suburbs of Wuhan late last month. More than 45 cases of the newly identified coronavirus have been confirmed in Asia, most of them in Wuhan, including two deaths — at least one involving a previous medical condition. Officials have said it probably spread from animals to people but haven’t been able to rule out the possibility that it spreads from person to person. So far, the risk to the American public is deemed to be low, but the CDC wants to be prepared and is taking precautions, the CDC’s Dr. Martin Cetron said. “The earlier we detect a case, the better we can protect the public, and the more we can understand about this virus and its risk for spread,” he said in a call with reporters. It’s always possible a virus can mutate to become more dangerous. It’s also likely that more cases will spring up around the world, including at least one at some point in the United States, said another CDC official, Dr. Nancy Messonnier. The CDC is sending in 100 staffers to handle the airport screenings. Passengers who seem like they might be infected will undergo testing for flu or other possible causes. The plan is to place them in isolation at a nearby hospital until doctors know what they’re dealing with, to prevent possible spread of the new virus. Specialized testing for the virus can take a day for results, CDC officials said. At least a half-dozen countries in Asia have started screening incoming airline passengers from central China. The list includes Thailand and Japan, which both have reported cases of the disease in people who had come from Wuhan. Travel is unusually heavy right now as people take trips to and from China to celebrate the Lunar New Year. The CDC said the airport screenings are part of an effort to better detect and prevent the virus from the same family of bugs that caused an international outbreaks of SARS and MERS that began in 2002 and 2012. The CDC did not screen incoming passengers during those outbreaks, and some public health experts questioned whether they should do so now. “It’s not a particularly effective intervention, and it potentially offers a false sense of security,” said Dr. Kamran Khan, a University of Toronto researcher who has studied airport screenings during the SARS and Ebola outbreaks. Screeners likely will flag a lot of people with other germs — it is flu season — while missing infections from the new virus. Experts believe it may take up to two weeks between the time someone is infected and when they come down with a fever and other symptoms. The only other time the CDC has done airport screenings was in 2014, when health officials screened thousands of passengers from three West African countries for Ebola but detected no illnesses. In fact, one passenger who was infected but had no symptoms passed through the screenings and then developed symptoms after arriving in the United States. Some have argued measures like this have less to do with good science than with politicians hoping to convince the public that the government is doing something to protect them. Cetron rejected that notion. “There’s widespread consensus we should be doing this now,” among both political appointees and government scientists, he said. Passengers who don’t have symptoms will be handed cards that tell who to contact for health care if they develop symptoms later. That’s important, Khan said. “Educating travelers about the illness and letting them know what to do if they become sick after they leave the airport can be very helpful” because it can speed up proper diagnosis, treatment and isolation precautions, he said. Health authorities identified the bug this month as a new type of coronavirus. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which cause the common cold; others found in bats, camels and other animals have evolved into more severe illnesses. SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, belongs to the coronavirus family, but Chinese state media say the illness in Wuhan is different from coronaviruses that have been identified in the past. Earlier laboratory tests ruled out SARS and MERS — Middle East respiratory syndrome — as well as influenza, bird flu, adenovirus and other common lung-infecting germs. CDC officials said Friday that they are not certain if China has begun screening passengers before they board airplanes to travel abroad, but it’s been discussed. The New York and San Francisco airports each receive three direct flights from Wuhan each week, Cetron said. Los Angeles International gets significant numbers of passengers who start their journeys in Wuhan but change planes in Beijing. ___ 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.
|
31948
|
A photograph of a shark leaping out of the water is real and won an award from National Geographic.
|
Shares in China’s leading pig producers have soared to record levels despite one of the worst disease outbreaks in years, as investors bet on tightening pork supplies and strong government support for leading producers.
|
false
|
Fauxtography, altered photo, animal photos, doctored photos
|
China is battling the world’s fastest spreading outbreak of African swine fever, an incurable pig disease that has been confirmed in 28 of its provinces and regions. Livestock shares initially slid on the early outbreaks in August and September. But they have climbed since November, even as outbreaks continued and as transport curbs on infected provinces hit prices and hurt profits at most producers. Shares in Muyuan Foods Co Ltd, the No.2 producer, have doubled in the past six months. No. 4 producer Jiangxi Zhengbang Technology Co has surged more than 200 percent, while rapidly growing Tech-bank Food Co Ltd is up 143 percent. Graphic - Swine Stampede: Listed pork producers in China surge to near record levels as investors bet on tighter supplies & govt support - tmsnrt.rs/2BYgwdC While listed companies still account for only a modest proportion of China’s annual production of 700 million pigs, they are growing quickly as Beijing promotes modern farm techniques. Muyuan produced 11 million pigs last year. The share price gains come even as most companies have forecast a plunge in earnings for last year. In a preliminary report, Muyuan said its 2018 net profit slid 78 percent to 520.2 million yuan ($77.7 million), after prices fell partly because of African swine fever. But analysts say prices for live pigs have bottomed and could rise from 12 yuan per kilogram currently to as much as 20 yuan in the second half, as supplies plunge and farmers face challenges in restocking farms. “Prices could rise quite high, quite quickly,” said Xiong Kuan, analyst at Cofco Futures, who expects a 20 percent drop in supplies. Others say it could be as much as 30 percent. Large players with low-cost modern farms that are better able to resist disease are expected to reap good profits. They will also win support from the government, already worried about supply. China eats half the world’s pork, by far the country’s most popular meat, but much of the production comes from millions of small farmers whose farms have been most at risk of disease. “The government sees very clearly, among all the cases of African swine fever, less than 20 percent took place on big farms. They are encouraging big farms with good biosecurity measures to expand production,” said Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at Soozhu.com. Last month the agriculture ministry urged farmers to quickly replenish their herds as concerns grew that prices will rise rapidly in the second half of the year. And last week, Beijing issued a draft plan aimed at tackling the disease and shoring up supplies. It called for the promotion of high-quality farming companies in southern areas that need to increase supplies and support for large-scale integrated processors across the country. Many big companies have continued to expand, eyeing future bumper profits. Top 10 producer New Hope Liuhe produced 2.5 million pigs in 2018, up 50 percent on the prior year. Muyuan raised 5 billion yuan in a share placement in December to add new farms for 4.8 million pigs. The expansion would help provide the market with stable supplies and allow the company to “firmly grasp the opportunities from market transformation,” it said.
|
35055
|
Almost 200 people in Italy died from the coronavirus in a 24-hour period between March 11 and 12, 2020.
|
The death toll rose again the next day as an additional spate of deaths was reported. On March 12, The New York Times reported, “The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has jumped in the last 24 hours by 189 to 1,016, a rise of 23%, the Civil Protection Agency said.”
|
true
|
Medical, coronavirus, COVID-19
|
As the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the spread of COVID-19 a pandemic in early March 2020, alarmed readers asked Snopes to verify reports that nearly 200 people died in a 24-hour span in Italy as a result of the disease. Sadly it is true that between March 10 and March 11, 2020, 196 people died in Italy, which was suffering the worst outbreak of COVID-19 outside Asia. Reuters reported on March 11 that, “The death toll from coronaviruses in Italy has risen from 196 to 827, an increase of 31%, Civil Protection [Agency] announced today.”
|
4791
|
As Cron, Rosario return, Twins put Buxton on concussion list.
|
The latest improbable catch by Byron Buxton caused a face-first crash into the grass, another painful highlight-reel grab for the Minnesota center fielder .
|
true
|
MLB, Baseball, Byron Buxton, Rocco Baldelli, Health, C.J. Cron, Minnesota, Mike Morin, Eddie Rosario, Injuries
|
Unlike the all-out defense that Buxton normally puts on display, the Twins were more than willing to play it safe with this injury. Buxton was placed on the seven-day injured list for players with concussion-like symptoms, just as first baseman C.J. Cron and left fielder Eddie Rosario returned from their injuries. The Twins also designated right-handed reliever Mike Morin for release or assignment Tuesday before their series opener against the New York Mets. “We’re not going to mess around, really, in any way,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “This is serious stuff. The health of Buck is obviously the most important thing. I think it’s something that is already resolving itself in some ways, but something where I think this is the right move.” Buxton was hurt Saturday during his head-first, diving catch of a sinking line drive during a critical win at main division competitor Cleveland, forcing him out of the game in the eighth inning. Buxton, who was sidelined for 13 games last month with a bruised right wrist, has had his promising career so far stunted by a variety of injuries, in part due to the speedster’s fearless style in the outfield and on the bases. Buxton was announced Tuesday as the team’s annual winner of the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association’s Heart and Hustle Award. “He hit the ground pretty hard, and this isn’t any sort of light injury,” Baldelli said. “He didn’t graze anything. He made a great play and hit the ground, and he gives his body up for this team every single night that he takes the field.” The Twins, who took a six-game lead in the AL Central over the Indians into Tuesday night, have managed to maintain the highest-scoring offense in the majors despite putting 10 different position players on the injured list over various points of this season. Rosario was out for 13 games with a sprained left ankle. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks when it comes to injuries and things like that, but I’m back today and I know what Buxton is going through is nothing bad and he’ll be back soon as well,” said Rosario, who’s second on the team with 20 homers and still leads the Twins with 60 RBIs. Because of the All-Star break, Cron only missed five games with right thumb inflammation, a condition that has bothered him for most of the season. “I’m just going to try to tape it up, I guess. Try to pretend as if nothing’s wrong and try to just keep going,” Cron said. “That’s really all you can do.” Morin had a 3.18 ERA in 23 appearances after being invited to spring training on a minor league contract. His somewhat surprising removal from the roster could be the precursor to the addition of a reliever or two on the trade market over the next two weeks. “When you make decisions like this, you can look back on them, and you’re not really sure because things are not obvious sometimes, but unfortunately we landed on the thought of designating Mike,” Baldelli said. “I have no doubt he’s going to land on his feet.” ___ More AP baseball coverage: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
|
9961
|
Therapy offers hope for infants at risk
|
This story reports on two trials of a new treatment aimed at helping to reduce the risk of long-term lung problems in babies born very prematurely. While it makes note of both the expense of the new treatment as well as the challenges in deciding which infants are more likely to benefit from it, the story does not do as good a job as it could at describing the problem of interest, how the study was done, or of providing support for some expert statements that are included. For example, the story implies that all babies in both studies received nitric oxide therapy, when in fact the trials were both randomized, and one was blinded and placebo-controlled as well. This detail is important because it helps to reinforce the validity and strength of the findings–results from a randomized trial are often more reliable than those from trials in which all participants receive a therapy, or those in which patients are selected to receive a therapy. The fact that infants in both groups–those who received the therapy and those who didn’t–had similar rates of adverse effects means that nitric oxide as used in the studies appears to be safe. The story did not explain how big the potential benefit was. No details were provided on the numbers of infants who either did or did not develop bronchopulmonary dysplasia or other outcomes among each group. It would have been helpful to know more about the expert cited in the story–his quote stating that this therapy is “not a rescue therapy for dying babies,” helps to place this new information in context, but when he goes on to say that it is the therapy for the majority of premature babies who survive, it implies that nitric oxide has already been adopted as standard of care. In fact, it is still experimental.
|
false
|
The story notes that nitric oxide is expensive; however, it does not give any support or evidence for the quoted expert’s statement that the treatment might be cost-effective in the long run. No details are provided on the numbers of infants who either did or did not develop bronchopulmonary dysplasia or other outcomes among each group. It would also have been more helpful to frame the findings positively; for example, to state that the therapy did seem to help infants who weighed at least 2.2 pounds, rather than saying it had little impact on those who weighed less. The story notes that there were no apparent adverse effects of the therapy; however, it’s less clear that despite therapy, premature infants who have severe breathing problems often have a number of other health challenges. The story did not include enough details about the design of the study for a reader to be able to put the reported findings into perspective. If anything, the story might have actually understated the consequences of bronchopulmonary dysplasia, which can also be associated with brain injury and problems with development of the brain and nervous system. The story cites both an editorial that accompanied the original studies as well as a physician from a local hospital. However, it does not note whether that physician took part in the study or had any ties to companies that supply nitric oxide. The story does not note whether other therapies are either available or under study for this condition. It is not clear from the story whether or when this therapy might become available, if it is proven to be safe and effective. The story attempts to put this therapy into context by explaining why nitric oxide is thought to help, but misses the mark by suggesting that ALL premature babies are ‘fed the gas,’ when in fact this approach is investigational. The statement that ‘premature babies are thought to be deficient in nitric oxide’ is also not quite accurate. The story does not appear to have relied on a press release.
|
|
9263
|
Osteopathic manipulative treatment improves outcomes for elderly pneumonia patients
|
This news release issued by the American Osteopathic Association describes a relatively rigorous randomized controlled trial that compared the impact of osteopathic manipulation, light touch massage and standard antibiotic and mobilization treatment on pneumonia outcomes in some older, hospitalized patients. The outcomes measured — length of stay and overall deaths — showed statistically significant lower rates in both measures for subsets of 375 patients who participated in the study, and the study protocols incorporated two separate, accepted and complementary means of sorting out such factors as severity of illness and treatment compliance that make a reasonable case for comparable study groups. That said, the release did not do justice to the study author’s own acknowledgments of their research’s limitations or weaknesses. Nor did it reflect the investigators’ reasoned call for further research to better pin down demonstrated benefits from osteopathic manipulation. In this way, the release and the AOA missed a very good opportunity to address a) the widespread skepticism that greets much osteopathic medicine and research; and b) questions among the public and professionals about how and why adjunctive medical practices work, and under what conditions they should be used to treat patients. Instead, the release treats the potential benefits as a proven done deal. Those who take the time (and have the capacity) to examine the complicated graphic chart that accompanies the release might get more out of the release, but it’s unlikely that many of the intended audiences for the release will plow through it. The new report is essentially several subgroup analyses but the release doesn’t mention the existence of the earlier study that reported the primary outcomes. This is a theme we’ve seen in other news releases such as here and here. Pneumonia, whether acquired in the hospital or elsewhere, is an often lethal and widespread disease in elderly hospitalized patients, as the research paper and release itself makes clear. Antibiotic use, and evidence-based treatment protocols that work on getting most patients with pneumonia out of bed for frequent if limited periods of time have already greatly reduced lengths of stay and in-hospital deaths from bacterial forms of the disease. But because antibiotic overuse is increasingly risky, and because pneumonia accounts for repeated hospitalizations in some elderly and immunocompromised patients, those at risk for pneumonia and their caregivers are rightly interested in any non-pharmaceutical and non-invasive means to further improve outcomes. The release acknowledges that osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) was designed in the pre-antibiotic era and it isn’t clear how OMT provides benefit. The current release focuses on new analyses of a prior publication from 2010. The original study reported, “Intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis (n = 387) found no significant differences between groups. Per-protocol (PP) analysis (n = 318) found a significant difference between groups (P = 0.01) in LOS [length of stay].” The release could have been clearer about what’s new in this report released 6 years later. Indeed, the ITT analyses also showed no effect in any subgroup in the new study. More discussion also could have been focused on differences between OMT and the light-touch group in addition to the conventional care group. The light-touch may reflect a “sham” version of OMT and how results differ between the light touch and conventional care groups may differentiate between the extra time that may have been spent with the patient and any specific effect of OMT itself.
|
false
|
American Osteopathic Association,pneumonia
|
The release does not address the costs of osteopathic adjunct therapy even in general terms. Readers would have no idea, for example, if medical insurers might cover the cost for in-hospital or post-discharge osteopathic care. And it might have been highly useful to include easy-to-get information about the average cost of an extra day or two in the hospital for pneumonia treatment. Given that payment for patients hospitalized with pneumonia is typically based upon a bundled fee, the costs of providing OMT may be offset if length of stay is reduced. The release briefly but adequately covers the major quantitative findings. For example, the 1.1 reduction in hospital stay mentioned in the release is an absolute reduction. The release would have been greatly strengthened by including more of the results in the narrative that are confined to the graphic. Describing the actual length of stay in each group, which is provided in the graphic, as opposed to just the amount of the reduction would provide some context for how meaningful the benefit it is. (i.e. a 1-day reduction on a 30-day stay being less impressive than a 1-day reduction on a 4-day stay). It also could have given more attention to a comparison of the full manipulative therapy and “light touch” therapy groups. For the mortality data, it wasn’t clear from the text if they are referring to an absolute or relative risk reduction. Although it’s commonly accepted that osteopathic manipulation is “harmless,” the release should have addressed any potential complications, discomforts, cost issues or other side effects. Here is the category with perhaps the biggest deficiencies. The release is based on a study of subgroup analyses from another already published study and that really needed to have been highlighted in the release. The primary outcomes study (mentioned in the introduction of the current paper) found no difference in intention-to-treat analyses (ITT) but some differences in per-protocol ones. (ITT analysis means all patients who were enrolled and randomly allocated to treatment are included in the analysis. Per-protocol analysis is a comparison of treatment groups that includes only those patients who completed the treatment originally allocated.) The authors of the study go to some lengths to discuss the limitations and weaknesses of their findings, explicitly noting that “possible explanations” for their positive results could include a “physiologic response to attention and touch,” but also “early mobilization” created by the need to position the patients for manipulation and also “anticipatory belief in the treatment” (a kind of placebo effect). The release also does not offer any explanation as to what mechanisms (physiologic, psychological, etc.) might be responsible for the reported benefits. Nor does it give any description of what the manipulation therapy is composed of. The researchers clearly call for additional research to sort out the “niche” applications of adjunctive osteopathic manipulation, and which patients at highest risk would most benefit. The release, however, quotes the study author as saying only that “this study should encourage physicians to use their osteopathic techniques when treating older patients with pneumonia,” a blanket assertion not supported by the data. The table highlights that no statistically significant differences were found in any intention-to-treat analyses — the most rigorous ones in a randomized trial. Only in per-protocol analyses do some statistically significant differences emerge. Even there the results don’t fully make sense. Length of stay is lower with OMT in younger patients than those with more severe disease (PSA class IV). This would in some ways seem contradictory. No mongering. Pneumonia in the hospitalized elderly is a serious issue. However, this study also included younger patients and those with less severe pneumonia sick enough to be hospitalized. We gave this a pass for barely meeting the criteria. The release notes that the trial was funded by a consortium of foundations including the Foundation for Osteopathic Health Services. It doesn’t specifically disclose potential conflicts of interest but directs readers to the study for “full details.” When we looked at the disclosures, it was clear that the researchers were aligned with or officially affiliated with osteopathic institutions and foundations. The release explains the comparison groups in the study and offers the graphic chart. This category would have been improved with more detail, particularly what exactly is involved the treatment arms (OMT and light touch). The release notes that osteopathic manipulative therapy is established practice for osteopaths and presumably could be available in hospitals more broadly. But we thought the availability of the procedure could have been made much more clear. How would a patient know if their provider was an osteopath? What would it take to implement this more broadly? Could non-osteopaths be taught to do this? Could non-physicians? It’s implied that osteopathic physicians who take care of patients hospitalized with pneumonia could do this. But do patients really know whether their physician is an osteopath? The release doesn’t state that this study was a follow-up to a previously published report. It does say that the current study focuses on subgroup analyses and that may imply that the main analyses were previously released. But it’s doubtful a lay person or even a professional would know this. The release gets to the “news” and describes the outcomes, but the release would have benefited from additional context and caveats as noted above. The release really needed a quote or other statements qualifying the call for essentially immediate and wide use of manipulation in elderly patients with pneumonia. The statement related to the benefits needed some moderation. In a randomized controlled trial, only intention-to-treat analyses of the primary outcomes really count. It doesn’t appear that this study found any significant analyses in primary, ITT analyses. As such, all these subgroup analyses are hypothesis generating and would require confirmation in a new trial focused on the subgroups demonstrating OMT benefit.
|
5659
|
Congo student with Ebola still finds a way to take exams.
|
Claude Mabowa Sasi had lost his mother, a brother and a sister to Ebola. Instead of fearing death when he, too, was diagnosed with the disease, the young man had a different worry: How would he complete his college entrance exams?
|
true
|
AP Top News, International News, General News, Africa, Health, Ebola virus
|
It had been his mother’s greatest hope that Mabowa would go to college. To do so would require passing the secondary school baccalaureate, or “bac.” But the exams are held only once a year in Congo, and the 21-year-old Mabowa was being held in medical isolation, unable to sit in the same room with other test-takers. So the medical staff members caring for him at an Ebola treatment center run by the Alliance for International Medical Action, or ALIMA, came up with a solution. They found a school official willing to proctor the exam as Mabowa took it safely behind a window. The papers were passed to Mabowa without touching him. After finishing, he held his pages up one by one to the window so they could be photographed with a smartphone and then emailed to officials for scoring. Then his work and his pencil were incinerated. For the oral part of the exam, the questions were asked of him through the glass. On Saturday, Mabowa completed the last of his exams. He is awaiting the results while still in isolation, where he will stay until the virus is gone from his body. He hopes to study political science at the University of Kisangani. “My mother had told me: ‘My son, you must study. If you have your diploma, you will succeed in life. Even if your parents are gone, you still have your life to live,’” he said. The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has killed more than 1,700 people since it started nearly a year ago. Health workers are racing to contain the outbreak, trying to trace, vaccinate and isolate all people who have come into contact with those carrying the highly contagious virus. The only people allowed in Mabowa’s presence are survivors, who are immune to the virus, and health workers wearing protective gear from head to toe. Mabowa already had lost his older sister when he developed a splitting headache and fever and lost his appetite. But since he had recently been vaccinated against Ebola, he brushed off his symptoms as side effects of the shot. He finally went to the Ebola center in Beni when his illness made him unable to continue studying. After testing positive for Ebola, he began asking the nurses and doctors about how he could still take his exams. Studying was difficult because Mabowa no longer had access to his notebooks and other materials. The ALIMA staff members who were moved by his desire to take his exams even brought Mabowa a school uniform he could wear while taking the bac — a white dress shirt and navy trousers. “The fact we brought the exams to him is an important step for his healing and recovery,” said Goretti Muhumira, a psychologist with ALIMA. The hardest part, Mabowa said, was the oral exams, and not just because he was nervous. “It was difficult for me to hear them well through the glass, so they had to repeat themselves several times before I could understand the question,” he said. Now he waits. “I have not lost everything, and I am confident that I will succeed and honor my mother’s memory,” he said. “If she were still here, I think she’d be proud of me.” ___ Associated Press writer Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro contributed to this report.
|
1610
|
Florida Supreme Court approves language of medical marijuana proposal.
|
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday approved language of a proposed constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana for people with debilitating medical conditions, paving the way for a vote next year.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Supporters must gather enough petition signatures to ensure the measure will be placed on the 2016 ballot. United With Care, a medical marijuana advocacy group, said on its website it needs to secure 683,149 signatures by Dec. 31 to bring the amendment to a popular vote. Some 400,000 Florida residents have already signed the petition, the group said. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia allow marijuana use for those suffering from a range of ailments, from HIV to glaucoma and cancer to epilepsy. The language approved by the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee addressed whether the proposed amendment informed voters fairly on the issue and also accepted a financial impact statement prepared by economists, the Tampa Bay Times reported. In a 2014 poll, state residents said they supported the legalization of medical marijuana with 57.6 percent of the vote, the newspaper said. Sixty percent would be required to pass a constitutional amendment. Opponents of the measure saw drawbacks could include the backdoor legalization of recreational marijuana in the state.
|
26856
|
Yet, for all that spending, health outcomes today on Medicaid are mediocre and many patients have difficulty accessing care.”
|
Seema Verma, the Trump administration’s top Medicaid official, based her comments about Medicaid on comparisons between the health of program recipients and people on Medicare or private insurance. Experts questioned this parallel, suggesting that a better measure would be to look at health before and after states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Numerous studies show people’s health improved as a result of Medicaid coverage and that they were generally satisfied with it.
|
false
|
Health Check, Seema Verma,
|
"The Trump administration’s top Medicaid official has been increasingly critical of the entitlement program she has overseen for three years. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has warned that the federal government and states need to better control spending and improve care to the 70 million people on Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the low-income population. She supports changes to Medicaid that would give states the option to receive capped annual federal funding for some enrollees instead of open-ended payouts based on enrollment and health costs. This would be a departure from how the program has operated since it began in 1965. In an early February speech to the American Medical Association, Verma noted how changes are needed because Medicaid is one of the top two biggest expenses for states, and its costs are expected to increase 500% by 2050. ""Yet, for all that spending, health outcomes today on Medicaid are mediocre and many patients have difficulty accessing care,"" she said. Verma’s sharp comments got us wondering if Medicaid recipients were as bad off as she said. So we asked CMS what evidence it has to back up her views. A CMS spokesperson responded by pointing us to a CMS fact sheet comparing the health status of people on Medicaid to people with private insurance and Medicare. The fact sheet, among other things, showed 43% of Medicaid enrollees report their health as excellent or very good compared with 71% of people with private insurance, 14% on Medicare and 58% who were uninsured. The spokesperson also pointed to a 2017 report by the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), a congressional advisory board, that noted: ""Medicaid enrollees have more difficulty than low-income privately insured individuals in finding a doctor who accepts their insurance and making an appointment; Medicaid enrollees also have more difficulty finding a specialist physician who will treat them."" We opted to look at those issues separately. What about health status? Several national Medicaid experts said Verma is wrong to use health status as a proxy for whether Medicaid helps improve health for people. That’s because to be eligible for Medicaid, people must fall into a low-income bracket, which can impact their health in many ways. For example, they may live in substandard housing or not get proper nutrition and exercise. In addition, lack of transportation or child care responsibilities can hamper their ability to visit doctors. Benjamin Sommers, a health economist at Harvard University, said Verma’s comparison of the health status of Medicaid recipients against people with Medicare or private insurance is invalid because the populations are so different and face varied health risks. ""This wouldn’t pass muster in a first-year statistics class,"" he said. Death rates, for example, are higher among people in the Medicare program than those in private insurance or Medicaid, he said, but that’s not a knock on Medicare. It’s because Medicare primarily covers people 65 and older. By definition, Medicaid covers the most vulnerable people in the community, from newborns to the disabled and the poor, said Rachel Nuzum, a vice president with the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. ""The Medicaid population does not look like the privately insured population."" Joe Antos, a health economist with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, also agreed, saying he is leery of any studies or statements that evaluate Medicaid without adjusting for risk. For a better mechanism to gauge health outcomes under Medicaid, experts point to dozens of studies that track what happened in states that chose in the past six years to pursue the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. The health law gave states the option to extend Medicaid to everyone with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or about $17,600 annually for an individual. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have adopted the expansion. ""Most research demonstrates that Medicaid expansion has improved access to care, utilization of services, the affordability of care, and financial security among the low-income population,"" concluded the Kaiser Family Foundation in summarizing findings from more than 300 studies. ""Studies show improved self-reported health following expansion and an association between expansion and certain positive health outcomes."" (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) Studies found the expansion of Medicaid led to lower mortality rates for people with heart disease and among end-stage renal disease patients initiating dialysis. Researchers also reported that Medicaid expansion was associated with declines in the length of stay of hospitalized patients. One study found a link between expansion and declines in mechanical ventilation rates among patients hospitalized for various conditions. Another recent study compared the health characteristics of low-income residents of Texas, which has not expanded Medicaid, and those of Arkansas and Kentucky, which did. It found that new Medicaid enrollees in the latter two states were 41 percentage points more likely to have a usual source of care and 23 percentage points more likely to say they were in excellent health than a comparable group of Texas residents. Medicaid’s benefits, though, affect far more than the millions of nondisabled adults who gained coverage as a result of the ACA. ""Medicaid coverage was associated with a range of positive health behaviors and outcomes, including increased access to care; improved self-reported health status; higher rates of preventive health screenings; lower likelihood of delaying care because of costs; decreased hospital and emergency department utilization; and decreased infant, child, and adult mortality rates,"" according to a report issued this month by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Children — who make up nearly half of Medicaid enrollees — have also benefited from the coverage, studies find. Some studies report that Medicaid contributes to improved health outcomes, including reductions in avoidable hospitalizations and lower child mortality. Research shows people on Medicaid are generally happy with the coverage. A Commonwealth Fund survey found 90% of adults with Medicaid were satisfied or very satisfied with their coverage, a slightly higher percentage than those with employer coverage. Accessible care? The evidence here is less emphatic. A 2017 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found 84% of Medicaid recipients felt they were able to get all the medical care they needed in the previous six months. Only 3% said they could not get care because of long wait times or because doctors would not accept their insurance. Verma cites a 2017 MACPAC report that noted some people on Medicaid have issues accessing care. But that report also noted: ""The body of work to date by MACPAC and others shows that Medicaid beneficiaries have much better access to care, and much higher health care utilization, than individuals without insurance, particularly when controlling for socioeconomic characteristics and health status."" It also notes that ""Medicaid beneficiaries also fare as well as or better than individuals with private insurance on some access measures."" The report said people with Medicaid are as likely as those with private insurance to have a usual source of care, a doctor visit each year and certain services such as a Pap test to detect cervical cancer. ""Medicaid is not great coverage, but it does open the door for health access to help people deal with medical problems before they become acute,"" Antos said. On the negative side, the report said Medicaid recipients are more likely than privately insured patients to experience longer waiting times to see a doctor. They also are less likely to receive mammograms, colorectal tests and dental visits than the privately insured. ""Compared to having no insurance at all, having Medicaid improves access to care and improves health,"" said Rachel Garfield, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. ""There is pretty strong evidence that Medicaid helps patients get the care they need."" Our ruling Verma said that ""health outcomes today on Medicaid are mediocre and many patients have difficulty accessing care."" Numerous studies show people’s health improves as a result of Medicaid coverage. This includes lower mortality rates, shorter hospital stays and more people likely to get cancer screenings. While it’s hard to specify what ""many patients having difficulty accessing care"" means, research does show that Medicaid enrollees generally say they have no trouble accessing care most of the time."
|
157
|
Pope says deforestation must be treated as a global threat.
|
Pope Francis said on Saturday rapid deforestation and the loss of biodiversity in individual countries should not be treated as local issues since they threaten the future of the planet.
|
true
|
Environment
|
Francis made his appeal on a visit to Madagascar, the world’s fourth-largest island, which research institutes and aid agencies say has lost about 44% of its forest over the past 60 years, abetted by illegal exports of rosewood and ebony. Francis zeroed in on endemic corruption, linking it with persistent, long-term poverty as well as poaching and illegal exports of natural resources. Addressing Madagascar’s president, Andry Rajoelina, his cabinet and other officials, Francis said some people were profiting from excessive deforestation and the associated loss of species. “The deterioration of that biodiversity compromises the future of the country and of the earth, our common home,” he said. Following recent huge fires in the Amazon region, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro rejected international criticism about his policy to expand farmland, saying it was a domestic issue. “The last forests are menaced by forest fires, poaching, the unrestricted cutting down of valuable woodlands. Plant and animal biodiversity is endangered by contraband and illegal exportation,” Pope Francis said. Jobs must be created for people whose livelihood harms the environment so they will not see it as their only means of survival, the pontiff added. “There can be no true ecological approach or effective efforts to safeguard the environment without the attainment of a social justice capable of respecting the right to the common destination of the Earth’s goods, not only of present generations, but also of those yet to come,” he said. The Amazon fires have lent new urgency to Francis’s calls to protect nature, tackle climate change and promote sustainable development — all themes enshrined in his 2015 encyclical on environmental protection. Madagascar is one of world’s poorest countries. The U.N. Nations World Food Program estimates that more than 90% of its population of 26 million live on less than $2 a day, with chronic child malnutrition widespread. Corruption is also rampant, Transparency International says. Francis urged the nation’s leaders “to fight with strength and determination all endemic forms of corruption and speculation that increase social disparity, and to confront the situations of great instability and exclusion that always create conditions of inhumane poverty”. Conservation groups say that during Rajoelina’s first stint in power, his cash-strapped administration presided over a spike in deforestation to supply rosewood and ebony to China despite a national ban on such exports. Environmental campaign group TRAFFIC estimates that at least one million rosewood logs have been illegally shipped from Madagascar since 2010. As Asian supplies of valuable hardwoods including rosewood used to make luxury furniture have been depleted, Chinese importers have shifted to Africa, according to Chinese customs data cited by U.S.-based non-profit group Forest Trends. Later on Saturday, Francis visited a convent of cloistered nuns and joked about the challenges of dealing with strict superiors. In the evening, he addressed some 100,000 young people at a rally in a field on the outskirts of the capital, urging them to help bring social justice to their country.
|
41865
|
Said that living near wind turbines is noisy, enough to make someone “go crazy after a couple of years.”
|
In an Aug. 30 rally in Evansville, Indiana, President Donald Trump made three unsubstantiated claims about wind turbines, which he calls “windmills.”
|
unproven
|
wind energy,
|
In an Aug. 30 rally in Evansville, Indiana, President Donald Trump made three unsubstantiated claims about wind turbines, which he calls “windmills”:While each of these claims start with a kernel of truth, Trump’s words misrepresent scientists’ and engineers’ current understanding of wind power and its limitations. We’ll tackle each statement individually, but first, here are his full comments on wind power from his rally:Trump, Aug. 30: Clean power, right? They want to have windmills all over the place, right? When the wind doesn’t blow, what do we do? Uh, we got problems. When there’s thousands of birds laying at the base of the windmill, what do we do? Isn’t that amazing? The environmentalists, “We like windmills.” Oh, really? What about the thousands of birds they’re killing? Try going to the bottom of a windmill someday. It’s not a pretty picture. But, really, when the wind doesn’t blow, you got problems. If your house is staring at a windmill, not good. When you hear that noise going round and round and round, and you’re living with it, and then you go crazy after a couple of years, not good. And the environmentalists say, oh, isn’t it wonderful?Trump has cited bird deaths before in his complaints about wind power, once falsely claiming that turbines “kill more than 1 million birds a year,” which we’ve previously debunked. According to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, annual bird deaths from turbines range from as low as 21,000 to 679,000 — numbers that are well below the billions of estimated bird deaths from cats or the hundreds of millions from collisions with vehicles or buildings. The median value is 328,000.This time, Trump implied that a single turbine might kill thousands of birds. Given that there about 58,000 turbines in the United States, even going with the larger estimate, basic math would suggest that each turbine is responsible for about 12 birds a year. And reports suggest the death toll doesn’t go even that high. A 2013 study by biologists at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used data from 68 studies published between 2000 and 2012 to estimate the number of bird deaths from wind turbines. The group found that across the United States, the average number of bird deaths per turbine per year was just over five. That’s slightly more than one bird every season. Of course, some turbines, whether due to height, design or location, take more avian lives than others. But in the 2013 study, even the worst-offending wind facility was responsible for killing fewer than 21 birds per turbine per year. Therefore, it’s extremely unlikely one would ever come across more than a handful of dead birds at any one time at the base of a turbine — certainly not thousands, as Trump claims.Trump’s statement about there being “problems” when the wind doesn’t blow, which he mentioned twice and has said before in other settings, incorrectly suggests that a quiet day at the wind farm causes some sort of shock to the electrical system.Because of fluctuations in the weather, and the inability to perfectly predict those changes, wind power does come with the added challenge of extra variability, and has one of the lower so-called capacity factors of all energy sources, since turbines are not always running. But Trump’s own Department of Energy explains on its website that “power grid operators have always had to deal with variability,” noting that traditional forms of energy generation, which include coal, are also susceptible to breaks in service that the grid must accommodate. Usually, unless there are failures in multiple places, or extremely high demands — or both at once — grid operators can successfully divert energy to where it is needed most and avoid blackouts.The DOE website continues, “Adding variable renewable power to the grid does not inherently change how this process of balancing electricity supply and demand works. Studies have shown that the grid can accommodate large penetrations of variable renewable power without sacrificing reliability, and without the need for ‘backup’ generation.”One of the more prominent studies is the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, which was sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The study concluded that adding up to 30 percent wind energy was completely feasible. In 2017, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, wind power was responsible for 6.3 percent of all utility-scale electricity generation, and no single energy source contributed more than 32 percent. One of the tactics the study identified as improving overall efficiency — which more than compensated for wind or solar variability — was changing how frequently energy resources were scheduled. By evaluating supply and demand every 5 to 15 minutes instead of every 60 minutes, and then dispatching energy resources as needed, the system could make better use of the reserves it had at any moment and reduce the need to bring online additional generators.Of course, wind energy would be more efficient if air was always gusting, and this is one reason why it’s better to set up your turbine in a windier area. But the lack of constant airflow is anticipated by the electrical grid. As a result, it’s misleading to call these ebbs in generation a “problem,” when it’s possible to appropriately manage them.Trump’s third claim revolves around the noise associated with wind turbines; he says living near a turbine could cause people to “go crazy after a couple of years.” But there is no evidence for that. Turbines do emit noise, both from the blades swishing through the air as they rotate, and from the mechanical elements inside the turbine, such as the hum from the internal generator. These elements can create several different types of sound, which vary based on their frequencies and sound wave characteristics, including:But as the DOE explains, these sounds are typically less than 40 decibels (dBA) — roughly the noise level of a library, or what experts call “the lowest limit of urban ambient sound” — when measured 437 yards from a turbine. Forty decibels is also the World Health Organization’s maximum recommended average nighttime sound pressure level outside bedrooms. Wind farms are usually located as far from residential homes as possible, and while there are no federal laws dictating the distance, local regulations specify volume limits. A 2017 review notes that “in most studies there are few people, if any, exposed to an average sound level of over 45 dBA,” which is the equivalent of a refrigerator hum.This doesn’t guarantee a person won’t hear a turbine at all, and these low volumes can still annoy some people. Anecdotally, many people have complained of headaches, dizziness or tinnitus (ringing in ears), among other symptoms, and have attributed them to turbine noise, sometimes calling it wind turbine syndrome. But numerous scientific reviews, many of them conducted by expert panels on behalf of states and countries investigating the issue, find no evidence that physical or mental health is directly at risk because of turbines. Wind turbine syndrome is not a recognized disease.For example, a 2013 systematic review from Australia concluded there is “no consistent evidence” that wind turbine noise is associated with health effects, noting that the few associations that have been reported “may be due to confounding, bias or chance.” The review added that there was “consistent evidence” of annoyance, and “reasonable consistency” that turbines might disrupt sleep, but that “it is unclear whether the observed associations are due to wind turbine noise or plausible confounders.”In short, scientists can’t definitively rule out health effects, but currently, there is not good evidence that they exist, and even those that are more likely, like sleep disturbances, might be explained by other factors.Reports by others, including the states of Massachusetts and Oregon, came to similar conclusions.One of the biggest concerns about wind turbines are the low-frequency sounds, especially the lowest-frequency sound, or infrasound, that turbines give off. While scientists don’t fully understand infrasound, several lines of evidence indicate these frequencies are not damaging:Clearly, infrasound is not inherently problematic to humans. Because very low frequencies must have very high amplitudes to be heard, and turbines do not get that loud, any infrasound risk would have to come from inaudible or barely audible sounds. Most researchers do not think these levels are dangerous. A few note that it might be possible for humans to subliminally detect such sounds, although they are unsure of what those effects are, or how damaging they could be.One of the more plausible mechanisms for adverse effects is sleep disruption. Because poor or inadequate sleep is tied to a variety of health conditions, if someone wakes up more or has trouble staying asleep, it’s possible turbines could be negatively affecting their health. Several studies have looked at this, with some finding a correlation and others not. The studies, however, rely on self-reported measures of sleep, do not always control for confounding factors, like age, and in some cases people exposed to higher levels of turbine noise had fewer difficulties sleeping — the opposite of what one would expect if turbines were causing sleep problems.Notably, one 2016 study, which was conducted by Health Canada, Canada’s public health department, and published in the Sleep Research Society’s journal, SLEEP, found no relationship between sleep disruption and wind turbine noise. The authors describe their study as “the most comprehensive assessment to date of the potential association between exposure to wind turbine noise (WTN) and sleep,” and “the only study to include both subjective and objective measures of sleep.” Instead, poor sleep was related to how much caffeine residents consumed and other factors, such as health conditions and sleep medication.The most consistent finding about wind turbines is that some people say they are annoying and that the louder the sound is, the more annoyed people tend to be. This annoyance, however, is not even always driven by noise. Several investigations have found that whether or not someone could see a turbine was more important than the amount of sound they could hear. The degree of annoyance is also often lower if a person receives an economic benefit, such as owning or partially owning the turbine.In some cases, as in the sleep results, it’s possible that people who have other health conditions are simply attributing their problems to wind turbines. But some scientists suspect another phenomenon might also be involved: the nocebo effect. The nocebo effect is when a person develops negative symptoms after they are told something is harmful to them — even when the item is completely innocuous. It’s a kind of reverse placebo effect. Instead of a sugar pill improving your symptoms, it’s a sugar pill making you sick, because you were told it was a poison. Researchers at the University of Auckland tested whether the nocebo effect could be observed with respect to infrasound. The scientists recruited 54 volunteers and showed half of them a five-minute video in which people complained about various maladies they thought had come from exposure to wind farms. The other half watched a video that included the scientific consensus that wind farms are safe. Everyone was then told they would be exposed to 10 minutes of infrasound, although in reality, half the group wasn’t exposed to anything at all. Afterward, participants were asked whether they felt any symptoms. Regardless of whether they had been exposed to infrasound, the people who had been primed to suspect a problem reported more symptoms. While this experiment doesn’t precisely replicate living near a wind turbine, it indicates the power of suggestion about turbines can be quite strong.A similar experiment by the same group showed that one could also give positive information about infrasound to get people to believe the opposite. Participants told about therapeutic benefits said they felt better after their infrasound exposure, regardless of whether they actually were exposed to infrasound. In short, people appear to be highly susceptible to both placebo and nocebo effects with respect to turbines.Other research from 2013 supports the notion that the flurry of health complaints may have more to do with the spread of misinformation about turbines rather than any aspect of the turbines themselves. In the study, which was published in the journal PLoS One, researchers at the University of Sydney analyzed the origin and timing of complaints made to wind farm operators in Australia between 1993 and 2013. Of the 129 people who complained, 73 percent were residents living near the six wind farms the authors described as being “targeted by anti wind farm groups.” In contrast, nearly 65 percent of wind farms had not registered a single complaint. Ninety percent of complainants, the authors added, “made their first complaint after 2009 when anti wind farm groups began to add health concerns to their wider opposition.” The researchers argue that these symptoms are instead a kind of “communicated disease” that comes about because of the nocebo effect.Whether or not fear over turbines is spreading a disease, the evidence to date does not indicate that turbines themselves directly cause mental illness or disease.Trump’s comments, therefore, on turbines at his recent rally are inaccurate or misleading on all three counts: He exaggerated the number of birds killed by turbines; he mischaracterized what happens on a wind farm when the wind isn’t blowing, and he overstated the health risks.
|
1026
|
Biden unveils $1.7 trillion climate plan to end U.S. carbon emissions by 2050.
|
Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination, released a climate change plan on Tuesday that would pour $1.7 trillion of investment into achieving 100% clean energy and net-zero emissions by 2050, in part using revenues from reversing Trump administration corporate tax cuts.
