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36905
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Dolly Kyle makes accusations about Hillary Clinton in her book, “Hillary the Other Woman.”
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Dolly Kyle Makes Claims in “Hillary the Other Woman” Book
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false
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Politics
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Dolly Kyle has been making accusations about having affairs with Bill Clinton and about Hillary Clinton for decades — but these claims haven’t been definitively proven true or false. Dolly Kyle is a former classmate of Bill Clinton’s and has long claimed she had an on-and-off affair with him through the early 1990s. In her latest book, “Hillary the Other Woman,” Kyle makes the case that Bill and Hillary’s relationship was solely for political gain and explains how Hillary was able to silence her. First, in order to provide some background, it’s important to take a step back to look at Dolly Kyle’s public exchanges with the Clintons over the years. These allegations aren’t new — she’s been making them for decades. In 1998, Dolly Kyle Browning filed a lawsuit that alleged the Clintons and their people had tried to prevent her from publishing a book that was “loosely based” on her relationship with Bill. A federal judge in the case ruled that “the case was so flawed there was no need to proceed with depositions or a trial,” ABC News reported: Browning says she went to high school with Bill Clinton and his brother Roger in Hot Springs, Ark. in the 1960s. She alleged she became friends with the future president and carried on an extramarital sexual affair with him from the mid-1970s until roughly 1991. Her lawsuit centers on handwritten notes President Clinton made about a 1994 conversation the two had in Arkansas at their 30th high school reunion. At a 1998 deposition in the Paula Jones case, Clinton said he wrote out the three pages in order to protect himself against untrue claims Browning was making about an affair. “She basically said she didn’t want me to be her friend and she was mad at me because I’d never been her lover,” Clinton said at the deposition. Browning alleged the notes falsely denied their relationship. But the judge said Clinton was protected by the fact that the notes were only made public as a result of their being filed in the Jones lawsuit. Bryant ruled that Clinton’s production of the notes in that context was “absolutely privileged” and could not be held against him. In a transcript of Dolly Kyle’s deposition in the Paula Jones case, she said her relationship with Bill “ended abruptly” when he stopped returning her calls in 1992. She added that Clinton’s people threatened to destroy her if she went public with the accusations, but that Bill later apologized in a meeting at their high school reunion in 1994. She also challenged the idea that Clinton wrote up notes to protect himself against her false allegations: Our conversation began with my confronting him for not returning my call in early 1992. This lead to a discussion of many things, including his affair with Gennifer Flowers. I reminded him that he had threatened to destroy me and he said he was sorry. We discussed many other things. At the end of the conversation he asked me to come to Washington. He said “You can live on the hill. I can help you find a job.” I have reviewed the notes attached to this declaration as Exhibit A. I can state unequivocally that those notes are not an accurate account of the conversation or of the entire evening. The notes attributed to Marsha Scott are false. She did not stand by Billy Clinton during my conversation with him. Neither she nor anyone other than possibly the two male Secret Service Agents were in a position to hear our conversation. At no time during the conversation did I say that any statement I had made to him or about our relationship was false. Dolly Kyle then took aim at Hillary Clinton in Edward Klein’s “The Truth About Hillary” book. Hillary’s people have called “blatant and vicious fabrications contrived by someone who writes trash for cash.” Slate recounts Dolly Kyle Browning statements about Hillary: Pages 91-92: Dolly Kyle Browning, who says she was Bill Clinton’s longtime mistress, tells Klein that Bill asked her to pray for Hillary to get pregnant. “He and Hillary never had much of a sexual relationship,” she explains. “Also, Billy had a low sperm count, and he and Hillary were going to a fertility specialist in California. They had been trying for quite a while without any success.” Page 84: Dolly Kyle Browning on Hillary when she arrived in Arkansas to help with the 1974 Congressional race: “You should have seen her! No, you should have smelled her.” In the lead up to the release of her book, Dolly Kyle said “Hillary Clinton’s nomination shames women” and that Hillary was a borderline sociopath in an interview with WND. So, Dolly Kyle has been making accusations about Bill and Hillary Clinton for decades, but they’re impossible to fact check because they’re all based on personal conversations or exchanges that can’t be independently verified. The Clintons have disputed Kyle’s claims — and she’s disputed theirs.
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31483
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Mia Khalifa was diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV.
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Of course, having an HIV-positive status does not directly correlate with how often one has sex — to contract HIV, one only need have sex with one other infected person. It is impossible to know the HIV status of a celebrity. However, there is no proof that this viral rumor is true.
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false
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Junk News, fake news, HIV, mia khalifa
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In April 2017, a rumor spread that porn star Mia Khalifa had been diagnosed with HIV, making her, and her diagnosis, a trending topic on Twitter. No proof was provided to back up this claim; in fact, the rumor appears to have originated on the entertainment web site The No Chill, which published a fake news story in January 2017 claiming that the porn star had contracted HIV: The most famous movie star Mia Khalifa is recently diagnosed with HIV Positive Infection. As the girl was shooting with 2 other people, the industry remains in a fear of an outbreak. “This is the 5th case in this industry in the past 10 months. Its not about that we are loosing our actors, its about all the humans. This infection is scary and for us, all human lives anywhere on this planet matter.” said Director Barney Hive. The No Chill is a fake news web site that does not publish factual stories. The web site carries a disclaimer saying, “NoChill.com is the most notorious entertainment website in the world founded by Pancho Villa in 1922.” Mia Khalifa also dismissed the rumor on 20 April 2017. In a statement to the web site Total Frat Move (to which she linked to from her verified Twitter account), the performer said: The site that posted this incredibly fake “interview” with me is less credible than those ads on porn sites for hot girls in your area who are dying to meet you. I’m not sure what they have to gain from this bullshit other than publicity, but they definitely got that. I wasn’t even going to make a statement acknowledging this trash, but because it has gotten so much exposure, it feels necessary. I don’t usually let mean-spirited things about me on the internet get under my skin. That’s a skill I’ve had to develop over time. But I’d be lying if I said this didn’t hurt me. It has gotten to the point where people who are actually close to me started texting and asking if this shit was true – and that’s what hurts the most. I’ve gotten used to being bashed, but a person can only take so much. In case it isn’t clear already: no, I am not HIV positive. I get laid way less often than you’d think. The closest thing to intimacy in my life right now is when my roommate is washing her sheets and sleeps in my bed with me.
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34590
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Waverly Labs' 'Pilot' earpiece can translate spoken language in real time.
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"What's true: Waverly Labs is crowdfunding a purportedly forthcoming ""Pilot"" earpiece to translate spoken language in real time and facilitate communication between individuals separated by a language barrier. What's false: We were unable to locate any accounts of individuals who'd tested prototypes of the device."
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unproven
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Technology, babelfish, pilot, prototypes
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In May 2016 (and again in July 2016) blogs were abuzz with news about Waverly Labs’ “Pilot” earpiece, which purportedly enables users separated by a language barrier to converse using the device and a smartphone: Many articles described Waverly Labs’ “Pilot” as if it was already in existence, extolling its functions and often suggesting a September 2016 ship date: Called Pilot[,] Waverly Labs is calling it the “world’s first translation earpiece”—the device is due to launch in September and features two earpieces and an app. Two users both wear a bluetooth earpiece and they can then speak to one another in different languages and each will hear it in their native tongue. It works in near real-time although Ochoa has said it lags behind Skype Translator, the most impressive language translator out at the moment, which translates voice and video calls in real-time. Pilot does its work without having to be online though. Users can choose between what languages they want using the app, at the moment it translates French, Spanish, Italian, and English. This is the first generation of this tech but once it launches future iterations will include more languages. Waverly Labs also hopes to eventually bring out versions where the device will only need to listen to the world around it and then translate that, meaning no ear pieces. We looked through Waverly Labs’ web site to see if any of the most basic questions were answered about the Pilot device: whether it existed in prototype form, for instance. As of 22 July 2016, the latest update to the company’s blog was dated 16 May 2016 and promised more details would be provided “soon”: This has been an incredible weekend – we’ve have over 6.5M views on facebook and 145,000 shares! We really can’t say how happy we are for the encouragement we’ve had from everyone, so really, thank you for spreading the word. We’ve spent a long time working on this and we’re so thrilled to see that people actually want to be on this journey with us. Some of the stories we’ve received have been wonderful! We are going to release a new video on our blog and answer all of your questions. We’ll answer questions such as: Where are we in the development stage? When will the Pilot will be ready for pre-order and delivery? Which languages are supported? What are the details on the early bird pricing and who are the contest winner(s)? AND also, we’ll outline specifics on how the Pilot actually works. Also, if we haven’t answered your email or facebook message/comment, please forgive us – we’re doing our best to keep up. On 17 May 2016, a Forbes contributor published a piece skeptical about the project and its promises. The author described an initial media frenzy and subsequent unexpected phone call with one of the device’s creators: Cue a dialogue about the technology, marketing scam the press it has cultivated without any official word from the creators and the general smell of the idea. Was it a smart move by the team? Lazy journalism? I reached out expecting nothing (as many outlets had requested the same thing and been denied or not heard back)… until the CEO agreed to a call. The author appeared more skeptical (rather than less) after speaking with CEO Andrew Ochoa (misspelled as “Ochea” throughout) and concluded: When I asked how his team had created this seemingly miraculous tool in about a tenth of the time it has taken people like Skype to develop similar technology Ochea had this to say; “[Pilot] is using very standard models of speech translation, you’ve got three major technologies working in tandem, speech recognition, machine translation and voice synthesis. We are repackaging and combining it with wearable technology to create this new paradigm.” This sounded like spin to me but I let Ochea continue which was when some backtracking began…; “We’re building a hybrid system. Some of it’s licensed and some we’ve built ourselves. We don’t want to make any promises or references that this is incredibly real-time or that we could give you an earpiece and drop you off in the middle of Tokyo. That is not what we’re trying to convey at all.” Again I pressed Ochea on the hybrid technology area and the video they put out which caused further backtracking and clarification … I then asked Ochea about development which caused further backtracking; “It’s definitely in the late alpha stage. There’s still a lot of testing … we don’t want any comparison to Babel Fish. We didn’t expect the level of virality that we received.” I remained dubious … Ochea continued; “We didn’t know if anyone would really we interested in it.” Alarm bells went off when this was said so I pressed him on this because no-one spends the amount of time Ochea and his team has spent on something they don’t think anyone would be interested in (nor something that has been so obsessed about and is already ‘out there’), that’s either massively naive or a lie … I’m not sure. Pilot would be brilliant technology but the backtracking and [ambiguous] launch have me extremely skeptical. A new video is due out tomorrow that is currently being cut or as I suspect recut to possibly play down expectations the original round of press has generated. No videos emerged after the Forbes piece as promised, and the last video upload by Ochoa was on 10 May 2016. The device was over 3,000 percent funded on Indiegogo at more than 2.6 million dollars as of 25 June 2016, but it remains unclear whether an actual working prototype of a Pilot actually exists. (“Design prototypes” were mentioned on the company’s timeline.) Waverly Labs’ Pilot wasn’t the first device of questionable authenticity to create a viral stir, only to vanish. A much-ballyhooed Cicret smartphone companion garnered an avalanche of attention, but showed no proof of a working prototype. And in the realm of software, a controversial Peeple app took over social media in the summer of 2015 but failed to materialize.
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5033
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New Delhi zoo closed temporarily after birds die of bird flu.
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New Delhi’s zoo has been closed temporarily after nine birds died from suspected bird flu last week, a zoo official said Wednesday.
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true
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Animals, AP Health, India, Flu, Parks, Zoological parks, Bird flu, New Delhi
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Autopsies conducted on the birds confirmed that at least two of them died from H5N1 avian influenza, said Riaz Ahmed Khan, the National Zoological Park’s curator. “We decided to close the zoo for a few days as a precautionary measure,” Khan said, adding that the zoo would reopen next week. He said the birds, including some ducks and two pelicans, died Friday and Saturday. The zoo, one of the largest in India, has some 1,400 animals, reptiles and birds belonging to around 130 species. It gets about 2.2 million visitors annually. The H5N1 avian influenza virus poses no apparent threat to humans, but highly pathogenic strains can be deadly to domestic poultry and, rarely, wild birds. In May, zoo workers were vaccinated against rabies after 46 spotted deer at the park died from the virus.
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10922
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The Healthy Skeptic: Seeing through skin supplements’ claims
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We only wish the column had added a brief note about concerns about harms from antioxidants and a bit more about why the evidence cited by manufacturers is so inconclusive. “Fountain of youth…anti-aging…youthful skin” product claims demand scrutiny. They got it in this column. We wish this same approach would be applied more often to the broad range of health care products and claims.
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true
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Los Angeles Times,Supplements
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The Healthy Skeptic column – as it usually does – included cost information. The story states that “there’s still some hope that antioxidants can help the skin, but the resuits likely aren’t as dramatic as the companies suggest.” It also raises some questions about the benefits suggested in a couple of studies. The column implies the harm of consumers being misled by products without evidence to back them up. But it could have also at least briefly addressed some of the published concerns about harms of antioxidants, such as: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/99/10/742.full and http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/297/8/842.abstract The column goes half way to where we wish it would go – but we wish it would just add a line or two. When it discusses one study of 36 adults, we wish it would emphasize how little conclusion can be drawn from such a tiny study. When it discusses an unpublished, company-funded study, we wish it would more explicity delineate the red flags that should arise in readers’ minds. No disease mongering of “youthful skin.” In fact, it shoots down many claims. Two independent expert sources were cited. The story could have discussed other research into approaches to protect healthy skin – even the basics of sun protection. The availability of the skin supplements is made clear in the story. No inappropriate claims of novelty are made. In fact, one source says “these products are over-hyped.” It’s clear that the story involved independent reporting and vetting of claims.
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7923
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Italy in coronavirus lockdown as deaths soar and economy fades.
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Shops and restaurants closed, hundreds of flights were canceled and streets emptied across Italy on Tuesday, the first day of an unprecedented, nationwide lockdown imposed to slow Europe’s worst outbreak of coronavirus.
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true
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Health News
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Just hours after the dramatic new restrictions came into force, health authorities announced the death toll had jumped by 168 to 631, the largest rise in absolute numbers since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21. The total number of confirmed cases rose at a much slower rate than recently seen, hitting 10,149 against a previous 9,172, but officials warned that the region at the epicenter, Lombardy, had provided incomplete data. The government has told all Italians to stay at home and avoid non-essential travel until April 3, radically widening steps already taken in much of the wealthy north, which is the epicenter of the spreading contagion. “Our civic duty is the only thing that can save us,” said Marzio Tonilo, 35, a teacher from the northern town of San Fiorano, which was placed under quarantine last month. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte unexpectedly expanded the so-called red zone to the entire country on Monday night, introducing the most severe controls on a Western nation since World War Two. The move shocked many small businesses, which feared for their future. “It looks like an apocalypse has struck, there is no one around,” said Mario Monfreda, who runs Larys restaurant in a smart Rome residential area. Under the government order, all bars and restaurants will now have to close at 6.00 p.m. “It is a total disaster. This will reduce us to nothing ... More people are going to die as a result of the economic crisis that this lockdown is going to cause than the virus itself.” However, the prosperous northern region of Lombardy, centered on Italy’s financial capital Milan, called on the government to introduce even more stringent measures. “I would shut down all the shops. I would certainly close down public transport and I would seek out all businesses that could be shut without creating excessive damage to the economy,” said Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana. While Lombardy accounts for 74% of all the fatalities, the disease has now touched all of the country and the government is worried that if it worsens, the health system in the less developed south will collapse, causing deaths to spike. Rome landmarks including the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the Spanish Steps were largely empty on Tuesday, while the Vatican closed St. Peter’s Square and St. Peter’s Basilica to tourists. Police told holidaymakers to return to their hotels. For at least the next three weeks, anyone traveling in Italy will have to carry a document declaring their reasons. Outdoor events, including sports fixtures, have been suspended and schools and universities are all shuttered. A former Treasury chief economist predicted that the lockdown measures were reducing Italy’s economic output by around 10-15%, with the tourism and transport sectors down about 90% on their normal levels. Looking to mitigate the impact on ordinary Italians, the government is considering making banks offer customers a pause in their mortgage repayments. It also called for the European Union to relax its rules to allow more state spending. “We will ask for the rules to be changed, it is a necessary condition, otherwise people will die,” Industry Minister Stefano Patuanelli told Radio Capital. The Milan stock exchange fell a further 3.3% on Tuesday, meaning it has now slumped 29% since Feb. 20. Italy’s borrowing costs are also shooting up, reviving fears that an economy already on the brink of recession and struggling under the euro zone’s second-heaviest debt pile could be plunged into crisis. In the wake of the clampdown, neighboring Austria said it would deny entry to people arriving from Italy, Malta and Portugal cut all travel links to the country, while British Airways and Easy Jet canceled their flights to and from Italian airports. Spain also banned flights from Italy. The coronavirus first emerged in China last year and the country’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday its top diplomat, Wang Yi, had called his Italian counterpart, Luigi Di Maio, to offer his condolences for the situation in Italy. He said he would increase efforts to send Italy more masks, and medical equipment, and also offered to send a medical team.
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10894
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New Device Gives Hope To Paralyzed
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The story of a young, athletic woman’s paralysis is frightening and heart-wrenching. That she is now able to perform basic tasks with her arms again with the help of functional electrical stimulation (FES) is inspiring. However, because the story focuses on her positive experience, the story implies that the FES works perfectly for all people. In reality, the basic question “how well does this treatment work?” is not answered. Although the story says that “research is under way,” this is insufficient information on the strength of the available evidence. Neither does the story mention if FES is available anywhere other than this one clinic. In addition, it isn’t clear whether FES is investigational or FDA-approved. Is the woman in the story a study subject or is this part of routine care? Also left out of the story are any harms or side effects of treatment. Because this is an invasive, implantable device, there are risks from the implantation alone. It is also unclear how long the device will last. The story does quote two physicians from the clinic that provides FES. However, the story should have quoted other, independent physicians or researchers who could have provided some much needed perspective.
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false
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The story does not mention costs. The story does not attempt to quantify the benefits. By focusing on one patient’s positive experience, the story implies that the treatment works perfectly for all people. In reality, the basic question “how well does this treatment work?” is not answered. The story does not mention harms or side effects. Because this is an invasive, implantable device, there are risks from the implantation alone. It is also unclear how long the device will last. Although the story says that “research is under way,” this is insufficient information on the strength of the available evidence. Even focusing on this one patient example, it is not clear whether the patient could move one or both arms on her own without the device. The implication is that all of her arm movements are due to the device. That probably isn’t the case. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story quotes two physicians from the clinic that provides the treatment. The story should have quoted other, independent physicians or researchers who could have provided some much needed perspective. The story does not mention any alternative treatment options, such as physical and occupational therapy. It isn’t clear what additional benefit the device has provided beyond standard physical and occupational therapy. Time also can have a helpful effect. It isn’t clear what is the relative contribution of this new device versus standard care. The story does not mention if the device is available anywhere other than this clinic in Cleveland. In addition, it isn’t clear whether it is investigational or FDA-approved. Is the woman in the story a study subject or is this part of routine care? The story states that this is a new approach. Although the story focused on just one patient at one institution, there is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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25565
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Our whole food system in this country...most of it is genetically engineered. And (there is) no testing for the health consequences of this food.
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Biotech foods less widespread and better tested than Kucinich says
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mixture
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National, Consumer Safety, Dennis Kucinich,
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"At a cancer forum in Iowa sponsored by Lance Armstrong, Kucinich said, ""In 1992 the Food and Drug Administration approved, without any scientific basis, the manufacturing of genetically modified organisms for food. Our whole food system in this country has now been — most of it is genetically engineered. And no safety testing was done, no testing for the health consequences of this food."" He's exaggerating. First, a little history. The FDA caused a storm of controversy in 1992 when it declared that it would hold plants developed through biotechnology to the same standards as all other foods. Under the ruling, foods made with plants whose genetic material had been altered using biotechnology would not face higher scrutiny than foods produced in traditional ways. In 1994, the agency for the first time approved a bioengineered food product — a tomato that resisted rotting — for human consumption. Although the safety standards are the same for bioengineered and traditional foods, the agency says that, in practice, genetically modified foods usually receive a more thorough review. These foods are subject to a voluntary consultation process, where the producer can choose to review its own health research with the FDA's scientists. That process appears to give an advantage to the food companies, but it still involves more testing than Kucinich's statement suggests. As of 2004, every bioengineered food product on the market had completed this consultation process, the FDA said. (More recent statistics were not available.) So Kucinich exaggerates when he says that ""no safety testing"" has been done on the products that are on the market, although the process has been criticized for giving food companies too much influence. In 2001, the New York Times reported on the political considerations that went into the FDA's decisions on genetically engineered foods in the 1990s, revealing that many scientists in the agency had expressed doubts about the safety of the foods but were silenced by the focus on the deregulation of industry by the first Bush administration. Many environmental groups continue to push for greater regulation of genetically modified foods, including labeling, while the FDA continues to insist that these foods do not pose health risks to consumers. Kucinich is closer to the mark with his claim that most food is genetically engineered. The Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group critical of biotechnology, says that a handful of genetically modified crops - mostly corn, soybeans, canola and cotton — account for most of the foods involved. But the group also estimates that 60 to 70 percent of processed foods contain at least some residual genetically modified organisms. Joe Mendelson, the group's spokesman, said Kucinich ""has firm ground to say it's penetrated our food markets a great deal. But it is certainly not everything."""
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33333
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Psychopaths can be identified by the answer they give to a one-question test.
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A psychopath might think to murder her sister after their mother’s death, but the motivation would more likely be one of inheritance. “Why settle for half an estate when only one person stands between me and all of it?” would be a more prevalent line of thought.
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false
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Medical, Medical Myths, Seeking Asylum
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Despite the claims made in online versions, a question supposedly revealing of psychopaths was not authored by a “famous American psychologist,” nor does it come from “a genuine psychological test”: This is a genuine psychological test. It is a story about a girl. While at the funeral of her own mother, she met a guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was amazing, so much her dream guy she believed him to be, that she fell in love with him there and then … A few days later, the girl killed her own sister. Question: What is her motive in killing her sister? DON’T Scroll down until you have thought what your own answer is to this question! *Answer: She was hoping that the guy would appear at the funeral again. If you answered this correctly, you think like a psychopath. This was a test by a famous American psychologist used to test if one has the same mentality as a killer. Many arrested serial killers took part in this test and answered it correctly. If you didn’t answer correctly – good for you. If your friends hit the jackpot, may I suggest that you keep your distance. (If you got the answer correct, please let me know so I can take you off my distribution list…) Do not believe everything everything that turns up in on the Internet, especially items so sorely vague about their bona fides. Let’s talk about why this isn’t real. As the Tire Nut legend so eloquently illustrates, just because someone is crazy doesn’t mean he’s also stupid. Psychopaths (also known as sociopaths) possess the same problem-solving skills that the rest of us do, and some of them have been found to be remarkably brilliant (Ted Bundy, for example). The assumption that all sociopaths approach problems with a “Whom can I kill to solve this?” mentality (and that sociopaths believe everyone else thinks this way as well) is an erroneous assumption based upon a false stereotype. Most sociopaths would find this question as illogical as the rest of us and ponder a whole range of other possibilities (e.g., why didn’t the girl strike up a conversation with the man at the funeral, examine the condolence book afterwards, or ask her sister about him? ), and rather than just blurting out the purported “typical” response, many of them would provide answers just as mainstream as those offered by us “normal” folks (e.g., one sister thought the other was involved with the mystery man and killed her sibling over an imagined romantic rivalry). In other words, this isn’t a question where all the psychopaths would go one way and everybody else would go another. As a quick and easy way to separate the sheep from the murderous goats, it wouldn’t work. Besides, no one hypothetical is ever going to reveal the state of any person’s mental condition: whole batteries of multi-item tests are needed for that. Entirely healthy folks can answer one isolated question in such a way as to indicate the possible presence of mental illness, just as the severely ill can answer the same question in a healthy manner. The appeal of this one-question pop psych quiz lies in its implicit promise that by using it, you can locate the psychopaths lurking in your circle of acquaintance and thereby protect yourself from them, or perhaps in the process of your answering it you’ll uncover some deep, dark secret you’ve been keeping from yourself. We like our world simplified whenever possible, and therefore anything that appears to be an easy-to-use tool will be quickly seized upon, even if it’s flawed. Would that it were that simple. Psychopaths are intermingled with the general population and are not that easily identified. They are best characterized as persons devoid of remorse and empathy. What sets them apart is not that these two characteristics are depressed or reduced in them, but that they are entirely missing. Psychopaths are held in check only by their fear of being caught and punished; the potential impact of their actions upon others is without relevance to them, and guilt is just a word in the dictionary to them, not something they themselves experience. Not all psychopaths are rampaging killers, constantly on the hunt for their next victims. Many live law-abiding lives and outwardly appear quite normal. They lack a sense of right versus wrong, and they do not care about the people in their lives, not even their spouses or children; the risk to their own well-being is what keeps them, for the most part, on the straight and narrow. These are not healthy individuals to become involved with, but on the other hand, they are not necessarily mere heartbeats away from taking up the nearest hatchet and laying waste to the steno pool just because it’s Tuesday.
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9958
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Small study suggests electrical stimulation of the brain can ease migraine pain
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We like the LA Times’ Booster Shots blog. We really do. But if the paper insists on being brief in its blog posts, at least it could provide links to provide more context and to plug holes in what is reported briefly on the blog. So, for example, it would require only a few words to address these flaws: No mention of costs A description of migraine that is too vague, thus committing disease-mongering No evaluation of the quality of the evidence An inadequate discussion of the scope of the benefits and harms (Why not give absolute numbers? Why not clearly explain the limitations of a study that tested a device in just 33 people? Why not a link to the published study? (After all, the journal Cephalalgia isn’t on most readers’ shelves!) Again, we appreciate the existence of the Booster Shots blog. But this was a bad day. Migraine is not a topic to fool around with. People who have this problem may gravitate toward any news of progress. We think they deserved more scrutiny of claims and more context than they got in this piece.
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false
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"No mention of costs – and none of these devices is cheap. The story explains that 39% of patients who received the real device had at least a 50% decrease in the number of headaches per month. Why not say that this was 10 patients? And why not give us the precise absolute number – not the relative risk reduction – of how many headaches? More importantly, no mention is made of any difference between the rate of response in subjects given the real treatment and those provided a sham treatment. Did the sham treatment result in a significant improvement as well? Also not good enough. The story explained that ""the most common side effect was migration of the leads"" but it didn’t explain how common that was. Was it 100% of the time? 50% What does common mean? And it didn’t explain how bothersome that was to people. Was it like a hiccup? Did it hurt? Finally, the editorial to which the story refers points out that even if this technology works (and we don’t know that it does), the ""complication rates would need to be reduced"" if it is to be acceptable. We don’t know why that didn’t make it into the story. Not good enough. Yes, the story said this was ""a small pilot study"" and yes it said ""if the results can be confirmed…."" But why not explicitly state how limited are the conclusions that can be drawn from a study of only 33 people who got the device? And, given that the funding for the study came from the manufacturer, readers should be told what safeguards were in place against bias. How do they know this study has any validity? The description of migraine given in the story is too broad: ""characterized by severe pain accompanied by nausea and sensitivity to light…"" Any severe headache can be accompanied by nausea and photophobia. The readers do not know from this description whether they are fellow sufferers or not. And perhaps more important: a careful reading of the editorial that accompanies the study demonstrates that the study participants were a highly rarified subgroup of more general migraine sufferers. These subjects had to have migraine in the same area that the occipital nerve travels and had to respond to some tests of the occipital nerve. Therefore, the story does the reader a disservice by neglecting to qualify to whom this study might apply. OK. Medtronic’s funding of the study is disclosed. Minimal independent input was achieved by citing what an editorial writer wrote. Inadequate in comparing this device with the range of alternatives the 14% of uncontrolled migraine sufferers pursue. This device was described as ""one such approach."" What are the others? How do they compare? The reader would not be able to figure out from the story whether this is an experimental device or something already on the market. And, if on the market, how widespread is its use? Yes, the first paragraph says ""If the results can be confirmed, the approach could provide another tool…"" and perhaps savvy readers would read into this that the approach is not yet available. But there is no clear, explicit statement on availability. It would only require a few words. Inadequate in explaining the range of alternatives the 14% of uncontrolled migraine sufferers pursue. This device was described as ""one such approach."" What are the others? How do they compare? How truly novel is this, if at all? Not applicable because we can’t be sure of the extent to which the story relied on a news release. There is no quote from an interview. The lead author isn’t quoted at all. An accompanying editorial is cited."
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5444
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Chinese official: Pig fever outbreak ‘complicated and grim’.
|
The death toll from a disease outbreak in China’s pig herds that has pushed up global pork prices has risen to 1.2 million animals, but its spread has “significantly slowed,” a deputy agriculture minister said Thursday.
|
true
|
Health, General News, Asia, Financial markets, Business, China, Asia Pacific, Disease outbreaks, Agriculture
|
Authorities are stepping up efforts to contain African swine fever but the situation is “complicated and grim,” Yu Kangzhen told a news conference. He said the government is developing a vaccine but that work has “a long way to go.” Pork is China’s staple meat and the country produces and consumes two-thirds of the world’s pigs. Bans imposed on shipping pigs out of infected areas since outbreaks began in August have caused shortages in major cities. Importers are filling the gap by purchasing more abroad, pushing up prices in Asia and Europe. The virus doesn’t harm humans but is fatal and spreads quickly among pigs. It spread from Africa to Europe and Russia before reaching China. Since then, 144 outbreaks have been reported in 32 of China’s 34 provinces, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. “The outbreak of swine fever in China has significantly slowed,” said Yu. “This is an indisputable fact.” However, he said some local authorities have failed to report or contain outbreaks. Yu rejected a report by the Reuters news agency that local authorities only report half of China’s outbreaks. “We cannot promise that it never happens,” but if it does, “we will punish it strictly and immediately,” he said.
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1940
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Encouraging exercise may help teens quit smoking.
|
Encouraging teenage smokers not only to quit, but to get physically active, may boost their odds of truly managing to kick the habit, a study said.
|
true
|
Health News
|
"Some research in adults has suggested that exercise may help smokers quit, perhaps by easing withdrawal symptoms or taking the edge off cigarette cravings. The study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, looked at the effects of adding exercise advice to a teen-focused smoking cessation program. “Not on Tobacco” (NOT) is the American Lung Association’s quit program geared specifically for high school students. It’s available in public schools across the United States, and studies have found that the average quit rate is about 21 percent. In the state of West Virginia, where the study was done, smoking rates are high, while exercise rates are low, said lead researcher Kimberly Horn, of the West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown. “We felt like (exercise) might be important for these kids, and that the effects of NOT could be boosted,” Horn told Reuters Health. To study the question, Horn’s team randomly assigned 19 high schools to offer either the standard cessation program, the program plus exercise advice or a “brief intervention” in which teen smokers had one session with a program facilitator. In all, 233 students took part in one of the three programs. The standard NOT program offers 10 weekly small-group sessions, in which a facilitator helps teens figure out why they smoke and find ways to kick the habit. Teens in the exercise-added version also got advice on exercise, and a pedometer, to keep track of their daily activity levels. After six months, the study found, the NOT-plus-exercise group had the highest self-reported quit rate, at 31 percent. That compared with 21 percent in the standard program and just under 16 percent in the brief-intervention group. When Horn’s team looked more closely at the data, the added exercise seemed to help only boys. Among boys in that version of the program, 37 percent had quit by the six-month mark, versus only about 18 percent in the standard program. Girls’ quit rates, however, were similar in both groups — at 26 percent and 23 percent, respectively. The reasons for the gender gap were not clear, Horn said. “We’re a little puzzled by it,” she added. In general, it’s known that girls’ exercise levels “plummet” in the teen years, whereas boys are more likely to stay active to some degree, Horn said. The study did not actually measure the students’ exercise levels, so it’s not clear how changes in physical activity correlate with quitting success. Future studies will look at whether the program really did boost activity levels, and whether the type of exercise matters to quitting smoking. What’s encouraging, Horn said, is that the exercise portion is easy to add to an existing NOT program. The hope is that even after they quit smoking, the teens will keep exercising and gain those extra health benefits as well. ""It's just a modest amount of encouragement (to exercise) from the facilitator. And we found that even that small 'dose' might have very important effects."" SOURCE: bit.ly/o2esSG"
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3395
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Proposal would allow dogs onto restaurant patios and decks.
|
A state agency in Delaware is proposing a change in regulations that would allow people to bring their dogs onto restaurant patios and decks.
|
true
|
Animals, Health, General News, Delaware, Public health, Dogs, Dover
|
The Delaware State News reported Thursday that the proposed change follows an uproar from some over the state stepping up enforcement of a policy that prohibits most dogs from food establishments. The Division of Public Health increased enforcement in August after a weekly paper published an article on pet-friendly eateries. The agency said animals can pose a risk to public health because they shed hair continuously and may deposit liquid or fecal waste. The state publishes a list of proposed changes to regulations each month. December’s list includes the department’s proposal to make some changes to its food regulations. One would allow dogs “in designated OUTDOOR SPACES that are not used for food storage or preparation, when a person controls the animal and if a health or safety hazard will not result from the presence or activities.” The change would allow someone to bring their dog onto an establishment’s “porch, patio, deck or other structure with less than two contiguous walls that does not require travel through any indoor areas, including for entrance and exit.”
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6870
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Idaho woman has 50-pound tumor removed.
|
An Idaho woman who thought she was gaining weight because of menopause discovered she actually had a 50-pound tumor that had been growing inside her for decades.
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true
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Health, Tumors, Idaho, Boise
|
Boise television station KTVB reports Brenda Cridland of Meridian chalked up her weight gain to aging, but when her health started to quickly decline about eight months ago she decided to see a doctor. That’s when a CAT scan revealed she had an enormous tumor that had displaced her organs and was cutting off the blood supply to her brain. Cridland said she underwent two-and-a-half hours of surgery to remove the mass, which luckily was benign. Cridland says she lost 65 pounds in the process, and learned the tumor was caused by undiagnosed endometriosis. She says she ignored red flags about her health, and hopes her story will remind other women that they shouldn’t avoid seeing a doctor. ___ Information from: KTVB-TV, http://www.ktvb.com/
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732
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Japan culls 753 hogs to contain swine fever outbreak.
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Japanese officials have culled 753 pigs in Saitama Prefecture north of Tokyo after detecting an outbreak of swine fever, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday.
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true
|
Health News
|
The cull, which took place on Saturday, was necessary after it was determined that pigs raised in the prefecture for shipment to central Japan were infected, the Yomiuri said. Saitama also decided to halt shipments from two other pig farms in the area of the outbreak, the Yomiuri said. Officials from the Saitama Prefecture government were not immediately available to comment. Last year, Japan confirmed the first outbreak of swine flu in 26 years in the country. The fever was found in a farm in the Gifu Prefecture, central Japan. The fever detected in Japan is a different strain from the deadly African swine fever that China has been battling, Japan’s agriculture ministry has previously said. The disease found in Gifu is also known as hog cholera. It occurs among pigs, wild boar and is not infectious for humans. Japan is the world’s 10th largest pork producer, and exports about 12 billion yen ($111 million) worth of pork products annually. Pork prices in China, the world’s top consumer of the meat, have hit a record after an epidemic of African swine fever swept through the country’s pig herd, killing millions.
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37519
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Gerrity's Supermarkets claimed that a woman coughed on food at their store in Pennsylvania, and they were then forced to discard an estimated $35,000 of items as a precaution.
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Did a Gerrity’s Store Discard $35,000 of Food After a Woman ‘Coughed’ on It During the Coronavirus Pandemic?
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unproven
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
|
On March 26 2020, a number of social media posts involved a woman in Pennsylvania who allegedly “coughed” on $35,000 worth of food — forcing a Gerrity’s store to discard all of the items:“Grocery store Gerrity’s Supermarket in Pennsylvania, throws out $35,000.00 worth of food that a woman intentionally coughed on, sparking coronavirus fears, police said.”Just think of the evil people doing this and no one saw them.🙏sad— Lisha (@lishaylewis) March 26, 2020Some lady coughed on food in a supermarket and the store tossed $35k worth of food out. These mfs are disgusting 🙄 https://t.co/v1MW3eJMwD— 🇺🇸Noble|SylverRye🇳🇬 (@SylverRye) March 26, 2020Social media users called for the alleged perpetrator to be “named and shamed,” and for her to possibly charged with “domestic terrorism”:Grossly irresponsible woman deliberately coughed over supermarket produce in #Hanover #Pennsylvania resulting in $35K of wasted food, reduced supplies to public & unnecessary labour from supermarket staff.Please someone – name & shame the culprit to give her the fame she seeks. https://t.co/dXN9whWWMw— Becky Bongos (@Becky_Bongos) March 26, 2020A supermarket in Pennsylvania was forced to throw away $35,000 worth of food after a woman deliberately coughed over it in a coronavirus prank. Anyone who does this should be charged with domestic terrorism. This isn’t funny. No one appreciates this.— Kayotickat (@kayotickat) March 26, 2020Although “weird news” stories of the sort typically circulated with news articles attached, the claim about the Pennsylvania woman and Gerrity’s touched on a perfect storm of COVID-19 fears. One element involved her alleged coughing — framed either as intentionally spreading the virus during a pandemic, or otherwise striking fear into fellow shoppers for the presumed purposes of amusement or trolling.Another fear had to do with potential food shortages from ongoing supply chain disruptions caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, which greatly reduced access to household supplies and food — as the supermarket workforce was spread ever thinner by the illness. It seemed safe to say most Americans had one or more disruptions to their grocery and staples acquisition routine, and more shoppers still were forced out to shop due to shortages at major online retailers. (Delivery services like AmazonFresh, Shipt, and Instacart had vanishingly low availability because of the same concerns, as well. )Needless to say, Americans had a whole host of angry reactions to the story’s spread, as well as disdain for anyone who might affect so many people with such a craven gesture at a time of mass uncertainty. People objected to:Some tweets provided a name and a location for the supermarket — a small Pennsylvania chain known as Gerrity’s Supermarkets. One added a March 25 2020 tweet from the company:We always want to keep you posted on & be as transparent as possible when it comes to the current obstacles that we face and overcome. Today was certainly one of those challenging days & our CEO Joe Fasula wanted to fill you in. #gerritys #nepa #coronavirusupdate #thisisnotajoke pic.twitter.com/aOr9vanLUE— Gerritys Supermarket (@GerritysMarket) March 26, 2020Over on Facebook, Gerrity’s co-owner Joe Fasula shared the same images of empty produce shelves and aisles. Fasula said the Gerrity’s in question was in Hanover Township, and described the alleged cougher as “a chronic problem in the community.”In that post, Fasula said that Gerrity’s estimated the value of food tossed out “to be well over $35,000,” and voiced fears the alleged incident would cause the company to endure an increase in insurance rates the following year. Fasula added that Gerrity’s immediately contacted police and the incident was escalated to the district attorney’s office:Today was a very challenging day.At 2:20 PM today, I got a call from our Hanover Township store. The manager informed me that a woman, who the police know to be a chronic problem in the community, came in to the store and proceeded to purposely cough on our fresh produce, and a small section of our bakery, meat case and grocery.While there is little doubt this woman was doing it as a very twisted prank, we will not take any chances with the health and well-being of our customers. We had no choice but to throw out all product she came in contact with. Working closely with the Hanover Township health inspector, we identified every area that she was in, we disposed of the product and thoroughly cleaned and disinfected everything.Although we have not yet quantified the total loss, we estimate the value to be well over $35,000. We are checking to see if our insurance company will cover it, but even if they do, our rates will surely go up next year. I am also absolutely sick to my stomach about the loss of food. While it is always a shame when food is wasted, in these times when so many people are worried about the security of our food supply, it is even more disturbing.Our incredible team did the best they could to get the woman out of the store as fast as possible. The police were contacted immediately and the case has been escalated to the District Attorney’s Office. They have assured me that they will be aggressively pursuing numerous charges. In addition, while we do not believe the woman is truly infected, they will make every effort to see that she is tested.Information about the incident was widely reported and primarily sourced from Fasula’s social media statement on Gerrity’s Facebook pages and on Twitter. TMZ, Fox News, Newsweek, the New York Post, CNN, and several local outlets reported the claims, TMZ’s story began as follows:CORONAVIRUS WOMAN COUGHS ON GROCERY PRODUCE … $35k In Food WastedA vile woman purposely coughed all over a grocery store’s fresh produce, resulting in a huge waste of food and rotten day for its employees … and the authorities are pursuing charges.A Post headline blared:Woman coughs on $35K of goods at Pennsylvania grocery store in ‘very twisted prank’Scranton’s Times-Tribune interviewed Fasula by phone on the evening of March 25 2020. In that initial video, Fasula said that he had yet to see the surveillance footage reviewed after the incident was reported, and that his account was secondhand:Gerrity’s responded by working with a health inspector to identify via video surveillance every area the woman approached, throw out each item she contacted and clean and disinfect the store, Fasula said in a phone interview [on March 25 2020]. He had not yet seen the video for himself but had information relayed to him by the store manager on the scene.“You can see her. She comes in the door,” Fasula said in a phone interview. “She coughs in her hand, smiles, looks around, walks right over and bends into the produce case and coughs.”“Obviously, when I got the news, I was literally speechless,” he continued. “I felt bad because the manager called me in a panic and said, ‘What do I do?’ I stood there stunned for a moment trying to come up with a response, because what do you do?”On March 23 2020, two days prior to the Gerrity’s “coughing” incident, Fasula talked to WNEP about the difficulties facing the chain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fasula took the unusual step of discouraging unnecessary visits to the store and described worries about keeping stores safe:Gerrity’s Supermarkets is asking something of its customers that seems to go against everything grocery stores are all about but, as co-owner Joe Fasula will tell you, these are not ordinary times.“Never in my life did I ever think I’d ask customers this, but we do want you to come when you need to and when you do come, please come by yourself. As long as you don’t have children who can’t be left at home, please come by yourself,” Fasula said.Grocery stores are considered life-sustaining businesses by the state and are allowed to stay open during the coronavirus outbreak … Gerrity’s is learning from other stores around the world that have responded to the pandemic. Grocery stores in Italy have been limiting customers for several weeks.“We’re trying to stay ahead; it’s moving at the speed of light. It’s so hard to think about the next shoe to drop. We’re always trying to find out what else we can be doing to keep the environment safe,” Fasula added.Just before midnight on March 25 2020, the Hanover Township Police Department issued a statement about the incident at Gerrity’s on Facebook. Although Fasula mentioned the case being “escalated” to the DA’s office, the police said that the woman in the incident was remanded to a hospital for evaluation:The Hanover Township Police Department is investigating an incident at 2280 Sans Souci Pakway, Gerrity’s Supermarket, for a female customer who intentionally contaminated produce/meat/merchandise for sale.The suspect has been identified and is being evaluated at a local hospital for a mental health evaluation. Criminal charges will be filed.The Hanover Township Police Department was assisted by the Hanover Township Health Officer, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office and the Pennsylvania State Police.A viral news story concerned an incident during which a woman allegedly coughed on $35,000 worth of food items at a Gerrity’s Supermarket in the Scranton area on March 25 2020. Most of the information being reported nationally came from an emotional plea by co-owner Fasula on Facebook, and it heightened frustration about infection control and food supply chain issues even outside the Scranton area. Fasula described the woman as a “chronic problem in the community,” and said the case was being handled by the District Attorney. According to police, the customer was “identified and [given a] mental health evaluation.” Police did not mention charges, nor did they substantiate the claim that at least $35,000 of merchandise had been contaminated.Update on March 26 2020, 10:43am: Police announced they have arrested the woman and charged her with multiple felonies.
|
3110
|
Pope: Governments must ensure all have access to health care.
|
Pope Francis called on governments Friday to ensure everyone has access to suitable health care.
|
true
|
Access to health care, Religion, Health, General News, Pope Francis, Europe, Vatican City
|
In an annual papal message reflecting on the needs of ill people, Francis urged health care institutions and government leaders “not to neglect social justice out of preoccupation for financial concerns.” The pope lamented in his written statement that many in the world have no access to health care because they live in poverty. He advocated solidarity to make sure all receive the medical care they need to stay healthy and to recover from illnesses. Francis also described it as tragic that medical personnel and facilities have been attacked during wars and violent conflicts. He further decried that “political authorities attempt to manipulate medical care for their own advantage” in some places, but did not cite specific situations.
