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14643	"Gene Green is the NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress. ... ""It’s no wonder the congressman has a lifetime A rating from the NRA."	"Adrian Garcia said that his competitor in the Democratic race for Texas’ 29th district, Rep. Gene Green, has a ""lifetime A rating"" from the NRA and is the NRA’s ""favorite Democrat in Congress."" Green has certainly been a strong supporter of gun rights over his 23 years in the House. The gun control measures Green’s campaign pointed out that he supported were part of packages like the 1994 crime bill, in which Green voted with his party. However, the votes Garcia cites seem to have been cherry-picked from Green’s long career in Congress. While Green has voted against child safety locks, as Garcia said, he also later voted for them. In recent years, Green has inched away from NRA interests, supporting bipartisan gun legislation and President Obama’s executive action on gun safety. Garcia’s claim on Green’s ""lifetime rating"" also misses Green’s 1994 sharp drop in favor with the NRA and his recent slight shift away from the organization. As for the NRA’s ""favorite Democrat,"" Green is not the only Democrat to support gun rights, or to be supported by the NRA. He’s not even the organization’s strongest Democratic supporter, based on its most recent ratings. He is part of a shrinking group of pro-gun Democrats."	false	Texas, Guns, Adrian Garcia,	"The Democratic race for Texas’ 29th Congressional district is turning to a hot-button issue: gun control. Gene Green, a Democrat, has represented Texas’ 29th District, which covers the eastern portion of Greater Houston, since 1993. In that time, he has been endorsed by the gun-owner rights group National Rifle Association several times and often received an A rating from the organization -- an issue his challenger, former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, is bringing to the fore in advance of the March 2016 Democratic primary. ""Gene Green is the NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress,"" Garcia was quoted saying in his own Jan. 7, 2016, campaign media release. ""He’s part of the reason our president has had to use executive action to protect our people. When House Democrats reclaim a majority, the NRA will still have Gene Green in their pocket to block progressive gun safety measures. He is their insurance policy."" Garcia continued: ""It’s no wonder the congressman has a lifetime A rating from the NRA. He signed on to a letter with Texas Republicans to prevent the restriction of armor-piercing bullets. He voted against the Brady Bill, he's voted against child safety locks, and later voted for the assault weapons ban repeal. He also voted for keeping the gun show loophole."" There are a lot of specifics in Garcia’s claim, and we’ll get to those. We also wanted to check if Green has a ""lifetime A rating"" from the NRA and, although it’s harder to judge, if he could be the organization’s ""favorite Democrat."" Lifetime rating? Garcia claimed Green had a ""lifetime A rating"" from the NRA. The NRA doesn’t award lifetime ratings; it says it only evaluates candidates each election cycle. Still, candidates sometimes use the term ""lifetime rating"" to promote consistently high -- or low -- NRA marks. According to Jennifer Baker, the association’s director of public affairs, the NRA evaluates candidates by looking at voting records, public statements, plus what he or she is doing ""behind the scenes"" in committee. Baker said that if a hopeful hasn’t held office, the group primarily considers answers to survey questions. According to NRA’s website, its ratings range from A+ -- for a legislator with ""not only an excellent voting record on all critical NRA issues, but who has also made a vigorous effort to promote and defend the Second Amendment""-- to F, a ""true enemy of gun owners’ rights."" Other ratings include AQ, a pro-gun candidate who has no voting record and whose rating is based on answers to survey questions, and ""?,"" meaning a candidate didn’t answer the NRA’s questionnaire, inaction the organization takes as indicative of ""indifference, if not outright hostility,"" to gun owners’ rights. Notably for this fact check, ratings for past election cycles only are available to NRA members. Baker told us by phone that when the NRA endorses a candidate, the group ""actively informs our members of our preference in that race."" A candidate who has a high rating is not guaranteed to receive an endorsement, she said, and a candidate with a lower rating can sometimes be endorsed if the NRA thinks the opponent would be especially bad on its issues. We used an NRA member password and checked with the organization on ratings prior to 2002, which are not posted online at all, to verify Green’s record over the 24 years he’s run for election and re-election to Congress. He mostly received A-level ratings, but drew one C too: 1992: rated ""A"" and endorsed 1994: rated ""C,"" not endorsed 1996: rated ""A+"" and endorsed From 1998-2010: rated ""A"" and endorsed 2012: rated ""A-,"" not endorsed 2014: rated ""A-,"" not endorsed The NRA has not released ratings for the 2016 election cycle, and does not yet have an expected date for their release. So, what happened in 1994, and after 2012? In 1994, Green voted for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the sweeping crime bill signed by President Bill Clinton that included firearms control measures, Green told us by phone. ""I voted for the bill as part of a package, and that’s why the NRA for a couple years didn’t appreciate it,"" he said. Green’s campaign spokesman, Jose Borjon, pointed out that the 1994 legislation included the federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. The bill, we noted, also prohibited juvenile possession of a handgun, prohibited anyone convicted of domestic abuse from buying firearms or ammunition, increased penalties for crimes involving guns and added licensing and registration requirements for firearms dealers. Green suggested that between 2010 and 2012, when his rating slipped to an A- after more than 15 years of A’s, gun legislation became an even more partisan issue, and the NRA allied itself more with the Republican Party. As that happened, Green said, he did not want to be associated with the organization. However, his grade only declined from an A to an A-. A December 2012 Washington Post article that Green mentioned to us referenced his distancing from the NRA, at the time related to the NRA’s effort to get then-Attorney General Eric Holder held in contempt of Congress after the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Conn. He joined fellow gun-friendly Democrat John Dingell, the longtime Michigan representative who retired in 2014, in criticizing the group. In the same month, Green told reporters at Hearst’s Washington bureau that instead of passing new gun legislation, Congress needed ""to find better ways to enforce current law."" Voting record In Garcia’s release, the campaign offered background on the specific votes it referred to: -- The ""letter with Texas Republicans to prevent the restriction of armor-piercing bullets,"" Garcia’s campaign said, was Green’s June 3, 2015, ""yes"" vote for the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. That act included an amendment prohibiting the use of funds to classify ammunition as armor piercing in imports. The letter itself is a March 4, 2015, letter signed by Green, Texas Republicans and others to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives opposing the agency’s proposed restrictions on armor-piercing bullets. -- Green, Garcia’s campaign said, voted in November 1993 against the Brady Bill, or the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, so named for James Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. We checked, and Green did vote against the Brady Bill. -- Green’s vote ""against child safety locks,"" the Garcia campaign said, was his Sept. 24, 1999, ""no"" vote on a conference substitute for the Consequences for Juvenile Offenders Act. Green’s ""no"" vote was in response to a motion to instruct conferees, or a House vote to tell its conference committee members how to resolve an issue while negotiating a version of the bill between the House and the Senate. The issue at hand was a Senate amendment that required that child safety locks be sold with every handgun, among other regulations. Green voted no, to instruct committee members to reject that amendment. --Garcia’s reference to Green’s ""vote for the assault weapons ban repeal"" was Green’s March 22, 1996, ""yes"" vote for the Gun Crime Enforcement and Second Amendment Restoration Act. Green did vote for the legislation, which would have repealed the assault weapons ban that he earlier voted to put in place. --Green’s vote for ""keeping the gun show loophole"" was his June 18, 1999, ""no"" vote against the Mandatory Gun Show Background Check Act. Green, Garcia’s campaign said, voted against an amendment to regulate firearms transfers at gun shows and require criminal background checks to prevent the sale of guns to minors and felons. In response to these claims, Borjon, Green’s campaign spokesman, pointed out a few votes from Green’s tenure that tended toward gun control, including his 1994 vote in support of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Borjon also emphasized Green’s vote for the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts, which included the Child Safety Lock Act. Green himself emphasized to us that he supported the bipartisan gun legislation authored by California Democrat Mike Thompson and New York Republican Peter King, the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act. When we asked about Green’s voting record and his current stance on gun legislation, Green’s campaign said he supported President Obama’s 2016 executive action on gun safety. ‘Favorite Democrat in Congress’ Garcia’s campaign release also referred to Green as the ""NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress."" While that’s not a determination we can make, we looked at the current Democrats in Congress to see if like Green, any have garnered mostly high ratings and endorsements. Of the 232 Democrats in Congress as of early 2016, six had fielded A ratings from the NRA before their latest election. Four others, besides Green, had A- ratings. The ""A"" Democrats were: Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz of Minnesota, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin. Democrats besides Green with an A-: Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota was rated. We reached out to Sean Theriault, a professor at the University of Texas who studies Congress. He said: ""It looks like Green is among a group of Democrats who support the Second Amendment."" Heading into the 2014 House elections, according to a ProPublica graphic Theriault sent us, 25 Democrats in Congress were rated from A- to A+. So, why did we identify only a dozen with that distinction? Many of the Democrats who drew high NRA marks in 2013 didn’t win re-election the next year. Our ruling Adrian Garcia said that his competitor in the Democratic race for Texas’ 29th district, Rep. Gene Green, has a ""lifetime A rating"" from the NRA and is the NRA’s ""favorite Democrat in Congress."" Green has certainly been a strong supporter of gun rights over his 23 years in the House. The gun control measures Green’s campaign pointed out that he supported were part of packages like the 1994 crime bill, in which Green voted with his party. However, the votes Garcia cites seem to have been cherry-picked from Green’s long career in Congress. While Green has voted against child safety locks, as Garcia said, he also later voted for them. In recent years, Green has inched away from NRA interests, supporting bipartisan gun legislation and President Obama’s executive action on gun safety. Garcia’s claim on Green’s ""lifetime rating"" also misses Green’s 1994 sharp drop in favor with the NRA and his recent slight shift away from the organization. As for the NRA’s ""favorite Democrat,"" Green is not the only Democrat to support gun rights, or to be supported by the NRA. He’s not even the organization’s strongest Democratic supporter, based on its most recent ratings. He is part of a shrinking group of pro-gun Democrats. – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check."
1954	Insight: Arab Spring raises hopes of rebirth for Mideast science.	Egyptian chemist Ahmed Zewail first proposed building a $2 billion science and technology institute in Cairo 12 years ago, just after he won a Nobel Prize. Then-President Hosni Mubarak promptly approved the plan and awarded Zewail the Order of the Nile, Egypt’s highest honor. Within months, the cornerstone was laid in a southern Cairo suburb for a “science city” due to open in five years.	true	Science News	But while Zewail, who has taught at Caltech in California since 1976, went on to collect more awards and honorary doctorates abroad, his pet project got mired in a jungle of bureaucracy and corruption. His growing popularity in Egypt, where he was touted as a possible presidential candidate after mass protests brought down Mubarak this year, seemed to threaten the officials overseeing the institute, so they blocked it every way they could. “We didn’t get anywhere,” Zewail told Reuters back in February. But with revolution now sweeping the Middle East, Egypt’s ruling military council and interim civilian government gave the project the green light in June. Supporters hail the decision as a positive step toward a new, more modern Middle East. “Some people in the old regime were not happy with the limelight focused on Dr Zewail,” said Mohammed Ahmed Ghoneim, a professor of urology at Egypt’s University of Mansoura and a member of the board of trustees. But now, he noted with satisfaction, “the decision makers have changed.” The project is a “locomotive that will pull the train of scientific research in this country,” he said. The poor state of science in the Middle East, especially in Arab countries, has been widely documented. Only about 0.2 percent of gross domestic product in the region is spent on scientific research, compared to 1.2 percent worldwide. Hardly any Arab universities make it into lists of the world’s 500 top universities. But Arab scientists say the first steps toward change have been taken. A recent Thomson Reuters Global Research Report showed countries in the Arab Middle East, Turkey and Iran more than doubled their output of scientific research papers between the years 2000 and 2009. The progress admittedly started from a low base, rising from less than 2% of world scientific research output to more than 4% at the end of the decade, but the curve is definitely pointing upwards. “The region is taking a growing fraction of an expanding pool,” the report said. “The Arab-Muslim world has improved greatly, even if the universities are still pretty mediocre by and large,” said Nidhal Guessoum, an Algerian astrophysicist who teaches at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. “The educational system in primary and secondary schools is still lagging behind world standards, but relative to what it was 30-50 years ago, there is clearly a huge improvement.” In many ways the Arab world is seeking a return to a glorious past. In the so-called Islamic Golden Age between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, the region was on the cutting edge of science. Back then, the best scientific minds worked in Baghdad, Cairo or Cordoba in then-Muslim Spain. Muslim mathematicians invented algebra and Muslim astronomers mapped the heavens. Hospitals were so advanced in the Islamic world that the most important medical textbook in European universities from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries was a Latin translation of The Canon of Medicine, completed in 1025 by the Persian physician and philosopher Ibn Sina, better known in the West as Avicenna. But starting in the 17th century, the scientific revolution catapulted Europe far ahead of the Middle East. The rulers of the Ottoman Empire, which included most of the Middle East, seemed unwilling or unable to keep up with the times. Reasons put forward for the decline range from the shattering effect of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century to the colonial exploitation the region suffered in the 20th. Economic historians say Europe’s growing sea power in the 15th and 16th centuries shifted its trade focus to the oceans, slowing commerce on the overland routes that crisscrossed the Middle East. Another theory blames the nature of Islam itself. While it may not be the main impediment, Islam certainly plays a role in limiting the scope of science in the Muslim world. Ideas that seem to contradict the Koran are often greeted with suspicion, and are sometimes outright rejected by religious authorities. Many Muslims cite the Koran to deny the theory of evolution, for instance, much like fundamentalist Christians who use the Bible to refute Charles Darwin. Rana Dajani, a molecular biologist at Jordan’s Hashemite University outside Amman who is a practicing Muslim and wears a headscarf, said her Jordanian students can accept evolution in animal species, but stop short when it comes to agreeing that humans and apes had a common ancestor. Their main objection is that the Koran said man is the highest being and going against that would be blasphemy. “In their opinion, God intervened and put Adam on earth. If you accept evolution, there must have been several Adams, so that doesn’t work,” Dajani said at a conference in Cambridge, England, on Islam and science with Guessoum and other Arab scientists in May. In response, she tells her students not to treat the Koran as a science textbook. “If there is a conflict between science and our interpretation of the Koran, then we have to reassess the interpretation.” Astronomers meet resistance when they offer their mathematical calculations of the moon’s phases as a more reliable way to determine when the holy month of Ramadan should start, Guessoum said. Muslims traditionally begin the annual fast when they see the first sliver of that month’s new moon with the naked eye. But this can result in some Muslim countries beginning Ramadan later than others because clouds impeded the sighting. “Science can offer all kinds of answers but religious authorities do not want to submit to science. They want to be the ones who define the terms of the debate,” explained Guessoum, who earned his Ph.D at the University of California at San Diego. “This is the tug of war that we find even today.” Research in fields such as human evolution, genetics, paleontology and anthropology was discouraged by many religious authorities as possible challenges to faith, the astrophysicist said. “People try to poke holes in the scientific results just to discredit them and not let them come to the fore.” Even Egypt’s new science and technology institute would probably not escape this pressure completely, said Ghoneim. “There’s a very narrow area that could face these restrictions, mainly in the field of stem cell research,” he said. But scientists as a whole are wary of blaming Islam. Qanta Ahmed, a British-born Muslim physician, said religion posed no problem during her two-year stint practicing critical care medicine in a Saudi hospital. She had no limits on her research and no complaints that she treated men and didn’t wear a headscarf. “Even the most conservative families, where the women were gloved and wearing black socks, never objected,” she said. Guessoum pointed to the scientific achievements of the past. “For centuries, Islam and science not only coexisted very well but produced a glorious scientific civilization. If Islam was so good then, why is it so bad now?” he asked. Instead, many say, the Middle East’s present-day political and social structures are the chief culprit, in particular the authoritarian nature of politics in the region. Ahmed saw this at work in Saudi hospitals where she has worked as a staffer or consultant. “You can identify brilliant researchers who you know will only rise so far because they don’t have the favor of the royal court, or they’re not from the right family or group,” she said. “It’s not a meritocracy.” Dajani saw free thought and speech stifled across the Arab world. “This is a political situation that has prevailed for at least 50 years and its roots may go back even longer,” she said. “The effect is not only on politics, but on the whole society. When you don’t have freedom to think, children don’t grow up questioning things. They agree with the status quo. So you reduce any kind of development in any field.” Bureaucracy and cronyism have also conspired to stifle scientific progress. Research grants and academic jobs often go not to the most qualified, but the best connected, and they can stall or stop work in fields they either don’t understand or don’t agree with. “People in key positions are often put there for political reasons, and you couldn’t question that before because there was no freedom to do so,” Dajani said. “We don’t have any problem getting funding abroad or locally. It’s the bureaucracy and management that really kill things.” In addition to the political changes the region has seen in recent months, there must be guarantees that scientists will not be jailed, censured or declared heretics for something they’ve said or written, Guessoum said. “Then there will be a transformation of society and science will flourish.” He called himself “an optimist in the long term” because the Arab Spring has accelerated modernizing trends he said were already underway. “There is no doubt in my mind that more freedom and democracy, and more ability to debate, are going to promote science and open new avenues to explore,” he said. “In the long run, we’ll see significant improvements.”
1430	Britain and Bill Gates pledge 3 billion pounds to fight malaria.	Britain will spend 500 million pounds ($700 million) per year for the next five years to try and end deaths caused by malaria, the government said on Monday, announcing a partnership with Microsoft founder Bill Gates worth a total of 3 billion pounds.	true	Health News	Finance minister George Osborne announced the spending, which will be funded from the country’s overseas aid budget, at an event with billionaire Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will also contribute around $200 million per year to the package. “Across the globe over a billion people are infected with malaria and it’s a cause of both untold misery and lost economic potential,” Osborne said in a statement. “That’s why, working with Bill Gates, I’m determined that Britain leads the world in the fight against this disease.” In December, the World Health Organization’s annual malaria report showed deaths falling to 438,000 in 2015 - down dramatically from 839,000 in 2000 - and found a significant increase in the number of countries moving towards the elimination of malaria. The United Nations now wants to cut new cases and deaths from malaria, a parasitic mosquito-borne infection, by 90 percent before 2030. Osborne said some of the money would be spent in Britain to advance the science being used to combat the disease. The Gates Foundation first annual contribution will support research and development and regional efforts to eliminate the disease. The Gates Foundation was launched in 2000 by Bill Gates and wife Melinda to fight disease and poverty around the world.
36365	"A 1989 Associated Press article predicted disaster if ""global warming"" went unchecked."	Is a 1989 ‘U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked’ Article Authentic?	true	Fact Checks, Viral Content	On May 14 2019, a Facebook user shared the following screenshot (archived here), purportedly showing a 1989 Associated Press item prognosticating “disaster” by the year 2000 if “global warming” remained unchecked:In the screenshot, text from an unlinked Associated Press article’s headline and first sentence was visible (with indicated emphasis), reading:U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not CheckedPETER JAMES SPIELMANN June 29, 1989UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.The screenshot is authentic. It was captured from a June 29, 1989 article by Peter James Spielmann. As the excerpt showed, the headline referenced a United Nations prediction, and the first sentence attributed the prediction to a UN official, continuing:Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview [in June 1989]. […]The most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years, said Brown.The difference may seem slight, he said, but the planet is only 9 degrees warmer now than during the 8,000-year Ice Age that ended 10,000 years ago.Although the screenshot was authentic and unaltered, the implication of emphasis on the date and timeframes described was done so in a way that readers might infer Brown’s predictions did not come to pass. In 1989, the portion excerpted above described a thirty-year period, which concluded in 2019.But a June 2018 piece in The Guardian marked a slightly different thirty-year prediction, one that came just before the 1989 Associated Press report:Thirty years after a former Nasa scientist sounded the alarm for the general public about climate change and human activity, the expert issued a fresh warning that the world is failing “miserably” to deal with the worsening dangers … [Former NASA climate scientist James] Hansen provided what’s considered the first warning to a mass audience about global warming when, in 1988, he told a US congressional hearing he could declare “with 99% confidence” that a recent sharp rise in temperatures was a result of human activity.Since this time, the world’s greenhouse gas emissions have mushroomed despite repeated, increasingly frantic warnings about civilization-shaking catastrophe, from scientists amassing reams of evidence in Hansen’s wake. […]Hansen’s frustrations temper any satisfaction at largely being vindicated for his testimony, delivered to lawmakers on 23 June 1988.Wearing a cream-coloured suit, the soft-spoken son of Iowan tenant farmers hunched over the microphone in Washington to explain that humans had entered a confronting new era. “The greenhouse effect has been detected and it is changing our climate now,” he said.Afterwards, Hansen told reporters: “It is time to stop waffling so much and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.” He brandished new research that forecast that 1988 was set to be the warmest year on record, as well as projections for future heat under three different emissions scenarios. The world has dutifully followed Hansen’s “scenario B” — we are “smack on it”, Hansen said last week — with global temperatures jumping by around 1C (1.8F) over the past century.In the original AP article, the paper said that as of 1989, the “most conservative scientific estimate that the Earth’s temperature will rise 1 to 7 degrees in the next 30 years.” In 2018, Hansen said temperatures had elevated by about one degree in the past century.On the subject of the measurable effects of climate change, Axios also examined the period between Hansen’s testimony and 2018:Three decades have passed since then-NASA scientist James Hansen testified before the Senate Energy committee and alerted the country to the arrival of global warming [in 1988].Why it matters: The predictions of the world’s leading climate scientists have come true, with dire consequence for the planet.In a February 2019 Vox article, journalist and author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming David Wallace-Wells posited of the current effects of climate change:It’s bad. The future looks pretty dark from where we are now. So we are a little north of 1.1 degrees C of [average] warming above the preindustrial baseline, which is the historical temperature conditions that we measure global warming against. And already at 1.1 degrees, we’re seeing a lot of really extreme climate events.Last year in the summer of 2018 in the Northern Hemisphere you had this unprecedented heat wave that killed people all around the world. You had the crazy hurricane season. In California, wildfires burned more than a million acres. And we’re really only just beginning to see these sorts of effects.If we continue on the track we’re on now, in terms of emissions, and we just take the wildfire example, conventional wisdom says that by the end of the century we could be seeing roughly 64 times as much land burned every year as we saw in 2018, a year that felt completely unprecedented and inflicted unimaginable damage in California.And we see trajectories like this in basically every area of potential climate impact — from impact on agricultural yields, to public health issues, to the relationship between climate change and economic growth, climate change and conflict. On virtually every conceivable metric, things are going to get considerably worse. And if we don’t change course rapidly, they’re going to get catastrophically worse.The UN says we’re on track to get to about 4 degrees or 4.3 degrees of warming by the end of the century if we continue as we are. I don’t think that we’ll get there, this century at least. I think that we’ll take enough action to avert that. But I think it’s really important to know what it would mean to land there, because that is a much more reasonable anchor for our expectations.Material published by the Union of Concerned Scientists revised in November 2016 detailed observable changes to the worldwide climate:The globe is warming. In 2013, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in its authoritative fifth assessment report that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased”. They also stated that “Human influence on the climate system is clear.” How did they reach those sobering conclusions?Scientists from NASA and other research institutions around the world have been routinely collecting temperature data from a wide number of locations all over the planet. Their records of Earth’s average temperature go back to the 1880s, the earliest year for which reliable instrumental records were available worldwide. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has maintained global average monthly and annual records of combined land and ocean surface temperatures for more than 130 years. These data show that temperatures have climbed to more than 1.8°F (1°C) above pre-industrial levels as of 2015, and the long-term global upward trend is clear and unambiguous (Figure 1)The June 1989 Associated Press article “U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked” was authentic and accurately presented in a May 2019 Facebook post. But the implication that these prognostications about climate change had not come to pass was not accurate, as experts continued to identify events (such as extreme weather, wildfires, and coastal flooding) as previous predictions that had been validated in the thirty years since.
2780	Antioxidants including vitamin E can promote lung cancer: study.	A decades-old medical mystery - why antioxidants such as vitamin E and beta carotene seemed to accelerate the growth of early lung tumors in high-risk populations such as smokers, rather than protect them from cancer, as theory suggests - may have been solved, according to research published on Wednesday.	true	Health News	In essence, “antioxidants allow cancer cells to escape cells’ own defense system” against tumors, biologist Per Lindahl of Sweden’s University of Gothenburg and a co-author of the study told reporters. That lets existing tumors, even those too small to be detected, proliferate uncontrollably. The findings imply that “taking extra antioxidants might be harmful and could speed up the growth of (any) tumors,” said biologist and co-author Martin Bergo of Gothenburg, adding, “If I had a patient with lung cancer, I would not recommend they take an antioxidant.” The study, published in Science Translational Medicine, did not examine whether antioxidants can also initiate lung cancer, rather than accelerate the growth of existing tumors. Nor did it examine whole foods naturally high in antioxidants. But it adds to a growing pile of research challenging the health benefits of taking vitamin supplements except in cases of malnutrition. Last month, a review of dozens of studies found “no clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements” on heart disease, cancer or mortality. An accompanying editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine warned that “beta carotene, vitamin E, and possibly high doses of vitamin A supplements are harmful,” while other antioxidants “are ineffective.” The new antioxidant study “seems quite sound,” said Eliseo Guallar, professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a co-author of the editorial. “It’s unfortunate that the public has the idea that vitamin supplements are good and antioxidants are better.” One concern about the new study is that the mice received doses of vitamin E at least four times, and as much as 50 times, Americans’ recommended daily intake, noted Duffy MacKay of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the supplement industry trade group. Government data show that 90 percent of Americans have diets that contain less than the recommended intake of vitamin E, he said, calling the Swedish study “very interesting and hypothesis-generating,” but not one that should change behavior. Of all the gaps between biological theory and medical reality, few are as stark as that involving antioxidants. In cells growing in the lab, antioxidants scavenge and disable free radicals, reactive chemicals produced during normal metabolism that can harm DNA and other components of cells. By the 1980s that had led to the idea that by protecting DNA from damage, antioxidants might prevent cancer and other disease and launched a bull market in antioxidants that continues unabated, with packages of cereal, granola bars, juice and more all touting their antioxidants and health magazines and television shows urging consumers to load up on them. For the new study, the Gothenburg scientists gave vitamin E and a generic drug called N-acetylcysteine, both antioxidants, to mice with early lung cancer. The vitamin E doses were comparable to those in supplements; the doses of acetylcysteine, which is prescribed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) to reduce mucus, were relatively low. The antioxidants caused a 2.8-fold increase in lung tumors, made the tumors more invasive and aggressive, and caused the mice to die twice as quickly - all compared to mice not given antioxidants. When the antioxidants were added to human lung tumor cells in lab dishes, they also accelerated cancer growth. That result jibed with the many studies finding that “antioxidants do not protect against cancer in healthy people and may increase it” or promote it in those who already do, said Bergo. The significant advance in the study was pinpointing how this can be. What seems to happen is that antioxidants indeed decrease DNA damage, as expected. But the damage becomes so insignificant as to be undetectable by the cell. The cell therefore does not deploy its cancer-defense system, which is based on a protein called p53. Ordinarily, if the p53 system detects significant DNA damage, such as from ultraviolet light, it kills the cell before it can become malignant. By allowing cancer cells to stay below the radar of p53, antioxidants allow tumors to thrive, the study found. The scientists stressed that the results do not pertain to foods such as fruits and vegetables that are naturally high in antioxidants. As for people with COPD who are taking acetylcysteine (a generic), “we think that should be carefully evaluated,” Bergo said. Although the study investigated only lung cancer and two antioxidants, previous research suggests that other cancers can also be accelerated by antioxidants, Bergo said, and that other antioxidants have this effect. The National Cancer Institute already advises cancer patients that antioxidant supplements “should be used with caution.” The discovery of how antioxidants thwart cells’ innate cancer-fighting machinery might explain why a groundbreaking 1994 study found an 18 percent higher incidence of lung cancer among 29,133 male smokers who received beta carotene than those who did not. The result was so unexpected and unwelcome that the editorial in the journal where it was published tried to dismiss it as “an extreme play of chance.” “It’s disappointing but not surprising that people’s beliefs are not modified by scientific evidence,” said Dr Paul Marantz, an epidemiologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “People so want to believe there is a magic bullet out there.”
26163	“Research illustrates a clear correlation between vitamin D deficiencies and (higher) COVID-19 mortality rates.”	U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman touted a correlation between vitamin D deficiencies and COVID-19 deaths, suggesting the supplement may help combat the virus. Early research verifies that correlation, but more work needs to be done. Grothman emphasized that point and didn’t imply vitamin D is a cure for COVID-19.	true	Public Health, Wisconsin, Coronavirus, Glenn Grothman,	"People across the globe continue to seek answers on how to defeat the coronavirus that has sickened millions. One proposed solution has gained attention in recent weeks: Vitamin D. A link between vitamin D and COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, caught the eye of U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah. In a May 21, 2020 news release, Grothman encouraged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look into vitamin D’s impact on the virus. ""Research illustrates a clear correlation between vitamin D deficiencies and (higher) COVID-19 mortality rates,"" the release said. Studies cited by Grothman do suggest vitamin D deficiencies may have contributed to COVID-19 deaths in some countries. But many questions remain about the relationship between the two, and researchers say more work should be done to better understand it. Is Grothman right about the correlation? Grothman’s news release cited studies out of Northwestern University and Trinity College in Dublin that reached similar conclusions: Countries with more deaths from the virus, such as Spain and Italy, also had higher rates of vitamin D deficiencies. ""We saw a significant correlation with vitamin D deficiency,"" Vadim Backman, a Northwestern professor who helped author one study, told the university website Northwestern Now. Why look into vitamin D in the first place? Aside from building healthy bones, vitamin D can boost the immune system by suppressing what’s called a cytokine storm — severe inflammation that occurs when the immune system becomes overactive and releases too many cytokine proteins. Backman said cytokine storms may contribute to COVID-19 deaths because the storms can damage people’s lungs. An April 17, 2020 article on WebMD also indicated that patients with severe COVID-19 symptoms had high levels of cytokines in their system. The idea, then, is that vitamin D could suppress a catastrophic immune response and prevent people from developing severe COVID-19 symptoms that lead to death. ""It will not prevent a patient from contracting the virus, but it may reduce complications and prevent death in those who are infected,"" Backman said in the interview. Let’s return to Grothman. He did not say researchers found a connection, only a correlation between vitamin D levels and COVID-19 deaths. That’s on target. Vitamin D is by no means a cure for the virus, and Grothman conceded that we don’t yet know the extent of the relationship. In an interview with PolitiFact Wisconsin, Grothman reiterated his belief that federal agencies should further explore the issue. ""I think a lot of times, the CDC and (National Institutes of Health) and that crowd primarily focus on new drugs,"" he said. ""If you have something right under your nose, let’s go with it."" For now, researchers caution against reading too much into the available studies. J. Wesley Pike, a biochemistry professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said there is not enough proof yet to suggest a meaningful relationship between vitamin D and COVID-19. Researchers will need to conduct further studies to determine if that vitamin is effective in combating the coronavirus. ""There’s simply no evidence that taking vitamin D will protect you,"" Pike said. ""But again, we don’t know. The answer is it’s possible."" A group of researchers in Europe and the United Kingdom noted in a May 2020 paper that vitamin D supports the immune system and is recommended to help people maintain a healthy lifestyle. People can up their intake and avoid deficiencies through supplements, eating vitamin D-rich food and getting safe sunlight exposure. But vitamin D is not a ""magic bullet"" to prevent or treat COVID-19, they wrote, and should not be taken in excessive doses that could present their own health risks. Grothman claimed ""research illustrates a clear correlation between vitamin D deficiencies and (higher) COVID-19 mortality rates."" Early studies into vitamin D suggests it may curb the severity of COVID-19 symptoms and reduce mortality rates. Further research is needed to examine the issue, and vitamin D is not a cure for the coronavirus. But Grothman did not say it was a cure, only that there was a correlation. One expert noted the correlation was ""significant"" See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com"
10764	Some cocoa may improve brain blood flow	This story reports on a possible relationship between consumption of flavonoids, a compound found in cocoa and many other foods, and improved brain and cardiovascular health. Several lines of evidence are cited, but readers are given little information to determine whether this research is relevant to them. In addition, it is unclear if the cocoa products available to most Americans would improve their brain function at usual consumption patterns. The experts cited describe their own work accurately but do not help put this problem into perspective for the reader. The article attempts only a glancing critique of the evidence. Many of the purported benefits of flavanol-rich cocoa appear to have been investigated in studies at the low end of the quality spectrum. Though the details are fuzzy, the report of the Cuna tribe seems to provide data from an observational study, a type of research that can hint at risk factors for disease or the benefits of certain lifestyle–but is incapable of determining cause and effect and usually crude in its ability to sort out important confounding variables that might also account for long lives or healthy brains. Observational trials have led doctors to support longstanding medical practices that later proved to be useless or even harmful when they were examined in more rigorous studies (e.g. routinely prescribing estrogen therapy to prevent heart disease in postmenopausal women). A second study of Dutch men appears to have similar limitations. Two additional studies mentioned in the news story did not directly test people with dementia or cardiovascular problems. One was conducted in apparently healthy mice. The study about blood flow in healthy women not only needs to be reproduced in people suffering from dementia (as the story notes), but to be relevant must also show that the increased blood flow can actually prevent, slow, or turn back dementia itself. The story doesn’t mention other potential therapies for dementia or cardiovascular disease.	true		"The article does not mention costs of flavanol-rich cocoa or chocolate, nor does it compare their costs to other lifestyle or medical strategies for improving brain function and cardiovascular health. However, most people must recognize the generally-low cost of these products. The article is short on details about quantifying the potential benefits of flavanol-rich chocolate. Precisely how great are the observed changes in the various studies? How long-lasting is the effect? The article does not report on any specific side effects observed during these or other studies. However, it quotes a researcher speculating about a likely potential harm of eating chocolate—fattening up people with extra calories. The story also does not attempt to compare this potential harm to the known harms of other medical and surgical interventions for dementia or cardiovascular disease. The article summarizes the apparently unpublished studies and musings of researchers attending a major medical conference. It notes some reservations (implied or explicit) about two of the studies (i.e. that the ability of flavanols to increase blood flow in healthy subjects must still be tested in individuals suffering with dementia; and that improved blood pressure and lower death rates of Dutch men could have been due to characteristics other than nibbling chocolate). Other important limitations of the research go unmentioned. (See ""Summary"" below.) There are no obvious elements of disease-mongering. The article cites numerous researchers and their affiliations, including a note that some of their research is supported by the candy-maker Mars, Inc. There is no discussion of other treatment options for either dementia or cardiovascular disease. The news story explains that cocoa or chocolate rich in flavanol (the ingredient purported to improve brain function and cardiovascular health) is not widely available in American stores. The article rightly notes that “cocoa long has been studied for potential medical benefits.” We can’t be sure whether the article relied solely or largely on a press release."
7411	Drug shows promise against vision-robbing disease in seniors.	An experimental drug is showing promise against an untreatable eye disease that blinds older adults — and intriguingly, it seems to work in patients who carry a particular gene flaw that fuels the damage to their vision.	true	Seniors, Health, Macular degeneration, Genetic Frontiers, North America, Politics	Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is the leading cause of vision loss among seniors, gradually eroding crucial central vision. There are different forms but more than 5 million people worldwide, and a million in the U.S., have an advanced type of so-called “dry” macular degeneration that has no treatment. First patients may notice blurriness when they look straight ahead. Eventually many develop blank spots, becoming legally blind. “These are seniors who are entering their golden years and now they’ve lost the ability to read, watch television, see their loved ones,” said Dr. Rahul Khurana, a retina specialist and spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. The experimental drug, lampalizumab, aims to slow the destruction of light-sensing cells in the retina, creeping lesions that characterize the stage of dry AMD called “geographic atrophy.” When those cells die, they can’t grow back — the vision loss is irreversible. WHAT THE RESEARCH FOUND In an 18-month study of 129 patients, monthly eye injections of the drug modestly slowed worsening of the disease when compared with patients given dummy shots. What’s exciting for scientists came next, when researchers from drugmaker Genentech Inc. took a closer look at exactly who was being helped. It turns out that nearly 6 in 10 of the study’s participants carry a gene variation that makes part of the immune system go awry — a genetic flaw already known to increase the risk of getting macular degeneration in the first place. Those are the only patients who appeared to benefit from the drug; they had 44 percent less eye damage than the untreated patients, the Genentech team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. While the study is too small to prove if lampalizumab really helps maintain vision, that’s a bigger difference than the overall results suggested. WHY WOULD AN IMMUNE-RELATED GENE AFFECT AGING EYES? One arm of the immune system, the complement pathway, helps fight infections by attracting immune cells to attack bacteria. Normally, there’s a barrier that keeps such cells away from the retina. But that barrier can break down with age, opening sensitive eye cells to harm from the spillover, explained Genentech immunologist Menno van Lookeren Campagne. Now for the gene connection: Previous studies have linked macular degeneration to gene variations that remove some of that pathway’s natural brakes, so it can become too active. The hypothesis: Genentech’s drug, lampalizumab, essentially offers a backup method for tamping down the immune reaction. An antibody, it works by inhibiting a particular enzyme named factor D that helps power the immune pathway. “We try to reinsert the braking ability,” said study lead author Brian Yaspan, a Genentech senior scientist. WHAT’S NEXT Wednesday’s study detected no safety concerns, clearing the way for Genentech and its parent company Roche to open two large-scale studies that aim to prove if the drug works. Results are expected later this year. The current research sheds light on how that long-suspected immune culprit might be working, and is “the first suggestion that there may be a treatment for geographic atrophy coming up in the future,” said National Eye Institute retina specialist Dr. Wai Wong, who wasn’t involved in the study. “It’s a very, very exciting study,” said Khurana, the ophthalmologist association’s spokesman, who also wasn’t part of the research. “From the basic science perspective, it makes a lot of sense.” HEALTH ADVICE FOR NOW Macular degeneration tends to occur after age 60, but it sometimes strikes earlier. According to the National Eye Institute, it’s less common in people who exercise regularly, avoid smoking, and eat a diet high in green leafy vegetables and fish. Symptoms often aren’t noticeable early on. But several eye tests can detect signs of macular degeneration, including a dilated eye exam and a tool called an Amsler grid with straight lines that may look wavy if the macula, the center of the retina, is harmed. Macular degeneration patients often are advised to take certain vitamin combinations that may help stave off advanced disease. And it’s important for patients to know what type they have. While there’s no treatment for the advanced dry form, the “wet” form occurs when leaky blood vessels grow under the retina — and there are several therapies that can help those patients preserve vision. ___ 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.
10706	Limits of New Screen for Heart Disease	This story reported on a study which found that using coronary CT angiography to screen for heart disease did not result in improved outcomes for patients during the 18 months in which they were studied. It could have emphasized that neither this CT test – nor traditional cardiac catheterization – is recommended for the kinds of people evaluated in this South Korean study. And it should have discussed the potential harms of the newer test – thereby missing the punchline that Reuters delivered: “Testing might lead to more harm than good.” The story offered the context that “The study of CCTA screening comes as medical experts are re-evaluating the frequency and usefulness of other types of health screening, including mammographies for women and PSA testing for prostate cancer in men.”	true	heart disease,Screening,Wall Street Journal	The story provided information about the costs for the test. The story indicated that 215 individuals who were screened were identified as having heart disease and received additional testing and treatment. Nonetheless, there was no statistical benefit between the groups of healthy individuals who did and did not undergo a CCTA test. The CCTA test was reported as a non-invasive alternative to angiography. But there was no mention of the harms associated with this test which includes radiation exposure, which is higher than that associated with angiography; the potential for allergic reaction to the material injected to allow the vessels to be seen; and the potential for there to be harms from following up on something seen on the CCTA which turns out to be nothing. (A sad, but fascinating case report can be found in the Archives of Internal Medicine Dec 14, 2010) The story provided information about the study reported on including the number of people in the study, a little about those studied (i.e. these were people in South Korea around 50 years of age participating in a health screening) and that they were followed for a period of 18 months. The outcomes reported were that one person in the non-tested group had a fatal heart attack, and that one person in the tested group developed symptomatic heart disease. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. The first author of the study reported on and the author of the editorial about that study appear to have been interviewed for this piece. The story indicated that the CCTA was a possible non-invasive alternative to a cardiac catheterization. While this may be true in certain circumstances, neither test is recommended for the population of individuals who were in the study. That point could have been emphasized more clearly. The story could have reported on the fact that the researchers did not report the effect of coronary calcium scores (information that the researchers collected but did not feed back to patients and providers); that is the test most often touted for coronary heart disease screening in asymptomatic people. The story indicated that the test is available in the U.S. and is being used with increasing frequency. It is actually not clear how often it is being used – the article said “Some anecdotal evidence suggests such screening is happening and becoming more common.” The story reported that CCTA use is becoming more common, though it is not currently recommended for use in people without symptoms to screen for heart disease. Does not appear to rely on a news release.
139	Cracks in Purdue's proposed opioid settlement as Arizona backs out.	The U.S. state of Arizona withdrew its support for a proposed nationwide opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma LP, saying the maker of OxyContin sought to “undermine material terms of the deal,” according to a court filing on Monday.	true	Health News	Since Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September, Arizona is the first state to switch sides in the looming showdown over the privately-held company’s proposed settlement, which it has estimated is worth more than $10 billion. Purdue reached the deal last month with 24 states and the local governments that have filed the bulk of the more than 2,600 lawsuits against the company. The lawsuits allege Purdue and its Sackler family owners contributed to a public health crisis by aggressively marketing opioids while downplaying their addiction and overdose risks, which contributed to nearly 400,000 deaths since 1999, according to U.S. statistics. “Purdue and the Sackler family need to take responsibility for their role in the opioid crisis,” said Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said in a statement. Purdue declined to comment. Last week, court filings from states and local governments opposing the settlement asserted that Purdue steered up to $13 billion in profits to the Sackler family, more than triple the amount previously cited in litigation. A lawyer for some of the Sacklers last week said in a statement that much of the money was paid in taxes and reinvested in businesses that will be sold as part of the proposed settlement. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, will on Friday consider Purdue’s request for an injunction to pause the litigation for about nine months. Purdue said it needs time to try to settle the remaining cases. Purdue also asked Drain to shield the Sacklers from litigation, even though they have not filed for bankruptcy, partly because the family has proposed contributing at least $3 billion toward the settlement. Opponents of the settlement accused the family of using Purdue’s bankruptcy to shield their wealth from victims. With Arizona, 25 states now oppose the deal. Kentucky and Oklahoma reached prior settlements with Purdue. Separately on Tuesday, a Massachusetts judge ruled against the Sacklers, who sought to have the state’s lawsuit against them dismissed. The judge rejected their argument they did not personally participate in Purdue’s conduct. Massachusetts was the first state to sue the Sacklers and Attorney General Maura Healey is leading the opposition to the proposed settlement.
29869	Jared Michelle sold his testicles to raise money in support of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.	While we’ve encountered a number of legends about people selling their organs (including testicles) to medical schools for profit, these stories are generally false as the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 prohibits the sale of human organs in the U.S.	false	Junk News	In March 2019, the NPC Daily website published an article reporting that a 28-year-old man named Jared Michelle had sold his testicles in order to raise money in support of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign: Bernie Sanders is breaking records left and right. When it comes to the rate at raising money for his campaign, he takes the cake hands down. He announced a matter of weeks ago and he is already at nearly 30 million in donations — most of which coming from millennials donating everything they have for the cause they believe in. NPC Daily has reported stories of forward-thinking liberals who have donated their entire student loans to the Bernie Sanders campaign, some who have took out multiple mortgages on their property as well as some who have donated their family’s money. There have been numerous millennials who have sold their organs such as kidneys, liver parts, skin grafts and hundreds of thousands of gallons of blood. This report is gathered from the quote of a brave millennial who sold both of his testicles to raise money for the Bernie Sander’s 2020 campaign. This was not a genuine news story, as the NPC Daily is a satirical website that does not publish factual items. A disclaimer on the website’s “About” page states that “NPC Daily is a satire site, providing political and cultural commentary with wanton sarcasm. NPC Daily pokes fun of modern journalism and liberalism. If you believe one of our articles is real, it’s because the content is not too far adrift from what is published by mainstream news outlets. But, alas, our content is totally fictitious and is created to elicit laughs and bemusement.” The picture of the brave” Jared Michelle that accompanied the article was actually a stock photograph of “man wearing sunglasses.”
30832	"The photographer of the infamous Al Franken image said that the moment was staged, that Leeann Tweeden ""was playing dead,"" and that ""she wanted him to ‘revive’ her."	The person who took the picture of Al Franken and Leeann Tweeden has not been identified, nor have they issued a statement regarding the incident. Which means there is no credible claim the image was staged, that Tweeden was “playing dead,” or that “she wanted him to ‘revive’ her” in the picture. This quote was made up out of the whole cloth in an apparent attempt to discredit Tweeden and her account.	false	Fauxtography, aiden benjamin, al franken, fake quote	How do you defend the indefensible? One way, apparently, is to make up a fake quote. In an apparent effort to discredit Leaann Tweeden, the woman who accused Senator Al Franken of groping her during her 2006 USO tour, a quote ostensibly uttered by the photographer who snapped the infamous image was circulated on social media: BREAKING NOW: Al Franken photo staged according to photographer who took the photo. Photographer: [S]he was playing dead and SHE wanted him to ‘revive’ her. I took the picture it was a funny moment everyone was smiling having a good time Leeann Tweeden is a trump supporter. This is not a genuine quote from the photographer who took the infamous picture. This quote was posted to Twitter by “Aiden Benjamin” on 16 November 2017 along with an unrelated picture of Tweeden in a bikini: Although Benjamin claims in his bio that he is a writer of “REAL NEWS. REAL FACTS,” he didn’t cite any source information for this quote. In fact, when he was pressed on the issue, he pointed to Al Franken’s statement of apology: Franken’s statement, however, does not contain a quote from the alleged photographer. Furthermore, Benjamin seems to be conflating two separate incidents. Tweeden named two occasions in which she felt violated by Franken. One occurred during the rehearsal of a skit, and another when this picture was taken while she slept: He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth. I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time. I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth. I felt disgusted and violated. But he didn’t stop there. The tour wrapped and on Christmas Eve we began the 36-hour trip home to L.A. After 2 weeks of grueling travel and performing I was exhausted. When our C-17 cargo plane took off from Afghanistan I immediately fell asleep, even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet. It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one: I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep. I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny? This image was not staged (at least not to Tweeden’s knowledge or consent), nor was it taken during the rehearsal of the USO skit. Tweeden stated that this picture was taken “without my consent” and “while I was asleep.” It is highly unlikely that a genuine quote from the person who took this photograph is currently available, as the photographer’s identity is unknown at the time of this writing. It was initially reported (in a since deleted tweet) that Franken’s brother may have been the one who took the picture, but Owen Franken denied this. It should also be noted that the Twitter account that posted this fake quote has pushed misinformation before. And while we can’t definitively say what motivated them to spread this fake quote, we can say that pointing to a woman’s sexual history or clothing choices (which this account did by including an unrelated picture of Tweeden in a bikini), is a common tactic used to prevent women from coming forward with stories of sexual abuse by laying the blame on the victim and saying, without saying, that the victim “deserved” to be assaulted.
