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40349
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Famed dog whisperer Cesar Millan died suddenly after suffering a heart attack.
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Cesar Millan Died of Heart Attack – Fiction!
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false
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Miscellaneous
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Cesar Millan is alive and well. False claims about Millan’s death were first reported in an article published by the website Noticias Unam. Translated into English, however, the website’s disclaimer states that it is a “satirical newspaper whose sole purpose is entertainment.” According to the article: “Millan was hospitalize yesterday afternoon, the medical reports indicate that he suffered a fulminate heart attack, which paralyze his heart unavailable for the blood to reach his brain, and other vital organs, situation which cause the death of this humanitarian man, who years before open his foundation ‘Cesar Millan Foundation,’ where Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, is vice-president. “ Within days, the false report was shared more than 250,000 times on Facebook. That led Millan to reassure his fans via Twitter that reports of his death were a hoax. “Of course! I’m alive, calm and well,” Millan tweeted. Comments
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37890
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"An image ""they"" keep removing from social media proves a ""canine coronavirus vaccine"" existed in 2001, and public health officials are lying about there being no vaccine for COVID-19."
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Was There a ‘Canine Coronavirus Vaccine in 2001’?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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On April 22 2020, screenshots of an image post featuring a “canine coronavirus vaccine” appeared and was circulated alongside captured text about the vial dating back to 2001 (archived here):Text over a battered vial labeled “Canine Coronavirus Vaccine” and “Nobivac” pinched between two fingers said:Now this was 2001 tell me why 19 years later they say there is no vaccine share before they take it down againWe didn’t see any immediate tie between the “canine coronavirus vaccine” vial and the year 2001 in the image, but the object shown in the photo certainly didn’t appear to be new. Neither was the claim itself — a similar post with a similar image circulated on March 13 2020.That photograph was accompanied by the text below, which contained the claim that the canine coronavirus vaccine dated back to 2019 — earlier in the year that novel coronavirus strain COVID-19 (or SARS-CoV-2) was first discovered:Can anyone explain to me why they made a Corona virus vaccine a year ago for K9s but are acting like this shit is a new virus that came from China just recently? If they have a vaccine for dogs, don’t u think they wud have one for humans too? Wtf is the government tryin to pull on us really?We have addressed elements of the generalized rumor corporations had “advance knowledge” of the novel virus, such as on this January 29 2020 page about the word “coronavirus” appearing on Lysol products:Lysol + Coronavirus = ConspiracyThat page covered the primary reason that finding photographs of purported vials of “canine coronavirus vaccine” are in no way surprising or groundbreaking. We also noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been monitoring what was then an emerging pandemic.In their resources was background information about the existence of myriad coronaviruses, indication that they affected humans as well as animals, and that human coronaviruses were a class of viruses first discovered in the 1960s:Human coronaviruses are common throughout the world. Seven different coronaviruses, that scientists know of, can infect people and make them sick. Some human coronaviruses were identified many years ago and some have been identified recently. Human coronaviruses commonly cause mild to moderate illness in people worldwide. Two newer human coronaviruses, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV, have been known to frequently cause severe illness. […]Human coronaviruses were first identified in the mid-1960s.That alone essentially dealt with all the assumptions and claims about “canine coronavirus vaccine” unmasking a global conspiracy, because:In light of that, the existence of a vaccine for “canine coronavirus,” no matter the year, had no bearing on the discovery of a novel coronavirus later called SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China in December 2019.We addressed another pertinent detail on our page about Imperial College London’s March 2020 report, “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality and healthcare demand.” That particular report had a major effect on the global response to the emerging pandemic:Imperial College London’s COVID-19 Report, ExplainedAs we explained on that page, that report was important in terms of understanding of and response to the novel coronavirus later called SARS-CoV-2:In context, the “impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)” was due to the fact pharmaceutical approaches like vaccines or medications had not yet been developed to combat the novel strain of coronavirus, meaning that public health officials and hospitals around the world were limited to behavioral approaches (such as lockdowns and social distancing) to mitigate the coronavirus pandemic. The report laid bare the fact that the primary and most important factor in reducing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and to circumvent millions of deaths globally was one based on the actions of individuals worldwide.Without any sort of effective medicine or vaccine to use to stem the flow of sickness, the sole approaches remaining concerned governments intervening to limit activity among citizens — including school, work, retail environments, gatherings, and other everyday actions most people take for granted as necessarily safe and common.In other words, the title described the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic — no pharmaceutical interventions existed at all, anywhere, to address the strain — and global public health officials have been forced to act based on that baseline fact.Once again, the importance of the “novel” part of “novel coronavirus” was undeniable — coronaviruses existed and had been identified decades before the COVID-19 pandemic. What made SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it caused (COVID-19) so disruptive was its “novel” nature. Although coronaviruses were well-documented, SARS-CoV-2 was a completely new virus, one to which the medical community struggled to respond and treat as the pandemic continued on.Although vials of “canine coronavirus vaccine” purportedly from 2001 appeared to be evidence that some shadowy entity was in the know and ready to cash in on novel coronavirus and COVID-19, their popularity and spread depended on the omission of two key pieces of context — that coronaviruses themselves were not new as of 2019, and that any novel virus by its nature emerges with no known therapies or pharmaceutical approaches. Shorthanding “novel coronavirus” to “coronavirus” seemed to further the idea coronaviruses themselves were novel (they were not), when the truth was that the strain causing COVID-19 was what was new.Comments
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596
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Exclusive: WHO, Congo eye tighter rules for Ebola care over immunity concerns.
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The World Health Organization and Congolese authorities are proposing changes to how some Ebola patients are cared for, new guidelines show, after a patient’s death challenged the accepted medical theory that survivors are immune to reinfection.
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true
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Health News
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There are many unanswered questions surrounding the circumstances of the woman’s death in Democratic Republic of Congo, which has not previously been reported. But it has raised concerns because the woman, whose name has not been released for confidentiality reasons, was thought to have had immunity after surviving infection, but fell ill again with Ebola and died. “That was a big red flag event for all of us,” said Janet Diaz, who leads the World Health Organization’s clinical management team for the epidemic in Congo. Congo’s Ebola outbreak has infected over 3,000 people and killed more than 2,000 since August last year. It is the second-worst outbreak after one in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 that killed more than 11,000 people. The woman was working as a caregiver in the high-risk “red zone” of a treatment center in Beni, eastern Congo, according to health officials familiar with her case. She was one of dozens of people assigned to care for Ebola patients because it was assumed they would not get sick as Ebola survivors, although some researchers have considered reinfection to be at least a theoretical possibility. Their presumed immunity allowed for closer contact with sufferers, many of them children. Alima, the medical charity that co-ran the Beni center where she worked, said she tested positive for Ebola and died in July before she could be readmitted for treatment. But it is not yet known whether the woman received a false positive result the first time she was tested, experienced a relapse or was reinfected, health officials say. Medical experts say it could be years before Ebola survivors’ immunity is fully understood. Yet the recent case is sufficiently worrying for health authorities to rethink how care should be provided to Ebola patients across eastern Congo. The WHO and Congolese officials have drafted new guidelines, seen by Reuters, that warn that some Ebola survivors may have “incomplete immunity” and advise that additional measures should be taken to protect them from possible reinfection. The new protocols would set limits on which Ebola survivors can work in treatment centers and standardize precautions that must be taken. Survivors who had mild cases of Ebola and those who were found to have low viral loads - or lower levels of the virus circulating in their blood - while infected “need to be carefully assessed, as they may be at risk for having incomplete immunity after infection,” the draft says. Diaz said the protocols were still being discussed with health organizations and could change in the drafting process. Efforts to contain the Congo outbreak have been hampered by militia violence and public mistrust, but aided by medical advances including new vaccines and therapies. Ebola survivors, known as “les vainqueurs” – French for “the victorious” – have been at the forefront of treatment, offering vital care, especially to children. Their assumed immunity has meant they could spend extended time with patients and provide much-needed human contact. The protective gear they must wear is lighter and less restrictive than that worn by other health workers. But the draft protocols being discussed by health authorities would bar some survivors from working in the contaminated red zone. These include people whose immune systems may be weaker because they are pregnant or because they have other infections such as HIV or tuberculosis, and those who had low viral loads during their Ebola infection. The woman who died was pregnant at the time, which she had not disclosed to the treatment center, according to Nicolas Mouly, Alima’s emergencies coordinator. But it is not known if that played a role in her falling sick again. Mouly said Congo’s biomedical research institute was running tests to learn more about the case. Officials with Congo’s Ebola response and the institute did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment. In response to the case, health authorities have reviewed the clinical histories of all Ebola survivors working with Ebola patients, the WHO’s Diaz said. They have also reminded treatment centers to ensure their employees are following biosafety rules. Much remains unknown about how immunity works in Ebola survivors, including how treatments might affect a patient’s susceptibility to reinfection. “I think that’s the big question: What is the true immunity of an Ebola patient who survived?” Diaz said. “Everyone’s working very hard right now to both care for patients and also move science along.” There have been several confirmed cases of relapse with Ebola, including a Scottish nurse here who was infected in Sierra Leone in 2014 and fell ill again 10 months after recovery. But the symptoms have tended to be localized in certain parts of the body and are not known to have been fatal, according to Raina MacIntyre, who heads the Biosecurity Program at the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute. No case of reinfection has been confirmed since the disease was discovered near the Ebola River in northern Congo in 1976. Short-term immunity has largely been treated as a given. And a study of 14 survivors of the first documented Ebola outbreak in 1976 found that all were able to develop an immune reaction to at least one of three Ebola virus proteins 40 years later. Alima’s Mouly said the creation of a standardized set of rules for survivors working in treatment centers was a positive step, but recommended further measures to ensure the physical and mental well-being of all survivors.
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3987
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Drugmaker Lilly plans IPO for part of animal health business.
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Eli Lilly is planning an initial public offering for part of an animal health business that brought in about 13 percent of all company revenue last year.
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true
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Indianapolis, Health, Animal health, North America, Business, Initial public offerings, Indiana, Eli Lilly and Co
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The drugmaker said Tuesday that the IPO will represent an ownership stake of less than 20 percent. Lilly said it will divest its remaining stake in Elanco Animal Health through a tax-efficient deal, but offered no other details. Eli Lilly and Co., based in Indianapolis, once saw animal health as a pivotal asset in equalizing the loss of patents on some top products. Last fall, however, it said it was exploring other options for the business. Those included a possible sale or a merger. The drugmaker decided that an IPO was the best way to maximize after-tax value for Lilly shareholders, Chairman and CEO David Ricks said in a statement Tuesday. He said it also will help Lilly focus more on drugs for humans. Lilly’s portfolio includes the insulin Humalog, the cancer treatment Alimta and the antidepressant Cymbalta. The company expects to complete the IPO by the end of this year and divest its remaining stake in the business possibly by next year. Elanco makes antibiotics and feed additives for livestock and flea and heartworm treatments for pets. It brought in $3.08 billion of Lilly’s $22.87 in total revenue last year. Also Tuesday, Lilly reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations, and the company raised its 2018 forecast above analyst expectations. Lilly shares advanced 3 percent, or $2.87, to $91.75 in before-market trading Tuesday.
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25748
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“As of the last 24 hours this is the protocol regarding masks: Masks should only be used by healthcare workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms like fever and cough.”
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The photo is outdated. The giveaway is the Nasdaq composite index listed in the bottom right-hand corner. The Nasdaq hasn’t sat at 9,415.23 since mid-June; the post claims the photo was taken in mid-August. The quote depicted in the image is from at least as early of March, a Google search shows. The World Health Organization currently says governments should encourage the general public to wear a fabric mask if “there is widespread community transmission, and especially in settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained.”
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false
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Health Care, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Health Check, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"People are using an old photo of a Fox News graphic to spread new misinformation about mask policies amid the coronavirus pandemic. ""As of the last 24 hours this is the protocol regarding masks — BAM spread the word!,"" the post shared Aug. 14 says. The post points down to an image of a Fox News television graphic that reads: ""Masks should only be used by healthcare workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms like fever and cough."" The post, which has been shared more than 10,000 times, was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There’s nothing about this post that happened in the last 24 hours, other than people spreading it as misinformation. The quote is from at least as early as March, according to Fox News. And the image is likely from late May or early June. The Fox News graphic includes the composite index of the Nasdaq Stock Market in the bottom right corner. The index measured 9,415.23 at the time the photo was taken. The Nasdaq has stayed above 10,000 since July 1, according to Marketwatch. It hasn’t been at 9,415 since mid-June. The text on the graphic tracks with a Fox News story published online May 28, which said that the World Health Organization was only recommending healthy people wear masks in cases where they were in contact with someone infected with COVID-19. The story includes the same quote referenced in the image. ""If you do not have any respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough or runny nose, you do not need to wear a mask,"" Dr. April Baller, a public health specialist for the WHO, says in a video on the world health body's website posted in March. ""Masks should only be used by health care workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms of fever and cough."" The post we’re checking doesn’t claim WHO said not to wear a mask in March or April or May. It made the claim that the guidance happened in the last 24 hours — meaning the middle of August. A search of the World Health Organization website shows that’s not the case. In an FAQ, the international health organization says it recommends that people always consult local authorities on recommended practices in their area. ""If there is widespread community transmission, and especially in settings where physical distancing cannot be maintained, governments should encourage the general public to wear a fabric mask. WHO also provides details on the composition of a fabric mask and how to safely wear one,"" WHO writes. A post says, ""As of the last 24 hours this is the protocol regarding masks: Masks should only be used by healthcare workers, caretakers or by people who are sick with symptoms like fever and cough."" The post was shared Aug. 14, and has more than 10,000 shares on Facebook. But the details in the image are months old, and the instructions are outdated. WHO says governments should encourage the use of masks in places where there social distancing isn’t possible or where there is widespread community transmission."
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24778
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When the salmonella source was finally identified, FDA officials had to wait for industry approval before they could go live with the [peanut] recall.
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Congresswoman's portrait of a toothless FDA is correct
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true
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National, Consumer Safety, Rosa DeLauro,
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"Is our food-safety system really that weak? We realized the recent outbreak of salmonella poisoning from peanut products exposed serious problems with food manufacturing and plant inspections. But Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, alleged it also exposed the federal Food and Drug Administration as toothless when it comes to recalls. ""When the salmonella source was finally identified, FDA officials had to wait for industry approval before they could go live with the recall,"" the congresswoman said at a Feb. 4, 2009, news conference. DeLauro was speaking amid great public concern about the outbreak, which was discovered in January 2009 after it killed eight people and sickened more than 500 in 43 states. It was traced to tainted peanut butter and paste from a Peanut Corporation of America plant in Georgia and possibly another in Texas. Those ingredients had been distributed nationwide in all sorts of products, prompting recalls of more than 2,100 products from energy bars to ice cream. DeLauro's comment evoked an image of FDA officials meekly asking company executives if it was okay to protect the public from tainted peanuts. We wondered whether she was stretching the truth to drum up support for a bill she proposed to strengthen the FDA's recall process. A spokeswoman said DeLauro was referring to the voluntary nature of food recalls. And indeed, the FDA recall process is almost entirely voluntary — strictly speaking. This is poorly understood by consumers, the media and even some food companies, the FDA says in this primer on its recall policies. ""The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act does not generally authorize FDA to 'order' a manufacturer to recall a food, cosmetic or supplement,"" the online brochure says. Only when it comes to medical devices, human-tissue products and infant formula can the agency order a recall. DeLauro's office said she got her information partly from this New York Times article , which reported that the government ""needed the company’s permission last week before announcing a huge recall of its products."" There's an important bit of context to add, though. In reality, companies do not generally refuse FDA requests to issue a recall. In fact, none has ever done so, at least in the memory of Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. ""I don't think there's ever been a case to my knowledge where a company has refused to recall products when we told them in very specific terms that we would be taking additional actions,"" Sundlof told a Senate committee in a Feb. 5, 2009, hearing on the salmonella outbreak. Additional actions the FDA can take against any company that refuses to recall food can include seizing products and enjoining the company from doing further business. Bill Marler, a personal injury lawyer who specializes in foodborne illnesses, concurred with Sundlof. He said companies have little motivation to refuse the agency's recall requests, or even delay the process, because doing so would expose them to more legal liability. ""In my experience, there is very seldom a delay, because most of the time you've got a company who wants to solve the problem and not poison any more of its customers than it already has,"" said Marler, who is based in Seattle. Plenty of food-safety advocates argue the FDA should have the authority to mandate recalls. But their main concern is not that companies refuse to issue recalls voluntarily, it's issues such as FDA's limited control over how aggressively to recover products, and that ""voluntary recalls"" might not sound serious enough to consumers. DeLauro arguably made our food-safety regime sound weaker than it is, since there is little question as a practical matter that companies will quickly agree to recalls. And it was imprecise for her to say the FDA waited for the company's approval to ""go live"" with the recall — the FDA did not ""go live"" with the recall at all; it was the company that issued it. But ""go live"" is a vague term, and DeLauro seems to have meant ""announce."" And it's that the FDA could not post on its Web site this press release announcing the recall, which came from the Peanut Corporation of America, until the company agreed to issue the recall and wrote the release. So while DeLauro's depiction of the recall process was not full and complete, it was technically accurate. We find her claim to be ."
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10705
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Food industry can help lower cardiovascular diseases by adding little seaweed to products
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This release describes what is apparently a summary of studies related to 35 different types of seaweed and their purported health benefits. Only one study is glancingly referenced, and no real, quantitative evidence is presented to back up any of the claims. A single source — the author of books promoting seaweed as a healthier eating option — is quoted, repeatedly. No counter arguments are caveats are raised, other than the overall idea that it is difficult to nail down the health benefits of seaweed. Precisely! Which is why we wonder why this news release was issued at all. The poor quality of the American diet, and its contribution to a litany of health problems, is well documented. But the idea that adding seaweed to unhealthy foods is going to make a dent in this problem is dubious. And this release doesn’t give us any reason to think otherwise.
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false
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cardiovascular disease,Food,University news release
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There is no discussion of costs in this piece. This is odd for two reasons: 1. Seaweed of certain varieties is readily available in grocery stores and a staple of sushi bars and other restaurants. 2. The authors are advocating that seaweed become a regular part of baking and cooking, which means that costs need to be considered. There are no actual quantifications of benefits in this release. It says that, “By eating bread containing 4% of dried seaweed the overweight men ingested more dietary fiber (4.5 g more fiber per. 100 g) than when they ate the control whole-meal bread. Another effect was that they consumed 16.4% less energy in the 24 hour period after eating the seaweed enriched bread.” Honestly, we have no idea what this means. Is 4.5 grams more fiber meaningful? Does it have any measurable health impact? Does consuming less energy during a 24-hour period lead to positive health benefits or negative? There’s no help in interpreting this information. There are some vague references to harms in a list of bullet points at the end of the release. We do not think this satisfies the criteria but, instead, creates more confusion. It says: What is one to make of that? There’s very little information provided about any of these studies or the study of the studies purportedly undertaken. What type of studies were these? How many people were involved? Were there any limitations? etc. The release does not engage in any disease mongering. The only clue as to why this news release was written comes when it says that the author of the study in question “has authored several books on seaweed as food.” This seems to be promotional material for his books and little more. No alternatives are discussed. In fact, why not simply talk about less salt instead of salt substitutes. The seaweed being added is at such a marginal percentage as to beg the question: why bother? We are going to assume here that most people think seaweed is widely available as a food product. The idea of adding “healthier” ingredients to processed foods to make them better is not new (e.g. fiber, vitamins, potassium, “healthy” oils) and hasn’t produced much if any tangible benefit. Why will seaweed be any different? Many wild claims are made in this release. None are backed up. Let’s start with the headline: “Food industry can help lower cardiovascular diseases by adding little seaweed to products.” There is no evidence presented in this news release to support this statement. Nor this one: “Seaweed’s content of potassium salts does not led to high blood pressure – unlike the sodium salts, typically encountered in the processed food.”
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3207
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Dangerous jellyfish return to New Jersey river.
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A dangerous species of jellyfish that has a debilitating sting has returned to a New Jersey river.
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true
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Newark, New Jersey, Environment, Jellyfish
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NJ.com reports (http://bit.ly/2r0acen ) that clinging jellyfish were found in the Shrewsbury River. The jellyfish were found in the Manasquan and Shrewsbury rivers last summer. Clinging jellyfish stings can cause muscle weakness, pain and kidney failure in some extreme cases. A man was hospitalized after being stung while swimming in the Shrewsbury River last year. The state Environmental Protection Department and Montclair State University have partnered to evaluate the number of jellyfish in the Shrewsbury River. DEP officials say clinging jellyfish inhabit shallow bay water in seaweed or eel grass. Officials say people should wear waders and exercise caution. ___ Information from: NJ.com, http://www.nj.com
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12001
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"An Ohio ballot issue would address the fact that ""we’ve gone from paying about $100 for Epipens to over $600 ... We don’t have a choice but to pay it and the drug companies know it."
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"A pro-Issue 2 ad in Ohio claimed, ""We’ve gone from paying about $100 for Epipens to over $600. And they only hold about one dollar’s worth of medicine. We don’t have a choice but to pay it and the drug companies know it."" There is a key difference in the ""we"" paying $600 -- a relatively small fraction of the privately insured population -- and the population for whom the initiative plans to lower prices. The majority of those covered by state-sponsored insurance, like Medicaid, already pay a $0 co-pay. The campaign didn’t provide evidence of the impact on other state-insured populations, though it could have a significant impact on the smaller prison population, which does not face the same rebates as the Medicaid program. The ballot initiative would have no formal effect on prices for the privately insured, and the trickle-down effect for market prices remains speculative."
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false
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Ohio, Health Care, Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices,
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"Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices claims its ballot initiative could lower the price tag for the EpiPen, a popular auto-injector for serious allergic reactions. ""We’ve gone from paying about $100 for EpiPens to over $600. And they only hold about one dollar’s worth of medicine,"" the Aug. 29, 2017, video says. ""We don’t have a choice but to pay it and the drug companies know it. Vote yes on Issue 2, the Drug Price Relief Act."" Do EpiPens really cost that much, and could their price go down with an up-vote on the ballot initiative? Prescription drugs may be severely overpriced, but the ad misrepresents the bill’s impact. And strangely, its example of EpiPens doesn’t really apply to the population that the group is trying to help. Issue 2 is a ballot initiative up for a vote on Nov. 7. If approved, it would require all drugs bought by the state -- whether for Medicaid or other state programs -- to match Veterans Affairs prices, which receive a 24 percent discount off market price in addition to sometimes undisclosed rebates. The idea is that it would lower the state’s health care costs. The ad has a point that the price for the EpiPen two-pack soared since 2007, from $94 to $609. Each pen holds about one dollar’s worth of the drug epinephrine. While the ad makes it sound as though there is no alternative, Mylan released a $300 generic EpiPen two-pack in December 2016 and Lineage Therapeutics offers a generic auto-injector for $110. That’s still a lot, but it’s less than the $600 the ad mentions. The ad also misrepresents the population the initiative would aid, as approximately 70 percent of EpiPen users are privately insured, and Medicaid patients already pay nothing out of pocket, according to Brittany Warner, an Ohio Medicaid spokeswoman. And even if the ad was referring to the prices paid by the state, instead of patients, Medicaid already enjoys significant discounts. Brand EpiPen 2-pak’s listed price for the Medicaid program is $291.41, but because it doesn’t include rebates (which remain confidential), it may be lower. The VA price is indeed lower: $182.33, which includes rebates. ""They’re trying to appeal to the sense of outrage of high drug prices, especially for things that ought to be covered for free, but it’s a weird example to cite in the context of this particular initiative, as the vast majority of people who use it are privately insured,"" said Kao-Ping Chua, a health policy researcher at the University of Chicago who co-authored a study of out-of-pocket spending on EpiPens. Chua said the privately insured and the uninsured bore the greatest brunt of the price increase, though the price they faced for the injectors varied depending on the type of plan they are on. According to Julie Knell, a spokeswoman for Mylan, the company that sells EpiPens, ""nearly 90 percent of consumers who received EpiPen Auto-Injector or its authorized generic had an out-of-pocket cost of less than $100 and more than 80 percent are paying less than $50."" ""I would still argue that $100 is a lot to pay for a life-saving medication,"" Chua said. ""This is the difference between life and death."" In addition to the Medicaid program, the state purchases drugs for state employees, prisons, and other state-run programs, but the campaign was unable to pin down the effect of the initiative on these groups. Dennis Willard, a campaign spokesman, said 4 million Ohioans would be affected, 2.8 million of whom are on Medicaid or CHIP. Rachel Sachs, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, told us that if the initiative worked (she identified various legal issues with it in a blog post), the biggest impact would be felt by state correctional systems, which go unmentioned in the ad. Chua warned that if lowering the price for the privately insured was the goal of Issue 2, this wasn’t the best way forward, as companies could raise costs for private insurers to make up for lost revenue from states like Ohio. Opposition ads make a similar argument, claiming VA prices could also increase in response to the act. Researchers Thomas J. Hwang and Aaron S. Kesselheim evaluated this question when the group proposed a similar initiative in California. (It didn’t pass.) They said that the long-term budgetary effect of the ballot initiative was uncertain. A review claiming causation between a similar 1990 measure and increased VA prices couldn’t be ""credibly established,"" they said. Sachs said that restricting the price pharmaceutical companies can demand from the state of Ohio shouldn’t affect the price they offer private insurers or the VA. That’s because price discrimination makes it so that pharmaceuticals arrange different prices with each market, and there’s no reason to believe they haven’t already struck the best deal possible in each one. While studies suggest cost-shifting, or the displacement of costs on other markets, has little impact on hospitals, Sachs admits there’s insufficient research on this phenomenon in the pharmaceutical industry. In the absence of research on the impact of similar initiatives elsewhere, Gerard Anderson, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it would be difficult to gauge the proposal’s impact on the privately insured. A pro-Issue 2 ad in Ohio claimed, ""We’ve gone from paying about $100 for Epipens to over $600. And they only hold about one dollar’s worth of medicine. We don’t have a choice but to pay it and the drug companies know it."" There is a key difference in the ""we"" paying $600 -- a relatively small fraction of the privately insured population -- and the population for whom the initiative plans to lower prices. The majority of those covered by state-sponsored insurance, like Medicaid, already pay a $0 co-pay. The campaign didn’t provide evidence of the impact on other state-insured populations, though it could have a significant impact on the smaller prison population, which does not face the same rebates as the Medicaid program. The ballot initiative would have no formal effect on prices for the privately insured, and the trickle-down effect for market prices remains speculative."
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11537
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Training children’s bodies to overcome food allergies? Study says it’s possible
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"Allergies to common food stuffs, that elicit severe reaction can be life threatening and are a serious problem. This story presented some very preliminary results that suggest a means of making these situations more manageable for the affected individual. The story, while generally fairly complete in its description of the research, was a bit imbalanced in its assessment of the effectiveness and applicability of the treatment described. Letting the lead researcher get away with saying that there would be a treatment for kids with food allergy in 5 years is complete conjecture and may offer false hope for a timetable. From the results available at this time, it is not clear whether this treatment will be beneficial to individuals older than pre-school, whether its effectiveness might diminish over time or whether there are some undesireable side effects that might accompany this treatment. The story did provide ample caveats about the small, pilot nature of the studies and the fact that larger, randomized studies were needed to improve the evidence. But including the prediction from the lead researcher and the quote from the parent of a child in the study – ""Our whole worry level is really gone."" – introduces an imbalance that is not backed up by evidence at this time. This is very preliminary research, done in small numbers of children. That should be an important take-home message for consumers."
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true
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"There was no estimate for the costs of such treatment. The benefits of the treatment were defined as increasing the number of peanuts, for example, that a treated individual might be able to consume without difficulty. The more difficult to quantify benefit of enabling a child, allergic to common foods, to withstand exposure to those problematic foods without need of epinephrine treatment was also presented. The story did include a quote from an expert at the National Institutes of Health who commented that ""you don't go into this kind of a study lightly"" because of the risks; however the nature of the risks was not defined. The story mentioned that it was not clear how long lasting the induced tolerance might be if the children were to stop receiving their small exposure. Actually, even if they continue to receive the regular exposure, there is no data to inform us on whether the tolerance will last. There was no discussion of whether there were any specific harms observed with the treatment. The story discussed results from two small pilot studies – one published, one unpublished. It included an important caveat about the unpublished study. It emphasized that the next step would be a randomized study, ""seeking better evidence for the treatment."" Perhaps there could have been stronger caveats about intepreting results from the second study pilot study because the work has not yet been peer reviewed or published. But we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. This story did not engage in overt disease mongering. The story included comments from a scientist at the National Institutes of Health who is tracking the studies discussed. It also included quotes from a parent of an allergic child and one scientist involved in the research. The story mentioned the use of an epi-pen in passing as well as establishing ""peanut free zones."" Readers are cautioned not to try this treatment on their own and explains that the children in the study are closely monitored. The story also explained that results come from two pilot studies on very small numbers of children. It did let the lead researcher get away with predicting a treatment within five years. But we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story described a type of treatment that has been used with other allergens previously but not with allergies resulting in anaphylaxis and so is a novel approach to the management of such allergies. Does not appear to rely on a press release."
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9733
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Vaccine offers new hope for removing precancerous cervical lesions
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Correction: Since posting this review, we’ve learned that this story wasn’t an original piece of journalism but rather a verbatim reprint of a news release from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. There was no warning or disclaimer as to the origin of the text. Accordingly, we’ve downgraded the score from 4 stars to 0, to reflect the fact that this wasn’t a piece of original journalism. Read this related blog post for further explanation. This very thorough analysis of a newly published study of an experimental vaccine had much to admire, including clear quantification of benefits and an acknowledgment of study dropouts and potential harms. It could have been improved by two things: an independent source or two providing their take on the publication and some information about what the vaccine might ultimately cost patients and insurers. The development of a vaccine to prevent human papilloma virus (HPV) infection was a big advance in efforts to prevent cervical cancer. This study shows that a similar experimental vaccine can be of benefit to women who’ve already been infected with HPV and whose cervixes show evidence of precancerous changes. According to the study, the new vaccine can boost the body’s natural immune response and cause high-grade precancerous changes in the cervix to regress. It can also help clear the virus from the cervix, reducing the risk of future cancers. The current treatments for precancerous changes all involve some form of invasive procedure with tissue destruction in the cervix, which can compromise future childbearing ability. Thus the vaccine may offer a significant advantage over currently available treatments.
|
false
|
HPV,vaccines
|
The story did not discuss the potential costs of the experimental vaccine. Since similar vaccines are commercially available, it should have been possible to provide at least a ballpark estimate of what the new vaccine might cost. The potential savings in terms of treatment costs for prevented cancers could also have been mentioned and discussed. The story makes a clear comparison of the benefits of the vaccine, both in raw numbers and in percentages. It says, “Of 114 women who received at least one vaccine dose, 55 (48.2 percent) had a regression of their precancerous lesion, meaning their lesions disappeared or converted to low-grade lesions, compared with 12 of 40 (30 percent) who received saline injections.” It also says that, “Among women who completed all three injections, scientists could find no trace of HPV in the cervices of 56 of the 107 women who received the vaccine, compared with only nine of 35 saline recipients.” The story does take the rare step of calling out the fact that some patients dropped out of the study and of spelling out the side effects, even though they were minimal. It says, “Two patients discontinued the study because of pain at the injection site. Skin redness was more common in the vaccine group compared with saline.” The story does a nice job of explaining the quality of the evidence, including the sample size, the way the study was conducted, and the different phases of the study. It also notes where the study was published. Some comment on the limitations of the trial, which were discussed in some detail in the study itself, would have been welcome and likely would have been provided by an independent expert. But since none of these limitations seem to seriously compromise the interpretation of the study, we’ll let this omission pass. There is no disease mongering in the story. We wished that the story had interviewed an independent source. It did, however, note that the study was funded by the company that makes the vaccine. It said, “The vaccine, given by injection into the arm, is made by Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., which funded the clinical trial, and whose employees co-authored the report with Trimble.” Although we can’t award a Satisfactory here, the story earns our appreciation for this clear statement on potential conflict of interest. The story discussed the fact that typically precancerous lesions are either removed through surgery or watched to see how they progress. The vaccine would be a less invasive option than the surgery. The story called the study a “first step,” and we think it’s reasonably clear that this was an early human clinical trial and that the vaccine is still not available for widespread use. The story explains what may be novel about the study and the vaccine: “A vaccine able to cure precancerous lesions could eventually be one way women can avoid surgery that is invasive and can also harm their fertility.” But it doesn’t acknowledge that this type of immunotherapy approach is being investigated by a number of other research teams who’ve already published findings.The study itself tell us that “Previous attempts to develop a non-surgical treatment for CIN2/3 have had mixed success,” and it goes on to describe the results of a number of open label studies and randomized controlled trials of other similar therapies — some of which are reported to be at least moderately successful. Even a line about that context, and what makes the current approach different or better, would have been helpful. The story did not rely on a news release.
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9094
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Arthrokinex Announces IRAPjoint Product, a Non-Drug, Non-Surgical Joint Pain Management Solution Made From Your Own Blood.
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This news release heralds the creation of a new treatment for osteoarthritis (OA) patients and those with joint pain. The therapy, called IRAPjoint, consists of withdrawing a patient’s blood, heating it, and then re-injecting it into the painful joint. The theory behind this practice, which has been done for several years in Europe, is that heat increases the number of anti-inflammatory proteins (also called anti-inflammatory cytokines) in the blood, which then combat inflammation at the re-injection site. While increasingly popular with professional athletes (and horses), there is little actual scientific evidence that this treatment works. Anecdotal evidence can be important, and for top athletes whose careers depend on healthy joints, the gamble and steep price tag may be worth it. But for the general public, there is no high-quality scientific literature that shows this as a credible alternative to existing OA treatments. Joint pain can be caused by different conditions. Though not explicitly mentioned in this news release, the treatment discussed, IRAPjoint, is targeted to individuals with joint inflammation due to arthritic disease. This may be due to overuse (such as professional athletes and “weekend warriors”) or simply wear and tear due to aging. Osteoarthritis (OA) affects millions of Americans, and is the most common chronic joint condition. It can be especially debilitating in older patients, many of whom experience constant pain and loss of mobility. A safe, effective treatment that doesn’t involve the use of harsh steroids or constant pain medications would be welcome and improve the quality of life for many. But the release is not clear about just who should get this treatment. It provides almost no information on the data to support this product and in whom it should be used (other than professional athletes).
|
false
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Arthrokinex,joint pain,osteoarthritis
|
This news release highlights the cost of the treatment — $2,000, compared to the price of $10,000 for an unnamed foreign competitor. The New York Times wrote a piece on a company in Germany supplying a similar treatment in 2012 when the cost of the procedure was about $7,500 out of pocket, so the news release seems to be relatively in the ballpark. Although this new treatment may be less expensive that the foreign competitor mentioned, it is likely more expensive than steroid or hyaluronic acid injections and as a non-FDA approved treatment it is unlikely to be covered by American insurance companies. The news release gives no numbers to help readers assess the new therapy’s benefit. In fact, it says very little about the therapy benefit at all besides the fact that “success has been achieved” by using the treatment, and that the new treatment is “significantly better” than a rival European treatment. There was no study mentioned in this news release. On the website of Arthokinex, the joint pain clinic that has released the new treatment, there is a link to a 2015 study published in the journal Cytokine by one of the clinic’s doctors. The study looked retrospectively at the charts of 53 of the clinic’s patients who had undergone this treatment, and concluded that the treatment was effective in treating mild to moderate osteoarthritis. As noted in this news release, the use of a patient’s own blood as a treatment option has been available for some time. However, evidence demonstrating its benefit compared to placebo or other injections is very limited. Instead, the release implies benefit by referring to the use of this type of treatment by professional athletes. This release mentioned no potential harms of the treatment, and emphasized multiple times the supposed safety of the treatment as a “non-drug, non-surgical treatment derived from your own blood.” But just because it’s from your body doesn’t mean it’s inherently safe—further study would be necessary to determine the safety and risk of adverse reactions. Though probably safe if done in a sterile fashion, there is no information on the long-term impact of this treatment on the arthritic joint. As mentioned above, no study was provided along with the news release to show the efficacy of the treatment, and the release made no mention of this crucial missing piece. The actual study (linked above) had several weaknesses—it was a retrospective study, and had a small sample size of only 53 patients. And there aren’t many other studies available for learning more about the therapy. A 2013 review of literature of this treatment (also called autologous conditioned serum and Orthokine) found only eight scientifically valid articles (not including the one by Arthokinex) of this specific treatment method. Though the treatment may seem anecdotally and conceptually legitimate, there just simply isn’t enough valid research backing up that claim. This was a tough call and we gave them the benefit of the doubt on this criteria. Although the release doesn’t disease monger about joint pain, without a clear indication of who should get this injection, it may imply that anyone with joint pain could consider this treatment. And that’s not the case. This news release was sent out by the clinic that developed and now markets this treatment, so the conflict of interest is fairly obvious. Another big conflict of interest should have been noted, but wasn’t. The one research trial published on this therapy was conducted by a physician who has ownership in the clinic and sits on the company’s board of directors. This fact, which was disclosed in the published study but not the news release, forms a clear conflict of interest. The release doesn’t name any alternatives for joint pain. For patients with mild symptoms, over-the-counter oral medicines like ibuprofen and naproxen can help. For some, physical treatments can help strengthen muscles and can improve function of the joint. At the other end of the spectrum, for patients with very severe arthritis, joint replacement is an invasive but effective option. However, for many with moderate symptoms, there is a need for treatments than can control symptoms. Injections into affected joints with other medicines including steroids and hyaluronic acid have been available for a long time. These treatments can have short-term benefit for some individuals, but don’t help everyone. The specific treatment in the news release is only offered at one clinic in the U.S., but the news release didn’t mention if any other clinics or companies offer a similar therapy. The release also makes it sound like this treatment is available for anyone with bad joints, though theoretically there would be people who do not qualify for the treatment based on their symptoms or medical history. The release does a good job here. It emphasizes the novelty of this approach, especially in the United States. Reviews of published literature show that this has not been a well-explored field yet. The sensational language here is subtle (no explicit talk of a “breakthrough”), but still may lead a reader to be over-confident in the treatment and its abilities based on the quality of evidence. The news release emphasizes several times that the treatment is “natural” since it is derived from the patient’s own blood. And one of the last sentences of the news release stood out as particularly heavy-handed: “Finally, a U.S. based company has a solution for America’s professional and weekend athletes as well as those struggling with aching or arthritic joints.”
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10924
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Study: Stomach banding beats drugs in curing diabetes
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This was an interesting story reporting on the diabetes improvement that may follow gastric banding surgery. But the story erred in referring to ‘curing’ type II diabetes. The evidence from the paper never mentions cure; it discusses remission, which is not the same thing as cure. It has different meaning for patients too. So we advise against using these words interchangeably. We don’t know if these patients will stay in remission for the rest of their lives. This is only a 2 year study. An important message that should have been reiterated is that the impact of gastric banding surgery to effect diabetes is linked with weight loss. While the surgery may better enable people to engage in lifestyle changes and lose weight, it is certainly not a magic bullet. In the absence of dietary change, meaning reduction in caloric intake, this surgery does not appear to alter diabetes. This is a key piece of information that needs to be included in the messages about the possible benefits of this procedure. Costs should have been discussed in this article, including out of pocket costs. Harms were not discussed.
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true
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"The story did not provide information about the costs associated with gastric banding or the intensive follow-up that the people in this study received. It also failed to mention that this procedure is not always covered by medical insurance. The story informed readers that most of the people undergoing gastric banding saw resolution of their diabetes after one year if they lost sufficient weight. However the story errs on the side of treatment mongering. Using the word ""cure"" in the first paragraph is overly enthusiastic for this approach to diabetes. The study from which the story was developed discusses remission of diabetes which is not the same thing as a cure. In addition, the study only followed patients for 2 years. We don’t know whether the improvement in diabetes status will be longer lasting than this or whether the remission will slowly erode. There was no mention of the harms of treatment; two out the 30 patients who had gastric banding surgery had to have their bands removed (one due to something reported as ‘band intolerance’ which occurred early on; one who experienced persistent regurgitation after less than a year). While these complications were able to be resolved, for people considering this procedure, it would be of interest to know that it could be a potential problem and not a long term solution in as many as 1 in 15 individuals. The story could also have mentioned the potential harms of gastric bypass, which are more significant than gastric banding. The story did provide some evidence about the percentage of individuals that experienced resolution of their diabetes following gastric banding. It mentioned that remission of diabetes occurred within a year and that weight loss appeared to be the factor that resulted in this benefit of treatment. Towards the end of the story, it explained that the results reported followed a small number of patients and that they had had type II diabetes for a relatively short period of time. It failed, however, to mention that the results obtained in this study are better than that of other investigators and that the people in this study also engaged in a relatively intensive lifestyle intervention that may have better enabled their weight loss. The story explained that 20 million Americans have type II diabetes and that it is currently the fifth leading cause of death in this country – appropriate context. The story included information from the research paper it was reporting on, an editorial in the journal that accompanied the paper, and two quotes from experts without overt links to the research. In addition, the story included information about the source of funding for the study. The story did compare the effects on diabetes obtained with gastric banding with those seen with gastric bypass surgery; it also explained that there has not been a trial directly comparing the two procedures in terms of their ability to improve diabetic status. It also included the information from the study that demonstrated the difficulty of weight loss in the absence of weight loss surgery. The story did not clarify the availability of gastric banding in the United States. It is a procedure that may not be performed by all surgeons or be available at all hospitals that offer weight loss surgery. The story did not really comment on the novelty of gastric banding as a weight loss surgery. From the context of the information it rightly made it appear as if there was some history of its use. Does not appear to rely on a press release."
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11642
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NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged’, found dead.
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"In the world of real news, PolitiFact has fact-checked many claims related to past Super Bowls related to weather, records and spending as well as human trafficking and domestic violence and economic impact. But in this case, the claim that an ""NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged’, found dead"" is fake news."
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false
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Fake news, Sports, PunditFact, Eco News,
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"Days before the Super Bowl, fake news articles circulating on Facebook claimed that a National Football League lawyer named Dan Goodes was shot dead in a ""gangland-style execution"" hours after blowing the whistle on the ""rigged Super Bowl."" ""NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged,’ found dead,"" stated the Feb. 1 headline on Eco News, a website that claims it is on the frontline for ""earth liberation."" Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. The story copies an earlier fake story by YourNewsWire, a website that publishes fake news. We sent messages to both websites and didn’t get a reply. We found no evidence that an NFL lawyer named Dan Goodes even exists, or that he was found dead in his BMW in Manhattan. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PolitiFact that the NFL has no attorney named Dan Goodes. He called the story ""ridiculous,"" ""bogus"" and ""fake."" The story said that Goodes had been representing the NFL in Minneapolis to promote the 2018 Super Bowl featuring the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots when he went off script and claimed that the NFL rigged the game to earn maximum revenue for league. ""According to Goodes, the fat cat franchise owners and their pampered players do not care who wins, as long as they continue reaping the lucrative financial benefits provided by the system,"" the article said. The article included a mock screenshot of a Jan. 28 New York Times article about the alleged shooting of the lawyer founded slumped over the wheel of his BMW. But the article doesn’t appear in Nexis. ""Nothing about this is real, down to the URL,"" New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told PolitiFact. ""It's a false reference to a non-existent NYT story."" The Eco News story included a photo of two police officers at a crime scene. We searched Google images and found it matched an Associated Press photo of a crime scene near the site where a police officer was fatally shot in the Bronx in July. It also contained an alleged photo of NFL headquarters; however, a search of that photo in Google images resulted in a match to a picture on the South Park Studios website. Readers should beware of other conspiracy theories about the Super Bowl. The Facebook page Satire Daily, which clearly identifies itself as satire, published a video seemingly documenting that the NFL had openly admitted to rigging games. Snopes debunked the claim in January. The video focused on a referee who congratulated the team’s quarterback Tom Brady after the Patriots beat the Jaguars. That actually happened. Referee Clete Blakeman did Brady a congratulatory pat on the chest, which fueled some conspiracy theories. NFL spokesman McCarthy told PolitiFact, ""It's not uncommon for an official to congratulate a player after a game."" Another situation that fueled conspiracy theories stemmed from an actual NFL ad on social media in January before the NFC Championship Game. The ad featured photos of the Patriots and Vikings quarterbacks and said, ""When you donate to United Way, you could score 2 club-level seats to watch the Patriots vs. the Vikings battle it out for the coveted Super Bowl title!"" The NFL apologized for the ads. ""It was a regrettable mistake,"" an unnamed NFL spokesman told media. ""The ads were mocked up using all the (possible) combinations, but weren’t supposed to go until Monday when the matchup is known. Obviously, someone jumped the gun."" McCarthy also told PolitiFact the ad was a mistake. In the world of real news, PolitiFact has fact-checked many claims related to past Super Bowls related to weather, records and spending as well as human trafficking and domestic violence and economic impact. But in this case, the claim that an ""NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged’, found dead"" is fake news."
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36542
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"Portraits depict Agnes Sorel in the 1400s, exposing her favorite breast and myths about ""modesty."
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Do Portraits Depict Agnès Sorel in the 1400s Exposing Her ‘Favorite Boob’?
