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11693
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Bill Clinton’s hitman confesses on his deathbed.
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Fake news story says hitman for Bill Clinton confesses
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false
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Fake news, PunditFact, The Patriot Report,
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"A fake news story says that former President Bill Clinton’s hitman has carried out more than 60 murders at the request of Clinton and his wife ""Killary."" ""Bill Clinton’s hitman confesses on his deathbed,"" stated a Jan. 8 headline on The Patriot Report. Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. We found that this story, which has circulated on multiple websites, lacks any evidence and is filled with ridiculous, made-up statements. The story’s only source is an alleged intern -- unnamed -- who interviewed the alleged hitman on behalf of Fox News’ Sean Hannity. The story said that the hitman who operated under the alias Wilshire Williams (but was actually named Terrence Wilekenmeyer) was a low-level runner for the mafia until he was sold to Clinton in exchange for 12 cases of confiscated Arkansas moonshine. But now dying of pancreatic cancer with one week left to live, the hitman wanted to come clean and told his story to the Fox News intern. The intern allegedly told The Patriot News that the hitman ""put three bullets in Vince Foster and two in Seth Rich. He tied up more loose ends than any other hitman in history."" Foster was the former White House counsel who committed suicide in 1993. Rich was the Democratic National Committee worker who was murdered in 2016. Both deaths have been the subject of conspiracy theories. We noticed that the supposed real name of the hitman -- Terrence Wilekenmeyer -- was the same last name as Ezekiel Wilekenmeyer, a pen name used by one of the biggest purveyors of fake news, Christopher Blair. A Fox News spokeswoman Jaclyn Giuliano said that Hannity had no involvement whatsoever in the story alleging a Clinton hit man confessed on his deathbed. The Patriot Report’s website claims that it offers ""solid conservative perspective on the issues of the day"" and aims to ""to equip the current generation of American Patriots with the right information"" to support and defend the unalienable rights of man. We find that the website posts fake news. We sent a message to The Patriot Report on Facebook and did not hear back. A headline said that ""Bill Clinton’s hitman confesses on his deathbed."" There is no evidence that such a confessing hitman exists."
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31580
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"The IRS gave preferential ""fast tracking"" for tax exempt status to After School Satan clubs run by the Satanic Temple."
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We found no evidence to support the claim that After School Satan clubs were the beneficiaries of “fast tracking” by the IRS to help them swiftly gain tax exempt status.
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false
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Uncategorized, IRS, judicial watch, satanic temple
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On 16 March 2017, conservative legal activism group Judicial Watch published a blog post in which they claimed the Internal Revenue Service had favored “After School Satan” secularist clubs by “fast tracking” their tax exempt status: While the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) makes conservative groups wait years for tax-exempt status an “After School Satan Club” launched to hinder Christian-based counterparts got its nonprofit ranking in just ten days, records obtained by Judicial Watch show. The classification is offered to charitable, religious and educational organizations that operate as nonprofits… In the meantime, leftist groups like the Satan club got fast tracked. The principle goal of establishing the Satan clubs in public schools throughout Washington State appears to be to counter existing enterprises operated by a Christian-based group. Although Judicial Watch claims to have obtained documents that prove their claim, the documents they provide do no such thing; they obtained filings for Reason Alliance, a nonprofit organization that sponsors the After School Satan clubs, but the clubs were not created until two years later and do not have their own independent nonprofit status. Judicial Watch obtained and published an application by Reason Alliance Ltd for tax exempt status which was signed on 21 October 2014. They also published the IRS’s response notifying the group they had been approved for status as a “private foundation” on 31 October 2014. Neither the letter from the IRS or the application make mention of After School Satan clubs or the “fast tracking” of the application. According to a statement released by the Satanic Temple, an activist group that created the After School Satan program in 2016 to counter a Bible study group in public schools, the clubs were sponsored by Reason Alliance to pay for things like operating costs and insurance: Satan Clubs are sponsored by the non-profit 501(c)(3), Reason Alliance, Ltd.; however, Reason Alliance earned its tax-exempt status long before ASSC existed and did not, despite claims, receive its exemption in 10 days. Further, nothing in the filings for Reason Alliance make reference to Satan or Satanism. Clearly, any insinuations that “Obama’s IRS” struck a secret alliance with Satanists are nothing more than an absurd fabrication. … Reason Alliance, Ltd., was formed in 2014 by the founders of The Satanic Temple (TST). The non-profit was set up to encourage reason and empathy, reject tyrannical authority, promote justice, and advocate pragmatic common sense. Reason Alliance also supports activities that advance these core values. When the After School Satan Club was formed in July 2016, Reason Alliance was used to sponsor this program as ASSC operations are consistent with its mission statement. This sponsorship supports The Satanic Temple’s After School Satan Club by way of covering the rental fees and liability insurance coverage required by law. The assertion by Judicial Watch and all other news outlets that ASSC is somehow itself a tax exempt entity or operated by Reason Alliance Ltd. has no grounding in reality nor does the documentation they’ve obtained support this claim. The Satanic Temple is a secular activist group that leverages the legal system to promote plurality and counter what they view as overreach by Christianity in the public sphere (they do not promote worshiping Satan or anyone else, but have seven tenets that are similar to secular humanist beliefs). Their co-founder and spokesman Lucien Greaves told us that neither the Satanic Temple nor the After School Satan clubs sought or received tax-exempt status. Reason Alliance was created in 2014 to be a place “where donors who support TST’s tenets and who want tax deductions for donations can have an entity to donate to.” The Satanic Temple is known for bringing legal challenges against religious monuments by seeking to place their own goat-headed statue of Baphomet nearby and placing pentagrams next to Nativity scenes during the holiday season. Pushback against their tactics often results in acknowledgement that “religious freedom” refers to more than mainstream beliefs. True to form, the Satanic Temple launched a nationwide campaign in the summer of 2016 establishing After School Satan clubs in public schools that had Good News Clubs, evangelist after-school Christian clubs for schoolchildren. The Washington Post was the first to break the story on 30 July 2016: The Satanic Temple — which has been offering tongue-in-cheek support for the fallen angel in public arenas that have embraced prayer and parochial ceremonies — is bringing its fight over constitutional separation of church and state to the nation’s schools. But the group’s plan for public schoolchildren isn’t actually about promoting worship of the devil. The Satanic Temple doesn’t espouse a belief in the existence of a supernatural being that other religions identify solemnly as Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub. The Temple rejects all forms of supernaturalism and is committed to the view that scientific rationality provides the best measure of reality. According to Mesner, who goes by the professional name of Lucien Greaves, “Satan” is just a “metaphorical construct” intended to represent the rejection of all forms of tyranny over the human mind. The curriculum for the proposed after-school clubs emphasizes the development of reasoning and social skills. The group says meetings will include a healthful snack, literature lesson, creative learning activities, a science lesson, puzzle solving and an art project. Every child will receive a membership card and must have a signed parental permission slip to attend. Greaves sent us a copy of one of the first letters sent by the organization to a school district asking to operate a “Satan club” on school grounds. The letter is dated 1 August 2016, and was sent to the superintendent of Neah-Kah-Nie School District in Rockaway Beach, Oregon: On June 11, 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Child Evangelism Fellowship could have access to public school facilities to conduct Good News Club meetings. The decision stated that religious clubs such as the Good News Club must be given the same access to school facilities accorded any other non-school related group. Many school districts across the country (including yours) have (or have had) Good News Clubs using their facilities. As a result, those schools have opened their doors to school clubs of all religious viewpoints. While The Good News Club is “working together with parents and the school to build solid moral and spiritual character into the lives of their children” based on their religious point of view, The Satanic Temple (TST) also has plans to enrich the lives of children in your district. TST is a religious organization that seeks to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people. In addition, TST embraces practical common sense and promotes justice. TST facilitates the communication and mobilization of politically aware Satanists, secularists, and other advocates for individual liberty. Forbes contributor and certified public accountant Peter J. Reilly wrote on 26 March 2017 that the timeframe from which the group submitted their application to when they received approval was probably influenced by the fact the IRS had been criticized over 2013 allegations that staffers had discriminated against conservative groups. The agency’s response was to create an expedited process for small organizations to more swiftly acquire an approval or denial on their tax-exempt status: [T]he competing narrative accepted by the IRS is that the scandal was a service failure. Even if the Tea Party groups were not eligible for the exemption status they applied for, they had the right to get a decision one way or another. Actually the IRS might have come out of this better if they had issued a batch of denials, since the groups that wanted to take a denial to court would have had to talk about what they had been doing themselves rather than focus solely on what the IRS did wrong. One of the IRS response to the service failure was to provide an expedited exemption process for smaller groups (Less than $50,000 in income and $250,000 in assets). Form 1023-EZ is two pages as opposed to 26 pages for Form 1023. It is filed electronically and according to this story in the Journal of Accountancy, average processing time is thirteen days. Lucien told me that it had actually taken five weeks, but he was measuring from the time they hired a lawyer to set the group up. Sending the exempt application to the IRS was likely about the lawyer’s last step.
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12522
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We have 5 percent of world population. 80 percent of opioids.
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"Our ruling In setting out to combat America’s opioid epidemic by holding pharmaceutical companies accountable, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said that with just 5 percent of the population, the United States consumes ""80 percent of opioids."" In setting out to combat America’s opioid epidemic by holding pharmaceutical companies accountable, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said that with just 5 percent of the population, the United States consumes ""80 percent of opioids."" McCaskill’s figure, widely cited as it is, is inaccurate. It presents a narrow view of opioid consumption globally, where some opioids are marketed in select countries, but not others. It also discounts using defined daily doses, which provide a far more accurate representation of consumption when comparing nations. McCaskill’s figure, widely cited as it is, is inaccurate. It presents a narrow view of opioid consumption globally, where some opioids are marketed in select countries, but not others. It also discounts using defined daily doses, which provide a far more accurate representation of consumption when comparing nations. So, while the United States is clearly the largest consumer of opioids, it, at most, accounts for roughly 30 percent of global consumption. So, while the United States is clearly the largest consumer of opioids, it, at most, accounts for roughly 30 percent of global consumption."