5562	After baby death, mother calls for changes at Salem Hospital.	An Oregon mother who watched her 7-week-old baby die of meningitis is calling for changes at a hospital from which the child was initially discharged.	true	Meningitis, Health, Salem, Oregon	Ginger McCall said her daughter was discharged from Salem Hospital’s emergency room with what staff said was a routine infection, the Salem Statesman Journal reported . Hours later, the girl’s vital signs crashed. She died two days later. “My hope is that something good can come out of this,” McCall said. “What I want the most is to raise awareness so this doesn’t happen to anyone else.” Salem Hospital officials cited privacy concerns in declining comment on the death. “This is a heartbreaking loss, and Salem Health offers its deepest condolences,” officials said in statement. McCall is an attorney and state official who works as Oregon’s public record advocate. Her daughter, Evianna Rose Quintero-McCall, came down with a fever on March 15, McCall said. She cried a weak, moaning cry, which McCall later learned is a sign of Group B strep meningitis. McCall and her mother-in-law rushed the baby to Salem Hospital. She was given Tylenol and sent home. McCall wishes that she would have known to insist on a meningitis test, she said, or that she had driven to OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland, where the infection might have been recognized. “There’s a stereotype of a hysterical, panicked, first-time mom, and that probably affected the situation,” McCall said. She told staff she tested positive for Strep B while pregnant. Expectant mothers are typically tested for the Group B strep infection and treated with antibiotics. However, the bacterial infection can be passed to babies. A few hours after leaving the emergency room, McCall brought her baby to her pediatrician. After the baby threw up, the doctor told her to rush back to the emergency room and he called to alert hospital staff. A flurry of activity followed and the baby was transported by ambulance to OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. She died March 17. “They did their very best, but by the time she got there, it was just too late,” McCall said. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,100 cases of bacterial meningitis, and 500 deaths, are reported on average every year. Babies can contract meningitis at birth, through the air from people coughing and sneezing, or from contaminated food. McCall wants parents to know the warning signs. “I hope they will strongly advocate for themselves and their children,” she said. “I hope they will appreciate every moment they have with their children.” Her main hope is for hospital staff to become better educated about meningitis symptoms, she said, and for hospitals to change their protocol. “I would like if for them to be trained to recognize the signs of this because it is so catastrophic and it happens so fast,” she said. “Every minute matters.” ___ Information from: Statesman Journal, http://www.statesmanjournal.com
28574	List describes the duties and obligations of honor guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.	Although serving as President of the United States qualifies one to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, only two former Presidents are interred there: William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy.	mixture	Military, arlington, tomb of the unknown soldier	As a society, we have long observed traditional, solemn funereal ceremonies as a means of remembering, honoring, and mourning those who have passed on from this life to whatever lies beyond. As a nation, we observe some very formalized rituals as a means of affording our very highest honors to members of the armed forces who have died in the service of their country, particularly those who have fallen in wartime. Military funerals with honor guards, flag-draped coffins, salutes, and burials in cemeteries set aside for veterans are all symbols by which we honor and acknowledge our gratitude to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. There is perhaps no more potent symbol of this sacrifice than the “unknown soldier,” the serviceman who has died in combat but whose remains are not identifiable. He cannot be returned to his home, his friends and loved ones cannot know for certain how or when (or even if) he died, he cannot be placed to rest in a site of his own choosing. He remains, perpetually, a soldier who not only gave up his life for his country, but his very identity as well. That loss of identity makes the unknown soldier a powerful symbol, however — because he is no longer an individual, he stands for the purest ideals of courage, valor, and sacrifice and serves as a noble and selfless representation of service to one’s country. We acknowledge our unidentified fallen heroes with a special place of reverence in our most honored of burial grounds: the Tomb of the Unknowns (also known as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) in Arlington National Cemetery (ANC), where in 1921 we first laid to rest “In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God.” Although we cannot inter all of our unidentifed war dead in Arlington, we nonetheless honor them all by including the remains of three representative soldiers of unknown identity who died in foreign wars (World War I, World War II, and the Korean War) there. (Beginning in 1984 the tomb also held the remains of a serviceman killed in the Vietnam War, but after DNA testing confirmed his identity in 1998, his remains were disinterred and returned to his family. The crypt of the Vietnam Unknown has remained empty ever since.) The most visible honorific symbol associated with the Tomb of the Unknowns is that the site is guarded around the clock, every day of the year, by specially trained members of the Third United States Infantry Regiment (also known as the “Old Guard“). The Sentinels who guard the Tomb must be exemplary in discipline, dress, and bearing; thoroughly knowlegeable with the history of their unit, the Tomb of the Unknowns, Arlington National Cemetery (and those interred there), and the U.S. Army; and able to execute a variety of ceremonial rites flawlessly and with precision. Someone apparently wanted to highlight the special qualities and training required to be a guard at Tomb of the Unknowns by creating a message that became widely circulated online: HONOR GUARD AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE TOMB OF THE UNKNOWNS 1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? 21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary. 2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why? 21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1. 3. Why are his gloves wet? His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle. 4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time, and if not, why not? He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb After his march across the path, he executes an about face, and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder. 5. How often are the guards changed? Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. 6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to? For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 2″ tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30.” Other requirements of the Guard: They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform {fighting} or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin. The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror. The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis (the boxer), and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy (the most decorated soldier of WWII) of Hollywood fame. Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty. This list is a mixture of fact and fiction, which we attempt to sort out below: 1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? 21 steps. It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute, which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitary. The guards do make 21-step walks past the Tomb of the Unknowns because 21 is considered a number of special significance, a topic discussed on our page about the origins of the 21-gun salute. 2. How long does he hesitate after his about face to begin his return walk and why? 21 seconds for the same reason as answer number 1. This is a somewhat true but incomplete statement. The guard does not execute an about-face, and there is more involved in the procedure than is described here. As another site describes the process, the guard performs his movements according to the following pattern: 3. Why are his gloves wet? His gloves are moistened to prevent his losing his grip on the rifle. According to the FAQ on the web site of the Society of the Honor Guard — Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, this is correct. 4. Does he carry his rifle on the same shoulder all the time, and if not, why not? He carries the rifle on the shoulder away from the tomb After his march across the path, he executes an about face, and moves the rifle to the outside shoulder. As noted above, the guard shifts his rifle prior to each 21-step walk to ensure that it is always carried on his outside shoulder, the one away from the Tomb (“to signify that the sentinel stands between the tomb and any threat”). 5. How often are the guards changed? Guards are changed every thirty minutes, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. From 1926 through 1937, the Tomb was guarded only during daylight hours. Ever since 1937, the Tomb has been continuously guarded 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Tomb guards are changed every thirty minutes between 8 AM and 7 PM during the period from early Spring to early Autumn (April 1 through September 30), and every hour between 8 AM to 5 PM the rest of the year. At all other times (i.e., while the cemetery is closed), the guard is changed every two hours. 6. What are the physical traits of the guard limited to? For a person to apply for guard duty at the tomb, he must be between 5′ 10″ and 6′ 2″ tall and his waist size cannot exceed 30. This is also true, according to the ANC web site, which notes that “Each soldier must be in superb physical condition, possess an unblemished military record and be between 5 feet, 10 inches and 6 feet, 4 inches tall, with a proportionate weight and build.” They must commit 2 years of life to guard the tomb, live in a barracks under the tomb, and cannot drink any alcohol on or off duty for the rest of their lives. Even the Old Guard doesn’t regulate the off-duty lives of its members so stringently! Sentinels at the Tomb do not have to commit to serving there for any fixed period of time, and the average tour of duty is only about half the two year period claimed here. Like most servicemen, Tomb guards may live either on-base (at nearby Fort Myer) or off-base in housing of their choosing. There are no restrictions on guards’ off-duty drinking. They cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives and cannot disgrace the uniform (fighting) or the tomb in any way. After two years, the guard is given a wreath pin that is worn on their lapel signifying they served as guard of the tomb. There are only 400 presently worn. The guard must obey these rules for the rest of their lives or give up the wreath pin. The Tomb Guard Identification Badge, first awarded in 1957, is a honor for which a guard qualifies by “flawlessly performing his duty for several months” and passing a test, not something simply handed out to everyone who serves for a given period of time: Once the sentinel has completed his or her training, he or she is examined formally for proficiency in performing the duties and in knowledge of ANC. He or she must first pass a written examination of 100 questions about ANC and then be evaluated on proficiency in keeping watch at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Upon successful completion, the soldier is awarded a temporary Tomb Guard’s Badge at a ceremony presided over by the company commander. The Badge is one of the Army’s higher honors and can be taken away from the soldier if he or she does not continue to maintain the highest military standards. The 500th Tomb Guard Identification Badge was awarded in early 2002, and the total number of recipients is now about 525. The award is, as its name states, a badge worn on the pocket of a uniform jacket, not a pin worn in the lapel. Although the claim that guards “cannot swear in public for the rest of their lives” is fallacious, there is some truth to the notion that the Tomb Guard Identification Badge can be taken away, even after the recipient has left the service. According to Old Guard Public Affairs: The Tomb Guard Identification Badge is one of the least awarded badges in the Army, second only to the Astronaut Badge. Since the sentinels are held to such a high standard, if they ever do anything that is deemed behavior unbecoming a Tomb Guard or brings dishonor upon the Tomb, their badges may be revoked, even after [the sentinels] have left active duty military service. As of early 2002, there had been nine revocations of the Tomb Guard Identification Badge. The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror. The FAQ at www.tombguard.org also addresses this topic: The shoes are specially made with very thick soles to keep the heat and cold from their feet. There are metal heel plates that extend to the top of the shoe in order to make the loud click as they come to a halt. There are no wrinkles, folds or lint on the uniform. Guards dress for duty in front of a full-length mirror. The shoes are standard issue military dress shoes. They are built up so the sole and heel are equal in height. This allows the Sentinel to stand so that his back is straight and perpendicular to the ground. A side effect of this is that the Sentinel can “roll” on the outside of the build up as he walks down the mat. This allows him to move in a fluid fashion. If he does this correctly, his hat and bayonet will appear to not “bob” up and down with each step. It gives him a more formal and smooth look to his walk, rather than a “marching” appearance. The soles have a steel tip on the toe and a “horseshoe” steel plate on the heel. This prevents wear on the sole and allows the Sentinel to move smoothly during his movements when he turns to face the Tomb and then back down the mat. The first six months of duty a guard cannot talk to anyone, nor watch TV. All off duty time is spent studying the 175 notable people laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. A guard must memorize who they are and where they are interred. Every guard spends five hours a day getting his uniforms ready for guard duty. A Tomb guard’s behavior is not so stringently regulated that he is prohibited from speaking to anyone for a full six months (someone seems to have confused the Old Guard with a monastery! ), and guards may do whatever they want (including watching TV) during their off-duty hours. But since any soldier wishing to become a sentinel must undergo rigorous training, including several hours a day of marching, rifle drill and uniform preparation, and every tomb sentinel is expected to be completely versed in the history of both the tomb and of Arlington National Cemetery (including knowing how to find the graves of all the prominent person buried in the cemetery), they don’t necessarily have a lot of free time to devote to recreational activities. Among the notables are: President Taft, Joe E. Lewis (the boxer), and Medal of Honor winner Audie Murphy (the most decorated soldier of WWII) of Hollywood fame. Joe Louis (aka “The Brown Bomber”), Heavyweight Champion of the World between 1937 and 1949, is the boxer interred at Arlington National Cemetery. (Joe E. Lewis, the comedian, is buried in New Jersey.) Although Joe Louis served in the Army during World War II he did not meet the technical requirements for burial at Arlington, but he is interred there because President Reagan waived the requirements when Louis died in 1981. We close here with a bit of trivia suggested by the above item:
256	Godzilla: from radioactive colossus to unlikely climate hero.	Ever since Godzilla first rampaged across cinema screens 65 years ago, film critics have seen the reptilian anti-hero as a symbol of the fears gnawing away in the deepest recesses of movie-goers’ minds.	true	Environment	With the giant lizard’s return in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, launched in cinemas at the weekend, reviewers are parsing the blockbuster for insights into the world’s paralysis in the face of climate breakdown. “It would be a mistake to dismiss Godzilla: King of the Monsters as mindless pap or escapist fantasy,” wrote anthropologist Nathaniel J. Dominy and biologist Ryan Calsbeek, both from Dartmouth, in the journal Science. “What began as a pointed anti-nuclear fable has since evolved into a broader allegory for human folly and our reckless disregard for the natural environment.” Godzilla earned its reputation as a bellwether of collective anxiety soon after Japanese director Ishiro Honda first depicted the dinosaur-like creature in his 1954 film ‘Gojira’ — a nickname derived from the Japanese words for gorilla and whale. In Honda’s film, a radioactive, 50-metre tall Godzilla lays waste to Tokyo after being awakened from the deep by underwater nuclear tests. Released barely a decade after atom bombs obliterated Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the film was a tacit reflection of Japan’s shared wartime trauma. In King of the Monsters, directed by Michael Dougherty, an embittered former British army colonel, played by Charles Dance, believes modern civilization is on track to wipe out all life on the planet. The colonel and his paramilitary team go on a mission to release gargantuan mutant ‘Titans’ from their resting places to try to tip the scales back into Earth’s favor. No longer the enemy who once delighted in toppling Japanese skyscrapers, Godzilla is cast as an unlikely eco-warrior battling to defeat the Titan menace — led by the three-headed King Ghidorah — and save humanity from itself. Film critics say the devastating elemental forces unleashed by the Titans in the 35th Godzilla film hold up a mirror to real-world fears of wildfires, super-storms and floods caused by growing man-made instability in Earth’s atmosphere. “Dougherty’s film recalls America’s present-day anxieties over increasingly intense weather patterns tearing across the country from coast to coast,” culture writer Andy Crump observed in a review in The Week. Although post-apocalyptic climate scenarios have been a staple of the ‘cli-fi’ genre for years — notable examples include The Day After Tomorrow and Mad Max: Fury Road — Godzilla has returned against a uniquely febrile backdrop. With hundreds of thousands of teen climate activists marching in cities across the world, and Extinction Rebellion bringing parts of London to a standstill in April, a new awareness of the crisis is seeping into mainstream culture. While nobody pretends that a movie can directly deliver cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, fiction can serve as a vehicle to help communities face up to crises that might otherwise seem too overwhelming to contemplate. “We need to engage with the reality of climate change in order to deal with it,” said Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist who lectures at the University of Bath in southwest England, and is a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance. “The monster gives us a metaphor, a narrative through which we can do that.” While the new Godzilla film has been panned in some quarters, Zhiwa Woodbury, author of a book on the psychology of the climate emergency, sees King of the Monsters as Hollywood’s most profound ‘cli-fi’ contribution to date. By including a sequence where Godzilla is once more roused by an undersea nuclear blast, Woodbury says the film is asking audiences to heal the rupture in mankind’s relationship with the natural world that occurred at the dawn of the atomic age. “Godzilla is spot-on in asking us to face our inner demons,” Woodbury wrote on his EcoPsychology NOW! blog. “Only then can we hope to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of the petrochemical age, and regenerate our world on a path of climate recovery.”
2109	Nurses as good as doctors in AIDS care monitoring.	Nurses are as good as doctors at monitoring treatment for AIDS patients, and shifting this role to them could help ease a critical shortage of health workers, experts said on Wednesday.	true	Health News	A study into so-called “task-shifting” in HIV care in South Africa found virtually no difference in outcomes for patients taking AIDS drugs under the care of a nurse or a doctor. South Africa, where HIV/AIDS kills an estimated 1,000 people a day, has the world’s largest national program of treatment with antiretroviral drugs, but has only 17.4 medical practitioners for every 100,000 people, according to the study. The United Nations estimates that 33 million people around the world are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and more than half of the 9.5 million people who need AIDS drugs cannot get them. That problem is compounded by a global shortage of 4.3 million healthcare workers. The World Health Organization recently proposed “task-shifting” from doctors to other health-care workers. To see if this strategy would pay off, a team from the Comprehensive International Program for Research in AIDS in South Africa compared the outcomes of nurse versus doctor management for patients in two clinics between 2005 and 2007. They found that 48 percent of patients had treatment failure in the nurse group, compared with 44 percent in the doctor group. After two years, deaths and outcomes such as drug toxicity side effects or drop-out were also similar.
18515	"Under Obamacare, Virginia taxpayers would have been ""forced to pay for abortions"" if the General Assembly had not recently intervened."	Swiss drugmaker Novartis on Friday stepped up its challenge to Roche’s multiple sclerosis franchise, highlighting study results for its MS hopeful ofatumumab that could compete with its cross-town rival’s drug Ocrevus.	false	Abortion, Health Care, Taxes, Virginia, Virginia Society for Human Life,	Novartis said ofatumumab, already approved as Arzerra to treat leukemia, reduced annual relapses better than Sanofi’s Aubagio in two head-to-head late-stage studies against relapsing forms of MS (RMS). Detailed study results are due at an MS conference in Sweden next month. Novartis said it plans to start asking health authorities for approvals by the end of the year. Novartis shares rose 1.7% by 0845 GMT, compared with a rise of 0.5% in the European drugs sector index. The company’s real target with ofatumumab is Ocrevus, the $2.4 billion-per-year MS blockbuster that Roche has said is its most successful drug launch ever. Ofatumumab and Ocrevus work similarly by targeting the immune system’s B cells that damage nerve tissue, potentially putting the drugs on course for head-to-head competition when doctors choose which one to prescribe. Novartis managers have highlighted ofatumumab’s prospects against Ocrevus, pointing to its monthly home injections as a convenient option for patients who with Ocrevus get twice-yearly infusions at clinics. “If approved, ofatumumab will potentially become a treatment for a broad RMS population and the first B-cell therapy that can be self-administered at home,” said Novartis. The company is also repurposing Arzerra for MS as it seeks to strengthen its neurological drugs business, which already includes older MS drugs Gilenya and recently approved Mayzent. Across the Rhine River from Novartis’s Basel campus, Roche drugs division head Bill Anderson has countered Novartis’s ofatumumab offensive, saying rivals’ attempts to move in on the MS drugs market had only boosted its own sales, helping it to capture a 17% market share. Anderson has said that since Novartis’s Mayzent launch in March, Ocrevus has actually gained market share. Zuercher Kantonalbank analysts highlighted Novartis’s progress in advancing an Ocrevus rival, but also saw shortcomings. They pointed out that the studies compared ofatumumab not to Roche’s drug, but to Sanofi’s Aubagio, whose annual sales after seven years on the market are 1.65 billion euros ($1.84 billion). “It would have been better to see a direct comparison between two MS drugs with the same mechanism of action,” ZKB’s Michael Nawrath wrote. “As it stands, we’ll only be able to make an indirect comparison of the data to predict whether the Novartis drug will be a threat to the market leader and, at this time, the best MS medicine, Ocrevus.” Nawrath rates Novartis “overweight.” In addition to relapsing MS, Ocrevus is the only approved treatment for primary progressive MS characterized by steady advance of debilitating symptoms, rather than periodic flare-ups.
26738	Starting in March if you travel outside of the United States you won’t be allowed back in the country “due to high risk of the coronavirus.”	International travel has been suspended or reduced to and from certain “high-risk” countries and there are new screening procedures. There is currently no mandate that states Americans are barred from returning to the U.S. from anywhere overseas.	false	Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,	"Concerns about the novel coronavirus run aplenty on Facebook, leading in some cases to bulletins on U.S. travel restrictions. One post on Facebook claims that, starting in March 2020, if you travel outside of the United States you won’t be allowed back in the country ""due to the high risk"" of COVID-19. The post, shared on Feb. 27, says: ""STARTING NEXT WEEK MARCH 3/2020!!!!!! ""IF YOU LEAVE ANYWHERE OUTSIDE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED BACK INTO THE UNITED STATES DUE TO HIGH RISK OF THE Coronavirus so if anyone is planning a big trip or cruise please be aware!!!!!!"" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There is no evidence of a sweeping travel restriction that would bar an American citizen from re-entering the U.S. after traveling internationally. So far the U.S. government has taken much more limited action out of concern for COVID-19. There are new travel advisories, different rules in place for foreign nationals and new screening procedures. As of March 5, 2020, the State Department recommends that people not travel to China or Iran and reconsider travel to South Korea, Italy and Mongolia. Advisories for each location –– like this one for Italy –– provide additional details on specific areas of the country and health information for that area. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends people avoid all nonessential travel to those same countries and has a coronavirus-related travel page that provides guidance for international travelers. There are new screening procedures for people arriving to the U.S. from ""high-risk countries."" Foreign nationals who have spent the past 14 days in either China or Iran will not be permitted inside the country, according to the CDC. The rules are different for U.S. citizens. They may be subject to health monitoring after leaving either of those countries. Several airlines have suspended or reduced operations to certain locations due to concerns for COVID-19 and reduced demand. American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are both halting flights to and from Milan, Italy, as well as several airports in or around China. Both airlines also announced a reduction in service between the U.S. and South Korea. United Airlines made similar changes, suspending operations to and from several Chinese airports, including Beijing and Shanghai, and Hong Kong. This sweeping claim exaggerates current coronavirus-related travel restrictions and omits critical information."
11562	Drug shows promise treating breast cancer	Recently completed clinical trials have shown that zolendric acid, marketed as Zometa, may help prevent recurrence of early stage breast cancer and may reduce the risk of metastasis to the bone when given in addition to conventional therapies. This drug also prevents bone loss that is associated with cancer treatment. The potential benefits of zolendric acid are important and could point to a new treatment strategy that is more effective and has fewer side effects than current options. This article communicates information about ongoing investigation of the use of zolendric acid at a high level. However, the story is brief – 405 words – and omits key details and facts about the drug and ongoing research that are needed to provide the reader a complete and informed story. It would be useful to the reader to present some of the downsides of treatment, including a potentially long and costly duration of treatment. The story also should have explained who is likely to benefit based on who was included in the trials. No independent source was interviewed; someone needed to address the researcher’s claim that the drug might someday be used in all women with breast cancer.	mixture		"Cost of the drug, approximately $1,200 per treatment (including physician fees), is not mentioned in this article. Information from Zometa’s manufacturer, Novartis, indicates that the drug is given by infusion every three to four weeks. Cost-effectiveness has not been widely researched. Some studies suggests that zolendric acid is a relatively expensive therapy, as is the case for many agents used in oncology. This article does not quantify the benefits of treatment. (Also see Evidence comments.) This article indicates that zolendric acid has few side effects and that those are temporary and occur after the drug is administered intravenously. Ideally this information would be provided by an expert instead of from a patient interview. However, research does support the patient’s statements that zolendric acid is well-tolerated but side effects can include bone pain and a temporary but acute reaction when the drug is administered. This article briefly mentions two recent studies that indicate zolendric acid may lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence and metastases. However, it provides no details of these and does not report other effects of the drug in counteracting bone loss that occurs from the use of traditional adjuvant therapies for breast cancer. This article indicated that length of treatment in the on-going study was 2 1/2 years. Preliminary studies have administered the drug for five years. No overt disease mongering. Only one source was interviewed – an investigator in the trials. No independent experts were interviewed for balance. The article also does not adequately document its sources. For example, the journals in which recent studies have been published were not mentioned. This article does not describe conventional breast cancer treatments other than a brief mention of chemotherapy. The story was vague about specifics of who would likely qualify and at what point in treatment this decision would be addressed. The physician quote – """"From what we can tell right now, this could potentially be applied to all women"" with breast cancer"" – has not been substantiated by available research and should have been addressed by an independent expert. This article clearly states that Zometa (zolendric acid) is being tested as a new treatment for breast cancer. It states the approved uses for the drug in treating high blood levels of calcium, often caused by cancerous tumors, and for the treatment of osteoporosis. (See Costs of Treatment comments.) The story appropriately portrayed the research on zolendric acid for this indication as novel. We can’t be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release. We do know that the story included quotes from only one researcher."
28329	Singer Olivia Newton-John hovers close to death due to a recurring bout of cancer and has only weeks to live.	"What's true: Olivia Newton-John has suffered recurring bouts of cancer since 1992 and she is still undergoing treatment after the most recent diagnosis of stage 4 cancer in 2017, which included the discovery of a tumor on her spine. What's false: The singer's representatives and family members have denied rumors that she is ""clinging to life"" and say Newton-John remains in good health overall."	mixture	Entertainment, radar online	Fans of 70-year-old pop singer Olivia Newton-John, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 and survived two recurrences of the disease (the latest in 2017), were shocked and dismayed to read in late December 2018 that she was “clinging to life,” with only days or weeks to live. The report was published on the tabloid-style celebrity news and gossip website Radar Online, which attributed the information to an anonymous source close to the singer: Ravaged by a spreading and incurable cancer, songbird Olivia Newton-John is clinging to life in the hopes she can see her only child, Chloe Lattanzi, marry in the new year! “Olivia’s bodily functions appear to be shutting down, but she refuses to let go until she makes it through Chloe’s wedding day!” a source exclusively spilled to RadarOnline.com. Insiders revealed the 70-year-old “Grease” icon, who was hit with a devastating stage 4 cancer diagnosis in 2017, has continued to stun doctors by staving off what is almost a definite death sentence! But although Newton-John confirmed in September 2017 that she was undergoing radiation therapy and “natural treatments” for stage 4 breast cancer that had metastasized to her spine, she said at the time that she was “doing really well” and her outlook was positive. The American Cancer Society says patients with stage 4 breast cancer have an estimated five-year survival rate of 22 percent. During a September 2018 interview on Australian television, Newton-John was shown walking the grounds of her Santa Barbara ranch and, although she appeared somewhat delicate, evinced no obvious signs of being at death’s door. In point of fact, said Newton-John’s niece, Tottie Goldsmith, in response to the tabloid rumors, the singer is in “really good health.” Goldsmith’s comments to Australia’s Seven network and via Instagram were relayed in a 3 January 2019 report on News.com.au: “You can rest assured she is going nowhere and in really good health. A sick rumour,” she said. She later posted a photo of herself and Newton John smiling and embracing with the caption: “Just giving you the heads up that Livvy is in good health, so let’s leave that distressing rumour where it belongs.” Her remarks were echoed by Newton-John’s publicist and social media manager: Her American representative Michael Caprio laughed when contacted by news.com.au, saying reports of his client’s imminent demise were “hilarious”. “No she has not,” Mr Caprio said. “You might want to get better sources versus reading tabloids.” And her social media manager Randy Slovacek told The Herald Sun newspaper: “We have stated over and over again publicly she’s feeling better. People just seem to want to believe some dramatic turn.” It’s understood the Radar Online story followed a report in the dubious US tabloid National Enquirer, which touted a “tragic world exclusive” late last month. Although she is undeniably coping with a serious illness, as of this writing rumors that Newton-John is close to death have been denied by her family and professional representatives as being exaggerated and premature.
35317	A photograph shows a customer shopping at a grocery store during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic wearing a Ku Klux Klan-like hood over his head.	“Management should be doing something, but I didn’t see anyone talking to him,” she said. “He was just standing in line.”	true	Fauxtography	In May 2020, social media users shared photographs of a man shopping at a grocery store during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic wearing not a standard face mask, but a white head covering that appeared to be a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hood: Don’t know which angers me more – the person wearing this or the fact that no one in management @Vons Santee did anything about it. ⁦@ADL_SD⁩ would be happy to educate your team. San Diego is #NoPlaceForHate pic.twitter.com/jMOzQqpcoi — Tammy Gillies (@tgilliesADL) May 3, 2020 Many viewers questioned whether the photographs were real or possibly staged, and why the shopper was seemingly allowed by store personnel to wear such a get-up while shopping. These pictures are indeed real, snapped at a Vons grocery store in the suburban city of Santee in San Diego County, California. Vons has acknowledged that the incident took place at one of their stores. It is not yet known whether the customer did in fact eventually remove the hood and/or check out with his groceries. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said that deputies were not called to the scene, but they are reviewing security video footage to identify the person seen in the pictures and may pursue criminal charges against him. CNN spoke to some customers who were in the Santee Vons store at the time: Customer Alisa Wentzel told CNN she spotted the shopper, whom she believes was a man, as soon as she entered the store. He was waiting in the checkout line, she said, wearing the hood. At first she didn’t believe what she was seeing, she told CNN. Wentzel moved between aisles to sneak photos of him and keep her distance.
37703	"The United States issued a travel warning for New Zealand on August 6 2020, due to the country's ""23 active cases"" in managed quarantine."	A viral New Zealand Herald tweet claimed the United States government “warned its citizens to be very cautious about travelling to New Zealand because of our ’23 active cases’ of Covid-19,” which could be considered “technically true” but is misleading nevertheless. On August 6 2020, the Department of State rescinded a blanket travel warning in place of country-specific guidance. It is true that New Zealand was one of a small handful of countries ranked at Level 1 or Level 2; the majority of countries were ranked at Level 3 or 4 (reconsider or do not travel). Although New Zealand was not one of the two countries (Macau and Taiwan) at Level 1, it was still one of nine countries at Level 2.	mixture	Fact Checks, Viral Content	"An August 7 2020 tweet by the New Zealand Herald claimed that the United States issued a travel warning to its citizens about New Zealand due to the country’s purported 23 active cases of COVID-19:The US Government has warned its citizens to be very cautious about travelling to New Zealand because of our ""23 active cases"" of Covid-19.https://t.co/TejZdXyHID— nzherald (@nzherald) August 7, 2020The tweet read:The US Government has warned its citizens to be very cautious about travelling to New Zealand because of our “23 active cases” of Covid-19.The claim also appeared twice on Reddit, both on r/worldnews; a version of the same story was published by another outlet in New Zealand and by aggregator Boing Boing.COVID-19 in New Zealand in August 2020As of August 7 2020, according to the official website of the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in New Zealand (and their Ministry of Health), there were currently 23 active cases of COVID-19 in the country:As of August 7th 2020, New Zealand has had 1,569 confirmed & probable cases of COVID-19 within its borders (interactive map of New Zealand cases / the latest number of cases can be found here). Currently, there are 23 active cases in New Zealand.A Ministry of Health chart uploaded the morning of August 7 2020 provided additional context for the community spread of COVID-19 in New Zealand:As we noted in a previous fact-check, COVID-19 was manageable in New Zealand in mid-June 2020 to a point where activities such as professional sports resumed. Large crowds attended rugby games:‘New Zealand Rugby Game Today as We Have No COVID Cases’The total number of new cases of COVID-19 on August 6 2020 was zero.COVID-19 in the United States in August 2020By contrast, we were unable to locate a clear, very large number of currently active COVID-19 cases in the United States as of August 6 2020.Information from Worldometers.info (whose numbers, we should caution, are sometimes in dispute or unverified) indicated a total of 2,320,890 active cases existed in the United States. Google’s COVID-19 dashboard displayed information on the number of new cases each day:Per that source, there were 53,206 new cases of COVID-19 in the United States on August 6 2020, up from 51,844 the previous day and 51,185 on August 4 2020.Population for the United States Versus New Zealand, and Relevant AdjustmentsThere were roughly 328,200,000 people in the United States in August 2020, and 4,886,000 people in New Zealand.There were roughly 67 times more people in the United States than New Zealand, introducing the factor of scale into any relevant equation. Following on from that, the adjusted case rate in New Zealand would be 1,541 — 23 multiplied by 67. By the same token, the United States 53,206 new cases on August 6 2020 would be equivalent to 794 new cases in all of New Zealand.Proportionally, the United States’ rate of transmission was clearly more severe than that in New Zealand. Using the same numbers (794 cases at the US’ rate divided by the 23 cases), the United States daily new case rate of 53,206 was 34.5 times higher than New Zealand’s total active case count of 23 (counted from between zero and three new cases each day in the preceding weeks).Simply put, the United States was definitively outpacing New Zealand in terms of new cases, active cases, and COVID-19 transmission as a whole.The Article and the Department of State’s New Zealand Travel AdvisoryOn August 7 2020, the New Zealand Herald reported:The US Government has warned its citizens to be very cautious about travelling to New Zealand because of our “23 active cases” of Covid-19.Despite the US recording more than 2 million cases and 160,000 deaths, the government is advising against travelling to New Zealand.According to the US government’s travel advice website, it called for increased caution when travelling here.It places New Zealand at Level 2 on its travel advisory system, which asks its citizens to “exercise increased caution in New Zealand due to Covid-19”.“As of August 7, 2020, New Zealand has had 1569 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 within its borders. Currently, there are 23 active cases in New Zealand,” the post states.The website, however, doesn’t explain all 23 active cases are in managed isolation.Clicking through a link led readers to travel.state.gov, the U.S. Department of State’s site for travel advisories. On the linked page, an August 6 2020 warning looked like this:New Zealand was designated “Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution,” with following text reporting:Exercise increased caution in New Zealand due to COVID-19.Read the Department of State’s COVID-19 page before you plan any international travel.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 1 Travel Health Notice for New Zealand due to COVID-19.New Zealand continues to enforce border restrictions due to COVID-19. Visit the Embassy’s COVID-19 page for more information on COVID-19 in New Zealand.A version of the page matching the screenshot above was archived on August 7 2020. Prior to that, the most recent archive of the page was captured on March 11 2020, at the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic; at that time, New Zealand was at “Level 1: Exercise Normal Precautions.”Separate reporting from a different news outlet in New Zealand, stuff.co.nz, indicated that the United States issued “blanket guidance” in mid-March 2020, and that it reverted to country-specific warnings:The Donald Trump administration has rescinded its warnings to Americans against all international travel because of the coronavirus pandemic, saying conditions no longer warrant a blanket worldwide alert.The State Department lifted its level-four health advisory for the entire world in order to return to country-specific warnings.That move came shortly after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its Covid-19 travel advisory information. The CDC lifted “do not travel” warnings for about 20 locations but advised staying away from the vast majority of the world.Seven places, including Thailand, Fiji and New Zealand, are in a low-risk group, according to the CDC, although officials there advised that certain people, such as older adults and those with certain underlying medical conditions, talk to their doctors before making the trip. For more than a dozen other locations, it had no precautions. Taiwan, Greenland, and Laos are on that list.A reasonable interpretation of that version of the claim suggested that instead of New Zealand being the subject of a new, higher caution level on August 6 2020, it was actually downgraded when the “blanket guidance” was rescinded.Similar information appeared on the US Embassy in New Zealand’s COVID-19 information page. The relevant portion was undated, however, making it difficult to determine whether New Zealand was “blanket” downgraded to a lower level, or whether the “23 active cases” had any effect on official travel warnings:Travel Advisory downgraded to Level 2 – Exercise Increased CautionTravel Advisory: Level 2 – The Department of State advises U.S. citizens to exercise increased caution when traveling due to the global impact of COVID-19. More information on this travel advisory is available on travel.state.gov.At the bottom of the page, a date of August 7 2020 was listed, possibly the date of the most recent updates to the page.U.S. Department of State Travel Advisories as of August 7 2020On August 7 2020, we sorted travel advisories on travel.state.gov, ascending from Level 1 to Level 4. Two countries were listed at Level 1, and nine in total were Level 2. It appeared that there were changes across the board on August 6 2020:Macau and Taiwan were rated Level 1 (“Exercise Normal Precautions); Hong Kong, Antarctica, Brunei, Fiji, French Polynesia, Mauritius, New Caledonia, New Zealand, and Thailand were all rated Level 2 (“Exercise Increased Caution.”) The balance of countries were at Level 3 (“Reconsider Travel”) or higher. A commenter on the New Zealand Herald‘s tweet identified themselves as an American expatriate in New Zealand, and said:I received an email:The Department of State has removed the worldwide Level 4 Health Advisory: Do Not Travel and the Travel Advisory for New Zealand has changed to Level 2: Exercise increased caution.Exercise increased caution in New Zealand due to COVID-19.— 𝘔𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘭 – US 🇺🇸 immigrant in NZ 🇳🇿 (@dmc3472) August 7, 2020I read it more as a loosening of restrictions.— 𝘔𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘦𝘭 – US 🇺🇸 immigrant in NZ 🇳🇿 (@dmc3472) August 7, 2020TL;DRA viral New Zealand Herald tweet claimed the United States government “warned its citizens to be very cautious about travelling to New Zealand because of our ’23 active cases’ of Covid-19,” which could be considered “technically true” but is misleading nevertheless. On August 6 2020, the Department of State rescinded a blanket travel warning in place of country-specific guidance. It is true that New Zealand was one of a small handful of countries ranked at Level 1 or Level 2; the majority of countries were ranked at Level 3 or 4 (reconsider or do not travel). Although New Zealand was not one of the two countries (Macau and Taiwan) at Level 1, it was still one of nine countries at Level 2.Comments"
5858	Syphilis far more common in gay men in US South.	A new U.S. report shows the spread of syphilis is far worse in gay men in Southern states.	true	Health, Syphilis	North Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana have the highest rates. In North Carolina, as many as 1 in 134 gay and bisexual men were diagnosed with the most contagious forms of syphilis in 2015. The South has long had higher rates of diseases spread through sex. Thursday’s report is the first breakdown for syphilis by sexual orientation for 44 states. In all states, the rates for straight men are far lower. The disease is also much more common in men than women. Syphilis is a dangerous bacterial disease that surfaces as genital sores. The arrival of antibiotics in the 1940s reduced syphilis dramatically, but U.S. cases have been rising for about 15 years.
25946	A Joe Biden-Bernie Sanders “unity” policy document shows “they want to abolish our police departments. They want to abolish our prisons, I guess.”	The Joe Biden-Bernie Sanders “unity document” does not say anything about abolishing police departments or getting rid of all prisons. In fact, the document includes several passages that clearly indicate that police and prisons will exist in the future, but under proposed reforms. Criminologists say Biden’s policies are within the political and academic mainstream. Many represent a continuation of policies enacted by Trump himself in the First Step Act.	false	Criminal Justice, Crime, Donald Trump,	"In a break from tradition, President Donald Trump used the White House’s Rose Garden as the venue for a lengthy rhetorical shot at his 2020 campaign rival, Joe Biden. Trump particularly targeted a policy document recently agreed to by representatives of the Biden campaign as well as allies of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who gave Biden a strong challenge from the ideological left in the 2020 Democratic primaries. ""The Biden-Sanders agenda is the most extreme platform of any major party nominee, by far, in American history,"" he said. Trump went on to call out many parts of the platform, including its policies on criminal justice. ""We could go on for days,"" Trump said. ""Incentivize prison closure. So they want to close our prisons. They now want to abolish our police departments. They want to abolish our prisons, I guess."" This is wildly untrue. The Trump campaign didn’t respond to our inquiries. As we’ve reported, some protesters using the term ""defund the police"" want to eliminate police departments entirely. But most officials do not want to eliminate the police; they want to revisit the functions of police departments and reroute some of their funding toward social services. But Biden explicitly rejected the ""defund the police"" label. ""While I do not believe federal dollars should go to police departments violating people’s rights or turning to violence as the first resort, I do not support defunding police,"" Biden wrote in an op-ed in USA Today. ""The better answer is to give police departments the resources they need to implement meaningful reforms, and to condition other federal dollars on completing those reforms. So what does Biden support? The unity document backs a wide array of criminal-justice provisions, including decriminalization of marijuana by jurisdictions that want to do so and repealing federal mandatory minimum sentences. Not only does the unity document not say anything about abolishing the police, it includes several passages that are based on the assumption that there will be police going forward. They include: • ""We will require officer training in effective nonviolent tactics, appropriate use of force, implicit bias, and peer intervention, both at the academy and on the job."" • ""Democrats will reinvigorate community policing approaches, so officers on the beat better serve the neighborhoods they work in."" • ""Democrats also support measures to increase diversity among the ranks of police departments, so our law enforcement agencies look more like the communities they serve. And we will seek increased funding for officer health and well-being in police departments across the country, including for personal safety equipment and mental health services."" There is one type of prison that the unity document does support abolishing: privately owned and run prisons. ""Private profit should not motivate the provision of vital public services, including in the criminal justice system,"" the unity document says. ""Democrats support ending the use of private prisons and private detention centers."" But to equate that with abolishing all prisons, as Trump did, is highly misleading. Biden wants to change some aspects of prisons. ""We also believe that too many of our jails and prisons subject people to inhumane treatment, and will work to end practices like solitary confinement for adults and juveniles,"" the unity document says. Biden also supports reducing what he considers to be the outsized role of prisons in the criminal justice system. ""Democrats know we can end the era of mass incarceration and dramatically reduce the number of Americans held in jails and prisons while continuing to reduce crime rates, which have fallen steadily from their peak nearly three decades ago,"" the unity document says. However, the document envisions that prisons will exist in the future, just with a different model of administration and changes for some of the policies they currently enforce. We’ll close by highlighting similarities between what Biden hopes to achieve and what Trump has already done. Trump in 2018 signed the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill. This measure tried to move the law in directions that are similar to aspects of the Biden platform, including efforts to reduce the severity of sentences, a greater emphasis on policies to reduce convict recidivism, and making retroactive the end to the disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Trump said that a Biden-Sanders ""unity"" policy document shows that ""they want to abolish our police departments. They want to abolish our prisons, I guess."" The document does not say anything about abolishing police departments or getting rid of all prisons. The document includes several passages that clearly indicate that police and prisons will exist in the future, with proposed changes. Criminologists say some of Biden’s policies represent a continuation of policies enacted by Trump himself in the First Step Act."
21407	"Mary Taylor Says that even if you have no children, ""under Obamacare, you would still have to carry insurance that covers pediatric, maternity and newborn care even though you do not need it."	Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor says 'Obamacare' would require purchase of unnecessary insurance	false	Ohio, Health Care, Mary Taylor,	"Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor also heads the state Department of Insurance. She makes no secret of her dislike for what she derisively calls ""Obamacare,"" the law formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In June, Taylor wrote a guest column for newspapers in which she said, ""I will do everything I can to protect Ohio’s citizens and job creators from this catastrophic law."" She followed it by giving a speech with a similar theme. In another guest column for newspapers that was posted Sept. 8 to the Department of Insurance website, Taylor says the health care law will limit choice and increase cost for consumers. ""The law’s heavy-handed mandates force insurance companies to include coverage for many benefits and services you may not want,"" she wrote. ""Say for example, you do not have any children. Under Obamacare, you would still have to carry insurance that covers pediatric, maternity and newborn care even though you do not need it. ""Such mandates remove consumerism from the process and replace it with a one-size-fits-all approach. By requiring consumers to buy services they do not want or need, costs will rise significantly."" That got PolitiFact Ohio’s attention. Would consumers really be forced to buy unnecessary coverage, like pediatric, maternity and newborn care for people with no children? We asked Taylor's office for support. We were referred to Section 1302 of the Affordable Care Act as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. ""It addresses the essential health benefits,"" a spokesman for Taylor said. We read Section 1302, and it seemed to bear out Taylor's assertion. But we were frankly confused by the wording, and we turned for guidance to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a trusted independent source on health care issues. ""It is true that this (pediatric, maternity and newborn care) is covered as part of the essential benefits package,"" a spokesman told us. ""The law does mandate that insurance."" But the spokesman added more: Current employer-provided insurance plans ""may include coverage you will never use or need, such as maternity care for a man or prostate cancer coverage for women."" Wanting further explanation, we talked with Neera Tanden, who worked on the health care legislation as senior advisor for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services. She is currently CEO of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. ""Ninety percent of all plans cover everything described in the bill as 'essential health benefits package,"" she said. ""People are paying for all those benefits today. We all pay for things we never use. It is the nature of insurance."" Individual policies are usually more expensive, offer fewer benefits and are less regulated than group plans, she said, noting that Section 1302 of the health care act says that the scope of the package should equal the scope of benefits ""under a typical employer plan."" The act also bans exclusions for ""preexisting conditions"" that exclusively or primarily affect women and ends the practice of charging women higher premiums than men, she said. ""The thrust of (Taylor's) case is there should be no requirements on what insurance companies offer,"" Tanden said. Wanting the perspective of an authority without a dog in the political fight, we turned to J.B. Silvers at Case Western Reserve University. He is professor of health care finance and professor of banking and finance at the Weatherhead School of Management, faculty director of the Health Systems Management Center and holds a joint appointment in the School of Medicine. He also is former CEO of a health plan and insurance company. Silvers said the health care plan ""makes the playing field level"" by setting a standard for benefit packages. ""It is true you could buy some sort of stripped-down policy,"" he said, but such plans are ""almost universally a bad deal"" with higher costs. Normally, he said, a company negotiates coverage for employees, and ""wouldn't offer one plan for single males and another for people with families."" What does that say about the accuracy of Taylor's statement? ""It's irrelevant,"" Silvers said. ""It's a silly argument, frankly. Insurance by definition includes things you don't think you need."" What it means to us is that Taylor, the top official at the state department that oversees insurance, was accurate in describing provisions of what she calls Obamacare. But it is misleading to imply that health insurance policies are purchased a la carte, that such purchasing would reduce costs to consumers, and that the ""essential benefits package"" represents a departure from current group plans. And when a statement has an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, it rates on the Truth-O-Meter."
2707	Italy drugmaker Zambon ready to splash out in U.S., China push.	Italian drugmaker Zambon is looking to China and the U.S. to grow its respiratory and nervous system portfolio and could spend more than 100 million euros ($114 million) on the right acquisition, its chief executive said.	true	Health News	The family-owned pharma group, famous for its mucolytic agent Fluimucil, used to treat respiratory problems, has cash enough to fund expansion plans but could contemplate a stock market listing if a big opportunity arose. “It’s not on the table at the moment, but we could consider it if a large-scale project comes along,” Roberto Tascione told Reuters in an interview. Tascione, a former head of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Italy, said Zambon wanted to focus increasingly on specialty care products in areas like Parkinson’s disease and severe respiratory disorders, with the U.S. a key prospect market. He declined to say if the company was targeting assets in the U.S. where it intends to roll out a respiratory disease franchise. “We are in advanced discussions for acquisitions in those therapeutic areas that interest us with the aim of having assets available that can be used across the world,” he said. While the focus is the U.S., where Zambon has a respiratory drug already in advanced approval phase by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, any move would also have to drive growth in China. “China is a complex but huge market with unmet needs in the area of respiratory diseases. We see great opportunity,” Tascione said. In a report published last year the U.S.-based Health Effects Institute said China faced about 1.6 million premature deaths a year as a result of air pollution. Zambon, which has its own production plant in China, last year signed a distribution deal with pharma giant Astrazeneca to distribute Fluimucil ampoules in China with a view to boosting sales of the drug 300 percent by 2023. The company, founded by Gaetano Zambon in 1906 and still family-owned, had pharma sales of 664 million euros in 2017, with revenue in Italy accounting for one fifth of the total. Zambon, which posted core earnings of 115 million euros in 2017, plans to invest 200 million euros in R&D in three years. Asked if private equity had expressed interest, Tascione said he could not say, but added the company was undoubtedly an object of attention. “The owners are fully committed to their company,” he said. Italy has a thriving pharmaceutical sector. But it is fragmented and analysts believe it could benefit from consolidation. In June, family-controlled Recordati was snapped up by a consortium of investment funds controlled by CVC Capital Partners in a deal worth about 3 billion euros. (This version of the story in third paragraph quote changes would to could)
2922	PepsiCo's workplace wellness program fails the bottom line -study.	A long-running and well-respected workplace wellness program at PepsiCo that encourages employees to adopt healthier habits has not reduced healthcare costs, according to the most comprehensive evaluation of a such a program ever published.	true	Health News	Released on Monday in the journal Health Affairs and based on data for thousands of PepsiCo employees over seven years, the findings “cast doubt on the widely held belief” that workplace wellness programs save employers significantly more than they cost, conclude Soeren Mattke of the RAND Corporation and his co-authors. “Blanket claims of ‘wellness saves money’ are not warranted.” Workplace wellness programs, a $6 billion-a-year industry, are a favorite of the business community because they promise to improve productivity, cut absenteeism and reduce medical costs by averting expensive illnesses. They aim, for instance, to help employees quit smoking, maintain a healthy weight and have regular screenings for elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, cancer and other conditions, all of which are supposed to reduce healthcare spending. Half of U.S. employers with at least 50 workers offered a wellness program in 2012, as did more than 90 percent of those with 50,000-plus workers, according to a 2013 RAND report. PepsiCo’s was introduced in 2003. The programs are also a pillar of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law. The ACA allows employers to reward workers who participate in wellness programs, and penalize those who refuse, with discounts or increases of as much as 30 percent of their insurance costs. That can be thousands of dollars per year. Some workers have objected to the programs because of the penalties. Others say workplace wellness efforts invade their privacy and promote poor medicine. Last year, for instance, faculty members at Pennsylvania State University rebelled against a workplace wellness program whose “health risk assessment” asked, among other questions, whether male employees examined their testicles every month and whether women employees intended to become pregnant. They also protested its requirement that even healthy young adults receive frequent cholesterol and other screenings, which physicians recommend against, and the steep penalties for opting out: $1,200 a year. “You’re making employees do something that invades their privacy and that goes against medical advice, and now we’re seeing (in the PepsiCo study) that it doesn’t even save the employer money,” said Al Lewis, founder and president of the Disease Management Purchasing Consortium International, which helps self-insured employers and state programs reduce healthcare costs. Megan Broderick, senior manager of the company’s health and welfare benefits and a co-author of the Health Affairs paper, said she could not speak to a reporter without permission. Maria Ghazal, a vice president of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives of large U.S. corporations, said its members are “as enthusiastic as they have ever been about these (workplace wellness) programs,” adopting them not only to control healthcare costs but also to boost employee morale and improve recruitment. “Wellness is an area where you can distinguish yourself,” she said. “Employers feel they help attract and retain” valued workers. For their study, RAND’s Mattke and his colleagues - including two PepsiCo executives - examined PepsiCo’s “Healthy Living” program, which has two components. One, called disease management, helps people with any of 10 chronic illnesses, among them asthma, diabetes and hypertension. They receive regular phone conversations with a nurse about managing the condition. Disease management produced healthcare savings of $136 per member per month, largely because of a 29 percent reduction in hospital admissions, the researchers found. When hypertension is well controlled, for instance, people are less likely to land in the hospital with a stroke. When asthmatics take their medication, they don’t wind up in the ER unable to breathe. PepsiCo’s disease management program “provides a substantial return for the investment made,” Mattke said. The “lifestyle management component” is what most people think of as a workplace wellness program. It includes a health risk assessment in which workers answer questions about such behavior as eating and exercise habits; smoking cessation programs; and educational materials and telephone sessions with a “wellness coach” to help them lose weight, eat healthy, get fit, manage stress or stop smoking. PepsiCo employees who participated in these lifestyle programs reported a small reduction in absenteeism, but there was no significant effect on healthcare costs. (The study uses costs as a proxy for health, assuming that if people get sick they seek care. But it did not explicitly assess the programs’ effect on participants’ health.) “Participation in lifestyle management interventions,” conclude the PepsiCo researchers, “... has no statistically significant effect on healthcare costs,” and employers considering adopting such a program “should proceed with caution.” The PepsiCo study is not the first to find that workplace wellness programs fall short of their promise. Last year, Mattke was the lead author of a RAND report that found that healthcare costs of workers who participated in such a program averaged $2.38 less per month than non-participants in the first year of the program and $3.46 less in the fifth year. Neither difference was statistically significant. Researchers who are skeptical of wellness programs’ benefits are concerned that the ACA - “Obamacare” - allows employers to offer substantial financial rewards and penalties tied to something ineffective. “The ACA took a bad idea, workplace wellness programs, and turbocharged it by allowing employers to penalize workers,” said Lewis, co-author of a new e-book titled “Surviving Workplace Wellness.” (In this story, paragraph 10 has been deleted which said SHPS was acquired by ADP. ADP acquired a portion of SHPS.)