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
|
In January 2019, screenshots of the following Twitter claim about Agnès Sorel, lover to King Charles VII of France, began circulating on Facebook:The tweet said:“Women in the past were modest and had more respect for themselves.”Here’s Agnes Sorel, who had her gowns tailored to expose her favorite boob in the 1440s.The poster added additional tweets to the original that indicated the source for her claim was Wikipedia:Wright pointed to an entry for Sorel, which categorized her as a mistress of King Charles VII. The excerpted portion was attributed to a 2005 book, Histoires de Mode:Agnès Sorel (1422 – 9 February 1450), known by the sobriquet Dame de beauté (Lady of Beauty), was a favourite, and chief mistress, of King Charles VII of France, by whom she bore four daughters…. Sorel generated scandal at court, particularly for championing the fashion of her wearing of low-cut gowns with a single breast fully bared. This behavior was both imitated and scorned. Jean Juvénal des Ursins, the archbishop of Reims, counseled the king to correct such fashions as “front openings through which one sees the teats, nipples, and breasts of women” (ouvertures de par devant, par lesquelles on voit les tetins, tettes et seing des femmes).The claim seems well supported at first glance. A Vice article (“The Untold Story of a Legendarily Topless Mistress Who Saved France”) reported:Sorel was scandalized as a devilish schemer and a slut. Many writers of the time — rivals to the crown — indulged in gossip of illicit affairs and infidelity. Georges Chastellain, ally to Sorel’s biggest adversary, Louis, the Dauphin of France and the king’s son and heir, wrote: “All the women of France and Burgundy lost much in modesty in wanting to follow the example of this woman.” He failed to mention, of course, that the “good duke” of Burgundy he also served had no less than 27 mistresses of his own.Painter Jean Fouquet crystallized the image we most associate with Sorel today; the single breast-baring Virgin in his Virgin and Child with Angels is widely believed to be modeled on Sorel. According to Rainer and Rose-Marie Hagen, authors of What Great Paintings Say, Sorel was the obvious choice for the Virgin, since she was considered by many at the time to be “the most beautiful woman in the world.” The dazzling pose was later replicated by an anonymous artist in the other, unnamed famous Sorel painting from the 16th century.However, that piece was inspired by Wright’s tweet and published after it became virally popular on Twitter:Despite Sorel being effectively reduced to that one exposed breast in art and memes alike, the evidence, as noted by medievalist Rachel E. Moss, that she actually dressed like this is scarce. Chastellain did accuse Sorel of being the “producer and inventor” of inappropriate styles of dress, which politician Jean Jouvenel des Ursins described as including “front openings by which one sees the teats, the nipples, and breasts of women.” But, as we already know, Chastellain was pretty salty about Sorel.Claims about Sorel’s “one boob flash” style came before the tweet, but rested on the specific style of painting referenced — Nursing Madonna, Virgo Lactans, or Madonna Lactans, which was specific iconography featuring Virgin Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus.Sorel and her legacy made headlines in 2005, after her remains were exhumed and tested for evidence that she was murdered. In a Guardian piece published that year, Sorel’s purported penchant for freeboobing at court was presented differently:Her extravagances were legendary: she invented the off-the-shoulder gown (which occasionally became the one-breast-in, one-breast-out gown) and spent fortunes on monumental fur-lined robes with trains of up to eight metres long, becoming the best client of the court’s principal merchant and financier, Jacques Coeur.In that telling, it wasn’t even clear whether Sorel wore the breast-baring fashions. But another take was published days after Wright’s tweet went viral, presented by Dr. Rachel E. Moss, a University of Oxford lecturer in medieval history. Moss described the claim as “misleading at best,” drawing a line from the questionable source of material which made its way into Wikipedia:Over the past few days, 53,000 people have retweeted a thread about Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII of France. How cool — a popular thread about a medieval woman! Except that the thread is misleading at best. Jennifer Wright wrote: “Here’s Agnes Sorel, who had her gowns tailored to expose her favorite boob in the 1440s.” The two images chosen to illustrate this were a very famous painting by Jean Fouquet, and a sixteenth-century painting inspired by Fouquet’s. Fouquet’s portrait is fascinating not because of the bare breast per se, but because it depicts the mistress of the King as the Virgin Mary – specifically, as the Virgo Lactans, or the Nursing Virgin, a popular iconographical trope of the Middle Ages that connected Christ intimately to His human nature by showing He, like any other child, was fed by His mother’s breast.That Sorel, who gave Charles four children and had a reputation for scandalous dress and behaviour, should be portrayed as the Mother of God is a very bold choice. Of course it’s tempting to think this choice was made because Sorel had already established a fashion for bearing her breasts – a claim made on her Wikipedia entry and in pretty much every article Google throws up if you search for her name. I have only been able to find a couple of primary sources that give any [indication] that Sorel bared her breasts in public, quoted within Sheila Delany’s academic survey of social constructions of the body in the fifteenth-century, Impolitic Bodies. Delany repeats the claim that Sorel bared her breasts (not one cheeky boob!) but this seems to stem from Georges Chastellain’s remark that Sorel was the producer and inventor of ribald fashions, and Jean Jouvenal des Ursins opining that the king ought to put a stop to feminine sartorial faults at court, including openings in the dress through which the breasts and nipples could be seen. It seems likely the ladies of the French court were pushing their boob game to new heights, but neither of these quotations suggest a nonchalant breast being popped out of one side of a tight bodice. Instead, the real scandal is that here we have a fashionable young woman openly in a sexual relationship with the king being depicted as the holiest, most beautiful and least sexual of women imaginable: the ever-Virgin Mary.Moss cites another example of one-dimensional viral “facts” about women in history, and why she feels they do their subjects a disservice:As a professional historian (for whatever that’s worth), I believe that there is an important ethical dimension to how I portray people who lived in the past. While my own work tends to take a postmodernist approach of treating texts as fictions, that doesn’t mean I believe I have the right to fictionalise others’ lived experiences to fit my narrative agenda … instead of churning out twitter threads about pistol-wielding ballerinas that diminishes the dehumanizing horror of the Holocaust, or writing popular books with titles that reduce their subjects to objects (Tim Desmondes’ Agnes Sorel: The Breast And Crotch That Changed History is a horrendous 2009 example), we might perhaps think of ways to use these eye-catching incidents in history to engage with the public in ways that reveal, rather than diminish, our historical subjects….Now you can write twitter threads as long as your arm and with 280 characters per tweet, there’s really no excuse for leaving out the barest smidgen of historical context, or thanking the scholars whose work you are drawing on. Most importantly, you do more honour to the Badass Ladies of History you’re celebrating by placing them more firmly in a place we can attempt to understand their values, imagination and strength, rather than ascribing our own values wholesale to a misunderstood and murky past. (This is why I will never have 50k+ followers on twitter, of course. )As Moss notes, underlying historical information supporting the claim that Agnès Sorel had a signature single-breast baring style is thin to nonexistent (although her extravagant style is a matter of the historical record.) And as she also notes, the “badass female [descriptor]” backstory is practically guaranteed viral status on Twitter et al. Although Sorel’s life and place in history was fascinating and full of intrigue, the style of dress attributed to her appeared to stem from a very modern — and very imprecise — interpretation of history.
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26341
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Blogger Says Mike Pence was caught on a hot mic delivering empty boxes of PPE to a nursing home and pretended they were heavy.
|
A video clip of Vice President Mike Pence featured in an episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was deceptively edited. Pence delivered boxes of personal protective equipment to a Virginia nursing home, but Kimmel falsely suggests he pretended the boxes were heavy when they were empty. The clip cuts off before showing that Pence never lifted or touched any of the empty boxes.
|
false
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Fake news, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Bloggers,
|
"A clip of Vice President Mike Pence helping deliver personal protective equipment to a Virginia nursing home started circulating on social media after late night host Jimmy Kimmel featured it in his show. A 40-second clip of the ""Jimmy Kimmel Live!"" episode shared on Twitter shows Kimmel mocking Pence, saying he was caught on a hot mic apparently joking about carrying empty boxes. ""Here he is with no mask on, wheeling PPE’s into a health care center and doing his best to lift them. What a hero,"" Kimmel says, ""and since it was going so well, and also because he didn’t realize he had a mic on, Magic Mike decided to keep it going. Listen in closely here."" Kimmel cuts back to Pence. Audio picks up one of the workers telling the vice president that the rest of the boxes in the van are empty. Pence can be heard responding, ""Can I carry the empty ones? Just for the camera?"" The video ends, and Kimmel says, ""Mike Pence pretending to carry empty boxes of PPEs into a hospital is the perfect metaphor for who he is and what he's doing: A big box of nothing delivering another box of nothing."" Mike Pence caught on hot mic delivering empty boxes of PPE for a PR stunt. pic.twitter.com/IduvGhiPwj Before deleting it, the Occupy Democrats group re-shared the clip on Facebook with the headline: ""OMG: Mike Pence caught on hot mix ""delivering"" EMPTY boxes of PPE to hospital... and PRETENDING THEY ARE HEAVY!"" Other websites quickly followed suit. But the video is deceptively edited. The Kimmel clip cuts the video off at a selective point, just before Pence shuts the door to the van. Pence doesn’t touch or pretend to lift any empty boxes. The clip 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 video was taken on May 7, 2020, as Pence helped deliver equipment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Woodbine Rehabilitation & Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Va. We found the full 29-minute video on CSPAN. Pence’s empty boxes quip comes around the 9-minute mark. After unloading a few boxes, Pence walks back to the van and is told that the rest of the boxes in it are empty. He then asks if he can carry the empty ones for the cameras and smiles after people around him laugh. One man helping unload the boxes says, ""Absolutely, they’re a lot easier,"" to more laughter before Pence shuts the van doors. Pence’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jon Thompson, Pence’s campaign communications manager, tweeted that the Kimmel clip is ""garbage"" and said Pence is ""clearly joking about empty boxes & if Kimmel showed the full clip from CSPAN, not the one he selectively edited, you see and hear it."" (Kimmel apologized via Twitter, sort of.) Posts used video from Jimmy Kimmel to claim Pence was caught on a hot mic delivering empty boxes of PPE to a nursing home and pretended they were heavy. That’s not what happened. This claim is ."
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10015
|
Drug a New Treatment Option for Diabetic Eye Disease
|
Just doesn’t stack up to the other two stories (by WebMD and the New York Times) we reviewed on this same study. But it’s tough to stack up when all you’ve done is rewritten a news release. When you report from a news release, you’re not going to get into the meat of the real story as the New York Times did on the questions about corporate sponsorship of a clinical trial.
|
false
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"Cost isn’t mentioned and in that oversight is perhaps the biggest flaw of the story – that it did not explain – as the New York Times story did – that there are questions about Lucentis vs. a cheaper alternative. From the NYT: Never defines what ""substantial improvement in vision"" means. None discussed. The NYT reported: ""About 1 percent of those getting Lucentis injections suffered an inflammation of the eye from an infection."" No discussion of the quality of the evidence. And the headline and subhead mention only the drug. This is still being looked at as a drug-and-laser combination. No disease mongering. Quotes come directly from an American Academy of Opthalmology news release. No discussion of whether either of the quoted experts has financial ties to the company making the drug – but one of them reported in the study that he had ties to the manufacturer. No comparison with the cheaper alternative – part of the important controversy raised in the NYT story. The story never clarifies whether Lucentis is now approved and available. The story calls it ""a new drug."" It’s not. It’s already approved for another eye disease, age-related macular degeneration. Relies totally on a news release. No sign of independent reporting."
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7463
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AP-NORC poll: Majority disapprove of coronavirus protests.
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A majority of Americans disapprove of protests against restrictions aimed at preventing the spread the coronavirus, according to a new poll that also finds the still-expansive support for such limits — including restaurant closures and stay-at-home orders — has dipped in recent weeks.
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true
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AP Top News, General News, Politics, Lifestyle, Virus Outbreak, Public health, U.S. News
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The new survey from the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 55% of Americans disapprove of the protests that have popped up in some states as some Americans begin chafing at public health measures that have decimated the global economy. Thirty-one percent approve of the demonstrations. Texas hair salon owner Shelley Luther was sentenced to seven days in jail last week after refusing to apologize to a judge for opening her salon in defiance of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s emergency orders. She was released less than 48 hours later after Abbott removed jail as a punishment for defying virus safeguards. In Michigan, thousands of people rallied outside the state capitol last month to protest Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s restrictions. Hundreds returned two weeks later, some of them armed, to demonstrate inside the statehouse. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to disapprove of such protests, 67% to 51%. Thirty-two percent of Republicans and 25% of Democrats say they approve. Only 8% said public protests, marches and rallies should be unrestricted during the outbreak, while 41% think they should be allowed only with restrictions and 50% think they should not be allowed at all. Dee Miner, 71, of Fremont, California, said she disapproves of the protests, but also feels people have the right to express themselves. “We have to have the right to protest, but I have to tell you, seeing those people with those weapons at the statehouse in Michigan was pretty disturbing,” said Miner, a Democrat and retired dental office manager. “I felt sorry for the legislators having to work with that angry mob in the lobby. It seemed like it was just pure intimidation.” Adam Blann, 37, of Carson City, Nevada, said he does not personally favor the protests, but does not believe they should be restricted. “Its a tough situation,” said Blann, a Republican-leaning voter who works in the natural gas industry. “But I also think that one of the reasons we live in a great country is that we have freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom to protest.” As some states have begun to slowly ease restrictions on businesses and individuals, the poll finds that 71% of Americans favor requiring people to stay in their homes except for essential errands. Support for such measures is down slightly from 80% two weeks earlier. Similarly, 67% of Americans now say they favor requiring bars and restaurants to close, down from 76% in the earlier poll. The poll also suggested dipping support for requiring Americans to limit gatherings to 10 people or fewer (from 82% to 75%) and requiring postponement of nonessential medical care (from 68% to 57%). Mark Roberts, a retired transportation worker in Abingdon, Virginia, said he’s going about his business despite Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam’s stay-at-home order. Roberts said people in his southwestern Virginia community are driving the short distance into neighboring Bristol, Tennessee, to patronize restaurants open there. “People from Virginia have been crossing over into Tennessee to eat and just get out, you know, and do things, and Virginia is losing out on it,” said the 61-year-old Republican. Among Republicans like Roberts, the share supporting stay-at-home orders dipped from 70% in late April to 57% in the latest poll. The share supporting other measures also dropped, from 75% to 63% for limiting gatherings to no more than 10 people and from 70% to 53% for closing bars and restaurants. Among Democrats, 84% favor stay-at-home orders, down slightly from 91% in the earlier poll. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats favor barring gatherings of more than 10 people, and 79% support bar and restaurant closures, about the same as in the previous poll. Blann, the Nevada resident, said he didn’t mind officials imposing certain restrictions for a short period of time, but fears the potential of authorities being unwilling to roll back some of their newly declared powers. “I do think the government should respond to allowing people to make more of their own personal choices without legal repercussions,” said Blann, who said he doesn’t expect to find himself in a crowded bar anytime soon, but is looking forward to being able to go back to church. The poll found most Americans in favor of some kind of restriction on in-person worship, with 42% saying that should be allowed with restriction and 48% that it should not be allowed at all. Marilou Grainger, a retired nurse anesthetist and registered Republican in Washington, Missouri, said she’s torn between the need to take precautions against the virus while also allowing people to make their own decisions. “I think we should still be under a bit of quarantine, especially people who are 60 or older,” said Grainger, 67, who believes the jury is still out on whether lockdowns and stay-at-home orders have been effective in stemming the spread of the virus. “Did we make a mistake? Did we totally annihilate our economy, or did we actually save some people issuing this quarantine?” she asked. ___ Chase reported from Dover, Delaware. ___ The AP-NORC poll of 1,002 adults was conducted April 30-May 4 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. ___ Online: AP-NORC Center: http://www.apnorc.org/
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11920
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"Charles Francis ""vows to slash funding for parks and open space."
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"McFarlane’s mailer says Francis ""vows to slash funding for parks and open space."" Francis has certainly been critical of the city’s enthusiasm for Dix Park and bike lanes. But, as far as we can tell, he’s made no promises to cut the parks budget."
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false
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City Budget, City Government, Recreation, North Carolina, Nancy McFarlane,
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"Charles Francis has campaigned on the idea that Raleigh leaders aren’t paying enough attention to the city’s neediest. He’s said that Mayor Nancy McFarlane and other council members seem more enthusiastic about big projects, like building a new City Hall or planning Dix Park, than they are about providing more affordable housing or helping poor residents find jobs. This has prompted McFarlane, the three-term incumbent who’s in a runoff against Francis, to defend those projects. The city purchased the 308-acre Dix property from the state in 2014 for $52 million with the goal of transforming it into a destination park that people could walk to from downtown Raleigh. The deal is one of McFarlane’s proudest accomplishments. So perhaps it’s no surprise that she has cast Francis as someone who ""opposed"" the project, which she claimed in a recent debate. A campaign mailer she paid for goes a step further, saying Francis ""vows to slash funding for parks and open space."" Francis denies McFarlane’s claim, which implies that he has promised deep cuts. We caught up with him on the campaign trail on Nov. 4, where he called it a ""flat-out lie."" ""I have never said that I would cut spending,"" Francis said. ""What I’ve said is that park spending needs to be equitable."" So we asked McFarlane’s campaign advisors, Perry Woods and James Sonneman, if they have evidence to support the claim on the mailer. What McFarlane says Woods pointed to Francis’ comments on Aug. 15, when both candidates attended the Raleigh Wake Citizens Association forum at Martin Street Baptist Church. Francis can be heard describing Dix Park as ""tangential"" and saying the city ""can't be distracted by bike lanes and more parks."" ""Charles Francis has said several times that Dix Park is peripheral to the city and that money should be moved away from parks, like Dix, and into affordable housing and transit,"" Woods said. ""That is not supporting Dix Park or the park system in general."" Woods provided a link to a Sept. 14 News & Observer story about the mayoral candidates. Francis is quoted as saying the city has the wrong priorities. ""That’s been the real conflict I’ve had with these pseudo-liberal Democrats,"" Francis said. ""What’s important to them is bike lanes and parks and that kind of thing. What we have in mind is more basic."" He also provided a link to an Oct. 8 N&O story, in which Francis’ position is summarized this way: The city should stop spending so much money on things like parks and downtown revitalization and focus on public transit and social services, such as mental health care. PolitiFact pointed out to Woods and McFarlane's other advisor, James Sonneman, that those examples don’t provide evidence of Francis ""vowing to slash funding"" for parks and open space. ""Of course, no politician will spell out what their positions would do explicitly,"" Sonneman replied. ""It is the same idea as when a politician like (U.S. House Speaker) Paul Ryan discusses entitlement reform, he doesn't explicitly state that he plans to cut medicare benefits, but taking the position that we need to stop spending so much money on a program means that cuts would be involved."" It's one thing to be critical of government spending. But it's another to vow or promise to do something. We decided to review Francis’ statements in news stories, campaign materials and video footage to see what he said about Dix Park and parks funding in general. Did he make any promises? Other Francis statements Most recently, Francis was quoted on his stance on Oct. 28 in a News & Observer story. The writer describes Francis’ belief this way: that the fanfare surrounding Dix Park has distracted the city from attending to more basic services and needs, including smaller parks in Southeast Raleigh. Francis is critical of the city's decision to hire a New York-based firm to design the park instead of a local company. ""Access to housing, transportation, jobs and education — the basic city services — are more important than bike lanes and parks,"" Francis is quoted saying. In a televised debate on Oct. 20, McFarlane accused Francis of opposing Dix Park early in his campaign. Francis responded by saying he supports Dix Park but wants to make the planning process more inclusive. ""I believe in parks. But parks are not as important as good jobs with high pay and access to housing in terms of people’s quality of life."" He continued: ""We need to be concerned not about people who are going to be in Raleigh 50 years from now but about people who are in Raleigh right now and improving their quality of life."" A story by Indyweek quoted Francis when he announced his plan to call for a runoff: He favors the development of the Dix Park, but not to the detriment of other city parks. ""It's not acceptable to put all of our focus on Dix Park and neglect other parks,"" Francis said. A video posted on his campaign website is titled, ""I support Dix Park – and equity for all of Raleigh."" In it, he said he supports the Dix Park planning process but notes that other parks haven’t gotten the same attention and have only received partial funding for upgrades throughout the years. ""Equity requires that we put just as much attention on our other parks as we do on Dix Park,"" he said. ""Even more, the city has to put Dix Park in its proper priority. As nice as it’s going to be to have Dix Park as a thriving central park 50 years from now, Raleigh must right now — not two years from now — increase access to housing, preserve existing affordable housing and build new affordable housing."" In an Indyweek questionnaire, Francis makes no mention of funding for Dix Park or other parks. Our ruling McFarlane’s mailer says Francis ""vows to slash funding for parks and open space."" Francis has certainly been critical of the city’s enthusiasm for Dix Park and bike lanes. But, as far as we can tell, he’s made no promises to cut the parks budget."
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2342
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China's hunger for sea cucumbers reaches islands of Sierra Leone.
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As evening falls over Sierra Leone’s Banana Island archipelago, bats stream from their beachside roosts to circle in their thousands over the jungle village of Dublin.
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true
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Environment
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Below them a struggle is playing out over an unexpected commodity - the lowly sea cucumber, a fleshy, sausage-shaped creature that scavenges for food on the seabed. It is a struggle that is familiar to many in the West African country. Sierra Leone’s resources - diamonds, gold, fish and more recently iron ore - have been extracted and exported in great quantities throughout its history, yet the country remains one of the poorest in the world. While the Banana Islanders have no use for sea cucumbers, in China they are prized for their medicinal properties and as a natural aphrodisiac. Growing demand - currently estimated at around 10,000 tonnes per year – has depleted stocks around the world, leading traders to search ever further afield for new harvesting grounds. Locals say when the first Chinese traders arrived in Sierra Leone four years ago to harvest the island’s little known, red-spined variety of Stichopus sea cucumbers, they called themselves investors. When prices skyrocketed, the islanders hoped the windfall would both make them wealthy and bring development to the village. Moses Taylor, a former village chief known locally as Lord Moe, recalls the visitors’ promises with bitterness. “They said they would build water pumps in the street, they said they would build street lights,” he said, sprawled in a flower bed smoking cheap cigarettes. “They said they would build community centers. But they did nothing for us.” “They just used us and dumped us like rubbish,” said Abu Bakar Kanu, a cucumber diver smoking marijuana with friends down the street. The locals say after it became clear the development promises were not likely to be met, they banned diving with the oxygen tanks and air-compressors that they themselves cannot afford, and called on all cucumber buyers to pay 200,000 Leones ($46) to the chief before they could operate. Local cucumber dealer Reginald McCarthy said these rules have been ignored. “Now they come from Kent with boats and oxygen,” he said. “You can’t stop them.” Chinese traders running their export businesses out of Tombo village on the mainland a few kilometres away did not want to talk to Reuters about the locals’ complaints. But Mohamed Bangura, who works for one exporter who asked to be identified only as Cham Jr, denied they were breaking any laws. Cham’s father was one of the first to export sea cucumbers from the Banana Islands, and is also one of those accused by the islanders of reneging on their promises. Bangura acknowledged that the villagers’ expectations had not been met, but contended the region was still better off. He noted that his company had supplied a generator to Tombo village, for example. “The islanders are the main beneficiaries of our trade,” he said. Without access to international markets and lacking the capital to start sea cucumber trading operations of their own, the locals say they feel powerless, however. Sea cucumber diving is a lucrative option compared to the meager earnings offered by a fishing industry hard hit by illegal and unregulated foreign trawlers. Abu Bakar, who is in his 20s, has been diving since the beginning of the cucumber windfall. Selling his catch to Chinese buyers enabled him to invest in land on the coast to the south of the capital, Freetown. “We thank God the sea cucumber has pushed us forward,” he said. Diving must take place in the dark, when the slug-like echinoderms emerge from their daytime resting places. “The sea cucumber knows only darkness,” said Lord Moe. Every night during the season - which depends on the tides and light from the moon - Matthew Ray pushes off with a team of divers in a rickety, brightly painted canoe from a beach beneath a towering cotton tree. After a half-hour boat-ride through water glowing yellow with bio-luminescence he reaches the cucumber fields, where collectors, sporting wetsuits and waterproof torches, dive for hours on end. The work is arduous and repetitive. Many of the men use marijuana and other drugs to ease their burden. On one recent trip a man intoxicated with the ethoxylated alcohol, Tomadol, capsized a boat, prompting panicked bailing to keep the team afloat. This particular trip yielded just two sea cucumbers, which were hastily boiled and salted to be stored until Matthew has enough to sell to his Chinese buyers and Sierra Leonean middlemen. The going price is 150,000 Leones ($35) for a 7-kg (15-pound) bucket. How much they are resold for is not clear but Selina Stead, professor of Marine Governance and Environmental Science at Newcastle University, said by the time they reach the wholesale markets of Guangzhou, dried sea cucumbers similar to the Sierra Leone variety can fetch as much as $133 a kg. Sierra Leone’s government says conditions are generally improving in the country, pointing to a set of impressive economic indicators. The economy grew by 15.2 percent in 2012 on the back of an iron-ore bonanza. Projections for 2014 are not far below that, at 14 percent, according to the World Bank. China has been a big part of that boom, with trade predicted to hit $2 billion this year. But many Sierra Leoneans say they still have yet to see the benefits in their daily lives. The jobs created by the major mining companies have had little impact on Sierra Leone’s unemployment crisis, and firms have faced criticism from civil society over importing too many foreign workers and contracting foreign companies to do jobs local companies could have done. Life expectancy remains just 48 and the country ranks 177th out of 187 countries on the human development index. The sandy streets of Dublin village, once trodden by slaves destined for the Atlantic trade, reinforce the point that very little of the sea cucumber wealth has remained on Banana Island. Decaying clapboard houses, built in the distinctive style of the returning slaves who arrived in Sierra Leone from the late 18th century, lie scattered through the bush. The only street lights are rusting wrought-iron relics left behind by early Portuguese settlers. Clean water is scarce and electricity is enjoyed only by the few who can afford to run costly diesel generators. There are also concerns that the sea cucumber boomlet may already be busting. Victor Sawyer, the official in charge of sea cucumber research at Sierra Leone’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Freetown, said the government intends to regulate the sector but has yet to conduct basic research. “We don’t want to get into a situation where it is overexploited. But we don’t know the growth rate; we don’t know the stock. We don’t know anything now,” he told Reuters. Abu Bakar, one of the few islanders to have enjoyed modest profits from the trade, agrees the supply appears to be dwindling. “Now it is not easy to find them,” he said. “We strain a lot.”
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15135
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We had a three-hour debate, no discussion about the national debt, very little about the economy.
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"Rubio said, ""We had a three-hour debate, no discussion about the national debt, very little about the economy."" He’s right there was very little mention of the economy, but the national debt was brought up by some of the 11 candidates, usually while addressing an opponent. We should note that even then, no one gave any specifics about what to do beyond some broad talking points."
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true
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National, Debates, Elections, Marco Rubio,
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"The high polling numbers for the GOP presidential field’s ""outsider"" candidates are in part the result of the media refusing to discuss substantive issues, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Rubio said on the Sept. 20, 2015, episode of This Week that political newcomers like Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson were seeing success because people were tired of establishment candidates. But the CNN debate earlier in the week in Simi Valley, Calif., also showed that coverage isn’t focused on the country’s problems, he said. ""I don’t think it’s limited to the politicians, it’s also the media,"" Rubio said. ""We had a three-hour debate, no discussion about the national debt, very little about the economy. It was a constant he-said-she-said, what do you say because so-and-so called you this name or that name."" What did the candidates really discuss during the debate? We reviewed the transcript and wouldn’t say there was ""no discussion"" about the debt, but Rubio has a point there was little said about the economy. The economy We’ll actually start with how much the candidates said about the economy, because it came up first, much in the way Rubio described. (We reached out to his campaign for more on this but didn’t hear back.) After lengthy discussions about Trump’s worthiness as a candidate, Russia’s involvement in Syria, Congress attempting to defund Planned Parenthood, immigration and other issues, moderator Jake Tapper switched gears. ""We've received a lot of questions on social media about the economy and about jobs,"" he acknowledged, but used the pivot to asked Fiorina to respond to Trump’s criticism of her record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Fiorina then recounted her history with the company, before mentioning voter concerns over the nation’s $18 trillion debt as an attack on Trump. ""There are a lot of us Americans who believe that we are going to have trouble someday paying back the interest on our debt because politicians have run up mountains of debt using other people's money,"" Fiorina said to Trump. ""That is in fact precisely the way you ran your casinos. You ran up mountains of debt, as well as losses, using other people's money, and you were forced to file for bankruptcy not once, not twice, four times, a record four times."" Tapper later asked questions about the minimum wage and tax policy, which one could argue are related to the economy. But he asked no direct questions about job creation or debt. Still, candidates did mention the economy as they addressed other questions. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said that when he left Congress, ""we had a $5 trillion surplus, and the economy was booming."" He implied his time as a congressman from 1982 to 2001 will help him find consensus as president to ""create a stronger economy for everybody."" Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker pointed out Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton’s call for a higher minimum wage is ""her answer to grow the economy."" Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee mentioned that finding cures to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s will save the country trillions, and would ""change the economy and the country."" Rubio, meanwhile, discussed the economy when answering a question about climate change. He said disregarding alarms raised by ""the left-wing government"" was necessary because ""every proposal they put forward are going to be proposals that will make it harder to do business in America, that will make it harder to create jobs in America."" ""We are not going to destroy our economy,"" he said. ""We are not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing to change our climate, to change our weather, because America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely."" New Jersey Gov. Christie also made mention of agreeing with Rubio that ""we shouldn't be destroying our economy in order to chase some wild left-wing idea that somehow us by ourselves is going to fix the climate."" Back in April, PolitiFact checked a statement by Rubio that ""with certainty (cap and trade) would have a devastating impact on our economy."" We rated it False. The national debt So candidates did discuss the economy, though with little in the way of concrete plans. There also were a few mentions of the national debt, in addition to Fiorina’s attack on Trump. Christie cited debt service as a major portion of what the federal budget is stuck dealing with. ""Seventy one percent of all federal spending is on entitlements and debt service,"" he said. Bush said his 4 percent economic growth plan will ""deal with the structural fiscal problems that exist because of our entitlement problems that will overwhelm and create way too much debt,"" but didn’t discuss specifics about controlling projected costs. Rubio brought up the national debt while trading barbs with Trump; Rubio mentioned the debt as a symptom of Washington dysfunction. ""You have millions of people in this country living paycheck to paycheck, and nothing is being done about it,"" Rubio said. ""We are about to leave our children with $18 trillion in debt, and they're about to raise the debt limit again."" Our ruling Rubio said, ""We had a three-hour debate, no discussion about the national debt, very little about the economy."" He’s right there was very little mention of the economy, but the national debt was brought up by some of the 11 candidates, usually while addressing an opponent. We should note that even then, no one gave any specifics about what to do beyond some broad talking points."
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28986
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Keurig coffee maker users are at risk because the machines are prone to growth of mold, algae, and bacteria.
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What's true: Keurig machines (and similar products) can become moldy if not regularly cleaned. What's false: The issue is not limited to Keurig, and cleaning the machine will generally resolve the problem.
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mixture
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Food, coffee makers, keurig, Toxin Du Jour
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On 1 October 2014, an article (later aggregated to several other sources) titled “Why I Kicked My Keurig to the Curb” was published to the alternative health site Underground Health. In it, the author made a case against the use of Keurig coffee makers and their proprietary “K-cup” grounds packets for a number of reasons. Most compelling to many readers was a short segue into the issue of mold, bacteria, and algae growth in Keurig brewers. The author discussed several of her gripes with the Keurig system, questioning whether the cups were imbued with toxins, whether the coffee in K-cups was fresh, and (oddly) whether the matter of numb and tingly lips was linked with Keurig-brewed coffee. However, of all complaints listed, the one about Keurigs and mold was of the greatest concern to readers. According to the author, part of the specific issue with Keurigs and mold related to the impossibility of cleaning those machines: Keurig.com states, “Once your Keurig home brewer has been primed, you cannot empty the water from the inside. The internal tank of the brewer cannot be drained.” The rubber tubing and the internal tank of the Keurig cannot be drained. It is possible that bacteria and mold are happily living inside that hidden water tank where it is nice and dark and warm. Another mold-magnet is that black rubber ring on the bottom of the exterior water container. Look now! Is there green or black slime? ewwwww (biofilm!). Donna Duberg, M.A., M.S., an assistant professor of clinical laboratory science at Saint Louis University said, “Bacteria forms a slick biofilm when grown in moist, dark places, and so do molds.” No, your coffee bean’s antibacterial action is not enough to kill these microbes that are floating through the system. Duberg said, “There is research which shows that it is only about 50 percent effective in killing bacteria, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus mutans, and molds.” A number of things stand out in the quoted portion. First and foremost, it’s not reasonable to believe a “coffee bean’s antibacterial action” is sufficient to keep a daily personal use appliance clean and mold free. But as to the part about Keurigs being not drainable, Keurig.com offered the following instructions to clean the cold water reservoir: To access the Cold Water Reservoir, lift the lid. Remove the Water Level Guide and then clean inside the reservoir with a damp, non-abrasive lint-free cloth as necessary. Replace the Water Level Guide and lower the lid when finished. Directly beneath those instructions, Keurig listed information on how to empty the internal tank. Below that, the company explained how to de-scale the tank. As such, the assertion that Keurigs cannot be cleaned is faulty. It may be a hassle to thoroughly drain, descale, rinse, or otherwise perform Keurig maintenance, but not only can Keurig machines be cleaned, Keurig sells products specifically designed for that purpose. Even if Keurigs can be cleaned, are they exceptionally more risky than common coffee pot brewers or other similar systems? Consumer health and safety experts cited all coffee makers as mold hideouts in 2011: A 2011 study from NSF International found that about half of coffee makers (we’re talking the classic, basket-and-carafe kind here) had yeast and mold growing in their reservoirs. About one in ten were home to coliform bacteria. On average, home coffee reservoirs also had higher germ counts than both bathroom door handles and toilet seats. And while the study tested only 22 households, germ specialist Kelly Reynolds said she doesn’t doubt the results. “(Coffee makers) are certainly a moist environment where mold and bacteria are known to grow in high numbers,” said Reynolds, who studies household germs at the University of Arizona. “Our bodies can deal with them, but at some point they’ll grow to levels high enough to cause sickness.” Across the web, reports of mold, algae, and other water-based bacterial risks remain rampant. Brita water pitchers are a frequently-cited culprit, along with both classic style and single-cup brewing systems like the Keurig. A 2013 article on mold in coffee makers explained coffee cups, not coffee pots, may pose a larger risk: “Germs are present in every corner of our lives,” says Donna Duberg, M.A., M.S., an assistant professor of clinical laboratory science at Saint Louis University. “Are there germs in our coffee makers? Yes. Will they make us sick? Maybe, if there are enough of them, and especially if we don’t clean our pots often enough.” It’s not just the coffee pots that accumulate these germs, either. “Bacteria forms a slick biofilm when grown in moist, dark places, and so do molds,” says Duberg, pointing to the coffee maker’s water reservoir and piping system as ideal areas for accumulation. “If there is obvious slimy stuff in the coffee maker … this is a good sign there is something growing.” “Coffee mugs are usually [the] worst,” adds microbiologist Dr. Charles Gerba. “In our studies, half had fecal bacteria in them. People probably contaminate them when they wipe them out with sponges or cleaning cloths.” Some Keurig owners have experienced issues with mold, bacteria, and algae. But the problem is not exclusive to Keurig; and similar products (particularly those that hold water or wet grounds) have caused similar problems. While Keurigs do have a water reservoir and it can become dirty, they should be regularly cleaned like any other household item. Nothing about Keurigs or any other food or beverage device makes them immune from day-to-day grime-collecting, and anything that dispenses consumable food or drink should be regularly examined for signs of grubbiness. Mold growth is not exclusive to the Keurig; and while the water reservoir is a larger cleaning chore, checking regularly will lessen mold and bacteria problems. As the quoted portion above suggested, visible mold in any coffeemaker is a strong signal it needs to be cleaned.
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9873
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‘Miracle Patient’ Finds New Hope with Breast Cancer Vaccine
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This news release highlights the “miracle” response of a single patient with triple-negative breast cancer to a drug combination that included an experimental cancer vaccine and a biosimilar of the drug pembrolizumab (marketed as Keytruda). Far from objective, the release relies on strong emotional language such as “remarkable,” “miracle” and “shocking” to make the case for the drug combo instead of solid evidence and quantified benefits. The release also makes a pitch to breast cancer patients to become hospital clients, and to pharmaceutical companies to fund future clinical trials of the drug combo. The release is premature. It’s based on a single case. There’s been no long-term follow-up and researchers say they don’t know which element of the treatment may have benefited the patient. We’ve profiled City of Hope’s penchant for “miracle mongering” previously on HealthNewsReview.org. Highlighting a single person’s preliminary reaction — she had not yet even completed the treatment — to an experimental drug combination and calling it a miracle creates a false and biased narrative of the true effectiveness of this treatment. The release noted that in previous patients with different types of cancer, no clinical benefit was seen with the drug combination and in this single case study, researchers weren’t sure what caused the patient’s improvement.
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false
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Breast cancer,industry/commercial news releases
|
The release referred to a combination of a new vaccine targeting the p53 gene and a pembrolizumab biosimilar. Pembrolizumab is currently used as a chemotherapy drug but no mention of costs were given for this drug or the combination treatment of the vaccine with pembrolizumab. According to GoodRX, four vials of 50 mg Keytruda cost around $9,000. It’s irresponsible to suggest a sample of one patient represents a miracle cure as this release does, particularly without providing any hard data to back up the claims. The release noted that the patient’s skin lesions had diminished and that biopsies showed no cancer, but we do not know beyond this patient what sort of benefit the drug treatment combination should yield. The release noted that in previous trials on different types of cancer, patients had an immune response but provided no details. The release also noted that the patient had not yet undergone bone and CT scans to assess whether other sites of tumor have regressed and it states the patient was still undergoing treatment. Therefore, benefits are ambiguous at best — and should have been treated as such throughout the release. There was no mention of side effects of the combination treatment and only a brief mention that this drug combination showed no clinical benefit in other patients. This release is highlighting one patient’s response to the combination therapy. Only far down in the release do we learn that it’s unclear if it was the experimental vaccine or the pembrolizumab biosimilar that had reduced the patient’s skin lesions. It doesn’t warn that we don’t know how long this benefit will last or that the cancer could develop resistance to the new combination therapy. Even with this dearth of evidence of effectiveness, the release still claims the patient had a “shocking response” and refers to her as a “miracle patient.” The release is clearly lacking in evidence, and we’d suggest that the writer look at our Six tips for writing accurately about cancer immunotherapy drugs before tackling this topic again. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering. It focuses on late-stage cancer which for many people leaves few options for treatment. This is considered a terminal, non-curable disease. While patients are living longer with a diagnosis of metastatic disease, they are not at this point being cured of it. It’s important to inform patients when there are newer experimental therapies and highlighting a good initial clinical response is very important. But it needs to be done in the larger context of metastatic breast cancer. This release should be called out for “miracle mongering.” Referring to someone as a “miracle patient” might convey to a lay person or average patient that the patient in the story has been cured. Cutaneous lesion regression is certainly a good sign, but systemic imaging and long-term follow-up is needed before the term “cure” can be used. In addition, the release did not discuss that there are several subtypes of triple-negative breast cancer. It might not be expected that all cases of advanced triple-negative breast cancer would respond to this therapy. There was no mention of where the funding for the vaccine research came from, but the researcher who developed the vaccine was quoted in the release saying they were seeking funding for a larger vaccine trial. There was also mention of several drug companies expressing interest in the vaccine, but it’s unclear if any of those same companies have given any money for testing. The only alternative mentioned in this release was hospice. Because this type of cancer is considered a terminal, non-curable disease if the patient has not responded to surgery, radiation and standard chemotherapy, that may be appropriate. However, the vaccine described here isn’t the only experimental treatment in development. There have been mixed results in studies of iniparib combined with chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. Some other experimental treatments could have been mentioned, along with palliative care. While part of the drug combination (pembrolizumab) mentioned in the release is available, the experimental p53 vaccine appears to only be available through a City of Hope researcher. There was mention of a desire to create clinical trials open to “to women from all over the country” but that’s far from certain. It’s clear from the release that City of Hope is trying to recruit new patients and generate pharmaceutical sponsors. Many patients with this type of breast cancer may get the impression from the release that they, too, can receive this “remarkable” treatment if they make their way to the hospital. But how practical is their open invitation? Experimental therapies like the vaccine are not covered by health insurance. The release notes the p53 vaccine has been used in clinical trials since 2010. The release isn’t claiming that the vaccine is brand new and has never been studied before. The new information reported in the release is that one patient apparently responded favorably to the treatment, at least in the short-term. Liberal use of words and phrases like “potentially revolutionary,” “miracle,” “pretty unprecedented” and “shocking” to describe the treatment response are all unjustifiable and misleading. The results are only for one patient — who had not yet completed the full treatment at the time this release was issued — and there’s been only very short term clinical followup.
|
36092
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"U.S. President Donald Trump called Italy President Sergio Mattarella ""Mozzarella,"" then lauded an American alliance dating back to ancient Rome."
|
Volunteers in the New Zealand city of Rotorua are preparing two dozen white-lined coffins to be transported to Samoa at the end of the week as the measles-ravaged Pacific island nation languishes under a growing death toll that has now hit 70.
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false
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
The smallest of the coffins, designed for the bodies of babies, are decorated with felt butterflies, daisies, stars and hearts. Volunteers have placed a teddy bear in each of the infant-sized caskets. “It’s not easy. No-one is prepared to lose that many children,” said Tagaloa Tusani, a New Zealand-based volunteer who is organizing the coffin transport. “No funeral home is prepared for that.” The highly infectious disease has attacked Samoa’s most vulnerable, with 61 out of the 70 casualties aged four and under, the government said on Monday. After causing devastation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and Ukraine, among others, measles cases started appearing en masse earlier this year in the New Zealand city of Auckland, a hub for travel to and from small Pacific islands. The virus then took hold in Samoa which had the lowest vaccination rates in the region. There are now almost 4,700 reported cases of measles in Samoa’s island population of only 200,000. The World Health Organization (WHO) last week described the global epidemic as “an outrage” given most deaths have been in children under five years old who had not been vaccinated. “The fact that any child dies from a vaccine-preventable disease like measles is frankly an outrage and a collective failure to protect the world’s most vulnerable children,” said the WHO’s director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus. Supported by foreign governments and international aid agencies, Samoa has been conducting a vaccination drive that the government said has now covered nearly 90% of eligible people. There are currently 16 critically ill children in intensive care in Samoa, and two pregnant women are also in hospital. International groups have been sending medical supplies to Samoa, and providing doctors and nurses, to help combat the disease. The volunteers in Rotorua, located south-east of Auckland, usually make coffins for New Zealand families who can’t afford them. Volunteer coffin-maker Ron Wattam said he never imagined they’d be catering for an epidemic of this magnitude. “The caskets are white, and white-lined inside, all made up to very suitable undertaker standards,” said Wattam. “It’s the least we can do.”
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6869
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Immune system therapy shows wider promise against cancer.
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A treatment that helps the immune system fight deadly blood cancers is showing early signs of promise against some solid tumors, giving hope that this approach might be extended to more common cancers in the future.
|
true
|
Health, Atlanta, Tumors, Cancer
|
The treatment, called CAR-T therapy, involves genetically modifying some of a patient’s own cells to help them recognize and attack cancer. Richard Carlstrand of Long Key, Florida, had it more than a year ago for mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lungs. “We were going into unknown territories” to try this, he said, but now he shows no sign of cancer and “I couldn’t be happier.” Results on his and other cases were discussed Sunday at an American Association for Cancer Research conference in Atlanta. The first CAR-T therapies were approved in 2017 for some leukemias and lymphomas. After being altered in the lab, the modified immune system cells are returned to the patient through an IV, which puts them right where the cancer is — in the blood. But that approach doesn’t work well if the cells have to travel far through the bloodstream to get to tumors in the lung, breast, colon, or other places. “Solid tumors are notorious for not letting the immune cells enter,” and not enough may make it in to have an effect, said Dr. Prasad Adusumilli of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. A bigger worry is that the proteins on solid tumor cells that these therapies target also are found on normal cells at lower levels, so the therapy might harm them, too. Adusumilli helped design a new CAR-T to try to avoid these problems and tested it on 19 patients with mesothelioma and two others with lung and breast cancer, respectively, that had spread to the chest lining. About 150,000 patients in the U.S. each year face this situation. The modified cells were injected directly into the chest where the tumors were. A genetic safety switch was added so a medicine could be given to destroy the cells if they caused harm. After the therapy, one patient was able to have surgery and radiation, and is doing well 20 months later with no further treatment. Fifteen others were well enough to start on a drug that boosts the immune system in a different way. Eleven of the 15 have been studied long enough to report results. Two had signs of cancer disappear for about a year, although one later relapsed. Six saw their tumors shrink. Three saw their cancer worsen. There were no severe side effects although some patients had temporarily low blood counts and fatigue. Grants from the federal government and foundations paid for the work and a larger study is planned. Sloan Kettering has licensed the treatment to Atara Biotherapeutics and may get payments from it, as may Adusumilli. A second study tested a different CAR-T therapy in 10 children and adults with advanced sarcomas — cancers that originate in various soft tissues or bones. Unlike other CAR-Ts that are usually given just once, this one was given multiple times, up to 15 in one patient’s case, if there were signs it was helping. “From a single blood draw we make a large amount of the CAR-T cells and then we freeze them” and give them through an IV as needed, said Dr. Shoba Navai of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Two of the 10 patients had all signs of cancer disappear, one for 17 months and the other for nearly three years, so far. Three others had their disease stabilized. Five worsened despite treatment. Side effects were similar to the other study. The therapy seems safe “and we have early signs that this treatment approach may help,” Navai said. Several foundations and charities paid for the work. “These studies are showing there may be a path forward in solid tumors” with CAR-T therapies, said Dr. Louis Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and one of the conference leaders. It may hold promise for some cancers of the stomach, breast, colon, lung and other areas, he said. Cost is a big issue — current CAR-T therapies are around $400,000 but can be made for far less than that in research centers. Doctors say they hope the cost will come down as more come on the market and find their way to wider use. ___ Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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3992
|
Aurora, a beloved polar bear, dies at upstate New York zoo.
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A beloved polar bear has died at the Seneca Park Zoo in Rochester, New York.
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true
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Polar bears, Rochester, Bears, Animal health, North America, Health, Pamela Reed, New York, Animals, U.S. News
|
Director Larry Sorel says the loss of 28-year-old Aurora is “difficult for the entire zoo family.” Zoo Society President Pamela Reed Sanchez says Aurora was “an extraordinary ambassador” for her “vulnerable species.” Aurora was born at Utah’s Hogle Zoo in 1989 and arrived at Seneca Park Zoo in 1991. She had severe liver disease, and her condition worsened quickly. The zoo’s director of animal health and conservation says that’s not uncommon. Dr. Louis DiVincenti says the Polar Bear Species Survival Plan is working to find out what leads to the animals’ tendency for liver and gall bladder disease. Despite her illness, Aurora surpassed the life expectancy for a female polar bear by four years.