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17765
|
"In Massachusetts, ""half of the primary care doctors are not accepting new patients."
|
"Fleming said that in Massachusetts, ""half of the primary care doctors are not accepting new patients."" That number is supported by a credible annual survey of Massachusetts doctors. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing will happen on the national level, the statistic is solid."
|
true
|
National, Health Care, John Fleming,
|
"As the fallout from President Barack Obama’s health care law takes center stage, some critics are raising concerns about how much access Americans will have to insurance and physicians in the future. On CNN’s State of the Union, Rep. John Fleming, R-La., a physician and a critic of Obamacare, and Ezekiel Emanuel, a health policy specialist at the University of Pennsylvania who supports the law, faced off. At one point, they debated the situation in Massachusetts, where a law similar to Obamacare was signed in 2006. As evidence that the federal law won’t work, Fleming said that in Massachusetts, ""half of the primary care doctors are not accepting new patients."" His point was that even if you have insurance, you won’t necessarily be able to see a doctor. We decided to check Fleming’s statistic to see if it’s correct. The statistic comes from an annual survey by the Massachusetts Medical Society, a professional association founded in 1781 that, among other things, publishes the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. The 2013 edition of the society’s ""Patient Access to Care"" survey -- which was based on 1,137 phone interviews with Massachusetts physicians -- found that 51 percent of family medicine practitioners in the state were accepting new patients. As Fleming indicated, almost exactly half are not. We will point out a few caveats, none of which seriously undercut Fleming’s claim. • While ""family medicine"" is certainly one type of ""primary care doctor,"" there are others. One type, internal medicine doctors, had a lower percentage (45 percent) accepting new patients, but another, pediatricians, had a higher percentage (70 percent). • There is substantial regional variation even within Massachusetts. The largest county in the state, Middlesex, had more doctors accepting new patients, at rates five to eight percentage points higher than the state as a whole. Other counties, such as Suffolk, had rates well below the state average. • Your likelihood of being accepted as a new patient depends heavily on what kind of insurance you have. Family medicine doctors accept 90 percent of new Medicare patients and 70 percent of patients with MassHealth, the state’s vehicle for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program. The 2013 survey did not look at new-patient acceptance rates for those who had private insurance or for patients with Commonwealth Care or Commonwealth Choice, the programs created under the 2006 law to insure those who previously had no insurance. However, data from the society’s 2011 survey does show a danger sign for those worried that doctors will be unwilling to take patients newly insured by the national health care law. The 2011 survey found that family medicine physicians were significantly less likely to accept new patients with Commonwealth Care or Commonwealth Choice -- 56 percent and 44 percent, respectively -- than they were new Medicare and Medicaid patients. Equally striking, the survey found, the percentage of family doctors taking new patients with any type of insurance has fallen since 2007 from 70 percent to 51 percent. That said, determining whether Massachusetts is out of line on any of these benchmarks is tricky, since comparable data for other states is virtually nonexistent, and the available national data is calculated differently and is several years old. Our ruling Fleming said that in Massachusetts, ""half of the primary care doctors are not accepting new patients."" That number is supported by a credible annual survey of Massachusetts doctors. While this doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing will happen on the national level, the statistic is solid."
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31507
|
A couple seeking to conceive via IVF discovered through DNA testing that they were fraternal twins.
|
In short, both the Mississippi Herald and the Denver Inquirer are fake newspaper sites set up for no other ostensible purpose than to spread fictitious stories. And a number of online “news” publications ran with one of their fictitious stories without having made the slightest attempt to verify it, based on nothing more than one dubious source that should have raised a plethora of red flags in a real newsroom.
|
false
|
Junk News, denver inquirer, fox news, mississippi herald
|
In mid-April 2017, a number of online publications in the U.S. and UK (including the Daily Mail, Fox News, the Inquisitr, Metro, the Mirror, and the Evening Standard) published accounts of a couple who supposedly sought treatment to conceive via IVF, only to discover to their shock that they were biological twins: A married couple who struggled to conceive only discovered they were twins when they went through IVF. The unnamed couple underwent the treatment to help them have a baby. But doctors at the fertility lab noticed their DNA was abnormally similar. At first, lab technicians believed the pair may be unwitting cousins, but soon ruled that out because the DNA was too similar. Eventually doctors confronted the pair, who burst out in laughter when they were asked if they were related. All of these reports were based on a single source, an article published on 13 April 2017 on the Mississippi Herald web site: Jackson husband & wife shocked after DNA test reveals they are biological twins A doctor at a fertility clinic in the Mississippi capital of Jackson has made a startling revelation concerning a couple who sought treatment at the center. The married pair, who cannot be named to due to patient confidentiality restrictions, had been struggling to conceive and came to the clinic to take part in the IVF program. “During the in vitro fertilization process, we take a DNA sample from both the male and female to get a profile of their genetic backgrounds,” the doctor involved told Mississippi Herald, whose name must also be suppressed to protect the identities of the patients. “It’s just a routine thing, and we wouldn’t normally check to see if there was a relationship between the two samples, but in this case the lab assistant involved was shocked by the similarity of each profile.” The lab assistant summoned the doctor, who knew almost instantly that the patients must have been related. “My first reaction was that they must have been less-closely related; perhaps they were first cousins, which does happen sometimes. However, looking closer at the samples, I noticed there were way too many similarities.” The doctor consulted the patient’s files, and noted with shock that both had the exact same birth dates listed in 1984. “With this in mind, I was convinced that both patients were fraternal twins.” None of the outlets that republished this story seemed fazed by the fact that the Mississippi Herald report included no verifiable details (such as the byline of the reporter who wrote it, the name of the clinic, the identity of any medical specialist there, or the name of the patients involved). Or that the same site ran a similarly outrageous and non-detailed article about a man who claimed he was sexually seduced by a horse. Or that the Mississippi Herald‘s web site includes no contact information — no physical address, phone number, or e-mail address — for its office or any of its personnel. Or that there is no such newspaper as the Mississippi Herald (the closest matches are a Biloxi publication called the Mississippi Sun-Herald and Water Valley’s small North Mississippi Herald), and the web site purporting to be such only sprang up online a few days before publishing the story referenced above. Or that the story was virtually identical word-for-word (save for the change in locale) to one published by the web site of another non-existent newspaper, the Denver Inquirer, back in December 2016 (also just after that site’s establishment):
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4262
|
Kentucky hosting Children’s Environmental Health Summit.
|
Kentucky officials say a Children’s Environmental Health Summit next week will include discussions about vaping use among youth, children’s dental health and childhood immunizations.
|
true
|
Health, General News, Kentucky, Environmental health, Somerset, Public health
|
A statement from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services says the agency is partnering with the Kentucky Population Health Institute to host the event on Oct. 10 at the Center for Rural Development in Somerset. Health and Family Services Secretary Adam Meier says the event is an opportunity to address any environmental issues that affect children’s health such as lead poisoning and contaminated food. He says the collaboration helps officials address the public health and safety of children and inform policy decisions and advocacy efforts. The free day-long summit is geared toward environmental health professionals, healthcare practitioners, public health specialists and school personnel.
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24716
|
When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft.
|
Biden wrong on the way germs travel through an aircraft
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false
|
National, Health Care, Transportation, Joe Biden,
|
"Vice President Joe Biden went on the Today show on April 30, 2009, to quell concern about swine flu. But he didn't quite stay on message. Interviewer Matt Lauer began by asking Biden why the federal government wasn't closing the border between the United States and Mexico, where the outbreak began. ""We have contacted and been in constant contact with the leading health experts both in the world as well as here in the United States, and they have suggested that that is not the way we should move,"" Biden told Lauer. Lauer pressed Biden further on closing borders, saying, ""Let me ask this, and this is by no means a gotcha type of question, I promise. But if a member of your family came to you ..."" — Biden laughs here — ""No, Mr. Vice President, if a member of your family came to you and said, 'Look, I want to go on a commercial airliner to Mexico and back,' within the next week, would you think it's a good idea?"" Biden: ""I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now. It's not that it's going to Mexico, it's you're in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That's me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway. So from my perspective what it relates to is mitigation. If you're out in the middle of a field and someone sneezes, that's one thing; if you're in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it's a different thing."" That ended Lauer's flu questions. (His other questions were about the economy, Sen. Arlen Specter's party switch, and why Biden wasn't included among members of Obama's team named to People magazine's list of most beautiful people.) Within hours, Biden's spokesman sent out a statement: ""On the Today Show this morning the vice president was asked what he would tell a family member who was considering air travel to Mexico this week. The advice he is giving family members is the same advice the administration is giving to all Americans: that they should avoid unnecessary air travel to and from Mexico. If they are sick, they should avoid airplanes and other confined public spaces, such as subways. This is the advice the vice president has given family members who are traveling by commercial airline this week. As the president said just last night, every American should take the same steps you would take to prevent any other flu: keep your hands washed; cover your mouth when you cough; stay home from work if you're sick; and keep your children home from school if they're sick."" We were most curious about Biden's statement that germs spread like crazy inside an airplane cabin. The Air Transport Association, an industry group that represents airlines, was none too pleased about his comments, and said they weren't true. ""Vice President Biden's comment that people should avoid air travel in response to the H1N1 flu outbreak was extremely disappointing,"" said James C. May, the group's president and CEO. ""The airlines have been working daily with government agencies, none of whom suggest people avoid air travel, unless they are not feeling well. The fact is that the air onboard a commercial aircraft is cleaner than that in most public buildings."" We wanted to consult an independent scientist, though, so we turned to Dr. Tony Overfelt of Auburn University. Overfelt is the executive director of the National Air Transportation Center of Excellence for Research in the Intermodal Transport Environment. The center is staffed by scientists at universities around the country who specialize in studying aircraft environment, and most of the center's funding is from the Federal Aviation Administration. Overfelt explained to us that the air in a commercial jet flows from the vents above passengers' heads to vents in the floor at their feet. That airflow sends particles down to the floor and into the aircraft's filtration system. The particles from a sneeze ""might travel a row or a couple of rows or something like that,"" Overfelt said. ""They're really not going to travel up and down the airplane as our vice president said."" ""Quite a bit of research indicates that,"" he added. And though it's not required, most commercial jets use high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters, which remove the moisture that would likely carry any viruses, Overfelt said. We were able to find a number of studies that bore out his point: • A 2002 report from the National Research Council noted that tuberculosis studies on airplanes found that infections were generally restricted to ""a few passengers seated close to the passenger with active tuberculosis."" • A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine on severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) found that patients who became infected on airplanes were ""clustered in the few rows directly in front of or behind the ill passenger, rather than being randomly distributed throughout the aircraft."" • A 2005 study in The Lancet concluded, ""The environmental control system used in commercial aircraft seems to restrict the spread of airborne pathogens, and the perceived risk is greater than the actual risk."" That's not to say that people shouldn't worry about germs on aircraft at all, Overfelt said. But the concern should be more focused on not touching something that a sick person touched. Overfelt said that when he flies, he washes his hands frequently and tries not to touch his face, especially his nose or eyes. This is tougher on an aircraft, he said, because humidity levels tend to be lower. That means the air is dry, and that tends to irritate the eyes, which leads to — you guessed it — rubbing your eyes. ""If someone were really worried about flying, they should take sanitizing wipes and wipe down the tray table and the arm rests and the seat-belt buckles,"" Overfelt said. ""With the hand wipes and some good common sense, people should be good to go. I wouldn't hesitate at all to get on an airplane."" If Biden had said people should be careful about touching contaminated surfaces, that would have been one thing. But his statement was ""When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft."" That's just wrong. And he made the statement in the context of a highly sensitive public health matter where it's important to give the public accurate information. For fanning the flames of fear without having the facts on his side."
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1029
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U.S. biologists probe deaths of 70 emaciated gray whales.
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U.S. government biologists have launched a special investigation into the deaths of at least 70 gray whales washed ashore in recent months along the U.S. West Coast, from California to Alaska, many of them emaciated, officials said on Friday.
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true
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Environment
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared the whale die-off an “unusual mortality event,” a designation that triggers greater scrutiny and allocation of more resources to determine the cause. So far this year, 37 dead gray whales have turned up in California waters, three in Oregon, 25 in Washington state and five in Alaska, say officials of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Five more were found in British Columbia. The most recent dead whale in Alaska was spotted last week near Chignik Bay on the Alaska peninsula. Many have little body fat, leading experts to suspect the die-off is caused by declining food sources in the dramatically warming waters of the northern Bering Sea and Chukchi Sea off Alaska. The gray whales summer there, consuming most of a year’s worth of nourishment to pack on the blubber they need to carry them through the migration south to wintering grounds off Mexico and back north to feeding grounds off Alaska. Sea ice has been at or near record lows in the Bering and Chukchi, and water temperatures have been persistently much higher than normal, an apparent consequence of human-caused climate change, scientists say. The conditions the whales encountered last summer could be hurting the animals now as they make their annual migration north, said scientists assembled by NOAA for a teleconference on Friday. “The Arctic is changing very, very quickly, and the whales are going to have to adjust to that,” Sue Moore, a University of Washington oceanographer, told reporters. Lack of sea ice may be reducing supplies of the tiny crustaceans known as amphipods that are the gray whales’ prime food source, Moore said. “The sea ice has been changing very quickly over the last decade or so,” she said. Another theory is that the number of whales has reached the limits of the environment’s natural capacity to sustain further population growth, scientists said on the call. The current estimated population of eastern North Pacific gray whales is about 27,000, the highest recorded by the agency since it began gray whale surveys in 1967, said biologist David Weller. “Keep in mind that carrying capacity is not a hard ceiling, but that it’s a shifting threshold,” said Weller, who is with the agency’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in San Diego.”In some years or period of years the environment is capable of supporting more whales than in other years.” The deaths could be caused by a combination of factors, as in other die-offs, the scientists said. Some whales have detoured into places like San Francisco Bay and Puget Sound, where they face a greater risk of ship strikes and other hazards, said John Calambokidis, a biologist and gray whale expert with the Cascadia Research Collective. “We are seeing lots of live gray whales in unusual areas, some of them clearly emaciated, trying to feed,” he said. More dead whales are expected to wash ashore during the northward migration, the scientists said. The total of dead whales documented probably represents a small fraction of those that have perished in the current episode, they said. The last major West Coast gray whale die-off, in 1999 and 2000, was believed to have been related to an ocean-warming El Nino event. It also triggered an unusual mortality event declaration.
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9562
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The drug industry might finally have an answer for migraines
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Migraine headaches are a problem for millions of individuals, and current treatments are sometimes insufficient, leaving people to cope as best they can with this often debilitating condition. This story is an overview about how four drug companies are working to develop injectable drugs whose antibodies would bind to a protein that plays a role in the dilation of blood vessels in the brain, the purported cause of headaches. The story’s headline—’The drug industry might finally have an answer for migraines’—is accurate, given its emphasis on conditional tense. But the drugs are still in development, and the story lacked important details on the trial data to indicate what potential these drugs may have. It tells us, for example, that migraine-days were cut in half. But half of what? Also, given the extensive sourcing of drug company representatives, we would have liked to have seen more specifics on the quality of the clinical trial evidence, the anticipated costs of these drugs, and side effects. These new drugs—if they pan out—may offer substantial relief to some patients. But this kind of early alert will likely send patients to their doctors way before medication is available, especially since it didn’t discuss downsides like predicted costs and specific side effects.
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false
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migraine
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Cost or an expected cost range for these drugs in development is not mentioned in the story, although one drug company source notes that the “hypercompetition” among the four companies may well influence price. There is an attempt to quantify the benefits, but it wasn’t sufficient to earn a Satisfactory rating: “In mid-stage clinical trials, each of the four treatments has eased symptoms for about half of study participants, cutting the number of days they’re afflicted by migraines roughly in half.” The story needs to report enough data so we know the number of subjects in the trial(s), the number of migraine-days they had (in this case) at baseline, and the number of migraine days they had on treatment. The question is: “Half of what?” None of the companies has reported “serious side effects,” according to the story, which does go on to note that the studies so far have been short-term, 12-week trials and that an understanding of the impact of the drugs “will take years.” However, we find this lacking. Even if there weren’t “serious” side effects, readers still want to know what the potential downsides are, and surely there were noted side effects that would have to be weighed against the benefits. We learn a bit about the trials, principally that they are “mid-stage,” involve some 1,500 patients and that participants were selected because they have serious migraine problems: at least four headaches per month. But important details—such as whether the trials were blinded and used placebo groups or another active medication—is not available. This was a close call, but we did feel the quote “It’s like you’re possessed” and similar strong statements crossed a line. Yes, migraines can be debilitating, but there are many effective treatments for most migraine sufferers. This story made it sound like the tortures of the damned and that none of the standard treatments helps. Although that is true for some people, it is unlikely to be true for a majority of migraine sufferers. Some attempt to acknowledge that there are effective treatments for many people would have helped balance this out. The story makes clear that four large drug companies are working to develop drugs, leading to an easy inference that the companies are funding the research. Among the story’s sources, those working for the companies are so identified and others are characterized as unaffiliated with the companies. Nothing in the story broaches possible conflicts of interest. The story includes the following discussion of alternatives: “Existing therapies are plagued by inconsistent efficacy and troublesome side effects, and patients are often left to rely on a repurposed treatment for epilepsy. That medication, Topamax, has been dubbed “Sleepomax” by doctors and patients because it’s also a heavy sedative.” Yet, there are many other treatments for migraine. Most people can learn triggers (changes in caffeine consumption, wine, etc); there are oral medications that can abort a migraine as it is started; and other classes of drugs (beta blockers and calcium channel blockers) can help prevent migraines in people who have them more than once per week. Only Topamax is mentioned, and is disparaged in the same sentence as being “plagued” with downsides. Yes, and the news is not good: The drugs are moving through the clinical trial process and have not yet received FDA approval. The story speculates that “the first therapy could hit the market in 2018,” a prediction that presumes no glitches will slow the process. The story notes that “targeting CGRP is not a particularly new idea,” and cites an earlier drug that caused liver toxicity. It was also easy to identify publications about this new drug target in PubMed, going back to 2007. The inclusion of four drug companies in this story suggests that the reporter engaged in substantial enterprise reporting. That feeling is bolstered by the use of two testimonials from migraine sufferers.
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29114
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Bananas will be extinct within ten years.
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What's true: The most popular form of banana, the cavendish, is currently threatened by a disease that could wipe it out. What's false: All types of bananas are not in danger of going extinct in the near future.
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mixture
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Food
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Once again, the ecological doomsday bell has been set to tolling, this time by folks fearful of the imminent demise of our favorite fruit, the banana: Local radio station reported that bananas as we know them will not be in existence in 5 to 15 years. The bananas has been genetically altered so much that new plants can not be grown as there are no seeds and the existing plants are slowly being destroyed by a parasite. In January 2003, a report in New Scientist suggested bananas could well disappear within ten years thanks to two blights: black Sigatoka, a leaf fungus, and Panama disease, a soil fungus which attacks the roots of the plant. Bananas aren’t about to be swept from the face of the earth by a deadly pestilence poised to wipe them out (and more than ten years has elapsed since that original report, yet bananas are still with us). There are several hundred different varieties of the fruit, and the reported fear applies to only one of them, the Cavendish. Granted, the Cavendish is our banana of choice and accounts for the overwhelming pronderance of banana exports and purchases, but it isn’t the only banana out there. Even if the Cavendish were lost to us, we would still not be singing “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” The Cavendish, the banana American consumers are most familiar with, has been threatened in some Asian countries by a strain of fusarium wilt known as Panama Disease or Tropical Race 4 (TR4). This soil-borne fungus attacks roots and cannot be controlled by fungicides; and if Race 4 were to reach Cavendish plants in large-scale commercial plantations, it could have a devastating impact on the species. Bananas stand in greater peril from disease and insect damage than the majority of other fruits because they are sterile, seedless mutants. New plants are created from cuttings of existing ones, making them little more than clones of one another. Without the natural diversity resulting from sexual reproduction, bananas continue on generation after generation with the same genetic makeup. Their inability to mutate and adapt leaves them vulnerable to species-wide disaster, because what fells one of them will prove the undoing of every plant within that particular variety. In the 1960s the Gros Michel, then a hugely popular variety of banana, was wiped out by another strain of Panama Disease. The loss of the Gros Michel promoted the Cavendish into the #1 spot. Lack of genetic diversity does place the banana in a precarious position, and the danger posed by Race 4 to the Cavendish is real. (Sigatoka, while serious, provides less of a threat in that it can be successfully combated.) According to scientists and banana experts who attended the three-day seminar on conventional and alternative handling of common banana diseases held 7-10 August 2003 in Guayaquil, Ecuador, bananas were still far from global extinction. Disease control alternatives such as the development of “plants resistant to the main diseases,” the employment of “friendly-bacteria, fungi and other micro-organisms,” and the increasing use of organic practices have contributed greatly to the successful control of feared banana plagues, they said. This echoes what was reported in February 2003 by a plant pathologist with the American Phytopathological Society (APS) in response to the controversial New Scientist article that brought the plight of the Cavendish to the public’s attention: “Diseases are, and will remain, major constraints to both export and subsistence production of banana, and there is no doubt that Black Sigatoka and Panama Disease constitute the most important threats,” said Randy C. Ploetz, Professor at the University of Florida’s Tropical Research and Education Center. “However, it is unlikely that these problems will cause production to decrease greatly in the next decade, let alone that the crop will become extinct.” For Race 4 to spread into the large plantations, either infected banana suckers or infested soil would have to be introduced into the growing fields. There was hope that forbidding practices that allowed this type of spread in banana export-producing countries, along with the starting of new plantations from pathogen-free, tissue cultured plants, would stop TR4 from reaching those plantations. However, news from mid-2015 indicated that TR4 was still spreading, and that some of those perilous growing practices were still in place among banana farmers: “[TR4’s] recent discovery in the Middle East and in Nampula, Mozambique, indicates that the disease is spreading and threatening bananas worldwide,” George Mahuku, Senior plant pathologist for the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), said. Even though the disease appears to have spread to just two plantations in Mozambique, the impact on the local economy is already severe: “The disease has already cost Matanuska, the company that owns the plantations, about $7.5 million. A total of 230,000 plants have been affected and destroyed. At the current rate of infection, the farm is losing 15,000 plants per week, translating to $236,000 per week,” said Mahuku. The disease is not more virulent than the one that killed the Gros Michel, but it’s spreading because the bad practices from 50 years ago are still in place: “The banana industry is in denial about this, and standard agricultural quarantines like fencing the crops and cleaning the equipment are not enough,” added [author Dan] Koeppel. The only solution would be to burn the plantation down and start over, but with a different crop. Restarting with bananas doesn’t work because the fungus stays in the soil. Still, argiculturalists hope that even if TR4 can’t be eradicated, it can at least be contained: In Africa, a 12-month emergency project funded by FAO is underway to tackle TR4, and Mahuku is optimistic that the disease can be contained to the areas where it has been observed: “To achieve this, financial resources are needed, otherwise inaction due to lack of resources will be catastrophic, especially for small farmers who depend on bananas for their livelihoods,” he said. According to Joao Augusto, a plant pathologist working with IITA in Mozambique, there aren’t many options to effectively control the disease: “It cannot be eradicated, but it can be limited if a wide range of strong preventive and mitigation initiatives are put in place and rigorously implemented. In countries where the disease is endemic, the banana growers have learned to live with it.” Ultimately, history could well repeat itself and prompt banana growers to look for a new alternative. There is no good candidate at the moment, but hybrids and GMOs are being considered. Bananas are a nutritional gold mine. At only 110 calories per 4-ounce offering, they contain a mere trace of fat. They are high in vitamin B6, which helps fight infection and is essential for the synthesis of heme, the iron-containing part of hemoglobin. They are also rich in potassium (more than 400 mg per banana) and are a great source of fiber. In recent years, a number of claims about their healthful benefits have surfaced, including that they combat warts, depression, and morning sickness. Although the jury is still out on those benefits, this humble yellow-skinned fruit could lower the risk of heart attack and stroke as part of a heart-healthy diet and could potentially even lower the risk of cancer. Or at least so says the FDA. Bananas, by the way, grow on plants, not trees. One last bit of banana trivia: a bunch of bananas is properly styled a hand, and a single fruit a finger.
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159
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Luxury leader LVMH, in green mode, laments Thunberg's pessimism.
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Environmental activist Greta Thunberg’s discourse on climate change was overly pessimistic and demoralizing for young people, LVMH (LVMH.PA) boss Bernard Arnault said on Wednesday, as the group behind brands like Louis Vuitton raised its “green” goals.
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true
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Environment
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LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury goods conglomerate, which like its peers is seeking to improve its environmental credentials and keep young consumers onside, said it was further cutting emissions and improving sourcing on materials like animal fur. But the group’s billionaire owner and CEO Bernard Arnault said he rejected what he called Thunberg’s doom-mongering. The 16-year-old Swedish campaigner berated world leaders and business executives at a United Nations climate summit in New York this week for failing to act more decisively on climate change, saying they had “stolen her dreams.” Her vision “has a demoralizing side to it for young people. She’s not proposing anyway, aside from criticism,” Arnault, 70, told journalists. “I prefer positive solutions that allow us to get towards a more optimistic position.” Fashion and textile groups are under pressure from consumers and environmentalists to try and reduce industry waste, including unsold clothing, and improve their manufacturing methods. Luxury companies turn out pricey products that are not mass produced, but they also face questions on everything from animal welfare to carbon emissions involved in exporting their wares around the world. Many LVMH fashion brands, which include Fendi, Christian Dior and Givenchy, make accessories such as handbags from exotic skins like python or crocodile. The group said it was bringing in a charter to ensure full traceability for all of its raw materials by 2025, which would allow it to track them back to precise farms in the case of farmed fur. Some rivals have dropped fur altogether, including France’s Chanel, Britain’s Burberry (BRBY.L) and Kering’s (PRTP.PA) Gucci. LVMH said it was on course to exceed its goal to cover 30% of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020 and also on track to cut its CO2 emissions by 25% by the same time. The group was glaringly absent from an industry “fashion pact” launched under the auspices of Kering in August with broad targets to reduce emissions. Signatories included France’s Hermes (HRMS.PA) as well as lower end and sportswear groups like Zara-owner Inditex (ITX.MC) and Adidas (ADSGn.DE). Stella McCartney, a pioneer in vegan-friendly fashion and whose namesake brand is now part-owned by LVMH, also backed the agreement. Arnault said the deal did not make sense for LVMH - beyond clothing brands it also owns champagne labels like Moet & Chandon - and that its business model was a world away from that of fast fashion firms. “We prefer action to pacts,” Arnault said. Younger luxury consumers - including the “millenials” in their late 20s and mid-30s who are driving industry sales - are more readily influenced in their purchases by sustainability matters than their elders, a Boston Consulting Group survey this year showed. Kering said earlier this week that it would become fully carbon neutral by offsetting all greenhouse gases from 2018 within the group and across its supply chain.
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30940
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"A photograph shows a foot after ""Cinderella Surgery."
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The morphing of shoe and foot that Julie Rrap has made in Overstepping exaggerate the implants, injections and surgical enhancements which have reshaped the female form today. Her high-heeled feet represent a possible endpoint for the idea of the malleable and fashionable body, aimed at the true fashion victim. For those who prefer comfortable shoes, this sci-fi melding of skin and stiletto is more mutilation that enhancement.
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false
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Fauxtography, cinderella, cinderella surgery, fake photo
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An image purportedly showing a foot after it was surgically modified to resemble a high heel shoe has been circulating online for several years along with the claim that this skin stiletto was the result of a procedure called “Cinderella surgery”: The image is actually a distorted version of artist Matilde Pernille’s digital work entitled “Fake VI.” When it was posted to her 500px photography page in 2013, it was tagged with the keywords “manipulation,” “fake,” and “photoshop.” Although this image was digitally manipulated, at least one podiatrist truly does perform “Cinderella procedures.” However, the results of these cosmetic foot surgeries are not nearly as extreme as those shown above — it is a surgery to remove bunions. The New York Times reported in 2014: For Dr. Sadrieh (who was wearing made-to-order Gucci brogues), foot surgery is a fusion of medicine and fairy tale. At his practice, you don’t have a bunionectomy; you have a Cinderella procedure. “I had never met a patient who asked for a hallux valgus correction with osteotomy and screw fixation,” he said. “So I decided to create a name that captures the result of the procedure, without all the Latin. The point of the Cinderella: being able to put a shoe on that didn’t fit comfortably before. He also has coined the Perfect 10! (aesthetic toe-shortening — once administered, he said, to a 17-year-old fashion model, so she could wear the shoes her career demanded); Model T (toe-lengthening); and Foot Tuck, a fat-pad augmentation that he said helps with high heels. Pernille’s artwork likely started to become associated with “Cinderella Surgery” shortly after the New York TImes piece on Sadrieh came out. When the web site Health 24 News later published an article on the same topic, this doctored image was predominantly featured. Pernille wasn’t the first to imagine a woman’s foot morphing into a high heel shoe made of flesh and bone. Artist Julie Rapp’s created a similar image in 2001 for a piece called “Overstepping”:
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29559
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Criminals have devised a new cell phone-like gun to fool police officers.
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What's true: A company created a prototype for a cell phone-like gun designed for licensed gun owners who wish to carry weapons discreetly. What's false: Criminals are illegally making cell phone-like guns in order to trick police.
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false
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Politics Guns, cell phone gun, gangs, war on police
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"On 26 February 2016, Facebook user Karl de la Guerra published an “Officer Warning” post alongside several pictures showing a gun disguised as a cell phone which was presented a threat to police: The photographs were shared tens of thousands of times, often as a warning to officers to remain vigilant, but the pictured item was neither illegal nor widely available at the time. According to the Facebook page “IDEAL Conceal — Patent Pending,” the depicted weapon was marketed to licensed gun owners as a discreet method of carrying: [We i]nvented a new style of self-defense. Looks like a cellphone when folded up, but push the saftey and you are ready to defend yourself. On 22 February 2016, the page posted an image indicating that the manufacturer advocated the guns to protect (not harm) police officers: YEPPER! Posted by IDEAL Conceal – patent pending on Monday, February 22, 2016 In a separate post, the company responded to a user interested in purchasing the concept gun: Prototype phase is finishing up, production mid-2016[.] Subsequent comments indicated that the concept was marketed at gun enthusiasts, not criminals: What you’re seeing is a 3D model. Production will begin mid-summer. Planning to show first proto-type in May at the NRA show in Loiseville!! STAY TUNED! IDEAL Conceal’s website listed a projected price ($395) and a target market: Specializing in concealed weaponry, we aim to deliver a high quality handgun that can be deployed very quickly for the defense of you or your family. The idea for Ideal Conceal follows the present-day demand for handguns that people can carry on a day to day basis, in a manner that makes carrying a gun easy to do. From soccer moms to professionals of every type, this gun allows you the option of not being a victim. Our mission is to promote security and public safety by designing and manufacturing innovative and unparalleled products engineered to protect … The unrivaled Ideal Conceal pistol is a carefully engineered double barreled derringer. Cunningly designed to look like a smartphone when folded up, one click of the safety and you’re ready to go. This product is a defensive weapon designed with the utmost safety in mind. On 28 February 2016, de la Guerra posted an updated about his original claim (but didn’t delete the first one): Friday morning I posted some information I found in a foreign publication regarding a .380 double barrel pistol designed to appear like a cell phone. As those of you who have followed me on FB for a while know, I regularly post information on dangerous items that can potentially cause harm to those in public safety. This is merely an extension of my work as a protective services instructor. Since I posted that last piece of information, the FB friend requests I have received has rapidly increased. And since I know none of these people, I can only assume that they took an interest in my post. In some cases it appears that interest is of a negative context. To further clarify my position, I have taken the liberty of posting a FB message I received this morning (no names mentioned) and my associated response. // <! [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')); // ]]> Friday morning I posted some information I found in a foreign publication regarding a .380 double barrel pistol designed… Posted by Karl de la Guerra on Sunday, February 28, 2016 The rumor strongly resembled earlier warnings about purported Super Soaker modifications as “new gang trends,” or a claim that gang members were removing lug nuts from officers’ vehicles. All instances seemed to involve warnings rooted in things folks imagined criminals might be doing, rather than information about things that criminals actually were doing. IDEAL Conceal told us that the device was designed for officers (and others) to carry guns discreetly and legally, and that the manufacturers are strong supporters of law enforcement: Thanks so much for taking the time to contact us. We totally support law enforcement. Further, we would never promote or make a product for ambushing anyone, let alone police. In fact we have received MANY requests from Law Enforcement to purchase this weapon for undercover and off duty officers. This gun is for people who need or want to carry to protect themselves. Also, this pistol cannot be fired from the closed position as people assume. This is just an everyday type of conceal carry handgun. Also, it is not even on the market yet. Will come out mid-2016. Thanks again for contacting us. Hopefully you can help correct this dreadful rumor. The gun’s makers expressed support for both police and the National Rifle Association, and the stealth gun didn’t appear to be in any way a covert criminal effort to get the jump on cops. Also, people reaching for actual phones and wallets have been shot by officers in the past, making the premise that carrying a phone-shaped gun in your pocket was an effective way to target police officers extremely shaky. However, cell phone guns were not unheard of before this. In the past fifteen years, various warnings have been sounded about guns disguised as phones (and other everyday objects) but this is the first time that they appear to have been marketed to mainstream gun enthusiasts in the United States."
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24188
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Nearly all of the top 50 prescribers of oxycodone in the United States are in Florida.
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AG candidate Kottkamp says nearly all of nation's top 50 oxycodone prescribers are in Florida
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true
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Crime, Florida, Jeff Kottkamp,
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"Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, who is seeking the Republican nomination for attorney general, is highlighting the abuse of prescription drugs as a key issue in his statewide campaign.Kottkamp wrote a column that was published in newspapers across the state detailing the severity of the problem in Florida. ""An average of six Floridians die each day from a prescription drug overdose — five times as many deaths as from all illegal drugs combined,"" he wrote in article published Feb. 28, 2010. ""In fact, the number of drug overdose deaths in Florida increased by 77 percent from 2003 to 2008, and each one involved at least one prescription drug. ""Often the illegal prescription drug of choice is oxycodone, a very strong narcotic commonly prescribed to relieve moderate to severe pain,"" Kottkamp wrote. ""Nearly all of the top 50 prescribers of oxycodone in the United States are located in Florida. ""Kottkamp's op-ed contains several interesting facts, but we're choosing to focus on perhaps the most startling number -- that ""nearly all of the top 50 prescribers of oxycodone in the United States are located in Florida. ""Oxycodone is the active ingredient in OxyContin and other painkillers such as Percocet. Oxycodone abuses have been well documented, particularly the problems in Florida. From 2001 to 2008, more than 2,000 Floridians have died of overdoses of oxycodone, the St. Petersburg Times reported. The Miami Herald also wrote an in-depth examination of the problem last year.Kottkamp said the problem was more severe in Florida because the state had lax regulation, particularly in tracking clinics that prescribed a large amount of the drug.Abuse, in part, stems from ""pill mills,"" which can be advertised as pain clinics, but can also be health care facilities that routinely conspire in prescribing and dispensing controlled substances, Kottkamp says.Are almost all of the top 50 prescribers of oxycodone -- the leading candidates to be pill mills -- in Florida?We started by asking the Governor's Office of Drug Control, a group Kottkamp leads, to see if the figure was accurate.Bruce Grant, the director of the drug control office, cited a report from the United Way of Broward County Commission on Substance Abuse. While the report focuses primarily on Broward County, it uses national figures from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to say that 49 of the 50 top prescribers are in Florida. And 25 of the top 50 prescribers are in Broward, according to the report, which relied on figures from Oct. 1, 2008 to March 31, 2009. ""We're trying -- without saying the sky is falling -- to let people know this is a genuine crisis,"" said Grant. ""This is bad. ""Grant said South Florida has become a popular marketplace for people from all over the country who want the painkiller. ""If you go down there, when you see what's going on, it will blow your mind,"" Grant said. ""The parking lots are literally filled with out of state plates. People from Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, they're hanging around. People are lined up outside the doors. ""DEA Special Agent David Melenkevitz, who is based in Miami, confirmed the accuracy of the Broward report. He said the numbers come from oxycodone distribution statistics, which the DEA tracks. A list of the specific pharmacies or clinics is not public record, Melenkevitz said. And what can be done to tame the problem?In an interview, Kottkamp said the Legislature took a good first step last year when it approved a bill that requires the state to track and monitor the distribution of certain prescription drugs. Kottkamp also supports measures that would regulate who can own a pain clinic, restrict the ability of clincis to be ""cash only,"" and take away the ability to dispense medications on site. ""We need to bring all of our resources to bear,"" Kottkamp said. ""What we don't want to happen is that these clinics move out of South Florida and just move to some other part of the state. We want to drive them out of business all together. ""Back to Kottkamp's original statement. Trying to underscore the severity of the prescription drug problem in Florida, Kottkamp said that ""nearly all of the top 50 prescribers"" of the powerful pain killer oxycodone in the country are located in Florida. The DEA, using its most recent data, says that 49 out of 50 of the top oxycodone prescribers are located in Florida."
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5135
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Massachusetts reports 2nd vaping-related death.
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Massachusetts health officials say a second state resident has died from a vaping-related lung illness.
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true
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Health, Vaping, General News, Massachusetts, Charlie Baker
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Marylou Sudders, secretary of Health and Human Services, told WGBH-FM on Wednesday that the second resident was a woman in her 40s from Middlesex County. The state previously said a woman in her 60s from Hampshire County died of a vaping-related illness. No additional information was released. Sudders says both deaths were attributed to the use of nicotine vaping products. She says the state has had 204 suspected cases of vaping-related pulmonary illnesses, 61 of which were reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as confirmed or probable. Sudders and Republican Gov. Charlie Baker defended the state’s four-month ban on the sale of all vaping products, which has been challenged in court. ___ Information from: WGBH-FM, http://www.wgbh.org
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7206
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Bernie Sanders in North Carolina calls for “moral economy”.
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Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has told a North Carolina audience that the nation needs a “moral economy.”
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true
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North Carolina, Universal health care, Durham, Bernie Sanders, Economy
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Sanders’ visit Thursday night to Duke University in Durham included his usual push for free college, universal health care and a $15-per-hour minimum wage. Sanders had pushed those same ideas in his unsuccessful Democratic president campaign in 2016. He said people should be able to live with dignity and security in the wealthiest nation in the world. Sanders appeared with the Rev. William Barber II, former head of the North Carolina NAACP and founder of the Moral Monday protest movement in Raleigh. Barber is fighting against racism, economic inequality and for morality as national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and president of Repairers of the Breach.
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25793
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“If the vaccine came out tomorrow, how in the heck would we get it to people? There is no game plan.”
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As of early August, the federal government has no public plan showing how it plans to distribute a COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC and the National Academies of Sciences are working on recommendations for vaccine distribution. The Defense Department will handle logistics for the vaccine, but the CDC will handle tracking patients. The CDC told states to submit their vaccine plans by the end of September.
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true
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Coronavirus, Joe Biden,
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"Scientists have expressed cautious optimism that a vaccine will be ready in the spring of 2021 (and President Donald Trump has hinted at an even more aggressive timeline). But that has raised a key question: Does the federal government have a plan to distribute it? Former Vice President Joe Biden says no. ""If the vaccine came out tomorrow, how in the heck would we get it to people? There is no game plan they have,"" Biden told associations that represent Black and Hispanic journalists Aug. 6. ""How would everybody in America have access to it? It is a gigantic problem to distribute, even if we have it, and that’s what we should be planning for now, not when we get it."" The federal government has not yet released a plan about how it will distribute vaccines. But in the past two weeks, federal officials have spoken about vaccine distribution planning, including the role of the Defense Department. And committees are working on recommendations about how to distribute the vaccine, while the CDC asked a few to join a pilot program to plan for distribution. ""There is no national COVID-19 vaccination distribution plan, yet. So that is true,"" said Michael Fraser, CEO of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. Most of the experts we spoke with said the government’s efforts have been too slow, and states face too many unknowns to do their part in planning to vaccinate millions of people. ""This is going to be the most challenging, complex mass vaccination program ever attempted,"" said Dr. Kelly Moore, who works at the Immunization Action Coalition and ran Tennessee's H1N1 vaccination program. It’s not yet known precisely when the vaccine will be available to the public. Six vaccines are in the third phase of testing that involves thousands of patients. Like earlier phases, this one looks at the safety of a vaccine, but it also examines effectiveness and collects more data on side effects. Results of the third phase will be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. After the FDA licenses the vaccine, recommendations will be given about who should get the vaccine, and distribution will follow, said Dr. Carol Baker, a pediatrician who is an alternate liaison to a COVID-19 vaccines working group. Federal health officials have generally predicted that the vaccine will be available in early 2021. There are two committees working on recommendations for the CDC about vaccine distribution. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a long-standing committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, formed a COVID-19 vaccines working group in April. The group’s next meeting on Aug. 26 will be publicly live streamed. Recommendations about who should get the vaccine first are expected by the fall. The committee has wrestled with questions about whether to prioritize groups who have been infected at higher rates, such as Black and Latino people. Another difficult question is defining who is an essential worker. ""There is no right answer there,"" said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, a liaison to the working group. ""Grocery store workers vs. long haul truckers vs. people who work to keep the electrical grid up ... you can go on and on. Your priority list is valid, but so is mine."" In July, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and the National Academy of Medicine formed a committee to help make a plan for vaccine distribution. Some experts told us it’s unclear why there are two separate committees working on the same task, while others said the CDC group will be the key group to make recommendations to the CDC. One key question has been about Trump’s comments that the military would be involved with logistics of vaccine distribution, a first. Trump told reporters July 28 that the military is ""all mobilized. It’s been fully set up. When we have that vaccine, it will be discharged and taken care of. It’ll be a very rapid process all over the country."" But a McClatchy report the next day cast doubt on Trump’s statements. Two defense officials told McClatchy that the military commands most likely to be involved in a delivery strategy had not been asked to prepare one. A Health and Human Services official told McClatchy that military help may not be required at all, and it would be the exception, not the norm. A Biden campaign spokesman pointed to the conflicting statements to argue that no distribution plan exists. Following McClatchy’s article, administration officials held a conference call with reporters about vaccination distribution. (For our fact-check, the White House and other administration officials directed us to the transcript of that press phone call.) A senior administration official said the Defense Department will handle the logistics of distribution and ""kitting,"" which means the packaging of the vaccine, along with related equipment, including needles, syringes and vials. The CDC will handle tracking of patients following vaccination and communications with state health departments. An official said that the distribution will be different from the seasonal flu vaccine because the government will actively target vulnerable groups, such as people in nursing homes and frontline health care workers. Another key piece of vaccine distribution planning lies with the states. The CDC launched a pilot program with North Dakota, Florida, California and Minnesota as well as the city of Philadelphia to work on a vaccination response, according to a letter written by Nancy Messonnier, a CDC official, Aug. 4. While the letter says that the pilot program will be a model for other states, it doesn’t give states much time to receive and implement the best practices from that pilot program. The states have until the end of September to develop vaccination plans that will then be reviewed by the CDC and Operation Warp Speed, the federal government’s effort to fasttrack the availability of vaccines. Those plans should include mass vaccination clinics, signing agreements with providers and identifying high-risk communities that will require additional outreach. ""States must be allowed sufficient time to absorb what has been learned in these pilots and customize it to their own specific state and needs,"" said James Blumenstock, chief program officer for health security at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. ""Everyone questions if all of that can be done successfully between now and Sept 30."" States can build off of their existing programs to administer childhood vaccines and the seasonal flu shot, and the H1N1 vaccine in 2009. But the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine poses some additional challenges. For example: H1N1 was a single dose vaccine. The federal government has told states to prepare for a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine that will need to be administered likely three or four weeks later. While about 90 million people received the H1N1 vaccine, the federal government is planning for 300 million people to receive COVID-19. Vaccines may have cold storage rules of around minus 80 degrees Celsius, far colder than other vaccines. ""We’ve never distributed a vaccine that required that before,"" Moore said. ""We don’t have a cold chain that exists currently that can take that."" States have been directed to write plans for distribution without knowing important details about the vaccines and how much federal money they will receive to help with an unprecedented vaccination effort. ""Vaccination planning efforts are not as far along as they should be if the first COVID-19 vaccines actually do become available for shipping as early as late 2020,"" Moore said. ""Much of this delay has come from confusion at the federal level about who is directing the implementation of the national vaccination program. States cannot make firm plans with their private sector partners until these basic decisions are made at the federal level and until they are told how the federal government intends for vaccines to reach them."" Biden said that ""if the vaccine came out tomorrow, how in the heck would we get it to people? There is no game plan."" Biden is correct that there isn’t a detailed vaccine distribution plan written by the federal government at this time. But the vaccine isn’t coming out tomorrow, and a federal plan is in the works. There are committees working on recommendations for vaccine distribution to include which groups should get the vaccine first. The CDC also asked four states and a city to pilot a program for vaccine distribution. Nationwide, states are expected to submit their own vaccination distribution plans by the end of September to the federal government. There are a lot of unanswered questions that will affect vaccine distribution. But the planning is happening."