|
true
|
Environment
|
The former vice president unveiled the plan after weeks of pressure from rivals and green activists who said he was not taking global warming seriously enough and would rely too heavily on Obama-era ideas. A campaign adviser told Reuters last month that Biden was seeking a “middle-ground” approach he hoped would please environmentalists without turning off the blue-collar voters who swept Republican President Donald Trump to power in 2016.. “I’m calling for a Clean Energy Revolution to confront this crisis and do what America does best - solve big problems with big ideas,” Biden said in a social media video, saying his proposals would go “well beyond” the policies set when he served with former President Barack Obama. The proposal would invest $1.7 trillion over 10 years in clean energy research and modernizing infrastructure to eliminate the emissions of the greenhouse gases that scientists blame for accelerating climate change and its effects - including rising sea levels, droughts, floods and more frequent powerful storms. “The Biden plan will be paid for by reversing the excesses of the Trump tax cuts for corporations, reducing incentives for tax havens, evasion, and outsourcing, ensuring corporations pay their fair share,” according to a statement by his campaign. Former first lady Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the presidency foundered in 2016 after she upset blue-collar voters by saying her aggressive climate proposals would put “a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” underscoring the pitfalls of environmental politics. Trump successfully billed Obama-era environmental protections as job killers to his supporters, and has directed his administration to roll back many of them since taking office. Biden promoted the plan at several campaign stops in New Hampshire on Tuesday. He visited a renewable energy project in Plymouth, where he said his goal as president would be to make the United States the “single greatest exporter of renewable energy technology in the world” and the “single most significant resource for climate change in the world.” He finished the day by speaking to a local of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Concord, trying to sell them on the merits of his plan. Union members, a backbone of Biden’s support, have been skeptical of sweeping climate-change programs such as the Green New Deal, a non-binding congressional resolution that calls for an end to fossil fuel use within a decade. Biden spoke of building a new “green infrastructure,” which he said meant millions of union jobs. “I’m not joking,” he said. “These are real jobs.” The Sunrise Movement, one of the main activist groups that had pressured Biden to take a tough stand on climate change in recent weeks, called the plan a “good start” and took some credit for its ambition. “This plan makes it clear: climate change is going to be a defining issue in the 2020 election, and we’ve raised the bar for what it means to be a leader on climate,” said Sunrise President Varshini Prakash. Some of Biden’s Democratic rivals, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have taken tougher stances on climate change by fully endorsing the Green New Deal. Biden said two aspects of the Green New Deal were now at the core of his plan - the urgency for greater ambition to address climate change and the notion that “our environment and our economy are completely and totally connected.” For the first time, Biden said he would not accept donations from fossil fuel companies or executives and joined nearly a dozen other rivals in the Democratic race in calling for a ban on new oil and gas leasing on federal land and waters - instead focusing on deploying renewables. Environmentalist Bill McKibben said on Twitter that Biden’s support of that position “makes clear that a Democratic consensus has emerged. Oil, coal, and gas (development) on America’s public lands must stop.” Biden’s plan consists of several executive actions he would take on his first day in office, including creating an enforcement mechanism to put the United States on track to achieve 100% clean energy and a net-zero emissions goal by 2050, and recommitting the United States to the Paris Climate Deal, an international accord to fight global warming that Trump pull the United States out of in June 2017. It lists several other measures that would build on Obama-era policies like regulating methane emissions from oil and gas facilities, developing new fuel economy standards for cars, adopting new energy efficiency standards for appliances, promoting advanced biofuels and accelerating the use of carbon capture, which limits emissions from coal plants and other industrial facilities. For working-class voters, the plan promises to secure coal miners’ benefits and increase coal company payments into a federal program to help miners battling black lung disease. It would create a task force to help communities facing closures of coal mines and power plants gain access to federal funds and private investment “to help create high-paying union jobs.” The plan also addresses environmental justice issues, and promises to protect vulnerable minority and Native American communities with stronger protections for clean water.
|
8471
|
Exclusive: Emails show U.S. officials brushed off state concerns on drive-through virus tests.
|
As coronavirus infections exploded in New Orleans, state and local officials repeatedly told the Trump administration that its new drive-through testing effort wasn’t going well. Those tested often waited more than a week for results, and local officials had no information on who had been notified by a federally contracted call center, according to emails between local and federal officials reviewed by Reuters.
|
true
|
Health News
|
As deaths mounted, local officials requested details on the notifications as they increasingly fielded calls by those left in limbo - including health workers. But Washington officials largely brushed off their concerns, according to the correspondence, which has not been previously reported. Frustrated city officials started their own operation to notify people after the state began receiving test results on March 26, nearly a week after testing started. One big problem: The lab initially sent many results with no phone numbers to reach those tested. The delays and confusion created new problems for local officials managing the crisis in one of America’s emerging hot spots. As of Tuesday, Louisiana had more than 21,500 confirmed cases, including more than 1,000 deaths. Timely test results are crucial to containing the virus and enabling essential workers such as doctors and nurses to stay safely on the front lines. The problems in New Orleans underscore the challenges the Trump administration faces in ramping up testing nationwide in hopes of reopening the U.S. economy. On March 25, city health director Jennifer Avegno sent one of the many requests for information to federal officials. “We are receiving many calls today from citizens who went through the drive through testing in the earliest days and have not gotten a call,” she wrote. “Can you update us on how many results have been received, turnaround times, and how many individuals have been contacted?” Kristina Harder, an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) who was working with the federal call center, did not address the information request and instead suggested telling people to be patient. “The call center should be contacting those folks who were at your sites in the beginning days,” she wrote. “I hope this is helpful!” Harder did not respond to a request for comment. A day later, Avegno forwarded a doctor’s plea to the Trump administration’s new testing czar, Brett Giroir, and other federal officials. “I’m just looking to get my results,” the surgical resident at Tulane University had written. HHS never provided an accounting of who the call center had notified, city and state officials told Reuters. In a statement, HHS called the drive-through sites “a profound success” with more than 77,000 people tested nationwide. HHS didn’t address specific questions about problems with the operation in Louisiana or elsewhere. The agency said delays in getting results and notifying patients were resolved and results were now being given within three to five days. Lisa Miles, a spokeswoman for the company running the federal call center - Maximus Inc. - declined to comment and referred questions to HHS. In interviews, Louisiana officials said they welcomed the federal testing program despite the problems. About 13,000 people were eventually tested over a three-week period. “Even though there are issues with the processing, it has significantly contributed to our ability to understand and map this disease,” Avegno said. In mid-March, President Donald Trump tapped Giroir, an HHS assistant secretary, to oversee testing nationwide, including the initiative for drive-through operations that would expand to more than 40 sites, including three in the New Orleans area. U.S. officials were eager to show progress after widespread problems with a defective government test kit that delivered inconclusive results, hindering the public-health response for weeks. On March 14, federal officials reached out to Louisiana leaders about hosting testing sites, records show. Two days later, a top Louisiana health official questioned whether drive-through centers were a wise use of scarce testing supplies and protective gear. Alexander Billioux, a Louisiana Department of Health assistant secretary, emailed Giroir and suggested the limited supply of test swabs might be better used at hospital labs that were prioritizing tests for health workers, hospitalized patients and nursing home residents. A drive-through wouldn’t help those people, he told Giroir. He also asked for an estimated wait time for results. Giroir wrote back that he expected a 48-hour turnaround time but said he made no guarantees. On March 20, the first two drive-through sites opened in the New Orleans area. The people tested were told their results should be available in three to five days and advised to call the state health department if they didn’t hear from the federal call center within a week. On March 23, Joseph Kanter, an assistant state health officer and emergency physician, asked how the call center would share notification details with state authorities in an email to Erica Schwartz, the U.S. deputy surgeon general who served as the ordering physician for drive-through tests. “We will need to know which patients remain without knowledge of their results,” Kanter wrote. Schwartz replied that “the call center will not communicate to the state or local health department,” without explaining why. She recommended that the state “go through their normal processes to contact patients with positive results,” a statement that confused state and local officials - who at the time had no test results and had been instructed that the call center would handle all notifications. Schwartz did not respond to a request for comment. On March 26, Billioux emailed Harder at HHS about the high volume of people calling the state for results. He asked for a phone number that people could use to reach someone at the federal level or at Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, or LabCorp, the company processing the New Orleans tests. A few hours later, LabCorp sent state officials their first batch of results - but with no corresponding phone numbers for many of those tested, according to the email from Billioux to Harder. Harder replied that she would notify LabCorp and noted “a similar problem receiving partial data in the beginning days.” That’s when the state transferred the testing data to the city, which on March 28 assigned eight people to field calls and reach out to those tested, which included efforts to track down the people whose information arrived with no phone numbers. As of Monday, the city health department said it still awaited results from LabCorp on about 1,000 tests, some of which have been pending for as long as 10 days. LabCorp spokesman Mike Geller said the company has faced unprecedented demand during the pandemic but now targets delivering results in four to five days. “We understand how disconcerting it is to not receive test results in a reasonable time frame,” he said. Avegno told Reuters that relying on the federal call center was untenable. “We were getting flooded with calls from residents, and we had nothing to tell them,” she said. “It’s important to have a local point of reference ... residents want to hear from someone to walk them through a positive or negative test.” Last week, the Trump administration said it was encouraging state and local officials to take over many of the drive-through sites. Some local officials expressed concern about losing federal funding and testing supplies. At a White House press briefing on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence said the administration would continue to partner with states “to the extent that they prefer us to be part of it.” Valerie Arkoosh, chair of the Montgomery County commission outside Philadelphia, said she was surprised by the federal announcement and reached out to Giroir and Schwartz to secure an extension of federal funding until May 30. Arkoosh said her testing site also had trouble getting information from the federal call center and that she’s awaiting results from LabCorp on more than 400 tests. “They were both supportive and helpful,” Arkoosh said of Giroir and Schwartz. “But we are pretty busy here, so it would have been great not to go through all that.” Louisiana officials said they are looking into moving drive-through operations to other areas of the state that have less access to testing. “Everything with COVID-19 has been difficult. I don’t necessarily put the fault on anybody’s lap,” Billioux said. “The most important thing from our perspective is that we have more and more testing on the ground.”
|
14282
|
The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private-sector employer in Charlotte.
|
"McCrory said, ""The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private-sector employer in Charlotte."" This is an exaggeration. The ordinance would have applied to place of public accommodation, like hotels and stores and other places selling goods and services to the public. While that is a big category, the ordinance would not have applied to private clubs, nonprofits or organizations with viewpoints that would have been at odds with the law, nor would have it really impacted business that don't deal with customers. The talking point contains an element of truth but exaggerates the scope of the law."
|
false
|
National, Gays and Lesbians, States, Pat McCrory,
|
"North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory defended a law striking down a local LGBT anti-discrimination ordinance as a move against government intrusion Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. The city council of Charlotte, N.C., passed the ordinance in late February outlawing discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people in the city. Even though the protections were wide-ranging, the law has been dubbed the ""bathroom ordinance"" because it prohibited businesses from denying transgender people access to the bathroom consistent with the gender they identify with. In response, the North Carolina Legislature held an emergency session a month later and quickly sent a bill repealing the Charlotte ordinance — and prohibiting ones like it — to McCrory’s desk. McCrory’s signature prompted a national backlash from the gay community, businesses such as PayPal and celebrities including Bruce Springsteen. From the beginning, McCrory has characterized the now-defunct ordinance as extreme government overreach in statements, videos and most recently his national interview with NBC host Chuck Todd. ""The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private-sector employer in Charlotte, N.C,"" McCrory said April 17. ""It's not government's business to tell the private sector what their bathroom, locker room, or shower practices should be. Not only the private business, but also the Y.M.C.A. and other non-profit organizations."" When Todd pressed McCrory to explain the lack of dialogue ahead of the Legislature’s one-day special session to pass the law, he returned to his talking point: ""But again, I don't think government should be telling the private sector what their restroom and shower law should be, to allow a man into a woman's restroom, or a shower facility at a YMCA, for example."" Is it true that the Charlotte ordinance would have dictated the bathroom practices of the entire private sector? ""The Charlotte ordinance was clearly a mandate on every private business open to the public,"" Josh Ellis, McCrory’s communications director, told PolitiFact. Unlike his spokesman, McCrory didn’t specify that the ""mandate"" applies to businesses ""open to the public."" The distinction is important for this fact-check. Broadly speaking, the Charlotte ordinance expanded existing protections for race, color, religion and national origin to also cover marital and familial status, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression. The ordinance also struck down a section exempting the YMCA, YWCA and similar dormitories from a law ensuring equal access to services and facilities based on sex. Under the ordinance, it would have been illegal: 1. for the government of Charlotte to do business with anyone who had discriminated against those categories; 2. to deny ""the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of a place of public accommodation"" based on those categories; 3. and to make and circulate any statements or signs indicating that public accommodation will be refused based on those categories. Key to this fact-check are the words ""place of public accommodation,"" which refers to any business offering services or goods to the public, per Charlotte’s municipal code. The definition is broad, but not as all-encompassing as McCrory makes it sound. It would have been illegal for places such as stores, hospitals, movie theaters, restaurants and hotels to prohibit transgender customers from using the bathroom or locker room with the gender he or she identifies with, according to a factsheet forwarded to us by city attorney Bob Hagemann. Hagemann also noted that the ordinance only protected customers, not employees. (The ordinance did not include protections for firing or hiring based on sexual orientation or gender identity.) In other words, the ordinance wouldn’t have really impacted businesses that don’t typically deal with customers or patrons in person, such as call centers, manufacturing plants, distribution centers and self-employed workers without office space. What’s more, the ordinance would have specifically exempted establishments closed to the public like private clubs, advocacy and religious organizations with strongly held beliefs like churches or charities, and nonprofits like homeless shelters, according to the factssheet. So what about the YMCA? Hagemann wasn’t sure if the YMCA, as a Christian charity, would have been exempted under the ordinance. ""I don’t know enough about how they operate to know whether they would fall under one or more of the exceptions,"" Hagemann said. Ellis, McCrory's spokesperson, told PolitiFact the governor's office disagrees with Hagemann's interpretation of the ordinance. ""The definition does not specifically exclude 'charities' or 'nonprofits.' In fact, the YMCA makes entertainment and recreation (and probably other services) available to the public, which would put it under the definition of a place of public accommodation,"" Ellis said. ""Bottom line, we see the ordinance as applying to the YMCA."" The YMCA of Charlotte did not respond immediately to calls or an email for comment. The YWCA of Central Carolinas, meanwhile, currently has a policy of allowing members to use the ""the bathroom/locker room that is appropriate for them based on their gender identity"" and supports the repeal of HB2. Our ruling McCrory said, ""The city of Charlotte passed a bathroom ordinance mandate on every private-sector employer in Charlotte."" This is an exaggeration. The ordinance would have applied to place of public accommodation, like hotels and stores and other places selling goods and services to the public. While that is a big category, the ordinance would not have applied to private clubs, nonprofits or organizations with viewpoints that would have been at odds with the law, nor would have it really impacted business that don't deal with customers. The talking point contains an element of truth but exaggerates the scope of the law. Update: After we published this fact-check, we heard back from Josh Ellis, McCrory's spokesman. It has been updated to include his comments. The ruling remains unchanged.
|
23901
|
"Under the new health care law, the elderly will be denied care when they have ""passed the age limit for treatment."
|
Fanelli's video suggests 'Obamacare' will cut off treatment for elderly
|
false
|
Health Care, Medicare, Message Machine 2010, Florida, Dan Fanelli,
|
"Dan Fanelli, a retired airline captain and Republican running against U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who represents the Orlando, Fla., area, has a catchy video on his website related to the health care bill dubbed ""Obamacare. ""Set in a doctor's office with somber orchestral music as the backdrop, a sympathetic doctor rolls up his chair to talk to an elderly white-haired man in a patient's gown. ""I'm sorry. I've tried everything,"" the doctor says. ""But doctor, I've already waited over six months,'' says the patient. ""I can't bear this any longer. """"It's not that it's ...,"" the kind doctor hesitates, placing his hand on the patient's shoulder. ""They denied you because you passed the age limit for the treatment. ""The depressed old man's gaze averts downward -- perhaps a hint that he realizes he will die?Will the new health care bill approved by Congress translate to denying treatment to sweet old men like the one featured in the video? Will somber-faced doctors be telling grandpa that he is too old for treatment? We had to check this out. First we contacted Fanelli, who said he posted the video on his website in late March. We asked if he could point us to any documentation -- such as a section of the bill, a position paper from an organization -- to support his conclusion about age limits. The simple answer: no. ""You are asking for substantiation. I can't go to a page in the bill but what I can tell you is the country is over $13 trillion in debt. ... The medical program increases the number of recipients substantially. When you increase the number dramatically ... where is the money going to come from? It is obvious it's going to have to be only certain people are going to get certain coverages. ... The commercial is to show what is going on in other countries with socialized medicine. You can't add more services when you don't have enough money to pay the government bills currently, and that's what we've done. ""Fanelli said he has his own family experience to draw his conclusions. ""My aunt lives in France and had been denied for a procedure,"" to get a pacemaker, he said. ""The reason she was denied was because she was too old. Common sense tells me when you increase the number of people covered, and you don't have enough money to go around ... there's eventually going to come to point where we say what can we afford, what we can't afford."" Ultimately his French aunt was able to get the procedure, according to Fanelli.Fanelli said the video ""is a metaphor for what is used in England where they use age to determine what services people are going to get. ""Our friends at FactCheck.org researched a question about age limits and health care in England in July 2009. The article quoted a nonprofit in England, Age Concern and Help the Aged, that ageism does occur -- for example a doctor refusing to refer an elderly patient to a consultant. But the nonprofit also stated that a national organization was created to improve health care for the elderly and one of its standards was ""rooting out age discrimination. ""Steve Ullmann, professor and director of Programs in Health Sector Management and Policy at the University of Miami, said ""there is some limitation in provisions of care of people based on age in England,"" for certain treatments though ""you can buy them out of pocket outside of the National Health Service. ""Back to health care in the United States. We asked specifically if Fanelli had found an age-limit in the health care bill. ""I have tried to look at that bill and it's a masterful mess,'' said the 54-year-old retired airline captain and Navy reserves retiree. When we asked about whether Fanelli had read about an age cutoff in news articles, he replied: ""I have been at lectures."" He heard one from a brain surgeon. ""I don't remember the name. I wasn't anticipating getting a phone interview on this."" We contacted him again the next day to clarify if he had read any news articles about an age limit and he said: ""There are various articles. I can't quote verse, page and date. ... We arrived at the claim because there is not enough money generated in tax revenue to pay for the current expenses for the U.S. government and this is going to be an additional expense. ""Among Fanelli's claimed sources is his wife's dermatologist, Dr. John Meisenheimer of Orlando. He said the doctor saved his wife's life when she had skin cancer. Meisenheimer also is the doctor starring in Fanelli's video. ""Meisenheimer has discussed they are going to be picking and choosing,"" Fanelli said. ""It is generally accepted by medical health professionals there will only be limited amount of money. Most people believe it will be younger people as opposed to older people. ""We called Meisenheimer, a board-certified dermatologist for more than 20 years, to get his explanation of the video. ""The ad is a metaphor for ageism,"" Meisenheimer said. ""This isn't about 'death panels.' Death panels do not exist. ""(PolitiFact agrees with Meisenheimer about death panels. That was a claim made by Sarah Palin in August 2009 that we rated . )But the health care bill makes cuts to Medicare, he said, and that will lead to less care for the elderly. ""It can be a very slippery slope. It's not going to happen like in the commercial,'' said Meisenheimer, whose office website states that he accepts Medicare patients. ""Doctors will have to make a decision: where is the best use of money? Do I use it for a 95-year-old who has skin cancer or for somebody younger? ... There is not enough money there in the can for everybody."" The Kaiser Family Foundation states that the Medicare provisions are estimated to result in a net reduction of $428 billion between 2010 and 2019. It also states that the bill supports ""comparative effectiveness research"" to compare the clinical effectiveness of treatments, but that the findings ""may not be construed as mandates, guidelines, or recommendations for payment, coverage, or treatment or used to deny coverage."" So that seems to say that even if research shows a certain treatment for the elderly isn't effective, that can't be used to create an age limit for that treatment.We also contacted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which oversees Medicare. Spokesman Peter Ashkenaz told us in an e-mail that there are no age limits for treatment under Medicare. ""There are no eligibility changes to Medicare in the new law,"" he wrote.Fanelli said his video hasn't aired on television, though it's on his campaign website and on YouTube. We sent links to Fanelli's video to experts on the health care bill: Ullmann at the University of Miami; Alwyn Cassil, director of public affairs for the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research organization; and Len Nichols, Director for the Center for Health Policy Research and Ethics at George Mason University. All three said there is nothing in the bill that would cut off treatment based on an age limit.The video ""has no basis in reality whatsoever,"" Cassil said. ""There is nothing in that bill that I am aware of, or certainly every reporter who has combed every inch of it that mentions anything about 'age limits.' '' So to recap, Fanelli's ad offers a dramatic scene that has no solid facts behind it. He claims it portrays ""Obamacare,"" but he cannot cite any provisions in the health care bill -- other than vague fear of a European system -- that could cause such a tragic scene. He referred us to his wife's dermatologist -- who also happens to be the star of the commercial -- but the dermatologist did not produce any conclusive evidence, either. So the ad has lots of melodrama but no facts. We find the claim ."
|
14452
|
"Ted Cruz Says Donald Trump and Marco Rubio opposed Cruz’s ""efforts to defund Planned Parenthood."
|
"Dobson said in Cruz’s ad that Trump and Rubio opposed Cruz’s ""efforts to defund Planned Parenthood."" In the narrowest way, you could say Rubio opposed Cruz’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by expressing misgivings about holding the government hostage to funding of a particular organization. But that's also misleading. Rubio, like Cruz, otherwise repeatedly voted to defund. Trump, meantime, expressed support at the time for Cruz’s efforts. He later reversed course on that but he's been clear lately about wishing to defund so long as the group provides abortions."
|
false
|
Abortion, Federal Budget, Texas, Ted Cruz,
|
"In a TV ad, conservative pastor James Dobson tells viewers that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has the support of thousands of likeminded pastors thanks to his unwavering support for ""the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage."" In the ad, which Cruz’s campaign mostly ran in Iowa in advance of the 2016 presidential caucuses, Dobsonthen turns his attention to others vying for the Republican presidential nod. ""After Donald Trump and Marco Rubio announced they would accept the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage, we knew we could not support them,"" Dobson said. Dobson goes on: ""Our decision was confirmed when they,"" Trump and Rubio, ""opposed Senator Cruz’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood."" His gay marriage comment rang a bell. Rubio, the Florida senator, and Trump, the New York businessman, each called the Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage the law of the land while Cruz insisted in June 2015 that states not singled out in the ruling didn’t have to comply, which we found . We focused on Dobson’s closing claim: Did Rubio and Trump each oppose Cruz’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood? This seemed unlikely. Republican efforts to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, limited already to family planning and non-abortion health services, gained steam last summer when videos secretly shot by an anti-abortion group purported to show Planned Parenthood officials selling fetal tissue for a profit, a conclusion that hasn’t factually borne out. Cruz’s efforts extended to a failed September 2015 attempt to stop Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan to fund the government unless, Cruz said, Congress amended the agreement in a way that would defund Planned Parenthood. This ad first aired in November 2015 and then throughout December and January leading up to the Iowa caucuses. A version captured in video online by the Political TV Ad Archive, however, shows Dobson mentioning Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, as a reason for GOP voters to elect Cruz. We checked with Internet Archive, the database that manages these ads, on how that could be possible. According to the Television Archive’s managing editor, Nancy Watzman, the Scalia mention was most likely added to the original ad, before this version began airing after the justice’s death Feb. 13, 2016. Asked about the basis of the Rubio-Trump claim, Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said by email that ""Trump has said he’s against defunding Planned Parenthood, and Rubio missed the votes to defund Planned Parenthood."" Where was Marco? According to news accounts, Rubio indeed missed two votes on defunding Planned Parenthood, both of which Rubio called ""show votes."" Rubio was at a Florida campaign fundraiser at the time of a Sept. 28, 2015, cloture vote on McConnell’s plan to fund the government. He then missed a Sept. 30, 2015, vote on final passage of that plan. News stories and Senate records otherwise indicate that from August 2015 through December 2015, the Senate voted at least five times on defunding Planned Parenthood. Set aside the votes Rubio missed, the records show, and Rubio and Cruz each voted three times to defund. Yet we didn’t spot any instance of Rubio opposing defunding, though that judgment doesn’t take into account Rubio’s absence from the Senate the day that all but one Republican colleague of Cruz didn’t go along with the Texan’s move to reject McConnell’s government funding plan until it defunded Planned Parenthood. Cruz's September song In September 2015, Cruz was one of the last hold-outs on McConnell’s government funding plan, which included an extension of Planned Parenthood funding. In one of his last moves protesting the funding bill, Cruz called for -- and failed to get -- a roll call vote or a voice vote to register Republicans’ positions on the final plan. Cruz said later that denying him the vote was a way for his colleagues to avoid accountability. Republicans in the Senate, Politico reported, loudly yelled ""no"" when Cruz called for a voice vote, a resounding rejection for what was described as typically an uncomplicated procedural matter. The only Senate colleague to back Cruz in his last-ditch effort was Mike Lee of Utah. This all took place on Sept. 28, 2015, when Rubio was absent, and shortly before the funding bill was finalized, which kept the government running and eliminated the possibility of defunding Planned Parenthood in the immediate future. Rubio camp's response Cruz has attacked Rubio’s record on this matter before. At the Faith and Family Presidential Forum at Bob Jones University Feb. 12, 2016, Cruz told voters that Rubio didn’t want to use Congress’ ""constitutional authority to defund Planned Parenthood,"" Politico reported, quoting Cruz saying: ""Marco Rubio has spoken out about Planned Parenthood. But when these videos came out I stood with millions of Americans calling on Republican leadership to use the power of Congress to defund Planned Parenthood and to cut off the money. And Marco stood up and said: 'No, we shouldn't.’"" At the time, Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Politico that Cruz was ""making things up."" On the other hand, a Sept. 17, 2015, Politico news story said Rubio had refused to sign a letter circulated by Cruz urging McConnell not to advance government funding without an end to Planned Parenthood aid. In a Sept. 27, 2015 interview with NPR News, Rubio said he wouldn’t ""prefer to see it (the government) shut down."" He said, ""I don't think there is any single organization in the country that's worth shutting the government down over,"" but he also laid the blame for a potential shutdown on Democrats for insisting on funding Planned Parenthood. When we asked the Rubio campaign about the claim in the Cruz ad, spokesman Jahan Wilcox sent a press release the campaign initially distributed Feb. 12, 2016, the day of Cruz’s speech at Bob Jones University. The release said Rubio has cosponsored legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and has ""always"" voted to do so. The Rubio release offered specific votes: Rubio’s Dec. 3, 2015, vote to defund Planned Parenthood in a reconciliation bill, his Sept. 24, 2015 vote for a funding bill that defunded Planned Parenthood, his Aug. 3, 2015 vote to defund Planned Parenthood, and his co-sponsorship of that bill. Anti-abortion group We also reached out to National Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, to seek its perspective on Cruz’s claims. (The group hasn’t endorsed a presidential candidate.) By email, we fielded a comment from its president, Carol Tobias, saying Rubio had voted to defund Planned Parenthood even before Cruz joined the Senate; she pointed out a roll call on H. Con. Res. 36, April 14, 2011. Tobias also said that since Cruz joined the Senate in 2013, ""both he and Sen. Rubio have voted the same on every roll call that National Right to Life regards as pertinent to defunding Planned Parenthood. To suggest that Sen. Rubio voted wrong or missed meaningful votes on the Planned Parenthood issue is inaccurate and misleading."" Trump supported Cruz's push at first As for Trump, National Right to Life pointed out his lack of a congressional voting record. We asked Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, about Cruz’s claim. Hicks said by email: ""Mr. Trump has always stated he will defund"" Planned Parenthood ""as long as abortions are taking place, but believes the women's health services like cancer screenings for cervical and breast cancers are essential to millions of women across the country."" That seems to represent the progression of Trump’s position on the matter. As well documented, Trump favored abortion rights earlier in his life. At the first GOP presidential debate Aug. 6, 2015, Trump said he had had a change of heart after a friend decided not to get an abortion, and he saw that child grow up. News stories show that in August 2015, Trump supported Cruz’s unsuccessful push to shut down the government unless Congress defunded Planned Parenthood. But Trump shortly backtracked, saying he would look at the ""good aspects"" of the organization. And in October 2015, Trump told Fox News he wouldn’t shut down the government over Planned Parenthood though he also said the organization should ""absolutely be defunded."" On Meet the Press Feb. 21, 2016, Trump said he wouldn’t fund Planned Parenthood ""as long as they’re doing abortions."" In the same interview he said that his friends, who are women, ""understand Planned Parenthood better"" than he ever would. At the Feb. 25, 2016 Republican presidential debate, Trump said: ""Millions and millions of women — cervical cancer, breast cancer — are helped by Planned Parenthood. So you can say whatever you want, but they have millions of women going through Planned Parenthood that are helped greatly,"" but that he also ""wouldn’t fund it."" Our ruling Dobson said in Cruz’s ad that Trump and Rubio opposed Cruz’s ""efforts to defund Planned Parenthood."" In the narrowest way, you could say Rubio opposed Cruz’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood by expressing misgivings about holding the government hostage to funding of a particular organization. But that's also misleading. Rubio, like Cruz, otherwise repeatedly voted to defund. Trump, meantime, expressed support at the time for Cruz’s efforts. He later reversed course on that but he's been clear lately about wishing to defund so long as the group provides abortions. – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
|
9132
|
New Data From the Elekta Lung Research Group Support the use of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Elderly Patients With Early-stage Lung Cancer
|
lung cancer illustration No cost information. No benefit quantification. No risk mention. No comparison to alternatives. There were too many things missing from this release on the safety and efficacy of stereotactic body radiation in elderly patients with lung cancer to allow a reporter or patient to judge whether this was really an interesting scientific finding. Lung cancer is a life-threatening disease at any age and news about treatments are of interest to a wide audience. This release describes results from an observational study of patients treated for early stage lung cancer with stereotactic body radiation treatment (SBRT) between 2004 and 2014. The release notes that the study looked at treatment outcomes broken down by age and suggests that treatment benefits were similar, but the release didn’t describe any harms from SBRT treatment and whether they varied by patient age. In order to justify a claim that SBRT should be used in people over 80 years old researchers would need comparative data showing that SBRT outcomes in this elderly population are superior to other forms of radiation and other treatments. That comparison was not a part of this study.
|
false
|
Elekta,lung cancer,stereotactic body radiotherapy
|
There are no costs mentioned in the release. There have been a number of studies on the cost-effectiveness of different radiation therapies, including SBRT. No where in the release does it back up the claims made in the headline and the lead that SBRT that the research supports use of SBRT on those 80 and older. Where are the data to support this? The release says: Study results show no significant differences among the three age groups with respect to 2-year local recurrence, regional recurrence, distant metastases or the incidence of grade 3 or higher toxicity. Cause-specific survival was similar among all three age groups (90.3 to 90.6 percent). Two-year overall survival was lower in older patients, which is likely related to other medical issues. So we are apparently to take this to mean that because cancer recurrence in older patients was no different than in younger patients that the treatment was successful? We need numbers to back up these claims. We’d also like the release to be transparent about the fact that the treatment was not compared with any others. There is no mention of harms in the release. The study alludes to harms in a quote, saying: “Older patients are often not considered for radiation therapy due to concerns about their ability to tolerate treatment.” Ok. So this starts getting at the fact that the treatment itself is harmful. Why not go further and explain to readers and journalists what the risks are from the treatment and how the risks played out with this study? Known harms from this treatment include fatigue lasting 4-6 weeks, neuropathic pain, rib fractures and other risks. The release does a reasonable job explaining the size of the study and that it is on the verge of being published. But the release should have made it clear that similar results in patients undergoing SBRT at different ages does not translate into a claim that this therapy is equal or superior to other options available to elderly patients. There is no disease mongering in the release. But we also don’t know the natural history of early stage lung cancer in this population. Does treatment really extend the quantity or quality of life? We expect it does, but nothing presented here supports SBRT compared to no treatment or other active treatments. The release makes it clear that the findings were produced with funding from Elekta. However, it does not make it clear that Elekta is a large medical technology company that manufactures SBRT and other equipment used in radiation oncology. The release makes no meaningful comparison to alternatives. The closest the release comes to mentioning any alternative is in a quote by the lead author, “The results of our study clearly support the use of SBRT for elderly patients, especially those who may not be able to tolerate longer courses of radiotherapy or more invasive treatment options.” However, this is not sufficient to give them credit here. It is clear from the release that the treatment is available at the five sites that participated in the observational study, but whether it is available outside of major academic cancer treatment centers isn’t spelled out. The release states that “new data” shows SBRT is a safe treatment option for elderly patients and the study is the “largest of its type.” While the study may provide some new information on the use of SBRT in elderly patients the release didn’t provide any context on any other studies on SBRT in the elderly, didn’t provide information on harms nor did the release back up claims about safety. The release doesn’t rely on sensational language. But given the lack of data to back up the claims in the headline and lead of the release, we have to say that the claims being made in the release are unjustified. A more appropriate headline, supported by the study data, would be: “New Data From the Elekta Lung Research Group Show Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy Provides Similar Results in Elderly Compared with Younger Patients With Early-stage Lung Cancer” as opposed to “New Data From the Elekta Lung Research Group Support the use of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy in Elderly Patients With Early-stage Lung Cancer.” One could argue that this is a fairly subtle difference, but it is a large one. Even if the release provided additional data that showed SBRT compared favorably to other treatments, it would still have needed to compare outcomes of those over age 70 treated with SBRT and other treatments to make this claim.
|
13116
|
"In Flint, Mich., ""the pipes still haven't been replaced. The water is still poisoned."
|
"Moore said that in Flint, ""the pipes still haven't been replaced. The water is still poisoned."" It will take years to complete the replacement of Flint’s pipes. Officials have replaced a few hundred pipes, with thousands more to go. The tap water is still not safe to drink on its own. However, experts said the city has made progress here, and the water is considered safe when filtered, putting it on par with other cities with older infrastructure. While considerable hurdles remain, Moore has glossed over progress that has been made."
|
mixture
|
Infrastructure, Public Health, Urban, Water, PunditFact, Michael Moore,
|
"After Michigan turned away from Barack Obama in 2012 and toward Donald Trump in 2016, Michael Moore, the liberal filmmaker and activist, said he understood voters’ frustrations. This could be seen, he said, even in Genesee County, which includes Moore’s hometown of Flint, where residents have been grappling with major water-contamination concerns. In Genesee County, Obama in 2012 won by a 62 percent-37 percent margin, yet in 2016, Hillary Clinton won by a significantly narrower 52 percent-43 percent margin. ""Barack Obama, who I loved, and voted for twice, and I will miss dearly -- he showed up in Flint five months ago and he drank the water, when it was still not fixed,"" Moore said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. ""The pipes were still not replaced. He drank the water to say, ‘It's all okay, everyone.’ And it was like a knife in the heart of the people of Flint, a black city, to see the president do this. I saw everybody just deflate. The pipes still haven't been replaced. The water is still poisoned. How many shows on Flint since he drank the water?"" Is Moore correct that in Flint, ""the pipes still haven't been replaced. The water is still poisoned""? The frustration he’s channeling is understandable. But he glosses over the progress that has been made in ameliorating this long-lasting problem. (Moore did not respond to our inquiries.) Origins of the problem In Flint -- a low-income and majority African-American city beset by a decline in the manufacturing industry -- the lead poisoning was precipitated by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. Snyder had campaigned on his managerial experience and had promised to bring outside experts to transform financially languishing municipalities. Under emergency management, the city ended its agreement to obtain water from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and instead joined a new pipeline project, the Karegnondi Water Authority, that would draw water from Lake Huron. The move, made officially in April 2013, was done in large part to save the city millions of dollars. The day after the switch was announced, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department said it would cut off service in April 2014. Since the pipeline wouldn’t be ready by then, the city prepared to switch its water supply to the Flint River. However, the river water contained salts that would corrode pipes, and the right mix of corrosion inhibitors was never used. Not only did residents complain that their new water was foul, but it eventually became clear that lead was leaching into the water supply from the city’s old pipes. Lead is a highly toxic metal, especially for children whose bodies are still developing. After a litany of missed opportunities, the situation became a focus of the national media in the second half of 2015, prompting both emergency water distribution and a search for a longer-term solution. Water quality Since the problems emerged and remedial actions were taken, the Environmental Protection Agency has conducted several rounds of testing, most recently in July. These samplings have shown improvements in lead levels, as long as residents use filters that are being provided free of charge. In June, officials decided that levels were safe enough to lift restrictions on pregnant women and small children from drinking the tap water, as long as it was filtered. The main challenge is that ""filter installation, operation and replacement are sometimes challenging, said Peggy Kahn, a University of Michigan-Flint political scientist who has closely tracked the issue. ""While lead levels have fallen according to sampling tests, there is concern that there is still lead in the system, and it is unclear whether every residence has safe water,"" Kahn said. In September 2016, Mark Durno, deputy chief of the EPA's emergency response branch, told the Detroit Free Press that lifting the filter requirement before the end of the year is not likely, barring a dramatic drop in lead levels. Marc Edwards -- a Virginia Tech environmental and water resources engineer who leads the Flint Water Study team, which helped identify the problem in the first place -- told PolitiFact that the improvements are real even though filters are still needed. ""Our recent data is indicating that the drinking water in Flint in terms of lead and other contaminants after the unprecedented intervention is now in the range of other cities with old pipes,"" Edwards said. ""Obviously, that is nothing to brag about, and the state and federal government are erring on the side of caution, including not giving an ‘all clear’ until there is a reasonable margin of safety. … But it is incorrect to say that Flint water is worse than that of other cities, at present, and given that residents are being provided protection, I think Flint residents are actually better off than residents in many other cities."" Water delivery infrastructure Progress on replacing pipes has taken longer, due in part to Congress’ inability to come to an agreement on funding. Flint has begun to rip out and replace some of the hazardous pipes under a ""FAST Start program"" that uses $27 million in funds appropriated by the state. Through mid November, pipes at 346 homes have been replaced. The city plans to replace pipes in a total of 788 homes this fall. The problem is that this is a small fraction of all pipes that will eventually need replacing. Bridge magazine, a Michigan publication that has been tracking the situation in Flint, has estimated that more than 17,000 homes may still need to be addressed, including homes with lead pipes and galvanized steel pipes, which entail similar hazards. A spokeswoman for the city of Flint, Kristin Moore, offered a similar number. ""While continuing to provide residents with free bottled water and filters is a needed and important step, the mayor stresses that we know it is only a temporary fix,"" Kristin Moore said. ""Therefore, doing what is necessary to eliminate the ongoing effects of the water crisis, including replacing all the lead-tainted pipes in the city of Flint, remains a top priority."" Edwards of Virginia Tech acknowledged the long road ahead, emphasizing that speeding up the process -- and potentially cutting corners -- could lead to more problems. ""While I know that lead pipe replacement sounds easy to a layperson, it is actually a very difficult and expensive process, and if done incorrectly can actually leave the problem worse than without pipe replacement,"" he said. ""Realize that you are disturbing a very hazardous material that is dispensing water intended for human consumption. Even a very ambitious lead pipe replacement project would take five to seven years to complete."" Edwards mentioned a ""pipe replacement disaster"" in Washington, D.C., as a precedent to avoid. The project involved 12,000 pipe replacements at a cost of more than $100 million over seven years — ""and in the process they actually increased the incidence of childhood lead poisoning due to falsified science and government agency misconduct,"" he said. Edwards understands this will sound like cold comfort for residents of Flint. ""Many Flint residents, with good reason, will never trust the safety of their potable water again, or the word of any government agency,"" he said. ""A few of them will not even trust me (or my colleagues) even after we exposed the problem. We cannot and do not blame them for that, given their journey. But the facts do not support statements that say Flint water is any more poisonous than other cities, especially considering the provision of the free filters and bottled water that protect consumers from any lead problems that remain."" Our ruling Moore said that in Flint, ""the pipes still haven't been replaced. The water is still poisoned."" It will take years to complete the replacement of Flint’s pipes. Officials have replaced a few hundred pipes, with thousands more to go. The tap water is still not safe to drink on its own. However, experts said the city has made progress here, and the water is considered safe when filtered, putting it on par with other cities with older infrastructure. While considerable hurdles remain, Moore has glossed over progress that has been made.
|
17644
|
"Firearms homicides are down about 40 percent"" since Texas passed concealed-gun permit law."
|
Patterson said firearms homicides decreased 40 percent since Texas passed a law permitting licensed residents to carry concealed guns. That claim was staked to changes nationally and a timeframe unreasonably starting before the law took effect. Still, Patterson’s figure is close to correct. Data for Texas show declines of either 32 percent or 42 percent since the state law took effect. We are not concluding that the measure authored by Patterson explains the decrease, which occurred nationally for multiple reasons.
|
true
|
Civil Rights, Crime, Texas, Guns, Jerry Patterson,
|
"An online campaign video from Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, one of the Republican hopefuls in the 2014 lieutenant governor race, touts his record on defending Second Amendment rights. ""I stood alone in passing the Texas concealed-handgun law over the doomsday predictions of blood in the streets, ‘Wild Wild West’ and shootouts at every four-way stop,"" Patterson says, ""and of course none of that happened. Matter of fact, firearms homicides are down about 40 percent."" As a state senator from Pasadena, Patterson wrote the 1995 legislation that allowed eligible Texans to get licenses to carry concealed handguns, which was approved overwhelmingly after much debate by a Senate vote of 23-7 and a House vote of 101-46. In news stories from the 1995 regular legislative session, Austin Democratic Rep. Sherri Greenberg predicted gunplay in hospital emergency rooms and Dallas lawmakers said frustrated drivers would shoot each other in traffic. A March 16, 1995, Houston Chronicle news story quoted then-Sen. Greg Luna, D-San Antonio, as saying, ""It is going to be a much more dangerous and deadly society we have imposed on ourselves in Texas."" Did firearms murders subsequently decrease by 40 percent? By phone, Patterson told us he used national data on firearms homicides rates per 100,000 people since 1993 because he didn’t have state statistics. Nationwide figures were still relevant, he said, ""because over the last 20 years, dozens of states have added concealed-handgun (licensing) laws that didn’t have them before."" Patterson campaign spokesman Chris Elam emailed us web links to reports published in May 2013 from the Pew Research Center and the U.S. Bureau of Justics Statistics showing that in recent years, the rate of firearms homicides nationwide had fallen by 49 percent from a historic peak in 1993. But the Texas law took effect in 1996. Wouldn’t that year be the logical starting point for judging changes in deaths by firearms? Defending his claim, Patterson told us by phone that he used 1993 as a starting point because that was the year when lawmakers initially advanced his proposal, which Gov. Ann Richards vetoed. During this fact-check, he said, he ""recognized the flaw in me saying 1993 when it actually didn’t come into effect until 1 January 1996, but I think the message,"" that murders did not spike, ""is still accurate."" Next, we looked for data on Texas gun murders since 1996. From the CDC, we found reports online covering 1996-2010, drawn from death certificate information reported by medical professionals and coroners, and we got 1996-2012 data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, most recently updated Sept. 16, 2013, with information on murders and other crimes known to law enforcement agencies. By the CDC tally, the rate of firearms homicides in Texas 1996-2010 fell 32.2 percent. Calculating with the FBI data for 1996-2012, the rate fell 42 percent. The U.S. and Texas declines in gun homicides are part of a larger trend -- U.S. violent crimes overall began falling significantly in the 1990s. Crime experts have advanced reasons including a decrease in crack cocaine use, economic factors, tougher police strategies and the aging of the baby-boom generation. Patterson said he does not claim that concealed-handgun laws reduce crime -- rather, he said, he is stating such statutes don’t increase crime, ""in spite of the protestations to the contrary."" Our ruling Patterson said firearms homicides decreased 40 percent since Texas passed a law permitting licensed residents to carry concealed guns. That claim was staked to changes nationally and a timeframe unreasonably starting before the law took effect. Still, Patterson’s figure is close to correct. Data for Texas show declines of either 32 percent or 42 percent since the state law took effect. We are not concluding that the measure authored by Patterson explains the decrease, which occurred nationally for multiple reasons. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
|
33538
|
"A list reproduces Saul Alinsky's rules for ""How to Create a Social State."