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false
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Drugs, Health Care, Public Health, Missouri, Claire McCaskill,
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"The state of opioid abuse in America has been deemed an epidemic. Overdose related deaths involving prescribed opioids have reached an all-time high, jumping from 19,000 in 2014 to 22,000 in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Considering all opioids (not just prescribed ones), the figures get even worse: In 2015, 33,091 died from opioid related overdoses. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill has set her sights on curbing the issue, writing an op-ed in the Kansas City Star and dedicating a page of her website to facts and figures. One tweet in particular caught our eye: ""We have 5% of world population. 80% of opioids."" Such drastic numbers paint a dire picture for the state of opioid use and abuse in America. We wanted to fact-check her claim. What we found was that while America certainly consumes more opioids than any other country, the notion that we consume 80 percent of the global supply is greatly exaggerated. ‘One startling number’ Checking the first part of McCaskill’s claim was simple: The United States’ population is, according to the U.S. Census bureau, 324.8 million. The global population is 7.4 billion. That means the United States accounts for roughly 4.4 percent of the total world population. Checking the other half was more complicated. We reached out to McCaskill’s spokesperson, Drew Pusateri, and he supplied us with the source of the figure: a CNBC article published on April 27, 2016. And while the article provides the figures McCaskill cited, it is vague about where exactly the 80 percent figure comes from. Upon its first reference it is simply ""one startling number from recent years,"" and later it is noted that the figure was ""cited in various studies,"" including one by Express Scripts. The Express Scripts study, ""A Nation In Pain,"" was released on Dec. 9, 2014. And while it does cite the 80 percent figure, it was not a study designed to measure American opioid consumption or global consumption. The reality, according to Christopher Jones, the director of the Division of Science Policy in the Department of Health and Human Services, is that America consumes 30.2 percent of globally distributed opioids. 30.2 percent According to data collected by the International Narcotics Control Board, the United States consumed roughly 30.2 percent of opioids in 2015. A Vienna-based ""quasi-judicial expert body,"" the International Narcotics Control Board is tasked with tracking global opioid consumption, among a myriad of other things. The board releases three annual reports on narcotic drugs. ""Narcotic Drugs: Estimated World Requirements for 2017; Statistics for 2015"" is the most recent publication, and includes data for the year 2015. Using the International Narcotics Control Board figures, Jones calculated that the United States consumed 173,332 kilograms of 574,693 kilograms of opioids consumed globally (382,131.6 of 1,266,981.2 pounds), or 30.2 percent. The drugs Jones included in the measurements are: codeine, dihydrocodeine, ethylmorphine, hydrocodone, morphine, oxycodone, pholcodine, dextropropoxyphene, diphenoxylate, methadone, pethidine and tilidine. The figures also include the calculated consumption of buprenorphine. To be clear, Jones noted, such data is limited in several ways. The first is that it is government-reported data. The second is that many drugs are marketed in one country and not another; while used frequently in the United States, hydrocodone is virtually unused elsewhere. Additionally, some of the data include drugs that may have been exported from the country of manufacture and consumed in another country. Thus, data from INCB should be considered with great care when comparing consumption levels of narcotic drugs across countries. And finally, the board makes special note that comparing countries by the weight of opioids consumed is not recommended. Instead they suggest using a statistical measurement called ""defined daily doses."" Defined daily doses A defined daily dose is the quantity of a particular narcotic drug used in a day by one individual. It is not a recommended dosage, but rather it is a calculation created by the International Narcotics Control Board to statistically measure opioid use with a ratio that directly relates a country’s population to its consumption. For example, the daily dose of hydrocodone is 15 milligrams. So, if 60 milligrams are consumed, four defined daily doses would be recorded. The final results are calculated per million inhabitants. The United States consumed the most using this measure from 2013 to 2015: 47,580 doses of narcotic drugs were consumed per day per million people. Canada comes in second with 34,444 defined doses consumed per day, and Germany in third with 30,796. Using such a measurement, it is easy to see that consumption in America, while noticeably higher than in similarly developed countries, is not as astronomical as McCaskill’s cited figure makes it appear. ‘A life of its own’ Jones said it’s common for people to cite the 80 percent figure that McCaskill did, despite its inaccuracy. ""I would say it is a commonly quoted statistic...people across a variety of disciplines, who even are somewhat expert on the topic, have repeated that statistic,"" he said. Jones said he believes the number originated as the percentage of oxycodone that America consumes compared to the world. From there, he said, the figure has ""taken a life of its own. It’s now a ‘fact’ because it’s been repeated so many times."" But it’s not the full picture. Because while America does consume over 75 percent of oxycodone, and 99 percent of hydrocodone, it doesn’t consume even half of all opioids globally, according to the International Narcotics Control Board data. Which, in part, according to Jones, has to do with marketing. Oxycodone and hydrocodone are marketed in America. Similar opioids are more prevalent elsewhere. Drug control systems Despite conflated numbers, experts agree there is a problem. Martha Maurer, a policy program manager and researcher at the Pain and Policy Studies Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, agreed that opioid abuse in the United States was an epidemic. But part of the solution, she said, was continuing to figure out how to view the problem. ""It’s clear that there has been a lot of harm associated with overdose and abuse,"" Maurer said, ""but it goes back to the question of where (abused) medication is coming from, which we just don’t know."" Something worth noting, Maurer said, was that when you look at the milligram-per-person statistics, ""some countries, including Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland, have opioid-consumption levels comparable to that in the US, but they are not having the same problems with harms caused by overdose. Their drug-control systems ensure a balanced approach to opioid access."" For Jones, it’s about finding the right balance. ""From a policy perspective, we’re trying to ensure that opioids are available when they are needed, but that they are being used as a part of comprehensive evidence-based pain care,"" he said, ""not that we’re relying on them just because they’re the easiest thing to prescribe, or there are other external pressures to prescribe them."" Our ruling In setting out to combat America’s opioid epidemic by holding pharmaceutical companies accountable, Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said that with just 5 percent of the population, the United States consumes ""80 percent of opioids."" McCaskill’s figure, widely cited as it is, is inaccurate. It presents a narrow view of opioid consumption globally, where some opioids are marketed in select countries, but not others. It also discounts using defined daily doses, which provide a far more accurate representation of consumption when comparing nations. So, while the United States is clearly the largest consumer of opioids, it, at most, accounts for roughly 30 percent of global consumption."
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8320
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Sex toy sales take off amid Colombia's coronavirus quarantine.
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Gerson Monje holds up his cellphone to proudly show off his online sex shop. A red banner reading “sold out!” is plastered across half of the products.
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true
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Health News
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While most Colombian businesses suffer during a five-week lockdown meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus, one online industry has seen an explosion in sales in the usually conservative country: sex toys are flying off virtual shelves. “Sales started going up on day four of the quarantine,” said Monje, who is still able to have products delivered to customers amid the national lockdown. “We’ve seen a rise of 50%.” “People are at home and have more time on their hands. They’re with their partners or alone and need fun in their daily activities when it comes to being intimate,” Monje said. Reuters spoke to six online sex shops in Colombia and all said they have seen a swell in sales since the quarantine began. Colombians are meant to remain at home until Apr. 27, except for outings to buy food and medicine and visits to banks, among other exceptions. Sex toys could help people keep their spirits up during long isolation, psychologist Dr. Carolina Guzman said, and might lead to an easing of sexual mores. “Colombia has a very conservative idea around sexuality and communication surrounding it,” she said. “It’s a good time for people to allow themselves to work on their curiosity and to understand that buying and using these products is a great thing.” Other countries have seen a similar phenomenon. Sales of sex toys in Denmark have more than doubled, while British lingerie chain Ann Summers said sex toy sales were up 27% in the last week of March. Inside the Sex Sense sex shop in Bogota, manager Adriana Marin watched Pope Francis give a Good Friday Mass on her computer as she sprayed boxes of products with disinfectant. Her online shop sales have taken off even though her storefront is closed and there is stiff competition. There are about 30 other sex shops in her neighborhood alone. At the Bali Sex Store in Medellin, sales are up 140%. Products with mobile phone applications that allow separated partners to control toys for one another are particularly popular, said Katty Gonzalez, the store’s marketing director. “Before people didn’t have time because of so many things going on in their daily lives and I think that because of what’s happening at the moment, it’s giving them the opportunity to explore different things,” she said. (This story is refiled to correct name of sex shop in ninth paragraph to “Sex Sense” from “Sixth Sense”)
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8040
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U.S. EPA waives fuel requirements, extends biofuels deadline to help refineries.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday unveiled measures to help oil refineries cope with fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, including waiving anti-smog requirements for gasoline and extending the deadline for small facilities to show compliance with the nation’s biofuels law.
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true
|
Environment
|
The outbreak has touched off a massive global decline in demand for motor fuels and forced companies to reduce staffing levels to slow infection rates. Typically U.S. fuel dealers are required to stop selling winter-grade gasoline on May 1 as summer anti-smog standards come into play. But marketers will now be allowed to sell the fuel until at least May 20, and possibly beyond. “The reason we have to do this is because people are driving fewer miles and the winter blends are stockpiled in all the tanks,” EPA chief Andrew Wheeler told Reuters in an interview. “There’s no place to put the summer blend.” The EPA, he said, will also extend the deadline for small oil refineries to prove their compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the law that requires refineries to blend billions of gallons of biofuels like ethanol into their fuel or buy credits from those that do. Refiners are typically required to prove their compliance by March 31, but facilities with less than 75,000 barrels of daily processing capacity will be given extensions. Wheeler said the decision was related to ongoing litigation over the agency’s Small Refinery Exemption Program, which can free some small plants from obligations under the RFS. A federal court ruled in January that the EPA had been too free with the waivers, and while the agency did not challenge the ruling, some refineries have. Wheeler said it would be unfair to force small refineries to comply with the RFS before that case is over. “We’re extending the compliance assistance to all the smaller refineries,” he said. In the meantime, the agency will not revisit or rescind any of the exemptions it has given to small refineries in the past. “Investigating and initiating enforcement actions against small refineries that were previously subject to an exemption is a low priority for the agency,” the EPA said in a press release outlining the moves. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers cheered the EPA’s decision to allow for sales of winter-grade gasoline past the cutoff. “Refineries are already transitioning to producing summer grade gasoline, but with the unprecedented decline in gasoline consumption, there is simply not enough consumer demand to draw down existing inventory by the summer RVP deadline,” said Derrick Morgan, AFPM’s senior vice president of federal and regulatory affairs.
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36247
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Costco's pharmacy always has a less expensive option for prescriptions, and membership is not required to use it.