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9991
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Progress made on artificial pancreas for diabetic patients
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The biggest shortcoming with this story is the failure to evaluate the quality of the evidence at this point. The story doesn’t emphasize for readers how preliminary this research is. For instance, we’re not told that: * Research presented at a conference has not been peer-reviewed and is considered preliminary;* 12 people in a study is tiny;* There are limitations with what you can say given the extreme short-term length of the study (2 nights);* Overall, the technology has only been tested at night and not in a home-based, real-world scenario; see the MedPageToday coverage for such caveats;* This evidence isn’t of such overwhelming quality that no further research is necessary to prove it works: the investigators are planning future studies in the home setting;* Challenges remain, as pointed out in a recent Lancet editorial, in getting the approach and algorithms to work during the daytime, when there will be varying meals and periods of physical activity. The results of 12 people using a new technology for 1 night presented without peer review — the extremely early phase of this research simply isn’t conveyed to readers.
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false
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"Costs aren’t mentioned for the approach being researched nor for its constituent technologies, continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps. The two components are not cheap and many insurance companies aren’t covering them except in special circumstances. We do receive one set of data on benefits, the 70% vs. 47%. We’re unable to verify these numbers, as the abstract available online and MedPageToday coverage both cite ""Time in Target"" as 72% and 50%. Perhaps 70% and 47% come from a different source, such as the ADA symposium, press briefing, or teleconference with the investigators. Beyond the numbers, we take some issues with the presentation of benefits. First, the language in the opening paragraph that ""an ‘artificial pancreas’…will help better control the swings of blood glucose that come with the disease."" That’s a bit too definitive at this stage. Second, any comparative benefits are not meaningful if we don’t know who the comparator group was. Finally, as we discussed in detail in our review of the HealthDay article, we feel than an independent voice should’ve been provided to tell us the meaning of the benefits. What does the percent of time spent in or out of target range mean? What are the consequences? Specific data on harms aren’t mentioned, just a mention of a prior study that demonstrated that this approach could reduce dangerous hypoglycemic episodes in children, and the funder’s quote that more and more studies are telling us the approach can be done safely. Even within the limited scope of this preliminary study, the author could’ve mentioned the data on severe hypoglycemia in these adults (1 episode in the comparator group, 0 for the closed-loop system). That’s harder to do when the article doesn’t name the comparator therapy. The story also could have highlighted the challenges of using this technology even in a controlled research setting. The author neglects to tell her lay readers, in several ways, how preliminary this research is. For instance, we’re not told that: * Research presented at a conference has not been peer-reviewed and is considered preliminary* 12 people is not enough to play softball, no matter prove the efficacy, safety, and inevitable marketing of a new therapy; the author didn’t have to get into the nitty-gritty of statistical power but simply acknowledge that 12 is tiny* The study was only for 2 nights, and only for 1 night were subjects actually using the new technology (vs. the comparator technology); it’s extremely short-term* Overall, the technology has only been tested at night and not in a home-based, real-world scenario; see the MedPageToday coverage for such caveats* This evidence isn’t of such overwhelming quality that no further research is necessary to prove it works: the investigators are planning future studies in the home setting* The study focused on the overnight period, which required subjects to separately take insulin with their meal before using the device; so the ""artificial pancreas"" didn’t replace mealtime insulin* Challenges remain, as pointed out in a recent Lancet editorial, in getting the approach and algorithms to work during the daytime, when there will be varying meals and periods of physical activity We’re not naysayers or mindless contrarians. We want this research to work fantastically well and become available to patients soon. But we also want readers to understand that many investigational therapies at the same stage as this technology fail, or even prove more harmful than helpful, when they undergo more advanced research and never make it to patients. Hope doesn’t have to be false, and optimism can be cautious. Some other more technical details about the evidence are absent. It’s vague about the comparator group, saying it was the time when subjects ""didn’t use the technology."" It should be clear, the technology here is the computer algorithm and researcher manual adjustment of the pump; the approach was compared to conventional insulin pump therapy, and that’s what the 47% refers to. (As this was a crossover study, the subjects had 1 night of each approach.) See our comments on the other criteria, such as Availability, for more gaps and sinkholes in this story. The article doesn’t overstate the significance of diabetes. One presumably unaffiliated source may have been consulted about the study. We say ""may"" because the paragraph is vague: Even with this technology, you’re still working backward, says endocrinologist Robert Rizza, executive dean of research at the Mayo Clinic. ""It takes time for that insulin to be absorbed. Despite that fact, it’s been working very well and helps avoid very high and very low blood sugars. ""When he says ""it’s been working very well,"" is he offering independent evaluation of this research on closed loop insulin delivery? Or does he mean any insulin pump — which falls under the same description — has in the real world been ""working very well and helps to avoid very high and very low blood sugars"" ? Being this vague, it’s hard for us to say we got an independent take on this research, particularly with the lack of caveats to be found anywhere on the preliminary nature of the research. The article doesn’t compare the approach with available alternatives, not even the existing alternative the study itself used as a comparator group. When the authors summarized the Lancet study from earlier this year, which showed that this approach ""could better control blood glucose levels during sleep and reduce the chance of hypoglycemia,"" we’re left with the question — compared to what? We’re not disputing the summary of that study, but what did the study compare the artificial pancreas to? While the article is clear that closed-loop glucose control is not currently available, it makes availability seem inevitable. The opening line says that scientists are ""getting closer to offering"" it. A representative from a funder says the group believes the technology could be available within the next few years."" A non-peer-reviewed study of 12 subjects over 2 nights does not guarantee availability, and it’s inappropriate to assume it. According to the study’s abstract, the approach required manual adjustments of insulin infusion rate. We take that phrase to mean that the ""artificial pancreas"" in this study isn’t a device, like a prosthetic pancreas that might be implied by the catchy name. Rather, the study required researchers to manually adjust the patient’s insulin pump while the patient slept (checking every 15 minutes), as opposed to that autonomous feedback loop between monitor and pump described in the study, like an algorithm that automatically and safely adjusts the infusion rate based on the data from the continuous glucose monitor. That’s why this research is still ""in clinic."" And, unless this artificial pancreas will come with a team of clinically trained elves who stay up all night to operate the pump, it shows that the approach is not as ready for prime-time as a lay reader would think from the article and its definition of a device-like ""artificial pancreas."" The article is clear which devices within the ""artificial pancreas"" approach are already in use and the novelty of the computer program that helps the two devices talk to each other. As noted, the story could’ve been clearer about the difference between that system and the preliminary one used in the study, which required manual adjustments to the pump overnight — not just sophisticated software — to help the glucose monitor and insulin pump chat. Not applicable because we don’t know the sources used in the study. It doesn’t appear to rely overly on the ADA press release. However, several stories in the media that covered both the Hovorka study and the Ritholz study explicitly relied heavily on a press briefing or teleconference, and the flow leads us to think this story was no different."
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33761
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Arby's roast beef is made from a paste, gel, powder, or liquid.
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Arby’s derived its name, by the way, from the phonetic sound of the initials R.B. However, the “R.B.” does not, as many folks conclude, represent “roast beef” but rather “Raffel Brothers,” the restaurant equipment business owned and operated by Forrest and Leroy Raffel that was the forerunner to the successful sandwich chain. In its history, Arby’s quotes Forrest Raffel as saying, “We came up with Arby’s, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef.”
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false
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Food, arby's, Odd Ingredients, roast beef
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A number of readers have written to us in the past few years to inquire regarding a rumor they’ve heard about Arby’s, a popular roast beef sandwich franchise. According to scuttlebutt, the meat used by that chain in its sandwiches isn’t actually beef but is instead an imitation foodstuff arrived at by reconstituting a powder, gel, paste, or liquid, then shaping the resultant mass into something approaching the appearance of a cut of meat before roasting, cooling, and slicing it. How long this rumor has been out there is hard to say, but it first came to us in 1997. We asked Arby’s about the meat they use, and here is their response: Thank you for doing your part to curb the urban legend about Arby’s Roast Beef. I’m sure I’m not the first to express frustration about this type of story.The answer to your question is no. Our product does not arrive as a paste, gel or liquid. Arby’s Roast Beef consists entirely of Beef and a Self-Basting solution, which contains just enough water to keep the product juicy throughout our restaurants’ 3-hour roasting process and during slicing — this ensures that we will deliver the quality that our customers have come to expect from our famous roast beef sandwiches. Jim Lowder Arby’s, LLC Quality Assurance A number of sources of our acquaintance who have worked in the kitchens and at the counters of various Arby’s bear out what the corporation has to say. They told us that the beef arrives pre-packaged at each restaurant, leaving employees of each franchise only to cut open the plastic, place the roasts on cooking sheets, and cook them for three hours before cooling, slicing, and serving. As one of those employees who had been in charge of the meat slicer at an Arby’s restaurant explained to us, most packaged bulk meat arrives packed in a gelatinous broth inside plastic airtight bags. Someone who is less than familiar with what the product looks like upon arrival might mistake the gelatinous broth for the beef itself, then from there jump to the conclusion that the contents of the package is a gel or paste. Granted, what’s inside those airtight bags may not resemble actual roast beef in color or texture (the meat is kind of grayish and rather soft and squishy, enough so that one could easily poke a finger through it), but it’s still not a liquid, gel or paste. Rumors about the meat being served by other fast food outlets has been the subject of whispers too. In the 1970s McDonald’s was deviled by the rumor that its hamburgers were made with worm meat. Wendy’s has apparently also picked up a meat adulteration rumor: I have heard from several friends that the Wendy’s fast food chain uses meat with an edible styrofoam compound as to save money on cost. I’m very skeptical about this, but I’ve been surprised at the number of people that have heard this rumor. This arose from an outing to Wendy’s with friends. I bit in to a burger and was welcomed with something hard and tough, but couldn’t manage to find anything after that. I dismissed it as a piece of cartilage or grisle that made it into the meat, but everyone else at the table had heard this rumor from various sources.
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35704
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"Racial justice activist Shaun King said statues of ""white Jesus"" should be torn down."
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A New Zealand military team in gas masks and hazmat suits recovered six bodies on Friday from the volcanic island that fatally erupted earlier this week, as doctors worked to save badly burned survivors.
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true
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Politics, George Floyd Protests
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An eight-person bomb disposal squad set off before dawn and spent four hours on White Island, which experts said could erupt again. Six of the eight bodies on the island were successfully retrieved and taken to a naval patrol vessel for transfer to the mainland for disaster victim identification. “Today was all about returning them to their loved ones,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a media conference in Whakatane, the mainland coastal town where about 100 family and local community members prayed and sang together. “We know that reunion won’t ease that sense of loss, of suffering because I don’t think anything can but we felt an enormous sense of duty as New Zealanders to bring their loved ones home.” The team was unable to find and recover the remaining two bodies as the cumbersome protective equipment they needed to wear slowed down the tricky operation. Police said dive teams deployed in the waters around the island, which is also known by its Maori name of Whakaari, had not found anything and would try again on Saturday. “It’s not over yet,” New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush told reporters in Whakatane, some 50 km (30 miles) west of the island. Pictures showed pairs of military personnel wearing breathing apparatus scouring the lunar-like landscape as inflatable dinghies and a police launch waited offshore. The volcano, a popular tourist destination for day-trippers, erupted on Monday, spewing ash, steam and gases over the island. Among the 47 people on the island at the time were Australian, U.S., German, Chinese, British and Malaysian tourists. The official death toll stands at eight as the bodies on the island have been classified as missing until they are formally identified. More than two dozen more people are in hospitals across New Zealand and Australia, most with severe burn injuries. A blessing was held at sea with the victims’ families before the mission was launched. Locals Boz Te Moana, 24 and Michael Mika, 28, came to support families gathered at the marae, a Maori community center, in Whakatane. “Where we come from we don’t leave anyone behind, no one gets left behind,” Te Moana said of his Maori community. “We all move as one.” Relatives sat among the coffins of those who were recovered on Friday, not knowing which belonged to their family member, senior legislator Kelvin Davis told reporters. “But it was just an opportunity, as they said, regardless of whether we’re from Australia or New Zealand or wherever, that the moment we’re one whanau (family) and will mourn everybody as if they are our own.” GRAPHIC: Volcanic Eruption in New Zealand (here) Australians made up the majority of the tourists visiting the island at the time of the explosion and those recovered on Friday. Many of them were passengers on a Royal Caribbean Cruises ship on a day tour to the island. Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said 11 injured Australians have been transferred from overloaded burns units in New Zealand, with one more to be repatriated in the “coming days”. Peter Haertsch, the doctor in charge of the burns unit caring for the returned Australians, said they been exposed to fast-moving clouds of very hot volcanic gas, pumice and ash. “They have suffered severe contact skin burns with severe injuries due to inhalation of gas and ash, and we are looking at extensive and intensive care for these patients, some of whom are still in a life-threatening condition,” Haertsch said in an emailed statement. Payne said Australia was working with the United States and other countries to source some of the urgently needed 1.2 million square cms (186,000 square inches) of skin, an amount that far exceeds annual donations in New Zealand and Australia. “It’s jarring for us to hear just the sheer scale of that need because it amplifies just how horrific some of the injuries are,” Ardern told ABC Radio. GRAPHIC: Volcano map of New Zealand (here) Authorities had faced growing pressure in recent days from families of some victims to recover the bodies as soon as possible. There has also been criticism that tourists were allowed on the island at all, given the risks of an active volcano. Pressed to discuss whether the island should have been open, Ardern said she didn’t want to preempt an inquiry which has been launched. “I think families would be best served by that, rather than speculation.” GRAPHIC: Volcanic alerts for White Island since 1995 (here)
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35219
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Democrats in New York stashed ventilators in a warehouse in an effort to make the COVID-19 pandemic worse.
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However, both the above-displayed Facebook meme and Trump’s tweet contained misleading information.
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false
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Politics, COVID-19
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In late March 2020, Facebook users shared a misleading meme that suggested “Democrats” in New York, which had been hard hit by the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic, were hiding ventilators in storage even as officials there begged the federal government to send them thousands in preparation for an onslaught of patients struck by the illness. COVID-19 can lead to serious illness and hospitalization, and in the most severe cases, patients are left unable to breathe on their own. States with rising numbers of COVID-19 cases were scrambling to supply hospitals with enough ventilators to meet expected need. The Facebook meme claimed that Democrats were purposely trying to make the pandemic worse by stashing ventilators in a warehouse instead of distributing them to hospitals, where they were needed. The posts, in part, echoed a tweet from U.S. President Donald Trump that suggested New York wasn’t acting quickly enough to distribute ventilators delivered by the federal government:
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8742
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WHO warns against use of electronic cigarettes.
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The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned on Friday against using electronic cigarettes, saying there was no evidence to prove they were safe or helped smokers break the habit.
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true
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Health News
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A woman displays a package of E-cigarette, an electronic substitute in the form of a rod, slightly longer than a normal cigarette, in Bordeaux, southwestern France, in this file photo from March 25, 2008. The changeable filter contains a liquid with nicotine and propylene glycol. When the user inhales as he would when smoking, air flow is detected by a sensor and a micro-processor activates an atomizer which injects tiny droplets of the liquid into the flowing air, producing a vapour. E cigarette is powered by a rechargeable battery. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau First made in China and sold mainly over the Internet in countries including Brazil, Britain, Canada and Israel, they have grown in popularity despite a lack of regulatory approval, it said. A typical electronic cigarette is made of metal tube with a chamber which holds liquid nicotine in a rechargeable cartridge. Users puff on it but do not light it, leading some to use it to evade smoking bans in public places, according to the WHO. However, they inhale a fine mist of nicotine into their lungs, “plus potentially many other toxic compounds which we are not sure of”, said to Douglas Bettcher, acting director of the WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative. “The World Health Organisation knows of absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever that would confirm that the electronic cigarette is a safe and effective smoking cessation device,” Bettcher told a news briefing. “Toxicological tests and clinical trials have not been performed on this product,” he said. The electronic cigarette has yet to be shown to be a legitimate therapy like nicotine gum, patches or lozenges that help wean smokers from nicotine addiction, the U.N. agency said. “If the manufacturers and marketers of the electronic cigarette want to help smokers to quit, then they should operate within proper regulatory frameworks, Bettcher said. This meant rigorous clinical and toxicological studies must be carried out. The WHO was greatly concerned that some manufacturers had used the WHO name or logo on their package or website, falsely implying endorsement, Bettcher said, declining to name names. The agency was contacting health authorities in its 193 member states to alert them of “these bogus, untested false claims”. Turkey had already banned sales, he said. The WHO agency had become aware only this year of the spreading use of electronic cigarettes worldwide. “It has really taken countries and the WHO by surprise. It has been a product that appeared very suddenly on the market in a short period of time,” Bettcher said. In 2003 WHO members clinched a treaty calling for stronger warnings on cigarette packages and limits on advertising and sponsorship. Some 160 countries have ratified the landmark pact. Tobacco use is the single largest cause of preventable death worldwide, contributing to 5.4 million deaths from heart disease, stroke and other diseases annually, the WHO says.
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29024
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Honey and cinnamon possess significant medicinal virtues.
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What's true: Both cinnamon and honey have properties allowing them to help with issues like skin infections, toothaches or otherwise minor ailments. What's false: Neither of them can help with broad-ranging pain or other major health concerns.
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mixture
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Medical, ASP Article, Home Cures
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An item extolling the medicinal virtues of honey and cinnamon is based upon a 17 January 1995 article that appeared in the Weekly World News, the erstwhile supermarket tabloid known for publishing the fantastically fictional (it has since transitioned to an online medium), so as a piece of medical literature it should be taken with many grains of salt. In general, both cinnamon and honey have some moderate antibacterial/antiseptic properties, so the use of them may help ameliorate symptoms of minor ailments such as bladder infections, toothaches, pimples, and skin infections (if those ailments are being caused by bacteria that are sensitive to honey and/or cinnamon). However, neither honey nor cinnamon provides broad-spectrum relief of pain or other symptoms, and more efficacious remedies for all of these problems are readily and cheaply available. As for the more grandiose medical claims made here, however, there’s no credible evidence that either honey or cinnamon is effective in lowering cholesterol levels and thereby heading off heart attacks. And although some studies have tenatively found that honey and cinnamon may each potentially have properties that could aid in the prevention or suppression of some types of cancer, no study has documented that “advanced cancer of the stomach and bones have been cured successfully” through the admnistration of those two substances. Honey and cinnamon (individually and together) have long been touted in folklore and traditional medicine as possessing significant nutritional and health benefits (even though how much those supposed benefits have been borne out by modern scientific studies varies quite widely). The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods notes of cinnamon, for example, that: Cinnamon has a long history of use in both Eastern and Western cultures as a medicine. Some of its reported uses are in cases of arthritis, asthma, cancer, diarrhea, fever, heart problems, insomnia, menstrual problems, peptic ulcers, psoriasis, and spastic muscles. There are scientific studies to support some of these uses. Some of the confirmed effects of cinnamon are as a sedative for smooth muscle, circulatory stimulant, carminative, digestant, anticonvulsant, diaphoretic, diuretic, antibiotic, and antiulcerative. One recent investigation of sixty people with type 2 diabetes demonstrated that 1 to 6 grams of cinnamon taken daily for forty days reduced fasting blood glucose by 18 to 29 percent, triglycerides by 23 to 30 percent, LDL (bad) cholesterol by 7 to 27 percent, and total cholesterol by 12 to 26 percent. In contrast, there were no clear changes for the subjects who did not take the cinnamon. Cinnamon’s unique healing abilities come from three basic components in the essential oils found in its bark. These oils contain active components called cinnamaldehyde, cinnamyl acetate, and cinnamyl alcohol, plus a wide range of other volatile substances. Cinnamon is often used in multicomponent Chinese herbal formulas, some of which have been studied for clinical effects. For example, cinnamon combined with Chinese thoroughwax (Bupleurum lactiflora) was shown to produce satisfactory results in the treatment of epilepsy. Out of 433 patients treated (most of whom were unresponsive to anticonvulsant drugs), 115 were cured and another 79 improved greatly. Improvements were noted not only by clinical symptoms, but also by improvements in brain wave patterns. Other clinical studies have shown cinnamon-containing formulas to be useful in cases of the common cold, influenza, and frostbite. However, it is not really known to what degree the improvements noted are actually due to the cinnamon versus the other components. That same work also says of honey: Referred to in ancient Sumerian, Vedic, Egyptian, and biblical writings, honey has been employed since ancient times for both nutrition and healing medicine. For centuries honey has been a multipurpose food, used to give homage to the gods and to help embalm the dead, as well as for medical and cosmetic purposes. Some evidence suggests that despite the risk of bee sting, collection of honey has occurred since 7000 B.C.E., and since at least 700 B.C.E., beekeeping for the production of honey (apiculture) has been used. To the surprise of the Spanish conquistadors, the natives of Central and South America were already keeping bees for the purpose of collecting honey when they arrived. Honey was considered a food of the rich for many years. More recently, honey has decreased in popularity as refined sugar, which is cheaper and sweeter, has replaced the sweet, viscous liquid in common households all over the world. Honey is a source of riboflavin and vitamin B6. It also provides iron and manganese. A 3.5 ounce (100 gram) serving of honey provides 304 calories, mostly as 82.4 grams of carbohydrate, almost all of which is sugar, 0.3 grams of protein, and 0 grams of fat. However, honey is more likely to be consumed by the tablespoon (15 grams), which provides 64 calories, 17.3 grams of carbohydrate, and 0.1 grams of protein. The health benefits of a particular honey depend on its processing as well as the quality of the flowers the bees utilize when collecting the pollen. Raw honey is honey that has not been pasteurized, clarified, or filtered, and this form typically retains more of the healthful phytochemicals lost to the standard processing of honey. Propolis is a product of tree sap mixed with bee secretions that is used by bees to protect against bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Propolis is unfortunately lost in honey processing, thus greatly reducing the level of phytochemicals known to protect against the germs; recent research suggests that these may also prevent certain types of cancer. Also important, healthy organic flowering plants will provide the raw nectar that will confer a higher-quality nutrient profile to the honey produced. Within the propolis are well-researched phytochemicals that have cancer-preventing and antitumor properties. These substances include caffeic acid, methyl caffeate, phenylethyl caffeate, phenylethyl dimethycaffeate. Researchers have discovered that these substances in propolis prevent colon cancer in animals by shutting down the activity of two enzymes, phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C and lipoxygenase, that are involved in the production of cancer-causing compounds. The following sections address the complete health benefits of honey in its raw form and of bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly: Antioxidant Effects Honey, particularly darker honey, such as buckwheat honey, is a rich source of phenolic compounds, such as flavonoids, that exert significant antioxidant activity. Energy-Enhancing Effects Honey is an excellent source of readily available carbohydrate, a chief source of quick energy. Wound-Healing Properties The wound-healing properties of honey may be its most promising medicinal quality. Honey has been used topically as an antiseptic therapeutic agent for the treatment of ulcers, burns, and wounds for centuries. Anticancer Benefits Propolis contains well-researched phytochemicals that have numerous cancer-preventing and antitumor properties.
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10353
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“Advance” in PSA test challenged by Hutch research
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This is an important story about an important topic – the effort to improve PSA screening for prostate cancer by using PSA velocity, or a measure of the rate of change in PSA readings over time. While the article does mention some of the limitations of PSA screening, the article does not discuss the broader controversies of whether prostate cancer screening by any method reduces the chance of death or improves quality of life, or in fact, whether early identification and treatment of prostate cancer does more good than harm. The question is whether the article, which is reporting on what factors may influence PSA velocity, should have discussed these more global issues. Because of the controversy and lack of proven benefit of PSA screening, the failure to address these larger issues is a critical omission. Finally, the story presents an example of disease-mongering when it describes prostate cancer as “lethal,” providing numbers of new cases and numbers of deaths, but failing to mention that these numbers taken together suggest that most men diagnosed with prostate cancer are not destined to die of it.
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false
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No mention of costs. There is no discussion of the lack of proven benefit of PSA screening (using any approach) to extend or improve quality of life, which is key whenever PSA screening is discussed. The question is whether the article should have mentioned the lack of proven benefit of PSA screening, which we believe it should have. The story does mention some harms of screening, namely the chance that a man can still have cancer despite a normal screening result (a false negative) and anxiety associated with screening. However, these are only a few of the harms associated with screening and there was no discussion of the broader issues of whether screening and ultimately early treatment of prostate cancer does more good than harm. Because the bigger issues are not discussed, the discussion of harms are not balanced. There is no mention of the strength of the evidence. The latest study is an observational study, but this may not be obvious to the reader and there is no comment about whether the study was performed prospectively or retrospectively or the possibility of confounding (for instance, if the associations noted were based on recall or more objective measures). While the story very clearly states there are problems with PSA testing (and provides a very specific example showing that a “normal” screening result may not mean a man does not have cancer), there is no discussion that screening may do more harm than good. The key to the screening debate is that there is no proof yet that screening leads to longer or better quality of life, yet can have definite drawbacks (such as further invasive testing, anxiety, and side effects from cancer treatment). The story uses scare tactics to promote prostate cancer being “lethal” providing numbers of new cases and numbers of deaths, but what the story doesn’t mention is that those numbers taken together suggest that most men diagnosed with prostate cancer are not destined to die of prostate cancer. No independent verification of the study findings was obtained. The only interviewed expert was the lead researcher. The story describes using serial PSA testing to determine velocity and describes an alternative, using a single PSA reading to make decisions for biopsy. Disadvantages of using PSA velocity are discussed–mainly that PSA velocity may provide no better measure than a single reading since velocity can fluctuate as a result of non-cancerous processes. While it appears the criteria is satisfied, there is no mention about not screening at all–a very reasonable alternative, given the lack of evidence that screening does more good than harm. Because this is a key point in the screening controversy and was not mentioned, this is unsatisfactory. Using PSA velocity requires calculations based on a series of PSA tests taken over a minimum of a year. It seems fair to assume that not all physicians endorse this or are familiar with calculating PSA velocity. If a patient is interested in using velocity, it’s not clear whether he can go to his local doctor or not. Using PSA velocity for screening is also currently not part of any known recommendations from guideline-issuing organizations, like the American Urological Association or United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). This fact is also not discussed. The article is not clear whether measurements of PSA velocity are new.. The story does imply that physicians began to be interested in using PSA velocity for screening after a 2004 study was published. However, PSA velocity has been around for years and used in other applications, for instance, to follow disease progression (as opposed to screening) after surgery or radiation.
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16583
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More whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings.
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Medved said that police kill more whites than blacks. In absolute terms, that is accurate. However, the statement ignores that there are more than five times more whites than blacks in America. When comparing death rates, blacks are about three times more likely than whites to die in a confrontation with police. Medved’s statement leaves out significant information that would change someone’s understanding of the topic.
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mixture
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Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Crime, PunditFact, Michael Medved,
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"The turmoil in Ferguson, Mo., has spurred many assertions that blacks are unfairly victimized by police. Conservative talk show host Michael Medved aimed to turn that argument on its head. In a post-show summary on his website this week, Medved cast police as the protectors of African-Americans. Medved said that blacks are much more likely to be killed by another black person than they are by a cop. ""When it comes to keeping black youths from violent death, police aren’t the problem – in fact, they’re a crucial part of any solution,"" Medved said. As for the charge that police target blacks, Medved said the opposite is true. ""More whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings,"" he said. We asked Medved’s producers for the source of that claim and did not hear back before we published. Thanks to the good work by the team at fivethirtyeight.com, we know that there is no precise accounting of how many people the police kill. An unknown number of deaths go unreported because the coroner failed to note it or police departments categorize deaths in different ways, or some other data glitch got in the way. However, even the incomplete figures gathered by the government tell us that Medved could be partially correct and still ignore a huge piece of the picture. Yes, more whites than blacks die as a result of an encounter with police, but whites also represent a much bigger chunk of the total population. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps data on fatal injuries from 1999 to 2011 and one category is homicides by legal intervention. The term ""legal intervention"" covers any situation when a person dies at the hands of anyone authorized to use deadly force in the line of duty. Over the span of more than a decade, 2,151 whites died by being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks. In that respect, Medved is correct. However, Brian Forst, a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University, said this difference is predictable. ""More whites are killed by the police than blacks primarily because whites outnumber blacks in the general population by more than five to one,"" Forst said. The country is about 63 percent white and 12 percent black. Rather than comparing the raw numbers, you can look at the likelihood that a person will die due to ""legal intervention"" in the same way you might look at the chance a person will die in a car accident or a disease like lung cancer. When you do that, the numbers flip. A 2002 study in the American Journal of Public Health found that the death rate due to legal intervention was more than three times higher for blacks than for whites in the period from 1988 to 1997. That is not the final story though. There are different theories as to why the black rate is so much higher. Candace McCoy is a criminologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. McCoy said blacks might be more likely to have a violent encounter with police because they are convicted of felonies at a higher rate than whites. Felonies include everything from violent crimes like murder and rape, to property crimes like burglary and embezzlement, to drug trafficking and gun offenses. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that in 2004, state courts had over 1 million felony convictions. Of those, 59 percent were committed by whites and 38 percent by blacks. But when you factor in the population of whites and blacks, the felony rates stand at 330 per 100,000 for whites and 1,178 per 100,000 for blacks. That’s more than a three-fold difference. McCoy noted that this has more to do with income than race. The felony rates for poor whites are similar to those of poor blacks. ""Felony crime is highly correlated with poverty, and race continues to be highly correlated with poverty in the USA,"" McCoy said. ""It is the most difficult and searing problem in this whole mess."" On his website, Medved tried to link police killings with whether someone resisted arrest. ""If you defer and don’t try to challenge a police officer, he may insult you but he won’t kill you,"" Medved said. But criminologist Lorie Fridell at the University of South Florida told PunditFact that the research on this point is mixed. Some studies that factor in the level of resistance show that race doesn’t matter, and some show that it does. Our ruling Medved said that police kill more whites than blacks. In absolute terms, that is accurate. However, the statement ignores that there are more than five times more whites than blacks in America. When comparing death rates, blacks are about three times more likely than whites to die in a confrontation with police. Medved’s statement leaves out significant information that would change someone’s understanding of the topic. Update: The number of deaths due to legal intervention were changed after we initially published this report to include only firearms deaths, which lowered the overall totals. The rating remains the same.
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5229
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Corrects: Principal’s Death-Bone Marrow Donation-The Latest.
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In a story July 22 about developments in a lawsuit against Hackensack University Medical Center, The Associated Press in some instances erroneously reported the procedure that preceded a high school principal’s death. It was a bone marrow donation, not a blood marrow donation.
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true
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Hackensack, New Jersey, Health, General News, U.S. News, Lawsuits
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A corrected version of the story is below: The Latest: Hospital sued over school principal’s death A hospital sued by the family of a New Jersey high school principal who died after a procedure to donate bone marrow to an anonymous French teenager says it is saddened by the tragic death ROSELAND, N.J. (AP) — The Latest on a lawsuit in the case of a high school principal who died after a procedure to donate bone marrow to a French teenager (all times local): 4:50 p.m. A hospital sued by the family of a New Jersey high school principal who died after a procedure to donate bone marrow to an anonymous French teenager says it is saddened by the tragic death. Hackensack University Medical Center is a defendant in the suit filed by the fiancee and family of Derrick Nelson, who fell into a coma in February and died in April. A spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health says the hospital isn’t commenting on the lawsuit but says it has been in touch with Nelson’s family and fiance Sheronda Braker. The couple has a 5-year-old daughter and was to have been married in June. ___ The above item has been corrected to show that Nelson’s fiancee filed the lawsuit, not fiance. ___ 3:55 p.m. A lawsuit says the hospital where a popular New Jersey high school principal died after a procedure to donate bone marrow failed to take appropriate action as his oxygen level dropped. Derrick Nelson fell into a coma at Hackensack University Medical Center in February and died in April. The Westfield High School principal had agreed to donate bone marrow to an unidentified French teenager. Nelson’s fiancée, Sheronda Braker, filed the wrongful death lawsuit on Monday. It seeks unspecified monetary damages. Nelson left behind a 5-year-old daughter. He and Braker were scheduled to be married last month. A hospital spokeswoman hasn’t commented Monday. ___ 11:25 a.m. The fiancée of a New Jersey high school principal who died after a procedure to donate bone marrow to a student in France is suing the hospital. Sheronda Braker’s lawsuit filed Monday names Hackensack University Medical Center. Westfield High School Principal Derrick Nelson died in April, several weeks after lapsing into a coma during the procedure. The 44-year-old, who had a young daughter, didn’t know the French teen. They were connected through Be the Match, a worldwide bone marrow registry network. Nelson also served as an officer in the Army Reserve for more than 20 years and had recently re-enlisted. The hospital didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment Monday. ___ The above item has been corrected to show that Nelson’s daughter is 5 years old, not 6.
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7421
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Coronavirus could erode global fight against other diseases.
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Lavina D’Souza hasn’t been able to collect her government-supplied anti-HIV medication since the abrupt lockdown of India’s 1.3 billion people last month during the coronavirus outbreak.
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true
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Medication, Understanding the Outbreak, International News, Ebola virus, India, Africa, Health, AP Top News, Infectious diseases, Pandemics, Tuberculosis, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak, General News
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Marooned in a small city away from her home in Mumbai, the medicine she needs to manage her disease has run out. The 43-year-old is afraid that her immune system will crash: “Any disease, the coronavirus or something else, I’ll fall sick faster.” D’Souza said others also must be “suffering because of the coronavirus without getting infected by it.” As the world focuses on the pandemic, experts fear losing ground in the long fight against other infectious diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis and cholera that kill millions every year. Also at risk are decadeslong efforts that allowed the World Health Organization to set target dates for eradicating malaria, polio and other illnesses. With the coronavirus overwhelming hospitals, redirecting medical staff, causing supply shortages and suspending health services, “our greatest fear” is resources for other diseases being diverted and depleted, said Dr. John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is compounded in countries with already overburdened health care systems, like Sudan. Doctors at Al-Ribat National Hospital in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, shared a document detailing nationwide measures: fewer patients admitted to emergency rooms, elective surgeries indefinitely postponed, primary care eliminated for non-critical cases, and skilled doctors transferred to COVID-19 patients. Similar scenes are unfolding worldwide. Even in countries with highly developed health care systems, such as South Korea, patients seeking treatment for diseases like TB had to be turned away, said Hojoon Sohn, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is based in South Korea. About 30% of global TB cases — out of 10 million each year — are never diagnosed, and the gaps in care are concentrated in 10 countries with the most infections, Sohn said. “These are people likely not seeking care even in normal circumstances,” he said. “So with the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in health systems overload, and governments issuing stay-at-home orders, it is highly likely that the number of TB patients who remain undetected will increase.” In Congo, already overwhelmed by the latest outbreak of Ebola and years of violent conflict, the coronavirus comes as a measles outbreak has killed over 6,000 people, said Anne-Marie Connor, national director for World Vision, a humanitarian aid organization. “It’s likely we’ll see a lot of ‘indirect’ deaths from other diseases,” she said. The cascading impact of the pandemic isn’t limited to treatment. Other factors, like access to transportation during a lockdown, are threatening India’s progress on TB. Patients and doctors can’t get to clinics, and it’s difficult to send samples for testing. India has nearly a third of the world’s TB cases, and diagnosing patients has been delayed in many areas. Dr. Yogesh Jain in Chhattisgarh — one of India’s poorest states — and other doctors fear that means “TB cases would certainly increase.” Coronavirus-related lockdowns also have interrupted the flow of supplies, including critical medicine, protective gear and oxygen, said Dr. Marc Biot, director of operations for international aid group Doctors Without Borders. “These are difficult to find now because everybody is rushing for them in the same moment,” Biot said. The fear of some diseases resurging is further aggravated by delays in immunization efforts for more than 13.5 million people, according to the vaccine alliance GAVI. The international organization said 21 countries are reporting vaccine shortages following border closures and disruptions to air travel — mostly in Africa — and 14 vaccination campaigns for diseases like polio and measles have been postponed. The Measles & Rubella Initiative said measles immunization campaigns in 24 countries already are delayed, and it fears that more than 117 million children in 37 countries may miss out. Dr. Jay Wenger, who heads polio eradication efforts for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said recommending the suspension of door-to-door polio vaccinations was difficult, and while it could lead to a spurt in cases, “it is a necessary move to reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID-19.” Programs to prevent mosquito-borne diseases also have been hampered. In Sri Lanka, where cases of dengue nearly doubled in 2019 over the previous year, health inspectors are tasked with tracing suspected COVID-19 patients, disrupting their “routine work” of destroying mosquito breeding sites at homes, said Dr. Anura Jayasekara, director of Sri Lanka’s National Dengue Control Unit. During a pandemic, history shows that other diseases can make a major comeback. Amid the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-16, almost as many people died of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria because of reduced access to health care. Rashid Ansumana, a community health expert in Sierra Leone who studied the Ebola outbreak, said the coronavirus’s “impact will definitely be higher.” Health providers are trying to ease the crisis by giving months of supplies to people with hepatitis C, HIV and TB, said Biot of Doctors Without Borders. As countries face difficult health care choices amid the pandemic, Nkengasong of the Africa CDC warns that efforts to tackle other diseases can’t fall by the wayside. “The time to advocate for those programs is not when COVID is over. The time is now,” he said. ___ Milko reported from Jakarta. Associated Press journalists Cara Anna in Johannesburg, Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Isabel DeBre in Cairo, and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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9290
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Exercise, however modest, found progressively beneficial to the elderly
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This news release from a conference put on by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) describes a moderately-sized cohort study that followed elderly people aged 65 and over for 13 years, focusing on the correlation between the level of physical activity and risk of death. Although the release does a thorough job explaining what the researchers did in this study, it inflates the benefits data by reporting figures in terms of relative risk reduction. In addition, it’s unclear what this study brings to the existing scientific knowledge on aging and physical activity, since we found other published research studying this link that’s not mentioned. But the biggest deficiency is the release’s failure to point out any of the study’s potential biases or limitations. And that’s the very same problem that has already gotten the ESC nominated to our News Release Wall of Shame in the past. The study looked at a group of elderly people, many of whom are likely to have health problems (perhaps unrecognized health problems) that affect both their risk of death and their ability to exercise. Trying to isolate the effects of physical activity in such a group is a very tricky proposition, but the release never expresses so much as a hint of doubt regarding the findings. While we agree that exercise at any age is likely to be beneficial, we think researchers and communications professionals should provide a balanced view of a study’s strengths and limitations in their news releases. Otherwise, news coverage of the study will also reflect a lopsided view of the findings. Much media attention is focused on spiraling health care costs, which often are incurred later in life by the elderly, since they consume a disproportionate amount of health care services. But studies suggest that the elderly could reduce their health care bills by exercising regularly. If other research sheds light on how exactly regular exercise translates to increased lifespans and better quality of life, clinicians will be able to make better recommendations for their older patients and curb spiraling health care costs at the same time.
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false
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European Society of Cardiology,physical activity
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Cost is always a concern. But in this case, the release mentions “brisk walking, cycling, swimming or gymnastics” as physical activities, not some fancy exercise devices. So we’ll rate it Not Applicable, although we’d note that some of these activities might not be accessible without a gym membership or other equipment. The release started off strong by giving the absolute death rate, but thereafter cited relative risk reductions. For example, the release states: “…starting or restarting physical activity during retirement reduced the risk of death by two-thirds, but in contrast any reduction, even in low levels of activity, exposed the elderly to a higher risk of death.” But two-thirds of what? And exactly what figure corresponded to a higher risk of death? Benefits reported as relative risk reductions may inflate the impression of how effective the intervention really is. This is why we give the release a Not Satisfactory rating here, since we prefer news releases to report benefits data in absolute numbers. Dr. David Hupin comments, “The level of physical activity in the elderly was negatively associated with mortality rate in a “dose-dependent” way.” He also adds, “Even a little [exercise] is good, and more may be better.” But exercise is painful for many older adults with arthritis or other physical ailments, and can also lead to falls, which aren’t mentioned. We’re not saying this is a major omission, as the release does emphasize the benefits of low doses that are less likely to cause harm. But it’s still not up to our standard. The news release gives a good overview of the study design, specifying that 1,000 elderly subjects aged 65 and and over were followed for 13 years. It also details the measures in place to monitor physical activity – these so-called MET-h values. We also applaud the reporting of an important health outcome in this news release — “risk of all cause death.” However, the release doesn’t point out any limitations in the research, and this is a significant omission. Especially since the study examined older adults who are more likely to have health problems, this study has a high risk of being confounded. People with health problems that might ultimately lead to death are probably less likely than healthy individuals to exercise even a little bit. Maybe it’s the fact that these individuals were sick that led them to avoid physical activity, rather than physical activity being responsible for reducing the overall death rate. In addition, while the release generally refers only to “correlations” between physical activity and lower death rates, it doesn’t explicitly point out that this was an observational study that’s not capable of proving cause and effect. Such a warning is always welcome. The release does not engage in disease mongering. The news release does not mention any funding sources for the study or potential conflicts of interest. The release mentions various forms of exercise and physical activity, and the comparison of very active to inactive (and various levels within these extremes) is made clear. But there is no attempt to broaden the discussion to related factors that might also impact longevity in old age, including diet, body weight, alcohol consumption, and social engagement. This could have been accomplished in a broad sweep with just a few additional words. It isn’t a big deal that the news release didn’t discuss the availability of exercise methods, since the elderly can pursue any physical activity for at least 15 minutes a day, five days a week. But we’d note that access to some of the activities mentioned (cycling, swimming, gymnastics) might be limited, and the release could have noted that as well. There have been numerous studies on the benefits of exercise for the general population. Physicians currently recommend exercising for 30 minutes a day for at least five days a week, which “has been shown to reduce the average risk of death by 30%,” according to an uncited source in the news release. What’s new, says the news release, is that “a correlation between the level of physical activity and risk of death has not been so clearly determined in the elderly.” But we found these studies online, some going as far back as 1989, that state the association between regular physical activity and decreased mortality in older adults. In addition, recommendations are already in place for older adults, who are urged to exercise moderately and daily by the CDC. We’re not sure why the physical activity recommendations for the elderly warrant revision, as stated by the release, or what exactly is new with this research. The news release uses neutral, unbiased language that edges on jargony. Most lay people would not understand the terms “cohort,” “MET-h values” or “meta- analysis.” Although these terms could have more simply explained, we feel the absence of sensational language merits a satisfactory rating here.