|
A viral list supposedly reproduces community organizer Saul Alinsky's rules for 'How to Create a Social State.'
|
false
|
Politics Quotes, barack obama, hillary clinton, saul alinsky
|
Saul Alinsky was the Chicago-born archaeology major who, in the midst of the Great Depression, dropped out of graduate school and became involved first with the labor movement and then with community organizing. It was in the latter field that he made his mark, working from the late 1930s through the early 1970s as a community organizer (first in poor areas of Chicago, and later in various cities across the U.S.) seeking, often through unconventional means, to “turn scattered, voiceless discontent into a united protest.” Along the way he authored the books Reveille for Radicals and Rules for Radicals to provide “counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change,” the latter of which opened with the following explanation of its purpose: What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. Critics of President Barack Obama (who also worked as a community organizer in Chicago prior to embarking on his political career) have often linked his name with that of Saul Alinsky, sometimes in ways that suggest the two men knew each other and worked together. However, they never even met: Alinsky died of a heart attack in 1972, when Barack Obama was but a ten-year-old child living in Hawaii. Another prominent Democrat, Hillary Clinton, has also often been linked with Alinsky because she wrote her senior thesis on the topic of “An Analysis of the Alinsky Model” while she was a student at Wellesley College in 1969. A much-circulated list of steps for “How to create a social state” is another example of a political attempt to tie the names of Saul Alinsky with those of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: Beware the Useful Idiots Obama was influenced by the writings and philosophies Saul Alinsky, author of the book, “Rules for Radicals,” and later by Frank Marshall Davis, with similar philosophies. Barak Obama followed the philosophies of these ‘role models’ throughout his days as a Community Organizer for ACORN, using tactics that appeared to some as ‘shaking down’ businesses in exchange for not branding them ‘hate groups.’ And apparently Obama is still following those radical rules today. Recall that Hillary Clinton did her college thesis on his writings and Barack Hussein Obama writes about him in his books. How to create a social state by Saul Alinsky: There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important. 1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people 2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live. 3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty. 4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state. 5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income). 6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school. 7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools. 8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor. Now, think … Does any of this sound like what is happening to the United States? But this list is not something taken from the actual writings of Saul Alinsky, nor does it even sound like something he would have written (e.g., the line about “controlling health care” is anachronistic for his era, and the idea of “increasing the poverty level as high as possible” is the very antithesis of what Alinsky worked to achieve). This list is simply a modern variant of the decades-old, apocryphal Communist Rules for Revolution piece that was originally passed along without attribution until Alinsky’s name became attached to it (presumably because someone out there thought it sounded like something Alinsky might have written). The closest analog (in form, if not in content) to the above-reproduced list of “How to create a social state” to be found in the writings of Saul Alinsky is the following list of “power tactics” Alinsky outlined in his 1971 book Rules for Radicals. Note that Alinsky’s list is devoted solely to tactics (i.e., methods for accomplishing goals) and does not specify any particular targets of those tactics (e.g., health care, religion, gun control): Always remember the first rule of power tactics: Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have. The second rule is: Never go outside the experience of your people. When an action is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear, and retreat. The third rule is: Wherever possible go outside the experience of the enemy. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. The fourth rule is: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity. The fourth rule carries within it the fifth rule: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage. The sixth rule is: A good tactic is one that your people enjoy. If your people are not having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic. The seventh rule: A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time, after which it becomes a ritualistic commitment, like going to church on Sunday mornings. The eighth rule: Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose. The ninth rule: The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign. The eleventh rule is: If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative. The twelfth rule: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. You cannot risk being trapped by the enemy in his sudden agreement with your demand and saying “You’re right — we don’t know what to do about this issue. Now you tell us.” The thirteenth rule: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
|
2474
|
Bribery serves as life-support for Chinese hospitals.
|
Bribery is the lubricant that helps keep China’s public hospitals running, and the health system would struggle to function without illegal payments to poorly paid doctors and administrators, say medical practitioners and industry experts.
|
true
|
Health News
|
They say government policies are partly to blame for a system in which doctors and other staff expect to be paid extra fees to perform operations and take kickbacks from pharmaceutical firms and medical-equipment suppliers. The profession’s ugly underbelly was exposed last week when police accused British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline of bribing officials and doctors for six years to boost sales and the price of its medicines. GSK has called the developments “shameful” and on Monday said some of its Chinese executives appeared to have broken the law. China is an appealing market for pharmaceutical firms and medical-equipment makers, with spending in the industry expected to nearly triple to $1 trillion by 2020 from $357 billion in 2011, according to consulting firm McKinsey. The corruption stems largely from doctors’ low base salaries, which are set in line with a pay scale for government workers. Hospitals can pay bonuses but, given public hospitals are strapped for cash, compensation is usually low, say doctors and industry experts. A doctor fresh out of medical school in Beijing earns about 3,000 yuan ($490) a month including bonuses — roughly the same as a taxi driver. A doctor with 10 years experience makes around 10,000 yuan a month, according to Peter Chen, chief executive of privately run Oasis International Hospital in Beijing. “Without the grey income, doctors would not have the incentive to practice,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Over the past 30 years the Chinese government has made its healthcare sector more market-oriented. That means the country’s 13,500 public hospitals have to balance their own books. Medical services accounted for just over 50 percent of public hospital revenue in 2011, according to Health Ministry data. About 40 percent came from prescribing drugs while the rest was from other income as well as government subsidies, which have fallen steadily since the 1980s. Hospital administrators can set fees for in-patient care, nursing and laboratory tests. But the state fixes the cost of operations to make surgery affordable to ordinary Chinese. And it effectively caps the cost of many prescribed medicines by setting a suggested price. That leaves hospitals little room to top up wages. One Chinese doctor who used to hold a senior position at a prominent hospital in Beijing said 80 percent of his income came from bribes. Without it, he would have earned less than $600 a month, said the doctor, who left China five years ago to live in Britain where he continues practicing medicine. “These sums (bribes) are essential. You cannot survive on your salary,” said the 50-year-old physician, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. An industry executive who has worked in China’s medical sector for more than 15 years said bribery and corruption permeated every level of a public hospital. “They are seen as necessities in the current healthcare system,” said the executive, who also declined to be identified. The Health Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Officials at the National Development and Reform Commission, which sets the prices of prescribed medicines, also declined to comment. Low base salaries are a legacy of China’s planned economy, said Jia Xijin, associate professor at the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University in Beijing, explaining the dilemma faced by the government. China has also committed to making health care affordable for its 1.37 billion people. The government has spent 2.2 trillion yuan ($358 billion) on the system since 2009, of which more than 680 billion yuan was to provide universal health insurance coverage, state media quoted the Finance Ministry as saying earlier this year. Public hospitals say recruiting new doctors is getting harder as many physicians are turned off by the wages at a time when patient numbers are growing. Health Ministry data showed the overall number of doctors rose 13 percent from 2008 to 2011, while patient visits jumped 28 percent. “There will be no doctors left to treat the current doctors when they retire,” said the accounting director at a Shanghai hospital who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the media. Low salaries have also spawned a system of under-the-table payments from patients. The payments are known as “hongbao” — a reference to the cash-filled red envelopes given as presents during Lunar New Year festivities — and cover various services from jumping the queue for appointments to extra surgical fees. Bob Wang, a 35-year-old businessman in Beijing, said he gave the main surgeon who operated on his aunt’s femur bone transplant last year 5,000 yuan in “hongbao” on top of the 100,000 yuan he paid to the hospital because he was worried the doctor would not take the operation seriously otherwise. There was unstated “hongbao” guidance for each type of surgery, he said. “If my family or myself get sick ... we won’t just go to the hospital. Everything will take forever — from registration to waiting for a bed, to getting seen by a doctor to queuing for surgery,” he said. According to the doctor now living in Britain, patients and their families could sometimes spend two to three times more than the actual fee in “hongbao”. Critics doubt that an anti-corruption campaign by President Xi Jinping will have much impact. Indeed, a former doctor at a major heart hospital in Beijing said eradicating corruption would be nearly impossible. “It would be easy to find out who was taking money if the government wanted to,” said the cardiologist, who has been working in the United States since 2009. “But everyone would be found guilty. How could the hospitals survive?” ($1 = 6.1413 Chinese yuan)
|
8847
|
Indonesian child tests positive for bird flu.
|
An Indonesian child has tested positive for bird flu, pushing the country’s total confirmed human cases to 130, a health ministry official said on Monday.
|
true
|
Science News
|
Lily Sulistyowati, the ministry’s spokeswoman, said the 22-month-old girl from Sumatra’s Bukit Tinggi fell sick on March 19 and the ministry is checking her neighborhood for possible backyard farming. “Her condition is improving, and she is being treated at a Padang hospital,” Sulistyowati told Reuters by telephone. Contact with sick fowl is the most common way of contracting H5N1 virus, which is endemic in bird populations in most of Indonesia. Indonesia has had 105 human deaths from the bird flu virus, the highest number in the world. Experts say the danger is the virus may evolve into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate would soar, causing a pandemic in which millions of people could die.
|
34965
|
A young boy was beaten to death by his mother for refusing to wear girl's clothes.
|
More than 245 homes have been destroyed and 700 people left destitute after a forest fire tore through a low-income area of the Chilean seaside city of Valparaiso on Christmas Eve.
|
false
|
Politics
|
President Sebastian Pinera said on Thursday during a tour of the affected zone that there was evidence the fire had been started deliberately. “I deeply regret that what should have been a good night, a night of peace, should have been so profoundly altered by this tragedy,” he said. Valparaiso, known for its colorful wood-frame houses, is popular among tourists in the South American country. The fire broke out in a forested area on the outskirts of the city and spread toward the coast, hitting the Rocuant and San Roque hills, a jumble of settlements that overlook the city. Inhabitants fled their homes just moments before sitting down to their Christmas Eve dinner, some losing all their belongings and even pets. Marta Pinto, 78, said her granddaughter spotted the fire coming down the hill and raised the alarm. “They took me to the house of a niece because I suffer from lung disease,” she told Reuters. “My husband arrived and said: ‘Love, we have lost everything.’ I´ve cried all my tears already. My heart is so sore for everything that has happened to us, to our neighbors, in this tremendous tragedy.” Juan Silva Suazo, 68, said he had lost his home and all of the possessions he spent 45 years accumulating. “So many years of sacrifice, it has cost me so much to make my house and now that I´m retired, I have no way of making it back,” he said. “I have polio, I cannot stand for a long time, or sit for a long time either as I have osteoporosis in my hips, knees and feet. We are sleeping in a bathroom right now, it´s terrible.” Chile´s forestry commission said the fire was only fully brought under control at midday on Thursday with the help of nine firefighting teams, five helicopters and two water trucks. A total of 132 hectares of vegetation were destroyed, it added. Agriculture Minister Antonio Walker said the high temperatures at the height of the Southern Hemisphere summer, which runs from December to March, and dry conditions caused by a historic drought currently blighting Chile had provided fertile ground for the fire. Valparaiso’s mayor Jorge Sharp, said on Wednesday he had filed a criminal complaint with the courts against those who started the fire, once they are identified. “That this fire was intentionally started is, from various indications, clear and we want to know who is responsible and why they would want to cause so much damage to Valparaiso,” he said.
|
10348
|
Injecting Migraine Pain Away
|
A therapy for headache once given up for dead has achieved a surprising reincarnation—and a growing niche in the medical marketplace. But does it deserve its newfound reputation as an effective treatment? The answer is “probably not.” But a Wall Sreet. Journal article never makes that clear. It oversold the efficacy of the treatment, soft-pedaled potential side-effects, and didn’t adequately emphasize that the results of this treatment are somewhat marginal. Clinical trials in the past showed that injections of Botulinum toxin A—i.e., Botox—were ineffective in the management of tension headaches, daily headaches and episodic migraines. An editorial in a prominent headache journal in 2006 suggested these studies marked the “end of the road” for Botox in the management of headache. (See Evers and Olesen, 2006) But two recent clinical trials indicate that Botox injections may be somewhat effective in the prevention of chronic migraines, defined as headaches lasting at least four hours per day for at least 15 days per month. Based on these clinical trials, the FDA recently decided to approve the marketing of Botox for this indication. (See Aurora et al., 2010; Diener et al., 2010). However, the jury is still out on the long-term viability of this prevention strategy. Some prominent headache researchers opposed the regulatory approval of Botox for chronic migraines, pointing out that the modest advantage of Botox over dummy injections might be explained by study issues and placebo effects. (See Olesen and Tfelt-Hansen, 2010) Newly approved therapies for difficult pain conditions often reach clinical practice without adequate evidence regarding their risks and benefits. Such is the case with Botox. This poses a challenge for patients and journalists alike. How much weight should they give to company-sponsored studies? How seriously should they take the views of experts who have a financial relationship with the company? How should they interpret therapies that have never been compared to other standard treatments? And how much credence should they give to a treatment that only has about a 10% advantage over placebo injections? (See Olesen and Tfelt-Hansen, 2010) On the surface, an article in the Wall Street Journal navigated this tricky area competently. It provided a skeletal description of the two trials. The journalist clearly identified the evidence from the two studies as conflicting. The article presented both enthusiastic and skeptical views of the effectiveness of Botox. But the article veered too close to the viewpoint of Botox proponents. It quoted a researcher who is also a senior vice-president of the company that developed this injection therapy—as well as experts who have financial relationships with this company. It didn’t adequately describe some of the potential flaws in the two clinical trials. And it didn’t specify the need for further independent research to document that this treatment actually provides a clinically significant treatment advantage—and not just a statistically significant advantage over injections of a salt solution. Migraine headaches affect some 13% of the U.S. population, with a disproportionate impact on women. Roughly two percent of U.S. residents experience chronic migraines. These severe headaches have huge medical, social and economic implications. They are the most common headache treated in specialty clinics. They impose a steep toll in terms of pain, disability, and quality of life. People with chronic migraines have lower incomes, are less likely to be employed full-time, and have greater occupational disability than those who do not experience headaches with such regularity. Chronic migraines frequently defy effective treatment. And even when treatments are effective they usually have side-effects. In terms of prevention, there is no proven gold standard that can predictably eliminate chronic migraines in the majority of people affected by them. So anything that might be an effective prevention strategy will draw great interest among migraine sufferers—as well as abundant marketing hype from those who sell these therapies.
|
mixture
|
Wall Street Journal
|
The article gave a bare-bones estimate about the costs of Botox. However, it didn’t provide any real-world estimates of the total long-term costs of the injections and any ancillary services from specialists. Since chronic migraines can be a life-long complaint, the total costs may be jaw-dropping. The article also did not address the cost-effectiveness of Botox for chronic migraines. Will patients and insurers be interested in paying steep prices for meager clinical results? The story was careful to explicitly describe the modest advantage of Botox over placebo injections—in terms of the absolute number of headache days associated with each intervention. The article did not adequately address potential adverse events and harms related to the Botox injections. The journalist offered a fairly standard list of Botox side-effects but then soft-pedaled by offering the reassuring viewpoint of a consultant for the manufacturer. There is no mention that twice as many adverse events occurred in the Botox group than the placebo group in both clinical trials. And the story did not address the fact that long-term side-effects and adverse events may differ from those it describes. These clinical trials described adverse events that occurred over a matter of months. Yet those with chronic migraines might have Botox injections every 12 weeks for years and decades. It is possible that the number of adverse events might grow with increasing usage. The story offered a bare-bones description of the two clinical trials and their conflicting results. It could have provided more detail about the scope, size, and quality of the studies. But because it conveyed the minor effect accurately, we’ll give it a satisfactory grade. The article did not adequately address study issues and potential placebo effects that might have accounted for some or all of the positive results. For example, the clinical trials did not present evidence on blinding of the study subjects. If the subjects who received Botox injections were aware they got the active treatment, expectation-related responses could have come into play. And the tone of the article suggests that Botox has persuasive efficacy—which is as yet uNPRoven. The article did not engage in explicit disease-mongering. Chronic migraines are painful, disabling and potentially debilitating. However, the article over-emphasizes the views of authors who have relationships with the developer of Botox. Careful reading of the study suggests that the study subjects had a special and severe type of migraine—and may not be representative of the larger population with chronic migraines. The results of the study may not apply to many individuals with chronic migraines. On the plus side, the story was careful to emphasize that the treatment may not be beneficial for those with less frequent and less severe migraines. It is not clear that any of the experts who commented in this study were independent, disinterested sources. All appeared to have some kind of relationship with the developer of Botox. How hard can it be to find a headache specialist who is not on the company payroll? The article did not adequately describe the relationships of the quoted experts with the company that manufacturers and markets Botox. For instance, the article noted that one of the quoted experts is the principal investigator of one of the Botox trials. However, the journalist didn’t reveal that this expert has also been a consultant to the drug company. The article mentioned that other drugs are employed to treat migraines, but it didn’t mention any by name. The Wall Street Journal story never discussed non-pharmacologic therapies. Yet addressing triggers related to diet, stress, sleep deprivation, and medication side-effects are front-line preventive treatments for migraines. And they are certainly viable alternatives to Botox injections. And since Botox injections have never been compared to other standard treatments for chronic migraines in clinical trials, it is quite possible that those interventions could be superior to Botox injections. Botox injections are so widely available in the U.S. that this doesn’t merit much discussion. The article accurately identified the regulatory status of Botox injections for chronic migraines. The article makes it clear that Botox is in use for other clinical conditions and has been studied extensively in the headache arena. The article did not appear to rely on a news release.
|
8463
|
Despite coronavirus, Americans fight for their right to a birthday party.
|
Reuben Goodman’s parents had to think fast and get creative when the COVID-19 pandemic scuppered their plans to throw a New Jersey bowling party to celebrate their son’s fifth birthday.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Emily and Dan Goodman instead decided to combine a variety of coronavirus-safe activities for their son, an avid Star Wars fan. The day includes a social-distancing treasure hunt of sorts; dancing in the streets in his Storm Trooper costume, with friends kept at a contagion-proof distance; and a virtual Zoom party featuring treats delivered to the homes of Reuben’s playmates and left outside their front doors. Their aim was to make their pre-schooler feel like the center of the universe on his special day, even though he was unable to have a traditional party this year. “Parents are trying very hard to create positive birthday memories,” said Emily Goodman, a communications executive who has been working at home in self-quarantine since mid-March under orders of her office in New Jersey. “He knows we can’t be close to our friends because of the invisible germs.” The Goodmans are not the only Americans who have had to adapt to restrictions on social life in the wake of the pandemic, which has forced the cancellation of traditional birthday bashes for both young and old. U.S. deaths from the novel coronavirus have topped 25,400, doubling in one week, according to a Reuters tally, as officials debate how to reopen the economy without reigniting the outbreak. Despite the outbreak, Americans are still finding ways to have fun. In many small towns across the country, local police and fire departments are staging parades in front of children’s’ homes on their birthdays, complete with flashing lights and sirens. Friends and families are using Zoom video conferencing to throw virtual parties, featuring renditions of “Happy Birthday,” a song that has become a coronavirus anthem. (Health experts say a thorough hand-washing takes 20 seconds, about the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.) In San Diego, California, when a former U.S. Marine couldn’t go anywhere for her 104th birthday, her friends brought the party to her front lawn. “Well, I can’t believe it. It’s amazing,” Ruth Gallivan gasped, as honking cars festooned with birthday decorations drove by at a safe distance. Anxiety around birthdays is spiking for children struggling with the concept of social distancing, Anthony Field, founder of the Wiggles, a popular Australian musical act, told Reuters in an email. “Parents have told us their child is worried that if no one can come to their party, ‘Does it mean (I) still turn 4?’” said Field, better known as the Blue Wiggle. In a new “Social Distancing” song, with more than 540,000 views since it went online March 29, the Wiggles assure fans that a video party counts as a genuine celebration, Field said. In New Jersey, Reuben’s mother invited more than 20 neighbors to post drawings of Star Wars heroes and villains in their front windows, where her son could see them during a social-distancing walk on Tuesday, his fifth birthday. Neighbors young and old agreed to dress up in futuristic costumes and join Reuben, wearing a new Storm Trooper outfit, as he danced on his front lawn. Adults would make sure everyone stayed at least the recommended six feet apart from one another. Later, his friends were set to join him in a Zoom party that would feature a children’s musician strumming “Happy Birthday” and enjoy party goodie bags with toys that Reuben ordered from a local store and custom Star Wars cookies ordered from a local bakery. Reuben’s mother, wearing a face bandana and disposable gloves, planned to drop them off at his friends’ front doors, wiping down each one with disinfectant. Reuben said he had another present for all the party-goers, who are presumably as tired of being separated from friends as he was. His special treat? “To look at me,” he said.
|
10023
|
Cartilage regeneration builds a new knee, from the inside
|
Anecdote and expert opinion triumphed over science and good journalism in a story on the regeneration of knee cartilage in USA Today. The article focused on autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI), an expensive procedure intended to regenerate articular cartilage in the knee involving two operations and an arduous 18-month rehabilitation process. Unwarranted Assumption of Benefit From start to finish, the article seemed to assume that ACI is a beneficial treatment. It examined the outcomes of ACI through the prism of a single patient, who is apparently making a good recovery 12 months after the procedure. That the journalist chose to present the experiences of a celebrity—Olympic swimmer Dara Torres—only adds to the allure of this invasive therapy. But it is certainly open to question whether the experiences of a highly disciplined Olympic athlete are generalizable to other patients undergoing this treatment. The article offered a misleading statistic from Torres’ surgeon, who stated that 92% of his more than 600 patients have had “success” with ACI. Yet the USA Today story never defined the indications for surgery in these patients— or what “success” meant. No Mention of Scientific Evidence In an era of evidence-based journalism, the article went astray in never citing a single scientific study or attempting to quantify the expected benefit of ACI. It didn’t specify the availability or costs (an estimated $20-$35K) of this procedure. It didn’t address specific treatment alternatives for cartilage damage. It didn’t discuss the possibility of adverse effects related to ACI. Yet in some studies, up to 50% of patients who opted for ACI have had to undergo an additional surgical procedure for cartilage problems down the road. (Genzyme, Highlights of Prescribing Information, Genzyme.com) Two outside experts did offer some tempering remarks but didn’t actually question the effectiveness of ACI. And like the other contributors to this article, they didn’t cite a single scientific study. What Does the Scientific Evidence Say? A few sentences on the scientific evidence base for ACI would have brought the entire article into focus—and provided a real benefit for individuals considering this procedure. And what does that evidence show? The most recent systematic review found evidence that ACI can provide benefit over the short-to-intermediate term. So its long-term effectiveness hasn’t been established. (Harris JD et al., AACI: Systematic Review, JBJS, Sept 15, 2010) It is not clear if ACI is superior to many other common treatments for pain and dysfunction related to articular cartilage damage. Well-designed randomized trials comparing ACI to usual care would be valuable. So in short, while the evidence on ACI is promising, the jury is still out. This observation should have been the starting point for the USA Today article. Identifying treatments that can heal injuries to knee cartilage is something of a Holy Grail in musculoskeletal medicine. Hyaline articular cartilage plays a vital role in the function of the knee joint, acting as a shock absorber and mechanical interface on the surfaces of the bones that meet in this weight-bearing joint. Articular cartilage has a limited ability to heal. So in the absence of effective treatments, cartilage defects are to some extent permanent injuries and potential on-going mechanical triggers for knee degeneration. Not all articular cartilage abnormalities lead to pain and dysfunction. And it is not completely clear what differentiates pain-free from painful abnormalities. However, even isolated cartilage defects can lead to vexing symptoms and the accelerated progression of knee degeneration. And when they occur in a knee with extensive degeneration their effects can be even more debilitating. Though there are numerous treatments for articular cartilage damage, it is not yet clear that any of them can return the knee to full health and alter the natural history of symptomatic knee degeneration.
|
false
|
The article does not mention costs at all. This is an important issue for patients, healthcare providers and insurers. According to various estimates, the costs of ACI range from $17,000 to $35,000, depending on geographic location and associated surgical and rehabilitation expenses. Because of a lack of conclusive documentation of ACI’s benefit, many insurers are reluctant to provide universal coverage for ACI. So prospective patients may have to deal with the prospect of daunting out-of-pocket expenses. The article did not adequately frame the benefits of ACI or make any attempt at quantifying them. It suggested that swimmer Dara Torres is now able to walk and climb stairs without knee pain—and that her knee is stronger than it was prior to surgery. But it didn’t provide any quantification of the expected benefit of ACI in terms of pain relief and functional improvement in the broader group of patients who opt for this procedure. The article did not address complications or adverse events related to ACI. Yet patient and provider information at the Genzyme website makes it clear that ACI can lead to a wide range of adverse events— and that up to 50% of patients in some clinical trials have required an additional operation following ACI. The article did not make any attempt to evaluate the quality of the evidence on ACI. It did not mention a single scientific study or systematic review on ACI. On balance, the article did not engage in disease mongering. The article provided a number of points of view, including those of two experts who weren’t involved with the treatment of Dara Torres. The article did not discuss conflicts of interest. But the journalist would have had to dig into the previous research of the contributors to even find suggestions of conflict. The article presents ACI in isolation, without any mention of other specific treatments (e.g., debridement, microfracture, transplantation) for cartilage problems in the knee. It does discuss knee replacement as an end-stage treatment. And it mentions exercise and weight loss as nonoperative therapies. We’ll give it the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The article did not discuss the availability of this treatment. This is an important issue, as all surgeons who employ autologous chrondrocyte implantation have to take a training course from Genzyme. In addition they have to recruit a surgical team that can meticulously apply this demanding therapy and a group of professionals who can manage the careful 18-month rehabilitation program that follows ACI. This a close call. But the article didn’t discuss the development of ACI or how it differs from other therapies aimed at cartilage defects. The article did not appear to rely on a press release. There was extensive original reporting in this article—though no discussion of the scientific evidence.
|
|
19773
|
"The Affordable Care Act ""will likely go down as the biggest tax increase in history."
|
"Josh Mandel says Obamacare will ultimately be the 'biggest tax increase in history"""
|
false
|
Ohio, Financial Regulation, Health Care, Taxes, Josh Mandel,
|
"The Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act settled the question of its constitutionality, but only seemed to intensify debate over the law. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel joined other Republicans in calling for its repeal, saying the decision ""sets the stage for the November election."" He identified the law as a pivotal issue in his campaign to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown. Mandel issued a statement on the day of the decision asserting that Brown had voted ""for what will likely go down as the biggest tax increase in history."" That claim about the health care legislation has been a talking point opponents of the law, repeated many times since the ruling. But PolitiFact first examined it after Florida Gov. Rick Scott made the statement more than a year earlier. The claim is wrong. Here’s why: The federal Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan committee of Congress with a professional staff of economists, attorneys and accountants, gave members a detailed breakdown of the tax impact of the health care law from 2010-2019. • A 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services that started in 2011 is expected to bring in $2.7 billion over 10 years. • A new fee for pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers that started in 2011 is expected to raise $27 billion over 10 years. • Starting in 2013, Medicare payroll taxes increase 0.9 percentage points for people with annual incomes over $200,000 ($250,000 for couples filing jointly). Also, people at this income level would pay a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income. The 10-year cost: $210.2 billion. • Starting in 2013, a 2.3 percent excise tax on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices starts. The 10-year total: $20 billion. • Starting in 2013, the floor on medical expense deductions on itemized income tax returns will be raised from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of income. That's expected to bring in $15.2 billion over the next 10 years. • Starting in 2014, a new annual fee on health insurance providers begins. Total estimated 10-year revenue: $60.1 billion. • Starting in 2018, a new 40 percent excise tax kicks in on high-cost health plans, so-called ""Cadillac plans"" (over $10,200 for individuals, $27,500 for families). That's expected to bring the government a total of $32 billion in 2018 and 2019. There also is money in the law going the other way. The plan includes government money, in the form of tax credits, to subsidize the cost of health insurance for lower-income people who don't get insurance through their employer. And there is a tax cut for some small businesses that allows them to write off a portion of the cost of providing insurance to their employees. Combined with various other revenue-generating provisions, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the health law will bring in more than $437.8 billion by 2019. The government's nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the additional revenues coming in to the government to be $525 billion between now and 2019. Does that translate to the biggest tax increase in American history? There are many ways to define or measure the size of a tax increase. The health care tax provisions, for instance, take effect between 2011 and 2018, meaning the full effect of the legislation won't be felt until near the end of the decade. On top of that to compare the costs today with other years you have to adjust for inflation to measure the relative impact of a tax provision at the time it was enacted. For our comparison, PolitiFact used a method perfected by Jerry Tempalski, an analyst in the Office of Tax Analysis with the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In 2006, Tempalski tried to determine the relative impact of major tax revenue bills from 1940-2006. He used revenue estimates from Treasury and the Joint Committee on Taxation and calculated the impact as a percentage of GDP. For 1940-1967 calculations, he used a single-year snapshot of the revenue impact of the tax legislation. For more recent tax bills, from 1968-2006, Tempalski used a two-year average of the revenue effects. Tempalski wrote: ""The comparison of tax bills for the first period should be examined with some caution, because the revenue estimates are from different sources and are not completely consistent. The comparison for the second period can be viewed with more confidence, because the estimates are relatively consistent."" As a percent of GDP, here are the top five tax increases from 1940-2006, according to Tempalski: 1. Revenue Act of 1942: 5.04 percent of GDP; 2. Revenue Act of 1961: 2.2 percent of GDP; 3. Current Tax Payment Act of 1943: 1.13 percent of GDP; 4. Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968: 1.09 percent of GDP; 5. Excess Profits Tax of 1950: .97 percent of GDP; And here are the top five tax increases from the ""modern"" era of 1968-2006: 1. Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968: 1.09 percent of GDP; 2. Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982: 0.8 percent of GDP; 3 (tie). Crude Oil Windfall Profit Tax Act of 1980: 0.5 percent of GDP 3 (tie). Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993; 0.5 percent of GDP; 5. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990; 0.49 percent of GDP. The list does not include the health care law, which passed in 2010, and a spokeswoman for the Department of Treasury said it hasn't been updated. So PolitiFact calculated its own figure for percent of GDP. We used 2019 as our baseline because that's when all of the tax provisions of the law will be in effect. In 2019, the CBO estimates, the government will see increased revenues of $104 billion. That $104 billion includes the penalty or tax that individuals might pay if they do not purchase health insurance -- a figure estimated to be $14 billion for 2019. We then divided that number into the projected GDP for 2019, which according to the CBO economic forecast is $21.164 trillion. That would mean the tax increase provisions of the health care law would amount to 0.49 percent of total GDP. That would mean the tax increases resulting from the health care law would be about the size of tax increases proposed and passed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter, in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush and in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. The health care-related tax increases are smaller than the tax increase signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1982 and a temporary tax signed into law in 1968 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. And they are significantly smaller than two tax increases passed during World War II and a tax increase passed in 1961. We asked Mandel's campaign how his claim is supported. The most relevant source they cited was an editorial from the Wall Street Journal asserting that Obama ""has imposed the largest tax increase in history on the middle class."" The Journal cited Congressional Budget Office projections that 76 percent of the people who will have to pay an annual penalty tax (because they do not have health insurance and are not exempt for, say, cases of hardship or religious belief) will have a household income of 500 percent of the federal poverty level or below. For a family of four, that comes to about $120,000. But who pays the tax is a different question than whether it is the largest tax increase in history. Mandel's camp also cited sources saying that the Affordable Care Act contains ""the largest tax increase since 1993,"" which we noted earlier and which was not his statement. And they cited a chart from FactCheck.org showing the Affordable Care Act producing the largest tax increase since 1968 in raw dollars. In the article the chart accompanied, however, FactCheck.org called raw dollars a ""rather useless yardstick"" and ""a poor way to measure the size of a tax increase,"" because it makes no adjustment for inflation and takes no account of a population that is steadily rising. The tax increases in the health care legislation do reverse a trend of federal tax cuts and represent the first significant tax increases since 1993. But they are not the largest in the history of the United States. It would have to grow more than 10 fold to match the wartime tax increase from 1942. It would have to nearly double just to match the 1982 increase under Reagan. And that still wouldn’t crack the top 5 since 1940. They are so far from the largest that it is not now possible, much less ""likely,"" that they will ""go down as the biggest tax increase in history."" On the Truth-O-Meter, Mandel’s claim rates ."
|
23879
|
Georgia has a well-deserved reputation for setting the gold standard for food safety.
|
"State Rep. says Georgia sets ""gold standard"" for food safety"
|
false
|
Georgia, Food Safety, Kevin Levitas,
|
"Note to readers: An update was posted to this item on June 29, 2010. Also, a letter to the editor responding to this item appeared July 7, 2010. See the note and letter at the end of this story. When we read a recent news release issued by state Rep. Kevin Levitas (D-DeKalb County), we thought back to a small town named Blakely. His announcement said that Gov. Sonny Perdue’s signing of the Sanitary Activity for Food-Processing Enterprises Act celebrated the strength of the state’s food-safety system: ""Georgia has a well-deserved reputation for setting the gold standard for food safety, and the SAFE Act continues our state’s long tradition of protecting the consuming public,"" Levitas said in the release. ""An overwhelming majority of food processors in Georgia keep quality and safety as their primary concerns. The SAFE Act is intended to keep out the bad actors and punish the few who put profit over human life and safety."" Georgia-produced peanut butter took a huge hit a few years back. The South Georgia town of Blakely was the home to a Peanut Corporation of America plant that helped spawn one of the biggest outbreaks of food-borne illness in the nation’s history. The salmonella outbreak in late 2008 sickened about 700 and was linked to nine deaths nationwide. Georgia Agriculture Department plant inspection reports showed grease and dirt buildup on equipment, unmarked chemical containers and gaps in doors large enough for rodents to scuttle through. One worker testified before Congress that she spotted roaches and rodents inside. Blakely came to symbolize Georgia’s lax culture of food-safety regulation. In 2007, salmonella from ConAgra Foods in Sylvester, the maker of Peter Pan peanut butter, made more than 600 people ill. That same year, botulism was found in canned chili from a plant in Augusta. It was the first outbreak of botulism from commercially canned foods in nearly four decades. Can a state that produced a tainted peanut butter that killed nine people set the ""gold standard"" for food safety? It’s hard to establish what a ""gold standard"" might be in the food safety arena. No ranking of state programs exists because it’s difficult to come up with a good way of scoring them. When we asked experts to name states with good systems, they cited Oregon, Minnesota and New York. Not Georgia. We asked Levitas for evidence backing his claim. He said that since the outbreak, the state Legislature has strengthened food-safety laws in two crucial ways: It created a requirement that food processors alert the state within 24 hours when tainted food is discovered, and it made it a felony for food processors to knowingly release contaminated products to the public. The reporting requirement is the result of 2009’s Senate Bill 80, which was passed in response to the peanut butter scare. Food processing safety experts we talked with had not heard of another state with a similar rule, so Georgia is unique in this regard. The problem is that the reporting rule applies to only a portion of food processors. A loophole allows food processors who submit a special ""written food safety plan"" to avoid being subject to the 24-hour reporting standard, according to the text of the bill, media coverage and interviews with experts. So while this requirement may be unusual, its impact is limited. This year’s House Bill 883 made the knowing release of tainted products to the public a felony in Georgia. Experts said this state law is unusual but the act is already a crime under federal law. Levitas said it was necessary to make releasing tainted food a crime on the state level to help local prosecutors. It’s easier to prosecute a bad food producer in court when there is a death of a consumer if it was the result of a state crime, he said. There are other ways to measure the strength of Georgia’s food-safety system. Some states are better than others at figuring out the cause of an outbreak. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer watchdog group, Georgia had 283 tainted food outbreaks between 1998 and 2007. Ninety-nine were solved, said David Plunkett, a staff attorney for the group. ""We’d say Georgia is fair to middling,"" Plunkett said. Another sign of a good food safety program is adherence to the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program, which was created by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and state food-safety regulators, said Joe Corby, executive director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials and a respected food-safety expert. These standards, which Corby said are difficult to meet, establish requirements for inspector training, inspection, self-auditing and other procedures. Georgia is among 25 states implementing the program, according to the organization. That’s good, but not great. While Georgia legislators have passed new and sometimes unique food-safety regulations since the peanut butter scare, this state is far short of setting a gold standard. Georgia has a history of major food-safety lapses that have killed and debilitated consumers, and the laws passed in response are limited. Update: A June 13 item on Rep. Kevin Levitas' statement that Georgia sets ""the gold standard"" on food safety contained a factual error. PolitiFact Georgia said that a new food safety law has a loophole that exempts some processors from having to report tainted food to the state within 24 hours. That's not the case. The loophole allows some processors to submit a special ""written food safety plan"" in lieu of following testing procedures set by the state but does not exempt those processors from the 24-hour rule. Our original ruling of """" is unchanged. Had Rep. Levitas said the food safety laws in Georgia have gotten stronger, he would have been right, but the ""gold standard"" is clearly hyperbole. Letter to the Editor Published July 7, 2010 Newspaper's verbal nitpicking misses the point, misleads public As the AJC has now expressly acknowledged in its correction, the recently enacted SAFE Act has strengthened Georgia's food safety regulations. The act is a giant step by the Legislature toward achieving the ""gold standard"" that I proudly described. The AJC now portrays my effusive praise as ""hyperbole."" There is a vast difference between enthusiasm and falsity, as my statement was labeled. Divergences in characterizations do not reflect disparities in the truth. The AJC's focus on semantics, rather than on substantive benefits to Georgia consumers, does a disservice to its readers. Your paper demonstrated the same hyper-literalism when it scoffed at Roy Barnes's enthusiastic support for education by demeaning his allegoric suggestion that he would scrape gold from the Capitol dome, if need be, to improve education. In both cases, the AJC's verbal nitpicking missed the point entirely and misled the public. The important point was and is that the SAFE Act will move Georgia forward substantially in food-safety protection for Georgia consumers. Unfortunately, the AJC's ceding only about 200 words for my response to its 800-plus word attack devoted to my characterization precludes an adequate reply and prevents readers from having a fair forum in which to make up their own minds. State Rep. Kevin Levitas, Georgia House District 82"
|
16622
|
"NextGen Climate Says Rick Scott ""is letting Duke (Energy) keep collecting billions"" despite troubled power plants."
|
"NextGen Climate said Scott ""is letting Duke (Energy) keep collecting billions"" after the utility company took in billions for two failed nuclear projects. The $3.2 billion settlement was the decision of the Public Service Commission, however, and not the governor or the Legislature. Scott and lawmakers have a say in who serves as commissioners, but the board’s decisions in utility matters is final. Scott could have asked for a change in the advance fee from 2006 that led to the flap, but he didn’t. He also could have appointed commissioners who may have voted differently. Beyond that, there’s not much the governor could do about the settlement the PSC awarded Duke. But it’s not like Scott has spoken up on the issue. If anything, he has been notably silent."
|
mixture
|
Energy, Florida, NextGen Climate,
|
"Gov. Rick Scott has a new enemy on the campaign trail: Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. And Steyer has started bringing his message and massive checkbook to the airwaves. In an Aug. 8, 2014, commercial from Steyer’s political action committee NextGen Climate, the group accused the Republican incumbent of letting utility company Duke Energy run wild on the state’s citizens. The ad references the botched upgrade at the now-shuttered Crystal River nuclear plant and canceled Levy County nuclear project. ""We Floridians are paying billions to the nation's largest power company and getting nothing in return,"" says a TV reporter. Then the narrator: ""One defective power plant. Another never built. Florida fleeced by Duke Energy. Rick Scott knew, but he’s letting Duke keep collecting billions anyway."" The ad flashes a statement attributed to the Tampa Bay Times: ""Duke’s customers on the hook for up to $3.2 billion."" It also says Scott received $500,000 in campaign contributions from Duke and its pre-merger counterpart, Progress Energy, strongly implying a connection. The commercial was one of two NextGen Climate ads released attacking Scott. The other accused Scott of accepting campaign contributions from a Texas company performing unauthorized oil drilling in Collier County. We looked at that one in a separate item. It’s obvious Scott heard of the troubles in Citrus and Levy counties, since it was a major headache for the 1.7 million Florida residents billed by Duke Energy for electricity (the company said it doesn’t comment on political ads). But we wondered, is there something Scott could have done to prevent the utility from pulling in billions for the troubled projects, even though no customer is benefitting from them? PolitiFact Florida decided to check the fine print. The nuclear option The saga of Duke Energy’s ill-fated nuclear plants on Florida’s west coast is complex, making it hard to comprehensively explain its ups and downs. (The Tampa Bay Times has extensively covered the morass.) We will give you a quick overview, though: In 2006, the state Legislature overwhelmingly passed SB 888, allowing utilities to charge a so-called ""advance fee"" to customers in order to pay for nuclear projects. The fee was based on the number of kilowatt hours the customers used, and shifted the expense of new nuclear projects to customers instead of shareholders. Unfortunately, while the bill allowed utilities to collect the fee for facilities yet to be built, there was no language included to ensure those companies had to actually build anything. That same year, Progress Energy began selecting a site in Levy County for a new nuclear power plant. Over the years, the potential cost of the project neared $25 billion, and Progress collected roughly $1 billion in advance fees to help pay for it. In 2009, Progress Energy was also upgrading its Crystal River nuclear plant by installing new steam generators. Progress elected to perform the upgrade itself and the reactor containment dome contracted during the project, requiring extensive repairs. Progress planned to reopen the plant in 2011, but the company committed one mistake after another in the work. Estimates to repair the building reached as high as $3.4 billion. Progress merged with Duke Energy in 2012. State lawmakers changed their tune about the advance fee in 2013 amending the 2006 law with SB 1472, saying a utility has 10 years after it gets its federal license to begin construction or lose access to the fees. The projects also had to be ""reasonable,"" an important addition, considering the Levy project had turned into the most expensive nuclear power plant in U.S. history. The same day lawmakers passed the amendment by a wide margin, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an environmental group’s challenge to the fee, saying the 2006 fee was constitutional and the state’s Public Service Commission had a framework with which to apply it. Duke then decided in 2013 to shut down the Crystal River plant rather than fix it, even after using $265 million in advance fee money. The total cost of the Crystal River project grew to about $1.7 billion from repair work, having to buy electricity for customers elsewhere and other expenses. The company also canceled the Levy County project after spending $1.5 billion on it. Duke continued to clamor for more advance fee cash, saying it may one day continue the Levy County project or build a natural gas plant. They also claimed decommissioning the Crystal River facility would take 60 years and cost another $1.18 billion, much of which the utility collected for its federally required decommissioning fund. The five-member Public Service Commission voted 4-1 in October 2013 to settle with Duke Energy over $5 billion in costs for the two doomed projects. Customers would shoulder $3.2 billion in expenses, insurance would pay $835 million and shareholders would pay the rest, with Duke keeping about $250 million ($150 million for Levy, $100 million for Crystal River). Customers will have to pay monthly charges of $3.45 per 1,000 kilowatt hours for Levy through the early part of 2016 and $2.17 for Crystal River through at least 2017 -- all for two projects that never produced any electricity in exchange for the money paid. Who’s to blame? The commission’s members are appointed by the governor, who relies on the Legislature to draft a list of nominees when members’ four-year terms are up. Of the five veteran members on the board under Scott, four were previously chosen by Gov. Charlie Crist, and one was originally picked by Gov. Jeb Bush. Scott reappointed each, and the Legislature confirmed them. ""Like judges appointed by the governor to the judiciary, PSC commissioners make independent decisions based on the established evidentiary record for each case,"" spokesperson Cindy Muir said. ""PSC decisions are not reviewed by the Legislature or the governor."" Scott did have some say on who served on the commission, however, although he has not spoken publicly about the two nuclear plants or the PSC’s vote. Scott could have urged lawmakers to deal with the advance fee, but no action was taken until 2013. Many lawmakers were still not pleased with the commission’s settlement. Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, called the 2013 changes to the fee ""total eyewash"" and several legislators demanded a complete repeal of the advance fee. That hasn’t happened. A change in the law is the only way consumers could avoid the advance fee, and that’s not up to the PSC or the governor alone, according to Public Counsel J.R. Kelly. ""Whether the governor likes it or not and, to a certain extent, whether the PSC likes it or not, they have to follow the law,"" Kelly said. ""I don’t know what the governor’s office or anyone else could have done."" He pointed out that whether or not the governor and the commissioners share opinions on subjects, the PSC’s board members are appointed to four-year terms in order to avoid political reprisals after making unpopular decisions. Commissioners can only be removed for malfeasance, he said. Our ruling NextGen Climate said Scott ""is letting Duke (Energy) keep collecting billions"" after the utility company took in billions for two failed nuclear projects. The $3.2 billion settlement was the decision of the Public Service Commission, however, and not the governor or the Legislature. Scott and lawmakers have a say in who serves as commissioners, but the board’s decisions in utility matters is final. Scott could have asked for a change in the advance fee from 2006 that led to the flap, but he didn’t. He also could have appointed commissioners who may have voted differently. Beyond that, there’s not much the governor could do about the settlement the PSC awarded Duke. But it’s not like Scott has spoken up on the issue. If anything, he has been notably silent."