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9662
|
Vericel stem cell heart failure therapy cuts deaths: study
|
This investor-minded story looks at a Vericel-funded study on the potential benefits of a new stem cell therapy for advanced heart failure patients. Even though its audience was financial folks, the story included a lot of key details that a general story should have, such as the quantified benefits of both primary (i.e, number of deaths) and secondary endpoints (6-minute distance walk test). The story would have been stronger if it had interviewed an independent source other than a financial analyst who could explain the limitations of this trial. According to the American Heart Association, of the 5.7 million Americans living with heart failure, 10 percent of them have advanced heart failure. Although the condition can be managed, over time there can be serious consequences. Due to advanced heart failure being a leading cause of hospitalizations, many people within the cardiology community are looking into new therapies that can prevent the need for a transplant or pacemaker.
|
true
|
heart failure,stem cell research,stem cell therapy,stem cells
|
Stem cell therapy is assumed to be quite expensive, yet there is no mention of potential cost to the patient or health care system. If the new approach is comparable to other approaches then the cost of the alternative methods could be cited. Our rule of thumb: If it’s not too early to talk about how well something might work, then it’’s not too early to start discussing what it may cost. This article outlined the 37 percent reduction in adverse events due to the stem cell therapy, and explained that the outcome was mainly due to difference in deaths and hospitalizations between the therapy and placebo groups. And, we were very pleased to see the inclusion of absolute numbers related to this–i.e., 7 deaths versus 2 deaths. The story also let us know that the study didn’t show a benefit in secondary endpoints, like heart pumping efficiency and a walk test. However, we’d have liked to have seen more discussion–ideally from an independent medical experts–on what investors already seem to know, but the reader is left to deduce: Were these results as meaningful as the lead investigator is making them out to be? Harms were not discussed, although they are important, especially considering the failure of the therapy to improve secondary outcomes. The story quoted the study’s lead investigator in saying that there is a need to have larger trials for this stem cell therapy to accurately prove its benefits. The story points out that the group consisted of only 109 patients, but there was no mention of how many patients received the stem cell therapy. Sample size can be a limitation of any trial, and there should be a level of caution if the treatment group does not accurately represent a diverse population. This article accurately expresses the severity of advanced heart failure without making the condition seem hopeless. The doctor quoted in the story was identified as the lead investigator for the study. However, the story didn’t include his potential conflict of interest–that he received funding from the drug company–which was stated and easy to find in the study. For this reason, we’re rating this Not Satisfactory. We were please to see the story included an additional outside source, even if it was a financial analyst. A second, independent medical source would have made the story stronger. The story points out alternatives by stating “despite all available medicinal and interventional therapies, the only options are heart transplant or a pumping assist device.” The doctor and lead investigator who was interviewed in the story noted the need for larger trials, meaning this therapy is nowhere close to being available to the general public. Although the audience is aware this is early testing, it would have been helpful to know how the study will address the limitations of failing to meet the secondary goals, such as the walk test and heart pumping efficiency. The story does not attempt to portray this stem cell therapy as a significant scientific breakthrough, but presents the information in a way that allows the audience to believe this may be a viable alternative to existing treatments. The story contains original commentary, and so it does not appear to rely on a news release.
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13707
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"I haven't switched my position"" on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal."
|
"Kaine said, ""I haven’t switched my position"" on TPP. Though Kaine voted to give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, a piece of legislation that paved the groundwork for TPP, he never took an official position on the deal itself. Throughout 2015, he reiterated he would oppose the deal if it didn’t have strong environmental and labor provisions. But in July 2016, Kaine repeatedly praised TPP for including those exact protections. Days later, as Clinton’s running mate, he came out against the trade deal."
|
mixture
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National, Candidate Biography, Trade, Tim Kaine,
|
"Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine defended Hillary Clinton from public skepticism over her trustworthiness and addressed his own pro-trade baggage Aug. 7 on NBC’s Meet the Press. Clinton has ""learned from"" her email controversy and will be ""real transparent"" moving forward, Kaine said. While Clinton’s trust issue lies predominantly with independent and Republican voters, Kaine’s critics are progressives who fault him for his perceived past support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Host Chuck Todd said Kaine ""essentially switched"" his position on the trade deal to align with Clinton’s own flip-flop, but Kaine begged to differ: ""I haven’t switched my position,"" he said. ""I was a strong supporter a year ago of giving President Obama the ability to negotiate a trade deal. But I said at the time, when that deal was done and on the table, I was going to look at it very carefully. And I even expressed a very serious concern I had with how it was developed, which is that companies were given rights to enforce provisions, but the labor and environmental provisions could not be effectively enforced. That was never fixed. I've asked again and again to understand this piece of the TPP. And I've never gotten a good answer. We can't have a deal that cannot be enforced. And so, for that reason, yeah, I'm going to oppose it in the lame duck if it comes up after Election Day."" Has Kaine’s position on the trade deal been consistent? Kaine’s turn on the trade deal was not as dramatic as the presidential nominee’s. But there was still a noticeable shift when he became Clinton’s running mate. Kaine is against the deal now, but he had kinder things to say about it before without taking a firm position. Many point to Kaine’s support for Trade Promotion Authority — which allows the president to negotiate a trade treaty with only an up-or-down vote on the final package in the Senate — as proof of his pro-TPP stance. Kaine was just one of 13 Senate Democrats who voted in June 2015 to give Obama fast-track authority. On the day of the vote, Kaine explained his thinking to The Atlantic. ""For my sake, I got assurances I need that made me feel comfortable voting today. But I've got a backstop, which is if those assurances are not met, then I will vote against the treaty when it eventually hits the table,"" he said. ""I'm not going to vote for TPP when there is no program to retrain workers who are affected by trade."" That’s roughly what he’s been saying for the past year and a half: He supports giving Obama negotiating authority, but would wait for TPP to be finalized before taking a stance on it. Here are some examples of what he’s said: • May 7, 2015, interview with Politico: ""I tell everybody the same thing: I’m pro-trade, but it’s got to be under the right conditions, and I want to make sure that that’s the case."" • May 14, 2015, statement to the Hampton Daily Press: Giving Obama fast-track authority ""gives the U.S. the best chance of elevating the standards for global trade in ways that will level the playing field,"" but ""as we prepare to take up major trade initiatives in the coming months, my biggest priority is ensuring we can negotiate enforceable deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while eliminating barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out."" • May 16, 2015, column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: ""I will support TPA because it gives the U.S. the best chance of elevating the standards for global trade in ways that will level the playing field for our workers, farmers and companies. My support for TPA is not a blind endorsement of any pending trade negotiation. Once we establish our key principles, I will make sure that the specifics of any final deal are placed before the public and fully debated to see if they meet our standards and help Virginia."" • June 18, 2015, interview on the John Frederick Show: ""I support the president’s ability to try to negotiate trade deals that other presidents have had — that’s the Trade Promotion Authority. And if the president and his team can get a good deal with the 12 Pacific rim nations — this Trans-Pacific Partnership — I will be supportive of a good deal. I won't support a bad deal."" • Nov. 5, 2015, statement applauding the public release of the deal: ""I look forward to having extensive dialogue with Virginians about the provisions of the deal."" So Kaine is right that he never took an official stance on TPP and has always advocated for labor and environmental provisions. But in recent weeks, he’s also praised the deal without saying he would support it. (The Senate voted for fast-track authority in June 2015, but TPP itself has yet to be ratified. Given that Clinton and Donald Trump are both against the deal, supporters are hoping a lame-duck Congress will pass it before 2017.) ""I see much in the TPP draft — which has now been public and apparent to everybody for quite a while — that I like,"" he said to Politico on July 11. ""There’s one piece that I’m still really digging into is the dispute resolution."" ""I am having discussions with a lot of groups around Virginia about the treaty itself. I see much to like. I think it’s an upgrade of labor standards, I think it’s an upgrade of environmental standards. I think it’s an upgrade of intellectual property protections,"" he told the Intercept on July 21, a day before Clinton announced him as her VP pick. Kaine then formally came out opposing TPP when he officially joined the ticket. When asked how Obama felt about Kaine’s shift on the deal, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he’d let Kaine speak for himself. Our ruling Kaine said, ""I haven’t switched my position"" on TPP. Though Kaine voted to give Obama fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals, a piece of legislation that paved the groundwork for TPP, he never took an official position on the deal itself. Throughout 2015, he reiterated he would oppose the deal if it didn’t have strong environmental and labor provisions. But in July 2016, Kaine repeatedly praised TPP for including those exact protections. Days later, as Clinton’s running mate, he came out against the trade deal."
|
9083
|
Text messaging program may help pregnant women kick the smoking habit
|
Editor’s note: On the day this review was published, the news release it’s based on was removed from the EurekAlert! site. We have saved the original news release as a pdf. Using mobile devices to inform, persuade and ultimately change health behaviors is all the rage. A recent meta-analysis suggests that these efforts can be effective when it comes to convincing pregnant smokers to cut back, although it also finds that persuading smokers to stop is less successful. This news release describes a study that used an experimental design (randomized intervention and control groups) to explore whether text messages would be effective in helping pregnant women to stop smoking. Those messages did not produce any statistically significant reduction in smoking cessation rates, as the study itself makes clear. So it’s concerning to see this news release headlined: “Text messaging program may help pregnant women kick the smoking habit.” A more accurate headline would have been: “Text messaging program not shown to help pregnant women kick the smoking habit.” The researchers did find a possible benefit in older mothers-to-be and in individuals further along in their pregnancies. However, finding from such smaller subgroups are considered “hypothesis-generating,” meaning they can point to trends that merit further study. They cannot provide conclusive evidence that a treatment provides a health benefit. You can read more about subgroups and their limitations here. The bottom line here seems to be that the messages were not very influential, although the news release portrays the effort as a success story. And that misleading framing has already been carried through to some news stories about the study. Other journalists looking into the study should tread carefully. Mothers-to-be smoking while pregnant poses health harms for fetuses and early childhood, yet a reported 10 percent of pregnant women continue to smoke. Figuring out ways to persuade them to stop has merit.
|
mixture
|
George Washington University,pregnancy,smoking
|
It is not made clear what costs would accompany this kind of mobile health message strategy, and whether the costs would be absorbed by health plans and health care providers that use the service, or by individual patients. Wide use presumes thousands of app downloads and significant infrastructure costs on the part of those maintaining the service. It’s assumed there is profit motive, given the licensing agreement. The release appropriately describes the outcomes in absolute terms. For example, “16 percent of the women who were enrolled in both Text4baby and Quit4baby had quit compared with just 11 percent of women getting just Text4baby.” But while the body of the release clarifies that this difference between groups was not statistically significant, the headline and lead sentence gloss over this fact. We’ll address that issue below under the Evidence criterion. There is no mention of harms but it’s hard to imagine there are any harms from voluntarily receiving from 1 to 8 text messages a day. We’ll rate this Not Applicable. The headline and lead sentence of the release are an exercise in spin. The reduction in smoking rates for the study overall was not statistically significant — full stop. That should have been the headline. It’s not acceptable for the release to bury the lack of statistical significance in the body of the text while claiming benefits in the headline. The researchers did report statistically significant reduction in smoking rates among smaller subgroups of the main study. However, findings from such limited subgroups should be interpreted very cautiously, and a positive subgroup finding should never be the headline if the overall results of the study were negative. No disease mongering here. Risks to fetuses from smoking are real. The release offers information about both funding and conflicts of interest. It notes that the lead author, “Dr. Abroms has stock in Wellpass Inc. (formerly Voxiva, Inc.) and has licensed Text2quit and Quit4baby to Wellpass.” This is a real strength of the release. The text makes the point that there’s scarce assistance for quitting smoking for pregnant women since some stop-smoking aids carry additional risks. But we think the release should have mentioned some of those alternatives that do exist — quitting cold turkey, gradual quitting, nicotine replacement, medications like bupropion, and counseling. Options that include medications should include consultation with one’s doctor to weigh the risks and benefits of using smoking cessation aids during pregnancy. Although the release notes that this experiment took place within the confines of an “established” text messaging program (Text4baby), the availability of the “Quit4baby” sub-program, which is the focus of the research, is not clear. The release notes that very little is available to assist pregnant women with smoking cessation, so a new intervention is noteworthy. The original research article references a small number of pilot studies of attempts to use social media and text messaging to convince pregnant women to stop smoking. The main message of the release is misleading if not deceptive. However, we’ve already addressed that issue and see no other unjustified statements that would merit a Not Satisfactory rating here.
|
22451
|
"Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s ""budget okays disposing of unclaimed pound dogs to university research facilities."
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Bloggers claim Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s budget OKs disposing of unclaimed stray dogs to university research facilities
|
false
|
State Budget, Wisconsin, Bloggers,
|
"In critiques that zipped from blog to blog and bounced around on Facebook and Twitter, critics of Gov. Scott Walker are jumping on a dog-related change in the governor’s new two-year budget. Walker’s budget plan for 2011-’13 amends a state statute (174.13) that allows dog pounds to sell -- for $1 -- unclaimed stray canines to public universities for ""scientific or educational purposes."" What does it mean? Interpretations in the blogosphere ranged from the relatively tame (""Walker's budget okays disposing of unclaimed pound dogs to University research facilities"") to vicious (""Governor Scott Walker wants to kill puppies."") It wasn’t just random bloggers weighing in, and not all the reaction was so personal and so broad. Wisconsin Dog Rescue, a network of shelters and rescue groups, said on its website that Walker’s budget was seeking to ""expand"" the number of institutions that could receive dogs from pounds. ""The public didn’t even know it could happen,"" Lori Fowler, owner of the Wisconsin Dog Rescue website, said of selling strays for research. ""People are concerned that if their dog went stray … conceivably under the law their dog could be sold."" What’s the truth? Would Walker’s budget legalize the practice -- or expand it -- as bloggers suggest? First some background. Seventeen states -- but not Wisconsin -- ban dog pounds or shelters from turning over stray dogs for research, according to John J. Pippin, a doctor who tracks state laws for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Thirty-one states allow shelters to decide (as in Wisconsin) or have no state law on this. Two states, including Minnesota, require shelters to give up strays on demand to research facilities. The data is from a widely cited July 2010 study by the American Humane Association, which advocates against ""pound seizure."" As a practical matter, neither the University of Wisconsin System nor the Medical College of Wisconsin gets dogs from shelters anymore, officials with each institution told PolitiFact Wisconsin. Shelters in Wisconsin for years have chosen not to provide dogs for research, according to the top officials at the Wisconsin Humane Society and the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission. But both the UW System and the Medical College do obtain dogs for medical research -- from sources other than animal shelters. The Medical College used 140 dogs in its cardiovascular research lab last year and is on track to use 50 this year. The dogs were purchased for $200 each from a vendor in rural Minnesota that cares for abandoned dogs, said college spokesman Richard Katschke. UW used 237 dogs last year for studies on cardiovascular disease, bone and cartilage healing, genetic conditions and other issues, according to Eric Sandgren, director of UW’s Research Animal Resources Center. They are not strays -- they are ""purpose bred"" dogs, typically beagles, that are raised for research purposes, Sandgren said. The dogs come from two companies in the Madison area. Medical schools in the United States used to routinely use dogs for teaching purposes -- not just research -- but have discontinued that over the last couple decades, Pippin said. What does all this have to do with Walker’s budget bill? Let’s take a look. According to the legislative history of the law, it’s not a creation of Walker -- it’s been on the books for at least 40 years. The law was changed in the 1970s to make releasing dogs a voluntary decision by the shelters. The only change in the existing dog law proposed now is the insertion of ""University of Wisconsin-Madison"" in two sections. Walker’s office said the change has no practical impact. We reviewed the legislative history, and agree: Walker is making a technical amendment to the dog law, necessitated by his separate move to split UW-Madison off from the UW System. The bottom line: To make that change, numerous state statutes in dozens -- maybe hundreds of places -- where the UW System is mentioned must be amended. That is the only reason we could find why the statute is mentioned in the budget bill. The Wisconsin Dog Rescue organization, which wants to repeal the statute, is urging people to call legislators to block the ""expansion"" of the list of institutions that have the option of buying dogs for research. We asked Fowler of the dog rescue group how it could be an expansion, since UW-Madison already was a possible receiver of strays because it is part of the UW System -- which, of course, is already named in the statute. Fowler said Walker could have left Madison out and reduced the opportunities for dogs to be sold. She also worried that if UW-Madison is somehow deemed a private facility because it is splitting off from the UW System, that could open the door for strays to be sold to private research operations. She concedes, however, that Walker’s move would not actually add an additional university to the list as a practical matter. So, let’s see if the original claim has any bite left in it. To sum up, bloggers are saying Walker is responsible for inventing a dog pipeline from animal shelters to research labs where the dogs die for important medical research. A rescue group suggested his budget amendment would expand the pipeline. But the provision predates Walker’s administration by decades, and by numerous accounts, it is not used because of decisions by shelters. The law, like dozens of others, is mentioned in the budget only for technical reasons, and the proposed amendment would have no practical effect."
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29914
|
A photograph shows the mouth of an adult suffering from hyperdontia.
|
Hyperdontia is a genuine medical condition, but take a close look at these images.
|
false
|
Fauxtography, Medical
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A photograph supposedly showing the mouth of an adult suffering from hyperdontia (i.e., an excessive number of teeth) has been circulating online for several years. In February 2019, the Facebook page “Pictures From History” renewed interest in this image when they shared it on social media with the caption “Inside the mouth of an adult suffering from Hyperdontia”: Hyperdontia is a genuine medical condition involving the growth of more teeth than is usual (also known as “supernumerary teeth”), as described by the Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago: Extra teeth, also called supernumerary teeth or hyperdontia, is a condition in which the jaws contain more teeth – usually permanent teeth – than the usual number. These extra teeth are usually categorized in two ways, by their shape and by their position. They can be of normal shape but simply be extra (called “supplemental”). They can be barrel-shaped (“tuberculate”), peg-shaped or conical, multiple shapes (“compound odontoma”), or an undefined shape (“complex odontoma”). They can form in several places. They may be “mesiodens” (midline), “paramolar” (on either side of the molars), or “distomolar” (behind the molars). Most often occuring is the mesiodens, which is peg-shaped and grows between the top two center teeth. However, the viral photograph seen here does not offer a genuine look at the mouth of a person experiencing that condition. This image has been online since at least December 2010, when it was shared on the Blogspot blog Holyloly. The image reached a larger audience a few months later when it was included in a post from the SCP Foundation — a fictional organization that purports to cover a wide range of highly classified materials — in a blog post about SCP-478, an imaginary disease that causes a body to generate extra teeth: SPC-478 will enter a victim’s mouth while they sleep, and attach onto the soft palate in the upper nasal cavity, usually blocking one nostril. The body’s mucus production will increase, leading the victim, upon waking, to believe that they have developed a minor cold. From there, the victim’s palate will begin to generate teeth in addition to the gingiva’s (gums) normal replacement of teeth. This growth process will begin at a rate several times faster than normal tooth growth, and quickly increases in speed and severity. It’s clear that this image was created with the help of digital photo-editing software. It appears that someone took a genuine photograph of a mouth and then duplicated several of its teeth to make it appear as if the picture captured an extremely severe case of hyperdontia. Here we’ve circled a few of the teeth that were digitally repeated throughout this image: Interestingly, this isn’t the only fake photograph purporting to show an extreme case of hyperdontia. Again, we found that these images were created with the same technique of duplicating existing teeth: While researching this article we came across one more example below of this sort of digitally doctored dentistry. This image on the left of the following graphic is often shared as if it showed a person suffering from hyperdontia, but again, this picture was created by digitally duplicated existing teeth. The image on the right of the graphic below, meanwhile, is unaltered and shows the mouth of a person who genuinely experienced a (less severe form of) this condition:
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8125
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Astronauts quarantined ahead of journey to International Space Station.
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Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut were spending their final weeks on Earth in quarantine before they are scheduled to blast off on April 9 for the International Space Station for six months as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps Earth.
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true
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Science News
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Launching from a pad in Kazakhstan, the Expedition 63 crew will depart Earth without much of the usual fanfare at the Baikonur cosmodrome and ceremonies in Moscow, as the world attempts to curb the spread of the COVID-19 disease through social distancing and citywide lockdowns. “We are ready to go, we are healthy, we’ve been tested very well with the medical teams,” U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy said Monday in a video from quarantine. “We’ll be watching from space and we’re very curious to come home in October and see what the world looks like at that time. “As you well know, over this last month, the situation keeps changing on a daily basis for the worse,” he added. “Our hearts go out to all the people over the world that are dealing with this crisis.” Some 375,000 people worldwide have caught the flu-like virus and more than 16,000 have died. Even in ordinary times astronauts go through a “health stabilization” process before launching that includes two weeks in quarantine to ensure they “aren’t sick or incubating an illness when they get to the space station,” NASA spokeswoman Stephanie Schierholz said. As the pandemic evolves, the agency is considering plans to bolster the health stabilization checks. The space station has continuously staffed astronauts for nearly 20 years, serving as a test bed for an array of scientific research including studies to better understand the human immune system and micro-gravity medical experiments for vital uses on Earth.
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7616
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Family of opioid-addicted suspect sues police over her death.
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Relatives of a Vermont woman whose obituary drew national attention for its discussion of her opioid addiction filed a lawsuit Thursday in which they accuse police and jail staff of denying her proper medical care and causing her death.
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true
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Police, Opioids, Health, Lawsuits, Massachusetts, U.S. News, General News, Springfield
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The family of Madelyn Linsenmeir alleges in the federal lawsuit filed in western Massachusetts that law enforcement ignored the 30-year-old mother’s repeated pleas for medical help before her October 2018 death caused by an infected heart valve. “Madelyn’s illness was treatable. Her life could have been saved; her suffering could have been spared,” says the lawsuit, which was filed against the city of Springfield and the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department. Springfield’s city solicitor didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment. The sheriff’s department said in an emailed statement that it cannot comment on a specific death but “always aims to provide the best healthcare available” to those in its custody. Linsenmeir’s obituary was shared widely for its candid discussion of her struggle with drug addiction. The obituary said she tried to stay sober but was always overcome by her addiction, eventually losing custody of her young son. Linsenmeir was arrested in September 2018 and charged with being a fugitive from a warrant in New Hampshire and giving a false name, the family argues in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts. She had been on probation for a drug-related offense, which she was supposed to complete in Vermont. Instead, she left for Massachusetts, and the arrest warrant was issued, the family says. Video of Linsenmeir after her arrest shows her asking for water and telling police that it felt like her chest was caving in and that she was in pain. “I might need to go the hospital,” she said. Instead of being taken to the hospital, Linsenmeir was taken to the Western Massachusetts Regional Women’s Correctional Center, the family says. The family says she repeatedly told staff there she was sick and needed medical help but was told “the situation was her own fault for using drugs.” On Oct. 4, medical staff saw that she was in distress, and she was taken to the hospital, according to the lawsuit. She died days later at the hospital while in the custody of the sheriff’s department, the lawsuit says. “In Maddie’s name, we will continue to advocate for the humane treatment of people everywhere who struggle with substance use disorder, especially those who are at the mercy of a criminal justice system that is clearly not equipped to respond to the opioid crisis,” her family said in an emailed statement.
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11619
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STUDY: NEW DOCS' SUICIDAL THOUGHTS EASED WITH ONLINE THERAPY
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This is a somewhat uneven account of a study of the use of a web-based therapy program in the reduction of suicidal thoughts in medical interns. While some elements of the story are solid, it is incomplete in some important aspects. The reader is provided with insufficient information on key components of the study design, in the timing of the collection of data presented, and on alternative approaches. While the comments of Dr. Dalechek are useful for context, they do not replace the comments of an unaffiliated expert in the field. Just about one physician commits suicide daily in the United States and the risk is highest during the early days and months of training. The use of a simple and generally available web-based therapy for medical interns is an intriguing idea that as the primary author notes needs to be validated in a larger study.
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mixture
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Associated Press,mental health
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The story says the study involved a free online program developed in Australia. Knowing that it is free may be incentive enough for some individual doctors or their hospitals to look into it — so this is useful information. The story has some useful information on the benefits of the online therapy. We are told that, “Overall, 12 percent of interns who got online therapy said they had thought about suicide during the year, versus 21 percent of the interns who received four weekly emails with information on depression and where to seek help” and “that interns who got the sessions were 60 percent less likely to have those thoughts than the other group.” However there is no mention of timeframe or the durability of the benefit over time. The suicidal ideation actually increased in both groups from baseline. (Figure 3 in the manuscript highlights the data collection) The figures provided reflect the numbers of interns who had suicidal ideation at least once during the one year data collection. It is also important to point out that 48% of the medical interns participating had a baseline history of depression. And while suicidal thoughts might have been prevented, we don’t know if the intervention would have any effect on actual suicide attempts or success rates. It is hard to imagine harms associated with this approach so we will rate it as not applicable. On the plus side we are told that 200 medical residents participated in the study. Unfortunately we aren’t told how many in the web based therapy actually participated and completed the sessions. This type of study obviously cannot be blinded to the participants but could be to the data collectors but no information is provided in this regard. The actual participation of both groups was far less than 100%. Only 51% of those assigned to the online therapy actually completed all four sessions. The story provides some useful insight into the realities of medical training and in the risk of suicide especially in the early internship months.There does not seem to be any evidence of disease mongering. The story provides comments from a psychiatry resident not affiliated with the study who offers an important view from the inside.With that being said, we wish the story had included the views of an expert in the field, commenting specifically on the intervention that’s the basis for the story. The study in question compared access to a web based therapy plan to emailed reminders of available resources. We would like to have seen some comment on the relative value of traditional individualized “talk” therapy to compare to the web based program. The story notes that the study, “.. used a free online program developed at the National Institute for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University in Canberra.” but provides no additional information about general availability outside of the study. The story should have mentioned the name of the online program that was used for the study in the case that any current residents may want to try it for themselves, or perhaps family members or friends of current residents may want to suggest the program if they come across the story. Web based therapy for depression is not new or novel. Its use in general population is well described in the literature. What is perhaps new is the use of a web based protocol in this high risk group. The story does not appear to be based on a news release.
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16981
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"Since 2000, Texas has reduced ""harmful pollutants in the air like nitrogen oxide by 62.5 percent, and ozone by 23 percent--a reduction that is 12 percent greater than the national average."
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"Perry said that since 2000, Texas has reduced ""harmful pollutants in the air like nitrogen oxide by 62.5 percent, and ozone by 23 percent — a reduction that is 12 percent greater than the national average."" Those figures are accurate, but the claim (like Perry’s 2010 statement) takes into account only one NOx source — industrial — which it failed to note. Nearly three-quarters of NOx emissions come from other sources. Perry’s declaration also didn't reflect on federal laws and oversight that figure into pollution reductions. Texas didn’t make the gains in isolation."
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mixture
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Environment, Texas, Rick Perry,
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"Gov. Rick Perry visited a familiar boast about the clearing skies of Texas in a May 19, 2014, letter to President Barack Obama that may have tested possible themes of another gubernatorial run for president. Saying Texas employs an ""all-of-the-above energy strategy"" tapping fossil fuels plus solar, biofuel and wind resources, Perry wrote: ""Even as our population has grown by more than 5 million since 2000, we've led the U.S. energy revolution while protecting our environment and reducing harmful pollutants in the air like nitrogen oxide by 62.5 percent, and ozone by 23 percent — a reduction that is 12 percent greater than the national average."" 62, 23, 12 — sounds like a quarterback’s call before the snap. We were curious about his numbers. Is Perry right about the pollution reductions as well as the cuts outpacing decreases nationally? A 2010 fact check Perry made a similar claim in June 2010, saying in a press release the ""Texas clean air program (has) achieved a 22 percent reduction in ozone and a 46 percent decrease in NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions."" He’d earlier cited the same statistic in a letter to Obama. , we found then. Perry accurately recapped improvements in ozone levels. But as for the NOx emissions contributing to ozone levels, his statistic included only one NOx source — industrial — which he did not note. Notably, nearly three-quarters of NOx emissions come from other sources. Also, whether state government merited credit for the improvements struck us as worthy of pause. Even if the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was responsible for the drop in industrial NOx emissions, federal efforts — in particular, vehicle emission regulations — were a key factor. Significantly, too, the state's ozone-related programs existed to help Texas comply with federal expectations. As noted then, a goal of the federal Clean Air Act is to reduce the levels of what the Environmental Protection Agency calls ""commonly found air pollutants."" Among those is ground-level ozone, which forms when nitrogen oxide emissions mix with volatile organic compounds in sunlight and heat. Common sources of nitrogen oxides: cars and trucks, power plants and industrial boilers. EPA sets limits on the concentration of ozone, the primary component of smog, in the air. Areas that fail to meet the standard are designated in ""nonattainment."" Under the Clean Air Act, the state is required to submit plans to EPA that outline how it will clean up areas and meet the federal standard. Figures hold up As in 2010, we asked David T. Allen, a University of Texas professor of chemical engineering, about Perry’s statement. By email, Allen noted that per figures posted online by the TCEQ, Perry’s analysis holds up. Allen also pointed out an EPA web page indicating that nationally ozone levels in 2012 were down 9 percent compared to 2000 with NOx levels down 29 to 50 percent, depending on the measurement applied. Separately by email, commission spokesman Terry Clawson sent us a spreadsheet he described as the basis of the charts. Clawson said the data came from the EPA. Let’s recap the charted changes in ozone, then NOx. Ozone down 23 percent According to a commission chart on a web page last updated April 17, 2014, ozone in Texas decreased 23 percent from 2000 through 2012, as Perry said. (The comparisons reflect what officials call ""fourth-high"" ozone readings. Clawson emailed us this technical explanation.) A headline on the chart says the ozone decrease for the other 49 states averaged 11 percent. Texas ran 12 percentage points ahead of that. The chart shows ozone decreasing in all but a few states--Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Hawaii and Alaska--with the drop in Texas bested only by Tennessee, California and Georgia. Source: Web page, ""Air Quality Successes - Criteria Pollutants,"" Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, last updated April 17, 2014 (accessed May 21, 2014) NOx from industrial sources down 62.5 percent In the period, Allen emailed, industrial emissions of NOx (not including motor vehicles) in Texas dropped 62.5 percent. He pointed out a commission chart indicating that industrial NOx emissions of more than 300,000 xx tons in 2011 compared to a shade less than 800,000 xx tons per year in 2000, which works out to a 62.5 percent reduction, as Perry said. Source: Web page, ""Air Quality Successes - Emissions Inventory,"" Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, last updated April 17, 2014 (accessed May 21, 2014) Sierra Club stresses federal role For another perspective, we turned to Neil Carman of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. By phone, Carman called Perry’s figures accurate though he suggested the cited reductions occurred mainly thanks to federal laws and enforcement. Carman, director of the club’s Clean Air program, said the federal government still considers the multi-county Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth areas as not attaining minimum ozone standards. He pointed out a Sierra Club press release stating the club on May 20, 2014, filed suit against the EPA for failing to classify Dallas-Fort Worth as having a ""severe"" ozone problem, an action that would have required polluters to clean the air, the press release says. By email, Carman said the governor's claim misleads by ""lumping together Texas' ozone woes in Houston and"" Dallas-Fort Worth ""with all the other ozone areas in the nation, including areas that have minimal or no problems."" A ""comparison to other states with few ozone problems is roughly analogous to comparing a driver who gets 30 speeding tickets a year and reduces it by 50% over ten years to 15 per year,"" Carman said, ""while a second driver only had 3 tickets and reduces it by 33% to 2 tickets per year. The first driver had the greatest (percentage) reduction at 50% and the greatest volume reduction but also had the worst speeding record."" Earlier, Clawson indicated the gains noted by Perry weren’t entirely due to federal oversight. By email, he noted a 1999 Texas law that required power plants to reduce NOx emissions, also saying other state laws enacted since 2000 stressed energy efficiency, reductions in pollution and renewable energy sources like wind power. Clawson, asked about the bulk of NOx pollution coming from vehicles and non-industrial sources, which Perry’s statement did not take up, said NOx emissions from non-industrial sources in Texas in 2011 were 42 percent less than what such sources emitted in 1999. Our ruling Perry said that since 2000, Texas has reduced ""harmful pollutants in the air like nitrogen oxide by 62.5 percent, and ozone by 23 percent — a reduction that is 12 percent greater than the national average."" Those figures are accurate, but the claim (like Perry’s 2010 statement) takes into account only one NOx source — industrial — which it failed to note. Nearly three-quarters of NOx emissions come from other sources. Perry’s declaration also didn't reflect on federal laws and oversight that figure into pollution reductions. Texas didn’t make the gains in isolation. – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
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16272
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U.S. troops are getting only 4 hours of Ebola training before deployment to Liberia.
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West said the United States is sending military personnel to confront Ebola after just four hours of training. While the average service member sent to West Africa will receive that amount of training specific to Ebola, the Army said that is a small part of the total training to attune them to medical hazards and to practice the measures to minimize the risk of exposure. That training applies to those who are unlikely to be exposed to the virus at all. Those who have a higher risk of exposure receive additional training. The claim has an element of truth but leaves out significant information.
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false
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Ebola, Foreign Policy, Military, Public Health, PunditFact, Allen West,
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"American personnel have just begun to arrive in West Africa in significant numbers and already, critics of President Barack Obama have raised questions about how the administration is handling the operation. A month ago, Obama announced plans to send up to 4,000 service members to help contain the deadly outbreak of Ebola. So far, about 600 are in the region, most of them in the Liberian capital of Monrovia and the rest at a staging area in Senegal. Former U.S. Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., decried the poor preparation these people received before they left. ""Un-frigging-believable,"" West tweeted. ""U.S. troops are getting only 4 hours of Ebola training before deployment to Liberia."" West expanded on his disbelief in a blog post and cited as his source a Daily Beast article that had a similar headline (sans ""frigging""). In West’s blog post, he dismissed assurances from military officials that soldiers would not be in contact with anyone who is ill with the disease. ""We are taking incredible chances with the lives of our men and women,"" West wrote. ""You cannot mitigate all the risks of Ebola — certainly not with just four hours of training preparation."" We contacted the Defense Department to learn more about the training. What the Pentagon said tells us West might have wanted to read more than one article. The training for everyone is more extensive than he said. In addition, servicemen with greater risk of exposure get more training than those posted to locations where no Ebola exists. Army spokesman Matthew Bourke told PunditFact that on top of the standard pre-deployment training, the Army took these soldiers through a total of three other sessions. One focused specifically on Ebola, a second dealt with medical threats in general, and the third made sure they knew how to use and take off any protective clothing they might use. ""The briefing on just Ebola itself, that small piece, may have in fact been roughly four hours,"" Bourke said. ""But it was just a small piece of the greater training."" The press office for U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the central coordinating body for the military’s Ebola deployment, pointed us to a memo that lays out four levels of training. Service members who move among the general population train with protective suits. There is a higher level of training for those who work in any center that treats patients with Ebola, and another level of training for those who work in Ebola testing labs. Charles Prichard, AFRICOM spokesman, said there is no prescribed time for each level of training. However, Bourke said depending on the size of the group, it can take four hours to explain and take time to practice the right way to put on, decontaminate and remove a gown, boot covers and mask. So let’s add this up. We have four hours of Ebola training. Then about four hours practicing with protective clothing. Then another unspecified amount of time to learn about medical threats in general. Every service member gets this amount of training, or more if their posting requires it. West undercounts the training time by more than half. In an interview on Fox News, West seemed to acknowledge his mistake. The interviewer suggested that the total training took three days. West took this to mean that a public outcry had forced the military to boost its training program. The timeline doesn’t back that up. West posted his blog Oct. 20. The article he relied on was written Oct. 16. The Defense Department memo on training is dated Oct. 10. The policy was in place well before the public read about it. The mission In that Fox News interview, West cast the entire operation in a military light. He spoke of sending troops ""into the hot zone of a deadly disease."" This might suggest they will come face to face with Ebola. Bourke said that for the soldiers who got the training West had in mind, that is not accurate. ""Soldiers are not deploying to treat Ebola patients,"" Bourke said. ""They will be training Liberian health care providers. They will be building Ebola Treatment Units. And they will be providing logistics support."" A team from the 101st Airborne Division recently deployed to Senegal and Liberia to manage the arrival of all the materials and manpower needed to build a 25-bed hospital and 17 100-bed ""treatment"" units. The military is deploying engineers, comptrollers and quartermasters. Some military medical staff will train local health care workers. Very few medical staff will come into close proximity with the virus. They are lab workers who will test samples of bodily fluids for the Ebola virus. The Pentagon discussed this with reporters and estimated it would involve about 25 people over the coming months. Each of them are specialists in this kind of work. Our ruling West said the United States is sending military personnel to confront Ebola after just four hours of training. While the average service member sent to West Africa will receive that amount of training specific to Ebola, the Army said that is a small part of the total training to attune them to medical hazards and to practice the measures to minimize the risk of exposure. That training applies to those who are unlikely to be exposed to the virus at all. Those who have a higher risk of exposure receive additional training. The claim has an element of truth but leaves out significant information."
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7207
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Calls for universal health care renewed in Rhode Island.
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Supporters of universal health care are renewing their push for publicly-subsidized health insurance for all Rhode Island residents.
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true
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Rhode Island, Providence, Legislation, Universal health care
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State Rep. Aaron Regunberg, a Providence Democrat running for lieutenant governor, is a sponsor of this year’s legislation. He said at a Wednesday news conference that health care is a “fundamental human right.” The proposal calls for a 10 percent payroll tax to cover the costs of the single-payer system, which would operate similar to how Medicare, the federal health insurance program for those 65 years or older, works. Regunberg says the plan would lead to $4,000 in annual savings for residents once it’s fully operational. Democratic state Sen. Jeanine Calkin, of Warwick, is introducing the Senate version of the bill. Among the bill’s supporters is Physicians for a National Health Program.
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12864
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On using the Common Core standards for English and math instruction
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Holtz definitely was for Common Core before he was against it. The change is stark. This major reversal of position merits a Full Flop.
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false
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Education, Wisconsin, Lowell Holtz,
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"Two candidates in the Feb. 21, 2017 primary election for state superintendent of public instruction are in a race to replace. Replace the Common Core academic standards, that is. Their stances have earned Lowell Holtz and John Humphries the label of ""flip floppers"" from the liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now. We decided to turn to the Flip-O-Meter to determine if the challengers to incumbent Superintendent Tony Evers -- a Common Core supporter -- merit that label. Adopted by many states, the kindergarten-to-12th grade standards were designed as a rigorous national effort that would base teaching on college and job-world needs and allow comparison of U.S. students to their international counterparts. In Wisconsin most school districts, if not all, have adopted Common Core as the standards for English and math, said Thomas McCarthy, spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction. The Flip-O-Meter, of course, does not rate whether it’s good policy or politics to switch a position. It simply measures consistency in positions over time. Some argue a change demonstrates an openness to new facts or a willingness to compromise. Others say it is evidence of inconsistent principles or lack of backbone. So, where does Holtz stand? Holtz is a former Wisconsin principal of the year at Peshtigo Elementary School. He served 13 years as a school district administrator in the Palmyra, Beloit and Whitnall districts. He was running Whitnall in 2010 when Evers determined to put Common Core in place in Wisconsin after the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices led the drafting process. In 2012, a CNI NOW newspaper story quoted Holtz saying he supported the standards. Holtz told the publication the standards concentrate on facts as related to real life rather than the traditional straight ahead factual approach. In 2013, the same publication quoted Holtz this way: ""The change is absolutely in the best interests of the kids of Wisconsin. Raising the bar will make our kids more competitive not only at the state level but at the national level."" He called it a ""fun, exciting time to be involved in education."" By July 2016, when he announced his bid, it was clear Holtz was taking a different tack. He stressed local control and said Common Core was not necessarily effective because each community is different. The Beloit Daily News quoted Holtz as saying the Common Core must be fought. ""Happy to be part of a panel discussing Education Reform and the dangers of Common Core,"" he tweeted in November 2016. Holtz explained the switch in a Feb. 6, 2017 blog post about his plan to work with the governor and legislators to wipe out Common Core if elected. State and school leaders, he said, were misled through ""high pressure marketing"" to adopt Common Core at the risk of politicizing curriculum decisions. His new position won support from conservatives including former state Rep. Don Pridemore, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully in 2013 for state school superintendent. ""Dr. Holtz will fight for local control and against Federal takeover programs like Common Core,"" Pridemore is quoted on Holtz’s campaign web site. Holtz campaign spokesman Brit Schiel acknowledged that Holtz’s position has changed. He said it had evolved in line with Gov. Scott Walker’s. In January 2015, PolitiFact Wisconsin rated as a Half Flip Gov. Scott Walker’s change in position to oppose Common Core. During most of his first term, the governor showed tacit support. By mid-2013, he was hitting the pause button on further implementation of the standards. In mid-2014, Walker called for an outright repeal. But by January 2015, he was saying only that he didn’t want school districts required to use Common Core. Holtz, Schiel said, ""grew uncomfortable with Common Core’s inefficiencies, its one-size-fits-all approach to education, and the fact that the standards were coming from Washington, not from the local school boards."" Our rating Holtz definitely was for Common Core before he was against it. The change is stark. This major reversal of position merits a ."
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15175
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"Unions did not create"" the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week. ""Henry Ford did."
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A viral image said that Henry Ford, not unions, created the eight-hour work day and the five-day work week. Ford does deserve credit for adopting shorter working shifts, but he was hardly the first employer to do this, and the now-standard working schedule did not become federal law -- and thus a right for all workers -- until almost a quarter-century after Ford’s move. Meanwhile, experts said, unions do deserve credit for keeping the working-hours issue alive, at significant personal sacrifice, for 70 years. The claim contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.
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false
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National, History, Jobs, Labor, Viral image,
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"On Labor Day weekend, it’s not unusual to see claims about unions circulating on social media -- both favorable and unfavorable. A shareable graphic critical of organized labor caught the eye of a PolitiFact reader, who decided to forward it to us for a fact-check. The viral image said: Unions did not create: --Weekends --8-hour work days --A ""living wage"" (doubled worker's pay from $2.34/hr to $5/hr) --Five-day, 40-hour work weeks Henry Ford did in 1926 to attract better workers from his competitors for his automobile plant. Capitalism & competition creates higher wages & better working conditions. #HappyLaborDay. We wondered whether it was correct that Henry Ford, rather than unions, should get credit for creating the eight-hour work day and the 40-hour work week. A long struggle In the United States, a few limited eight-hour-day laws were on the books shortly after the Civil War. One, in Illinois, was passed in 1867, followed in 1868 by a law covering certain classes of federal workers. But neither law was well-enforced, and in most sectors, working hours of 10 to 12 hours were common. So a reduction in the work week became a leading issue for the nascent labor movement. The issue came to a head in 1884, after the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions -- a predecessor of today’s AFL-CIO -- called for all workers to have eight-hour days by May 1, 1886. When that deadline wasn’t met, labor leaders upped the ante by calling for demonstrations. In Chicago, peaceful marches morphed into violence, with an explosion marring a rally at Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886, leaving seven police officers and four workers dead. Subsequent trials, executions and clemencies for the accused made the eight-hour week a top issue nationally and internationally. All of this occurred decades before Ford founded his company in 1903. Ford’s move In 1914, at a time when most workers still lacked a guarantee of eight-hour days, the Ford Motor Co. attracted notice for instituting eight-hour shifts and raising wages in the manner the graphic indicates. (For many Ford workers, the work week remained six days.) The company’s move -- made a dozen years earlier than the graphic said -- was significant, labor historians say. But they add that it’s worth noting some caveats. For instance, Ford’s "" ‘sociological department’ had to inspect a worker’s home to make sure they ‘deserved’ the $5 first,"" said Ileen A. DeVault, a professor of labor relations, law and history at Cornell University. In addition, Ford’s policy wasn’t law, so it wasn’t guaranteed to last indefinitely, even for those who qualified for it. ""It was a unilaterally provided benefit at the discretion of the employer and could be yanked away whenever the cost exceeded profits,"" said Robert Bruno, a professor with the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations. Companies that operated this way, Bruno said, often revoked these policies when the Great Depression hit. The endgame Ford’s initiative was not widely copied overnight. In 1916, the federal government passed an act to require an eight-hour day and overtime pay for railroad workers, but most workers still didn’t have those protections, and working hours remained a hotly contested issue. ""Demands for the five-day week began to proliferate in 1919, a year in which 4 million American workers went out on strike,"" said Priscilla Murolo, a professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College. ""That was about 20 percent of the industrial labor force."" It took President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 for all workers to see limits on working hours -- initially 44 hours a week, then phased to 42 and eventually 40 by 1940. ""When the FLSA was passed in 1938, Saturday working hours were still common,"" DeVault said. ""Saturday noon was the most frequent ‘payday’ time."" Given this history, Ford is best described as an early adopter of today’s familiar working hours, experts said. ""That happened more than 60 years after workers, through their unions, began organizing for an eight-hour day in the 1860s,"" said David Bensman, a professor at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations. ""When Ford adopted the eight-hour day for his factory, he was responding to a working force that had been demanding the eight-hour day for a long time."" Other experts agreed that labor unions, rather than Ford, deserve the primary credit for today’s working-hour schedule -- including Matt Anderson, curator of transportation at the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn, Mich. ""Henry Ford was an early proponent of the five-day week, but the American Federation of Labor fought for it to be adopted more widely via contract negotiations,"" Anderson said. ""Unions absolutely deserve much credit for the reform."" Our ruling A viral image said that Henry Ford, not unions, created the eight-hour work day and the five-day work week. Ford does deserve credit for adopting shorter working shifts, but he was hardly the first employer to do this, and the now-standard working schedule did not become federal law -- and thus a right for all workers -- until almost a quarter-century after Ford’s move. Meanwhile, experts said, unions do deserve credit for keeping the working-hours issue alive, at significant personal sacrifice, for 70 years. The claim contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so"
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8739
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White House touts coronavirus testing capacity in face of criticism.