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3945
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North Carolina health system restricts visitation due to flu.
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Vidant Health says it is imposing visitor restrictions at its hospitals in North Carolina in response to a high number of flu cases.
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true
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Health, General News, North Carolina, Flu, Greenville
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In a statement posted on its webpage on Tuesday, Vidant Health says that beginning Thursday, its hospitals will accept visitors 12 years of age and older and those who aren’t exhibiting symptoms of a cold or flu., diarrhea, vomiting or headaches. The health system says healthy children under the age of 12 may visit their healthy newborn sibling. Additional exceptions will be made in special circumstances—or with prior approval from the patient’s health care team. Vidant notes that the limitations are temporary and will be lifted when the flu cases in the community decrease. Vidant Health has nine hospitals serving 29 counties in eastern North Carolina.
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31534
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An image shows the heavily armed officers of United Airlines' Special Seating and Apparel Division.
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The doctored image mocking United Airlines apparently used stills from the sheriff’s video. The video itself has been the subject of controversy. The ACLU has expressed concern about police using SWAT teams inappropriately; however, some residents have appreciated Grinnell’s acknowledgement of the devastating surge in heroin use in their county.
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false
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Fauxtography, Seating and Apparel Division, united, united airlines
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United Airlines has more than once become the object of mass outrage in 2017. In March, the airline temporarily barred two women from boarding a flight because they were wearing leggings. Less than a month later, a viral video showed a man dragged from a United flight bleeding from the nose because the flight was overbooked. In the aftermath, an image satirizing the company’s customer service policies became popular on social media. The image purports to show United’s “Special Seating & Apparel Division”: This image, of course, does not actually show the “Special Seating & Apparel Division” of United Airlines. The man at the podium is actually Lake County Sheriff Peyton Grinnell, who delivered a warning to heroin dealers in Florida, flanked by masked police: “Enjoy trying to sleep tonight wondering if tonight’s the night the SWAT team blows your front door off the hinges,” says Grinnell, who was elected in November.
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13638
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Medical-grade marijuana alone will not get that patient ‘high,’ no matter what level of THC, CBD or any other compound is found in the plant.
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"A representative of United for Care said, ""Medical-grade marijuana alone will not get that patient ‘high,’ no matter what level of THC, CBD or any other compound is found in the plant."" The group said McKay is referring to the controlled conditions under which medical marijuana would be monitored by doctors for use by patients. But her word choice could easily lead to misunderstanding. While there are non-euphoric strains of cannabis that are already being used as treatments for some conditions, it’s not accurate to say that no form of medical marijuana will get you high. High-THC medical cannabis will still produce the same intoxicating effects as the street form of the drug will."
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false
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Public Health, Florida, Marijuana, United for Care,
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"Medical marijuana has many uses, according to supporters of Florida’s Amendment 2, but getting high is not one of them. Kim McCray, outreach director for United for Care, said in an Aug. 11 South Florida Times op-ed that the well-known euphoric effects of cannabis aren’t an issue. ""What is also important to know is that although some debilitated patients may require higher levels of THC than others based on their specific medical condition, medical-grade marijuana alone, will not get that patient ‘high,’ no matter what level of THC, CBD or any other compound is found in the plant,"" McCray wrote. She pointed out that medical cannabis can not only be smoked, but be packaged as ointments, oils, pills and skin patches. It sounded peculiar to us to say that medical marijuana can’t get you high, regardless of the chemical content. We checked with some experts to clear the air. Doctor’s orders Florida voters will decide in November 2016 whether to allow medical marijuana in the state. The proposed constitutional amendment would allow patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, glaucoma, post-traumatic stress disorder, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis ""or other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those enumerated"" to obtain cannabis with a doctor’s recommendation. What the system would truly look like is still anyone’s guess, because the amendment leaves most of the details up to the state Legislature and state health department. Patients would get a state-registered ID card that would allow them to get their marijuana, but the how, when and where of it wouldn’t be decided until the amendment passes. Also unknown is just what kind of ""medical-grade marijuana"" will be available. Amendment 2 doesn’t place restrictions on what forms of cannabis the state could allow, including cannabis in its smokable form. To understand the types of marijuana or marijuana products we’re talking about, we need a quick chemistry lesson. Cannabis contains roughly 500 compounds, 70 of which are psychoactive. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient in the marijuana plant. The level of THC in a plant varies based on the strain, the part of the plant used, and how it is processed for consumption. Also present is a substance called cannabidiol, known as CBD, which is an antioxidant and has properties that are thought to protect the brain. It’s also not psychoactive like THC. Florida’s 2014 law approved low-THC cannabis oil or vapor products containing CBD for patients with muscle spasms, cancer, epilepsy and terminal illnesses. Fifteen other states have similar laws. Even the National Institute on Drug Abuse says CBD may prove useful in treating epilepsy as well as inflammation and mental illnesses or addictions. Products like cannabis oil are made from strains of marijuana already bred to be high in CBD and low in THC, although THC still is a part of the equation. Research shows that compound is what brings CBD into the brain. Now for how this applies to McCray’s statement. United for Care spokeswoman Bianca Garza said McCray meant to dispel the notion that medical marijuana patients obtain their medicine for the sole purpose of feeling its well-known euphoric effects. ""The point being made in the statement is that doctors and patients will decide on a care plan that will enable them to become more normal,"" Garza said in an email. ""In other words, they'll decide on a dosage appropriate for their debilitating condition to feel less pain, to have fewer seizures and spasms, etc. It will be decided by a Florida licensed physician and will not lead to patients being ‘high.’ "" Essentially, their argument is one of semantics: Medical marijuana patients won’t be getting stoned, they’ll be using medication under the supervision of a doctor as a form of treatment. That precludes the idea that patients will just be taking marijuana as a recreational drug, although Garza conceded that ""like any medicine, there’s the possibility for abuse."" United for Care’s point of view still doesn’t mean some forms of medical marijuana aren’t capable of getting patients baked. Marijuana still has physiological effects, whether it’s doctor-approved or not. Dr. David Casarett, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Stoned: A Doctor's Case for Medical Marijuana, said that low-THC strains or oils that have only CBD don’t produce the same buzzed feeling as a joint. But higher-THC marijuana still ""will most certainly get you high,"" he said. ""Just calling something ‘medical grade’ won't prevent you from getting high,"" Casarett said. ""It's like alcohol. Laboratory grade ethanol will get you just as drunk as home-brewed moonshine with the same alcohol content."" Our ruling A representative of United for Care said, ""Medical-grade marijuana alone will not get that patient ‘high,’ no matter what level of THC, CBD or any other compound is found in the plant."" The group said McKay is referring to the controlled conditions under which medical marijuana would be monitored by doctors for use by patients. But her word choice could easily lead to misunderstanding. While there are non-euphoric strains of cannabis that are already being used as treatments for some conditions, it’s not accurate to say that no form of medical marijuana will get you high. High-THC medical cannabis will still produce the same intoxicating effects as the street form of the drug will."
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4222
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Nation marks 50 years after Apollo 11′s ‘giant leap’ on moon.
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A moonstruck nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11′s “giant leap” by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin at parties, races, ball games and concerts Saturday, toasting with Tang and gobbling MoonPies.
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true
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Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, AP Top News, Apollo 11 moon landing, General News, Wapakoneta, Moon, Science, Mars, Ohio, Michael Pence, Russia, U.S. News
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At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Aldrin showed Vice President Mike Pence the launch pad where he flew to the moon in 1969. At the same time halfway around the world, an American and two other astronauts blasted into space on a Russian rocket. And in Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, nearly 2,000 runners competed in “Run to the Moon” races. “Apollo 11 is the only event in the 20th century that stands a chance of being widely remembered in the 30th century,” the vice president said. Wapakoneta 10K runner Robert Rocco, 54, a retired Air Force officer from Centerville, Ohio, called the moon landing by Armstrong and Aldrin “perhaps the most historic event in my lifetime, maybe in anybody’s lifetime.” At the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Gilda Warden sat on a bench and gazed in awe at the Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, on display. “It’s like entering the Sistine Chapel and seeing the ceiling. You want to just sit there and take it in,” said Warden, 63, a psychiatric nurse from Tacoma, Washington. On July 20, 1969, Armstrong and Aldrin undocked from Columbia in lunar orbit and then descended in the lunar module Eagle to the Sea of Tranquility. The Eagle landed with just 17 seconds of fuel to spare. Six hours later, Armstrong was the first to step onto the lunar surface, proclaiming for the ages: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was humanity’s first footsteps on another world. In a speech at Kennedy, Pence paid tribute to Armstrong, Aldrin and command module pilot Michael Collins — if they’re not heroes, “then there are no heroes” — as well as the 400,000 Americans who worked tirelessly to get them to the moon. Aldrin, 89, grabbed the right hand of Neil Armstrong’s older son, Rick, at Pence’s mention of heroes. He then stood and saluted, and received a standing ovation. Armstrong died in 2012. Collins, 88, did not attend the Florida ceremony. But Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, the next-to-last man to walk on the moon in 1972, was there. Pence reiterated the Trump administration’s goal of sending American astronauts back to the moon within five years and eventually on to Mars. He said this next generation of astronauts will spend weeks and months on the lunar surface, not just days and hours like the 12 Apollo moonwalkers did. Alongside the stage was the newly completed Orion capsule that will fly to the moon and back, on a test flight without a crew, in another year or two. NASA had other celebrations going on Saturday, most notably at Johnson Space Center in Houston, home to Mission Control; the U.S. Space and Rocket Center next door to Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, where the Saturn V moon rockets were born; and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. And where better to celebrate than Apollo, Pennsylvania — located in Armstrong County not far from Moon Township and the town of Mars. The historical society revived the annual moon-landing celebration in honor of the big 50. All of the Apollo astronauts have long been honorary citizens of Apollo, the society’s Alan Morgan said. At New York’s Yankee Stadium, former space shuttle astronaut Mike Massimino threw out the ceremonial first pitch to former pitcher Jack Aker, who was on the mound when the July 20, 1969, baseball game was interrupted to announce that the Eagle had landed. Armstrong and Aldrin were “A1, No. 1, higher than major league,” Aker recalled Saturday. “It’s a mutual feeling,” Massimino agreed. Across the country in Seattle, Tim Turner was first in line Saturday to see Columbia, the mother ship piloted by Collins as Armstrong and Aldrin moonwalked. “Good grief! It’s still amazing, the No. 1 feat of the 20th century, if not all of modern history, that first time there,” said Turner, 57, a computer programmer from Poulsbo, Washington. As he waited to get in to see Columbia, Craig Smith, 58, a veterinarian from Tacoma, Washington, recalled thinking as a boy: ”‘Dang! Seriously? A dude on the moon?’ I thought that was nifty.” Clocks all over counted down to the exact moment of the Eagle’s landing on the moon — 4:17 p.m. EDT — and Armstrong’s momentous step onto the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. EDT. The powdered orange drink Tang was back in vogue for the toasts, along with marshmallow and chocolate MoonPies, including a 55-pound (25-kilogram), 45,000-calorie MoonPie at Kennedy’s One Giant Leap bash. About 100 visitors and staff at the American Space Museum in Titusville, across the Indian River from Kennedy, cheered and lifted plastic champagne glasses of Tang at the moment of touchdown. “This is what we’re here for, to share the American space experience,” explained executive director Karan Conklin, who led the toast. For the late night-crowd, “first step” concerts were on tap at the Kennedy Center in Washington, outside in the shadow of a replica Saturn V rocket in Huntsville, and other sweltering locales. A real rocket lit up the night sky in Kazakhstan. Blasting off aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket in 100-degree heat (38 degrees Celsius), American Andrew Morgan, Italian Luca Parmitano and Russian Alexander Skvortsov flew to the International Space Station. Only Skvortsov was alive at the time of Apollo 11. The three already living on the space station also were born long after the moon landings. The crew deliberately modeled its mission patch after Apollo 11′s: no astronaut names included to show the universal nature of space flight. Morgan explained in a NASA interview that Apollo 11, and now his flight, represents “an accomplishment of the world and not one single country.” ___ AP reporters Angie Wang in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and Carla K. Johnson in Seattle, and freelance writer Charles O’Brien contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP’s full coverage of the Apollo 11 anniversary at: https://apnews.com/Apollo11moonlanding ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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28148
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A new tattoo ink changes color depending on a person's glucose levels, meaning people with diabetes can use it to check their blood sugar levels.
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What's true: A research project by students at MIT and Harvard shows promising results, and could lead to a fully-functioning biosensor tattoo ink that reliably indicates glucose levels. What's false: The research has so far only been tested on pig skin, has not been subject to rigorous trials, and is still at a relatively early stage.
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true
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Science, diabetes, harvard, MIT
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On 9 June 2017, the Dose Facebook page posted a meme claiming that a new kind of tattoo ink changes color based on blood sugar levels, providing a warning system for people with diabetes: This tattoo ink changes color when blood sugar levels rise or fall, so people with diabetes can monitor in real time. The post had been shared more than 300,000 times as of 28 June 2017, and we have received several inquiries about its veracity. It is, indeed, based on real research that students, postdoctoral fellows, and professors are undertaking at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School. The DermalAbyss project has not yet been tested on human skin, and is at the “proof of concept stage,” according to a May 2017 report by the MIT Media Lab. Traditional tattoo inks are replaced with biosensors whose colors change in response to variations in the interstitial fluid. It blends advances in biotechnology with traditional methods in tattoo artistry. Interstitial fluid is a layer of fluid that surrounds cells within the body. Measuring the level of glucose (blood sugar) in the fluid is an important way for people with diabetes to keep their blood sugar at an appropriate level and avoid diabetic shock (severe hypoglycemia). The ink changes color based on three different biochemical measures in the interstitial fluid: the pH level (acidity) changes the ink from pink to purple; the glucose level changes it from blue to brown; and the sodium and pH levels cause the ink light up at a higher intensity under ultraviolet light. The MIT researchers are Katia Vega, Xin Liu, Viirj Kan and Nick Barry; those at Harvard include Ali Yetisen and Nan Jiang. They theorize that the biosensors could eventually replace the current method commonly used by people with diabetes to test their glucose levels, which involves pricking the skin. With DermalAbyss, we imagine the future where the painful procedure is replaced with a tattoo, of which the color [changes] from pink to purple based on the glucose levels. Thus, the user could monitor the color changes and the need of insulin. However, the tattoo ink has so far only been tested on the skin of a dead pig, and the researchers say “there are currently no plans to develop DermalAbyss as a product or to pursue clinical trials.” So it’s a little bit of a stretch to claim, as the Dose meme did, that the ink means “people with diabetes can monitor [their blood sugar] in real time.” This is the theory, and the project looks promising so far. But it’s not yet at the stage where it can actually be used by people with diabetes.
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14056
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"Pat Toomey Says Merrick Garland ""authored an opinion that resulted in the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were part of a group of violent Islamist extremists the State Department had designated as terrorists."
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"Toomey wrote that Garland ""authored an opinion that resulted in the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were part of a group of violent Islamist extremists the State Department had designated as terrorists."" Toomey’s claim is misleading. We have no definitive proof that the Uighur detainees engaged in terrorist acts or were ""violent Islamist extremists."" They were an oppressed ethnic minority in China and may have been caught up in events without endorsing terrorism. The courts released them because the government’s case against them seemed dubious."
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false
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Foreign Policy, Military, Supreme Court, Terrorism, Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey,
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"U.S. Senator Pat Toomey has doubts about Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland -- particularly regarding a ruling that set free prisoners from Guantánamo Bay. Garland ""authored an opinion that resulted in the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were part of a group of violent Islamist extremists the State Department had designated as terrorists,"" Republican Toomey wrote in an April op-ed for PennLive titled, ""Here's why I'm opposing Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination."" Look closely: Toomey’s statement combines two court rulings, Garland’s and a later decision. The first, decided by a three-judge panel and indeed authored by Garland, ordered the release of one detainee, not 17. Uighurs in China Toomey is not referring to a typical Guantánamo case. The story begins with social unrest in China, and the status of the Uighurs. Uighurs (pronounced wee-gurs) are a Muslim ethnic minority primarily from the northwestern province of Xinjiang. After alleged discrimination and violent clashes, the 22 Uighurs fled China for the Afghan mountains, and fled again after airstrikes reached their settlement after 9/11. They were captured and sent to Gitmo in 2002. Many had been captured in Pakistan, close to the Afghan border, by bounty hunters who sold them to the United States for $5,000 each. Why would a Uighur militant be a part of Al Qaida? In the 2013 report ""Terrorism in China,"" University of Virginia Professor Philip B.K. Potter traces it to ""China’s ongoing security crackdown in Xinjiang [forcing] the most militant Uyghur separatists into volatile neighboring countries, such as Pakistan, where they are forging strategic alliances with, and even leading, jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban."" So, as the executive branch pushed for Guantánamo’s closure, the case of the Uighurs and their possible ties to terrorism took center stage. Five Uighurs were cleared and released in 2006, resettling in Albania. Seventeen remained in custody. Which brings us Garland and the 2008 opinion that Toomey is referencing. What made the government back down Really, the three-judge panel on which Garland sat only released one Uighur: Huzaifa Parhat. Parhat told the FBI, per court documents, that he left China to escape harsh discrimination. His people suffered ""harassment, forced abortions for more than two children, high taxes, the taking away of land, and the banishing of educated people to remote areas,"" he said. He was one of the Uighurs who had basic gun training from the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (or ETIM; Turkistan is a name some Uighur independentists use for their homelands), learning how to take apart and clean guns. Much of the evidence that the government provided came from his own interviews. Parhat identified Hassan Maksum and Abdul Haq, as leaders at the camp; both men were ETIM fighters and Al Qaida members. In court, Parhat argued that just because some people in the camp were members of ETIM, it didn’t mean that the whole camp was. Garland, in his opinion, noted that the intelligence didn’t seem certain. ""The documents repeatedly describe those activities and relationships as having ‘reportedly’ occurred, as being ‘said to’ or ‘reported to’ have happened, and as things that ‘may’ be true or are ‘suspected of’ having taken place,"" he wrote. ""But in virtually every instance, the documents do not say who ‘reported’ or ‘said’ or ‘suspected’ those things."" Further: ""To be clear, we do not suggest that hearsay evidence is never reliable -- only that it must be presented in a form, or with sufficient additional information, that permits the Tribunal and court to assess its reliability."" The three-judge panel unanimously found that the government didn’t have enough evidence to prove that Parhat was Taliban-affiliated or an enemy of the United States. The government conceded that it would not argue differently for the remaining detainees. The D.C. Federal District Court, Ricardo Urbina, ordered their release later that year. Urbina also ordered them transferred to the United States, but a federal circuit court panel later blocked this move. Federal law bans transferring Guantanamo detainees to American soil. Because the United States has a non-refoulement policy that prohibits sending refugees to countries where they would be in danger, the detainees could not be sent back to China. So these men were resettled in nations like Palau, Switzerland and Bermuda. The last Uighur detainees left Guantánamo for Slovakia as 2013 came to a close. What do experts think? It’s worth noting that the government pointed to other evidence against the Uighurs that remains classified. But Toomey isn’t basing his statement on classified documents. What’s unclassified is ""ample"" enough, according to his spokeswoman, to substantiate the claim. Out of the unclassified documents, the primary sources are the Uighurs themselves. Many of the Uighur 17 admitted that they received basic gun training, but none said they had Al Qaida ties. Many said they were fighting -- but for their independence, not in global jihad or with efforts to hurt Americans. In 2003, according to the Washington Post, the Pentagon had already considered five of the Uighurs innocent (the same five who were relocated to Albania three years later) and another 10 ""low-risk,"" approving 15 for release. The report quotes a State Department official calling the Uighurs’ case ""unfortunate."" Some experts believe the Uighurs’ detainment was likely a mistake. Benjamin Wittes, a governance studies researcher at the Brookings Institution, told PBS NewsHour that he considered this a case of wrong place, wrong time. ""These are actually not people who have a problem with the United States,"" said Wittes. ""These are people who have a problem with the government of China and whose marriage of convenience with the Taliban is really just a convenience thing. It’s not part of any global jihad."" While Thomas Joscelyn, senior editor at the Long War Journal, doesn’t believe the Uighur detainees were high-threat, he doesn’t see them as harmless and disagrees with Wittes. ""It’s what we call the Forrest Gump story,"" he said. ""Where they happened upon these places that are Al Qaida-affiliated by accident. ... It strains credulity that would accidentally find their way to the Tora Bora Mountains, a known Al Qaida stronghold, jihadist country at that time."" Almerindo Eduardo Ojeda, director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, calls the detainees ""mostly independentists that happened to be Muslims."" Labeling them terrorists on ""grounds that [the government] cannot reveal... is particularly insidious, as there is a definite interest in large areas of the government to inflate the claims. At an enormous cost to the detainees,"" he emailed. ""For GTMO prisoners to be released,"" Ojeda asked, ""They have to be cleared by all relevant intelligence agencies. What does Pat Toomey know that they don't?"" Our ruling Toomey wrote that Garland ""authored an opinion that resulted in the release of 17 Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were part of a group of violent Islamist extremists the State Department had designated as terrorists."" Toomey’s claim is misleading. We have no definitive proof that the Uighur detainees engaged in terrorist acts or were ""violent Islamist extremists."" They were an oppressed ethnic minority in China and may have been caught up in events without endorsing terrorism. The courts released them because the government’s case against them seemed dubious. We rule the claim ."
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26448
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“The poor are, ironically, the most likely to be employed in the industries deemed ‘essential’ while their upper-class peers are freed to bunker down for weeks until the first death wave passes.”
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A quarter of Pennsylvania’s essential workers make less than $30,000 annually, and two-thirds make less than the state’s household median of $60,000. Grocery stores employ one of the largest groups of workers making the lowest wages. There are more than 120,000 grocery store workers in Pennsylvania, the data show, and average annual wages for the sector are about $23,000. Federal data from a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey on the share of workers who say they’re able to telecommute shows a stark divide among industries and divisions along race and class lines.
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true
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National, Coronavirus, Pennsylvania, Facebook posts,
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"In the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak, when public officials scrambled to close schools and businesses, a Facebook user lamented the inequity of the quarantine that Gov. Tom Wolf had imposed on Pennsylvanians. ""The poor are, ironically, the most likely to be employed in the industries deemed ‘essential’ while their upper-class peers are freed to bunker down for weeks until the first death wave passes,"" the Facebook user wrote on March 18. We wondered whether this claim would hold up when we looked at the data. Starting with Wolf’s executive order forcing all non-life-sustaining businesses to close, we pulled U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics information on the number of Pennsylvania workers in each essential industry and calculated their average annual wages. The Facebook user is right. The vast majority of life-sustaining workers earn low and working-class wages. A quarter of Pennsylvania’s essential workers make less than $30,000 annually, and two-thirds make less than the state’s household median of $60,000, raising questions about whether the people keeping the rest of society afloat are being sufficiently protected and compensated. Grocery stores employ one of the largest groups of workers making the lowest wages. There are more than 120,000 grocery store workers in Pennsylvania, the data shows, and average annual wages for the sector are about $23,000. Gas stations, assisted living centers and building maintenance firms are among the other essential businesses employing large numbers of low-wage workers across the state. Philadelphia-area grocers including Giant, Acme and Aldi recently started limiting the number of shoppers allowed in their stores at once to protect workers. Still, across the country, dozens of grocery clerks have already been sickened with the virus. And a Trader Joe’s worker in Scarsdale, N.Y., a greeter at a Giant store in Largo, Md., and two Walmart employees from the same Chicago-area store have died from the coronavirus in recent days. Acknowledging how vulnerable essential workers are, Wolf recently announced new rules aimed at preventing the virus from spreading in businesses open to in-person customers. Grocery stores must now make all workers and customers wear masks and start taking employees’ temperatures if a worker tests positive. But even as the state rolled out these new protections, it hasn’t done any more to ensure that the workers Wolf deemed essential are fairly compensated besides asking employers to step up and do the right thing. Wolf called fair pay for essential workers ""the responsibility of the private sector."" Among the grocers that operate in the Philadelphia area, several chains, including Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Fresh Grocer, Giant Eagle and Acme have started offering workers bonuses or higher hourly wages to their workers because of the coronavirus outbreak. The second part of the Facebook post addresses the perk the user believes white collar workers have enjoyed since Wolf ordered millions of Pennsylvanians to stay at home – the freedom to work from home. Federal data from a Bureau of Labor Statistics survey on the share of workers who say they’re able to telecommute shows a stark divide among industries, The Washington Post reported About 60 percent of people who said they work in ""management, business and financial operations"" said they can work from home. But fewer than 10 percent of workers said they could do so in categories such as ""services,"" ""construction and extraction,"" ""installation, maintenance and repair,"" ""production"" and ""transportation and material moving."" The Post also found divisions along race and class lines. Thirty-seven percent of Asian Americans and 30 percent of whites said they could work remotely. But only 20 percent of African Americans and 16 percent of Hispanics said they had that ability. Almost 52 percent of those with a college education or higher said they could work from home, but only 4 percent of those with less than a high school diploma said they could. The Facebook post stated that the poor are the most likely to be employed in essential industries while workers who earn more are free to shelter at home until the outbreak subsides. Our data analysis shows that the vast majority of workers Wolf deemed essential earn low and working class wages, and a recent analysis by The Washington Post shows that many white collar workers say they’re able to telecommute. An earlier version of this article excluded several Philadelphia-area grocers that have offered employees bonuses or higher salaries.The story has been updated."
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5882
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Gov’t, US Steel reach consent decree over chemical spill.
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U.S. Steel will pay a $600,000 civil penalty and $630,000 to reimburse various federal agencies for costs and damages after one of its plants discharged wastewater containing a potentially carcinogenic chemical into a tributary of Lake Michigan, federal and state officials said Monday.
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true
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U.S. News, Lake Michigan, Lakes, North America, Environment, Chemical spills, Courts, Indiana, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Wastewater, U.S. News
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The U.S. Justice Department said those terms are contained in a consent decree filed Monday in federal court in which U.S. Steel promised to take steps to improve its wastewater processing monitoring system to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and Indiana law. The April 2017 spill at a U.S. Steel manufacturing and finishing plant into the Burns Waterway near Portage, Indiana, contained hexavalent chromium, a toxic heavy metal that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said might be carcinogenic if ingested. The Justice Department said the plant experienced a rupture in an expansion joint in wastewater pipes, discharging untreated wastewater into the tributary. “Today’s settlement with U.S. Steel appropriately penalizes the company for last year’s wastewater spill, recoups the government’s response costs and other losses, and requires significant actions by the company to prevent toxic spills like this from occurring again,” Jeffrey H. Wood, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement. As part of the agreement, U.S. Steel will reimburse the EPA $350,000 for its response costs and the National Park Service more than $250,000 for its response costs and damages resulting from weeklong beach closures along the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, the Justice Department said. U.S. Steel said in a statement the steps it’s taking include installing a new wastewater piping system and completing repairs to a containment trench; implementing new spill notification procedures. The company said the consent decree also resolves violations from another wastewater discharge last October containing a less toxic form of chromium. The settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final approval by the court. The EPA has said hexavalent chromium is used in a variety of industrial processes, including steelmaking and corrosion prevention, and as a pigment in dyes, paints and inks. It’s also found in ash from coal-fired power plants. A case involving the chemical was made famous by the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich,” which was based on a utility’s disposal of water laced with hexavalent chromium in unlined ponds near Hinkley, California. That disposal method polluted drinking water wells and resulted in a $333 million settlement.
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31524
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"Sen. Chuck Schumer is on record saying, ""Candidates with deeply held Christian beliefs are unfit and disqualified from serving as a federal judge."
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But the quote attributed to Schumer doesn’t really hit the mark, even as a paraphrase. Consider the content and context of what Schumer actually said. As in the earlier case of Ashcroft, he didn’t raise an alarm about Pryor’s religion; he raised it about the potential for Pryor to become precisely what Orrin Hatch argued he would not: an ideologue who would make rulings based on his personal beliefs instead of the Constitution.
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false
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Questionable Quotes, chuck schumer
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Before the 2016 presidential election, when both candidates pledged to nominate Supreme Court judges who would overturn court rulings they disagreed with, the idea of using a political “litmus test” in the selection of federal judges was widely frowned upon. A remark often held up as a classic example of the litmus test mentality, specifically with respect to religion, is this one allegedly made some years ago by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-New York, the current Senate Minority Leader): WHAT A TWIT!!!! @CharlesSchumer quote: Candidates With Deeply Held Christian Beliefs Are Unfit and Disqualified… https://t.co/i0CS7TrRzV — DUANE ALLEN (@DUANEALLEN) April 7, 2017 It’s a misquote, however. Schumer never uttered such a sentence, although it does have a few words in common with something he did say during an 11 June 2003 Senate hearing on the confirmation of William H. Pryor, a George W. Bush judicial appointee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit: [I]n General Pryor’s case his beliefs are so well known, so deeply held, that it is very hard to believe, very hard to believe that they are not going to deeply influence the way he comes about saying, “I will follow the law,” and that would be true of anybody who had very, very deeply held views. That’s the closest Schumer came (that is to say, not very close at all) to stating what has been attributed to him. And although he didn’t specify in that excerpt which “deeply held beliefs” of Pryor’s he was worried about in particular, given more context it becomes clear what they were. The phrase “deeply held” came up several times during the Pryor hearing, originally in reference to the appointee’s religious faith (Roman Catholicism), and subsequently in reference to some political views that may be said to follow from that faith (as well as other faiths). The first time the phrase was uttered was by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who brought it up, interestingly enough, to make the opposite point that Schumer would go on to make: In an effort to defeat challenges to school prayer and the display of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court, both the Governor and the Chief Justice urged General Pryor to argue that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the States. General Pryor refused, despite his own deeply held Catholic faith and personal support for both of these issues. It’s clear from Hatch’s opening statement that he perceived the appointee’s “deeply held Catholic faith” as a potential stumbling block to his confirmation and therefore argued that it ought not to be: As you will undoubtedly hear during the course of this hearing, General Pryor is no shrinking violet. He has been open and honest about his personal beliefs, which is what voters expect from the people whom they elect to represent them. Yet General Pryor has shown again and again that when the law conflicts with his personal and political beliefs, he follows the law. However, as Schumer made clear in his own opening statement, his reservations had not been allayed. Taking his statements in their fuller context, we find that Schumer was quite specific about what troubled him, and it wasn’t that Pryor is a Christian, or that he is a Catholic, or that he is conservative. What troubled him was that (in Schumer’s own opinion, of course) Pryor’s “incredibly strong ideology” placed him outside “the ideological mainstream.” And in this respect he was referring to such issues such as women’s rights, abortion rights, LGBT rights, and the separation of church and state: When the President sends us nominees who are legally excellent, diverse and within the ideological mainstream, even though we may not agree with them on most issues, and those who will respect to the Senate’s constitutionally mandated coequal role in the process, the nominees pass through the Senate like a hot knife through butter. […] But I will say this, and I would caution my colleagues, it is just not enough to say, “I will follow the law.” Every nominee says that. And then we find when they get to the bench they have many different ways of following the law. And what I worry about, I do not like nominees too far left or too far right, because ideologues tend to want to make law, not do what the Founding Fathers said judges should do, interpret the law. And in General Pryor’s case his beliefs are so well known, so deeply held, that it is very hard to believe, very hard to believe that they are not going to deeply influence the way he comes about saying, “I will follow the law,” and that would be true of anybody who had very, very deeply held views. We all know that judging is not a rote process. If it were, we would have computers on the bench instead of men and women in black robes. I would refer my colleagues to an article on the op-ed page of today’s New York Times, which shows that when those nominated by Democratic Presidents follow the law on cases of women’s rights, environmental rights, et. al, they seem to follow the law in completely different ways or many different ways than the way nominees of Republican Presidents follow the law. We all know that. So a person’s views matter. There is a degree of subjectivity, especially in close cases and controversies on hot-button issues, and it is hard to believe that the incredibly strong ideology of this nominee will not impact how he rules if confirmed. Schumer’s concern about what he termed “the incredibly strong ideology of this nominee” synced up with previous statements he had made, such as when he said of Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft in 2001: Senator Ashcroft, as much as I respect you as a person and your faith, your past causes me grave concern on these issues. And like Bill Lann Lee, when you became the attorney general of Missouri, you did not relinquish your role as a passionate advocate. You sued nurses who dispensed contraception and continued litigating against them for years, despite being told by every court you came before that you were wrong. You sued the National Organization of Women under the antitrust laws to muzzle their attempt to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Will you now use, as United States attorney general, that office to continue crusading against those you passionately and fervently disagree with? Senator Ashcroft, the issue boils down to this: When you have been such a zealous and impassioned advocate for so long, how do you just turn it off? This may be an impossible task. We have found no record of Chuck Schumer’s ever saying, “Candidates with deeply held Christian beliefs are unfit and disqualified from serving as a federal judge.” Perhaps the quote originated as a paraphrase of what someone thought Schumer meant when he expressed misgivings about William Pryor’s views.
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7465
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US faces ‘truly daunting’ challenges on needed COVID tests.
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Despite a massive effort, the nation faces “truly daunting” challenges to deploy millions of coronavirus tests to safely re-open the economy, the head of the National Institutes of Health told lawmakers Thursday.
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true
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AP Top News, Understanding the Outbreak, Technology, General News, Francis Collins, Politics, Virus Outbreak, Public health
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NIH Director Francis Collins told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee that government and private industry have launched a $2.5 billion, taxpayer-funded effort to develop, manufacture and distribute technology capable of accurately testing millions of people a week by the end of the summer or the fall, before the annual flu season. Widespread availability of testing is seen as critical to reopening the economy because it would allow public health officials to identify and contain a rebound of the virus. It remains a high bar to clear. “I must tell you, senators, that this is a stretch goal that goes well beyond what most experts think will be possible,” Collins said. “I have encountered some stunned expressions when describing these goals and this timetable to knowledgeable individuals. The scientific and logistical challenges are truly daunting.” Nonetheless, Collins said “the track record of American ingenuity” gives him optimism. More than three months into the epidemic, the lack of testing is widely acknowledged as a central failing in the nation’s response. The issue has dogged the White House for weeks. President Donald Trump takes credit for the fact that testing has ramped up dramatically since the early days of the outbreak, when a test from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran into numerous problems. But sometimes he also seems uneasy about testing. “We do, by far, the most testing,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “If we did very little testing, we wouldn’t have the most cases. So, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad.” The U.S. is currently testing more than a million people a week for COVID-19 and White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Deborah Birx has said that weekly number should rise to 2 million or 2.5 million by the middle of June. But some experts say a million tests per day are needed, or more. “To test every nursing home, and every prison, everyone in an operating room, and some entire classes and campuses and factories, teams at sports events, and to give those tests more than once, we will need millions more tests,” agreed committee chairman Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. “This demand will only grow as the country goes back to work.” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the panel, put the blame on Trump for persistent problems with testing. “The problem isn’t a lack of innovation—it’s a lack of national leadership, and a plan from the White House. “And when it comes to testing, this administration has had no map, and no one at the wheel.” Congress provided NIH with $1.5 billion to develop tests. To help private industry quickly produce and distribute tests that meet NIH standards, lawmakers gave another $1 billion to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Known as BARDA, that agency is under scrutiny after its director alleged he was ousted for opposing widespread use of a a malaria drug promoted by Trump to treat coronavirus patients. Collins said the goal is to have highly accurate tests that can provide quick results at the “point-of-care,” such as a doctor’s office or a community health clinic. A special effort is being made to expand testing in minority communities that have taken the brunt of virus deaths. Many of the currently available tests require processing by a central laboratory to get results. Medical technology giant Abbott already has a point-of-care test available. But Collins said there’s a limited supply of the machines, and that they can sometimes fail to detect a patient who is positive. He said Abbott is working to improve its test, but that he thinks NIH might be able to do better. NIH has set up what Collins calls a “shark tank” process to quickly identify promising technologies, and test them. Within the agency, the initiative is formally called Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics, or RADx. It was launched just last week. NIH scientists, along with their counterparts in industry and academia, are looking into tests that can use different types of samples, from nasal swabs, saliva, blood, or exhaled breath. They’re also looking at antigen tests, a form of rapid test that can detect active infection. With time and effort such tests can be modified to be done at home, Collins said, but accuracy has traditionally been a problem. NIH has received more than 1,000 applications putting forth different ideas. ___ Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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11280
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Pfizer touts Lyrica’s effect in treating pain disorder
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"The story suffers from the absence of disinterested expert opinion, of particular value when the studies reported were not peer-reviewed and were industry-sponsored. There is incomplete information about side-effects, and the main effect of the drug, to reduce pain in fibromyalgia, is not described in sufficient detail to inform the concerned reader of possible clinical benefit. It is an interesting story from the point of view of potential expansion of market by adding another disease ""niche"" for the drug, but the story does not inform the health care consumer about the likelihood or size of benefit of the drug, nor of the drawbacks. It was surprising to see that no independent experts were quoted. The story appears to rely heavily on Pfizer input: ""The New York drugmaker said…"" ""Pfizer is expecting…"" ""Pfizer is betting heavily…"" ""Pfizer presented data…"" ""Pfizer says the dizziness tends to wear off."" ""Pfizer will release results…"""
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false
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"There is no information about the costs of this medication. The story provided information from a single study showing a dose response to the medications. This was a large study (750 patients). While providing information about the drug's effect on pain, the reader is not left with sufficient information about whether this amount of pain reduction was sufficient to change the quality of life for the patients studied. In addition, the story did not provide information about the length of time patients took the medication in order to obtain the benefit that was described. Although the story presented information about one side effect, dizziness, it did not do an adequate job address potential harms associated with treatment. From the company's own website, it was possible to learn that: The most common adverse events occurring during all controlled clinical trials for patients taking LYRICA vs those taking a placebo were dizziness, somnolence, dry mouth, edema, blurred vision, weight gain, and thinking abnormal (primarily difficulty with concentration/attention). These might be important to patients or investors. The evidence provided in this story comes from abstracts presented at two recent scientific conferences. The story should have mentioned that this means that the results have not yet undergone peer review and since both were presentations by the drug company that manufactures the drug, they should be viewed with some skepticism. While the studies were described in some laudable detail, such as mentioning random allocation and a placebo-control, important information was lacking. All effects were reported as relative rather than absolute changes, and the duration of the first study was not mentioned. Whether results reached statistical significance was not disclosed. Without these sorts of descriptors, it is hard for the reader to assess the strength of evidence, especially without the assurance of a peer-review process. The story provided an estimate of the number of individuals with fibromyalgia, and included the doubts of some about the existence of this condition. No independent experts are quoted. The story appears to rely heavily on Pfizer input: While the story did mention that fibromyalgia is traditionally treated with a 'cocktail of off-label drugs including antidepressants and painkillers', this is really not an adequate description of the the treatment options. In fact, one of the drugs that may be included in this 'cocktail' is the very drug that is being reported on. The story explained that Lyrica is available for the treatment of pain, but that it is not yet approved for fibromyalgia. The story stated that ""Pfizer is expecting word form the Food and Drug Administartion on its application this year"". However a search through www.clinicaltrials.gov shows that there are two phase III (trials to look at effectiveness of a treatment) trials of this drug for the treatment of fibromyalgia that are currently recruiting patients. This would suggest that it will take more time than till the end of this year before the FDA will make a decision about approving this use of the drug. Nonethless, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. This is about a drug company developing a new market for a product already developed – which the story clearly explains. The story further explains that there is currently no FDA-approved treatment for fibromyalgia. We can't be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release. However the story used the same statistics that appeared in a Pfizer news release about the estimated number of Americans with fibromyalgia, and the numbers presented in the article for the data presented at the American Academy of Neurology meeting."
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7431
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`We are desperate’: French hospital staff confront Macron.
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French nurses and doctors faced off with President Emmanuel Macron at a leading Paris hospital Friday, demanding better pay and a rethink of a once-renowned public health system that found itself quickly overwhelmed by tens of thousands of virus patients.
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true
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Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, Paris, Emmanuel Macron, Virus Outbreak, Europe, Public health
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“We are desperate. We no longer believe in you,” said a nurse who confronted Macron at the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital, saying she’s using a long-expired surgical mask. “We are the shame of Europe.” “That’s not true,” the president countered — but he could barely get a word in as medics peppered him with grievances. Apparently anticipating such tensions and fearing they could further hurt Macron’s image, the president’s office didn’t allow a single video, photo or radio reporter on the visit. Macron acknowledged mistakes in reforming the national hospital system, which has faced decades of cost cuts, leaving medical facilities in one of the world’s richest countries short of staff, masks and breathing machines needed to fight the virus crisis. “For months I was asking for equipment, and we had only three days to fight against the virus,” Martin Hirsch, head of the Paris hospital network, told Macron. France’s infections abruptly multiplied over a short period in March. As the virus raced across France in March and saturated several hospitals, Macron had to deploy the armed forces to build the country’s first-ever peacetime field hospital and move patients and doctors around in military transport jets and specially fitted high-speed trains. The French hospital problems long predate the virus crisis, and emergency room workers held strikes and protests for months last year demanding more hiring and funding after years of job losses. Macron’s government announced a plan last year to address the growing concerns, and pledged bonuses for medical staff when the virus hit. But the president acknowledged Friday: “We undoubtedly made a mistake in the strategy.” “It was a great strategy, but we should have done it 10 years ago,” he told frustrated hospital staff. Macron promised to launch a new investment plan while the virus crisis is still raging, without offering details. “Trust will only come if we move fast,” he said. An angry reception met Macron on a visit to the same hospital in February, as the president sought to show he was successfully managing the virus. Leading neurologist Dr. Francois Salachas confronted Macron to describe how the crisis -- which was just barely beginning — had already revealed weaknesses in French hospitals caused by years of budget cuts. The damaging exchange aggravated public frustration with Macron, and is likely why his office tightly restricted media access to Friday’s hospital visit. The Elysee Palace didn’t give a reason for the unusual decision. As Macron sat around a table with top doctors, the reception was firm. “We cannot go back like before,” said Thomas Similowski, head of the hospitals’ medical commission, calling for a rethink of medical training and more flexibility to deal with new threats. Macron then met with unions, who demanded wage hikes to keep nurses from quitting the profession and further worsening staff shortages. And then, as the president headed for the exit, irate nurses blocked his way. “That’s nice, the bonus ... but what we want is a raise,” said the nurse who said she was using an expired mask, who didn’t give her name. “For a major European country, this is not normal,” said another. French authorities say more than 27,000 people with the virus have died in hospitals and nursing homes, compared to about 7,000 in neighboring Germany, which tested much more widely than France and entered the crisis with six times as many intensive care beds. ___ Sylvie Corbet in Paris contributed. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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566
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Australian bushfires wipe out half of koala colony, threaten more.