|
5042
|
More states sue opioid maker alleging deceptive marketing.
|
California, Hawaii, Maine and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits Monday against the maker of OxyContin and the company’s former president, alleging the firm falsely promoted the drug by downplaying the risk of addiction while it emerged as one of the most widely abused opioids in the U.S.
|
true
|
District of Columbia, Health, General News, Hawaii, Business, Maine, California, Xavier Becerra, U.S. News, Lawsuits
|
The lawsuits were the latest by states and local governments against drugmaker Purdue Pharma as the country grapples with an opioid epidemic. About a dozen states have also targeted Richard Sackler, the company’s former leader, or members of his family. “Purdue and the Sacklers traded the health and well-being of Californians for profit and created an unprecedented national public health crisis in the process,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a news conference announcing the legal action by his state. “We will hold them accountable.” Becerra, echoing allegations lodged against Purdue Pharma by others attorneys general across the country, said the company falsely introduced OxyContin in the 1990s as a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain. However, the California’s lawsuit alleges that Purdue and Sackler knew in 1997 that drugs containing oxycodone, such as OxyContin, were widely abused. Still, company representatives marketed it as not being addictive and downplayed the potential for abuse, the suit states. In a statement Monday, Purdue Pharma and former directors of the company denied the allegations and vowed to defend against the “misleading attacks.” It noted that OxyContin represents less than 2% of total opioid prescriptions and is still approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its intended use as a painkiller as prescribed by doctors and dispensed by pharmacists. “Such allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described,” spokesman Robert Josephson said in a statement. “But we believe the state fails to show such causation and offers little evidence to support its sweeping legal claims.” A spokesman for Sackler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The family has faced a backlash in recent years amid a growing public outcry around opioid addiction. In addition, activists have targeted institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that the family has supported through large contributions. The museum has said it will no longer take money from members of the family linked to the drugmaker. Purdue stopped marketing OxyContin to doctors last year. It settled a lawsuit by the state of Oklahoma in March for $270 million. The company previously said it is pursuing several options, including bankruptcy, which could upend pending litigation by states as well as about 2,000 local and tribal governments across the country. The lawsuits filed Monday allege that Purdue Pharma pushed doctors to prescribe opioids for longer periods of time at higher doses. “Our complaint alleges that their unrelenting sales visits to doctors and deceptive practices led to a marked increase in opioid prescriptions, and a corresponding increase in the number of Mainers suffering from opioid use disorder,” Maine Attorney General Aaron M. Frey said. Maine’s lawsuit names Richard Sackler, Jonathan Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Kathe Sackler — all of whom have served on the board of Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma. States have also cracked down on doctors who overprescribe the drug. Hawaii Attorney General Clare Connors said in a statement Monday that she has filed lawsuits alleging violations of Hawaii’s Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices Law. One complaint alleges Purdue deceptively marketed OxyContin and other opioids. Another says manufacturers and distributors sold more opioids than could be “legitimately prescribed.” Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said opioids are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017, according to the agency. In 2017, it says, prescription opioids were involved in 1,172 overdose deaths in California; 100 overdose deaths in Maine; and 58 in the District of Columbia. Maine set a state record for total drug overdose deaths in 2017 with 417. Jordan Basileu joined Becerra in announcing California’s lawsuit. He said he was prescribed opioid painkillers at 18 following a car crash and became addicted. “People think, ‘it’s from a doctor. How bad can it be?’” Basileu said of the drug. Basileu said he overdosed four times before getting sober three years ago. “I’m still cleaning up the mess that opioids got me in to,” he said. ___ Associated Press reporters Adam Beam and Caleb Jones contributed to this story. Jones reported from Honolulu.
|
4196
|
Ruling puts hold on gold exploration plans in eastern Idaho.
|
The U.S. Forest Service violated environmental laws by failing to adequately consider potential harm to Yellowstone cutthroat trout in a Canadian mining company’s plans to expand its search for gold in eastern Idaho, a judge has ruled.
|
true
|
General News, Forests, Environment, British Columbia, Idaho Falls, Idaho
|
U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill on Wednesday ordered the Forest Service to examine how exploratory drilling by British Columbia-based Otis Gold Corporation could affect groundwater and possibly fish. The company’s Kilgore Project covers about 19 square miles (50 square kilometers) on Forest Service land and land managed by the state of Idaho in Clark County about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Idaho Falls. The company says the area contains about 825,000 ounces (23.4 million grams) of gold. The company in a summary of its plans says it would like to get the gold by digging an open-pit mine. Such a mine would require additional approval from the Forest Service. The Forest Service in August 2018 approved the expansion of the exploration part of the project that includes 10 miles (16 kilometers) of new roads and 140 drill stations. The Idaho Conservation League and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition filed the lawsuit in November 2018 contending the exploratory drilling could pollute groundwater and surface water. The groups also said the drilling would harm grizzly bears, whitebark pine, Yellowstone cutthroat trout and Columbia spotted frogs. Winmill ruled the Forest Service didn’t violate environmental laws in determining the exploratory drilling wouldn’t overly harm grizzly bears, whitebark pine or Columbia spotted frogs. However, Winmill found the Forest Service hadn’t done an adequate analysis involving groundwater quality in the Dog Bone Ridge drainage, home to Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The trout are considered a sensitive species facing threats to its population or habitat. “The Court’s ruling affirms that the Forest Service must fully assess impacts to water and sensitive species before approving mining exploration,” said Laird Lucas of Advocates for the West, a legal firm that is representing the environmental groups. “There should be no doubt: Water is more precious than gold in Idaho.” The U.S. Department of Justice, which defends federal agencies in lawsuits, didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry from The Associated Press. Craig Lindsay, president and CEO of Otis Gold Corp., didn’t immediately return a call from the AP. Otis Gold Corporation is one of two British Columbia-based companies hoping to mine for gold in Idaho with open-pit mines. The other is Midas Gold, which wants to expand two open pits and create a third in an area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) east of McCall. That area has been heavily mined for a century and Midas Gold says it will restore the area as part of its mining plan. The company’s plans are in an environmental review process.
|
36524
|
Newly uncovered video depicts Bernie Sanders, intoxicated and shirtless, singing in Russia in 1988.
|
Video of Bernie Sanders Shirtless, Singing ‘This Land Is Your Land’ in Russia in 1988?
|
mixture
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
|
On January 28 2019, a video of what appeared to be video of a shirtless Bernie Sanders at a dinner party in Russia in 1988 surfaced on Twitter:BREAKING: @SenSanders like you’ve never seen him! !Bernie and Jane on their honeymoon in Russia singing “This land is Your Land” with their Russian comrades! !Trigger Warning: Bernie is sitting at a table shirtless in his briefs. So are most of the rest of the men… pic.twitter.com/2DPyDY2WV0— m. mendoza ferrer (@mgranville1) January 28, 2019In the clip, a camera in a darkened room pans around a table of women and shirtless men. Initially, the attendees sing a different song; when it concludes, a woman at the table says that Russians “have a tradition,” adding that one side of the table sings a song and then the other side sings their own song when the first side finishes. At that point, several people at the table begin singing Woody Guthrie’s 1940 song “This Land Is Your Land.”The footage essentially raised two questions: was it authentic and unaltered, and what were its overall implications? The original poster said that the footage had come from a Vermont public television archive. As a long-serving mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders’ activities throughout the years were documented by local television stations:CCTV – Bernie apparently loved being taped by VT community television. This one was like hitting the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – it was buried deep in an archived compilation. I’m like a dog with a bone when it comes to finding my #receiptsA provided link to Channel 17/Town Meeting Television and CCTV Center for Media & Democracy’s “CCTV Archive Compilation” led to a longer clip, some of which consisted of that particular footage.Sanders’ 1988 visit to Russia was extensively documented during his 2016 campaign. Both the trip and 2016 mention of it came before the larger controversy of Russian interference in the general election that same year. Archival footage from the same Vermont-based outlet, recorded in June 1988 and republished in 2016, featured Sanders discussing his trip along with other members of the delegation at length.In 2015, PolitiFact examined scrutiny of the excursion, noting that “the Soviet Union was barely intact at the time of the trip.” As PolitiFact noted, use of the 1988 trip as a smear was not new:Sanders and his wife, Jane Sanders, spent their first days as newlyweds in the Soviet Union, claims George Will in a recent Washington Post column … We wanted to see if Sanders actually honeymooned on the turf of the United States’ former adversary during the final years of the Cold War. […]The trip took place while Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vt., from 1981 to 1989. Toward the end of his mayoral tenure, the small city on Lake Champlain launched a sister-city program with Yaroslavl, located 160 miles northeast of Moscow.The program, which is still operating today, has facilitated exchanges between the two cities involving “mayors, business people, firefighters, jazz musicians, youth orchestras, mural painters, high school students, medical students, nurses, librarians and the (Yaroslavl) ice-hockey team,” according to its website.Along with sister-city relationships with Bethlehem in the West Bank and Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, the Yaroslavl program was part of Sanders’ unorthodox attempt to take on international issues from a small city in New England. Sanders also actively pursued his agenda outside of the country, writing letters to world leaders and even traveling to Cuba to meet with the mayor of Havana. […]Will made it sound as if Sanders was visiting to condone Soviet torture practices, but the Burlington trip was more of a dialogue-building exchange program. The Vermont weekly newspaper Seven Days reported in 2009 that the sister-city relationship “helped local residents who sought to ease tensions between the United States and Soviet Union by initiating citizen-to-citizen exchanges with a Russian city.”Republican candidates like Lindsey Graham also referenced the trip critically in 2015.Kremlin propaganda outlet RT.com reported on a debate in which Graham mocked Sanders (and included Sanders’ response):Sanders now contends, however, that Graham was just taking an easy shot at him, and that it wasn’t a honeymoon at all.“I think that’s a little silly [and] absurd,” Sanders told MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts.“Do you think that Sen. Graham is trying to imply that you are some type of communist sympathizer?” Roberts asked him.“Yes, that’s exactly what he’s trying to do,” Sanders replied. “The fact is that I went to establish a sister city program with Yaroslavl, then in the Soviet Union, now an important city in Russia, which is still in existence today.”“Did it take place after my marriage? It did,” he added.None of the accounts spreading the clip mentioned that Sanders was visiting the country “as part of an official delegation in his capacity as mayor.” However, we located a Reddit post shared to r/pics in April 2016, titled “Bernie Sanders in Russian banya – Yaroslavl, Russia, 1988.” That post included a source and pegged the location of the depicted party as a banya, a culturally significant meeting place in Slavic countries.Based on an image which circulated in April 2016 and the provenance of the clip, footage of Bernie Sanders at a party in Russia in 1988 is almost certainly real. Other images clearly show Sanders at the same banya with the same woman. However, the context of Sanders’ post-wedding trip to the USSR in 1988 was absent in many of the tweets circulating in 2019. Not only was his visit to Russia three decades prior extensively documented and previously used as a smear, an image of the events in the footage circulated in 2016. The footage itself may have been newly discovered (or rediscovered), but the visit to the banya certainly was not.Update [February 1 2019, 10:31 AM]: VTDigger.com spoke to John Franco for their piece (“Sanders’ shirtless vodka video from 1988 Soviet trip goes viral”). Franco was present on Sanders’ 1988 USSR visit, and he said:According to Franco, the event videotaped was a send off party/dinner sponsored by officials in Yaroslavl on the last night of the trip. It was held, he said, at a spa where the guests took part in a Russian tradition of going into hot and cold pools after having their backs hit with eucalyptus and birch leaves. The guest then wrapped themselves in sheets before sharing a buffet style dinner and toasts, Franco said, noting Sanders did not drink.“This is why social media is such toxic horseshit,” Franco said.
|
8580
|
Canada to press U.S. further on medical supplies, Trudeau says.
|
Canada will keep up efforts to persuade the United States not to block the export of medical supplies to fight the coronavirus, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday, while the energy-producing province of Alberta warned of an economic disaster.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Trudeau told a briefing that 500,000 N95 surgical masks from Saint Paul, Minnesota-based 3M Co - part of a batch of 4 million ordered by the province of Ontario - should arrive on Wednesday. Canadian officials pressed their U.S. counterparts after Ontario complained the shipment had been blocked. U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order last week to stop personal protective equipment from being exported. “We have had constructive and productive conversations that have assured that this particular shipment comes through but we recognize there is still more work to do,” Trudeau said. “We are going to continue to highlight to the American administration the point to which healthcare supplies and services go back and forth across that border.” The Canadian death toll rose to 345 from 293 on Monday, officials said. The total number of cases was 17,063, compared with 15,822 a day earlier. The coronavirus outbreak looks set to cripple the economy, especially in Alberta, which was already suffering from low oil prices before authorities ordered a shutdown. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said that unemployment could increase to 25% from the current 7.2%. “That’s before we even fully account for the impacts of the crash in energy prices,” he told reporters. “This will be the most challenging period in our economy, in relative terms, since the Great Depression.” He added in an evening address that the province’s budget deficit may almost triple to C$20 billion ($14.27 billion) in this fiscal year. The province’s energy patch needs up to C$30 billion in liquidity, he said. The federal government says it is working on an aid package for the sector. Ottawa says more than 3.7 million people have filed unemployment claims since March 16, including for an emergency benefit that launched on Monday. Canada’s workforce is around 20 million people, according to Statistics Canada. More than half the country’s coronavirus cases are in Quebec, the second-most populous province, which forecast on Tuesday between 1,263 and 8,860 deaths from the respiratory disease by the end of April. Officials said the toll was likely to be closer to the more optimistic prediction. Alberta forecast the coronavirus spread to peak in mid-May under its probable scenario and kill between 400 and 3,100 people by the end of summer. Once it passes the peak, Alberta will gradually reopen its economy with stepped-up testing, contact tracing and additional screening of international arrivals, Kenney said. Ontario, the most-populous province, says it is running out of personal protection equipment. Procurement Minister Anita Anand said Canada had commitments to companies around the world to buy more than 230 million face masks, of which more than 16 million had been delivered. It has also ordered 75 million N95 surgical masks and expects to have 2.3 million by end of the week.
|
34682
|
A study has proved that pineapple juice is five times more effective than cough syrup.
|
Pineapple juice may not cure your cough, but bromelain works as a nifty meat tenderizer, which is why your mouth prickles when you eat it — it’s breaking down the collagen bonds on your tongue and in your cheeks.
|
unproven
|
Medical, Home Cures
|
A graphic proclaiming that pineapple juice is a much more efficient remedy for coughs than over-the-counter cough syrups are has been shared via social media multiple times over the last several years, most commonly on alternative health sites: The provided advice given is certainly specific (and compelling, as few of us find Robitussin more palatable than pineapple juice), and most versions cite purported research proving that cough syrups pale in comparison to this better-tasting household cough remedy. However, few versions of the claim explained the mechanism by which the pineapple cough cure supposedly worked: some touted it as a cough suppressant, while others claimed that pineapple juice speeds recovery and dissolves mucus. Most articles proffering this claim referenced a research study conducted in 2010, but locating the data in question has proved difficult. Few articles linked to any evidence at all, and most merely provided links to additional unsourced articles about the purported cough-battling properties of pineapple juice. One version referenced a particular study before adding that a second (unspecified) study bolstered the first: Drinking pineapple juice helps soothe a sore throat and aids the body to expel mucous easily. Thick and stubborn mucus in your lungs or sinuses can cause seemingly endless spasms of coughing, sneezing and painful infections. In a study published in “Der Pharma Chemica” in 2010, researchers attempted to find beneficial treatments for patients who have tuberculosis, an infectious disease often caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. As part of their studies, they discovered that a mixture of raw pineapple juice, pepper, salt and honey given to patients every day helped to dissolve the mucus in the lungs. In a subsequent study, research found that raw extracts from pineapple could decrease mucus five times faster than over-the-counter cough syrups. Patients recovered 4.8 times faster and exhibited a decrease in all symptoms related to coughing, especially hacking. While we were unable to locate any other research indicating “patients recovered 4.8 times faster” when treated with pineapple juice in lieu of cough syrup, we found that the underlying source material (to which nearly all other claims referred) appeared to be a 2011 article from a small publication called Der Pharma Chemica. The article [PDF] did not appear to be a “study,” and its title had nothing to do with pineapple juice (“Use of Secondary Metabolite in Tuberculosis: A Review”). The content of the article pertained to alternative treatments for tuberculosis, not the efficacy of pineapple as a cough suppressant, anti-viral supplement, or cold remedy. The word “pineapple” appeared a single time, and only in a context that did not in any way imply that pineapple is five times (or 500%) more effective than cold syrup for any function related to coughs: Pineapple Juice pepper and a dash of salt and honey can be administered to patients once everyday This is found to be extremely helpful in dissolving mucus of the lungs in tuberculosis. The quote above represents the entirety of the “study” so commonly cited that purportedly proves pineapple juice outstrips cough syrup on a number of efficacy metrics. How that brief and vague mention about its helpfulness in dissolving mucus (in an unrelated article about tuberculosis) morphed into a ringing endorsement of Dole over Dimetapp is anyone’s guess. It’s possible pineapple juice will someday be deemed beneficial for cough symptoms in the course of a study, but we found no current research proving pineapple juice is five hundred percent, five times, or any other multiplier more effective than cough syrup at alleviating cough symptoms, suppressing cough, dissolving mucus, or hastening recovery time from a cold. Bromelain, an enzyme found in pineapple juice, is used by some people for a variety of medical purposes (including reducing swelling of the nose and sinuses after surgery or injury and for the treatment of hay fever), but scientific evidence documenting its usefulness for treating coughs is lacking.
|
32296
|
Prophylactic maker Durex is producing an eggplant-flavored condom.
|
“In light of this research, the Durex brand is asking 1 million people to use and share the hashtag #CondomEmoji to represent their support of the creation of the world’s first official safe sex emojis by the Unicode Consortium,” says Karen Chisholm, Marketing Director, Durex USA. “Emojis of this sort will enable young people to overcome embarrassment around the discussion of safe sex, encourage conversation and raise awareness of the importance of using condoms in protecting against sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV and AIDS.”
|
false
|
Politics, condoms, durex, emoji
|
On 5 September 2016, the official Twitter account for the Durex brand of condoms posted a message seemingly announcing the arrival of the new eggplant-flavored product: #BreakingNews: We’re launching an exciting new savoury #condom range – Eggplant flavour! ? #CondomEmoji pic.twitter.com/idA07EaiXC — Durex Global (@durex) September 5, 2016 Although the tweet really issued from Durex, its content was rather tongue in cheek. The message was intended to garner the attention of customers and enlist them in the push for the creation a new condom emoji to promote safe sex, as Durex soon explained: You got us, there’s no Eggplant condom! But why no #CondomEmoji? RT if you agree emoji makers should make one! pic.twitter.com/6H6AU6zkJ6 — Durex Global (@durex) September 5, 2016 The “eggplant” emoji is occasionally used as a reference to male genitalia. While this substitution may work for some sexting purposes, Durex launched a campaign in November 2015 with the hopes of creating an official safe sex condom emoji: Durex®, a leading global sexual well-being brand has launched a worldwide campaign calling for the creation of the world’s first official safe sex condom emojis. Emojis are a crucial part of how young couples connect, and research suggests that the creation of official safe sex emojis are vital to inserting messages around protection into their sexual conversations. In light of this research, the Durex brand is asking 1 million people to use and share the hashtag #CondomEmoji to represent their support of the creation of the world’s first official safe sex emojis by the Unicode Consortium. Global research commissioned by the Durex* brand further reveals that emojis play a vital role in young people’s conversations around sex. This research also unearthed some concerning data around the rise in apathy towards engaging in safer sexual practices: o 80% of 18-25 year olds find it easier to express themselves using emojis and more than half of respondents regularly using emojis when discussing sex o 84% of 18-25 year olds said they feel more comfortable talking about sex using emojis o More than one-third of 18- to 25-year-olds claim not to care about safe sex, and nearly half think that HIV will never affect them or their friends
|
35141
|
Staff at Gold Coast Hospital in Australia rolled in a Wilson volleyball to keep Tom Hanks company in quarantine after he was diagnosed with the coronavirus.
|
The biggest giveaway, however, is probably the photograph of Hanks and “Wilson,” the name of his inanimate “costar” from the 2000 film “Cast Away.” This picture was not taken in March 2020 when the actor was quarantined with the coronavirus. Rather, this is a composite image that uses a still from a 2015 video showing Hanks reuniting with “Wilson” at a New York Rangers hockey game.
|
false
|
Humor, COVID-19
|
On March 11, 2020, actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced that they had been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus spreading around the globe, while they were abroad. Shortly after the news broke, the satirical outlet The Betoota Advocate published an “update” on Hanks’ condition, writing that the Gold Coast Hospital in Queensland, Australia, had rolled in a Wilson volleyball to keep Hanks company while he was quarantined: Gold Coast Hospital Staff Roll In A Wilson Volleyball To Keep Tom Hanks Company In Quarantine The news breaks after it was confirmed Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilsons have been taken into a Gold Coast Hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19… …However, to keep him company, the thoughtful and overworked staff at the Gold Coast hospital have brought Hanks in a Wilson volleyball to keep him company for the duration of his stay. This is not a genuine news article. The Betoota Advocate is an Australian satire website. We could not find a disclaimer in which The Betoota Advocate identifies itself explicitly as a satire website, but it does have some tongue-in-cheek references on its “About” page (the site claims to have been established in the 1800s and writes that its articles are as authentic as “the salt on the sunburnt earth that surrounds us here in the Queensland Channel Country”). And the website has published other obviously humorous articles, such as “Local Man’s Financial Advisor Suggests Investing in a Diverse Lottery Ticket Portfolio Moving Forward.” The New York Times and BBC News also identified this website as a satire publication in 2017 and 2016, respectively, after humorous articles from this website were reported as genuine by other news outlets.
|
27170
|
More than 100 whales are trapped in an underwater 'jail.'
|
Reuters reported that as of June 2019, eight of the ten whales, two orcas and six belogas, had been released. However wildlife activists criticized the Russian government for lack of transparency and rushing the process, thus placing the animals at risk.
|
true
|
Politics
|
In December 2018, social media users shared a story on the self-publishing site auxx.me bearing the headline, “Drone Footage Reveals Over 100 Whales Trapped in Secret Underwater ‘Jails,'” with many questioning whether the report was real. Aside from the fact that the cages are hardly “secret,” the story is sadly true. The information was originally reported by the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta on 30 October 2018. The paper revealed that more than 100 whales were caged in small enclosures off Russia’s Pacific coast near the city of Nakhodka, possibly in violation of an international ban on commercial whale hunting. The account has since been picked up by reputable English-language news outlets including CBS News and the UK’s Telegraph. According to news reports, 90 belugas and 11 orcas are being held in small enclosures that reporters have dubbed “whale jails” or “whale prison.” Some of the animals have been held there since July 2018 and many suspect they will be sold for entertainment in a burgeoning marine park industry in China, as The Telegraph reported: “An Orca whale can reportedly fetch more than $6 million in the booming ocean theme park industry in neighbouring China. There are more than 60 marine parks in China, and at least a dozen more are under construction.” Although Russian prosecutors are investigating the capture and export of the animals by four companies, identified by Novaya Gazeta as LLC Oceanarium DV, LLC Afalina, LLC Bely Kit and LLC Sochi Dolphinarium, the fate of the animals is currently unclear. Thomas Henningsen, a marine biologist who is head of the Russia program for the international environmental activist organization Greenpeace, confirmed to us via email that as of 19 December 2018 the whales were still in the cages and that the conditions there were “disastrous and cruel.” Experts cited by The Telegraph also opined that many of the whales were likely infants, based on the sheer number of them packed into pens — “even though the capture of whale calves is categorically forbidden.” News reports included an apparent cell phone video that captured the moment one of the whales was lifted by crane and placed into a tank for transport: ‘Whale prison’ discovered by drone in Far East Russia pic.twitter.com/gkZBVmYwVp — RT (@RT_com) November 8, 2018 According to the animal-oriented web site The Dodo, the process for capturing the whales is harrowing and potentially deadly due to the stress and exhaustion the animals endure: “The capture operators are apparently using ‘purse seining,’” Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist at the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), told The Dodo. “They encircle a group of spooked whales with small chase boats. One of these boats drops a net into the water when the whales are huddled together and draws it around the group. The bottom of the net has a line attached and is pulled closed. This is ‘pursing’ — turning the net into a big bag, basically, with the whales inside.” Once the animals are caught, the operators will pick and choose which animals they want to keep. They’re particularly interested in juveniles between 3 and 4 years old, Rose explained. “They then pull the top of the net tighter and tighter until they have corralled off the whale they want … wrestle it onboard with the net or a stretcher, and release the rest,” Rose said. “Sometimes animals get entangled in the net and drown. Or they may exhaust themselves trying to ram through the net and suffer from capture myopathy, a condition that is essentially being exhausted to death — their hearts can simply stop beating.” “The trauma and distress these animals experience during captures is not opinion or emotion — it is fact,” Rose added. “They suffer intense stress-related reactions and their mortality risk spikes sharply soon after capture and then again after transport — they don’t get accustomed to the process. The decimated pods may experience similar stress and trauma — their offspring are being taken from them.” The whales’ situation has caused something of an international outcry. Thousands of people have signed a petition demanding the release of the whales. Orcas are renowned for their intelligence, capacity to feel grief, and complex social and family relationships, and their well-being has been a point of evolving controversy. With many local populations endangered or threatened in the wild, the 2013 documentary Blackfish stoked a national backlash in the United States against marine parks such as Sea World for the treatment of captive animals. The matter has reached the highest office in Russia. On 19 December 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state-operated news agency RIA Novosti that Putin was leaning on the local governor in an effort to resolve the issue. In late April 2019, the Russian government enlisted the help of French ocean explorer Jacques-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society to help figure out how to safely release the animals in the summer. Criminal charges have been levied against the four companies that have held the whales captive.
|
25648
|
PEDOPHILIA is now LEGAL in CALIFORNIA. Now a 21 year old can have sex with an 11 year old, and not be listed on the sex registry as a sex offender.
|
A flood of social media posts claimed California had “legalized” pedophilia. Some said offenders who had sex with minors as young as 11 would not be placed on the state’s sex offender registry. Those claims are both false. In reality, the California Legislature passed a bill that aims to eliminate automatic sex offender registration mainly for LGBTQ young adults. Instead, a judge would decide whether to register for life those convicted of having voluntary anal or oral sex with a minor and are within 10 years of age of the victim. The bill does not reduce the standards for statutory rape. Existing law allows judges to decide whether to place offenders on the registry in cases involving vaginal intercourse. The bill in question only applies to young people ages 14, 15, 16 or 17 and any offender within a 10 year age range.
|
false
|
Criminal Justice, Gays and Lesbians, Crime, Sexuality, California, Facebook posts,
|
"Hours after the California Legislature passed Senate Bill 145 on Sunday, an onslaught of social media posts claimed the bill would ""legalize pedophilia"" in the state or allow adults to have sex with minors without being placed on the sex offender registry. All of the posts are provocative and many are unsubstantiated. Several were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about PolitiFact California’s partnership with Facebook.) We focused on a Facebook post that was viewed 1.2 million times in less than 24 hours after it was published Tuesday afternoon. Similar posts were viewed and shared thousands of times. ""PEDOPHILIA is now LEGAL in CALIFORNIA. Now a 21 year old can have sex with an 11 year old, and not be listed on the sex registry as a sex offender. This is unbelievable California!"" Prominent public figures from state Senate Republican Leader Shannon Grove to former San Francisco Giants baseball player Aubrey Huff to some Democratic state lawmakers have spoken out against the bill, though their statements do not go so far as to describe the bill as legalizing sex with minors. With so many claims swirling, we decided to check the facts. The Facts About SB 145 Current state allows a judge to decide whether to place a young man convicted of statutory rape, in which vaginal intercourse takes place with a minor, on the sex offender registry based on the facts of the case. There is no such discretion when the offense includes anal or oral sex. SB 145 would eliminate automatic sex-offeder registration for young adults who are convicted of having voluntary anal or oral sex with a minor. Instead, a judge would make the decision, as with cases involving vaginal intercourse. The law would not apply in cases where a one party does not believe the sexual contact was voluntary. LGBTQ advocates, including the bill’s author state Sen. Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco), say it would do away with a discriminatory law, one that’s a relic of a penal code that criminalized those acts until 1975, even between consenting adults. ""This distinction in the law is irrational and discriminatory towards LGBTQ youth,"" Wiener said in a fact sheet on the law produced by his office, Equality California and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, all of which support the bill. ""SB 145 ends this irrational distinction by treating all sex the same way that the law currently treats penile-vaginal intercourse."" Decades ago, police used the fact that certain sex acts were illegal to raid gay clubs and charge people with crimes, said Asm. Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles, a supporter of the bill, during a press conference last month. Kamlager said the disparity in the law was ""put in place during a more conservative time in California and historically these [police raids] were done systematically to target folks to remove people who identified as being LGBT from our society."" Sex With A Minor Remains Illegal, In All Cases, Under SB 145 Some of the claims on social media say the bill protects rapists or lessens penalties for statutory rape. That’s not the case. Nothing in the legislation would change penalties for statutory rape, which prosecutors in California can charge as either a misdemeanor or felony. It is illegal under current law for any adult to have any type of sex with a minor and that remains illegal under SB 145. Also, the bill does not apply to any sex offenders convicted of forcible rape. The legislation is supported by the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault and by law enforcement groups such as the California Police Chiefs Association and the California District Attorney’s Association. Claim About A 21-Year-Old Having Sex With An 11-Year-Old The second part of the Facebook post that we fact-checked claims, ""Now a 21 year old can have sex with an 11 year old, and not be listed on the sex registry as a sex offender."" That’s also wrong. SB 145 only applies to young people ages 14, 15, 16 or 17 and any offender within a 10 year age range. ""The vast, vast majority of cases where a judge may decide NOT to put someone on the registry will be cases where the age range is close,"" the bill’s fact sheet estimates. ""At the end of the day, a judge will have full discretion to place someone on the registry, and a prosecutor can seek it."" Our Rating A widely-shared Facebook post claimed California had legalized ""pedophilia,"" and that ""Now a 21 year old can have sex with an 11 year old, and not be listed on the sex registry as a sex offender."" That post and many like it are simply wrong. They grossly distort the proposals in state SB 145, which aims to eliminate a disparity in how LGBTQ young people are treated on California’s sex offender registry. The legislation would eliminate automatic sex offeder registration for young adults who are convicted of having voluntary anal or oral sex with a minor and are within 10 years of age of the victim. Instead, a judge would make that decision, just as existing law allows judges to decide whether to place offenders in cases involving vaginal intercourse on the registry. The bill would not, in any fashion, make it legal for any adult to have any type of sex with a minor. The only change involves giving a judge discretion over whether to list an offender on the sex registry for certain sex acts. The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim."
|
314
|
Cholera cases jump to 138 in Mozambique's Beira after cyclone.
|
The number of confirmed cases of cholera in the cyclone-hit Mozambican port city of Beira jumped from five to 138 on Friday, as government and aid agencies battled to contain the spread of disease among the tens of thousands of victims of the storm.
|
true
|
Environment
|
Cyclone Idai smashed into Beira on March 14, causing catastrophic flooding and killing more than 700 people across three countries in southeast Africa. Many badly affected areas in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are still inaccessible by road, complicating relief efforts and exacerbating the threat of infection. Although there have been no confirmed cholera deaths in medical centers in Mozambique yet, at least two people died outside hospitals with symptoms including dehydration and diarrhea, the country’s environment minister Celso Correia said. A Reuters reporter saw the body of a dead child being brought out of an emergency clinic in Beira on Wednesday. The child had suffered acute diarrhea, which can be a symptom of cholera. “We expected this, we were prepared for this, we’ve doctors in place,” Correia told reporters. The government said for the first time that there had been confirmed cholera cases on Wednesday. Mozambique’s National Disaster Management Institute said the local death toll from the tropical storm had increased to 493 people, from 468 previously. That takes the total death toll across Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi to 738 people, with many more still missing. “Stranded communities are relying on heavily polluted water. This, combined with widespread flooding and poor sanitation, creates fertile grounds for disease outbreaks, including cholera,” the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement. The World Health Organization’s Tarik Jasarevic said 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccine were expected to arrive on Monday. The U.S. Defense Department said on Friday it had authorized an additional $8.5 million in humanitarian assistance for Mozambique, bringing the total to $15 million. About 50 U.S. military personnel have been sent to Mozambique to assist with logistics, including transporting food and medical supplies. Cholera is endemic to Mozambique, which has had regular outbreaks over the past five years. About 2,000 people were infected in the last outbreak, which ended in February 2018, according to the WHO. But the scale of the damage to Beira’s water and sanitation infrastructure, coupled with its dense population, have raised fears that another epidemic would be difficult to put down.
|
17341
|
"The medical marijuana ballot initiative ""doesn’t require a physician writing a prescription"" and can be for conditions like ""having a back that needs to be scratched."
|
"Gaetz said the medical marijuana ballot initiative ""doesn’t require a physician writing a prescription, and it can be for purposes as specious as a back that needs to be scratched."" Because of federal law, doctors won’t be writing prescriptions. Instead they will write a certification after examining the patient, determining the patient would benefit from marijuana and how long the patient should use it. Gaetz’s statement suggests Floridians could get marijuana without a doctor being involved, but that’s not the case. Gaetz’s claim that someone can get marijuana for having a back in need of scratching is also misleading. The ballot language says that a condition must be debilitating, which means it weakens the person. While many different types of conditions could qualify under this definition, a back that simply needed scratching wouldn't qualify."
|
mixture
|
Florida Amendments, Health Care, Florida, Marijuana, Don Gaetz,
|
"As medical marijuana heads to the ballot in Florida in November, opponents like Senate President Don Gaetz have argued that it will be too easy for people who want to smoke pot recreationally to get their hands on it. ""The ballot initiative is the legalization of marijuana,"" said Gaetz in an interview on Florida Face to Face on Feb. 13, 2014. ""It doesn’t require a physician writing a prescription and it can be for purposes as specious as having a back that needs to be scratched. That’s the legalization of marijuana that I oppose and will vote against in November."" We’ve already fact-checked claims about the initiative, and there’s some merit to the argument that people will be able to get medical marijuana for a wide variety of conditions. But Gaetz’s claim about physicians struck us as suspicious, so we decided to check it out. Would patients need a prescription? In a 4-3 ruling in late January, the Florida Supreme Court paved the way for the amendment about medical marijuana to appear on the November ballot. The ballot summary mentions doctors right off the bat: ""Allows the medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating diseases as determined by a licensed Florida physician. Allows caregivers to assist patients’ medical use of marijuana. The Department of Health shall register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes and shall issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Applies only to Florida law. Does not authorize violations of federal law or any non-medical use, possession or production of marijuana."" But if you read further into the amendment text, you’ll see that technically patients wouldn’t get a ""prescription."" Instead, patients will need a ""physician certification,"" which the amendment text states means ""a written document signed by a physician, stating that in the physician‘s professional opinion, the patient suffers from a debilitating medical condition, that the potential benefits of the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks for the patient, and for how long the physician recommends the medical use of marijuana for the patient. A physician certification may only be provided after the physician has conducted a physical examination of the patient and a full assessment of the patient‘s medical history."" Robert Mikos, a Vanderbilt law school professor who specializes in drug policy, told PolitiFact Florida that there is a fine distinction between a certification (or a recommendation, as it’s commonly called in other medical marijuana states) and a prescription. Doctors generally don’t ""prescribe"" marijuana, because in order for a physician to be allowed to prescribe narcotics, the doctor must register with the Drug Enforcement Agency. If the practitioner were to prescribe a Schedule I drug like marijuana -- which means under federal guidelines it is a dangerous narcotic, with no approved medical uses -- they would lose their registration, and would legally no longer be allowed to prescribe drugs. On the other hand, a 2002 federal court decision did find that a doctor could simply recommend the drug, protecting the discussion with their patient under First Amendment protections of freedom of speech. ""In the legally relevant sense, it’s no different than a doctor recommending jogging every day,"" Mikos said. The certification in practice would largely be a piece of paper documenting the discussion, and would create a paper trail similar to a prescription, in order to track who is getting the drug and why. Once a patient gets that certification, the Department of Health will issue the patient an identification card, according to the ballot language. Under the Florida law, patients would not be able to grow their own plants. Approved patients could purchase marijuana from registered, state-regulated centers. If the amendment passes, the Department of Health will set rules for how centers will operate. What sort of conditions would be covered? The amendment text lists a number of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDs, Hepatitis C, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. But as Gaetz’s spokeswoman Katie Betta noted, it also includes this language: ""or other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient."" The Supreme Court, in allowing the amendment to go forward, noted that conditions that qualified would be those that ""cause impaired strength, weakness or enfeeblement."" We’ve previously noted that the ballot language suggests marijuana could be recommended for conditions like muscle spasms, neck pain, back pain and menstrual cramps, because all those conditions could be described as ""debilitating."" This means anyone who has a condition that weakens or enfeebles them could qualify to use marijuana if their physician indicated that their use of marijuana outweighed the potential health risks. That would include a wide range of ailments, and Gaetz’s spokesperson defended his choice of words on those grounds. ""The president is making the point that the amendment is open-ended because it states that a physician can issue a certification allowing for the use of medical marijuana for any condition where the benefit could outweigh the risks. ..."" Betta told PolitiFact in an email. ""The Supreme Court’s ruling did not interpret the amendment for application and will not be bound by any interpretation that was advanced related to the ballot summary challenge."" Still, Gaetz seems to be going too far using an example of ""a back that needs to be scratched."" Certainly, chronic itching can be a serious condition, but Gaetz's implication is that a condition with a simple remedy could be used to qualify for marijuana. The ballot language sets a higher bar than that, noting that the condition must be ""debilitating."" Our ruling Gaetz said the medical marijuana ballot initiative ""doesn’t require a physician writing a prescription, and it can be for purposes as specious as a back that needs to be scratched."" Because of federal law, doctors won’t be writing prescriptions. Instead they will write a certification after examining the patient, determining the patient would benefit from marijuana and how long the patient should use it. Gaetz’s statement suggests Floridians could get marijuana without a doctor being involved, but that’s not the case. Gaetz’s claim that someone can get marijuana for having a back in need of scratching is also misleading. The ballot language says that a condition must be debilitating, which means it weakens the person. While many different types of conditions could qualify under this definition, a back that simply needed scratching wouldn't qualify."
|
6359
|
Salmonella, hepatitis A reported at Crow Wing County Jail.
|
The Minnesota Department of Health is investigating cases of salmonella and hepatitis A at the Crow Wing County Jail.
|
true
|
Brainerd, Health, General News, Minnesota, Hepatitis, Liver disease
|
The sheriff’s office says one inmate has tested positive for salmonella, a bacteria that causes gastrointestinal illness. Other inmates and staff have also reported intestinal illnesses. The source of the bacteria has not been determined. One inmate has also tested positive for hepatitis A, a liver disease caused by contaminated food or water. The source of the virus has not been determined. Inmates and employees that have been potentially exposed are being vaccinated. The jail has suspended visiting and has limited inmate movement and interactions. A professional cleaning company is sanitizing the jail.
|
26479
|
Images show COVID-19 victims being buried in mass graves in New York City.
|
Photos and video footage showing dozens of caskets being buried in large trenches on Hart Island in New York City are legitimate. Not all local COVID-19 victims are being automatically buried there. The site has been used by the city since the 19th century as a public cemetery for unclaimed people and those whose families can’t afford private burials.
|
true
|
Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
|
"Harrowing images of wooden caskets being lowered into mass graves in New York City circulated on social media as the city responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. The images and related video footage are accurate depictions of recent burials on Hart Island in the Long Island Sound. That said, there have been some misconceptions about the mass graves. Posts about the grave site were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) First, mass burials didn’t begin on Hart Island during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city has used the location as a public cemetery for over 150 years, burying unclaimed people and those whose loved ones can’t afford private burials. Second, not all locals who die from COVID-19 are being buried there, as some posts have suggested. The site is still designated for deceased people with no known next of kin. But as the city struggles with the mounting death toll amid the pandemic, burials on the island have dramatically increased in recent weeks. There are usually about 25 burials on the island each week, the New York mayor’s press secretary Freddie Goldstein told CNN. But that number has climbed to nearly 25 each day. The island’s interment operation is managed by the city’s Department of Correction, and inmates usually assist in the burials. But that has changed since the pandemic. DOC spokesperson Jason Kersten has said that city inmates are not currently involved with the burials: ""For social distancing and safety reasons, city-sentenced people in custody are not assisting in burials for the duration of the pandemic. Contracted laborers are performing this important work under DOC supervision,"" according to a report by the Gothamist. Bodies are ordinarily held at the city’s morgues anywhere from 30 to 60 days, Goldstein said. But to make room for the influx of deceased individuals during the pandemic, the city’s medical examiner’s office announced a new policy of holding unclaimed bodies for only up to 15 days before they are transferred to the island. New York City’s Hart Island has been used as a public cemetery for unclaimed bodies since the 1800s, but the city’s staggering death toll amid the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically increased the number of burials on the island. Social media posts about the burials are mostly accurate, but many need additional information."