37864	May 6, 1993: A Simpsons episode plot has the town of Springfield getting sick with a flu that originates in Asia. While the town begs for a vaccine, murder bees show up.	Did a May 6 1993 ‘Simpsons’ Episode Feature an ‘Asian Flu’ and ‘Murder Bees’?	false	Fact Checks, Viral Content	Almost every major global event has a purported Simpsons episode predicting it, and COVID-19 was no different — but a variation of the 2020 claim that The Simpsons predicted COVID-19 snapped back with a second claim the same episode also predicted “murder bees”:“The Simpsons doesn’t predict the future…there’s just so many episodes…”May 6, 1993: A Simpsons episode plot has the town of Springfield getting sick with a flu that originates in Asia.While the town begs for a vaccine, murder bees show up. pic.twitter.com/4ScmMttEUK— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) May 6, 2020On May 6 2020, sports writer Darren Rovell published the above tweet, with a 17-second video. He wrote:“The Simpsons doesn’t predict the future…there’s just so many episodes…”May 6, 1993: A Simpsons episode plot has the town of Springfield getting sick with a flu that originates in Asia.While the town begs for a vaccine, murder bees show up.Claim One: The Simpsons Predicted the COVID-19 PandemicIn the excerpt above, we emphasized the “murder bees show up” portion — because we addressed the claim that The Simpsons predicted coronavirus back in early February 2020, more than a month before COVID-19 was officially a pandemic:Did ‘The Simpsons’ Predict Coronavirus?We’ve linked that page for additional reading, but as we explained at the end, the earlier claim was embellished to shoehorn the episode in question (“Marge in Chains”) to fit the then-emerging novel coronavirus:Although it is true a 1993 episode of The Simpsons, “Marge in Chains,” involved an illness it called “Osaka Flu,” the “CORONA VIRUS” screengrab accompanying the rumor was a hoax. Additionally, in the context of entertainment about epidemiology was neither prescient nor unexpected — coronaviruses were identified decades before even the 1993 Simpsons episode, and the episode was not about a strain of coronavirus to begin with.In March 2020, “Marge in Chains” co-writer Bill Oakley described the meme about The Simpsons predicting coronavirus as “gross” and misleading:“I don’t like it being used for nefarious purposes,” Oakley told the Hollywood Reporter of the episode he cowrote with Josh Weinstein. “The idea that anyone misappropriates it to make coronavirus seem like an Asian plot is terrible. In terms of trying to place blame on Asia — I think that is gross.”COVID-19 and Murder BeesIn early May 2020, a coronavirus-weary social media turned to news about something other than COVID-19 — an emerging “murder bees” rumor.According to Smithsonian Magazine, “murder bees” (also known as Asian Giant Hornets) did not in fact follow COVID-19, and do not really pose a massive threat to Americans:The Asian giant hornet is a big, mean-looking insect with a potent sting. Their queens can grow to be up to two inches long and their quarter-inch stingers can pierce normal beekeeping attire. They are also voracious predators capable of massacring entire honey bee hives in a matter of hours—decapitating thousands of the hive’s adult bees and absconding with the helpless larvae to feed the hornets’ own brood.As their name suggests, the hornets are native to Asia, but at the tail end of 2019, they were seen in North America for the first time, reports Mike Baker for the New York Times.The four confirmed sightings of the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) in the United States, along with two more in Canada, occurred in 2019 between September and December. The American sightings were all of individual hornets, but in September, a nest was found and destroyed on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, reported Sean Boynton for Global News.Those facts, of course, did not prevent the inevitable “murder hornets” or “murder bees” memes of May 2020:The Murder Hornet Invasion refers to a series of jokes made following a May 2020 New York Times article about the discovery of Asian Giant Hornet, known colloquially as “Murder Hornets,” in the United States. The report came amid the coronavirus, inspiring a series of memes about overwhelming catastrophic events in rapid succession (similar to April 2020 Disaster Predictions). The world’s largest hornets, the Asian Giant Hornet kills roughly 50 people annually.That colloquial name for Asian Giant Hornets, “murder bees,” proved to be a popular humor topic on Twitter:Murder hornets, but with the right attorney… manslaughter bees. pic.twitter.com/lCSdOCKuhu— Con Taylor (@Kullervo_1979) May 6, 2020Commenters quipped that their purported arrival (which actually came before COVID-19) bore all the hallmarks of plot-crowding:I’m advising that we cut the murder hornets subplot. We don’t need it to enhance the stakes, the running story line is already dramatic enough, and it’s just one absurdity too many.— Caleb Roehrig (@MikalebRoehrig) May 2, 2020Claim Two: The Simpsons Predicted the COVID-19 Pandemic Would be Accompanied by ‘Murder Bees’Once “murder bees” took hold as a chapter in the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed that the internet endeavored to determine whether The Simpsons predicted that too (even though the show was already rumored to have “predicted coronavirus.”)Rovell’s tweet above was a retweet of a May 5 2020 tweet featuring the footage:Shit the simpsons really did predict 2020 pic.twitter.com/dadM5jvLrB— Eddie D’ohgrou (@didgeridougrou) May 6, 2020That clip was from “Marge in Chains,” and shows Springfield’s angry mob gathering to demand a cure or “placebo” for Osaka flu. As their attention turns to a placebo, one resident suggests that a nearby truck might contain them during the following exchange:[Woman] “Where do we get these ‘placebos? '”[Man] “Maybe they’re in this truck!”The crowd then shakes the white box truck, which contains wooden crates. One is labeled “killer bees,” which are agitated and begin attacking the crowd.Lest anyone think the show was prescient in including “killer bees” in 1993, the insects commonly called “killer bees” (African honey bees) showed up in Texas in 1990 (and of course, generated a panicked news buzz — get it? — at that time):In 1956, some colonies of African Honey Bees were imported into Brazil, with the idea of cross-breeding them with local populations of Honey Bees to increase honey production. In 1957, twenty-six African queens, along with swarms of European worker bees, escaped from an experimental apiary about l00 miles south of Sao Paulo. These African bee escapees have since formed hybrid populations with European Honey Bees, both feral and from commercial hives. They have gradually spread northward through South America, Central America, and eastern Mexico, progressing some 100 to 200 miles per year. In 1990, Killer Bees reached southern Texas, appeared in Arizona in 1993, and found their way to California in 1995. They are expected to form colonies in parts of the southern United States.The Simpsons Didn’t Predict the COVID-19 Pandemic, Nor Did the Show Predict ‘Murder Hornets’After we addressed the initial claim that The Simpsons predicted the emergence of a novel coronavirus in February 2020, a co-writer of the episode expressed disapproval of the rumors (and the claims were edited to fit the emerging novel virus even then.) In May 2020, the “murder hornets” meme began, which social media users inevitably linked with the appearance of “killer bees” in “Marge in Chains.” But “killer bees” were first found in Texas in 1990, three years before “Marge in Chains” aired. Referencing an existing invasive species did not constitute any sort of “prediction.”Comments
13750	"Barack Obama ""ended up getting re-elected by the largest gender gap in the history of American elections."	"Richards said that Obama in 2012 ""ended up getting re-elected by the largest gender gap in the history of American elections."" Such data doesn’t appear to be available for all presidential elections. Otherwise, Gallup’s unusual approach to calculating the gender gap for Democratic presidential nominees places Obama No. 1 since 1952 with a 14-point gap in 2012. But other reasonable methodologies show that since 1948, other candidates and victors (even Ike) had greater gender gaps. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."	mixture	Elections, Polls and Public Opinion, Texas, Cecile Richards,	"Texas-born Cecile Richards enjoyed sitting next to President Bill Clinton in the crowd on the scene watching the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. ""How awesome is that,"" Richards said to Texas delegates at a hotel breakfast the next morning. The eldest daughter of the late Gov. Ann Richards drew our attention with a declaration about women making history compared with men in their relative support for Barack Obama four years ago. Richards, who leads the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, noted that Obama that fall stressed his support for the women’s health care and abortion provider in debate with Republican Mitt Romney. ""Of course, President Obama ended up getting re-elected by the largest gender gap ever in the history of American elections. And we’re going to do even better this time,"" she said. We don’t check predictions. But we were curious if Obama enjoyed the biggest ""gender gap"" in presidential election history. We tried to ask Richards how she reached her conclusion and didn’t draw a response. Gallup's analysis Separately, we reached out to Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster; her office sent an email pointing out a November 2012 Gallup press release stating that Obama ""won the two-party vote among female voters in the 2012 election by 12 points, 56 percent to 44 percent, over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, Romney won among men by an eight-point margin, 54% to 46%."" The release continued: ""That total 20-point gender gap is the largest Gallup has measured in a presidential election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952,"" the release said. The second-largest gap in the period, of 18 percentage points, traces to the 1984 election won by Ronald Reagan, Gallup said. A footnote to Gallup’s chart (below) says the gap was calculated according to results of Gallup polls taken just before each election indicating how well each Democratic presidential nominee was preferred by women against how poorly the Democrat polled among men. SOURCE: Press release, ""Gender Gap in 2012 Vote Is Largest in Gallup's History,"" Gallup, Nov. 9, 2012 Better ways to gauge? Separately to our inquiries, polling experts told us other ways of measuring the gender gap among voters in presidential elections are more widely accepted. By email, Susan Carroll, a senior scholar at the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, commented: ""Gallup and others make the calculation needlessly complicated by combining figures for both candidates."" By email, Daron Shaw of the University of Texas called Gallup’s calculation ""a particular (contentious) stat from one organization that is NOT corroborated by any other groups."" Debbie Walsh, the center’s director, pointed us to a 2012 center ""fact sheet"" presenting the gender gap as measured by voter exit polls in each presidential election from 1980 through 2012. By phone, she said Richards might prove right about the 2016 Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, potentially winning with the biggest gender gap ever. But, Walsh said, she doesn’t think Richards was right about Obama’s 2012 gap. The center’s sheet says: ""A gender gap in voting refers to a difference between the percentage of women and the percentage of men voting for a given candidate, generally the winning candidate. Even when men and women favor the same candidate, they may do so by different margins, resulting in a gender gap."" The presentation continues: ""In every election since 1980, a gender gap has been apparent, with a greater proportion of women than men preferring the Democrat in each case."" And in 2012, according to the sheet, 55 percent of women and 45 percent of men favored Obama, making for a gender gap of 10 percentage points. But that wasn’t the biggest gender gap over the nine analyzed elections. In 1996, President Bill Clinton experienced an 11 percentage point gender gap, winning re-election with 54 percent of women favoring him compared with 43 percent of men, according to the Voter News Service. In 2000, according to the service, ultimately victorious Republican George W. Bush won the support of 53 percent of men compared with 43 percent of women, leaving a gender gap of 10 percentage points--meaning, Walsh told us, women were 10 percentage points less likely than men to vote for him. Al Gore drew votes from 54 percent of women, according to the service, and 42 percent of men. Other victors for president, according to the sheet, prevailed with gender gaps ranging from four percentage points (Clinton in 1992) to eight points (Ronald Reagan in 1980). Shaw further urged us to consider a 2006 research paper, ""The Gender Gap,"" by researcher Karen M. Kaufmann. Kaufmann’s paper defines ""gender gap"" by focusing on how the Democratic nominee, win or lose, polls among women and men. The paper says: ""While there are a number of ways to measure the gender gap, the most common measure subtracts the percentage of men who identify with the Democratic Party from the percentage of Democratic women."" We ran this focus past other experts including Walsh, who said her approach is the preferred way to measure the gap, and Jim Henson, who with Shaw co-directs the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll; Henson said by email he thinks Kaufmann’s definition is more commonly used. For her part, Kaufmann, a visiting lecturer at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Policy, said by email that while there’s a ""weak consensus"" among experts about how to measure the gender gap, the ""reason the Democratic gap is typically the standard, is that it was male movement away from the Democratic Party that created the gap initially and the fluctuation in the gap is typically reflected in the movement of white men to and from Democratic candidates."" According to the paper, the alignment of more women with the Democratic Party started with the election of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964--with the gap growing over time, in great part due to white men aligning more with the Republican Party. ""Men are more conservative than women across a number of important political domains,"" Kaufmann wrote. She also said: ""Beyond the significance of attitudes, research also suggests that, at times, men and women attach varying levels of priority to certain political issues,"" with those decisions widening or narrowing the gender gap. Kaufmann found the gender gap among Southern women diminishing through the elections of 1996 through 2004 with the gap in the rest of the country staying relatively constant, per data from the American National Election Studies, a project overseen by researchers at the University of Michigan and Stanford University that has surveyed people about voting after every presidential election since 194852. The paper came out, of course, before Obama won for president. So, it doesn’t precisely extend to what we’re checking. Post-election poll results since 1948 So, we reached out to the ANES for relevant results and Patricia Luevano emailed us its breakout suggesting that in each of the 13 elections from 1964 through 2012, more women than men reported having voted for the Democratic nominee. Over those elections, the breakout indicates, the widest gender gap--again, the difference between the shares of women versus men who reported voting for the Democrat--opened up in 1996 when 60 percent of women recalled voting for Clinton compared to 46 percent of men. The second-widest gap, nine percentage points, occurred in 1992 (Clinton) and 2000 (Al Gore), according to the breakout. According to the breakout, Obama’s gender gap of 2012 was six percentage points; 55 percent of women said they’d voted for him compared to 49 percent of men. That gap trailed the gaps indicated by the project’s results for 1984 and 2004 (eight percentage points each) and 1988 (seven percentage points), in the end tying for fifth among the 13 elections with six-point gaps in 1972 and 1980. Luevano also shared a breakout showing the gender gap for each winner of the presidency from 1948 on--and indicating three elections in which the winner had a bigger gender gap than what the project found for Obama in 2012: Clinton in 1996 (14 percentage points); Clinton in 1992 (10 points); and Republican Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 (seven points; as with Clinton and Obama, that much of a greater share of women reported voting for him than men). Our ruling Richards said that Obama in 2012 ""ended up getting re-elected by the largest gender gap in the history of American elections."" Such data doesn’t appear to be available for all presidential elections. Otherwise, Gallup’s unusual approach to calculating the gender gap for Democratic presidential nominees places Obama No. 1 since 1952 with a 14-point gap in 2012. But other reasonable methodologies show that since 1948, other candidates and victors (even Ike) had greater gender gaps. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
26394	“Some states, like Montana and Nebraska, are getting more than $300,000 in federal stimulus money per reported COVID-19 case. New York is the hardest-hit state and yet we are getting only about $12,000 per case.”	In the first round of federal funding for health care providers, New York state has received far less money than less-affected states, according to an analysis by Kaiser Health News. Cuomo addressed only one segment of the stimulus aid, and glossed over the distinction between states and the health care providers within those states. The funding source he tweeted about sends money directly to providers, not to states. Subsequent batches of funding are supposed to favor states with higher coronavirus case loads.	true	Federal Budget, Health Care, Medicare, Public Health, State Budget, States, New York, Coronavirus, Andrew Cuomo,	"New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose daily press briefings on the state’s battle against the coronavirus have drawn wide coverage, has extended his rhetorical reach through social media. On April 12, Cuomo took to Twitter to spotlight what he saw as a disparity in federal funding between New York and states that had fewer coronavirus cases. ""Some states, like Montana and Nebraska, are getting more than $300,000 in federal stimulus money per reported COVID-19 case. New York is the hardest-hit state and yet we are getting only about $12,000 per case,"" Cuomo tweeted. Some states, like Montana and Nebraska, are getting more than $300,000 in federal stimulus money per reported COVID-19 case.New York is the hardest-hit state and yet we are getting only about $12,000 per case.We need a fair federal stimulus bill that is distributed by need. We found that the statement relies on a credible study of how one part of the federal funding is being divided among the states, though it glosses over the fact that it’s counting money going to health care providers directly, rather than to the states themselves. The number of coronavirus cases changes by day, and even by the hour. But at the time he made his claim, Cuomo was correct to say the difference between New York and the other two states was lopsided. New York has been hardest hit by the coronavirus. On April 12, the state reported a cumulative 195,031 known cases of the virus. Montana and Nebraska, which have far smaller populations, saw much smaller outbreaks of the virus at the time: Montana had 394 reported cases, while Nebraska reported 792. The money Cuomo is referencing comes from the $2.2 trillion federal coronavirus aid package passed in March, known as the CARES Act. While that bill earmarked $150 billion directly for state, local and tribal governments, the breakdown Cuomo is referring to comes from a different provision that provides funds directly to hospitals and other health care providers. This portion of the CARES Act allocates up to $100 billion to health care providers. When Cuomo sent his tweet, $30 billion of that total had been distributed. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, providers have received money from the stimulus bill based on a formula that involves how much money they received from Medicare reimbursements in 2019 (excluding payments under Medicare Advantage, which works through private insurers). HHS estimated that these Medicare reimbursements amounted to $484 billion in 2019. Because HHS wanted to push the first $30 billion of coronavirus aid out the door quickly, it allocated the money based on providers’ share of these reimbursements from 2019. In other words, the formula for this first stage of funding had nothing to do with the number of coronavirus cases a state was facing. Using these guidelines, Kaiser Health News, a PolitiFact fact-checking partner, calculated how much money providers in each state had received from the $30 billion. The publication based these numbers on a House Ways and Means Committee funds breakdown and New York Times daily coronavirus numbers. The analysis was originally published two days before Cuomo’s tweet. According to Kaiser Health News’ published analysis, hospitals and providers in New York state were due to receive stimulus money amounting to $12,000 per coronavirus case at the time. Providers in states with fewer cases, such as Montana and Nebraska, had received over $300,000 per case, according to the analysis. So Cuomo’s tweet tracks what the Kaiser Health News analysis found, though it’s worth noting that the total amount given to New York providers in this initial round, nearly $1.9 billion, was significantly more than what went to the other states: about $111 million for Montana and $225 million for Nebraska, according to the authors of the analysis. Jack Hoadley, an emeritus professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, told PolitiFact New York that the Kaiser study’s methodology was sound. He added that later rounds should address this imbalance. HHS has said that the next wave of the $100 billion will take into account how many coronavirus cases each state has. This ""should respond at least in part to the concern raised by Gov. Cuomo,"" he said, though ""more information is needed before we can assess the dollars-per-patient metric"" down the road. Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the New York State Division of the Budget, told PolitiFact that ""the tweet relied on information from a Kaiser Health News article and quoted it nearly word for word. There’s no question that the facts are accurate and there is a disparity in the federal funding structure among states in this regard."" Cuomo tweeted, ""Some states, like Montana and Nebraska, are getting more than $300,000 in federal stimulus money per reported COVID-19 case. New York is the hardest-hit state and yet we are getting only about $12,000 per case,"" In the first round of funding for health care providers, New York state’s providers received far less money per coronavirus case than other, less-affected states, according to a credible analysis. However, Cuomo’s tweet addressed only one part of the federal funding, and it glossed over the distinction between states and health care providers in those states. The funding source Cuomo tweeted about sends money to providers, not the state. The statement is accurate but needs additional information, so"
34188	"Young people are growing ""horns"" in the base of their skulls from looking down at cellphone screens."	The Times also quoted Dr. David J. Langer, chairman of neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Common ailments among surgeons, whose professions require them to spend a lot of time looking down, include degenerative disc disease and neck misalignment, not protruding horn growths. “Head horns?” Langer asked. “Come on.”	unproven	Medical	In June 2019, a wide variety of news publications reported that researchers had identified a rather startling development in human physiology due to the use of technology: horns or “spikes” were growing out of the base of young people’s skulls as a result of their constantly looking down at cellphone screens. The problem with those headlines was that the underlying claim was unfounded. For example, the Washington Post reported that researchers at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, had found a “hook or hornlike feature jutting out from the skull, just above the neck” that represented “the first documentation of a physiological or skeletal adaptation to the penetration of advanced technology into everyday life.” That study, published on 20 February 2018 in the journal Scientific Reports, focused on a feature known to scientists as the external occipital protuberance (EOP), a bump on the back of the skull in the middle, just where the neck muscles attach to the head. The anomaly characterized by the paper’s authors was described as an enlarged EOP (or EEOP). “We hypothesize EEOP may be linked to sustained aberrant postures associated with the emergence and extensive use of hand-held contemporary technologies, such as smartphones and tablets,” the authors stated. “Our findings raise a concern about the future musculoskeletal health of the young adult population and reinforce the need for prevention intervention through posture improvement education.” After the story went viral, various publications poked holes in the research, with tech news site Gizmodo pointing out that the use of the term “hypothesis” indicated that nothing has been proved about the paper’s findings. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that although users’ spending a lot of time hunched over devices was known to cause pain, the study lacked a control group and thus couldn’t show cause and effect. Moreover, the research also focused on a group that was already experiencing enough pain to undergo diagnostic x-rays for it. Thus, “it’s not clear what bearing the results have on the rest of the population.” Although it’s possible that a bone spur could form from constantly straining the neck forward, it represented a big “so what?” to Dr. Evan Johnson, an assistant professor and director of physical therapy at New York-Presbyterian Och Spine Hospital who was quoted by the Times. The more worrisome finding would be if cellphone use were responsible for widespread changes in posture that could result in long-term musculoskeletal problems. Paleoanthropologist John Hawks didn’t buy it at all. “Horns growing on young people’s skulls? It’s a juicy headline, but it’s not the truth,” he said. The idea may play into a moral panic about the effects of cellphone use on humans, but the research doesn’t back it up, he wrote in a 24 June 2019 blog post. Hawks said he believes major errors undermine the paper’s credibility, the most obvious one being the inclusion of a graph that didn’t match the paper’s text. The study’s authors noted that males were 5.48 times more likely than females to have an enlarged EOP and included a graph that appeared to show younger people between the ages of 18 and 29 years having a much higher prevalence of enlarged EOP than people between the ages of 30 and 50 years. But the graph didn’t match the finding that men were more than five times as likely as women to have an enlarged EOP — it instead “shows both sexes having very high and similar frequencies,” Hawks said: Hawks also questioned whether many of the x-ray images were really enlarged EOPs or illusions created by the angle at which the x-rays were taken. “They are more likely side views of the thickened area of the superior nuchal line,” he noted. “Altogether, this means that what the authors are looking at might have nothing to do with what an anthropologist can see on a bone at all. It might be an illusion.”
1870	No rise in heart deaths after 2008 market crash in LA.	The 2008 stock market crash generated a lot of stress, but it did not trigger a spike in heart attack deaths — at least, not in Los Angeles, according to a study.	true	Health News	A heart-shaped balloon floats upward during the Seventh Anniversary September 11 Commemoration Ceremony held at Zuccotti Park in New York City, September 11, 2008. REUTERS/Patti Sapone/Pool Past studies have found upswings in heart-related deaths after a stressful mass event, anything from natural disasters such as earthquakes to sports disasters like a home team losing the Super Bowl. But the current study, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, found no evidence that the October 2008 crash led to a spike in deaths, from heart problems or otherwise, in Los Angeles. “It was surprising, given what other studies have found,” said lead researcher Bryan Schwartz, of the Heart Institute at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. What the findings suggested is that while the stock market crash was stressful, it may not have been an intense, personal emotional trigger for most Angelenos, he told Reuters Health. There is plenty of research suggesting that for people with heart disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, acute stress can temporarily raise the odds of a cardiac “event” such as a heart attack. Acute stress can be physical, like sudden heavy exertion, or it can be emotional, Schwartz said, noting that this study did not negate the importance of acute stress in heart risks. But the stress surrounding the 2008 crash may not have been enough to cause a “population shift” in heart disease deaths, said Robert Kloner, senior researcher on the study. The researchers set out to investigate a possible relation between a stock market crash and cardiac death in a large population within the United States. Their findings were based on LA county death certificate data and daily stock market figures for 2005 through the end of 2008. The researchers found no evidence that the October market crash affected death rates, overall or from heart complications specifically. After the crash, deaths remained at or below the seasonal average. For 2008 overall, the death rate from heart disease in LA was 0.12 percent, slightly lower than the 0.14 percent in 2005. Their findings contrast to a study in Shanghai, China, where the stock market woes of 2008 were tied to a spike in deaths. A study published last year by Chinese researchers found that every 100-point change in the Shanghai stock market index during 2007 and 2008 was linked to a five percent rise in heart-related deaths. But the link may be due to population differences in Shanghai and LA, the researchers said. In Shanghai, many new investors in China’s boom years of 2006 and 2007 were elderly and already at increased risk of heart disease. And unlike LA investors, who typically leave their money in the hands of professionals, Shanghai investors were watching the market themselves, monitoring it daily. “They were more personally and emotionally involved in it,” Schwartz said, speculating that market volatility may have been a bigger risk for Shanghai investors’ hearts compared to their LA counterparts. By contrast, one risk factor for cardiac death did stand out consistently — winter, even in LA’s mild climate. Holiday stress is often blamed for the effect, but Kloner also recommended maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise during the winter, when those habits often tend to fall away. Low temperatures can also have potentially risky effects on the cardiovascular system, such as making the blood more prone to clotting. SOURCE: bit.ly/wCMwLE
30200	"A ""large-scale killing"" of white farmers is taking place in South Africa."	Conspiracy theories about “white genocide” are harmful because the people that believe them become convinced that non-white people, particularly black people and immigrants from majority-Muslim countries, are to be seen as enemies on the sole basis of their race. We have also seen “white genocide” conspiracy theories inspire their believers to radical violence. Dylann Roof cited “white genocide” in his manifesto published before he entered a predominantly black church and murdered 9 people.	false	Politics, david duke, donald trump, south africa	On 22 August 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted criticism of the South African government for their plans to redistribute land to black South Africans who were institutionally disenfranchised under that country’s apartheid system: I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2018 The “large scale killings” phrase included in Trump’s tweet was an invocation of “white genocide,” a conspiracy theory popular among white supremacists who have for years been attempting to advance the baseless claim that white South African farmers are being systematically murdered en masse. It is an idea that until now has existed mainly on the fringes, fostered by proponents including white nationalist and former Klansman David Duke — who jubilantly responded to Trump’s tweet: Russia has already agreed to take in 15,000 White South Africans—your move, Mr. President. Thank you! https://t.co/gpBaU0fdhr — David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) August 23, 2018 “What particularly pleased [white supremacists like Duke] was the notion that if Trump said it, lots of conservatives would start to believe it, whereas they themselves have been having trouble getting widespread support for this notion,” said Mark Pitcavage, senior research fellow for the Center on Extremism and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Sure enough, white supremacist Richard Spencer also tweeted his support for Trump’s “opening up” the conversation about “the plight of White South Africans”: That said, opening up space to talk about White South Africans–giving his base the permission to seriously discuss White dispossession–is a monumental achievement. — Richard 🐻 Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) August 23, 2018 The “white genocide” claim started gaining popularity among fringe groups around 2012, according to research conducted by the ADL, who released a statement characterizing Trump’s tweet as “disturbing”: White supremacists in the United States have made such claims for years. In early 2012, ADL’s Center on Extremism documented how white supremacists in the United States were gearing up for protests as part of something they termed the “South Africa Project (SAP).” The goal of the organizers, which included representatives from major neo-Nazi, racist skinhead, “traditional white supremacist,” Christian Identity groups, as well as racist prison gangs, was to stop the alleged ‘genocide of Whites’ in South Africa. The protests originated in 2011 at the hands of Monica Stone, a long-time member of the Louisiana-based white supremacist Christian Defense League and immigrant from South Africa. Since then, white supremacist references to “genocide” in South Africa have been common. Richard Spencer, for example, focused on the plight of the “Boers” [white settlers] in South Africa in his March speech at Michigan State University, suggesting the United States might see something similar. That’s not to say that farm attacks and farm killings do not happen in South Africa — they do, every year. But Pitcavage pointed out that although such events are tragic and reprehensible, they have been spun into a twisted story that proponents imagine to be representative of what’s in store for whites in the United States, Pitcavage said: Don’t get me wrong, any death like that shouldn’t happen, but it’s part of the endemic problem South Africa has with violent crime with victims of all races in all of their cities. But white supremacists are not much for accurate context. They started taking these incidents and essentially built out these anecdotes into a dark fantasy of ongoing white genocide and they use that phrase over and over in South Africa. Their twisted vision is South Africa is the canary in the coal mine. Despite President Trump’s directive to Secretary of State Pompeo, no evidence documents an epidemic of murders targeting white South African farmers because of their race. The number of farm murders in South Africa hit a 30-year low point in 2017-18, according to a report released by the South African Agricultural Industry (AgriSA) that cited South African police data. Overall, farm attacks have also been on a general decline after spiking in 2001-02 at 1,069, although since hitting a low point in 2013-14 that figure has been on the rise. (Recorded incidents include “murder, rape, robbery and causing bodily harm” and also “all violence aimed at destroying farm infrastructure and property with a view to disrupting legitimate farming activities,” according to AgriSA.) The AgriSA report did not account for the race of perpetrators or victims, and independent fact checking organization Africa Check reported that South African police don’t track crime statistics by race. Some 19,016 killings were recorded in South Africa between April 2016 to March 2017, an increase over the previous year’s number. The most hideous cases of farm murders have, of course, drawn the most media scrutiny. Writing for the publication Quartz Africa, journalist Lynsey Chutel noted that the seclusion and perceived wealth of the farms could explain why their owners are targeted, although she noted that the brutality of some of the crimes may be attributed to racial animosity: Isolated and believed to be wealthy, South African farmers have historically been the targets of attacks in South Africa. In some cases the attacks and murders have been so brutal that many believe there is an element of race-based vengeance for apartheid. White farmers’ vulnerability has increased along with the rest of the country as South Africa struggles to contain crime, especially violent crime. Kobus Visser, director of AgriSA’s Rural Safety and General Affairs Chamber, also observed that: National crime statistics of the previous year show that murders in South Africa have increased for the fifth consecutive year, while robbery with aggravating circumstances, including home and business burglaries and vehicle hijackings, has also increased. The latter three, known as trio-crimes, are probably the most feared by the public and to which the farming community is exposed on an ongoing basis. The same trend was also observed with the increase in farm attacks during the past two financial years. People who live on farms in rural areas are particularly vulnerable to armed farm attacks where response times are lengthy because of the remoteness of farms. This offers the attackers an opportunity to linger on the premises for longer, with a greater chance of the victim being subjected to a high degree of violence and brutality, compared to crimes in urban areas where the police, security companies and neighbours arrive sooner to render assistance. President Trump’s remark appeared to have been inspired by a 22 August 2018 Fox News segment in which Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson blasted a controversial initiative by the South African government to redistribute land, the vast majority of which is owned by a small white minority as a holdover of racial inequality standards that existed under apartheid. Although Carlson did not address the “large scale killing” of farmers in that segment, he did discuss it in May with a guest from the South African white minority lobbying group AfriForum. “Tucker Carlson is incredibly popular among white nationalists because the rhetoric and subjects of discussion on his program frequently reflect the conversations happening in the white nationalist movement,” Jared Holt, a researcher for Right Wing Watch, told us in an email, adding:
30475	A new study published in the Lancet has officially declared that fluoride is a neurotoxin.	These preliminary findings aside, the 2014 study referenced in viral posts did not “officially declare” anything about fluoride, as it and the authors that created it have no authority to do so. It instead made a controversial argument for a more proactive approach to chemical regulation using old and potentially flawed data about fluoride. For all these reasons, we rank the claim that a new paper in The Lancet has ruled that fluoride is a neurotoxin as false.	false	Medical, brain, children, developmental disorders	Since at least December 2015, several effectively identical stories about the neurotoxicity of fluoride have been published on a wide variety of websites with domain names like AltHealthworks.com, Energytherapy.biz, Organic and Healthy.org, and most recently in a 5 April 2018 post from AwarenessAct.com: Evidence of how negatively fluoride can impact our health has been increasing in rapid pace throughout the past few years. People are hoping that by bringing awareness to this that somehow we can get sodium fluoride removed from the world’s water supply. A big step has been made here recently. In the most prestigious medical journal […] known as The Lancet [,] fluoride has been at last classified as a neurotoxin one hundred percent. This puts it in the same category as things like lead, arsenic, and mercury. This news was released by the author Stefan Smyle who actually cited a report that had been published in The Lancet Neurology, Volume 13, Issue 3 […] in the March of 2014 edition. Right off the bat, there are a number of elements that should jump out at the reader as dubious. First, studies — even ones published in prestigious journals — do not themselves “declare” or “classify” anything as a neurotoxin; governmental organizations, using published research and other data, make determinations about a chemical’s danger and regulate it accordingly. In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency maintains a list of chemicals approved as non-toxic under the Toxic Substances Control Act, and they regulate standards for levels of human-made and natural contaminants in water under the Safe Drinking Water Act. For food or cosmetic products, the Food and Drug Administration makes similar determinations under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Second, the concept of classifying something as “one hundred percent” neurotoxic betrays the original author’s ignorance of the concept of toxicity. Toxicologists do not refer to toxicity in any way that could be represented as a percentage, instead they develop exposure guidelines and reference doses. The dose, as they say, makes the poison, and many things that are legally allowed to be in food are, in fact, neurotoxic at high enough doses. For these reasons, the viral claim can be debunked as false without even getting into the Lancet Neurology paper cited in these stories. However, since that paper continues to be attached to these viral click traps, it is worth noting that the study itself included no new analyses about the neurotoxicity of fluoride. The Lancet Neurology Paper Though presented as a large-scale study revealing new toxicologic information about fluoride, this paper (which was in Lancet Neurology, not The Lancet) introduced no new data on fluoride neurotoxicity. It instead makes a broader argument that all chemicals should be considered neurotoxic to children given science’s inability to accurately or effectively assess neurotoxicity to developing brains, citing past research on fluoride as one example of a potentially harmful chemical: To control the pandemic of developmental neurotoxicity, we propose a global prevention strategy. Untested chemicals should not be presumed to be safe to brain development, and chemicals in existing use and all new chemicals must therefore be tested for developmental neurotoxicity. The paper itself drew fierce criticism from scientists in both industry and academia when it was first published, and Lancet Neurology ended up publishing an unusually large of number of professional responses to the study. Authored by Harvard School of Public Health professor Philippe Grandjean and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Professor Philip J. Landrigan, this 2014 paper is a follow up an earlier paper written by the same authors that incorporates new studies that had been conducted since then. The entirety of new information about fluoride in the 2014 iteration of their work boils down to a single new study — a meta-review of 27 smaller scale studies published in a 2012 paper which also included Grandjean as an author. It also drew significant academic backlash and media attention. The paper was so misrepresented by some media accounts hailing it as rock-solid evidence that water fluoridation reduces the intelligence of children that the authors actually had to append a clarification notice to the press release sent out by Harvard, stating their results could not be used to assess the levels at which fluoride could become neurotoxic: These results do not allow us to make any judgment regarding possible levels of risk at levels of exposure typical for water fluoridation in the U.S. On the other hand, neither can it be concluded that no risk is present. We therefore recommend further research to clarify what role fluoride exposure levels may play in possible adverse effects on brain development, so that future risk assessments can properly take into regard this possible hazard. The reason that this study can not be used to draw a direct comparison the United States or to water fluoridation programs in general is because most of the studies are from China and utilize the natural variations of fluoride in groundwater, which is found in high concentration in some regions there. In many cases, the studies analyzed in the 2012 review investigate extremely high concentrations of fluoride that far exceed legal limits in the United States. The Fluoride Argument Further — and despite assurances by Grandjean and Landrigan to the contrary — many of the studies included in the 2012 review (which were translated from Chinese and republished in the journal Fluoride years after their original publication) do not provide anywhere near enough information to defend the claim that their documented associations between exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ are “unlikely” to be driven by another chemical in drinking water (such as arsenic) that could also have a neurologic effect. For a more detailed look at the criticisms of that 2012 study, please see our post on claims that water fluoridation can reduce a person’s intelligence quotient. A better study to reference if one were interested in providing an argument that fluoride could have cognitive effects on developing brains would be a 2017 paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives, which demonstrates an association between prenatal fluoride exposure and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. This study, like many in the review described above, is not great for comparisons to United States water fluoridation, however. That’s because the mother-offspring pairs in this 2017 study were exposed either to naturally occurring fluoride or through fluoride added to salt, not to water. It therefore cannot be used confidently to assess the levels at which fluoride in drinking water could be neurotoxic to developing brains: Our findings, combined with evidence from existing animal and human studies, reinforce the need for additional research on potential adverse effects of fluoride, particularly in pregnant women and children, and to ensure that the benefits of population-level fluoride supplementation outweigh any potential risks.
2641	Spanish forced to pay for drugs as cuts take toll.	Patients in Spain will have to pay the full price for some prescription medicines under a new measure to cut healthcare costs approved on Wednesday, Health Minister Ana Mato confirmed at a press conference.	true	Health News	The new measure, which will come into effect in August, will apply to 425 drugs for “minor ailments”, including migraines. Patients will have to pay 100 percent of the cost for codeine, some anti-inflammatories and laxatives, among other drugs. “We’re revising the financing of a series of drugs with little therapeutic use and for minor ailments. At the same time, we’re going to be able to use public financing for new drugs and those with more therapeutic value,” Mato said following a meeting with health representatives from Spain’s 17 autonomous regions. The Spanish government expects to save 458 million euros ($570.53 million) with the new measure to cut state support. This figure is part of 7 billion euros of savings already announced in April, a pharmaceutical industry source told Reuters earlier on Wednesday. The autonomous regions account for around 50 percent of public spending and missed deficit targets by a wide margin last year. Two regions, Andalucia and the Basque Country, objected at the meeting that they had not been provided with a full list of drugs beforehand and demanded more time to consult industry experts before applying the rule, Andalucia’s representative Maria Jesus Montero told reporters. However, Spain’s ruling centre right People’s Party (PP) has an absolute parliamentary majority and controls most of the country’s regions. The measure will be implemented despite objections. Spain, in the midst of a painful recession that has left one in four unemployed, has vowed to make a total 45 billion euros of public sector cuts this year. “Some (drug) companies will suffer moderate or serious damage to their turnover, but not including those medicines in the list of excluded drugs would have been illogical and incoherent,” Spain’s Health Ministry said in a draft document seen by Reuters before the meeting. Spain is also introducing a co-payment system which will kick in on Sunday, meaning the public will pay varying amounts for prescriptions depending on their income. The move highlights the growing pressures on healthcare systems in southern Europe, which are buckling under the strain of austerity. In Greece, pharmacies are struggling with a tangle of unpaid bills and state hospitals are running out of some medicines. Europe’s drugmakers, meanwhile, are seeking special protection to keep supplies flowing to the worst-hit countries and ring-fence their businesses from emergency price cuts.
1696	Eclipse thrills on remote Arctic islands, clouds mar for some.	A solar eclipse thrilled thousands of sky gazers on remote Arctic islands on Friday but clouds disappointed some viewers of a rare celestial show that was also partly visible for millions in Europe, Africa and Asia.	true	Environment	People cheered and clapped as the moon blocked the sun for about 2.5 minutes under clear skies on the icy Norwegian islands of Svalbard, where tourists had been warned of risks of frostbite and polar bears after an attack on Thursday. But clouds masked the sky over Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands further south and the only other place where a total eclipse was visible from land as the moon’s shadow skimmed across the Atlantic. “It was overcast, there was rain and wind. You could see nothing. It was a disappointment for everybody,” said Gabor Lantos, a Hungarian tourist. “Some tourists were so irritated, they argued with tour operators, demanding their money back.” Others were more awestruck by the sudden darkness. “It was worth coming here from Australia, probably not as good as the 2012 eclipse we saw in Cairns, but still worth coming,” said Australian visitor Michael Tonks. Street lights came on automatically as the sky blackened. Some eclipse viewers gathered on an icy mountainside in Svalbard. “We couldn’t ask for more. It was stunning,” said Ronny Brunvoll, head of the Visit Svalbard organization. In Svalbard, a polar bear mauled a Czech tourist on Thursday, breaking into his tent as he slept. Jakub Moravev, flown by helicopter to hospital, escaped with light injuries to his face, chest and an arm. The Faroe Islands expected about 8,000 visitors on top of the archipelago’s 50,000 population for the first eclipse in the region in 60 years. About 2,000 people made the trek to Svalbard, doubling the population there. “I’ve seen aurora, I’ve seen some volcano eruptions, but the total eclipse is still the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen. And each one is unique,” said Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist in Torshavn. In an eclipse, when skies are clear, stars and planets are suddenly visible in daytime and a ring of fire - the corona - appears around the sun. In one famous experiment, a 1919 eclipse provided evidence for Einstein’s theory of relativity by showing that the sun’s mass bent light from distant stars. On Friday, electrical grids claimed success in managing the unprecedented disruption to solar power from the eclipse that brought sudden, massive swings in supply over a 2-1/2-hour period. The small audience on Friday contrasted with tens of millions of people who saw the last major eclipse in Europe in 1999. This time around, a partial eclipse was visible mainly in Europe and Russia, and glanced parts of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Twitter was dominated by the eclipse, with seven of the top 10 trending terms related to the sun and moon in Germany. And the German word for “doomsday” was the ninth most popular topic.
9120	ADHD medication tied to lower risk for alcohol, drug abuse in teens and adults	This news release from Indiana University reports on an observational study that suggests the use of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication is tied to a lower risk of substance use disorders. While the news release puts a positive spin on the use of stimulants for ADHD, it doesn’t mention that some co-authors have financial conflicts of interest with makers of ADHD medications. In addition, the release overstates the benefits of ADHD medication by reporting the relative risk reduction rather than absolute numbers. It also omits any mention of medication side effects. ADHD is both a common diagnosis and a hot-button issue, especially for parents concerned about putting their children and teens on stimulant drugs. It would be tempting for parents to think that by putting their children on ADHD medications they could also help them avoid future substance use. But this observational study overstates the protective effect of stimulant medications on future substance abuse.	false	ADHD medications,Indiana University	There was no discussion of costs. It would have been helpful to include the average cost of ADHD drugs with and without insurance. A 30-day supply of generic Adderall averages $25, according to GoodRx. The release notes that, “The risk of substance use problems during periods of medication use was 35 percent lower in men and 31 percent lower in women in the study.” The release doesn’t give us any indication of what “problems” the authors were referring to. Further, this is purely an observational finding and does not prove cause and effect. We were also concerned that the release conflated the odds ratio and risk. We’ve written before about how it is tricky to refer to odds ratios when writing about clinical trials since the results always seem more impressive when using odds ratios instead of relative or absolute risks. The two numbers — odds ratio and relative risk — can be quite close when the outcome of interest happens rarely (say less than 10 percent). Otherwise, they can be drastically different and we should be told the relative risk. There’s a rather simple formula for converting odds ratio to relative risk. A google search reveals several such calculators. The release did not make any mention of potential side effects of stimulants used to treat ADHD. Common side effects include headache, upset stomach, increased blood pressure, dizziness, decreased appetite, insomnia and dry mouth. The release briefly described how the study was conducted, but didn’t offer any analysis on what the methods meant for the quality of the evidence. The release didn’t mention any limitations of the study. One thing that could have used more clarification was the term “substance use,” and how it was defined. The study looked at trips to the emergency room because of drugs or alcohol, but there are many substance users that don’t go to the emergency room. Emergency room visits were used as a surrogate marker of general substance abuse, but the release made no mention of that. Furthermore, the researchers collected data from a database of employee health insurance coverage, meaning everyone in their sample was employed and had commercial insurance. This automatically leaves out anyone who is unemployed, has personal insurance, or paid for their emergency room trip via cash or other methods. Other limitations that should have been mentioned: the fact that this was an observational study so it is unable to prove causality, and the fact that the researchers did not have enough data to calculate long-term benefits among the women of the study. No disease mongering in this release. The release noted the funders but did not mention any of the authors’ conflicts of interest. One of the authors has served as a speaker for Eli Lilly and Shire, and was awarded a research grant from Shire. Shire produces ADHD medications, including Vyvanse and Adderall. Eli Lilly also produces an ADHD medication, Strattera. This is a big conflict of interest that should have been noted in the release, particularly since both Adderall and Strattera were mentioned by brand name in the release. The release did not mention any alternatives for treating ADHD such as non-stimulant medications or cognitive behavioral therapy. The release did not discuss the availability of ADHD medications. However, these are commonly prescribed medications that are widely available in the US and Europe. The release did not claim that this study was novel. In fact, it mentioned that it built upon previous work from the same authors which found benefits to ADHD medication in other studies based in the US and Sweden. There was no sensational language.