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Bushfires have wiped out about half the koalas living on a coastal reserve in New South Wales, experts estimated on Friday, as a record number of intense fires rage around the Australian state.
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true
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Environment
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A fierce early start to the bushfire season brought a blaze at the Lake Innes Nature Reserve that destroyed two-thirds of the koalas’ habitat last month, leaving the rest under threat from one of 15 major blazes in the southeastern state. About 350 koalas living on the reserve in the north coast town of Port Macquarie have died in the bushfires, the group Koala Conservation Australia estimates. That compares with a total population of 500 to 600 in the reserve, said the group’s president, Sue Ashton. Animal carers at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital nearby have been nursing rescued koalas, bandaging their wounds and feeding them eucalyptus leaves and formula. “We look for signals of pain - teeth grinding, distress - and we just take it on a day-by-day basis,” said Amanda Gordon, who leads the team of carers, adding that some of the marsupials’ health problems can be hard to spot. “Sometimes koalas seem to be doing really, really well. Their paws might be healing up but if something’s going on that we can’t see there’s not really much we can do,” added Gordon, who has worked at the hospital for 15 years. The carers estimate at least 10 days will be needed to assess the full damage to the koala population. Population estimates for koalas, native to Australia, vary widely, from as few as 50,000 to little more than 100,000. They dwell mostly in eucalyptus forests in eastern states and on the coastal fringes, usually living up to 20 years, carrying their young in a pouch and sleeping for up to 18 hours a day. Warmer weather brought by climate change threatens to worsen conditions for koalas, as deforestation has narrowed habitable areas, said James Tremain of the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales. “Devastating bushfires are going to knock out some of these key population centers, but so also will increasing temperatures,” he said, by affecting the nutrition value of the leaves that are the animals’ sole food source. “Koalas are definitely in trouble in New South Wales, but if the declines continue at the same rate as the last 20 to 30 years, koalas could be extinct in the wild by mid-century,” Tremain added. (The story adds dropped word to name of town in paragraph 3.)
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11497
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Hallucinogenic Drug Psilocybin Eases Existential Anxiety in People with Life-Threatening Cancer
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This release focuses on a recent study that found a single application of the hallucinogen psilocybin is effective at providing meaningful relief to cancer patients suffering from severe depression or anxiety. The release is exceptionally thorough, addressing benefits, potential side effects and study design in a meaningful way. The study is one of two on the subject that were published recently in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. We also reviewed a news story by the LA Times that reported on the studies. Reviewers found that article balanced overall, but with an unsubstantiated claim that psilocybin was beneficial for conditions outside the scope of the research. We have done three reviews related to these studies: one on a news story from the LA Times, one on a news release from NYU, and this review on the release from Johns Hopkins. And the core issues involved are similar across all three items. Cancer is a widespread health problem that affects many millions of Americans. According to the National Cancer Institute, just under 1.7 million people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in 2016 alone. If you consider that each of those people has a family and loved ones who are also affected by the diagnosis, you can begin to appreciate the scope of the problem. According to a report from the National Institutes of Health’s 2002 State-of-the-Science Conference on Symptom Management in Cancer: Pain, Depression, and Fatigue, “The clinical ‘rule of thumb’ is that 25 percent of cancer patients are likely depressed enough at some point in the course of disease to warrant evaluation and treatment.” Again, that depression affects not only the patients, but their loved ones. This makes it especially important for research institutions and news outlets to write responsibly about studies like those discussed in this release. You want to give readers enough information to help them make informed decisions. You don’t want to raise false hopes, or sensationalize the work. This release does a very good job of handling a delicate subject well.
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true
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Academic medical center news release,Cancer
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Cost is not addressed at all. The costs associated with cancer treatments has been the topic of discussion for some time. So, cost of palliative treatments are important. While there may not be any good estimates of a commercially available product at the moment, the regulatory issues associated with psilocybin are considerable and are likely to have a large impact on cost. The release could have addressed this in a general way, even if specific cost figures are not available. This is a tricky one. The release does tell us what percentage of patients benefited from psilocybin treatment, but does not explicitly quantify the extent of those benefits — which is what this category is designed to address. However, the release does address benefits in a meaningful way. Here’s how: First, the release makes clear that all of the study participants had received a formal psychiatric diagnosis. That tells us that they were suffering from symptoms of clinical anxiety or depression. Second, the release states that six months after the treatment “about 80 percent of participants continued to show clinically significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety, with about 60 percent showing symptom remission into the normal range.” That language telling us that about 60 percent were in the normal range is important, because it means they were no longer exhibiting clinical anxiety or depression — and that is sufficiently meaningful to earn the release a satisfactory rating here. The release would have been better if it had been more clear that this was a cross-over study so all participants received both the low-dose (placebo) and the full therapeutic dose in either the first or second treatment session. In addition, no comparison is given between the low-dose and high-dose therapeutic effects. Instead, the release describes benefits five weeks and six months after the second session, after all participants had received the strong dose. The release does a good job here, stating that “15 percent of participants were nauseated or vomited, and one-third of participants experienced some psychological discomfort, such as anxiety or paranoia, after taking the higher dose. One-third of the participants had transient increases in blood pressure. A few participants reported headaches following the session.” Well done. The release does an exceptionally good job here, laying out the study design over the course of seven paragraphs. The description of the study was both detailed and accessible to non-experts. Nicely done. No disease mongering here. The release clearly lists the sources of funding for the research. That’s enough to earn it a satisfactory rating. Again, the release does a good job here. For example, the release cites a lead researcher from the Johns Hopkins team saying that “traditional psychotherapy offered to people with cancer, including behavioral therapy and antidepressants, can take weeks or even months, isn’t always effective, and in the case of some drugs, such as benzodiazepines, may have addictive and other troubling side effects.” Would a more detailed comparison be valuable? Yes. Do we think the language in the release is sufficiently meaningful to merit a satisfactory rating? Also yes. It is not clear from the release whether psilocybin treatment is currently available, or what the short- or long-term prospects are for psilocybin treatment availability. Psylocybin is categorized as a Schedule 1 drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration and its availability is tightly controlled. There is a precautionary note in the release,”…they do not recommend use of the compound outside of such a research or patient care setting.” But given the availability of “magic mushrooms” and the availability of DIY instructions on identifying and growing same, we think that some additional comments would have been worthwhile. The release places the work in the context of previous research from Johns Hopkins, which is enough — barely — to earn it a satisfactory rating here. What we would really like to see is how this work compares to previous research done specifically on the use of psilocybin to treat anxiety in cancer patients — such as this 2007 study, this one from 2011, or this one from 2013. We don’t necessarily expect an exhaustive comparison, but there needs to be at least some recognition that other work has been done in this field over the past 10 years. The release refrains from bombastic language, offers meaningful detail, and is written in clear, understandable language. We particularly liked that the release states up front that this was a small, and double-blind, study. We also liked the note that “the drug was given in tightly controlled conditions in the presence of two clinically trained monitors and [researchers] said they do not recommend use of the compound outside of such a research or patient care setting.” Well done.
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3644
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Volkswagen suspends executive over monkey tests.
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Automaker Volkswagen has suspended a top executive in response to widespread public criticism over experiments in which monkeys were exposed to diesel exhaust.
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true
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Animals, Technology, Martin Winterkorn, Business, Germany, Science, Europe, Monkeys
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The company said in a statement Tuesday that Thomas Steg, head of government relations and sustainability, was stepping away from his duties at his own request. The statement said the company was “drawing the first consequences” as it investigates the activities of EUGT, the entity backed by Volkswagen and other carmakers that commissioned the monkey experiment. Steg had said in an interview published in the newspaper Bild that he had known about the experiment but did not inform the company’s then-CEO, Martin Winterkorn. Steg said he rejected an initial proposal to use human volunteers and said that even after animals were substituted the experiment “should not have taken place.” The move follows a report in The New York Times that the now-disbanded EUGT commissioned the 2014 monkey test at the Lovelace Respiratory Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to measure how Volkswagen’s diesel technology was succeeding in controlling harmful emissions. Diluted exhaust gases from a late-model Volkswagen vehicle were fed into chambers where the monkeys were exposed for four hours. Afterward, lung fluid samples were taken from the sedated monkeys, which were not killed for the experiment. The study did not deliver a definitive result. The test was done with a vehicle that used illegal software to cheat on emissions tests, turning controls off when the vehicle was not being tested. That practice was exposed in 2015, leading to Winterkorn’s resignation. The Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute said in a statement that the tests were designed by EUGT and the lab itself was initially not aware the vehicle had been rigged. It said it complied with regulations for the treatment of lab animals and was committed to their humane and ethical treatment. The labs president and CEO, Robert W. Rubin, said in a statement that when the lab later learned that the vehicle engine had been modified to produce less pollution “we determined the study was compromised” and did not meet the standards for publication. “We understood that the EUGT organization was financially supported by automobile manufacturers, but we believed the goal of the study was to advance the scientific understanding of the effects of diesel fumes on our lungs, including the effects of new vehicle technologies that are designed to produce less pollution,” he said. Volkswagen’s current CEO, Matthias Mueller, said in the VW statement that “we are investigating in detail the work of EUGT, which was dissolved in 2017, and drawing the necessary conclusions.” He said Steg “has declared that he takes full responsibility, and I respect that.” Volkswagen said the probe would be carried out “at top speed.” Board Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch said the board’s executive committee expected to hear the status of the investigation next week, the dpa news agency reported. “We will ensure that such things will not be repeated,” he said. The company has said that rejects animal experiments and that “we apologize for the wrong behavior and bad decisions of individuals.” Government officials, environmental groups and animal rights activists all condemned the experiment. Daimler and BMW also condemned the experiment and said they were investigating. The New York Times report said the three companies backed EUGT financially. The monkey scandal is another black eye for the German auto industry as it seeks to move past the Volkswagen scandal and the doubts it unleashed over how clean diesel technology really was. Volkswagen paid billions in fines and settlements and pleaded guilty to criminal charges. The Volkswagen case led to increased scrutiny of diesel cars from other manufacturers, which were found to emit more in everyday driving than during tests, though not necessarily through illegal software as at Volkswagen.
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7366
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Indiana sending virus protective items to election offices.
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Indiana officials have started shipping protective supplies to county election offices ahead of the start of in-person voting for the primary election that was delayed until June 2 because of the coronavirus outbreak.
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true
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Primary elections, Voting, Health, General News, Elections, Connie Lawson, Indiana, Virus Outbreak
|
Forty-two more Indiana residents have died from coronavirus illnesses, pushing the state’s pandemic death toll from confirmed or presumed cases of COVID-19 to nearly 1,700, health officials said Friday. PRIMARY PREPARATIONS Federal funding has been used to buy supplies, including 200,000 face masks, 25,000 face shields, 5,000 gallons of hand sanitizer and 4,000 gallons of disinfectant cleaner for voting machines, Secretary of State Connie Lawson said Friday. Shipments began this week and will continue next week to Indiana’s 92 counties, which are scheduled to begin early in-person voting on May 26 and have polling sites open on June 2. That protective equipment is meant for election staffers and won’t be provided to voters, Lawson said. Election officials and state political leaders are encouraging mail-in voting as a way to protect poll workers and voters from possible COVID-19 exposure since deciding in late March to delay the primary by four weeks. Voters face a Thursday deadline for requesting a mail-in ballot. The state has established an online ballot application available at Indianavoters.com, or application forms can be requested from county election offices. Those ballots must be received by county election offices by noon on June 2. Lawson said that through Thursday about 330,000 mail-in ballots had already been cast — more than six times the total mail-in ballots submitted for the 2016 primary. “Voting absentee by mail is safe and secure,” Lawson said. “It’s important to remember this isn’t a new process, it’s just an expansion of something that clerks do every election cycle. As we weather the COVID-19 storm, its the smartest way to vote.”’ Gov. Eric Holcomb agreed that voting by mail was the “smartest thing,” but said he planned to vote in person either early or on primary day. “As long as we have the means to safely vote in person, I’m one of those people who subscribes to ‘I’m going to vote in person,’” Holcomb said. Indiana has no challenged races for statewide elected offices in this year’s primary, although multiple candidates are seeking nominations for the congressional seats being given up by Democratic Rep. Pete Visclosky and Republican Rep. Susan Brooks. Many state legislative seats and county offices are also on the primary ballot. MORE VIRUS DEATHS Most of the newly confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported by the Indiana State Department of Health occurred between Tuesday and Thursday, according to data posted by the agency. Indiana has now recorded 1,550 confirmed deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, along with 141 deaths considered coronavirus-related by doctors but without confirmation of the illness from test results. Together, those deaths boost Indiana’s confirmed and probable deaths from the virus to 1,691 statewide. Additional testing is becoming available around Indiana, with a state contractor opening 50 testing locations. The tests are available to those with symptoms of the respiratory illness, those in close contact with someone infected and people with high-risk health conditions. The state health department said it is holding drive-through testing clinics through Sunday in Bluffton and Gary in northern Indiana, the western Indiana city of Sullivan and in Madison in southern Indiana. The state agency’s full list of testing sites around the state can be found at www.coronavirus.in.gov.
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3500
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Rhode Island considers permanent flavored vape products ban.
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Rhode Island’s health department is proposing to permanently ban the sale of flavored vaping products in the state.
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true
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Rhode Island, Charlie Baker, Health, General News, Providence, Vaping, Gina Raimondo
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The department issued a public notice last week that it wants to make the temporary ban currently in effect permanent. Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo supports a permanent ban. A hearing is set for Jan. 7 at the health department in Providence. Spokesman Joseph Wendelken said Tuesday the department is acting now because the temporary ban will soon lapse, and it wants to prevent teenagers and adolescents from vaping, given the significant health concerns. Neighboring Massachusetts last month became the first state in the country to ban the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes, e-cigarettes and e-liquids. It came after Republican Gov. Charlie Baker declared a public health emergency and imposed a temporary ban in September. Raimondo signed an executive order in September banning the sale of flavored vaping products. In response, the health department issued emergency regulations Oct. 4 to implement a four-month ban, with an optional two-month extension. Raimondo said this month that she wants to permanently ban flavored vaping products to protect children. “This is an epidemic and we have to take action,” she said. “These companies are deliberately targeting addictive tobacco products to our children, resulting in kids who are 10, 11, 12 years old, addicted to tobacco products. We’ve got to do something. It’s much more pernicious, actually, than smoking.” Raimondo said the state shouldn’t ban all vaping products because public health experts say the products may help some cigarette smokers quit. The vaping industry has criticized bans on flavored products, calling them the wrong approach to the problem of youth vaping. The Vapor Technology Association has said that a better strategy is raising the age to purchase tobacco and nicotine vapor products to 21 and imposing stricter marketing standards on smoking companies. The minimum age to purchase all tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, was just raised from 18 to 21 nationwide. The provision to raise the legal limit was in a massive spending bill passed by Congress and signed by the president Dec. 20. Rhode Island’s health department says in its public notice it considered alternative approaches, overlap with other regulatory provisions, and the economic impact on small businesses before proposing to permanently ban the sale of flavored vaping products. It says it identified no alternative approach or overlap and found the benefits of the proposed rule justify the costs. The department is accepting public comment until Jan. 26. It can amend the state’s health regulations after going through the established process of proposing an amendment and collecting public comment.
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3778
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Plan to import cheaper Canadian drugs advances under Trump.
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The Trump administration, eager to show progress on prescription drug costs, on Wednesday moved forward with its plan to allow Americans to safely and legally get access to lower-priced medicines from abroad.
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true
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Seniors, Global trade, Prescription drug costs, International News, Florida, General News, Legislation, Politics, Health, Business, Prices, Canada, Donald Trump
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But patients are unlikely to see quick relief on prices, even in states such as Florida that are pursuing their own import plans. Meanwhile, major legislation to lower costs for seniors has gotten bogged down in a Congress consumed by the impeachment of President Donald Trump. Canadian officials have also raised questions, saying their country’s prescription drug market is too small to have any real impact on U.S. prices. In Washington, U.S. health officials unveiled a proposed regulation that would allow states to import many brand name drugs from Canada, with federal oversight. A second draft plan would let pharmaceutical companies seek approval to import their own drugs, from any country. It’s unclear if either pathway will be available to patients ahead of the 2020 election, although the Trump administration has advanced beyond its predecessors in trying to set up a supervised system for importing drugs. Medicines cost less in other advanced countries because the governments take an active role in setting prices. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar traveled to Florida on Wednesday to promote the plan with Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Earlier this year, DeSantis signed a bill intended to allow pharmacies and wholesalers in his state to import drugs from Canada, for patients covered by government programs like Medicare. There are still some hurdles before Florida can start, the governor acknowledged on Wednesday. “This is not easy stuff,” DeSantis said. More work is needed, “but I’d much rather be here moving forward than on the sidelines chirping,” he added. Azar earlier told reporters that allowing imports “can move us to a more open and competitive market.” “We will not take steps that would put patients or our drug supply at risk,” he added. Wednesday’s proposals follow the outline of an announcement by the White House in July. Many people already buy at least some of their medicines from pharmacies in Canada or Mexico, although technically it’s illegal to import them. The idea of allowing importation has been around for years, but previous attempts have been blocked by pharmaceutical industry lobbying and safety concerns seconded by government regulators. The politics of the issue have shifted under Trump, a relentless critic of industry pricing. Lawmakers of both major political parties, but particularly Democrats, also doubled down. The rhetoric may be having some effect. A recent government report showed that prices for pharmacy drugs fell by 1% last year, for the first time in 45 years. But the decline was driven by lower generic drug prices while the cost of brand name drugs continued to rise, although more slowly. The cost of medicines remains one of the top health care worries for Americans, and a recent Gallup-West Health poll found that 66% of adults believe the Trump administration has made little or no progress on the issue. The administration is following a two-part strategy. A proposed regulation would set up a system for states to import brand name medicines from Canada, working through pharmacies and wholesalers. Mainly pills would be covered under the plan. Insulin, biologic drugs, narcotics and certain other medications would be excluded, at least initially. Canada’s health ministry said in a statement Wednesday its first priority is to protect the supply of medicines for Canadians. “We share the goal of ensuring people can get and afford the medication they need,” said spokesman Thierry Belair. “But these (Trump administration) measures will not have any significant impact on prices or access for Americans. We remain firmly focused on ensuring Canadians can access the medication they need.” The second part of the Trump administration’s plan is draft legal guidance to drug companies outlining steps they can follow to import their own drugs. That could potentially allow for the importation of a broader range of medications, and from any country, Azar said. On Capitol Hill, the House and the Senate have different strategies to cut drug costs. There’s considerable overlap between the congressional plans, but there are also sharp differences. A bipartisan bill in the Senate and House-passed legislation from Speaker Nancy Pelosi would cap what Medicare recipients pay out of pocket for medicines and penalize drug companies that raise their prices above the inflation rate. But Pelosi would go much further. Her recently passed bill would authorize Medicare to negotiate drug prices and plow back the savings to provide seniors with new dental, hearing and vision coverage. With congressional Republicans set against Medicare negotiations, the White House has issued a veto threat on Pelosi’s bill, even though candidate Trump supported the idea in 2016. Pelosi spokesman Henry Connelly scoffed at the Trump administration’s import plan, noting it has no implementation deadline. “If President Trump actually wants to lower drug prices, he should pick up the phone and tell (Senate Majority Leader Mitch) McConnell to send him the House-passed ‘Lower Drug Costs Now Act,’ which provides the negotiations he promised the American people,” Connelly said in a statement. ___ Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Fla., and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
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26322
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Under an 1866 Supreme Court ruling, stay-at-home orders are illegal and can be disregarded with impunity
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The post misattributed a quote from a 1935 Illinois Supreme Court decision about Chicago judicial salaries The original quote refers to the Illinois Constitution and the laws that created the Municipal Court of Chicago, not the U.S. constitution The Supreme Court has ruled in the past that the rights of a citizen can be restricted by the state for the “common good” during a health crisis
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false
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Supreme Court, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"From Maryland to California, governors dealing with the COVID-19 crisis have faced challenges to the legality of their stay-at-home orders, some of which are showing up in court. A Facebook post claims that under an 1866 Supreme Court ruling, these orders are already deemed unconstitutional and that many governors must forfeit their authority because they have infringed on the rights of U.S. citizens. The post includes a picture with this text: ""This should settle the matter. This was the ruling of The United States Supreme Court shortly after the ‘civil war’ in Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866) which yet stands to this day: ‘Neither the legislature nor any executive or judicial officer may disregard the provisions of the constitution in case of emergency …’ … therefore, ANYONE who declares the suspension of constitutionally guaranteed rights (to freely travel, peacefully assemble, earn a living, freely worship, etc.) and or attempts to enforce such suspension within 50 independent, sovereign, continental United States of America is making war against our constitution(s) and, therefore, we the people. They violate their constitutional oath and, thus, immediately forfeit their office and authority and their proclamations may be disregarded with impunity and that means ANYONE; even the governor and President."" The cited case, Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866), was about disputed judicial authority during the Civil War. In 1864, Lambdin P. Milligan was arrested and tried by a military tribunal in his home state of Indiana and sentenced to death by hanging. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the military courts established by the president during wartime had no judicial power in secure areas with established civil courts, and Milligan was released. The case citation and time frame in the post are legitimate. But the quote about government authority does not come from this case. That quote, or a close match, comes from a case argued in the Illinois Supreme Court in 1935. In People ex rel. Lyle vs. City of Chicago, the justices of Chicago’s municipal court filed a complaint against the City Council over unpaid salaries amid the Depression. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in their favor and ordered the city to pay them the partial salaries that had been withheld. In his opinion, the Illinois chief justice said that ""neither the legislature nor any executive or judicial officer may disregard the provisions of the constitution even in case of a great emergency."" He was referring to the Illinois Constitution and the Municipal Court of Chicago’s founding laws. The second part of this claim that says orders ""can be disregarded with impunity"" doesn’t come from either of these cases and wasn’t found in any court cases or acts. We also found ample evidence that states do have the authority to issue stay-at-home orders. According to the American Bar Association, the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment and past U.S. Supreme Court decisions dictate that ""state governments have the primary authority to control the spread of dangerous diseases within their jurisdictions."" That doesn’t mean that there haven’t been cases brought against governors and local governments in California, Illinois, Texas, and Pennsylvania that are attempting to prove stay-at-home orders are unconstitutional. There have been mixed results from local courts, which all base their decisions on state laws and constitutions. Right now, the Supreme Court refuses to take a side. On May 8, the high court declined to review a case from a group of Pennsylvania businesses’ that wanted to block Gov. Tom Wolf’s stay-at-home order. In the past, the Supreme Court has supported state’s rights to deal with public health emergencies. The best example of the Supreme Court supporting a state’s power to impose mandatory restrictions during a pandemic is Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905). The case was brought against the Cambridge board of health and its response to a surge in smallpox cases in the city. The city’s board of health issued an order that all adults had to be vaccinated against the disease, or they would face a $5 fine (about $100 today). Henning Jacobson refused to be vaccinated, after having bad reactions to earlier vaccines. When the state of Massachusetts fined him, he appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ruled in the state’s favor, stating that they had full power to restrict the freedoms of any citizen if it ""is necessarily subject for the common good"" and that they had ""distinctly recognized the authority of a State to enact quarantine laws and ‘health laws of every description.’"" Our ruling A Facebook post claims that under an 1866 Supreme Court ruling, stay-at-home orders are illegal and can be disregarded with impunity. The claim cites an actual Supreme Court case, but it quotes a judicial opinion from an unrelated state case in Illinois dealing with judges’ salaries."
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40119
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The forwarded email warns that someone who is believed to be HIV-positive was found putting blood into a ketchup dispenser at a fast-food restaurant. It warns to only use sealed packets of ketchup.
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HIV Blood in a Ketchup Dispenser at a Fast Food Restaurant
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false
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Medical, Warnings
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This eRumor primarily circulated in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control there has not been any report of HIV-infected blood in any ketchup dispensers at any restaurants. Further, according to the CDC, there has never been a case of HIV infection or AIDS reported to them that was the result of eating something that contained the virus. A CDC release reminds everyone that HIV is a blood-borne disease and is passed from one person to another directly such as through certain kinds of sexual contact, needle sharing with an infected person, or blood transfusions. Comments
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26370
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“I see no time in the history of this country when perfectly healthy people have been basically confined to their homes or only able to do essential things as in Kansas City or St. Louis.”
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Many cities during the Spanish flu outbreak enacted similar restrictions. In Missouri, people were restricted on what they could do. Public gatherings were prohibited. Closed or canceled non-essential businesses, in-person churches and sports events also occurred then and now.
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false
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Public Health, Missouri, Coronavirus, Cindy O’Laughlin,
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"Have healthy people ever been the subject of a quarantine in St. Louis or Kansas City? Missouri state Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin says they haven’t. O’Laughlin (R-Shelbina) said in part of a since-deleted March 22 Facebook post: ""I see no time in the history of this country when perfectly healthy people have been basically confined to their homes or only able to do essential things as in Kansas City or St. Louis."" O’Laughlin’s statement referred to stay-at-home orders announced March 21 in Kansas City and St. Louis city and county. At the time of O’Laughlin’s statement, the state of Missouri had not issued a stay-at-home order. The statewide order expires May 4 and will be replaced with a phase-in of businesses and activities. How does stay-at-home in 2020 compare historically? We went looking — and found holes in O’Laughlin’s assertion nationally and in the state. When we reached out to O’Laughlin for context, she called the stay-at-home orders in St. Louis and Kansas City ""expanded quarantines"" and said she believes they are taking away Missouri residents’ rights. The CDC says quarantines restrict movements of sick people. A statewide stay-at-home order says residents should ""avoid leaving their homes or other places of residence."" The order has exceptions, including allowing people to get groceries, prescriptions or gas. People are encouraged to get fresh air and get outside but abide by social distancing guidelines. Were there similar restrictions placed on healthy people before COVID-19? One place to start looking is the 1918 flu pandemic. Restrictions then looked a whole lot like today. O’Laughlin’s claim encompassed ""the history of the country."" Our fact check on a statement by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer cited several studies of cities' responses to the Spanish flu in which most public places were closed. We couldn’t find a specific ""stay-at-home"" order for the 1918 flu in St. Louis. Still, the city’s health commissioner ordered that all public gatherings like sports events, schools and churches be canceled. All non-essential businesses were closed. Only banks, newspapers, embalmers and coffin makers were allowed to be open. We looked at newspaper pages from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that were archived on newspapers.com. Some of the headlines in the late fall of 1918 included: ""Influenza Closing Order Extended to All Churches."" On the same page, a sub-headline reads ""Playgrounds closed"" (Oct. 8). ""Governor Forbids All Public Gatherings in the State"" (Oct. 9) . ""No Public Funerals"" (Oct. 15). The 2020 St. Louis citywide order said in part: ""This order allows residents to continue meeting their basic needs and that essential services are provided; however, residents will be required to stay at home when possible."" What about Kansas City? According to an article by KCUR, the city in 1918 never saw heavy restrictions because many people and businesses resisted. Schools were closed but were opened back up in October 1918. The city’s mortality rate from the the Spanish flu was higher than most cities in the country. O’Laughlin said in a Facebook post: ""I see no time in the history of this country when perfectly healthy people have been basically confined to their homes or only able to do essential things as in Kansas City or St. Louis."" Many cities during the Spanish flu outbreak enacted similar restrictions. And in Missouri, based on St. Louis’ efforts to combat the 1918 flu pandemic, we can safely say that this ""time in history"" did occur. People were restricted on what they could do. Public gatherings were prohibited. Closed or canceled non-essential businesses, in-person churches and sports events also occurred then and now."
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10600
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Arthritis Drug May Fight Diabetes, Too
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"This is the weaker of the two articles we reviewed on this topic. It appears to have relied, perhaps entirely, on a press release. The story adds no independent, critical thoughts to the official description of the published study. It would have strengthened the piece to include a critique from a leading diabetologist who was not connected with the study. It also would have been good to describe the people included in the study in more detail. What was the average age, were men and women included, what other treatments were participants taking, etc. It would indeed be valuable to have a new safe, effective, and inexpensive weapon to insert in the arsenal of diabetes combination therapy. But while this article touts this drug’s promise in diabetes and even heart disease, it omits the key points from the published study about the trial’s limitations and its identification of potential safety issues. The story would have done well to address the investigator’s stated rationale for why more studies are needed: ""The drug’s long-term safety in this population, and particularly its effects on renal function, require further investigation."""
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false
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"The article notes that the drug is available generically and, if its use in diabetes is borne out in future trials, may represent an ""inexpensive"" treatment option. By simply abstracting the press release, the article makes a significant error. Compare the following The latter makes it sound like 100% of the salsalate groups had this result — or that the mean drop in the subjects who took salsalate was 0.5%. Neither interpretation is correct. In reality, 44%, 54%, and 60% of the subjects in each salsalate group (there were 3 doses) achieved at least a 0.5% drop, as did 15% of those who took placebo. If you look at the means compared to placebo, the mean reductions for the 3 salsalate doses were -0.36%, -0.34%, and -0.49%. Let’s try to clear up the misinterpretation because the press release isn’t crystal on it either. The study looked at what proportion of people who took salsalate had at least a 0.5% reduction in their blood glucose. For comparison, they also looked at how many people who took a placebo pill had at least a 0.5% reduction in their blood glucose. The key is that it’s a comparison. It’s like asking ""What proportion of people who ran the Chicago Marathon versus the New York Marathon finished in under 3 hours?"" The study, in effect, found that more people who marathoned in Chicago instead of New York finished in under 3 hours. The article, in effect, twisted this result to imply erroneously that everyone in Chicago finished under 3 hours, or that the average time was under 3 hours. The study also mentioned beneficial effects of salsalate on triglycerides and adiponectin, but these benefits were not quantified. No safety information from the study is mentioned, only a crib from the press release that salsalate is ""easier on the stomach"" than aspirin. However, the drug needs long-term safety data specifically in this population, and the study revealed the potential for kidney effects.The investigators themselves explain in the published study that these two gaps, long-term safety data and the potential for renal impact, require more studies before the drug can be recommended in diabetes. Channeling the press release, the story notes that the study was preliminary and that more studies are needed before the drug can be recommended for use in diabetes. However, we would have liked even one sentence evaluating the type and quality of the study: it was a small, short trial designed to compare 3 different doses to each other and to placebo. The authors report a 0.5% reduction in A1c attributable to use of the medication. They talk about an additional potential benefit from a possible reduction in cardiovascular risk. If the study was not designed to measure this, it would be prudent to leave it out of the press release and story. Given how small the study was it would be useful to know if the observed reduction in A1c was a statistically significant difference. It also would have been helpful if the story would have provided an estimate of how often the worrisome renal side effects were observed. Not applicable, in that the story really delivers no information about incidence or seriousness of diabetes. No independent sources were used. The investigators didn’t disclose any substantial conflicts of interest related to the study. The press release, via this story, makes the confusing point that the A1C drop in this study ""was in the range of several recently released diabetes treatments, according to the study."" We see at least three problems with this quote. Comparing the drug’s GI safety to that of aspirin is not directly relevant to this criterion because aspirin is not currently used to treat hyperglycemia. The article is clear that the drug is widely available for arthritis, but not yet available for diabetes. The article is clear that salsalate is a currently used for the treatment of arthritis but not yet recommended for the treatment of diabetes. The article appears to rely, perhaps entirely, on a press release. All the quotes and even some of the characteristic language, such as ""easier on the stomach,"" were in the release."
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24167
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A government panel that didn't include cancer specialists says women shouldn't receive mammograms until age 50...If government takes over health care, recommendations like these could become the law for all kinds of diseases.
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Ad claims if health reform bill passes, government panel could make laws that limit preventive services like mammograms
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false
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National, Health Care, Women, Americans for Prosperity,
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"A new TV ad from Americans for Prosperity, a group opposing the health reform bill, suggests that screening mammograms for women under 50 would be in jeopardy if the bill passes. The ad, running in 18 key congressional districts through March 18, 2010, features an appeal from breast cancer survivor Tracy Walsh of North Augusta, S.C. ""I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 43,"" Walsh begins. ""My mother died of cancer. But early detection saved my life. Now a government panel, that didn't include cancer specialists, says women shouldn't receive mammograms until age 50. That saves money, but could cost your life. If I had followed the new government guidelines on mammograms, my cancer would have spread undetected, and my chances of survival would have been reduced. If government takes over health care, recommendations like these could become the law for all kinds of diseases."" There's an awful lot of misinformation and distortion packed into to these few sentences, and we'll have to take them one at a time. But first, some background. In November 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued controversial recommendations regarding breast cancer screenings, including one that challenged the long-standing convention that women between the ages of 40 and 50 should get routine mammograms. Specifically, the task force dropped the need for regular mammography screenings for women between 40 and 50 from a Grade B to a Grade C. Grade B means there is ""high certainty that the net benefit is moderate or there is moderate certainty that the net benefit is moderate to substantial"" and therefore the screening is recommended. Grade C, however, means that there is ""at least moderate certainty that the net benefit is small."" As a result, the task force recommended against routinely providing the screening unless ""other considerations support the offering or providing the service in an individual patient."" Enter the Senate version of the health care bill (which is largely the working bill for now). It would create a health care exchange for people who do not get their insurance through their employer. Among other intended benefits, it would allow people in the so-called individual market to get group rates. Private health insurance companies that wish to compete for business in the exchange would have to offer a minimum package of coverage described in the bill. And among those minimum standards, they'd have to cover the entire cost of ""evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of 'A' or 'B' in the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Services Task Force."" That's the underpinning of the argument from Americans for Prosperity. Now, to unravel some of the distortion. First and foremost, the task force did not say women shouldn't receive mammograms until age 50. Diana Petitti, former vice chair of the task force, said the report has been wildly misrepresented on this point. ""The report says that when you hit 40, you should start having conversations with your physician about whether you want to have a mammogram,"" she said. ""There is no reason they shouldn't get a mammogram if they decide to get a mammogram. There is nothing in it that attempts to deny or affect the coverage for mammograms for women aged 40 to 49."" The report found there was insufficient backing to support the idea that routine mammograms should be automatic for all women 40 to 50, but it noted that there were many women for whom they would be appropriate, and that ""the decision to start regular, biennial screening mammography before the age of 50 years should be an individual one and take patient context into account, including the patient's values regarding specific benefits and harms."" Among those who should get routine mammograms under 50? Women with a history of cancer in their family, like Walsh, Petitti said. Dr. Petitti also takes umbrage at Walsh's claim that the panel didn't include cancer specialists. She is the former vice chair of the Institute of Medicine National Cancer Policy Board and vice chair of an Institute of Medicine committee that issued a report, ""Beyond Mammography."" Dr. Allen Dietrich is director of Population Sciences at an NCI-designated Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical center. And Dr. Sanford Schwartz has also published on the topic of mammography, she noted. In addition, she said, the recommendations were reviewed by oncologists, including a preventive oncologist, and by radiologists. The task force was established to provide an ""independent voice"" and ""sound, evidence-based recommendations for preventive services,"" said Alina Salganicoff, vice president and director of women's health policy at the independent Kaiser Family Foundation. As for Walsh's comment that not providing mammograms ""saves money, but could cost your life,"" we note that cost-effectiveness was not one of the criteria considered by the task force. It only analyzed the benefits -- early detection of cancer -- against the potential downsides of screening -- mainly stress caused from false-positive test results and the risk of exposure to radiation -- regardless of cost. In short, the panel concluded that based on the evidence, ""For biennial screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years, there is moderate certainty that the net benefit is small."" Walsh calls the task force recommendation ""new government guidelines on mammograms."" That's also wrong. The task force is an independent panel convened by the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But their recommendations carry an important disclaimer: ""Recommendations made by the USPSTF are independent of the U.S. government. They should not be construed as an official position of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services."" In fact, when the task force released its recommendations, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius promptly issued a press release stating, ""There is no question that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendations have caused a great deal of confusion and worry among women and their families across this country. I want to address that confusion head on. The U.S. Preventive Task Force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations. They do not set federal policy and they don't determine what services are covered by the federal government. ""There has been debate in this country for years about the age at which routine screening mammograms should begin, and how often they should be given. The Task Force has presented some new evidence for consideration, but our policies remain unchanged. Indeed, I would be very surprised if any private insurance company changed its mammography coverage decisions as a result of this action."" Health and Human Services guidelines regarding mammograms did not change. Medicaid still covers the full cost of mammograms for women over 40. And Sebelius was correct that it did not affect private insurance companies' policies regarding mammography coverage. ""Our providers continue to provide coverage (of breast cancer screenings) when that is a decision reached between the doctor and patient (even when they are under 50),"" said Susan Pisano, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans. She said she ""doesn't have any reason to believe the health bill is going to change"" their policy. ""Quite the opposite,"" Pisano said, ""we even do outreach to encourage women to do screenings. We will continue to focus on screenings and prevention. That's something we very much believe in."" But back to the Senate bill. There are a few other reasons that Walsh's claims about its limits of mammography are misleading. For one, the bill talks about minimum requirements for policies offered on the exchange. ""That's the floor in terms of preventive benefits,"" said Salganicoff, of Kaiser. ""Furthermore, there is nothing that stops anyone from covering diagnostic mammograms for women of any age."" The Senate bill makes it clear that plans may offer services well beyond the minimum requirements, including mammograms or any other services. ""Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a plan or issuer from providing coverage for services in addition to those recommended by United States Preventive Services Task Force or to deny coverage for services that are not recommended by such Task Force,"" the bill states. And if all that weren't enough, legislators went out of their way to ensure that mammograms for women aged 40 to 50 would be covered. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., added an amendment that requires, when it comes to no-cost preventive services offered to women on the exchange, in addition to the services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, they also must include services ""provided for in comprehensive guidelines supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration."" And those HHS guidelines say you've got to cover mammograms for women over 40. Asked in an interview with National Public Radio whether task-force studies like the breast cancer recommendations would be the basis for restricting coverage on the health care exchange, Sebelius said it is the secretary of health and human services — not the advisory panels — who would be have final say on what must be covered. According to NPR, ""Asked whether she would be willing to pledge that as long as she remains secretary of health and human services, she will make sure that every plan offered on the exchange will give coverage for annual mammograms for women over 40, Sebelius responded: 'Well, yes. I think that is an important service. It's a determination that we've made.'"" Sen. David Vitter, R-La., offered an amendment (which passed) that made it even clearer. ""For the purposes of this Act, and for the purposes of any other provision of law, the current recommendations of the United States Preventive Service Task Force regarding breast cancer screening, mammography, and prevention shall be considered the most current other than those issued in or around November 2009."" In other words, ignore the November task force ruling altogether. Phil Kerpen, vice president of policy at Americans for Prosperity (which spent $750,000 on the ad) called that a ""temporary fix"" and said ""if the task force upholds that again in its next recommendations (as expected) that will no longer be operative."" How worried is the American Cancer Society that Kerpen's scenario might lead to insurers not covering mammograms for women under 50? Not at all. ""We're comfortable with the final language and that women 40 and above will continue to have access to mammograms as appropriate,"" said Stephen Finan, senior director of policy at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. The HHS guidelines include mammograms for women over 40, he noted, so ""as of now, if everything in the plan today was law, women over 40 would continue to be covered by their insurance."" In addition, he noted, 49 states have laws that require mammograms to be covered. The rules vary from state to state, but most require private insurers to pay 100 percent of the cost of mammograms for women over 40. ""The fact is, most group plans today provide it anyway as essential, good preventive service,"" Finan said. The number of plans that don't cover it is very small, he said, and is relegated to ""junk plans."" One last point: Without any context provided, Walsh's comments leave the impression this issue applies to all Americans. It doesn't. As Kerpen confirmed, she's talking only about people who participate in the health insurance exchange, not people who get their insurance through their employer. The independent Congressional Budget Office estimated that if the health bill passes, four out of five people would continue to get their insurance through their employer. Walsh was covered through her husband's employer, so this whole issue doesn't even apply to her. To review: The task force did not say women shouldn't receive mammograms until age 50. The task force did include experts on cancer screening. It did not factor in cost. The recommendations are not the new government guidelines (in fact, the government guidelines remained the same). In short, this is a bogus issue. If the bill passes, preventive services recommended by the task force would become the bare minimum insurance companies in the exchange would be required to cover. And with regard to mammograms, specifically, they would be covered for women over 40. Americans for Prosperity got the wrong messenger. With a mother who died of cancer, Walsh is practically a poster child for the kind of person who the task force believes ought to get a mammogram before 50. And she gets her insurance through her husband's insurance. Nothing in the health care bill would change how she (or the four out of five Americans like her) would have received care through employer insurance. More importantly, Americans for Prosperity seized on an issue -- free mammograms for women between 40 and 50 -- that was specifically taken care of with not one, but two, Senate amendments. We rule this claim !"
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30430
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Liberals at the University of Texas called for masculinity to be designated a mental illness
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In its article, PJ Media claimed that UT “did not respond to a request for comment to clarify.” However, a spokesperson for the university rejected this, telling us by email that the university had agreed to an interview about the program before PJ Media cancelled it.