|
4020
|
‘Dramatic resurgence’ of measles seen in Europe, WHO reports.
|
The World Health Organization says there has been a “dramatic resurgence” of measles in Europe, in part fueled by vaccine refusals, with nearly 90,000 people sickened by the virus in the first half of 2019.
|
true
|
Ukraine, Immunizations, International News, Measles, General News, Health, Infectious diseases, Europe
|
In a report issued Thursday, the U.N. health agency said the number of measles cases from January to June this year is double the number reported for the same period in 2018. Measles is among the world’s most infectious diseases and is spread mostly by coughing, sneezing and close personal contact. Although numerous European countries have introduced stronger vaccination policies, stubborn pockets of vaccine refusal have fueled epidemics across the continent. Last month, the German government proposed making measles immunization mandatory for children and employees at kindergartens and schools; there have been more than 400 cases of measles in Germany this year. With more than 84,000 cases, Ukraine accounted for the vast majority of measles in Europe, followed by Kazakhstan and Georgia. In February, Ukraine’s health ministry said eight people had died of measles. An expert WHO committee said four countries — Albania, the Czech Republic, Greece and the U.K. — have now lost their status as having eliminated measles. Measles is preventable with two doses of the vaccine, but there is no effective treatment once people are infected. “If high immunization coverage is not achieved and sustained in every community, both children and adults will suffer unnecessarily and some will tragically die,” said Dr. Guenter Pfaff, chair of a WHO expert committee on measles in Europe. In some developed countries, measles vaccination rates dropped sharply following the publication of a flawed study in the late 1990s that linked the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism. Health officials have struggled to debunk misperceptions about the vaccine’s safety ever since. “Misinformation about vaccines is as contagious and dangerous as the diseases it helps to spread,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement this week. In 2017, WHO estimated about 110,000 people died from measles worldwide, mostly children under 5-years-old.
|
7605
|
New Mexico takes more drastic measures against virus hotspot.
|
A city that is a modern-day trading post on the southern outskirts of the Navajo Nation was on lockdown over the weekend under the watch of National Guard troops and state police to discourage nonessential travel and commerce as local coronavirus infections soar.
|
true
|
Michelle Lujan Grisham, U.S. News, U.S. News, Health, General News, Albuquerque, Nursing homes, New Mexico, Virus Outbreak
|
Invoking provisions of the state Riot Control Act, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered residents of Gallup to remain home except for emergencies and blocked roads leading in and out of town to nonessential travel and any vehicles carrying more than two people. The restrictions were welcomed by local and state officials who have watched COVID-19 infections spread to nursing homes and homeless populations as well as overwhelm hospital intensive care units, leading coronavirus patients to be transferred to Albuquerque. Some visitors were caught off guard as they traveled from the Navajo Nation to stack up on supplies, only to find entire sections of the Gallup Walmart cordoned off as sales were restricted to food and other essential commodities. “They didn’t tell us on the radio or anything,” said Patrick Sandoval of Ganado, Arizona, who came in search of food, games, baby wipes and other items for his family and neighbors. “You don’t find out until you get in there that it’s just essential items.” Despite restrictions, lines of shoppers outside Walmart stretched for hundreds of yards (meters) on Friday afternoon. Stores have been ordered to close under emergency provisions that expire at noon Monday and can be extended by order of the governor. Gallup is a hub for basic household supplies, liquor sales and water-container refills for people living in remote stretches of the Navajo Nation — often without full indoor plumbing — and indigenous Zuni Pueblo. The Navajo Nation has imposed evening and weekend curfews on the reservation spanning parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. State Sen. George Munoz, D-Gallup, said the flow of visitors had gotten out of hand with little regard to state social distancing mandates, as federal stimulus checks arrived in March. He believes the crackdown had strong public support in Gallup. COVID-19 infections in Gallup and surrounding McKinley County surpassed 1,110 confirmed cases as of Saturday account for 30% of cases stateside, surpassing infections in much larger communities such as Albuquerque. In all, more than 3,730 cases have been reported in New Mexico as of Saturday, with at least 139 deaths. Federal health officials have linked the severity of the problem in Gallup to an early outbreak at a detox center that was followed by infections among homeless people and nursing homes. Homeless residents who contracted COVID-19 were being offered temporary shelter at four motels at the expense of the state to isolate them and slow the spread of the virus. Lujan Grisham is holding fast to business restrictions and social distancing mandates until at least May 15 in the northwest of the state, including large portions of the Navajo Nation, where infections are surging. She eased some restrictions Friday on nonessential businesses that can provide curbside service and allowed the reopening of gun shops and veterinary offices. Elective surgeries and procedures were reinstated at hospitals that resorted to furloughs and staff reductions as income from traditional sources plummeted. City officials in Gallup requested the new state of emergency under the riot act that can prohibit people from walking the streets and using certain roads. Violations are punishable as misdemeanors on a first offense and as a felony on the second offense. Emergency declarations under the act expire after three days and can be renewed. Gallup officials were correct to ask the governor to lock down the city because the influx of shoppers from the surrounding region makes it difficult to enforce social distancing, said David Conejo, CEO of Rehoboth McKinley Christian Health Care Services, which operates a Gallup hospital. Gallup’s hospitals send COVID-19 patients to Albuquerque hospitals to keep beds available locally for new patients, Conejo said. “We’re transferring and coordinating with them daily,” he said. “There’s a very structured system to address the COVID epidemic.” In addition to the Rehoboth McKinley’s hospital, the Indian Health Service has a hospital in Gallup where the Army Corps of Engineers recently set up a hospital in a closed Gallup high school. To the east, a pawn shop in Grants has been notified of a possible $60,000 fine for remaining open in defiance of a statewide public health order that restricted nonessential business operations. That city of 9,000 has become a flashpoint of political conflict after Mayor Martin Hicks urged all businesses to reopen against the governor’s orders and advice from nearby Acoma Pueblo. ___ Fonseca contributed from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press reporter Paul Davenport contributed from Phoenix.
|
1765
|
With U.S. Ebola fear running high, African immigrants face ostracism.
|
When Zuru Pewu picked up her 4-year-old son, Micah, from kindergarten at a Staten Island, New York, public school recently, a woman pointed at her in front of about 30 parents and their children, and started shouting.
|
true
|
Health News
|
“She kept screaming, ‘These African bitches brought Ebola into our country and are making everybody sick!’” said Pewu, 29, who emigrated from Liberia in 2005. “Then she told her son, ‘You know the country that’s called Liberia that they show on the TV? That’s where these bitches are from.’” Pewu’s experience points to an alarming trend. While many Americans have reached out to help, African communities in the United States are reporting an increasing number of incidents of ostracism. Thursday’s news that a physician who had treated Ebola patients in West Africa has tested positive for the disease in New York heightened anxieties even further. Some Liberians, whose home country has been hardest hit by the worst outbreak of the virus on record, say they are being shunned by friends and co-workers and fear losing their jobs. In California, doctors refused to examine a child believed to have been in contact with someone who traveled to West Africa but turned out to have no risk of Ebola, a nurses’ association said. In Rhode Island, two women said they were disinvited to a baby shower for a co-worker. And in South Carolina, a high school student was sent home for 14 days because the student’s parent had visited Senegal, a country that has had one non-fatal case of Ebola and was declared Ebola-free last week, according to a school spokesman. At least two speeches by Liberians have been canceled by U.S. universities, and a college in Texas refused admission to Nigerian students over worries about the virus even though that country has had few cases. Oretha Bestman-Yates, a healthcare worker in New York, said she was barred from returning to her job after a trip to Liberia - despite 21 days of quarantine and no signs of illness. “People are looking at Liberians as if we have Ebola in our DNA,” said Ezekiel Solee, 55, a pastor in Rhode Island at a meeting in Providence on Tuesday to discuss the stigma. “Even when you hang your jacket, no one else wants to hang his jacket near you because they are afraid.” This week, President Barack Obama’s administration issued new guidelines for hospitals treating suspected Ebola cases and ordered all travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea - the West African countries most affected by the disease - to be funneled for screening through five selected airports. Four people in the United States have been diagnosed with Ebola, which as of Wednesday had infected 9,911 people in Africa and killed 4,868 since the outbreak began earlier this year, the World Health Organization said. Many Republicans, joined by some Democrats, have called for a travel ban to the region. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh linked the case of Thomas Duncan, a Liberian who died of Ebola in Dallas, to illegal immigration, saying there was a “huge Liberian community of illegal immigrants in Dallas.” Sociologist Barry Glassner, author of the book “The Culture of Fear,” said the combination of Ebola fear and racial prejudice makes xenophobic reactions to dark-skinned people from West Africa even more likely. “One has to wonder: If these were Swedes, would we be seeing the same response?” he asked. Alexander Kollie, 43, president of the Liberian Ministerial Fellowship of Rhode Island, said he feels increasingly ostracized. “Because we are from Africa and our skin color identifies us as being from Africa, we are being treated differently,” he said. “People avoid us, and they are afraid of us.” But fear of Ebola also runs deep among West Africans. Several Liberian community associations in the United States have asked members to voluntarily quarantine themselves if they have traveled to the affected countries. In Staten Island’s Little Liberia, where Pewu lives, streets bustle with men and women in bright traditional attire, loudly greeting each other in their native languages. But some here have begun limiting their greetings to verbal salutes. Tamba Aghailas, 42, a human resources specialist who recently traveled to Liberia, said so many people in the community were uncomfortable touching him when he returned that he stopped greeting acquaintances with a handshake. Experts like Dr. Mark Rupp, an infectious disease specialist at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, which treated Ebola-infected cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, urged the public to resist irrational fear of Ebola, which is spread through contact with body fluids of someone who is showing symptoms. “We even have some examples here in our own community – children of parents who are working in our biocontainment unit being shunned,” he said. “That level of paranoia is just not helpful, and it’s just not appropriate.”
|
35350
|
The 1981 Farmer's Almanac contained a passage predicting that a severe, pneumatic illness would spread around the globe in 2020.
|
And the “Farmer’s Almanac” has gotten weather predictions wrong. The Grand Forks Herald, which covers daily news from northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota, described some incorrect predictions for 2019:
|
false
|
Questionable Quotes, COVID-19
|
In April 2020, as the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic spread around the world, Snopes received a number of requests from readers asking us to verify that the 1981 “Farmer’s Almanac” or “Farmers’ Almanac” predicted the pandemic. Almost all the queries to Snopes shared the following passage: In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely. Snopes had encountered this page before, when social media users connected it to numerous sources including American author Dean Koontz and self-described psychic Sylvia Browne. The page actually originates from Sylvia Browne’s 2008 book, “End of Days.” From our previous fact check on this story: [Browne] gained notoriety for her claims that she could predict the future and communicate with spirits. But she was also the subject of criticism for offering the grieving parents of missing children false information. Browne did vaguely write in her 2008 book that a respiratory illness would spread across the globe in 2020. We argued that Browne’s “prediction” was “more a matter of lucky guessing than predicting.” We also wrote: … it may come as no surprise that Browne claimed to have foreseen an international respiratory disease outbreak, considering that the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak of the early 2000s occurred before her book was published. Almanacs, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, are books or tables that contain a calendar of the days, weeks, and months of the year. They keep records of astronomical phenomena, with climate information, seasonal suggestions for farmers, and other miscellaneous data. The “Farmer’s Almanac,” also known as “Old Farmer’s Almanac,” has been annually published in the United States since 1792, while another “Farmers’ Almanac” (note the placement of the apostrophe) was developed in 1818. They all usually contain weather predictions, planting schedules, recipes, and more. Their forecasts tend to focus on weather data. From Encyclopaedia Britannica’s page on the “Farmer’s Almanac”: The almanac issued long-range weather forecasts, based on esoteric interpretations of natural phenomena, long before the United States Weather Bureau (renamed the National Weather Service in 1970) or any other weather service existed, and generations of farmers planted and harvested according to its advice.
|
6168
|
Bird flu found at Tyson Foods chicken supplier.
|
Tens of thousands of chickens have been destroyed at a Tennessee chicken farm due to a bird flu outbreak and 30 other farms within a six-mile radius have been quarantined.
|
true
|
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Health, Flu, Tennessee, Business, Bird flu, Agriculture
|
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said 73,500 chickens were destroyed at the facility and will not enter the food system. The H7 avian influenza can be deadly to chickens and turkeys. “Bird flu” is a catch-all phrase for a variety of influenza viruses that spread among poultry. They can be very contagious and deadly among birds, but rarely spread to humans. That said, deadly human flu pandemics have been sparked by viruses that first emerged in birds, and health officials closely track what’s killing poultry. Flu can spread from birds to humans through the air, or when people touch a bird or an infected surface and then touch their eye, nose or mouth. The affected Tennessee breeder supplies the food company Tyson Foods Inc. The company said Monday that it doesn’t expect its chicken business to be disrupted, but the outbreak sent jitters through Wall Street. Shares of Tyson, based in Springdale, Arkansas, fell and the news dragged down shares of other companies in the sectors as well. “We’re responding aggressively, and are working with state and federal officials to contain the virus,” Tyson said in a company release. The company said it already tests all of its flocks for the virus before they leave farms “out of an abundance of caution.” Results are known before the birds are processed, the company said, and animals are not used if bird flu is detected. Tennessee’s Department of Agriculture is not identifying the farm where the chickens were destroyed, saying only that it is located in the state’s Lincoln County, which is just west of Chattanooga and borders Alabama. Only one commercial chicken farm in Alabama was within the six-mile radius, the state said, and all the birds there tested negative for the flu. The Alabama farm was also used by Tyson, according to the state. Alabama said it also began testing chickens in people’s backyards within the affected area, and all the tests have come back negative so far. There have been bird flu outbreaks in China and in Europe in recent months, though they are of differing strains. The USDA said Monday that it does not yet know what type of H7 bird flu is affecting the chickens in Tennessee, but will know within 48 hours. Shares of Tyson Foods Inc. fell $1.61, or 2.5 percent, to close at $61.99 Monday. Shares of Sanderson Farms Inc., based in Laurel, Mississippi, dropped $1.86, or 2 percent, to close at $92.53 and shares of Greeley, Colorado-based Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. fell 25 cents, or 1.2 percent, to close at $20.70.
|
11368
|
New treatment for advanced melanoma shrinks tumors
|
To its credit, this story does inject some caution into its coverage of a new treatment for advanced melanoma. Nevertheless, we think it is important to emphasize that the research being discussed was a phase 1 study that had only 32 patients in the arm that was reported on. The primary objective of this study was to ascertain the most effective dose that was tolerable to patients–it wasn’t designed to test whether this treatment is clinically effective for melanoma treatment. So while we can understand the excitement about the apparent benefits that were observed, we think it is critical to balance the discussion with extensive caveats about limitations and potential harms. This story didn’t come quite as close as we’d like to meeting that standard. Advanced melanoma is a disease which often kills patients within a year of diagnosis. We need better options to treat it.
|
false
|
"No discussion of costs. This is perhaps understandable considering the early stage of the research.. But we think the story needed to include some comment about the likely price tag, as discussed by USA Today. Expensive new cancer drugs are among the fastest-rising areas of healthcare spending. The lead sentence of the story states that the new drug shrank tumors ""in 81 percent of patients"" with advanced melanoma. The story did not immediately specify that the benefit was limited to patients whose tumors had a specific genetic mutation. It isn’t until the 12th paragraph that we learn that this mutation is present in only about 50% of melanoma tumors, and that the other half of melanoma patients aren’t candidates for the therapy. So the number of patients who might benefit from this therapy, while still significantly, is quite a bit smaller than 81% suggested at the outset of this story. Considering that this was a phase 1 study, the purpose of which is primarily to establish a new drug’s safety, we think there wasn’t enough discussion of the potential harms of this treatment. We thought the brief catalog of side effects provided at the end of the story — ""rash, fatigue, joint pain and a high risk of a different type of skin cancer known as cutaneous squamous-cell carcinoma"" — tends to minimize the impact of these harms. The rashes observed in this study were grade 2 or 3, which are moderate to severe (grade 4 is life-threatening). And even though the story quantified the number of patients who developed squamous-cell carcinomas, its only comment about the impact of these tumors is that they are ""easier to treat"" than melanoma. The story should have explained that these cancers have to be biopsied and may need to be surgically removed. And we certainly do not know whether or not these new squamous cell carcinomas will remain ""easier to treat,"" as they may be changed in behavior by the treatment itself, and could be more difficult to treat. The story adequately described what happened in the study and reported on the primary outcomes. It also inserted some caveats about the durability of the benefits reported (these are described as ""temporary"" and ""fleeting""). On the other hand, there wasn’t any discussion about the small size of the study, the lack of a control group, or how these limitations affect our interpretation of the research. As the competing HealthDay coverage noted, the results in this small group of very ill patients studied may not be representative of the drug’s effects in a larger, more heterogeneous population. And we don’t yet know if this drug actually prolongs survival or improves quality of life compared with standard treatment. Lastly, there is sentence in this story which says ""The hope is that the drug can be combined with other treatments to produce a long-lasting effect…"" But hope is not evidence. A close call here, but we feel the failure to discuss these key limitations may give readers an unbalanced view of how far along this research is. No disease-mongering here. There was no discussion of the fact that the study was funded by the drug’s developer, Roche. Nor was there any discussion of the ties between the study authors and the company. The story notes that conventional chemotherapy is typically effective only in 10 percent to 20 percent of advanced melanoma cases. The story notes that the drug is ""experimental"" and in ""early phase"" testing, suggesting that it is not widely available. This story didn’t adequately characterize what’s new about this drug compared with existing treatments. The new drug affects only melanoma cells with a specific genetic mutation; this makes it much more targeted than other approaches such chemotherapy, which destroy all fast-dividing cells including healthy ones. The story includes an interview with one of the study investigators, so we can be sure it isn’t based on a news release."
|
|
41787
|
"You catch a criminal, and you have to release him,"" referring to people caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally. "
|
In declaring a national emergency at the Southwest border, President Donald Trump strung together a long list of false, misleading and unsupported claims on illegal immigration, drug smuggling, human trafficking, trade deficits and other issues.
|
false
|
border fence, border security, border wall, Customs and Border Protection, Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, drugs, human trafficking, Illegal immigration, immigration, trade deficit,
|
In declaring a national emergency at the Southwest border, President Donald Trump strung together a long list of false, misleading and unsupported claims on illegal immigration, drug smuggling, human trafficking, trade deficits and other issues.We briefly cover some of the statements the president made in his Feb. 15 Rose Garden remarks — nearly all of which we have debunked numerous times before.Trump said: “We have a real problem. We have catch-and-release. You catch a criminal, and you have to release him.”The facts: That’s not accurate. The U.S. does not have to release criminals; in fact, it is required to detain certain criminals.Those attempting to enter the U.S. without “valid entry documents” or “by fraud or misrepresentation” must be detained pending an expedited removal proceeding, as explained in a 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service. And they are subject to deportation whether they have a criminal record or not.Now, some people apprehended trying to cross the border illegally (or legally for that matter) may seek asylum in the U.S., a process that can stretch for years in some cases. The immigrant must first get a U.S. official to determine that he or she faces a “credible fear” of persecution or torture if forced to return home, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. If an asylum officer doesn’t find there’s a credible fear, the immigrant can request a review by an immigration judge. If the judge agrees with the officer, the immigrant can then be removed from the U.S.Even for those who have passed this initial “credible fear” threshold, they still must have a formal asylum hearing, which can take years. But authorities are under no obligation to release those awaiting a long-term removal proceeding.In fact, ICE is required to hold certain criminals, including those who have been convicted of an aggravated felony, those who have multiple criminal convictions, and those who have served more than a year in jail for a criminal offense. That’s spelled out in the Immigration Nationality Act, Section 236 (c).Those apprehended near the border who have committed a less serious offense and who are deemed not to pose a risk to public safety, can be released pending the long-term proceeding. But authorities are not obligated to do so, especially if they are deemed a risk to public safety, Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us.“There is no obligation to release anyone,” Pierce said.Trump said: “You have chain migration. Where a bad person comes in, brings 22 or 23 or 35 of his family members — because he has his mother, his grandmother, his sister, his cousin, his uncle — they’re all in. You know what happened on the West Side Highway. That young wise guy drove over and killed eight people and horribly injured — nobody talks about that — horribly, like loss of legs and arms. … He had many people brought in because he was in the United States. It’s called chain migration.”The facts: Trump is referring to Sayfullo Saipov, a Uzbekistan national who has been charged in a 2017 terrorist attack in New York City that killed eight people and injured 11 others. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Saipov used “chain migration” to bring 22 people with him into the United States. There’s no evidence that Saipov brought even one relative to the country. Saipov came to the U.S. in 2010 through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, according to the Department of Homeland Security. As a green card holder, Saipov could not have sponsored anyone other than a spouse and children, and he married in the United States in 2013 — so he could not have been responsible for bringing in the relatives cited by Trump. Saipov’s father and mother — Habibullo Saipov and Muqaddas Saipova — were living in Uzbekistan at the time of the attack, as reported by the Daily Mail and the Wall Street Journal. Trump said: “And then you have the lottery. It’s a horror show, because when countries put people into the lottery, they’re not putting you in; they’re putting some very bad people in the lottery. It’s common sense. If I ran a country, and if I have a lottery system of people going to the United States, I’m not going to put in my stars; I’m going to put in people I don’t want. The lottery system’s a disaster. I’m stuck with it.”The facts: The president has repeatedly misrepresented how the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program works. Under the program, the Department of State randomly selects up to 50,000 qualified applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Contrary to Trump’s claim, countries do not “put in people” for visas; the individuals themselves apply. And those selected in the “lottery,” as Trump calls it, must pass an extensive background check before they are given green cards, or legal permanent resident status. There are more than a dozen grounds of inadmissibility, including health issues, criminal activity, national security concerns and the “likelihood of becoming a public charge,” meaning “a person who is primarily dependent on the government for subsistence.” That’s all done in an attempt to prevent “very bad people,” as Trump called them, from getting into the country. Trump said: “So we have far more people trying to get into our country today than probably we’ve ever had before.”The facts: The number of people who try to enter the U.S. illegally each year is unknown, but federal authorities use the number of apprehensions to gauge changes in illegal immigration. Southwest border apprehensions totaled 396,579 in fiscal year 2018, which was up from 303,916 in fiscal 2017. Still, the 2018 figure is down 76 percent from the peak of 1.64 million apprehensions in fiscal 2000, according to Border Patrol data. (For more, see our updated story, “Illegal Immigration Statistics.”)Trump said: “But one of the things I said I have to do and I want to do is border security, because we have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country, much of it coming from the southern border. When you look and when you listen to politicians — in particular certain Democrats — they say it all comes through the port of entry. It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s just a lie. It’s all a lie.”The facts: The Drug Enforcement Administration — not just “certain Democrats” — say that Mexican cartels “transport the bulk of their drugs over the Southwest Border through ports of entry (POEs) using passenger vehicles or tractor trailers.” This is particularly true for heroin and fentanyl — two opioids that Trump mentioned in his remarks. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection drug seizure statistics for fiscal year 2018, which ended Sept. 30, 2018, 90 percent of heroin seizures occurred at legal ports of entry in the first 11 months and 80 percent of fentanyl in the first 10 months. “A small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP along the land border was between Ports of Entry,” the DEA said in its 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment. Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection made the largest fentanyl bust in its history when a Mexican national “attempted to enter the United States through the Port of Nogales.” Border agents discovered nearly 254 pounds of fentanyl worth about $3.5 million “concealed within a special floor compartment of a trailer that was laden with cucumbers.” Trump has been making this claim since 2017 and, most recently, in this month’s State of the Union address.Trump said: “If you’re going to have drugs pouring across the border, if you’re going to have human traffickers pouring across the border in areas where we have no protection, in areas where we don’t have a barrier, then very hard to make America great again.”The facts: There’s no data on how many are smuggled illegally across the border with Mexico for human trafficking, as we said in our story when Trump made a similar claim in his State of the Union address. But experts told us legal ports are the typical mode of entry in the bulk of the cases they deal with concerning foreign nationals. A spokesperson for Polaris, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, told us “the vast majority of people are coming through legal ports of entry.” That’s based on statistics the group has compiled from the calls it receives through the hotline.In addition, the United Nations’ International Organization on Migration has found that “nearly 80% of international human trafficking journeys cross through official border points, such as airports and land border control points,” based on 10 years’ worth of cases on which the IOM has assisted.Trump said: “And, by the way, the USMCA, from Mexico — that’s United States, Mexico, Canada — that’s where the money’s coming from, not directly, but indirectly, for the wall. And nobody wants to talk about that.”The facts: The White House has sought as much as $25 billion for the wall, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection has estimated that it will cost $18 billion in the first 10 years of construction. The president has made the claim — which we have debunked on many occasions — that the revenue generated from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, will indirectly pay for the wall. But the White House has provided no analysis to support the president’s claim, and trade experts we interviewed said it’s not possible. The agreement — which was signed by the leaders of all three countries in November, but has yet to be approved by Congress — represents an arguably slightly better deal for the U.S. than the current North American Free Trade Agreement, experts told us, but not enough to generate enough federal revenues to pay for the wall. Kent Smetters, a professor of business economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told us the additional revenue could not “cover annual maintenance and improvements of the wall much less the original build.” Trump said: “I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather do it much faster. And I don’t have to do it for the election. I’ve already done a lot of wall for the election — 2020.”The facts: Despite the president’s claim that he has “already done a lot of the wall,” very little new fencing has been constructed, and none of it is the type Trump promised during the campaign. As we have written, Congress last year approved $1.6 billion to replace existing barriers and add some fencing in new areas. But Congress stated that the money can only be used to build “operationally effective designs deployed as of the date of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017, [May 5, 2017] such as currently deployed steel bollard designs, that prioritize agent safety.” That language prohibits the administration from building any of the wall prototypes that the administration had designed and that the president toured last year in California. Although the administration says the $1.6 billion appropriated last year will fund 100 miles of “wall,” we calculated that there would be about 40 miles of new barriers, which have yet to be completed, while the rest is for upgrades to existing barriers. And the 100 miles of barriers is far short of the 722 miles of new and replacement barriers that the administration has said it plans to build.Trump said: “The other night I was in El Paso. We had a tremendous crowd and — tremendous crowd. And I asked the people, many of whom were from El Paso … I said, ‘Let me ask you the — as a crowd, when the wall went up, was it better?’ You were there, some of you. It was not only better; it was like 100 percent better.”The facts: Trump continues to peddle the false claim that construction of a fence in El Paso transformed the border city from one of the most dangerous in the country to one of the safest. Those from El Paso in the crowd may have agreed with the president, but as we have written, crime statistics from the FBI contradict the president’s narrative.El Paso has never been one of the most dangerous cities in the country. The city had the third lowest violent crime rate among 35 U.S. cities with a population over 500,000 in 2005, 2006 and 2007 – before construction of 57 miles of fencing started in the El Paso sector in mid-2008. Nor was there an “immediate” or “overnight” drop in violent crime in El Paso after the fence was constructed, as the president has said. In fact, the city’s violent crime rate increased 5.5 percent from 2007 to 2010 — the years before and after construction of the fence, which began in mid-2008 and was completed in mid-2009. Looking from 2006 to 2011 — two years before the fence construction began and two years after it was finished — the violent crime rate increased about 9.6 percent.Trump said: “In El Paso, they have close to 2,000 murders right on the other side of the wall. And they had 23 murders. It’s a lot of murders. But it’s not close to 2,000 murders, right on the other side of the wall, in Mexico. So everyone knows that walls work.”The facts: There were 1,247 murders in Juarez, Mexico, in 2018, according to El Diario, while just across the border, El Paso police reported 23 murders. But that’s not evidence that “walls work.” While there has long been a high number of murders in Juarez, the number of murders in El Paso has remained relatively low among U.S. cities, both before and after the fence.In 2007, the year before construction of the fence began, there were 336 homicides in Juarez compared with 17 in the city of El Paso. In 2008, a war between drug cartels in Juarez sent the number of homicides in the Mexican city soaring to 2,570. Yet across the border in the city of El Paso, the number of homicides remained at 17, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program.In 2010, the year after the fence was completed, the number of homicides dropped to 5 in El Paso, before climbing back up to 16 in 2011 and 23 in 2012. Most recently, the city of El Paso recorded 17 homicides in 2016 and 19 in 2017. Those figures are in line with those before the fence went up. The city averaged 15.2 homicides a year in the five years between 2003 and 2007.Trump said: “You saw last month, the trade deficit went way down.”The facts: Trump made this same misleading claim at a rally in El Paso, Texas, this week. It’s true that the monthly goods and services trade deficit was $49.3 billion in November, down $6.4 billion from $55.7 billion in October, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis figures. But the October trade deficit was the highest monthly deficit in 10 years. Also, the November monthly figure was still higher than it was at the same point in 2017 and 2016. Overall, the trade deficit is up 20.3 percent for the 12 months ending in November, compared with 2016, the year before Trump took office. Trump said: “We’ve been losing on average $375 billion a year with China. Lot of people think it’s $506 billion. Some people think it’s much more than that.”The facts: Trump has been exaggerating the U.S. trade deficit with China since the 2016 election. The goods-and-services trade deficit with China averaged almost $222 billion between 1999 and 2017, according to BEA data. The deficit with China was $275 billion through the first three quarters of 2018, which is the most recent BEA data available.
|
29965
|
Some 10,8000 U.S. children were raped by illegal immigrants in 2018.
|
Out of the yearly 63,000 sexual abuse cases substantiated, or found [by] strong evidence, by Child Protective Services (CPS), the perpetrator was most often the parent:
|
false
|
Politics, news punch, your news wire
|
On 30 December 2018, News Punch, a junk news website with a long history of spreading misinformation, published an article reporting that 10,800 American children had been raped by illegal immigrants during 2018: “The number of U.S. children raped by illegal immigrants in 2018 was a staggering 10,800, according to data compiled by NCFIRE (North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement).” This claim has multiple dubious aspects, starting with the NCFIRE data. NCFIRE purports to compile “monthly child rape reports” covering sexual assaults committed by illegal immigrants in North Carolina. Our inspection of their data, however, turned up a number of issues. For starters, while the data were compiled under the title “monthly child rape reports,” the supporting documents actually included a variety of sex-related crimes, such as possession of child pornography and “indecent liberties with a child,” that aren’t rape. We also found one individual who was included in the 2018 report even though he raped a child in 2011. That person presumably was included in the 2018 report because of an arrest that year for failing to report an address change. In addition to including outdated charges and crimes other than rape in the “monthly child rape reports,” NCFIRE also appears to be counting arrests, not convictions. In other words, a number of individuals included in these reports have only been accused of crimes, and the charges against them may be dropped or found to be unsupported at trial. Furthermore, while some entries on this list link to genuine reports from ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the majority of entries include links to news reports or mugshot pages that make no mention of immigration status. Although this group claims that they “verify the illegal alien status of each individual we post in our Monthly Child Rape reports through the arresting agency of each individual,” a spokesperson for the Raleigh Police Department told us that they “were not familiar” with NCFIRE. Despite the multiple problems with the rape reporting, News Punch used these statistics to come up with their 10,800 figure: Meanwhile, data compiled by NCFIRE (North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement) reveals that the state of North Carolina has arrested an average of 18 illegal aliens every month this year for the crime of child rape. Statistically, this means that the 50 states in America are on track to arrest 10,800 illegal aliens for raping children in 2018. And that 10,800 figure is a bare-minimum, super-generous, giving-the-illegal-alien-child-rapists-the-benefit-of-the-doubt number. A total of 10,800 arrests assumes that each illegal alien child rapist only rapes one child in America. Many will rape three, four, or a dozen before they are caught, so the “true” number could be in the 30,000 to 40,000 raped children range. The claim that 10,800 children in the U.S. were raped by illegal immigrants did not originate with a law enforcement agency, government body, or other reputable crime-tracking source. Rather, an average figure pulled from questionable data compiled by one group in one state was extrapolated to the entirety of the U.S. without basis. That number also doesn’t square with what we know about the criminal activities of illegal immigrants or the statistics for sexual abuse against children. Although the 2018 ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Report does not specifically list crimes against children, it does shed some light on the number of sexual crimes committed by illegal immigrants. According to the ICE report, 5,350 charges or convictions of sexual assault were levied against illegal immigrants during the 2018 fiscal year. Another 6,888 charges or convictions relating to sexual offenses (not involving assault) were also recorded: Table 1 tallies all pending criminal charges and convictions by category for those aliens administratively arrested in FY2018 and lists those categories with at least 1,000 combined charges and convictions present in this population. These figures are representative of the criminal history as it is entered in the ICE system of record for individuals administratively arrested. Each administrative arrest may represent multiple criminal charges and convictions, as many of the aliens arrested by ERO are recidivist criminals. The claim that 10,800 American children were raped by illegal immigrants in 2018 is also implausible due to the fact that the vast majority of sexual crimes against children are committed by parents or relatives, as the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) reported in 2016:
|
1718
|
Peruvian ice cap harbors evidence of conquistadors' avarice.
|
After vanquishing the Inca Empire with superior weapons and a touch of treachery, the Spanish conquistadors sought to satisfy their lust for riches by forcing multitudes of native people to toil in silver mines in dire conditions that claimed many lives.
|
true
|
Science News
|
Scientists on Monday described evidence of this bitter chapter of South American history preserved deep in an ice cap in the Peruvian Andes in the form of residue from the relentless clouds of metallic dust spewed from the mines starting in the 16th century. The mountaintop mines of Potosí in Bolivia were the world’s richest silver source. While the Incas had long extracted silver, a new processing method introduced by the Spanish in 1572 greatly increased production even as it belched lead dust and other pollutants into the atmosphere. The pollution blew over the entire region, including the Quelccaya Ice Cap some 500 miles (800 km) northwest in southern Peru. The Spanish refining process involved pulverizing silver ore, containing both lead and silver, into powder, which sent metallic dust into the atmosphere. The powder was mixed with mercury. The silver was separated by heating the mixture to allow the mercury to evaporate. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said they drilled into the glacier at an altitude of about 18,000 feet (5,600 meters) to learn about past air pollution. The age of the ice was determined with precision because it was laid down in discernible layers caused by the annual alternation between wet and dusty dry seasons. The pollutants spawned by the Spanish colonial-era silver operations from the 16th century through the 18th century consisted mostly of lead but also arsenic and others. The researchers called it the earliest evidence of large-scale, human-produced air pollution in South America, beginning more than two centuries before the industrial revolution. The pollutants were reminders of “the sad conditions and fate of tens of thousands locals exploited in the silver mining operations during the colonial period,” Ohio State University environmental scientist Paolo Gabrielli said. “Their work conditions must have been truly terrible. Many died because of the strenuous physical efforts but it was also not infrequent that underground mine galleries collapsed, burying and killing hundreds of people,” Gabrielli said. Ohio State earth sciences professor Lonnie Thompson called the Quelccaya ice a “Rosetta Stone” for studying climate history, saying the samples also can reveal past temperatures, aridity and perhaps even the evolution of bacteria and viruses.
|
28142
|
A shoplifter who stabbed a Marine collecting Toys for Tots was then whomped by other Marines.
|
The tale of a shoplifter who stabbed a toy-collecting Marine and was then whomped by other Marines has been embellished for humorous effect.
|
true
|
Humor, marines
|
At about 1:15 p.m. on 26 November 2010 (which was the day after Thanksgiving, better known as “Black Friday”), those manning the surveillance cameras at a Best Buy in Augusta, Georgia, spotted a shopper cutting a Dell laptop computer from its packaging and stuffing it down his pants. According to police, store security personnel approached the suspect, 39-year-old Tracey Attaway of Waynesboro, Georgia, and asked him to return the merchandise. Attaway became angry, released the laptop, and ran out the front door, pulling a knife and knocking down a Best Buy employee in the process. Outside the store’s entrance were four Marines and seven volunteers collecting donations for Toys for Tots. One of the former group, Cpl. Phillip Duggan, clotheslined the running man, bringing him to the ground. The assailant regained his feet and swung his knife, stabbing Duggan, then was quickly tackled by several other Marines and members of the store’s loss-prevention team, who held him in the parking lot until deputies arrived: The injured Marine was taken to Eisenhower Army Medical Center and released after receiving three stitches. He was well enough the next day to drop off a toy for donation at a nearby WalMart store: Cpl. Duggan’s attacker, Tracey Attaway, was jailed and charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of a knife in the commission of a crime, and in October 2011 he was sentenced to life in prison. (Attaway faced the maximum sentence on all assault and theft charges because he was a convicted felon with 30 prior arrests on his record.) However, what makes this incident an enduring item of interest on the Internet is an account of the crime which was circulated via e-mail in December 2010 and presented as a 27 November Associated Press reporting of the incident: November 27, 2010 Associated Press AUGUSTA, Ga. – A U.S. Marine reservist collecting toys for children was stabbed when he helped stop a suspected shoplifter in eastern Georgia. Best Buy sales manager Orvin Smith told The Augusta Chronicle that man was seen on surveillance cameras Friday putting a laptop under his jacket at the Augusta store. When confronted, the man became irate, knocked down an employee, pulled a knife and ran toward the door. Outside were four Marines collecting toys for the service branch’s “Toys For Tots” program. Smith said the Marines stopped the man, but he stabbed one of them, Cpl. Phillip Duggan, in the back. The cut did not appear to be severe. The suspect was transported to the local hospital with two broken arms, a broken leg, possible broken ribs, assorted lacerations and bruises he obtained when he fell trying to run after stabbing the Marine. The suspect, whose name was not released, was held until police arrived. The Richmond County Sheriff’s office said it is investigating. Although that account was indeed based on an Associated Press (AP) news article, it contained a paragraph not found in the original report: The suspect was transported to the local hospital with two broken arms, a broken leg, possible broken ribs, assorted lacerations and bruises he obtained when he fell trying to run after stabbing the Marine. (The audience is supposed to read between the lines quoted above and conclude that the suspect did not fall, but rather was beaten by the other three Marines.) None of the news accounts, police reports, or interviews about this incident indicated that Attaway was injured, either while being subdued or afterwards. That bit was pure invention on the part of some person who inserted the additional paragraph into the news account, thereby transforming it into a “Don’t mess with the Marines” object lesson. A fake image representing a newspaper article was later created for this item, one which added the (apocryphal) statement that the fleeing suspect sustained multiple injuries “when he slipped and fell off the curb”: Sightings: In the 1974 film Death Wish, a construction worker who takes part in the chasing down and beating of a would-be mugger (resulting in the mugger’s receiving two broken arms, a broken jaw, and cracked ribs) tells a television reporter that “The poor guy musta fell down.”
|
17089
|
Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures.
|
The meme said that over 300,000 homeowner suicides are attributable to foreclosures. But that would mean every suicide over a nine-year period would have been caused by a foreclosure, and experts say that’s not credible.
|
false
|
National, Economy, Health Care, Housing, Public Health, Facebook posts,
|
"A reader recently asked us to check a social media meme with a striking statistic about foreclosures and suicides. It said, ""1.4 million homes stolen by banks since 2008. Over 300K home owner suicides attributed to foreclosures. Why won't anyone defend these American property owners' rights?"" Have there really been 300,000 suicides linked to foreclosures? We decided to take a look. We first checked with the group credited with creating the meme -- a news and opinion site called occupycorporatism.com -- but an email to the site’s general inbox was not returned. So we next checked annual death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent report came out in December 2013, covering statistics for 2010. For 2010, CDC found that suicide was the 10th most common cause of death, with 38,364 cases. Here’s the number for the past nine years: Year Suicides 2010 38,364 2009 36,909 2008 36,035 2007 34,598 2006 33,300 2005 32,637 2004 32,439 2003 31,484 2002 31,655 Total, 2002-10 307,151 So the total number of suicides from 2002-10 is around 300,000. But for the meme to be correct, you’d have to believe that every single American suicide between 2002 and 2010 was caused by a foreclosure. Of course, that assumes there was a reliable way to measure this kind of causal effect. (The CDC reports don't address what caused a person to commit suicide.) And the meme is even further off-base it it intends to be referring only to suicides since 2008. We asked several experts whether the meme's claim was even remotely possible. ""There is no basis for this claim,"" said Douglas Massey, a population-research professor at Princeton University. ""It isn't plausible that every suicide over a nine-year period could be attributed to foreclosure,"" agreed Janet M. Currie, a Princeton University economist who, along with Erdal Tekin of Georgia State University, has studied the health impacts of the rising tide of foreclosures in the United States. Tekin expressed similar skepticism when contacted by PolitiFact. In their own research, Currie and Tekin found that a location with about 400 foreclosures in a year might see 24 more medical visits for mental health conditions, including suicide attempts. But that wouldn’t be enough to support the meme’s claim, Currie said. Our ruling The meme said that over 300,000 homeowner suicides are attributable to foreclosures. But that would mean every suicide over a nine-year period would have been caused by a foreclosure, and experts say that’s not credible."
|
2284
|
Push to save African elephants stirs U.S. clash over antique ivory trade.
|
The ornate ivory statues and carvings sold in Scott Defrin’s New York gallery date from the 17th and 18th centuries, but the antique dealer’s business is being upended by a 21st century fight over saving the African elephant.
|
true
|
Environment
|
Despite a 25-year-old international ban on most international elephant ivory trade, poachers are illegally slaughtering elephants by the thousands for their tusks and wildlife advocates blame the remaining ivory trade. In the United States, regulations against trading in ivory are tightening. The state of New York has adopted a near total ban and the Obama administration is tightening federal rules. This is unfair, say people like Defrin, whose gallery sells costly figurines, vases and other ivory curios. Such antiques contain ivory taken from elephants in the distant past, sometimes centuries ago, and should not be subject to sales restrictions, they say. Defrin said regulations already in place have damaged his business, drying up European demand for his goods and restricting import of ivory. “They’ve basically ruined the collective antique trade,” he said. “Is this really something that will stop poor African people from killing elephants?” Yes, say wildlife advocates and regulators. They say an “antique loophole” in existing rules sometimes allows new ivory to be disguised as old, fueling global demand for tusks and keeping illegal poaching profitable. “This poaching crisis in Africa is being driven by demand for ivory,” said Laura Noguchi, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With the U.S. Congress back this month after a summer break, a fight over ivory trade regulation is taking shape. It will not be a top priority for lawmakers faced with other urgent decisions. But it may get attention due to the involvement of the National Rifle Association. One of Washington’s most powerful special interest groups, the NRA is advocating for the interests of gun enthusiasts with ivory-decorated weapons. Alaska’s Don Young and California’s Ken Calvert, both Republican representatives, are offering legislation to soften Obama administration restrictions issued over the last year. “The administration’s ivory rule is well-intentioned, but was not crafted carefully enough to account for law-abiding Americans who may possess legally obtained products containing ivory,” Calvert told Reuters in a statement. Ivory has been used for hundreds of years in manufacturing items such as the tips of bows for stringed instruments, piano keys, decorative items for the home, and importantly, for ornamental inlays in rifle and shotgun stocks and handgun grips. Even though the ivory trade is largely curbed globally under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), an estimated 100,000 African elephants were killed by poachers between 2010 and 2012, according to a study last year by the National Academy of Sciences. Much of the demand for ivory comes from Asia. In China, a growing affluent class has increasingly sought ivory as an ornamental item. Some experts have reported that speculators in eastern Asia are stockpiling raw ivory, hoping it will fetch higher prices in the future. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which regulates ivory sales on a federal level, said the United States is a “significant market” for ivory, though it had no detailed estimates for ivory trading in the country. The agency issued a director’s order last year prohibiting commercial import of all ivory, without exception, and clarified other limits on ivory exports. The agency followed up that order with a proposal in July that would further limit exports of ivory to legally qualified antiques. The proposal would offer an exemption allowing the sale of certain manufactured items that contain less than 200 grams (7 ounces) of ivory, a move the service said should include most firearms and musical instruments. New York state outlawed the sale of ivory last year, offering exceptions only for items proven to be antique and containing only a small amount of ivory. Earlier this month, California’s legislature approved a similar measure. Just how much new illegal ivory may be “laundered” as antique is unclear. A study of ivory for sale in Los Angeles in 2014 commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, found that up to 90 percent of the ivory surveyed may have been illegal under California law, and as much as 60 percent may have been prohibited under federal law. The study’s author, Daniel Stiles, cautioned that determining the age of ivory by visual examination is subjective. The only way to firmly date ivory is based on carbon dating and DNA tests, which are costly and require cutting into the ivory. Wildlife groups have applauded the Obama administration’s actions and are seeking more bans at the state level on even the sale of antique ivory similar to New York’s statute. “The more we can eliminate legal markets in ivory, the more difficult it becomes to sell ivory illegally,” said Andrew Wetzler, director of the wildlife program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
|
8818
|
Merck says FDA rejects its new cholesterol drug.