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Does Costco Pharmacy Have the Least Expensive Prices and No Membership Requirement?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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A long-circulating Facebook post (archived here) claims that Costco pharmacy prices are always lower than other pharmacies, adding that Costco membership is not required to fill a prescription:In what appears to be Facebook commentary added to a Tumblr thread, a top portion of text reads:I filled two prescriptions with CVS (both generics) — $192. I called Walmart — $190. I took my prescriptions back from CVS and went to Costco — $22. No insurance. Please remember: you do NOT have to be a Costco member to use their pharmacy (if I wasn’t a member, I would have paid $27).The post appeared to claim that Costco is the least expensive option for all prescriptions, and one need not be a member to use the pharmacy. Of the two primary claims, the easiest to examine was whether Costco allowed non-members to use its pharmacy. According to Costco, that second claim is true, but only sometimes:[Question] I’m not a Costco member and I have purchased prescriptions at Costco’s Pharmacy before, why do I have to join Costco now? [Answer] Costco’s pharmacies are open to non-members where required by state law. The Costco Member Prescription Program is a value added benefit of a Costco membership. However, you do not have to become a Costco member or join CMPP to continue buying prescriptions at the pharmacy.Among the many websites offering advice on how to make use of Costco without a membership, the advice was frequently repeated — often without the important detail that the claim was only true in some states. We were unable to locate a list of which states mandate Costco pharmacies serve members and non-members alike, but that portion of the claim was only half true.The rest of the claim, that Costco’s prices are cheaper than any other pharmacy, also seems to be sometimes true, but not always. In December 2017, NBC News reported on the findings of Consumer Reports secret shoppers across several pharmacies:In a secret-shopper investigation, Consumer Reports called drugstores in six major U.S. metro areas to gather prices for common drugs: generic versions of Actos, for diabetes; Celebrex, for pain; Cymbalta, for depression; Lipitor, for high cholesterol; and the blood thinner Plavix.One example of the stark pricing differences: In Dallas, Consumer Reports’ secret shoppers received a quote of $220 for a month’s supply of generic Cymbalta at Walgreens, $174 at a supermarket pharmacy, $40 at Costco, and $23 at an independent drugstore.In the Consumer Reports survey, Costco had the best prices for a brick-and-mortar store, while the online mail-order pharmacy Healthwarehouse.com had the lowest overall pricing. The report found the two highest-priced national retailers were CVS Health and K-Mart for the common medications they checked. Independent pharmacies varied drastically; sometimes they were the cheapest option, other times the most expensive.In the example quoted above, Costco was the second cheapest for one of the medications — but not the cheapest. While Costco’s $40 price came in under another chain pharmacy and a supermarket, it was still $17 more expensive than an independent drugstore. And in those overall rankings, Costco wasn’t the absolute least expensive option.An April 2019 Consumer Reports investigation advised “shopping around” for individual prescriptions, based on variables wherein some prescriptions were costlier at chains that were overall less expensive. Using a selection of five commonly prescribed medications, the outlet determined that cost outcomes varied too much to recommend one pharmacy chain over any other.Pricing is not even necessarily consistent between different locations at the same chains:The range in prices [secret shoppers] found was stunning. The five-drug “marketbasket” cost just $66 at the online pharmacy HealthWarehouse.com but $105 at Costco. The two highest-priced national retailers—CVS and Rite Aid—had prices closer to $900 for the five drugs. […]When we asked CVS and Rite Aid about their comparatively higher prices, representatives for each explained that there are in-store programs that can help lower prices for people who don’t have insurance.But when we took new prescriptions to CVS and Rite Aid to verify what we were told, we got mixed results. Staff members at some pharmacies used store coupons and other vouchers to offer our shoppers much lower prices; others provided modest discounts or none at all.Consumer Reports illustrated how the same prescription sometimes rang up differently in different locations of the same national chain:For example, a Rite Aid store near our headquarters in Yonkers, N.Y., was able to get the price of atorvastatin, the generic version of Lipitor, down to just $18 from $300 through a combination of in-store and external discount programs.But at another Rite Aid, we were told the cost could only be lowered to $127.And while one CVS used discounts to lower our shopper’s cost by about $86, another said that we had to pay the store’s full retail price of $135.In their rankings based on pricing trends, Costco ranked second behind HealthWarehouse.com in total cost for all five prescriptions together, at $105 versus $66. But independent drugstores averaged just $2 higher at $107; considerations such as a personal relationship with a pharmacist and stronger customer service might be a consideration for some comparison shoppers. Another aspect the outlet observed was that “the lowest retail prices in pharmacies can sometimes be a better deal than using insurance, especially in the case of drugs that aren’t covered well.”GoodRx.com, which was mentioned in the original post, was cited as a way to save time in comparison shopping:Start by trying GoodRx, Blink Health, or WeRx.org. They will ask for the name of the drug, the dose, the number of pills, and where you live. Then they will show what you can expect to pay at various pharmacies if you use their discount coupons or vouchers, which you can print out or download to your phone to show a pharmacist.The Facebook post is partially accurate. Its “reblog to save a life” commentary, however, highlights the fact that incomplete or inaccurate information contained by posts like this could lead to delays or other mishaps in filling prescriptions.Costco did allow non-members to fill pharmacies — but only in states where that was mandated by law. It did often came in as one of the least expensive options. But it was neither the cheapest overall in a 2018 secret shopper effort, nor was it consistently the cheapest. Although Costco clocked in at second place to an online pharmacy in that review, independent pharmacies were virtually identical in total costs. Advice given in the post could be useful, but entire states’ populations were not served by its advice at all.
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5988
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Guinea worm disease transmission stopped in South Sudan.
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South Sudan has gone 15 months without a single reported case of Guinea worm disease, the nation’s health minister said Wednesday, suggesting a major victory for global health officials trying to eliminate the painful affliction.
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true
|
Chad, South Sudan, Health, North America, Africa
|
“To us as South Sudanese, we feel we have contributed to the common cause of humanity today, that we have played our part in realizing the dream of ridding the world of this debilitating disease,” Dr. Riek Gai Kok said in announcing transmission had been stopped in his country. The Carter Center, one of the organizations leading global eradication efforts, said only one case of Guinea worm has been reported so far in 2018 in Chad, but cautioned that those numbers were preliminary and would likely rise. The center said 30 cases were reported last year in isolated areas of Ethiopia and Chad, a real achievement for efforts to eradicate a disease that only 30 years ago affected 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries across Africa and Asia. Contracted by drinking infected water, Guinea worm disease affects some of the world’s most vulnerable people. The 3-foot-long (meter-long) worm is asymptomatic and incubates in people for up to a year before painfully emerging, often through extremely sensitive parts of the body. Dr. Kok said that in South Sudan the disease would often strike and debilitate entire communities simultaneously, leading to problems with food security and productivity. Unlike other diseases that are controlled by medicines or vaccines, Guinea worm can be eradicated through education, by training people to filter and drink clean water. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called South Sudan’s progress a “great milestone” in the worldwide eradication effort. “South Sudan’s success shows that people can collaborate for the common good,” Carter said in a statement. “We are within reach of a world free of Guinea worm disease.” South Sudan was one of nine countries still affected when its eradication program began in 2006. At the time, the disease was endemic in more than 3,000 villages, and the country tallied more than 20,500 cases. South Sudan’s progress against Guinea worm is being touted as one of the few successes to emerge from the young nation while it battles a five-year civil war, starvation and human rights atrocities. Craig Withers, senior director of international support at the Carter Center, said working in a conflict zone like South Sudan brings unique challenges. “The history of the program is that we are constantly moving our staff in and out of areas as they open up or violence erupts,” he said. Withers said that cooperation with local communities was essential to the success and safety of the program. The global campaign to wipe out Guinea worm was launched by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Jimmy Carter has led these efforts since 1986, when the Carter Center and UNICEF joined the campaign. Only one human disease has ever been successfully eradicated: smallpox. As with Guinea worm, there is also a continuing effort to eradicate polio, but such efforts often face their greatest obstacles in the last phase of stopping the disease.
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26756
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“Man visited Albany, N.Y. days before dying from coronavirus.”
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The image appears manipulated so that it looks like it is from ABC News. There is no evidence one of those individuals who died from COVID-19 had recently been to Albany, N.Y.
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false
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Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, New York, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Online disinformation about the coronavirus continues to spread, sometimes more quickly than the disease itself, but the rumors aren’t based in fact. There is no evidence linking a deadly case of coronavirus to a Chinese restaurant in Albany, N.Y. At first glance, an image on Facebook appears to be a screenshot of a post by ABC News sharing a story about the coronavirus. Anchored by an image of a Chinese restaurant, the headline of the supposed news storysays, ""Man visited Albany, N.Y. days before dying from coronavirus."" ""Upstate New York City Chinese restaurant possibly linked to man’s death days before returning home from Washington state,"" reads text above the story. There is no evidence for these claims. The image is not a real ABC News post. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) All nine U.S. deaths linked to the illness happened in Washington state, as of March 3, but there is no evidence that any of the individuals who died in Washington had recently traveled to New York. On Feb. 28, news reports declared a King County, Wash., man the first person in the U.S. to die from the disease, but it was later discovered some deaths linked to the coronavirus occurred as early as Feb. 26. By March 2, Washington health officials had confirmed six coronavirus deaths in the state, and three more individuals had died by March 3. Seven of the Washington deaths were linked to a nursing home facility, Life Care Center of Kirkland. New York has confirmed two cases of coronavirus as of March 3. The first case was a woman in her 30s who had recently traveled to Iran, one of the places the virus has hit hardest. The second case was a 50-year-old man who had recently traveled to Miami, Fla., but not any countries considered central to the outbreak. No news reports mention any ties to an Albany Chinese restaurant. There is also no evidence this image is actually a screenshot of an ABC News post. The news organization has not posted this story on its Facebook feed, and no ABC News stories make the same claims as the post. When comparing this post to actual ABC News Facebook posts, there are a number of differences. The most obvious difference is that the ""ABC News"" title at the top of a Facebook post typically appears in blue, given that it links to the organization’s main Facebook feed. The post does not match ABC News’ usual font and there are also no other recent Facebook posts from ABC News with an estimated reading time for their articles."
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2217
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NZ defense force use controlled explosion to defuse hazardous chemical at biotech site.
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New Zealand’s defense force conducted a controlled explosion at a South Dunedin site owned by biotechnology company Blis Technologies Ltd on Friday after being called to deal with a hazardous chemical incident, said authorities.