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false
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Politics, constitution.com, fox and friends, pj media
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The plans and utterances of academics are a longstanding source of outrage for some right-wing and libertarian commentators in the United States, who often see college campuses as hotbeds of political correctness and the corrosion of traditional values. One related episode took place in the spring of 2018, when an initiative by the University of Texas (UT) prompted claims that “liberals” at that school were calling for masculinity to be designated as a mental illness. For example, the Constitution.com web site wrote: The insane, mentally deranged liberals at the University of Texas now want masculinity to be designated as a mental illness … [The] purported “counseling” department at the university started a program to “help” male students “take control over their gender identity and develop a healthy sense of masculinity …” The creators of this foolish left-wing circlejerk claim that it is that danged old “restrictive masculinity” that forces men to “act like a man” and that encourages men to be “too masculine.” This program wants people to stop saying men should be a “breadwinner” or that they should strive for success in their careers. Men need to be wimpy, subservient, spineless, and unable to make a decision without a woman to tell them how to think and what to do. The conservative PJ Media web site similarly reported that the program amounted to “treating masculinity as if it were a mental health crisis,” and the popular morning television show Fox & Friends claimed UT was “now treating masculinity as a mental health issue”: University of Texas to treat masculinity as a ‘mental health’ issue pic.twitter.com/BtZdfclfMG — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 29, 2018 In reality, nobody at the university’s Counselling and Mental Health Center, liberal or otherwise, called for masculinity to be “designated a mental illness” or treated as a mental health issue. That characterization of the new program came from the Fox & Friends TV program and the PJ Media web site, not from those behind the initiative itself. The emphasis on “mental health” in all three reports appeared to stem from no more than the fact that it was the Counselling and Mental Health Center that was behind the program. In response to these misleading and sensationalist reports, the Counselling and Mental Health Center at UT took the step of directly refuting the “mental health issue” claim in a statement posted on the school’s web site: The MasculinUT program does not treat masculinity as a “mental health issue,” and any such statements are simply not accurate. It was established to bring more men to the table to address interpersonal violence, sexual assault and other issues. Like other UT programs related to sexual assault and interpersonal violence, MasculinUT is housed administratively in the university’s Counseling and Mental Health Center. Its goals include helping men explore ways to reduce sexual violence, helping students take responsibility for their actions, and fostering healthier relationships on campus and beyond. Based on the promotional material and information on the MasculinUT web site, the closest the program’s designers came to “treating masculinity as a mental health issue” was one section which listed “emotional and mental health problems” as one of four or five possible negative consequences of “espousing very restrictive aspects of masculinity”: Attending to masculinity can illuminate many important issues and take us a step closer to creating a dialogue for gender equity. Specifically for college students, research shows that espousing very restrictive aspects of masculinity results in men underperforming in college, participating in risky behavior that affects their health (such as binge drinking or drug use), and developing particular emotional and mental health problems that cannot be addressed unless we understand the specific vulnerabilities created by certain aspects of masculinity. The MasculinUT program’s web material described “restrictive masculinity,” a target of particular scorn for critics of the program, in the following way: MasculinUT recognizes unhealthy masculinity as restrictive and exclusionary in the sense that it only affords a narrow definition of what it means to be masculine. This definition of masculinity also restricts what is acceptable in terms of appearance. This also makes it exclusionary, because a restrictive definition of masculinity depends on excluding people from that definition. Students who do not feel what a “real man” should feel, think the way a “real man” thinks, or looks the way a “real man” is supposed to look are vulnerable to violence from others who cannot accept male students who stray from this narrow definition. Students who feel targeted are also at risk of engaging in violent behavior in an attempt to not be the target of violence. Restricting the definition of masculinity can turn students into “pressure cookers,” where if a student is not allowed to express all of their emotions and thoughts, these just build up and can explode in various, unhealthy ways (such as violent behavior or coping mechanisms such as drinking). Since 2015, MasculinUT has been run by Voices Against Violence, an initiative overseen by the Counselling and Mental Health Center at UT, which produces programming to prevent and respond to interpersonal violence, including sexual assault. The program appears to have come to prominence in April 2018, because of the launch of a new MasculinUT poster campaign, and because the University of Texas began advertising the position of “healthy masculinities coordinator” at that time.
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6848
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Colorado inspections at oil and gas sites showing results.
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State health inspectors equipped with infrared cameras dropped in unannounced on about 2,000 oil and gas operations across Colorado last year and found leaks of heat-trapping methane and volatile organic gas at 13 percent of those sites — half the frequency of leaks they detected five years ago.
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true
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Colorado, Health, Jared Polis, Air quality, Environment, Oil and gas industry, Public health, Pollution
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Tougher anti-pollution enforcement, including inspections like these, has emerged as an option for Gov. Jared Polis and state lawmakers as they re-focus government oversight of the oil and gas industry — one of the contributors to Colorado’s poor air quality. The latest data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment show that these oil and gas site inspections, which started in 2013, may spur significant improvement. “We’re happy to see the trend. Less is better. It shows the importance of inspections and maintenance program like this,” Christopher Laplante, the state health department’s Air Pollution Control Division inspection and permitting supervisor, said last week at an Extraction Oil and Gas facility east of Dacono, in southwestern Weld County. It was a fairly typical site: eight wells, 16 round tan storage tanks, pipelines, processing units and flaring stacks perched atop a gravel pad on a former farm field. When inspectors arrive, they start by simply walking around looking, listening and sniffing — before pulling out the infrared devices that make toxic air pollution as visible as an approaching storm. The inspections are happening amid rising concerns about persistently unhealthy air that may be deteriorating. Colorado’s Front Range has flunked federal air quality health standards for more than a decade. The Environmental Protection Agency soon is expected to reclassify Colorado from being a “moderate” air-quality violator to a “serious” one. State monitoring has identified the expanding oil and gas industry as the biggest source of the volatile organic compounds that lead to the formation of ozone smog and a major source of the methane that is worsening climate change. ___ Fossil-fuel companies have drilled more than 53,000 wells statewide, steadily increasing production, reaching a new all-time production high last year of 177 million barrels of oil. But with a staff of just nine inspectors, the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment cannot visit most industry sites every year. State health officials pick from the roughly 11,000 established oil and gas sites statewide that have been issued the air pollution permits required under the federal Clean Air Act. These permits set limits on emissions. A typical site might be inspected once in five years. Since 2013, state documents show, inspectors have visited a total of 10,325 sites. And in Colorado, inspections aren’t done during the first 90 days when companies typically drill and conduct hydraulic fracturing. Colorado air pollution control officials have invoked a 27-year-old state regulatory exemption that lets companies produce for three months without the permits required under federal law. Only the oil and gas industry receives this exemption in Colorado. The rationale is that, during those first 90 days, companies can discover how many tons a year their operations are likely to emit and inform state regulators, who then take that amount into account before imposing a limit. Yet this exemption may not be legal under the Clean Air Act. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, this month called for ending it, and the environmental organization WildEarth Guardians is preparing a lawsuit. Colorado health officials have said they will review of the legality of the exemption. Jill Hunsaker Ryan, director of the state health department, on Friday told The Denver Post that the agency is “fully aligned with Gov. Polis in his mission to reduce pollution throughout Colorado. In our state, we cherish the environment and expect clean air to breathe. It’s time for us to move as swiftly as possible to get back in good standing with federal ozone standards. “Going forward, the department will be examining and developing strategies to reduce pollution at all stages of oil and gas development.” ___ This past week, state air pollution inspectors went to the Extraction site east of Dacono as part of an annual push to build understanding. The inspectors showed 60 industry workers in hard hats, flame-retardant clothing and boots — from Anadarko Petroleum, PDC Energy, DCP Midstream and other oil and gas companies — what they look for when visiting sites: They point the infrared cameras at storage tanks, flares that burn off gas before it can spread, above-ground pipelines and other equipment. Colorado’s inspections program is designed to spur quick compliance. When inspectors detect a leak, they notify companies that same day. “Some leaks may be indicative of violations,” Air Pollution Control Division director Garry Kaufman said in a recent interview. But rather than punish by issuing tickets, inspectors order repairs. Companies are required to initiate fixes within five days, unless they fill out a form justifying a delay. Oil and gas company officials said they’ve embraced this approach. “We treat each other with mutual respect. We want to comply,” Extraction air quality manager Kathy Steerman said. Extraction crews have three of their own infrared cameras, which cost about $100,000 each, and use these to inspect facilities to detect leaks. The company also works with consulting firms that have access to more cameras. Colorado’s largest oil and gas producer, Anadarko Petroleum, deploys drones equipped with infrared devices that fly over sites for initial detection of air pollution that could exceed limits. Anadarko officials said they send out ground crews to visit any site where drones detect leaks. The company also has shifted away from the use of storage tanks — which hold 400 barrels of crude oil and long have been seen as a main source of toxic pollution — by funneling more oil and gas through pipelines to consolidated facilities. ___ In the coming months, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and other agencies charged with protecting public health and the environment must make new rules to implement regulatory reforms that Polis last week signed into law. The new oil and gas law directs the health department’s Air Quality Control Commission to consider adopting tougher regulations, including increased detection of the leaks that worsen air pollution. Monitoring oil and gas industry air pollution for years has fallen to the health department because it has experience and more staff trained to inspect industrial facilities. Extraction will work together with inspectors and communities, Steerman said. “Technology has changed. Desire for betterment is driven by the top echelon of the culture. For every facility and per barrel produced, emissions have been on the decline,” she said. “We’re not afraid of any of the changing rules.” State air pollution inspections at oil and gas sites started in 2013 as a pilot project using four infrared cameras. Many of the first 4,500 sites inspected had not been visited before. The project became permanent in 2016. The agency has added a fifth infrared device and has the authority to hire two more inspectors. Initially, the state’s inspectors detected leaks at 28 percent of the sites they visited, according to a program assessment completed in March. In 2018, leaks were detected at 13 percent of sites visited. Companies aren’t told when inspectors will drop by — better for seeing “as-is conditions,” Laplante said. While individual sites are emitting less air pollution, “there’s a lot more production of oil and gas — so there’s greater emissions overall because there’s more activity. But there’s less emissions per site,” Laplante said. State health department documents indicate the oil and gas industry annually emits more than 70,000 tons (63,502 metric tons) of toxic air pollution along the Front Range. ___ Environmental advocacy groups are pushing for more frequent and rigorous inspections. One group, Earthworks, has been conducting its own inspections using an infrared camera. “The inspection program is not sufficient,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Robert Ukeiley said. “We continue to violate the ambient ozone standards. . There are so few inspectors that they only get to certain facilities.” Ukeiley acknowledged that “some individual facilities may be polluting less.” But Colorado’s air pollution division “is constantly permitting the addition of new polluting facilities. So we’re constantly adding more pollution to our air.” State records show that 74 percent of the 10,325 sites inspected since 2013 had not been inspected before using an infrared device to detect pollution. ___ Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
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42091
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“Trump Warns Flu Shots Are The Greatest ‘Scam’ In Medical History.”
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President Donald Trump did not call the flu shot a “scam,” as is being claimed by a number of widely circulated blog articles.
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false
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influenza, vaccine,
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President Donald Trump did not call the flu shot a “scam,” as is being claimed by a number of widely circulated blog articles.An article appearing on several websites falsely claims that President Donald Trump once warned that flu shots are a “scam.” He didn’t. In 2015, Trump, then a presidential candidate, merely said that he had never gotten a flu shot.All of the websites carry the item under the same inaccurate headline, “Trump Warns Flu Shots Are The Greatest ‘Scam’ In Medical History.” Facebook users recently flagged the inaccurate story on wisemindhealthybody.com, a website that posts items about health and beauty. But it dates to at least late January 2017, when Trump became president, and has appeared on Health Freedom Alliance, State of the Nation, a self-described alternative news website, and News Punch, which used to be called YourNewsWire, a website known for spreading misinformation. The article starts by saying, “The flu shot is the greatest scam in medical history, created by Big Pharma to make money off vulnerable people and make them sick, warns President Donald Trump.” It then points to an interview with Jim Norton and Gregg Hughes, who also goes by the nickname “Opie,” in which Trump admitted to never having gotten the vaccine and never getting sick with the flu.Trump, October 2015: No, I’ve never had one, and thus far I’ve never had the flu. I don’t like the idea of injecting bad stuff into your body, which is basically what they do. And I guess this one has not been very effective to start off with, the last one. But I’ve never had a flu shot and I’ve never had the flu. …I have friends that religiously get the flu shot and then they get the flu, you know that helps my thinking because, I say “Why am I doing this?” And then I’ve seen a lot of reports that the last flu shot is virtually, totally ineffective.The article is right that Trump called the 2014-2015 flu vaccine “ virtually, totally ineffective,” and said that he doesn’t like the idea of injecting what he called “bad stuff” into his body.He never says, however, that it is a “scam,” a word that appears in quotation marks in the headline. Nor does Trump refer at all to “Big Pharma,” let alone blame pharmaceutical companies for intentionally making people sick in order to get money.The CDC publishes information about the flu vaccine on its website, detailing how it works, the side effects and risks, as well as the ingredients of the vaccine. Two of the ingredients, according to the CDC, are thimerosal and formaldehyde, which were mentioned in the article posted on wisemindhealthybody.com.Thimerosal is used in multidose vials as a preservative. It is not used in single-dose vials, where the vaccine contained in a single vial is only administered to one person. “There is no evidence that the small amounts of thimerosal in flu vaccines cause any harm, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site,” the CDC says.Formaldehyde is used to “inactivate viruses so that they don’t cause disease,” and is present in too small a concentration in vaccines to pose a safety concern, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Formaldehyde has a long history of safe use in the manufacture of certain viral and bacterial vaccines,” the FDA says.The CDC has also published and referenced studies that say the vaccine reduces the risk of flu-related hospitalizations and deaths among certain demographics. The CDC also notes that the risk of the more serious side effects from the vaccine is lower than the risk of developing severe consequences from contracting the virus. So, despite Trump’s choice to not get vaccinated, there is notable evidence that doing so is safe and can, in some cases, avoid unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths.CDC early estimates indicate that more than 900,000 people were hospitalized and over 80,000 died as a result of flu-related causes last season.Update, May 23: The website wisemindhealthybody.com has retracted the story “Trump Warns Flu Shots Are The Greatest ‘Scam’ In Medical History,” and posted an update that says the story was “found to be at odds with numerous scientific studies.”Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on the social media network.“Trump Warns Flu Shots Are The Greatest ‘Scam’ In Medical History.” wisemindhealthybody.com. Undated. Accessed 4 Dec 2018.Norton, Jim and Gregg Hughes. Interview with Donald Trump. Opie Radio. Oct 2015.“Making the Vaccine Decision.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 16 Oct 2018.“Thimerosal in Vaccines.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 27 Oct 2015.“Common Ingredients in U.S. Licensed Vaccines.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Q&A. 30 Apr 2018.“CDC Study Finds Flu Vaccine Saves Children’s Lives.” Press release. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 12 Jul 2018. 3 Apr 2017.“Possible Side-effects from Vaccines.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 12 Jul 2018.Thompson, Mark G., and Nevil Pierse et al. “Influenza vaccine effectiveness in preventing influenza-associated intensive care admissions and attenuating severe disease among adults in New Zealand 2012–2015.” Vaccine. 18 Sep 2018.“National Press Conference Kicks Off 2018-2019 Flu Vaccination Campaign.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Press release. 27 Sep 2018.
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37619
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"A Mike Bloomberg supporter asked fellow supporters if they could help ""brainstorm ways"" to make Bloomberg's stop-and-frisk positions sound ""less racist."
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‘Can We Brainstorm Ways to Make This Sound Less Racist’ Michael Bloomberg Subreddit Post
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Politics
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"Amid ongoing controversy involving Democratic candidate Mike Bloomberg and his attitude toward New York City’s stop-and-frisk policies, blogger and reporter Zaid Jilani tweeted a screenshot from Reddit’s r/PresidentBloomberg — in which an apparent supporter of Bloomberg’s campaign asked others to “brainstorm” ways to make Bloomberg’s positions “sound less racist”:Over at the Michael Bloomberg Reddit page. ""Can we brainstorm ways to make this sound less racist?"" https://t.co/KKY5aDfdX6 pic.twitter.com/wGP0045DWg— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) February 13, 2020Verifying the existence of the post was reasonably straightforward, and Jilani linked to the thread. The post, which was submitted on February 11 2020 and locked sometime thereafter, featured the same title (“Can we brainstorm ways to make this sound less racist?”) and a video clip :Can we brainstorm ways to make this sound less racist? from PresidentBloombergAn audio portion of the clip was the subject of a previous TruthOrFiction.com fact check about some of Bloomberg’s remarks. On the page, which we rated True, Bloomberg was quoted as saying in February 2015:Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25. That’s true in New York. That’s true in virtually every city in America. And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got to get the guns out of the hands of the people that are getting killed.So you want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So one of the unintended consequences is people say, “Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.” Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them… And then they start, “Oh I don’t want to get caught.” So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home.The post itself was real in that it existed, and the underlying comments were widely covered and real. But in a follow-up tweet, Jilani noted that he was “90 percent sure” the original poster was insincere:90% sure this is a troll post (and no it wasn't me who made it). Still very humorous.— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) February 13, 2020As for the original poster to r/PresidentBloomberg, u/Throw_away_campaign, their username indicated their use of a “throwaway account.” In Reddit parlance, users are known to create single-use or alternate accounts not associated with their “main” handle, in order to anonymously participate in temporary discussions or events:What is a throwaway account, and why do people make them? from OutOfTheLoopUse of “throwaway accounts” is common in personal, legal, and political subreddits, and they are often used to protect users’ sensitive activity from spilling over to their all-purpose accounts. A handle like u/Throw_away_campaign suggested the user was a longer-term Reddit participant, and using a separate account for political discussion during the 2020 Primary. In some subreddits, use of throwaway accounts is mandated due to the nature of their discussions.A visit to u/Throw_away_campaign‘s profile supported Jilani’s second tweet on the matter of the original post. Their first interaction on Reddit was on January 19 2020, involving a separate post shared to r/PresidentBloomberg.That user participated in other subreddits such as r/news and r/funny, but was also a frequent poster to r/PresidentBloomberg during their short tenure on Reddit. In an early February 2020 post, a comment they added to a post on that sub appeared to be sincere and in favor of Bloomberg:The reason Bloomberg is in this race is because everyone in the democratic party understands exactly how Bernie pays for his ideas, and it will cost people like Bloomberg billions. There was never any chance either party would let Bernie win the general election.Medicare For All may be cheaper than our current system, but there’s no way for private health insurance to ever compete against something that has zero interest in making any profits at all. So the billionaires invested in the pharmaceutical and health insurance industry will lose billions in potential profits even before their taxes are raised.Same story for the coal industry. Same story on Wall Street. Same story for any oil company invested in fracking. Bernie is out there bragging that he’s their worst nightmare, but what he fails to realize is just how hard these industries will fight him if they actually get worried he’ll win.Some of these companies posted a billion dollars in profit in a single quarter. When faced with the complete destruction of their profit model, they’ll fight tooth and nail throwing BILLIONS to re-elect Trump. You can’t compete with that kind of money.That’s why Bloomberg is the BEST choice. Not only does he have the funds it takes to win, but neither side is going to fight very hard against him.Another comment made by that user on or around the day the original post was submitted was more in line with the “less racist” query, urging fellow Bloomberg supporters to “lean in” to criticism about the comments:Could you edit out the word “arrested” on those stats? So more like this:Rape: only 10% of rapists were white.Robbery: only 4% of robbers were white.Felony assault: only 8% of people doing assaults were white.Grand larceny: only 12% of thieves were white.Other felony sex crimes: Only 13% of sex criminals were white.We don’t want people looking up how these stats were determined because it circles back around to all the cops being in minority neighborhoods.If we’re going to lean into this, we should lean into it fully. It worked for Trump. But we should be all-in towards either blaming those arrested for warrants the police focus on minorities, or we should back off and frame it as a bad policy that was inherited from someone else and lessons were learned. But no half measures. It leaves us open to criticism.In yet another, the commenter said:Bloomberg has what it takes to win. It’s a pay-to-win system and he can out-pay everyone. Can and will. Already is. He’s skyrocketing in the polls like a rocket ship. After super-tuesday, this sub will be flooded with tends of thousands of people. We’ve already doubled from 400 members to over 800 in just a few weeks. At the end of the day, we live in a global oligarchy. A pay-to-win system. No amount of volunteering or donating by little people can stop him. No one but Bloomberg can win, and deep down you know it.That said, such a short range of activity made it not entirely implausible the user “seeded” the account with seemingly earnest pro-Bloomberg commentary, only to later add questionably honest content with the intentional appearance of favoring a candidate while tacitly attacking them.Bloomberg’s comments were real, and the highlighted post to Reddit’s r/PresidentBloomberg was real inasmuch as it existed. However, the Reddit account behind it was extremely new and sparsely used, less than a month old when the thread surfaced on Reddit. An authentic question from a Bloomberg supporter was a possible explanation, but given all known factors, ratfucking was another very reasonable possibility — the account and its seemingly pro-Bloomberg commentary could very well have been the work of another candidate’s supporters attempting to paint Bloomberg in a bad light."
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8582
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Spain's coronavirus death rate quickens again.
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Spain’s daily toll of coronavirus deaths rose on Tuesday for the first time in five days, with 743 people succumbing overnight compared with 637 in the previous 24 hours, but there was still hope the national lockdown might be eased soon.
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true
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Health News
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“It is normal to have some oscillations. ... What matters is to see the trend and the cumulative data,” said Maria Jose Sierra, deputy chief of health emergencies. She said the latest data included some delayed notifications from the weekend. The total number of cases rose to 140,510, second only to the United States, and the death toll of 13,798 was behind only Italy’s. As officials worked on a plan to lift some of the social and economic restrictions imposed to halt the virus’ spread, the Spanish unit of Germany’s Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) said it may partially reopen a plant in the Navarra region on April 20. Employment rules for farms were eased to allow up to 80,000 migrants and jobless people to cover a shortfall of foreign seasonal labourers. That, officials hope, will prevent food shortages and preserve Spain’s status as the European Union’s biggest exporter of fruit and vegetables. For restrictions to be lifted, officials say testing has to be widened to find carriers who may have mild or no symptoms. The government is planning to start mass rapid antibody tests in the coming days. Health Minister Salvador Illa said 60,000 randomly chosen people would be tested over three weeks to gauge the spread of the virus. Asked about reports that many coronavirus deaths were going unregistered, Budget Minister Maria Jesus Montero said there could be delays between the report of a death and its attribution to the virus. Thirteen of Spain’s 17 regions have registered more deaths than usual at this time of year, and in 11 of those, the excess is higher than the number confirmed to have died from the coronavirus, according to Reuters calculations based on data collected by the health and justice ministries. In the central region of Castilla La Mancha, around 2,000 more people than usual died between March 15 and April 3, but fewer than 1,000 coronavirus deaths were registered during those three weeks. Illa said later that Spain’s accounting for the impact of the pandemic was among the most stringent in Europe: “Everyone who tests positive for the coronavirus and dies is a person counted as having died from coronavirus.” He added that he had spoken to the official in charge of health in Castilla La Mancha, and concluded that the data from that region was based on that definition and therefore correct. A care home for the elderly in the northern city of Guernica was a bright spot in a sector whose residents have been among those hit hardest by the pandemic. Relatives, neighbors and the local fire brigade danced and applauded care staff who had decided to move in with virus-free residents at a nursing home. “I am staying home, with my other family!” said home director Visi Garcia.
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9987
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Experimental Therapy For Sore Heels Has Skeptics
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This story is about the use of shockwaves to treat a condition called plantar fasciitis that causes heel pain. The story drives home the point that there are conflicting studies and opinions as to the effectiveness of this treatment, but we wish it had gone further to explore the quality of the underlying data. The story presents opposing expert views but gives us no way to gauge which is supported by the evidence. On the whole, though, the story earns high marks for providing detailed cost information, engaging in an extensive discussion of alternative treatments, and generally avoiding hype. Readers & listerners should come away with an accurate picture of the benefits and drawbacks of choosing this approach. There’s no question that we need better treatment options for plantar fasciitis–a common, bothersome problem which is a nuisance for most people but can be a real pain for some. However, tough questions must be asked about a treatment that can cost thousands of dollars more than other remedies and may only be slightly more effective, if at all.
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true
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"Cost is a major part of the story here and NPR doesn’t gloss over it. The cost of shockwave treatment can range anywhere from $500 to several thousand dollars, NPR reports, and usually is not covered by insurance. NPR could have added some useful context by mentioning that the shockwave machines themselves can be very expensive to purchase and operate. This can create an incentive for physicians who have bought such a machine to promote shockwave treatments to patients who may not need them. In addition, it would have been helpful to know how this treatment’s costs differ from those of other common treatments. Even when it’s quoting a doctor who is clearly a proponent of shockwave therapy (as discussed above in the Evidence Quality criterion), the story treats benefits with appropriate caution and doesn’t succumb to hype. This story also seems to have avoided the compulsory anecdote about the patient who is feeling dramatically better after a new high-tech treatment. In fact, the story seems to go out of its way to provide the perspective of someone got better with low-tech standbys such as stretching, taping, and ice — valuable context that is often lacking in coverage of medical treatments. On the downside, the story focuses exclusively on pain and doesn’t tell us whether patients who receive shockwave treatment had improved functioning or could participate in more activities afterward. These are important measures of a treatment’s overall effect on patients. The only mention of side effects is the report of some bruising for two days afterwards. Potential risks of this treatment include discomfort soon after the procedure. And then there is the possibility that the procedure may make the condition worse. Some information acknowledging the risks — even if they are minor and temporary — is always appropriate. A doctor quoted in the story says that shockwave therapy has a 60 to 80 percent chance of reducing heel pain by half, and that a quarter of patients will become pain-free from the treatment. While this description of the benefit is impeccably worded, no information is provided that would allow readers to assess the quality of the evidence upon which it is based. The issue gets more confusing later in the story when we learn that ""studies have given conflicting results"" about the effectiveness of the shockwave therapy. Again, we receive no guidance that would help us to determine which of these conflicting studies is more likely to be right. Knowing where the evidence comes from would highlight why conflicting results exist. To its credit, the story does convey the fact that experts disagree sharply about the role of shockwave therapy for heel pain — a characterization which is accurate and important to provide. However, we think the story should have done more to tell us what the best evidence on the subject has to say. It took one of our journalist-reviewers less than a minute to find a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials involving shockwave therapy. This study or something like it would have served as a useful benchmark for discussion of the evidence in this field. The story did not exaggerate the effects of heel pain. The story finds experts on both sides of this issue and gives them each a reasonable amount of air time. The discussion of alternatives is a real strength of this piece. Instead of relegating this coverage to a throwaway line at the end of the piece as many stories do, this story mentioned 10 low-tech treatments that patients are advised to try before considering shockwave therapy. In addition, the story explained that nearly all patients with heel pain eventually get better regardless of what kind of treatment they receive. The story says that shockwave therapy is ""beginning to catch on around the U.S."" While this gives readers the accurate impression that the treatment is approved for use and available in some places, it doesn’t really give readers a sense as to how likely they are to find it at their local doctor’s or orthopedist’s office. Although it earns a satisfactory, the story could have provided a bit more detail on the history of these devices in the U.S. (they were first approved for use in 2000) and how widespread they have become. This story doesn’t try to oversell the novelty of shockwave therapy. This story is clearly not based on a news release."
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1306
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Britain moves closer to legalizing medicinal use of cannabis.
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Britain moved a step closer to legalizing the medicinal use of cannabis after a report concluded there are benefits for patients as the government reviews the rules to allow drugs derived from the banned plant.
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true
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Health News
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Professor Sally Davies, chief medical officer for England, said in the report there is conclusive evidence that cannabis can help people who suffer from chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. There is also some evidence that cannabis can improve the sleep of patients suffering from sleep apnoea, fibromyalgia, chronic pain and multiple sclerosis, the report found. Britain’s interior ministry ordered a review into the medical use of cannabis last month after a 12-year-old’s cannabis-based epilepsy medicine was confiscated by officials, prompting a national debate about the use of the drug. The case captured headlines when the medicine was confiscated from the boy’s mother at Heathrow Airport as she returned from Canada where she had bought the medicine. The government was forced to use an exceptional power to release the medicinal oil back to her however after the boy was admitted to hospital suffering from seizures. Last month, Canada became the second country in the world to fully legalize marijuana, ending 90 years of prohibition, and in several countries, including Germany, Italy and Denmark, its use with a prescription is legal. Britain’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs will now consider in the second part of the review whether changes should be made to the classification of these products on an assessment of “the balance of harms and public health needs”. For years, British politicians have struggled to form a coherent set of policies around cannabis use, where just over 10 percent of the population have used the drug in the last year, according to official statistics. But the review will not consider legalizing the drug for recreational purposes.
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11114
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‘Miracle drug’ called junk science
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"This example of thorough reporting provides a valuable service by warning readers of the shaky basis and likely harms of Lupron treatment of children with autism. Part of a series by the Chicago Tribune. Stories on similar contentious topics too often settle into “he said, she said” duels that stick readers with the task of trying to decide whom to believe. By contrast, this story highlights the fact that not all medical journal articles are equal: there are solidly-based reviews of the evidence and then there are reports that proclaim bold conclusions despite questionable methods and spotty data. These reporters thoughtfully weighed the claims and clearly point out which side has the strong preponderance of evidence. As one quote underscores, autism “has become a cottage industry of false hope, and false hope is no gift to parents."" Without faulting this piece of solid reporting, it is worth noting that false hope is not spread only by a few “bad apples.” Though it is an issue beyond the scope of this story, the more common threat comes from those in the mainstream who push medical interventions beyond the evidence base… and weak reporting that fails to challenge those claims. One hopes the effect of this report will be to raise the level of healthy skepticism of “breakthroughs” and “cures” of all varieties. On the other hand, readers might conclude merely that they need to keep an eye out for a few renegades; that would be the wrong lesson. Nowhere is “Buyer Beware” a more essential credo than in health care. This story equips readers to be wary of providers who have professional credentials and authorship of medical journal articles, yet lack evidence to justify the interventions they impose on their patients."
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true
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The story says that the providers charge $12,000 for tests and then Lupron treatments costs about $5,000 to $6,000 per month. It also points out that insurance companies may balk at covering the treatments. The story appropriately questions whether Lupron offers these children any benefits. The story notes the pain of injections and lists harmful effects of Lupron treatment including delayed puberty, interfering with bone development, heart health, and other effects on sexual development and health. Both sides of this debate can point to journal articles. The reporters properly distinguished between high-quality reviews that take a broad look at the available evidence and articles that base conclusions on questionable methods and data. Though this story was not about autism per se, it offers a valuable reminder about the vulnerability of patients and families who are struggling with difficult health challenges. The story did quote several independent experts and referred to prominent reviews of the evidence related to autism, heavy metal exposure and hormonal treatment. It spelled out the business model of the providers: their chain of clinics and “franchising” arrangements with some providers. The story points out that there is no cure for autism and that therapy for behavior and communication issues is commonly recommended. The article notes that Lupron is approved to treat precocious puberty and is also used to treat some cases of prostate cancer, endometriosis and to chemically castrate sex offenders. The story notes the treatment is based on an uNPRoven hypothesis, has limited availability and the drug is not approved for this use. The reporters interviewed the proponents of Lupron therapy as well as several independent experts critical of the practice.
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26967
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"Facebook post Says a ""Clorox bottle claimed it could kill (the 2019 coronavirus)... before it was developed."
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"A Facebook post claims a ""Clorox bottle claimed it could kill (the 2019 coronavirus)... before it was developed."" It’s true that some Clorox products have labels that claim they’re effective against human coronaviruses. But that’s because they were proven effective against past strains of coronavirus — not the one currently spreading from China. There is no evidence that the 2019 coronavirus was ""developed"" prior to the outbreak. The Facebook post is inaccurate."
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false
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Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Some social media users are publishing photos of Clorox bottles to claim that the coronavirus was created before the outbreak in China. In a Jan. 28 Facebook post, one user published a photo of what appears to be a Clorox bottle listing the viruses the cleaning agent kills when used on surfaces. ""Human Coronavirus"" is circled in red. ""So it turns out that that ‘brand new’ ‘never before seen’ ‘insanely contageous’ (sic) ‘crazy deadly’ ‘better buy your casket right now’ virus that has ‘randomly broke out’ in China... yeah turns out my Clorox bottle claimed it could kill it... before it was developed - I mean discovered,"" the post reads. 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.) It has more than 2,000 shares. (Screenshot from Facebook) We’ve seen plenty of hoaxes that ly conflate the 2019 coronavirus with other strains of the illness. And this post is no different. There are seven kinds of coronaviruses that can infect humans. They were first identified in the mid-1960s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and some of the viruses are quite common. The latest coronavirus, categorized as the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), is the strain that is spreading from Wuhan, China. More than 6,000 people have been infected worldwide, according to the World Health Organization’s Jan. 29 situation report. There is no evidence that it was ""developed"" prior to the outbreak. So while some Clorox labels mention ""human coronavirus,"" that is because it has been proven effective against past strains of coronavirus, which is to say it can be used on surfaces to stem the spread of the virus (it should never be ingested!). In a blog post published Jan. 24, Clorox said that several of its products are effective at killing coronaviruses ""similar to"" the 2019 strain. ""The products listed below have demonstrated effectiveness against viruses similar to 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) on hard, nonporous surfaces,"" the post reads. ""Therefore, per the EPA Emerging Pathogen Policy, these products can be used against 2019-nCoV when used as directed."" Usually, per Environmental Protection Agency regulations, companies aren’t allowed to make claims about the efficacy of disinfectants against pathogens unless regulators have reviewed them. But the coronavirus outbreak has triggered emergency guidance from the EPA. First, a manufacturer’s disinfectant must be registered with the EPA for use on ""hard, porous or non-porous surfaces."" Second, the disinfectant’s label must make previously approved claims about its efficacy against one of three ""viral pathogen groupings."" Clorox said three of its products meet those criteria, including disinfecting wipes, disinfecting bleach and ""Clean-Up Cleaner + Bleach."" In related news: Clorox shares rose several percentage points following the outbreak of the coronavirus. The company has historically performed well on the stock market during epidemics. A Facebook post claims a ""Clorox bottle claimed it could kill (the 2019 coronavirus)... before it was developed."" It’s true that some Clorox products have labels that claim they’re effective against human coronaviruses. But that’s because they were proven effective against past strains of coronavirus — not the one currently spreading from China. There is no evidence that the 2019 coronavirus was ""developed"" prior to the outbreak. The Facebook post is inaccurate."
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316
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J&J's greed helped fuel U.S. opioid crisis, Oklahoma claims at trial.
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Johnson & Johnson’s greed led the drugmaker to use deceptive marketing to create an oversupply of painkillers that fueled the U.S. opioid epidemic, the state of Oklahoma alleged at the start of the first trial to result from lawsuits over the drug crisis.
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true
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Health News
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Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, who filed the multibillion-dollar case, argued in a state court in the city of Norman that J&J should be forced to pay for helping cause the “worst manmade public health crisis in our state’s history.” His case is the first to reach trial from around 2,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for a drug epidemic the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says led to a record 47,600 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017. The non-jury trial came after Oklahoma resolved claims against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP in March for $270 million and against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd on Sunday for $85 million, leaving only J&J as a defendant. Brad Beckworth, a lawyer for the state, told Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman that New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J, along with Purdue and Teva, used misleading marketing beginning in the 1990s to push doctors to prescribe more opioids. Beckworth said J&J, which sold the painkillers Duragesic and Nucynta, marketed the opioids as “safe and effective for everyday pain” while downplaying their addictive qualities, helping create a drug oversupply. He said J&J was motivated to boost prescriptions not only because it sold opioid painkillers, but because it also grew and imported raw materials opioid manufacturers like Purdue used. “If you have an oversupply, people will die,” Beckworth said. J&J lawyer Larry Ottway countered that its products made up a small share of opioids prescribed in Oklahoma and carried U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved labels that warned of the addictive risks. “You have to examine the details because facts are stubborn things,” he said. He also argued Oklahoma was seeking to “stretch” the bounds of a public nuisance statute in order to force it to pay up to $17.5 billion to help the state address the epidemic for the next 30 years. The case is being closely watched by plaintiffs in other opioid lawsuits, particularly the 1,850 cases consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio, who has been pushing for a settlement ahead of an October trial. Some plaintiffs’ lawyers have compared the cases to litigation by states against the tobacco industry that led to a $246 billion settlement in 1998. (The story fixes spelling of J&J lawyer in paragraph nine.)
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35474
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In the summer of 2020, Kroger supermarkets introduced a policy of refusing to give customers cash change, as shown in an incident in Bourbonnais, Illinois.
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What's true: A cashier at a Kroger supermarket in Bourbonnais, Illinois, appears to have insisted that a customer pay $3 for a $2.41 container of milk, without providing cash change. In at least two instances, the company and one of its spokespersons had by that time publicly stated that the company had a policy of no longer providing coin change to customers. What's false: However, Kroger told Snopes that company policy is not to refuse to give out cash change. According to a company statement provided on July 22, cash change is still available at Kroger supermarkets as a matter of policy, but in light of an ongoing nationwide coin shortage, the company's policy is to offer customers the option of having the amount of their change added to their loyalty card, or to round up their payment and donate the remainder to charity.
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mixture
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Politics
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In the summer of 2020, readers asked us to examine widely shared Facebook posts that claimed the Kroger supermarket chain was refusing to give customers cash change, and thereby overcharging them. One widely shared post from July 9 stated that: “Kroger will no longer keep coins in the drawer. Starting tomorrow. We will take them, but we can’t give change. You can round up to the nearest dollar and donate it to the food bank, or round up and it goes onto your Kroger card as a credit. So it begins …” One week later, Facebook users began sharing a post that purported to describe a contentious transaction and conversation at a Kroger supermarket in Bourbonnais, Illinois. The post claimed that, in light of a coin shortage, Kroger was rounding up the price of items to the next dollar, where a customer pays in cash, and then refusing to give out change, thus effectively overcharging customers: … Stopped by Kroger today for just a gallon of milk. Seems due to this “Change Shortage”, their new policy is to round every cash purchase UP to the next full dollar! I can even accept if they insisted on they could not “give” any coin back. It cost $2.41. I offered $2.50 payment. The clerk refused the quarters, explained “due to change shortage” policy & demanded another dollar instead. I offered the $2.50 again. Clerk: “Your total is $3.00.” Me: The total is $2.41, which $2.50 adequately covers & I don’t care to give up the 9 cent, but I do NOT accept being up charged 60 cent while you refuse to take the coins I am offering. Clerk: it’s $3.00 So literally the clerk was insisting I pay the $3 or they were refusing the sale. WTF ?! ?… A nationwide coin shortage did take place in the summer of 2020, contrary to a prevalent conspiracy theory that falsely claimed the crisis was fabricated or manufactured in order to usher in a cashless economy as part of a broader push towards a “New World Order.” That conspiracy theory reared its head in the Kroger post, which included the line, “This is how being FORCED into a Cashless economy begins!” Remarkably, it is not clear what Kroger’s company policy was with regard to providing cash change to customers, at the time the Bourbonnais Facebook post was originally published, in the early hours of July 16. Initially, a spokesperson for the company provided Snopes a statement which asserted that, in light of the ongoing nationwide coin shortage, Kroger was offering customers the option of receiving the amount of their change in the form of loyalty card credit or rounding up their total and donating the remainder to charity, as well as the existing options of paying by credit or debit card, or paying by cash and getting cash change. The statement read: “We remain committed to providing our customers with an uplifting shopping experience and the freedom and flexibility to choose their payment method, including cash, during this unprecedented time. The Federal Reserve is experiencing a significant coin shortage across the U.S., resulting from fewer coins being exchanged and spent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many retailers and businesses, we are adjusting to the temporary shortage in several ways while still accepting cash. “Customers can switch their payment type (e.g., use debit or credit vs. cash), and through our upgraded technology, we can now load coin change to their loyalty card for use during the next shopping trip, provide coin change at a lane with coins available or round up their order to support The Kroger Co. Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Foundation, a public charity committed to creating communities free of hunger and waste.” [Emphasis is added.] However, after this fact check was first published, we became aware of contradictory public statements attributed to Kroger earlier in July. In a July 15 article, KABC-TV reported that Kroger had “announced this week that they will not be returning coin change to customers who pay with cash.” The article attributed the following statement to the company: “Currently our stores are collecting donations… by allowing customers to round up their order total to the next dollar… For customers that choose not to donate, our cashiers will load the coin value due back through their loyalty card. Customers can redeem the amount on their next transaction. We know this is an inconvenience for our customers and we appreciate their patience.” That statement made no mention of the continued possibility of customers receiving their coin change as coin change, an omission which naturally indicates that Kroger policy at that time was to not provide customers with coin change. On July 10, a named company spokesperson appears to have told another news outlet that Kroger policy was to no longer give out coin change. WXIX reported that: “Kroger spokesperson Erin Rofles confirmed Friday the grocer will no longer return coin change to customers. Instead, the remainders from cash transactions will be applied to customers’ loyalty cards and automatically used on their next purchase.” We asked Kroger to explain these glaring discrepancies in the company’s various public articulations of its policy on coin change. A spokesperson said that the statement initially provided to Snopes (which asserted that company policy was to give customers the option of receiving coin change) was “first issued on July 13,” suggesting the company had been consistent in its messaging on the subject. We found the same wording in a series of tweets the company sent to a customer on July 14. Nevertheless, the company also told KABC-TV the opposite in an article published the following day. In one particularly egregious example of the confusion surrounding Kroger’s articulation of its policy, on July 14 the company actually posted two different sets of tweets in response to the same customer’s inquiries on Twitter. In one pair of tweets, Kroger told @bbaum17 that customers could either have their change loaded on to their loyalty card or donated to charity (no mention of coin change). In a second pair of tweets, Kroger told @bbaum17 that the company could accept a credit or debit card as payment, or load the customer’s change on to their loyalty card, or have it donated to charity, or they could “provide coin change at a lane with coins available.” The company spokesperson suggested to Snopes that news articles reporting that Kroger was no longer giving out coin change might have been based on signs that have been erected inside Kroger supermarkets. The spokesperson provided the following example, which reads: ATTENTION CUSTOMERS: The Federal Reserve is currently experiencing a coin shortage. Please consider Rounding Up for Zero Hunger Zero Waste, using exact change or another form of payment. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your help. A sign that apologizes to customers for the inconvenience associated with an ongoing nationwide coin shortage, suggests three ways to avoid the need to provide change, and omits to mention that customers can still get their change in coin form is very obviously likely to create the perception that Kroger no longer gives out coin change. We asked Kroger for exact details on whether, when and how its policy on coin change had changed; as well as whether, when, and how those changes had been communicated to Kroger’s regional divisions, in-store employees, and paying customers. We will update this fact check if we receive a response to those questions. In its initial statement to Snopes, Kroger gave us the clear impression that its policy on coin change was unambiguous, made no mention of any existing confusion or misinformation over that policy, and made no mention whatsoever that the company and its spokespersons had previously made directly contradictory public statements about that policy. In reality, Kroger and its spokespersons had indeed issued contradictory and confusing public statements, and had done so before the original “Bourbonnais” Facebook post was published in the early hours of July 16. As a result, we are changing the rating in this fact check. It’s not entirely clear what took place at the Kroger supermarket in Bourbonnais, Illinois, specifically, but it appears to have been at least similar to the description in the widely shared Facebook post. A spokesperson for the company told Snopes: “The associate who engaged with this customer was newly trained to the cashier role and misunderstood the various ways we’re adapting to the temporary national coin shortage. It is an isolated event, and we’ve since coached the associate and contacted the customer.” This appears to be a tacit admission by the company that, in the specific instance highlighted in the Facebook post, the cashier did incorrectly insist on receiving $3 in cash for the milk, but that this was not in keeping with the company’s policy, although as we outlined above, the company’s public articulation of its policy on coin change has not been consistent.
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25902
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Quotes Anthony Fauci as writing, “I reject the notion that it’s ‘just a virus’ and we’ll all get it eventually. What a careless, lazy, heartless stance.”
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Anthony Fauci didn’t write this. A Facebook user named Amy Wright has taken credit for the words.
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false
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Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"A lengthy Facebook post about viruses skips from chickenpox to herpes to HIV and, finally to the coronavirus. It’s attributed to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and ends with an uncharacteristic scolding. ""For those in our society who suggest that people being cautious are cowards, for people who refuse to take even the simplest of precautions to protect themselves and those around them, I want to ask, without hyperbole and in all sincerity: How dare you?"" the statement says. It goes on to encourage doing everything we can to mitigate the risk of exposure to the coronavirus, to flatten the curve and avoid unnecessary suffering and death. ""I reject the notion that it’s ‘just a virus’ and we’ll all get it eventually,"" the post concludes. ""What a careless, lazy heartless stance."" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The words themselves are an opinion and not something we at PolitiFact fact-check. But the attribution to Fauci is wrong and worth correcting. In a statement, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told PolitiFact that Fauci wasn’t the author of the post. In the comments of another Facebook post with virtually the same words published July 14 — several days before the one we’re fact-checking — a user named Amy Wright takes credit for the statement. ""I just saw your words credited to Dr. Fauci,"" another user wrote. ""How about that! People are still sharing your post and learning. Thank you."" ""Oh dear,"" Wright replied. The internet is like the wild west sometimes, isn’t it? At least no one attributed it to Abraham Lincoln."""