|
U.S. health regulators have rejected Merck & Co Inc’s new drug designed to raise the level of HDL, or “good” cholesterol, the company said on Monday, sending its shares down 5 percent.
|
true
|
Health News
|
The company declined to discuss details in the so-called not approvable letter from the Food and Drug Administration. It would not comment on whether the agency had asked for further data or new clinical trials. The drug, which was expected to be called Cordaptive, combines long-acting niacin with a new drug that prevents the flushing side effect common to niacin — an uncomfortable sensation of burning in the face and neck that leads many patients to discontinue taking it. Analysts widely expected the drug to be approved, especially after a committee of European regulators last week recommended it be cleared for sale there. The rejection was another blow for Merck, whose share price has fallen about 30 percent this year amid a controversy and debate over the effectiveness of the cholesterol drugs its sells in a joint venture with Schering-Plough Corp. The FDA decision should be a boon to Abbott Laboratories, whose franchise of niacin-based cholesterol drugs would have been in direct competition with Merck’s proposed new entry into the lucrative market. Abbott shares rose 2.7 percent following the Merck news. Deutsche Bank analyst Barbara Ryan called the news a disappointment. “We expected the drug to get approved,” she said. “It’s not going to have any impact on the earnings outlook for this year, but certainly as we go out in time they could have had an important contribution from the drug.” Merck said it would meet with the FDA to submit additional information to enable the agency to further evaluate the benefit/risk profile of the drug, which it has gone back to calling MK-0524A after the FDA also rejected the prospective brand name Cordaptive. “We firmly believe that MK-0524A provides physicians with an important option to manage their patients’ cholesterol,” Merck’s research chief Peter Kim said in a statement. The company said it did not yet know when a meeting with FDA officials might take place. In clinical trials, the laropiprant component of the drug demonstrated an ability to significantly reduce the flushing effect of niacin. It had been hoped the combination would enable patients to tolerate niacin at a dose that provides the most therapeutic benefit. Despite the setback, Merck reaffirmed the 2008 forecast it issued last week and reiterated confidence in meeting its goal of double-digit annual earnings per share growth through 2010, excluding certain items. Some analysts believed that Cordaptive and a planned follow-up combination drug that also includes Merck’s bad cholesterol lowering Zocor could eventually garner $1 billion to $2 billion in annual sales. Merck shares fell to $39.40 in extended trading from their New York Stock Exchange close at $41.44, while Abbott shares climbed to $53 from the NYSE close at $51.61.
|
9944
|
Nothing much works for morning sickness, study finds
|
"We usually like it when stories approach an issue from a suspicious, ""show me the evidence"" perspective. But in this case, the story’s doubtful take on treatments for morning sickness just isn’t backed up by solid reporting. Unlike the NPR story we reviewed, this story did not attempt to provide a thorough analysis of the Cochrane Library’s review of morning sickness research. headline and lead misstate the main findings of the study being covered, and the story glosses over important details about how that study was conducted. What’s more, a quote and much of the content appear to have been taken from a press release issued by a journal publisher about the study. Skepticism about medical treatments needs to be supported by a thorough evaluation of the evidence and balanced reporting of different views. Otherwise it’s no better than the mindless cheerleading for new treatments so prevalent in health journalism today."
|
false
|
"There is no discussion of costs here. We think that it is just as important to tell people about the costs of treatments that have little scientific support. Should people be spending money on expensive therapies or even low-cost vitamin treatments if there is little proof that they work? Too vague. The story tells us the study authors ""found some benefit"" for acustimulation over three weeks, but it provides no details about the extent of this benefit or how it was measured. Elsewhere, the story says a study found that ""women who suffer morning sickness are less likely to develop breast cancer."" This information is next to useless without an estimate of the size of the benefit in absolute terms. Lastly, the story ends by telling us ""most experts"" recommend common-sense steps like getting enough rest, eating small meals, and avoiding strong smells. This is undoubtedly reasonable advice, but it sounds incongruous after the rest of the story just emphasized the lack of evidence supporting all the other different approaches. Why should women trust the advice of these unnamed ""experts"" on the basis of no evidence at all? This story did discuss potential harms associated with the use of ginger and anti-vomiting drugs. But it didn’t characterize them very well (ginger ""actually made many women sick,"" the story tells us) or attempt to quantify how often they occured. The story also didn’t mention that review authors found little discussion of potential harms in the studies they looked at. This is an important conclusion that should have been passed along to readers. This story, like the competing NPR piece, overstates the main conclusion of the study authors. The headline states that ""Nothing much works for morning sickness"" and the lead claims there are ""no effective treatments"" for morning sickness. These statements are oversimplications of the evidence. The study authors concluded that there was little evidence from high quality studies to support currently used treatments. So it would have been more accurate to say that we just don’t know whether these treatments are effective or not. Unlike the NPR study, though, this story provided very little detail about how the study authors conducted their review of the evidence. We learn that they analyzed 27 clinical trials including 4041 women, but that’s about the extent of the discussion. We think the story should have included more information about: We’ll flag this story for inadvertent disease-mongering. The story gives a description of very severe morning sickness, known as hyperemesis gravidarum, and says the condition ""requires medical treatment and can cause blood clots and damage to the infant."" While this is true, the story failed to mention that the review authors specifically excluded studies that enrolled patients with hyperemesis gravidarum from their analysis. Based on the story, readers might get the impression that there are no effective treatments for this very serious condition, which is not necessarily the case. The only expert quoted in this story is one of the authors of the Cochrane group study being covered. This would not normally qualify as an independent perspective, but since the Cochrane collaborative is by definition an independent source reviewing the combined studies, one could argue this category should be ruled not applicable for this story. On the other hand, experts do sometimes disagree about whether the methodology used by Cochrane reviewers is appropriate, so it can also be argued that adding another voice would have added context and value for readers. A toss-up here, but we’ll err, as we usually do, on the side of high standards and call this one unsatisfactory. The story mentions a number of different treatments used for morning sickness and emphasizes the lack of good evidence to support any specific treatment. As with the competing NPR story, we think it is clear that the Cochrane review covered widely available treatments. The novelty of the therapies discussed in this article isn’t really in question, so we’ll call this one not applicable. This story quotes directly from a news release about the study. It attributes the quote to ""a statement"" but does not make it clear that this statement was part of a news release. Reporters ask questions all the time via email, and readers may assume that the researcher simply provided the reporter a statement in response. There’s no evidence that any other sources of information were sought for this report. In addition, the text of the story hews very closely to that of the press release and provides very similar details. We think that’s unsatisfactory."
|
|
11259
|
Stem Cells and Breast Surgery
|
This story could have touted a novel and untested cosmetic procedure, but instead the reporting is appropriately cautious and balanced. The reporter clearly informs readers about the procedure and does an excellent job listing the potential harms of the relatively untested fat and stem cell transfer. Appropriate caveats include discussion that this stem cell and fat grafting mixture is unstudied in women with a history of breast cancer (candidates for reconstruction), a population possibly more vulnerable to long-term harms of fat injections in the breast area. The story also notes the potential need for multiple revision surgeries if the fat and stem cell transfer does not take. Costs of the initial surgery and these additional surgeries are discussed. The story also lists potential long-term harms for all women, including obscured mammograms due to calcification from necrotic fat. The 5-star story also does an excellent job citing multiple sources to provide balanced information on this new breast augmentation technique. The story clearly explains the rationale for the addition of stem cells to a woman’s own fat to augment and/or reconstruct her breast tissue. The story notes the lack of evidence for this fat and stem cell grafting procedure. The story notes that plastic surgeons and device manufacturers are currently enrolling women in clinical trials so this procedure can be studied for safety and cosmetic outcomes.
|
true
|
"The story provides a range of the costs of the procedure for cosmetic purposes and also notes cost of additional surgeries that may be needed to correct for fat-grafting that did not survive after an initial procedure. This procedure may not be approved by health insurance for reconstruction due to the lack of evidence for safety and long-term outcomes. The story provides one surgeon’s average fat-grafting and stem cell survival rate, about 54%. The story notes current research on this new fat-grafting to determine short and long-term health and cosmetic outcomes. The story clearly and carefully explains the procedure and the rationale for the addition of stem cells to a transfer of a woman’s fat to her breast tissue. The story notes that the makers of a machine that would mix fat and stem cells more effectively is sponsoring tests in Europe and is proposing tests in the U.S. The story does an excellent job listing the potential harms of the procedure. The story gives appropriate caveats that this stem cell and fat grafting is relatively unstudied in women with a history of breast cancer, a population possibly more vulnerable to long-term harms of fat injections in the breast area. The story notes the potential need for multiple revision surgeries if the fat transfer does not take. The story notes that women looking for increased bresat volume beyond 1 cup size would likely not be candidates. The story appropriately lists potential long-term harms, including obscured mammograms due to nercrosis and calcifications from the fat. The story notes the lack of evidence for this procedure. The story notes that plastic surgeons are currently enrolling women in clinical trials so this procedure can be studied for safety and positive cosmetic outcomes. The story lists notes an average fat-grafting survival of 54%, which means a high likelihood for additional surgeries. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story is quite balanced in the description of this relatively new cosmetic and reconstructive technique that is being used by some cosmetic and plastic surgeons. The story does an excellent job citing varied sources to provide the reader with multiple perspectives on this new breast augmentation technique. The story provides both positive and cautious testimonials from a range of cosmetic and reconstructive specialists, researchers and a patient who had the procedure. The story notes that this procedure is largely for cosmetic purposes, but it has been used as a reconstructive technique. Fat transfer has been used without stem cells for reconstruction for about 10 years. The story also notes the more common silicone and saline implants as options for breast reconstrution and augmentation. The story focuses on this fat injection with stem cells as a procedure for cosmetic augmentation or reconstruction following breast cancer surgery. The story notes that while some plastic and cosmetic surgeons are experimenting with this procedure, it is a ""biologic product"" (due to mixture of a person’s own fat w. additional stem cells) which is not currently approved by the FDA. The story notes that this is a newer procedure for breast augmentation and possibly breast reconstruction. Fat grafting is not new in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. The additional of stem cells to a person’s own fat is new and the story notes that long-term outcome of fat and stem cells in breast tissue is not known. The story has a great deal of independent reporting and does not rely solely on a press release for information about this procedure."
|
|
473
|
Ring of fire: Australian state declares emergency as wildfires approach Sydney.
|
Australia’s most populous state declared its second emergency in as many months on Thursday as extreme heat and strong winds stoked more than 100 bushfires, including three major blazes on Sydney’s doorstep.
|
true
|
Environment
|
A day after Australia recorded its hottest day on record, thick smoke blanketed the harbor city, shrouded the Opera House and brought many outdoor activities to a halt. The state of emergency declaration gave firefighters broad powers to control government resources, force evacuations, close roads and shut down utilities across New South Wales, which is home to more than 7 million people. Authorities said nearly 120 fires remained ablaze by late afternoon, more than half of which are uncontrolled, and with temperatures forecast to top 45 degrees Celsius (113°F) in some areas, officials warned residents to be on high alert. “The firefront has been spreading very quickly and intensely,” NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters in Sydney, adding that two firefighters had been airlifted to hospital with burns to their faces and airways. “It’s still a very difficult and dangerous set of circumstances.” Days out from Christmas, a time when many Australians head to the coast for the holidays, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian advised people to make sure “you are prepared to change your plans should circumstances change.” In Shoalhaven, a popular coastal destination some 190 km (120 miles) south of Sydney, local mayor Amanda Findley said people were poised to evacuate. “There is a large amount of smoke looming over the city, which shows how close the fire is,” Findley told Reuters by telephone. “It is extremely hot and windy now so we are all worried the fire could spread. People are really worried that they may lose everything.” The RFS posted footage on its official Twitter account showing firefighters tackling one of the three blazes ringing Sydney. A waterbomber aircraft was dwarfed by thick grey and black billowing cloud as it attempted to douse flames in bushland just meters away from homes. Australia has been battling wildfires across much of its east coast for weeks, leaving six people dead, more than 680 homes destroyed and nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland burnt. Berejiklian said as many as 40 homes had been destroyed on Thursday. Australia on Wednesday broke all-time heat records for the second day running, with maximum temperatures reaching an average of 41.9 degree Celsius, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Some 1,700 firefighters have been deployed across NSW, but officials warned that was still not enough to cover every potential danger and urged people in high risk areas to evacuate while it was still safe to do so. The current state of emergency will last for seven days, while a total fire ban that has been in place since Tuesday will remain until midnight on Saturday. The major fires around Sydney, which is home to more than 5 million people, have resulted in days of heavy pollution in the city usually known for its sparkling harbor and blue skies. One megafire in the Kanangra Boyd National Park to the city’s southwest had crept to the very outskirts of Campbelltown, a suburb of 157,000 people. By late afternoon, Sydney was sitting at No.4 on the IQAir AirVisual live rankings of pollution in global cities, above Dhaka, Mumbai, Shanghai and Jakarta. Many commuters have donned breathing masks in recent weeks as air quality has plunged to hazardous levels not previously seen in the city. NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said the service had experienced a 10% surge in call-outs for patients suffering respiratory conditions over the past week and urged susceptible people to remain indoors and keep their medication close. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has weathered a storm of criticism on social media in recent days for going on an overseas holiday during the emergency, adding to criticism that his government is failing to deliver adequate climate change policies. As local media reported Morrison was in Hawaii on a family holiday, about 500 protesters gathered outside his official Sydney residence to demand urgent action on climate change. Morrison’s office refused to confirm his whereabouts. One protestor, wearing an Hawaiian shirt, carried a sign reading, “ScoMo, where the bloody hell are you?” referencing the leader’s nickname and a decade-old international advertisement for Tourism Australia that was banned in several countries because the language was deemed offensive. Australia’s low-lying Pacific neighbors have been particularly critical of the coal-rich nation’s climate policies following modest progress at the U.N. climate talks in Madrid. “It was particularly disappointing to see our Pacific cousins in Australia actively standing in the way of progress at a time when we have been watching in horror as their own country is ablaze,” Marshall Islands president Hilda Heine said in a statement on Wednesday.
|
40470
|
A forwarded email about the story of how a little girl at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina miraculously recovered from cancer after an angel was seen on a video surveillance monitor.
|
Teen Escapes Death After Hospital Video Captures Images of What the Family Believes Was an Angel
|
true
|
Inspirational
|
According to a Today Show story posted on the MSNBC on December 23, 2008, this happened in September 2008 but some of the facts in the eRumor are wrong. Fourteen year old Chelsea Barton was born five weeks prematurely which resulted in developmental disabilities and serious health problems all her life. She was connected to life support at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina for pneumonia and the doctors had told her mother, Colleen Barton, that there was no hope for young Chelsea’s recovery. 14 year old Chelsea Barton at Presbyterian Hospital The Barton family gathered one last time in Chelsea’s hospital room to say their goodbyes and the order was giving to disconnect her from the life support system and “just let nature take its course.” According to the MSNBC Story, it appeared that Chelsea had another visitor just after the life support was disconnected. “As her mother waited for the girl to take her last breath, an image of bright light appeared on a security monitor. Within an hour, the dying girl began a recovery that doctors are at a loss to explain.” Photo of strange light in the form of an angel from Colleen Barton’s cell phone Colleen Barton and other workers noticed an image of an angel in light on the security surveillance monitor near the hospital room door and Barton managed to capture the image with her cell phone camera. Barton told MSNBC that at first she thought that it was the angel of death coming to take her daughter but shortly afterwards Chelsea Barton started showing signs of improvement. According to the story, “It would be another two months before Chelsea finally left the hospital to return home, where she is about to celebrate her 15th birthday as well as Christmas. Her mother is convinced that Chelsea was saved by divine intervention.” Click here for MSNBC story with video updated 12/26/08 Comments
|
11444
|
Cedars-Sinai Surgeon Uses New Device to Perform First-Ever Surgery
|
A news release announcing a new minimally invasive surgery technique to treat aneurysms of the aorta was surprisingly short on details concerning the main things we want to know: the rates of benefit and harm related to the Valiant Navion thoracic stent graft system, how it compares to other methods to treat these kinds of aneurysms, the cost, its availability and whether it is currently being performed by other surgeons. Unfortunately, none of these important questions is answered in this news release. If there is a new and safer way to treat aortic aneurysms, this could be a major public health advance. Though this new stent was approved by the US Food & Drug Administration, readers need more than assurances from the surgeon who performed the operation buttressed by a testimonial from the first patient who was treated. There is astonishingly little “news” in this news release.
|
false
|
Hospital news release
|
No costs were mentioned. No benefits were mentioned other than this treatment might be better than open surgery. The surgeon points out that: “Now, patients can undergo a minimally invasive procedure to fix complex problems of the aorta without having open surgery.” We have consistently advised readers to be wary of claims about “minimally invasive procedures.” No harms of the new procedure were mentioned. The lone patient who underwent the procedure called it “a difficult surgery” and anticipated feeling better after recovery but we’re not told if the procedure was successful or how long recovery took. As we’ve written, minimally invasive is still invasive “and thus pose potential harms associated with anesthesia, infection, and bleeding.” Clearly, there was evidence that was reviewed by the FDA prior to approval, yet we get not a single inkling of what that evidence might contain. Again, a missed opportunity to inform the reader. There is no obvious disease mongering and we learn that “aneurysms are weakening, or bulging, of blood vessels that can rupture and become life-threatening.” What we don’t get is how common or uncommon such ruptures are, and this would have been a very good educational point to make in this news release. Funders of the study are not named (nor is the study that led to the device approval identified or linked). It is good to know that the surgeon featured in the news release, Dr. Azizzadeh, works “in conjunction with medical device company Medtronic, [and] served as the national principal investigator in clinical tests of the device.” The release states that, “compared to other technologies, the stent graft can travel through smaller, curvy vessels and better adjust to a patient’s anatomy.” The real question is: is that relevant? Does this ability to travel through curvy vessels mean that the patients live longer and have fewer ruptures down the road? We don’t know and the news release didn’t tell us. We are given no indication whether the procedure is in use in other hospitals outside the clinicians who were involved in the clinical trial. The release mentions that the stent is new, however, it fails to acknowledge that stents are already commonly used to treat aneurysms, particularly aneurysms of the aorta located in the abdomen. This stent may offer some advantages, perhaps for aneurysms higher up and closer to the heart where the aorta is curved, but the release doesn’t explicitly state that. The release doesn’t engage in unjustified language.
|
37877
|
There is no proof social distancing is an effective measure to stop the spread of novel coronavirus or COVID-19.
|
Is There ‘No Scientific Proof’ That Social Distancing Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus?
|
false
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
On April 22 2020, a KUSI News item (“USC Professor Joel Hay says there is no scientific proof social distancing prevents spread of coronavirus”) appeared containing a claim that proved particularly popular among people who opposed COVID-19 social distancing measures — orders typically described as “stay at home,” “shelter in place,” “lockdown,” or “quarantine.”That link was shared to Reddit’s r/Coronavirus on April 23 2020:USC Professor Joel Hay says there is no scientific proof social distancing prevents spread of coronavirus from CoronavirusThe post appears to have been removed from that subreddit after being tagged as “low quality” information.KUSI’s ‘USC Professor Joel Hay says there is no scientific proof social distancing prevents spread of coronavirus’In the blurb, Hay’s comments were described as his individual “stance” on social distancing measures, and he appeared to suggest that the approximate month of social distancing prior to his KUSI appearance yielded no mitigation in the spread of coronavirus:USC Professor Joel Hay joined Good Morning San Diego to discuss his stance on how to get people back to work.Hay said that there is no proof that social distancing works for diseases like coronavirus. He backed up this point by saying we have been social distancing for over a month, and there are no signs that it is helping us contain the spread of the virus.Plus, Hay explained that there was coronavirus cases in California much earlier than we originally thought, before social distancing guidelines were implemented. Has the spread of coronavirus changed? Hay says we don’t really know, but asks, why are we shutting everything down if we have no proof it works?But, Hay says people with pre-existing conditions, elderly, etc. should isolate themselves. He doesn’t believe we need to isolate the young and healthy, as proven by Sweden.In the third of four brief paragraphs, Hay is paraphrased as saying that “we don’t really know” if “the spread of coronavirus has changed.” Moreover, Hay’s position is summarized as questioning why social distancing is being observed if “we have no proof it works,” as well as what appeared to be his opinion that the “young and healthy” ought to not be affected by the various social distancing measures in place across the United States and elsewhere in the world.Video Portion of the SegmentA six-minute, thirty-seven second clip of Hay speaking was embedded (and available separately on YouTube); we were unable to find a transcript for the segment.At the beginning, an anchor describes ongoing debate between people who supported reducing all social distancing measures for economic reasons, and people who supported continuing the measures to continue reducing the spread of novel coronavirus.A truncated version of the clip was shared by @KUSINews on April 22 2020:USC Professor Joel Hay says there is no evidence that social distancing prevents the spread of coronavirus.Instead of mass social distancing, Hay believes we should isolate the at-risk people, explaining it is ruining millions of lives.Full Interview: https://t.co/S42bhuA1Iy pic.twitter.com/lbwJzgLtvD— KUSI News (@KUSINews) April 22, 2020In the clip, Hay claimed that “all these people … their entire intervention of social distancing” is “based on no evidence.” He goes on to say the novel coronavirus has “been around for a long time” and that there is “no proof social distancing has reduced transmission.”Throughout the clip, the anchor challenged Hay’s claims with statements about transmission rates and an ostensible reduction in anticipated rates of COVID-19 cases. Hay then claimed that despite a number of pregnant women testing positive for COVID-19, no newborns had tested positive, repeatedly saying — again — that there is “no proof” that social distancing had any effect on COVID-19 transmission. (The relevance of that particular statement was neither clear nor clarified as the interview progressed. )At the end of the clip, Hay said in his concluding remarks:… don’t isolate the young and healthy … Sweden proved that’s how you get the herd immunity, that’s how you get the social mixing, that’s how we’ve done it naturally for millions of years … what is this nonsense?In short, the sum total of Hay’s claims amounted to “here’s what I think about this,” not “here’s proof what I’m saying is true.”Hay’s Stance on COVID-19 and Social DistancingFinally, Hay directs viewers to a poll hosted on his personal website, which was also host to a number of opinion/editorial links and entries illustrating Hay’s anti-social distancing stance.On the landing page of the site were a list of hyperlinks to content on Hay’s site or other news organizations (typically politically partisan ones). Hay appeared to be curating links and content in support of his clear viewpoint: harm caused by social distancing measures globally was not preferable to harm caused by allowing the virus to spread by ending the measures, orders, et cetera.Both in the video and on his website, Hay arguably engaged in a “gish gallop” (defined by RationalWiki as “the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort”) on both KUSI and his site, and employed cherry picking to select research supporting his stance while discarding all other notable evidence.Hay’s Background and COVID-19 MeasuresHay describes himself as a “health economist,” a classification under “economics,” not “medicine.” Pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis describes “health economics” in the following way [PDF]:Economics is the science of scarcity. The application of health economics reflects a universal desire to obtain maximum value for money by ensuring not just the clinical effectiveness, but also the cost-effectiveness of healthcare provision. Achieving ‘value for money’ implies either a desire to achieve a predetermined objective at least cost or a desire to maximise the benefit to the population of patients served from a limited amount of resources. This requires services to be evaluated for ‘cost-effectiveness’. […]It is universally acknowledged that the technical ability of healthcare systems to provide care (the wide array of new and expensive health technologies available) far exceeds the ability of any healthcare system to afford all such technologies. Once healthcare decision-makers have accepted the need for choice, they must inform that choice by prioritising competing interventions through the analysis of their costs and benefits. However, it is important to recognise that healthcare exhibits a range of special characteristics that will fundamentally affect such analyses. Health economics reflects a universal desire to obtain maximum value for money by ensuring not just the clinical effectiveness, but also the cost-effectiveness of healthcare provision.Quarantining the ‘Young’ and ‘Healthy’On April 28 2020, we explained the subject of quarantine (versus isolation), and the manner in which it is used to mitigate or suppress the spread of disease during events such as the COVID-19 pandemic:‘Quarantine is When You Restrict the Movement of SICK People’ Facebook MemeAll accepted definitions of quarantine include the fact that it affects people who could spread disease from possibly doing so, not people who necessarily have demonstrated they have contracted a given disease. As of late April 2020, the most recent estimates indicate between 25 and 50 percent of SARS-CoV-2 carries are asymptomatic, and that just over one percent of all Americans were tested — precisely the sort of situation for which quarantine is typically employed.‘What is This Nonsense?’ and the History of Social DistancingGoing by Hay’s remarks, viewers might conclude that COVID-19 marked the first time in history any or all countries enacted stay at home, quarantine, or social distancing measures.This is, of course, not the case — concurrent and ongoing reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic frequently explained efforts throughout history to mitigate or suppress the spread of disease with quarantines. In an April 2020 fact check, we described the widespread use of such measures during the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu pandemic, and subsequent findings about the impact of the measures:Did the Second Wave of the 1918 Spanish Flu Kill 20 to 30 Million, While the First Wave Killed 3 to 5 Million?A 2010 historical analysis published in the journal Public Health Reports provided one example of documentation antedating COVID-19 in which social distancing measures were examined and quantified. In the article’s synopsis, its authors addressed the intentional use and presumed efficacy of social distancing during the Spanish Flu pandemic, concluding that such measures “significantly reduced” rates of mortality:The Spanish influenza arrived in the United States at a time when new forms of mass transportation, mass media, mass consumption, and mass warfare had vastly expanded the public places in which communicable diseases could spread. Faced with a deadly “crowd” disease, public health authorities tried to implement social-distancing measures at an unprecedented level of intensity. Recent historical work suggests that the early and sustained imposition of gathering bans, school closures, and other social-distancing measures significantly reduced mortality rates during the 1918–1919 epidemics. This finding makes it all the more important to understand the sources of resistance to such measures, especially since social-distancing measures remain a vital tool in managing the current H1N1 influenza pandemic. To that end, this historical analysis revisits the public health lessons learned during the 1918–1919 pandemic and reflects on their relevance for the present.Another article we found from 2012 (“Controlling epidemic spread by social distancing: Do it well or not at all”) hinged heavily on the balance between economic and epidemiological outcomes:We ascribe an economic cost to the loss of social contacts, and weigh this against the economic benefit gained by reducing the impact of the epidemic. We study the sensitivity of the results to two key parameters, the individuals’ attitude to risk and the size of the awareness neighbourhood. […]Depending on the characteristics of the epidemic and on the relative economic importance of making contacts versus avoiding infection, the optimal control is one of two extremes: either to adopt a highly cautious control, thereby suppressing the epidemic quickly by drastically reducing contacts as soon as disease is detected; or else to forego control and allow the epidemic to run its course. The worst outcome arises when control is attempted, but not cautiously enough to cause the epidemic to be suppressed. The next main result comes from comparing the size of the neighbourhood of which individuals are aware to that of the neighbourhood within which transmission can occur. The control works best when these sizes match and is particularly ineffective when the awareness neighbourhood is smaller than the infection neighbourhood. The results are robust with respect to inclusion of long-range, small-world links which destroy the spatial structure, regardless of whether individuals can or cannot control them. However, addition of many non-local links eventually makes control ineffective.Epidemiologists vs. Economists on Social DistancingHistorical evidence only goes so far when discussing COVID-19 and the duration of social distancing. An April 4 2020 piece written by University of Michigan epidemiologist Abram Wagner explained why the general public might not fully understand the patterns of infection after such measures were introduced, and why those misperceptions jeopardized the slowed spread of COVID-19:Americans might begin to wonder if these social distancing measures are working if the case numbers keep climbing. The problem is that the number of reported cases is not the same as the number of people who are infected. It takes time for people to develop symptoms, seek treatment and get tested and for the results to come back. So the effects of social distancing might not be obvious from the numbers for a while. As an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, I can assure you that staying at home is one of the most effective ways to slow the spread of COVID-19.A key reason for the delay between people severely restricting their movements and a drop in the number of new cases is that COVID-19 can have a long incubation period, the time between getting infected and becoming sick. The average incubation period is around 5 days, but it can be as long as 14 days or more. This means that a person infected before a stay-at-home order might not get diagnosed until days later.Testing is another factor in the delay between the start of social distancing and seeing the results. Many Americans don’t even know if they’ve been infected with the new coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2 … scientists have found asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission of COVID-19.Although Hay asserted (without evidence) that no proof exists that social distancing works, this is untrue. Wagner referenced data from a relatively recent outbreak of infectious disease, and the trajectory of compliance with suppression measures:If Americans see increases in case counts and believe that their own actions are ineffective, they might be less inclined to follow through on social distancing. This could lead to increased contact among people, which could make it more difficult to bring the pandemic under control. Hopefully widespread testing and faster test results will lead to a more accurate understanding of who is and is not infected with the disease, not unlike what South Korea has accomplished so far. In the meantime, Americans should not take an increase in COVID-19 cases to mean that their sacrifices aren’t worth sustaining.There’s No Question That Social Distancing Works, and There Is a Long Historical PrecedentThe KUSI interview was predictably well-received among people arguing against lockdown measures; among many faulty assertions made by Hay was that there was “no proof” social distancing worked as intended. That claim was easily disproved by a mountain of research into the spread of disease during previous pandemics, and epidemiologists — the actual experts on the efficacy of social distancing as a bulwark against COVID-19 were making no such calls to “end social distancing.” Economists typically argued that the financial cost of a shutdown outweighs the reduced mortality (and conversely that there is an acceptable number of preventable deaths that the public should overlook for the sake of the economy), but that was not the same as the demonstrably false assertion that no evidence supports social distancing.Comments
|
35537
|
"In U.S. elections, mail-in voting systems ""substantially"" increase the risk of voter fraud compared to in-person voting."
|
Using e-cigarettes significantly increases the risk of developing chronic lung conditions such as asthma or emphysema, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
|
false
|
Politics
|
The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is among the first to show the potential long-term harms of using e-cigarettes, which are often promoted as a safer alternative to tobacco and a means of helping smokers quit. It found that e-cigarettes increased the risk of lung disease by a third compared with those who never smoked or vaped. And the risk was even higher among adults who used both e-cigarettes and smoked tobacco. The research comes as the United States faces a youth vaping crisis. According to the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 27.5% of high school students in the United States use e-cigarettes, up from 20.7% in 2018. “E-cigarettes are promoted as harmless and they’re not,” Stanton Glantz, director of the University of California San Francisco Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, said in a phone interview. Glantz and colleagues used data on 32,000 adults surveyed in the CDC’s Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH), which tracked e-cigarette and tobacco habits, as well as new lung disease diagnoses from 2013 to 2016. Nobody had lung disease at the start of the study. Three year later, researchers found that people who used e-cigarettes had roughly a 30% increased risk of developing lung diseases, such as asthma, bronchitis, emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) compared to those who never smoked or vaped. Those who smoked cigarettes had roughly double the risk of chronic lung disease compared to whose who never smoked. For those who smoked traditional and e-cigarettes, the risk more than tripled, the study found. “Everybody, including me, used to think e-cigarettes are like cigarettes but not as bad. If you substitute a few e-cigarettes for cigarettes, you’re probably better off,” Glantz said. “It turns out you’re worse off,” he said. “E-cigarettes pose unique risks in terms of lung disease.” Prior studies have only looked at a cross section of the population at a fixed point in time. The new study is considered more robust because it looks at risks to the lungs over time, Robert Tarran, a physiologist and vaping expert at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said in an email. “This study adds to the growing body of evidence that demonstrate that vaping is not safe,” Tarran said.
|
31216
|
A book about Hitler quotes him as saying that he would start a third world war — after his death.
|
The rumor that Adolf Hitler said that World War III would begin when the United States realized that black people were the “true Hebrews” originated in an unsourced article published by a disreputable web site, and which appears to loosely string together an entire ecosystem of impossibly farfetched and completely unsourced conspiracy theories. Although the quote in the meme was attributed to a legitimate publication, the briefest and most cursory research shows that it appears nowhere in the book cited.
|
false
|
Politics Quotes, fml gone viral, fmlgoneviral.com, hitler
|
In June 2017, a persistent hoax involving a falsified quote, supposedly from Nazi leader Adolf Hitler about how he would start World War III even after his death, began to recirculate in meme form: This passage is frequently shared in defense of Hitler to bolster the argument that he was actually not racist, and, in fact, that he believed black people were the “true Hebrews”. The first iteration of this text we could uncover was published on a clickbait web site called FMLGoneViral.com on 7 July 2015: Hitler said even in his death he will start World War 3. One of his soliders asked how? Hitler replied, “The day mankind finds out what I was trying to defend this nation, Germany, from then thats the day World War 3 will start. For on that day, mankind will learn that I was trying to save my Nation from The Free Masons, the Illuminati, the jews. For if the Americans wins the war, then they will conquer the world and forever be a slave to the jews and they will try to conquer God. Do you know who America has in its posession? “NO,” the solider replied. The Americans has the jewels of God. The Americans have stolen God’s precious jewels. “What do you mean his precious jewels?” THE SOLIDER asked. Hitler said, “America has stolen the jews. The Jews of God. His jewelry. The negros. They are the true hebrews. What a foolish move and a direct challenge to God. And they plan on moving these false white jews into a state of Israel. America is desperate in its attempt to win this war using atom bombs on Japan. America will destroy the whole world in its attempt to conquer it. When America and its jewish slave masters conquer the world and the world realize I was right, then all nations will begin a third world war to dethrone America of its rule. Every nation will soon possess atom bombs of their own. It will be the end of most of the world as we know it. “Why will the jews control America?” the solider asked Hitler said, “because the white jews knows that the negros are the real children of Israel. And to keep Americas secret, the jews will blackmail America. The jews will extort America Their plan for world domination wont work if the negros knew who they were. The white citizens of America will be terrified to know that all this time they’ve been mistreating and discriminating and lynching the childen of Israel. They will fear God will destroy them as he destroyed Egypt for doing the same thing. So the elite, the Illuminati keeps this a secret at all cost. After I die, I will one day cause World War 3 just by this message which will be like planting a seed in people minds until it sprouts once they nurture that seed and seek more truth and learn Hitler was right. I did the world a favor by killing the false jews before they designated a false state of Israel. But I fear I have failed. The world will fall into the hands of Satan. Although the clickbait site provided no citation for when Hitler allegedly made these statements, commenters on the page directed those curious about the quote’s authenticity to the book The Nazis World War II by Robert Edwin Herstein. Other dubious sites immediately picked up on this claim and uncritically re-shared the completely bogus Adolf Hitler quote along with its alleged source — clearly without doing even the barest minimum of research, such as opening the book in which the quote supposedly appears. Needless to say,, this passage does not appear in Herzstein’s book. We could not find this passage in either the digital copy available via Google Books, nor the hard copy we examined. Page 132 of Herzstein’s book The Nazis features a photograph of Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and others watching a propaganda film, a description of what this film depicted, as well as a few stills from the production: The page, like the rest of the book, does not contain an argument suggesting that Adolf Hitler was not racist (given his actions in the historical record, a case for his lack of prejudice would be difficult to make indeed) or that he was kind toward black people. (The hoax quote also appears to miss that racism can exist toward different ethnic groups.) Instead, it describes a propaganda film that linked Jewish people to other groups — including black people: Goebbels and Hitler personally appraise a new German movie. When the Fuhrer complained that the films espousing the Nazi line were too scarce, Goebbels rushed a pair of anti-semitic pictures into production. In one segment of a Nazi “Instructional” film (right), the genetic heritage of the Jew is purportedly traced to Oriental, Negro, Near Asian and Hamitic peoples. Hence, the film concludes, “the Jew is a bastard.” Below, the villainous title character of Jud Suss, a violently anti-Semitic melodrama, spins chemes with his crony, Rabbi Loew. MOVIES HINTING AT HORRORS TO COME To Joseph Goebbels, films were “one of the most modern and scientific means of influencing the masses” Though the German film industry remained largely in private hands, every movie needed the imprimatur of the Propaganda Ministry before it reached the screen, and Goebbels became notorious for meddling with scripts, directors, and actors. In 1938, he set movie studios to work producing anti-Jewish films. In addition, a special team was assembled at the ministry itself to undertake a project called The Eternal Jew. The result, a virulent 45-minute harangue billed as a documentary, was shown to audiences throughout Europe. The film featured a lingering look at kosher animal slaughter, imputing sadism and bloodthirstiness to the “Jewish race.” Jews were likened to rats and other vermin: “They carry disease,” warned the narration. Such films, which depicted the Jews as a plague to be eradicated, hinted darkly at the real-life horrors to come. The propaganda film described in this book attempted to trace Jewish ancestry to other groups of people, most likely to demonize other cultures outside of the Aryan race — not to absolve any groups or make anti-racist arguments. An article published by the United States Holocaust Museum explained that although black people were not targeted in the same way as Jews, they were still persecuted, and Germany produced propaganda that painted black soldiers as chronic rapists and a threat to the “purity” of the German race: The fate of black people from 1933 to 1945 in Nazi Germany and in German-occupied territories ranged from isolation to persecution, sterilization, medical experimentation, incarceration, brutality, and murder. However, there was no systematic program for their elimination as there was for Jews and other groups. […] Following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the victorious Allies occupied the Rhineland in western Germany. The use of French colonial troops, some of whom were black, in these occupation forces exacerbated anti-black racism in Germany. Racist propaganda against black soldiers depicted them as rapists of German women and carriers of venereal and other diseases. The children of black soldiers and German women were called “Rhineland Bastards.” The Nazis, at the time a small political movement, viewed them as a threat to the purity of the Germanic race. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), Hitler charged that “the Jews had brought the Negroes into the Rhineland with the clear aim of ruining the hated white race by the necessarily-resulting bastardization.”
|
17571
|
I’m ninth generation from New Hampshire.
|
"Brown said he is ""ninth generation from New Hampshire."" For the most part, this is true: Brown’s New Hampshire lineage connects his grandmother to some of the region’s earliest European inhabitants. In fact, one of Brown’s ancestors, Francis Mathews, came to the New World in 1634 specifically to help settle the territory that became New Hampshire. But this isn’t the only relevant fact to consider. Brown’s statement can also be interpreted to mean that Brown counts himself as part of an unbroken line of ancestors who are ""from"" New Hampshire. It’s clear that Brown and his mother spent much of their lives in Massachusetts. The family connection to New Hampshire weakened after the birth of Brown’s grandmother, Bertha Rugg, who moved to Massachusetts and raised her daughter -- Brown’s mother -- in the Bay State. Brown himself stated in a press release sent this week that ""I have lived in Massachusetts for most of my life,"" and his trademark pickup truck parked outside a GOP fundraiser in Nashua on Dec. 19 still had Massachusetts license plates. Bottom line: It’s clear that New Hampshire is the ancestral home of many of Brown’s relatives, but it’s a stretch to say that Brown and his mother are ""from New Hampshire."" The statement is partially accurate."