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true
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Environment
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The site has now reopened and police cordons removed, Blis and Fire and Emergency New Zealand said in separate statements. “The chemical was disposed of safely via a controlled detonation at the site by the New Zealand Defence Force around 9.45am (2045 GMT) this morning,” Fire and Emergency New Zealand said in a statement. Police had earlier cordoned off several streets in the area to dispose of the container where some “hydrazine monohydrate had crystalised”. Hydrazine is used in making pharmaceuticals among other things and exposure to it can cause irritation and seizures in humans. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies it as a probable human carcinogen. Blis said staff noticed the deterioration of a container holding a substance used in basic research during a chemical stock review. Shares of Blis fell as much as 5.4% to NZ$0.035. The company added that it will review the incident.
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7986
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Dutch 101-year-old coronavirus patient recovers.
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A 101-year-old woman who contracted coronavirus in the Netherlands has recovered, offering what her hospital said was “a spark of hope”.
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true
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Health News
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The woman, whose name was not released, was admitted to the IJsselland Hospital near Rotterdam a week and a half ago with breathing difficulties and tested positive for coronavirus. She was kept in isolation but has now recovered enough to leave hospital. The centenarian, who lives independently, will rest in a nursing home before returning to her home, the hospital said on its website. “She is a tough lady, and it’s great to see her following the medical advice, like sneezing in her elbow and even telling me to keep proper distance,” pulmonologist Sunil Ramlal said.
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36246
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People protesting at an ICE facility were struck and injured by a truck driven by a corrections officer.
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Were Protesters of American Immigration Policies Hit by a Truck and Injured in Rhode Island?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On August 15 2019, Facebook posts (sometimes covered for graphic violence) appeared about an incident during which protesters at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in (Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island) were reportedly struck and injured by a man driving a truck:The protesters were sitting on the pavement to block staff from parking at a Rhode Island prison that works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement when a black pickup truck swerved toward them. The protesters shouted as the driver laid on the horn, and the truck briefly stopped.And then, the driver hit the gas.One shared by the page “Steel City John Brown Gun Club” stated:CW: violence with a vehicleLast night an ICE guard attempted to ram his truck through a Jewish led crowd of protesters at the Wyatt Detention Center in RI. The protesters still managed to stop the vehicle and held their ground. When the police descended on the scene, rather than arrest the attempted murderer, they pepper sprayed the crowd and provided the ICE guard an armed escort into his concentration camp.The attached photograph should roughly a dozen people who were either injured or attending injuries. Another post shared by “Central Arkansas Antifa” displayed an image of the purported driver of the truck:Above a photograph of a white guard with a military haircut, text read:Captain Thomas Woodworth, of Pawcatuck, Connecticut, is the ICE guard who drove his truck through a crowd of Jewish protesters[. ]Video of the attack was shared to Twitter and Facebook:The guard’s name is Thomas Woodworth, of Pawcatuck, Connecticut.He drove his personal vehicle, a 2012 Chevy Silverado, through a crowd of protesters.Solidarity with all the protesters.My research on Woodworth starts tomorrow. ❤️🖤✊️ https://t.co/a1I1Jp72GU— AntiFash Gordon (@AntiFashGordon) August 15, 2019Early on the morning of August 15 2019, ABC News reported that several demonstrators were struck and injured by a truck outside an ICE facility in Rhode Island during a nonviolent “Never Again” protest late the night before. ABC News linked to a since-deleted article published by local outlet WLNE-TV, published just after midnight.Originally, it stated that what had been a peaceful protest changed when a purported corrections officer stationed at the facility appeared to deliberately drive into a large crowd of mostly Jewish protesters. An updated version of the article reported that Captain Thomas Woodworth was indeed at the wheel:Things took a scary turn at a protest outside the Wyatt Detention Facility Wednesday night when a pick-up truck drove into a group of people, and now a corrections officer has been placed on administrative leave.The group of protesters had been blocking the entrance to a parking lot in protest of the facility’s relationship with ICE and the treatment of immigrants at the U.S. – Mexico border.The roughly 600 protesters were part of the ‘Never Again’ movement which is primarily made up of Jewish people likening some of the current immigration issues to how Jews were treated during the Holocaust. […]The protest had been peaceful for most of the night. Then around 9:45 P.M. our reporters heard screaming and saw people running.The pick-up truck that barreled into the people was driven by Capt. Thomas Woodworth, who was placed on administrative leave, according to a statement.“If this is the way this correctional officer is behaving in public when people are recording, it’s not hard to imagine the behavior is much worse behind the walls in the facility where no one can see what is happening,” protester Amy Anthony told the Washington Post.ABC6 reporter Brittany Comak referenced a statement issued by Wyatt Detention Facility after the incident, in which Woodworth was said to have been placed on administrative leave:BREAKING: Statement from the #Wyatt Detention Facility about what happens during last night’s @NeverAgainActn protest: pic.twitter.com/sfToyl0TS8— Brittany Comak (@BComakABC6) August 15, 2019Another local news organization, the Providence Journal, reported that Woodworth was identified by name in video of the incident:In a news release, Wyatt identified the officer on leave as Capt. Thomas Woodworth. A spokesman for the jail would not say whether Woodworth was the man driving the truck, but in video of the incident, protesters could be heard shouting his name as they surrounded the vehicle when it came to a stop.A local gubernatorial candidate addressed the attack and its aftermath on Facebook, and was quoted in the same story. He says that responding officers did not treat the incident as a crime, and that prison guards then used pepper spray on the protesters:J. Aaron Regunberg, a former state representative and candidate for lieutenant governor, posted one of the videos.“Tonight, a captain from the Wyatt drove into a line of peaceful protesters,” Regunberg posted on Facebook. “Then prison guards pepper-sprayed us. If they’ll do this to us, think about the violence that immigrant detainees are subject to every day.“This is why we’re here. No system this violent can be allowed to continue.”[…]Regunberg said local police at the scene declined to intervene, arrest the driver, or take down witness statements when approached by protesters.“I also want to make very clear that literally dozens of us from tonight’s protest asked, clamored, demanded that the police take witness statements about the attack, and they actively refused to do so,” Regunberg said.The chief of the Central Falls Police Department, Col. Daniel J. Barzykowski, said the accusation was false.Circulating reports on social media about several peaceful protesters hit with a moving vehicle outside a Rhode Island ICE detention facility on the evening of August 14 2019 are accurate. The demonstrations were part of Never Again Action, a Jewish youth organization protesting conditions they liken to those during the Holocaust. Several people were injured, but all survived. A press release issued by the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility on August 15 2019 confirmed that corrections officer Thomas Woodworth was placed on administrative leave following the attack, and Woodworth was referenced by protesters in video footage of the incident.By the afternoon of August 16 2019, Woodworth had resigned from the facility:BREAKING: Captain Thomas Woodworth of the Wyatt Detention Center has resigned, after running over #JewsAgainstICE and allies with his truck outside the ICE facility.This is a first step, but there is only one way to fix Wyatt: shut it down, and release our immigrant neighbors! pic.twitter.com/AthwZHnMj3— ✡️ Never Again Action ✡️ (@NeverAgainActn) August 16, 2019
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23929
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"Florida ranks ""45th out of 50 states'' for its regulatory climate for business."
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Rick Scott says Florida has high regulatory burden
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mixture
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Florida, Corporations, Economy, Regulation, States, Rick Scott,
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"Rick Scott, a former health care executive who's running in Florida's Republican gubernatorial primary, took aim at the state's business climate in a May 25, 2010, campaign event with young Republicans in Tampa. ""We're 45th out of 50 states'' for regulatory climate for business, Scott said in a speech. ""It's ridiculous the regulation we have in this state. It impacts job growth. ""That's a pretty specific charge, suggesting that the state is overregulated. So we decided to track it down and see if it was supported.As it turns out, there are at least three recent rankings of the 50 states by their regulatory climate for business, and one of them indeed has Florida in 45th place.That one is the ""U.S. Economic Freedom Index: 2008 Report,"" produced roughly every five years by the Pacific Research Institute, a free-market think tank based in San Francisco. The Scott campaign confirmed that this was the study he was citing.The authors of the study ranked the 50 states in each of five areas: fiscal policy, regulatory policy, judicial climate toward business, the size of government and ""welfare spending."" In the regulatory category, Florida ranked 45th, just as Scott said it did. (The Sunshine State fared better in the other four categories; overall, its ranking was 28th. )But the other two rankings of regulatory climate had happier news for Florida businesses.One study, ""Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom,"" was published in February 2009 by the Mercatus Center, a free-market program at George Mason University in Arlington, Va. The categories in the Mercatus study were fiscal policy, regulatory policy, personal freedom and economic freedom, which were combined into an overall ranking. In the regulatory category, Florida ranked 19th. (In the overall category, Florida ranked 22nd. )The other study, by Forbes magazine in 2008, ranked ""the Best States for Business,"" by business costs, labor policy, regulatory environment, economic climate, growth prospects and ""quality of life."" In the regulatory ranking, Florida ranked 22nd. Overall, Florida fared the best it did in any of the three studies: 8th highest in the nation.So we have three studies. How did they come up with such different results? The quick answer is that they used a different mix of statistics when calculating each state's regulatory climate.There are some similarities. Forbes' study, for instance, used PRI's rating as one factor in its regulatory calculation. And the PRI and Mercatus studies have a number of statistics in common, such as minimum wage levels, labor union laws and the state's worker compensation system.But PRI and Mercatus also use some divergent factors. Mercatus, unlike PRI, includes utility deregulation, health insurance mandates, land-use restrictions, liability system quality and eminent domain laws. By contrast, PRI uses a more extensive list of occupational licensing and continuing-education requirements, covering everything from auctioneers and acupuncturists to embalmers and opticians. PRI also factors in gun control policy, school choice and seat belt laws, which Mercatus included in a category separate from regulatory policy.We asked Jason Sorens, the political scientist at the State University of New York at Buffalo who co-authored the Mercatus report, why the studies came up with such divergent rankings. He said that even with the difference in statistical factors, he was surprised at the wide difference in scores. Sorens suggested that the variation could have stemmed from two factors included in the PRI study but not the Mercatus study -- procurement rules (such as mandates for state government to buy American-made products, recycled products and alternative fuels) and environmental protection standards (such as standards for indoor air quality, pesticides, mercury, lead, ""children's environmental health,"" asbestos and other toxic compounds). It's possible that Florida's laws in these areas, or perhaps in other areas measured only by the PRI study, are more stringent than those in other states, Sorens said.It's important to note that all three studies were produced by groups with free-market, pro-business orientations, and their selection of inputs inherently reflects value judgments that not all Floridians will agree with. Certainly labor union members will not appreciate having ""right to work"" laws counted as a plus, and environmentalists (even those who are fiscally conservative) will likely chafe at the prospect of a state being marked down for strong wetlands-protection and endangered-species laws. Finally, lots of Floridians could take issue with whether it's desirable (or even valid) to include gun-control laws and seat belt laws (as PRI does) or smoking restrictions (as Mercatus does) in a calculation of a business-climate study.In other words, many Floridians may see benefits in some of the government regulations that count as demerits in these studies, and might well prefer, on balance, to live in a state that ranks poorly on these regulatory lists.That said, we won't take sides on the question of whether state regulation is a positive or a negative. Rather, we'll focus only on the narrower question of whether Scott portrayed the data accurately.Is there a single, ""correct"" ranking? We don't think so. Even though the three studies produced different results using different inputs, the authors of the Forbes and Mercatus studies told PolitiFact that they respect the PRI study and its methodology. With that kind of endorsement, we'll stipulate that there's no ""right"" score for Florida -- just three different estimates.So if the three separate rankings are more or less equivalent, then Scott's statement is not incorrect -- but it's also not complete. He has cited the least favorable ranking, while two other studies rated Florida substantially higher. If Scott had said, ""According to one study, Florida ranks 45th out of 50 states'' for regulatory climate for business, he would have been 100 percent accurate. As it is, his statement is technically correct, but gives an incomplete impression about the extent of Florida's regulatory climate. So"
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4168
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California sails toward biggest salmon harvest in years.