36417	Samples of seafood in supermarkets and sushi restaurants are widely mislabeled.	‘Sequencing Fish Samples’ Viral Twitter Thread	true	Fact Checks, Viral Content	"On April 6 2019, a screenshots (archived here) of a Twitter thread originally published by @AwesomeBioTA one day prior went viral on social media:In the original thread, the poster (@AwesomeBioTA) recounted the purported results of her class’s attempt to sequence samples of seafood gathered at places like supermarkets and sushi restaurants:OH BOY OH BOY.I just got the results back from my class' foray in sequencing fish samples. ARE YOU READY? They're a mind-bender. https://t.co/O7yBCHEQg4— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019Josue sequenced some red snapper. I put money on that being tilapia and…I was right. Someone owes me $5.His lab partner, Juanni, sequenced Atlantic Salmon. Comes back as Rainbow trout. Unsurprising. Not the same species AT ALL, but unsurprising.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019David and Nicolas both sequenced what they thought was Steelhead trout (aka Rainbow trout). David's was smoked, Nic's not.Nic's was rainbow trout.David's was coho salmon.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019Reena sequenced what was labelled (on the box I bought at the grocery store, no less) Icelandic Cod (MSC-certified). It was. Thank God.Sydney sequenced what was labelled (again, ON THE BOX purchased at the grocery store) Pacific Cod.It was Atlantic Cod. (CRINGEEEE!!!!!! )— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019Jade sequenced what the sushi restaurant (who shall remain nameless…it's probably not their fault) called red tuna.IT WAS TILAPIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019In at least one instance, the findings were a substitution for a better type of fish:Moe sequenced one of the two samples (from different restaurants) labelled ""white tuna"". Often another name for albacore tuna.It was yellowfin tuna. (NOT the same species!! A trade upwards)— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019But other results were not as benign:Evalyne sequenced the other sample of ""white tuna"". That was the one that I brought in, that I theoretically would have eaten if I actually liked and ate ""white tuna"" (I think it's gross).It was escolar.THIS IS DANGEROUS. Can cause extreme gastrointestinal distress.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019Last but not least of successful sample runs, we had one that makes my skin crawl. It was a sequence that came back with a bunch of ""unknown bases"" (a bit of cleaning up will help immensely) but I worked with what I had and ran it through the database. Was supposed to be Salmon— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019This salmon was not from a restaurant, but was instead purchased from the seafood department of a local grocery store. Again, to remain nameless. This was purchased from a counter, someone reaches in and grabs the fish, puts it in a bag, sticks a sticker on it, pay by the pound.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019Body louse.I think I might vomit in my mouth a little.I hope this is a mistake. HOPE TO ANY GOD FROM ANY RELIGION that this is a mistake.I hope that this somehow becomes a fish sequence when I clean it up a bit. BUT BODY LOUSE.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019This wasn't a piece of garbage from a market. This was from a ""salmon fillet"" that someone paid good money for, cut some off before they cooked it, put it in saran wrap & brought it in.BODY LOUSE.Think about how much there must be in that sample to override fish DNA!— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019The thread concluded:Anyway, I don't know if any of my students are nearly as enthralled as I am about the results of this experiment. I'M THRILLED.16 students, 13 decent bands on the gel.Of those, we had 9 with pretty decent sequences. THAT'S NOT BAD. Of those 9, TWO WERE LABELLED CORRECTLY.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019So if you ""are what you eat"" and you like seafood? You have no idea what you are because nothing is labelled properly. If you want to know what you're eating? Make sure it's from a certified sustainable fishery. They know what they're fishing, and know what they're doing.— Dr. Jen M (@AwesomeBiota) April 5, 2019The specific claims in @AwesomeBioTA’s illustrated a larger point: seafood obtained in seemingly trustworthy ways was more often than not mislabeled. The stated results were compelling, but were they supported by evidence outside her classroom? Did that class just happen to get a bum batch of samples? The “body louse salmon” aspect appeared to compel readers the most, but so far we have been unable to find any other information about that portion of the research.Seafood mislabeling has been a known issue in the United States since at least 2013, when a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration seafood inspector estimated that mislabeling occurred at a relatively small but still significant rate:Steven Wilson of NOAA’s seafood inspection program, said he thinks the rate of species substitution “is very low,” averaging less than 5 percent.He said purveyors are much more likely to inflate the weight of the seafood they’re selling, by adding water. Inspectors have found inaccurate weight counts 40 percent of the time, Wilson said.Still, Wilson said that fraud was more likely to occur with certain high-value species, including red snapper and grouper. Restaurants and supermarkets frequently substituted tilapia and other cheap species in the place of red snapper, Oceana found.A December 2018 Berkeley Wellness newsletter compiled a number of spikes in coverage in that period. That item cited conservation group Oceana as a source for the original interest in fish fraud, and an undated page on that organization’s website described an extremely broad percentage of mislabeled seafood:Seafood fraud is the practice of misleading consumers about their seafood in order to increase profits. Along with ripping off shoppers, these actions can have negative impacts on marine conservation efforts and human health. […]Recent studies have found that seafood may be mislabeled as often as 25 to 70 percent of the time for fish like red snapper, wild salmon, and Atlantic cod, disguising species that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available.In November 2018, the site Sustainable Fisheries took exception to Oceana’s ongoing campaign and its methods:Seafood fraud/mislabeled seafood is a permanent topic in the sustainable fisheries space. Since 2015, news sources such as The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and the Economist have published stories on the topic of seafood fraud. Nearly every ocean conservation NGO has commented or contributed to the discourse, but Oceana has led the conversation. Oceana has an entire campaign aimed at exposing and reducing seafood fraud globally. Since 2011, they have published sixteen reports on seafood fraud—most recently, a report from Oceana Canada.That examination noted that Oceana defined “seafood fraud” as ‘the practice of misleading consumers about their seafood in order to increase profits,’ focusing on the conservation group’s methodology:Oceana Canada’s 2018 report exposed some important shortcomings in the Canadian seafood system and offered constructive, achievable mandates for reducing seafood fraud domestically. But the study collected data from an exaggerated sample and only presented results that supported a narrative of rampant fraudulence. The conclusions were skewed to reflect the most troubled segments of the seafood supply chain in Canada, not the entirety of the seafood industry that actually reflect national consumption trends and patterns. Recommendations to the CFIA and consumers were helpful in some cases, but unrealistic in others. My analysis to follow aims to contextualize the methods, results and conclusions of this report through the prism of foodservice and seafood industry realities.Fundamental to the interpretation of the Oceana Canada 2018 study’s results is the understanding that the samples were selected to find fraud, not to measure the actual extent of fraud across the entire Canadian seafood supply chain. Oceana disclosed this in the report:The investigation focused on types of fish prone to being mislabeled because of their economic value, availability or popularity. Past studies from both Canada and the United States have shown that cod, halibut, snapper, tuna, salmon and sole have the highest rates of species substitution.In March 2019, National Geographic published an article about Oceana’s claims of seafood fraud, noting that a full 20 percent of the 449 fish that Oceana tested were incorrectly labeled, with “sea bass replaced by giant perch,” “Alaskan halibut by Greenland turbot,” and “Florida snapper by lavender jobfish.” In that article, the outlet pointed to instances of fish fraud in Europe estimated at as high as 40 percent in previous years, but steadily improving:Scientists in six European countries, including Dr Andrew Griffiths from the University of Exeter, tracked samples of the most commonly consumed fish, including cod, tuna, hake and plaice, after a series of studies going back 5 years had shown mislabelling in up to 40% of cases. […]Of the 1,563 DNA sequence samples examined [in 2015], just 77 (4.9%) proved to be mislabelled.Most commonly mislabelled was anchovy (15.5%), hake (11.1%) and tuna (6.8%). By contrast only 3.5% of cod and 3% of haddock was mislabelled. None of the monkfish, plaice or swordfish samples was substituted with other species.DNA sequencing carried out in the United Kingdom and Europe did not appear to have been affiliated with Oceana, pointing to a larger existing issue in seafood mislabeling globally. Neither did a December 2018 press release from New York State’s Attorney General:Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood released a report today titled “Fishy Business: Seafood Fraud and Mislabeling in New York State Supermarkets,” which details high levels of suspected seafood fraud and mislabeling at New York State supermarket chains. The Attorney General’s investigation, which included DNA testing, found that more than one in four samples purchased was not sold under a federally-recognized market name for that species. Mislabeling of certain popular species was rampant – including “wild” salmon (27.59% of samples sold as “wild” salmon were mislabeled), red snapper (67% were mislabeled), and lemon sole (87.5% were mislabeled). The substitutes were often cheaper, less desirable, and less environmentally sustainable species. This includes farm-raised salmon sold as wild salmon, lane snapper sold as red snapper, and swai sold as lemon sole.A January 2017 UCLA study had similar findings unrelated to Oceana’s:A new study from researchers at UCLA and Loyola Marymount University checked the DNA of fish ordered at 26 Los Angeles sushi restaurants from 2012 through 2015, and found that 47 percent of sushi was mislabeled. The good news is that sushi represented as tuna was almost always tuna. Salmon was mislabeled only about one in 10 times. But out of 43 orders of halibut and 32 orders of red snapper, DNA tests showed the researchers were always served a different kind of fish. A one-year sampling of high-end grocery stores found similar mislabeling rates, suggesting the bait-and-switch may occur earlier in the supply chain than the point of sale to consumers. […]Over the four-year study, only bluefin tuna was always exactly as advertised. While only one of 48 tuna samples was not tuna, different kinds of tuna occasionally swapped places, including two samples that turned out to be Atlantic bluefin tuna and southern bluefin tuna, species classified as endangered and critically endangered. Out of nine orders of yellowfin tuna, seven were a different kind of tuna, usually bigeye — a vulnerable and overexploited species, the researchers said. Salmon remained a largely safe bet, with only 6 of 47 orders going awry. However, all halibut and red snapper orders failed the DNA test, and in 9 out of 10 cases, diners ordering halibut were served flounder. About 4 in 10 halibut orders were species of flounder considered overfished or near threatened.The topic of fish fraud or seafood fraud is complex, spanning countries and continents and often appearing in the news in relation to the efforts of conservation group Oceana. An April 2019 Twitter thread about a small experiment to identify samples once again brought the issue into the social media spotlight. Some fishery experts have objected to the methods Oceana used to arrive at their broad range of percentage estimates, but independent testing carried out by the New York State AG’s office and UCLA researchers yielded similar results — the latter discovering nearly half of sushi was mislabeled. Although the scope of fish fraud or seafood fraud is in dispute, its existence is not."
21368	Stimulus money funded a government board that made recommendations that would cost 378,000 jobs and $28.3 billion in sales.	Broun: Stimulus money funded effort that will kill jobs	false	Georgia, Children, Health Care, Paul Broun,	"Hey, Chester the Cheetah. You think it ain’t easy bein’ cheesy? Well, U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens says that the federal government wants to hang your hide on its wall. And it could take down hundreds of thousands of jobs with you. Republican Broun tweeted his concern for the Cheetos snack food mascot during President Barack Obama’s Sept. 8 jobs speech before Congress. Food company critics are targeting Chester for extinction because they think using cartoon characters to sell junk food fuels childhood obesity. As you may remember, Broun has taken to sitting out joint sessions, such as January’s State of the Union Address, so he can tweet critiques of the president real-time. Chester came up in the second of a four-part list explaining why Broun thinks the country doesn’t need the new jobs bill. The president could simply change his policies, Broun argued. ""2) Stimulus $ study on food advertising: proj -$28.3 billion in sales and -378,000 #jobs – just to keep Chester the Cheetah off the air,"" he tweeted. Feds are willing to kill off that much of the economy to restrict food marketing to children? And they’re doing this with stimulus money? Chester better trade those sunglasses for a bulletproof vest. And we’d better check Broun’s facts. In 2009, Congress created the Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children to study and recommend standards for efforts with a large audience of 17 years old or younger. In April, the working group recommended voluntary guidelines that would reduce kids’ exposure to pitches for products that don’t meet certain nutritional guidelines. Targeting children through television, radio, print, company-sponsored websites, email and text messaging, product placement, toy branding, sports team sponsorships, and other methods would cease. Chester’s defenders pounced. A Broun spokesman referred us to an Aug. 29 paper published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. It said that ""even the working group concluded that the guidelines would result in a 20 percent reduction in ad expenditures that would in turn cause losses of $28.3 billion in manufacturing and retail sales and 378,000 jobs lost by 2015."" But the working group did not come to this conclusion. Economic analysis firm IHS Global Insight wrote the report. We also noticed that the Heritage Foundation’s numbers are off, as are those in Broun’s tweet. The IHS report actually says that from 2011 through 2015, lost sales would total $152 billion. The predicted loss of $28.3 billion is for 2011 alone. Furthermore, stimulus dollars did not fund the group, as Broun asserted. Records show the board was created by a separate bill and was funded by the regular budgets of the agencies involved. Now, IHS Global Insight’s analysis does not fit the accepted definition of a ""study,"" as Broun called it. It wasn’t peer-reviewed or conducted by an independent professional. It was funded by opponents of the guidelines. Most importantly, its methodology wasn’t transparent. Broun spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti and IHS spokesman Mike Raimondi defended the IHS report, saying the firm is well-regarded (it is the successor to a research organization founded by a 1980 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics) and guideline opponents were not fishing for numbers to suit their claims. Food manufactures actually thought IHS’ report underestimated how much the guidelines would hurt the economy, Griffanti said. Raimondi said he could not provide detailed information on the findings because IHS did not write a more comprehensive report. He said the results were based on federal and industry data and decades of research. PolitiFact Georgia showed IHS’ report to three marketing professors. They all had reservations with the report’s fundamental assumption: that food and beverage advertising spending would drop 20 percent. IHS did not publish how it reached its conclusions, so other experts cannot check them. ""Based on this type of reasoning without any support, I could just as easily assume that there would be smaller decreases. There’s no way of telling,"" said Jerome Williams, a Rutgers University marketing professor who has studied food marketing to children. In fact, marketing spending might not decline at all, experts said. Companies could redirect the cash to promote healthier kids foods or sell salty snacks to grown-ups. IHS did not look into this possibility, Raimondi said. Ad spending could even increase, Williams said. After the federal government banned cigarette advertising on radio and television in 1971, U.S. cigarette marketing spending grew. In 1970, it totaled $361 million, according to the Federal Trade Commission. In 1975, it was more than $491 million; in 1976, it was $639 million. Broun’s camp rejected the tobacco analogy because the proposed voluntary guidelines would block ads on shows with big adult audiences, as well as marketing techniques beyond broadcast such as product placement. That said, independent scholars haven’t corroborated the IHS report, noted University of Arizona professor Dale Kunkel, an expert on food marketing to children. And while the voluntary guidelines could lead to job losses, they could also create jobs for those who develop and market healthier foods, Emory University marketing professor Douglas Bowman said. Published reports show that food manufactures are innovating in response to child obesity concerns. For instance, Cheetos no longer advertises to children, but the brand is still growing, especially in the Latino market, an executive said last year during a PepsiCo investor event. He said it was rolling out Cheetos with less sodium and fat in Brazil. Griffanti said job creation is unlikely because food companies are continuously updating their products. In sum, while Broun does have a point that jobs could be affected by the guidelines, his claim is deeply flawed. Stimulus dollars did not fund the group that produced the voluntary guidelines. The report that predicted major economic losses was not a true study. Plus, there’s evidence to think that advertising spending won’t plummet. And since the guidelines are voluntary, companies could avoid implementing the bits they think would be too tough on their bottom lines. Or they could ignore them altogether. Chester, take heart. You still have a chance."
11608	Dementia patients live longer when families delay putting them in a nursing home	This is an article about strategy to maximize lifespan for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease. It reports on the results of a recent study which found that the longer the person with Alzheimer’s disease stays at home, the lower the risk of death associated with transfer. But there was a missed opportunity to explain why the published literature, including the study on which the article was based, does not lead to a clear conclusion about when to transfer a person with AD to a nursing home. Although the article did mention in passing that the care of a family member with Alzheimer’s disease can be emotionally overwhelming and physically difficult, it failed to present the balance that needs to be struck between the benefits and harms to both the patient and the caregiver. Because the article did not contain quantitative information about the impact on patient longevity, it was less useful to the reader than it might have been. Just how big was the benefit in absolute terms? There was also no information on costs of either option – a huge issue. The article’s strenghth is in the clear description of care-giver attributes that contribute to higer mortality of the patient with Alzheimer’s disease, such as care-giver denial.	mixture		There was no information about costs for caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease at home or in an appropriate institution, or what resources might be available to help defray some of the costs associated with either. There was also no information about the toll on the person providing home care, such as the physical and emotional burden or the potential lost wages of the care provider. Maximizing life expectancy was presented as the presumed benefit of treatment. The extent to which lifespan was extended with longer maintenance in a home setting was not quantified in absolute terms. However whether living longer with dementia is a benefit is subjective. The benefits of either home care or institutional care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease in terms of other measures of quality of life were not presented. Reduction in lifespan was presented as a harm of transfer to a nursing home, though quantitative information was not provided. While shortening of lifespan for the individual with Alzheimer’s disease was the focus, the harms in terms of emotional toll and financial ramifications for the care givers were not factored in. The article mentioned that caring for an Alzheimer’s disease patient at home can “kill” the care provider, though this was not addressed in the research study on which the article was based. The article does not point out that it was based on a report that was an observational cohort study, a type of investigation that yields weaker conclusions than a randomized, controlled study. While the idea of randomization to a nursing home seems far-fetched, it would nevertheless be appropriate to view the conclusions of the report with some skepticism. While the report showed association, it did not demonstrate causation. It is impossible for this type of study to eliminate the explanation that placement in a nursing home is a proxy for poor prognosis, even with the effect’s diminishing over time. There were no details provided in terms of the magnitude of difference in lifespan or quality of life that might be anticipated. There were no obvious elements of disease mongering The story used several sources – a researcher in a study published in the Journal of Gerontology and interviews with a daughter of an Alzheimer’s disease patient, with a nursing home director, with a psychologist in geriatric neuropsychiatry, and with a spokesperson from the Alzheimer’s Association. The article did briefly mention some of the options available to delay placement in a nursing home such as care-giver training, day-care programs, and other support services. There was also mention of the role of medications in the care of Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, the article listed some of the detrimental aspects of home based care such as the physical and mental toll on family members providing the care. One of the points made in the article is that appropriate care for someone with Alzheimer’s disease is not available at all nursing homes. Determining that a facility is equipped and staffed for dementia care is an important consideration. The data that were novel were the results of a study that found that Alzheimer’s patients who were cared for longer at home appeared better able to adjust once they were placed in an institution as measured by longevity, than those who were institutionalized earlier. Living in a nursing home was associated with shortened lifespan but the longer the person was at home, the smaller the reduction in longevity. Does not appear to rely on a press release.
1107	China seizes record ivory tusks, busts smuggling gang.	Chinese authorities seized 7.48 tonnes of smuggled ivory tusks last month, the biggest haul in recent years, as Beijing steps up a campaign against illegal wildlife trafficking.	true	Environment	The seizures came during an operation against an international criminal gang “that has long been specializing in smuggling ivory,” the customs administration said on Monday. China, the world’s largest importer and end user of elephant tusks, banned ivory sales in the country in 2017. Demand for ivory from Asian countries such as China and Vietnam, where it is turned into jewels and ornaments, has led to a surge in poaching across Africa. Since January, China has seized 8.48 tonnes of ivory and ivory products and more than 500 tonnes of endangered species, the customs administration said. The ivory tusks are part of a flurry of seizures - from rhino horns to pangolin scales - in Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam in recent months. Much of the trade supplies the traditional Chinese medicine industry, with demand for treatments using animal products driving a surge in illegal trafficking of wildlife. Environmental groups have urged authorities to go beyond the seizure of animal products and to prosecute wildlife criminal networks.
3720	Science Says: Diet plays big role in how huge whales can get.	Whales are big, but why aren’t they bigger? A new study says it’s basically about how many calories they can take in.	true	AP Top News, Animals, Whales, General News, Science Says, Science	That’s the conclusion of researchers who used small boats to chase down 300 whales of various species around the world. They reached out with a long pole to attach sensors to the creatures with suction cups, allowing them to record what the animals were doing on their dives for food. The results suggest body size is controlled by how whales capture prey and how much food is available, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science. The study included 90 blue whales, the biggest animal ever to live. Size estimates vary, but the American Cetacean Society says blue whales can grow about 100 feet (30 meters) long and weigh more than 100 tons (91,000 kilograms). The study also included the biggest whale with teeth, the sperm whale, which can stretch about 60 feet (18 meters) long, the group says. When toothed whales hunt, they capture one prey at a time, seeking them out in the murky depths with a sonar-like detection. The study found that as body size increases in such whales, they become progressively less efficient as they hunt — they recover fewer calories from their meals per calorie burned in each dive. That results from limits on availability of prey. “It looks like you cannot be much bigger than a sperm whale” when hunting the way it does, said Nicholas Pyenson of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, who was part of the research. The blue whale can be bigger because it feeds in a much different and highly efficient way, the study says. It opens its mouth wide and engulfs an immense volume of water, even bigger than its body size, as it swims along. Then it closes its mouth and strains the water out through a sieve-like filter, which traps huge amounts of tiny shrimp-like creatures called krill. That “allows them to exploit a very large prey resource that’s very rich in a small amount of time,” said Jeremy Goldbogen of Stanford University, another researcher. “They get a huge bang for the buck.” So why aren’t they even bigger than they are? Maybe blue whales are limited by the seasonal nature of the most nutritious krill patches, which grow gigantic and dense in the summer, Goldbogen said. And calculations indicate that to sustain a blue whale that’s 115 feet (35 meters) long, “you’d need a density of prey that is just not seen anywhere in the world,” Pyenson said. But maybe there’s also some kind of limiting factor in how their bodies function, Goldbogen said. He noted a recent study that found a blue whale’s heart beats up to 37 times a minute after deep dives, and that appears to be about as fast as the organ can pump. Another limiting factor could be a whale’s ability to process the food it takes in, said Terrie Williams of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who did not participate in the research. The study provided a comprehensive look across big whale species, and the success in collecting the data “boggles the mind,” she said. “You try to go out and put a tiny tag on the back of the biggest animal in the world,” she said. ___ This story was first published on December 12, 2019. It was updated on December 14, 2019 to correct that the heart rate of blue whales after deep dives is 37 times per minute, not per second. ___ 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.
4612	UAB stroke study receives $20 million grant.	The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s stroke study received a $20 million grant to help look into strokes in the South and among African-Americans.	true	Race and ethnicity, African-Americans, Health, University of Alabama, Stroke, Birmingham, Alabama	UAB’s Regions for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke will receive funds through 2023, Al.com reported. The study has gotten almost $100 million in grant funding in the past 15 years. More than 30,000 people have participated in the REGARDS study. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is funding the grant. University officials say study participants have taken part in the program for 14 years. The study is based in UAB’s School of Public Health. It includes collaborators from the University of Vermont, University of Cincinnati, Indiana University, Drexel University and Columbia University. UAB professor of biostatistics George Howard said the stroke mortality rate between the ages of 45 and 65 is 200 to 300 percent higher for African-Americans. He also said 11 percent of deaths from strokes in white people happen before age 65, but the number rises to 28 percent for African-Americans. Experts found that living in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee early in life increases the risk of stroke, the newspaper reported.
40888	There were 70 deaths from alcohol in Ireland in August.	We could find no source for this figure. A 2013 average of 88 alcohol-related deaths a month in Ireland includes a number of different factors, such as the coroner mentioning alcohol dependency, certain alcohol-related diseases, and if they were an alcoholic.	false	online	There were 700 deaths from cancer in Ireland in August. We don’t know these figures yet as it is too soon after the fact. The figure for cancer seems realistic from past trends, as there were around 830 deaths caused by cancer in Ireland per month in Q1 of 2020. There were 70 deaths from alcohol in Ireland in August. We could find no source for this figure. A 2013 average of 88 alcohol-related deaths a month in Ireland includes a number of different factors, such as the coroner mentioning alcohol dependency, certain alcohol-related diseases, and if they were an alcoholic. There were 32 deaths from suicide in Ireland in August. It’s too soon to know this figure as only a coroner can officially rule a death as a suicide, but this figure is realistic looking at past data. Claim 1 of 4
27793	A 23-year-old Florida university student was arrested for marijuana possession and coerced into acting as an informant; she was subsequently murdered by drug dealers who discovered she was wearing a wire.	Ultimately, the basic facts of the meme were correct. Rachel Hoffman was caught at a traffic stop in possession of a small amount of marijuana; a raid conducted while she was under subsequent drug court supervision turned up a handful of pills and a few ounces of marijuana. Under threat of prosecution, Hoffman agreed to act as a confidential informant but lacked criminal connections to fulfill police requests. In an effort to avoid prosecution, she engaged in a police-supervised transaction with known criminals under orders to purchase massive quantities of drugs and a firearm. The men with whom she transacted intended to rip her off and sell her aspirin; upon discovering a wire improperly placed in her purse, they murdered her. By all accounts, Hoffman was a regular user of marijuana who sold small quantities to friends, and not a career drug dealer.	true	Crime, crime, memes, rachel hoffman	"In December 2015, a meme titled “Meet Rachel Hoffman” became popular on social media: Meet Rachel Hoffman She was arrested for marijuana and was facing 4 years in prison. Police told her the only way out of the prison time was to become a confidential informant. Her first undercover drug buy was to be one of the biggest in Tallahassee history. Police forced Rachel to buy 1,500 ecstasy pills, 1.5 ounces of cocaine, and a gun from drug dealers. The drug dealers murdered her when they found the wire in her purse. Social media interest in Hoffman was piqued when the Facebook page Free Talk Live shared the meme on 7 December 2015: // <! [CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = ""//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3""; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]> Drugs didn’t kill Rachel, the war on drugs did. Posted by Free Talk Live on Monday, December 7, 2015 The meme was spread as part of a debate over whether drug law enforcement was more detrimental to society as a whole than drug use. Although most commenters were horrified to hear of Hoffman’s fate, at least one was less than sympathetic, holding that Hoffman was not simply a recreational drug user caught up in a nightmare scenario with drug dealers but a drug dealer herself: She was a dealer that was arrested on a narcotics bust (that turned up Marijuana along with the harder drugs) back in 2008, not someone that just smoked recreationally. They found Ecstasy, Valium, and over 5 ounces of weed when they searched her apartment. It wasn’t a simple case of police busting her for smoking pot and bullying her into actually attempting something worthwhile that ultimately went wrong. Furthermore, she failed to follow the established plan by leaving the planned deal area to go off with the drug dealers that killed her, she left the area that the cops had access to which resulted in them not being able to protect her. If they had followed they would’ve immediately tipped off the dealers to the bust and she would’ve had no chance of getting out alive. Painting her in a way that portrays her as some innocent victim that just liked to light up on occasion isn’t accurate in the slightest. The war on drugs didn’t kill her, she ended her own life by being impulsive and making choices that ultimately resulted in her death. As many viewers surmised, Hoffman’s story was far too complex to be accurately summarized by an image meme. The basic assertions of the meme were accurate, though significant details were obscured by its brief verbiage. On 22 February 2007, Florida State University graduate Rachel Hoffman was found to be in possession of a relatively small amount of marijuana (25 grams) during a routine traffic stop. Contemporaneous news reports about Hoffman tended to begin with her tragic death and work backwards, so details of her involvement with police after that traffic stop were revealed slowly and sometimes only after initial, less accurate information was reported. According to a local news report, on 17 April 2008, while Hoffman was under drug court supervision stemming the February 2007 traffic stop, Tallahassee police searched her apartment and turned up cannabis and a small quantity of Ecstasy: [P]olice searched Hoffman’s home and found cannabis, drug paraphernalia and six ecstasy pills. They found 151.7 grams (or 5.328 ounces) of cannabis, rolling papers, a digital scale with cannabis residue and a book titled “The Cannabible,” according to records [Tallahassee police] released. A 13 May 2008 ABC News article (published on the same day Hoffman was buried) offered initial information about how that traffic stop eventually led to Hoffman’s bullet-ridden body being found in a ditch in April 2008: Authorities began the process of explaining how Hoffman became a police informant, a relationship initiated when police executed a search warrant at her apartment April 17 and recovered more than 200 grams of marijuana as well as ecstasy. Hoffman was already part of a drug court program after a 2007 traffic stop in which police found enough marijuana to arrest her. As police wrote up the probable cause affidavit, McCranie said, an officer offered Hoffman, whom he described as “very bright” and “very talented,” a chance to potentially reduce the punishment for the new drug case against her by acting as an informant. It’s a deal, McCranie said, that’s offered to “countless” drug defendants. “A lot of people say ‘no,'” he added. Hoffman took the deal, however, which McCranie said did not guarantee that the charges would be dropped against her. “We’re not saying we’re dropping the charges,” he said. “Whatever you can provide, the state attorney will decide how to balance your assistance with your crime.” Questions frequently up in discussions of Hoffman’s death involved the amounts of various drugs she purportedly possessed and whether she was herself selling marijuana and other substances. A September 2013 post written by Hoffman’s friend Elizabeth Patty-Lugo and titled “My Best Friend Rachel Hoffman Was Murdered at 23-Years-Old” said that police estimates of Hoffman’s involvement in the drug trade were wildly implausible: For the first part of her Drug Court sentence she stayed clean and passed her urinalyses tests, but over the next few months she began smoking marijuana again and eventually began selling small amounts of marijuana to her friends. This is the part of Rachel’s story where people begin to say things like, “well she was a criminal, she deserved what she got” and “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” and like I said previously, nobody has ever said that what she was doing wasn’t wrong, it was wrong, but the argument here is that she wasn’t afforded her right to due process and didn’t deserve to pay with her life for a “baggie” of marijuana. During her one year of Drug Court she had only missed one random urine test because she was out of town with one of her childhood friends from synagogue, his father had passed away suddenly leaving behind his wife and three children … Since she missed a random urine test while attending her friend’s father’s funeral in Tampa, she was sentenced to one weekend in jail. The weekend in jail was a definite eye-opener for Rachel, she had a first-hand glimpse of what life is like for non-violent criminals in the Florida prison system. After she completed her weekend in jail she became much more selective when it came to selling marijuana. Initial TPD reports claimed Rachel sold 35 pounds of marijuana per month, which would gross about $1.2-$1.5 million annually … Now Rachel was a generous person, often cooking meals for friends or buying a plate of sushi for all of us to share, but I can assure you that she did not live the lifestyle of someone who made $1.2-1.5 million tax-free profit every year. Patty-Lugo’s lengthy account described the circumstances under which Hoffman’s home was raided, as well as the choice Hoffman faced following the raid (emphasizing Hoffman’s request that Patty-Lugo covertly film the buy-bust, and Hoffman’s fears that the police would deny her “credit” for the risky undertaking.) By Patty-Lugo’s account, police convinced Rachel that she would be “covered” at all times during the operation, and that the worst possible outcome would be a “fake arrest”: While executing the search warrant in her apartment, police turned up just under a quarter pound of marijuana, four ecstasy pills, two Valium pills, and some pipes used for smoking marijuana. Rachel was facing several possible felony charges including, possession of cannabis with intent to sell, possession of ecstasy, maintaining a drug house, possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, and possession of paraphernalia. However, she was never arrested on these charges and certainly never charged with these alleged crimes. Instead she was told by police she “could make all the charges go away” by agreeing to become a confidential informant … If Drug Court found out about the raid on her apartment, they would then extend her time in the program and she wouldn’t be allowed to be used as an informant to work off a possible four-year prison sentence. They had scared her into not telling an attorney. Patty-Lugo maintained that she and Hoffman continued contact throughout the botched buy-bust, claiming that Hoffman was incorrectly wired and that she inaccurately believed law enforcement officers were tailing her. At the end of a detailed minute-by-minute account, Patty-Lugo wrote: After her phone call to [suspect Andrea] Green ended at approximately 6:47pm I got the last text message that I would ever get from Rachel saying that she would call me later, but I never heard from her again. Little did I know, that less than five minutes after her last text message to me, she would be dead in the back seat of her car riddled with bullet holes … Tragically and unknown to her, the wire on her person as well as the one in her purse had failed and police could not hear her, she also did not know that police could not see her, or that they didn’t even know where she was. The placement of the wire in Hoffman’s purse emerged as one of the key disputed procedures examined after her death. In September 2012, NPR interviewed New Yorker writer Sarah Stillman about an article she had written concerning Hoffman’s case. In that NPR segment, Stillman said: [Hoffman’s killers] opened up her purse, because the wire had actually been placed in her purse, which was against, you know, standard procedures there, but it had all been done in a bit of haste, and she’d been sent off with the wires in her purse. And, you know, it’s a bit unclear exactly what occurred because, you know, no one was there to witness it, but the understanding was that they took her purse and found the wire, and she was shot. Stillman’s September 2012 New Yorker piece examined the largely unmonitored involvement of individuals like Hoffman in drug enforcement operations. Focusing on the “recruitment of young informants often involves risks that are incommensurate with the charges that they are facing,” Stillman painted Hoffman as out of her depth and without recourse: Despite Hoffman’s legal problems [involving drug court supervision for the traffic stop], in the months before her death she earned admission to a master’s program in mental-health counseling … She still made a habit of smoking pot, and she sold it in small quantities to friends. The police were able to use Hoffman’s stash as leverage. The day after her apartment was raided, she arrived at Police Headquarters to initiate her C.I. contract. Panicked and eager to coöperate, Hoffman first tried to set up a student at Florida State who was a small-time campus dealer. But guilt quickly set in, and soon afterward she contacted the student to confess what she’d done. He not only forgave her but agreed to help her out with the police. Together, they would come up with someone to bust. In return for the favor, Hoffman promised to pay his overdue utility bill. According to a confidential deposition from a friend of Hoffman’s, the police made it clear that run-of-the-mill pot busts wouldn’t be sufficient to work off her charges. Instead, the friend said, the cops were looking for large quantities of “heroin, cocaine, crack, Ecstasy, guns.” Among the details uncovered in the years following Hoffman’s death was that the “raid” could never have succeeded as planned. Hoffman, pressured to participate in a narcotics transaction far out of her league, was pegged as a mark by her assailants: The encounter had never really been a prospective drug deal. Green was apparently planning a con: he was going to hand Hoffman a bag full of aspirin in place of the Ecstasy, a relative of his told me, and take off with the money. When investigators spoke to Green’s wife in the days that followed, she acknowledged that her husband had called on the night of the botched operation. She described what had taken place: “They found a wire in her purse, and shot her.” Another element Stillman focused on in her piece was the initial statements made by police when news of Hoffman’s death broke. On the morning Hoffman’s body was found, the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) told the press Hoffman had brought about her own death not following protocol. Hoffman’s parents later described that moment as the start of “the smearing” of their daughter: [J]ournalists descended on a forest clearing where Tallahassee Police Department officials were holding a press conference, not far from where Hoffman’s body still lay. (The two suspects had been apprehended, and, at around 6:30 a.m., they had led police to the site.) “We had established protocols in place to insure her safety,” Officer David McCranie told the crowd. “At some point during the investigation, she chose not to follow the instructions. She met Green and Bradshaw on her own. That meeting ultimately resulted in her murder.” Rachel’s friends started coming by her apartment, and they, too, were almost as shocked by the initial coverage of the murder as by the death itself. “That was devastating for so many of us,” one of Hoffman’s childhood friends recalled. “The first stories tried to paint Rachel as a low-life druggie drug dealer.” Two months later, in a TV segment on Hoffman’s death, ABC News correspondent Brian Ross interviewed Police Chief Jones. “I’m calling her a criminal,” Jones told him. “That’s my job as a police chief — to find these criminals in our community and take them off the street, to make the proper arrests.” Ross asked about the department’s accountability. “Do we feel responsible?” Jones said. “We’re responsible for the safety of this community.” Rachel’s body was found on 9 May 2008, and a local news article published that day included the following passage, suggesting her involvement with the buy-bust was voluntary and that she had ignored precautions set up for her in the preparations for the buy-bust: When the slain Tallahassee woman Rachel Hoffman agreed to assist police in [a] buy-bust operation, she was facing multiple felony charges and was in a diversion program for possession of more than 20 grams of marijuana, said Tallahassee Police Chief Dennis Jones in a news conference today. “It is not unusual to have known drug dealers or users offer to assist police in narcotics investigations,” Jones said. “Rachel was no exception.” Hoffman was facing charges of possession of ecstasy with intent to sell, possession of controlled substance with intent to sell, maintaining a drug house and possession of drug paraphernalia, he said. She agreed to buy 1,500 pills of ecstasy, 2 ounces of cocaine or crack cocaine and a gun from two men who are now suspected of kidnapping and robbing her. “Unfortunately, Rachel chose to ignore precautions established in a previous briefing as well as the direction of her case agent,” Jones said. According to Stillman’s piece (and several other articles), Hoffman’s parents were ultimately awarded $2.6 million in a wrongful death suit against the City of Tallahassee and provided a formal apology. Hoffman’s parents also founded an organization devoted to warning young people about the risks of becoming confidential informants. On 1 July 2009 a bill known as “Rachel’s Law” was adopted in Florida, aimed at providing greater protection to individuals find themselves in situations such as Rachel Hoffman’s. Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Hoffman."
8721	Ventilator rush: UK says new ones will be approved next week.	Britain said on Friday that engineering companies had come up with an emergency ventilator prototype to treat coronavirus patients that could be approved next week, though one industry source told Reuters full production was several weeks away.	true	Health News	Britain, where 145 people with COVID-19 have died so far, has a shortage of ventilators which can save the lives of those who develop complications after contracting the virus. The UK’s existing stock of around 5,000-8,000 ventilators is inadequate. Given such an acute shortage in a country with a population of 67 million, the government scrambled to ask top engineering companies to retool their production to make ventilators. “More than half a dozen companies have already made one in prototype, to check with us that we are happy with the quality,” health minister Matt Hancock said. Hancock said he hoped the new ventilators would be approved for use in hospitals by the end of next week. “I would be surprised if it was longer than then,” he said. “We need as many as you can possibly make and we will buy them.” A source familiar with the manufacturing situation told Reuters that the prototype would be available next week with manufacturing to start in 4 weeks time. Other industry sources told Reuters that they were ready to act but that they needed more details from government on what was expected from them. British companies have formed three teams, led by aerospace engineer Meggitt (MGGT.L) and carmakers McLaren and Nissan (7201.T) to pursue the rapid production of ventilators. European planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) has offered help with 3D technology and facilities if other companies need it. “When needs must, we can perform and I’m sure the same would be true for ventilators ... if we were given the right brief and opportunity to do so,” Bentley boss Adrian Hallmark told Reuters. Britain faces a “massive shortage” of ventilators that will be needed to treat critically ill patients suffering from coronavirus, after it failed to invest enough in intensive care equipment, a leading ventilator manufacturer said. Estimates of the potential death toll in the United Kingdom range from a around 20,000 to over 250,000 or even more. As of March 19, 64,621 people have been tested in the UK, of which 61,352 were confirmed negative and 3,269 were confirmed positive. Britain casts its National Health Service, which offers healthcare free at the point of use for everyone from cradle to grave, as one of its greatest national achievements. But many doctors say it should be better funded and managed. Britain has asked 65,000 former nurses and doctors to return to work and will deploy final-year medical students and student nurses to fight the coronavirus health crisis, the health ministry said. “We can’t do it alone, so I am urging all recent former nurses to lend us your expertise and experience during this pandemic, because I have no doubt that you can help to save lives,” said Ruth May, chief nursing officer for England. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is writing out to more than 50,000 nurses whose registration has lapsed in the last three years. The General Medical Council will write to another 15,500 doctors who have left the register since 2017. Britain’s health service is freeing up 30,000 beds by postponing non-urgent operations and providing care in the community for those who are fit to be discharged, and finding up to 10,000 in independent and community hospitals, the health service said. Hancock also said 150 trucks were being sent to 150 hospitals, about half of all those in the country, to provide more protective equipment such as masks and hand sanitiser.
19018	"Dennis Kucinich Says the tax code is effectively subsidizing ""the marketing efforts of fast food and junk food companies by as much as $19 billion over 10 years."	Dennis Kucinich says the tax code effectively subsidizes fast food and junk food marketing that targets children	true	Ohio, Children, Health Care, Public Health, Taxes, Dennis Kucinich,	"Dennis Kucinich became a lame-duck member of Congress after the 10th District he has represented since 1997 was redrawn out of existence and he lost a primary contest to another sitting Democrat, Marcy Kaptur, in the new Ohio 9th District. But Kucinich has not stopped working on the issues that have engaged him. He issued a news release and video on Nov. 2 supporting HR 4310, the bill he introduced to ""end the childhood obesity subsidy."" ""Congress -- with your tax dollars -- subsidizes the marketing efforts of fast food and junk food companies by as much as $19 billion over 10 years,"" thereby ""subsidizing the childhood obesity epidemic,"" he said. Do fast food and junk food companies really enjoy an advertising subsidy? PolitiFact Ohio decided to dig in. Kucinich builds his case first by noting that childhood obesity -- which has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- has been linked to the influence of targeted marketing, though ""partial blame does lie with a more sedentary lifestyle and a worsening diet."" He cites several prominent studies in support, with the most recent study coming from the Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. It says: ""Aggressive marketing of high-calorie foods to children and adolescents has been identified as one of the major contributors to childhood obesity."" (Others with the same conclusion included the American Heart Association, the American Journal of Public Health and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.) Kucinich's bill would prohibit any company from claiming a tax deduction for the expense of marketing that is directed at children ""to promote the consumption of food at fast food restaurants or of food of poor nutritional quality."" Under current law, fast food marketers get the same break that other businesses do. The federal tax code allows companies to deduct ""reasonable and necessary"" expenses of marketing and advertising from their income taxes. How is that a subsidy? ""The way the federal funding system works,"" Kucinich said, ""is that if we give a tax break in one place, we need to replace that lost income from somewhere else, like with higher taxes from the rest of us. In other words, this tax break is a massive subsidy for the junk food and fast food industry."" The question then is how much the deduction, or tax break, is worth. According to a report to Congress from the Federal Trade Commission, the most recent we could find, the fast food industry spent nearly $2 billion in 2006 on marketing and advertising specifically aimed at children. That would yield about $700 million in tax revenue at the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine put the marketing budgets for ""kids' foods"" at $10 billion annually -- which would yield $3.5 billion in revenue. A study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity said ""it It is unclear how much money is spent on food advertising specifically directed at children and adolescents,"" but put the total for advertising, youth-targeted promotions and public relations and packaging especially designed for children at $10.5 billion. The Economic Policy Institute estimated 10-year tax savings of $15 billion through legislation to ""end subsidies for junk and fast food advertising to children to promote health."" Kucinich relied on Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which estimated ""on a very preliminary basis"" that his legislation could raise $15 billion to $19 billion in additional federal revenue over the 10-year budget period. That is as much as $19 billion, as Kucinich asserted, though the committee also noted that unsettled issues surrounding his bill would affect its impact and the revenue it would raise. Those issues primarily include defining ""fast food"" and determining what advertising is ""primarily directed at children."" What's our take-home? PolitiFact examined Kucinich's legislation two years ago, when he made a statement about it that we found relied too firmly on a high-end estimate of its potential tax saving and implied a direct cash payout by taxpayers to the food industry. He chose his words more carefully this time. His assertion that the tax code provides a subsidy of ""as much as $19 billion"" needs additional information for clarification, but it is well supported. On the Truth-O-Meter, his claim rates ."
10005	Prostate Hormone Therapy May Up Heart Risks	Overall, this was a well-done story about a study categorizing the harms associated with the use of androgen deprivation therapy in the treatment of earlier stage prostate cancer. We are especially pleased to see a story that points out some of the potential limitations of an observational study. We wish we’d see this more often in such stories. Hormone therapy in the treatment of prostate cancer is being used more commonly. The story highlighted the issue of the unexamined harms associated with the use of this treatment over longer periods of time. The reason this is important is because men with early-stage prostate cancer who want to avoid the complications of surgery or radiation but also don’t like the idea of not taking action – are increasingly turning to androgen deprivation. There are no data that prove that this primary treatment improves survival; this story was reporting on a study that adds to the growing body of literature on the harms of this treatment.	true		This story did not discuss costs, yet it could have raised questions about the lucrative reimbursement for hormone therapy as one factor driving its use in situations where it has no proven benefit. While describing that androgen deprivation therapy was initially developed as a means of treating symptoms of advanced prostate cancer, and that there are situations in which it has demonstrated clear benefit, the story did not include quantitive information about benefit. It could have at least mentioned that when used to treat men with metastatic prostate cancer, meaning it has spread to the bone – this treatment provides symptom relief and slightly longer survival. The story included quantitative information about the harms associated with androgen deprivation therapy. However, it mixed uses of relative risks and absolute risks within the same sentence, which we think can only confuse readers. Excerpt: We urge journalists to use absolute risk throughout every story. See our primer on this topic. Nonetheless, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this one. Big A grade on this one. The story mentioned that the study reported on was an observational study and explained that this meant that it could not demonstrate cause and effect. Oh, how we wish we’d see this more often! There was no overt disease mongering about prostate cancer. Comments from two clinicians who were not directly associated with the study reported on were included in this story. The story was about the harms associated with the use of androgen deprivation therapy earlier in the course of prostate cancer treatment. It mentioned several approaches (surgical removal of the testes, multiple hormone blocking drugs, and drugs that target gonadotropin-releasing hormone) and provided several data points for each, though the information provided did not always allow comparison of the approaches to each other. Better organization of this information would have improved the readability of this story. The story accurately indicates that androgen deprivation therapy is commonly used in men with prostate cancer. The story included the history about how the use of hormone therapy has expanded over time from the treatment of symptoms from metastatic prostate cancer to a treatment used before men have symptoms of prostate cancer. Does not appear to rely on a news release.
27397	Sen. Jeff Klein (D-New York) is part of negotiations regarding anti-sexual harassment laws — after he was accused of the same offense.	We contacted Cuomo’s office as well as the New York State Democratic Committee seeking comment.	true	Politics, democrats, jeff klein, new york	As state lawmakers in New York focus on changing sexual misconduct laws, a Democrat who has aligned himself with Republicans drew scrutiny for being involved despite being accused of harmful behavior by a former campaign volunteer. The allegations against state Sen. Jeff Klein (D-New York) by Erica Vladimer were first published in the Huffington Post on 10 January 2018. She told the news site that Klein had forced himself on her outside of a bar in April 2015. Klein is the leader of the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight Democratic lawmakers who caucus with state Senate Republicans. The senator has not been charged in connection with the alleged encounter. He has expressed support for Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan to expand anti-sexual harassment laws, saying: I think we have to strengthen our sexual harassment laws, and I intend to push to make that happen. Vladimir, who volunteered for Klein during his 2014 campaign, said she was smoking a cigarette with the senator when he accosted her: All of a sudden there was a hand on the back of my head and he shoved his tongue down my throat. In my head it lasted forever, I don’t think it lasted even three seconds. Both Klein and his longtime partner, fellow Democratic state Sen. Diane Savino, have denied Vladimir’s account. The day that Vladimir’s accusation was published, said in a conference call: I want to be crystal clear: This alleged incident never happened nor did anything inappropriate happen in any fashion that evening. Klein called for an investigation on the matter by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Vladimir issued a statement saying that she did not plan to sue Klein, and that she would cooperate with the commission’s investigation. Cuomo called for legislation that would curtail the use of confidentiality agreements in harassment cases involving members of “all public entities and branches of government — state and local — unless it is the express preference of the victim.” He also said during an appearance at the New York City edition of the Womens’ March on 20 January 2018 that abusers and harassers should be on the hook for settling or fighting lawsuits out of pocket, instead of using taxpayer dollars to do so: We have proposed in Albany an unprecedented women’s empowerment agenda that says no more government money for sexual harassment. If someone wants to abuse a woman’s right, then they’re liable, pay for it with their own money, not government money. However, at least one state Democrat, Sen. Liz Krueger, was critical of what she described as a lack of inclusion of female lawmakers in discussions on the matter: I always think women should be in every negotiation. We’re 52 percent of the population of New York state so I don’t see any reason for us to be locked out of the room. But Klein’s director of communications, Candice Giove, told us via e-mail that the office rejects the idea that women are being left out of the process: “Four men” in a room is a myth. The Secretary to the Governor, Senator Klein’s Chief of Staff and a number of other women in senior positions who work for the executive and the legislature are in the room, and integral to budget negotiations.