|
mixture
|
New Hampshire, Candidate Biography, Families, Scott Brown,
|
"Since he lost his Senate seat in Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown has been keeping his options open for a potential run for office in New Hampshire. While he hasn’t filed to run for any office, he’s viewed as a potentially strong challenger to U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Speculation that he might run against Shaheen reached a fever pitch this week as news reports revealed he has a buyer for his home in Wrentham, Mass. and Brown confirmed he’s moving to New Hampshire. Brown has long owned a summer home in Rye, N.H. and he’s expected to renovate that house and make it his permanent residence. ""Once we get settled, we will do what many other people have done upon moving into New Hampshire,"" Brown said in a statement released Thursday Dec. 19, 2013. ""We will register to vote, get new licenses and enjoy the fact that there is no income or sales tax in New Hampshire."" In his statement and in a series of speeches this year, Brown has played up his ties to the state. ""I’m ninth-generation from New Hampshire,"" Brown told members of the Nashua Rotary Club in October. ""My grandparents are buried, and my great-grandparents, right in Portsmouth cemetery. My mom, my sister, my aunts and my uncles, my nieces -- they all live in New Hampshire. I have a house in New Hampshire. New Hampshire’s a great state."" Brown has repeated the claim about his ancestry several times, including in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader in October, and at a National Guard Association of New Hampshire state conference in Manchester in April. ""I think it’s important to note that I do have ties to New Hampshire,"" Brown said, according to published reports. ""Nine generations of ties to New Hampshire."" Others have also made the claim on his behalf. Karl Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May that Brown is a ""ninth generation Granite Stater"" and could wage a competitive race against Jeanne Shaheen. Discussing his move to NH this week, Brown acknowledged he has lived in Massachusetts for most of his life, but also cited his family roots in the Granite State. ""For those who have read my book, you know that my first home was in New Hampshire,"" he said. ""My family and I have long and strong ties to the Granite State that go back many generations."" Not everyone is giving Brown a pass as a Granite Stater, however. At a GOP fundraiser in Nashua on Dec. 19, protesters from both the Republican and Democratic Party held signs labelling him a carpetbagger. ""Brownbagger go home to Mass,"" a bright yellow sign read. Here at PolitiFact New Hampshire, we wondered whether his claim of longstanding New Hampshire heritage was true. So we decided to look into the former U.S. senator’s family history. Who’s ""from"" New Hampshire? Taken literally, Brown is claiming that eight generations of his family before him came from New Hampshire. But what it means to be ""from"" New Hampshire is open to interpretation. It’s clear that Brown has spent considerable time in the Granite State over the years. People who aren’t born in a state, but grew up there, often claim to be from that place. But here in New England, where family trees can often be traced back to the early colonists, there tends to be a more exacting standard. Put another way, the singer Ray Lamontagne was born in Nashua, N.H., but grew up in Utah and other parts of the country. He isn’t viewed as being ""from"" here. On the other hand, comedian Adam Sandler was born in New York and moved to Manchester, N.H. when he was five. He graduated from Central High School and his parents still live in the Queen City. Even though he now lives in Los Angeles, he is considered ""from New Hampshire."" We asked Brown to clarify his statement and discuss his family tree. In an email response, he thanked us for the inquiry, but refused to shed light on his familial claim. ""If and when I decide to run for political office again, then I will be happy to make that information available to everyone,"" Brown wrote. We decided to look for ancestors in Scott Brown’s family tree who were either born in New Hampshire or developed significant ties to the state early in life. This provides some wiggle room to count ancestors who weren’t born in New Hampshire, but could fairly say they’re ""from"" the state. Tracing Brown’s roots There have been a few attempts to trace Brown’s family history. One of the most notable was conducted by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, which documented that Brown shares a common ancestor with President Barack Obama. A genealogist named Robert Battle also provided a thorough sketch of Brown’s ancestry online. This served as a jumping-off point for our own research, pointing us to some useful birth, death and marriage records, town histories and genealogy publications. In his autobiography, published in 2011, Brown wrote that he knows little about his father’s side of the family. His parents both married and divorced four times, and Brown’s relationship with his father, Claude Bruce Brown, was strained. Brown writes that his father likely grew up in Pennsylvania, and says that he doesn’t know much about his grandfather. ""If you offered me a million dollars, I couldn't tell you anything about my father's father, not even his name,"" Brown wrote. For this reason, we didn’t consider him to be from New Hampshire and didn’t delve into Brown’s father’s side of the family. However, on his mother’s side of the family, Brown provides some useful details. His maternal grandfather, Philip Rugg, came from New Hampshire, growing up in Portsmouth. He moved to Cambridge, Mass. to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then became an electrical engineer working for Boston Edison. Brown’s grandmother, Bertha Louise (Coleman) Rugg hailed from Newington, and had ancestors who farmed in New Hampshire, according to Brown. Over the years, both grandparents were mentioned numerous times in The Portsmouth Herald, the daily newspaper covering the Seacoast area of New Hampshire and Maine. Their obituaries also provided the names of numerous relatives. Going back nine generations, we found that at least eight of Scott Brown’s ancestors resided in New Hampshire. One prominent branch of his family dates to 17th-century immigrant Francis Mathews, who sailed from Devonshire, England, to the area that became New Hampshire. Mathews bought land near the mouth of the Oyster River, which remained in the family’s possession for several generations. A burial ground known as Mathes Cemetery is located in the area, which is now called Durham Point. In their ""History of the Town of Durham, New Hampshire,"" authors Everett S. Stackpole and Winthrop S. Meserve wrote that it is ""doubtless"" Mathews traveled to New Hampshire in 1634 as part of the colony established by Captain John Mason. Mason secured a grant to settle the area that became New Hampshire as an English colony in 1623, according to Wesley Balla, director of collections and exhibitions at the New Hampshire Historical Society. Mason coined the name ""New Hampshire"" for the territory, which included an arc of land stretching 60 miles inland from the Maine border, between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers. A map created around 1670 of the ""Pascatway River"" -- as it was known then -- shows the area where the Mathews family land was located, which would have been inside the boundaries of Mason’s New Hampshire colony. Scott Brown is related to the great-great-grandson of Francis Mathews, Valentine Mathes (a spelling used by many of his descendants), who was born around 1720, in the area that is now Durham. He died there in 1814. Another one of Brown’s ancestors -- Joshua Crommett -- became established in Durham around the same time. Crommett’s family arrived in Durham and Lee in the 17th century, and he served as a Durham selectman from 1765-1772. Brown is also linked with a pair of families who lived in Dover, N.H.: Samuel and Mary Varney, who married in 1736; and William and Hannah Hussey. Their children, Timothy Varney and Abigail Hussey, both wed in New Hampshire, but later relocated to Berwick, Maine. Brown’s own biography If you tally it up, it’s clear that Brown has ancestors who go back nine generations in New Hampshire. This is true of the Mathes and Crommett families. Their descendants can be traced living in the area of Durham, Portsmouth and Newington. But how should we characterize Brown’s relationship with the state? After all, he implicitly includes himself in that unbroken link of nine generations. The reality is that it’s more ambiguous whether Brown or his mother can accurately claim to be ""from New Hampshire"" themselves, since they spent large parts of their lives living outside of the state. Brown’s grandparents, Philip and Bertha Rugg, left New Hampshire long before his mother was born. They were living in Wakefield, Mass. at the time, and remained there until they were in their 60s. When he was touring the Portsmouth Herald newsroom in 1972, Philip Rugg told a reporter that he lived most of his life in Massachusetts. That also appears to be true of Scott Brown’s mother. Born Judith A. Rugg, she was delivered May 9, 1938 at the hospital in Melrose, Mass., which is now known as Melrose-Wakefield Hospital. Although she lives in New Hampshire now, Brown’s mother confirmed during an interview that she was born and raised in Massachusetts. Brown also documented this in his book, writing that his mother grew up in a family home on Eastern Avenue in Wakefield, Mass. Judith Rugg graduated from Wakefield High School in 1956, then went to work at an Oldsmobile dealership in town for about one year, according to an article published in The Portsmouth Herald. She was working as a hostess and cashier in Hampton Beach, N.H., when she met Brown’s father during the summer of 1957, at age 19. In his book, Brown wrote that his mother was working ""in a restaurant along the thin slip of New Hampshire shoreline, with its clam chowder joints and seasonal souvenir stores."" His father was stationed at the nearby Pease Air Force Base. The couple wed on Nov. 23, 1957, and moved into one of the rental homes near downtown Portsmouth owned by Brown’s grandfather. Scott Brown was a New Hampshire resident at birth. He was born at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, just over the New Hampshire border, on Sept. 12, 1959. Brown spent the early months of his life in New Hampshire, but was younger than one year old when his parents split up. According to Brown’s book, his mother left Claude Bruce Brown and relocated to Wakefield, Mass. when she began to suspect he was breaking their marriage vows. Scott Brown and his mother lived in Massachusetts for the remainder of his childhood, moving around to 17 homes by the time he was 18. They lived for a time with his grandparents on Eastern Avenue, but left within a year or two and moved into the first of ""many anonymous places"" Brown and his mother would live, according to Brown’s book. They were living on Avon Street in Wakefield when Brown's mother met her second husband, Dan Sullivan. The family moved to Revere, Mass., but returned to Wakefield by the time Brown was entering junior high school. Brown devoted his time to athletics, playing basketball at Wakefield High School, from which he graduated in 1977. He went on to study Tufts University in Massachusetts, graduating in 1981, and earned a degree from Boston College Law School in 1985. Brown's grandparents eventually left Wakefield and returned to Portsmouth, and his visits with them became less frequent, according to his book. Meanwhile, Brown's biological father lived in Newburyport, Mass., where he remarried and would eventually become a town official. Judith Brown moved back to New Hampshire several years ago, although it’s not clear exactly when. A trust in her name has owned the home in Hampton where she resides since 2004. Our ruling Brown said he is ""ninth generation from New Hampshire."" For the most part, this is true: Brown’s New Hampshire lineage connects his grandmother to some of the region’s earliest European inhabitants. In fact, one of Brown’s ancestors, Francis Mathews, came to the New World in 1634 specifically to help settle the territory that became New Hampshire. But this isn’t the only relevant fact to consider. Brown’s statement can also be interpreted to mean that Brown counts himself as part of an unbroken line of ancestors who are ""from"" New Hampshire. It’s clear that Brown and his mother spent much of their lives in Massachusetts. The family connection to New Hampshire weakened after the birth of Brown’s grandmother, Bertha Rugg, who moved to Massachusetts and raised her daughter -- Brown’s mother -- in the Bay State. Brown himself stated in a press release sent this week that ""I have lived in Massachusetts for most of my life,"" and his trademark pickup truck parked outside a GOP fundraiser in Nashua on Dec. 19 still had Massachusetts license plates. Bottom line: It’s clear that New Hampshire is the ancestral home of many of Brown’s relatives, but it’s a stretch to say that Brown and his mother are ""from New Hampshire."" The statement is partially accurate."
|
9213
|
New apps designed to reduce depression and anxiety as easily as checking your phone
|
This release on a suite of smartphone apps designed to reduce depression and anxiety comes from a prestigious university and was funded by the National Institutes of Health. Issued under embargo, an emailed version of the release pitched journalists with the titillating subject heading: “Depression Apps as Fast as Finding Good Sushi.” But if Northwestern University wants us to think of this app as the Yelp of depression treatment, it will need to serve up more convincing evidence than what was provided in this skimpy news release. After all, treating depression is a little more complicated than locating a good California roll, and we expect to see substantial backing for the suggestion that these apps work as well as clinician-delivered psychotherapy or antidepressant medication. The release’s comparison of the app to medication is fatally flawed because more than half of the participants were already taking antidepressants when they enrolled in the study, and about 20% were receiving psychotherapy. How much of the benefit was due to the app and how much to these or other factors is impossible to say. Bottom line: while the release deserves some credit for highlighting one major weakness of the study — the lack of a control group — it didn’t mention other key limitations or adequately describe the scope of the benefits seen. Like the sushi lovers courted in the subject heading, anyone feasting on this release is likely to be hungry again in an hour — if not sooner. People are being pitched on new health-related smartphone apps on a weekly basis. By now, almost everyone is aware that that they can access health interventions via the Internet and one would hope these apps are becoming more evidence-driven. Efforts such as Northwestern’s to give more people access to coping tools while assessing their effectiveness is laudable and forward-looking. It’s even more impressive when considering that there’s scant evidence to back up claims made by scores of developers of apps for people who need help dealing with anxiety and depression. According to an April 2016 feature article in Nature, “But the bare fact is that most apps haven’t been tested at all. A 2013 review identified more than 1,500 depression-related apps in commercial app stores but just 32 published research papers on the subject. In another study published that year, Australian researchers applied even more stringent criteria, searching the scientific literature for papers that assessed how commercially available apps affected mental-health symptoms or disorders. They found eight papers on five different apps.”
|
mixture
|
depression,Northwestern University,smartphone apps
|
The release notes that there is no cost associated with downloading the Intellicare apps. But because Intellicare is part of “a national research study” the researchers request that users provide “confidential feedback” weekly to help them further develop the system. Some people may not be comfortable sharing personal data over the internet, with good reason. The release makes several claims but doesn’t back them up with data. For example: “13 novel mini-apps reduced depression and anxiety by nearly 50 percent in a preliminary research study” What kind of depression and anxiety are we talking about here? Feeling a little blue or so severely depressed you can’t get out of bed? Which tools were used to measure or rate participants’ level of depression or anxiety? “participants reporting significantly less depression and anxiety by using the apps on their smartphones up to four times a day” Again, what does “significantly” refer to? “The short-term study-related reductions are comparable to results expected in clinical practice using psychotherapy or with that seen using antidepressant medication.” Claiming that using the apps for 8 weeks is comparable to a similar period of psychotherapy or antidepressant use is unfounded without a randomized clinical trial. The study itself notes that 64% of participants were taking antidepressant medication, and 22% were receiving psychotherapy, when they enrolled in the study. Although there’s little harm associated with using any app on the face of it, relying on an app instead of seeking professional help could be harmful. The release should have acknowledged this, and done a better job of explaining who is most likely to be helped by a smartphone app and which individuals have symptoms severe enough to warrant seeking professional medical assistance. There are many different types of depression that range in severity. The National Institute of Mental Health describes several — seasonal affective disorder, persistent depressive disorder, major depressive disorder, psychotic depression, postpartum depression. The release notes that 96 of the 105 initial volunteers completed the study and that participants received coaching (including phone calls and texts) during the 8 week study. But it didn’t explain that maybe it was this human coaching, and not the apps per se, that was at least partly responsible for the benefits seen in the study. The researchers acknowledge in their manuscript that “we cannot disentangle the effects of the coaching and the apps.” The release also could have done a better job of highlighting the limitations of such a short study. Will users get bored with the app and see their depression/anxiety return when they stop using it? We’ll give credit to the release, however, for nicely describing a major weakness of the study. It states: “The preliminary study did not include a control arm, so it’s possible that some people who enrolled in the trial would have improved anyway, partly because they may have been motivated to try something new, Mohr said.” The release doesn’t go overboard describing the prevalence of depression in our society. It reasonably states, “More than 20 percent of Americans have significant symptoms of depression or anxiety each year, but only around 20 percent of people with a mental health problem get adequate treatment.” The release notes that the study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The release states that over the course of 8 weeks, participants experienced improvements similar to what people with depression or anxiety would find through psychotherapy or medication. But again,how can such a comparison be made when 64% of participants were already taking antidepressant medication, and 22% were receiving psychotherapy, when they enrolled in the study? The release invites people to download the apps for free. The releases says, “Most apps designed for mental health typically offer a single strategy to feel better or provide too many features that make them difficult to navigate. Users may get bored or overwhelmed and may stop using the apps after a few weeks.” This statement doesn’t adequately explain why the same problems wouldn’t apply to the apps described in the release. (After all, the study was only 8 weeks long.) Nor are we told how these apps differ from the thousands of others on the market. The release doesn’t rely on sensational language, although the sushi analogy was ill-advised.
|
2446
|
United Nations reports 'dramatic' progress in fight against AIDS.
|
The global rate of HIV infection and the number of AIDS-related deaths have been dramatically reduced, thanks to expanding access to treatment, the United Nations said in a report issued on Monday.
|
true
|
Health News
|
In its annual update on HIV, which it said now infects around 35.3 million people worldwide, UNAIDS said deaths from AIDS and HIV infection rates were falling, while the number of people getting treatment is going up. AIDS-related deaths in 2012 fell to 1.6 million, down from 1.7 million in 2011 and a peak of 2.3 million in 2005. And the number of people newly infected with the disease dropped to 2.3 million in 2012 down from 2.5 million in 2011. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS can be transmitted via blood, breast milk and by semen during sex, but can be kept in check with cocktails of drugs known as antiretroviral treatment or therapy. By the end of 2012, some 9.7 million people in poorer and middle-income countries had access to such AIDS drugs, an increase of nearly 20 percent in a year. Since 2001, the U.N. report said, there has been a 52 percent drop in annual new HIV infections among children and a 33 percent reduction in newly infected adults and children combined. In 2011, UN member states agreed to a target of getting HIV treatment to 15 million people by 2015. As countries scaled up treatment coverage and as evidence showed how treating HIV early also reduces its spread, the World Health Organization set new guidelines this year, expanding the number of people needing treatment by more than 10 million. Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS’ executive director, said the international community should aim to surpass the 2015 goal. “Not only can we meet the 2015 target of 15 million people on HIV treatment, we must also go beyond and have the vision and commitment to ensure no one is left behind,” he said in a statement with Monday’s report. The UNAIDS report found that despite a flattening in donor funding for HIV, which has remained near 2008 levels, individual countries’ domestic spending on the epidemic has increased, accounting for 53 percent of global HIV resources in 2012. Total funding for the global fight against HIV and AIDS in 2012 was $18.9 billion, about $3 billion to $5 billion short of the estimated $22 billion to $24 billion needed annually by 2015.
|
11163
|
Dessert, Laid-Back and Legal
|
The story offers good context – starting with a recollection of over-the-counter melatonin claims that were “the rage” among frequent fliers back in the ’90s. And reminding readers that “promoters of these are appealing to people who think it’s better to do things outside of the medical establishment.” It can be a public service to do this kind of reporting when new fad products are promoted without evidence of safety or effectiveness.
|
true
|
New York Times
|
The story includes some pricing estimates for these products. The story is clear that – despite the claims made by some who stand to profit – there is no quantifiable information about benefits documented about these products. And there’s this closing skepticism from Dr. Lewy: “he was not sure that their other purportedly sleep-inducing ingredients like valerian root work and partly because food delays rather than hastens the absorption of melatonin.” The story explains that dessert makers “are marketing their products as a harmless way to promote relaxation.” While harms are not quantified, it’s clear from the story’s discussions about regulatory questions why that’s impossible to do right now. The harms mentioned are largely hypothetical in that there isn’t good evidence documenting these problems. But the story does a good job in painting, with broad strokes, what might go wrong if one uses these products. The story shows how evidence is elusive, partially due to the lack of regulatory clarity about the products in question. No disease-mongering in this story. Several independent experts – independent of the product manufacturers – were quoted. Not applicable. It isn’t possible to compare existing alternatives to these products because there is no information documenting efficacy of the products. The widening availability of these products is eminently clear from the story. And the fact that melatonin has not approved by the FDA as a food additive is explained. The relative novelty of these products – and their spread – is clear from the story. It’s clear that the story did NOT rely on a news release.
|
1780
|
Obesity research takes high-tech twist at Florida school.
|
Freshmen at Florida’s Lakewood High School lined up against gold and black gymnasium mats on Friday to have their height and weight measured, an assessment to launch a novel study on fighting teenage obesity with trendy new technology.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Researchers affiliated with Johns Hopkins Medicine, whose network includes a Florida children’s hospital near the school, plan to use results of the screening to select about 50 overweight students and track their activity levels using the Fitbit, a connected wristband. Wearable technology, expected to take off next year when Apple Inc introduces its health-oriented Apple Watch, has shown mixed promise in research. Yet medical literature has little to say about the effectiveness in adolescents, whose obesity rates have quadrupled in the last 30 years, with nearly one in five now being obese, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It’s cool. You can wear it and it measures your activity,” said Dr. Raquel Hernandez, lead researcher and an assistant professor of pediatrics at John Hopkins Medical School, who works at All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. “It also can help the student know what they really are doing,” she added. Students will synch their wristbands to MyFitnessPal, an app that can also track their daily diet. Researchers are using Fitbit tracking to examine sleep patterns as well. When a youngster’s activity level drops, researchers can send a cell phone text or Twitter message, with real-time tips on a healthy excursion or snack. Funded by a $100,000 grant from the philanthropic arm of insurer Florida Blue, the school-based program eliminates the need to talk teenagers into trekking to the doctor’s office. “We are coming right to where they are,” said program coordinator Janelle Garcia, a health educator who hopes to expand nationally if successful. “The goal is to test the feasibility.” The focus is not on weight loss, but teaching healthy habits at a critical age. Obese adolescents are much more likely to become obese adults, and run the health risks of developing diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Students will meet with nutrition counselors and fitness experts twice a week, as well as attend after-school sessions with a psychologist focused on behavioral change. Such counseling is key, said Corby Martin, an associate professor at Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center. Simply wearing a fitness wristband doesn’t guarantee that adults will shed pounds, research has shown. “The proliferation and availability of these devices and apps doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to miraculously help you lose body weight, increase your activity and be healthier. That takes a lot of work,” said Martin, a spokesman for the Obesity Society, a scientific organization. Teenagers and their parents may be reluctant to talk about weight problems, the Florida researchers acknowledge. “We are fully aware that this may make some families uncomfortable,” said Hernandez, who hopes an accompanying schoolwide health initiative will destigmatize the topic. On Friday morning, 14-year-old Sierra Mieczkowski saw little downside as she arrived for a height and weight check and slipped off her black sneakers, revealing mismatched socks. The ninth-grader, who does not know whether she will be selected for the study, said she tries to eat well and takes frequent walks with her father. But with a wearable fitness tracker, “I could see how much I’m doing,” she said, adding “and know how much I can improve.”
|
37000
|
Ann Coulter, a conservative commentator and author, said immigrants who are blind or are in wheelchairs should not be granted citizenship.
|
Ann Coulter Suggests Denying Citizenship to Blind, Disabled Immigrants
|
true
|
Politics
|
This one is true. Ann Coulter made the remarks during a June 2015 appearance on the Simon Conway Show, a syndicated talk radio program. Coulter was talking about the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) waiving citizenship requirements when she said: “The INS is waiving many English-language requirements for immigrants. And that obviously goes to the heart of it: Are you switching allegiances? Do you love this country? Beyond that, how about the wheelchair only section, how about the section for the blind? Look, we wish these people well, but we’re not running a charity here. It’s insane for any country not to be using its immigration policies to bring in people who are better than us, not people who are going to immediately need taxpayer assistance. We already have our own poor people. And, again, this includes all the immigrants who have come in forever and are here now. It’s people who live in America we should be taking care of, not bringing in people we have to help.” It’s not clear what Ann Coulter is referencing when she talks about a “wheelchair only section” and a “section for the blind.” But, in the past, immigrants who were unable to complete a naturalization interview, a naturalization test and take an oath of allegiance due to a physical disability were unable to be become naturalized citizens. That policy came to light during the 1990s. A 25-year-old immigrant from India who had lived in the U.S. since she was a baby was denied citizenship because she had cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy and other illnesses that made it impossible for her to recite the oath of allegiance. President Clinton signed a bipartisan bill into law in 2000 that granted a waiver to immigrants who qualified for citizenship but were unable to complete the process because of a disability.
|
15528
|
Since 2010, eight children in Georgia have died due to vehicular heatstroke.
|
Gov. Nathan Deal held a press conference Wednesday to raise public awareness of the potential dangers of leaving a child alone in a car. He and other state officials have been doing similar events since 2012, following the tragic death of a 2-year-old girl. The governor cited statistics showing that since 2010, eight children in Georgia have died due to vehicular heatstroke. The death count is accurate and makes the case that without vigilance on the part of parents and caregivers, there’s the potential for tragedy.
|
true
|
Georgia, Children, Nathan Deal,
|
"Editor's note: This fact-check was updated after it first published to included corrected information from the state on one child death. A year ago this month, hearts across Atlanta collectively sank. Dominating the news last June 18 were reports that a 22-month-old Cobb County boy had been left in the back seat of his family’s locked SUV and had been found unresponsive nearly eight hours later. His dad, Justin Ross Harris, would tell family he thought he had dropped off young Ross at daycare before parking the SUV and going into work for the day. Police would later say the dad’s account didn’t add up. Harris, who has denied any wrongdoing, is awaiting trial on several charges, including malice murder. His boy is now part of the statistics that state officials used Wednesday in their ongoing campaign to raise public awareness of the potential dangers of leaving a child alone in a car, especially in the hot Georgia summer. ""Since 2010, eight children in Georgia have died due to vehicular heatstroke,"" Gov. Nathan Deal said at a press conference outside the state Capitol. The governor, first lady Sandra Deal and a contingent of state leaders gathered to promote a new public service video that encourages parents and caregivers to ""look again"" before they leave their vehicle to make sure they are not leaving a child behind. PolitiFact Georgia decided to look deeper into the stats Deal cited on child deaths caused by heatstroke. But first a little background. Annually, since the death of 2-year-old Jasmine Green in 2011, state officials have used the kickoff of summer to launch a public campaign to remind the public of the dangers of leaving a child in a hot, closed vehicle. Jasmine was found dead in a day care center van that had returned from a field trip to a Chuck E. Cheese in Jonesboro. Authorities said she had apparently fallen asleep between the seats of the van, and staff didn’t notice she was missing from the center for more than two hours. The state agency that oversees child care centers received 17 reports in fiscal 2013, 18 reports in fiscal 2014 and four reports in fiscal 2015 of children being left in vehicles by child care providers. ""We receive calls about incidents where children are left in vehicles from a few minutes to several hours, and we investigate each incident,"" Amy M. Jacobs, the commissioner of Bright from the Start: Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), said Wednesday. ""While, thankfully, we have not seen any heatstroke-related deaths in child care centers since 2011, these dangerous close calls are completely unacceptable,"" she said. So what about those stats? We contacted DECAL, which provided us information on the eight Georgia deaths. In addition to the deaths of Ross and Jasmine, they include: *a 2-year-old Clarkston girl who was apparently trapped inside her mother’s car for more than an hour in 2014; * a 5-month-old girl was left in the family car outside a Kennesaw day school for five hours in 2011; * a 3-year-old Warner Robins boy left in a car outside a family day care for an hour in 2011; * a 3-year-old Canton girl left outside a church in 2010 for an unknown amount of time in the family minivan; *a 6-year-old girl from Evans who gained access to the family car in her garage for an undetermined amount of time in 2010. *an 18-month-old Monroe County boy was left in 2010 in the family van at an elementary school for seven or eight hours. Nationally, 639 children -- or an average of 37 per year -- died from heatstroke after being left in a vehicle between 1998 and 2014, according to data compiled by Jan Null with the Department of Meteorology & Climate Science at San Jose University. In that same time period, Georgia had 22 deaths, Florida 68, Alabama 14 and South Carolina 9. Our ruling Gov. Nathan Deal held a press conference Wednesday to raise public awareness of the potential dangers of leaving a child alone in a car. He and other state officials have been doing similar events since 2012, following the tragic death of a 2-year-old girl. The governor cited statistics showing that since 2010, eight children in Georgia have died due to vehicular heatstroke. The death count is accurate and makes the case that without vigilance on the part of parents and caregivers, there’s the potential for tragedy."
|
7918
|
Gilead puts emergency access to experimental coronavirus drug on hold amid surging demand.
|
Gilead Sciences Inc said on Sunday it was temporarily putting new emergency access to its experimental coronavirus drug remdesivir on hold due to overwhelming demand and that it wanted most people receiving the drug to participate in a clinical trial to prove if it is safe and effective.
|
true
|
Health News
|
The drugmaker said in a statement there had been an exponential increase in so-called compassionate-use requests for the drug. The spread of the virus in Europe and the United States has “flooded an emergency treatment access system that was set up for very limited access to investigational medicines and never intended for use in response to a pandemic,” it said. Gilead said it would keep processing previously approved requests. Remdesivir has been touted by many - including President Donald Trump - as one of the more promising potential treatments for the virus. The company said it was shifting from a system of individual compassionate-use requests to expanded access programs, which it expects will start in a similar time frame that new requests for compassionate use would have been processed. Gilead said it would make exceptions for pregnant women and children under 18 with severe COVID-19, the highly contagious respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. “Enrollment in clinical trials is the primary way to access remdesivir to generate critical data that inform the appropriate use of this investigational medicine,” Gilead said. There are currently no approved treatments or preventive vaccines for COVID-19. Researchers are studying existing treatments and working on experimental ones, but most current patients receive only supportive care such as breathing assistance. Other potential treatments - like malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine - are in short supply as demand has surged with the rapid spread of the outbreak. Some states have already taken steps to limit prescriptions of the drugs to those who need them most.
|
28498
|
Farmers are injecting fruits and vegetables with the human hormone oxytocin to enhance their growth and appearance.
|
What's true: Nearly all reports of of farmers injecting fruits and vegetables with oxytocin originate from India, where a number of documented incidents have, in part, prompted a government effort to crackdown on oxytocin’s illegal agricultural uses. What's false: The practice, which is illegal in both India and around the world, does not appear to be widespread outside of India, and no available scientific studies rigorously demonstrate how common its use is in India (or anywhere else).
|
mixture
|
Food, agriculture, farming, food safety
|
On 28 July 2010, the Hindustan Times reported on an e-mail sent from the Indian Minister of Health to other lawmakers, warning of the dangers of farmers’ using the animal hormone oxytocin to boost the size and appearance of their produce: [Minister for Health Dinesh] Trivedi wants states to crack down on the illegal use of the prescription drug Oxytocin in fruit and vegetable — a drug that can cause headaches, dizziness, confusion, seizures, heart disorders, sterility, nervous breakdowns and memory loss when taken over time. Any kind of chemical ripening of fruit is prohibited under the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules. “Farmers are blatantly using hormone shots to speed up the growth of their vegetables. These hormones may cause irreparable damage to our health, if taken through these vegetables, over a period of time. […] Even more shocking is that the public/authorities are not aware of this malpractice,” wrote Trivedi in a letter to Union Health Secretary Sujatha Rao. A human hormone implicated in a variety of functions related to mood, childbirth, and lactation, oxytocin (which is also distributed as a prescription medicine) has a lengthy and storied history as an illegal additive to dairy products all around the globe, including the United States. Limited research, however, indicates that the hormone could play a role in enhancing plant growth as well, albeit through mechanisms that are not yet fully understood. Although other reports have come from India concerning the practice of injecting oxytocin into produce aside from this July 2010 incident (including headline-making news from as recently as 2015 when some paddy farmers were reported to be using it to salvage crops in the face of drought), much of the scientific and popular coverage on the topic of oxytocin injection ultimately references the aforementioned 2010 reporting. The coverage includes references made in a 2013 study authored by Indian researchers, who developed a chemical test for the presence of oxytocin in food based on that concern. Their study argued that “oxytocin is one of the most frequently used adulterants added in vegetables and fruits for increasing the growth rate.” Because these studies rely primarily, and sometimes solely, on the 2010 statements made by Trivedi, it is difficult (from a scientific standpoint) to assess the claim that oxytocin is “one of the most frequently used” adulturents in fruit and vegetables, but it is clear at the very least that the practice has been employed in India to some extent. More recently, in September 2016, millennial-targeted Indian media outfit India101 sent undercover reporters to what was described as a farm outside of New Delhi, where a farmer discussed and demonstrated the various practices used to ensure more profitable crops. The three-minute segment included this report: The shocking revelations of a vegetable farmer just outside New Delhi show us the additives, injections and sprays used to make old vegetables look fresh. And according to him, he isn’t the only one. All farmers do this, he says. With rising inflation and families to feed, he says poor farmers such as himself are left with no option when consumers reject even fresh, hygienic vegetables. Oxytocin injections are pumped directly into vegetables like bottle gourd, making them swell in size overnight. What would otherwise have taken a week to mature, is now ready to be shipped to the market overnight. Illegal use of oxytocin in agriculture has more recently been a large enough problem for the government of India to take action. A 14 July 2017 Hindustan Times article reported that the Indian government would be cracking down on the manufacturing and production of oxytocin in an effort to reduce its misuse in farming, although the primary focus of that effort appears to appears to target the dairy sector and not fruit or vegetable farmers: To check the wide misuse of the … hormone oxytocin, India plans to restrict its manufacturing, sale and distribution in the public sector. Oxytocin … is a naturally-occurring hormone that causes uterine contractions during labour and helps new mums lactate. Its misuse is widespread in the dairy industry where livestock are injected with oxytocin to make them release milk at a time convenient to farmers. The hormone is also used to increase the size of vegetables such as pumpkins, watermelons, brinjals, gourds and cucumbers. Oxytocin (depending on how much it might remain in a fruit or vegetable at the time of ingestion) can produce myriad negative health consequences: When excess of oxytocin is found to be present in edibles it may cause headache, nausea, abdominal pain, drowsiness, etc. to the consumer. Claims of oxytocin laced vegetables reappeared on the Internet in full force thanks to an abridged version of the India101 video posted to Facebook in January 2018. This video presented, without context, the claims of an Indian farmer in a way that implied the practice of oxytocin injection was widespread and global, a conclusion we cannot quantitatively vet at this time. We reached out to Linda Harris, chair of the Food Science and Technology department at the University of California, Davis, and she told us: Nobody I asked has heard of this practice alluded to in the US or Mexico. One of the big costs in U.S. agriculture is labor. I am not an economist but would suspect that here fertilizers and proper production management would far outweigh any potential benefit of this type of concept. Because the practice has been documented at least anecdotally in India, we rank the claim that farmers use oxytocin injections on fruit and vegetables as a mixture. Though a few claims of the practice exist outside of India, it is unclear how widespread this practice actually might be.
|
16225
|
"As a result of Obamacare, ""California seniors face benefit cuts of over $1,700."
|
"American Crossroads said that as a result of Obamacare, ""California seniors face benefit cuts of over $1,700."" First of all, this claim is misleading because it makes it seem like all seniors will face these cuts, when the statistic actually refers to Medicare Advantage enrollees -- only about one-third of seniors. The statistic comes from a report that assumes all reductions in Medicare Advantage spending results in fewer benefits for enrollees. While insurance providers feel the cuts, there are multiple ways for them to respond other than reducing benefits, such as trimming administrative costs. We heard from multiple experts and researchers who said Medicare Advantage benefits have remained stable. The ad also leaves out the fact that the federal health care law expanded Medicare’s minimum required benefits and established incentives for Advantage plans to provide extra benefits. It’s possible that some Medicare Advantage enrollees could see their benefits shrink, but this ad blows that possibility out of proportion and ignores important context."
|
false
|
National, Federal Budget, Health Care, Medicare, Message Machine 2014, American Crossroads,
|
"Even though Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., wasn’t in office when Obamacare passed, a pro-Republican ad in California’s seventh congressional district is using the law to attack him. Bera is running against Republican Doug Ose for a second term, and it’s a tight race. Less than six months into his first term, Bera voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act, and American Crossroads, Karl Rove’s conservative political action committee, used this fact to appeal to California seniors in a recent ad. ""Bera voted to keep Obamacare, which cut $716 billion from Medicare, slashing Medicare Advantage,"" the ad’s narrator says. ""Now California seniors face benefit cuts of over $1,700."" Many times, we’ve rated the claim that there are $716 billion in Medicare cuts as Half True. But we hadn’t heard claims about specific benefit cuts by state before, so we decided to check it out. We found that the claim that California seniors will see $1,700 in benefit cuts as a result of the Affordable Care Act is misleading. The statistic comes from a report that ignores critical context and evidence that the law has expanded Medicare’s benefits packages. Advantages We should first note that the statistic comes from an April 2014 report by the American Action Forum, and they have a stake in the election. The American Action Forum is an arm of the American Action Network, which is a conservative political nonprofit with financial ties to the Koch brothers. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the group shares office space with American Crossroads -- the group that produced the very ad we’re checking. Now to the claim. The ad makes it sound like all California seniors will face cuts to this degree. However, the report only addresses Medicare Advantage. About one-third of seniors use Medicare Advantage, which is a private coverage option. Medicare Advantage plans are required to provide at minimum the same array of benefits as traditional Medicare. Many Advantage plans offer extra benefits -- things like gym memberships, vision exams or generous cost-sharing -- that have contributed to escalating program costs. The creators of Medicare Advantage thought that letting seniors choose plans from private insurance providers would be more cost-effective than traditional Medicare. But Advantage has turned out to be more expensive. Medicare paid insurers about 114 percent more for Advantage plans than for traditional plans, as of 2009 before enactment of the federal health care law. The law attempted to close that gap in part by gradually reducing how much Medicare pays Advantage plan providers. It was estimated that its changes would slow down spending on Medicare by about $716 billion over 10 years, and Medicare Advantage cost-saving measures accounted for about one-third of that. (Though the Obama administration has reversed these cuts for the past two years -- facing pressure from insurance providers, Republicans and some Democrats, including Bera.) Critics argue that the cuts will force insurance providers to reduce the benefits they offer to Medicare Advantage enrollees. However, Medicare Advantage plans are still required to offer, at minimum, the same level of benefits as traditional plans. And Obamacare includes language protecting that set of guaranteed benefits from shrinking. In fact, the law expanded Medicare’s required benefits to include certain preventative services, annual visits, closing a gap in prescription coverage and more. Additionally, the law rewards Medicare Advantage providers with financial bonuses to encourage quality and cost-efficiency. Providers are required to use the bonuses to offer extra benefits, attracting more enrollees. Nearly all Medicare Advantage plan providers received these bonuses in 2012, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. A matter of speculation It’s possible that Medicare Advantage providers could respond to their pay cut by reducing benefits, but the only benefits they could cut would be those extra benefits that go beyond Medicare plan requirements. ""It's not automatic and won't affect every (Advantage) enrollee or any of the (traditional Medicare) enrollees,"" said Dylan Roby, an expert in health economics at the University of California Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research. Insurance providers could also respond to lower payments by offering the same benefits while operating more efficiently. They could cut administrative costs, adjust cost-sharing plans, take in less profit or drop out of the market altogether. But, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Department of Health and Human Services and more, insurance providers’ response to the cuts has been less dramatic than was expected when Obama signed the legislation in 2010. In fact, Medicare Advantage enrollment is at an all-time high, and the percentage of plans with four or more stars in the program’s five-star rating system is increasing. ""When Congress debated the payment reductions in 2010, forecasters and analysts also projected that reductions would drive insurers to raise premiums, cut extra benefits and even pull out of the Medicare Advantage market,"" Kaiser experts wrote in May. ""Thus far, however, the response by insurers to the (Affordable Care Act) cuts has been more muted."" Health and Human Services reported in fall 2013 that ""The average number of plan choices will remain about the same in 2014 and access to supplemental benefits remains stable. Since passage of the Affordable Care Act, average MA premiums are down by 9.8 percent."" Experts also told us that they haven’t seen evidence of reduced Medicare Advantage cuts. ""The evidence is that plan participation has been stable, premiums have been stable or even a little bit lower, and there are no overall changes in the benefits provided,"" said Jack Hoadley, a research professor at Georgetown University and a member of the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. ""In my view, the claims in this advertisement are misleading,"" Hoadley added. ""Seniors have not faced benefit cuts in Medicare Advantage, even though the plans (and providers) have to manage with somewhat lower payments."" So how did the American Action forum report come up with their estimated benefit cut figures? The American Action Forum report breaks down the reduction in Medicare payments to Advantage plan providers by state and county. It says, compared to pre-Obamacare, Medicare Advantage benefits in California are down $1,718 per beneficiary. We asked several experts to take a look at the report, and they told us that it is misleading because it assumes that Obamacare’s spending reductions directly results in reduced benefits. Yes, Obamacare reduces Medicare’s spending per Advantage beneficiary, but this does not necessarily mean fewer benefits for seniors with Advantage plans. Like we said before, there are multiple ways that an insurance provider can deal with the spending cuts other than slimming down its offerings. ""To immediately treat it as a cut to benefits is an exaggeration,"" said Judith Feder, a professor of health policy at Georgetown University. Our ruling American Crossroads said that as a result of Obamacare, ""California seniors face benefit cuts of over $1,700."" First of all, this claim is misleading because it makes it seem like all seniors will face these cuts, when the statistic actually refers to Medicare Advantage enrollees -- only about one-third of seniors. The statistic comes from a report that assumes all reductions in Medicare Advantage spending results in fewer benefits for enrollees. While insurance providers feel the cuts, there are multiple ways for them to respond other than reducing benefits, such as trimming administrative costs. We heard from multiple experts and researchers who said Medicare Advantage benefits have remained stable. The ad also leaves out the fact that the federal health care law expanded Medicare’s minimum required benefits and established incentives for Advantage plans to provide extra benefits. It’s possible that some Medicare Advantage enrollees could see their benefits shrink, but this ad blows that possibility out of proportion and ignores important context."
|
38906
|
An undercover Planned Parenthood video claims that the group sells fetal body parts from partial birth abortions for profit.
|
Planned Parenthood Sells Body Parts for Profit
|
false
|
Health / Medical, Medical
|
An undercover Planned Parenthood video that claims the group sells body parts from abortions for profit has been disputed. Planned Parenthood said patients who seek abortions can elect to “donate tissue to scientific research.” But the organization disputes that it, or its patients, profits from those donations. The controversy started when and anti-abortion group called the Center for Medical Progress posted an undercover video on YouTube. The video reportedly showed Dr. Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services at Planned Parenthood, discussing the sale of fetal tissue and body parts with so-called “potential buyers.” One excerpt from the video — which had nearly 2 million views within days of being posted — captures a conversation between Nucatola and the two people posing as buyers over lunch: Nucatola: Every provider has had patients who want to donate their tissue, and they absolutely want to accommodate them. The just want to do it in a way that is not perceived as, “this clinic is selling tissue, this clinic is making money off of this.” Buyers: Okay, so, when you are, or the affiliate is, determining what that monetary… Nucatola: Yes Buyers: So that it doesn’t raise any question of this is what it’s about, this is the main — what price range would … Nucatola: You know, I would throw a number out, I would say it’s probably anywhere from $30 to $100, depending on the facility and what’s involved. Planned Parenthood responded with a statement that said it follows all state and federal laws related to tissue donations, and that it does not profit from them: In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different. At several of our health centers, we help patients who want to donate tissue for scientific research, and we do this just like every other high-quality health care provider does — with full, appropriate consent from patients and under the highest ethical and legal standards. There is no financial benefit for tissue donation for either the patient or for Planned Parenthood. In some instances, actual costs, such as the cost to transport tissue to leading research centers, are reimbursed, which is standard across the medical field. The Center for Medical Progress responded that Planned Parenthood had made “key admissions” in its response: Planned Parenthood makes two key admissions in their statement today: 1) aborted fetal parts are harvested at their clinics, and 2) money is exchanged in connection with this. They also tell several lies: 1) That proper consent is obtained from patients, 2) That Planned Parenthood does not make money off the body parts, and 3) that everything is legal. The Center for Medical Progress also released a flier from StemExpress, a California-based biomedical company that (the video claims) purchases fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood. The flier discusses the possibility of financial gain for clinics: StemExpress promotes global biomedical research while also providing a financial benefit to your clinic. By partnering with StemExpress, not only are you offering a way for your clients to participate in the unique opportunity to facilities life-saving research, but you will also be contributing to the fiscal growth of your own clinic. The stem cell rich blood and raw materials that are usually discarded during obstetrical procedures can, instead, be expedited through StemExpress to research laboratories with complete professionalism and source anonymity. Nucatola referenced conversations with StemExpress in the video, but she implied that there wasn’t an agreement between the groups in place at the time. Then, in a prepared statement to The Hill, Planned Parenthood said Nucatola was not discussing the sale of body parts and that reimbursements for donated tissue costs were not uncommon: “Deborah Nucatela was speculating on the range of reimbursement that patients can receive after stating they wish to donate any tissue after a procedure,” the organization wrote in a report prepared by its PR firm. “The promotional video mischaracterizing Planned Parenthood’s mission and services is made by a long time anti-abortion activist that has used deceptive and unethical video editing, and that has created a fake medical website as well as a fake human tissue website that purports to provide services to stem cell researchers,” the group wrote in a two-page statement. It also provided several pages of background research about the organization’s use of donated fetal tissue, which it describes as “humanitarian undertaking that hold the potential to cure disease, save lives, and ameliorate suffering.” Planned Parenthood and other critics of the undercover video have argued that it was a carefully edited attack by an anti-abortion group. The Center for Medical Progress (not the same as the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute) has a minimal online footprint, so little is known about the group. But David Daleiden, the group’s self-identified founder, has been a long time anti-abortion activist. In 2009, Daleiden posted another video in which he suggested during a Q&A session that Planned Parenthood had “an institutional tolerance for adult-child sexual relationships,” the Daily Beast reports. So, it’s true that Planned Parenthood donates fetal tissue to medical research. But the claim that Planned Parenthood does so illegally, or profits from it, are disputed. Comments
|
10059
|
Spinal-Fluid Test Is Found to Predict Alzheimer’s
|
Changing a few words in the headline and lead sentence of this story (or simply skipping straight to the second sentence) would have given readers a far more balanced portrayal of the results of a study of biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease, but as it stands the story is likely to mislead many readers into believing that a “100 percent accurate” test for predicting Alzheimer’s Disease is available.
|
false
|
Not only does this story fail to mention the costs of spinal taps, PET scans or other potential tests for biomarkers of early Alzheimer’s Disease, it does not alert readers to the possible financial consequences of a test indicating that a person is likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease, such as problems obtaining health, life or disability insurance, job discrimination or other consequences. Although recent federal legislation protects Americans against discrimination based on genetic information, the law does not apply to spinal taps, PET scans or other biomarker tests that do not reveal genetic information. Perhaps the NYT will pursue this as a next-day folo.