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The White House on Friday rejected criticism that the country has not ramped up its testing capacity enough to begin safely reopening state economies shuttered to slow the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
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true
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Health News
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The remarks came a day after President Donald Trump unveiled new guidelines for U.S. states to emerge from the shutdown in a staggered, three-phase approach that relies on robust testing capabilities. “We believe today that we have the capacity in the United States to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into phase one in the time and manner that they deem appropriate,” Vice President Mike Pence said at the daily White House briefing. Despite mounting coronavirus deaths, Trump has been under pressure to reopen the economy, as businesses closures have driven 22 million Americans to seek unemployment benefits and fueled protests in some states by demonstrators calling for the lockdowns to be lifted. Trump, who hoped to base his campaign for reelection in November on a strong economy, on Friday reiterated his insistence that the burden was on states to boost testing, saying: “It’s going to be up to the states to use that capability.” “The states have local points where they can go and the governor can call the mayors and the mayors can call representatives and everything is perfect and that’s the way it should work and always should work,” Trump said. Governors and lawmakers have pushed back, arguing that testing should be more widespread and that the federal government should continue to pitch in, before they can begin to think about reopening. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said earlier on Friday that he needed federal help to ramp up testing and reopen his state’s economy, criticizing the Trump administration for failing to support expanded testing or provide enough funding to states. “Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? ‘No’,” Cuomo told a daily briefing. “That is passing the buck without passing the bucks.” According to the new federal guidelines, states must have “robust testing” programs in place for at-risk healthcare workers before reopening. Even as some states have seen a decline in new cases and deaths, the outbreak has sickened nearly 700,000 people and killed more than 35,000 people in the United States alone. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, said on Friday that Senate Democrats asked a lot of reasonable questions in a call earlier in the day including whether there were enough tests to go through this first phase. Fauci acknowledged there are still areas to improve on testing, but a lot of the issues have been corrected or will be corrected. “We have to figure out how do we close that gap,” he said. “Testing is a part - an important part - of a multifaceted way that we are going to control and ultimately end this outbreak ... But the emphasis that we’ve been hearing is essentially ‘Testing is everything.’ And it isn’t,” he added.
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32792
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A woman ate her grandchild after smoking bath salts.
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The Now 8 News site mimics the appearance of a local television news web site, but it does not include a readily available disclaimer and is a well-known purveyor of fake news. The site has previously published hoax stories about a man having sex with a pig in a Wal-Mart, an obese woman starving her kids, and a woman who was arrested for making cat fur coats.
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false
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Junk News, bath salts, fake news
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In April 2016, several web sites such as Now 8 News and Top Rated Viral published articles reporting that a grandmother had eaten her grandchild after smoking bath salts. While these articles were practically verbatim copies of each other, one claimed that the incident took place in New Jersey while the other reported that the tragic event had occurred in North Carolina: A New Jersey grandmother of 8 and recovering drug addict, is now in custody after she allegedly ate her daughter’s newborn baby. Gretchen Schneider, 64, was babysitting her 4-week old granddaughter and was unknowingly under the influence of drugs, according to her daughter Amber Williams. When Williams dropped off her infant with her mother, she said she never expected anything like this. All such reports were nothing more than clickbait fake news stories, however. In an attempt to lend credibility to their version, Now 8 News slapped a generic news ticker over an unrelated crime scene photograph and mug shot, the latter of which has been circulating online since at least 2014, when it was posted to Faces of Meth, a project started by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to raise awareness about the effects of methamphetamine.
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17280
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"Ted Cruz Says President Barack Obama ""is the first president we've ever had who thinks he can choose which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore."
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"We found that at least seven presidents -- including some of the nation’s most admired occupants of the White House -- acted, at least on occasion, in ways that ignored specific laws or constitutional protections. It is not accurate to say, as Cruz does, that Obama would be ""the first president we've ever had who thinks he can choose which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore."" Presidents have done so frequently, and historians expect that they will continue to do so."
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false
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National, Corrections and Updates, History, Legal Issues, Supreme Court, Ted Cruz,
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"Critics of President Barack Obama have charged that he has regularly exceeded the powers of his office in selectively enforcing the law. Their examples include making recess appointments, issuing executive orders, delaying provisions of his health care law, refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and declining to deport certain categories of young illegal immigrants. At the 2014 CPAC conference, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reiterated this point to the audience of conservative activists. Referring to Obama, Cruz said, ""This president of the United States is the first president we've ever had who thinks he can choose which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore."" We were suspicious of this claim, because we recalled several instances in recent years of other presidents being accused of exceeding their executive authority. We checked with eight historians and legal scholars across the ideological spectrum to see whether they could point to prior examples of presidents choosing to ignore laws. They came up with a number of examples. (Cruz’s office did not return an inquiry for this story.) While Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he believes Obama is ""setting records for the number, scope, and creativity of unconstitutional and illegal behavior,"" he acknowledged that ""Obama wasn't the first president to violate the law and won't be the last."" Here’s a trip down memory lane to review just some of the instances in which presidents are believed to have acted in ways that ignored existing legal or constitutional limits: • Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War era, Lincoln ""broke an assortment of laws and ignored one constitutional provision after another,"" according to an analysis by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. Lincoln waged war without a congressional declaration of war (or even a Congress in session to declare one), spent $2 million to raise an army without congressional appropriation, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, among other actions. ""Following a strategy of ‘unilateral action,’ Lincoln justified his powers as an emergency authority granted to him by the people,"" the Miller Center analysis concludes. ""He had been elected, he told his critics, to decide when an emergency existed and to take all measures required to deal with it. In doing so, Lincoln maintained that the President was one of three ‘coordinate’ departments of government, not in any way subordinate to Congress or the courts."" • Andrew Johnson. After the Civil War ended and Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson became president and almost immediately clashed with Congress over how to treat the former Confederacy. Edwin M. Stanton, who had been Secretary of War under Lincoln, retained his position under Johnson and became one of the new president’s biggest critics, asserting that the federal government should intervene more forcefully to protect freed slaves’ rights in the South. In 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act, which required Senate approval before a president fired federal officials who had originally been confirmed by the Senate. When Johnson tried to oust Stanton, the Senate blocked him; when Johnson made a second ouster attempt, the House impeached him. (Johnson ultimately survived impeachment, Stanton resigned, and the Tenure of Office Act was repealed in 1887.) • Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On March 11, 1941, as World War II was already under way in Europe -- and while the United States was still officially on the sidelines -- Roosevelt signed a landmark law known as the Lend-Lease Act. At the time, Britain was under siege and almost out of money, so the law authorized the president to sell, lease, or lend military hardware to any country he designated as vital to American national security. However, a provision in the law would have allowed Congress to terminate the president’s powers after a certain amount of time through a ""concurrent resolution."" This amounted to a ""legislative veto"" by a simple majority and without the president’s signature. Roosevelt believed this to be unconstitutional, but he signed the bill anyway, secretly writing a memorandum to Attorney General Robert H. Jackson explaining that ""the emergency was so great that I signed the bill in spite of a clearly unconstitutional provision contained in it."" Jackson only made the episode public in 1953. • Harry Truman. In the midst of the Korean War, Truman had to grapple with labor disputes within the steel industry -- a sector he considered vital to the war effort. In a bid to head off a looming work stoppage, Truman in 1952 ordered his Commerce Secretary to seize the steel mills. The industry objected, and Truman’s seizure was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the case Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. • Richard Nixon. Citing government spending as a reason for surging inflation, Nixon refused to spend nearly $12 billion of congressionally appropriated funds for 1973 and 1974. He did so under an executive action known as ""impoundment"" -- an action that had been used by many presidents previously, but with questionable constitutionality. Faced with Nixon’s unusually large impoundment -- and with the president bogged down in Watergate -- Congress rebelled, passing legislation to make impoundment illegal. Nixon vetoed the bill, Congress overrode his veto, and Nixon stood his ground. The administration challenged the new law barring impoundment, but a federal court sided with Congress, saying impoundment was unconstitutional. • Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s quest to fight communism suffered a setback in the middle of his first term when the Democratic Congress in 1983 passed the Boland Amendment, which restricted the CIA and the Defense Department from operating in Nicaragua. An even stronger version passed the following year. The Reagan administration diverted some of the proceeds of a secret arms sale to Iran to the anti-communist militia in Nicaragua known as the Contras, an action that directly violated the Boland Amendment. Several top advisers to Reagan were implicated in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. While the Reagan-appointed Tower Commission said Reagan's disengagement from White House management had made the diversion possible, Reagan himself was never formally linked to the violation of the Boland amendment. • George W. Bush. While president, Bush issued 161 signing statements -- that is, official pronouncements that accompany the signing of a bill into law. In addition to commenting on the law generally, signing statements have been used to document the president’s constitutional objections to provisions contained in the law, and sometimes to announce how (or whether) parts of the law will be enforced. Bush was hardly the first to issue signing statements, but he was the most prolific. According to the Congressional Research Service, Bush issued 161 signing statements, which is a smaller number than each of his three immediate predecessors. But 79 percent of Bush’s statements -- a much higher rate -- noted a challenge or objection to the law being signed, rather than offering relatively innocuous comments. Meanwhile, many statements contained multiple reservations, making the total number more than 1,000. The American Bar Association published a report asserting that Bush’s statements were ""contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers"" when they ""claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law ... or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress."" Like Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt before him, Bush ""asserted the power to violate certain laws if necessary to defend the country,"" said Kermit Roosevelt, a University of Pennsylvania law professor. ""Bush’s signing statements typically said that he would interpret laws restricting executive authority, such as a law forbidding cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees, in a manner consistent with his understanding of his power as commander-in-chief. What that meant, it turned out when the memos were declassified, was that the law did not bind him if he believed certain actions were necessary to national security — the ‘commander-in-chief override.’ "" Our ruling We found that at least seven presidents -- including some of the nation’s most admired occupants of the White House -- acted, at least on occasion, in ways that ignored specific laws or constitutional protections. It is not accurate to say, as Cruz does, that Obama would be ""the first president we've ever had who thinks he can choose which laws to enforce and which laws to ignore."" Presidents have done so frequently, and historians expect that they will continue to do so. *** EDITOR’S NOTE, March 11, 2014: After we published our story, Cruz’s office provided the following response: ""Since the dawn of the republic, the president and Congress have resisted attempts from each other to encroach upon their constitutional powers. Many presidents have asserted, and have abused, executive authority. No one is arguing that President Obama is the first to make this mistake. As Sen. Cruz has detailed in three reports, a Wall Street Journal op-ed, and a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court, no president until President Obama has ever claimed the authority to ignore the explicit text of statutes passed by Congress and unilaterally replace that text with whatever the president wishes. From Obamacare to immigration, to same sex marriage, to marijuana laws, President Obama’s willingness to ignore or alter law is unquestionably outside the scope of executive power. It amounts to legislating, pure and simple."" However, we don’t agree that there’s a significant distinction between ""abus(ing) executive authority"" and a ""willingness to ignore or alter law,"" so we feel comfortable with the historical examples we used to analyze Cruz’s statement. We’re standing by our original ruling of ."
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8734
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Trump administration seeks $2.5 billion in funds to fight coronavirus.
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The Trump administration is asking Congress for $2.5 billion to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus, including more than $1 billion for vaccines, the White House said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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With financial markets falling on concerns that the virus will have a significant impact on the global economy, the Trump administration is eager to show it is prepared to combat the virus despite the limited number of cases so far in the United States. The virus has spread to some 29 countries and territories beyond mainland China, with outbreaks in South Korea, Iran and Italy. [L3N2AO07M] “The Trump administration continues to take the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease very seriously. Today, the administration is transmitting to Congress a $2.5 billion supplemental funding plan to accelerate vaccine development, support preparedness and response activities and to procure much needed equipment and supplies,” said Rachel Semmel, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. The money will be used for therapeutics, vaccine development and the stockpiling of personal protective equipment such as masks, the White House said. Of the $2.5 billion request, $1.5 billion represents new funding. The rest would come from funds already budgeted by Congress, such as unused money to fight the Ebola virus. The administration requires congressional approval to redirect that money to fight the coronavirus. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, a Democrat, said in a statement the Trump administration’s funding request was “woefully insufficient to protect Americans from the deadly coronavirus outbreak.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said late on Monday that the supplemental funding requested by Trump is “undersized” and “completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency”. “The House will swiftly advance a strong, strategic funding package that fully addresses the scale and seriousness of this public health crisis,” Pelosi said in a statement. The United States has not seen the virus spread through its communities the way that China and other countries have experienced, but health officials are preparing for the possibility even as Americans affected so far have been quarantined. There have been 53 confirmed U.S. cases of the new coronavirus so far - 14 in people diagnosed in the United States and 39 among Americans repatriated from the outbreak’s epicenter of Wuhan, China, and from the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. health officials have warned that cases among repatriated citizens will likely increase. The CDC warned Americans on Monday to avoid travel to South Korea because of the virus. “We have aggressively worked to combat the spread of this virus, tried to prevent it as best we could from coming into this country,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters earlier on Monday. Trump has been at odds with his own White House advisers over China’s coronavirus response. He has sought to downplay the impact of the virus, saying it could fade in April with warmer weather - something health experts said is unknown. Trump has praised the work of Chinese President Xi Jinping, even as his advisers have questioned the reliability of the information Beijing has shared on the virus and expressed frustration over its reluctance to accept U.S. expertise in combating it. The Trump administration is also grappling with where to send Americans evacuated from the Diamond Princess who tested positive for the virus after backing off plans to quarantine them in a federal facility in Alabama. In a statement on Monday, HHS cited a “rapidly evolving situation,” but said the Alabama center was “not needed at this time” and that it was looking for alternatives.
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4510
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Bill targets vaccine misinformation amid measles outbreak.
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Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas is partnering with two Midwestern Democrats to fight the spread of misinformation about vaccines in the face of measles outbreaks across the nation.
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true
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Gary Peters, Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kansas, Pat Roberts, Legislation, Measles, Public health, Tammy Duckworth
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The Kansas City Star reports Roberts introduced legislation Thursday to instruct Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to award competitive grants for public information campaigns aimed at combating the anti-vaccine movement. The bill does not specify a dollar figure, but would enable the CDC to steer money toward them. The Kansas senator called a lack of confidence in vaccines as one of the top public health threats in a video released by his office Thursday. Co-sponsors on the legislation are Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan and Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, both Democrats. ___ Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com
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14579
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"Hillary Clinton Says Dontre Hamilton, who was killed during a confrontation with a Milwaukee police officer, was ""unarmed."
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"Clinton said Hamilton, who was killed during a confrontation with Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney, was ""unarmed."" Hamilton had no weapon when he was confronted by Manney. After Manney rousted Hamilton and began patting him down, a struggle ensued and Manney used his baton to strike Hamilton. Only then did Hamilton take the baton and strike Manney. That’s when Manney shot and killed Hamilton. Clinton’s statement is accurate, but needs clarification. More on police use of force Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said that in 2012, there were nearly 12.2 million arrests and only 410 ""uses of deadly force"" by police in the United States. Flynn correctly quoted FBI statistics on arrests and justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers, although the 410 appeared to be an undercount of the number of people killed. PolitiFact National rated Half True a claim by National Urban League president Marc Morial, who said: ""The number of killings of citizens by police is at a two-decade high."" The former New Orleans mayor also cited FBI figures. But only a fraction of law enforcement agencies provide such data to the FBI, and the agencies that file the reports change from year to year, complicating comparisons. Conservative Michael Medved, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, said: ""More whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings."" That earned a Half True from our partners at PunditFact. In absolute terms, the claim was accurate. But when comparing death rates, blacks are about three times more likely than whites to die in a confrontation with police."
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true
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Criminal Justice, Crime, Public Health, Public Safety, Urban, Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton,
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"The disproportionate incarceration of black males was posed by a Facebook user during the Feb. 11, 2016 Democratic presidential debate, which was hosted by PBS in Milwaukee. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to the question first. When former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton followed, she made a claim about the 2014 death of a black man at the hands of a white Milwaukee police officer that we want to check. Clinton, after alluding to a statistic cited by the questioner, said: ""And we know of the tragic, terrible event that led to the death of Dontre Hamilton right here in Milwaukee. A young man, unarmed, who should still be with us. His family certainly believes that. And so do I."" The key word in Clinton’s claim, of course, is unarmed. We found this to be one of the more difficult claims we have rated. Moments before he was shot to death by the officer, Hamilton had taken the officer’s baton and struck the officer with it. But Hamilton, who was mentally ill, had no weapon when he was rousted by the officer shortly after two other officers had allowed Hamilton to continue sleeping in a park. In that sense, Hamilton was armed only after he had been struck. Sequence of events Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Hamilton, 31, was described as having long suffered from mental illness, including making a suicide attempt the year before his death. He had a history of encounters with Milwaukee police, but no convictions for any violent crimes. Hamilton was shot to death April 30, 2014 after police were called to Red Arrow Park in downtown Milwaukee. Here’s an overview of the incident, based on a report by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm. Chisholm’s report was based on an investigation done by a division of the Madison-based Wisconsin Department of Justice and a review by Emanuel Kapelsohn of the Peregrine Corp. in Pennsylvania, whom Chisholm cited as a leading national expert in use-of-force reviews. First police contacts: Shortly before 2 p.m., an employee of the Starbucks located at Red Arrow Park called police about Hamilton, who was sleeping in the park. The call was classified as a ""welfare check"" -- in other words, to check if Hamilton was OK. A desk sergeant called downtown officer Christopher Manney’s cell phone and left a voicemail message, saying he wanted Manney to go to the park about ""a homeless guy sleeping"" there. Manney, a 38-year-old, 13-year veteran of the department, was working another call downtown. Because he didn’t immediately respond to the voicemail, the Starbucks call was referred to a dispatcher, who then dispatched two other officers to the park. They found Hamilton lying on his back with his eyes closed. They nudged Hamilton, he got up and provided identification; he said he was taking a nap and was all right. The officers left, since Hamilton was not disturbing anyone, according to the report. About 2:10 p.m., another call to police about Hamilton came from Starbucks. The two officers went to Starbucks and told the employees Hamilton was not doing anything wrong. The officers left shortly before 3 p.m. So, at this point, police had no concerns that Hamilton was armed or dangerous. Manney responds: Just before 3:30 p.m., Manney listened to the voicemail. He called dispatch and asked if there was an assignment for Red Arrow Park. Told there was not, Manney asked, according to the report, ""that he be recorded as responding to a trouble with subject"" call, and he went to the park. He apparently was not aware the other officers had preceded him. Manney approached Hamilton, who was lying down, helped him up and then began to pat him down. Hamilton resisted. Witnesses told police that Manney, who was yelling commands at Hamilton, struck Hamilton one or more times with his baton before Hamilton took the baton and struck Manney with it one or more times, according to the report. The witnesses said Hamilton was holding the baton -- one said menacingly -- when Manney fired his service weapon. It was determined that Manney fired the gun 14 times, resulting in 15 gunshot wounds to Hamilton. So, Hamilton had no weapon when Manney approached him. He was armed, with Manney’s baton, only after Manney struck him with the baton. It’s worth noting that Flynn said, when he later fired Manney, that ""officer-created jeopardy is a term that has real meaning in the training circles of police departments around the country."" He said officers, in their use-of-force training, ""are taught not to create circumstances that place them at a situation where they have no choice."" (Chisholm opted not to file criminal charges against Manney, saying Manney's use of force was justified self-defense.) Our rating Clinton said Hamilton, who was killed during a confrontation with Milwaukee police officer Christopher Manney, was ""unarmed."" Hamilton had no weapon when he was confronted by Manney. After Manney rousted Hamilton and began patting him down, a struggle ensued and Manney used his baton to strike Hamilton. Only then did Hamilton take the baton and strike Manney. That’s when Manney shot and killed Hamilton. Clinton’s statement is accurate, but needs clarification. That’s our definition of . More on police use of force Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said that in 2012, there were nearly 12.2 million arrests and only 410 ""uses of deadly force"" by police in the United States. Our rating was . Flynn correctly quoted FBI statistics on arrests and justifiable homicides by law enforcement officers, although the 410 appeared to be an undercount of the number of people killed. PolitiFact National rated Half True a claim by National Urban League president Marc Morial, who said: ""The number of killings of citizens by police is at a two-decade high."" The former New Orleans mayor also cited FBI figures. But only a fraction of law enforcement agencies provide such data to the FBI, and the agencies that file the reports change from year to year, complicating comparisons. Conservative Michael Medved, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host, said: ""More whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings."" That earned a Half True from our partners at PunditFact. In absolute terms, the claim was accurate. But when comparing death rates, blacks are about three times more likely than whites to die in a confrontation with police."
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12354
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Texas mothers are dying during childbirth at the highest rates in the nation.
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"Thierry said Texas mothers ""are dying during childbirth at the highest rates in the nation."" In 2011 and 2012, according to a 2016 study, Texas had by far the nation’s highest maternal mortality rate. A clarification missing from Thierry’s statement: That national analysis took into account deaths not just at childbirth but during pregnancy and up to 42 days after delivery."
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true
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Health Care, Women, Texas, Shawn Thierry,
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"A Democrat credited the Republican governor for highlighting maternal mortality and then made a claim about Texas leading nationally in a disturbing way. Houston Rep. Shawn Thierry noted in a press release circulated the day after Gov. Greg Abbott set the agenda for the special legislative session starting July 18, 2017, that Abbott authorized maternal mortality as a potential topic after Thierry and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, had urged him to do so. Thierry said: ""It was clear that a special session was going to happen and we now know that our Texas mothers are dying during childbirth at the highest rates in the nation. This time around, we cannot afford for party politics to stand in the way of resolving this crisis."" Abbott included ""extending maternal mortality task force"" in his session ""call,"" he said, to allow lawmakers to maintain the state’s advisory Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force into 2023. The group, created by the 2013 Legislature, is otherwise abolished as of September 2019. We wondered if Texas mothers are more often dying in connection with childbirth than mothers in other states. That’s been reported previously, including in a June 4, 2017, Associated Press news story stating researchers last year found the Texas rate ""not only the highest in the U.S., but one of the highest in the developed world."" To our inquiry, a Thierry aide, Jasmine Connor, emailed us a web link to an August 2016 news story in the Guardian newspaper stating that according to a study in the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, Texas in 2014 had the developed world’s highest maternal mortality rate at 35.8 deaths per 100,000 births. The journal is the official publication of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which describes itself as a 58,000-member organization dedicated to the advancement of women’s health. 2016 study When we inquired, an ACOG spokeswoman, Megan Christin, emailed us a copy of the study, which appeared in the journal’s September 2016 issue under the headline: ""Recent Increases in the U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate: Disentangling Trends From Measurement Issues,"" A methodological wrinkle was necessary, the authors wrote, to make sure the mortality rates estimated for each state reflected needed improvements in measurement. That is, the study adjusted each state’s tally of maternal deaths to account for whether the state’s death certificate already included a revealing question devised nationally in 2003 based on providing checkboxes on death certificates to measure whether women had been pregnant at up to a year before death. Adding the question, the study says, drove up reported maternal mortality rates. ""The addition of this question led to increases in reported maternal mortality rates,"" the study says. ""However, delays in states’ adoption of the new pregnancy question together with use of nonstandard pregnancy questions created a situation where, in any given data year, some states were using the U.S. standard question, others were using questions incompatible with the U.S. standard, and still others had no pregnancy question on their death certificates."" Broadly, the study relied on a definition of maternal mortality typically used for international maternal mortality comparisons. The definition, attributed to the World Health Organization: ""The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes."" The study says, though, the WHO also defines late maternal deaths: ""The death of a woman from direct or indirect obstetric causes more than 42 days but less than 1 year after termination of pregnancy."" Study: Texas saw a spike So, did Texas have the nation’s highest maternal mortality? The state had a yet-to-be explained spike in rates in 2011-12, the study says, giving it by far the highest rate in the country. Previously, adjusted maternal mortality rates for Texas showed a modest increase from 2000 to 2010, the study says, from a rate of 17.7 per 100,000 live-births to 18.6. ""However, after 2010, the reported maternal mortality rate for Texas doubled within a 2-year period to levels not seen in other U.S. states,"" the report says. A figure in the study shows the Texas rate reaching 35.8 deaths per 100,000 live-births by 2014. ADJUSTED MATERNAL MORTALITY RATE, TEXAS, 2000-2014 SOURCE: Figure 4 in study, ""Recent Increases in the U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate: Disentangling Trends From Measurement Issues,"" Obstetrics & Gynecology, September 2016 The report also calls the two-year doubling for Texas through 2011-12 ""puzzling."" The authors continue: ""Texas cause-of-death data, as with data for most states, are coded at the National Center for Health Statistics, and this doubling in the rate was not found for other states. Communications with vital statistics personnel in Texas and at the National Center for Health Statistics did not identify any data processing or coding changes that would account for this rapid increase."" The report continues: ""There were some changes in the provision of women’s health services in Texas from 2011 to 2015, including the closing of several women’s health clinics. Still, in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval, the doubling of a mortality rate within a 2-year period in a state with almost 400,000 annual births seems unlikely. A future study will examine Texas data by race-ethnicity and detailed causes of death to better understand this unusual finding."" Among 48 other states, the estimated mortality rate in 2000 was 18.8; the rate escalated slowly to 23.8 in 2014, the report says. The remaining state, California, saw ""a marked decline in maternal and late maternal mortality from 2003 to 2014,"" the study says, going on: ""California has made concerted efforts to reduce maternal mortality, including initiating a statewide pregnancy-associated mortality review in 2006 and contracting with the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative to investigate primary causes of maternal death. This collaborative developed and promulgated evidence-based tool kits to address two of the most common, preventable contributors to maternal death (obstetric hemorrhage and preeclampsia) and implemented quality improvement initiatives throughout the state. These efforts appear to have helped reduce maternal mortality in California,"" the study says. Texas expert We were unable to connect with authors of the study including lead analyst Marian F. MacDorman of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland, College Park. Meantime, Christin put us in touch with Dr. Lisa Hollier, ACOG’s president-elect and the chair of the 15-person Texas task force focused on maternal mortality. Hollier, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, said by phone the 2012 Texas spike identified in the study was unusual, even strange. In 2014, Hollier said, the task force began a case-by-case review of the 2012 deaths, she said, because that was then the latest year of complete death data. We asked Hollier if the 2012 spike seems to hold up. Hollier said: ""We need a tiny bit more time to give a perfect answer to that,"" with conclusions possibly announced later in 2017. Asked to assess Thierry’s claim about Texas leading the nation in deaths in childbirth, which arguably would overlook deaths in the months after delivery, Hollier said by email: ""As I considered this question, I believe that the proportion of all maternal deaths that occur literally ‘in childbirth’ would be largely equivalent across states. Given the high rates of maternal mortality in Texas relative to other states, I believe this would mean that deaths ‘in childbirth’ would also be high in Texas relative to other states."" State agency response We also wondered if Texas government officials had analyzed the research suggesting Texas lately has the nation’s highest maternal mortality rate. At the Texas Department of State Health Services, spokesman Chris Van Deusen replied to our query by email by saying the agency doesn’t have data for other states or do related rankings. Van Deusen otherwise confirmed that officials are looking into what appears to have been a ""pronounced difference"" in Texas women in 2012 dying in childbirth or within a year afterward. Van Deusen said that to date, the task force had found the most common causes of maternal death in 2011-2012 were cardiac events (21 percent), drug overdoses (12 percent) and hypertension/eclampsia (11 percent). The task force’s July 2016 report states: ""Cardiac events and hypertension/eclampsia were ranked first and third most common causes of maternal death, which is consistent with medical literature. However, overdose by ingestion of drugs emerged as the second leading cause of maternal death in 2011-2012 (11.6 percent). Review of actual case records (including postmortem toxicology and police reports) showed that the majority of these maternal deaths involved licit or illicit prescription opioids. This finding is alarming and may represent an ongoing shift in maternal causes of death."" Also of concern, the task force said, was the number of maternal deaths that occurred months after delivery. Close to 60 percent of Texas maternal deaths 2011-2012 ""occurred after 42 days post-delivery,"" the task force wrote. ""Case review of these deaths will determine whether they were pregnancy-related, -associated, or neither. Nevertheless, it is clear that women remain at-risk for the first year after their pregnancy has ended. It is possible that lack of continuity of care plays a role in these later maternal death outcomes."" In June 2017, Van Deusen wrote us: ""Maternal deaths have been increasing in Texas at the same time we have seen increases in the chronic diseases that underlie many deaths: from 2005 to 2014, pre-pregnancy obesity of mothers increased 25 percent, hypertension increased 20 percent, and diabetes increased 45 percent."" The state official also provided a chart suggesting that in 2014, 126 or 135 maternal deaths were reported in Texas, giving the state a rate of 31.5 or 33.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live-births, according to respective counts by DSHS and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with both rates a decrease from 2013 and the CDC-reported rate down 13 percent from the 38.7 deaths per 100,000 live-births posted for 2012: Texas Maternal Deaths Within 42 days After The End of Pregnancy DSHS Data CDC Wonder Data Maternal deaths Live Births Maternal Mortality Rate Maternal deaths Live Births Maternal Mortality Rate 2010 72 385,746 18.7 72 386,118 18.6 2011 100 377,274 26.5 114 377,445 30.2 2012 110 382,438 28.8 148 382,727 38.7 2013 126 387,110 32.5 140 387,340 36.1 2014 126 399,482 31.5 135 399,766 33.8 SOURCE: Emails, Chris Van Deusen, director of media services, Texas Department of State Health Services, June 8-9, 2017 Limited federal data At Hollier’s suggestion, we also checked on whether the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports state-by-state maternal mortality rates. Our web search yielded the center’s 2017 assessment that the national rate reached a high of 17.8 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2009 and 2011, according to the center’s review of state-forwarded death certificates for women who died within a year of delivering. CDC says: ""Whether the actual risk of a woman dying from pregnancy-related causes has increased is unclear. Many studies show that an increasing number of pregnant women in the United States have chronic health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, and chronic heart disease. These conditions may put a pregnant woman at higher risk of pregnancy complications. Although the overall risk of dying from pregnancy complications is low, some women are at a higher risk than others. The higher pregnancy-related mortality ratios during 2009–2011 are due to an increase in infection and sepsis deaths."" SOURCE: Web page, ""Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System,"" Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last updated May 10, 2017 (accessed May 26, 2017) At our request, Kimberly Rodriguez of the CDC emailed charts based on agency data showing that in 2015 among only 15 states with reported maternal death rates, Texas tied with Missouri for the third-highest rate of deaths per 100,000 residents, behind Louisiana, Georgia and Indiana. That’s a different indicator, though, than deaths per 100,000 live-births. In the end, CDC spokesman Brian Tsai suggested by email that we rely on the older figures covered by the 2016 study we'd already reviewed. Our ruling Thierry said Texas mothers ""are dying during childbirth at the highest rates in the nation."" In 2011 and 2012, according to a 2016 study, Texas had by far the nation’s highest maternal mortality rate. A clarification missing from Thierry’s statement: That national analysis took into account deaths not just at childbirth but during pregnancy and up to 42 days after delivery. – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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5837
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CDC report: STD rates on rise in South Carolina.
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The number of sexually transmitted diseases is on the rise in South Carolina.
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true
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Sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Greenville, South Carolina, Gonorrhea, Syphilis
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That’s according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. WSPA-TV reports the study shows the number of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases in South Carolina are the third highest in the country. The state ranks 5th for chlamydia cases and 4th for gonorrhea. The study found both infections especially high among women. State Department of Health and Environmental Control Dr. Tracy Murphy says it’s unclear why there’s an increase but he notes it could be due to differences in testing and screening. Officials say the best way to stop the trend is advocating prevention methods, including abstinence, using condoms and limiting partners, which according to Health Testing Center most people aren’t utilizing. ___ Information from: WSPA-TV, http://www.wspa.com
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11418
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Statin Drugs May Cut Risk of Colorectal Cancer
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"Maybe the disconnect between journalist and reader is best (worst) seen in this line from the story: ""The group of statins that showed the greatest effect in reducing risk are classified as lipophilic."" All statins are lipophilic. And the story gave readers no definition, no explanation of what lipophilic even means. So it’s like a high school term paper where the student slips in big words to impress the teacher. Readers should not be impressed. Over and over again we see the same flaws in health care journalism stories. These are not just academic issues. These flaws expose stories that simply fail to communicate vital information to readers."
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false
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"Even though both brand name and generic versions of statin medication are available, there was no information about costs in this story. Why this is so – in a story that suggests a possible future expanded market for these already widely-used drugs, is a puzzle. The story reported the more impressive-sounding relative risk reduction (i.e. ""The analysis shows there was a 12% reduction of colorectal cancer risk among statin users."") rather than indicating absolute risk reduction. This is such an important issue – so often misunderstood – that we offer a little primer on the topic. Just as bothersome, the story really whiffed on the opportunity to explain the limitations of observational studies, and in so doing, it may have confused many readers. The headline says ""may cut risk."" But the first line says both ""significant association"" and ""reduced risk."" Wait a minute! Which is it? An association? Or an established cause-and-effect piece of evidence? Readers should have been told that observational studies CAN’T establish cause and effect. So the story is wrong to use language like ""may cut risk"" or ""reduced risk"" in the headline and in the first sentence."
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5856
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State health commissioner says emergency funding needed.
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Minnesota’s health commissioner is asking state legislators to provide $5 million for an emergency fund to deal with an outbreak of measles and other infectious diseases.
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true
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Health, Measles, Minnesota, Infectious diseases, Syphilis, Mark Dayton, Public health
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Dr. Ed Ehlinger says public health officials are dealing with the largest measles outbreak in Minnesota in nearly 30 years and in recent months have responded to drug-resistant tuberculosis and hundreds of new cases of syphilis. The commissioner says current state funding doesn’t give health officials the flexibility needed to deal with emerging disease threats. Ehlinger says Gov. Mark Dayton has endorsed his request and will help push for its inclusion in the final budget agreement.
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8956
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Milk protein shown to alleviate chemotherapy side effects
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The very preliminary study mentioned in this news release relies on only 12 cancer patients filling out an unvalidated questionnaire about whether taking lactoferrin supplements improved their sense of taste and smell. This is a weak news release about a weak observational study because it provides no supporting data, never mentions how small the study is, and doesn’t explain the basic design or multiple limitations of the study. To then write a headline broadly claiming alleviation of chemotherapy side effects and state the “findings could bring relief to millions of patients undergoing cancer treatment” is a textbook example of overreaching and unjustified hype with significant potential for misleading — not “bringing relief” to millions. What this news release does do well is establish that altered taste and smell in cancer patients is a very real problem with very real consequences. An effective therapy could help millions of people and potentially make millions of dollars for those who develop such a treatment. Dangling headlines of false hope without supporting evidence is not just irresponsible, it’s potentially unethical. Avoiding this egregious level of misinformation is not difficult. At the very least it could be addressed by including study results and clearly explaining to readers what the strengths and limitations of those findings are. After that, double check your headline and ask yourself: is it more eye-catching or more evidence-based?
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false
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chemotherapy,milk protein,Virginia Tech
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The cost of lactoferrin supplements is not mentioned. The 250 mg capsules used in this study were supplied by Jarrrow Formulas who list the capsule price as 50 cents. Therefore, three-a-day dosing — as tested in the study — would cost $1.50. A study author is quoted as speculating that lactoferrin … “elicits changes in the salivary protein profiles in cancer patients — changes that may be influential in helping protect taste buds and odor perception” — which in turn — might “reduce TSA (“taste and smell abnormalities”), restoring their ability to enjoy food during a time in which nutrition can play a key role in recovery.” Although the logic here appears sound there is no data included to support this chain of eventualities. No mention is made of potential harms from lactoferrin. Readers might be curious about the potential for intoxication (animal studies have been inconclusive in this area) or intolerance. WebMD mentions: “Lactoferrin can cause diarrhea. In very high doses, skin rash, loss of appetite, fatigue, chills, and constipation have been reported.” Several problems here that aren’t mentioned in the release: Not addressing these limitations is a major weakness of this release and, therefore, a huge disservice to readers. This news release does not disease monger. Rather, it clearly states that TSA in cancer patients is a common problem, and can be detrimental to cancer patients’ recovery. Funding sources are excluded. Careful review of the author disclosures included in the study reveal no significant conflicts of interest. It’s rather misleading to claim “until now, there have been no reliable therapies” for TSA, because this study cannot establish lactoferrin as a “reliable therapy” based on only 12 patients. Many approaches have been tried to help cancer patients cope with altered taste/smell including: dietary changes, Zinc supplementation, and agents which increase saliva production, to name a few. It wasn’t made clear enough in the release that lactoferrin supplements are available online. Many readers might erroneously think the only source is drinking milk. Using an agent that binds iron is not novel. Also, the release does not make it clear if there are other agents currently being investifated that “elicit changes in the salivary protein profiles in cancer patients that may be influential in helping to protect taste buds and odor perception” as lactoferrin is postulated (but not proven) to do. A preliminary study that relies heavily upon a highly subjective questionnaire completed by just 12 patients does NOT justify a headline/subhead like this: “Milk protein shown to alleviate chemotherapy side effects: Findings could bring relief to millions of patients undergoing cancer treatment.” “Our results suggest lactoferrin may be developed as an effective dietary supplement to treat TSA caused by chemotherapy and increase the expression of salivary proteins.” This statement is barely supported by the data and the extrapolation made in the news release is completely unfounded.
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34445
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Rep. Jason Chaffetz is investigating a PBS show instead of President Donald Trump's alleged Russian connections
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Additionally, Chaffetz contacted Attorney General Jeff Sessions seeking criminal charges against Bryan Pagliano, a former State Department employee who helped Hillary Clinton set up a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State.
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unproven
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Uncategorized, Centers for Disease Control, donald trump, Jim Henson Company
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On 13 February 2017, Washington Post opinion writer Dana Milbank accused House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) of begging off on investigating President Donald Trump in favor of probing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over a childrens’ show. According to Milbank’s editorial: The chairman of the powerful panel — the main investigative committee in the House — sent a letter to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demanding to know why, in an attempt to raise awareness of the Zika virus, “CDC appears poised to make a sole source award to the Jim Henson Company for $806,000 to feature Sid the Science Kid in an educational program about the virus.” Milbank said that Chaffetz contacted the CDC on 26 January 2017, a day after TMZ published a story about the alleged negotiation. We contacted both a spokesperson for Chaffetz and the CDC seeking confirmation of this alleged letter but have not yet heard back. Milbank also wrote that the congressman “hasn’t shown any appetite to examine, say, the Trump administration’s ties to Russia or its many conflicts of interest.” While there has been no correlation shown between Chaffetz’s alleged contact with the CDC and his attitude regarding investigating the president, Chaffetz was jeered by constituents at a 9 February 2017 town hall after he said that Trump under the law is “exempt from the conflict of interests laws.” The Utah lawmaker was also criticized by his committee’s Democratic Party members for failing to initiate an investigation into then-National Security Advisor Mike Flynn’s alleged contact with Russian officials. Flynn resigned from his position on 13 February 2017, the same day Milbank’s op-ed was published. A day later, Chaffetz said his committee would not investigate Flynn, explaining, “I think that situation has taken care of itself. I know that the [House Intelligence] committee is looking into the hacking issue.” On 15 February 2017, Chaffetz and Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) asked the Justice Department to investigate leaks of classified information that reportedly contributed to Flynn’s decision to resign. A day before contacting the Justice Department, Chaffetz also began looking into the treatment of classified information during a meeting between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during an 11 February 2017 meeting at the president’s Florida resort.
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32725
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Donald Trump suggested he'd use nuclear weapons against Mexico if they refused to build and pay for a wall.
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In the case of this article, there is already a wall that stretches nearly 2,000 miles between the United States and Mexico, making Trump’s statements (whether or not they were real) moot:
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false
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Junk News, border wall, donald trump, mexico
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On 10 March 2016, Politicalo published an article reporting that Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2016 election, said he would use nuclear weapons on Mexico if they refused to build and pay for a border wall: In a Donald Trump administration, the U.S. military will be so strong that Mexico won’t dare to go to war over the wall Trump wants to build between the two countries. On MSNBC on Wednesday, journalist Bob Woodward asked Trump, “Would you be willing to go to war to make sure we get the money to pay for this wall?” “Trust me Bob, when I rejuvenate our military, Mexico’s not going to be playing with us with war, that I can tell you. Mexico isn’t playing with us with war,” Trump responded Wednesday. One of Trump’s signature proposals is a promise to build a wall between the United States and make Mexico pay for it, despite Mexican officials’ emphatic insistence that they’ll never cough up the dough. “Because nobody every messes with the American military, everybody knows that, the whole world knows that,” the billionaire businessman added. “We have the single most powerful military machinery in the history of the world, on the entire planet. To go head-on against such an adversary is suicide, and they know that. That’s how I know they’re bluffing, because nobody is willing to commit suicide just to prove a point. And my point is, I’m going to make Mexico pay for that wall, and when I’m done building it, I’m going to get on top and play Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born In The USA’ to them, just for the hell of it. You just don’t mess with the U.S., and that’s that … Let me tell you, we’ve had a similar problem with disobedience back in World War II. And you know how we fixed it? We nuked Japan, and then they surrendered very shortly. So, I think that’s a pretty definitive message, and that’s the hard way. Now, I’ve said before that political correctness is what’s killing this country, and I’m standing by it. However, since I’ve never been a warmonger, I’m trying to tell them nicely that the ball is in their court. If they agree to pay, we’ll have no problem. If they don’t and they start acting up, well, we’ll just have to watch a re-run of the Japanese episode.” Comments attributed to Trump in the first paragraph were authentic, and came from an MSNBC appearance by the candidate in early March 2016: On MSNBC on Wednesday, journalist Bob Woodward asked Trump, “Would you be willing to go to war to make sure we get the money to pay for this wall?” “Trust me, Bob, when I rejuvenate our military, Mexico’s not going to be playing with us with war, that I can tell you. Mexico isn’t playing with us with war,” Trump responded Wednesday. One of Trump’s signature proposals is a promise to build a wall between the United States and make Mexico pay for it, despite Mexican officials’ emphatic insistence that they’ll never cough up the dough. Mexican President Peña Nieto blasted Trump in two separate interviews this week, slamming the billionaire’s “strident expressions” to a Mexico City newspaper and warning that the kind of rhetoric he uses has led to “very fateful scenes in the history of humanity.” “That’s the way Mussolini arrived and the way Hitler arrived,” Peña Nieto said. Trump’s comments, he told El Universal, have “hurt the relationship we have sought with the United States.” The first portion of the article may have led readers to think that the subsequent claims were real, but everything beyond its first paragraph was fabricated. Content published by the self-styled “hybrid” news sites Newslo, Religionlo, and Politicalo built upon controversial current events with related embellishments. Politicalo and related sites featured a button enabling readers to “Show Facts” or “Hide Facts”: However, every Newslo, Politicalo, and Religionlo item opened in “Hide Facts” mode by default, making the embellishments difficult for readers to identify. In addition to its “Show Facts/Hide Facts” feature, Politicalo‘s disclaimer explained: Newslo is the first hybrid News/Satire platform on the web. Readers come to us for a unique brand of entertainment and information that is enhanced by features like our fact-button, which allows readers to find what is fact and what is satire. Previous Newslo, Religionlo, and Politicalo articles that caused social media confusion included claims that Marco Rubio said women should be taken into custody if they were considering an abortion (and that Zika was a punishment from God), Pat Robertson said gay people should wear colors by which heterosexual people could identify them in public, Pastor John Piper said bikini waxes were a sin in the eyes of God, David Bowie was alive but held hostage by Satanic entities, Ted Cruz said God would not have allowed Antonin Scalia to die at a time that was not politically expedient, a Republican lawmaker proposed saliva-based “hunger tests” for food stamp recipients, and Bristol Palin said that more black actors weren’t nominated for Oscars because they all looked alike.
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7890
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Germany's Merkel goes into quarantine after contact with infected doctor.
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German chancellor Angela Merkel went into quarantine on Sunday after coming into contact with a coronavirus-infected doctor shortly after announcing more curbs on social interaction to slow the spread of the disease.
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true
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Health News
|
Merkel, 65, will continue her work from home and will submit to repeated tests over the next few days, her spokesman said in a statement, adding it was too soon for a conclusive test yet. Merkel had on Friday afternoon received a vaccine shot against pneumococcus, a pneumonia-causing bacteria, from a doctor who later tested positive for coronavirus, according to the statement. Merkel earlier on Sunday said in a televised press briefing that Germany would ban public meetings of more than two people, amid a raft of further measures. “The great aim is to gain time in the fight against the virus,” she said, citing an agreement between the federal government and regional states. For at least the next two weeks, people will not be allowed to form groups of three or more in public unless they live together in the same household, or the gathering is work-related, she added. Restaurants can only serve patrons via takeaway, while hairdressers and beauty, massage and tattoo parlours must close. Governments in Europe, the epicenter of the global pandemic, have escalated their emergency responses amid a rising death toll. Italy banned travel within the country after freezing non-essential business activity. Spain wants to extend until April 11 a state of emergency it imposed this month. Regional states in Germany had previously taken differing approaches in the fight against the virus. Bavaria and smaller Saarland had gone furthest, imposing restrictions to keep people inside their homes save for a number of work-related exceptions. “We are reducing public life and social interaction further and we are making sure to impose the same rules in principle across Germany,” Merkel said. Last year, Merkel suffered several bouts of shaking at public events, sparking speculation about her health. “I am aware of the responsibility of my office,” she told reporters last July after the tremor episodes. “I behave appropriately as far as my health is concerned ... I look after my health.” Merkel has said she will not seek a fifth term as chancellor in federal elections due by October 2021. She has loomed large on the European stage since 2005, helping guide the EU through the euro zone crisis and opening Germany’s doors to migrants fleeing war in the Middle East in 2015, a move that still divides the bloc and her country.
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36014
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A Facebook post accurately depicts a $60 women's self-defense kit, available for sale and sold by a black-owned business.