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35986
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"In 1999, Mike Pence wrote an op-ed criticizing the inclusion of women in the military, citing the animated film ""Mulan."
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Did Mike Pence Use ‘Mulan’ to ‘Prove’ Women Should Not Be in the Military?
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true
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Entertainment, Fact Checks
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Hours before Disney released the first trailer for a live-action adaptation of the film Mulan, social media users marked the occasion by recalling United States Vice President Mike Pence’s attack on the movie during his days as a member of the media.As Buzzfeed reported in July 2016, Pence was a radio talk show host in Indiana when he wrote an op-ed in 1999 slamming the animated movie and using it as “proof” that allowing women to enlist in the U.S. armed forces was wrong. In doing so, he seemingly also made light of a sexual assault investigation the year before at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a United States Army base in Maryland:When Indiana Congressman Steve Buyer was appointed to investigate the Aberdeen mess, he shocked the public with the revelation that young, nubile, 18 year old men and women were actually being HOUSED together during basic training. Whatever bone head came up with this idea should be run out of this man’s Army before sundown. Housing, in close quarters, young men and women (in some cases married to non-military personnel) at the height of their physical and sexual potential is the height of stupidity.Pence’s flippant remark regarding “young, nubile” service members made no mention of the fact that twelves drill instructors at Aberdeen had been charged following the investigation, with ended with four of them imprisoned — including Sgt. Delmar Simpson, who was sentenced to 25 years in a military prison after being convicted of 18 counts of rape and 29 other offenses.“Before all of this, sexual harassment was never an issue, and now they stress it a lot,” Pfc. Lorre Hendricks told the Washington Post in 1997 regarding the ripple effects of the scandal. “It’s made the Army safer.”Pence also mistakenly called the original Mulan a “fictional account of a delicate girl.” In reality, the movie is an adaptation of “The Ballad of Hua Mulan,” an epic poem about the legendary figure Hua Mulan, who reputedly not only joined the Chinese army after posing as a man, but who served for twelve years before finally revealing herself to her comrades. According to the state-run China Internet Information Center:It is not known whether Mulan was a real or fictional character. Scholars have deliberated her existence for centuries, but no one has been able to determine if she actually lived. The earliest accounts of the legend state that she lived during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534); later accounts place her in different time periods.Nonetheless, her story has become a parable, as it sets forth many honored aspects of Chinese culture, such as filial piety (devotion to one’s elders), bravery and modesty (shown through Mulan’s character, when she declines rewards from the emperor in favor of returning home to her family).In his op-ed, Pence said he suspected whether “some mischievous liberal at Disney” hoped the original movie would change attitudes regarding womens’ military service. However, he argued, the movie’s subplot about Mulan falling for her superior officer only proved his point.“You see, now stay with me on this, many young men find many young women to be attractive sexually. Many young women find many young men to be attractive sexually,” he wrote. “Put them together, in close quarters, for long periods of time, and things will get interesting. Just like they eventually did for young Mulan. Moral of story: women in military, bad idea.”The rediscovery of Pence’s frankly sexist op-ed produced not only a spate of articles covering his remarks but a response published in the Washington Post in August 2016 by Kate Germano, who retired from the United States Marine Corps that year as a lieutenant colonel.“Pence’s op-ed reminds us of how radical it once was to think women could fight alongside men,” she wrote. “Indeed, in 1999, the idea that women would ever be fully capable of competing with men for ground combat jobs would have been considered nothing short of ridiculous.”But in 2016, Germano pointed out, three women graduated from the U.S. Army Ranger school; two more women — Brig. Gens. Diana Holland and Cindy Jebb — were selected as the commandant of cadets and dean of the academic board, respectively, at the U.S. Military Academy; and two 2nd Lts. in the Marine Corps, Virginia Brodie and Katherine Boy, graduated in high standing from the Basic Officer Leader Artillery Course.“As the military has evolved to develop an appreciation for the potential of women to serve in the most challenging of positions, it is also time for the American public to see these women for what they bring to the fight: brains, strength and courage,” Germano wrote. “They are not victims and they are not to be sheltered from the grim realities of war because of the myth of female frailty. Their service matters.”At the time of her op-ed’s publication, Germano was the chief operating officer of the advocacy group the Service Women’s Action Network. In 2018 she released Fight Like A Girl, a first-person account of her own experiences in the corps.
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25188
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McCain has voted repeatedly at least six times against funding for global HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB fund, once as one of only 14 senators.
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When a Californian company founded by a U.S. veteran wounded in Afghanistan sought to register a new medical device this year, it turned to Europe before the United States. The European approvals system had long been quicker, the company said, but the introduction of new rules is changing all that.
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mixture
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National, Foreign Policy, Democratic National Committee,
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"“Now it has flipped,” said Bill Colone, CEO of San Clemente-based Spinal Singularity, which hopes to launch a ‘smart’ catheter for men with spinal injuries or disease early next year after squeezing in its application under the old European rules. Colone is part of a chorus of industry voices warning that a switch to stricter European rules governing medical devices, due to come into force a year from now, will slow or even halt the release of products in Europe that could transform patients’ lives. Defenders of the regulations say they will not significantly complicate the process and are vital to prevent problems like rupturing silicone breast implants and debris from all-metal hip implants damaging tissue and bones. Many patient advocates say the new rules do not go far enough to reform a European system in which a top U.S. official suggested in 2011 patients may be ""guinea pigs"" here The comment drew a sharp response from the European Union, which still firmly rejects that characterization. That transatlantic spat, and the subsequent evolution of medical device certification around the world, are part of a wider global struggle by governments to attract businesses seeking light-touch regulation without scaring off their voters. The new medical devices rules agreed by the European Union in 2017 will tighten control of devices before they come to market, improve transparency and strengthen surveillance by national authorities, a European Commission spokesperson said. The new system changes less than some proposals - which envisaged regulation by a public body, along U.S. lines, replacing the existing practice of certification by profit-making private firms. But players in medical technology - which ranges from surgical implants to scans - say it is too burdensome and is being built too slowly, risking not only hampering innovation but also harming patients by interrupting supplies. “Immediate action is needed now to avoid severe disruption of product supply to patients and hospitals,” seven European Associations said in a joint statement last week. All 55,000 devices certified under the old directives have to be re-certified along with other products such as reusable scalpels, nasal saline sprays and dental imaging software. The industry says there are not enough Notified Bodies - the private firms charged with certifying the safety of devices ranging from bandages to pacemakers, and that manufacturers may have to take products off the market or delay new launches. The situation is further complicated by Brexit, with Britain’s BSI one of just two notified bodies to have got the go-ahead to certify devices under the new Medical Devices Regulation (MDR). If Britain leaves the EU in October without a deal, certificates issued by British bodies would be invalid. Germany, home to Europe’s biggest medtech sector, is pressing the European Commission to smooth the transition, suggesting three solutions to overcome any Brexit-related supply problems in a March 27 letter to the Commission seen by Reuters. These include giving firms 12 more months to sell products in the EU in the case of a disorderly Brexit, as long as they plan how to regain compliance, the letter from German Health Minister Jens Spahn said. Trade groups have suggested delaying implementation of the rules beyond May 2020 or faster designation of notified bodies. The European Commission rejects the need for contingency plans and said it was focusing on a timely implementation of the regulation, which includes requirements for manufacturers to monitor product safety once devices are on the market. More than 20 notified bodies could be accredited by the end of the year, it said. This is around a third of the number of firms currently certified to assess medical products. “That is a massive reduction in capacity when adding a considerable volume of work,” said Gary Slack, senior vice president for global medical devices at the notified body BSI. To hedge against any Brexit risk, BSI has set up a subsidiary in Amsterdam and has transferred most of its clients’ certificates there, but is still waiting for its Dutch body to be certified under the MDR. For Medtech conglomerates with thousands of devices, the bill to meet the new regulations could stretch into the millions of dollars - especially for those that make riskier devices. Smith and Nephew, which manufacturers hip and knee implants, put its MDR compliance costs at $15-$20 million for 2018 and around $60 million this year. As a result of the regulation, more than 55 percent of those surveyed by Germany industry association ZVEI said they would reduce the number of products on offer. The Commission said many products are eligible for a so-called ‘grace period’ which means they can be sold under the old rules until May 2024 at the latest if certificates are reissued, something BSI said many firms are rushing to do. But the other certified body, Germany’s Tuev-Sued, said many manufacturers had yet to catch on to the regulatory changes. “We are definitely expecting chaotic years,” said Bassil Akra, Tuev-Sued’s vice president in charge of medtech. The medical technology industry is worth $129 billion and employs 675,000 people in Europe, according to MedTech Europe. Experts agree that many new devices are invaluable to patients, but the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said in November that faulty ones were linked to 1.7 million injuries and nearly 83,000 deaths over the past decade. A key part of the new regulation is how much access doctors and patients will have to the pan-European Eudamed database, to strengthen surveillance and prevent repeated adverse incidents. A Commission spokesperson said discussions were ongoing with authorities, patient groups and other stakeholders. While medtech giants like Siemens Healthineers and Germany’s Fresenius have the regulatory staff to navigate the new rules, most firms are much smaller and will struggle, said MedTech Europe CEO Serge Bernasconi. Spinal Singularity said it had managed to apply under the old system by hiring contractors to help it submit all the paperwork to a notified body by May 27 - two months before it had planned. It is hoping for certification by the end of the year, but is dreading renewing it in four years’ time because of what he said were many “incredibly burdensome” new requirements. German surgical instrument maker Asanus said it plans to take around five highly-innovative surgical products off the market and will discontinue several hundred minimally-invasive devices, as well as stop new development in this area. “If the paperwork costs for the product are five times the amount you can achieve in sales, you simply won’t do it anymore,” said Chief Executive Armin Schorer, who expects many smaller makers of lower risk devices to shut up shop. Bernasconi and Colone said start-ups are now looking to launch their products in other markets, like the United States or China first, denying European patients access to innovations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal body that approves medical devices, is toughening up its own approval process after faulty medical devices harmed patients there too. But Colone noted that was only for some products. His firm plans to file for U.S. approval this autumn. “Because of the pending new EU MDR, overall the FDA process may even be slightly easier,” he said. Kurt Racke, a medical ethics expert at Bonn University, said he did not think Europe’s new regulations would make it harder to win approvals than in the United States. “I think Europe has the most lax market for medical devices,” he said. “I don’t think so much will change there in principle.” The European Commission rejects suggestions its rules are not tough enough. “The Commission takes patient safety very seriously,” a spokesperson said, “and has led various regulatory reforms to ensure the highest possible quality, safety and reliability of medical devices on the EU market.”"
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33602
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The Statue of Liberty was erected as a tribute to the accomplishments of black soldiers in the Civil War, and a black woman served as the model for Lady Liberty.
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Whatever the color of the person who served as the model for the Statue of Liberty may have been, the statue itself is colorless. It does not represent a particular color of person any more than the Michelin Tire Man does, and the idea it symbolizes applies to people of all colors, whether or not its creators intended it that way. Just as the attitudes of people who lived hundreds of years ago cannot require us look upon others as inferiors today, neither can they magically elevate the status of those who may still be the objects of discrimination. That is a task for those of us who live here and now.
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false
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History, American History
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Please read this and pass this on. This is really some valuable information. Our children and so on need to know this kind of stuff. Good day, It is hard to believe that after my many years of schooling (secondary and post) the following facts about the Statue of Liberty was never taught. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of people including myself have visited the Statue of Liberty over the years but yet I’m unable to find one person who knows the true history behind the Statue – amazing. Yes, amazing that so much important black history (such as this) is hidden from us (black and White). What makes this even worse is the fact that the current twist on history perpetuates and promotes white supremacy at the expense of black Pride. During my visit to France I saw the original Statue of Liberty. However there was a difference, the statue in France is black. “You learn something new everyday!” The Statue of Liberty was originally a black woman, but, as memory serves, it was because the model was black. In a book called “The Journey of The Songhai People”, according to Dr. Jim Haskins, a member of the National Education Advisory Committee of the Liberty-Ellis Island Committee, professor of English at the University of Florida, and prolific black author, points out that what stimulated the original idea for that 151 foot statue in the harbor. He says that the idea for the creation of the statue initially was the part that black soldiers played in the ending of black African Bondage in the United States. It was created in the mind of the French historian Edouard de Laboulaye, chairman of the French Antislavery Society, who, together with sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, proposed to the French government that the people of France present to the people of the United States through the American Abolitionist Society, the gift of a Statue of Liberty in recognition of the fact that black soldiers won the Civil War in the United States. It was widely known then that it was black soldiers who played the pivotal role in winning the war, and this gift would be a tribute to their prowess. Suzanne Nakasian, director of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island Foundations’ National Ethnic Campaign said that the black Americans’ direct connection to Lady Liberty is unknown to the majority of Americans, black or WHITE. When the statue was presented to the US. Minister to France in 1884, it is said that he demonstrated that the dominant view of the broken shackles would be offensive to a US South, because since the statue was a reminder of blacks winning their freedom. It was a reminder to a beaten South of the ones who caused their defeat, their despised former captives. Documents of Proof: 1. You may go and see the original model of the Statue of Liberty, with the broken chains at her feet and in her left hand. Go to the Museum of the City of N.Y, Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street (212) 534-1672 or call the same number and dial ext. 208 and speak to Peter Simmons and he can send you some documentation. 2. Check with the NY Times magazine, part II May 18, 1986. 3. The dark original face of the Statue of Liberty can be seen in the NY Post June 17, 1986, also the Post stated the reason for the broken chains at her feet. 4. Finally, you may check with the French Mission or the French Embassy at the U.N or in Washington, DC and ask for some original French material on the Statue of Liberty, including the Bartholdi original model. You can call in September [phone number deleted]. Please pass this information along! Knowledge is Power! This item about the origins of the Statue of Liberty is difficult to explicate because it makes so many (sometimes conflicting) claims, so we’ll distill its essence to four primary claims and discuss those: Of these claims, the first three are demonstrably untrue; the final one may have some small element of truth to it. We’ll begin by examining some of the specific pieces of evidence offered in the piece quoted above: On his web page, Dr. Haskins explains that he wrote no book with the title The Journey of the Songhai People, nor did he ever state that the statue was presented by the people of France to the people of the United States to honor the role of black soldiers in the Civil War. It is undeniable that blacks did indeed fight in the Civil War, and that some of them were awarded high honors for their bravery in battle. However, black soldiers were not allowed to take part in combat until the final stages of the war, and estimates place their numbers in the Union Army at about 130,000 out of 2,100,000 men total (about 12% of the total). While this figure is hardly insignificant, claiming blacks played the “pivotal role in winning the war” is a bit of an exaggeration. And however much blacks contributed to the war effort, even today, with our advantages of more than a hundred years’ hindsight and access to tens of thousands of books and other sources that collectively chronicle the Civil War in almost minute-by-minute detail, the average American is little aware that blacks took active part in the conflict or is familiar with their specific contributions. (One scarcely glimpsed any black soldiers in film depictions of the Civil War until the story of the war’s first all-black volunteer company was portrayed in 1989’s Glory, for example.) The level of knowledge about this subject was far less in the era immediately following the war, when communications systems were rudimentary (telephone, radio, and recorded sound did not yet exist), comprehensive accounts of the war had not been prepared (even the participants knew little of what took place outside of their direct experience), and when the still-widespread prejudice against blacks meant that their role in the war was minimized or ignored (the war may have ended slavery, but it by no means resulted in the white population’s acceptance of blacks as their social equals — the U.S. Army itself remained segregated until after World War II). The notion that over a century ago, in a country thousands of miles away, details of the Civil War unfamiliar to the people who actually fought it were “widely known” is too much to accept without substantial supporting documentation. First of all, there was no one “original model” for the Statue of Liberty: sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s design went through many evolutionary changes before he settled on its final form. The removal of chains that appeared in Lady Liberty’s hands in earlier models was done not because it “would be offensive to the U.S. South,” but for aesthetic reasons. As the same Dr. Haskins cited above wrote: “At first, she held a broken chain in her other hand, to symbolize the broken chains of bondage; later, Bartholdi decided she should hold a tablet, inscribed with the date of the Declaration of Independence, and that a fragment of chain would be on the ground, as if she had already thrown it there.” Broken chains fit the statue’s theme, whether the message of liberty gained is applied to America’s independence from Britain, France’s then recent struggle with Prussia, or the freeing of African Americans from slavery. Pictures of the models for the Statue of Liberty held by The Museum of the City of New York are available for viewing via the web. We did, and we found that, in anticipation of the upcoming July 4 centennial celebration of the Statue of Liberty (and the culmination of a four-year, 66-million-dollar effort to repair and restore the famous monument), The New York Times magazine on that date was chock full of articles about the statue. None of them said anything even remotely supportive of the claims made here, however; in fact, they said quite the opposite. As Richard Bernstein, The New York Times‘ Paris bureau chief noted in that issue, the statue was intended as a tribute to both the American achievement of and French hopes for a nation of republic and liberty; in a sense, it was meant as an abstract symbol of the idealized future of France just as much as the realized past of America. Creating a tribute to those who fought the Civil War (or, even more specifically, to black Civil War soldiers) was far too concrete (and too distinctly American) a concept to have been a part of their plans. Yes, the “original” face of the Statue of Liberty was dark, for the simple reason that the materials of which it was made were originally dark. Eric Fettmann, the author of the New York Post article cited above, wrote: As for the photo of the supposed “African” face featured in The Post, the picture is not — as incorrectly captioned — an early model, but shows the actual face that now stands over New York Harbor. The photo, as shown in Marvin Trachtenberg’s marvelous 1976 architectural history of the statue, shows Liberty’s head during construction on what was then Bedloe’s Island shortly before its dedication in October 1886. It appears “black” for a simple reason: the copper statue’s original color was not the familiar green we see today — the patina that naturally occurs over the course of repeated exposure to the elements — but a much darker orange-red bronze. (Actually, as the oxidation process continued, the statue first turned pitch black before reaching its current green hue, as Bartholdi knew it would.) The reason that Fettmann offers for the broken chains is that Bartholdi “adapted the statue from a failed project to construct a giant lighthouse at the entrance to the Suez Canal in Egypt”; Bartholdi’s original design for the lighthouse included a female figure with the broken chains of slavery at her feet. The Embassy of France located in Washington would prefer not to be contacted by those looking for this ‘original French material on the Statue of Liberty’ because they can’t help them. According to its Press and Information Service, “We constantly get calls from people requesting for information [on this issue], and we do not have reliable information to give them.” The statue wasn’t meant as a tribute to black Civil War soldiers, nor were the women who modeled for it black. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, then a young French artist, was commissioned in 1865 by Edouard de Laboulaye and a group of influential French citizens to work on a monument to liberty, intended as a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States of America. Most sources agree that Bartholdi used his mistress (later his wife) and mother as Lady Liberty’s models, with his mother serving as the inspiration for the face and his wife for the torso. Neither of these women was black. As for the purpose of the statue, an 1879 design patent granted to Bartholdi contained his description of the work as “a commemorative monument of the independence of the United States.” There was no mention of black soldiers or the Civil War. Rather, the description specified “the independence of the United States,” an event which predated the Civil War — and the abolition of slavery — by a few generations. Dr. Haskins holds that the impetus behind the Statue’s creation was the abolition of slavery in America. Possibly France did not feel America deserved a monument dedicated to freedom as long as a significant portion of its population was enslaved. That is not to say the Statue was dedicated to the abolition of slavery (else Liberty’s tablet would surely have been emblazoned with the date of emancipation, not the date of its formal break from Britain), but that this happy change of affairs inspired some of those behind the gift to support the project. One of the “Documents of Proof” listed in the article, the magazine section of The New York Times from 18 May 1986, states: The creators of the Statue of Liberty knew precisely what the message was. This group of high-minded French intellectuals, neither red revolutionaries nor white-ribboned monarchists, saw an inspirational model for France in the free institutions of the United States; they planned and designed the statue for several reasons, but chiefly to convey a subtle but unmistakable signal of republicanism to their countrymen. “The creators of the statue wanted to praise the United States for its liberty, while at the same time suggesting to the French people that conditions were not the same in France, where the system of government was a kind of Caesarism,” says Pierre Provoyeur, curator of the Museums of France and general commissioner of the French exhibitions for the statue’s centennial celebration. As a gift to the people of the United States, the statue was a kind of subterfuge, a means of promoting from outside France a political alternative for France itself. The plan worked, but the statue so evolved into an American landmark and a universal symbol that it requires an act of historical imagination for today’s Frenchmen to recognize in her an image of their own past and their own political struggles. If the statue had been intended as a tribute to prowess of black soldiers, the choice of a female form was a rather curious one. All the combatants in the Civil War (and every other war of the era) were male, and women were not exactly the gender associated with the values of freedom and liberty in either the United States or France at that time. As Marina Warner notes in her book Monuments & Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form: When we look at Liberty in female shape, we are not being invited to consider the freedom of women in classical times, or in the years when the statue was made and presented to the United States by the French Republic. In neither country did women enjoy equal rights, let alone special access to social and political liberties. Indeed, France was one of the last European nations to give women the vote. In fact, the only thing said about the model on which the statue was based in The New York Times that day comes up in an excerpt from Warner’s book: Although Bartholdi’s colossus has a stern, even implacable face, she remains unmistakably female, and indeed has been said to resemble Bartholdi’s own mother, by all accounts a grim, overbearing woman who never overcame the outrage she felt when the family home in Colmar, Alsace, was occupied by the victorious Prussians in the war of 1870. Another excerpt from Warner indicates that the whole “the model for the Statue of Liberty was a black woman” may stem from its being confused with an earlier, abandoned project Bartholdi adapted to his new assignment: Bartholdi’s statue gives only one explicit reference to the history of the United States: the date – July 4, 1776 – in Roman numerals on the tablet she holds in her left hand. Perhaps this was because the Statue of Liberty did not originate with the plan for New York, but with a proposal Bartholdi made in the 1860’s to the Khedive of Egypt, that he should build a huge lighthouse at the mouth of the Suez Canal. The maquettes of this project, “Egypt Bringing Light to Asia,” were directly inspired by the ancient Pharos of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. They still exist, and they reveal that had the Khedive agreed, the Statue of Liberty – in an Egyptian wig – would now be standing at the gates of the Middle East, not the New World.
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A study discovered men's beards are alarmingly riddled with fecal microbes.
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It may be true that some beards may be less than rigorously hygienic, but proclaiming them to be “filthy” and “dirty as a toilet” based on a scant TV news survey is an alarmist exaggeration.
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false
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Viral Phenomena, not actually a study
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On 1 May 2015, a rumor began to circulate online claiming a “study” assessed the beards of average men and made a shocking discovery: they’re basically dripping with fecal matter (known colloquially as “poop”). The headlines followed, ones such as “Study: Men’s Beards are Filled with Poop and Nasty Bacteria,” “Your beard is dirty as a toilet,” and “How Filthy Is Your Beard?” The intrigue of the claim at a time when beards were certainly somewhat in fashion led to little scrutiny of its base facts… most notably, what study? For example, here is one of the earliest iterations of this claim, which came from a site devoted to casting calls (not a medical journal or other scientifically credible site) and was loaded with scary phrases about fecal contamination: However, a new study has shown that beards are basically filled with more bacteria than the inside of a toilet. According to KOAT Albuquerque, several anonymous men allowed a microbiologist to swab their beards for bacterial testing. A few of the beards contained standard stuff while others revealed fecal matter. While the microbiologist recommended a good beard scrubbing and regular hand-washing to diminish the amount of germs, he didn’t explain how a man’s beard could end up with poop in the first place. But that underlying “study” was actually merely a brief local news report by Albuquerque station KOAT that consisted of a newsperson and a Quest Diagnostics lab in Albuquerque taking swabs from the beards of a small handful of volunteers, analyzing them for microbes, finding a few seemingly yucky results, and discussing the outcome with a single microbiologist — from whom a few very short, sensational-sounding, out-of-context sound bites were excerpted. This tenuous “study” was soon the subject of a multiplicity of sensationalized headlines comparing men’s beards to everything fecal: o Cosmopolitan: “New study finds beards are toilet-level dirty” o New York Post: “Bearded men have poop on their faces” o Canada Journal: “Your filthy beard contains more s— than a toilet, study shows” o Daily Mirror: “Some beards contain more poo than a toilet shocking study reveals” o News.com.au: “Shock new research reveals some beards contain more poo than a toilet” o WSB-TV: “Beards are filled with bacteria and ‘as dirty as toilets’” However, as the Guardian observed, KOAT’s process fell far short of what constitutes a rigorous study and didn’t actually detect the presence of fecal material in men’s beards: As far as I can tell there was no proper study, no team of microbiologists and no poo in beards. The origin of the story appears to be this segment from a TV news network in New Mexico, which involved a reporter swabbing a “handful” of men’s beards and then sending the swabs to a microbiologist in a lab to culture any microbes present. The reporter then interviewed the microbiologist, John Golobic, who identified a few of the bacteria present as “enterics”, that is they are bacteria that normally live in the intestines. “Those are the types of things you’d find in faeces,” he said. And that’s all. Somehow, from this story other media organisations have managed to get poo in beards. While it is true that human faeces are partially composed of gut bacteria, it’s not accurate to describe those bacteria on their own as faeces. Similarly, the Washington Post noted that “gut bacteria” isn’t necessarily the same thing as “poop,” not is its presence either alarming or harmful: The problem with this is that bacteria known to associate poop is not necessarily literal poop. In fact it’s probably not. And saying that something is gross for being covered in bacteria is pretty ridiculous, because anything that exists in our physical realm is definitely going to be covered in bacteria. I have bad news for y’all: You’re covered in poo bacteria. COVERED. Look to your left, look to your right. There’s probably poo bacteria on both sides and also in front of you. It’s okay. It’s really fine. Embrace the poo bacteria, it is a part of you because you are a multitude of microorganisms, each more special than the last. But unless you’ve put it there intentionally, you almost certainly don’t have poop on your face. No matter how thick your beard is. The Guardian concurred in that assessment: Even if this was a properly conducted scientific study with a large number of samples and published in a reputable journal, there wouldn’t necessarily be any cause for concern. Human skin is home to great diversity of microbes, and it’s not unheard of for types of bacteria normally found in the gut, such as E. coli, to be also found on the skin.
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She fought cancer and Congress for DC’s right-to-die law.
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The government form lay on the dining room table in Mary Klein’s home in Northwest Washington. At the top, in bold letters, was a simple declaration: “REQUEST FOR MEDICATION TO END MY LIFE IN A HUMANE AND PEACEFUL MANNER.”
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true
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Cancer, Health, Ovarian cancer, Chemotherapy, Laws
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“I need two witnesses for my application,” Klein’s friend Kelly Saunders recalls her saying. “Would you be a witness?” Saunders knew this moment was coming. It had been nearly four years since doctors had diagnosed Klein’s ovarian cancer. She had shed 20 pounds, her voice was softer, and her hair thinner and grayer. She had decided to stop chemotherapy months earlier. At 70, Klein had become the public face of an effort to legally permit doctors in the nation’s capital to help terminally ill patients die. Even as her health deteriorated, Klein worked for two years to lobby local lawmakers as well as members of Congress — who can overturn D.C. laws — to allow a practice that is now legal in seven states. She prevailed, and the law took effect last year. And now, Klein wanted to become the first person in the District of Columbia to use the law. Saunders picked up a black pen and checked off a box verifying that her dying friend “appears to be of sound mind and not under duress, fraud or undue influence.” She signed her name. Stella Dawson, Klein’s partner of 37 years, stepped out of the kitchen where she was clearing out cabinets and preparing for a contractor’s visit. She offered Saunders a box of macaroni and cheese to take home. It felt incongruous. “Here we were talking about her death, but we were in the kitchen getting ready to have the kitchen renovated,” said Saunders, an architect. The signature brought Klein closer to fulfilling her goal of controlling the final moments of a terminal disease. But even after the public pleading, the quiet lobbying and the politics surrounding the vote — and the paperwork — it wasn’t a done deal. Klein’s oncologists didn’t want to prescribe the drugs for the fatal dose. And social conservatives in Congress vowed to stop the District’s program. And it was uncertain whether death would come from the cancer overtaking her body, or at her own hands, at her own time and in the comfort of her own home. Klein, a former journalist and artist who trained dogs in retirement, noticed stomach pains while traveling to compete with her German shepherd, Adina, in summer 2014. She blamed her irregular diet and figured she would feel better when she returned home. X-rays dated Oct. 2, 2014, showed tumors growing in her uterus. Klein sat her wife down in their living room soon after and explained the grim outlook. “We’re going to do this well,” Dawson recalls Klein saying. From the diagnosis of the Stage 3 ovarian cancer, Klein was thinking about the end. She wanted to decide when the pain became too intolerable to continue living, but her options were limited. For decades, activists have pushed to allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives, saying people with no hope of recovery deserve the option to avoid needless suffering in their final days. Some doctors say helping patients die violates the Hippocratic oath to do no harm. Religious leaders say preservation of human life is sacrosanct. Advocates for people with disabilities and the elderly fear they could be pressured into premature death. Even the name of the practice is controversial. Supporters prefer “death with dignity” to “assisted suicide,” and the main advocacy group rebranded itself from the Hemlock Society to the softer-sounding Compassion & Choices. Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice in 1997 and was followed by Washington state and Vermont by the time Klein discovered her cancer. And a 2009 Montana Supreme Court ruling said nothing in state law prohibited the practice. The week of Klein’s diagnosis also marked a turning point for the national movement. Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with brain cancer who moved from California to Oregon to end her life, became an international media sensation profiled in People magazine and on national television before her death. Maynard’s story and lobbying by her relatives helped an aid-in-dying bill become law in California in 2015. Meanwhile, advocates were preparing to mount an effort to pass a similar law in the District. It would be a huge symbolic win as the nation’s capital, and the first victory in a jurisdiction with a large number of African Americans, a demographic among the most skeptical of the practice. But they needed a public face. Klein went to her first meeting of Compassion & Choices volunteers in the District on Aug. 9, 2016. She introduced herself to the group as a cancer patient but didn’t say she wanted to end her life. Donna Smith, an organizer with Compassion & Choices, talked about how it needed a persuasive spokesperson for the legislative push in the District. Klein didn’t volunteer. She told her wife about it over dinner that evening. “We joked that a 69-year-old lesbian sure wouldn’t pull at the heartstrings the way Brittany, a young, vibrant woman freshly married with newly diagnosed brain cancer, would,” Dawson said. As the vote on the D.C. legislation neared in fall 2016, Klein took a break from chemotherapy, cut short a vacation to Chincoteague Island to lobby lawmakers and gradually stepped into the spotlight. “I have advanced ovarian cancer that cannot be cured. I want to live,” Klein wrote in an Aug. 17 email to D.C. Council member Brianne K. Nadeau (D-Ward 1). “During the past two years I’ve had aggressive surgery that took 42 industrial strength staples to stitch me up, and nearly continuous chemotherapies resulting in nerve damage making it difficult to walk far, a hospital ‘super infection’, huge blood clots, pain, and numerous trips to the hospital ER for these and other life-threatening chemo side effects.” Klein showed up unannounced at a September news conference to rally support for the bill, asking to speak. “Here she was, this rather private person, willing to go public on this issue,” D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3), the bill’s author, said in an interview. “She had her good days and her bad days. She gave us her good days.” The bill passed in November 2016 by a surprising margin, 11 to 2. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), a practicing Catholic who did not publicly weigh in on the debate, signed it into law despite earlier misgivings by her administration. Council member Brandon T. Todd (D-Ward 4) had been a firm “no” on the bill until he met Klein. An Episcopalian, he believed life is a gift from God and that only God could take it away. He knew Klein from community meetings and had knocked on her door when he was canvassing for reelection. She asked Todd’s position on the bill; he said he was opposed but agreed to come back and have a longer conversation. They spoke in her living room for an hour, and Todd voted yes. “It wasn’t easy for me to come to the decision,” Todd said in an interview in his office. “But her story just — it stuck out. I thought to myself, well, somebody in my family could be in this position. I could be in this position. I don’t know what I would do ... But I think having the option, I think it’s okay. I think it’s okay.” Klein’s fight to die on her own terms was far from over. Because the District is the nation’s capital, the federal government has the power to void the city’s laws and spending decisions. After failing to overturn the aid-in-dying law in early 2017, Republicans in Congress tried to block the city from spending money to implement it. With the threat of interference hanging over the law, Klein and other advocates called and emailed congressional aides regularly. Locally, the program seemed to land with a thud. A year after the District passed the aid-in-dying law, no one had used it. One challenge was finding physicians to help administer it. The law requires terminally ill patient to make two oral requests — and fill out the written form — for a fatal dose of medication from a doctor licensed in Washington. The patient also needs a second consulting physician. But only two physicians had registered with the city to participate, and their names were kept confidential. Klein had undergone more than 40 rounds of chemotherapy, according to her medical records. She discussed experimental drug trials with her doctors and met with cancer researchers administering them but concluded the risks were far greater than the potential rewards. Still, her doctors had no interest in helping her end her life, Klein said. An old friend recommended a doctor to Klein who might be willing to help because he was open to alternative treatments. They met twice, and he agreed to be a secondary doctor. In turn, he suggested a palliative-care specialist who was closely following the aid-in-dying debate as a doctor who could actually write the prescription. Klein and Dawson visited her a few days later. The doctor’s first question to Klein was: “Tell me about you, not about your illness,” Dawson recalled. It seemed refreshing. After considering it for a while, the doctor agreed to help. “We were walking on air,” Dawson said. “Mary, from the very beginning, said she didn’t want to die in immense pain, and she wanted self-determination.” The next month, the doctor found a specialized pharmacy in Washington to fill the prescription. It was over. “It is hard for me to believe I have made it through the entire process. I feel an immense relief,” Klein wrote in a May 22 email to Compassion & Choices executives. “Stella and I can now simply enjoy the time we have left together.” The drugs sat untouched in a white pharmacy bag in a cabinet in their study, where Klein also stored old camera equipment. They never discussed how Klein would know the pain had become too unmanageable. The couple joked that they might need a refill before the drugs expired in December 2018, costing thousands because health insurance does not cover the expense. “You just don’t know, with this form of cancer, when there’s a tipping point,” Klein had said. But in the meantime, she planned more trips to Chincoteague Island, more high tea outings at the Willard hotel near the White House and more competitions with her new dog, Eiger. In a trip to Chincoteague over the Fourth of July weekend, she mostly stayed on the couch and read a biography of Joni Mitchell. Her abdomen swelled so much she looked pregnant. She spent days reeling in pain from a catheter draining fluids from her midsection or sleepy from powerful pain medications, according to her diary. On an evening at the end of July, Klein told Dawson that she would take Eiger to Rock Creek Park. She was training him for their next competition, in the fall. Dawson left to pick up groceries and returned to find Klein sitting in an armchair. “I just don’t feel good,” Klein said. She went to bed shortly after. On Aug. 2, doctors discovered that tumors had spread throughout her midsection. Klein asked for her wife’s siblings from Maine, France and England to visit one last time. She began her goodbyes. “Hi. I am not sure I can do this later, I wanted to tell you now how much I have enjoyed time with you,” Klein texted Saunders, the friend who signed her request for the drugs. “Lots of love, Mary.” The next morning, a Friday, Klein fell out of bed and blacked out. Her neighbor Dorothy McGhee, the second required witness for her request for a fatal dose of medication, visited that afternoon and sat by her bedside. They cracked jokes while Klein texted her doctor for advice about painkillers. Adina and Eiger, her dogs, rested by the bed. On Monday morning, Dawson bathed her wife. “It’s time,” Klein said. Her doctor, Katalin Roth, visited that evening. “Her hands and her feet were cool and turning blue,” Roth recalled in a phone interview. “Her mind was good, but her body was already shutting down. She was very close.” Dawson opened the cupboard and retrieved the end-of-life medication, looking at it for the first time. There were six individually wrapped anti-nausea pills. There was a white bottle of Seconal Sodium, a barbiturate, with 100 empty orange capsules inside. The powder from the emptied capsules sat in a brown bottle, to be mixed with water. At lethal doses, the drug should put patients to sleep and slow the nervous system and organs until they stop functioning. Later that evening, Klein put on a light blue T-shirt that her wife bought in Chincoteague Island. Dawson mixed the drugs with water in a porcelain cup and filled another with cranberry juice to balance out the bitter taste. She brought them to her wife’s bedside. Klein, the nausea medication already circulating in her blood, drank from the cups at 2:15 a.m. and fell back into bed asleep. Dawson curled up next to her. They were alone in their home. At 4:41 a.m., Klein stopped breathing. Dawson placed flowers from the butterfly bush in their backyard in her wife’s arms. Roth later signed the death certificate, citing cancer as the cause, as required by law. Two years after Klein began fighting for an aid-in-dying law in the District, she became the first known person to use it. Her widow keeps the empty capsules in a linen closet next to NyQuil and Pepto-Bismol. “We went through so much,” Dawson said. “It’s the one thing that symbolizes that she got what she wished.” ___ Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com
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Proton therapy fights cancer
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The motive for this story appeared to be to pave the way for the introduction of two very expensive proton therapy centers in Central Ohio. But there was no discussion of some of the very lively debate underway in the industry about the costs and effectiveness of this approach. Instead, the story told about one man leaving Ohio to go to Florida for this treatment. Period. No data. No evidence. No independent expert perspectives. No comparisons with other treatments. No discussion about the uncertainties that exist about whether many prostate cancers should even be treated. In this time of escalating health care costs – when the stimulus plan has more than a billion dollars in it for comparative effectiveness research – this hometown cheerleading story left readers empty.
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false
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"An estimate for the cost of treatment was provided, and the story stated that the man’s Medicare plan covered the treatments. This story provided insufficient information for a reader to judge the benefit of the treatment. While it did include a comment from the patient to the effect that this treatment was ‘just as good at getting rid of cancer as other treatment’ there was no support for that statement provided from the medical literature or medical experts, nor was there a context in which to understand it. To evaluate how valuable it is to get ‘rid of cancer’ one has to be able to compare the benefit of ‘getting rid of cancer’ with how often it actually causes problems. Again – the patient interviewed in this story informs the reader that in his view, the side effects associated with proton therapy were less. This is one man’s opinion. And in fact, as the article failed to specify what side effects may be encountered, readers are left without much understanding of the stakes involved. All we were given was the experience of one person. So although the story stated ""Zuber said the treatment methods he researched, including proton therapy, had similar results in getting rid of cancer. "", this cannot be considered ‘evidence’. How was this ‘research’ done? Is his interpretation colored by the treatment choice he made (we all like to think that the choice we’ve made is the best)? In fact, there is no high-quality evidence assessing how the long-term outcomes of proton therapy compares with the other means of treatment. The story never hinted at this. Prostate cancer is a widely but often over-diagnosed cancer. The patient’s experience of having multiple elevated PSA levels before finally being diagnosed raises the possibility that he had an indolent, microscopic cancer. It would have been helpful to know the patient’s age–evidence suggests that treatment benefit decreases after age 65. The proton-beam facilities see the high number of prostate cancers as a boon to their business model (the article notes 75% of patients are being treated for prostate cancer) even though for many men treatment of any kind is unnecessary and potentially harmful. None of this was mentioned in the story. Although it was a story about prostate cancer, there was no information provided about the incidence of this disease and how the number diagnosed and the number with lethal or potentially lethal disease differs. No individuals with expertise in prostate cancer, prostate cancer treatment, or prostate cancer patients appear to have been interviewed as part of this story. Interview comments from a single patient without reference to the evidence or perspectives of experts in the field is not first-rate journalism. The story did mention radiation and surgery in passing. This is insufficient for readers to evaluate the relative merit of these treatments in comparison to proton therapy. In addition, there was no mention that another option for men with prostate cancer is to actively monitor their situation and possibly avoid treatment altogether. The article noted that the specialized equipment for delivering this treatment is currently available at a limited number of locations (5) in the US. The story discusses two different plans to build proton therapy centers in central Ohio, but it fails to ask an important question: are two such facilities needed in central Ohio, with costs per facility noted as $125-180 million? There was no background information about the history or track record of this treatment. While there was no obvious press release on which this story was based, it is also unclear why this patient’s comments are news at this time. It appears that the primary purpose of the article was to create support for the local developer’s plans to build a radiation facility. That way, Dublin residents won’t have to leave home for ""state-of-the-art"" treatment–whether needed or not. A better story would have explored some of the questions that experts have raised about the costs and effectiveness of this approach."
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255
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Abbott to hike production of lower-cost glucose monitors as diabetes soars.
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Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N) plans to ramp up manufacturing capacity for its lower-cost continuous glucose monitor, the FreeStyle Libre, by three to five times in the next few years, aiming to reach millions more patients worldwide, the company told Reuters.
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true
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Health News
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Abbott executives said the increase in manufacturing capacity will begin in the second half of this year and make room for the expected U.S. launch of the FreeStyle Libre 2. This next-generation device has been approved in Europe and is now under U.S. regulatory review. Abbott’s plans for Libre, its fastest-growing diabetes product, used by 1.5 million people worldwide, will be in focus when the company reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday. Jared Watkin, Abbott’s senior vice president for Diabetes Care, said in an interview that scale is a “huge part” of the company’s strategy for its glucose monitors. “When you’re making disposable diagnostic products, the more you can make, the lower the cost you can produce them at.” While the Libre 2 has more features, including alarms for when blood sugar levels swing too low or high, Abbott plans to keep the U.S. price the same as its predecessor, Watkin said. Abbott started in diabetes care as a maker of inexpensive test strips and glucose meters. More recently, the company has sought to expand access to its so-called continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices - traditionally sold to type 1 diabetics in markets with generous insurance coverage. “It’s not good enough to bring this to a small, wealthy population. Diabetes is such a global epidemic that you need to bring products that can really make a dent in that,” Watkin said. Launched in Europe in 2014 and in the United States three years later, the FreeStyle Libre allows people with diabetes to track blood sugar levels without multiple daily finger sticks. A sensor attached to the back of the upper arm uses a thin filament under the skin to measure glucose every minute. Users check their blood sugar levels throughout the day by waving a reader, or smartphone, over the sensor. Major competitors Medtronic Plc (MDT.N) and Dexcom Inc (DXCM.O) critique the current Libre’s lack of automatic alerts that can help diabetics manage their disease. Yet they also are taking steps to introduce cheaper models themselves, executives told Reuters. Libre’s sales are expected to reach $1.5 billion this year, the company said. In April, Goldman Sachs estimated the global CGM market could reach $5 billion by 2021, up from $3.7 billion in 2019. Goldman projected Abbott’s 2021 sales at $2.7 billion compared to $1.7 billion for Dexcom and $894 million for Medtronic. In the past, CGMs were used almost exclusively by type 1 diabetics, whose bodies do not make insulin and who must inject themselves with the blood-sugar regulating hormone to survive. Increasingly, people with type 2 diabetes - the kind driven by obesity, lack of exercise and genetics - must also closely monitor their blood glucose and use insulin to manage their disease when it is not controlled by other medications and lifestyle changes. For now, Libre users include 1 million type 1 diabetic patients and half a million type 2. That’s a tiny sliver of the 425 million people with diabetes worldwide. Although not all diabetics need glucose monitors, “there is an element of scratching the surface at this point,” Watkin said. “The need to invest and bring up capacity is, we believe, going to be an ongoing activity for us.” Two 14-day Libre sensors, a month’s supply, retail for $109. Abbott says most of its patients are commercially insured, and many pay as little as $10 out of pocket. In the United States, the company says, more than half of people in commercial health plans are covered, as well as any eligible diabetic person on Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled. The device is also approved in 45 other countries, including Germany, Japan, Brazil, China and the United Arab Emirates. Medtronic told Reuters it offers a discounted price of $345 per month for uninsured patients. The company estimates that the typical insured patient pays $50 a month. Medicare does not cover the device. Dexcom’s G6 sensors retail online, with a discount, at around $350 for a month’s supply. Dexcom says 98 percent of all U.S. private insurers cover the device, and patients covered by commercial insurance pay an average of $50-$80 per month for sensors through pharmacies or durable medical equipment suppliers. It is covered by Medicare. Libre’s 14-day sensor is also longer-lasting. Dexcom’s sensors work for 10 days, and Medtronic’s for up to 7. Abbott was also the first company to introduce a product that can be used without routine finger stick tests to validate the sensor’s readings – a feature Dexcom later matched and Medtronic has not. Dr. Roy Beck, an endocrinologist at the Jaeb Center for Health Research in Tampa, Florida, said that Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre is “an excellent sensor” but not as accurate at detecting very low blood sugar as the devices from Dexcom, Medtronic or an implantable CGM made by Senseonics (SENS.A). That makes it less desirable for patients for whom this is a major issue, he said. Beck’s center has received research funding from Abbott and Dexcom. Medtronic and Dexcom executives say the current Libre does not compare with their devices when it comes to features such as alerting users to dangerous blood sugar changes and providing comprehensive trend data. “It’s the cheapest, but it’s not exactly in the same category,” said Mike Hill, vice president and general manager of Medtronic’s sensor business. Abbott countered that its sensor has best-in-class accuracy, and noted that the next-generation Libre 2 does have optional alarms. Still, Medtronic is considering making a cheaper sensor for patients who don’t need all the features of its current continuous monitor, Hill said. And next year, Dexcom plans to launch a cheaper, smaller, 14-day sensor developed in partnership with Verily, Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) life sciences division. Dexcom Chief Executive Kevin Sayer acknowledged that Abbott’s pricing strategy will affect the global market over time, and that Dexcom expects its own prices to come down. “We’ve planned for this,” he said.