|
|
7005
|
Residents investigate cancer rates near Michigan landfill.
|
A group of residents is investigating cancer rates in a western Michigan neighborhood that’s near a contaminated landfill classified as a Superfund site.
|
true
|
Cancer, Health, Michigan, Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Pamela Anderson
|
Muskegon resident Pamela Anderson said that after hearing about numerous cases, she started a Facebook group about cancer deaths among people who live or have lived near the Butterworth landfill site in Grand Rapids. They plan to bring up the issue at a city commission meeting this week, the Grand Rapids Press reported . The group recently met with Kent County Health Department epidemiologist Brian Hartl, who advised them to collect more information on cancer rates in the area. “If there are rare forms of cancer, or cancers we’re seeing affect a young population, it might trigger further investigation,” Hartl said. But he cautioned that cancer is difficult to study, and that it can take years and multiple triggers to emerge. “Especially in small areas like a neighborhood or a block, it makes it challenging to connect it to environmental exposure,” Hartl said. “Most cancers are due to lifestyle choices, not environmental factors.” The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that theoretical cancer and health risks from the landfill exist, but that they’re limited to regular direct contact with the waste over several decades. The agency conducted a site cleanup in 1999, and removed material contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl and chromium. The EPA said there is no current exposure at the site. “A lot of those kids in the ’60s and ’70s used to play in the dump,” said Shane Smith, who grew up down the street from Anderson in the Indiana Avenue neighborhood. “It was just starting to alarm to us, because my dad’s entire generation passed away from cancer.” Anderson said she’s having the soil tested for contaminants at a home in the same neighborhood. ___ Information from: The Grand Rapids Press, http://www.mlive.com/grand-rapids
|
8391
|
Singapore reports 942 new COVID-19 cases in record daily jump.
|
Singapore’s health ministry confirmed 942 more coronavirus infections on Saturday, a new daily record, the vast majority of which are among migrant workers living in dormitories.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Authorities have managed to mitigate the spread of the virus and the COVID-19 respiratory disease it causes among Singapore’s citizens by rigorous contact tracing and surveillance, earning praise from the World Health Organization. The Ministry of Health reported just 14 cases among Singaporeans and permanent residents on Saturday. But the disease is spreading rapidly within the large migrant worker community, highlighting what rights groups say is a weak link in containment efforts. Authorities have ramped up testing for the disease in the dormitories. Saturday’s new cases takes the total in the city-state, which is under a partial lockdown, to 5,992. It has reported 11 deaths from the disease.
|
6307
|
Detroit hospital, school losing neurosurgery training permit.
|
A neurosurgery training program at a Detroit hospital has lost its accreditation, jeopardizing the status of the health system and a university medical school.
|
true
|
Detroit, Health, General News, Education, Medical schools
|
The Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education this month removed credentials from the Detroit Medical Center’s program with Wayne State University after a September site visit. The accreditation is slated to end on June 30, The Detroit News reported. Wayne State University School of Medicine Dean Jack Sobel said Thursday that the program will appeal. Neither the council nor Detroit Medical Center, also known as DMC, would comment on why the program was losing its accreditation or how it could restore its credentials. “We are going to appeal together to recreate a teaching environment, with both sides participating, that will create an optimal teaching environment,” Sobel said. The accreditation loss comes as the relationship between Wayne State and the medical center has been worsening over the past several years. The conflict has put at risk the medical attention provided to many impoverished and underserved residents in one of the nation’s poorest metropolitan cities. Sobel added that Wayne State’s top neurosurgical teaching faculty left the college to join the medical center, which then left the school without the necessary teaching credentials to run the program. “The failure of the residency is a failure of one or two teaching individuals. It’s not a conflict between DMC and Wayne State,” he said. “This is an outlier,” he said, noting that other residency programs are not at risk. Accreditation loss is rare, particularly for the seven-year residency programs in neurosurgery, with just 218 positions available nationally each year. They train physicians who perform brain and spine surgeries and treat patients with neurological ailments such as stroke, Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease. Doctors must leave accredited programs to be licensed in their specialty. Beyond the immediate impact, even a threatened loss of status can influence recruiting. The program is unlikely to rank highly among top surgical candidates who fear it is risky. The council accredits 11,000 residency programs in the U.S. This year, eight programs’ credentials have been withdrawn. ___ Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/
|
1803
|
Parks, playgrounds offer fresh air alternatives to gym workouts.
|
From park bench pushups and monkey bar lifts to open air runs, fitness experts say the workout possibilities of playgrounds and parks are worth the consideration of even the most diehard gym users.
|
true
|
Health News
|
During the warm, waning summer days, fresh air workouts offer a wealth of new ways to boost the mood, channel the inner child and even burn extra calories. Chris Freytag, a personal trainer and health coach with the American Council on Exercise, loves the gym but lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city notorious for brutal winters. “I’m a big believer in change of venue, of getting away from the same treadmill, the same spot. And there’s something about fresh air and moving in space,” said Freytag, who leads boot camp and circuit classes in parks and parking lots during the summer months. The changing terrain can also inspire the solitary exerciser to mix it up. “I’m all about hills: every time you see a hill or steps or stairs, lunge at it,” said Freytag. “Step up and down on curbs and park benches.” A child’s playground offers core-strengthening possibilities from deep plank pushups, with feet placed on swings, to training with resistance bands slung around poles, to monkey bar pull-ups, she explained. Research suggest the outdoor boost can be mental as well as physical. In a 2014 study on indoor versus outdoor activity published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being researchers analyzed national survey data from Finland. They found that nature provides an added value to the known benefits of physical activity and repeated exercise in nature is, in particular, connected to better emotional well-being. In his book “Beat the Gym,” Connecticut-based running coach and personal trainer Tom Holland said running on a treadmill is slightly easier than running on the ground. “You don’t have to deal with changing terrain, wind resistance,” he said, adding that the zero incline on most treadmills is actually slightly downhill. New York City-based personal trainer JR Allen, said the first benefit of the outdoor workout is balance. “You have to be aware of your surroundings because you could step in a pothole,” Allen said. “It is a less safe, more uncontrolled environment that is more of a strain on your body.” Allen suggests the newcomer to outdoor exercise should start with a simple walk around the neighborhood. The seasoned exerciser should head to the park for sprints, power push ups, in which hands leave the ground, and walking planks, moving side to side and back to back on hands and feet. Daniel Taylor, author of the book “Conditioning to the Core,” thinks outdoor training is great as long as people take some precautions. “People who utilize children’s playground equipment ought to double check it. Make sure bars aren’t slippery,” he said. “One of the reasons we go to the gym is it’s safe and dry.”
|
15266
|
African-American children are 500 percent more likely to die from asthma than white kids.
|
"Clinton said, ""African-American children are 500 percent — 500 percent — more likely to die from asthma than white kids."" According to a 2006 study from the CDC, she’s right. According to more recent data, she’s slightly off, but only because she has underestimated the gap: In reality, it appears that black children are seven to eight times as likely to die of asthma as white children."
|
true
|
National, Children, Health Care, Race and Ethnicity, Public Health, Hillary Clinton,
|
"In her speech to the National Urban League on July 31, Hillary Clinton presented a long list of statistics showing that racial inequality persists in the United States. Among them was this figure: ""African-American children are 500 percent — 500 percent — more likely to die from asthma than white kids."" Clinton claimed that it hit particularly close to home, as it reminded her of her time in the early 1970s working for the Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group for poor and minority children. That number surprised us, so we decided to see if it was and, if so, why. Clinton may have underestimated Asthma is a chronic lung disease — an inflammation of the airways that causes coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. Around 25 million Americans have asthma, and the rate of asthmatics has been steadily increasing since the early 1980s. While most asthmatics function normally, often using inhalers to aid them in their breathing, asthma attacks can present a serious danger, especially in young children. A 2006 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on childhood asthma data from 1980 to 2005 confirms Clinton’s claim almost verbatim: ""Compared with white children, black children have a 260 percent higher ED (Emergency Department) visit rate, a 250 percent higher hospitalization rate, and a 500 percent higher death rate from asthma."" (Clinton’s campaign confirmed that this was the source she had used.) The report also notes that even though mortality rates from asthma have decreased since 1999 for children in general, no corresponding drop has been seen in the mortality rate of African-American children. There’s also more recent data available that further confirms Clinton’s claim, and even suggests she may have understated the problem. One study from 2014 examines rates of childhood asthma in black and white children, with the most recent data from 2010. Despite making up a much smaller portion of the population, 106 black children died of asthma in 2010, compared to 68 white children. The corresponding rates of death for black and white children respectively are 8.6 per million and 1.2 per million — that means a black child is about 7.2 times more likely to die of asthma than a white child. Even among those children of each race who already had asthma, black children had a mortality rate about 3.5 times higher than white children. Notably, the study also shows that the racial disparity is not as severe for other problems with asthma; while black children have higher rates of asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations, the difference in those cases is not as large as it is with the death rate. Using CDC Wonder, a database of public health information, PolitiFact also checked the data for 2013, the last available year. In that time, 123 black children died of asthma compared to 83 white children. That corresponds to a death rate of 10.1 per million for black children and 1.5 per million for white children, which just about matches the 2010 numbers. The disparity for 2011 and 2012 was actually even greater, with the difference just about ten-fold. Why the racial disparity? According to the CDC, nobody is quite sure. ""Reasons for disparities are not well understood and are the subject of research by numerous investigators in university research centers,"" says a statement from the agency’s Air Pollution and Respiratory Health Branch. However, there are studies that provide a couple of clues. For example, one examination of trends in preventive asthma medication use from 1988 to 2008 found that black and Mexican-American children were less likely to use the medication than white children. Another study from 1997 found that inner-city children are more likely to develop allergies as a result of prolonged exposure to cockroach allergens. Since minorities are more likely to live in urban areas, this may go some way toward explaining higher rates of asthma morbidity and mortality. Our ruling Clinton said, ""African-American children are 500 percent — 500 percent — more likely to die from asthma than white kids."" According to a 2006 study from the CDC, she’s right. According to more recent data, she’s slightly off, but only because she has underestimated the gap: In reality, it appears that black children are seven to eight times as likely to die of asthma as white children."
|
8455
|
More than two million COVID-19 cases now reported worldwide: Reuters tally.
|
The number of cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide passed two million on Tuesday, according to a Reuters tally.
|
true
|
Health News
|
The total reached 2,001,548 cases after the United Kingdom reported its latest figures. It took 83 days to reach the first million cases worldwide and just 14 days for the second million. The most serious pandemic in a century has killed 131,101 people around the world, according to the tally. The epicentre has moved from China, where the new coronavirus first emerged in December, to the United States, which now has the highest death toll. Countries vary in how much they test for the respiratory disease, which can cause only mild symptoms, and the actual number of people infected is likely to be much higher than the number of recorded cases.
|
7452
|
As Europe reopens, key virus protections are still elusive.
|
Italy’s virus reopening was supposed to be accompanied by a series of measures to limit infections in the one-time epicenter of Europe’s pandemic: the distribution of millions of inexpensive surgical masks to pharmacies nationwide, a pilot project of 150,000 antibody tests and, eventually, the roll-out of a contact-tracing app.
|
true
|
AP Top News, Italy, Understanding the Outbreak, International News, General News, Health, Business, Pandemics, Technology, Virus Outbreak, Europe, Public health, Weekend Reads
|
None of these is in place as Italy experiments with its second week of loosening restrictions and looks ahead to Monday’s reopening of shops and, in some regions, bars and restaurants. Italy’s commissioner for the emergency, Domenico Arcuri, went on the defensive Tuesday to respond to mounting criticism of his Phase II roll-out. He insisted “Italians know well what to do” to protect themselves, even if they don’t have the tests, masks, contact-tracing or other measures that public health authorities deemed necessary for Italy to reopen in safety. “Sometimes I make mistakes for which I expect criticism and, if necessary, reprimand, from Italians,” Arcuri said. But he directed the blame at others and repeated that he was working solely in the public’s interest. Italy is by no means alone in emerging from lockdown without all its infection-prevention pillars in place. And no country has had a blueprint for managing either the COVID-19 outbreak or the reopening phase. But Italy’s problems epitomize the challenges many countries face as they seek to balance economic and health care needs while reassuring terrified citizens with promises that perhaps were overly optimistic. France’s pledge to “protect, test and trace” all those who come into contact with a coronavirus patient was dealt a setback Monday when the constitutional court threw out part of its new virus law. The court objected to the contact-tracing language and ordered the government to take extreme care in protecting privacy. The law, which took effect Tuesday, calls for teams of health care workers to trace the contacts of COVID-19 patients and share that data on a government server, with or without the patients’ consent. French President Emmanuel Macron has also repeatedly pledged that France would be able to test up to 700,000 people per week. The national health authority told The Associated Press on Tuesday that France was averaging around 200,000-270,000 tests per week. Britain, which has Europe’s highest official death toll at over 32,700, has ramped up its testing from 5,000 a day in March to close to 100,000 a day now. But it abandoned contact tracing after the virus’ spread overwhelmed its capacity. A contact-tracing app is in trial stages and 18,000 people are being recruited to do the tracing legwork now. Spain, which like Italy was among the hardest-hit countries early on, is still ironing out protocols for contact tracing and has no immediate plans to roll out an app. While Spain’s virus testing capacity has improved, the government has left contact tracing largely to the already stressed local health centers. Germany, which has prided itself on its comparatively low death rate, has engaged more than 10,000 people in contact tracing. An app is planned but is still weeks away. Turkey, meanwhile, has credited its army of contact tracers for its success in slowing the virus’ spread. About 5,850 teams reached out to and tested close to 470,000 people suspected of being infected. Italy abandoned any concerted effort at contact tracing when its north got overwhelmed in late February. But health care officials say contact tracing, as well as testing, protective masks and social distancing, remain key to further reopening. Italy’s mask problem began when Arcuri, the emergency commissioner, fixed a set price — .50 euro plus tax — for surgical masks that Italy only began producing domestically in recent weeks. Producers balked at the low price and two distributors that had promised to get 12 million masks to pharmacies ended up not having them ready. Another 19 million made it to supermarkets, but the pharmacy shelves remained bare. Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri acknowledged the mask distribution plan had become a “mess” after three-quarters of the 12 million masks hadn’t been certified. Arcuri also promised that Italy would distribute antibody tests to labs on May 4 for a pilot project of 150,000 people. Testing still hasn’t begun. Further delays are expected as health authorities contact the 150,000 people identified as potential subjects, selected for their demographic and geographic distribution. They then must agree and schedule the appointment. Arcuri insisted his team has “done our part” by selecting the type of test and said delays were due to review by the government’s privacy guarantor. He also said another 5 million virus test kits were being distributed to Italian regional health authorities to help boost capacity and isolate new possible clusters. Italy was stymied during the outbreak by testing limitations, and ended up only testing those who went to the hospital or were showing strong symptoms. It has increased capacity and now leads Europe in per-capita testing, with more than 2.5 million tests conducted to date. But regional officials say they can’t conduct more tests because they didn’t receive the extra reagent necessary to process the results. Arcuri said reagent is running low worldwide, and he is now asking domestic makers to boost production “in the coming weeks and months.” Like other European governments, Italy has been racing to develop a contact-tracing app. But technical, logistical and privacy concerns have stymied the launch. Paolo De Rosa, technical chief in the ministry of innovation, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that Italy’s version was expected to be rolled out at the end of May. Like many others in Europe, Italy’s “Immuni” app will be based on a decentralized system using an Apple-Google software interface that experts say is better at preserving privacy. The apps use Bluetooth signals on cellphones to anonymously track users who come nearby, and send an alert if any users test positive. De Rosa said testing would begin Friday, based on a preliminary version. “We are working in your interests,” Arcuri said. “We accept all criticism as long as it’s constructive.” ___ Corbet reported from Paris. AP reporters contributed from across Europe. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
|
36702
|
Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s housekeeper was found dead in September 2017 after the FBI interviewed her about overheard conversations between Rice and Hillary Clinton and other members of the Obama administration.
|
More nations were flying medical staff and supplies to Samoa on Friday to battle a measles outbreak that prompted the Pacific island nation to declare a state of emergency this month, as the death toll rose to 42, most of them children younger than four.
|
false
|
Obama, Politics, Trump
|
A significant drop in immunisation over the last few years has made Samoa highly vulnerable to outbreaks of the disease, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) saying vaccine coverage is just about 31% there. Schools have been shut and a mass vaccination effort launched in the nation of just 200,000 located south of the equator halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand, with its government saying 50,068 people have been vaccinated. The health ministry said 3,149 cases of measles have been reported, with 213 during the last 24 hours. Of 197 victims in hospital, 20 are critically ill children and three are pregnant women, it added. Deaths in the outbreak have now reached 42, the majority of them children under the age of four, the government said. Neighbouring New Zealand said it was sending more supplies and personnel, including emergency medical assistance teams, nurse vaccinators, intensive care specialists and Samoan-speaking medical professionals. “The Samoan health system is under serious strain with growing numbers of people, many of whom are very young, needing complex care as a result of the measles outbreak,” said New Zealand’s foreign minister, Winston Peters. New Zealand would also fund 100,000 more vaccines for measles and rubella, Peters added in a statement. Britain said a group of British doctors and nurses left on Friday to help Samoa’s efforts to rein in the outbreak, while Australia said it had also sent medical personnel and supplies. Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that spreads easily through coughing and sneezing. Other nations in the Pacific, such as Tonga and Fiji, are also grappling with a spike in the number of measles cases. Tonga has said its outbreak followed the return of a squad of its rugby players from New Zealand, where Auckland, the biggest city, is tackling a growing number of cases. Measles cases are rising worldwide, even in wealthy nations such as Germany and the United States, as parents shun immunisation for philosophical or religious reasons, or fears, debunked by doctors, that such vaccines could cause autism.
|
3382
|
Montana health department to enforce flavored vaping ban.
|
Montana’s health department will begin enforcing its emergency ban on the sale of flavored vaping products beginning next Wednesday, state officials said Friday.
|
true
|
Health, General News, Montana, Vaping, Public health, Steve Bullock
|
A temporary restraining order preventing the ban from taking effect expired on Oct. 28, the Department of Public Health and Human Services said. The judge who heard arguments on a motion by vaping shop owners seeking a preliminary injunction to block the ban has not made a ruling six weeks after hearing arguments. “Though the state has thus far declined to enforce the emergency rules pending resolution by the court, the imminent threats to public health and human safety that precipitated the rules are ongoing and demand a public health response,” the health department and Gov. Steve Bullock said in a notice of intent to enforce the emergency rules. The restrictions include the sale of all flavored e-cigarette products including flavored nicotine, THC and CBD e-cigarette products, both in store and online. The rules do not require businesses to destroy their inventory. The health department issued emergency rules on Oct. 8, citing reports of lung injury and deaths by people who had used vaping products and concerns that the flavored products were enticing minors to become addicted to nicotine. Officials argued a 120-day ban would give the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention time to identify the cause of the illnesses and deaths District Judge Jennifer Lint heard arguments on Oct. 30 and Nov. 1 in Hamilton. Business owners argued the lung injuries appeared to be caused by black market vaping products and vaping products that contained THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. They also argued even a temporary ban would put them out of business and that many of their customers were using vaping as a way to stop smoking. After the hearing, Lint noted that Montana law requires that review of emergency rules “takes precedence over all other matters except older matters of the same character.” The notice of intent to enforce the rules was filed with the District Court in Ravalli County. The court will decide when the clock starts on the 120 days, Raph Graybill, the governor’s chief legal counsel, said Friday. The state will argue that the rules have never been in effect so the 120 days should start on Dec. 18, he said. Fluid samples collected from people who suffered lung injuries, as well as samples from vaping products they had used, contained vitamin E acetate, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The additive is used as a thickening agent, but when inhaled it may interfere with normal lung functioning. Federal agencies recommend people not use THC-containing e-cigarette products, particularly those from informal sources like friends, or family or in-person or online sellers. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration say there may be more than one cause of lung injuries because of e-cigarette use and recommended against using all e-cigarette products. Through Dec. 10, the CDC has received reports of 2,409 people being hospitalized because of lung injuries and has confirmed 52 deaths. Montana has had seven reported cases, including one death. Montana’s Department of Public Health and Human Services is investigating additional cases and is concerned that the level of youth use of and addiction to nicotine remains unchanged. “An alarming number of young Montanans are getting addicted. People are still getting sick,” said Sheila Hogan, director of the health department. “Pediatricians and public health officials agree that this crisis cannot continue unaddressed.”
|
2928
|
PepsiCo's workplace wellness program fails the bottom line: study.
|
A long-running and well-respected workplace wellness program at PepsiCo that encourages employees to adopt healthier habits has not reduced healthcare costs, according to the most comprehensive evaluation of a such a program ever published.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Released on Monday in the journal Health Affairs and based on data for thousands of PepsiCo employees over seven years, the findings “cast doubt on the widely held belief” that workplace wellness programs save employers significantly more than they cost, conclude Soeren Mattke of the RAND Corporation and his co-authors. “Blanket claims of ‘wellness saves money’ are not warranted.” Workplace wellness programs, a $6 billion-a-year industry, are a favorite of the business community because they promise to improve productivity, cut absenteeism and reduce medical costs by averting expensive illnesses. They aim, for instance, to help employees quit smoking, maintain a healthy weight and have regular screenings for elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer and other conditions, all of which are supposed to reduce healthcare spending. Half of U.S. employers with at least 50 workers offered a wellness program in 2012, as did more than 90 percent of those with 50,000-plus workers, according to a 2013 RAND report. PepsiCo’s was introduced in 2003. The programs are also a pillar of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law. The ACA allows employers to reward workers who participate in wellness programs, and penalize those who refuse, with discounts or increases of as much as 30 percent of their insurance costs. That can be thousands of dollars per year. Some workers have objected to the programs because of the penalties. Others say workplace wellness efforts invade their privacy and promote poor medicine. Last year, for instance, faculty members at Pennsylvania State University rebelled against a workplace wellness program whose “health risk assessment” asked, among other questions, whether male employees examined their testicles every month and whether women employees intended to become pregnant. They also protested its requirement that even healthy young adults receive frequent cholesterol and other screenings, which physicians recommend against, and the steep penalties for opting out: $1,200 a year. “You’re making employees do something that invades their privacy and that goes against medical advice, and now we’re seeing (in the PepsiCo study) that it doesn’t even save the employer money,” said Al Lewis, founder and president of the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium International, which helps self-insured employers and state programs reduce healthcare costs. PepsiCo did not respond to requests for comment on the study. Megan Broderick, senior manager of the company’s health and welfare benefits and a co-author of the Health Affairs paper, said she could not speak to a reporter without permission. The vendor that sold PepsiCo the program, the SHPS division of ADP, also declined to comment, citing “client confidentiality,” said ADP spokesman Dick Wolfe. Maria Ghazal, a vice president of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of large U.S. corporations, said its members are “as enthusiastic as they have ever been about these (workplace wellness) programs,” adopting them not only to control healthcare costs but also to boost employee morale and improve recruitment. “Wellness is an area where you can distinguish yourself,” she said. “Employers feel they help attract and retain” valued workers. For their study, RAND’s Mattke and his colleagues - including two PepsiCo executives - examined PepsiCo’s “Healthy Living” program, which has two components. One, called disease management, helps people with any of 10 chronic illnesses, among them asthma, diabetes and hypertension. They receive regular phone conversations with a nurse about managing the condition. Disease management produced healthcare savings of $136 per member per month, largely because of a 29 percent reduction in hospital admissions, the researchers found. When hypertension is well controlled, for instance, people are less likely to land in the hospital with a stroke. When asthmatics take their medication, they don’t wind up in the ER unable to breathe. PepsiCo’s disease management program “provides a substantial return for the investment made,” Mattke said. The “lifestyle management component” is what most people think of as a workplace wellness program. It includes a health risk assessment in which workers answer questions about such behavior as eating and exercise habits; smoking cessation programs; and educational materials and telephone sessions with a “wellness coach” to help them lose weight, eat healthy, get fit, manage stress or stop smoking. PepsiCo employees who participated in these lifestyle programs reported a small reduction in absenteeism, but there was no significant effect on healthcare costs. (The study uses costs as a proxy for health, assuming that if people get sick they seek care. But it did not explicitly assess the programs’ effect on participants’ health.) “Participation in lifestyle management interventions,” conclude the PepsiCo researchers, “... has no statistically significant effect on healthcare costs,” and employers considering adopting such a program “should proceed with caution.” The PepsiCo study is not the first to find that workplace wellness programs fall short of their promise. Last year, Mattke was the lead author of a RAND report that found that healthcare costs of workers who participated in such a program averaged $2.38 less per month than non-participants in the first year of the program and $3.46 less in the fifth year. Neither difference was statistically significant. Researchers who are skeptical of wellness programs’ benefits are concerned that the ACA - “Obamacare” - allows employers to offer substantial financial rewards and penalties tied to something ineffective. “The ACA took a bad idea, workplace wellness programs, and turbocharged it by allowing employers to penalize workers,” said Lewis, co-author of a new e-book titled “Surviving Workplace Wellness.”
|
10941
|
Study finds green tea helpful against strokes, not cancer
|
This story reports on the results of a large, population-based study in Japan looking at green tea consumption and overall mortality, heart disease mortality and cancer mortality. The study found that those who drank five or more cups of green tea daily had a significantly lower risk of dying of heart disease, but not of dying from cancer. The story does a good job of describing the latest study as well as other studies that have shown conflicting results. The story also provides needed balance by quoting multiple independent experts. The major flaw of the story is in the quantification of benefits. The story quantifies the benefits in relative terms only. The story should have provided more context for these numbers. For example, the story does not explain that, in spite of the large number of participants in the study, the actual number of deaths was very small. The rate of heart disease mortality was only between 2 and 3% (depending on gender) among non-tea drinkers. Reducing this rate by 20 to 30% by drinking 5 or more cups of green tea daily is a better way to look at the same numbers.
|
true
|
The story does not mention the costs of the tea, but we can assume that most people are aware of the range of costs of such products at the grocery store. The story provides quantification of benefits in relative terms only. So when the story says “31% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease,” it doesn’t explain “31% of what?” Absolute terms should be given. The story should have provided more context for these numbers. For example, the story does not explain that, in spite of the large number of participants in the study, the actual number of deaths was very small. The death rate among the participants was between 1 and 3% (depending on the subgroup) over the study period. The story does state that tea is generally harmless and has no calories. The story provides an adequate description of the Japanese study as well as the results of other studies that have had conflicting results. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story quotes multiple indpendent experts. The story does not mention alternatives such as diet and exercise. This would have made the story much stronger. Green tea is clearly available. Green tea is clearly not new. Because the story quotes several independent experts, the reader can assume the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information
|
|
9140
|
New tech promises easier cervical cancer screening
|
Credit: Duke University This news release provides some useful background about cervical cancer screening and a new device that might make such screenings more accessible around the globe. However, the release is marred by an incomplete description of the steps involved in cervical cancer screening. Colposcopy (a test that provides an illuminated, magnified view of the cervix) is done not as a primary screening method as suggested here, but rather as a second step in the screening process when an initial screening test is abnormal. The news release is not clear on this point. Primary screening tests for cervical cancer include Pap smears and cervical swabs for human papilloma virus (HPV), or (when those are unavailable) visual inspection of the cervix after acetic acid is applied. The release tends to exaggerate the potential benefit of this new technology by implying that colposcopy is essential as a primary screening test for all women — when it’s mainly used for the smaller number of women who initially screen positive. Indeed, there is evidence that colposcopy is not effective when used as a primary screening technique in all women. Mortality from cervical cancer has fallen dramatically in the United States in recent decades due to widespread screening practices, according to the American Cancer Society. In low-income nations and under-served communities, however, cervical cancer still frequently goes undiagnosed. This is largely because diagnostic equipment is expensive and requires highly skilled technicians to administer. This release is on the development of an insertion tool which is used together with a miniaturized digital colposcope to display images of the cervix via laptop or cell phone. The inserter is designed to be a more comfortable alternative to the standard vaginal speculum. either to allow for self-screening with a swab for human papilloma virus (HPV) or diagnostic follow-up for women with abnormal initial screening tests when traditional colposcopy is not available. This kind of innovative, low-cost alternative to high tech medical devices has huge potential to impact women’s lives in low-income regions. For lay readers, though, the news release promises a little bit more than the evidence yet warrants.
|
false
|
cancer screening,Cervical cancer,Duke University,medical device
|
The news release indicates that the pocket colposcope will be much less expensive than current equipment, although no specific numbers are provided. The omission is unfortunate, since the study it’s based on does provide cost estimates, citing a cost of $54 for the camera and $1 for the inserter. This device also requires the availability of a cell phone or laptop, and, at least for the present, images must still be read by a trained technician. We don’t know how much savings the device will generate, and it’s difficult to estimate how feasible it will be for low-resource clinics domestically or internationally. It’s true the device is at an early stage of testing, but more information would have been helpful. The cost saving of this innovation is the main benefit touted, but it’s not quantified. The release does speak to the usability of the device when quoting one of the researchers who describes the experience of 15 university volunteers who tried the device. She says that “more than 80 percent of the women who tried the device were able to get a good image.” But what exactly “a good image” means is not explained. (Is it good enough for an accurate diagnosis?) The release does state that trials are planned to compare the new device with the traditional colposcope, but it should have been clearer about the fact that the device’s accuracy has not been objectively assessed. No possible harms are described. While it is difficult to imagine how this device could cause direct harm, screening and diagnostic tests always involve the possibility of harm from false-negative and false-positive tests. A brief mention of this was warranted. The report on this innovation was published in a highly respected, peer-reviewed journal. At the same time, this news release passes a bit too quickly over the limitations of what is known about its effectiveness. No clinical trials have yet demonstrated the sensitivity and specificity of the device in comparison with current standard practice. What we know is that 12 of 15 highly educated young volunteers were able to produce usable images with it. Three of 15 volunteers were unsuccessful, although they said they thought more practice would help. This degree of user friendliness is perhaps promising, but the campus of an elite American university is not the type of low-resourced setting for which the pocket colposcope is designed. We can’t be sure that less educated women would be able to use the device with even an 80 percent success rate. Successful use of the device for diagnosis also depends upon either the presence of trained medical personnel to read the images — something which cannot be assured in disadvantaged communities — or on as-yet nonexistent automated screening procedures. There is no disease mongering in this release. It provides ample context on cervical cancer incidence and tests used in its diagnosis. The release acknowledges in a footnote that the research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. That’s enough to meet our standard, but putting this information in the body of the release would make it more likely to be picked up by syndicators and others who might redistribute this content. There is some description of current standard screening practices, and several failed attempts at lower-cost alternatives to traditional practice are briefly mentioned. However, we are rating this Not Satisfactory for several reasons. First, there is confusion about the role of colposcopy; it is not a primary screening tool, but rather a method for further evaluation of women with an abnormal screening test for cervical cancer. Colposcopy is an essential part of any screening program, to be sure, but it is not generally seen as feasible or effective as a primary screening test. Second, cervical cancer screening methods in resource-poor settings have been actively studied and several alternatives to standard Pap smears exist. These include HPV testing (a rapid HPV test is under development using a self-collected sample) and visual inspection after acetic acid application. The release does not clearly state that the device is currently unavailable. Savvy readers may glean this from the description, but a more direct statement and discussion of the steps involved before the device can be commercially produced and used would have been helpful. The article states that the device is the first of its kind. We agree that the inserter is a novel device as an alternative to the speculum. Its use together with the digital colposcope is also a novel concept. No unjustifiable language was noted.
|
11872
|
80 percent of the (individual mandate) tax falls on those who make $50,000 a year or less.
|
Thune said that 80 percent of the individual mandate penalty falls on those who make $50,000 a year or less. In terms of the number of returns in which people paid the fine, that figure is correct. In terms of the dollars collected, it overshoots the mark. People in that income range account for about 60 percent of the payments. Still, an independent analysis showed that households in the $25,000 to 50,000 income range paid the highest percentage of income on the penalty. There’s strong evidence that many lower income people are paying the fine by mistake, and millions could both avoid it and gain health coverage for less than the cost of the fine. But as far as who is paying the fine.
|
true
|
National, Health Care, Taxes, John Thune,
|
"Senate Republicans’ surprise move to repeal the requirement to have health insurance into their tax reform bill revealed numbers that few people had noted before. (The mandate says that everyone must have coverage or face a fine.) ""80 percent of the tax falls on those who make $50,000 a year or less,"" Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Nov. 15. ""We’re taking a failed policy that punishes people with taxes -- low-income people. (We’re) taking that tax away, giving them tax relief there, and then ploughing that back into tax relief for middle-income families."" This was no throw-away line. Thune is the third-ranking Republican in the party’s Senate leadership, and his colleagues delivered similar versions of the talking point throughout the day. In 2016, the fine for not having insurance stood at $695 for adults. The formula has a few wrinkles that brought the maximum penalty to $2,085 for a family, or 2.5 percent of income, whichever was larger. Going forward, it rises with inflation (unless of course, Congress repeals it). Not everyone without insurance has to pay the fine. The list of exemptions is long. It includes a family with income under $20,800; people who have suffered domestic violence in the household; anyone who has suffered the death of a close family member; someone who has received a utility shut-off notice, and more. Thune’s office said he got his information from 2015 data from the Internal Revenue Service. In one key sense, Thune is correct. Out of all the tax returns sent to the IRS that included a payment of the fine, 79 percent came from households making $50,000 a year or less. (Technically, the income is adjusted gross income, which understates actual income. But on average, the adjustment makes little difference for this check.) However, Thune didn’t specify that he was talking about the number of people. His description of the tax could just as equally refer to the dollars paid. The government collected a little over $3 billion from about 6.6 million households. Of that, about $1.8 billion, 60 percent, came from households with incomes under $50,000. So in dollar terms, about 60 percent of the tax fell on people in that income range, not the 80 percent that Thune said. Thune’s communications staff told us he was talking about the number of people and the number of returns. We reached several health care and tax researchers, and none of them challenged the core numbers. Gordon Mermin with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center ran the numbers and found that as a percentage of income, the tax fell heaviest on the $25,000 to $50,000 group. On average, that group paid 3.1 percent of income. Mermin told us households in this range are more likely to lack insurance, and due to their incomes, are less likely to be able to claim an exemption from the fine. ""People shouldn’t be surprised the $25,000 to $50,000 group is affected the most,"" Mermin said. But researchers found it odd that people making less than $25,000 had paid as much as they did. The $10,000 to $25,000 group accounted for 22 percent of the payments, and about 36 percent of the households. ""Folks are just making a mistake,"" said Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare and an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ""Given the exemptions, there is no way such low-income folks should be paying."" The IRS knows this has happened. It’s been sending out letters since 2015, telling filers ""it appears that you may have reported owing too much Health Care Shared Responsibility Payment,"" the penalty’s formal name. ""The IRS has reached out to some taxpayers to let them know they’ve overpaid the penalty, but they don’t have the capacity to do that in all cases,"" said Tara Straw at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank. Straw said the IRS targets people who automatically qualify for an exemption because of their income, a factor that is stronger in states that did not expand Medicaid to people making 138 percent of federal poverty. Where the IRS effort falls short, she said, relates to personal circumstances such as a death in the family or a utility service cut-off notice. Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a neutral source of health care data, also agreed that ""there certainly appear to be some low-income people paying the penalty who could be claiming an exemption."" A just-released study from Kaiser suggests the number could be large. The report found that about 5 million uninsured people could get coverage for less than the cost of the penalty. Thanks to the subsidies in Obamacare, the lowest-level plans would be free to many of those people, or if not free, available at a very low cost. If everyone took advantage of those subsidies, the 6.6 million households paying the penalty because they lack coverage would fall significantly. We don’t know how the numbers would shake out because about 4 million people neither paid the fine nor told the IRS that they had coverage. Republicans offer the repeal of the penalty as a boon to working Americans, and for some it would be. But the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan analytic arm of Congress, has found that removing the penalty makes it less likely that people will seek out insurance, even if it would be free or very affordable. Thune said that 80 percent of the individual mandate penalty falls on those who make $50,000 a year or less. In terms of the number of returns in which people paid the fine, that figure is correct. In terms of the dollars collected, it overshoots the mark. People in that income range account for about 60 percent of the payments. Still, an independent analysis showed that households in the $25,000 to 50,000 income range paid the highest percentage of income on the penalty. There’s strong evidence that many lower income people are paying the fine by mistake, and millions could both avoid it and gain health coverage for less than the cost of the fine. But as far as who is paying the fine."
|
27389
|
"MIT offers a ""pirate certificate"" to students who complete four physical education courses."
|
The prestigious university counts among its alumni Nobel laureates, leaders of science and industry, and a fleet of certified swashbucklers.
|
true
|
College
|
Does the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an American bastion of serious scientific research with dozens of Nobel laureates among its alumni, really offer its over-achieving students something called a “Pirate Certificate”? That’s the claim that the History Hustle Facebook page makes in a widely-shared January 2018 meme that reads: Want to be a pirate? Massachusetts Institute of Technology awards official “Pirate Certificates” to students who complete courses in archery, pistol shooting, sailing and fencing. It’s true. Since the Fall semester of 2011, the university’s Physical Education department has been handing out physical “pirate certificates” to any student — undergraduate or graduate — who has successfully completed courses in archery, fencing, pistol/rifle shooting and sailing. The department appears to hold frequent “Pirate Induction” days; and its Facebook page shows a fairly steady stream of extremely happy-looking MIT students showing off their new pirate certificates, invariably dressed in pirate garb, some of which appears to be provided by the school for the occasion. The certificate itself is made of “faux parchment,” according to the Slice of MIT alumni blog, and has this tongue-in-cheek wording: This document certifies that the below-mentioned salty dog has fulfilled the Physical Education General Institute Requirement by completing Archery, Fencing, Pistol and Sailing [and] therefore is no longer a lily-livered landlubber. And so, MIT Physical Education Confers upon [STUDENT’S NAME] The Pirate Certificate, with all its privileges and obligations. Given at the swashbucklin’ Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ahoy, Avast and finally, Arrrrrr! Jacob Hurwitz — a 2014 MIT graduate and proud owner of the document shown above — told us that the pirate certificate was a “legend” that had “been around” forever, with some students reputedly printing off t-shirts claiming to be pirates, after completing the four key physical education courses. “As best as I can tell,” Hurwitz told us by email, “the pirate’s license was probably a joke invented by students” before being made official by university authorities. A survey sent out to students in late 2010 shows that the pirate certificate had been requested by a “student focus group,” and that the names “pirate award” and “pirate degree” were also considered. Despite not fulfilling the criteria by completing the four physical education prerequisites, Matt Damon became the most famous recipient of the MIT pirate certificate to date, when he attended the university’s graduation ceremony in 2016 and delivered the commencement address:
|
4977
|
Doctors’ long-running advice: Get checked before a marathon.
|
It was the death heard ’round the running world.
|
true
|
Health, Boston, AP Top News, Boston Marathon, Marathons, Heart attack, North America, Sports, U.S. News
|
In July 1984, acclaimed author and running guru Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while trotting along a country road in Vermont. Overnight, a nascent global movement of asphalt athletes got a gut check: Just because you run marathons doesn’t mean you’re safe from heart problems. Fast-forward 35 years, and Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillivray is amplifying that message for marathoners, especially those who have coronary artery disease or a family history of it. “Being fit and being healthy aren’t the same things,” says McGillivray. He should know. Six months ago, the lifelong competitor underwent open-heart triple bypass surgery after suffering chest pain and shortness of breath while running. As marathons, ultramarathons, megamile trail races and swim-bike-run triathlons continue to explode in popularity, doctors are re-prescribing some longstanding advice: Get a checkup first and talk with your primary care physician or cardiologist about the risks and benefits before hitting the road. For McGillivray, 64, the writing was on his artery walls. Both his grandfathers died of heart attacks; his father had multiple bypasses; his siblings have had heart surgery; and a brother recently suffered a stroke. Neither McGillivray’s marathon personal best of 2 hours, 29 minutes, 58 seconds, nor his decades of involvement in the sport could protect him. “I honestly thought that through exercise, cholesterol-lowering medicine, good sleep and the right diet, I’d be fine,” he says. “But you can’t run away from your genetics.” Aerobic exercise such as running, brisk walking, cycling and swimming is known to reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and certain types of cancer, and it’s been a key way to fight obesity, Type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and more. Studies have shown those who exercise regularly are more likely to survive a heart attack and recover more quickly than couch potatoes. But new research is providing a more nuanced look at “extreme exercise” and the pros and cons of running long. In a study published in December in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, researchers in Spain found signs suggesting that full marathons like Boston may strain the heart. They measured substances that can signal stress and found higher levels in runners who covered the classic 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) marathon distance compared with those who raced shorter distances such as a half-marathon or 10K. Only about one in 50,000 marathoners suffers cardiac arrest, the researchers said, but a high proportion of all exercise-induced cardiac events occur during marathons — especially in men ages 35 and older. The Boston Marathon and other major races place defibrillators along the course. “We typically assume that marathon runners are healthy individuals, without risk factors that might predispose them to a cardiac event during or after a race,” writes Dr. Juan Del Coso, the study’s lead investigator, who runs the exercise physiology lab at Madrid’s Camilo José Cela University. Running shorter distances, he says, might reduce the strain, especially in runners who haven’t trained appropriately. Dr. Kevin Harris, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital, says he had a patient preparing for the Twin Cities Marathon who struggled to exceed 10 miles (16 kilometers) in training. The man’s family doctor insisted he get a stress test, and he wound up needing double bypass surgery to detour around dangerous blockages in his arteries. “Running is good, and we want people to be active. But your running doesn’t make you invincible,” Harris says. “The bottom line is that individuals with a family history — especially men who are older than 40 and those people who have symptoms they’re concerned about — should have an informed decision with their health care provider before they run a marathon.” That family history is crucial. Fixx, whose 1977 best-seller “The Complete Book of Running” helped ignite America’s running boom, was 52 when he collapsed and died. An autopsy showed he had blockages in two of his heart arteries. He had a mix of risk factors. His father died at 43 of a heart attack, and although Fixx quit smoking, changed his eating habits and dropped 60 pounds, it turned out he couldn’t outrun those risks. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s late husband, tech entrepreneur Dave Goldberg, was 47 when he died while the couple was vacationing in Mexico in 2015. Goldberg had been running on a treadmill when he fell, and an autopsy revealed he had undiagnosed heart disease. Former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who is 49, has said his own strong family history of heart disease is what motivates him to work out regularly and watch his diet. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather all died of heart attacks in their 50s. “If you’re going to take on strenuous exercise later in life, and especially if you have active heart disease, it’s clearly in your interest to be tested and make sure you can handle it,” says Dr. William Roberts, a fellow and past president of the American College of Sports Medicine. McGillivray says his doctor has cleared him for Monday’s 123rd running of the Boston Marathon, which he’ll run at night after the iconic race he supervises is in the books. It will be his 47th consecutive Boston, and this time, he’s trying to raise $100,000 for a foundation established in memory of a little boy who died of cardiomyopathy — an enlarging and thickening of the heart muscle. “Heartbreak Hill will have special meaning this year,” McGillivray says. “My new mission is to create awareness: If you feel something, do something,” he says. “You have to act. You might not get a second chance.” ___ Follow Bill Kole on Twitter at https://twitter.com/billkole .
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.