7462	Western governors ask Congress for $1T in aid to states .	Governors and legislative leaders from five western states that are coordinating their response to the coronavirus outbreak asked Congress on Monday to send $1 trillion to state and local governments across the U.S. in the next federal aid package.	true	U.S. News, Health, General News, Local governments, Nevada, Virus Outbreak, Public health	Officials from California, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington said in a letter to leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate that they will have to make deep budgets cuts without more federal aid. That could include to services such as health programs and job training designed to help those hit hard by the virus. “Without federal support, states and cities will be forced to make impossible decisions — like whether to fund critical public healthcare that will help us recover, or prevent layoffs of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other first responders,” the letter stated. The governors and officials said $1 trillion in direct, flexible payments to state and local governments will not make up for the big hits their budgets are expected to take, but “it will make a meaningful difference” in their ability to keep services running. The Assembly minority leader in California was the lone Republican to sign the letter. It’s not yet clear what another congressional aid package might look like or what type of proposal could gather bipartisan support.
9052	Researchers find potential path to repair MS-damaged nerves	A small UCLA study in an animal model of multiple sclerosis showed some improvement in the mice’s walking ability after the researchers gave them a drug that changed gene expression of cells in the brain and spinal cord called astrocytes. The study is interesting from a basic science perspective and from the perspective of a new idea for a therapy — improving cholesterol synthesis, which cells need to repair their membranes damaged by the disease. But there’s no immediate application for human patients. The release would have been improved with some discussion of benefits, harms and how this study fits into the bigger picture of MS treatment. On the plus side, the release lists funding sources and gives us some idea of what is novel about the research. Estimates are that 400,000 people in the United States have a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. This short release may create false hope by burying the information that a very preliminary pilot study was done on mice. The study points the way to more research, but does not offer anything tangible to any existing patients. The headline promises “repair of damaged nerves” but stops just short of being entirely false by saying there is a “potential pathway” and not a genuine study in human patients with results we can read. The release is a “pathway” to information that doesn’t lead far.	false	multiple sclerosis,University of California - Los Angeles	The news release does not discuss potential costs. The release doesn’t delve into benefits. This sentence came closest to addressing a benefit: “For multiple sclerosis, specifically, increasing cholesterol synthesis gene expression in astrocytes of the spinal cord can be a pathway to repair nerves that affect walking.” The research was done in mice, not humans. The astrocytes were from mice. The “gene expression” can be described with quantities, but the release does not give the reader any details. How much did gene expression change? How much improvement did the mice show? Was there a control group of mice? The release does not explain whether there are any harms from changing the gene expression in the mice, let alone what the potential harms might be in humans. The release doesn’t inform readers from the outset that this study was in animals and not humans. Ideally, that information would be included in the headline and opening sentence. Further, the release never mentions the limited implications of such research for humans. There was no disease mongering. The release lists the funding sources. The authors declared no conflicts of interest in the published study. The release does not explain the ways that human patients with multiple sclerosis are treated currently, nor does it explain the existing research context clearly. If the small study is showing a new path for research, we need the context that says “up until now, all the research was done in X way.” We aren’t given that here. This experimental treatment on mice is clearly not available to humans yet. The release claims that this small animal study points the way to “a more precise, neuroprotective approach than traditional treatments.” It also states that this strategy is “tailored to repair damage for each disability, one at a time, in contrast to a “one size fits all” treatment approach.” We take this to mean that the “precision” comes from measuring outcomes on specific functions such as walking and eyesight that are affected by the disease, rather than traditional global measures such as number of lesions on an MRI scan or overall functioning. The headline skirts the edges, by appearing to promise a way to repair nerves in humans when this study is only in mice. But the headline clings to accuracy by using the phrase “potential path.”
9265	Acetaminophen does not aggravate children's asthma	This news release by Boston Children’s Hospital is based on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on the first randomized, double-blind, controlled trial comparing acetaminophen to ibuprofen to treat pain and fever in children with asthma. No statistically significant differences were found between the two treatment arms. Previous observational studies had suggested that acetaminophen could exacerbate asthma symptoms in young children. The news release provides detailed, clear information on almost all of our criteria. It explains early in the text the significance of the study and gives appropriate figures in easy-to-read bullet points to support the finding that there is “absolutely no difference between Tylenol and Motrin.” (Although these two brands do contain acetaminophen and ibuprofen, respectively, we noticed that researchers actually gave Little Fevers by Little Remedies and Children’s Advil to participants.) A short discussion of costs would have been beneficial in the news release, since acetaminophen (Little Remedies) generally tends to be more expensive than ibuprofen (Children’s Advil). One drawback the release shared with another release we reviewed on the same study (by University Hospitals Case Medical Center) was the omission of financial ties between several study authors and the makers of branded versions of acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Acetaminophen is the most commonly used pediatric medication in the United States. Previous observational studies found a correlation between acetaminophen and increased asthma symptoms, as well as decreased lung function. Other analyses found that acetaminophen use resulted in more unscheduled medical visits for asthma than ibuprofen use. These findings have even led to alarm, as some physicians called for recommendations that acetaminophen should be avoided until more safety data become available. But observational data carry limitations – namely, confounding by indication. That’s to say, people who use a drug more frequently differ in health and other features from those who use the drug less frequently or who do not take the drug at all. This was the first appropriately designed and randomized clinical trial in a well-characterized cohort to settle the debate of causation. Parents of young children can take comfort in the fact that acetaminophen use will not worsen asthma symptoms.	true	acetaminophen,asthma,Boston Children's Hospital	Costs are not addressed in the Boston Children’s Hospital news release. The acetaminophen medication used in the study, Little Remedies, costs about 50 percent more than Children’s Advil – $8.86 versus $4.96, respectively – at Walmart. It would have been helpful to readers to include the less costly generic versions of these drugs. Since costs are not mentioned in the news release, we give it an Unsatisfactory rating here. One of the questions the study attempted to answer was whether ibuprofen is a safer drug than acetaminophen in children with mild persistent asthma. This release does a laudable job laying out the figures for the number of asthma exacerbations for each group. It also includes quantitative data for the percentage of days with full asthma control, use of “rescue medication” and unscheduled healthcare visits. It also used the term “significant” correctly, stating that there “were no statistically significant differences between groups” (a common mistake we’ve seen in other releases). Due to all these factors, we give the news release a Satisfactory rating here. Another major study question was whether frequent acetaminophen use in children with mild persistent asthma worsens symptoms. This was measured by the number of asthma exacerbations, percentage of days with full asthma control, use of “rescue” medication and unscheduled healthcare visits for asthma. As mentioned in the “Quantify Benefits” section, this release includes quantitative data from the original study in easy-to-read bullet form. Furthermore, the headline and quotations used in the news release reinforce the study’s findings, making it clear that acetaminophen does not worsen asthma symptoms in children. For these reasons, we give the news release a Satisfactory rating. Boston Children’s Hospital does a thorough job outlining the study design — including information on study criteria, dosage and follow-up. In addition, it gives exact numbers on how many people enrolled in and completed the study. The news release also points out the study’s limitations. For example, authors chose to include young children with mild persistent asthma receiving asthma controller therapy. Therefore, the news release notes, “Findings may not apply to other age groups or children with more severe asthma.” It would have been helpful to mention that the study did not include a placebo group, since researchers deemed this to be unethical. However, this means that the trial cannot answer the question of whether the use of acetaminophen or ibuprofen itself worsens asthma, compared with no drug interventions. Despite this omission, we feel the news release merits a Satisfactory rating here for describing the study’s design and limitations. There is no disease mongering in this news release. Boston Children’s Hospital discloses the fact that the National Institutes of Health and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s Asthma Network (AsthmaNet) funded the study. However, no mention is made of the ties several of the researchers have to Pfizer, the maker of Children’s Advil, and to McNeil Consumer Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson, makers of Tylenol. Not providing the potential conflicts of interest earns the release a Not Satisfactory rating here. The study was designed to compare the safety of two drugs – acetaminophen and ibuprofen – in children with mild, persistent asthma, since previous observational studies had correlated acetaminophen with increased asthma symptoms. Since the drugs themselves are already alternatives in treating pain and fever. The availability of acetaminophen and ibuprofen is not in question, since these are well-known, over-the-counter drugs. Boston Children’s Hospital was clear in explaining how this study contributes to the existing body of literature. In other words, what’s “new” about this study is that it “is the only blinded, randomized, controlled trial to date to prospectively compare acetaminophen head-to-head with ibuprofen (Motrin, etc.) in children with asthma.” The news release adds that it should settle the debate on whether taking acetaminophen for pain and fever worsens asthma symptoms in children. We applaud this clarification and give the news release a Satisfactory rating here. The news release from Boston Children’s Hospital does not use unjustifiable, sensational language.
11700	"Jeff Flake Says Donald Trump's use of the term ""fake news"" to undermine journalism ""seems (to have) inspired dictators and authoritarians."	"Flake said that Trump's use of the term ""fake news"" to undermine journalism seems to have ""inspired dictators and authoritarians."" Trump popularized the phrase ""fake news"" over the past two years as a way to dismiss news coverage that is unsympathetic to him and his administration, even when the reporting is accurate. There are more than a dozen recent instances where foreign leaders, including dictators and authoritarians, have similarly invoked ""fake news"" to dismiss allegations against them, including widespread extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses. We found no mentions of ""fake news"" from foreign leaders before 2016. Expanded use of the epithet has also emboldened authoritarian governments to jail more journalists under ""false news"" statutes, experts said. Flake has solid examples from around the world to back up his statement, and there’s strong correlation here given the timeline."	true	National, Fake news, Transparency, Jeff Flake,	"Hours before President Donald Trump revealed the recipients of his ""fake news awards,"" one Republican lawmaker took to the Senate floor to deliver a stern warning about the perils of undermining journalism. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., cautioned that Trump’s anti-press rhetoric, such as calling the New York Times, CNN and ABC News an ""enemy of the American people,"" serves to embolden repressive governments around the world. ""Not only has the past year seen an American president borrow despotic language to refer to the free press,"" Flake said, ""but it seems he has in turn inspired dictators and authoritarians with his own language. This is reprehensible."" Flake then ticked off several examples where foreign leaders deployed the phrase ""fake news"" to foster distrust of the media. Based on our review of the evidence, it’s reasonable to conclude that Trump’s disparagement of the media has been replicated abroad. An aide to Flake said the senator had referred to a Politico article that identified more than 15 instances where foreign leaders invoked the phrase ""fake news."" Here’s a sample: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in February invoked ""fake news"" to dismiss an Amnesty International report that up to 13,000 prisoners had been executed in one of his military prisons, saying the allegations were a reminder that ""we are living in a fake news era."" A security official in Buddhist-majority Myanmar in December used the term ""fake news"" to deny the very existence of the Rohingya people, a persecuted Muslim minority who are being ethnically cleansed, according to the United Nations. ""There is no such thing as Rohingya,"" the Myanmar official said. ""It is fake news."" Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro in July said it was ""fake news"" that a constitutional crisis was playing out in Venezuela against a backdrop of widespread protests, human rights abuses and long-standing economic privation. ""The media spreads lots of false versions, lots of lies. This is what we call 'fake news' today, isn't it?"" he told Russian broadcaster RT, which the U.S. government considers a Kremlin propaganda outlet. An op-ed with the headline ""Trump is right, fake news is the enemy, something China has known for years"" ran in May in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party in China, which is perennially a leading jailer of journalists. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in October said he had been ""demonized"" through ""fake news"" coverage of his brutal drug war, which has seen an unprecedented scale of extrajudicial killings, according to Human Rights Watch. At a joint press appearance in Manila in November, with Trump laughing at his side, Duterte called journalists ""spies."" There’s reason to think Trump inspired these responses. He has helped to popularize the phrase ""fake news,"" while shifting its meaning. According to CNN, Trump has used the word ""fake"" more than 400 times since his inauguration, including ""fake news"" and its variants. Overall, use of the phrase ""fake news"" across all forms of media increased 365 percent from November 2016 to November 2017, according to the Collins Dictionary, which named ""fake news"" its 2017 word of the year. At PolitiFact, we have used the term ""fake news"" to refer to fabricated content masquerading as a portrayal of actual events, naming it our 2016 Lie of the Year after made-up stories dominated social media during the presidential election. Trump, however, uses ""fake news"" to dismiss coverage that is unsympathetic to him and his administration, or as a criticism against entire news organizations. He’s also taken credit for rebranding the term ""fake news"" to apply to fact-based journalism, calling it ""one of the greatest of all terms I've come up with."" Experts said it’s easy to see why Trump’s use of the term ""fake news"" appeals to authoritarian leaders. Authoritarian governments are typified by highly centralized power and the predominance of the state over individual rights. ""Every authoritarian needs to spread his own version of reality, and will invest time and resources to discredit anyone else's,"" said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University. ""Many of them are corrupt, and if an investigation threatens to compromise their authority, or charges of wrongdoing come down, they need the public to believe only what they say."" Ben-Ghiat said Trump’s consistent efforts to attack the press as purveyors of bias and lies against him, and incite hostility toward individual news outlets and journalists, can be seen as part of a larger campaign against sectors of society that value evidence and investigation. ""When Trump says ‘I am the only one who matters’ it is not just self-glorification, but a message about whose version of the facts should count in America,"" she said. ""How can foreign rulers not feel empowered by this?"" A First Amendment advocate we spoke to drew parallels between Trump’s use of the term ""fake news"" and George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, in which an authoritarian state inverts language to mean the opposite of its literal definition. ""It is a characteristic of authoritarian leaders, whether Communist or Nazi, to appropriate ordinary words and declare them to mean the opposite,"" Bruce Johnson, a Seattle-based media lawyer, told PolitiFact. ""Repressive regimes hold power by depriving their population of independent thinking and making the masses believe lies."" It’s worth noting we found no mentions of ""fake news"" from foreign leaders before 2016. The rise of the ""fake news"" epithet coincided with one of the most dangerous years for journalists. Last year, the Committee to Protect Journalists found 262 journalists were jailed for their work, a historic high for the second year in a row. In 21 cases, journalists were jailed under ""false news"" statutes, more than double the number in 2016, and in more countries, said Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at Committee to Protect Journalists. ""It’s created an environment where it’s more permissive for governments to jail journalists on false news charges,"" she said. ""They certainly don't think they're going to face many repercussions or condemnation from the United States when you have the president making those comments on a regular basis."" Human rights activists say the growing disregard for facts has been making their job harder, too. ""Political leaders around the world have begun to deploy the label ‘fake news’ as a smear on fact-finding by journalists, human rights organizations, perhaps even prosecutors,"" wrote Iain Levine of Human Rights Watch. ""In doing so, they seek to break the link between evidence and culpability, making it more difficult to ensure those accountable pay for their misdeeds."" Flake said that Trump's use of the term ""fake news"" to undermine journalism seems to have ""inspired dictators and authoritarians."" Trump popularized the phrase ""fake news"" over the past two years as a way to dismiss news coverage that is unsympathetic to him and his administration, even when the reporting is accurate. There are more than a dozen recent instances where foreign leaders, including dictators and authoritarians, have similarly invoked ""fake news"" to dismiss allegations against them, including widespread extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses. We found no mentions of ""fake news"" from foreign leaders before 2016. Expanded use of the epithet has also emboldened authoritarian governments to jail more journalists under ""false news"" statutes, experts said. Flake has solid examples from around the world to back up his statement, and there’s strong correlation here given the timeline."
27064	A photograph shows U.S. President Bill Clinton with billionaire/financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.	Clinton, of course, isn’t the only high-profile politician connected to Epstein. U.S. President Donald Trump has also been photographed with Epstein.	true	Fauxtography	On July 10, 2019, we examined a claim holding that Google was “scrubbing” its search results of any pictures showing President Bill Clinton together with convicted sex offender and billionaire/financier Jeffrey Epstein. While this rumor was false (Google’s search results were not notably different than those of Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, Yandex, or Bing), we were left with one unanswered question: Are there any photos of Epstein and Clinton? After all, Clinton flew on the private plane of Epstein, a convicted sex offender who was arrested again in July 2019 on new charges related to child-sex-prostitution. The two were also both present at a “small dinner party” in 1995 hosted by Revlon mogul Ron Perelman to raise funds for the Democratic National Convention. It seems reasonable to believe that someone at some point took a photograph of these two well-known public figures together. On July 22, 2019, Josh Rosner, the managing director of independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co, alerted us to his tweet containing a photograph of Epstein and Clinton that was published in a 2003 issue of Vanity Fair: Disturbing! The #press wiped all pictures of ⁦@BillClinton⁩ & #JeffreyEpstein from the #internet. Even ⁦@VanityFair⁩ who published this image in ‘03 from their #sex(?) trip to Brunei scrubbed it. #sycophant #power ⁦@CJR⁩ ⁦@theintercept⁩ ⁦@propublica⁩ pic.twitter.com/MmCZZraHai — joshua rosner (@JoshRosner) July 22, 2019 Again, no evidence exists that this image was “wiped” from the Internet. In fact, this image is available online in Vanity Fair’s digital archive (subscription required). This photograph was published in a March 2003 article by Vicky Ward entitled, “The Talented Mr. Epstein.” The photograph’s caption: “Epstein with President Clinton in Brunei, 2002.” One possible explanation as to why this photograph doesn’t pop up in search engines is that Vanity Fair didn’t publish it as a standalone image. Rather, it is embedded in a digital copy of the March 2003 edition of the magazine. While we’re not in the business of offering predictions, we’d bet that this image will start finding its way into Google Images and other image-based search engines in the near future (especially if more outlets pick up and publish stories including this image). Clinton is mentioned three other times in the Vanity Fair story; each iteration is reproduced below (emphasis ours): Lately, Jeffrey Epstein’s high-flying style has been drawing oohs and aahs: the bachelor financier lives in New York’s largest private residence, claims to take only billionaires as clients, and flies celebrities including Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey on his Boeing 727. But pierce his air of mystery and the picture changes. VICKY WARD explores Epstein’s investment career, his ties to retail magnate Leslie Wexner, and his complicated past. In addition to the town house, Epstein lives in what is reputed to be the largest private dwelling in New Mexico, on an $18 million, 7,500-acre ranch which he named “Zorro.” “It makes the town house look like a shack,” Epstein has said. He also owns Little St. James, a 70-acre island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the main house is currently being renovated by Edward Tuttle, a designer of the Aman resorts. There is also a $6.8 million house in Palm Beach, Florida, and a fleet of aircraft: a Gulfstream IV, a helicopter, and a Boeing 727, replete with trading room, on which Epstein recently flew President Clinton, actors Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey, supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Lew Wasserman’s grandson, Casey Wasserman, and a few others, on a mission to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development in Africa. Epstein is known about town as a man who loves women—lots of them, mostly young. Model types have been heard saying they are full of gratitude to Epstein for flying them around, and he is a familiar face to many of the Victoria’s Secret girls. One young woman recalls being summoned by Ghislaine Maxwell to a concert at Epstein’s town house, where the women seemed to outnumber the men by far. “These were not women you’d see at Upper East Side dinners,” the woman recalls. “Many seemed foreign and dressed a little bizarrely.” This same guest also attended a cocktail party thrown by Maxwell that Prince Andrew attended, which was filled, she says, with young Russian models. “Some of the guests were horrified,” the woman says. “He’s reckless,” says a former business associate, “and he’s gotten more so. Money does that to you. He’s breaking the oath he made to himself—that he would never do anything that would expose him in the media. Right now, in the wake of the publicity following his trip with Clinton, he must be in a very difficult place.” In 2002, around the time that this photograph was taken, Clinton told New York Magazine via a spokesperson that, “Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science. I especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa to work on democratization, empowering the poor, citizen service and combating H.I.V./AIDS.” Clinton once had a relationship with Epstein and even took multiple trips on his private plane. However, the former president said that he hasn’t had contact with Epstein for a decade and knows nothing about the crimes the latter has been accused or convicted of: Statement on Jeffrey Epstein. pic.twitter.com/98ha9YYd1l — Angel Ureña (@angelurena) July 8, 2019
10627	New study shows aged garlic extract can reduce dangerous plaque buildup in arteries	This release reports on a study looking at the effects of taking daily doses of a readily available garlic supplement on the buildup of so-called soft plaque in coronary arteries. After one year of supplementation the rate of accumulation of this plaque had been reduced by 80%, according to the release. Our greatest concern with the release is its unsubstantiated claims about the benefits and the serious conflicts of interest (plural) at play. The paper discussed in the release was published as a paid supplement to the Journal of Nutrition and presented at a symposium sponsored primarily by commercial interests from the nutrition industry. [Editor’s note: In this review, we characterize the garlic study as being “not yet available” (see below under “Why This Matters”) because the release described the study as “scheduled to be published.” Our reviewers felt that the release’s description was explicit about the fact that the study was not published — and that if it had been published, the release should have noted this. An official from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute contacted us to clarify that the study was in fact published and available at the time the release was issued. We are passing this information along to readers.] If correct, this research would suggest a fairly easy and inexpensive way to reduce the buildup of plaque in the heart’s arteries which would be a boon in treating coronary artery disease. However, the release provides barely enough information to make such claims and is exceedingly vague in the specifics of the work. Moreover, the release touts a study scheduled to be published but not yet available. Writers lured by this release would do well to show justifiable caution.	false	cardiovascular disease,Independent research center news release	This release makes no mention of the cost of this supplement in its discussion, although the supplement and its cost are easily available via the web. It would be nice to know what a year’s worth at the prescribed dose would cost. The closing paragraph of the release claims that the supplement “had slowed total plaque accumulation by 80%, reduced soft plaque and demonstrated regression (less plaque on follow-up) for low-attenuation plaque.” However, the opening paragraph of the release goes quite a bit further, stating that “the supplement Aged Garlic Extract can reverse the buildup of deadly plaque in arteries and help prevent the progression of heart disease” — a far more definitive claim than the release’s information can substantiate. There’s nothing in this release to suggest that the supplement affects any outcome that matters to patients such as actual heart attacks and strokes. The release makes no mention of any harms that could arise from taking a garlic supplement although a quick web search shows potential negative side effects including nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. There are also some indications that garlic may lower blood pressure, increase bleeding, and possibly irritate the intestinal lining, issues that should be of concern to some who might potentially take this supplement. The release states that its conclusions are drawn from a randomized controlled and double-blinded study, which is good. But the small number of volunteers (55 total, aged 45 to 75) and the fact they all had metabolic syndrome detract from the study’s application to a wider audience. First off, metabolic syndrome patients are not adequate surrogates for the general population, and even if they were, a cadre of only 55 patients can never represent the broad public as a whole. Moreover, based on information in the release, the year-long study made no mention of controls for other possible variables (such as race and income) other than taking the garlic supplement. Perhaps the study incorporated such additional controls but if the release omits them, then readers cannot tell the quality of the conclusions that the release touts. The release does not commit disease mongering. While this release does mention that the study was funded by a company that produces the garlic supplement and that the study’s main author received payments from that company, it doesn’t go nearly far enough with disclosures. The paper, published as a paid supplement to the Journal of Nutrition, needed to be labeled as such. Paid supplement articles differ from routine, peer-reviewed papers published in the journal. The work was presented at a symposium sponsored primarily by commercial interests from the nutrition industry and the main author served as the paid chair of that meeting. All of this is information that readers should have to properly evaluate the value of the information. The release only discusses the impact of a single commercial product, Aged Garlic Extract, which is produced by the company funding the research and one of the supporters of the conference at which the research was presented. It does not provide any information on other similar products although there are many available on the market. In addition, there are other ways to prevent or reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease including, but not limited to, avoiding smoking, controlling blood pressure, cholesterol and weight and taking daily aspirin. The Aged Garlic Extract mentioned in the release is readily available at health food stories and other venues. This release appears to be touting the same research that was the focus of a Los Angeles television station’s news report from 2014 quoting the same main author and generally reporting similar results. If this is the case, this release fails to show any novelty that would warrant any additional news coverage, over and above any other weaknesses it includes. This release does not use any unjustifiable language.
10766	Study finds rise in choice of double mastectomies	This article reports findings from a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that demonstrate a rise in double mastectomies among women diagnosed with cancer in one breast. This may be overtreatment for many women. The story may have been more balanced by interviewing a patient who chose less treatment and her rationale for this choice. The story cites breast cancer experts who note that there is little difference between the surgical treatments in terms of dying from breast cancer. Importantly, the story notes that having a mastectomy does not reduce a recurrence risk to zero, as some cancer cells may remain. The story notes that physicians should provide women with as much information about the survival benefit of all treatments, including less invasive options for reducing the risk of a recurrence. The story lists other non-surgical options for prevention and active surveillance for women at high risk of or having a recurrence, or developing a primary breast cancer. An important oversight of the story is the lack of discussion of radiation, which is often given with lumpectomy. Lumpectomy alone is not comparable to mastectomy without radiation. The story might have benefited from listing data comparing lumpectomy and radiation with mastectomy. On this point, foregoing radiation due to another health condition and/or preferences to avoid side effects may play into a woman’s decision to undergo a mastectomy or bilateral mastectomy. The story also didn’t mentioned that some reconstruction procedures (e.g. tram flaps) can only be done once, so women considering those may have double and do both at once.	true		The story does not list the additional cost of surgical treatment and reconstruction for the prophylactic mastectomy. While the focus of the story was to report the increase in these procedures, the story could list the average cost and the time spent recovering from bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction. The focus of the story was the increase in bilateral mastectomies in women diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast. The story notes that the survival difference between lumpectomy and mastectomy is about the same; however, the story does not mention that radiation is given with lumpectomy in order to reduce the risk of recurrence. Lumpectomy is not comparable to mastectomy without radiation. The story might have benefited from listing these data comparing lumpectomy and radiation with mastectomy. The story appropriately notes that having a mastectomy does not reduce a recurrence risk to zero as some cancer cells may remain. The focus of the story discusses the recent increase in bilateral mastectomy after the diagnosis of cancer in one breast. This may be overtreatment for some women. The story notes that physicians should provide women with accurate information about the survival benefit of all treatments, including less invasive options for reducing the risk of a recurrence. The story discusses recent data showing an increase in preference for bilateral mastectomy in women diagnosed with early breast cancer in one breast. These are women who would likely be candidates for either lumpectomy, lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy. The story appropriately notes that having a mastectomy does not reduce a recurrence risk to zero as some cancer cells may remain. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story reports SEER data on the increase in bilateral mastectomy in women diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast. The story cites Dr. Tuttle, the lead author of the study; a woman who decided to undergo a bilateral mastectomy, though she only had cancer in one breast; and Dr. Gralow, who questions the trend of prophylactic mastectomies in women who have the option to undergo lumpectomy and radiation, or lumpectomy alone (for DCIS). The story may have been more balanced by interviewing a patient who chose less treatment, along with her rationale. The story notes surgical treatment options for women with early stage breast cancer. However, the story does not mention radiation with lumpectomy. Forgoing radiation due to preferences to avoid side effects may play into a woman’s decision to undergo a mastectomy or bilateral mastectomy. The story cites breast cancer experts who note that there is little difference between these surgical treatments in terms of dying from breast cancer. The story lists other non-surgical options for prevention for women at high risk of developing breast cancer, or having a recurrence. The story also didn’t mention that some reconstruction procedures (e.g. tram flaps) can only be done once, so women considering those may have double and do both at once. The story notes surgical treatments available for women who are diagnosed with breast cancer. The story also notes via Dr. Gralow’s comments that women should be appropriatley informed about the absolute survival benefits of their treatment choices. The increase in double mastectomy as prophylaxis after a cancer diagnosis is a new finding. The focus of the story discusses this data and attempts to explain this trend. The story does not appear to rely on a press release and there are additional sources cited who are not affiliated with the study.
10962	Doctor Has New Method To Break Up Kidney Stones	This story allows a single physician to make claims about his method of removing kidney stones. The work is to be published in an upcoming journal article. It is not at all clear how available this approach to kidney stone treatment is. The story says “After Dr. Portis presents results of his study, he thinks doctors everywhere will want to adopt it. ” But we have no idea how many are using it now, nor is there any independent evidence that anyone else will adopt this approach. The only mention of cost is this: “Who doesn’t want a far more effective procedure that costs one-third as much?” Cost isn’t specified. Costs of alternatives are not given. The story lets the physician-researcher say that “his approach has a 95 percent success rate with a single treatment and quicker recovery time. ” But there is no evidence given to substantiate that. Only a single source is used – the physician who is interviewed. Other kidney stone specialists should have been consulted. Potential harms are not discussed. The story felt more like cheerleading than fact-finding.	false		The only mention of cost is this: “Who doesn’t want a far more effective procedure that costs one-third as much?” Cost isn’t specified. Costs of alternatives are not given. The story lets the physician-researcher say that “his approach has a 95 percent success rate with a single treatment and quicker recovery time. ” But there is no evidence given to substantiate that. And there is no comparison with other approaches. There is no discussion of any potential harm from this approach. The story references an upcoming journal article. It inaccurately says it is in the journal Urology. It is actually in the Journal of Urology. The story lets the physician-researcher say that “his approach has a 95 percent success rate with a single treatment and quicker recovery time.” But there is no evidence given to substantiate that. The lead-in says that “Women who’ve had them have told me that childbirth is less painful and yet 1 in 10 of us will suffer the agony of them.” There is no evidence given to support that anecdote, but we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt and give it a satisfactory score here. Only a single source is used – the physician who is interviewed. Other kidney stone specialists should have been consulted. The story says “After Dr. Portis presents results of his study, he thinks doctors everywhere will want to adopt it. ” But the story gives no independent evidence that anyone else will adopt this approach. “Smashing stones with sound waves” is briefly mentioned, but written off. No other conventional treatment strategies are discussed. It is not at all clear how available this approach to kidney stone treatment is. The story says “After Dr. Portis presents results of his study, he thinks doctors everywhere will want to adopt it. ” But we have no idea how many are using it now, nor is there any independent evidence that anyone else will adopt this approach. The procedure apparently uses existing technologies, so it is not clear how novel this is. Also, since no independent source is interviewed – no other kidney stone specialist – there is no context given to allow the viewer to judge the novelty of the idea – only what the interviewed physician says. The story includes some of the same claims that appear in a news release – about a single procedure being effective in 95% of patients, about cost estimated to be just one third of conventional treatment strategies. But there is no hard proof that the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
6313	Washington medical school receives $50M for brain institute.	The University of Washington medical school has received a $50 million donation to create an institute focused on developing treatments for brain disorders.	true	General News, Seattle, Washington, Science, Medical schools	The Seattle Times reports Lynn and Mike Garvey made the donation to establish the Garvey Institute for Brain Health Solutions in Seattle. University officials say the institute’s focus is expected to include addiction, depression and Alzheimer’s disease. An official says the institute will build on work being done at the medical school and partner with scientists in the university and other health systems. The university’s psychology and behavioral sciences department chairman says researchers hope to develop treatments and “quickly put them into practice.” Mike Garvey is the primary founder of Saltchuk, a Seattle-based family of transportation and distribution companies with annual revenue of nearly $2.75 billion. ___ Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
9740	Consumer Blood Test to Detect Cancer Hits Market Amid Skepticism	The bottom-line message from this story is a good one, and the fact that “skepticism” is mentioned prominently in the headline makes up for the lack of some important details in the body text. While the story overall is strong and it did a decent job of breaking down the costs of this new test, a competing story from Reuters performed better by explaining the harms to a greater degree and doing a better job with independent sourcing. Genomic testing of healthy people is going to cost this country a lot of money, and the proposed benefits of such testing haven’t been proven at all.	true	liquid biopsy,Pathway Genomics	The story broke down the costs of the test to provide a fuller picture than a competing Reuters story. It shows how costs can range from $299 to $699 to $999. As detailed as it was, we think the story could have gone even further here. The story did not mention insurance coverage, for example, nor did it mention how long one would do “quarterly” testing and what those continuing costs might amount to. The cost of follow-up testing also could have been mentioned. The story does not quantify the potential benefits of “liquid biopsies” like the one being offered by Pathway. But we are reluctant to rate it Not Satisfactory because it points out that “Pathway hasn’t published any data on its tests.” The competing Reuters story cites a company-derived 99% accuracy rate for the test, but since that’s never been confirmed in a published study and doesn’t reflect use of the test in real-world conditions, we’d just as soon have a news story not mention it. We’ll give the benefit of the doubt on the rating. The story makes a mention of false positives and false negatives. But many readers won’t make the mental leap to the consquences of these false results. A competing Reuters story explained why bad testing can lead to bad health outcomes. The story talked about some of the criticism around the test and the fact that the company has not published any of its results. We particularly like the closing quote from expert Marleen Meyers: “Does this translate into improved survival?” she said. “If you’re doing this monitoring every month and you see something a little bit different, should you do something?” Frequent changes in treatment may frustrate patients and ultimately may not add to survival, she said. There was no disease mongering. There were independent sources in the story. Although they feel a bit lost in the shadow of the comments and claims from the company, these comments provide an important restraining message. The true alternative to these tests is routine cancer screening using proven screening methods recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force. In fact, the whole name “liquid biopsies” is wrong. These are not biopsies at all, they are screening tests for healthy people that look for biomarkers of cancer in the blood. But we don’t know what kind of clinical significance they have or if they will lead to better outcomes. Neither story provided this context. Bloomberg does mention some tests that are being offered by competing genomics companies, as well as similar types of direct to consumer screening approaches. But these aren’t the real alternatives that we think should have been discussed in the story. It’s not clear from the story whether a patient can go into a doctor and demand one of these tests, buy one at a pharmacy, or order one from home. The story explains that this type of liquid biopsy is not, in fact, novel but actually part of a growing field of competing tests. The story goes beyond any news release.
9328	Doctors Use Bacteria as Weapon Against Cancer	This story reports about a safety trial involving 24 cancer patients in which a weakened form of the bacterium clostridium novyi was injected into tumors. The results were presented at the International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference. The story provides appropriately cautions about potential harms. But it explained the results of the study in a way that may cause confusion, among other issues. Harnessing bacteria to attack cancer tumors isn’t a new idea, but it’s been gaining interest due to technology that can develop bacterial strains that have fewer side effects and greater therapeutic potential. Yet news stories about early trials like this one should be careful not to provide false hope. In this story, the message that the bacterium “appears to target malignant cells and could provide a new means of fighting cancer” is overly optimistic, given that this is a study that was designed to establish a safe dosage level, not show whether there’s a meaningful clinical benefit.	false	cancer	There was no discussion of the potential cost of this therapy. Although it is probably too early in the process to discuss precise numbers, it would have been helpful if the story had discussed the big picture. While bacterial therapies may be cheap to develop, the cost of clinical trials and bringing a new product to market tend to be very high. Also, an ongoing trial pairs this therapy with immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, which can cost about $13,500 per month, according to published reports. The story did provide some specific numbers on the scope of the benefit, but we found the wording confusing and unclear: The bacteria germinated in the cancers of 11 out of the 24 patients, with tumor cells dying off as a result. Tumor shrinkage of greater than 10 percent was observed in 23 percent of patients. However, Janku said this could be an underestimate since the infection causes surrounding tissue to become inflamed, making the lesion appear larger than it actually is. Following bacterial therapy, cancer stabilized in 21 patients. When both injected and uninjected lesions were included, the stable disease rate was 86 percent, the researchers reported. Did the tumor shrinkage occur in 23% of the 24 patients in trial, or the 11 patients in which the bacteria “germinated?” It appears to be the latter, meaning it’s an even tinier subset of patients who had tumor shrinkage greater than 10 percent–just about 3 patients. (The story also could have explained why researchers picked 10 percent as a measuring point for tumor shrinkage. It did explain that the therapy could have caused inflammation that made the tumors harder to measure.) Based on the next sentence–that 21 out of 24 patients had unchanged cancer–the story would have been more clear had it simply explained that most tumors neither significantly grew nor significantly shrunk after the therapy. Also, it’s not clear when these measurements were taken–if this was after a year, it seems notable that the majority had stable tumors. But if they measured tumors after just one week, it’s not very surprising. Context is also lacking–we don’t know the cancer stage, what is considered a “clinically important” tumor shrinkage, and how the observed shrinkage compares with current treatments. Lastly, all of this needs to be taken into consideration with the fact that there was no control group to compare these results against. The story mentioned that two patients in the trial who received the highest doses fell ill with sepsis and gangrene. It also mentioned a need to “keep an eye on potential side effects” in future trials. We like that the the story called this “a small, preliminary study” in the second paragraph, and cautioned at the end: “Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.” But the story also should have spelled out for readers that the “clinically meaningful activity” in terms of tumor shrinkage, cited by a researcher, does not necessarily translate to curing or even stalling cancer. Also, the intent of this trial was to demonstrate safety; it could not prove that the therapy has a benefit. And, importantly, there was no control group. The story does not engage in disease-mongering. It would have been helpful to discuss how many people have sarcomas, the type of cancer most patients in the trial had. According to the Sarcoma Alliance, there are about 15,000 new cases diagnosed annually in the U.S. There are also over 90,000 new cases of melanoma diagnosed annually. The story quoted two researchers who were involved in the trial, with no independent sources. It did not say that the trial was sponsored by a company called BioMed Valley Discoveries. The story mentioned “classic immunotherapy” as not seeming to work for most sarcomas, which are cancers that arise in connective tissue such as fat, muscle, and bone. However, it did not mention other treatment options such as radiation, surgery, or chemotherapy. As a side note, most immunotherapies are very new–with still-emerging side effects and unknown long-term benefits–so we take issue with framing immunotherapy as “classic.” Standard is perhaps a more accurate word. The story makes it clear that researchers are still studying this approach, implying it’s not available widely. The story does not establish the novelty of the research. The abstract describes this as a “first-in-man” trial of weakened clostridium novyi spores in cancer patients. In general, though, bacterial therapies for cancer tumors have been studied for decades, although only recently have safer forms been available. The story does not appear to rely solely on a news release.
15334	"I deployed the Texas National Guard"" to the Texas-Mexico border. ""And the policy worked; apprehensions at the border declined 74 percent."	"Perry said: ""I deployed the Texas National Guard"" to the Texas-Mexico border. ""And the policy worked; apprehensions at the border declined 74 percent."" His statistic holds up, but Perry didn’t provide nor did we find proof the decrease resulted from the Texas surge. To be specific, Border Patrol apprehensions in the targeted part of the border region declined more than 70 percent through the second half of 2014. Unproven, however, is why that happened--and Perry’s statement crediting the Texas deployment ignored potentially substantive factors such as the Border Patrol staffing up, Mexico cracking down and, perhaps, a typical summer-to-winter flux. Proving the ""policy worked"" also is hindered by a lack of consensus on how to measure border security. This weakness similarly would apply, say, if President Barack Obama said the drop in apprehensions showed administration policies worked."	false	Immigration, Criminal Justice, Crime, Texas, Rick Perry,	"While declaring for president, Republican Rick Perry criticized President Barack Obama’s attitude toward securing the U.S.-Mexico border and suggested that in contrast, he’d shown he could slow illegal crossings of the Rio Grande. The former Texas governor, standing next to a plane like the one he flew as a young Air Force captain, said in his June 2015 speech: ""When there was a crisis at our border last year, and the president refused my invitation to see that challenge that we faced, I told him, ‘Mr. President, if you do not secure this border, Texas will.’"" ""And because of that threat … posed by drug cartels … and transnational gangs,"" Perry continued, ""I deployed the Texas National Guard. And the policy worked. Apprehensions at the border declined 74 percent. If you elect me your president, I will secure that border."" Operation Strong Safety Perry was referring to Operation Strong Safety, the effort he launched on June 23, 2014, to place state troopers and, later, Texas National Guard troops along a portion of the 1,250-mile Texas part of the international border. Supporting the U.S. Border Patrol, the reinforcements were sent to secure the border by monitoring it. The Texas surge, so to speak, remained in place after Perry yielded the governorship to Greg Abbott in January 2015. When Perry acted, thousands of unaccompanied children, mostly from Central America, had lately been detained on the Texas side of the border. In the peak month, June 2014, the Border Patrol collected 10,622 unaccompanied children near the border, most of them in its more than 120-mile North-to-South Rio Grande Valley sector, which stretches west from Brownsville at the southern tip of the state to Falcon Village, 50 miles southeast of Laredo. Past Perry claims about the border have tickled the Truth-O-Meter. In June 2014, Perry said on the ""Fox & Friends"" program that the southern border was seeing a record number of non-Mexican apprehensions. True, we found. And in August 2014, Perry declared that record numbers of apprehensions were people from Pakistan, Afghanistan or Syria, places, he said, with ""substantial terrorist ties."" ! We found no evidence of record numbers of individuals from these countries crossing the Texas-Mexico border. For this fact check, we were curious about the described plummet in apprehensions and if that decrease showed the Texas surge worked. We dug into apprehension counts and hunted possible explanations. But first, it’s worth noting the U.S. government has struggled to define best indicators of the southern border’s security. Border security index announced, not completed A February 2015 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said the best metric to judge the security of any border is ""the number of successful unauthorized border-crossings,"" but admitted that it was impossible to pinpoint such a figure given that ""by definition, they are undetected."" A few years earlier, in 2010, the U.S. Border Patrol and Department of Homeland Security launched a project comprehensive border security metric. Later, the Border Patrol’s 2012 strategic report said the indicator, known as the Border Conditions Index, was still under development, but it would combine ""important indicators of activity between the ports of entry; indicators of the amount, nature and flow of traffic at the ports of entry; and quality of life indicators in border communities."" (The Border Patrol defines a ""Port of Entry"" as a location where officers are assigned to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.) In 2013, though, the government dropped the index project, according to a March 2013 New York Times news story, after more than two years of work did not give them a viable measurement because, as Border Patrol representative Mark Borkowski then told a congressional subcommittee, the index ""would only show trends"" but would not act as the end-all, be-all border security metric Congress had asked for. Omar Zamora, a Border Patrol spokesman based in the Rio Grande Valley sector, told us by phone that when the agency is judging the security of the border, officials first look at border apprehension and drug smuggling statistics, then take into account ""bigger picture"" figures like the economic health and crime rate of border towns versus comparable areas elsewhere in the state. Zamora said he personally hadn’t heard of the Border Conditions Index. Perry’s backup information Asked to elaborate on Perry’s 74-percent statement, his campaign spokeswoman, Lucy Nashed, said he relied on a report by the Texas Department of Public Safety showing apprehensions in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector during the Texas operation. By email, Nashed provided a fact-sheet of the report. Nashed, asked to elaborate, said the 74 percent figure aired by Perry reflected the difference in apprehensions the first week of the state operation to the last week Perry was in office, the week of Jan. 18, 2015. That week, there were 1,561 people apprehended, according to a chart on the fact sheet, 76 percent fewer than the 6,606 apprehensions in the week of June 22, 2014, when the operation started. Nashed said: ""There’s actually a larger than 74 percent decrease in apprehensions, but it’s near enough that we feel saying 74 percent is still appropriate."" SOURCE: Chart, ""USBP Apprehension Trends in OSS Area of Responsibility (AOR) Zones,"" Texas Department of Public Safety, March 30, 2015 (received by email from Lucy Nashed, Rick Pery campaign, June 15, 2015) Broadly, the chart shows ups and (mostly) downs in weekly apprehensions in the sector of individuals attempting to enter Texas illegally from late June 2014 through Feb. 14, 2015. Summer Blackwell, a DPS spokeswoman, told us the chart was the latest available data at the time Perry announced for president. According to the chart, in the week of June 22-28, 2014, the start of Operation Strong Safety, the Border Patrol apprehended 6,606 individuals in the sector. But in the operation’s second week, the chart shows, apprehensions plummeted by more than a 1,000, a 22 percent decrease. In the operation’s sixth week, apprehensions were down 56 percent compared to the 6,606 apprehensions the first week, according to the chart. Apprehensions dropped, by varying degrees, every week until the week of Sept. 7, 2014, when apprehensions inched up from 1,976 to 1,997. From that week, apprehensions rose and fell within a limited range; from the first week of September to the last week of November, weekly apprehensions were never greater than 1,997 or less than 1,521. December 2014 and January 2015 brought the lowest weekly totals with the week including New Year’s Day showing the chart’s lowest total for the year, with 826 individuals apprehended. Past changes in apprehensions from summer to winter As we studied Perry’s claim, we wondered briefly about previous years. For instance, are there invariably fewer apprehensions in January compared to the previous June? Mostly so, at least in recent years. Per apprehension tallies for the sector, posted online by the Border Patrol, in four of the five pre-surge years, apprehensions in January ran at least 14 percent behind apprehensions the previous June. Outlier: Apprehensions in January 2012 outpaced apprehensions in June 2011 by 2 percent. On average, January apprehensions from 2010 through 2015 were down 52 percent from apprehensions the previous June. Then again, June 2014 was a watershed month for apprehensions. The 38,446 apprehensions exceeded the sector’s average for the five previous Junes by 30,349, or 375 percent. According to agency figures, the June 2014 tally was the highest monthly total of apprehensions for any border sector since 2008. Decreases after June 2014 There’s also no doubt apprehensions sunk in the months after Texas acted. According to Border Patrol figures, through the operation’s first seven months, there were 10,414 apprehensions a month. On average, then, apprehensions in each of the months were down 73 percent from June’s total of 38,446 -- the highest monthly total of any border sector since 2008. And did state law enforcement conclude the operation was successful due to the 74 percent difference cited by Perry? To that query, spokesmen gave nonspecific replies. By email, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said: ""It is clear that the surge operation directed by the Texas leadership to institute 24/7 saturation patrols on the Rio Grande River, the ground and in the air had a significant impact on the Mexican cartels’ ability to conduct successful smuggling operations along the border in the area of operation."" To our queries, DPS didn’t provide data on the operation’s effects on smuggling. Previously, the Austin American-Statesman said in a May 2015 news story that according to records, the DPS had been involved in less than 10 percent of Rio Grande Valley drug seizures tallied by the federal government since the state operation began. At the time, Vinger responded that stressing contributions by any one agency to the overall successes wasn’t logical--akin to ""trying to determine if a basketball team won a game by asking the point guard how many points he scored."" At different times in 2014-15, the DPS described reductions in apprehensions as a key indicator of law enforcement success--and not much of one. In July 2014, DPS Director Steve McCraw told a Texas House committee a decline in border apprehensions would be ""the best indicator across the board"" to qualify the operation as a success. Yet in April 2015, the agency wrote legislators to play down declines in apprehensions. The letter from Robert Bodisch, a deputy director, warned lawmakers of ""inaccurate and grossly misleading conclusions"" in an expected American-Statesman news story on the border surge. The letter said ""drug seizures and apprehensions are not a reliable means of accessing the level of security at the border."" (See the May 4, 2015, news story, a look into how best to measure the operation’s success, here.) At the time, Bodisch wrote that there’s one way to measure the level of security of the border: ""The only way to accurately assess the true level of security between the Ports of Entry is to be able to detect ALL smuggling events and determine whether each smuggling event was interdicted. Until you can detect and interdict all smuggling events between the Ports of Entry, the border will remain unsecured, regardless of the amount of drugs seized and people arrested."" For our part, we also reached the Texas National Guard’s public affairs office. By email, an unnamed contact said by email that its 1,000 troops ""amplified the visible presence on the ground and along the river to detect and prevent criminals from infiltrating the Texas-Mexico border and helping to ensure the safety of our fellow Texans."" Separately, the Border Patrol’s Zamora declined to comment on the impact of the Texas surge on apprehensions, calling our question ""too politically charged."" Other analyses Seeking other looks into Perry’s 74 percent declaration, we spotted a February 2015 report by the left-leaning Washington Office on Latin America, an advocacy group focused on humanitarian missions in Central and South America. From October 2013 through September 2014, its report said, the Border Patrol reported its officers apprehended 49,959 unaccompanied children entering the Rio Grande Valley sector. From October 2014 through June 2015, the report said, far fewer minors — some 13,249 — were similarly apprehended, a decline of more than 25,000, or 59 percent. The report said the primary reason for the reduced apprehensions was, starting in July 2014, a crackdown by Mexico’s government on Central American immigrants. The references specifically to Perry surge were minimal, only mentioning the National Guard and DPS reinforcements that were sent to the border in the ""Border Security in the Rio Grande Valley"" subsection. The report, citing interviews with immigration experts from the Mexican government, said Mexico, acting at U.S. officials’ urging, ""curtailed migrants’ longstanding use of cargo trains to travel north from points near the Guatemalan border and stepping up deportations of apprehended Central Americans."" In May 2015, Factcheck.org, part of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Center on Public Policy, similarly noted the Mexican government’s increased attention to Central Americans, citing an April 2015 news article in The Arizona Republic that quoted Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher telling a Senate committee that the Border Patrol didn’t expect to see another surge in children crossing from Mexico because of the Mexican government’s crackdown. According to a report by the Mexican government footnoted in the Washington Office on Latin America report, there was a spike in Central Americans deported from Mexico in 2014 that coincided with the decrease in border apprehensions in the Rio Grande Valley. Specifically, the report by Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Migración 2014 report, released in January 2015, said 67,097 individuals from the three Central American countries with the highest immigration totals -- Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador -- were deported in 2014 after that June, when the Texas operation took effect. In all of 2013, Mexico’s report said, 77,896 individuals from the aforementioned three Central American countries were deported by the Mexican government. To our inquiry, Tony Payan, director of the Mexico Center at Rice University’s Baker Institute of Public Policy, told us by email: ""Establishing a real cause-effect on Texas' efforts to secure the border is frankly very hard, but I am inclined to say that they really add very little to the enormous federal government efforts in progress well before Texas intervened."" In June 2014, according to the federal government, 115 Border Patrol officers were transferred to the Rio Grande Valley sector from other places. Later that month, the Department of Homeland Security announced the deployment of 150 additional Border Patrol agents to the sector. In July 2014, in addition, the Border Patrol announced an ad campaign in Central America, called the Danger Awareness Campaign, to warn potential immigrants about the dangers of crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally. Our ruling Perry said: ""I deployed the Texas National Guard"" to the Texas-Mexico border. ""And the policy worked; apprehensions at the border declined 74 percent."" His statistic holds up, but Perry didn’t provide nor did we find proof the decrease resulted from the Texas surge. To be specific, Border Patrol apprehensions in the targeted part of the border region declined more than 70 percent through the second half of 2014. Unproven, however, is why that happened--and Perry’s statement crediting the Texas deployment ignored potentially substantive factors such as the Border Patrol staffing up, Mexico cracking down and, perhaps, a typical summer-to-winter flux. Proving the ""policy worked"" also is hindered by a lack of consensus on how to measure border security. This weakness similarly would apply, say, if President Barack Obama said the drop in apprehensions showed administration policies worked. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
28766	Ann Scott, the wife of Florida's governor, owns a Zika mosquito spraying business.	"What's true: Ann Scott, wife of Florida governor Rick Scott, has a major financial stake in a mosquito spraying company based in Louisiana which services all of the Gulf Coast. What's false: The Scotts do not outright own a ""Zika mosquito spraying"" company."	mixture	Politics Conspiracy Theories, ann scott, Disease, florida	In August 2016, multiple reports emerged that Ann Scott, the wife of Florida governor Rick Scott, either owned a mosquito spraying company outright, or owned a major stake in one. The rumor has added fuel to emerging conspiracy theories that Zika is either a hoax, or that it was purposely introduced into the United States to distract from national politics. However, the Zika virus is not only real, but it is making inroads into the United States (and beyond) as travelers bearing the disease arrive within its borders, despite safety warnings. Zika is just one of the millions of viruses and bacteria that mutate and can quickly spread, potentially bringing a pandemic to the world on the level of the bubonic plague, or, more recently, the 1918 influenza outbreak. Diseases can appear or mutate seemingly out of nowhere, and technological advances can bring about unforeseen consequences, as researcher and writer Laurie Garrett detailed in her 1994 book, The Coming Plague. In one chapter, Garrett writes about an outbreak of a mysterious disease that sickened more than 200 attendees of the 1976 American Legion convention at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, eventually killing 25 people. It was dubbed the “Philly Killer” at first, then Legionnaire’s Disease — and traced back to bacteria breeding in the hotel’s air conditioning system: Armed with such observations, medical historian Robert Hudson of the University of Kansas closed the international gathering on a particularly frightening note. After describing the Black Death plague of medieval Europe, Hudson warned that “when we grant our existing knowledge of microscopic pathogens is deficient, we necessarily grant the possibility at least of the returns of a return of the great epidemics of the past…. the possibility exists that a deadly and common organism could emerge that is easily spread from person to person and that might be aloof to all available therapeutic and preventive methods.” “The Philadelphia event remains unsettling because it shows the very real limitations of our tools for investigating an apparently new microbial disease,” Hudson concluded. “If we are to retain public confidence in the face of some future serious epidemic, it is important that our limitations remain widely understood. As a medical community, there is no cause to be humiliated by the Legionnaire’s affair, but it is altogether proper that we be humbled.” Chagrined by the events of 1976, the U.S. public health community looked to the future, for the first time in the late twentieth century, with a vague sense of unease. That unease has persisted as the world has become far more interconnected and travel has become much more commonplace within a single generation. In the case of Zika, the virus is spread by mosquitos. Although it was first detected in 1947, the disease didn’t become a global issue until 2015. According to Dr. Amy Vittor of the University of Florida, the modern world has created a fertile breeding ground for Zika (and other mosquito-borne pathogens) to thrive: We found that deforestation followed by agriculture and regrowth of low-lying vegetation provided a much more suitable environment for the malaria mosquito carrier than pristine forest. Increasing urbanization and poverty create a fertile environment for the mosquitoes that spread dengue by creating ample breeding sites. In addition, climate change may raise the temperature and/or humidity in areas that previously have been below the threshold required for the mosquitoes to thrive. The second layer is the introduction of the mosquito vector. Aedes aegyptiand Aedes albopictus have expanded their geographic range in the past few decades. Urbanization, changing climate, air travel and transportation, and waxing and waning control efforts that are at the mercy of economic and political factors have led to these mosquitoes spreading to new areas and coming back in areas where they had previously been eradicated. In other words, if it’s not Zika, there will be something else waiting in the wings, and to work in public health is to constantly be aware of potential pandemics. As cynical as it may sound, the upswing in insect-borne illnesses like Zika means there’s money in mosquito eradication — a lot of it. The financial industry, always looking for the next place to invest, naturally landed on pest control, an industry that has shown “substantial growth” since 2014: The pest control market has shown a substantial growth in the recent year. The need for hygienic and pest free environment has boosted the need and demand for pest control services. NOVONOUS estimates that Global Pest Control Services market will grow at a CAGR [compound annual growth rate] of 5.52% by 2020. That means that investment companies will show pest control services in their portfolios. According to a 17 August 2016 article in FloridaBulldog.org, an independent nonprofit news organization that covers the state, Ann Scott has a large financial stake in a pest control company out of Louisiana (“Mosquito Control Services LLC”) through a private investment firm that she co-owns: Ann Scott’s large stake in MCS is via G. Scott Capital Partners, an investment firm that boasts $291 million of client assets. The firm manages several private equity funds and various “family accounts primarily comprised of trusts and family entities,” according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission records. The Florida Bulldog reported in 2014 that Scott Capital, as it is known online, is operated by a trio of men who once worked at Richard L. Scott Investments, the private equity firm where Gov. Scott made millions for himself and his family putting together big-money investment deals when he was in the private sector. Scott Capital posts its portfolio online. All nine listed companies are current and former investments of the governor and/or Mrs. Scott, including Mosquito Control Services, described as providing “mosquito abatement services primarily to municipalities.” The rumors bear a striking similarity to a story about the Scotts owning (or having a financial interest in) a drug-testing company, which came to light at the same time that the state decided to test the urine of welfare recipients and state workers, at their own expense: All these changes could benefit that $62 million investment, but Scott sees no legal conflict between his public role and private investments. And, experts say, under Florida law he is correct. A few days before he took office in January, Scott moved his shares in Solantic Corp., a chain of 32 urgent care centers, to the Frances Annette Scott Revocable Trust. Scott co-founded Solantic in 2001 and was involved in its operation until last year. His wife’s trust now holds enough stock in the private company to control it. While the ethical considerations of the Scotts owning any financial stake in either Solantic or MCS (and the strong, but mysteriously obscure links they have to the investment firm) is a topic that would perhaps benefit from much more discussion and transparency, it is inaccurate to say that Ann Scott outright owns a Zika mosquito spraying company, as some headlines would have you believe — or that Zika is either a hoax or a conspiracy. Its appearance in the United States’ national consciousness, much like Ebola’s in 2014, can be attributed to a strong and media-savvy public health sector trying to raise awareness and alarms before a problematic but still relatively rare disease (which has been linked to everything from microcephaly and other congenital brain abnormalities to Guillain-Barré syndrome) becomes an outright, explosive pandemic.