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‘$60 Women’s Self-Defense Kit Sold by a Black-Owned Business’ Facebook Post
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true
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
|
A popular November 17 2019 Facebook post purportedly shows a women’s self-defense kit in the style of a makeup bag, and the collection of stylish items was described as being sold by a black-owned business:Its image showed iridescent brass knuckles, what appeared to be pepper spray in a studded or jeweled keychain atomizer, another keychain cat-like pointed implement, a blade concealed in a comb, and possibly a purple stun gun. All the items were styled in pink and purple hues, and several resembled standard makeup-bag staples, like perfume or hair tools.The poster said that the entire kit retailed for just $60:Ladies! 🗣 There’s a business that sells self-defense kits. This ENTIRE KIT is $60. (And they’re black owned 😉). Link: http://www.beyonddefense.bigcartel.com/A link in the post pointed to a storefront hosted on Big Cartel (bigcartel.com), an online marketplace similar to Etsy. An “about” page for the platform stated:Since 2005, we’ve helped people from all over the world sell over $2.5 billion of their work. We’re 100% independent and we’re here to help artists, makers, and small brands open a store and start making a living doing what they love.The storefront linked was called “Beyond Defense,” and their personal “about” section explained:Beyond Defense is a family-owned business focused on empowering people to protect and serve themselves.With everything going on in the world, it is important that we are prepared to protect ourselves, our homes, and our families. We are focused on empowering people to protect and serve themselves by providing the right tools and information for self defense.Beyond Defense only had one product available for purchase via their Big Cartel storefront (“Personal Protection Kit”), and its product picture was the same as the one shared on Facebook. A product description included five items:✨Each kit includes: •Bejeweled pepper spray •Cat-shaped keychain •Stun gun WITH alarm •Brass knuckle (belt buckle) •Comb-shaped knifeEstimated shipping for the item was $9.99. A separate page, “product descriptions,” provided additional details about the five items depicted in the self-defense kit:Cat-shaped KeychainThe wild cat keychain that packs a powerful punch! The eyes of the cat become finger holes and the ears become spikes when clutched in the hand to create an excellent means of self-defense against an attacker.The Blue finished stainless Aluminum charm includes a silver stainless ring and clasp for attaching keys. The metal of this key chain makes it very light weight, but very durable. This key chain looks inconspicuous, is easy to carry, and will provide you with peace of mind!Stun Gun with AlarmThis heavy duty self-defense product, is a powerful, high-voltage tool to protect yourself. It is a rechargeable stun gun that also includes an LED light and an alarm.Comb-shaped KnifeThis item looks like a standard pink plastic comb. Pull off the top to reveal a sharp 3.25″ single edged blade! It is a fully functional comb, with the knife completely hidden. Feel protected in any situation and look good doing it!Although Big Cartel didn’t appear to include reviews, Beyond Defense maintained Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts as well.Over on Instagram, Beyond Defense posted about a flood of new orders, presumably due to the viral Facebook post shared on November 17 2019:A post shared by Beyond Defense (@beyond_defense) on Nov 19, 2019 at 11:13am PSTIn an October 2019 post, a co-founder of Beyond Defense shared a video about why she started the company. In a second post, she explained that the company was inspired in part by her experiences as a university student in North Carolina:Here at Beyond Defense we wanted to share some stories as to WHY we founded the business. 💎 PART ONE Here is one of the cofounders stories that lead her to think about her safety and the safety of others moving forward. #UNCG #campus #uncgpolice #police #GHOE #safety #protection #kit #mace #taser #love #wednesday #public #indecencyA post shared by Beyond Defense (@beyond_defense) on Oct 23, 2019 at 10:06am PDTBeyond Defense also tweeted about the viral response to the women’s self-defense kit:Thank u 2 everyone who has ordered! Due to the overwhelming response to our product, we are experiencing a flood of orders. Please keep in mind orders are shipped 1st in 1st out basis.We are working to ship within 10-14 days. Thank you for your patience.🔹✊🏾— Beyond Defense (@BeyondDefense) November 19, 2019A previous tweet published on November 12 2019 by @BeyondDefense received significant engagement, just before the Facebook post appeared:Please be safe out there! We have personal protection kits for these instances! Trust your gut! Pay attention! Keep a #weapon on you at all times! We have to have a plan bcuz the #criminals have a #plan pic.twitter.com/zyOPQsNRmH— Beyond Defense (@BeyondDefense) November 13, 2019And on their Facebook page, Beyond Defense had three five-star reviews. We contacted the company via direct message to ask about the popular post, and Beyond Defense confirmed to us that the post was accurate.To sum up: A viral Facebook post claimed a black-owned company sold the self-defense kits shown above for $60. The post was widely shared, and linked to a storefront on the e-commerce site Big Cartel. The kit was real and accurately described, available and retailing for $60 plus shipping. Beyond Defense is a company co-founded and owned by a black woman. Due to widespread social media interest, Beyond Defense reported a spike in orders of their stylish self-defense items. It was not clear if the five pieces retailed individually, as we only could find the five-piece set.
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33648
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"Lemons have been proved to ""kill cancer cells"" and are ""10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy."" "
|
"Claims that lemons ""kill cancer cells"" and are ""10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy"" are unsupported by credible medical evidence."
|
false
|
Medical, Disease
|
Although an item about the supposed cancer-curing properties of lemons was originally circulated with a tag line suggesting that it had been issued by Baltimore’s Health Sciences Institute (a subsidiary of Newmarket Health, which is located at 819 N. Charles Street in Baltimore), that agency has denied any connection to this piece: Lemon (Citrus) is a miraculous product that kills cancer cells. It is 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy. Why do we not know about that? Because there are laboratories interested in making a synthetic version that will bring them huge profits. You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease. Its taste is pleasant and it does not produce the horrific effects of chemotherapy. How many people will die while this closely guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the beneficial multimillionaires large corporations? As you know, the lemon tree is known for its varieties of lemons and limes. You can eat the fruit in different ways: you can eat the pulp, juice press, prepare drinks, sorbets, pastries, etc… It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and tumors. This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types. Some say it is very useful in all variants of cancer. It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective against internal parasites and worms, it regulates blood pressure which is too high and an antidepressant, combats stress and nervous disorders. The source of this information is fascinating: it comes from one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world, says that after more than 20 laboratory tests since 1970, the extracts revealed that: It destroys the malignant cells in 12 cancers, including colon, breast, prostate, lung and pancreas … The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world, slowing the growth of cancer cells. And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells. Institute of Health Sciences, 819 N. L.L.C. Cause Street, Baltimore, MD1201 It is true in a general sense that lemons (and citrus fruits in general) provide a number of useful nutritional and health benefits, as described in the Encyclopedia of Healing Foods: The fruit juice contains mainly sugars and fruit acids, which are made mainly of citric acid. Lemon peel consists of two layers: the outermost layer (“zest”), which contains essential oils (6 percent) that are composed mostly of limonene (90 percent) and citral (5 percent), plus a small amount of cintronellal, alphaterpineol, linayl, and geranyl acetate. The inner layer contains no essential oil but instead houses a variety of bitter flavone glycosides and coumarin derivatives. Lemons are an excellent source of vitamin C. In addition, they are a good source of vitamin B6, potassium, folic acid, flavonoids, and the important phytochemical limonene. A 3½-ounce (100 gram) serving is about 2 medium lemons and provides 29 calories, 1.1 grams of protein, 0.3 grams of fat, and 9.3 grams of carbohydrate, with 2.8 grams of fiber and 2.5 grams of natural sugars. The phytochemical limonene, which is extracted from lemons, is currently being used in clinical trials to dissolve gallstones and is showing extremely promising anticancer activities. Several academic papers published in the last decade have also suggested that lemons, as well as other citrus fruits, might possess some substantial anti-cancer properties. For example, a 2002 report on the medicinal use of citrus issued by the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences noted that: Recent research has focused on the biological activity of compounds found in citrus species, including compounds called flavanoids, carotenoids and limonoids, especially in terms of their effects on citrus palatability and anti-cancer activity. Citrus flavonoids have potential antioxidant (prevents aging), anti-cancer, antiviral, anti-inflammatory activities, effects on capillarity, and cholesterol-lowering ability. The principal carotenoids in pink grapefruit are lycopene and beta-carotene. Lycopene-containing fruits and vegetables have been shown to contribute to a significant reduction in prostate and mammary cancer risk. Recent studies have further shown that limonoids inhibit the development of cancer in laboratory animals and in human breast cancer cells as well as reducing cholesterol. Researchers have also suggested that, if ingested, limonoids may not be absorbed in the large intestine, and therefore could be distributed throughout the body, with beneficial effects. Likewise, a 2000 paper from University of California Davis on “The Potential of Citrus Limonoids as Anticancer Agents” observed that: Vitamin C and flavonoids are antioxidants, substances that neutralize active oxygen species which can damage body cells and contribute to chronic diseases including cancer. Carotenoids, colored pigments in fruits and vegetables such as beta-carotene, lycopene, and lutein, also provide some antioxidant protection, but have other beneficial actions involving cell growth and vision. Folate is a B vitamin that is needed for the synthesis of DNA, and therefore is important for the integrity of genetic material in cells and the healthy growth of tissues. Recent information indicates that mild folate deficiency alters the structure of DNA in a way that may decrease the expression of tumor suppressor proteins. A survey of food folate sources showed that orange juice is the largest contributor to the food folate intake in the U.S. population. Recent research suggests that U.S. consumers may be getting another health benefit from orange juice and other citrus products — phytochemicals called limonoids — which appear to possess substantial anticancer activity. And a 2004 ScienceDaily article reported on similar research from Texas A&M University’s Kingsville Citrus Center: Research by Texas Agriculture Experiment Station scientists has shown that citrus compounds called limonoids targeted and stopped neuroblastoma cells in the lab. They now hope to learn the reasons for the stop-action behavior and eventually try the citrus concoction in humans. Neuroblastomas account for about 10 percent of all cancer in children, Harris said, and is usually a solid tumor in the neck, chest, spinal cord or adrenal gland. The finding in citrus is promising not only for its potential to arrest cancer, but because limonoids induce no side affects, according to Dr. Ed Harris, Experiment Station biochemist who collaborated on the study with Dr. Bhimu Patil, a plant physiologist at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Citrus Center in Weslaco. “Limonoids are naturally occurring compounds,” Harris said. “Unlike other anti-cancer drugs that are toxic, limonoids apparently do not hurt a person. That’s the beautiful potential.” Patil calls citrus fruit “a vast reservoir of anti-carcinogens.” As a plant physiologist, he has succeeded in isolating and purifying a number of limonoids from citrus so that the biochemists could evaluate and compare their anti-cancer abilities at the molecular level. “Limonoids are unique to citrus,” Patil said. “They are not present in any other fruits or vegetables. My goal is to find the direct benefits of citrus on human health.” However, the best that can be said at this point is that citrus fruits may potentially harbor anti-cancer properties that could help ward off cancer. No reputable scientific or medical studies have reported that lemons have definitively been found to be a “proven remedy against cancers of all types,” nor has any of the (conveniently unnamed) “world’s largest drug manufacturers” reported discovering that lemons are “10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy” and that their ingestion can “destroy malignant [cancer] cells.” All of those claims are hyperbole and exaggeration not supported by facts.
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2904
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Roche's Tamiflu for children temporarily in short supply in U.S.
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In what is shaping up to be a tough and widespread flu season in the United States, one of the leading medicines used to treat children with the sometimes deadly virus is in short supply.
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true
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Health News
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“There has been strong and early demand for Tamiflu Oral Suspension (OS) and we are experiencing a temporary delay in the packaging of Tamiflu OS,” said Tara Iannuccillo, a spokeswoman for Roche Holding AG’s Genentech unit which manufactures the drug and uses distributors to supply retail pharmacies with the product. “A brief shortage of OS is expected through mid-January. We may be unable to fill complete orders from distributors for a limited time,” Iannuccillo added. Tamiflu is used to reduce the severity of the flu when taken at the outset of symptoms. The oral suspension of the drug is primarily prescribed for children under the age of 13 and for people who have difficulty swallowing. The delay in packaging of the liquid version has not impacted supplies of regular Tamiflu 75 milligram capsules, Genentech said. The flu is spreading quickly this season, with 25 states already reporting cases, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thousands of people die every year from flu, which typically peaks in the United States between the months of October and March. This season’s virus has killed six children in the United States so far, according to CDC data. Roche said it expects to have additional supply of Tamiflu OS available in mid-January. “We expect that these new supplies should meet demand for OS overall and we will continue to receive and ship out new supplies of Tamiflu OS and capsules throughout the flu season,” Iannuccillo said. If the drug is unavailable in a particular area during the shortage, pharmacists can mix the capsules into an oral suspension for people who need it. Meanwhile, the CDC is recommending that people continue to get flu shots to prevent the virus. “We are seeing a big uptick in disease in the past couple of weeks,” Dr. Joe Bresee, chief of Epidemiology and Prevention in the CDC’s Influenza Division, said last week. “There is still a lot of season to come. If folks haven’t been vaccinated, we recommend they do it now,” he said.
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5794
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Abbvie to donate $100M for health, housing in Puerto Rico.
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Drug maker Abbvie says it will donate $100 million to improve access to health care and housing in a Puerto Rico struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria.
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true
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Access to health care, Habitat for Humanity, Health, San Juan, Latin America, Puerto Rico
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The biopharmaceutical company said Tuesday that half the amount will go to Direct Relief and the other to Habitat for Humanity International. Direct Relief would provide health centers with solar power, battery storage and generators, and fund mobile health units. Meanwhile, Habitat for Humanity would help repair and build homes starting in the metropolitan area of San Juan. The announcement comes amid criticism that the U.S. territory is not prepared to face a new hurricane season that starts June 1. More than 14,000 power customers across the island remain in the dark more than eight months after the Category 4 storm hit.
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23408
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I don’t understand what Republicans are doing against this. It was their idea. John McCain introduced cap and trade legislation three times.
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Democratic Rep. John Boccieri invokes GOP Sen. John McCain to back his cap-and-trade stance
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true
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Ohio, Cap and Trade, Climate Change, John Boccieri,
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"Democratic Rep. John Boccieri has taken heat from Republicans ever since his 2009 vote for a House energy bill that would establish a ""cap and trade"" system designed to reduce emission of the greenhouse gasses thought to cause global warming. The system would impose a government cap on allowable emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses. Companies that emit carbon dioxide, like electric utilities, would either have to reduce emissions by using cleaner technology, or purchase credits to allow continued emissions. Either way, the cost likely would be passed along to consumers. Critics of the program have said it would be particularly harmful in Ohio, where a high proportion of electricity is derived from coal-burning power plants that would be most affected by the proposed law. Groups like the National Republican Congressional Committee have criticized Boccieri for his vote, placing ads in his district that say the system amounts to a nationwide electricity tax that would drive up the nation’s electricity rates. Boccieri, from Alliance, Ohio, has repeatedly said that he favored the bill because it would create renewable energy jobs in his district that can’t be shipped overseas, and would protect national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil from unstable regions like the Middle East. During an interview Aug. 18, he stated the ""cap and trade"" concept was originally a Republican idea, and expressed frustration with the GOP’s current opposition. ""Only in Washington can you propose an idea, introduce legislation and then campaign against it,"" Boccieri said. ""I don’t understand what Republicans are doing against this. It was their idea. John McCain introduced cap and trade legislation three times."" Boccieri is correct that the ""cap and trade"" concept was pioneered by Republicans. MIT economics professor Richard Schmalensee and Harvard Kennedy School government professor Robert Stavins noted in July that Ronald Reagan used a ""cap-and-trade"" system to phase out leaded gasoline and George H.W. Bush established a ""cap-and-trade"" system that reduced the sulfur dioxide emissions that cause acid rain. In 2003, McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat from Connecticut, introduced the ""Climate Stewardship Act,"" which would have used a similar cap-and-trade approach to reduce carbon pollution linked to global warming. Versions of the bill were reintroduced in 2005 and 2007. ""The enormous economic costs of damage caused by air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions to the environment and human health are not factored into the price of power produced by fossil-fueled technologies,"" McCain said in a floor speech to mark the bill’s 2007 introduction. ""Yet, it’s a cost that we all bear, too often in terms of ill-health and diminished quality of life."" McCain’s 2007 version was cosponsored by Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama. And both McCain and Obama had cap-and-trade programs in their presidential platforms. If cap-and-trade legislation was backed by the 2008 presidential contenders from both political parties, why hasn’t it been a shoo-in for implementation? In short, working out the details has been complicated. The carbon emissions that cause global warming behave differently in the atmosphere than the sulfur emissions that cause acid rain, making it harder to design a ""cap-and-trade"" program that will control them. The acid rain program created in the ‘90s ""addressed a relatively small number of major sources that could comply simply by using off-the-shelf-technology. By contrast, carbon dioxide is emitted from sources throughout the economy and cannot be sufficiently addressed by technology currently at our disposal,"" Ohio GOP Sen. George Voinovich told National Journal’s Congress Daily. Another culprit was legislative maneuvering by the lead sponsors of the House climate bill, Democrats Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Henry Waxman of California. As The New York Times put it, in order to gain passage for the bill ""a cornucopia of concessions and exemptions"" were granted to ""coal companies, utilities, refiners, heavy industry and agribusiness. The original simplicity was lost, replaced by a bazaar in which those with the most muscle got the best deals."" McCain’s staff did not respond to our request to discuss his stance on the House cap-and-trade bill that Boccieri supported. Until late August, McCain faced a tough primary battle against former GOP congressman J. D. Hayworth, who had criticized McCain’s support for cap-and-trade. Energy expert Frank Maisano said McCain has been silent on the issue recently, because of ""political pressures he was getting from the right"" during that campaign."
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38617
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Claims that Milk-Bone brand dog treats contain BPH, a preservative allegedly known to cause cancer, have gone viral.
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BHA in Milk-Bone Dog Treats Causes Cancer
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unproven
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Animals
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Claims that Milk-Bone and other dog treats contain cancer-causing BHA aren’t new — and they are haven’t been proven true, either. Panic that Milk-Bone and Beggin Strips, the two most popular dog treat brands in the nation, cause cancer have been floating around the web since at least 2010. Back then, a WordPress site called Good Stuff For Dogs warned that these dog treats contain a number of toxins, including the preservative butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA). Then, the claim went viral again in March 2016 when a Facebook community page called “Planet Paws” repeated the claim in a video that was quickly viewed 15 million times: On its face, that claim has some merit. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study found that there was “sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity” when BHA was added to the diets of lab rats and hamsters. And the California State Regulatory Program lists BHA on its list of Known Carcinogens and Reproductive Toxins. However, the FDA allows BHA to be added to human food (and dog treats) at certain levels and classifies the preservative as “generally regarded as safe.” The idea is that although BHA might cause cancer in lab rats, its metabolized differently by other animals —humans and dogs in particular — and it’s used in foods at amounts well below levels that would cause problems. Still, the FDA concedes that more research is needed: While no evidence in the available information on butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) demonstrates a hazard to the public when it is used at levels that are now current and in the manner now practiced, uncertainties exist requiring that additional studies be conducted. For its part, Milk-Bone has responded to customer concerns on Facebook by saying that BHA has been recognized as safe by the FDA, and that “very small amounts of BHA” are added to Milk-Bone treats to preserve fats and prevent staleness: So, after years of speculation about whether or not BHA is a cancer-causing preservative, the jury is still out. The FDA has acknowledged that more research is need, but it considers BHA generally safe for both humans and dogs.
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26546
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“Joe Exotic tests positive for coronavirus in prison. It’s been confirmed.”
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Joe Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic, is on quarantine after transferring from a prison where other inmates tested positive for COVID-19. There has been no official confirmation that he has the disease. A post on his Facebook page says he does not have COVID-19.
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false
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Pop Culture, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Bloggers,
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"New routines have emerged for Americans living under quarantine. Some have started making their own sourdough. Many others have settled into their couches and binge-watched ""Tiger King,"" the Netflix documentary about a former big cat breeder, Joseph Maldonado-Passage, aka Joe Exotic. In January, Maldonado-Passage was sentenced to 22 years in prison after he was found guilty in a murder-for-hire scheme. Now, some people are saying he’s contracted COVID-19 in custody. ""Joe Exotic tests positive for coronavirus in prison,"" reads the headline of an April 3 blog post on studentproblems.com. ""It’s been confirmed."" The story goes on to say that ""the Tiger King has been moved to a prison hospital for treatment."" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Maldonado-Passage is in self-isolation, according to his husband, Dillon Passage. But that’s because other inmates at a jail where he was held tested positive for COVID-19, according to an April 1 NBC News story. Vanity Fair reported on April 3 that Maldonado-Passage was placed under quarantine after moving to a new detention facility. The New York Post reported on April 2 that Maldonado-Passage was transferred from coronavirus isolation to a prison medical center in Fort Worth, Texas. The medical center told the Post that Maldonado-Passage’s condition ""is not public."" ""We speak, like, three to five times every day, but since he’s been moved to this new facility, they are putting him on COVID-19 isolation because of the previous jail he was at, there were cases,"" Passage told Andy Cohen on a SiriusXM show. Initial reports from British tabloids said that Maldonado-Passage had contracted COVID-19 in prison, according to Vanity Fair, but the publication says ""that rumor has not yet been proven."" An Oklahoma City Fox News affiliate reported on April 2 that a post on Maldonado-Passage’s Facebook page claims he does not have the disease. ""Joe DOES NOT have the COVID-19 virus,"" the Facebook post says. ""He’s in a 14-day quarantine because he was transferred from another facility."""
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4305
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Science Says: Tiny ‘water bears’ can teach us about survival.
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Earth’s ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us about true toughness.
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true
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Biology, AP Top News, Animals, Bears, Science Says, North America, Health, Science
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These animals are pipsqueaks, only about the size of a period. Under a microscope they look like some combination of chubby bear and single-eyed alien. And they are the closest life gets to indestructible. No water? No worries. Tardigrades survive. Antarctic cold, 300-degree heat (150 degrees Celsius), a lack of oxygen, even punishing radiation doesn’t stop these animals. They are so resilient in the face of so many dangers that scientists think their unique biology may hold clues to how we can make crops more resistant to drought, better preserve blood and medicines, and even make more effective sunscreen. When the going gets tough for tardigrades, they curl up, dry out and wait. Then, when the environment gets better and they get water, they spring back to life. Scientists say they can stay dormant for decades before reanimating. In 2007, scientists put two species of tardigrades in containers, launched them into orbit and opened them up to cold, airless space full of punishing radiation from the sun and stars. “If you were put into that same thing, you would explode,” said tardigrade expert Randy Miller, a biologist at Baker University in Kansas. They lived and later multiplied, and the offspring from those tardigrade astronauts are still alive, Miller said. There are as many as 1,200 species of tardigrades, and they live all over Earth, from mountain tops to ocean depths to driveways. Not all have the ability to go dormant and come back to life. Speaking from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, Brigham Young University biologist Byron Adams said he can walk a few hundred yards outside and find tardigrades. He called them the tigers of inland Antarctica, near the top of the limited food chain, eating algae and aquatic plants. Miller said tardigrades seem to be the first animals on Earth to have evolved legs, and, sure enough, they look like a first draft: The rear two legs face backward while the front six face forward. If they are hurt when they are in an active phase and can’t go into survival mode, they die like other creatures. But they don’t have a circulatory system or a skeleton, so that allows them to curl up in a hyper-survival mode called “cryptobiosis.” Not all the critters come back from suspended animation, Miller said. But overall, they survive, even living through Earth’s five mass extinctions. University of North Carolina biologist Thomas Boothby wanted to know how they manage to survive in “environments we think of as being impossible to live in.” So he isolated the genes that activate when tardigrades need to go into cryptobiosis. Boothby engineered those genes into yeast and says their tolerance to drought increased 100-fold. He hopes the genes could also help crops better survive drought. In December, the Defense Department’s long-term research arm gave Boothby a nearly $5 million grant to figure out what in tardigrade genes might help human health. The idea is to see if the tricks that tardigrades use to protect themselves when they dry can be used to protect vaccines and human blood, Boothby said. Boothby hopes to make bags of blood last longer than the current six weeks and allow them to be stored in a dried state so soldiers can take their own blood supply to battle or ambulances can carry more. Tardigrade tricks could possibly also help with preserving vaccines to help reduce the enormous cost and complexity of trying to keep vaccines cold. They could also potentially help preserve organs or damaged tissue. Japanese scientists are studying whether tardigrade proteins could help them come up with a better sunscreen to protect against ultraviolet rays that cause skin cancer. A 2016 study showed that human cells augmented with a DNA protein unique to tardigrades reduced radiation damage in preliminary lab tests. Tardigrades are so otherworldly that some theorize that they could easily exist on planets outside the solar system. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb said “they could survive an impact by a rock and they could potentially be brought from another planet” to Earth. Loeb and colleagues decided to see if life on Earth could survive some of the worst cosmic calamities. So they looked look at the hearty tardigrades, concluding that the water bears could survive most end-of-the-world scenarios, like a giant asteroid crash, cosmic ray burst or nearby supernova — everything short of our sun blinking out. “It’s good to know that at least one creature on Earth has a chance of surviving no matter what,” Loeb said. ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . ___ This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ This story has been corrected to show that Thomas Boothby is at University of North Carolina, not Duke University.
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11437
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Resveratrol impacts Alzheimer's disease biomarker
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Resveratrol is an antioxidant compound found in grapes and red wine.This news release from Georgetown University Medical Center does a thorough job laying out the main points of a resveratrol phase II clinical trial. It reasonably talks about the study’s findings and design, while cautioning readers on how researchers must pursue further studies before recommending the drug. Given this cautious overall framing, we view the release’s omissions as relatively minor. One concern is that the release could have put the potential benefits and the harms into better perspective. For example, readers aren’t told how much levels of the biomarker (Abeta40) would normally decrease in Alzheimer’s patients and how this compares to what was found in the study. Readers also don’t know how many patients suffered from side effects from the concentrated supplement. It would also be interesting to know what existing Alzheimer’s drugs already on the market can do and how resveratrol might compare. But for the most part, this news release – including its use of language – was appropriately tempered and very informative, hitting home the message that these research findings are preliminary. Note: We also looked at how this study was covered by Time magazine and CNN, and compared the framing of the results in this news release vs. the subsequent stories. Alzheimer’s disease is an irreversible, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. It is a condition associated with aging, since most symptoms appear when people hit their mid-60s. Estimates vary, but experts suggest that more than 5 million Americans may have Alzheimer’s, according to the National Institute on Aging. Many of these treatments concentrate not on reversing the disease, but on helping people maintain mental function, manage behavioral symptoms, and slow or delay disease progression. In addition, drugs on the market help only some patients and may be effective for only a limited amount of time. Consequently, any research highlighting a new drug candidate that prevents Alzheimer’s or delays its onset would be newsworthy for both patients and clinicians. Since Alzheimer’s is also a complex disease, having a variety of treatment options would also prove to be beneficial.
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true
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Academic medical center news release,Alzheimer's disease
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Although resveratrol is found in some foods, it was tested here as an investigational new drug. This means that it is not available commercially in 1-gram pills. The news release points out this fact. The news release does a good job explaining how Abeta40 levels were stabilized in patients taking resveratrol in its purified form, pointing out that those “treated with increasing doses of resveratrol over 12 months showed little or no change” in the biomarker. But we wish the news release could have quantified, or at least provided some indication as to the importance of, the decrease in Abeta40 seen in patients with worsening dementia. How big is the decline in levels? And is there a significant difference between that level and the baseline point? It would also have been great to see the caveat noted later in the piece (“A decrease in Abeta40 is seen as dementia worsens and Alzheimer’s disease progresses; still, we can’t conclude from this study that the effects of resveratrol treatment are beneficial,” Turner explains.) mentioned sooner in the release. By talking about this biomarker in the lead sentence, the clear implication is that the finding suggests a benefit — only several paragraphs later do we learn that this isn’t necessarily the case. The news release mentions resveratrol’s most common side effects, which include nausea, diarrhea and weight loss. It would have been helpful to know how commonly these effects occurred. It also lists loss of brain volume as an effect, but states it could interpreted as either a benefit (since it could have reduced inflammation) or harm. The news release does a thorough job describing the context, significance and design of the study. It mentions the resveratrol clinical trial was a “randomized, phase II, placebo-controlled, double blind study in patients with mild to moderate dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease.” It talks about why the researchers chose to study resveratrol (because it activates compounds known as sirtuins) and why the study is significant (the trial was the largest, longest and highest dose trial of resveratrol in humans to date). But as noted above, we can almost always find suggestions for improvement. The study’s primary objective was to determine whether resveratrol was safe and tolerated at the 1-gram oral dose – not to see whether it was effective in the treatment of dementia in people with Alzheimer’s. The release might have briefly explained the purpose of a phase II trial, as we felt this was not clear enough in the news release. In addition, the fact that resveratrol levels stabilize in these patients does not necessarily translate into better health, like prolonged life and better cognitive function. The use of the patient anecdote and of the word “cure” in one of the comments could give readers the wrong impression. The news release could have been a bit clearer when cautioning readers on extrapolating surrogate markers to primary outcomes, even though Turner is quoted as saying, “…still, we can’t conclude from this study that the effects of resvertrol treatment are beneficial.” But again, we applaud the release’s overall careful characterization of the study, including that the findings “cannot be used to recommend resveratrol.” In a couple of instances, the release calls for further research. There is no disease mongering in the news release. And the news release did a nice job bringing in a patient/family story, though it might have been helpful to describe the symptoms associated with mild Alzheimer’s to place this story in context. The news release discloses the funding source, which was the National Institute on Aging. The study’s principal investigator R. Scott Turner, according to the disclosure statement attached to the original journal article, states he has received research support from Ceregene, Eli Lilly, Merck, Biogen Idec, Toyama, Elan/Transition Therapeutics and Pfizer, as well as the NIH and the DOD. The news release doesn’t list these disclosures, and says only that that Dr. Turner “reports no personal financial interests related to the study.” We’d argue that it would have been better to list those disclosures in the news release, since they were deemed important enough to include the journal manuscript. But since we couldn’t easily find any indication that these companies are developing resveratrol-based drugs — which would be a clear conflict of interest — we’ll give the benefit of the doubt and rule this Satisfactory. It would have been helpful to know what standard treatments for Alzheimer’s are and how resveratrol could compare with these drugs in the future. According to the National Institute on Aging, several other drugs on the market – like Donepezil (Aricept®), rivastigmine (Exelon®), and galantamine (Razadyne®) – may help slow down cognitive decline, but do not change the underlying disease process. The release could have discussed the lack of great treatments, further supporting the importance of this work. The news release states resveratrol is not available commercially in the 1-gram oral form. The news release sends a clear message in the first paragraph on what this clinical trial brings to the existing body of knowledge. “The study Turner led… is the largest, longest and highest dose trial of resveratrol in humans to date,” it states. The release also does a nice job of mentioning other research applications of resveratrol. The news release uses appropriate, neutral language and steers clear (for the most part) of sensational wording. The only potential deviation comes from the patient family quote, where the quoted individual talks about wanting to find a “cure.” The release in no way suggests that resveratrol might be such a cure, however we’re not sure that the quotation adds much in the way of value to the release.
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17466
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"Marijuana today is ""genetically modified,"" with THC levels that ""far surpass the marijuana"" of the 1970s."
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"Kennedy said that marijuana today is ""genetically modified,"" with THC levels that ""far surpass the marijuana"" of the 1970s. Generally speaking, the potency of marijuana has been on the rise since Obama’s youth, though experts disagree about what impact that rise could have on marijuana’s negative health effects, in part because the research so far has been incomplete. The most off-base part of Kennedy’s claim is that the rise in THC levels comes from ""genetic modification."" It’s actually from genetic selection, a very old process of producing desired traits from crops."
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true
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National, Drugs, Public Health, Marijuana, Patrick Kennedy,
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"Apparently, back when President Barack Obama would get high with the Choom Gang, he was tokin’ on some weak product by today’s standards. At least, that’s what one former congressman says. After Obama told The New Yorker that marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol — which opened the door to a broader conversation about legalizing or decriminalizing a drug that’s on the federal government’s most restrictive list, Schedule I — former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said the president needs to brush up on his pot knowledge. ""I think the president needs to speak to his (National Institute of Health) director in charge of drug abuse,"" said Kennedy, who chairs Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes legalization. The NIH director ""would tell the president that, in fact, today’s modern, genetically modified marijuana (has) much higher THC levels, far surpass(ing) the marijuana that the president acknowledges smoking when he was a young person."" Obama’s exploits as a pot-smoking adolescent are well documented in his own memoir, Dreams from My Father. More recently, in journalist David Maraniss’ biography Barack Obama: The Story, readers learned that Obama as a high schooler in the late 1970s rolled with a group called the Choom Gang — friends from Hawaii who frequently got high. But has marijuana changed that much? We decided to investigate. What is THC? Cannabis contains roughly 500 compounds, 70 of which are psychoactive. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient in the marijuana plant. The level of THC in a plant varies based on the strain. When researchers discuss the potency of marijuana, they typically are measuring the concentration of THC. THC levels also differ depending on the part of the plant used, and how it is processed for consumption. In addition to marijuana, there are materials such as sinsemilla (the flowering tops of unfertilized female plants), hashish or cannabis resin, and hash oil (a concentrated extract from cannabis plants). Hashish oil tends to have much higher concentrations of THC than marijuana or even sinsemilla. Both of these have become more popular in recent years. But what about marijuana itself? Has weed as we once knew it become more potent? The answer is: yes. THC levels are on the rise, and they have been for quite some time. The University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring project analyzed tens of thousands of marijuana samples confiscated by state and federal law enforcement agencies since 1972. The average potency of all seized cannabis has increased from a concentration of 3.4 percent in 1993 to about 8.8 percent in 2008. Potency in sinsemilla in particular has jumped from 5.8 percent to 13.4 percent during that same time period. Back in the late 1970s when Obama was in high school (he graduated in 1979), the mean potency for marijuana was about 3 percent, said Mahmoud ElSohly, director of marijuana research at Ole Miss. Further, the number of samples confiscated with a THC concentration greater than 9 percent has increased significantly, from 3.2 percent in 1993 to 21.5 percent of the 1,635 marijuana samples collected in 2007. But while the average is up due to the availability of marijuana with a higher THC count, the high mark in potency (somewhere around 25-27 percent) remains relatively unchanged in the last couple decades and isn’t likely to increase, ElSohly said. How did it get so strong? The former congressman said the reason for the increasing levels of THC is genetic modification. That’s not quite right. Genetic modification or genetic engineering involves altering a substance’s DNA at the molecular level. Producers of marijuana on the illicit market don’t have the ability to pull off those kinds of lab-based modifications. However, genetic selection involves breeding marijuana plants with the highest concentration of THC. Genetic selection, unlike genetic modification, has been practiced for centuries. Think about how we got different breeds of dogs or varieties of tomatoes. Genetic selection is quite prevalent in marijuana, ElSohly said. Drug dealers have steered toward these methods in hopes of creating a product that enables them to sell smaller volume at a higher cost. Cultivation methods that allow growers to control climate, water and soil levels have dramatically improved production as well, he said, and they have a better idea what parts of the plant produce the highest concentration of THC. There is some genetic engineering of marijuana in labs, but it’s not widespread yet and it’s not the cause for the increase, ElSohly said. What does it mean? What does this rise in potency mean in a practical sense? Let’s start with what the National Institutes of Health says, since Kennedy singled out the government agency. Noting that the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana has increased in recent decades, the NIH warns that ""daily use can have stronger effects on a developing teen brain than it did 10 or 20 years ago."" Researchers have warned against marijuana use by teens and even young adults, noting that developing brains have an increased risk of dependency. That was an issue even before potency factored in, though the growing strength of the drug does have health officials more concerned. Those concerns are also directed at populations who had already been advised against smoking marijuana when THC levels were lower, such as individuals with cardiovascular diseases or those with certain mental illness, such as schizophrenia. But for the average adult recreational or habitual user, there’s a lot less certainty about what rising THC levels mean. Only a handful of studies have looked at how users smoke marijuana with varying THC levels. Several of these studies noted that when test subjects were using more highly concentrated marijuana, they often smoked less than they did when consuming product with a lower THC level. In that regard, THC would seem to mimic how people consume beverages with different alcohol content: People tend to drink whiskey in shots, wine by the glass and beer by the mug. Marijuana may work the same way, said Carl Hart, a psychology professor at Columbia University who studies the effects of psychoactive drugs. Roger Roffman, a social work professor at the University of Washington and author of the upcoming book Marijuana Nation, noted that there has been little research on the impact of potency in cannabis at the levels seen today, especially in products like hash oil, meaning we don’t know everything about its potential impact. Beyond dependency, health officials also warn that smoking marijuana can cause paranoia and in some cases anxiety attacks. Hospital visits caused by marijuana are on the rise over the last decade, from 359,795 in 2004 to 540,340 in 2011. However, it is unclear if that is caused by higher potency levels, greater usage of marijuana or other factors. This is all important food for thought, because the debate is ongoing and more research is needed. However, this didn't affect our ruling. Our ruling Kennedy said that marijuana today is ""genetically modified,"" with THC levels that ""far surpass the marijuana"" of the 1970s. Generally speaking, the potency of marijuana has been on the rise since Obama’s youth, though experts disagree about what impact that rise could have on marijuana’s negative health effects, in part because the research so far has been incomplete. The most off-base part of Kennedy’s claim is that the rise in THC levels comes from ""genetic modification."" It’s actually from genetic selection, a very old process of producing desired traits from crops."
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21614
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On applying prosecutorial discretion to immigration cases.
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Lamar Smith seeks to suspend discretion that he once urged government to apply
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false
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Immigration, Texas, Lamar Smith,
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"Two U.S. House members whose districts take in parts of Travis County are on opposite sides of a proposal to suspend the Obama administration’s ability to permit selected illegal immigrants to stay in the country. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, further says the measure offered by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, runs counter to Smith’s 1999 request that authorities apply discretionary authority to prevent the deportation of some immigrants. Doggett points out that Smith, in a 1999 letter to then-Attorney General Janet Reno and Doris Meissner, then the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, called on the Clinton administration to let immigration authorities decide whether to enforce immigration laws in particular cases. Now, Doggett suggests, Smith is sounding a conflicting note. A Smith switcheroo? We turned on the Flip-O-Meter. In a statement, Smith told us he earlier referenced only cases against legal immigrants. At first, we thought this would be a simple comparison of Smith’s Nov. 4, 1999, letter, posted online by The Huffington Post, to the change in law he seeks. The 1999 letter expressed concern about how the government was removing ""criminal aliens"" from the country, stating there have been ""cases of apparent extreme hardship."" Its 28 House signers — including Texas Republicans Smith, Kay Granger and Sam Johnson and Texas Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee, Martin Frost, Eddie Berniece Johnson, Gene Green and Ciro Rodriguez — called for guidelines to ensure consistent application of ""prosecutorial discretion."" The letter didn’t say it was speaking only to legal immigrants, though it had a sentence singling some out: ""Some cases may involve removal proceedings against legal permanent residents"" who, the letter said, came to the country when young and ""many years ago committed a single crime at the lower end of the ‘aggravated felony’ spectrum, but have been law-abiding ever since, obtained and held jobs and remained self-sufficient, and started families."" It added: ""Although they did not become United States citizens, immediate family members are citizens."" At the time, Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman Russ Bergeron told the San Antonio Express-News the agency was developing guidelines for such cases. The article said Congress had taken away immigration judges’ discretionary powers, though some powers were later restored. Some 5,500 of 55,600 immigrants with criminal records deported in fiscal 1999 were legal permanent residents, the newspaper said. The vast majority were illegal immigrants. Meissner, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, told us in a telephone interview the government issued guidelines per prosecutorial discretion in 2000, her last year as the INS commissioner in the Bill Clinton administration. Those guidelines have since been refined, she said. Meissner said she sees a conflict between Smith’s 1999 letter and the legislation he and others unveiled last month that would bar the Obama administration from applying discretion in immigration cases. After rereading the 1999 letter, she said she never saw it as applying only to legal immigrants; its example of a legal immigrant is just a subset of all immigrants to whom prosecutorial discretion has long been applicable, she said. Smith’s recent characterization of the letter, she said, is ""revisionist."" Last month, Smith said his proposal, the Hinder the Administration’s Temptation Legalization (HALT) Act, would keep President Barack Obama from taking steps that Smith said amount to a ""backdoor amnesty"" for illegal immigrants. In a July 12 press release, Smith accused the administration of using executive branch authority to allow illegal immigrants to remain in the country. ""While this authority is justifiable when used responsibly, it’s clear this administration plans not to use but to abuse these powers,"" Smith said. The press release refers to memos issued by John Morton, director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on how to exercise ""prosecutorial discretion."" One Morton memo, issued June 17, 2011, states the immigration agency has limited resources and ""must prioritize the use of its enforcement personnel, detention space, and removal assets to ensure that the aliens it removes represent, as much as reasonably possible, the agency's enforcement priorities, namely the promotion of national security, border security, public safety, and the integrity of the immigration system."" It continues: ""Because the agency is confronted with more administrative violations than its resources can address, the agency must regularly exercise ‘prosecutorial discretion’ if it is to prioritize its efforts. In basic terms, prosecutorial discretion is the authority of an agency charged with enforcing a law to decide to what degree to enforce the law against a particular individual."" Listed are about 20 factors immigration officers may consider when deciding to detain individuals. Among them: how long the person has been in the country, with particular consideration given to their presence here legally; if the person came here as a young child; if they’ve pursued a college degree; if they’ve served or have immediate relatives who have served in the military; their ties to the community, including family relationships; and their age, with particular consideration for minors and the elderly. However, the memo says, certain negative factors also should be weighed, including whether individuals pose a clear risk to national security, are serious felons or known gang members, or have egregious records of immigration law violations. The memo includes a disclaimer stating that nothing in it should be ""construed to prohibit the apprehension, detention, or removal of any alien unlawfully in the United States or to limit the legal authority of ICE or any of its personnel to enforce federal immigration law."" A June 20 Houston Chronicle news article quotes a pro-immigration lawyer praising the memo, while Chris Crane, president of the union for ICE workers, the national ICE Council, is quoted saying the memo creates a law enforcement nightmare and an ""out"" for ""everyone illegally in the United States."" ""We will never know who we can and can't arrest,"" Crane said. In the end, do Smith’s objections to the Obama administration’s approach conflict with his 1999 concerns? Sure. While the 1999 letter gives Smith a little fuel for concluding otherwise, it seems reasonable to us that if the House members writing that letter had wanted to limit their appeal to legal immigrants, they would have said so — at the very least saying that they opposed discretion for illegal immigrants. That did not happen. With the HALT proposal, Smith hopes to bar the government from using discretion. He's done a ."
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28525
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A meme contains accurate information about the founders of Papa John's (John Schnatter) and Little Caesar's (Mike Ilitch) respectively.
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Aside from its literal veracity (or lack thereof), this meme also cherry-picks its “facts” to reflect poorly on Schnatter (whose political positions are well-known) and elides charitable contributions Papa John’s has made to causes such as the Red Cross, children affected by domestic violence, and general philanthropic donations that Schnatter estimated to total around $30 million.
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mixture
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Politics, john schnatter, little caesars, mike ilitch
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On 2 November 2017, the Facebook page “The Other 98%” shared a meme comparing purported facts about the founder of the Papa John’s (John Schnatter) and Little Caesar’s (the late Mike Ilitch) pizza chains: Purported facts about Schnatter were accompanied by a red “X” (indicating dispproval) and those about Ilitch with a green check mark (indicating approval). The meme comprised seven claims in total, four about Schnatter and three about Ilitch, which we’ll cover one by one: [Papa John’s] John Schnatter, Founder [Little Caesar’s] Mike Illitch [sic], Founder According to Federal Election Committee (FEC) filings, Schnatter made a total of $85,500 in political contributions in 2016, just over two percent of which went to the Trump campaign. Schnatter donated $1,000 each to two Trump campaign political action committees (PACs), he donated $33,400 to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Kentucky Republican Leadership Fund in 2016, and $6,200 to Rand Paul’s PACs. As such, the claim was true but somewhat misleading: Schnatter (a resident of Louisville) did donate to the Trump campaign, but the bulk of his financial support went elsewhere, most of it to political activity on the state level. In early November 2012, it was widely reported that Schnatter planned to cut worker hours in response to provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”): The CEO of popular pizza chain Papa John’s says his employees may face reduced hours and he expects his business costs to rise because President Obama’s re-election most likely insures the president’s health care reform law will be implemented in full. NaplesNews.com reports John Schnatter made the remarks to a small group at Edison State College’s Collier County campus the day after the election. Schnatter, who supported Mitt Romney in the election, said all Americans having health insurance under ObamaCare is a good, but estimates the change will cost Papa John’s $5 million to $8 million annually. However, Schnatter asserted that his comments had been misinterpreted in an op-ed piece, explaining that his earlier remarks were speculative and pertained to franchisees of Papa John’s (not the corporation itself): Many in the media reported that I said Papa John’s is going to close stores and cut jobs because of Obamacare. I never said that. The fact is we are going to open over hundreds of stores this year and next and increase employment by over 5,000 jobs worldwide. And, we have no plans to cut team hours as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Clearly there was some misunderstanding somewhere. The remarks that generated the headlines were made during an entrepreneur class I was asked to speak to at a Florida college. I was asked to share my experience as an entrepreneur and to provide the students with real-life small business situations. Unbeknownst to me, until she identified herself, a reporter was there. Here is the part of the interchange that was the genesis of the news: Reporter: “Do you think your — you know — franchise owners… are going to cut people hours back to make them part time instead of full time?” Me: “Well, in Hawaii there is a form of the same kind of health insurance and that’s what you do, you find loopholes to get around it. That’s what they’re going to do.” Reporter: “My understanding is that if you’re a full time employee, which is 35 hours or over, you’d be covered. Or if you’re part time then you wouldn’t be. So wouldn’t some business owners just cut people down like 34 hours a week so they wouldn’t have to pay for health insurance?” The reporter asked what I believed Papa John’s franchisees would do in response to Obamacare, not what Papa John’s would do … Papa John’s, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations. Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100% of Papa John’s corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984. In 2015, a Papa John’s franchisee (not the chain, nor Schnatter) was found guilty of wage theft and noncompliance with New York State laws pertaining to overtime: Abdul Jamil Khokhar, who owns nine Papa John’s locations in New York City with BMY Foods, pled guilty to failing to pay workers in compliance with the New York Labor Law, which is a misdemeanor, and to filing false business records, a felony. He will serve 60 days in jail for failing to pay his workers the minimum wage and overtime and has agreed to pay $230,000 in restitution to the workers … Instead of paying his employees the proper minimum overtime wages according to New York State law, Khokhar paid them the same minimum wage they would make during regular hours. To hide this illegal practice, he created fake names for employees in the computer system and used the fake names to avoid paying the time-and-a-half rate required for overtime. So an employee who worked for more than 40 hours would be paid for regular work hours under his or her own name, and any overtime hours would be paid as straight hours to a fictitious employee. Khokar was an independent franchise owner, and his 2015 conviction was falsely attributed to Schnatter in the meme. Separate instances also involved the actions of independent franchisees, not Papa John’s itself. In August 2012, news outlets reported that Schnatter was planning to pass increased health insurance costs onto customers in order to protect “shareholders’ best interests”: And if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rolls out as planned in 2014, Schnatter’s strategy is “of course … to pass that cost on the consumer in order to protect our shareholders’ best interest,” he said in a recent conference call. Schnatter estimates that the legislation will cost Papa John’s about 11 cents to 14 cents per pizza, which equates to 15 cents to 20 cents per order. An average delivery charge runs $1.75 to $2.50. Schnatter’s claims about an 11- to 14-cent per pizza increase in prices occurred in tandem with his earlier referenced ACA-related remarks. As with those previous comments, Schnatter later maintained his remarks had been misinterpreted: Most visibly, Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter repeatedly claimed that Obamacare would increase the price of a pizza by eleven to fourteen cents (even if you accept his numbers, hardly a dramatic setback). CNN did some fact checking, and found that the exact costs of Obamacare for the chain were incalculable thanks to the pizza franchise’s refusal to provide pertinent data (such as the number of pizzas they sell, how many full-time employees they have, what their current health care plan is, etc.). However, they rated Schnatter’s claims as “false” because Obamacare does not require companies to provide health care plans to part-time employees, as well as exempts many small businesses (such as the local franchises which compose Papa John’s retail locations) from the health care requirements. After being debunked, Papa John’s is backing off from its claims that Obamacare would raise prices and potentially cost jobs, now saying Schnatter was quoted incorrectly. Due to the business’ strength, the company now says, Papa John’s could absorb the added costs easily. Schnatter stated that his earlier remarks were misconstrued, and denied pizza prices would go up by the minor amount mentioned. Although it was true Schnatter speculated higher Obamacare-related costs would be “pass[ed] on” to customers, he soon revised his position and no surcharge was added. The meme then turned to Ilitch, who died in February 2017. Back in February 2014, SportsBusiness Daily reported that Ilitch had arranged to pay for housing for civil rights icon Rosa Parks after she was robbed and assaulted in her Detroit home: On Aug. 31, 1994, Parks, then 81, was robbed and assaulted in her home in central Detroit. [Judge Damon] Keith called real estate developer Alfred Taubman, the owner of Riverfront Apartments, about finding a safer home for Parks. Taubman pledged to find the best home available. When Ilitch read about Keith’s plan and Taubman’s promise in the newspaper, he called the judge and said he would pay for Parks’ housing for as long as necessary. (Parks passed away in 2005 at the age of 92). Keith served as the executor of the trust established for Parks’ housing. The episode is just one of many throughout Ilitch’s life when he stepped forward to help (see box), usually outside of the spotlight. Keith produced a canceled November 1994 check and affirmed that Ilitch had paid Parks’ rent from 1994 until her death in 2005, adding that it was “important” people learn of that circumstance. This claim appears to reference Little Caesar’s Love Kitchen, described on the company’s web site as follows: THE LITTLE CAESARS LOVE KITCHEN travels across the United States to help those in need. We have two trucks in operation so we can be of service 365 days a year. These restaurants on wheels have served more than three million people. The Love Kitchen has been recognized for its charitable efforts as well, receiving The President’s Volunteer Action Award Citation from former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan administration also awarded the Love Kitchen a Presidential Citation for Private Sector Initiatives. Additionally, the Love Kitchen has received a certificate of appreciation from the State of Michigan and was recognized by the Detroit City Council for its efforts in the Gulf Coast region. The Love Kitchen’s 30th anniversary was recognized when it was listed in the Congressional Record by U.S. Congresswoman Candice Miller, on April 30, 2015. The Love Kitchen charity was founded by Ilitch in 1985. In September 2007, news outlets reported that Ilitch had “received the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department’s top civilian honor for giving war veterans franchise opportunities,” with one press release stating: In recognition of his service to Veterans, Honorable R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, will present Little Caesar Enterprises, Inc. founder Michael Ilitch with the Secretary’s Award, the highest tribute given to a private citizen by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The ceremony, which will take place today in the nation’s capitol at the Department of Veterans Affairs at 2:30 p.m. ET, recognizes Mr. Ilitch’s industry-leading support of Veterans through the Little Caesars Veterans Program. “Michael Ilitch has demonstrated great patriotism by providing business opportunities to honorably discharged Veterans through the Little Caesars Veterans Program,” said Nicholson. “This award, the highest honor my office can bestow, represents the VA’s appreciation of a Detroit business leader who is making a difference for U.S. military Veterans as they transition to civilian life or make a career change.” Launched on Veterans Day (November 9) 2006, the program provides honorably discharged, service-disabled Veterans who qualify as Little Caesars franchisees a benefit of up to $68,000. Honorably discharged, non service-disabled Veterans who qualify as Little Caesars franchisees are eligible for a benefit of $10,000. Ilitch, a former Marine, has made giving back part of the way Little Caesars has done business since shortly after opening the first store in 1959. “Veterans and their families have made significant sacrifices for our country, and I feel that it’s important to acknowledge that, and to thank them for their service,” said Michael Ilitch, founder and chairman, Little Caesars. “As I thought about the businesses I own, I thought what better way to say thank you to the men and women who have given so much for our nation than to provide them with a business opportunity: becoming a Little Caesars franchisee. I’m very honored that the program, and the people who created it, are being recognized with this prestigious award.”