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33681
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Charles Manson was one of the 437 applicants who tried out for The Monkees in 1965.
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Britain’s AstraZeneca said a potential medicine to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in babies and infants had been granted special status by U.S. and European regulators, designed to speed up the development of novel and better drugs.
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false
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Entertainment, Artists, charles manson, music
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The “Breakthrough Therapy” and “Prime” designations in the United States and Europe respectively were based on early results from Phase IIb trials of MEDI8897, AstraZeneca said. The drug is being developed for use in a broader infant population than the standard of care for RSV prevention, Synagis, which needs monthly injections and is therefore only approved in Europe for high-risk infants. MEDI8897, which is being developed in partnership with Sanofi Pasteur, only requires one dose during a typical five month RSV season, AstraZeneca said. RSV is the most common cause of lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children worldwide, and 90 percent of children are infected with RSV in the first two years of life.
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8243
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Britain asks it citizens to help pick fruit and vegetables.
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Britain on Wednesday called on its citizens to help pick fruit and vegetables to ensure a supply of food during the global coronavirus crisis - work that would usually be largely carried out by migrant seasonal workers.
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true
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Health News
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Britain’s agricultural sector is heavily dependent on seasonal workers, but the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the flow of migrants into the country. “We need to mobilize the British workforce to fill that gap and make sure our excellent fruit and vegetables are on people’s plates over the summer months,” environment minister George Eustice said in a statement. “There are already brilliant recruitment efforts underway by industry and I would encourage as many people as possible to sign up.” The supply of seasonal workers was already under pressure following Britain’s departure from the European Union.
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36060
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Gender reveal parties have killed more people than antifascist demonstrators.
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Have Gender Reveal Parties Killed More People Than Anti-Fascists?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On October 31 2019, a Facebook page shared a text-based status update asserting that gender reveals had caused more deaths than antifascist protesters, popularly referred to as “antifa”:That status update appeared to reference a gender reveal-related death in Iowa several days previously, when revelers inadvertently detonated a device similar to a “pipe bomb” during a small party:Authorities say an Iowa family’s attempt at a gender reveal party for a soon-to-be-born baby went horribly wrong when a homemade device that was meant to discharge colored powder instead exploded like a pipe bomb, killing a 56-year-old relative.The Marion County Sheriff’s office said Pamela Kreimeyer died instantly when debris struck her head Saturday before flying another 432 feet (132 meters) and landing in a nearby field in rural Knoxville, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southeast of Des Moines.Kreimeyer was 45 feet (14 meters) from the device when it exploded.Family members had been experimenting with explosives in the hopes of posting a colorful announcement on social media, authorities said.That gender reveal mishap wasn’t even the only explosion-related calamity at such events in Iowa that weekend, although no one was killed in the second incident:Authorities are investigating another explosion at an Iowa gender reveal party that happened one day after a blast at a similar gathering killed a 56-year-old woman in a nearby community.Authorities say no one was injured in the explosion [October 27 2019] in rural Waukee, a Des Moines suburb, but they are looking into unconfirmed claims that the blast broke a neighbor’s windows.Gender reveals gone wrong are not confined to the state of Iowa; in July 2017, a woman was killed and eight others wounded during a gender reveal party in Ohio:Two men opened fire on a party where a pregnant woman revealed her child’s gender, killing a 22-year-old woman and wounding eight, including the expectant mother and three children, authorities said.Colerain Township Police Chief Mark Denney said at a news conference [in July 2017] that two men fired handguns in the living room of the home [on the night of the gender reveal party]. Denney said the two gunmen who fled on foot haven’t been identified or arrested. He wouldn’t discuss details of the investigation into the shootings.The 22-year-old was identified as Autumn Garrett of Indiana. The three children wounded were ages 2, 6 and 8. None of the eight who were wounded appeared to have life-threatening injuries, he said.In that incident the gender reveal itself was not responsible, but the shooting occurred at a party — and later, it was found to be an elaborate murder-for-hire scheme. An undated Bust magazine article, published after the Iowa death in October 2019, recapped previous gender reveals gone horribly awry:This is not the first gender-reveal party that’s had tragic results. In 2017, a gender-reveal celebration in Arizona started a wildfire that destroyed nearly 47,000 acres and caused over $8 million in damages. In 2018, an Australian man doing a burnout in his car with the tires emitting blue smoke, as part of a gender reveal, almost died from being trapped inside the burning vehicle. Gender reveals are not the only instances where people have risked their lives in hopes for a viral video. But, when did viral fame become so infused within the family structure?After the April 2017 wildfire incident mentioned above, the off-duty Border Patrol agent responsible for detonating an explosive device imprudently was fined $220,000 for starting a fire without a permit, and then he was ordered to pay more than $8 million in restitution:On April 23, 2017, near Green Valley, Ariz., U.S. Border Patrol Agent Dickey, who was off-duty at the time, ignited a fire that spread to Coronado National Forest, federal land administered by the U.S. Forest Service. This fire was referred to as the “Sawmill Fire.” Dickey started the fire by shooting a rifle at a target. Dickey had placed Tannerite, a highly explosive substance, inside the target, intending for it to detonate when shot by a high-velocity firearm bullet. Dickey fired shots at the Tannerite target, ultimately causing an explosion that started a fire that spread and resulted in damage to more than 45,000 acres of land managed by the State of Arizona, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and various private landholders. Dickey immediately reported the fire to law enforcement, cooperated, and admitted that he started the fire. The total losses attributable to the fire, including suppression costs and damage to land and landholdings, totaled more than $8 million.Use of explosive and incendiary devices in gender reveals appeared to a common thread in adverse outcomes, but an overall drive to achieve viral notoriety had a hand in inspiring poor decisions. Injuries were not entirely unusual, and fireworks have rained down on unwitting partygoers in gender reveal misfires:A Philadelphia couple set off pink fireworks, only to have them fall over and fire off at the party’s attendees, some of whom sustained minor burns. Video from the incident captured people alternately screaming in terror and yelling “it’s a girl!”Questionable taste and consent also comes to issue in more controversial gender reveal endeavors, as was the case with a zoo-related September 2019 reveal and a couple’s use of an actual live hippopotamus in their announcement. Officially, at least two people have died during gender reveals or gender reveal parties, one of whom was killed by shrapnel from a gender revealing device which turned out to be a pipe bomb.So what is antifa, anyway?The word is used interchangeably with “antifascist,” and it is broadly defined as a “a person or group actively opposing fascism.” It could also be classified as a movement, but it is not an organized, centralized group. Further, the term is older than it might seem at first blush:History and Etymology for antifaborrowed from German Antifa, short for antifaschistisch “anti-fascist,” in Antifaschistische Aktion (multiparty front initiated by the German Communist Party in 1932 to counter Nazism) and in other collocationsAn undated BBC page on the origins of antifa and its modern efforts goes into more of its modern definition:Neo-Nazis, Neo-fascism, white supremacists and racism, and these days the movement that encapsulates some of those ideas: the alt-right.We spoke to secret Antifa groups in Oregon. They said they come from a variety of political backgrounds but they were united in their opposition to fascism, and they have an anti-government streak. They said they see creeping authoritarianism in the current American administration that they are looking to build “a movement that really insulates us from the policies of Donald Trump”.“It’s not just resisting the federal administration but also resisting moves that can lead to fascism,” one member told us, “and those happen locally whether from local officials or from local alt-right movements.”On violent action, BBC seemed to conflate “antifa” with “black bloc” protesters:Their willingness to use violence marks out Antifa from many other left-wing activists, although the Antifa members we spoke to said they denounce the use of weapons and violent direct action. They said if violence does occur, it’s as a form of self-defence. They also make historical arguments to justify their position. For instance, they ask, what if opponents of the German Nazi Party had been more forceful in their opposition in the 1930s, could World War Two and the Holocaust have been averted?In the United States, antifascist protesters and their tactics came to prominence after tense protests in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017. During those protests, demonstrator Heather Heyer was struck and killed when a vehicle driven by a “Unite the Right” rally attendee intentionally plowed into a crowd of protesters. In July 2019, driver James Fields was sentenced to life plus more than 400 years in prison:Fields was one of many far-right protesters who arrived at Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally, which took place in August 2017. He traveled from his hometown of Maumee, Ohio specifically to attend the event. During his trial, prosecutors alleged he had a history of racism, anti-Semitism and violent behavior, citing testimony from a high school classmate who claimed that Fields acted “like a kid at Disney World” during a trip to a concentration camp.Attempts have been made to link a mass shooter, Connor Betts, to antifascist actions. However, police said that Betts had no racial or political motive based on evidence uncovered during the investigation into the shooting.In the original post, a post suggests “gender reveal parties have killed more people than antifa.” We found at least two gender reveal party-related deaths between 2017 and 2019, and several other calamities. We were unable to locate any deaths caused directly by antifascist protesters, and as such, the claim is true.
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15020
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We lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns.
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"Clinton said: ""We lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns."" That’s about right. But it leaves unsaid that the bulk of those deaths are suicides, not homicides. Also, in 2013, the latest year of available data, the rate of homicides by firearm was lower than the rate for 1999 through 2013."
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true
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Criminal Justice, Crime, Texas, Guns, Hillary Clinton,
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"Rallying supporters in San Antonio, Hillary Clinton said Oct. 15, 2015, that she’s running for president in part ""to protect our families and communities from the plague of gun violence."" Clinton, who was introduced and endorsed by Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor serving as secretary of Housing and Urban Development, went on: ""Look, you know, we lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns."" Is that so? Earlier in the week, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state aired the same per-day count at the Democratic presidential debate hosted by CNN. On her campaign website, Clinton says she favors more pre-purchase background checks, ""cracking down on illegal gun traffickers, holding dealers and manufacturers accountable when they endanger Americans, and keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and stalkers."" A subsequent check of Clinton’s 90 gun deaths by FactCheck.org, based at the University of Pennsylvania, found that while Clinton’s figure held up for 2013, the last year of available data, it is worth noting that only one-third of firearm deaths consisted of homicides; most other gun deaths counted as suicides. At least once, Clinton has clarified her figure by mentioning suicides; according to an Oct. 7, 2015, post on her campaign website, she said in Muscatine, Iowa: ""We lose between 88 and 92 Americans a day from gun violence — homicides, suicides and accidents — and we have to act."" Let’s go to the numbers. Federal statistics According to the most recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 33,636 U.S. firearm deaths were recorded in 2013 — or 92 a day, on average. Some 63 percent of that year’s firearm deaths, or 21,175, were suicides, with 11,208 considered homicides and the rest classified as unintentional discharges (505), legal intervention/war (467) and undetermined (281). We confirmed those figures and checked the numbers for the four previous years (2009-12), finding a five-year average of 89 firearm deaths a day. In that period, the low was 86 firearm deaths a day in 2009 while the 2012 and 2013 averages tied at 92. For each year too, suicides by firearm accounted for far more deaths than homicides by firearm. Government statistician Next, we reached out to the CDC. By email, statistician Ken Kochanek said the 2013 figures remain the latest available. To our request, Kochanek drew on the agency’s statistics to create a document showing that the rate of U.S. deaths by firearm in 2013, roughly 10.6 per 100,000 residents, exceeded the rate of 10.4 per 100,0000 residents for 1999 through 2013. The 15-year high was set in 2012 — 10.7 per 100,000 residents. The 15-year low was set in 2004 — 10.1 firearm deaths per 100,000 residents. Asked to focus on homicides by firearm, Kochanek emailed a document indicating the 2013 rate of 3.5 homicides by firearm per 100,000 residents was less than the 3.9 homicides by firearm per 100,000 residents over the 15-year period. Over those years, the highest rate, of 4.3 homicides by firearm per 100,000 residents, was set in 2006 and the lowest rate, 3.6 homicides by firearm per 100,000 residents was set in two years, 2010 and 2011. Our ruling Clinton said: ""We lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns."" That’s about right. But it leaves unsaid that the bulk of those deaths are suicides, not homicides. Also, in 2013, the latest year of available data, the rate of homicides by firearm was lower than the rate for 1999 through 2013. – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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1674
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Cancer patients get chance to create a musical legacy.
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Musician Stuart Jewell is working on a long-cherished dream to record a song that he wrote almost thirty years ago, but his purpose is to create a memento for his family, rather than to become a star.
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true
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Health News
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A stage III cancer patient, Jewell spends long hours in a recording studio in Falls Church, Virginia, as he battles his disease. “When I play music, I don’t feel like a cancer patient anymore,” he said between takes. “I still get stage fright, I still flub things up when I play, but I don’t care. I just want to be able to play out as much as I can.” The fourth cancer patient to use the studio space provided by the Cancer Can Rock foundation, Jewell wrote “Perseid Rain” in 1986, before he was diagnosed. After his illness, he decided to record the roots rock song and leave behind a musical legacy for his family and friends. “I don’t really know in terms of my condition how much longer I have to live,” he said. “Given an opportunity like this to get my song recorded, it’s totally gratis, so how could I turn it down?” His wife, Janice Jewell, said she was thrilled that he had a chance to focus on his passions during a challenging time in his life. “Music is church for Stuart,” she said. “When you live with cancer, you have things that weigh on your mind in a negative way, and it’s a way for him to put those things aside for a while.” Established three years ago by music producer Jim Ebert, Cancer Can Rock allows musicians with cancer to record a song for posterity. “There’s no perks in cancer, so I said, what can I do?” said Ebert, himself a brain cancer survivor who 14 years ago was told he had one year to live. Ebert said his cancer shrouded his life with a constant sense of impermanence, and he wanted to leave behind something for his friends and family. “I thought, well, I can make a song for an artist that’s permanent for them (and) their family,” he said. “Regardless of what happens health-wise, their family will always have it.”
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35672
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A photograph of non-respirator ear loop mask packaging demonstrates that such masks are ineffective at protecting against the spread of COVID-19.
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On the other hand, the primary purpose of (cloth) ear loop masks (like the type represented by the picture of packaging seen above) is to protect other people by blocking large-particle droplets, splashes, sprays, or splatter containing infectious agents that the (infected) wearer might release through coughing, sneezing, talking, and the like. (Although, again, they do provide some small measure of protection to the wearer, but not at nearly as high a level as a respirator mask would.)
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false
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Politics, COVID-19
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During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic in 2020, as Americans were being increasingly required to wear face masks in order to patronize businesses such as grocery stores, some social media users began circulating images questioning the efficacy of wearing those masks, such as the following: This photograph (and others like it) reflects accurate disclaimers on the packaging of face masks that caution users, “THIS PRODUCT IS NOT A RESPIRATOR AND WILL NOT PROVIDE ANY PROTECTION AGAINST COVID-19 (CORONAVIRUS) OR OTHER VIRUSES OR CONTAMINANTS.” Such disclaimers do not mean that wearing masks is ineffective at limiting the spread of COVID-19, however, but rather that viewers are misunderstanding the function and purpose of different types of face masks. The type of mask known as a N95 respirator is, in the words of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), “a respiratory protective device designed to achieve a very close facial fit and very efficient filtration of airborne particles”: The primary purpose of N95 respirator masks is to protect the wearer from airborne particles (including small aerosol particles), such as those that might cause disease. That is why such masks are worn by health care personnel who are treating patients in a medical setting, to help prevent those personnel from contracting illnesses their patients might spread to them. These masks also, of course, provide some measure of protection for the patients as well:
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25835
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“Five veterinary labs have their CLIA certification to officially test human patients. There are a lot of labs who are doing surveillance testing that don't need the CLIA certification.”
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There are a number of veterinary labs in the U.S. with the certifications necessary to test human samples. CLIA is certification under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, a federal law that sets the standard for labs that test human specimens. Experts say veterinary labs could relieve some of the pressure on commercial and hospital-based labs to lessen the current delays in COVID-19 testing and results, but it is unlikely to be a game changer.
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true
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Public Health, Health Check, Coronavirus, Brett Giroir,
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"In a heated exchange late last month on CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper pressed Adm. Brett Giroir, the Health and Human Services assistant secretary who oversees COVID testing efforts for the Trump administration, on why the government isn’t requiring commercial labs to increase testing capacity in order to speed turnaround time. Giroir’s response described a series of steps — some unusual — being taken by the federal government. One focus was on the role veterinary labs, including those with special certification, could play in helping to build capacity. ""Five veterinary labs have their CLIA certification to officially test human patients,"" he said. ""There are a lot of labs who are doing surveillance testing that don't need the CLIA certification."" He was referring to certification under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988, a federal law that sets the standard for labs that test human specimens. So that got us wondering: Can labs that test cattle, chickens or your pet Fido run tests on humans? And, if so, what role are they playing in the national pandemic, and how much is it helping? After all, the issue of expanding lab capacity will likely come up repeatedly as demand for testing increases with mounting case counts. Turnaround times at some labs have grown, with results now taking days to more than a week in some areas, frustrating consumers and public health officials. Delays for test results mean delays for contact tracing and quarantining. The administration’s pandemic response, including testing issues, is also proving to be a hot topic on the campaign trail. We reached out to HHS for more information about Giroir’s statement. An HHS spokesperson emailed a list of nine veterinary labs that have received the required certification to do patient-specific human testing, saying Giroir had been mistakenly briefed before the interview that there were only five. A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said there are 15 National Animal Health Laboratory Network facilities nationwide that have CLIA certification to test human samples. Clearly, there are vet labs in the U.S. with the necessary credentials, but the exact number is a matter of confusion. As for the surveillance efforts, the HHS spokesperson did not provide specific examples of veterinary labs doing such work but provided a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services FAQ saying labs that don’t have CLIA certification can do some types of surveillance if results are not given to specific patients. Our experts all quickly noted that veterinary labs — especially those that focus on food animals, including cows, pigs and chickens, have long tested for diseases, including many kinds of coronaviruses. They’re on the lookout for microbes that can affect food safety, such as salmonella or E. coli, or diseases that can devastate the animals themselves, including avian influenza, hoof and mouth disease or African swine fever. Hence, a lot of testing goes on in the 63 food-animal testing labs in 33 states and four Canadian provinces accredited by the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, said its executive director, David Zeman. ""In some states, we have more capacity in the vet labs than in the public health labs,"" he added. Those vet labs, often affiliated with universities or government agencies, use highly sophisticated equipment, including polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques, as do labs focusing on human testing. Many of the COVID tests being done are PCR, which can detect the virus’s genetic material. ""It’s the same machines, the same science,"" said Zeman. However, these are large, full-service labs that deal mainly with farm animals, different from the smaller labs generally found at your neighborhood vet. So, sorry, Fido. Earlier this year, researchers at Iowa State University found that the testing process for the new coronavirus is similar to that used to test pigs for porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) virus, a disease that killed thousands of piglets in 2013. Because a lot of labs had updated their equipment and processes so they could check for PED, they were in a good position to help with COVID-19 testing. Except, of course, it’s never that simple. While the science and technology are the same, the administrative requirements are not. Veterinary labs must meet standards for accreditation by such groups as the American Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians and are overseen by federal and state agricultural agencies. Human labs also must meet strict standards, including CLIA, and fall under the auspices of other agencies, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One requirement is that the CLIA lab must have a director who is a medical doctor with specialized experience. Most animal labs are run by, not surprisingly, veterinarians, often ones with Ph.D.s. Some vet labs have formed partnerships with CLIA-certified labs to clear this hurdle. Still, it’s a process that can take weeks, so it’s not an overnight fix, said Zeman. But can these labs really make a difference in the testing backlog? A June article on the American Veterinary Medicine Association website quoted an official in May saying that the then-seven CLIA-certified vet labs had the capacity to process 12,000 PCR samples with a 24-hour turnaround. Zeman said he sent out a survey in July to his 63 members in response to an HHS inquiry and found that, on average, each lab — if CLIA-certified — could process 500 to 1,000 COVID samples a day on top of what it needs to do to monitor animals. ""Multiply that by 60 some labs and you have a rough idea of what they could do,"" he said. The math adds up to at least 31,500 tests a day. Currently, more than 700,000 samples are taken daily and sent to all types of labs — mainly large commercial and hospital-based facilities, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins University. The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project notes similar testing numbers at the end of July. More vet labs participating ""could ease the burden on these labs, but it doesn’t sound like a game changer in terms of wait times,"" said Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Some vet labs are working with public health labs to ""test a specific segment of the population (university students, routine screening of government workers, etc. ),"" said Michelle Forman, media manager for the Association of Public Health Laboratories in an email. ""So it’s not so much taking existing burden off of the public health labs and commercial labs but it is preventing additional burden from being put on them."" Giroir said ""lots"" of labs that are non-CLIA certified labs are helping by doing research or surveillance, but Zeman was not aware of such efforts by such labs in his organization. Perhaps Giroir was talking about ""pooled testing,"" in which a number of specimens are tested in a batch, speculated Mark Ackermann, director of the Oregon Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory in Corvallis, Oregon. Under that method, if any batch tests positive, individual specimens from the batch are then each tested to see who is positive. Ackermann, whose lab has CLIA certification, pointed to another way vet labs might be helping: Many are making the liquid needed for the vials that hold the swabs taken from patients’ nasal passages. Giroir was correct in saying there are some veterinary labs helping out with COVID testing. But even if all 63 accredited food-animal vet labs in the U.S. and Canada were pressed into processing human COVID tests, an industry survey estimates it would increase capacity by between 31,500 to 63,000 samples per day. While helpful, that would still be only a small portion of the more than 700,000 daily tests being conducted, which some experts say falls short of what is needed. Additionally, while vet labs are helping in some ways, Giroir provided little evidence to back up his assertion that ""lots"" of labs that lack CLIA certification are assisting in surveillance efforts."
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38204
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President Obama urged Harvard to reverse its decision to suspend Malia Obama because of her recent “drug escapades.”
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President Obama Orders Harvard to Reverse Malia Obama's Suspension
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false
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Obama
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A satirical website is behind false claims that President Obama ordered Harvard to reverse its decision to suspend Malia Obama pending drug charges. The website, Our Land of the Free, first reported on August 12, 2017, that Harvard suspended Malia Obama in light of her “recent drug escapades” because she would be too much of a distraction to other students. According to sources within Harvard, Barack Obama called school president Harmon Finklestein and angrily demanded that his daughter be allowed to attend the university. Of course, he caved. “It has been brought to our attention that the young Miss Obama has not been found guilty of a crime and therefore we acted hastily in suspending her,” Finklestein said in a statement late Sunday night. “We sincerely apologize to the Obama family and specifically to Malia for any harm we caused.” The lifting of Obama’s suspension means she can move into the dorms with other students, perhaps with drugs she obtained elsewhere. A disclaimer that appears in the footer of the website makes no guarantees that its reporting is truthful, adding that the site is “here to entertain you with the kind of whimsical satire conservatives enjoy.” That means reports of Malia Obama suspension, and President Obama demanding that the suspension be reversed, are nonsense. If the rumor sounds familiar, that’s probably because a different website started a false rumor in April 2017 that Malia Obama had been expelled from Harvard due to drug charges. That one was easy to disprove since Malia wasn’t even enrolled at Harvard at the time. Both of these allegations are based on reports and photos that appear to show Malia Obama smoking marijuana at Lollapalooza in 2016. Malia has never been charged for possessing or using drugs. Comments
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7145
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State Dept. lacked long-term care for Cuba health incidents.
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An internal review submitted to Congress Thursday says the State Department had “insufficient resources” to support long-term care following mysterious health incidents in Cuba.
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true
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Health, Cuba, North America, Rex Tillerson
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However, the Accountability Review Board, convened by former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, also says the department’s Bureau of Medical Services “provided competent and professional response to an unprecedented situation.” The review recommended mandating medical screening before and after assignments or temporary duty in Havana. Twenty-five embassy workers in Cuba have been affected by mysterious health incidents, suffering a range of symptoms and diagnoses including mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion. The board’s mandate was to examine the State Department’s response, including the adequacy of security. The department says it has implemented half the board’s recommendations and is working to complete the rest.
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2863
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Bayer says reintroducing Diane-35 in France.
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German drugmaker Bayer AG said on Wednesday it was cleared by the French health authority to reintroduce oral acne treatment Diane-35 to the French market after an eight-month suspension.
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true
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Health News
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The European Commission said in July that Diane-35 was safe for use, a seal of approval which obliged France to allow sales of the product again. France had suspended sales of Diane-35 after four deaths over the past 25 years were linked to its use. The pill reduces acne by regulating hormones and blocking ovulation, and is often prescribed as a contraceptive even though it is not approved for this use.
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31460
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Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.
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While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.
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false
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Medical, david avocado wolfe, fluoride, intelligence quotient
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Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones’ Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person’s intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have “linked” fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola’s (and many others’) language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children’s intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies’ “high fluoride” groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or “low fluoride” groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range […] In other words – fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher – generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA’s maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper’s collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents’ level of education, and the children’s exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children’s IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the “International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.” — an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: “Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available” “Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic” “The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality” The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources […] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don’t also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland’s Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study (“Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6–12 Years of Age in Mexico”) that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico.
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33916
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"60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney wrote an essay, ""In Praise of Older Women."
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Did '60 Minutes' commentator Andy Rooney author an essay titled 'In Praise of Older Women'?
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false
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Politics Soapbox, andy rooney
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Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who for many years closed every Sunday broadcast of television’s 60 Minutes news magazine with a (typically sardonic) essay about some aspect of everyday life, was — thanks to the Internet — as well known for what he hasn’t said as he is for what he really had said: Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2003] In Praise of Older WomenLadies, As I grow in age, I value women who are over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And it’s usually something more interesting. A woman over 40 knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of 40 give a damn what you might think about her or what she’s doing. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it… Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. They always know. A woman over 40 looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women or drag queens. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her…. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not always reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman of 40+, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress. Ladies, I apologize for all of us. Andy Rooney The piece quoted above, an essay “In Praise of Older Women,” is another portion of his “hasn’t said” fame. This item was not penned by Andy Rooney (who passed away at the age of 92 on 4 November 2011); it is an embellished version of a piece created by Frank Kaiser, a columnist whose Suddenly Senior articles are published on his web site and syndicated to a variety of newspapers across the U.S. Baltimore Sun writer Susan Reimer contacted Andy Rooney, who told her: “It just bugs me that anybody would put my name on something I didn’t write,” said Rooney from his New York office. He’s been the object of this kind of hoax before, and another, he said, had just crossed his desk.I asked him if he shared the author’s affection for older women, and he said, “Not particularly.” In October 2005, in his weekly 60 Minutes commentary, Andy Rooney said this of the piece: A saccharine collection of comments called ‘ANDY ROONEY ON OLDER WOMEN’ has had wide circulation. I was pleased by how many people wrote to say they didn’t believe I wrote it. The true author, Frank Kaiser, had this to say about the misattribution: I actually wrote it in 2000 but about a year ago [i.e., in 2002], I started seeing it come back to me in e-mails attributed to Andy Rooney. It didn’t bother me too much. That’s sort of the nature of the Internet. I wrote him and made a joke about it and he called me. You know, he’s just as cantankerous on the phone as he is on the air. Frank Kaiser’s original piece read as follows: One of the perks of dufferdom is an increased capacity to appreciate people. Friends. Spouses. And, for me, women. All women.When I was 20, I had eyes only for girls my age. Any woman over 30 was ancient, over 40 invisible. Today, at 65, I still appreciate the 20-year-old for her youthful looks, vigor, and (occasional) sweet innocence. But I equally enjoy women of my own age and beyond, and every age in between. I’ve learned that each has its own special wonders, attractions, magic and beauty. As I grow in age, I value older women most of all. Here are just a few of the reasons senior men sing the praises of older women: An older woman will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” An older woman doesn’t care what you think. An older woman knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants, and from whom. By the age of 50, few women are wishy-washy. About anything. Thank God! An older woman looks great wearing bright red lipstick even in glaring sunlight. This is not true of younger women or drag queens. And yes, once you get past a wrinkle or two, an older woman is far sexier than her younger counterpart! Her libido’s stronger. Her fear of pregnancy gone. Her appreciation of experienced lovemaking is honed and reciprocal. And she’s lived long enough to know how to please a man in ways her daughter could never dream of. (Young men, you have something to look forward to!) Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off that you are a jerk if you’re acting like one. A young woman will say nothing, caring what you might think of her. An older woman doesn’t give a damn. An older, single woman usually has had her fill of “meaningful relationships” and “commitment.” Can’t relate? Can’t commit? She could care less. The last thing she needs in her life is another dopey, clingy, whiny, dependent lover! Older women are dignified. They seldom contemplate having a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Most older women cook well. They care about cleanliness. They’re generous with praise, often undeserved. An older woman has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A young woman with a man often will ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. The older woman couldn’t care less. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to an older woman. They always just know. Yes, we geezers praise older women for a multitude of reasons. These are but a few. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coifed babe of 70 there’s a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year-old waitress. Ladies, I apologize for us. That men are genetically inferior is no secret. Count your blessings that we die off at a far younger age, leaving you the best part of your lives to enjoy and appreciate the exquisite woman you’ve become. Without the distraction of some demanding old fart clinging and whining his way into your serenity. Another celebrated encomium to older women was penned by a famous American statesman over 250 years earlier, when Benjamin Franklin wrote the piece known to us as “Old Mistresses’ Apologue”: June 25. 1745 My dear Friend, I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entring into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient. But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these: 1. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor’d with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable. 2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman. 3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc’d may be attended with much Inconvenience. 4. Because thro’ more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin’d to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes. 5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement. 6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy. 7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy. 8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!! Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend.
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29998
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Four AI-controlled robots killed 29 scientists in Japan in August 2017.
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At best, the claim that 29 scientists were killed by AI robots in Japan is based on third-hand information unsupported by any actual evidence. At worst, this rumor was made up out of whole cloth as an attention-grabbing anecdote for a speech about how human beings are merely the artificially intelligent creations of an alien race.
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false
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Junk News, artificial intelligence, robots
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In December 2018, social media users began circulating a short and blurry video clip showing a woman relaying a story about 29 scientists who were reportedly killed by artificial intelligence-controlled robots in Japan (“4 robots kill 29 scientists”). One iteration of this footage, which asserted that the AI robot massacre had occurred in South Korea, not Japan, can be glimpsed below: This clip was taken from an hour-long presentation delivered by conspiracy theorist and UFOlogist Linda Moulton Howe at the Conscious of Life Expo in Los Angeles in February 2018. Howe’s presentation was largely about the dangers of artificial intelligence, but it was also entwined with stories about alien encounters, abductions, and alternate dimensions. Howe kicked off her speech with a story about four AI robots killing 29 scientists in Japan that she reportedly heard about from a former Marine who had been doing contract work for government agencies such as the CIA, the NSA, and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency): On Saturday August 26 2017, not very long ago, I received a phone call from a whistle blower in the Intel world I’ve known for about a year and a half. He is an honorably discharged marine, but he continues to work on contracts with the CIA, NSA, DIA agencies. I always keep notebooks all over my house, my office, my car, everywhere so that I can write down a phone call that I can’t record or that I’m not in my studio to record. So I wrote this down almost word for word. At a top robotics company in Japan this week four robots being developed for military applications killed 29 humans in the lab. And they did it by shooting what he called metal bullets. I didn’t know there was any other kind. The scariest part is that lab workers deactivated two of the robots, took apart the third, but the fourth began restoring itself and somehow connected to an orbiting satellite to download information about how it could rebuild itself even more strongly than before. And this next sentence, this is a quote, I’m writing this down. I’ve been doing this for years. This is serious shit Linda. but you’re never going to hear about this in the news. The robotics company has too much to lose, and the government wants AI robot soldiers. Close quote. Howe’s story was suspiciously void of specifics. She didn’t identify the source of her information, the name of the factory where the alleged massacre occurred, or the names of any of the scientists who were reportedly killed. And while Howe claimed that reports of this robot uprising were suppressed by the government, one would expect some coverage about the deaths or disappearances of dozens of Japan’s top scientists to have hit the news, even if the robot aspect of the story was obscured. Yet we found no such reports. It was also odd that this tale served as little more than a footnote in Howe’s overall presentation. In fact, this outlandish story seemed to function more as an attention-grabbing anecdote and less as a retelling of a genuine incident. After opening with this alleged robot massacre report, Howe transitioned to the dangers of artificial intelligence, spent most of her time focused on alien encounters, and then concluded by saying that humans may actually be the artificially intelligent creations of an alien race: “Is it fair to ponder that those first humans were artificial intelligence for those who made us from manipulating genetics like robotic lab scientists are now doing on earth today? … Are we humans actually someone else’s androids?” Linda Moulton Howe’s full presentation can be viewed below: Howe has told this story at least one other time, as part of an interview with the “Mysterious Outpost Radio” at the “Ozark Mountain UFO Conference.” During that telling, Howe added that her Marine source would only communicate with her in short texts or 30-second phone calls because his phone had been tapped, and that she made no claims of having handwritten notes of those conversations. Howe also maintained that her source didn’t actually witness any such robot massacre, but that he was relaying information he had reportedly come across during his contract work:
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15942
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"Science is ""very certain"" that the measles vaccine doesn't cause autism."
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Kelly said that the science on vaccine safety is certain today. The researchers we contacted said that as far as the science is concerned, certainty had been reached at least 10 years ago with the release of a major national study debunking the link between the measles mumps, rubella vaccine and autism. Five years ago, the British journal the Lancet retracted the original report that triggered the initial wave of fear. That decision was the final nail in the coffin of a discredited report. If anything, Kelly undersold her point about when scientists agreed that vaccination is safe.
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true
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Public Health, PunditFact, Megyn Kelly,
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"As the number of cases of measles slowly grows across the United States, it has revived a past debate over the safety of the vaccine that for decades prevented an outbreak. Potential presidential contenders, including Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have suggested that parents should be allowed to decline vaccination for their children if they have concerns over side effects. Two Fox News hosts, Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly, tackled the touchy topic of mandatory vaccinations on The O’Reilly Factor on Feb. 2, 2015. Kelly said she had all three of her children vaccinated and that for immunization programs to work, they must be mandatory. Kelly, however, cut some slack for parents who might have decided otherwise a few years ago. ""They were given bad information years ago by a U.K. study that came out in 1998,"" Kelly said. ""Five years ago the science wasn't even as certain as it is today. It is very certain today."" In this fact-check, we take a look at the scientific certainty over the safety of vaccination. Along the way, we’ll see if the science has become even more certain in the past five years. We told Fox News we were digging into this and didn’t hear back, but Kelly’s five-year mark lines up with the formal retraction of that United Kingdom study she mentioned. To quickly recap, in 1998, a British medical journal called the Lancet published a paper by Andrew Wakefield and a dozen colleagues that claimed to show a link between the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine and autism. Many parents responded with predictable fear and vaccination rates began falling. The impact was strongest in the United Kingdom where the rate fell from the 90 percent range down to 80 percent. The United States saw a minor dip. In some states, the rate dropped below 90 percent although nationally the rate remained higher. In 2010, roughly five years ago, the Lancet retracted Wakefield’s study. This seems to be the benchmark for Kelly’s comparison. What we heard from the public health community is that not only is the medical science clear today, it was back in 2010 as well. The scientists were sure Dr. Mark Schleiss is director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota Medical School. Schleiss told PunditFact that the science was clear in 2010, and it’s clear today. ""Wakefield's work had been discredited within a year or two of publication,"" Schleiss said. ""After Wakefield, there were a number of other studies performed, and it was convincingly shown that there was no link with autism, but that safety information was already known well before that."" Schleiss dates efforts to test the safety of childhood immunizations back to the 1980s when there were reports that the whooping cough vaccine caused developmental disorders. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Institute of Medicine (at the time, a division of the National Academy of Sciences) conducted studies and found the whooping cough reports without merit. Along the way, that work also established the safety of the MMR vaccine and would undermine Wakefield’s research in the Lancet. The Wakefield study had such a high profile that it spurred further rounds of research. In 2001, the Institute of Medicine published a report that found no evidence of an association between the vaccine and autism. In 2004, the institute conducted another review. The institute said in a press release, ""14 large epidemiological studies consistently showed no association between the MMR vaccine and autism."" Dr. Marie McCormick, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, oversaw the committee that conducted the 2004 IOM vaccine safety review. McCormick told us that there were no divisions within the scientific community at that time. ""I think that the data were pretty firm as of 2004,"" McCormick said. By 2004, 10 of Wakefield’s co-authors had withdrawn their names from his study. Other things also had happened. Brian Deer, a British journalist, documented shoddy data that underlay the results. Deer also found that Wakefield never disclosed that he had been paid by a lawyer representing some of the children cited in the article. In the British Medical Journal, Deer later exposed how Wakefield engaged in an elaborate scientific fraud. Wakefield sued the British Medical Journal and lost. Editor-in-chief Fiona Godlee told PunditFact that ""the science has been much the same throughout the MMR scare caused by Wakefield's paper."" McCormick said the one thing that did change over the years was the public reporting around the topic. At the height of the scare, McCormick said news coverage suffered from a systematic flaw. ""If a reporter interviewed a scientist about the results, she would almost automatically give equal time and weight to an opponent of vaccines regardless of the validity of their opinion,"" McCormick said. ""Thus, to the viewer or reader, the issue would seem evenly balanced, even when it was not."" Our ruling Kelly said that the science on vaccine safety is certain today. The researchers we contacted said that as far as the science is concerned, certainty had been reached at least 10 years ago with the release of a major national study debunking the link between the measles mumps, rubella vaccine and autism. Five years ago, the British journal the Lancet retracted the original report that triggered the initial wave of fear. That decision was the final nail in the coffin of a discredited report. If anything, Kelly undersold her point about when scientists agreed that vaccination is safe."
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41671
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There were nearly 1,000 drug-related deaths in Scotland last year.
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Hurricane Humberto knocked out power lines in Bermuda on Wednesday night, plunging nearly the whole Atlantic archipelago into darkness, as the storm whipped the British territory with powerful winds and heavy rain.
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true
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health
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Even as Hurricane Humberto was moving away, Miami-based U.S. National Hurricane Center forecast a prolonged period of dangerous winds through Thursday and warned that dangerous breaking waves could lead to coastal flooding overnight. More than 28,000 homes and businesses had lost electricity by early evening, according to electricity company Belco. Flights were canceled and some residents in the capital, Hamilton, covered windows with wooden planks and metal sheeting. Belco said it would begin restoring power on Thursday morning. Bermudan officials warned residents to stay off roads and prepare for possible tornadoes as the hurricane picked up forward speed and weather conditions worsened. The officials also reported that people who had sought refuge in an emergency housing shelter at a public high school had to be relocated after windows were damaged. James Dodgson, director of the Bermuda Weather Service, said conditions were already worsening. “I can’t even rule out some isolated tornadoes. ... We have a very serious situation as we have a very big hurricane moving by to our north,” he told a news conference. On Wednesday, the storm’s eye was located to the west of the archipelago, which lies about 650 miles (1,050 km) east of the United States. The storm packed 120 mile-per-hour (193 kph) winds and picked up speed during the afternoon, moving at 20 mph (31 kph). Humberto was a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, the NHC said. Bermuda National Disaster Coordinator Steve Cosham warned that the storm could topple trees and rip down power lines, while tornadoes could damage buildings. Resident Saivo Goater placed boards across the sliding glass doors of his two-story dwelling, remembering back-to-back hurricanes in 2014 that ripped off parts of his roof. “I don’t want to go through that again,” Goater said. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.” Officials ended government ferry services and were closing a major road leading to the airport on Wednesday evening. They also opened a shelter at a high school with room for 100 people. Schools were closed and ambulances on standby, a witness said. The Atlantic storm season has picked up pace in recent weeks. The Bahamas is still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Dorian, and the remnants of Tropical Depression Imelda have moved inland across the Gulf coast of Texas and southeastern Louisiana as it weakened, bringing warnings of flash floods and heavy rains.
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35938
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"U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said that Americans were able to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic because ""some Black woman was able to stack the grocery shelf."
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Biden: ‘I Was Able to Stay Sequestered’ Thanks to ‘Some Black Woman’ Who Stocked Grocery Shelves pic.twitter.com/raalFcUNKF
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true
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Politics, 2020 election
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Here’s a transcript of a portion of Biden’s remarks (emphasis added): I am, ironically, more optimistic about the prospects of dealing with the problems we talked about today, as well as so many other problems we have right now, than I have ever been in my whole career. And you say, ‘Why in the hell would you say that, Biden? You just talked about all these difficulties.’ Well, I’ll tell you why. Because the American public, the blinders have been taken off. They’ve all of a sudden seen a hell of a lot clearer. They are saying: ‘Jeez, the reason I was able to stay sequestered in my home is because some Black woman was able to stack the grocery shelf, or I got a young Hispanic out there, or these dreamers out there, 60,000 of them, acting as first responders and nurses and docs.’ Or, all of a sudden people are realizing, my lord these people have done so much — not just black, white but across the board — have done so much for me. We can do this. We can get things done. And I think they’re ready and the irony of all ironies is that I think it’s the vehicle by which we’re going to be able to create really good paying jobs. We’re going to be able to provide for significant health care. The idea that in the middle of a pandemic — the worst thing since the great flu back at the turn of the century, where so many people died worldwide — is that people, you know, people are figuring out that we are all in this together. We can get through this if we just level with one another. Just tell the truth. Let people know. A few weeks after this event, a 10-second clip of Biden’s remarks started to go viral as it was shared by social media users claiming that Biden had made a racist remark. For example, a member of the group Students for Trump wrote: “Joe Biden literally said the reason he was able to stay quarantined … Was because ‘some black woman was able to stock the grocery shelf.’ And people still think Trump is the racist one.”
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