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Trolling off the California coast, Sarah Bates leans over the side of her boat and pulls out a long, silvery fish prized by anglers and seafood lovers: wild king salmon.
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true
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Wildlife, AP Top News, San Francisco, Fish, Salmon, Business, California, Science, U.S. News, General News, Droughts
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Reeling in a fish “feels good every time,” but this year has been surprisingly good, said Bates, a commercial troller based in San Francisco. She and other California fishermen are reporting one of the best salmon fishing seasons in years, thanks to heavy rain and snow that ended the state’s historic drought. It’s a sharp reversal for chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, an iconic species that helps sustain many Pacific Coast fishing communities. Commercial salmon catches have surpassed official preseason forecasts by about 50%, said Kandice Morgenstern, a marine scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Harvests have been particularly strong in Morro Bay, Monterey and San Francisco, but weaker along California’s northern coast. “We’re really surprised to be seeing this many fish being landed so far this season,” Morgenstern said. The salmon rebound comes after three years of extremely low catches that resulted from poor ocean conditions and California’s five-year drought, which drained the state’s rivers and reservoirs. Over the past several years, regulators imposed severe fishing restrictions to protect chinook salmon, and officials declared federal fishery disasters in 2018 to assist fishing communities in California, Oregon and Washington. This year’s adult salmon are the first class to benefit from record rainfall that filled California rivers and streams in early 2017, making it easier for juvenile chinook to migrate to the Pacific Ocean, where they grow into full-size fish. Chinook salmon are also being helped by improved ocean conditions that have produced an abundance of anchovies, krill and other feed. Several years ago, an El Nino event brought unusually warm water to the Pacific Coast and disrupted the marine ecosystem. “For the salmon fishermen who’ve been dealing with disaster for so long, this is an incredible boon to their livelihoods,” said Noah Oppenheim, who heads the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. Anglers in the Pacific Northwest have not been so fortunate. A dearth of chinook returning to the Columbia River and Puget Sound are a major factor in the plummeting population of the region’s endangered killer whales. “The forecast of poor chinook returns to western Washington is proving accurate, but it’s still very early in the season,” said Lorraine Loomis, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission chair. In Alaska, state wildlife officials who oversee salmon are monitoring reports of fish dying in warm rivers. The state in July recorded its warmest month, and heat stress is suspected in the deaths of pink and chum salmon in rivers that empty into the Bering Sea, including the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. California’s strong salmon season, which typically runs from May to October, offers some positive environmental news at a time of growing anxiety about climate change. A United Nations report released this month warns that global warming threatens food supplies worldwide. Morgenstern says climate change is creating greater fluctuations in ocean and river conditions, making chinook fisheries “less stable, less predictable and more challenging for fishery managers.” Most of the chinook salmon now being caught in California come from the Sacramento River and its tributaries, where they spawn. Many were raised in state-run hatcheries then released into rivers to swim to the ocean. Harvests of chinook from rivers farther north have not been strong. For consumers, the bountiful harvest has driven down wild salmon prices to $15 to $20 per pound, compared with $30 to $35 per pound in recent years. Fishermen are making up for the difference by catching more fish. “The market is dictating right now that there’s a lot of salmon, so the customers don’t have to pay as much,” said Gordon Drysdale, culinary director at Scoma’s, a seafood restaurant at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. The wharf is one of many California fishing communities benefiting from the salmon boom. Pier 45, where boats unload their fish, hasn’t been this busy in many years, said Larry Collins, who runs the San Francisco Community Fishing Association. “This year started out with a bang, and it’s just kept banging the whole time,” Collins said. “We’re all really excited and happy the fish showed up.” On a recent morning, commercial fisherman Brand Little, who sells to customers in the Lake Tahoe area, returned from four days of fishing with nearly 200 salmon weighing more than 2,000 pounds (907 kilograms). “Best trip of the season,” Little said. “It’s been a long time coming.” The salmon boom is also welcomed by sport fishermen and the boat operators who take them out to the ocean. “When the fish are biting, it’s always good for business for us,” said Mike Rescino, who runs a charter boat. “When the people see the big reports, they’re going to come out and go fishing with us.” ___ Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Dan Joling in Anchorage contributed to this report.
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21582
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Certainly we're going to be the most restrictive state in the land … in terms of who can get medical marijuana, how it will be prescribed and how it will be achieved in terms of moving it into the marketplace.
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State Sen. Nicholas Scutari says New Jersey has the most restrictive medical marijuana program in the U.S.
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true
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New Jersey, Drugs, Government Regulation, Public Health, Marijuana, Nicholas Scutari,
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"More than a year and a half after it was enacted, New Jersey is implementing its medical marijuana law. State Sen. Nicholas Scutari, a primary sponsor of the law, said he’s glad Gov. Chris Christie decided to move forward with the program -- which, he said, is the most restrictive in the country by three measures. ""Certainly we're going to be the most restrictive state in the land … in terms of who can get medical marijuana, how it will be prescribed and how it will be achieved in terms of moving it into the marketplace,"" Scutari (D-Union) said during a July 27 NJToday interview. Is New Jersey really the most restrictive in those three categories? Most of the experts we spoke with said New Jersey definitely has one of the most -- if not the most -- restrictive medical marijuana programs overall. Within Scutari’s three parameters, we found the state senator’s statement sound. Washington, D.C., and 16 states have medical marijuana laws. Maryland has a law, but it only allows medicinal marijuana use as a legal defense, so we aren’t considering it. The District of Columbia isn’t a state -- and Scutari said ""most restrictive state."" So, while we’ll look at Washington, D.C.’s program, it won’t factor into our final ruling. We’ll compare New Jersey with other programs by Scutari’s three measures -- who’s eligible to get medical marijuana, how medical marijuana is recommended and how a patient actually gets it. We should note that medical marijuana technically can’t be prescribed, but doctors can recommend it for patients. Every state describes certain medical conditions or treatments that qualify a patient to receive medical marijuana. New Jersey’s list of conditions is consistent with other states in some instances -- but of the 17 laws we are considering, only two -- New Jersey and Washington, D.C. -- don’t have a provision for chronic pain, according to a breakdown of medical marijuana laws by the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, which supports the legalization of marijuana. Tamar Todd, a staff attorney for Drug Policy Alliance, a drug policy reform organization, said while ""pain is one of the categories where it is most needed,"" it also is ""the category that allows the most abuse."" The only mention of pain in New Jersey’s law states that a patient with cancer or AIDS or who is HIV positive, qualifies for medical marijuana ""if severe or chronic pain, severe nausea or vomiting, cachexia, or wasting syndrome results from the condition or treatment thereof."" ""[New Jersey’s law] avoids some of the big loopholes that exist in some other states’ laws,"" like California and Colorado, said Jonathan Caulkins, professor of operations research and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Between New Jersey and Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital has the more restrictive list of conditions, said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project, though D.C.’s law also includes some medical treatments that New Jersey does not. New Jersey, like most other states and Washington, D.C., allows other medical conditions to be added to the program. Now, let’s look at how a doctor can recommend medical marijuana for a patient and how a patient can get medical marijuana. New Jersey lists several requirements a physician must meet in order to be eligible to recommend medical marijuana. One example is a provision requiring doctors to register with the state health department. New Jersey’s medical marijuana program is the only one in the country with that mandate, O’Keefe said. Once a doctor recommends in writing medical marijuana for someone in New Jersey, the patient or a caregiver must go to one of six dispensaries -- what the state calls ""alternative treatment centers."" There is no provision allowing patients to grow marijuana at home in New Jersey, and patients can get a maximum amount of two ounces per month. Delaware -- which allows up to six ounces -- and D.C. -- which allows up to two ounces -- are the only other medical marijuana programs that don’t have a grow-at-home provision. O’Keefe said, ""If you are talking about restrictive, I think it’s reasonable to say that having dispensaries only is more restrictive,"" because marijuana is being grown in a controlled setting, rather than in private homes. The ruling Scutari said New Jersey will be the most restrictive state in the nation for medical marijuana because of who can get it, how a doctor can recommend it and how it is distributed. Most experts we spoke with agreed New Jersey is one of the most restrictive states for medical marijuana overall. But by Scutari’s three measures, PolitiFact New Jersey found that the Garden State is generally the most restrictive. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com."
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7303
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Lawsuit challenges Utah ban on abortions after 18 weeks.
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Abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the constitutionality of a new Utah law banning most abortions after 18 weeks of gestation, following through on a vow made when lawmakers considered the measure during this year’s legislative session.