3396	Watchdog faults rushed EPA rulemaking on glider trucks.	The Trump administration rushed to exempt a type of super-polluting cargo truck from clean air rules without conducting a federally mandated study on how it would impact public health, the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector-general said Thursday.	true	Health, Politics, Scott Pruitt, Environment, U.S. News, Public health	Agency officials at the time of the effort, done under former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, told the watchdog office’s investigators of “fast and loose” rulemaking and a “wild West” atmosphere, the report from acting EPA Inspector General Charles J. Sheehan said. “Such actions call into question the quality of EPA rulemaking processes and leave the public and stakeholders without the information necessary to make informed comments on EPA regulatory actions,” the inspector general’s report warned. The loophole that Pruitt was seeking would have eased pending restrictions on so-called glider trucks — a booming sector of truck-making that refits older, dirtier truck engines with new truck bodies. Emission tests found the glider trucks themselves far more damaging to people’s health than trucks with newer engines, emitting up to several hundred times the amount of some pollutants. Politically active executives with Fitzgerald Glider Kits, the largest maker of gliders, had welcomed then-candidate Donald Trump to one of their plants during the campaign and met with Pruitt in the first months of the Trump administration. Soon after, “”Administrator Pruitt directed that the Glider Repeal Rule be promulgated as quickly as possible,” without conducting what the watchdog office said were mandated studies on the health impacts and costs and benefits of the move, investigators concluded. And in an email from the time, an EPA political appointee — not identified by name in the inspector general’s report — noted that even if the required health and economic analysis of the loophole was done, “”it would most likely not be as “supportive” of the proposal as OMB and others might like,” in a reference to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which reviews agencies rule proposals in a final step. The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the inspector general’s findings. In its official response to the watchdog office, the agency said it would conduct the required health and economic study if it decides to keep moving forward on the glider-truck loophole. Pruitt resigned in July 2018 as investigations multiplied into allegations he misused his office for personal gain. The Office of Management and Budget refused to fully discuss with the EPA watchdog office its role in the decision to skip the required health and economic studies, investigators said. The OMB told the investigators the information was “”particularly sensitive,”the report said. It did not elaborate. The two Democratic lawmakers who requested the inspector-general’s review, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, showed “the troubling extent to which the Trump EPA went to break the law and abuse the regulatory process in order to benefit individual political benefactors from the glider truck industry.” The Trump administration says it is working to minimize regulatory burdens on businesses while maintaining environmental and public health protections.
5458	Michigan health chief wants judge to drop charges.	A lawyer for Michigan’s health director urged a judge Wednesday to “resist public pressures” and dismiss criminal charges arising from the Flint water scandal, arguing that the head of a sprawling state agency shouldn’t be held responsible for the deaths of two people during a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak.	true	Health, Michigan, Legionnaires disease, North America, Flint, Disease outbreaks, U.S. News	It was standing room only as spectators without seats were allowed to jam the main aisle to listen to final arguments. Judge David Goggins must decide whether there’s enough evidence to send Nick Lyon to trial on involuntary manslaughter charges, a low legal threshold in Michigan. State prosecutors said a timely warning about Legionnaires’ could have saved lives. Goggins had signaled weeks ago that he would make a decision Wednesday, but he postponed it until Aug. 20. Lyon, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the highest-ranking official to be charged in the Flint water crisis. The water supply was contaminated with lead from old pipes in 2014-15 when water drawn from the Flint River wasn’t treated to reduce corrosion. Some experts believe the bad water also contributed to Legionnaires’ disease. Legionella bacteria can emerge through misting and cooling systems, triggering a severe form of pneumonia. An outbreak was announced in January 2016, although Lyon knew there were Legionnaires’ cases a year earlier. His lawyers said there was much speculation about the cause and not enough information to share with the public in 2015. “We fully appreciate the court is under tremendous public pressure to do something,” defense attorney John Bursch told the judge. But he urged Goggins to “resist those public pressures” and dismiss four charges against Lyon, including manslaughter. Prosecutor Todd Flood, however, said Lyon shouldn’t be let off the hook. “He could have put an end to the suffering,” Flood said. ___ Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwhiteap
7487	Noem: No stay-at-home order, state to test anti-malaria drug.	Gov. Kristi Noem on Monday continued to resist calls for a stay-at-home order for Sioux Falls amid the coronavirus outbreak, while announcing that the state will run a comprehensive trial for an anti-malarial drug pushed by President Donald Trump as a potential way to treat and prevent COVID-19.	true	Sioux Falls, Malaria, Health, General News, Kristi Noem, Virus Outbreak, Donald Trump	The Republican governor said her push to test the drug hydroxychloroquine is a way to “go on offense” against the coronavirus. The drug has been championed by Trump but drawn skepticism from doctors who say it could have severe side effects. Shortly before Noem’s announcement, Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken called on the governor to issue a stay-at-home order for the city as the rate of COVID-19 infections accelerated in recent days, Many came from an outbreak at a pork processing plant operated by Smithfield Foods. Health officials reported the largest day-to-day increase in confirmed coronavirus cases on Monday with 138 people testing positive. The state has confirmed a total of 868 cases, with the bulk of those coming from Minnehaha County, which contains Sioux Falls. So far, six people have died. TenHaken said if the current rate of infections continue, the city’s healthcare system could be crippled. The only way to get a stay-at-home order immediately is to have the governor issue one, he said. Otherwise, it would take seven days to pass an order through the city council. “Quite honestly, it’s crap that we have to wait that long to act,” he said. Noem said she is evaluating the request, but resisted the notion that a more aggressive approach to get people to stay home is necessary. She said people are voluntarily taking precautions. The governor acknowledged that Sioux Falls could see a peak in infections several weeks before the rest of the state, but continued to stick to her projection that statewide infections will peak in mid-June. For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death. Noem said South Dakota will be the first state to run a state-wide trial to test hydroxychloroquine. There are several other trials being conducted elsewhere. She explained that the state’s three largest health care providers will conduct a trial with 2,000 people. Every participant can choose if they want to take part. The governor said she pushed the White House last week to provide enough hydroxychloroquine to give it to every hospitalized person, others who are vulnerable to the coronavirus and “front line” health care workers. She said state funds will be used to sponsor the trial, but did not say how much she plans to pitch in. Allison Suttle, the chief medical officer for Sanford Health, which will be conducting the trial, said the side effects of the treatment could include nausea or fatigue, but did not list anything more severe. A press release from Sanford said there can be serious side effects from the drug, but they are rare.
9182	Exact Sciences and Mayo Clinic study shows promise of new blood-based lung cancer test	This release describes very preliminary work on a lung cancer screening test that examines blood plasma from lung cancer patients and healthy controls. The work focused on isolating specific methylated DNA (cells that influence gene expression) markers in the blood that existed in cancer patients but which were absent in controls. The research will be presented in a poster session at an upcoming meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (ACCR). The release gets credit for employing mostly cautious language when describing results but it comes up short in other areas; namely it omits costs, and pertinent descriptions of benefits, availability and quality of evidence. In addition, the release doesn’t mention that the study involved smokers — one has to go to the abstract to find that information — and that may lead some readers to think the screening test could be appropriate for anyone, including healthy non-smokers. In addition, red flags go up whenever we see the words “simple blood test” in a news release or story. There is no such thing, as we’ve addressed numerous times. The release points out that, “Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality, resulting in 1.7 million deaths globally and more than 150,000 deaths in the United States every year.” (The American Cancer Society cites about 156,000 lung cancer deaths annually.) And since a lung cancer diagnosis can often come as the disease has progressed considerably, the dream of an earlier warning is enticing. There is a use for a “simple blood test” to guide further diagnostic testing in lung cancer, such as being able to differentiate benign lung nodules picked up incidentally during a chest scan from cancer. Such a test could theoretically reduce unnecessary repeat CT scans. However, readers should bring a healthy amount of skepticism to early reports about such tests and reserve confidence until substantive studies show strong, comprehensive, positive results. Otherwise, readers will suffer disappointment at believing in advances that fail to actually hold up to the hype.	mixture	Exact Sciences Corp.,lung cancer	There is no mention of the possible costs of a diagnostic test suggested by this release. Such DNA analyses carry costs that are not trivial and since the sponsor of the research mentions it already offers a diagnostic test for colorectal cancer that uses similar technology, it should be easy to include at least a reasonable estimate of the cost of such a test. The news release presents the potential benefits of such a test with the following — “Using two independent regression modeling approaches, a panel of four novel methylated DNA markers demonstrated a sensitivity of 91-96 percent at a specificity of 90-94 percent.” While the release gets credit for giving the actual numbers for sensitivity and specificity, this is very complex language for the average reader. The news release addresses harms, but in relation to CT scanning for lung cancer and its potential for over- and under-diagnosis, not to the screening test under development In regard to CT scans it states: “This approach has a sensitivity for lung cancer above 90 percent, but its specificity may fall below 75 percent (a false positive rate of more than 25 percent) because indeterminate lung nodules are so common. Evaluation of these false-positives leads to unnecessary, costly and potentially harmful procedures.” The suggestion here is that the blood test eliminates these problems with CT scans, but is that accurate? Are there other potential harms for a blood test that might be different from an imaging test? The release doesn’t say. The news release mentions the size of the study, but should have offered more caveats to clarify that it was a very small, preliminary study. The study involved a small selection of patients already known to have lung cancer or not. A more challenging test is whether it can maintain the same accuracy level in a broader population of people whose cancer status is unknown. Second, the release didn’t caution that there is no proof that using the test will improve lung cancer survival. Use of other blood-based screening tests — notably for ovarian cancer — have been shown not to improve survival. It also notes that the research will be presented at a poster session at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR). Presenting a study abstract is a far cry from being published in a peer-reviewed journal. There’s no obvious disease mongering in the release. The prevalence of lung cancer, and the problem of pulmonary nodules picked up incidentally, is accurately portrayed here. However, the release never states that the study involved smokers. They do later talk about the test being used as an adjunct to screening, which is recommended for smokers. However, could a casual reader of the release be misled into thinking that the test is appropriate for anyone, and that healthy non-smokers should be considering it? While the news release never states it specifically, it’s pretty clear that the company, Exact Sciences Corp., supported the research. However, it never really identifies any of the researchers involved, and only quotes two individuals — the CEO of the company and a researcher from the Mayo Clinic. The release does provide a link to the abstract of the research and it reveals that 17 of the 18 researchers listed work for Exact Sciences. Only the quoted Mayo researcher is not from the company and while the abstract does include disclosure information, it is not detailed enough to determine if there are any conflicts of interest. The news release mentions that currently, “Lung cancer screening is approved for smokers using chest CT scanning,” and points out the shortcomings of that approach. The release says nothing about when such a test might be available, if ever, and de-emphasizes that this research is in very early stages. As mentioned above, results presented at a poster session at a scientific meeting may be interesting but they may be years from actual use, if any. We often see claims that simple blood tests will reveal a disease or condition but often these claims turn out to be premature and require much more research. While this release rightly pointed out that, “More studies are needed to corroborate accuracy” we think this study is too premature to demonstrate a novel advancement in lung cancer screening. The use of the phrase “simple blood draw” raises a red flag, as noted in the review summary, above.
26590	“China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that's why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu and now the coronavirus.”	SARS and the new coronavirus were first identified in China, but MERS started in Saudi Arabia and Swine Flu started in the United States. Experts said Cornyn's assertion that Chinese culture is at fault is inaccurate, as the threat of viral transmission from animal to human is not unique to China, and the risk of this kind of spillover is growing globally as humans come into closer contact with animals.	false	China, Texas, Coronavirus, John Cornyn,	"In separate interviews with reporters on March 18, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said China has been the source of multiple recent contagions breaking out because of what he called a culture of eating some animals such as bats, snakes and dogs. In remarks captured by The Hill, Cornyn said this applies to the new coronavirus. ""China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that's why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the swine flu and now the coronavirus,"" he said. ""I think they have a fundamental problem and I don't object to geographically identifying where it is coming from."" He made a similar comment on a weekly conference call with reporters in Texas, stating that the ""open meat markets that serve everything from bats to tapirs to snake to dog meat"" allow viruses to jump from animals to humans. The Hill’s video clip of Cornyn’s remark was shared thousands of times on social media, so we’ll focus on fact-checking that statement, keeping the context of his second claim in mind. Cornyn spokesman Drew Brandewie said Cornyn’s statement is referring to the culture behind so-called wet markets in China. ""If people didn’t eat that type of meat, wet markets would not exist,"" he said in an interview, referencing the animals Cornyn identified in his remarks. Let’s dive in. SARS, MERS and Swine Flu Before we address the parts of Cornyn’s claim related to the coronavirus, let’s take a look at his assertion that the viruses SARS, MERS and swine flu originated in China. Cornyn is right about SARS, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which was first reported in 2003 in the Guangdong province of southern China, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. SARS is thought to be an animal virus, but its source remains uncertain. It is believed to have spread from the source animal to other animals and infected humans, according to the World Health Organization. But Cornyn is wrong about where the first MERS and swine flu cases were reported. Brandewie said Cornyn misspoke when included them in his list. MERS, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012, according to the CDC. Swine flu, or the H1N1 flu, was first identified in humans in the United States in 2009, according to the CDC. Transmission of the virus The first part of Cornyn’s claim states that people in China ""eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that."" But Peter Li, associate professor of East Asian Politics at the University of Houston, said this type of cuisine is not representative of Chinese culture. ""Chinese as a whole do not have wildlife eating habit,"" Li said in an email. ""It is the eating habit of a small number of people, just like a small number of people in the U.S. dare to eat rattlesnakes or the like. … The eating habit is not Chinese and not traditional."" Even considering the small population that may consume these animals, Adam Kamradt-Scott, an associate professor of global health security at the University of Sydney in Australia, said ""The consumption of exotic meats is not, in itself, the problem."" ""The issue is instead the level and extent of the human-animal interface that wet markets permit,"" he said in an email. ""Having said this, we have yet to identify the host animal for the COVID-19 virus. … It has also not been verified whether the COVID-19 virus infected humans at the wet market in Wuhan, only that some of the first cases to be identified had a history of having visited the wet market."" The CDC’s situation page for the new virus states that early cases in China ""had some link"" to the market, as did numerous news articles highlighted by Brandewie in response to PolitiFact’s inquiry. But researchers have yet to pinpoint when, where or how the virus was transmitted from animals to humans. ""It was originally suggested that it began at the Wuhan fish market, but there is no longer good evidence to support that,"" said Vincent Racaniello, a virology professor in the Microbiology and Immunology Department at Columbia University who is researching the virus. ""The first case was not associated with that market and now we think there were earlier clusters in November not associated with the market."" Racaniello pointed to a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine at the end of January by researchers in China looking at the first 425 confirmed cases of the virus. The data shows that while the first reported cases of the new virus were linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, the first identified case of the virus predated the publicly reported cases and was found in a person with no connection to the market. Other researchers also identified early cases unrelated to the market. In the March 15 episode of his virology podcast, This Week in Virology, Racaniello interviewed coronavirus researcher Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill about the origins of the current pandemic. Baric said researchers have identified numerous SARS-like strains in bats and said it is ""just a question of time for when a human comes in contact with a bat"" carrying these viruses and that sparks a new pandemic. He added that it is entirely possible that the current outbreak was caused by a person in rural China who came into contact with a bat or bat guano and then traveled to Wuhan and started the outbreak. Baric said the initial contact could have occurred in a farmer harvesting bat guano to use as fertilizer or ""just by random chance"" in a person who came into contact with bat guano when a bat flew overhead and its droppings fell. Not strictly cultural It’s true that markets that sell live animals that are slaughtered on the premises pose a risk or viruses to be transmitted from animals to humans, but experts said this risk exists across the globe and is not unique to China. ""His claim, if it were true, is ridiculous,"" said Li, the University of Houston professor. ""No country in the world monopolizes the outbreaks of epidemics."" Racaniello said that suggesting the new coronavirus is ""spread simply by eating a bat is too simplistic,"" as is pointing only to China as the source of new viruses. ""If you eliminated all eating of bats, you would still have these spillovers,"" he said. ""The four mild coronaviruses we have probably crossed from bats into humans hundreds of years ago — that could have happened anywhere. This is much broader than eating a bat in a meat market. I think that’s the important key here, that there are a lot of ways for viruses to get from various animals into humans."" Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist and president of the research organization EcoHealth Alliance, said global health experts discussed the potential of a new pandemic in 2018 (labeling it ""Disease X""), as pandemics are on the rise and the world’s strategy for dealing with these illnesses is ""woefully inadequate,"" in op-ed for the New York Times. Daszak wrote: ""These spillovers are increasing exponentially as our ecological footprint brings us closer to wildlife in remote areas and the wildlife trade brings these animals into urban centers. Unprecedented road-building, deforestation, land clearing and agricultural development, as well as globalized travel and trade, make us supremely susceptible to pathogens like coronaviruses."" Science writer David Quammen discussed future risk during an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air in February, and said the reason the globe is seeing more viruses in humans is because we ""are so abundant and so disruptive on this planet that we come in contact with these things."" He continued: ""There's 7.7 billion of us. We're cutting the tropical forests. We're building work camps in those forests and villages. We're eating the wildlife. We're transporting wildlife around the world. We're raising a lot of domestic livestock that become exposed to viruses through wildlife. ""We're doing all these forms of disruption that I say sometimes that you go into a forest and you shake the trees, literally and figuratively, and viruses fall out. And if they fall out of their hosts, they need a new host. And we're there. We're available. We're their opportunity. And then we fly around the world and carry it every which way."" Our Ruling Cornyn said: ""China is to blame because the culture where people eat bats and snakes and dogs and things like that, these viruses are transmitted from the animal to the people and that's why China has been the source of a lot of these viruses like SARS, like MERS, the Swine Flu and now the coronavirus."" First of all, Cornyn is wrong that MERS and the Swine Flu were first identified in humans in China. He is right that SARS and the new coronavirus were first identified in humans there. The problem with Cornyn’s claim is his assertion that Chinese culture is at fault. Experts said the threat of viral transmission from animal to human is not unique to China, and the risk of this kind of spillover is growing globally as humans come into closer contact with animals. Plus, experts noted that any consumption of the animals Cornyn mentioned is not, in itself, the problem. It is also worth noting that researchers have not pinpointed exactly when, where or how the coronavirus hopped from animals to humans. While early reports indicated that the virus jumped from animals to humans at a seafood market in Wuhan, further study has identified cases predating those in people with no connection to the market. Taken as a whole, Cornyn’s statement is not accurate."
22507	"Under a proposed Georgia law, ""women who miscarry could become felons."	Liberal blogger says abortion bill could affect women who miscarrry	true	Abortion, Georgia, Liberal Blogger,	"Republican state Rep. Bobby Franklin has made a hobby out of triggering liberal ire. And yes, he’s done it again. The Marietta legislator’s House Bill 1 rejects the authority of landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade. It bans abortion and labels it ""prenatal murder,"" a crime punishable by life in prison or death. But that’s not what had bloggers at left-leaning publications seething. It’s that they think the bill could allow prosecutors to charge mothers who miscarry with a crime. Jen Phillips, a staffer with liberal magazine Mother Jones, wrote the bill ""showed an astonishing lack of concern for women’s health and well-being."" ""Under Rep. Franklin’s bill, HB 1, women who miscarry could become felons if they cannot prove that there was ‘no human involvement whatsoever in the causation’ of their miscarriage,"" she wrote. Women who miscarry could be charged as felons? Is that true? Franklin has sponsored similar anti-abortion bills without success. This one doesn’t have much steam behind it, either. But given how this claim took off in the blogosphere, we thought it was worth a look. We called Phillips, who pointed us to a portion of the bill that defines ""prenatal murder."" ""Such a term does not include a naturally occurring expulsion of a fetus known medically as a ‘spontaneous abortion’ and popularly as a ‘miscarriage’ so long as there is no human involvement whatsoever in the causation of such event,"" the bill states. The problem is the phrase ""no human involvement"" is so broad and the causes of miscarriage can be so complex and difficult to understand that any woman whose actions can be viewed as playing a role in her miscarriage could be prosecuted, Phillips argued. This could be a problem. Other critics we interviewed said that under this language, a woman who miscarried could be prosecuted for choosing cancer treatment, taking illegal drugs, or falling off a bicycle while pregnant. All of those situations require some ""human involvement."" Franklin said these objections have absolutely no merit. ""[T]hose criticisms are mere smoke screens since as you know the bill does not specifically call for … those things,"" Franklin wrote in an e-mail. Abortion rights advocates agreed that Franklin’s legislation could criminalize miscarriage. A spokeswoman for anti-abortion group Georgia Right to Life said they have not analyzed the bill. Franklin is right that the bill does not specify that women can be prosecuted under the scenarios that critics raised. However, laws can have unexpected consequences. We therefore took a closer look at Georgia law. An existing state statute on ""feticide,"" or the destruction of a fetus in the uterus, generally bars women from being prosecuted in the death of her fetus. Frankin’s bill does not repeal this law. But there’s an exception under Georgia’s ""feticide by vehicle"" statute. In a 2010 Douglasville case, a pregnant driver fled from police, leading them on a chase. The driver crashed. Her baby was delivered by emergency C-section but did not survive. Prosecutors charged the pregnant driver. While Georgia’s ""feticide by vehicle"" statute does not mandate mothers be charged when they cause crashes leading to the death of their own fetuses, it does not prohibit it. Research shows that nationally, women have been prosecuted for conduct affecting their fetuses, even when the law does not expressly provide for it, said Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which fights anti-abortion laws. Paltrow gave us examples, which we confirmed. For instance, in a 2008 South Carolina case, a woman faced homicide charges after attempting suicide while eight months pregnant, killing the fetus. A 1997 state Supreme Court ruling decided that a fetus is considered a child if it is viable, or able to live outside the uterus. This means pregnant women can be prosecuted under state child abuse statutes. In Missouri, the law bars prosecuting a woman for ""indirectly harming her unborn child by failing to properly care for herself or by failing to follow any particular program of prenatal care,"" but mothers have been charged with child abuse and convicted of involuntary manslaughter for substance abuse while pregnant, news accounts show. Since HB 1 does not repeal existing Georgia feticide law, it’s possible to argue its passage might not lead to the prosecution of women in the death of their fetuses. A judge might decide the earlier feticide law prevents it. However, such a ruling is no sure thing. In conclusion: Critics of Franklin’s bill say that the ""human involvement"" language is so vague that women could be prosecuted for miscarriages, and we agree with them. While the law does not explicitly allow for miscarriage prosecutions, and Franklin said this is not his intent, the language is so broad it does open the door for women to face felony charges if they abuse drugs, fall off a bicycle, fail to wear a seat belt, or opt for cancer treatment while pregnant. Women in Georgia and across the nation have previously been prosecuted for actions investigators think adversely affected their fetuses, even if the law does not specifically call for them to do so. However, women who miscarry might not be handled as felons. It depends on how prosecutors and judges decide to handle the law. The statement could use a little more context. We therefore rule Phillips’ statement ."
3662	Study: Drug-caused suicides in Utah underestimated by 33%.	Utah’s number of drug overdose suicides has potentially been underreported by 33%, according to a new study.	true	General News, Utah, Mental health, Opioids, Provo	The study published in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior came to the conclusion after looking at 2,665 overdose deaths that occurred from 2012 to 2015 in Utah, the Provo Daily Herald reports. Paul Nestadt, one of the paper’s authors, says the nation’s opioid epidemic has clouded suicide classification across the nation. “If you work in mental health, it is pretty clear there is a lot of overlap in the symptoms of someone who is using opiates and someone who may be suicidal,” Nestadt said. State health officials say roughly 630 Utahns die from suicide and about 4,570 attempted suicide every year. Utah’s suicide rate is above the national average, causing the deaths of 22.7 per 100,000 people in 2017, compared to a national rate of 14 people per 100,000. According to the study, that rate could be significantly higher. Utah’s rate of undetermined deaths is double the national rate, with the majority of those undetermined deaths caused by poisoning or drug overdoses. “Compared with other causes of suicide, drug-intoxication (or poisoning) suicides are particularly prone to be misclassified as accident or undetermined,” the study reads. The study looked at data from the Utah Department of Health and the National Violent Death Reporting System to create models that could determine if a death was a suicide. The result was that there were potentially 229 additional deaths by suicide over the four years of data the study looked at than had previously been counted and that the total suicide rate in Utah was underreported by 9.2%. Nestadt said having more accurate data on suicides will allow for better-targeted interventions to prevent deaths. If someone is known to have poor mental health, then he said that a person’s access to medications that they could stockpile could be restricted. “We can’t target any intervention until we know what is causing it,” he said. People can find support, information, and local resources by calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255.
2657	Scientists say ancient human bedding used for pest control.	Almost 80,000 years before humans began using chemical sprays to control insect pests, Africans were using mattresses made from bug-repelling plants to ensure a good night’s sleep.	true	Science News	The finding, published in the journal Science Friday, derives from 77,000-year-old plant bedding found in a cave in South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal province. The find is 50,000 years older than any previous prehistoric beds discovered. The bed’s insect-repelling capabilities suggest ancient humans were well aware of the chemical and medicinal properties of some plants. “The leaves contained chemicals that repelled mosquitoes and other insects, so we know that they understood medicinal plants,” said Lyn Wadley, an archaeology professor at the University of the Witwatersrand. The bedding would have helped reduce insect-borne disease, although early humans would not have made any connection between mosquitoes and malaria, she told Reuters. “It was for comfort. They would have known that those leaves kept away insects and maybe other pests as well,” Wadley said. The bedding consists of thick layers of compacted stems and leaves of sedges and rushes collected from the banks of a nearby river. In the last few years, scientists have made a series of startling discoveries in South Africa shedding light on the lives of early humans. In October, researchers at the Blombos Cave 300 km (200 miles) east of Cape Town discovered a 100,000 year-old painting kit consisting of abalone shells, color pigments and bone spatulas used to work up a paste.
580	Measles and mistrust in Ukraine weaken world's defences.	Many of the people coming to Anna Kukharuk’s private medical clinic don’t have a disease. What plagues them is doubt. But its effects are a health emergency that the doctor and hundreds of others are struggling to remedy.	true	Health News	Deep mistrust of vaccines in Ukraine has allowed measles, a virus which according to United Nations data kills 367 children a day worldwide, to grow into an epidemic infecting more than 58,000 people in the country of 42 million this year alone. That has brought one of the world’s most contagious diseases to Europe - there have been recent outbreaks in Poland, Romania and Germany - and possibly beyond, to Israel and New York. International health officials are investigating whether pilgrims to a rabbi’s grave in the Ukrainian city of Uman may have carried measles, via Israel, to the United States. Pockets of dissenters in many communities have long shunned immunization. In Ukraine, more and more parents are questioning or delaying their children’s shots. Their doubts are rooted in a weak healthcare system, corruption and mistrust of authority. Magnified by rumors on social media, the doubts have transformed the country into a weak spot in efforts to shore up global immunity against infectious diseases, public health specialists say. The World Health Organization (WHO) last year named “vaccine hesitancy” as a top 10 threat to global health. Since 2017, measles has infected 115,000 people in Ukraine and killed 41 - 25 of them children, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Survivors can suffer long-term complications or disabilities such as blindness, deafness or brain damage. Even so, Khukharuk says parents visiting clinics like hers are unsure whether to vaccinate: “Most of them have doubts. They are hesitant, and they can be tilted one way or the other.” It’s a fight on many fronts. Research shows vaccines save lives, but only half of Ukraine’s population believe they work, according to a report published in June by Britain’s Wellcome Trust, based on a survey of attitudes among 140,000 people from 140 countries. Globally, 84% of those surveyed said they believed vaccines are effective, including more than 80% in the United States and the United Kingdom. Kukharuk and other clinicians say even their medical colleagues argue vaccines weaken immunity. There is no evidence for such beliefs; decades of science show the opposite. Online, concerns about poor-quality ingredients and accounts of children being forcibly vaccinated fuel notions that vaccines are a ploy by Big Pharma and governments to make money and control populations. In fact, most vaccines are low-margin products for drug makers. The shunning of vaccination weakens people’s defences against deadlier diseases, such as polio, which causes paralysis and was eradicated in Europe in 2002. Two children in Ukraine were paralyzed by polio in 2015 - Europe’s first outbreak since 2010, according to the WHO. An emergency vaccination campaign contained that flare-up. “It’s not only a concern for the children and the people of Ukraine, it’s actually a global issue,” said Lotta Sylwander, head of UNICEF in Ukraine. “Communication and the way we travel means that this affects people and children worldwide.” Children’s artwork adorns the walls in the large, bright office of Kukharuk’s clinic, and cartoons about vaccination are shown to children in the waiting room. But Kukharuk is mainly focused on their parents. The young doctor is part of a network of unpaid volunteers in a Ukrainian pro-vaccination campaign sponsored by charity Rotary International - many of them women, many also mothers - who put themselves forward to persuade people to get vaccinated. On a sunny Saturday morning in a park in the center of Kiev, another doctor, Alla Pugach, enlisted the help of a team member dressed in a bear costume to educate parents and children about vaccines. The goal, Pugach said, “is to attract as many people as possible to vaccination.” “We call these people ‘change agents’,” said Sergii Zavadskyi, the charity’s head in Ukraine. “We have a network of about 300 of them. They are trying to help parents find the truth.” Rotary International has spent $200,000 in the country over the past four years on public health activities including campaigns about polio immunization. Its PolioPlus program is funded by donations and events organized by members and supporters. Volunteers organize meetings to tell unvaccinated adults, parents, teachers, health workers and others about the risks of infectious diseases. In her clinic, Kukharuk directs visitors to WHO data which says vaccines save up to 3 million lives a year. For its part, the government in Kiev says increasing vaccination coverage is a matter of national security, and it has set up a website to debunk myths about vaccination. It has long required children to produce certificates showing they have had their shots to go to school. Earlier this month, Health Minister Zoryana Skaletska posted a selfie on the ministry’s Facebook page which showed her getting a flu jab. “We remind you, vaccination is the most effective means of prevention,” the post said. It’s a tough sell. In 2016, only half the babies and children in Ukraine who should have been immunized against diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, tetanus and whooping cough had received these routine inoculations, according to Ukraine’s health authorities. Immunization rates need generally be around 95% to achieve the ‘herd immunity’ that can protect whole populations, the WHO says. Measles is more contagious than flu, tuberculosis or Ebola. The virus that causes it lingers in the air and on surfaces for more than an hour after an infected person has moved on; so in an unprotected population, each infected person, on average, would pass it to 12 to 18 others, virologists say. In Ukraine – a state still locked in conflict with pro-Russian separatists after decades of Soviet domination – rumor and mistrust are also highly contagious. Some parents’ worries stem from the health system. Ukraine has no universal healthcare and is perceived to be more corrupt than most of its neighbors, according to Transparency International. Many hospitals have long been poorly equipped with unreliable power, which has at times put vaccine cold-chains at risk and meant some shots may have been unrefrigerated and rendered ineffective, said Ulana Suprun, a Ukrainian-American medical doctor who was acting health minister in Kiev until the government changed in August. In 2008, a 17-year-old boy died shortly after being given a measles-rubella vaccine. The government suspended the immunization program to investigate. It found no link to the boy’s death. But by then, health officials say, the damage to public confidence was done. In the past, vaccine provision was also disrupted by an opaque medicines procurement system which allowed oligarchs to broker backroom deals with little external oversight. Patients who believe they are being fed sub-standard medicines say they often pay to go private, or bribe a doctor to get what they need. The medics themselves can be part of the problem. Parents whose children have not had their shots can, for a small bribe, find a doctor to write them a fake certificate. Websites seen by Reuters offer false documents saying a child has all the school-required immunizations for about $9 to $12 a time. During her three-year tenure as acting health minister, Suprun says, she visited scores of medical schools and universities where students said their professors mistrusted vaccines. On one visit, she recalled a student telling her, “My professor said ... the complications from vaccines are worse than the diseases.” She said one of her staff visited a doctor - she would not name them - who advised against using a certain vaccine, because it was “made from the placentas of Indian women.” Social media fan the flames. As in many countries, sites targeting Ukrainians carry false claims - that vaccines cause autism, for example. These intermingle with more blatant untruths and conspiracy theories. “Unvaccinated children’s immunity is stronger than in your vaccinated ones,” asserted a post on Facebook in September in the name of Svetik Lamakhova in Oleksandriya, central Ukraine, who confirmed to Reuters she had expressed that view. Another Facebook poster, named Elisaveta Shchepova, said that doctors and officials encouraging vaccination in Ukraine “do not need our health – they need our money, grief in family, illness and death.” She did not respond to requests for comment. Online advocates of vaccination are attacked. Olena Kudryashova, a 31-year-old fitness trainer, said she came down with measles when her daughter was just over 1, just as she had decided to go ahead and give her the shots. The baby caught measles too. The mother went on to ensure her baby was immunized, which she posted on Facebook along with pictures of herself and her child. Her post, in December 2018, was shared 14,000 times and prompted more than 4,000 comments, many of them negative. “I seriously think you were bribed,” said one. Another: “We have been vaccinated since the days of the USSR, and even now 95% of our children are vaccinated mercilessly - so why have we got a measles epidemic ??? Maybe because vaccination is a profitable fiction with many unexplored side effects ?? ?” Jan Sciegenny, a spokesman for Facebook, said the company takes misinformation regarding vaccines on its platform very seriously and is working on ways to connect people with authoritative information on both Facebook and Instagram. The risks of leaving children without shots may be higher than previously thought. Two scientific studies published in October found measles actually damages children’s immune systems, by eliminating antibodies they built up to diseases they had before they were infected. That makes vaccination even more important. UNICEF says that on the request of the health ministry, it now procures vaccines for Ukraine’s immunization campaigns against infectious diseases including measles, diphtheria, tetanus and polio. But the doubters have momentum. This year, from March to August, the group “Vaccination. Free choice” held demonstrations to protest the requirement that children be inoculated. Veronica Sidorenko, its head, said she doesn’t trust data cited by the government and UNICEF, and believes a powerful pharmaceutical lobby is behind “mass hysteria” about the current measles outbreak. She said the outbreak of measles itself sparked an “intensified vaccine policy” which included what she described in an email to Reuters as “psychological pressure on parents and manipulation of statistics and information.” The city of Kiev, which has 3 million residents, had just 87 cases of measles in 2017. Between January and June this year, it recorded 5,000.
2635	In the Age of Anxiety, are we all mentally ill?.	When Cynthia Craig was diagnosed with postpartum depression eight years ago, she told her family doctor she felt anxious about motherhood. She wondered whether she had made a catastrophic mistake by quitting her job, whether she could cope with the long, lonely hours stay-at-home mothers face - and even whether she should have had children.	true	Health News	“Anxiety is something I have always had, especially during times of change,” said Craig, 40, who lives in Scotland, Ontario. “But I was never worried about the level of anxiety, and it never prevented me from leaving the house, driving, socializing or even speaking in front of people.” Her doctor referred her to an anxiety clinic, where a nurse asked Craig dozens of yes-or-no questions - are you afraid of snakes? do you hear voices? do you vomit from anxiety? - and made a diagnosis. “She said, ‘Let’s call it Generalized Anxiety Disorder with a touch of social phobia,’” Craig said. That didn’t feel right to her, but the clinic’s psychiatrist agreed with the nurse and said Craig’s concerns about motherhood constituted an anxiety disorder, a form of mental illness, and prescribed Pfizer’s Effexor and then GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil. Craig says the drugs exacerbated the very anxiety that she doubted required medication. Craig’s case is one of millions that constitute an extraordinary trend in mental illness: an increase in the prevalence of reported anxiety disorders of more than 1,200 percent since 1980. In that year, 2 percent to 4 percent of Americans suffered from an anxiety disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders, used by psychiatrists and others worldwide to diagnose mental illness. In 1994, a study asking a random sample of thousands of Americans about their mental health reported that 15 percent had ever suffered from anxiety disorders. A 2009 study of people interviewed about their anxiety repeatedly for years raised that estimate to 49.5 percent - which would be 117 million U.S. adults. Some psychiatrists say the increase in the prevalence of anxiety from about 4 percent to 50 percent is the result of psychiatrists and others “getting better at diagnosing anxiety,” as Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, a past president of the APA who is in private practice in Washington, D.C., put it. “People who criticize that are showing their bias,” she said. “When we get better at diagnosing hypertension, we don’t say that’s terrible.” Critics, including other leading psychiatrists, disagree. They say the apparent explosion in anxiety shows there is something seriously and dangerously wrong with the DSM. Its next edition, due in May, would lower the threshold for identifying anxiety. The criticism rests on three arguments. First, the DSM fails to recognize that anxiety is normal and even beneficial in many situations, so it conflates a properly functioning brain system with a pathology. Second, the DSM’s description of anxiety is more about enforcing social norms than medicine. Finally, they say, anxiety is adaptive. Its brain circuitry was honed by evolution for a purpose. Only when that mechanism misfires should a person be diagnosed as mentally ill. “No human emotion is more basic than anxiety,” said sociologist Allan Horwitz of Rutgers University. “Many forms of it simply should not be categorized as disorders, because they’re the result of the way people evolved thousands of years ago, rather than something going wrong.” Horwitz and other critics recognize that when the brain’s anxiety system misfires it can prevent people from functioning, as when someone is unable to leave home, interact with friends and family or walk past even a leashed dog. But the anxiety system is working properly when it makes someone afraid of heights or wild dogs or threatening strangers. “Anxiety or panic symptoms that have been severe, persistent and cause clinically significant distress or impairment need to be diagnosed promptly,” said Dr. Allen Frances, a psychiatrist who led the previous DSM revision and questions some of the new criteria. “Very effective treatments are available.” “We don’t oppose people getting treatment,” said Horwitz, co-author of the new book “All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders.” “But people are much too willing to think they have a disorder that requires treatment.” Many psychiatrists don’t see it that way. Under changes for the DSM-5 proposed by experts convened by the APA, symptoms such as excessive worry, restlessness, feeling on edge, avoiding activities that cause anxiety, and being overly concerned about health or finances or family would have to be present for only three months rather than six to justify a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). And people would have to display one physical symptom, not the current three. “Because its threshold for GAD is set so ridiculously low, DSM-5 will mislabel as mentally ill many people who are experiencing no more than the normal and expected worries of everyday life,” said Frances. Dr. Donna Rockwell, a clinical psychologist who has organized opposition to aspects of the DSM-5 process, warned that “unless come to their senses, GAD will be identical to the existential worries all of us face as part of being human.” That will bring “a bonanza to the drug companies,” she added, opening the floodgates to “more inappropriate, expensive and potentially harmful drug use.” Drugmakers reported $661 million in U.S. sales of anti-anxiety drugs last year, according to IMS Health. Most psychiatrists see that as evidence people suffering from mental illness are getting help. On Thursday the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America issued a report touting the many drugs being developed for mental illnesses, including 26 for anxiety. “When anxiety symptoms impair a person’s functioning, what’s so bad about helping them get back to a normal state and using medication if appropriate?” asked Robinowitz. The message that what used to be considered part of the human condition is pathological is getting through, at least to some people. James Heaney, 44, told his family physician in 2000 that he often felt shy or mildly depressed in social situations - “like I saw on the TV commercial” telling viewers to “ask your doctor” about social anxiety. “There was no in-depth evaluation of my symptoms,” said Heaney, then a network administrator for a school district near Rochester, New York. After a 10-minute interview, he had a diagnosis of “mild social anxiety” and a prescription for Paxil. “For such a powerful drug,” he said, “it was remarkably easy to get.” Research over the past decade shows that feeling anxious is how the brain’s emotion centers send signals to its thinking centers that something is amiss. For instance, it is normal to be anxious over a sick child, a loved one’s illness, unemployment or other setbacks in life, said New York University sociologist Jerome Wakefield, co-author of “All We Have to Fear.” “The feeling of anxiety tells you something poses a threat, which can motivate you to stay vigilant” - about, say, a change in a sick child’s symptoms, he said. In the Paleolithic era, when our prehistoric ancestors lived in small clans, how people were viewed by strangers and kin could determine survival. So when people fret over going to a party, giving a speech or otherwise subject themselves to judgment, it reflects an adaptive response to the millennia-old need to be attuned to other people’s disapproval, researchers say. Anxiety about public speaking accounts for about half the diagnoses of social anxiety disorder. “There is great evolutionary and survival value in anxiety, which makes it difficult to identify as an illness or pathology,” said psychologist Frank Farley of Temple University. Anxiety was working properly among survivors of Hurricane Katrina, Wakefield and Horwitz contend. Years after the devastating 2005 storm, schools, housing, policing and other aspects of life in New Orleans had still not returned to normal. Using DSM criteria, a 2007 study concluded that half the surviving residents were “mentally ill” because they experienced anxiety about those lingering effects. “If you survived Katrina, anxiety is not a sign of mental illness; it’s the brain working as it should,” said Wakefield. Such emotions can spur survivors to agitate for rebuilding neighborhoods, he said. Another concern is that by labeling normal human variation - being more anxious, fearful or worried than the average person - a mental illness, psychiatry is venturing into social control. “To suggest that anyone who’s afraid to speak in front of hundreds of strangers has a mental illness creates social pressure to change,” said Wakefield. “And that pushes psychiatry away from medicine and into enforcing social values.” In retrospect, Marla Royce (who asked that her real name not be used) thinks her brain’s anxiety system was working as evolution intended. A successful Texas novelist, she was upset about the death of her father in 2004. Her anxiety was compounded when her publisher did not promote her new book, leading Royce to worry that her writing career was over. “It was just garden-variety situational anxiety,” she says now about the agitation and disorientation she felt. Royce said she went along “trustingly and blithely” when a family physician diagnosed her with GAD. “He said the pharma sales rep had just left some samples, so he gave me Lexapro,” to which a psychiatrist added Paxil, Xanax and Klonopin. She became dependent on the drugs, taking ever-higher doses. Her psychiatrist told her that “was proof my anxiety disorder was out of control and that I would have to be medicated for life.” She suffered “steadily declining mental and physical health” until she stopped the meds five years ago and shared her story with the online support group PaxilProgress. James Heaney’s shyness turned to numbness on Paxil. “It made me insular and nonresponsive to my friends and family,” he said. “My mood became very variable,” and co-workers told him they felt uncomfortable asking him for computer help as they once did “because they weren’t sure which James they would get.” He weaned himself off psychiatric drugs in 2011. The social anxiety he still occasionally feels “is a relatively easy problem to deal with,” he said. For Cynthia Craig, the drugs she was prescribed triggered “excruciating anxiety symptoms like I had never experienced in my entire life.” “I told my doctor I don’t want to be on anything,” she said. “My anxiety is predictable and something I can handle.”