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8166
|
EU opens probe into fake coronavirus-related products.
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European Union regulators have opened an investigation into imports of fake coronavirus-related products that are ineffective or even harmful to health, the European anti-fraud office OLAF said on Friday.
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true
|
Health News
|
Products seized include masks, medical devices, disinfectants, sanitisers and test kits. Counterfeit masks, including fake ones for children, have been offered online in European Union countries for between five euros ($5.35) and 10 euros each, around three times their normal price. “On top of being ineffective against the virus, these products also fail to comply with EU standards, potentially damaging our health. For instance, they could provoke a dangerous bacterial contamination,” OLAF said in a statement. OLAF said the fake products enter Europe through online sales and arrive mainly via postal or courrier services but also via containers with forged certificates, or by being declared as other products. They are then found in normal distribution channels or on the black market. The EU imposed a 30-day travel ban on all non-essential travel into the bloc on March 17 to fight the spread the coronavirus.
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9318
|
High hopes & hype for experimental depression drug ketamine
|
This story explained how the drug ketamine is coming into vogue as a treatment for depression and suicidal behavior. It’s not focused on one new study but rather the topic in general, describing how “desperate patients are shelling out thousands of dollars for treatment often not covered by health insurance, with scant evidence on long-term benefits and risks.” The story gave a good overview of the available evidence as well as costs, potential harms, and availability. One thing that would have made the story stronger is the inclusion of a negative patient anecdote, if one could be found, in order to balance the mainly positive anecdotes. “Bad trips” (also known as “k-holes“) are indeed a real risk that people should be aware of. Whenever a treatment takes hold ahead of the evidence, it’s the news media’s job to cast a critical eye. In this case, depression is a major public health problem, and ketamine or some derivative of it with longer lasting benefits could prove to be an important treatment option. But at this point, people with depression and their families should be informed of the unclear safety and effectiveness as well as the inconvenience and cost of getting treated in a clinic setting.
|
true
|
ketamine
|
The story said one woman paid $3,000 “so far” for her treatments and “scrambles to find a way to pay for another one” as the effects wear off. It also reported that a “typical” treatment at one clinic “involves six 45-minute sessions over about two weeks, costing $550 each. Some insurers will pay about half of that….” The story didn’t focus on a particular study that measured a benefit. It said: “Studies suggest that a single IV dose of ketamine far smaller than used for sedation or partying can help many patients gain relief within about four hours and lasting nearly a week or so.” However, the story could have given readers a more detailed description of ketamine’s benefits, as measured in clinical trials. For example, a meta-analysis of five randomized placebo-controlled trials concluded ketamine had a “large” immediate effect — measured one day after treatment — on symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar depression. That effect fell to “medium” after seven days. The studies used various standardized rating scales to track symptoms such as reduced appetite or sleep, difficulty concentrating, sadness, and suicidal thoughts. The story said ketamine can cause rapid increases in heart rate and blood pressure “that could be dangerous” as well as hallucinations. It quoted one expert who said the drug “can be abused, so we have to be very careful about how this is developed.” The story mentioned “scant evidence on long-term benefits and risks,” the view that “much more needs to be known,” and an American Psychiatric Association review that noted “major gaps” in knowledge about ketamine’s long-term effectiveness and safety. It also said “dozens of studies are underway seeking to answer some of the unknowns about ketamine including whether repeat IV treatments work better for depression and if there’s a way to zero in on which patients are most likely to benefit.” The story also said the “strongest studies suggest it’s most useful and generally safe in providing short-term help for patients who have not benefited from antidepressants.” The story didn’t engage in disease-mongering. It stated the drug could provide “short-term help for patients who have not benefited from antidepressants. That amounts to about one-third of the roughly 300 million people with depression worldwide.” The story used a range of sources. It noted that one source, Yale University psychiatrist Gerard Sanacora, PHD, MD, has worked for companies seeking to develop ketamine-based drugs. One quibble: The story devoted substantial ink to positive anecdotes. Was the reporter able to find patients with negative experiences involving ketamine? That would be interesting to know. The story mentioned conventional antidepressants that “target serotonin, a different chemical messenger, and typically take weeks to months to kick in — a lag that can cause severely depressed patients to sink deeper into despair.” It also quoted an expert who said “ketamine should be a last-resort treatment for depression after other methods have failed.” The story could have mentioned other medications to treat depression as well as psychotherapy. The story makes it clear that ketamine is widely available for treating depression — at “about 150 US. ketamine clinics,” although it has not been approved by the FDA for that purpose. This was an overview story looking at the topic of ketamine for depression, vs. one new study, which is when we typically expect a news story to establish what novel information was uncovered by the study. For this reason, we’ll rate it N/A. The story does not rely on a news release.
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5422
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Delaware researchers examine cancer’s effect on siblings.
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Every now and then, Ali McDonough wakes from a nightmare about her brother.
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true
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Delaware, Cancer, Health, Wilmington, Leukemia, Siblings, United States
|
There’s the one where she relives the last moments of Andrew’s life. He died in July 2007 in his hospital bed while Ali was holding him. Or the one where Andrew dies from cancer, but in a different way. Or the one where she has to tell Andrew his leukemia has come back, a moment that never actually happened. “I’m not over it and I never will be,” said Ali, now 27. “If we could have switched spots ... I would have.” She is one of the estimated 5 to 8 percent of people who will experience the death of their sibling as a child. Yet these children and their health often are overlooked: A 2010 study in the Journal of Paediatrics & Child Health found that only 48 percent of 109 major pediatric hospitals in the United States and Canada provide support for siblings. Clinical psychologists at A.I. Dupont/Nemours Hospital for Children are studying how siblings of children with cancer are affected during and after treatment, a subject that researchers say is rarely explored or talked about. The Wilmington-based Andrew McDonough B+ (Be Positive) Foundation, which was created by Ali’s parents in honor of her brother, gave Nemours $100,000 for the study. The nonprofit is currently reviewing a follow-up proposal from the hospital for additional funding. Early research indicates that about60percent of these siblings can suffer from cancer-related post-traumatic stress symptoms, and for some, it can lead to long-term emotional and behavioral problems. In the Nemours study, researchers hope to determine factors that will better predict which siblings will struggle and which will be more resilient. Since starting the study two years ago, researchers have recruited 100 families from all over the country, said Melissa Alderfer, a senior research scientist at Nemours. They hope to enroll another 100 families in the next year. Through a survey, researchers check in with siblings, between the ages of 8 to 17, and their parents every six months during the first two years after their brother or sister’s cancer diagnosis. Alderfer said the siblings are asked if they have intrusive thoughts about cancer, if they avoid thinking or talking about cancer and if their brother’s or sister’s diagnosis makes them feel guilty, sad or angry. Researchers are also looking into demographics and other factors that could predict a child’s adjustment over a period of time, such as parental distress, the child-parent relationship and the kind of support they’ve received from extended family and their community. Alderfer said children’s emotions can range from jealousy to guilt, no matter their age. Some teenagers go into a “you only live once mode” while others become “very mature” during this period. A young child once told Alderfer that they “understood that a part of their parents’ heart for them had to go to the child with cancer.” “That still gives me goosebumps, even now,” she said. Seemingly small details can have an impact as well: Alderfer recalls talking to one child about how when his parents were at the hospital with his sick sibling, he was left at home with his older brother. They were on their own for dinner. So they had macaroni and cheese for weeks. Maggie Anderson, of Pike Creek, was only 8 years old when her sister Molly was diagnosed with leukemia at age 5. She remembered eating a lot of casseroles and missing her parents, who were sometimes at Nemours with her sister for days at a time. It took her awhile to grasp what a cancer diagnosis meant and what her sister would go through. At first, she thought Molly getting sick was her fault. She described those years as a “blur,” mixed with memories of playing with her sister and other sick children in the hospital and those when she wasn’t sure if her sister would survive. During the two years of Molly’s treatment, Maggie said she often felt isolated. “At the time, there were a lot of moments where I felt like I didn’t connect with kids my age because I was going through so much more than what they had ever gone through,” she said. Joe McDonough, Ali’s dad and president of the B+ Foundation, said his daughter felt immense guilt during the time Andrew was sick. Ali was protective of Andrew and viewed herself as his second mother. Andrew was diagnosed with Acute myeloid leukemia in January 2007 and was in the hospital for 167 days before dying that July. Ali frequently slept at the hospital and was almost always present when decisions about Andrew’s treatment were made, which neither she nor her parents regret. The week before Andrew was diagnosed, Ali got her driver’s license. McDonough, a self-described protective father, had this “grand plan” of easing her into driving. But plans quickly changed. Ali drove herself to school and often went grocery shopping for the family, an errand McDonough usually did himself. Despite her brother’s grave condition, she maintained her grades and studied for the SATs. “I knew that we were going to have to neglect her for that time and it made me feel horrible,” he said. This Nemours study is the first time the B+ Foundation has helped fund research for siblings of children with cancer. To McDonough, identifying ways to help siblings in these situations are “just as valuable as an injection of chemotherapy.” Families are diagnosed with cancer, not just the child, he said. “I don’t want any sibling to feel like they have to live for the other child,” he said. Both McDonough and Ali agree that losing Andrew has altered her perspective on life. The small things — such as a test grade — are no longer the end of the world. She’ll be running a half marathon with the B+ foundation in the coming months, not because Ali loves to run, but because she feels that since she is healthy she should do it. Andrew’s death also made her realize she wants her future children to have the close relationship she had with her brother. “For half my life, he played a huge role,” Ali said. “He still does.” Ali will earn her Ph.D. in psychology from Widener University in May. Originally, she planned to help siblings who went through a similar experience. When she was 16, she searched for support groups but could only find ones for those who lost a spouse or a parent. As she meets children with cancer and their families through the B+ foundation, she views many as her little brothers and sisters. While she loves celebrating the happy moments and milestones, the difficult times hit her — hard. “I’m brought right back to where we were,” she said. “It’s a reminder to me and it’s still very real. I still feel it a lot.” Now, her focus is on psychological assessments for prisons and she spent the last year working at a residential drug and alcohol treatment center. While she sees herself one day working with these siblings in a professional capacity, Ali currently serves as a mentor to the siblings she meets through her family’s foundation. A freshman at the University of Delaware, Maggie Anderson wrote a research paper last semester about the effect childhood cancer has on siblings. While she hasn’t been diagnosed with PTSD, she said she experiences anxiety and depression. And if she’s in a hospital for too long, she struggles with panic attacks and vivid flashbacks to being in the hospital with Molly. But now, a decade later, Maggie is a college student and Molly is a freshman at Charter School of Wilmington. After graduation, Maggie hopes to work with kids in a therapeutic field, maybe occupational therapy. The sisters are both experiencing clean slates, she said, in which they’re not known as the “girl with cancer” or the “sister of the girl with cancer.” Though that doesn’t mean life has gone back to the way it once was. “I don’t know if my family will be normal again,” she said. ___ Information from: The News Journal of Wilmington, Del., http://www.delawareonline.com
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9014
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New drug combo improves survival of women with rare uterine cancer
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The release focuses on a small, phase 2 study which evaluated the use of the drug trastuzumab in conjunction with conventional chemotherapy to treat women who have been diagnosed with a form of cancer called uterine serous carcinoma (USC). The release does a good job of describing the study and articulating the limited nature of the benefits — it appears to limit cancer growth for some months, but is not a cure. The release’s headline is misleading when it claims the new combo “improves survival” and neglects to clarify that progression-free survival may not translate to improved overall survival. In addition, the release does not address cost or delve into specific harms. Although it mentions the disease is rare, the release could have stressed even more that few patients have the characteristics necessary to make this treatment a viable option. As the release notes, USC is somewhat rare, but it is aggressive. Patients and their loved ones will likely be eager to hear about a new treatment option that has the potential to add months to a patient’s life. But as we’ve seen all too often, early hype surrounding early stage trials is often not confirmed in larger studies. That makes it particularly important to highlight that only a subset of patients may be eligible for the treatment — if and when it becomes available for use in treating USC. That said, the release as a whole does a good job of striking a cautious note in describing the research.
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false
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Johns Hopkins Medicine,trastuzumab,uterine cancer
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Cost is not discussed, which is unusual given that trastuzumab is already on the market (under various trade names) for use in breast cancer treatment. And the cost associated with those treatments is significant. For example, the cost of a trastuzumab treatment called Herceptin can cost $4,500 per month. The release does a good job articulating what the benefits were (as expressed in months of survival during which the cancer did not spread) and how those benefits differed depending on whether patients had an advanced stage of USC or a recurrent case. But the release didn’t explain the limitations of progression-free survival as a surrogate for overall survival and that’s a big omission. Potential harms were not addressed. This trial was relatively small, with only 58 patients, and the relevant journal article notes that the trastuzumab “was well tolerated” by study participants. However, because trastuzumab is already in clinical use for treating other cancers, we know that it is associated with some risks. And those risks are not insignificant. For example, Herceptin’s manufacturers note that the drug “can result in sub-clinical and clinical cardiac failure” — and that is in addition to more common, but less severe, adverse reactions. Although practices vary, patients need to be monitored with an echocardiogram while on trastuzumab. Sometimes patients with existing heart problems may be precluded from getting this drug. The abstract, but not the release, addressed risks but only in part, when it states: “Toxicity was not different between treatment arms, and no unexpected safety signals emerged. Conclusion: Addition of trastuzumab to carboplatin-paclitaxel was well tolerated and increased progression-free survival.” The release provides a good overview of the study but didn’t list any of the limitations found in the published report. The study noted several study factors that could have introduced bias or overestimation of the results: No disease mongering here. The release clearly notes that the study was funded by a company that produces one brand of trastuzumab, which is good. The release also notes that one of the researchers had reported a consulting or advisory role for a pharmaceutical company. Since it mentioned that researcher’s potential conflict of interest, it would be easy to assume that the other researchers (who were not mentioned) did not have potential conflicts of interest. That assumption would be incorrect. The journal article itself makes clear that several other researchers had conflicts of interest, including one researcher with ties to another pharmaceutical company (Genentech) that makes a different brand of trastuzumab. In this case, the alternative to taking trastuzumab with conventional chemotherapy is to not take trastuzumab with conventional chemotherapy — i.e., the control group in the study. The release covers this. According to Cancer.Net, “Uterine cancer is treated by 1 or a combination of treatments, including surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormone therapy.” The release notes that researchers have submitted their findings to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, “which guides the design of standard treatment plans around the country.” However, it’s not clear when or whether USC patients may have access to trastuzumab — either through FDA approval or via off-label prescriptions by health care providers. More importantly, though, the release could be a bit more clear on the percentage of patients with uterine cancers who may benefit from trastuzumab. There are bits and pieces of information scattered throughout the release, but it would be good to pull them together and add up what it all means. Here’s what we’re talking about (bear with us): according to the American Cancer Society, there are expected to be about 63,230 new cases of uterine cancer diagnosed in the U.S. in 2018; about 92 percent of those uterine cancers are likely to be endometrial, bringing the number to around 58,171; approximately 10 percent of those endometrial cancers will be USC, bringing the number to 5,817; and about 30 percent of those patients with USC test positive for HER2/neu receptor proteins that trastuzumab blocks. In other words, of the 5,817 women who may be diagnosed with USC in 2018, only 1,745 of them may be able to benefit from trastuzumab. That’s an important idea to get across clearly. The release makes clear what is novel about the research. The release’s headline is misleading when it claims the new combo “improves survival.” The study found some patients had four to eight months of progression-free survival. That’s not the same things as overall survival and that needed clarification. We give the release credit for taking a more cautious tone in other parts of the release.
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30675
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Eating alligator in New Orleans will help save the wetlands of Louisiana.
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We reached out to the writer of this piece for comment, but have not yet heard back.
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false
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Science
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On 12 January 2018, Mic.com published an article under the headline “Eating Alligator in New Orleans Could Help Save the Wetlands of Louisiana.” The story presented the testimony of Nathan Richard, a Louisiana alligator chef and hunter, who argued that — because alligators are allegedly overpopulated and destroying the Louisiana wetlands — eating them could be an ecological and environmental boon: “The American alligator has been so protected, it’s now over-populated,” said Nathan Richard, the executive chef of Cavan in New Orleans. […] For Richard, normalizing this protein on menus again is essential to protecting the Louisiana wetlands. “Too many alligators means too many fish and turtles being killed,” he said. “This overpopulation also means a physical destruction of the marshes and the destruction of fishing traps and bait,” said Richard. “That’s a problem for the commercial fishermen. Our wetlands and marshes are our first line of defense against hurricanes, and without them, the flooding will become even more extreme.” The problem with these statements, however, is that they are largely unsupported by scientific evidence. Adam Rosenblatt, a Professor of Ecology and the University of North Florida who studies apex predators in general (and alligators specifically) highlighted a number of factual errors and questionable assumptions in a tweet thread: 1. This article claiming that #alligators are responsible for destroying Louisiana’s wetlands came out a few days ago. It gets most of the facts wrong and makes a lot of assumptions. Allow me to demonstrate: THREAD https://t.co/JwBYGA9u8v — Adam Rosenblatt (@aroseadam) January 18, 2018 After the publication of our article, Mic issued a correction to their story and altered it to largely remove the focus from the purported ecological benefits of Alligator hunting, noting that biologists do not consider the alligator to be overpopulated. The first problem with the premise presented in the original article was the claim that Louisiana is overpopulated by alligators. Scientifically speaking, overpopulation is a specific term that refers to a population of organisms that exceeds the resources (called carrying capacity) inherent to its ecological niche. The article provided no evidence (beyond Richard’s quote) that this condition exists. It is worth noting, in fact, that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries does not consider the alligator species overpopulated. Rather, a fact sheet offered on their website describes the population as “stable.” Furthermore, evidence suggest that alligators in Louisiana are not overpopulated. In addition to habitat destruction, Rosenblatt told us, telltale signs of overpopulation include animal starvation and negative population growth. Yet according to the Louisiana DWF (in a document linked by the Mic.com article), “Alligator populations in Louisiana increased consistently from 1970 to 1999, have remained stable/slightly increasing for the last 10 years, and currently remain at high levels.” High levels, here, by no means refers to the scientific concept of overpopulation, and is a reference to the fact that the species has recovered from near extinction levels in the 1960s. By far the more problematic claim in the original story, however, was the notion that alligators are actively destroying wetland habitats. This article cited the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in a way that misleadingly suggested the research agency endorsed a theory that alligators were contributing to the reduction wetland area in Louisiana: According to the United States Geological Survey, [the wetlands] are being lost at a rate of 75 square kilometers annually. In Des Allemands and other bayous like it, you add in the overpopulation of an apex predator into the equation and the effects are deeply felt. The USGS, in that report, listed a number of factors that are contributing to the decline of wetlands, such as human impacts, land use changes, and rising sea level — but alligators were not mentioned even once. A 2013 study on the future prospects of Louisiana’s wetland ecosystems that summarized the main contributors to habitat loss similarly gave a snub to alligators. Rosenblatt told us he is wholly unaware of any research linking alligators to habitat destruction in Louisiana. “I’ve probably read about 95 percent of the existing scientific literature on alligator ecology,” he added. An additional rationale provided for why hunting (and presumably eating) alligators would provide a net benefit to the ecosystem: that “too many alligators means too many fish and turtles being killed.” This assertion, Rosenblatt said, is based on a simplistic and outmoded view of the connection between ecosystems and apex predators. A 2011 paper in Biological Reviews argued that predators often play a vital role in maintaining complex ecosystems: Top-order predators often have positive effects on biological diversity […] Their loss has been identified as a major factor contributing to the decline of biodiversity in both aquatic and terrestrial systems. Consequently, restoring and maintaining the ecological function of top predators is a critical global imperative. Alligators in Louisiana, specifically, play an important role in regulating the the wetland ecosystem due to their predation on an invasive rodent known as nutria (introduced for fur trading in the 1930s). That species, unlike the alligator, has significantly degraded at least 100,000 acres of wetland in Louisiana. To reduce complexities of an ecosystem to “turtles and fish = good, alligators = bad” does a disservice to both ecological science and readers interested in understanding it. Rosenblatt does agree that alligator hunting is “an important part of alligator management programs, and alligator meat is delicious,” but he pushes back against the rationale provided by the original article. “Advocating for hunting because gators are destroying marshes? There’s no evidence for that.” In fact, like the claim of overpopulation, there is evidence against it, Rosenblatt said: The rate of wetland loss in Louisiana has been declining, despite the fact that Louisiana alligator populations have been stable or growing slowly. The first version of this article reported on the opinion of an alligator chef without verifying the factual bases underlying his opinions. In truth, no evidence supports either the claim that Louisiana alligators are overpopulated or that their presence is contributing to a loss of wetland habitat. It is, perhaps, great press for Nathan Richard’s restaurant, but a fact-based, scientifically-valid investigation it is not.
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7720
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Swine fever outbreak may bury China's small pig farmers.
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For farmers Zhang Shiping and Bai Fuqin in northeast China, there is little to celebrate this Lunar New Year.
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true
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Environment
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Since African swine fever struck a farm in nearby Shenyang city last August, the couple has racked up about 300,000 yuan ($44,712.72) in debt, 10 times what they make in a good year raising pigs. The incurable disease has since traveled thousands of kilometers, striking mainly small farms in the world’s biggest pork-producing country and triggering unprecedented upheaval in China’s $1 trillion hog sector. Though Zhang’s farm was not infected, measures to halt its spread have effectively killed his family’s livelihood. Beijing banned the transport of live pigs from infected provinces in September, part of its “protracted war” on a disease that typically takes years to eradicate. The restrictions crippled trade, particularly in northeast Liaoning province, which produces about a third more pigs than it consumes and relies heavily on exporting. Prices in the province dropped below 4 yuan per kilogram this month - the lowest price in a decade - just weeks away from the Lunar New Year holiday, normally a time of peak pork demand. Zhang and Bai got rid of about 30 pigs this month, losing about 800 yuan on each, after feeding them months after they should have been slaughtered while waiting for prices to pick up. They still have almost 50 left, now so overweight and fatty that no processors want them. “We can barely survive,” Bai said during an interview at her modest farmhouse in Changtu county, a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Shenyang, capital of Liaoning. Bai and three other farmers in Changtu said they would not continue raising pigs, even though they have few other options in the region, one of China’s slowest growing. Tens of thousands like them are expected to abandon pig farming after months of weak prices and restrictions on moving pigs to market. That will reduce production in the country by one-fifth this year, according to some estimates, and boost prices and demand for cheaper imports. “I have experienced all kinds of ups and downs in the pig industry. But nothing has been as hard and bitter as this year,” said Sun Hongbo, another Changtu farmer. He will quit pig farming for good, he added, seeking manual work after the holiday. Graphic: China pig farming structure in 2016 - tmsnrt.rs/2CM4uHb Small farmers producing fewer than 500 pigs for slaughter each year account for about 40 percent of China’s output, or around 280 million pigs a year, according to 2016 figures from consultants at Rabobank. But the African swine fever epidemic looks set to accelerate change in an industry already shifting towards more industrialized farms, particularly in the north. “Even if you want to raise pigs, the government won’t give you loans because you lost money. Feed sellers won’t lend you feed either. How can you raise pigs then?” Sun said. Policy measures put in place to tackle African swine fever strongly favor larger farms considered better able to prevent the spread of disease with higher hygiene standards. A Dec. 27 government document that loosened the rules on transporting pigs out of infected counties only applied to incorporated farms. Another rule has outlawed the use of kitchen waste for pig feed, significantly boosting costs for many farmers who can’t buy commercial feed at reasonable cost. “The government won’t encourage small farmers to raise pigs, that’s the direction,” said Wang Chuduan, professor at China Agriculture University. It’s a sharp reversal from the years following the 2007 Blue Ear epidemic, which cut production by an estimated 10 percent. After that, Beijing gave generous subsidies to all farmers to replenish their herds, said Wang. Corporate farmers like Muyuan Foods Co. Ltd and Wens Foodstuff Group Co Ltd are suffering too, reporting a sharp plunge in profits last year. But with large, efficient farms and access to loans, they are able to ride out the tough times. Beijing has repeatedly called for the scaling up and industrialization of farming to raise efficiency and quality. For China’s livestock industry, consolidating around more efficient producers is good, Wang said. For some regions, however, it could bring an additional burden, just as the country’s growth slows to its weakest pace in 28 years. Pig production in China’s northeast has expanded rapidly in recent years as Beijing sought to move its livestock away from heavily populated regions and closer to grain production in the north, bringing a much-needed source of revenue to laggard local economies. Changtu, with about 1 million people, produced 1.6 million pigs in 2016 and 2.66 million tonnes of corn, positioning it to benefit under that policy. But swine fever looks set to halt, or even reverse, the trend. Liaoning’s GDP grew 5.7 percent in 2018, well below its target that year. “I think the expansion roadmap will be different in the next few years; there’ll be less investment in the northeast,” said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Rabobank. Agriculture minister Han Changfu said this week the government would work to reduce the impact of the epidemic on other areas of the economy and society. Changtu farmers said they had seen no sign of government support. A county official said the local government had poured so much money and resources into preventing and controlling African swine fever that it risked bankrupting the county. He declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media. But he added that declining pig production in the county would hurt local revenue. The Changtu farmers have few options. Bai, who is illiterate, said after the holiday - which welcomes the Year of the Pig - she would look for work washing dishes in the city. “The pig cycle has never really brought me down, but then the policy did,” said Zhang Haitao, another farmer struggling to get rid of his overweight pigs.
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4620
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Congo officials say 2nd Ebola case confirmed in city of Goma.
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Officials in Congo on Tuesday said a second Ebola case had been confirmed in Goma, the city of more than 2 million people whose first confirmed case in this yearlong outbreak was reported earlier this month.
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true
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AP Top News, International News, General News, Africa, Health, Rwanda, Ebola virus
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There appeared to be no link between the man’s case and the previous one in Goma, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a local Ebola response coordinator, told reporters. He arrived on July 13 from a mining area in northeastern Congo’s Ituri province and started showing symptoms on July 22. He is now isolated at an Ebola treatment center. Ebola symptoms can start to occur between two and 21 days from infection, health experts say. Goma is on Congo’s heavily traveled border with Rwanda and has an international airport. For months health officials had feared that an Ebola case would be confirmed there. Days after the first Goma case was announced, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak a rare global emergency. This has become the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 1,700 people killed despite the widespread use of an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. Containing the outbreak faces unprecedented challenges amid attacks by rebel groups and resistance by wary community residents in a region of Congo that had never experienced an Ebola outbreak before. Muyembe and other officials on Tuesday sought to reassure both Goma residents and neighboring countries that measures were being taken to strengthen surveillance for Ebola at border posts and elsewhere. Neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan began vaccinating health workers weeks or months ago. WHO says the risk of regional spread remains “very high.” The declaration of a global health emergency — the fifth in history — brought a surge of millions of dollars in new pledges by international donors but some health workers say a new approach is needed to combat misunderstandings in the community. Far too many people in this outbreak are still dying at home, they say. There is no licensed treatment for Ebola and survival can depend on seeking treatment as quickly as possible. And yet many people in the region don’t believe that Ebola is real, health workers have said. The first confirmed Ebola case in Goma was a 46-year-old preacher who managed to pass through three health checkpoints on the way from Butembo. The city is one of the communities hardest hit by this outbreak, which is second only to the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa that left more than 11,300 people dead. ___ Associated Press writer Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro contributed. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
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10361
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No Good Evidence That Folk Remedies Ease Colic
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HealthDay breaks down the evidence in a clear, concise way for readers, emphasizing high in the story that there still is not much evidence that any form of therapy works to quell colic. We wish it had spent a little more time quantifying the benefits that were found in this review for different alternative therapies, and we would have liked to have seen some cost information. All in all, though, this is exactly the approach more stories should take instead of presenting parents with an ever changing set of options for treating childhood maladies, none of which have much support in the scientific literature. Colic is frightening for parents and the cause of much angst. Stories that discuss treatment options need to make plain the amount of evidence supporting these options and avoid championing a therapy just for the sake of having something “new” to attract readers. Readers fortunate enough to see the HealthDay story on this study of colic treatments would be fairly well served, if not heartened, by this study’s results. Not all problems have a simple cure, and HealthDay was honest enough to let readers know that.
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true
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HealthDay
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The story did not discuss costs. Some of the products described could end up being quite costly, and chiropractic treatment would definitely be an expensive option. At a minimum, we would have liked to have seen some description of the range of costs, from the minimal cost of a few cents a day using a sugar-water mixture to the large cost of chiropractic treatment. The story is about a review of several studies, and we don’t expect the benefits to be quantified for each study reviewed. Instead, the story used vague phrases such as “found improvement.” In on area, the story provides numbers, saying, “A study of probiotics, which are reputed to help digestion, found that 95 percent of infants given L. reuteria probiotics seemed to reduce their average crying time compared to 7 percent of babies given simethicone, which is marketed to relieve gas under the brand names Mylicon and PediaCare Infants’ Gas Relief.” But even here, we would have liked to have seen some absolute numbers. We appreciate that it is difficult to tease these numbers out of the review, but, at a minimum, the small study size (90 children) would have been good context for readers. The story does not quantify the potential harms, but it makes it clear that the remedies most often used by parents have no significant side effects. It says, “But because fennel extract, certain herbal teas and sugar water are generally safe, and because the research does suggest babies may benefit, pediatricians said they would feel comfortable recommending them to parents. ‘It’s reasonable for parents to consider those kinds of interventions for which there is some suggestion of benefit but no known risks,’ said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York.” The story does a great job packing in a lot of information about the evidence in a tightly written story. For example, it starts off by saying, “In the review, the study authors searched various databases of medical research and chose 15 randomized clinical trials involving alternative treatments for colic. The studies were published between 1991 and 2008, came from 10 different countries and included a total of 944 children.” Then it says, “Several studies looked at spinal manipulation by a chiropractor. In three of those studies, parents reported their children cried significantly less afterwards. But those studies were small and flawed, so no conclusions can be made about the technique, according to the new review.” The story does not engage in disease-mongering and, in fact, goes further by making it clear that colic is transitional, even if it feels like it will never end. “In the United States, between 5 and 19 percent of infants are estimated to have colic, according to background information in the article. Because pediatricians can’t offer parents much help with it — for the most part, babies grow out of colic in time — desperate parents often turn to alternative or complementary treatments, according to the study.” The story tapped two independent experts: Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief, developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York and Dr. Ari Brown, an Austin pediatrician and co-author of Baby 411. Both provided good context and words of caution for concerned parents. This story compared all of the different therapies under review, unlike the MSNBC site’s “Today Moms” story, which narrowly focused on herbal tea. For example, the story quotes the paper saying, ‘This is pertinent given that simethicone is considered the best available and most commonly prescribed treatment for colic, although it previously has been shown to be no more effective than the placebo,’ according to the authors.” All of the alternative therapies discussed are widely available, but we think the story could have made this more explicit. For example, if you are a mom in rural Montana, are you expected to know how widespread is the availability (and where) of fennel extract, probiotics, etc.? Even the line about “simethicone is considered the best available” doesn’t tell you what that means. She may have no idea whether you can find these things in the drug store, in the grocery store, in a health food store or all of the above. The story shows that these treatments are not novel and, for the most part, not very effective. The MSNBC site’s “Today Moms” story, by contrast, made it sound as if herbal tea should be the first and best option for chlidren with colic, a statement not supported by the evidence. The story goes well beyond any news release.
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9814
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New implant addresses hearing loss caused by inner-ear damage
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No discussion of costs, or of outcomes data (benefits or harms). Only one positive patient anecdote with no explanation of whether her result was representative of what’s been seen in any other patients. There was no independent perspective provided. The story illustrates the difficulty in reporting on a new device and new implant procedure that has not become a mainstream practice. Much scientific data may not yet have been published. If this were the case, the story could have explicitly stated so and alerted the reader on the lack of data currently available.
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false
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hearing
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No discussion of costs. Cost of any new device is important as is insurance coverage. Neither are addressed in the story, an oversight we find difficult to understand. According to the manufacturers website the cost of the surgery and the device in $33,000. Insurance does not cover the device at the moment. The battery, said to need replacing every 7 years, costs approximately $6,000 and may need to be performed as early as every 3 years depending on usage per day and other factors. Again, these costs are not covered by insurance. The benefits detailed in the story are only anecdotal – from a single patient and one implant surgeon. No quantitative data or scientific evidence are given to support the patient’s claims. Is her experience typical? Out of the 40 patients who received Esteem implants in the Chicago area, did all of them have similar outcomes? And what about nationwide? How was hearing improvement for all of these patients measured? We are not told of the clinical trial that was used to obtain FDA approval (easily available at http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/MedicalDevices/MedicalDevicesAdvisoryCommittee/EarNoseandThroatDevicesPanel/ucm146740.htm). The story provides no information about potential harms of the surgery (requiring general anesthesia) or of the device once implanted. The study reported ongoing adverse events related to the device and the surgery including dizziness, taste disturbances, facial weakness/paralysis, ear pain, tinnitus (ringing in the ear) and middle ear effusions (build up of fluid). Only two sources are cited in this story – a patient who underwent the procedure and her surgeon who was trained by the device’s manufacturer. Furthermore, all of the evidence for the implant’s effectiveness is strictly anecdotal. There is no mention of any quantitative data to support their claims. The article does not provide much information on the conditions leading to damage to the inner ear, or to nerves from the inner ear to the brain. More background and context on these disorders would have been welcome in this case. The article appropriately points out that the surgeon was trained by the device’s manufacturer, Envoy Medical Corp. An independent source would have greatly helped to put the implant’s effectiveness into perspective. The story briefly mentions hearing aids, but the article does not go into detail about other alternatives to surgery. Although the story mentions that the Esteem implant is FDA approved, it is not clear why Dr. Marzo is the only surgeon in the entire Chicagoland area authorized to implant the device. Is this typical of other cities? Why is the procedure not more widespread? According to the FDA, “Esteem is the first totally implantable hearing system used to treat moderate to severe hearing loss caused by a defective inner ear function.” The article could have made this fact clearer, but states that this implant, a prosthetic inner-ear stimulator, differs from a hearing aid, which “amplifies sounds.” The story does not use the exact wording from a Loyola University Health System news release, but the content and language are similar. Same patient. Out of 40 patients implanted at Loyola, why did the story use the same patient as the one profiled in the news release? There was no new information or sources in the story than what appeared in the news release. For that reason, we rule this unsatisfactory.
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11377
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Low-Salt Diet Ineffective, Study Finds. Disagreement Abounds.
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Two stories we reviewed on this study about salt intake showed how two well meaning journalists could come to very different conclusions about how to present this information. The New York Times story took the most cautious approach, weighing the preponderance of evidence linking salt to heart disease against this single study with several limitations and giving more weight to the preponderance of evidence. The USA Today story decided to give both the critics of the study and the study itself equal weight and took the odd step of bringing in the salt industry. This is not “fair and balanced” journalism. This is he said/she said that lacks critical analysis and leaves readers frustrated and confused. For years, high salt intake has been suggested as a cause of heart disease and early death. Researching the impact of salt, or any dietary factor, on health can be tricky, as both of these stories explain, and this study attempted to provide a deeper look at the connection between salt and health. But, as the authors themselves acknowledge in the paper, there are significant limitations to this study that should have given reporters more pause when reporting the findings. The biggest one was acknowledged by the New York Times in saying, “was observational, considered at best suggestive and not conclusive.” USA Today missed this point.
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true
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Diet studies,New York Times
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The focus of this story was avoiding harm by eating too much (or too little) salt. “The investigators found that the less salt people ate, the more likely they were to die of heart disease — 50 people in the lowest third of salt consumption (2.5 grams of sodium per day) died during the study as compared with 24 in the medium group (3.9 grams of sodium per day) and 10 in the highest salt consumption group (6.0 grams of sodium per day). And while those eating the most salt had, on average, a slight increase in systolic blood pressure — a 1.71-millimeter increase in pressure for each 2.5-gram increase in sodium per day — they were no more likely to develop hypertension.” It does a great job presenting the numbers in absolute terms. This story did readers a great service by showing in the lead that this study had problems. It said at the top, “A new study found that low-salt diets increase the risk of death from heart attacks and strokes and do not prevent high blood pressure, but the research’s limitations mean the debate over the effects of salt in the diet is far from over. In fact, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention felt so strongly that the study was flawed that they criticized it in an interview, something they normally do not do.” The story then went on to discuss many of the study’s positives and negatives. The study, for example, only tested people’s sodium intake twice, over a period as long as 7.9 years. As the story says, “The researchers assessed the participants’ sodium consumption at the study’s start and at its conclusion by measuring the amount of sodium excreted in urine over a 24-hour period.” The conclusions drawn by the study are fairly significant given that they are based on only two tests taken over nearly 8 years in a total of 74 people who died over the course of the study. The USA Today story, by contrast, presented the evidence as worthy of equal consideration with the much larger body of evidence showing that salt does have harmful health effects in high quantities. The story did a better job than USA Today finding experts who could give readers a broad context for the findings. We also appreciated how it noted that one of the experts had worked for the Salt Institute, which is the leading advocacy organization for more salt consumption. [Addendum on May 6: It’s very difficult to find an “independent” expert to comment on the evidence base on salt. Dr. Alderman, who is quoted in the Times story and frequently weighs in on this controversy, has an asterisk next to his name (appropriately so) because of his previous ties to the salt industry. But it’s worth noting that the independent experts in this field, such as Dr. Appel and Dr. Sacks (who are also quoted in the Times story), are closely affiliated with NHLBI which funds much of the research on sodium. And as Gary Taubes posited many years ago in Science magazine, the NHLBI may not be a dispassionate arbiter of the evidence. (The full text of his story can be accessed at the National Association of Science Writers website: http://www.nasw.org/1999-science-society-awards.) ] This criterion does not apply with this story.
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37380
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"Image shows a ""letter from HR"" (human resources), essentially threatening a company employee to purchase a new vehicle or face workplace discipline."
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‘We Have Noticed the Condition of Your Vehicle’ Viral Human Resources Letter
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On January 21 2020, the Facebook page “Inhumans of late capitalism” posted the following screenshot of a purported letter from a human resources department at an unidentified company that appeared to be haranguing an employee for the condition of his older vehicle:An attached status update said, “Corporations tell employees how to spend their money,” and the partly-redacted letter read:From: [Redacted] Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2020 12:11 PM To: [Redacted] Subject: Personal matterAs you may know many companies still use credit checks as part of their hiring process. This is to ensure that the employee can be trusted to make sound financial decisions, has the maturity to manage his/her own financial affairs, and to show signs of financial distress that might indicate risk of theft or fraud. While we do not conduct these checks at this time the gist of the check is valid to us.We have noticed for some time the condition of your vehicle and wanted to discuss the matter with you. We will follow up this email with a personal meeting but wanted to document the discussion beforehand.Since of course your annual salary is known to us and a newer and more appropriate looking vehicle should be within your financial reach, it is our concern that perhaps you are having a difficult time financially. Frankly the concern is that if you cannot afford a newer vehicle then either you may be susceptible to fraud or that you are not responsible for the position you maintain. To be even more frank, it just looks bad.Please let us know if there is a reason that you have not upgraded your vehicle before now. If it is a financial matter then we will need to know the details of the problems you are having. Perhaps it is as simple that you did not know the concern you are raising. Otherwise please address this situation as quickly as possible. We will be happy to refer you to dealerships who we have worked with in the past.Sincerely, [Redacted] Vice President, Human Resource Management[Redacted] Vice President, Finance and AdministrationAn original source for the claim appeared to Reddit’s r/trashy, from a post on the same date with the title, “This email my coworker received today. He drives a 2005 Camry. It’s not wrecked, just old and fading paint. He never has to meet anyone that they would ever see the car. It’s literally just another car in the garage.”As of January 23 2020, the post featured what appeared to be flair added by a moderator (not the original person who posted the claim.) That read, “Prob fake but w/e,” meaning “probably fake, but whatever.” The post, which was submitted by u/dorf-1, received more than 50,000 upvotes. In the comments, fellow redditors predictably debated the legality of the purported email, such as:A top comment on the thread advised the original poster to cross-post the image to various finance-related subreddits, where a very well-regarded piece of advice is to pay for a “beater” in cash and “drive it until the wheels fall off,” eliminating a car payment from your budget. Many others chimed in with their own anecdotes:Oh my fucking God, you should share this on r/personalfinance r/financialindependence or r/daveramsey and watch people lose their absolute shit. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a beater commuter car. It’s one of the easiest ways to begin hoarding money for investing.Honestly, keeping a fully paid off functional car for as long as possible is one of the most financially responsible things a person can do.Perhaps the second most common theme in the comments involved assertions that the letter was “fake,” “never happened,” or that it was a blatant attempt at “karma farming” (baiting fellow redditors with compelling and sometimes fake content solely to accrue upvotes. )When one commenter asked the original poster if they had possibly been taken in by a phony email, they claimed to have seen it on a work computer:It’s legit. I personally saw the email on his screen, and he clicked the from name to show the email address under it. Knowing those two VPs, I totally believe it.A January 23 2020 article about the viral letter on car-focused site Jalopnik (which, incidentally, maintains a strong editorial stance in favor of owning and maintaining older vehicles) noted in its headline that the claim might be fake. A piece titled “That Awful Email About An Employee’s Old Car May Not Be Real But I Still Cannot Abide” begins:I should preface this all by saying that I’ve yet to be able to absolutely confirm that this absurd email is real, though the original poster insists that it is. Fundamentally, it’s just a boring email from an HR department to an employee, but the content of the email is deeply insulting, reflecting the worst aspects of modern life, socioeconomic realities, culture, and perhaps even capitalism itself. And, of course, like all things that really matter, it’s about a car.Its author, Jason Torchinsky, goes on to explain that “after seeing this posted and re-posted all over the place, in car-centric sites and otherwise, I’m not sure if whether or not this email is real or not is what matters … [w]hat’s important to note here is the reaction it’s generated, which speaks volumes about our relationship with our cars.” Torchinsky maintains that the screenshot could be a hoax for the sake of Reddit popularity, but adds:What’s especially remarkable about this email is how well it enrages both people who couldn’t tell a Toyota from a toenail and genuine hardcore gearheads, who chafe at the very idea that anyone should tell you what to drive. […]Everything about this email is revolting. The suggestion of enforced conformity, the mindless adherence to idiotic concepts of socioeconomic status and wealth displays, the inherent fear and distrust of people who may be less financially sound, the unsolicited advice, a company trying to police someone’s private life, this whole thing is just a colossal shit cocktail with a turd on a toothpick as a garnish.Given that the original poster did not provide any verifiable details and was unlikely to do so, there was no way to determine whether a company’s HR department emailed an employee about their 2005 Toyota and pressured him to unnecessarily purchase a new vehicle. As others noted, it seemed possible but perhaps not plausible a company would commit such an ethically dubious request to writing. What’s more, the post’s many upvotes demonstrated motive to falsify the story for karma. The purported recipient of the email had not, as of January 23 2020, stepped forward to attempt to corroborate the claim.The fact that this is realistic enough to be at all believable, however, speaks volumes.