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true
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American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, Health, Lawsuits, Utah, U.S. Supreme Court, Salt Lake City
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The law violates the U.S. Supreme Court’s longtime stance that states cannot ban abortion before the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually at about 23 weeks, the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah argued. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is assisting with the lawsuit filed in federal court. The groups asked a judge to delay the implementation of the law, which is set to take effect on May 14. Abortion rights supporters gathered inside the state Capitol holding pink signs that said, “Trust women” and “Abortion is health care” as officials discussed the lawsuit. “Every person deserves the right to control their body, life and future,” said Karrie Galloway, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Utah. “That includes the right to decide when to become a parent. This 18-week ban puts medical decisions in the hands of politicians rather than the woman and her doctor.” Dana Reinke, one of the people supporting the lawsuit, said the laws are trying to disempower women. “Women should be trusted to make their own choices,” said Reinke, a married mother of two daughters from Salt Lake City. “We are not killers.” Krista Noyes was the lone anti-abortion person at the event. She watched from afar holding a sign that had a picture of a fetus and the words, “Let me live.” Noyes said she wanted to represent Utah residents who oppose abortions and back the ban. She said there other options such as adoption for women who don’t want a baby. “Just because you choose to have sex and you’re not ready to deal with the consequences, that doesn’t give you a right to take someone else’s life.” said Noyes, 25, of Orem, Utah. The measure allows some exceptions — including cases of rape, fatal fetal deformity or serious detriment to the mother’s health. Abortions done after 18 weeks account for about 3% of the procedures done at Planned Parenthood of Utah, Galloway said. The legal battle in Utah comes as abortion opponents across the country push for near-total bans on the procedure, emboldened by the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court. They are seeking cases that could be used to challenge Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. “Their ultimate goal is to make abortion illegal,” Galloway said. “They have tried that, they have been unsuccessful so they are taking dings at it in small hits. This is the one this legislature chose this year.” Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, said when he signed the law that it strikes a balance between a woman’s right to choose and protecting unborn babies. He also said he was not worried about the potential $2 million cost of a lawsuit if the state loses. Herbert’s spokeswoman Anna Lehnardt declined comment, saying he does not comment on pending litigation. The sponsor of the Utah measure, Republican Rep. Cheryl Acton, said she wants to reduce the number of second-trimester abortions that “shock the conscience.” Acton said after the lawsuit was filed that she agrees that the Utah law faces long odds of being upheld at the lower court level, but is enthused at the possibility that it might eventually be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. “We believe that it time to revisit Roe v. Wade,” said Acton, a part-time writer and editor from the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan. “The risks to women were not understood at that time.” That includes rare physical harm and common emotional and psychological damage, Acton said. Marina Lowe of the ACLU said research refutes Acton’s claim. The law adds to a long list of statewide abortion restrictions, including a 72-hour waiting period and an in-person informed consent session for women seeking abortions. Herbert also signed a law this year banning abortion if the only reason is fetal diagnosis of Down syndrome. The law contains a so-called trigger clause and would not go into effect unless a similar measure is upheld in court in another U.S. state. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU won a similar lawsuit filed in the 1990s that led an appeals court to overturn a Utah law that banned abortions after 20 weeks.
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17422
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"Cuba has ""a lower child mortality rate than ours. Their life expectancy is now greater than ours."
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"Harkin said that Cuba has ""a lower child mortality rate than ours. Their life expectancy is now greater than ours."" According to the official statistics, Cuba does beat out the United States for both infant and child mortality, and on life expectancy, the data is mixed, with a slight edge to the United States. However, the combination of the Cuban government’s heavy-handed enforcement of statistical targets and the lack of transparency has led some experts to suggest taking the numbers with a grain of salt."
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mixture
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National, Children, Health Care, Foreign Policy, Public Health, Tom Harkin,
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"Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, recently spent three days in Cuba -- the longtime socialist adversary of the United States -- to learn more about the island nation’s health care system. For years, some health policy specialists in the United States have been intrigued by Cuba’s health care system. Cuba produces a disproportionate number of doctors, and it has posted relatively strong health statistics in international comparisons, especially considering the country’s shortage of material goods and economic wealth. For some liberals, Cuba’s health care system has offered an alternative to the one in the United States, where millions of Americans have struggled without insurance in recent years. Notably, Michael Moore’s 2007 health care documentary Sicko includes scenes where Americans in need of medical attention travel to Havana and are treated for free at a high-quality hospital. Critics have countered that such free, quality care is available only to the communist elite, not to ordinary Cubans. Harkin certainly saw something promising in Cuba’s health care system. During a press conference upon his return to Washington on Jan. 29, 2014, Harkin -- who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee -- said that Cuba is a ""poor country, but they have a lower child mortality rate than ours. Their life expectancy is now greater than ours. It's interesting — their public health system is quite remarkable."" We wondered whether these statistics are accurate, and what they say about health care in Cuba. Child mortality statistics On child mortality, we found a few data sources that are generally considered credible. According to the CIA Factbook, Cuba infant mortality rate is indeed lower -- an estimated 4.76 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013, compared to 5.90 for the United States. And more precisely given the phrase Harkin chose, Cuba also has a better child mortality rate -- that is, the likelihood of death under 5 years of age. According to the World Health Organization, Cuba had 6 deaths under age 5 per 1,000 live births between 2005 and 2010, compared to 8 deaths for the United States. So on child mortality, Harkin had his numbers right. Life expectancy statistics The data for life expectancy appears to be mixed. According to both the CIA Factbook, the estimated life expectancy for both sexes in 2013 was 78.62 in the United States, compared to 78.05 years in Cuba. And according to the World Health Organization, life expectancy in 2011 was 79 years in the United States and 78 in Cuba. By these sources, Harkin would be wrong. But when we contacted Harkin’s office, they pointed us to data from Pan American Health Organization that backed up their claim. For 2012, the group found that life expectancy was 79.2 years in Cuba, compared to 78.8 years in the U.S. So for life-expectancy numbers, the data is varied, with some supporting Harkin and some not. How reliable is this data? We wondered, however, whether the data from Cuba’s authoritarian government could be trusted. As we looked into it, we heard a measure of skepticism. We did find one area of agreement: Cuba puts a lot of emphasis on its health data. Richard H Streiffer, dean of the College of Community Health Sciences at the University of Alabama, said his conclusion from two visits to Cuba is that Cuban health practitioners are ""very compulsive about collecting data and reporting it regularly."" On a recent trip, Streiffer said, he spent time with a family doctor in a neighborhood clinic. ""Family doctors are mandated to collect certain data,"" he said. ""He had right on his wall a ‘dashboard’ of data characterizing his practice -- an age/sex distribution; an age/sex distribution of the top 10 chronic diseases in his practice; a map of where his patients lived in the neighborhood. You don't find that in the US."" However, some experts said that this obsession with statistics can be a two-edged sword when it comes to reliability. Some say Cuba is so concerned with its infant mortality and life-expectancy statistics that the government takes heavy-handed actions to protect their international rankings. ""Cuba does have a very low infant mortality rate, but pregnant women are treated with very authoritarian tactics to maintain these favorable statistics,"" said Tassie Katherine Hirschfeld, the chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma who spent nine months living in Cuba to study the nation's health system. ""They are pressured to undergo abortions that they may not want if prenatal screening detects fetal abnormalities. If pregnant women develop complications, they are placed in ‘Casas de Maternidad’ for monitoring, even if they would prefer to be at home. Individual doctors are pressured by their superiors to reach certain statistical targets. If there is a spike in infant mortality in a certain district, doctors may be fired. There is pressure to falsify statistics."" Hirschfeld said she’s ""a little skeptical"" about the longevity data too, since Cuba has so many risk factors that cause early death in other countries, from unfiltered cigarettes to contaminated water to a meat-heavy diet. In a more benign statistical quirk, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that the flow of refugees could skew longevity statistics, since those births are recorded but the deaths are not. Transparency would help give the data more credibility, but the Cuban government doesn’t offer much, experts said. ""I would take all Cuban health statistics with a grain of salt,"" Hirschfeld said. Organizations like the Pan-American Health Organization ""rely on national self-reports for data, and Cuba does not allow independent verification of its health claims."" Rodolfo J. Stusser -- a physician and former adviser to the Cuban Ministry of Public Health's Informatics and Tele-Health Division who left for Miami at age 64 -- is another skeptic. While Stusser acknowledges that Cuba has improved some of its health numbers since the revolution, the post-revolution data has been ""overestimated,"" he said. ""The showcasing of infant mortality and life expectancy at birth has been done for ideological reasons,"" he said. Our ruling Harkin said that Cuba has ""a lower child mortality rate than ours. Their life expectancy is now greater than ours."" According to the official statistics, Cuba does beat out the United States for both infant and child mortality, and on life expectancy, the data is mixed, with a slight edge to the United States. However, the combination of the Cuban government’s heavy-handed enforcement of statistical targets and the lack of transparency has led some experts to suggest taking the numbers with a grain of salt."
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16111
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"The pass rate for a high school level test to join the military"" is 35 to 40 percent."
|
"Bush said that ""the pass rate for a high school level test to join the military is 35 to 40 percent."" A Bush spokeswoman said he meant to say that one-third failed the test, a rate that is roughly in line with one credible measure of applicants to the Army (though the available data is scattered and incomplete). Still, what Bush said was incorrect."