8783	FDA warns of reactions to alcohol dependence drug.	Nearly 200 patients given Alkermes Inc’s drug Vivitrol for alcohol dependence reported complications from the injection, including abscesses requiring surgical drainage, U.S. health regulators said on Tuesday.	true	Health News	Vivitrol, an extended-release version of the generic drug naltrexone marketed by Cephalon Inc, was approved in 2006 to treat alcohol dependence in patients who show they can abstain from drinking prior to receiving the drug therapy. Since then, the Food and Drug Administration said it received 196 reports of patients who were given Vivitrol and developed swelling, pain, bleeding and other complications. Sixteen required surgery to drain the injection site or to repair damaged tissue, the FDA said. The problems appeared to arise when doctors did not properly inject the drug into muscle tissue, Cephalon spokeswoman Candace Steele said. “We believe it’s inadvertent,” Steele told Reuters. Vivitrol is injected into a patient’s buttock and doctors need to ensure the needle goes past the fat layer and reaches the gluteal muscles when giving the drug. How deep the needle needs to go depends on a patient’s gender and weight, the FDA said, and women may be at greater risk for reactions “due to typically higher gluteal fat thickness.” Cephalon and the FDA could not say how many of the 196 reports were from women. Most of the 16 patients who required surgery were women, Steele said. The FDA said doctors should make sure they are giving the injections correctly and with the proper needle. They should also advise patients to monitor the injection site and report worsening reactions. Among other known side effects with Vivitrol are liver damage, nausea, headaches and diarrhea. It was unclear how many patients have been given Vivitrol since its approval, but Steele said 70,000 doses have been shipped since 2006. The drug is given monthly and is supposed to be used in conjunction with counseling. On Nasdaq, shares of Alkermes closed down 44 cents at $16.45, while shares of Cephalon closed up 4 cents to $76.92. Alkermes did not return calls seeking comment.
7229	Judge blocks Ohio ban on abortions due to Down syndrome.	A state law that prohibits doctors from performing abortions based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome was placed on hold by a federal judge on Wednesday.	true	American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, Health, Abortion, Ohio, North America, Down syndrome	Judge Timothy Black said the law’s opponents are “highly likely” to succeed in arguing the law is unconstitutional because “federal law is crystal clear” that a state can’t limit a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy before viability. His ruling means the law won’t take effect next week, as scheduled, while the litigation proceeds. A legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, Freda Levenson, said the judge acted appropriately against “a thinly-veiled attempt to criminalize abortion.” The ACLU and Planned Parenthood filed the legal challenge last month against the Ohio Department of Health, the state medical board and county prosecutors on behalf of Preterm in Cleveland and other abortion providers. They sought the temporary injunction granted Wednesday and a permanent stay of the law. Ohio Right to Life, an anti-abortion group that championed the law, criticized the judge’s ruling. “It’s a tragedy that the court prioritized abortion-on-demand over special needs children,” group president Mike Gonidakis said. “Our pro-life law simply ensured that Ohioans with Down syndrome would be protected against lethal discrimination. Unfortunately, the ACLU and the abortion industry callously disregarded these Ohioans.” Gonidakis said abortion foes are counting on Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine, who opposes abortion, to “fiercely defend our law in order to protect our special needs community.” DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said the attorney general’s office was reviewing the decision and intended “to vigorously defend the law.” The law, signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich in December, makes it a crime for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy based on knowledge of Down syndrome, a genetic abnormality that causes developmental delays and medical conditions such as heart defects and respiratory and hearing problems. Specifically, it makes performing an abortion in such cases a felony and requires the state medical board to revoke the physician’s license upon conviction. It imposes no punishment on women seeking the procedure in such cases. The president of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio, Jerry Lawson, said the law “is about restricting abortion, plain and simple.” “The patient-doctor relationship is critical,” Lawson said. “A woman should be able to trust her physicians and have confidential conversations with them without worrying about government interference.”
11239	Pill Treats Painful Fibroids	Fibroids are common and can cause bothersome symptoms such as pain, bleeding, and pressure in some women. However, they are also benign and deciding about how or whether to treatment them depends on how much a woman is bothered by her symptoms, feels about the pros and cons of different treatments, and whether she wishes to conserve her fertility. There are many different safe and viable treatments available, ranging from medications to minimally invasive procedures to surgery. Women who make a fully-informed decision about treatment in conjunction with their doctor are likely to be satisfied with their treatment so long as their choice matches their goals and what’s important to them. Even with so many options, it would be welcome news that a drug may not just treat the symptoms but actually might reduce the size of fibroids. A new study presented at this week’s European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology shows that EllaOne, currently available as an emergency contraceptive in Europe (but not in the US), may shrink fibroids and reduce symptoms relative to placebo. However, the results should be greeted cautiously. This was a small, short study and the full results have not been evaluated. More research is needed to confirm them and answer many outstanding questions. Whilet EllaOne may be shown to be very helpful to women with fibroids in the future, these results are premature at best.	false		The story does not describe costs of the drug. The story states that 80 to 95% of women have no bleeding after taking the drug. However, that leaves a lot of open questions about the effectiveness of the drug. For example, how long does this benefit last? What about other symptoms of fibroids like abdominal pain and pressure? The story repeatedly mentions that the drug shrinks fibroids. By how much? Is that difference clinically meaningful? In other words, can women perceive an improvement in bulk symptoms (pain, pressure) as a result of the decreased fibroid size? Do the fibroids grow back? The story mentions the potential harm of elevated liver function test results. However, it does not explain that women commonly experience abdominal pain, headaches and nausea with this drug. The story does not critically appraise the current study. This was a small study (57 patients) with a short follow-up time. The results have also yet to be fully evaluated and have only been presented at a scientific conference. The story verges on disease mongering by exaggerating the seriousness of fibroids. While it is true that up to 80% of women may have fibroids, only about 20% of women will have symptoms that are bothersome enough that they would seek treatment. Fibroids in of themselves are benign and are not problematic unless they cause symptoms and treatment should only be initiated if a woman is bothered by them. Symptoms of fibroids also most often go away after menopause. However, this story leaves the impression that all women with fibroids should be treated. The story quoted multiple independent experts. The story mentions Lupron and Uterine Artery Embolization as alternatives to EllaOne but fails to mention many other safe and effective options that are currently available. For example, oral contraceptives (which are not approved for fibroids but are commonly used for that indication) can help reduce bleeding and cramping associated with fibroids. Likewise, the Mirena IUD often stops bleeding altogether. NSAIDs can also be used for pain. Myomectomy, surgery to remove fibroids, preserves fertility. By not mentioning these options, the story leaves the reader with the impression that there are few viable alternatives. The story clearly states that EllaOne is available for emergency contraception only in Europe but is being considered for approval in the US. The story clearly describes that this drug is not new, but has previously only been used as an emergency contraceptive in Europe. Because the story quotes several indepdent experts, the reader can assume that the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.
10146	More cancer patients removing 2nd, healthy breast	This article reports findings from a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that demonstrate a recent rise in double mastectomies among women diagnosed with cancer in one breast. It generally does a good job of explaining that the benefits of the treatment are unknown. It explores the question of what may motivate women to make this decision. The anecdote is well chosen because the woman is a nurse and therefore more credible as someone making an informed choice. It also allows us to hear one woman explain how she made what she knows to be a decision based more on emotion than fact. The article would have been stronger had it taken a closer look at the risks and benefits of the whole range of breast cancer treatments, and what risks a woman diagnosed with breast cancer faces of the cancer spreading, returning or killing her.	true		"While cost is very unlikely to drive a decision about breast cancer treatment, it’s increasingly important for the media to educate readers about the true underlying costs of medical treatments. In this case, the reporter cites ""higher costs"" as one disadvantage of double mastectomy. This obligates the reporter to specify those costs. To know how the cost of either a single or double mastectomy compares to the costs of lumpectomy plus radiation would have added additional value. Generally the article does a good job of using data to show how the number of double mastectomies has increased over six recent years. But there is one serious flaw: The report states that, ""Women removing a single cancerous breast have a 1 percent chance per year of suffering cancer in the other breast."" That sounds fearsome, and like a reasonable motivation to undergo double mastectomy. But we have no idea how that 1 percent compares to a woman of a similar age who has not been diagnosed, to a woman with high risk who has not been diagnosed, etc. In addition, the reporter is rounding up from a recurrence rate of between .5 percent to .75 percent, as stated in the research article. The average reader may estimate a 40 year old woman with 40 more years life expectancy has risk of recurrence in other breast of 40 percent; but data suggest it is closer to 20 to 30 percent. The article is also unclear about the evidence regarding mortality: Have no studies looked into the question of whether a double mastectomy increases lifespan, or are there studies that show no difference? The report mentions slightly higher risks of surgical complications and infections. It would have been useful to specify how serious and frequent these outcomes are, but this is not a serious flaw. The article fairly reports that the study was based on an analysis of several years of data gathered for a large government study and reported in a credible medical journal. The report makes clear early on the limitation that this study could not explain reasons for women making the choice. The reporter does nothing to exaggerate the risks of cancer spreading from one breast to the other. In fact, the reporter does a good job making clear that the risk is lower than many patients think. The reporter interviews the lead author of the study, two additional credible medical experts and one patient. The patient, a nurse, is a more credible source than one often finds in news stories. The article sufficiently compares bilateral and single mastectomy, and reports that the lumpectomy with radiation option is more common. The article implies, accurately, that double mastectomy is available at any facility that provides breast cancer treatment. The article makes clear that this is the first large federal study of the issue. As for the procedure itself, no claims are made for its novelty. There is no evidence that the report relies on the journal’s press release."
24470	Husbands rarely beat up their wives. Single women get beaten up more.	Coulter says husbands rarely beat up their wives	mixture	National, Crime, Pundits, Ann Coulter,	"On his Fox News show, commentator Sean Hannity defended Rush Limbaugh, who was dumped by business partners bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams due to controversy about racial comments Limbaugh has made. Hannity brought on conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who argued the NFL has long been ""easily very spooked by crazy left-wing hoaxes."" ""You'll remember a few years ago the loopiest hoax of all, the claim that men beat up their wives more on Super Bowl Sunday,"" Coulter said. She noted that in 1993, the NFL ran a public service announcement about domestic violence before the Super Bowl after some women's groups claimed violence against women spiked on Super Bowl Sunday. ""The NFL not only believed it, and it was completely a fraud and completely insane,"" Coulter said. ""The safest people in the world ... are married women."" ""Husbands rarely beat up their wives,"" Coulter told Hannity. ""Single women get beaten up more."" The popular myth about increased domestic violence on Super Bowl Sundays turned out to be based on extremely thin, localized data and was largely, and famously, debunked in a Washington Post story, ""Debunking the 'Day of Dread' for Women; Data Lacking for Claim of Domestic Violence Surge After Super Bowl,"" written by Ken Ringle and published on the day of that 1993 Super Bowl game. So Coulter was on firm ground there. But we were curious whether she was right about her claim that ""husbands rarely beat up their wives. Single women get beaten up more."" Coulter goes into this subject in a little more detail in her book, Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America. The gist of the narrative is that liberals have created all kinds of ""victim"" myths to advance their agenda. In the second chapter, ""Victim of Crime? Thank a Single Mother,"" Coulter takes aim at a 1994 Time magazine article written by Barbara Ehrenreich. The article claims that, ""for a woman, home is, statistically speaking, the most dangerous place to be,"" but Coulter calls that ""crazy wrong."" Coulter leaves off Ehrenreich's next sentence, ""Her worst enemies and potential killers are not strangers but lovers, husbands and those who claimed to love her once."" Remember that last line as we get to the statistics. But first, here's how Coulter lays out her case in her book: ""According to the U.S. Department of Justice crime statistics, domestic abuse is virtually nonexistent for married women living with their husbands. From 1993 to 2005, the number of married women victimized by their husbands ranged from 0.9 to 3.2 per 1,000. Domestic violence was about 40 times more likely among divorced or separated women, ranging from 37.7 to 118.5 per 1,000. Even never-married women were more than twice as likely to be victims of domestic abuse as married women. Evidently, the safest place for a woman to be is at home with her husband."" The numbers cited by Coulter come from the Department of Justice's Bureau of Statistics report, ""Intimate Partner Violence in the United States."" The survey found that ""on average from 2001 to 2005, both females and males who were separated or divorced had the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence while persons who were married or widowed reported the lowest risk of violence."" Between 2001 and 2005, 1.2 out of 1,000 married women reported physical abuse by an ""intimate partner"" (in this case, their husband), versus 5.5 out of 1,000 among women who never married. In short, Coulter cites the numbers accurately. But she left out some important qualifiers included in the survey's fine print. A page about the survey's methodology states: ""Caution is warranted when interpreting intimate partner violence and marital status in the (survey) because marital status may be related to a respondent's willingness or ability to disclose violence by an intimate partner. For example, a married woman may not view, may not wish to view, or may be unable to report the behavior of her partner as violent or criminal. That same woman, if separated or divorced, may view or may be able to report the same behavior as violent."" In other words, a woman who is still married to an abusive husband may be less likely to report the abuse than a woman who has since divorced or separated from their spouse. In addition, the survey notes, ""Marital status is based on the respondent's situation at the time of the interview, not necessarily at the time of the victimization. The survey is not able to determine whether a victim's marital status changed between the victimization and the interview, not necessarily at the time of the victimization."" It stands to reason that at least some married women who reported physical abuse by their husband might have later gotten divorced or separated. Coulter also leaves out the Department of Justice statistics on homicides committed by a person ""intimate"" with the victim. Historically, most ""intimate"" homicides involved spouses (though in recent years, the number of deaths by boyfriends and girlfriends was about the same). Coulter accurately cites figures from the Department of Justice study on violence against women, but she draws conclusions that the authors of the study specifically caution against. And that's because women may be a lot less likely to report violence by someone they are still married to, and living with."
10017	Study: Rapidly rising PSA signals more aggressive prostate cancer	"The story describes a new study that uses PSA velocity – how rapidly a prostate specific antigen level rises – to predict which men will have aggressive prostate cancers that may benefit from earlier treatment. The article does a nice job of recognizing some of the controversy surrounding prostate cancer screening. That is, many prostate cancers are slow growing and will never threaten a man's life and it's unclear whether screening and early treatment of prostate cancer saves lives. The article also nicely includes independent sources of information, specifically a physician who cautions readers about the value of PSA velocity, to help provide balance to the story. However, the story does not adequately describe the evidence for the findings, namely that the study is not a randomized controlled trial, so does not prove using PSA velocity can save lives. The researcher is quoted saying ""This is a test that doesn't just diagnose prostate cancer. It diagnoses prostate cancer that's going to actually cause harm."" But the results that are reported do not support this enthusiastic, evidence-free statement. Another limitation is not describing alternative screening options, including the decision not to be screened at all. Finally, the story does not mention that screening itself is associated with harms, such as physical pain from subsequent biopsies, anxiety, and problems related to a false positive (a false alarm) screening result. While the story does mention that many experts believe too many men are undergoing side effect prone treatments for prostate cancers which would never harm them, those treatments or side effects are not mentioned. The treatments commonly include surgery or radiation, both of which can cause problems with impotence/erections, bladder control, and bowel functioning. The side effects are not inconsequential and happen to a significant number of men (sexual problems seem to occur in a majority of treated men). The reader doesn't have any context for how serious or frequent these may be."	mixture		"The story does not mention any costs of PSA testing (or the number of tests over what period of time are needed to determine PSA velocity). The story provides survival rates for men with high PSA velocities and low PSA velocities (although the time period for the estimates is not so clear). Because this is an observational study, absolute risk reductions are not possible. While this is adequate, the story overstates what the findings mean. A quote from the lead author stating, ""It doesn't just diagnose prostate cancer, it diagnoses prostate cancer that's going to actually cause harm,"" is unfounded and not supported by the evidence. Additionally, the story's inclusion of a recommendation from the lead author that men have ""baseline"" PSA tests at 40 to use as a comparison for future changes is another example of enthusiasm despite evidence. The story does not mention that screening itself is associated with harms, such as physical pain from subsequent biopsies, anxiety, and problems related to a false positive (a false alarm) screening result. While the story does mention that many experts believe too many men are undergoing side effect prone treatments for prostate cancers which would never harm them, those treatments or side effects are not mentioned. The treatments commonly include surgery or radiation, both of which can cause problems with impotence/erections, bladder control, and bowel functioning. The side effects are not inconsequential and happen to a significant number of men (sexual problems seem to occur in a majority of treated men). The reader doesn't have any context for how serious or frequent these may be. The story does not adequately describe the strength of the evidence for the current findings. Although the story describes that data were used from a study of aging that began storing blood samples from the 1950s, it's described in a way that many readers won't know what kind of study this was and how strong the evidence is. The story also doesn't mention that all potential confounders could not be controlled for in this study design, which could have given readers some sense of caution about interpreting the results. And, because this is not a randomized controlled trial, we still don't know whether finding these cancers early saves lives (the story mentions this, but does not state why). The researcher is quoted saying ""This is a test that doesn't just diagnose prostate cancer. It diagnoses prostate cancer that's going to actually cause harm."" But the results that are reported do not support this enthusiastic, evidence-free statement. The article nicely describes the dilemma around whether or not to find and/or treat prostate cancer. Many prostate cancers are slow-growing and will never threaten a man's life. This is often lost in the enthusiasm over PSA testing. The article also provides some estimates of the number of men who will be diagnosed and die from prostate cancer this year, giving some framework for the relative burden of prostate cancer (or showing that despite a relatively larger number of men who will be diagnosed, a minority of them will die from the disease). However, the article misses an opportunity to emphasize or re-state what the numbers really mean and that they demonstrate there should be caution about widespread screening. The article quotes the lead author, who has very encouraging things to say about using PSA velocity to screen men for prostate cancer. The author even goes so far as to encourage men have a baseline PSA test at age 40, which is not currently part of any guidelines. The article also obtains independent input from a physician who cautions readers about the value of PSA velocity, providing balance to the lead author's comments. The line ""The study is far from proof that making health decisions based on the so-called PSA velocity can really save lives"" also helps provide balance to the lead author's enthusiasm. The story does not adequately talk about options, whether that's treatment options once cancer is diagnosed or alternatives to screening. For instance, the story doesn't mention the typical screening scenario (how often is it done, what does it involve?) nor does it mention the alternative of not screening, which is reasonable given that experts don't know if screening or even early treatment saves lives. The article states this latest study could help change how PSA (or prostate specific antigen) tests are currently used, implying that PSA testing is available. The article also states that many doctors already use PSA velocity to help determine which men need biopsies, also implying that the use of PSA velocity, a particular way to use PSA testing, is available although not necessarily used by all at this time. It's clear from the article that PSA tests and measurements of PSA velocity are not new. Because the story quoted the lead author, an editorial writer, and an American Cancer Society official, it is unlikely the story relied solely or largely on a news release."
10803	Device Keeps Donor Kidneys Healthy Outside the Body Until Transplant	The news release focuses on a successful kidney transplant in which the donor organ was kept viable using a technique known as “ex vivo organ perfusion.” The release provides a lot of information on what the surgery entails, and why. However, the release left out some key details. Are there risks associated with this technique? What sort of expenses are involved for patients? What sort of questions and concerns are still outstanding? The release does tell readers that the transplant was done as part of a phase 1 clinical trial — and that future trials will address whether the technique is effective. Which raises the question: Why are they issuing a news release now? According to the National Kidney Foundation, there are tens of thousands of people on the waiting list for a kidney donation — with thousands more being added to the list each month. That means there a lot of people, and their loved ones, who are anxious for good news regarding kidney donation. Trumpeting one successful kidney transplant that took advantage of an experimental ex vivo organ perfusion technique may well raise hopes for no reason. At best, it will likely be years before the technique finds widespread clinical use — it is, after all, in the earliest of clinical trials. We do not know how long those clinical trials will take, or if the technique will even advance beyond a phase 1 clinical trial. We do not know if the technique may cause unforeseen problems even in the patient who has received this initial transplant. And there is no discussion of cost or potential risks — both of which are significant issues for patients.	false	Academic medical center news release	Cost is not addressed. Does the technology used to keep the kidney viable in ex vivo organ perfusion increase costs? Is this something that would be passed on to patients? The economics of improving the viability of kidneys for transplant is an important consideration that isn’t mentioned, either. The estimated first-year cost of a kidney transplant is in the $270,000 range and that of renal dialysis about $70,000 annually, so despite its costs, transplantation is economically as well as clinically preferred over the long run. The techniques described likely will add costs over cold storage but knowing how much would have been an important aspect of the story. The release compares the health of a kidney preserved via ex vivo organ perfusion favorably to the health of a kidney preserved using cold storage preservation, going so far as to say that a kidney preserved using the new technology is “improved.” But the release offers no numbers to support such a claim, and then gives anecdotal comments from the single study participant to have undergone the new procedure–“I feel great”–and from the surgeon: “It’s a champion!” One of the goals of the ongoing study is the outcome of the transplant at just 90 days. Kidney transplantation poses a number of risks, from infection to rejection of the donor organ to the kidney failing to work normally. The release refers to the phenomenon known as “sleepy kidney,” in which a newly transplanted organ takes some time before it begins functioning. However, it doesn’t address other health risks in a meaningful way, not does it offer any insight into how the new technique may affect those risks. Could ex vivo organ perfusion reduce those risks? Increase those risks? We’re not told. The release notes that the transplant was done as “part of a Phase I clinical trial…assessing the safety of the device, with subsequent phases examining its efficacy.” It doesn’t make clear that this work has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal, or even presented at a conference. At this point, while it may be a promising anecdote from one patient, it is still only an anecdote. No disease mongering here. It’s not disclosed that Dr. Markus Selzner has an existing relationship with Veritas Therapeutics (an offshoot of the University Health Network Toronto Transplant Institute) and is one of the inventors of an assigned patent. Here’s how the release handles the issue: “This technology has advantages over the usual cold storage method in which a deceased donor kidney is cooled on ice to about four degrees Celsius, with no oxygen, slowing down its metabolism, and inhibiting the repair process. The kidney cannot survive longer than 30 hours in cold preservation. The new warm preservation technique avoids the damage of cold storage and instead allows the donor organ to improve and repair itself, potentially leading to better outcomes for patients.” This is a direct comparison, which is good, but raises some questions. For example, how long can a kidney survive using the new technique? More than 30 hours? There’s a reference to “the damage of cold storage,” but it doesn’t tell readers what that damage is — or what it means when they say a kidney can “improve and repair itself.” As noted above, the release does tell readers that this work was done as part of a phase 1 clinical trial, so we’ll rate this Satisfactory. However, many — if not most — readers are not familiar with clinical trials, and we think the release would have been stronger had it translated that. The release refers to this as the first time such a transplant has been done “in North America.” Which begs the question: Has it previously been done elsewhere? As it happens, the first trial of a similar approach was published in 2013 in the UK. The release didn’t contain unjustifiable language.
32284	Leaked medical records, combined with viral images and videos, prove that Hillary Clinton is suffering from subcortical vascular dementia and has only one year to live.	Unfortunately, we’ve found no clues as to whom this narrator might actually be, although we grew suspicious while perusing other videos on the same YouTube channel — videos with titles such as “POPE FRANCIS to PROCLAIM LUCIFER as God of One World” and “Strange Details Behind PRINCE Blood Sacrifice to Baal!! THEY KILLED HIM,” and realized they all appear to have the same narrator.	false	Politics Conspiracy Theories, election 2016, hillary clinton	On 7 September 2016, a video was uploaded to a YouTube channel that specializes in apocalyptic prophecies and conspiracy theories claiming that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was diagnosed with a form of vascular dementia and only had one year to live. It was just one of umpteen Clinton health rumors to spring up during the 2016 presidential campaign, and might have languished in obscurity had not the candidate suffered a “medical episode” on 11 September that ended in her being whisked away without explanation from a memorial service. It was subsequently announced that Clinton “felt overheated,” which was followed later in the day by the revelation that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia. Within five days of its uploading, the “one year to live” video had racked up more than 300,000 views. Popular though it may be, its content is preposterous, however, since it is largely based on forged medical records anonymously “leaked” online. The documents claim that Clinton was diagnosed by her personal physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, with complex partial seizures and subcortical vascular dementia, but Dr. Bardack issued a statement saying they were forgeries: I have recently been made aware of allegedly “leaked” medical documents regarding Secretary Clinton with my name on them. These documents are false, were not written by me and are not based on any medical facts. To reiterate what I said in my previous statement, Secretary Clinton is in excellent health and fit to serve as President of the United States. Bardack’s actual medical assessment of Clinton, completed after a physical examination in 2015, stated that the former secretary of state had no ongoing health conditions apart from hypothyroidism and seasonal allergies. Proceeding from the false premise that Clinton has vascular dementia, the video’s narrator calculates that Clinton has one year to live — which, were the diagnosis real, probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark, according to medical reference sites. But the diagnosis isn’t real, so the video makers attempt to shore up their case with photographs and videos they claim show Clinton exhibiting symptoms of dementia. We have seen all these images before, when they were similarly misused to demonstrate that Clinton supposedly suffers from seizures, brain damage, and Parkinson’s disease. The makers of the new video display the following image, for example, as the narrator intones that “Hillary Clinton is sick, and likely dying. I am not making this up or overstating this. This is typical of the progression of vascular dementia, similar to the progression that we see in Alzheimer’s”: However, the original caption on the above Getty Images photograph, dated 24 February 2016, says that it captured Clinton when she simply slipped while going up a set of stairs. The video makers next misrepresent a clip of Clinton clowning with reporters as an example of a “seizure“: But the journalists surrounding her that day have said they saw nothing odd or disconcerting in Clinton’s behavior. And such is the case with all the purported “evidence” in this video: its creators cherry-picked clips that were unremarkable in their original context and recast them as proof of a “dementia” Clinton has never actually been diagnosed with. And what of the video’s anonymous narrator, whose testimonial on YouTube begins as follows: I am a professor at a medical school. I have taught at three institutions (currently in my third). I will not provide my exact credentials because several people who have tried to speak out against Hillary Clinton have been killed (look up “Clinton Body Count”). Really? We’re supposed to believe a “professor” of medicine who won’t divulge their identity, provide their credentials, or, indeed, give us any reason at all to take their “medical analysis” seriously, because they’re afraid of a decades-old rumor that Hillary Clinton will have them killed?
15749	"The Affordable Care Act is ""a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals."	"Obama said the Affordable Care Act is ""a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals."" Independent experts said the report Obama was using as evidence represents a credible attempt to quantify recent improvements in preventing hospital-patient deaths, even if the numbers are estimates rather than hard figures. They added that it’s reasonable to credit the health care law’s Partnership for Patients program with accelerating the gains, even if the improvements were already under way at the time the law was passed. The statement is accurate but needs clarification."	true	National, Health Care, Public Health, Barack Obama,	"In a recent speech marking the fifth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama touted a number of accomplishments he credited to the law. ""The work that we’ve been able to do is already spurring the kinds of changes that we had hoped for,"" Obama said. ""It’s helped reduce hospital readmission rates dramatically. It’s a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals."" We hadn’t heard the claim about preventable deaths, so we took a closer look. When we asked the White House for its evidence, they pointed us to a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Prepare yourself for its very wonky title: ""Interim Update on 2013 Annual Hospital-Acquired Condition Rate and Estimates of Cost Savings and Deaths Averted From 2010 to 2013."" The agency is a part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, and its report takes a preliminary look at a program called Partnership for Patients that was created by the health care law. The program aims to get 3,700 hospitals -- along with physicians, nurses, employers, patients, government officials and others -- to work together to cut preventable hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent between 2010 and 2014 and to reduce hospital readmissions by 20 percent over the same period. The report found that ""approximately 50,000 fewer patients died in the hospital as a result of the reduction in HACs (hospital-acquired conditions), and approximately $12 billion in health care costs were saved from 2010 to 2013."" This occurred ""during a period of concerted attention by hospitals throughout the country to reduce adverse events,"" the report said. Independent experts said the report is credible. Lucian Leape, an adjunct professor of health policy at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told PolitiFact, ""I think these data are reliable, and the ACA (Affordable Care Act) deserves credit."" Leape, who has been studying preventable hospital deaths since the early 1990s, credited improved data collection and the work of Partnership for Patients, ""which has been a serious – and successful – effort to engage hospitals in achieving specific goals, such as reducing infections."" He said it’s the kind of effort he and others called for a decade and a half ago but ""never got before the ACA. Hospitals were improving their safety slowly on their own, and this gave it a big boost. It's the first time we have seen measurable, significant decreases in any of the harms that we cause by treatment failures."" David Nash, dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health in Philadelphia, agreed that the numbers are credible. ""This is in part due to a huge amount of work on the part of hospitals,"" Nash said. We do see two fairly minor caveats. • These numbers are estimates. Obviously, it’s not possible to literally count the number of deaths prevented in the same way you can count actual deaths. So the authors of the report had to use a complicated set of estimating techniques to come up with the 50,000 figure. The authors of the report made a point of including some caveats, including that ""the estimate of deaths averted is less precise than the estimate of the size of the reduction"" in hospital-acquired conditions."" The report also notes ""uncertainty inherent in our statistical extrapolations"" and says that it’s ""clear"" that ""tens of thousands of deaths"" have been averted, which is less specific than the 50,000 figure Obama focused on. • Preventable deaths had already begun falling even before the health care law was enacted. Periodically, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection has analyzed data on inpatient hospital deaths, with its most recent analysis covering data through 2010. That analysis found that the number of inpatient hospital deaths (not just preventable ones) decreased from 776,000 in 2000 to 715,000 in 2010 -- a drop of 61,000 over a decade. In other words, hospital deaths in general were already on a downward slope prior to the health care law’s passage; it’s just accelerated since then. The authors of the report that Obama cited also hedged a bit on the causes for the decline, writing that ""the precise causes of the decline in patient harm are not fully understood."" Our ruling Obama said the Affordable Care Act is ""a major reason why we’ve seen 50,000 fewer preventable patient deaths in hospitals."" Independent experts said the report Obama was using as evidence represents a credible attempt to quantify recent improvements in preventing hospital-patient deaths, even if the numbers are estimates rather than hard figures. They added that it’s reasonable to credit the health care law’s Partnership for Patients program with accelerating the gains, even if the improvements were already under way at the time the law was passed. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so"
5453	Family: Alabama prison was ‘indifferent’ as inmate was dying.	Relatives of a man who died in an overcrowded Alabama prison said officials provided inadequate medical care before his death last month in a facility where the state health agency has confirmed a disease outbreak.	true	Meningitis, Prisons, Health, Montgomery, Alabama, Disease outbreaks	The Montgomery Advertiser reported Wednesday that the family of inmate Michael Eddings, 45, said workers at Ventress prison in southeast Alabama were “deliberately indifferent” to his condition. Eddings, who was serving a life sentence for murder in Jefferson County, died Sept. 24 after a bacterial infection developed into meningitis, an infection involving the brain and spinal cord. A law firm released a statement on behalf of the man’s relatives, the newspaper reported. State health department officials have said two other Ventress inmates also developed the illness and were hospitalized. Prison officials allowed the infection to spread by providing insufficient care, the family’s statement said. ″... This death was avoidable and measures must be put into place to prevent the Alabama Department of Corrections from allowing this to happen again,” said the statement. The Department of Corrections said in a news release that Eddings was treated by health workers and transferred to the hospital where he died after being diagnosed with pneumococcal meningitis. The department is managing the outbreak by measures that include testing, limiting movement and providing antibiotics to anyone who might be affected, it said. “The control measures will provide long-term protection for both employees and staff,” said a statement from prison spokesman Bob Horton. Workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alabama Department of Public Health have been at Ventress since Monday screening inmates, workers and volunteers who might have come in contact with the infected prisoners, said Cindy Lesinger, the state’s immunization director. Besides the three confirmed cases, two suspected cases were detected, she said. “They’re looking at every person who could have been in contact with any of those three people, and that may be expanded to the two other suspected cases,” said Leinger. Test results may not be available before the end of the week to show whether others are infected, she said. The three infected inmates were all housed in the same dormitory, Lesinger said, but it’s unclear exactly how the illness spread. While officials said an autopsy would be performed on Eddings, family attorney Matthew Bailey said Monday no examination had been performed. The family intends to pursue “justice for Mr. Eddings’ needless death” and asked for more information about what is going on at the prison, the statement said. Located about 75 miles southeast of Montgomery, Ventress is a medium-security prison built to house 650 inmates, according to prison statistics. It was overcrowded with 1,277 men at the end of July, records show. The department is grappling with lawsuits over medical and psychiatric treatment provided to inmates. ___ Information from: Montgomery Advertiser, http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com
156	India faces first court challenges to e-cigarette ban.	India’s ban on electronic cigarettes has been challenged in a court in the eastern city of Kolkata, marking the start of the first legal battle against the anti-vaping decision.	true	Health News	The Indian government banned the sale, import and manufacture of e-cigarettes this month and warned of an “epidemic” among young people. The move could dash the expansion plans of companies such as Juul Labs Inc and Philip Morris International (PM.N) in the country. Two separate challenges have been filed to the high court in Kolkata, by e-cigarette importer Plume Vapour and another company named Woke Vapors, according to court listing records publicly available online. A senior health ministry official in New Delhi said the government had been notified of the cases, which were heard by the court on Thursday and will next be heard on Monday. “We are confident of defending our decision,” the official added. Further details about the challenges were not immediately available. More than 900,000 people die each year due to tobacco-related illnesses in India, home to about 1.3 billion people. The government argues the e-cigarette ban is essential to protect people, especially young people, saying vaping can lead to nicotine addiction and push users toward consuming tobacco. Pro-vaping groups, however, say vaping is less harmful than smoking tobacco and that the ban will deprive millions of smokers of a safer solution to cut back on smoking. “This (ban) raises several important questions of constitutional law and is mindless, arbitrary and excessive,” said Abhishek Manu Singhvi, one of India’s most prominent lawyers, who is representing Plume Vapour. The ban includes a jail term of up to one year and a fine of 100,000 rupees ($1,411) for first-time offenders, though use of the device by individuals is not prohibited. India has 106 million adult smokers, second only to China in the world, making it a lucrative potential market for companies selling vaping products. Juul had plans to launch its e-cigarette in India and has hired several senior executives in recent months. Philip Morris had plans to launch its heat-not-burn tobacco device in India, Reuters has reported.
39627	This eRumor is mostly circulated in the form of a video. It is a recording of a report from WKYC-TV 3 in Cleveland, Ohio. It tells of television broadcast engineer John Kanzius’ discovery that he could use radio waves to make salt water burn. Is this a new source of energy?	"Inventor ""burns"" salt water with radio waves?"	true	Medical, Miscellaneous	The television report is true. Whether John Kanzius’ discovery is revolutionary or not remains to be seen. Kanzius is a former television station owner and broadcast engineer from Pennsylvania who now lives in Florida. According to the report, Kanzius came up with an idea for using radio waves to kill cancer cells. It involved injecting tiny bits of certain metals into cancer patients—metals that would be attracted by the cancer cells. Since radio waves can make certain metals hotter, the thought was that the radiated pieces of metal might make the cancer cells die. Kanzius has a personal interest in the quest. He has been diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. Along the way Kanzius made an accidental discovery of a different nature. He found that when salt water was placed into the radio waves, it would burst into flame—an incredibly hot flame. He said it was because the hydrogen and the oxygen were being released from the salt water. A company in Akron has checked out Kanzius’ discovery and says it’s quite remarkable. A small steam engine has been constructed to demonstrate the potential. There is work to be done, though, before the radio wave-salt water device will be powering cars or generating plants. A lot of energy goes into creating the radio waves in the first place so there needs to be some assessment as to whether the energy that comes from it is worth it. Meanwhile, his original goal of fighting cancer is being looked into. In January, 2007, researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston say they reached a milestone by killing pancreatic cancer cells in the laboratory using Kanzius’ method. Next will be animal experimentation then human. Comments
9948	Barrow neurosurgeon helps pave way for deep brain stimulation and Alzheimer's	Illustration: Deep brain stimulation electrode placement. WikipediaThis news release summarizes the results of a phase 2 safety trial of a deep brain stimulation device on patients with potential mild Alzheimer’s disease. This is an off-label trial of a device currently used to treat Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. The device is an implanted neurostimulator that delivers electrical signals to specific areas of the brain, in this case, the fornix which is a memory pathway. The trial was intended to test the 90-day postoperative safety of this particular surgical method. We were disappointed to see that the news release reported only mild side effects and not the serious harms which required several of the study group patients to have corrective surgery. As the U.S. population ages, Alzheimer’s disease becomes more widespread. About 5 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is a need for more options to treat this disease as well as a need for greater understanding of how to prevent the disease, or stave it off until as late as possible. Current drug treatment methods are not successful in reversing this progressive disease, nor can they stop the progression.	mixture	Alzheimer's disease	There is no discussion of the cost of this procedure or the maintenance costs of the device. These numbers should be well-known as the device is currently used in Parkinson’s patients and others. An article published in WebMD in 2011 estimated the surgery runs between $30,000 and $50,000. This release summarizes a stage 2 trial looking primarily at safety following the first 90 days of the trial. It did not report on whether or not the device implantation improved cognition or slowed or halted decline. The news release says Dr. Ponce will report on potential efficacy after the last patient finishes two years of the study. The release was appropriately mum on this point and didn’t make predictions/guesses based on incomplete and preliminary data. The release only reports the mild adverse effects, including headache and infection, which occurred in 11.9 percent or 5 out of 42 patients. It was a glaring omission not to report serious side effects that required some of the patients to undergo corrective surgery following the procedure. According to the published study: “Twenty-six (61.9%) patients experienced 64 AEs related to the study procedure, of which 7 were serious AEs experienced by 5 patients (11.9%). Four (9.5%) patients required return to surgery: 2 patients for explantation due to infection, 1 patient for lead repositioning, and 1 patient for chronic subdural hematoma.” The news release doesn’t tell us that the study was double-blind, randomized, and controlled, which it was. This is important to include to be able to ascertain the study’s quality. And while there are copious amounts of data in the published study, most is not included in the news release. The release doesn’t convey the number and severity of adverse events that occurred. The overall number of events at almost 62 percent was very high. According to the published study, 9.5% required a return to surgery–not a small thing. While the surgeon-investigator feels that the study “demonstrated the safety,” we think that’s debatable. Finally, there’s no background or context provided for lead author Dr. Ponce’s claim that deep brain stimulation has “even shown metabolic changes in the brain that may slow the progression of the disease.” There is no disease mongering here. Alzheimer’s disease is increasing in prevalence among a population that is living longer than ever before. The impact of the disease on the patients, their families and societies is enormous. There is no mention of the funding sources. ClinicalTrials.gov shows that the trial was sponsored by Functional Neuromodulation, Ltd. the device being studied. At least one author is associated with Functional Neuromodulation, Ltd. The release briefly mentions the fact that there are “few promising pharmacologic treatment options,” but there is little discussion of their use or efficacy. Except for that, there is no mention of other treatment. Based on growing evidence, there’s increasing support for the idea that prevention may be the best bet to impact Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The release states that the device is only approved for use in patients with Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. It’s available to those patients, and only for research in other conditions. The release implies novelty by stating that the research “helps pave the way” for a new treatment option. Deep brain stimulation is used for other brain disorders, so it is obviously not a new device or new surgical approach, and the release makes this clear. However, as an approach to treat Alzheimer’s disease it is novel. There is no explicitly unjustifiable language in this story, however, one wonders why this story was written at all. True, it reports that results of a phase 2 trial “suggest that DBS surgery targeting the fornix can be performed safely in this patient population.” For reasons described under the Harms section, for which we already gave the release a failing grade, we wonder if this news release accurately portrayed the device’s safety, and if the study really met its safety endpoint.
4924	Utah court rejects challenge to medical marijuana law.	The Utah Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to a state law that replaced the voter-approved law legalizing medical marijuana.	true	Legislature, Medical marijuana, General News, Utah, Marijuana, Courts, State legislature, Gary Herbert, Laws	The court on Tuesday dismissed the petition by The People’s Right group that argued the governor and the state Legislature acted unconstitutionally when they replaced the medical marijuana ballot initiative with a more restrictive law in December. The group had argued that Republican Gov. Gary Herbert had effectively vetoed the original measure known as Proposition 2 by calling a special legislative session. State law does not allow vetoes on ballot initiatives. Justice Paige Petersen wrote in the court opinion that the governor acted within his authority and can call special sessions in “exigent circumstances.” The group had filed an application for a referendum on the new law immediately after lawmakers approved it. Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox denied the application, saying it did not meet certain statutory requirements and state law does not allow referendums on measures passed by two-thirds majorities in the state House and Senate. The group asked the state Supreme Court to allow the referendum, arguing the two-thirds rule should not apply to ballot initiatives. The court rejected the argument. The group has not said if it will pursue additional legal action. Connor Boyack, president of the Libertas Institute and a supporter of Proposition 2, said he shared goals of the group’s effort, but he was not surprised about the court’s decision. He expects changes to the law will be made during the next legislative session. Boyack was not involved with the petition. “We have found a great deal of consensus with some of the changes we are proposing,” Boyack told the Deseret News . “So we anticipate that in the next legislative session there will be quite a number of improvements to the medical cannabis law that will benefit patients even more and be something that the public strongly supports.”
29084	By law, a driver must surrender his vehicle to a policeman who requests its use in order to chase a fleeing suspect.	Sightings: In the 1993 film So I Married an Axe Murderer, Charles Grodin refuses to surrender his car to a San Francisco cop (Anthony LaPaglia) who really wishes his job were more like “in the movies.”	mixture	Crime, I Fought The Law	This familiar scene has been played out in hundreds of television programs and movies: A police detective in foot pursuit of a suspect sees his quarry about to elude him by hopping into a taxi, bus, or some other type of vehicle. Desperate, the cop flags down the next car to pass, flashes a badge, shouts “Police business!”, pulls the driver out of his seat, and takes off after the bad guy in the commandeered automobile. In the movies, of course, rarely does a driver deny a policeman the use of his car, or stop to question whether the cop has a legal right to demand that he surrender it. But what about real life? Must you yield your vehicle to any law enforcement officer who requests its use? Laws vary from state to state, so for our purposes we’ll use California as a representative example. If a law enforcement officer in California stopped a driver in order to request the use of his vehicle to pursue someone who was fleeing arrest, the officer’s authority to do so would fall under Section 150 of the California penal code, which deals with the doctrine of posse comitatus: 150. Every able-bodied person above 18 years of age who neglects or refuses to join the posse comitatus or power of the county, by neglecting or refusing to aid and assist in taking or arresting any person against whom there may be issued any process, or by neglecting to aid and assist in retaking any person who, after being arrested or confined, may have escaped from arrest or imprisonment, or by neglecting or refusing to aid and assist in preventing any breach of the peace, or the commission of any criminal offense, being thereto lawfully required by any uniformed peace officer, or by any peace officer who identifies himself or herself with a badge or identification card issued by the officer’s employing agency, or by any judge, is punishable by a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000). In short, if you’re an adult and a law enforcement officer (with proper identification) requests your help in catching or arresting a suspect, re-capturing an escaped arrestee or prisoner, or preventing a crime, you are required by law to oblige or face a fine ranging from $50 to $1,000. The question is, does posse comitatus require that you only assist the officer, or does it extend to the use of your property as well? That question has no definitive answer, at least in California. As far as we can tell, no one has even been tried (successfully or otherwise) for refusing to surrender his vehicle to a policeman. This isn’t surprising, since the invocation of posse comitatus to commandeer automobiles rarely occurs outside of movies, and even when it does, most citizens instinctively obey the orders of policemen without stopping to ponder whether they have a legal right to issue such orders. And if someone did balk at surrendering his car, the cop involved would likely be too busy trying to continue the pursuit to take the time to jot down the uncooperative driver’s license number for later prosecution. (A driver who didn’t want to yield his vehicle could probably skirt the law by offering to chase the suspect himself and take the officer along for the ride, but “He’s getting away; follow that car!” scenarios seem to be limited exclusively to cinematic taxis.) When we posed the question to the Los Angeles Times‘ “Street Smart” column, they didn’t find anyone who had ever come up against this situation either: Dennis Zine, director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League and a former street cop, said he has exercised posse comitatus three times to take control of vehicles in his 26 years with the LAPD. That’s three times more than most cops. Once he commandeered a private delivery truck. Another time he took over a city trash truck. And once he borrowed a bicycle to chase a fleeing forgery suspect. “The only bad thing about the bike,” Zine recalls, “was that it didn’t have any brakes.” So, it’s unlikely that you, as a driver, will ever be faced with this situation. But now, thanks to us, if you are, you still won’t know what to do.