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5515
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Nobel laureate Tutu celebrates 85th birthday, giving thanks.
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Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu shed tears of gratitude on his 85th birthday Friday as he presided over a cathedral Mass despite his poor health. And in a newspaper column, the former archbishop said he would like to have the option of a “dignified assisted death” when the time comes.
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true
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Race and ethnicity, AP International News, Cape Town, Africa, Africa, South Africa, Health, Desmond Tutu
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Tutu was brought into St. George’s Cathedral in a wheelchair but was later helped to his feet in church robes, a crucifix around his neck, for the Anglican ceremony. He wiped away tears and gave thanks at the sight of friends and well-wishers in the congregation. “I am just trying to draw attention to myself,” an emotional Tutu said with trademark humor, drawing laughter. He was comforted by another priest and his daughter, Mpho Tutu van Furth. Tutu, an anti-apartheid campaigner who spoke on human rights long after the 1994 end of white minority rule in South Africa, has been hospitalized several times since last year because of infections linked to past treatment for prostate cancer. He has been treated for the cancer for many years, and his family previously said the disease was under control. In a column in The Washington Post, Tutu said he believed in the “sanctity of life” but also reiterated his support for “assisted dying” for terminally ill people who seek that option. “I have prepared for my death and have made it clear that I do not wish to be kept alive at all costs. I hope I am treated with compassion and allowed to pass on to the next phase of life’s journey in the manner of my choice,” Tutu wrote. He said he supported initiatives for assisted dying laws in Britain, the United States, South Africa and elsewhere. “In refusing dying people the right to die with dignity, we fail to demonstrate the compassion that lies at the heart of Christian values,” Tutu wrote. “I pray that politicians, lawmakers and religious leaders have the courage to support the choices terminally ill citizens make in departing Mother Earth. The time to act is now.” Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his peaceful campaign against apartheid. His birthday this year fell on the same day that Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the prize for efforts to end war in his country. South African President Jacob Zuma said Tutu made big contributions to freedom and democracy in South Africa. “He continues to inspire the nation and the world in the promotion of human rights, justice and the wellbeing of all, especially the poor,” Zuma said. ___ Torchia reported from Johannesburg. __ Follow Christopher Torchia on Twitter at www.twitter.com/torchiachris
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9029
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Nut consumption may aid colon cancer survival
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A new observational study, partially funded by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation, claims that eating two or more servings of nuts each day may increase the likelihood of survival for patients with colon cancer. Tree nuts specifically, rather than peanuts, were found to be beneficial. But like all observational studies, this one has significant pitfalls. For one, there is no way of knowing if it is nuts only that lead to health benefits–it could be healthier eating in general. There hasn’t been a definitive mechanism discovered that links nuts to cancer survival, meaning that it can be interpreted as a correlation, but not a causation. The authors of this study also used the same cohort of patients in 2015 to claim that coffee boosted colon cancer survival rates (more on that below), leading us to wonder if they are simply fishing in the data for associations. Colon cancer is prevalent and often highly aggressive. According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is expected to cause more than 50,000 deaths in 2018. It’s tempting to think of dietary changes to prevent cancer as a quick and easy fix–but the truth is much more nuanced. Despite the fact that nutrition studies gain a lot of media coverage (this study was covered by more than two dozen media outlets in the past week), they often have many limitations including reliance on observational data and questionnaires prone to bias. It’s important to take a close look at these studies as they become ever more prevalent to distinguish what is really helpful, and what is not.
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false
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colon cancer,tree nuts,Yale Cancer Center
|
Neither the news release nor the actual study discuss the cost of nuts. The news release did list numbers to back up its claim, but relied on relative, not the preferred absolute risk figures. “Those who regularly consumed at least two, one-ounce servings of nuts each week demonstrated a 42% improvement in disease-free survival and a 57% improvement in overall survival,” wrote the news release author. But the wording is confusing–what is the difference between disease-free survival, and overall survival? Disease-free survival requires a shorter follow-up period to assess and means the absence of any form of cancer recurrence. Overall survival simply means the number of subjects that were alive at the end of the trial period. While disease-free survival is reported to be highly correlated with overall survival in some studies, overall survival provides a more reliable assessment as to whether patients are deriving a meaningful benefit from a therapy. The news release did address a popular concern that since nuts are high in fat and calories, they might contribute to obesity. The author of the study was quoted as saying that actually, people who regularly consume nuts tend to be leaner. Here lies the news release’s biggest problem: it failed to take into account the multiple, very relevant limitations to this study. Nutrition studies in general have many flaws, which is one of the reasons that we seem to be on a constant merry-go-round when it comes to which foods are healthy or not. Let’s start with the fact that this was an observational study–we have written extensively about how it is impossible to infer causation in observational studies, meaning that while nut consumption may be associated with decreased colon cancer risk, it is impossible to conclude that it is the sole cause of cancer survival. One of the many pitfalls of observational studies include the presence of confounders–lurking variables that might influence the final study outcome. In this case, one confounder that wasn’t addressed head-on was the fact that people who eat nuts may be more health-conscious overall, and more unlikely to engage in risky behaviors like smoking or lack of exercise that can contribute to disease. The authors of the study indirectly mentioned this in the news release. “The results highlight the importance of emphasizing dietary and lifestyle factors in colon cancer survivorship,” said one of the lead researchers. In fact, the study found that those people most likely to eat two or more servings of nuts per week were also more likely to exercise. So who’s to say that it’s the nuts specifically that are driving down cancer risk? Another limitation of the trial: recall bias. This has the potential to occur in every trial based on a questionnaire, like this one. When self-reporting, people may not remember exactly what they ate in a given week or month. They may also be embarrassed to admit to certain unhealthy habits, and will leave them out, thus skewing the results. Finally, the news release mentions that the same authors, analyzing the same cohort of patients, also found a link between coffee consumption and reduced recurrence and mortality in colon cancer. We actually wrote about that study when it came out in 2015, and we had the same concerns about observational studies then. It’s also worth noting that now there have been two different results from the same study–what is called multiple endpoints. This can be a warning sign that instead of looking for a specific outcome, scientists are fishing to see what correlations they can come up with. No disease mongering. This is listed as “satisfactory” because the release did disclose conflicts of interest, but it is worth noting that some funding for the trial came from the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research & Education Foundation. Was this perhaps one of the reasons they decided to break the study into subgroups of peanuts and tree nuts? The news release wrote that “the private sponsors did not participate in the design, conduct, or analysis of the study, or in review or approval of the paper.” However, it’s not entirely surprising that a trial partially funded by the Tree Nut Council found benefits to tree nuts. As mentioned above, this study was ripe for potential confounders, yet none of these were addressed in the news release. They could have analyzed other foods that are typically consumed by the health-conscious, such as fruits and vegetables, to see if it was really nuts that were making the difference, or if health-conscious eaters were just healthier in general. Not applicable–nuts are widely available at grocery stores and convenience stores across the country. The news release mentioned that many studies have looked at nuts, and found that they “may help to reduce insulin resistance… [which] leads to unhealthy levels of sugar in the blood and is often a predecessor to type 2 diabetes and related illnesses.” However, it was not mentioned whether or not nuts have been studied in the context of cancer before, or exactly how insulin resistance may lead to colon cancer. “These studies support the hypothesis that behaviors that make you less insulin-resistant, including eating nuts, seem to improve outcomes in colon cancer,” one of the lead authors said, “However, we don’t know yet what exactly about nuts is beneficial.” No unjustifiable language.
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9539
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Simple mineral could be cure for complex disease
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The story focuses on the potential for zinc supplements to reduce acid reflux, a related condition known as Barrett’s esophagus, and esophageal cancer. The story addresses the uncertainty surrounding research into this subject, and even goes so far as to note that “studies don’t prove conclusively that zinc will have the desired therapeutic effects.” However, the story devotes most of its copy to two researchers who are marketing products that use zinc to address these health concerns — with no obvious input from independent, third-party experts. These experts endorse using it now, in spite of a lack of studies showing effectiveness. Also, the headline violates a basic rule of headline writing: if X may cause Y, then you might as well say X may not cause Y. In other words, the headline could just as easily read “Simple mineral may not be cure for complex disease.” In fact, given that the story notes there is no conclusive evidence the new zinc supplement products discussed here will work, that may have been a better headline. Editor’s Note: The original headline has since been changed. It now reads: “Could simple mineral help complex disease?” However, this rewritten headline reflects another technique we discourage, known as “question mark journalism.” All in all, this is a trio of related medical conditions that can be fairly common (such as GERD) and pose major health risks (like esophageal cancer). For those reasons, the development of new options for treatment and prevention of these conditions is certainly newsworthy. That said, it’s incredibly important for news coverage of research like this to highlight the limitations of the research. This story pays lip service to the limitations — it clearly mentions them, but it quotes repeatedly from people who will profit from peddling zinc supplements without offering input from independent third parties, and tells readers about these new (unproven) products coming to market before it tells readers about the lack of medical evidence to support the use of the products.
|
mixture
|
supplements,zinc
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The story does not tell readers how expensive the new zinc products will be, which is unfortunate. However, it does note that zinc supplements already on the market cost “pennies a day.” That’s an accurate description of the cost for existing zinc supplements, so this earns a satisfactory rating. This area is problematic. The story refers to multiple studies, so we’ll deal with them separately. First, it refers to a study in which an unknown number of Barrett’s esophagus patients took zinc supplements in the form of lozenges twice a day for 14 days. For this study, the story tells us only that, for those patients who took the supplements, there were “molecular changes” in the relevant cells. Based on context, these were apparently beneficial changes — but readers aren’t explicitly told that. Nor is information given about how, why, or to what extent these changes are related to health. The story does note that an ongoing clinical trial is underway with 120 patients, and that “the results are promising” — but that language is so vague as to be meaningless for readers who want to understand exactly what is going on. Second, the story refers to “published results from a series of experiments in animals as well as 12 healthy human volunteers.” The story then quotes from an unknown source that “Zinc offers a novel rapid and prolonged therapy to inhibit gastric acid secretion in human and rat models.” Not only is that not quantified, but it’s not even made clear to readers exactly how that is related to GERD, Barrett’s esophagus or esophageal cancer. Third, the story refers to a large, longitudinal study in China. The story tells readers that this study found zinc supplements did not have an effect on deaths related to esophageal cancer (more on this particular study below). The story includes this statement: “There is a caveat: Experts have set the safe upper limit for zinc in healthy adults at 40 milligrams per day. Too much can cause vomiting and more serious toxicity. So even though zinc is widely available over the counter, the researchers advise against taking more than directed.” That’s enough to earn it a satisfactory rating. Even levels of zinc that are not much higher than the recommended daily dose have been known to cause health problems, so we’re glad to see this included here. However, it would have been better to acknowledge the potential risks associated with zinc toxicity much higher in the story. As with quantifying benefits, the story’s approach to the quality of evidence is problematic — and for overlapping reasons. Again, the story refers to multiple studies, so we’ll deal with them separately. First, it refers to a study in which an unknown number of Barrett’s esophagus patients took zinc supplements in the form of lozenges twice a day for 14 days. How many patients were involved? How big was the distinction between the control group and those who received the zinc lozenges? Without this sort of basic information, or any information on how to find a related journal article, there is little to be gained from discussing the study. What’s more, the discussion of this study doesn’t give readers any clear information about how, why, or to what extent these study results are related to health. Second, the story refers to “published results from a series of experiments in animals as well as 12 healthy human volunteers” related to gastric acid secretion. It’s not clear how many studies there were, how many journal articles were published, where they were published, or even what sort of studies were done. The story also fails to note that a study of only 12 human subjects can offer little or no useful information for clinical decision-making. In addition, the story doesn’t make clear to readers exactly how this research on gastric secretion is related to GERD, Barrett’s esophagus or esophageal cancer. Presumably, more gastric secretion is bad — but the story needs to spell this out. Third, the story refers to a large, longitudinal study in China. The story tells readers that this study found zinc supplements did not have an effect on deaths related to esophageal cancer. It then said that “a high-tech chemical analysis of biopsy specimens from a small number of patients” found that high zinc levels were correlated with lower esophageal cancer risk. That’s an interesting statement, but it needs to be backed up with some facts. How strong was the correlation? If researchers only examined biopsies in a “small number” of patients, how much weight should readers give to these findings? And what do they mean by a “small number” of patients, anyway — 100 patients? 50? 5? For this study, the main point should have been “this study found zinc supplements did not have an effect on deaths related to esophageal cancer.” This was glossed over and an attempt was made to dismiss it. There was no overt disease-mongering. However, the story could have done a better job by more explicitly stating the numerical rate of progression from something very common–acid reflux–to Barrett’s esophagitis, and eventually esophageal cancer. The two sources quoted in the story, James Mullin and John Geibel, are clearly identified as being the driving forces behind new zinc supplement products. However, those are the only two sources quoted in the story — there is no input from independent, third-party sources. The story does refer to proton pump inhibitors as a treatment for “severe reflux disease.” However, they’re not the only treatment option. Other options may include H-2 receptor blockers, medications to strengthen the lower esophageal sphincter, or surgical interventions. There are also surgical interventions that can help reduce the risk of esophageal cancer in patients with Barrett’s esophagus. Also, there are of course alternatives to zinc supplements as a source of zinc, such as dietary sources and multivitamins. The story makes clear that zinc supplements are already on the market. However, there is one confusing point. The story refers to two forthcoming zinc supplements. The one mentioned by name, TummyZen, is described as being “slated for sale nationally in Target stores next month.” You can find TummyZen listed in online stores, including Amazon, but it is listed as being no longer for sale. It’s not clear if they were pulled from other outlets as part of an exclusive distribution agreement with Target, but based on online consumer reviews, TummyZen was previously sold via online retailers. If that’s the case, and the supplement has been available for years, it’s unusual for the story to treat it as if it’s a new product. The story states in its opening paragraph that “For decades, scientists have had a hunch that zinc supplements could help prevent esophageal cancer.” But then the story doesn’t revisit this statement. A quick online search turns of dozens (and dozens) of studies relating to zinc and esophageal cancer, but the story doesn’t provide much information about this larger body of existing work. How does the research that’s discussed in the story fit into, or depart from, the existing literature on this issue? It’s not clear. The story doesn’t appear to draw directly from any news release we could find.
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9107
|
Historic Discovery Promises to Prevent Miscarriages and Birth Defects Globally
|
This release describes a “double discovery” made by researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia that, theoretically, will greatly reduce the number of birth defects and miscarriages worldwide. The premise rests on the discovery that genetic mutations causing a deficiency in one type of molecule (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD) can lead to birth defects in humans. The researchers then tested the impact of vitamin B3 (or niacin) supplements on mouse models engineered to have the same mutations who were deficient in NAD. They found that the mice who had higher levels of niacin were less likely to have offspring with birth defects. The news release hid the fact that the vitamin supplements (referring only to “preclinical models”) were tested in mice, and not humans. But most worrying was the use of extremely sensationalist language prevalent throughout the release. The language was so overblown that it could give false hope to women without properly describing the limits of the research. Editor’s note: after our review was underway, the Institute put a clarifying statement on its website that addresses some — but not all — of our concerns with the news release. Clarifications are welcome and helpful, but they miss those who only saw the original, incomplete description of the research. We discuss this more under our last criterion, Unjustifiable Language. As the release itself mentioned, birth defects and miscarriages affect millions of families each year, and can be tragic for all involved. Giving women false hope that a vitamin supplement yet untested in humans may end all miscarriages and birth defects is irresponsible. The release generated worldwide news coverage, some of it initially as misleading as the news release. Some news organizations later revised their stories to include cautions from experts not involved with the research. Sydney Morning Herald: Breakthrough discovery finds cause and potential preventative for miscarriage, multiple births defects, Victor Chang Institute scientists announce BBC: Vitamin B3 may prevent miscarriages and birth defects, study suggests Irish Times: Vitamin B3 could prevent miscarriages and defects, study suggests CNN: Vitamin B3 may prevent some miscarriages, birth defects, study says
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false
|
miscarraige,Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute,vitamin B3
|
The cost of the supplement (vitamin B3, also known as niacin) is not mentioned. A quick Google search shows that you can buy it online for less than $10. The news release made no mention of any numbers or figures from the study that put the benefits in context. The release was also misleading since it implied that vitamin B3 supplements could prevent miscarriages and birth defects in humans when this has never been directly studied. The release seems to combine two sets of research findings: The first is from a 12-year study of 13 human families that found the genetic causes of a rare birth defect called VACTERL association (the cause was found to be a deficiency of the molecule NAD). The second study was done in mice, who were genetically mutated to have an NAD deficiency, and then were given niacin. The researchers reported that these mice had offspring with fewer birth defects. Crucially, however, the theory that niacin can prevent birth defects or miscarriages has never been tested in humans. The release was worded in a way that is very misleading considering the amount of human research that still needs to be done. The release made no mention of harms of niacin supplements. Niacin supplements are used clinically and have side effects when used in high doses. According to WebMD, these include a hot “flush” reaction that can be frightening. As dosage increases, other side effects may occur, including liver problems, ulcers, loss of vision, and irregular heartbeat. There have been enough people worried about niacin side effects that the British Columbia Drug and Poison Information Centre has an FAQ page about the supplement. Although the news release suggests that many types of birth defects could be prevented by niacin supplements, the research study focuses on a specific constellation of birth defects known by the acronym VACTERL, which includes defects in the vertebra, anus, heart, trachea and esophagus, kidney, or limbs. The genetic basis for this combination of defects has not previously been understood. The researchers identified patients with congenital vertebral and heart defects and performed gene sequencing in their family members to identify mutations that could potentially cause those defects. They then created genetically engineered mice with the same mutations to see if their offspring had similar defects and if the defects could be prevented by supplementing the diet with niacin. As previously stated the news release didn’t distinguish between two different studies, allowing the reader to think that niacin supplements had been shown to be effective in humans. The release did mention that one of the trials was conducted on a “preclinical model,” but not until halfway through the release. Finally, the release did not make it clear enough that niacin may only help prevent miscarriages and birth defects caused by an NAD deficiency. There are many other causes of birth defects and miscarriages, but the release made it sound like this supplement would prevent miscarriages and birth defects from all different causes. No disease mongering. The study rightly points out that miscarriages and birth defects affect millions of families worldwide. The release doesn’t name any of the study’s many public or private foundation funders. The release doesn’t mention any other strategies for preventing miscarriage beyond vitamin B3 supplements. The news release noted that niacin is available as a dietary supplement. The release made it clear that the discovery of NAD deficiencies, and how niacin may treat it, are both new. This news release has some of the most sensationalist language that we’ve ever seen, to a level that is truly egregious. The release lauds the discovery as “historic,” “one of the greatest discoveries in pregnancy research,” a “breakthrough,” a “landmark,” “a blockbuster,” “revolutionary.” “This will change the way pregnant women are cared for around the world,” said the executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in the release. He also said that this research “will be one of our country’s greatest medical discoveries.” Apparently the news release hype generated some backlash since the Institute released an update urging women to continue following their doctor’s orders and not increase their intake of niacin on their own. Yet even as they walked back some of their larger claims (“The Victor Chang Institute would never suggest that this discovery will explain all causes of miscarriage and birth defects”), the update still emphasized that this study was a “significant advance” in the understanding of miscarriages and birth defects.
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35262
|
Microwaving fabric masks is a good way to sanitize them for reuse.
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2. If your mask has metal in it, refer to issue number 1, as well as, possibly killing your microwave.
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false
|
Medical, COVID-19
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On April 3, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a new recommendation to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus disease: People should wear cloth or fabric face masks when they go grocery shopping, visit pharmacies, or do other essential errands. Made from T-shirts or bandanas, these face coverings are an at-home alternative to surgical masks or N-95 respirators, which the CDC recommended only for healthcare workers on the front lines of the pandemic. The recommendation — which the CDC posted in a statement on its website alongside a 45-second video of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams demonstrating how to make one of the cloth masks — spurred a wave of do-it-yourself guides online. But this raised a new dilemma among crafty Americans making their own masks: How should people clean the masks in order to safely reuse them? Making a new face guard for each trip outside could prove tedious. Cue the advice of Facebook: “Those that use a fabric mask – after wearing place in ziplock bag and microwave 2-3 minutes to sanitize. Do this after each wear,” says a post that users have shared more than 7,200 times. Another post with similar advice has about five times that amount of shares. People contacted Snopes seeking clarity. According to an April 9 instructional guide by the CDC, people who go outside wearing fabric or cloth masks should clean them regularly, the frequency of which depends on how often the face coverings are used. When asked by Snopes if microwaving cloth masks will sanitize them, a CDC spokesperson responded via email with a bulleted list of what cloth face coverings should do, including “fit snugly but comfortably against the side of the face” and “be able to be laundered and machine dried without damage or change to shape.” The latter bullet point was highlighted yellow in the email. In other words, the CDC has not explicitly forbidden the public from microwaving the face coverings nor weighed in on the effectiveness of the method. But it has made this recommendation, including in its April 9 guide: “A washing machine should suffice in properly washing a face covering.” Meanwhile, Greeneville/Greene County Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security on Facebook warned against microwaving face masks, writing on Facebook: There are a couple of problems with this: 1. The microwave will set flame and/or burn certain materials.
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15949
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The No. 1 cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents.
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"In a Super Bowl ad, Nationwide claimed, ""The No. 1 cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents."" The claim is based on hard numbers from the CDC, and the general trend has been consistent for the last decade and a half. However, there are different ways to slice the numbers, and if infants are counted as children, then congenital anomalies top the list for certain age ranges. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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true
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National, Children, Public Health, Public Safety, Nationwide,
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"Super Bowl XLIX had everything a fan could hope for (unless you’re from Seattle). A hectic, nail-biting finish. Amazing plays. Dancing sharks. But despite the genuine on-field fireworks, it was once again a commercial — not the game itself — that had many people talking. And not necessarily for good reasons. A 45-second commercial by insurance company Nationwide was widely panned by professionals and amatuer Twitter critics for its haphazard attempt to tug at the heart strings by imagining the long-term consequences of a child’s accidental death. In it, a boy, lamenting that he won’t ever be able to ride a bike — or fly or get married — explains, ""I couldn’t grow up, because I died from an accident."" Punctuated by an overflowing bathtub in the background, the following text on the screen appears: ""The number one cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents."" The masses, and the experts, have already spoken on the wisdom of running the ad. But as fact-checkers, we were interested in whether a statistic viewed by perhaps 110 million people was accurate. We reached out to Nationwide but didn’t hear back. The company did, however, release a statement on their website after the public’s reaction began to mount. ""Preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths in America. Most people don’t know that,"" Nationwide wrote. ""The sole purpose of this message was to start a conversation, not sell insurance. We want to build awareness of an issue that is near and dear to all of us—the safety and well being of our children. We knew the ad would spur a variety of reactions."" The statement continued, ""While some did not care for the ad, we hope it served to begin a dialogue to make safe happen for children everywhere."" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks death by cause. One category is ""unintentional injuries,"" which encompasses everything from car accidents and falls to drownings and the accidental discharge of a firearm. ""Unintentional injuries"" are indeed quite common across most age groups. According to the data, unintentional injury was the leading cause of death in 2013 for Americans among children and adults up to age 44, with one exception: infants. For infants — children below 1 year of age — congenital anomalies, or birth defects, resulted in 4,758 deaths in 2013, CDC reported, making them the top killer. Unintentional injuries were fifth with 1,156. Birth defects continue to claim lives after children pass their first birthday. Through age 14, there were 5,574 cumulative deaths from such complications in 2013. Compare that to unintentional injuries that resulted in deaths. There were 3,993 cumulative deaths in 2013 among children through age 14. Bottom line: From birth to 14, the most common cause of death is birth defects. From one year old to 14, the most common cause is accidents. So the question becomes: How do you define ""children"" -- when childhood starts, and where it ends? Once a child reaches the mid-to-late teens, the rate of deaths caused by birth defects drops significantly, to about 30 a year for each of the following ages: 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. But conversely, the number of accidental deaths rises in years 15 through 19. Why? It’s partly because around that time, kids start getting behind the wheel, and the number of transportation accidents increases dramatically. While there are about 500 deaths from transportation-related injuries from ages 10 to 14 combined, it’s double that from age 15 to 17. Here are the cumulative deaths by accident for each age and how they compare to total deaths by birth defect in 2013. Cause <15 <16 <17 <18 <19 Birth defect 5,609 5,643 5,674 5,707 5,740 Accident 4,293 4,754 5,444 6,455 7,645 Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Not until you include 18-year-olds in the data does death by accident surpass birth defects. There’s a good argument that this is all semantics. ""Infants"" can be considered distinct from ""children,"" which would suggest that congenital anomalies of babies should not be factored in. By the same token, some might question whether 18- and 19-year-olds are still children. As for the CDC itself, it tends to separate children under the age of 1 from other age groups in most of their data sets, and an agency spokesman didn’t contest the notion that accidents are the leading cause of death among children. And if so, that’s been the case for a while. In 1999, the earliest year of data that’s publicly available, unintentional injury caused the most deaths from age 1 to 34. This raises another bit of missing context: The number of deaths caused by accidents among children in 2013 is essentially half of what it was 15 years ago. So while it’s still the No. 1 killer, it has dropped rather significantly. A postscript: While we’re checking the actual ad in this item, Nationwide erred when it phrased its after-the-fact defense. The company’s statement claimed that ""preventable injuries around the home are the leading cause of childhood deaths."" Actually, transportation injuries are the top cause of accidental deaths among kids. From age 1 to 14, nearly half of all accidental deaths are related to motor vehicles or other types of land transportation. And that rate only increases once you start including older children in their mid-to-late teens. Our ruling In a Super Bowl ad, Nationwide claimed, ""The No. 1 cause of childhood deaths is preventable accidents."" The claim is based on hard numbers from the CDC, and the general trend has been consistent for the last decade and a half. However, there are different ways to slice the numbers, and if infants are counted as children, then congenital anomalies top the list for certain age ranges. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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11487
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Scans don’t prevent lung cancer deaths
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Venice’s historic Saint Mark’s Basilica will need millions of euros of restoration work after it was flooded this week for just the sixth time in 1,200 years, leaving its delicate marble mosaics exposed to destructive salt water, its curator said.
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true
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Saint Mark’s, the personal chapel of the Doge of Venice during the medieval and Renaissance periods, is the most famous of a host of monuments endangered by the worst week of flooding seen in Venice since 1872. Experts fear corrosive salt crystals, left encrusted on the Basilica’s marble floor and mosaics when the floodwaters receded now risk eating into their surface and weakening the crypt which supports the body of the church. The city, built on a collection of small islands within a saltwater lagoon, suffered hundreds of millions of euros of damage when floodwaters reached their second-highest level in more than 50 years this week. But no help will be forthcoming from insurers, which refuse to provide flood coverage to a city where it is a regular occurrence that has been getting worse under the influence of climate change. Pierpaolo Campostrini, head of the Fabbriceria, the foundation that oversees the preservation and maintenance of the Basilica, estimated the cost of the immediate clean-up at 5 million euros ($5.54 million) but said experts were still evaluating the damage. “We have some money put aside and will tap the government for the remaining part,” he said, adding many organizations and individuals from all over the world were offering financial support. Saint Mark’s, which attracts millions of visitors from around the world every year, is likely to benefit from its popularity with tourists, much as Notre Dame cathedral in Paris did when it was badly damaged by fire earlier this year. “So many signs of affection for Saint Mark’s Basilica make me think that we’ll be in the position to keep up our great responsibility of preserving one of the most precious gems of Venice and of the entire world,” Campostrini said. Russian oligarchs have offered up to one million euros to help Venice, Italian Ambassador Pasquale Terraciano said, and Russian conductor Valery Gergiev will hold a concert on Tuesday at the Italian Embassy in Moscow to raise funds for the city.
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379
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Pfizer unit Meridian under civil investigation by U.S. Attorney.
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Pfizer Inc said on Thursday it received a request for documents as part of a U.S. investigation related to quality issues involving the manufacture of auto-injectors at its Meridian Medical Technologies site.
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true
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Health News
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Pfizer, in a regulatory filing, said it would be producing records in response to the civil investigative demand from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. Meridian, a unit of Pfizer that manufactures EpiPen injectors used to deliver an emergency allergy antidote, has been hit by a series of manufacturing problems in recent years. Mylan NV, which markets EpiPens, has recalled tens of thousands of the devices after complaints that some had failed to activate. In 2017, Meridian had received a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA said Meridian had failed to thoroughly investigate product failures, including EpiPen products that were associated with patient deaths and severe illnesses. It said the company failed to take corrective actions until FDA’s inspection. Meridian produces all EpiPens sold globally at a single plant near St. Louis, Missouri. EpiPen auto-injectors deliver a dose of epinephrine in the event of severe allergic reaction, such as to bee stings or exposure to peanuts.
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41791
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"El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime,"" but ""immediately"" after a wall was built it became ""one of the safest cities in our country."
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The president strayed from the facts, mainly on immigration and the economy.
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false
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abortion, crime rates, energy, food stamps, human trafficking, Illegal immigration, jobs, Unemployment rate, Veterans Affairs,
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President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address included many claims that were familiar to fact-checkers. He has repeated most of these assertions before:The president’s address on Feb. 5 had been delayed by a week in the aftermath of a partial government shutdown. His remarks, and the false and misleading claims we noted, mainly concerned the issues of immigration and the economy.Trump wrongly claimed that El Paso transformed from a city with one of the highest violent crime rates to “one of the safest cities in our country” immediately after a border barrier was erected. Actually, El Paso was a relatively safe city before construction of a 57-mile-long fence started in mid-2008. And violent crime did not drop “immediately” after a fence was completed.Trump: The border city of El Paso, Texas, used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the entire country, and considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities. Now, immediately upon its building, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country.As we wrote when Trump made a similar claim on Jan. 14, El Paso has never been “one of our nation’s most dangerous cities.” 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 a 57-mile-long fence started in mid-2008.Nor did violent crime drop “immediately” after the fence went up. 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 was completed in mid-2009. Those years were not anomalies. Violent crime increased about 9.6 percent between 2006 and 2011 — two years before the fence construction began and two years after it was finished.Along with the rest of the country, El Paso’s violent crime rate spiked in the early 1990s and has been trending downward ever since. The city’s violent crime rate dropped 62 percent from its peak in 1993 to 2007, a year before construction on the fence began. Trump referred twice to human trafficking when making the case for ending illegal immigration. However, experts say typically the cases they deal with concerning foreign nationals are people brought through legal ports of entry.The president said it was time “for the Congress to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration and putting the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers out of business.” But ending illegal immigration wouldn’t end human trafficking.He later said the traffickers “take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery.” There’s no data on how many are smuggled illegally across the border with Mexico for human trafficking, experts say.“Yes, in some cases it does happen,” Brandon Bouchard, director of media relations for Polaris, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, said of people being smuggled across the border. Based on the group’s experience, however, “we believe the vast majority of people are coming through legal ports of entry.” And the statistics the group has, which come from the calls it receives through the hotline, show that labor trafficking is the largest trafficking issue for foreign nationals.“When it’s labor trafficking, people are recruited in their home country under false pretenses,” Bouchard told us. “They think they’re coming into the U.S. for a job.”The available data suggest most come through ports of entry. 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.“Children are less likely to be trafficked through official border points: out of all the children in our sample, official border points are used in 56% of cases,” the Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative, an IOM initiative, says.Polaris’ data for the U.S. come from those who call its hotline. From January 2015 through the end of June 2018, calls to the hotline reported more than 35,000 potential victims of trafficking. And of those victims whose immigration status was known (nearly 14,000), half were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents and half were foreign nationals, according to Bouchard.Martina Vandenberg, founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center, told us the center searched its database of 1,435 trafficking cases since 2009 for those involving kidnapping or smuggling charges. It found 26 and 29 cases, respectively, that also included those charges. “The data refute the claims Trump is making about the efficacy of a wall,” she said.Evangeline M. Chan, director of the Immigration Law Project at Safe Horizon, a group that assists trafficking survivors in New York City, said that trafficking “is a much more complex and nuanced problem than most people realize.” The type of coercion used is “a lot more subtle” than a kidnapping-type scenario. Typically what Chan sees are victims who are “lured into the country with promises of a better life.” They’re “very often brought to the country legally through ports of entry and using visas and legal documents.”A large portion of the survivors Safe Horizon assists are from Southeast Asia, but the next area of origin is Mexico and Central America, she said.Trump also said a “strong security wall” along San Diego’s border with Mexico “almost completely ended illegal crossings.” That’s not accurate.According to a 2009 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the U.S. Border Patrol began in 1990 to build a 14-mile fence along San Diego’s border with Mexico. The fence was completed in 1993, but it could not alone stop the flow of people crossing the border illegally, CRS said.“The primary fence, by itself, did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border in San Diego,” CRS said.In response, Border Patrol on Oct. 1, 1994, launched “Operation Gatekeeper,” which provided significant manpower and other resources along the border.CRS, March 16, 2009: Operation Gatekeeper resulted in significant increases in the manpower and other resources deployed to San Diego sector. Agents received additional night vision goggles, portable radios, and four-wheel drive vehicles, and light towers and seismic sensors were deployed. According to the former INS, between October 1994 and June of 1998, San Diego sector saw the following increases in resources:In fiscal year 1992, border patrol apprehended 565,581 immigrants attempting to cross into the U.S. illegally in the 60-mile San Diego sector. Apprehensions fluctuated in the following few fiscal years (531,689 in 1993, 450,152 in 1994, 524,231 in 1995 and 483,815 in 1996) before significantly dropping beginning in fiscal year 1997 (283,889) and the years thereafter, according to USBP statistics. By fiscal year 2010, apprehensions had dropped to 68,565 and declined further to 26,290 by fiscal 2015.In a video, CBP credits the decline to a strategy that included “[i]ncreased manpower, utilized intelligence, focused prosecutions, technology was advanced and tactical infrastructure was improved by adding fencing, all-weather roads and stadium lighting.”In calling on Congress to approve his border security plan, which includes spending $5.7 billion on a border wall, Trump said it is needed to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States from Mexico.Trump, Feb. 5: Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood into our cities — including meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl.However, as we have written, experts — including those within his administration — say that the majority of illicit drugs from Mexico enter the U.S. in cars and trucks traveling through legal ports of entry.That’s particularly true of deadly opioids — heroin and fentanyl — that the president singled out in his speech.The 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment says the Southwest border “remains the primary entry point for heroin into the United States.”“The majority of the [illegal heroin] flow is through [privately owned vehicles] entering the United States at legal ports of entry, followed by tractor-trailers, where the heroin is co-mingled with legal goods,” the report said.“A small percentage of all heroin seized by CBP along the land border was between Ports of Entry,” the report added.The DEA report also said Mexican cartels “most commonly smuggle the multi-kilogram loads of fentanyl concealed in” privately owned vehicles through the legal ports of entry.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.”For an earlier story we wrote in August 2017, Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland criminal justice professor who founded and directed RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center from 1989 to 1993, told us he was skeptical of Trump’s repeated claims that a wall — or more accurately, building additional physical barriers — would stop drugs from coming into the United States from Mexico.In addition to the fact that most drugs come through legal ports of entry, Reuter said that smugglers have a history of adapting to law enforcement’s attempts to stop the flow of illegal drugs.Trump said that “more people are working now than at any time in our history –- 157 million.” That’s roughly accurate, but it’s not such a remarkable feat when taking into account steady population growth.Although Trump is fond of citing this statistic, the number of people working in the U.S. has increased fairly steadily for as long as such figures have been tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.There have been exceptions, notably during recessions, when the number of people employed has declined even as the population increased. That’s what happened during the Great Recession. But after the Great Recession ended in 2009, the number of people employed in the U.S. began rising steadily (again) in early 2010, and has set historical “records” every month since mid-2014. So President Barack Obama could have correctly claimed that there were more people employed in the U.S. than at any time in the country’s history for 32 straight months at the end of his presidency (though we could find no evidence that he ever did).A more meaningful way to take the population increase into account is to look at the labor force participation rate, which BLS defines as a measure of the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the population. The labor force participation rate for people ages 25 to 54 in January was 82.6 percent, according to BLS. That’s a little more than 1 percentage point higher than when Trump took office, but it is not the highest in history. It was higher from the late 1980s to the late 2000s, and peaked at 84.6 percent in January 1999.Another good measure is the employment-population ratio, which is the percentage of the population that is working. Looking again at that statistic just for those ages 25 to 54, the ratio has been steadily climbing since 2011, and was at 79.9 percent in January. But that’s not a record high either. It peaked at 81.9 percent in April 2000.Later in his speech, Trump boasted, “All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before.” That’s also not so extraordinary, given population growth. The number of women in the workforce has set records fairly consistently for as far back as the Bureau of Labor Statistics‘ online tool goes, to 1964. As with overall employment, there was a dip in the number of working women during the Great Recession, but the number has been climbing steadily since late 2010, and has again been setting new historical highs every month since July 2013.Trump exaggerated the number of job gains on his watch.Trump: We have created 5.3 million new jobs and importantly added 600,000 new manufacturing jobs — something which almost everyone said was impossible to do.Actually, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show the economy has added just under 4.9 million jobs since January 2017, when he took office — not 5.3 million. And the economy added 454,000 manufacturing jobs during Trump’s tenure — not 600,000.Trump prefaced his remark by saying he was speaking of the time “since the election,” thus claiming credit for jobs created during that last months of Barack Obama’s time in office.But even so, he’s way off on the manufacturing jobs. Only 481,000 have been added since November 2016. To get a gain of 600,000 you must go back to September 2014. Trump is claiming credit for jobs created months before he even announced he was running for the White House.The president boasted that “African American, Hispanic American and Asian American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded.”It’s true that the unemployment rates for all three groups reached the lowest ever recorded in at least one month during the last year, but the percentage point gap between white unemployment and the rate for black and Hispanic Americans has remained about the same. Also, the unemployment rates for all Americans, including for African Americans, Hispanics and Asians, has been steadily dropping since late 2010 and early 2011.The black unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level, 5.9 percent, in May 2018, since the BLS began measuring it in 1972. It has since inched back up, and was at 6.8 percent in January. The white unemployment rate in January was 3.5 percent, or 3.3 percentage points lower than the black unemployment rate. When Trump took office in January 2017, the black unemployment rate was 7.7 percent, 3.4 percentage points higher than the rate for whites.The percentage point gap between white and Hispanic unemployment rates has also remained about the same. In January 2017, the Hispanic rate, at 5.8 percent, was 1.5 percentage points higher than the rate for whites, and in January, the Hispanic rate was 4.9 percent, 1.4 percentage points higher than for whites.“The declines in [black] unemployment are tracking those of the overall economy but remain double those of white workers,” Marcus Casey, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told us via email. “This has been the case for a long time. While certainly this looks a lot better than the Great Recession, it’s notable that over this period blacks became more educated and skilled, yet are still unable to break this long historical trend.”Last year, when Trump similarly took credit for the lowest black unemployment rate in U.S. history, Casey and Bradley Hardy, another Brookings fellow, wrote a paper arguing that “the unemployment rate alone presents a revealing but incomplete picture of economic well-being within any community.”We also have noted that unemployment rates in general, as well as those for black and Hispanic Americans, have been steadily declining since late 2010 and early 2011. (See chart below. )The black unemployment rate fell 8.8 percentage points in the seven years before Trump took office, and it has continued to drop in the two years under Trump. The rate was 7.7 percent in January 2017, when Trump took office. So it dropped a little less than 1 percentage point in the two years under Trump.Trump also inflated the reduction in food-stamp recipients.Trump: Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps. Actually, since Trump took office, the number has gone down 4.1 million — not 5 million. That’s as of September, the most recent month for which figures are available. Once again, Trump is padding his numbers by claiming credit for things that occurred during Obama’s final months as president, after Trump was elected but before he took office.The president’s comments on two state abortion bills require context.Trump: Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and their dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth.The New York law the president referenced is the Reproductive Health Act, which Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed on Jan. 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. As we’ve written in more detail, the law modifies the state’s existing abortion law to expand the circumstances under which abortions after 24 weeks are allowed.Previously, pregnancies after 24 weeks could be terminated only if they were life-threatening. The new law provides for two more instances in which abortions would be allowed: the “absence of fetal viability” or to protect the patient’s health.Trump also alluded to statements Gov. Ralph Northam made in a radio interview following the controversial introduction of a similar abortion bill in Virginia. In the interview, Northam, who is a physician, said third-trimester abortion is “done in cases where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s nonviable. So in this particular example, if a mother’s in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”Northam’s words were interpreted by some to mean that he was suggesting infanticide. As multiple news outlets reported, Northam later clarified that he was not talking about infanticide. A spokesperson for Northam said his comments were “focused on the tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor.”Trump claimed credit for the country’s energy resources, saying, “We have unleashed a revolution in American energy — the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world.”It’s true that America is the top producer of both oil and natural gas. But, according to the Energy Information Administration, the United States became the top natural gas producer in 2009 after surpassing Russia, and also has been number one in petroleum production since 2013.Over the summer, the EIA announced that America’s crude oil production exceeded Russia’s for the first time since 1999, making it the leading producer in the world. But the boom has been in the works for a decade, and has long been expected. As we’ve written before, the International Energy Agency predicted in its 2012 World Energy Outlook that the U.S. would take the top crude oil spot by 2020, driven by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.Trump also said that “for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy.” The United States is not yet a net exporter of energy. As of Jan. 29, the EIA predicted that the nation would export more energy than it imports in 2020. That’s soon, but it’s not a milestone that the president can accurately claim.The EIA explains that America has imported more energy than it exports since 1953. The anticipated switch to net exporter is due to increases in crude oil, natural gas and natural gas plant liquids production that outstrip domestic consumption.Trump said that “after four decades of rejection, we passed VA Accountability so that we can finally terminate those who mistreat our wonderful veterans.” But it’s not true that nothing could previously be done to fire VA employees.As we’ve written before, the bipartisan Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act aims to make it easier for the VA secretary to remove employees by, among other things, shortening the firing process and expediting the appeals process for senior executives. However, employees could still be fired before that legislation became law.The Office of Personnel Management keeps data on federal employment, including terminations for discipline or performance going back to fiscal year 2005. The data show that, on average, the VA fired about 2,300 employees each fiscal year before Trump’s presidency. The average is nearly the same when calculated by calendar year, which lines up more closely to when presidents take office in late January. (The VA had more than 388,000 total employees, as of June 2018, according to OPM. )For example, the VA terminated 3,321 people for performance and disciplinary reasons in 2017, and 1,181, or 35.6 percent, of all those firings occurred in the five full months before Trump signed the legislation into law in late June 2017.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment Rate – Black or African American. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment Rate – Hispanic or Latino. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Casey, Marcus, and Hardy, Bradley. “Reduced unemployment doesn’t equal improved well-being for black Americans.” Brookings. 15 Feb 2018.Farley, Robert. “Trump’s Pointless Job Boast.” Factcheck.org. 25 Jan 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National). All employees, thousands, total nonfarm, seasonally adjusted. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Labor Force Participation Rate – 25-54 yrs. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment-Population Ratio – 25-54 yrs. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National). Women employees, thousands, total nonfarm, seasonally adjusted. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Farley, Robert. “Trump Wrong About Wall Effect in El Paso.” Factcheck.org. 18 Jan 2019.Robertson, Lori. “Dueling Claims on Crime Trend.” Factcheck.org. 13 Jul 2016.Bouchard, Brandon, director of media relations, Polaris. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 5 Feb 2019.Vandenberg, Martina, founder and president of the Human Trafficking Legal Center. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 5 Feb 2019.Chan, Evangeline M., director of the Immigration Law Project, Safe Horizon. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 5 Feb 2019.Counter-Trafficking Data Collaborative. Type of Border Crossings Victims of Trafficking Make. Accessed 6 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National); Total Nonfarm Employment, Seasonally Adjusted.” Data extracted 5 Feb 2019.Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey; All employees, thousands, manufacturing, seasonally adjusted.” Data extracted 5 Feb 2019.U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Data as of Dec 7, 2018).” Data extracted 5 Feb 2019.EIA. “United States remains the world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons.” 21 May 2018.EIA. “The United States is now the largest global crude oil producer.” 12 Sep 2018.EIA. “U.S. monthly crude oil production exceeds 11 million barrels per day in August.” 1 Nov 2018.EIA. “The United States is expected to export more energy than it imports by 2020.” 29 Jan 2019.International Energy Agency. “World Energy Outlook 2012: Executive Summary.” Nov 2012.Kiely, Eugene. “FactChecking Trump’s Energy Boasts.” FactCheck.org. 8 Jun 2018.Cole, Devan. “Virginia governor faces backlash over comments supporting late-term abortion bill.” CNN. 31 Jan 2019.Fichera, Angelo. “Addressing New York’s New Abortion Law.” FactCheck.org. 4 Feb 2019.“Governor Cuomo Signs Legislation Protecting Women’s Reproductive Rights.” Press release, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 22 Jan 2019.New York State Senate. “S. 240, Enacts the reproductive health act; repealer” (as signed by Governor 22 Jan 2019).North, Anna. “The controversy around Virginia’s new abortion bill, explained.” Vox. 1 Feb 2019.Suderman, Alan. “Virginia abortion feud erupts; governor blasted for comments.” Washington Post. 30 Jan 2019.Kiely, Eugene. “Will Trump’s Wall Stop Drug Smuggling?” FactCheck.org. 30 Aug 2017.Farley, Robert et al. “Trump’s Border Blunders.” FactCheck.org. 2 Jan 2019.Drug Enforcement Administration. “2018 National Drug Threat Assessment.” Department of Justice. Oct 20118.Press release. “CBP Officers Seize Largest Amount of Fentanyl in CBP History.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 31 Jan 2019.Congressional Research Service. “Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border.” 16 Mar 2009. U.S. Border Patrol. “Southwest Border Sectors: Total Illegal Alien Apprehensions By Fiscal Year.” Undated. Accessed 5 Feb 2019.U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “The Shift – October Edition.” YouTube. 17 Feb 2017.