|
false
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Education, Military, Florida, Jeb Bush,
|
"Common Core’s Republican defender-in-chief, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has been known to marshal a varied portfolio of evidence to show that the United States need to raise its education standards. In a question-and-answer session at a Wall Street Journal event on Dec. 1, Bush told attendees that a majority of high school graduates aren’t ready for college or work. He added that our educational schools are also a problem for the military. ""In the video beforehand,"" Bush said, Gen. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ""talked about 25 percent pass rate. Now, that's not just because of the test. That's also because of obesity and too many tattoos, to be honest with you, on visible body parts for people that are trying to get into the military. But the pass rate for a high-school level test to join the military is about 35 percent, I think, or 40 percent at best. And these are abysmal numbers. (These are) horrific numbers. And yet, there's no one marching in the streets. There's no one saying, you know, ‘The end is near because of this.’ But the fact is, the end is near if we can't fix this."" Bush is correct that obesity and tattoos keep out some applicants. But do only 35 to 40 percent of applicants for the military pass the test? Military entrance exam We’ll note right off the bat that Bush is wrong because he flubbed this talking point. Bush’s spokeswoman Jaryn Emhof told PolitiFact that Bush had meant to say that about one-third fail the test rather than pass it. In fact, she added, just a month earlier, Bush gave an education summit speech in which he said, ""Almost a third of high school graduates fail the military entrance exam."" We applaud Bush’s team for acknowledging his error, but the topic is an interesting one, so we’ll proceed by continuing to address the facts behind the claim. We were unable to find a single, definitive source of data to show what percentage of applicants pass or fail the exam. This is partly because each branch of the military sets its own acceptance rate. Applicants for the military take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB. A subset of the tests are combined to compute a score that is used to determine eligibility. This is called the Armed Forces Qualification Test, or AFQT. It tests applicants’ verbal and math abilities, among other areas. For the military, the largest single disqualifying factor is health, including such problems as obesity. The estimate for those who are disqualified only because of aptitude is about 2 percent, said Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Pentagon spokesman. That includes not just people who failed the test but also those with other academic deficiencies, such as failure to get a GED. However, this number does not tell the full story, since it doesn’t account for those who are ineligible for more than one reason -- for example, failing the test and being obese. By law, the military can process any applicant who scores in the 10th percentile or higher, although individual services set their cut-offs somewhat higher, typically in the 30 percentile range or higher. We tried to get data from the service branches regarding what percentage failed the test based on the minimum score they accept and were unable to do so. The Army referred us back to the Defense Department. We were unable to get additional details from the Navy. A spokesman for the Marines said that they don’t track data for potential applicants who are disqualified. ""The short answer is that 31 is the minimum score required for an applicant to enlist into the Marine Corps without incurring greater scrutiny,"" Marines spokesman Sgt. Bryce Piper said, referring to scores in the 31st percentile or higher. Applicants who score 21-30 can still enlist if they pass an additional review and don’t require waivers due to any other issues. However, we found a couple studies that looked at the failure rate of test takers. The most specific was was a 2010 study by The Education Trust, an entity focused on improving educational achievement. Researchers looked at nearly 350,000 high school graduates between the ages of 17 and 20 who applied for entry to the Army between 2004 and 2009. That means the sample included recent high school graduates who had already been screened out for other disqualifying factors. The study found that about 23 percent failed to achieve the qualifying score. We asked a spokeswoman for Bush if that study was his source and she told us that it was, as well as a 2009 paper written by Mission Readiness, a group of retired military officials. That paper cited a 30 percent test-taker failure rate for the Army (though it attributed that information to an Army official without providing any further details). A Mission Readiness spokesman said his organization now relies on the Education Trust figure. Meanwhile, a 2009 paper by the Rand Corp. found that the passage rate varied widely when broken down by race and service branch. For example, about 70 percent of whites passed the test for the Air Force, while the figure was closer to 40 percent for Hispanics and blacks. The test isn’t the biggest hurdle, said Beth Asch, senior economist at Rand and one of the paper’s authors. ""The real issue is weight and high school diploma,"" she told PolitiFact. Our ruling Bush said that ""the pass rate for a high school level test to join the military is 35 to 40 percent."" A Bush spokeswoman said he meant to say that one-third failed the test, a rate that is roughly in line with one credible measure of applicants to the Army (though the available data is scattered and incomplete). Still, what Bush said was incorrect, so"
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5675
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Dutch hospital sealed off but ebola scare proves false alarm.
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Dutch emergency services say an ebola scare that led them to seal off part of a hospital in the port city of Rotterdam has turned out to be a false alarm.
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true
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Netherlands, Health, Ebola virus, General News, Rotterdam
|
The Rijnmondveilig agency coordinates emergency responses in the Rotterdam region. It tweeted early Thursday that a patient entered the Maasstad Hospital on Wednesday night with “a suspicion of ebola infection.” However, it added, “it has just been confirmed that it is not ebola.” Photos taken before the all-clear was given showed red and white tape sealing off the entrance of the hospital’s emergency room. An outbreak of the highly contagious virus in Congo has killed more than 1,800 people, nearly a third of them children. The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.
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35993
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Casey Anthony is pregnant (with twins.)
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‘Casey Anthony Pregnant with Twins’ Rumor
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
In December 2019, a rumor Casey Anthony was pregnant with twins swept Facebook, and a circulating article claimed:Casey Anthony, the woman famously acquitted in 2011 of murdering her daughter Caylee, is confirmed to be pregnant again. This time with twins.Previous reports on Anthony’s lifestyle in the three years since she was released from prison have described her as being withdrawn, and living like a hermit. Anthony filed for bankruptcy in 2013, claiming to be unemployed and possessing no source of income. She met with agents and publishers in New York last year, hoping to cash in on her notoriety by writing a book but was unable to close a deal. Casey currently appears to live off of a few benefactors who reportedly pay for all of her living expenses. But the days of needing to live off of others may soon be coming to a close for Anthony.Casey’s New York agent, Jeremy Nieven, confirms that she is indeed four months pregnant with twins, and that she has signed a contract for an initial six episode reality television series that will showcase her pregnancy and subsequently her babies.“She wants to redeem herself in the eyes of America”, stated Nieven. “Did she make mistakes? Absolutely! But this is the U.S.A., everyone can get a second chance here. And let’s not forget that Casey was found innocent of the charges against her. She was released. She is a free woman now, and this show is going to allow her to make a great life for her new little angels.”As the claim correctly noted, Casey Anthony was “famously acquitted in 2011 of murdering her daughter Caylee.” Anthony became widely known in the summer of 2008, when her mother reported Caylee missing that July.Caylee’s remains were located in December 2008, and Anthony was tried but acquitted on the first-degree murder charge in July 2011:July 5, 2011 – The seven women and five men of the jury deliberate for 10 hours and 40 minutes before coming back with a verdict of not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child. Anthony is found guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false information to law enforcement.Anthony was released with credit for time served, also in July 2011. She remained widely reviled, and her name became an easy way for “satirical” news sites to drive traffic with sensational claims about her post-trial life.The Weekly World News, a tabloid known for its fantastical stories before “fake news” became a buzzword, seemed to kick off the trend of Casey Anthony ragebait in July 2013 with an item headlined, “CASEY ANTHONY PREGNANT”:Sources confirm to WWN that Casey Anthony is pregnant.Casey Anthony is pregnant with another child and is reportedly thrilled at the chance to prove she is a good mother even after she was acquitted of killing her first daughter Caylee.The National Enquirer broke the story based on the claims of multiple unidentified sources saying that the infamous mother is pregnant.“She just said that she fell in love with a very wealthy man while she’s been in hiding. Casey said he’s taking care of her financially and he’s so obsessed with her that he’ll do anything for her,” an unnamed insider told the tabloid.That source also told WWN that “her sugar daddy is someone in the publie eye. He’s a high profile man, that everyone in America would know.”The Weekly World News was recognizable to most (not all) as a source of unreliable claims, and it seemed to inspire subsequent claims that Anthony had adopted a baby or was herself “found dead.”In August 2019, now-deceased “fake news” scion Paul Horner revived the claim on the now-defunct National Report website. National Report’s claim was swiped word-for-word by Huzlers, which even left the “National Report” dateline intact on their version of the claim (it remained as of December 2019. )Huzlers’ version circulated anew in December 2019, but source code indicated it was originally published on September 2 2014. Since Huzlers pages lack a visible date, they tend to spread in perpetuity on Facebook. The site’s “about” page explained that their content was not intended to be taken seriously:A combination of satirical and fictional content created in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented anywhere else but Huzlers!Casey Anthony made headlines in September 2019 when WSET reported on a tweet by People about rumors she planned to have another child:Casey Anthony 'Feels Her Biological Clock Ticking,' Is Considering Having Another Kid: Source https://t.co/pMAEEA5vCn— People (@people) September 27, 2019Claims that Casey Anthony was pregnant with twins have circulated since at least 2013, primarily through outlets known for reporting fabrications to drive social media traffic. The same long-debunked claims continued circulating years later and remained false, emanating only from known purveyors of falsehoods and disinformation.
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7634
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French pharma group Ipsen closes in on its next drug deals.
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French drugmaker Ipsen plans to bring in multiple new medicines through a series of transactions and sees the recent price drop of biotech stocks as increasing deal opportunities, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
|
“We’re more active than ever. We’ve got the financial capacity to do transactions and the board is motivated to do transactions,” David Meek told Reuters during a visit to London. Under Meek, an American who took over as CEO in July 2016, the 89-year-old French drug company has become more international, with a sharply increased focus on the United States, the world’s biggest and most profitable drugs market. Now investors are waiting for him to strengthen the portfolio further with new licensing deals that can help offset the long-term generic threat to its top-selling cancer treatment Somatuline. Meek said he was comfortable with gearing up the company to “at least” two times net debt to EBITDA, and potentially more for the right deal, suggesting firepower for transactions of more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion). The company has set up parallel business development teams scouting for promising assets in oncology, rare diseases and neuroscience — its core areas — and Meek said he would not blow all the company’s war chest on a single deal. “Don’t expect us to go out and do a one-time transaction for 2 billion — that’s not our strategic intent. It’s more aiming for four mid-sized deals,” he said. Many large drug companies — also actively shopping for experimental drugs from biotech companies in recent years — have complained about high market valuations, which have made transactions hard to justify. But Meek said Ipsen’s relatively small size was an advantage since it could look at drugs with peak annual sales potential of a few hundred million dollars that would be below the radar of larger players. Together with the recent market correction, which has made assets more affordable and increased the pressure on some biotech firms to seek new funding sources, Meek believes this should help him find product acquisitions with decent returns. “Prices up until recently have been pretty high. We have now had an adjustment and I think that is good for us because we have the cash we can deploy,” he said.
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38399
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Debbie Reynolds died one day after her daughter, Carrie Fisher.
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Debbie Reynolds Died One Day After Carrie Fisher–Truth!