834	Live turtles, snakes, crocs seized in bust of fashion crime ring.	Police in 22 countries have rescued thousands of live reptiles including turtles and crocodiles that traffickers intended to kill for use in fashion accessories such as wallets and handbags, Europol said on Monday.	true	Environment	Europe’s police agency said the arrests of six people in Italy and six in Spain for illegal trafficking in live animals capped a month-long global sting dubbed Operation Blizzard that targeted smugglers, commercial cargo and pet shops. “Wildlife trafficking has increased significantly in recent years to the point where we have now thousands of reptiles worth millions of euros (dollars) being seized every year,” said Pedro Felício, head of economic and property crime at Europol, which helped coordinate the operation. “Despite the various efforts made, the threat of environmental crime remains high,” he said in a statement. It said 2,703 turtles and tortoises, 1,059 snakes, 512 lizards and geckos and 20 crocodiles and alligators were seized during an operation spanning Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Israel and South Africa. Handbags, wallets, watch straps, medicines and other products derived from the animals were also seized.
24180	Health insurance companies' costs are only 4 percent of all health care spending.	Health insurers get a small percentage of overall health care spending	true	National, Health Care, America's Health Insurance Plans,	"As the battle over health care reform approaches a climax, America's Health Insurance Plans -- the trade group for the private health insurance industry -- began airing a new ad highlighting statistics on what actually goes into the nation's health care spending.Here's the full text of AHIP's ad:""What's inside the health care cost pie? Some in Washington say it's all health insurance. But health care insurance is one of the smallest slices. Health insurance companies' costs are only 4 percent of all health care spending. Doctors, hospitals, medicines and tests are the biggest slices, and a government report says their rising prices are the primary driver of higher health care costs. If Washington wants to make health care more affordable, they need to look at the whole health care pie, not just a slice. ""This ad touches on a bunch of controversial and complex issues in just 30 seconds. But for our fact-check, we'll focus on a narrow question: Is AHIP correct when it says that ""health insurance companies' costs amount to only 4 percent of all health care spending""?We looked at data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Every year, CMS's Office of the Actuary produces statistics on ""national health expenditures"" and the items that make up those purchases. That's the source that AHIP cited in the ad, and one that's considered credible by independent experts.The full breakdown for 2008 is posted on the CMS Web site. We'll recap the data here.In 2008, total national health expenditures in the United States -- the combination of money spent by consumers out of pocket, by private insurers and by local, state and federal governments -- exceeded $2.3 trillion. Of that, $92 billion went for the cost of private health insurance. ""Cost"" in this case refers to overhead and profits -- not to any of the dollars that are funneled through insurers' accounts on behalf of their patients. It also excludes any overhead by government-run insurers such as CMS itself, which signs the checks for Medicare and Medicaid.If you divide private insurance costs by total expenditures, it works out to 3.9 percent -- almost exactly what AHIP said. For comparison's sake, hospitals accounted for 30.7 percent of spending, professional services (including doctors, nurses, dentists and other clinical services) accounted for 31.3 percent, and retail sales of drugs and other medical products accounted for 12.8 percent.To see whether the figures for 2009 changed the equation much, we checked in with John A. Poisal, deputy director of national health statistics in the CMS actuary's office. He said the updated but not-yet-posted numbers were nearly $2.5 trillion in total expenditures and $90.2 billion in insurance costs. That works out to 3.6 percent. Rounded up, that's once again as AHIP portrayed it.Next, we scrutinized the total health expenditure figure. In addition to including such factors as doctors, hospitals and medicines, this amount includes dollars spent on nursing homes and home health care; governmental public health activities; medical research; and medical-related construction projects. Since these items are somewhat extraneous to the costs that AHIP is discussing in its ad, we decided to run the numbers without these factors included.For 2008, insurance costs divided by health expenditures other than those removed above amounted to 4.8 percent. Even when rounded up, 5 percent is close to the 4 percent AHIP cited, and it's a percentage far below what hospitals, doctors and pharmaceuticals claimed.For 2009, the numbers are much the same, working out to 4.5 percent.We weighed whether it made any sense to divide private insurance costs by total private health insurance expenditures -- a number that excludes all expenses paid by the government, by consumers out of their own pockets, and by other private sources, such as foundations. When you make that calculation, the answer is 11.7 percent for 2008 and 11.1 percent in 2009 -- almost three times as high as AHIP's cited rate.Ultimately, though, we concluded that AHIP's numbers more accurately reflect the question it poses. When you're asking what health expenditures could conceivably be trimmed for cost-control purposes, there's no reason to exempt Medicare, Medicaid and other non-private expenditures from consideration. Even if it's correct, not everyone in the health policy arena believes that AHIP's calculation is relevant. Linda Blumberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said ""what we should be looking at is the insurer return to capital. ... They make a lot of money relative to what they invest, and they do almost nothing for that money to hold down the growth in health care spending. ""Meanwhile, some critics suggest that when AHIP points the finger at doctors and hospitals for health care cost inflation, it ignores its own role. Insurers, after all, sign the checks and could presumably use greater leverage to keep costs down. However, our conclusion here doesn't argue one way or another on the question of whether private health insurance could be run more efficiently, whether private insurers should take on a bigger or a smaller role in the health care system, or whether more money should be spent for, say, doctors instead of insurance costs. We are merely checking whether AHIP provided accurate figures to answer the question it raised. And as far as we can tell, the group did."
11304	Deep Brain Stimulation for Stubborn Hypertension	In describing why researchers think deep brain stimulation (DBS) might one day be a treatment option for patients with difficult-to-treat high blood pressure, the story didn’t adequately caution that the excitement is based on a case report from a single patient. The story also failed to provide readers with information on the significant costs of treatment or existing alternative approaches. And the story’s characterization of the procedure’s adverse effects might give readers an excessively rosy view of the potential risks. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the story did do an exceptional job of explaining exactly how this treatment works and how it fits within the broader universe of nerve treatments for hypertension. The reporter deserves credit for making this complicated topic accessible to readers.	mixture	WebMD	The story does not mention costs – a major omission. According to one estimate our reviewer accessed within minutes, costs for the device and procedure may be upward of $150,000 per patient. Any discussion of costs should also include the costs required to monitor the device over time. The story does a better job than HealthDay of describing the effects of DBS on this patient’s blood pressure, providing actual quantitative data about how his blood pressure fluctuated when the device was turned on and off. Although we’re tempted to flag the story for relying too heavily on unrepresentative patient anecdotes (something the standards for this criterion say stories should avoid), this is something addressed previously under the Evidence criterion. We’ll award a satisfactory here to acknowledge the story’s greater overall attention to the details of this particular case. A tough call here. While the report is much more detailed than HealthDay about the potential risks of treatment, it features a clumsily worded quote from an expert who calls the risks of this surgery “tiny, but important.” The use of the word “tiny” here tends to minimize the risks associated with the procedure, which can be very serious. A 2% risk of stroke in patients undergoing the procedure (as reported on this UCSF Dept of Neurosurgery FAQ about DBS) strikes us as somewhat more than “tiny.” This WebMD account provided more specifics than HealthDay regarding why researchers believe the findings may be important. It notes that blood pressure reductions have been observed previously in other DBS patients, but that doctors believed the benefits were related to the pain relief these patients were experiencing. This is the first time the blood pressure benefit was reported in a patient whose pain didn’t get better with DBS. It’s a shame, though, considering the story’s length, that it couldn’t find more space to discuss the limitations of a single case report. By writing, “previous reports have observed the same kinds of reductions in blood pressure in people getting deep brain stimulation for pain,” the story leads readers to believe that there is a growing body of evidence supporting implants as a good course of treatment. We are not told anything about these studies, though. How many patients were studied and over what period of time? Have the same types of studies been done and produced the same results. We are given a hint when Dr. Erlick Pereira, a neurosurgeon at the University of Oxford, is quoted. The story says that “Pereira wrote about blood pressure reductions in a patient getting deep brain stimulation in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.” Again, this was a one-patient study. Readers should have been given a clear picture of just how much evidence exists to support these implants as a hypertension treatment. The story cites statistics about hypertension appropriately and did not resort to disease-mongering. The story features two interviews, one with an author of this case report, and another with an expert who also reported observing a blood pressure lowering-effect of DBS in a patient (though this may have been related to the patient’s pain relief and not directly attributable to the DBS device). While these individuals are clearly knowledgeable, they both are sympathetic to the idea that DBS may lower blood pressure, and neither could be called truly independent. One of these experts — Erlick Pereira — has done work sponsored by Medtronic, one of the leading DBS implant makers (as discussed here). In addition, according to coverage of this most recent case report in MedPageToday, Patel and some of his coauthors disclosed financial relationships with manufacturers of DBS devices. The story doesn’t mention lifestyle changes that are recommended for patients with high blood pressure, including those who don’t respond to medication. These include losing weight, lowering sodium intake, and reducing alcohol consumption. The story implies that we are not close to seeing DBS used to treat hypertension outside of a research setting. Unlike the competing HealthDay coverage, the story notes that DBS is FDA approved for Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, and that it is used for other conditions. We would have liked to have seen at least an expert view on the number of devices that are implanted every year or a statistic on this from one of the manufacturers. The story appropriately characterizes the novelty of the research. It mentions other new surgical approaches to the treatment of hypertension that may also be effective. This story includes two interviews and includes much more detail than this news release.
20825	"Mitt Romney is ""tearing down his 3,000-square-foot house to build an 11,000-square-foot house."	"The video used a reasonable figure for dimensions of the ""teardown"" project -- even though the Romney campaign calls it a doubling of living space, the official application uses numbers that would amount to a quadrupling. But the video implied that the project is under way when in fact it’s not imminent."	true	National, Candidate Biography, Message Machine 2012, Winning Our Future,	"The 28-minute video ""When Mitt Romney Came to Town"" -- an attack on the Republican presidential candidate’s experiences with the private-equity firm Bain Capital -- claims that Romney is ""tearing down his 3,000-square-foot house to build an 11,000-square-foot house."" When the news came out last summer, it became something of a media sensation. Vanity Fair published a list of things that ""could fit inside Mitt Romney’s new house,"" including a Memphis-area Enterprise-Rent-A-Car facility, Jennifer Aniston’s old house and ""the world’s largest whale."" But is the tale accurate? There’s a bit of disagreement over two issues -- the square footage involved, and whether the project is actually going forward. We’ll tackle those two issues individually. The dimensions of the ""tear-down"" project The home in question is located in La Jolla, Calif., an affluent oceanfront neighborhood adjoining San Diego, Calif. A recent article by the San Diego Union-Tribune makes the Romneys’ immediate neighborhood sound positively dreamy. ""The area’s winding lanes are lined with Tudor-style mansions, shingled California bungalows and cottages that could have been airlifted from the Cotswolds,"" the article said. (The Union-Tribune noted that Romney trails both President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee in donations from the 92037 ZIP code.) Mitt Romney and his wife Ann bought their property, located on what is described as a quiet cul-de-sac, in 2008 for $12 million; two years later, it was assessed at $8.7 million. The Union-Tribune reported that it was built in 1936 and has three bedrooms and four-and-a-half baths. It has a lawn that slopes down to a white sand beach. Columbia Journalism Review’s ""The Audit"" blog noted that the vast majority of the property’s value stems from its location, rather than its structure: ""The county assessed the value of Romney’s house at $8.7 million last year,"" The Audit reported. ""Eight million bucks of that value was in the land and just $750,000 was in the 3,000 square-foot house and other improvements."" Will Carless, a staff writer with the Voice of San Diego who lives nearby and often surfs in the vicinity, said the expanse of the Romneys’ parcel is notable, with structures placed far enough back not to get hit by even the biggest swells. ""Half his yard is ice plant,"" he said, referring to a non-native species of flora. ""I’ve often looked up and thought it was such big waste of space."" Apparently the Romneys did, too. The size of their family was also a factor. A campaign spokesman told the Chicago Tribune that the reason for nearly quadrupling the size was to make room for visits by the couple's five married sons and 16 grandchildren. When the Union-Tribune initially reported the proposed renovation on Aug. 21, 2011, it cited a permit application Romney had filed with the City of San Diego to bulldoze the existing, 3,009-square-foot, single-story home and replace it with a new, two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure. That’s the source of the information used in the Winning Our Future video. But that description has been contested by Romney himself, in an interview with New Hampshire Union Leader publisher Joseph W. McQuaid on Aug. 29, 2011. McQuaid wrote: ""It's not accurate, Romney said, simply. The application he made, two years ago, was to double the living space by turning one story into two. The 'quadrupling'' was a measurement of added nonliving space, including a basement and garage."" Granted, even doubling a home’s size is no trivial undertaking. Still, it’s not quadrupling. We wondered if Romney had a point that the description was overblown. So we asked the National Association of Realtors for what the standard practice would be for making such comparisons. ""There's no national standard for measuring or reporting square footage,"" said Stephanie Singer, a spokeswoman for the real estate trade group. ""Those rules are usually dictated by local zoning ordinances and/or state laws. So determining square footage can vary widely across the country. Some jurisdictions may include rooms like unfinished basements, for example, while others do not."" She added that the association’s code of ethics does not directly address the question of disclosures about a home’s square footage. ""The code does stipulate that Realtors shall be honest and truthful in their real estate communications,"" she said. ""In the case of determining square footage, however, Realtors often rely on disclosures and information made by the sellers."" Without solid guidance, we think it’s reasonable for the filmmakers to have used the numbers that Romney stipulated on the application itself. That makes this part of the film’s portrayal accurate. Is the tear-down going forward? The video’s phrasing suggests that the project is proceeding. But that’s not necessarily accurate. Dave Schwab, a reporter with the La Jolla Light newspaper, told PolitiFact that he bumped into a T-shirt-and-jean-clad Romney outside his house as Schwab was initially reporting the story of the tear-down last August. Romney was in a rush to leave town, but he told Schwab he would put him in touch with his staff for further information. Schwab recalled the staffer telling him in so many words that Romney is ""running for president, and as soon as that ends, he will revisit the project."" Interviews with Schwab and others confirmed that the project has not yet begun. In fact, we have not seen any reports that the project has even received official government approval yet. In a Jan. 2, 2012, article, the Union-Tribune reported that city officials described the plans as being ""on hold."" Other reports suggest that some of the neighbors aren’t wild about a large-scale expansion, though it’s unclear what role, if any, that could play in the approval process. One key step in the process involves an environmental review -- and a real estate agent who is representing nearby homes said that’s no piece of cake. ""That’s nowhere near a rubber stamp of approval,"" said Craig Lotzof of the Lotzof Group. ""Any time you build along the coast -- it doesn’t matter who you are -- you have lots of hoops to go through."" So while there’s no sign that the Romneys have backed off their tear-down plan, it also isn’t imminent, and it still faces practical hurdles. So the video’s suggestion that a tear-down is under way or about to start is incorrect. Our ruling The video used a reasonable figure for dimensions of the ""teardown"" project -- even though the Romney campaign calls it a doubling of living space, the official application uses numbers that would amount to a quadrupling. But the video implied that the project is under way when in fact it’s not imminent."
23763	"As a senator, Barack Obama supported ""an amendment that basically gutted the legal temporary worker program."	John McCain said that Barack Obama voted against part of immigration reform	true	Immigration, National, This Week - ABC News, Workers, John McCain,	"Back in 2007, Congress came close to hammering out legislation to overhaul laws about immigration, but the deal collapsed in the Senate. Three years later, that failure is still being discussed and dissected. It came up again on ABC News' This Week, in a question for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.Host Jake Tapper first showed video of a speech President Barack Obama gave on July 1, 2010. ""Under the leadership of Senator Kennedy and Senator John McCain, we worked across the aisle to help pass a bipartisan bill through the Senate,"" Obama said. ""And now, under the pressures of partisanship and election year politics, many of the 11 Republican senators who voted for reform in the past have now backed away from their previous support. """"Senator, that's you he's talking about,"" Tapper said. ""Why have you backed away from comprehensive immigration reform, which you spoke so passionately about in 2006 and 2007? ""McCain responded, ""I don't enjoy bringing this up, but the fact is, then-Senator Obama supported amendments which would have gutted the proposal that we had before the United States Senate, which he said he would propose, an amendment that basically gutted the legal temporary worker program. ""McCain phrases his statement a little awkwardly, but we wanted to know if it was true that Obama supported amendments that would have derailed the temporary worker program. It turns out we actually looked at this issue before; McCain made a similar charge during the election of 2008 as evidence that Obama was willing to engage in partisanship when it suited his purposes. Back then, he said Obama ""voted for and even sponsored amendments that were intended to kill the (immigration overhaul) legislation."" In his 2008 broadside against Obama, and again Sunday on This Week, McCain refers to a series of votes the Senate took in early June 2007 at a particularly sensitive time in the immigration debate. The following is a a recap of our previous reporting, but the history on those 2007 negotiations hasn't changed.The immigration issue scrambled the usual political divisions between Democrats and Republicans. President Bush supported comprehensive legislation and reached out to Democrats after they gained control of Congress in 2006. Some Republicans opposed the plan, criticizing the citizenship provisions as amnesty and saying that border security needed bolstering instead. Some Democrats, though, opposed it as well, because their allies in organized labor were against more non-citizens being allowed into the U.S.to work. McCain, together with the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., worked out a compromise measure that included several pillars: a path to citizenship for workers illegally in the country, increased border security, improved enforcement of employment law, and more visas for temporary workers.The Senate took up the compromise package, with supporters warning that it could be derailed by any amendments that changed its substance. On June 6, Obama proposed an amendment to end after five years a new merit-based system for awarding green cards that confer permanent resident status. The new system would have apportioned green cards based on the nation's economic needs and moved away from the existing system, which rewards family ties. A coalition of immigrant rights groups endorsed Obama's measure, saying the new system would discriminate in favor of immigrants with higher education and training in specialty occupations. But Obama's amendment was unsuccessful; the Senate rejected it, 42-55.Hours later, though, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., offered an amendment to end after five years a different program, one that allowed more temporary workers. Dorgan said the program would bring in cheap labor through the back door and squeeze out American workers. Supporters of reform warned that the amendment could scuttle the deal, but the Senate adopted the amendment in a 49-48 vote, with Obama voting with Dorgan.The bill's supporters branded Dorgan's effort a ""deal-breaker."" Soon after, the legislation collapsed amid three failed votes to cut off debate on June 7, 2007. Obama was on the losing end of these votes, so he was voting to allow the bill to go forward.Immigration experts we spoke with in 2008 said that Obama was one of a host of senators who tried to influence the package, but was not a pivotal participant in the debate. Obama did, however, vote for Dorgan's amendment, which is what McCain was referencing. Among experts who wanted the bill to pass, we found mixed opinion on the importance of the Dorgan amendment limiting temporary workers.Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA, said that Dorgan's amendment significantly undermined a critical provision allowing more workers into the U.S. Jacoby's organization represents employers, who favored more temporary workers. ""Everyone thinks that amnesty is the big debate,"" Jacoby said. ""But whether or not we're going to have worker visas is an equally important debate. ""Obama's vote on the Dorgan amendment may not have killed the bill, she said, but it was ""a profound misunderstanding of what reform was about. ""Another point of view, though, is that the Dorgan amendment was a minor bump in the road, and something that could have been stripped out later. That's the view of Frank Sharry, now executive director of America's Voice, a left-leaning, pro-immigration group. The Dorgan amendment, Sharry said, was payback for a successful amendment supported by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, that would have removed confidentiality from applications for citizenship, to make it easier to deport illegal immigrants who were refused citizenship. Both the Cornyn and the Dorgan amendments would have come out later, before the bill could move toward final passage, he said. ""The Cornyn amendment rocked the boat one way, and the Dorgan amendment rocked the boat the other way, so it was a rocking boat,"" Sharry said. He rejected the idea that the Dorgan amendment sunk the deal, and as evidence, he pointed to the fact that weeks later, the Senate tried again to revive the package. On June 28, 2007, the bill went down yet again when it failed still another cloture vote. Obama voted to move forward then, too. We should note that back when we looked at the issue during the 2008 election, we found McCain went too far in his rhetoric, and we rated his statement Half True. Here, McCain's statement is a bit more limited and therefore more precise. He said that Barack Obama supported an amendment ""that basically gutted the legal temporary worker program."" Clearly Obama did vote for a bill that would have curtailed the legal temporary worker program, an important part of comprehensive immigration package. Still, Obama did cast other votes to move the bill forward. We feel it's important to note that the vote was not a clear-cut refusal of the entire package."
24581	As many as 22,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance.	Pascrell says up to 22,000 Americans die yearly because they don’t have health insurance	mixture	National, Health Care, Bill Pascrell,	"On July 30, 2009, PolitiFact rated as True a statement by Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey that ""as many as 22,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance."" We based that ruling on the same study that Pascrell did. Subsequently, a reader pointed out a paper published last spring in the online edition of the journal HSR: Health Services Research that contradicts the study Pascrell relied on. So we are changing our rating to and providing this new analysis. Much of the push for reforming the nation's health care system has been driven by concerns about uninsured Americans. So it's no surprise that a statistic on the number of Americans who die every year due to lack of health insurance has been used frequently in speeches and opinion columns. However, this statistic, which stems from a report by an influential, quasi-governmental institution, is quietly coming under academic attack. When Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey said on July 30 that ""as many as 22,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance,"" the number he cited was an updated version of one originally calculated by the federally chartered Institute of Medicine. In 2002, an IOM panel of more than a dozen medical specialists estimated that 18,000 Americans died in 2000 because they were uninsured. They came up with this figure by looking at long-term studies that measured the links between insurance status and death rates. The IOM then used annual statistics on insurance rates and deaths to determine an estimate of extra deaths attributable to the lack of insurance. In January 2008, Stan Dorn, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, published a paper that sought to update the IOM's study with newer data. Replicating the Institute of Medicine's methodology, Dorn concluded that the 18,000 figure should be increased to 22,000 — the figure later cited by Pascrell. Given the Institute of Medicine's prestige and Pascrell's caution in saying that ""as many as"" 22,000 Americans die annually from a lack of insurance, which signaled some uncertainty about the exact number, we gave the congressman a True rating. But a more recent paper raises questions about the IOM's conclusions. The paper, published online in April in HSR: Health Services Research, is by Richard Kronick of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of California (San Diego) School of Medicine. Using data on adult health and mortality from the National Center for Health Statistics, which is a part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kronick concludes that the Institute of Medicine's estimate (or any that replicates its methodology, such as Dorn's) is ""almost certainly incorrect."" Pascrell's office was not aware of the paper when he made his statement and we did not find it when we researched his claim. The most notable difference between the Institute of Medicine's data — which were drawn from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey as well as the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey — is that Kronick adjusted it for a number of demographic and health factors, such as status as a smoker and body mass index. When he did that, ""the risk of subsequent mortality is no different for uninsured respondents than for those covered by employer-sponsored group insurance."" In other words, once you compare death rates in an apples-to-apples fashion — comparing insured smokers to uninsured smokers, for instance — the likelihood of dying evens out. This, in turn, would mean that IOM's estimate of 18,000 deaths would drop essentially to zero. In his paper, Kronick acknowledges that this is a ""counterintuitive"" result, possibly resulting from the safety net of public hospitals and community clinics providing ""'good enough' access to care for the uninsured to keep their mortality rate similar to that of the insured."" Either way, he writes, ""there would not be much change in the number of deaths in the United States as a result of universal coverage, although the difficulties of inferring causality from observational analyses temper the strength of this conclusion."" We ran Kronick's paper by a number of health care policy experts to see whether they thought it undercut the Institute of Medicine's death estimate. Everyone agreed that both Kronick personally and the journal that published him are credible. Because the significance of his finding could also have political consequences — on June 24, for instance, John Goodman, president of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis, testified to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health that we ""do not know how much morbidity and mortality is attributable to lack of health insurance"" — we also wanted to determine whether there may be any ideological bias at work. But we found no evidence of it. In fact, far from having ties to the conservative movement, Kronick served as a senior health care policy adviser in the Clinton administration, where, according to his biography, he contributed to the development of the Clinton health care reform proposal. Kronick's articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association , and his work has at times been funded by the Commonwealth Fund, whose mission is ""to promote a high-performing health care system"" that aids ""society's most vulnerable,"" including ""the uninsured."" Kronick even told PolitiFact that his finding was ""not the answer I wanted"" and, as a result, he agonized over whether to publish it or not. He said he's ""grateful"" that it has so far been unnoticed in the increasingly hostile debate over health care. ""I don't have a whole lot of friends, and will probably lose a few over this,"" he told us. ""And I might make some friends I didn't want."" But a number of experts we spoke to are glad that Kronick did publish it. Henry Aaron, a health policy specialist at the centrist-to-liberal Brookings Institution, said that he was impressed by Kronick's research from the time Kronick presented an early draft of it at a Brookings lunch seminar. ""I found his reasoning compelling,"" said Aaron, himself a member of the Institute of Medicine. ""In fact, after listening to his presentation, I had a hard time believing that the IOM had done what they had done."" In interviews, Aaron and other health care scholars agreed with Kronick that uninsured and insured Americans differ in many ways other than their insurance status. ""To estimate the impact of the lack of insurance on mortality rates, one has to control statistically for all of those differences,"" Aaron said. That, he added, is exactly what Kronick has sought to do so. Robert Book, a senior research fellow in health economics at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees with Aaron. ""I would be more inclined to believe Kronick's than other studies,"" he said, ""I'm just surprised the IOM did their study without controlling for other factors."" Book also praised Kronick’s decision to run calculations with numerous alternative models, and to remove various factors, one at a time, from the calculations. ""From the standpoint of a careful econometric study, Kronick’s paper is excellent,"" Book said. ""I’ve seen few papers that are this thorough in terms of seeking alternate explanations for their conclusions."" Other health policy specialists we talked to were open to the idea of Kronick being right, while urging caution before overruling the Institute of Medicine estimate. Dorn, the Urban Institute researcher, pointed to a second study published by the Institute of Medicine on Feb. 24, 2009. This 268-page volume, America's Uninsured Crisis: Consequences for Health and Health Care, provides a detailed analysis of subsequent studies on the topic. While it didn’t provide a new estimate of extra deaths from uninsurance, the new Institute of Medicine study concluded that ""the body of evidence on the health consequences of health insurance is stronger than ever before."" Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund and an Institute of Medicine member, said that the existence of Kronick's study ""doesn't convince me yet not to use the IOM study,"" but she added that ""if I saw a few more, I might be convinced. I tend to believe things when I see multiple studies using different databases and methodologies come to the same conclusion."" (Aaron said he agreed with Davis on this point.) For the record, an IOM spokeswoman said the institute has not assessed Kronick's paper and thus had no comment on its assertions. On one key point, the Institute of Medicine and Kronick actually aren't that far apart. Kronick said he doesn't doubt that individuals' health suffers when they're uninsured — he just hasn't found evidence that they die sooner. ""No one would choose not to have insurance if they could afford it,"" Kronick said. ""There's no benefit to having 47 million Americans uninsured."" When we asked Pascrell’s office whether the Kronick study would change their view, spokesman Paul Brubaker said it would not. ""The point of the congressman’s statistic is to show a direct correlation between one’s ability to pay and the ability to have insurance, and therefore on their ability to be healthy,” Brubaker said. But for us, Kronick’s study raises questions about the reliability of the Institute of Medicine’s death estimate. We acknowledge that there is not yet a consensus among the experts. But in re-evaluating Pascrell's claim, we can no longer rate it True. We recognize that the Institute of Medicine is still widely respected, but an ideologically diverse group of experts is giving credence to Kronick's findings. That leaves us with something of a split decision, and so we downgrade our rating to ."
4493	Nations at UN climate talks back universal emissions rules.	After two weeks of bruising negotiations, officials from almost 200 countries agreed Saturday on universal, transparent rules that will govern efforts to cut emissions and curb global warming.	true	Climate, AP Top News, International News, Poland, Environment, Business, Katowice, Science, Europe	The deal agreed upon at U.N. climate talks in Poland enables countries to put into action the principles in the 2015 Paris climate accord. But to the frustration of environmental activists and some countries who were urging more ambitious climate goals, negotiators delayed decisions on two key issues until next year in an effort to get a deal on them. “Through this package, you have made a thousand little steps forward together,” said Michal Kurtyka, a senior Polish official chairing the talks. He said while each individual country would likely find some parts of the agreement it didn’t like, efforts had been made to balance the interests of all parties. “We will all have to give in order to gain,” he said. “We will all have to be courageous to look into the future and make yet another step for the sake of humanity.” The talks in Poland took place against a backdrop of growing concern among scientists that global warming on Earth is proceeding faster than governments are responding to it. Last month, a study found that global warming will worsen disasters such as the deadly California wildfires and the powerful hurricanes that have hit the United States this year. And a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, concluded that while it’s possible to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century compared to pre-industrial times, this would require a dramatic overhaul of the global economy, including a shift away from fossil fuels. Alarmed by efforts to include this in the final text of the meeting, the oil-exporting nations of the U.S., Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked an endorsement of the IPCC report mid-way through this month’s talks in the Polish city of Katowice. That prompted uproar from vulnerable countries like small island nations and environmental groups. The final text at the U.N. talks omits a previous reference to specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and merely welcomes the “timely completion” of the IPCC report, not its conclusions. Last-minute snags forced negotiators in Katowice to go into extra time, after Friday’s scheduled end of the conference had passed without a deal. One major sticking point was how to create a functioning market in carbon credits. Economists believe that an international trading system could be an effective way to drive down greenhouse gas emissions and raise large amounts of money for measures to curb global warming. But Brazil wanted to keep the piles of carbon credits it had amassed under an old system that developed countries say wasn’t credible or transparent. Among those that pushed back hardest was the United States, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord and his promotion of coal as a source of energy. “Overall, the U.S. role here has been somewhat schizophrenic — pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,” said Elliot Diringer of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Washington think tank. When it came to closing potential loopholes that could allow countries to dodge their commitments to cut emissions, “the U.S. pushed harder than nearly anyone else for transparency rules that put all countries under the same system, and it’s largely succeeded.” “Transparency is vital to U.S. interests,” added Nathaniel Keohane, a climate policy expert at the Environmental Defense Fund. He noted that breakthrough in the 2015 Paris talks happened only after the U.S. and China agreed on a common framework for transparency. “In Katowice, the U.S. negotiators have played a central role in the talks, helping to broker an outcome that is true to the Paris vision of a common transparency framework for all countries that also provides flexibility for those that need it,” said Keohane, calling the agreement “a vital step forward in realizing the promise of the Paris accord.” Among the key achievements in Katowice was an agreement on how countries should report their greenhouses gas emissions and the efforts they’re taking to reduce them. Poor countries also secured assurances on getting greater predictability about financial support to help them cut emissions, adapt to inevitable changes such as sea level rises and pay for damages that have already happened. “The majority of the rulebook for the Paris Agreement has been created, which is something to be thankful for,” said Mohamed Adow, a climate policy expert at Christian Aid. “But the fact countries had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the finish line shows that some nations have not woken up to the urgent call of the IPCC report” on the dire consequences of global warming. A central feature of the Paris Agreement — the idea that countries will ratchet up their efforts to fight global warming over time — still needs to be proved effective, he said. “To bend the emissions curve, we now need all countries to deliver these revised plans at the special U.N. Secretary General summit in 2019. It’s vital that they do so,” Adow said. In the end, a decision on the mechanics of an emissions trading system was postponed to next year’s meeting. Countries also agreed to consider the issue of raising ambitions at a U.N. summit in New York next September. Speaking hours before the final gavel, Canada’s Environment Minister Catherine McKenna suggested there was no alternative to such meetings if countries want to tackle global problems, especially at a time when multilateral diplomacy is under pressure from nationalism. “The world has changed, the political landscape has changed,” she told The Associated Press. “Still you’re seeing here that we’re able to make progress, we’re able to discuss the issues, we’re able to come to solutions.” ___ Read more stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/Climate
11345	Saving your life: modern medical miracles: Katie’s pillcam	In this story we learn of of a new “Magic Pillcam” that “scans your insides.” This non-invasive procedure is meant to replace endoscopy, which requires some sedation and time off work. However, the new approach would need to be shown to be equally effective, safe and at least comparable to the cost of endoscopy. In the story, we learn that the procedure is intended for people who have symptoms of acid reflux, who might have some measure of risk of having or developing Barrett’s esophagus, which could lead to esophageal cancer. But the person demonstrating the procedure is Katie Couric, who is asymptomatic. In addition, endoscopy lets one get a good view of the stomach. Since much heartburn is due to stomach and duodenal problems, the pillcam would miss these potential causes. So it could really only be effective if we know that person has esophagitis. How does one know that? One needs to do an endoscopy! Thus, this procedure could help if someone is known to have esophagitis and is followed for Barrettâ€™s esophagus. But research is lacking in this area and this isn’t clear from the story. Furthermore, from this story, we have no sense of the strength of the evidence, harms, and costs of the procedure. Also, the failure to place acid reflux in the context of Barrett’s esophagus or esophageal cancer is a prime example of disease mongering. This story is an example of medical journalism that has let the intrigue of a cool new technology trump smart, responsible reporting.	false		Mentions that the pillcam costs $450 plus the physician’s fee, but we don’t know what that means relative to endoscopy. Plus, those costs are going to be largely out-of-pocket since insurance doesn’t cover it. Sidesteps around insurance coverage issue by saying that insurers are beginning to cover it, but provides no basis for this claim. No quantitative estimates of benefits are presented. No mention of any potential harms. No mention of the nature or strength of the evidence. This story exaggerates the seriousness of heartburn and acid reflux. First we learn that 15 million Americans suffer from heartburn and that they are at risk for acid reflux (GERD), Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. We learn that esophogeal cancer is the fastest-rising cancer and that if you have Barrett’s, you are 40 times more likely to develop cancer. However, the story does not provide us with any context for these numbers (esophageal cancer remains a rare cancer), and, as a result, we are left with an over-inflated notion of how bad heartburn is. Single source only. No attempt at independent corroboration. It should also be noted that the physician interviewed was funded by a foundation established by Katie Couric. Although the story mentions endoscopy and how much the pillcam is an improvement, there is no mention of how this will fit into clinical practice. What are the disadvantages? What if you do see something? Are you going to have to do an endoscopy anyway? The story makes the claim that this should be routinely considered as part of standard care, but there is no evidence presented to support this. The story does say that the device was cleared by the FDA. The story is clear that this is a new technology.
26565	"Blogger Says President Donald Trump will announce that a scientist ""finally found vaccine to cure corona virus."	Trump has not announced a vaccine to prevent COVID-19. As of now, there is no specific treatment for the coronavirus. The false claim was spread on spam news websites registered in Ghana and Nigeria. Similar hoaxes have circulated widely abroad. Federal agencies are accelerating clinical trials of potential COVID-19 vaccines, but public health officials have said they could take up to a year and a half to finish.	false	Fake news, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Bloggers,	"President Donald Trump has touted how quickly the government is developing potential COVID-19 vaccines. An article circulating on Facebook gives him even more credit. The story, which was published March 24 on several spam news websites, claims that Trump is getting ready to announce the name and launch date of a vaccine for the coronavirus. ""The president of the United States of America will officially make the announcement about the vaccine to cure the virus on Sunday,"" reads the article, which includes a purported photo of the vaccine. ""Roche medical company will launch the vaccine on Sunday."" The articles were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) (Screenshot) The stories, published on spam websites registered in West Africa, are bogus. Trump did not announce a vaccine on Sunday, March 29, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus infections. Several other fact-checkers have debunked the false news articles. While clinical trials have started for some potential vaccines, they are still at least a year away from being completed. The image in the article claims to show a COVID-19 vaccine, but it’s actually a testing kit developed by a Korean biotechnology company. Similar out-of-context images have circulated in India and Pakistan. Roche, a Swiss pharmaceutical company, has been shipping coronavirus tests to the U.S. and testing a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis for potential application in severe COVID-19 cases. The company has not developed a coronavirus vaccine. During a March 29 press briefing, Trump said potential COVID-19 vaccines ""are moving along very rapidly."" The first clinical trial of a potential COVID-19 vaccine began in Seattle in mid March. The trial will enroll 45 healthy adult volunteers over about six weeks, according to the National Institutes of Health. But the first phase of the latter trial is set to begin ""no later than fall of 2020 with the goal of making COVID-19 vaccine available for emergency use in the United States in early 2021,"" according to HHS. During his March 11 testimony to the House Oversight and Reform Committee on the coronavirus outbreak, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIAID, laid out a timeline for developing a COVID-19 vaccine. He said phase one will take about three months to determine if it’s safe, then phase two, during which scientists will test whether the vaccine works, could take another eight months at least. He cautioned that any process that moves faster than that could be dangerous. ""So when you’ve heard me say we would not have a vaccine that would even be ready to start to deploy for a year to a year and a half, that is the time frame,"" Fauci told representatives. ""Now anyone who thinks that it will go more quickly than that I believe will be cutting corners that would be detrimental."" Public domain records show that some of the websites spreading the bogus articles about a new coronavirus vaccine are registered in Ghana and Nigeria. Both countries have recently been linked to Russian disinformation campaigns, and websites associated with Russia and China have amplified conspiracies about the coronavirus in the past few weeks. Other stories were published by shell websites and promoted on Opera News Hub, a content creation platform that’s popular in Nigeria. The articles are inaccurate and make a ridiculous claim."
36980	A 14-year-old Texas girl became pregnant due to a flu shot.	Was a Texas Girl Impregnated by a Flu Shot?	false	Fact Checks, Viral Content	A story about a terrifying way a teenager got pregnant — from a flu shot, of all things — is completely untrue. A satire site is behind this hoax, which was quickly decoupled from its original source and passed around as factual.The well-known satire site WorldNewsDailyReport.com started that rumor with a story headlined, “Texas: 14-Year Old Virgin Falls Pregnant After Flu Shot.” The story reports that the girl experienced nausea and severe cramps after receiving the vaccine:San Angelo, TX \| A 14-year old schoolgirl has suffered serious complications after a flu shot allegedly left the young girl terribly ill and with severe cramps, until the family doctor finally realized weeks later she had been impregnated by the vaccine, reports the Forth Worth Telegram this week.After symptoms persisted several weeks, the distressed mother brought her child to the Whole Womans Health of Forth Worth medical clinic where she was found to be pregnant moments later.“She was in excellent health beforehand. After a few days she became very unwell, she had all the symptoms of a fever” explains her mother. “It took a good few weeks before she felt better, but the nausea continued. She would throw up every day or so, until eventually we went to see Dr Hersch who realized she was pregnant” she told local reporters, visibly still under shock.The hoax report was quickly shared more than 200,000 times on social media sites. Taken out of context, many readers believed that it was true and questioned the “medical diagnosis” that the girl had been impregnated by a flu shot. One reader commented:As a former resident of San Angelo who learned all too quickly what kids do for fun as their parents overwhelmingly choose to ignore what’s going on right under their noses, I’m pretty confident this girl got pregnant the traditional way. And anyone who doesn’t consider sex a form of witchcraft knows a girl can become pregnant with the hymen intact. I went to college with three different girls who became pregnant (and were definitely awake during conception) whose mothers (who didn’t know each other) told everyone they were drugged and molested at frat parties, if that tells you anything.But the girl wasn’t impregnated by a flu shot or “the traditional way,” because she does not exist. World News Daily Report is well known for publishing fake news reports that trick readers into believing they’re true.According to the website’s disclaimer, it assumes “all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content.”The likelihood of being impregnated by a flu shot is about as high as the likelihood of getting pregnant from a toilet seat, which is to say not likely at all.
35613	Samuel Pepys wrote about taverns being full of gadabouts during a plague in 1665.	There’s been a parody Samuel Pepys twitter account running for a while at @Pepys_Diaries. It’s a modern-day take on Pepys, imagining him writing in the modern world. Unfortunately one of the account’s recent tweets, drawing parallels between the Plague and 2020’s coronavirus, has been quoted out of context and spread around as if it’s a real excerpt from the diary. The tweet:	false	Questionable Quotes	In July 2020, a quote ostensibly written in 1665 by Samuel Pepys, dubbed the world’s greatest diarist by some, started to circulate on social media. The passage lamented how “gadabouts” (defined by Cambridge Dictionary as “a person who goes out a lot and does not worry about other things they should be doing”) were still frequenting taverns despite the risk of contracting the plague: There are two slightly differing versions of the passage, one describing the taverns as “full of gadabouts” (as in the above meme), and the other describing them as “fair full of gadabouts,” as in the example below: “The taverns are fair full of gadabouts making merry this eve. And though I may press my face against the window like an urchin at a confectioner’s, I am tempted not by the sweetmeats within. A dram in exchange for the pox is an ill bargain indeed.” Samuel Pepys, Great Plague 1665 MP and Diarist 1633-1703 This is not a genuine quote from Pepys. This is a modern piece of writing that originated with a social media account parodying Pepys. Pepys was a naval administrator and member of English Parliament. He was most famous, however, for recording a daily diary for nearly 10 years starting in 1660. Pepys wrote about several significant historical events during this time period, such as the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Great Fire of London, and the Great Plague of London in 1665. The above-displayed passage, however, was not written by him. This quote originated with the Twitter account @Pepys_Diaries, a sort of parody account that reimagines Pepys as if he were a modern-day writer. This account provides a pretty big clue that these are not real quotes, as it uses the handle “FakeyPepys.” Also, it is noted in the account’s bio that quotes from the real Pepys can be found on the Twitter account @SamuelPepys. On March 20, 2020, the parody account posted the now-viral quote: Oddly enough, this is not the only entity posting fake diary entries from Pepys as if they were written during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. On March 9, for instance, The Fence magazine published the “Coronavirus Diaries of Samuel Pepys.” Pepysdiary.com, a website dedicated to Pepys’ actual writings, addressed this misquote in a March 2020 article. The website noted that another quote from the parody account had also gone viral:
33506	Sesame Street's Cookie Monster is being replaced by Veggie Monster.	Cooler heads might have dismissed the rumor under the premise that it would not make sense for Sesame Street to replace a beloved and extremely marketable character. Besides, the concept of a Veggie Monster who so lusted for his favorite foodstuffs that he would go on legume-pillaging rampages is seriously flawed: unlike cookies (which are often vigorously defended), veggies don’t need to be taken by force.	false	Entertainment, Radio & TV, sesame street, Television	One of the most endearing and memorable of Sesame Street‘s Muppet characters has experienced a bit of an epiphany regarding his eating habits in recent years as the lovable, blue-furred Cookie Monster has been mastering the fine art of moderation with regard to his favorite food. Yet he has not given up cookies entirely, nor are there plans for him to do so — whatever the rumors to the contrary, he is and always will be the Cookie Monster. Examples: This actually came up in Physics class — somehow something was said to prompt another kid to remark that Sesame Street’s popular Cookie Monster was renamed to the “Veggie Monster” to be more politically correct and to cut down on obesity in America. In 2005 Sesame Street began to focus more strongly on delivering positive health messages to children, a process that involved introducing segments on the values of good nutrition, exercise, and proper sleep habits into the program. It also involved expanding Cookie Monster’s diet to encompass other foods beyond just his beloved cookies. His newfound nutritional awareness was expressed in his new anthem, “A Cookie Is a Sometime Food” (which was modeled upon the Porgy and Bess song, “A Woman is a Sometime Thing”). Cookie Monster still eats cookies, just not nearly as many of them as he once did, and he is now also seen eating and enjoying fruit. As to the reasons behind the shift towards a more healthy lifestyle for this rascally Muppet, Cookie Monster is, after all, the idol of many a wide-eyed tot, so Sesame Street‘s producers hope that altering his diet will incline his young audience to take a healthier path themselves. Says Sesame Street producer Carol-Lynn Parente: “Childhood obesity is an epidemic. We feel we have a responsibility to do what we can to address it.” That means fewer cookies for the venerable blue-furred spokescreature and more fruit. Yet rumors that he has forsworn cookies entirely or has been transformed into the Veggie Monster (or Carrot Monster) are false. In August 2006, when NBC Today co-host Matt Lauer questioned Cookie Monster about the change in his eating habits, the googly-eyed spokescreature directly addressed the rumor and disclaimed it: Cookie Monster: Me like fruit. Matt Lauer: And there you have it. Cookie Monster likes fruit, and not cookies. Monster: No! You members of the media blow story way out of proportion! Me still like cookies! Lauer: Then why fruit? Monster: Why not fruit? It delicious! And healthy. Me still eat cookies, like me world-famous for doing, but now me eat other things, too. In October 2006, PBS Viewer Services supplied this response to e-mail from viewers concerned about the demise or renaming of Sesame Street’s glutton: Thank you for writing to PBS. We always enjoy receiving feedback from our viewers and fans. The educational goal of SESAME STREET is to help prepare children for school and to put them on a positive trajectory for life. Childhood obesity is a serious health concern in this country and the producers of SESAME STREET decided to include this important subject in their curriculum. While they have chosen to use the power of SESAME STREET to teach children about healthy foods and other important healthy habits, they have no plans to change Cookie Monster’s name or his wonderful, compulsive personality which our viewers have grown to love. Cookie Monster will continue to obsess over his adored favorite: the cookie, but he now also eats fruits and vegetables. Thank you again for your email. We appreciate your concern for SESAME STREET and hope you and your family continue to enjoy the wide variety of programs available on your local PBS station. While rumors about Cookie Monster’s being replaced with Veggie Monster or Carrot Monster also exist in the offline world, in cyberspace their flames were further fanned by the presence of an online petition proposing a boycott of Sesame Street until the show did away with Veggie Monster and returned Cookie Monster to the air. The petition presented matters as if they had already come to pass, which wasn’t the case: there wasn’t any Veggie Monster to be sent packing, and Cookie Monster was still very much a part of the show (and indeed would continue to be). Yet raw emotion was not to be denied, so a few thousand people signed the petition anyway.
2790	Production snag forces worldwide hold on GSK chickenpox vaccines.	GlaxoSmithKline has stopped worldwide deliveries of two chickenpox vaccines for children after discovering that some batches produced at its factory in Wavre, Belgium, were not up to standard.	true	Health News	Britain’s biggest drugmaker, which is also one of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers, said on Tuesday it expected shipments to begin again at the end of the first quarter. The quality issue affects two vaccines containing a varicella (chickenpox) component - Priorix-Tetra, a combined vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, known as MMRV, and Varilrix, a single chickenpox shot. “We’re committed to resolve this supply disruption situation as soon as possible and are actively involved in keeping regulatory authorities and customers informed as we look to minimize the impact of this temporary supply disruption,” a GSK spokesman in London said. This will involve re-allocating 2014 supply to minimize the disruption, he said. Several other companies also produce similar vaccines and may be able step in to meet short-term shortages. The setback is likely to have some impact on GSK’s vaccine sales in the first quarter, although there may be a catch-up in volumes in the three months to June. GSK does not break out revenues for the two products. German doctors have already been told by health officials to ration the two chickenpox vaccines. Their advice to doctors includes using MMR vaccines instead of MMRV for initial shots, and delaying booster shots. Vaccines that have already been delivered are safe, said Germany’s federal agency for infectious diseases and its vaccination agency. Separately, GSK said it also expects a shortage this month in Germany of Boostrix-Polio, a combined vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio, because an unexpected increase in demand amid limited production capacity. GSK said this shortage was a local German issue.

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