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22440
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Our average private sector employee pays 23 percent for their health care. Our average city worker in Ohio pays 9 percent.
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Gov. John Kasich cites disparity between what private sector workers and city employees pay toward health benefits
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true
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Ohio, Jobs, Labor, State Budget, John Kasich,
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"Republicans in Ohio have offered a variety of arguments to justify their controversial effort to overhaul the state’s collective bargaining law, which for nearly 30 years has set the ground rules for public workers and their employers to reach labor agreements. A new collective bargaining law, known as Senate Bill 5, is making is way through the state legislature with strong support from Republican Gov. John Kasich. The bill would scale back public workers’ rights at the bargaining table and has prompted unions to fight back with protests and promises to get even in the voting booth. Kasich and Republicans say the current rules have resulted in costly labor pacts that cities and other local governments can no longer afford. As an example, Kasich pointed out the relatively low price public workers pay towards their employer-supported health care plans in a recent interview with Fox News. ""Our average private sector employee pays 23 percent for their health care,"" Kasich said. ""Our average city worker in Ohio pays 9 percent."" Because that’s a pretty wide disparity, PolitiFact Ohio decided to check the governor’s numbers. We started with Kasich’s claim that private sector workers contribute 23 percent of their health care premiums. Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols pointed us to a report from The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a conservative think tank, titled ""The Grand Bargain is Dead."" That study compared compensation paid to state workers and private sector employees and concluded that state workers’ pay is out of balance. The state could cut into its projected $8 billion budget deficit if it could find ways to reduce their pay and benefits, the study noted. One suggestion it made: force government workers to pay the same health care premiums, out-of-pocket costs for carrying health insurance, as private sector workers. ""State government workers today pay roughly 17 percent of the premium costs for the health care coverage. The premium costs for private-sector workers in Ohio is 23 percent,"" the report said. More specifically, the report figures the average cost of family health insurance policies provided by Ohio firms is $11,425, with the employee paying $2,642. The report cites a January 2010 e-mail with a U.S. Department of Labor economist as evidence for its claim. We contacted the economist, Miranda Moore, and she pointed us to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which has polled nearly 470,000 private firms in Ohio in 2008 and 2009 combined. The numbers in the Buckeye Institute’s report were contained in the 2008 survey. The 2009 survey showed private sector workers in Ohio paid 31 percent of their premiums for a family policy. Moore said in an e-mail to us that the survey is a source the Employee Benefits Security Administration references often. As for the premium percentage that city workers pay for health care, Kasich relied on a State Employment Relations Board report, Nichols said. The 2010 Report on the Cost of Health Insurance in Ohio’s Public Sector aims to provide data that can be used during labor negotiations. SERB surveyed every public employer in Ohio, including the state, cities, counties, school districts and state universities, about the costs of their medical premiums. Of 1,359 surveys sent out, SERB received 1,080 back, including nearly three quarters of the cities -- 184 out of 248. SERB concluded that city workers in Ohio pay 8.1 percent of their health care coverage for single coverage and 8.3 percent for family coverage. Most of the plans include coverage for prescription drugs, but plans for dental and vision coverage typically are not included, the report said. Kasich spokesman Scott Milburn said the governor used 9 percent instead of 8 percent to be on the safe side. Kasich relied on government surveys for both parts of his statement, and the averages cited in those surveys match the numbers in his claim."
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8427
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Coronavirus could cause upheaval across Middle East - Red Cross.
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Coronavirus outbreaks across the Middle East threaten to shatter the lives of millions of already destitute people in conflict zones, and could fuel socio-economic upheaval, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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Curfews and lockdowns imposed as public health measures to stem spread of the virus are already making it difficult or impossible for many to provide for their families, it said. The Geneva-based agency called for authorities in the volatile region to prepare for a “potentially devastating aftermath” and a “socio-economic earthquake”. “The Middle East is today facing the twin threats of potential mass virus outbreaks in conflict zones and looming socio-economic upheaval. Both crises could have severe humanitarian consequences,” Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC director for the Near and Middle East, said in the statement. In an interview, he told Reuters that the aftermath of the epidemic could be worse than the disease itself, “because on top of the conflict, on top of the violence, they will have to deal with the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic. And it’s really scary,” he said at a largely empty ICRC headquarters. Millions already lack health care, food, water and electricity in conflict-hit countries where prices are rising and infrastructure damaged, the ICRC said. Millions of Syrians displaced in their homeland and refugees who have fled to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan are especially vulnerable, as are people in Yemen, where a Saudi-backed coalition has declared a ceasefire in a five-year old conflict. Carboni said that the ICRC had provided its first hygiene kits and protective material for 10 central prisons in Syria that are run by the interior ministry. Overcrowding and conditions would make it hard to contain any outbreaks, he said. “We are in dialogue with authorities to expand the support to all places of detention.” Throughout Syria’s conflict now in its 10th year, health infrastructure and personnel have been “deliberated targeted”, which “weakens the collective response” to COVID-19, he said. “Water projects need to function, pumping stations just can’t stop functioning. Millions of Syrians are totally dependent on food distribution, you can’t stop this,” Carboni added. “It is true in Syria but it’s true in many countries affected by conflict, you need to work on both sides - the COVID emergency and the humanitarian assistance.” Protective equipment including disinfectant has also been donated to health facilities and places of detention across Iraq, the statement said. In Yemen, where fighting between a Saudi-backed government and the Houthis who control the capital has driven millions of people to the brink of starvation, the ICRC said: “Our life-saving support to hospitals, clinics and dialysis centres now includes help with their COVID-19 prevention preparations.” Half of Yemen’s health facilities are out of order and frontlines hamper movement, especially near Marib where there is “very active violence and conflict,” Carboni said. The ICRC was not able to supply intensive care units or ventilators in Yemen, he said, noting that even facilities in the West struggle in outbreaks when they are available. The ICRC regional budget this year is 565.5 million Swiss francs ($585.34 million), more than a third for Syria. The worst coronavirus outbreak so far in the Middle East is in Iran. The ICRC has donated around $500,000 to the Iranian Red Crescent but has a comparatively small role there, a country with no conflict or major refugee crisis.
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2353
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Many Canadian aboriginals see no compromise on oil sands pipeline.
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Just a few miles from the spot where Enbridge Inc plans to build a massive marine terminal for its Northern Gateway oil pipeline, Gerald Amos checks crab traps and explains why no concession from the company could win his support for the project.
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true
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Environment
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Amos, the former chief of the Haisla Nation on the northern coast of British Columbia and a community leader, has argued for years that the risk - no matter how small - of an oil spill in these waters outweighs any reward the controversial project might offer. That resolve is shared by many in the aboriginal communities along the proposed pipeline and marine shipping route who see the streams, rivers and oceans in their traditional territories as the lifeblood of their culture. “Our connection to this place that we call home is really important,” says Amos as he pulls three Dungeness crabs from his trap, tossing two in a bucket and holding the third up for his two young granddaughters, who shriek and giggle as the crustacean wriggles its legs. “If these little ones can’t witness us doing what we’ve done for generations now, if we sever that tie to the land and the ocean, we’re no longer Haisla.” The Northern Gateway pipeline would carry diluted bitumen 1,177 kilometers (731 miles) from Alberta’s oil sands to the deepwater port in Kitimat, in northwest British Columbia, where it would be loaded on supertankers and shipped to Asia. It is expected to cost C$7.9 billion ($7.17 billion). Like the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the United States, Northern Gateway is loathed by environmentalists who fear it will hasten the development of Canada’s oil sands and exacerbate climate change. But it is also fiercely opposed by many aboriginals along the pipeline path and shipping routes. Canada’s Conservative government has been strongly supportive of Keystone and Northern Gateway, though it has said it will only approve projects that are safe for people and the environment. The federal government is expected to rule on the project in mid-June. If it is approved, aboriginal groups say they will bury it in lawsuits. If that fails, they say they are willing to lay down their bodies to protect the earth, which they see as their children’s inheritance. “I am committing myself to doing whatever it takes to stop this project - short of violence,” Amos said. “Myself and quite a few people are prepared to stand on the line and use ourselves to stop things if they send the bulldozers in.” All along the pipeline route, aboriginal communities - known as First Nations in Canada - have filed lawsuits against a federal agency’s recommendation that the line be approved, citing a lack of consultation among other issues. First Nations cannot veto resource projects, but governments are required to consult with them on unresolved land-claim areas. There are no treaties in much of British Columbia, so consultation claims could trap the project in court for years. “We still have control over our territory,” said Peter Erickson, hereditary chief of the Nak’azdli Nation in central British Columbia. “If we ban Enbridge from coming into the territory, they will not be allowed to come in.” The Nak’azdli, like the Haisla, worry about the effect an oil spill would have on their waterways, particularly the Fraser River, an important salmon breeding ground. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> Enbridge has said it is impossible to eliminate all risks of an oil spill, but it has developed mitigation measures to sharply reduce the likelihood, along with a preparedness and response plan to limit the consequences should a spill occur. The company says the pipeline will be the safest it has ever built, with thicker-than-standard steel, deeper tunnels under waterways and more isolation valves than usual. The federal panel that reviewed Enbridge’s data and the concerns expressed by First Nations and other groups determined the project should be approved if the company meets 209 technical, environmental and social conditions. Even a small risk is too much for Erickson. If necessary, he said, his people would take direct action, including blockades and sit-ins. They do not see such action as civil disobedience, but rather as being obedient to traditional laws. “I was tasked with protecting this one piece of British Columbia,” he said. “I can’t go to Alberta, I can’t go to Saskatchewan, I can’t go to Vancouver - if something happens to my home, where do I go?” Northern Gateway has some aboriginal support. Enbridge says 26 aboriginal communities have accepted its offer of a 10 percent equity stake in the project to be divided among the 45 communities directly affected by the pipeline. Of those, the majority were in Alberta. Just 11 of 27 eligible communities in British Columbia have signed on. Rumors that Enbridge is offering a larger stake in an effort to sway decisions have swirled among aboriginal groups, though Enbridge’s head of the project, Janet Holder, downplays them. “We’re continuing to engage in how we can partner with (First Nations) in other ways that will add benefits,” she said, adding that the company does not negotiate in the media. Communities that have taken a stand against the project are adamant that their answer will always be “no.” “You could offer us 100 percent, and people still won’t want the pipeline,” said Terry Teegee, tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, an alliance of eight British Columbia bands, six of which are on the pipeline right-of-way. “Money isn’t what’s going to determine whether we approve the project or not. It’s our land, it’s our water, and that is completely not up for negotiation.” Back on the waters of the Douglas Channel, Amos’s son Trevor pulls up in a small fishing boat, a freshly shot seal on the seat next to him. The two little girls, who are 4 and 5, clamber to the edge of the boat to stare at the dead animal, its chest sliced open and the cavity emptied. A large seal can feed eight families or provide many meals for one family. The Haisla use every bit of the animal from the neck down: The thick fat and rich meat are eaten, while the pelt is treated to make drum skins. The small community is not opposed to all development. It has prospered thanks to the local aluminum smelter, and villagers have granted a major energy company permission to build a liquefied natural gas plant on their land. For the Haisla, it is about more than food. Many fear that if they were to lose their fishing grounds to an oil spill, their language and traditions would also slip away. “When you’re going out to collect the seafood, that’s when you’re exercising your culture,” said Haisla chief Ellis Ross. “You’re teaching the next generation - this is where you go to fish, this is how you fish, this is why you fish - that’s our connection. It’s more than just a food product.” ($1 = 1.1014 Canadian Dollars)
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6160
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UK nerve agent survivor fears poison will soon kill him.
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A British man who was exposed to the deadly nerve agent Novichok said he is struggling with his eyesight and mobility, and fears the poison will kill him within a decade.
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true
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International News, Sergei Skripal, Health, Europe, Russia
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Charlie Rowley, 45, fell ill in June near Salisbury, England, after coming into contact with the Soviet-developed nerve agent that was used months earlier to attack former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Rowley, Skripal and his daughter survived, but Rowley’s partner Dawn Sturgess, who was also exposed, died in the hospital. Rowley told the Sunday Mirror newspaper that he was back in the hospital being treated for meningitis. He said he was going blind and unable to use one arm, and said he was “terrified about the future” and what long-term effects the military grade poison would have on him. “I’m still worried the Novichok could kill me if I get any sort of virus again — it’s on my mind all the time. I’m dreading getting a cold,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be alive in 10 years. It’s been horrendous.” Britain accuses Russia of carrying out the poisoning of the Skripals, a claim Moscow denies. Rowley and Sturgess collapsed after they handled a small bottle containing the nerve agent, believed to have been discarded by the Skripals’ attackers. Britain charged two alleged Russian military intelligence agents in absentia for the attack. The pair denied their involvement on Russian television. The Skripals’ poisoning ignited a diplomatic confrontation in which hundreds of envoys were expelled by both Russia and Western nations.
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34646
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Chipotle's 2015 outbreaks of foodborne illness were the work of pro-GMO bioterrorists.
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Had the article provided any details whatsoever about how such “Chipotle sabotage” might have been planned and carried out, it would be easier to determine the veracity of a such a claim. However, the sole point of evidence offered was that pro-GMO activists were supposedly once mean to Dr. Oz (who is himself a purveyor of dubious medical information) and offered no explanation for how that sentiments translated into pro-GMO saboteurs causing food-borne illnesses among Chipotle customers in several different states.
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unproven
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Politics, chipotle, gmos, health ranger
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In late 2015, Chipotle outlets in multiple states were affected by an outbreak of foodborne illness, and as a result, the chain closed stores in several states while the issue was investigated. (The incidents also reinvigorated fake news rumors about Chipotle’s using dog or cat meat in their food.) On 24 December 2015, the web site Real Farmacy published an article (“ANALYSIS: Chipotle is a Victim of Corporate Sabotage — Biotech Industry Food Terrorists Are Planting E.coli in Retaliation for Restaurant’s Anti-GMO Menu”) attributed to “Health Ranger” Mike Adams (who previously claimed the government was spreading aerosolized thought control “vaccines“), that posited pro-GMO bioterrorists had targeted Chipotle: After observing recent events involving Chipotle and e.coli, here’s my analysis of the situation: Chipotle’s e.coli outbreaks are not random chance. They are the result of the biotech industry unleashing bioterrorism attacks against the only fast food company that has publicly denounced GMOs. How do we know? The CDC has already admitted that some of these e.coli outbreaks involve a “rare genetic strain” of e.coli not normally seen in foods. Furthermore, we also know the track record of the biotech industry engaging in the most criminal, dirty, sleazebag tactics imaginable against any person or company that speaks out against GMOs. The article’s sole attempt at presenting any evidence backing this extraordinary claim (aside from the presence of a “rare strain” of E. coli) was based on an entirely unrelated scenario involving surgeon, colon cleanse advocate, and television personality Dr. Oz, who once alleged (via an investigation carried out by Oz’s “own team”) that the chat show host had been defamed by pro-GMO propagandists: Doctor Oz, for example, was maliciously targeted in a defamation campaign funded by the biotech industry earlier this year. The onslaught against Oz was initiated because he publicly expressed his support for honest GMO labeling on foods. As the attacks escalated, Doctor Oz had his own team investigate the source of the attacks and found they were all biotech industry shills, some with felony criminal records and long histories of dubious propaganda activities targeting anti-GMO activists. There is absolutely no question that the biotech industry will resort to ANY activity necessary to destroy food companies that oppose GMOs. And yes, this includes acts of bioterrorism against Chipotle — something that’s ridiculously easy for biotech industry operatives to carry out with simple, low-cost laboratory supplies sold online at places like Amazon.com. To be clear, what’s really happening at Chipotle is that biotech industry shills are deliberately contaminating Chipotle’s food with strains of e.coli in a malicious attempt to destroy both the reputation and finances of the Chipotle food chain. This act of bioterrorism is entirely consistent with the known behavior patterns of the biotech industry which, for example, engaged in illegal money laundering in Washington state in order to destroy the GMO labeling bill there. An axiom commonly dubbed “Hitchens’ Razor” maintains “that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Even if that concept didn’t apply here, entertaining Adams’ claims remains difficult. Aside from a lack of any actual proof, the article did not offer the manner by which such “corporate sabotage” might have occurred, did not identify and specific parties by whom the misdeeds might have been carried out, did not explain how only foodstuffs destined for Chipotle outlets might have been contaminated, did not posit why the putative saboteurs would have left an obvious trail by using a “rare genetic strain of e.coli not normally seen in foods” (rather than a more common form of e.coli), did not detail how “low-cost laboratory supplies” purchased via Amazon would assist in such an endeavor (nor why corporate saboteurs wouldn’t be better funded), or explicate what the primary objective of causing such outbreaks might be. While it might seem plausible to those who fear anti-GMO activists are at risk from shadowy forces, no linear motive for such activity was presented in the article — it simply suggested that nebulous biotech terrorists wished to create havoc due to a grudge over an anti-GMO stance. We contacted Chipotle for a comment on the rumor, which a representative confirmed they’d heard and stated: While no cause has been determined for this, we are actively working with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate. If there is a silver lining in not knowing for sure what caused this, it’s that it prompted us to look at every ingredient we use with an eye to finding ways to improve food safety and food handling practices throughout our system — from the farms that produce the ingredients we use, to our restaurants where we serve our customers. The result of that assessment is an enhanced food safety plan that will help establish Chipotle as a leader in food safety. You can see more about that on our website here. The chain’s statement gave no indication that sabotage by corporate interests or any other entities was a cause under scrutiny in their ongoing investigation (although later news reports indicated that Chipotle had been served with a federal subpoena as part of a criminal investigation tied to a norovirus outbreak at one of their restaurants).
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4076
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Vaping-related illness confirmed in Seattle’s King County.
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Seattle and King County Public Health says a teenager has received medical treatment for severe lung disease linked to vaping.
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true
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Health, General News, Lung disease, Seattle, Public health
|
County health officials said Wednesday that the teen was hospitalized in August with a fever, cough and shortness of breath. Officials say he was treated in the intensive care unit, released from the hospital five days later and is now recovering. The patient reported using e-cigarette products over the past three years. Officials say the teenager reported vaping nicotine with propylene glycol as well as saffron, but they don’t yet know where the products were obtained or if other substances were also used. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there have been roughly 450 cases of the lung disease nationally, and a half dozen people with the illness have died.
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11215
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Palliative care can help cancer patients live longer
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"An imprecise description of what the investigators did in this study could lead readers to badly misinterpret the conclusions and implications of the research. In addition, the story focused excessively on the survival benefit reported, when there were actually other — arguably just as important — effects on on patients’ quality of life and risk of depression. Palliative care focuses on symptom relief and providing support for patients with terminal illness. It is usually offered only late in the course of treatment for advanced cancer and other incurable diseases. Some accordingly view the approach as tantamount to ""giving up hope"" and possibly even hastening a patient’s death. But the new study covered here suggests that far from hastening death, patients with lung cancer who receive early palliative care in addition to standard care actually survive longer than patients who receive standard care alone. They also feel better and are subjected to fewer aggressive medical procedures in their final days. The implication– pending confirmation from additional studies–is that earlier palliative care could help terminally ill patients live better and longer lives. It may also help curtail the estimated $50 billion that Medicare spends on care for patients in their last two months of life."
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true
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"No discussion of costs here. Coverage and reimbursement of treatment is one important aspect of this issue as noted above. Another is whether palliative care actually saves money for the health care system as a whole. As other news organizations noted, the results suggest that palliative care patients use fewer aggressive treatments at the end of life in a futile attempt to extend their lives. This suggests that palliative care might save the system money; however, we don’t yet know if the savings are enough to offset the increased cost of the palliative care itself. This story — like many aspects of our medical system — focuses on survival to the exclusion of almost all else. But prolonged life was just one of many benefits that the researchers attributed to early palliative care in this study. Other notable outcomes of the study included improvement in quality of life and reduction in depression scores. Considering that terminally ill patients have concerns that go well beyond merely prolonging their lives (e.g. avoiding suffering, remaining mentally competent, not being a burden on others, etc), we think the story should have at least mentioned these outcomes. . We’ll call this one not applicable even though the story didn’t mention harms. While we don’t mean to suggest that palliative care is incapable of causing adverse effects (opioid painkillers can cause constipation; other palliative approaches can involve chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, which obviously have the potential to cause harm), for the most part palliative care is focused on mitigating the adverse effects of more aggressive cancer treatments and helping patients cope and make decisions. The potential for harm in all this is generally considered minimal. Unlike the competing stories, USA Today never explicitly tells us that patients in the palliative care group also received the same standard medical care (chemo, etc) that the control group received. That’s a key issue about the study design. So, readers may easily misconstrue this as meaning that palliative care alone — without these other treatments — can extend lives compared to the usual, often-arduous medical care that cancer patients receive. It would be an unfortunate misinterpretation if people thought that Western approaches to cancer treatment do more harm than good and should be avoided. This is certainly not what the study shows. There was also a missed opportunity to explore the reasons why palliative care may extend life. As some of the other stories noted, some researchers believe that palliative care may help patients tolerate more harsh cancer treatments than they would be otherwise be able to stomach. It may be a synergistic effect with traditional treatment — and not the specific effects of palliative care itself — which are helpful for prolonging survival. No evidence of disease-mongering. The sourcing of this story was one of its strengths. It quotes a researcher involved with the study, an accompanying editorial, and two independent experts. The point of the study was to compare early palliative care with existing standard cancer treatment. However, we think this story could have provided a bit more detail regarding what standard cancer care — the current existing alternative — entails. The story notes that palliative care is available at 80% of large hospitals but that many physicians fail to make use of it. The upshot is that many patients don’t know it’s available to them and can’t access it. This story, like the others, however, misses the difference between availability of palliative care in the inpatient/acute care setting and availability in the outpatient setting, which is what was studied here. The story also could have noted cost and reimbursement barriers that the competing New York Times piece also mentioned, but we think it’s enough that the story at least raised the issue of availability. It’s more information than was provided by some other outlets covering the study. The story notes that the ""landmark"" aspect of the study was the fact that researchers gave palliative care early after diagnosis as opposed to in the final days of life. This is an accurate characterization. It also could have noted that study was a rare randomized controlled study of palliative care, which provides stronger evidence than other types of studies. It’s clear this story didn’t rely on a press release."
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11583
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Prostate patients protest FDA
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"The story reports on an experimental treatment for advanced prostate cancer that early research has shown may prolong life by an average of 4 months. While the story does a good job of describing the availability and novelty of the new treatment and does provide benefits in absolute terms (even though this could have been improved by a discussion of the relatively small gain in life duration), it also misses some important criteria. Viewers don’t know the strength of the study findings. For instance, it’s not clear whether the results are from randomized trials, or some other less strong study design. Alternative treatment options are also not discussed. Yet the story posed Provenge as a last and only option – saying about one man: ""All his hopes were pinned on this cuttin-edge, experimental treatment."" And, the story did not interview independent experts to comment on the study findings. Unfortunately, the only comments included are those from actual patients, who sound like they are about to die, and who provide very biasing and one-sided testimonials."
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false
|
"Costs are not mentioned. Some projection of costs is possible, and it is likely to be expensive given the individualized, targeted nature of the approach. The story does provide benefits in absolute terms–on average men lived 4 months longer and that some lived 2-3 years longer. The story could have been improved by a discussion that an average life gain of 4 months, is relatively small, but that only a patient could decide if or how meaningful this life gain would be based on his quality of life. The only harms noted are ""mild, flu-like symptoms."" While, it’s hard to believe any cancer treatment would have only ""mild"" side effects, there may not be published data to confirm or refute this. Nonetheless, the story takes this claim at face value without emphasizing the early stage of the research, and without seeking independent perspectives. The story does not describe the nature of the studies on which the findings are based. Viewers don’t know if the trials are randomized trials–the gold standard–or some other less strong trial design. The story doesn’t really give an unbiased picture of advanced prostate cancer, because only men who currrently have the disease and appear to not have long to live are interviewed. The story doesn’t provide good, balanced information about the nature of the condition, how many men die from this each year, or that many more men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer than will actually die of prostate cancer. Several sources are obtained, although these are only patients providing biasing anecdotes. There is a comment that some doctors question the research, providing some balance, but it’s not clear if any of these doctors were actually contacted to comment on the results. No names are provided. The story does not provide any alternative treatment options for advanced prostate cancer, the mainstay being androgen deprivation, or hormone treatment, which does eventually stop working in many men. Yet the story posed Provenge as a last and only option – saying about one man: ""All his hopes were pinned on this cuttin-edge, experimental treatment."" And the dramatic ending: ""But the FDA needs prooof and for men running out of time and hope the wait is agonizing."" The story states this latest experimental treatment for advanced prostate cancer is not approved by the FDA. The story states the treatment is new and experimental. The story does not appear to have relied solely or largely on a news release."
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6489
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After Ebola, Liberians slowly embrace mental health care.
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Drawn-out deaths. Communities torn apart. Survivor’s guilt. Patrick Fallah says his memories of the days when the Ebola virus swept through Liberia are so awful that he sometimes has trouble focusing on the present.
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true
|
Liberia, AP Top News, Mental health, International News, Ebola virus, Sierra Leone, Africa, Health, AP Weekend Reads
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“Sometimes when I have a flashback of the death of my son and others who died in the Ebola treatment unit, I don’t want to speak to people. I grieve so much that my mind is not really on what I am doing,” said Fallah, 30, who lost his 8-month-old son and stepmother and is president of the National Ebola Survivors Network of Liberia. The trauma of the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,300, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, has left many survivors fighting a battle some worry will never end. But Liberia, one of the world’s poorest countries and with just one psychiatrist, has announced the ambitious goal of expanding access to mental health care to 70 percent of its population in the next few years. The World Health Organization declared an end to the Ebola outbreak in June, estimating that more than 10,000 people who had been infected have survived in the three West African countries, including more than 4,000 in Liberia. As the world’s attention has turned to other crises, many Ebola survivors still face the psychological consequences of the epidemic, feeling guilt over their pasts and worry for their futures without resources to deal with the pain. Mental health is often an expense far beyond the reach of impoverished countries. Liberia is still struggling to rebuild its basic health services after more than a decade of back-to-back civil wars that left a quarter-million people dead, with many killings carried out by drugged, under-age fighters notorious for hacking off survivors’ limbs. Then Ebola arrived, frightening Liberians with its lack of a cure and its transmission through contact with body fluids. Many people became too scared to touch others or offer comfort as the death toll grew. Now Liberia’s government has announced its ambition to expand mental health care access to its more than 4.2 million people, with help from the U.S.-based The Carter Center. “After the civil war, people didn’t go through enough counseling. You have people already going through post-traumatic depression. Then Ebola came, and that built on what was already going on,” said Dr. Francis Kateh, Liberia’s deputy health minister and chief medical officer. The Carter Center is helping to train Liberia’s health care workers to identify mental health issues. Last month, 21 clinicians specializing in child and adolescent mental health graduated from the training. They join 187 mental health professionals who have been trained by the center since 2010 to work in prisons, with refugees or in other settings and are based in primary care clinics and hospitals around the country. The Carter Center hopes to replicate its program in other countries, including Sierra Leone. But educating the public will take time, the new mental health workers say. “There are many people living with mental health problems in Liberia without knowing they are,” said one of the new specialists, Theophilus A. Joe. Stigma remains around mental health issues, said Musulyn Massaqoui, a registered nurse and another recent graduate. Most people come to clinics only for physical issues, she said. Ebola survivors often have hearing and vision problems, joint pain or chronic fatigue, according to the medical aid charity Doctors Without Borders. Many also are shunned by their communities and family members, making them vulnerable to mental health issues. Children left orphaned by Ebola or who watched family members die are especially challenged, said Fallah with Liberia’s survivors’ network, which has about 1,800 members. “They continue to have depression. They are still thinking about their parents,” he said. “Sometimes when they sit in the class, they don’t concentrate.” During the holidays, some feel so neglected that they “want to take up knife to kill themselves.” Some of Liberia’s newly trained mental health workers have been placed in schools and orphanages to lessen the chances of stigma, said The Carter Center’s mental health program director, Eve Byrd. That approach is critical, she said. “If you address childhood trauma early, you’re most likely to decrease symptoms of illness as the person ages.” Stigma in Liberia has proven to be deadly. In March, an Ebola survivor who made the cover of Time magazine for her work as a nurse during the outbreak died when she experienced complications after childbirth and the nurses on duty were too afraid to touch her. ___ Petesch reported from Dakar, Senegal.
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39791
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Measles vaccines are less effective than previously believed and the patient zero measles carrier in the Disneyland measles outbreak may have been immunized against measles.
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Claims About the Disneyland Measles Outbreak
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mixture
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9/11 Attack on America
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"Claims in this email are mostly true, but they are presented in potentially misleading ways to argue the case for the anti-vaccination movement. The eRumor first appeared in a blog post at GreenMedInfo.com. The mission of the website is to “provide free and convenient access to biomedical research available today on the therapeutic value of natural substances in disease prevention and treatment.” The founder of GreenMedInfo.com, and the listed author of the eRumor, is a man named Sayer Ji. He was a philosophy major who spent five years as a wilderness therapy specialist before becoming an “educator and consultant for the natural products industry and health and wellness field,” according to the bio on his website. The blog post went viral as a national debate about measles immunizations was sparked by an outbreak of measles at Disneyland in December of 2014. The post was quickly shared more than 60,000 times on social media and appeared in countless forwarded emails. Here’s a look at some of the eRumor’s individual claims: It’s widely believed that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is 99% effective. The level of effectiveness varies from individual to individual. The CDC reports: “More than 95% of the people who receive a single dose of MMR will develop immunity to all 3 viruses. A second vaccine dose gives immunity to almost all of those who did not respond to the first dose.” But vaccines have a margin of failure, even for those who have a double dose of the measles vaccine, Wired reports: “That’s why the CDC recommends two doses of the vaccine: After the first dose, 5 to 7 percent of people won’t have a good enough antibody response to protect them. A second dose ensures that enough people get antibodies above that protective threshold to control the disease. “And even with two doses, you can get some failure,” says Greg Wallace, lead of the measles, mumps, rubella and polio team at the CDC, “whether it’s because the initial response isn’t perfect, or because the response waned in some people.” The World Health Organization reports that about 205 million children were vaccinated worldwide in 2013. Even with a 1% failure rate, more than 2 million children who were vaccinated in 2013 alone may still be susceptible to infection. That number could be higher if all of the 205 million children who received their first vaccination did not receive a second. 18% of measles cases occur in those who have been vaccinated against it The eRumor doesn’t cite a source for the “18%” claim, which makes it impossible to prove or disprove. During a separate measles outbreak in California in 2014, it was found that 18% of the people who contracted measles had been vaccinated, the Los Angeles Times reports: “Health officials said they are much more concerned about those who are not immunized than about the cases of those who got sick despite being vaccinated. ‘There’s the tug here between a very effective vaccine and a very infectious virus,’ said Orange County Public Health Officer Dr. Eric Handler. ‘And so when you have a scenario where hundreds of people get exposed, then even if the vaccine is 99% good after two doses, you’re going to have a handful of people who are going to get sick.” So, the 18% statistic appears to be purely anecdotal. It refers to one specific outbreak, not all measles outbreaks. An immunized person in New York transmitted measles to four people for the first time in 2011. A 22-year-old woman who received two doses of MRR early in life contracted measles in 2011, and four other people contracted measles after exposure to her. While it’s not uncommon for someone who has been vaccinated to contract measles, this was the first time that a vaccinated person was able to pass the virus on to others. A report that was published in the Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in February of 2014 concluded: “This is the first report of measles transmission from a twice-vaccinated individual with documented secondary vaccine failure. The clinical presentation and laboratory data of the index patient were typical of measles in a naive individual. Secondary patients had robust anamnestic antibody responses. No tertiary cases occurred despite numerous contacts. This outbreak underscores the need for thorough epidemiologic and laboratory investigation of suspected cases of measles regardless of vaccination status.” TruthorFiction.com reached out to report co-author Dr. Jennifer Rosen of the New York City Bureau of Immunization for comment. Future updates will be posted here. –Scientists have linked measles vaccinations to autism. There’s no scientific evidence that vaccinations can lead to autism. The claim first surfaced in 1998 in the Lancet, a British medical journal. In it, Dr. Andrew Wakefield claimed that his research proved that MMR was unsafe. However, the research paper was officially retracted in February of 2010. The New York Times reports: “Dr. Wakefield’s paper reported on his examinations of 12 children with chronic intestinal disorders who had a history of normal development followed by severe mental regressions. He speculated that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may have caused some sort of chronic intestinal measles infection that in turn damaged the children’s brains. He suggested that the combined vaccine should be split into three separate shots and given over a longer period of time. “But an investigation by a British journalist found financial and scientific conflicts that Dr. Wakefield did not reveal in his paper. For instance, part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages. Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.” Despite the Lancet’s retraction, Wakefield’s work is regularly cited by MMR opponents. –Patient zero in the Disneyland measles outbreak was immunized Health officials said in early February of 2015 that they had not identified patient zero in the Disneyland measles outbreak, but that they believed it was a traveler from outside the country."
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5100
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US debuts childhood-lead plan that critics say falls short.
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The Trump administration released an “action plan” Wednesday against devastating childhood exposure to lead, but critics said it held little new to protect millions of American children living with high levels of the metal.
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true
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Health, Environment, Ben Carson, Politics, North America
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Children in at least 4 million American households are exposed to high levels of lead, including through old, chipped lead-based paint, or contaminated dust and soil, water and air, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A half-million children ages 5 or younger have blood-borne lead at levels that should trigger public-health intervention, the CDC said. Flanked by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, acting Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler called the strategy developed by a 17-agency task force a “roadmap to reduce lead exposure nationwide.” Asked what the plan had in the way of new actions, Wheeler pointed to changes that have already been under way, noting the Trump administration was moving forward on revising standards for lead in dust and in drinking water. By next March, the EPA also would release metrics for monitoring progress on lead abatement, among other steps, the agency said. Environmental and public health advocates said they welcomed the attention to lead contamination. However, they faulted the plan for lacking deadlines for regulatory or enforcement action. “It may be a sham of a plan,” said Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of a federal advisory committee on childhood health. Federal action since the 1970s, including prohibitions on lead-based household paint and on leaded gasoline, has substantially reduced lead exposure. Lead can cause lifelong brain damage and other harm, especially for children. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, under the Obama administration underscored the widespread risks remaining. Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump’s first EPA chief, pledged to wage a “war on lead” before ethics scandals forced him out.
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6875
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Cross talk: Federal agencies clash on cellphone cancer risk.
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Two U.S. government agencies are giving conflicting interpretations of a safety study on cellphone radiation: One says it causes cancer in rats. The other says there’s no reason for people to worry.
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true
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Cancer, Health, Tumors, Otis Brawley, North America, Business, Science, U.S. News, Brain cancer
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No new research was issued Thursday. Instead, the National Toxicology Program dialed up its concerns about a link to heart and brain cancer from a study of male rats that was made public last winter. The Food and Drug Administration, which oversees cellphone safety, disagreed with the upgraded warning. And “these findings should not be applied to human cellphone usage,” said Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, FDA’s chief of radiological health. What’s most important is what happens in humans, not rats, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. “The incidence of brain tumors in human beings has been flat for the last 40 years,” Brawley said. “That is the absolute most important scientific fact.” THE ORIGINAL STUDY In a $30 million study, scientists put rats and mice into special chambers and bombarded them with radiofrequency waves, like those emitted by older 2G and 3G phones, for nine hours a day for up to two years, most of their natural lives. The levels the rodents experienced were far higher than people are typically exposed to. THE FINDINGS Last February, the National Toxicology Program said there was a small increase in an unusual type of heart tumor in male rats, but not in mice or female rats. The agency concluded there was “some evidence” of a link. Also, the February report cited “equivocal evidence” of brain tumors in the male rats. Thursday, the agency upgraded its description of those findings. The heart tumor increase marked “clear evidence” of cancer in male rats, it announced. There is “some evidence” of brain cancer. The change came after the agency asked outside experts to analyze the findings. “We believe that the link between radiofrequency radiation and tumors in male rats is real, and the external experts agreed,” said John Bucher, the toxicology agency’s senior scientist. While his agency said the risks to rats don’t directly apply to people, the study raises safety questions. THE DISAGREEMENT The FDA immediately disagreed, firing off a press release assuring Americans that “decades of research and hundreds of studies” has made the health agency confident that the current safety limits for cellphone radiation protect the public health. Plus, FDA pointed out confusing findings from the rodent study — such as that the radiated rats lived longer than comparison rats that weren’t exposed to the rays. The toxicology agency said it appeared that the radiofrequency energy helped older rats’ kidneys. There’s a reason two different government agencies are clashing — they’re asking different questions, said George Washington University public health professor George Gray. A former science chief for the Environmental Protection Agency, Gray said the toxicology program examined how cellphone radiation affected animals. By looking at what it means for humans, the FDA “brings in more sources of information and data than just these recent tests in rats and mice,” he said in an email. SO ARE CELLPHONES SAFE? “I’m calling you from my cellphone,” noted the cancer society’s Brawley. He pointed out one well-known risk from cellphones: Car crashes when drivers are distracted by them. As for cancer, if people are concerned, they could use earphones or speakers, he said. Those who study risk aren’t hanging up. “My family and I won’t change our mobile phone habits based on this news,” said George Washington’s Gray, co-author of the book “Risk: A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You.” ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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12974
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"Thirteen Democratic senators ""voted against cheaper medicines"" and took millions from ""big pharma since 2011."
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"The viral image says that 13 Democratic senators ""voted against cheaper medicines"" and took millions from ""big pharma since 2011."" The 13 Democrats did vote against one amendment that was intended to lower drug prices through reimportation of medicines from Canada, and they have each taken money from drugmakers. However, the image leaves a misleading impression that the senators have voted against lowering drug prices. In reality, all 13 senators voted in favor of a different amendment that specifically advocated ""lower drug prices."" In addition, the dollar amounts listed for the senators use an overly broad definition of ""big pharma,"" inflating the amount of money they have taken from the industry. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. EDITOR'S NOTE: We have modified our paraphrase of a comment by Giertz to better reflect what he said. "
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false
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National, Campaign Finance, Health Care, The Other 98%,
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"A viral post circulating recently in some of the more liberal corners of social media accuses 13 Democratic senators of allegedly voting against lower drug prices because they were recipients of big money from drugmakers. The post included the names and photographs of 13 Democratic senators — Cory Booker and Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Tom Carper and Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Jon Tester of Montana, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania. It also listed dollar amounts the senators were said to have received from ""big pharma."" Several readers asked us to check the post’s accuracy, so we did. (We’ll set aside the misspelling of Booker’s first name.) The viral image was created by a group called The Other 98, which says it fights ""economic injustice, undue corporate influence and threats to democracy."" We were unable to reach a representative of the group. However, we were able to make pretty solid guesses about the underlying reference. It lines up with the voting results for an amendment voted on by the Senate on Jan. 11, 2017. The amendment is filled with legislative jargon, but it would basically create a mechanism to promote ""lower prescription drug prices for Americans by importing drugs from Canada."" The measure failed, with 46 votes in favor and 52 against. The 13 Democratic senators targeted in the post were among those 52 votes against. As for the dollar figures, they largely align with donations listed on the OpenSecrets.org site run by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent clearinghouse for campaign finance data. In every case, the dollar amounts listed track almost exactly the amounts given to each senator under the category ""pharmaceuticals/health products"" for the 2016 campaign cycle, notwithstanding a few small deviances. The post, however, includes some errors, and its accuracy is undercut by a significant oversimplification: The image gives no indication that the senators also voted for a separate amendment that explicitly sought to lower drug prices. The vote wouldn’t actually implement ‘cheaper medicines’ There are a couple of issues with considering action against the measure to import drugs from Canada as a vote ""against cheaper medicines."" The vote was more symbolic than substantive. It was an amendment to a Senate budget resolution, which is a non-binding measure that doesn’t get signed by the president or become law. Rather, they set a framework for committee chairs to work within when deciding how to spend money. So the measures shouldn’t be oversold as direct action. ""Simply put, if adopted by the Senate, the amendment would not have required the United States to begin importing drugs from Canada -- period, full stop,"" said Jeff Giertz, communications director for Booker. ""It would have added language into the budget resolution that would have advised the Senate to spend money in a way that would result in this."" ""Giertz said that Booker supported the same goals, but wanted to see a framework for ensuring the safety of imported drugs included in the amendment."" Don’t overlook another vote to amend the same bill It’s important to know that every one of the 13 senators listed in the meme voted in favor of a separate amendment that did urge lower drug prices. This other amendment effectively prevented the Senate from considering legislation that did not ""as promised by (President-elect Donald Trump), lower drug prices, as certified by the Congressional Budget Office."" Like the other amendment, this did not pass -- it won only 47 votes in favor, with 51 against. But the fact that all 13 senators listed on the meme voted to support this amendment muddies the conclusion of the meme that they all ""voted against cheaper medicines."" The senators offered varied reasons for opposing the amendment the viral image refers to. For instance: • Booker: ""I support the importation of prescription drugs as a key part of a strategy to help control the skyrocketing cost of medications. Any plan to allow the importation of prescription medications should also include consumer protections that ensure foreign drugs meet American safety standards. I opposed an amendment put forward last night that didn’t meet this test."" • Coons: The amendment ""didn’t meet the safety standards he believes are necessary,"" a spokesman Sean Coit told PolitiFact. • Donnelly: ""I do not believe the best way to address the problem of rising prescription drug prices or to advance an importation policy is through legislation that is designed specifically to take health care away from the people who need it"" -- that is, the Republican-backed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. • Casey: ""Sen. Casey had concerns about whether existing safety standards would apply to wholesalers,"" spokesman John Rizzo told PolitiFact. ""Sen. Casey has spoken with (Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., an amendment sponsor) about this, and the two of them are actively working on legislation that will allow importation."" The numbers shown don’t only represent money from 'big pharma' The assertion that these senators took millions from ""big pharma since 2011"" is also imprecise. We’ll start with what looks like a typo. The dollar amounts shown are generally accurate for the 2016 campaign cycle, but if you were to include the totals going all the way back to 2011, as the meme states, then the amount would be substantially larger than what is shown. Because the point would have been stronger with larger dollar figures, this looks to us like an unintended mistake. However, the ""pharmaceuticals/health products"" category as defined by the Center for Responsive Politics is actually broader than what most reasonable people would consider ""big pharma."" For this purpose, a more accurate subcategory for ""big pharma"" would be the Center for Responsive Politics category ""pharmaceutical manufacturing."" Several of the senators listed on the post rank in the group’s top 20 recipients of ""pharmaceutical manufacturing money"" during recent election cycles, but not all of them do -- and the amounts for each are smaller than what the meme reflects. Murray made the top 20 list in 2014 and 2016, for a cumulative $265,406. (You can investigate the numbers at the Center for Responsive Politics site here.) Coons made it in 2012 and 2014 for a cumulative $138,450. Casey made the list in 2012 and 2016, for a combined $231,380. Carper made the list in 2012 and 2016, for a combined $171,300. Menendez and Tester made the top 20 in 2012 ($153,800 and $54,750, respectively), Booker and Warner made it in 2014 ($233,750 and $71,050), and Bennet made it in 2016 ($135,127). These dollar amounts, which are admittedly incomplete, are lower than what the post shows for each senator’s ""big pharma"" contributions. Then there’s another caveat we always mention in articles like this one. The industry donation breakdowns tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics doesn’t just include donations by fat-cat executives and company political action committees. It also includes donations made by any individual employed by a company in a given industry sector. This can include rank-and-file employees -- and in states with a heavy pharmaceutical presence in the workforce, this can be a significant factor. These states include Delaware, represented by Carper and Coons, and New Jersey, represented by Booker and Menendez. Our ruling The viral image says that 13 Democratic senators ""voted against cheaper medicines"" and took millions from ""big pharma since 2011."" The 13 Democrats did vote against one amendment that was intended to lower drug prices through reimportation of medicines from Canada, and they have each taken money from drugmakers. However, the image leaves a misleading impression that the senators have voted against lowering drug prices. In reality, all 13 senators voted in favor of a different amendment that specifically advocated ""lower drug prices."" In addition, the dollar amounts listed for the senators use an overly broad definition of ""big pharma,"" inflating the amount of money they have taken from the industry. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so EDITOR'S NOTE: We have modified our paraphrase of a comment by Giertz to better reflect what he said."
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8013
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Poland expects sharp rise in coronavirus cases.
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Poland expects rapid growth in coronavirus infections, Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said on Monday, as the country braces for new restrictions aimed at curbing the pandemic.
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true
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Health News
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As of Monday, 1,984 people had tested positive for coronavirus in the country of 38 million, while 26 people had died, according to the health ministry. “We are entering a new phase of the epidemic ... We are expecting a very rapid growth in the number of infections in the coming weeks. This number will be rising at an exponential pace,” Szumowski told news conference. Szumowski said further restrictions on people’s movements were needed as earlier measures were not sufficient to contain the virus. He did not say what the new restrictions would be. Poland has shuttered schools, theaters and cinemas and limited public gatherings. It has also closed its borders until mid-April, told Poles only to leave their homes for essential purposes and announced measures to support the economy. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is expected to announce further restrictions, an aide said. Szumowski said he would be able to give a recommendation in early April on whether presidential elections should be held on May 10, as planned. The ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has insisted on conducting them as planned despite the coronavirus.
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40830
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4,300 more staff employed in mental health trusts since 2013.
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This is not how many mental health specialist staff there are. It is the increase in all staff in English trusts with over half their outpatient activity in mental health specialities. Some of the staff were effectively re-categorised into the mental health category during this time, rather than being newly hired.
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false
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mental-health
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4,300 more staff employed in mental health trusts since 2013. This is not how many mental health specialist staff there are. It is the increase in all staff in English trusts with over half their outpatient activity in mental health specialities. Some of the staff were effectively re-categorised into the mental health category during this time, rather than being newly hired. There are fewer doctors and nurses employed in mental health. There are around 5,000 fewer nurses specialising mental health between August 2010 and 2017. The number of fully trained doctors specialising in psychiatry and psychotherapy has also gone down by 105 over the same time, but if you count junior doctors the number has increased. Claim 1 of 3
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