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true
|
Celebrities
|
Debbie Reynolds, 84, died of an apparent stroke just one day after her 60-year-old daughter, Carrie Fisher, died of an apparent heart attack. The official cause of Debbie Reynolds death has not yet been released, and it’s not clear if an autopsy would be performed. But Todd Fisher, the brother of Carrie Fisher and son of Debbie Reynolds, told USA Today that his mother was heartbroken and “wanted to be with Carrie” after Fisher died four days after suffering a heart attack on a flight: This is a beautiful love story to witness in my 58 years. I miss them both so much. Love is everlasting pic.twitter.com/AeIVGaGl9k — Todd Fisher (@tafish) December 29, 2016 Debbie Reynolds’ health had been ailing and she has suffered multiple strokes. In May, Carrie Fisher talked about her mother’s health in an interview with People: “It’s a lot of times terrifying, but watching my mother, who’s incredibly resilient, coping with certain health issues that she’s had,” Fisher said. “We were really lucky we got really what probably could be her last (big project).” TMZ, meanwhile, detailed Debbie Reynolds’ last moments mourning the death of her daughter before suffering a stroke at her son’s home: Debbie Reynolds seemingly willed her own death Wednesday, telling her son before the stroke that claimed her life, “I miss her so much, I want to be with Carrie.” Todd Fisher tells us Debbie cracked early Wednesday morning from grief. She was at Todd’s home during the morning hours, talking about Carrie’s funeral, when she made the comment. Fifteen minutes later she had the stroke. Family sources tell us Debbie actually had several strokes this year and was in failing health, and they believe Carrie’s death was too much to bear. Although Reynolds’ exact cause of death isn’t clear, many believe that she died of what’s known as“broken heart syndrome.” And, while we can’t speak for Reynolds in this situation, there is scientific evidence that broken heart syndrome is a real phenomenon in which loved ones die days or just hours apart, The Guardian reports: …There is a thing called broken heart syndrome, believed to occur when someone loses a close partner or spouse. Death of a spouse is recognised as one of the most stressful things that can happen to a person. But as well as the mental anguish and grief (which are themselves very debilitating and not to be dismissed), many forget that stress also has a physical component. Stress can cause numerous physical ailments, and if the stress is sudden and serious enough, such as if a spouse dies, then these ailments can be very serious, affecting the heart. But even without the direct heart damage, the physical and emotional consequences of severe grief can take a serious toll on the body. This may be another reason for the stories we hear, which are invariably about people who have been together for several decades. The longevity of their relationship is invariably cited as evidence of their commitment, but it also means both partners are older. The aged body is a lot more frail and rundown than a youthful one, so the shock of losing a very longterm partner may be more than it can handle. In the end, reports that Debbie Reynolds died one after Carrie Fisher are true. We can’t, however, speak for Reynolds’ cause of death. Comments
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1616
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On World Toilet Day, one billion people have nowhere to go.
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Some 2.4 billion people around the world don’t have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate in the open, risking disease and other dangers, according to the United Nations.
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true
|
Health News
|
Launching its World Toilet Day campaign for Nov 19, the UN said poor sanitation increases the risk of illness and malnutrition, especially for children, and called for women and girls in particular to be offered safe, clean facilities. “One out of three women around the world lack access to safe toilets,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. “As a result they face disease, shame and potential violence when they seek a place to defecate.” Even where there are toilets around the world, some hardly warrant the name, as illustrated by Reuters in a photo essay from around the world ( reut.rs/20WNAs2 ). In a Syrian refugee settlement camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, for example, toilets surrounded by graffiti-covered corrugated sheet sit right up against flimsy tents. In the Marcory district of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, a “private” stall is simply built of spare bits of lumber and metal. The U.N. says that while there is sufficient fresh water on the planet for everyone, “bad economics and poor infrastructure” mean that every year millions of people - most of them children - die from diseases linked to poor sanitation, unhygienic living conditions and lack of clean water supplies. “We have a moral imperative to end open defecation and a duty to ensure women and girls are not at risk of assault and rape simply because they lack a sanitation facility,” Ban said. (This story has been refiled to fix link to photo essay)
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37732
|
"Ivanka Trump said Dr. Fauci was trying to make her father ""look incompetent."
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Did Ivanka Trump Accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci of Trying to Make Her Father Look Incompetent?
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false
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
"In mid-July 2020 a link circulated on social media, appearing to be an article reporting that Ivanka Trump had accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of trying to make her father, United States President Donald Trump, “look incompetent”:Ivanka Says Fauci ""Trying To Make My Father ""Look"" Incompetent"" https://t.co/0vVyyA8xM2— REESUS PATRIOT™💙 (@ReesusP) July 15, 2020Clicking through to the link led to a bizarre article dated July 13 2020. It began:Ivanka Trump has always been a daddy’s girl. Whether it’s showing her father the latest styles in flimsy lingerie, string bikinis, or rubbing his back and cooing like a sexy kitten, this blonde bombshell has been supportive of her ‘Pops.’ Now she’s unloading both barrels on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.“Fauci is a fraud,” the first daughter told The Lint Screen. “Instead of trying to help the president help Americans, Fauci is sabotaging everything and trying to make my father look incompetent.”The ravishing vixen details the many betrayals Fauci has perpetrated.“When Daddy first got into office, Fauci told him to get rid of the pandemic preparedness group,” she said. “Pops wanted to keep the group–– and even wanted to give it more resources, but Fauci said it was a waste of money. ‘Pandemics are very rare, Mr. President,’ he told him. So, my father did what Fauci said and eliminated all the people and plans put in place for pandemics.”The foxy lady puts on a fresh coat of lip gloss, puckers, and continues.“Then the coronavirus came and Fauci told Dad there was no need for masks. He said there’s only a couple of cases in the U.S. and it’s not going to be a big deal,” Ivanka shakes her head. “Fauci also told Daddy, ‘Don’t wear a mask, they’re very uncomfortable and look stupid.’”The article likely went viral based on its headline and not the content of the linked post. Its second-to-last paragraph read:Ivanka Trump walks from behind the wardrobe screen dressed in a mini-cut Catholic schoolgirl uniform with a push-up bra and tight white blouse. She struts in her four-inch stilettos and announces, “Sorry, but this interview’s over. I have to go model this outfit for Daddy. Fashion shows are a traditional father-daughter activity for us. He loves it when I sit in his lap at the end of my show.”Its description of Ivanka Trump as a “ravishing vixen” or “foxy lady” fond of “string bikinis” and “flimsy lingerie” didn’t read as standard news reporting. Nevertheless, people commenting on the tweet reacted as if the linked material was unquestionably true:Looking incompetent would be a far less dangerous proposition and an impossible to achieve upgrade for her father. He was born incompetent.— Patricia A. Smith🆘🍑🆘 (@nonconfromist) July 15, 2020Trump looked incompetent before he became President.He didn't need Dr. Fauci's help.We stand with Dr. Fauci! pic.twitter.com/c1XjJDs1e1— 🌊🌊TSUNAMI BUILDING🌊🌊🚫GOP FOREVER! (@misener_patti) July 15, 2020I have to laugh at that. She might’ve gone to a good college because she is who she is but she is not very smart and attacking the one physician in the country who has guided us through this Covid mess is really sad. She needs to sit down and take a seat— Get a grip in 2020 (@getagrip54) July 15, 2020I bet he feels good having his daughter/abuse victim come to his defense. The whole family loves to blame everyone else for their failures. pic.twitter.com/p4OFeZaBnz— Mark (@ConvictRump) July 15, 2020Although the text was small, a label next to the post’s date indicated it was “humor”:In the sidebar, a list of “Recent Posts” featured similar “satirical” content:RECENT POSTSAlthough there was no clear satire disclaimer on the post reporting Ivanka Trump accused Dr. Fauci of “trying to make [her] father look incompetent,” it was labeled “humor” and completely fabricated.Comments"
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36415
|
Dell Hospital is donating 15 cents every time Facebook users share a plea about a 6-year-old rape victim named Maria.
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Is Dell Hospital Collecting Donations for a Young Assault Victim Named Maria?
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false
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
|
A February 2016 Facebook post about Dell Children’s Hospital and a purported young rape victim (archived here) continued circulating several years after the fact.The post and its variations featured roughly the same all-caps text, with rotating images of a man as seen above:THIS GUY RAPED A FIVE YEAR OLD LITTLE GIRL… HE RUINED HER LIFE SHE IS ALIVE & IN THE HOSPITAL CAN’T MOVE AND CAN NEVER HAVE CHILDREN, OR A NORMAL LIFE… THIS GUY GOES BY DIFFERENT NAMES HE IS IN HIDING & HAS AIDS. THE LITTLE GIRL CAME OUT POSITIVE. PLEASE HELP US CATCH THIS ANIMAL. EVERY TIME THIS MESSAGE IS FWD DELL HOSPITAL WILL DONATE $.15 TO MARIA’S MEDICATION & TREATMENT, PLEASE DONT HESITATE TO FWD, THIS COULD’VE BEEN YOU’RE DAUGHTER OR SISTER GOD BLESS. THANK YOU…Although the version shown here was shared in February 2016, the rumor itself was far older. A Hoax-Slayer page about the rumor was originally published in November 2010 noted that the story first spread by email, via text, and on social media:According to this message, which circulates via text, email and social networking websites such as Facebook, you can help five year old rape victim Maria simply by forwarding or reposting the information. The message claims that Maria is in hospital with serious injuries and illness after being brutally raped by a man who has AIDS. It further claims that Dell Hospital will donate 15 cents to help pay Maria’s medical expenses every time the message is forwarded to another person.Fact-checking site Lead Stories revisited the rumor in March 2019, due to yet another version of the same rumor spreading once again on Facebook:The post does not name the child — other than Maria — or the name of the alleged attacker. The photo of the alleged rapist has changed over the years.The hoax photos of the man falsely accused of raping a little girl also seemed to be calculated to stoke racial hatred and further corrode public discourse as well as grifting the credulous. Lead Stories linked to an archived, undated alert from Dell Children’s Medical Center:A false text message has been circulating that describes an incident involving a 5-year old girl. The message states that every time you forward it to someone, Dell Children’s Medical Center will donate 15 cents to cover the child’s healthcare expenses. This message is spam and is in no way affiliated with Dell Children’s Medical Center or the Seton Family of Hospitals. If you receive this message, please delete it.According to Dell Children’s Medical Center, the message was little more than spam. However, as of 2019 the clarification was only available in archived form, making it slightly more difficult for readers to determine whether rumor was in fact a hoax. A reporter for Lead Stories contacted a Dell Children’s Medical Center representative about the rumor’s resurgence in 2019, and once again confirmed that there was no truth to the story.
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33430
|
A baby was born with two separate minds enclosed in one head.
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Was a baby born in India with two separate minds enclosed in one head?
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false
|
Media Matters, ASP Article, hydrocephaly, India
|
On 29 October 2014, the World News Daily Report web site published an article positing that a baby had born in India with two distinct brains encased within a single head: Mumbai| Doctor Jagadhish Parsa, who assisted yesterday in the birth of a baby born with a rare malformation causing him to have two distinct brains crammed inside his head, claims that the newborn could be a unique case of two separate minds sharing a single head and body. Tamish and Rajiv Mukeherjee were born at 09:10 AM at the Saiffe Hospital, after a long and complicated surgical operation meant to extract them safely from their mother’s womb. The boys are a unique case of disrosopus, a rare condition in which twins share the same body but have separate faces and brains. In the case of Tamish and Rajiv, the twins share both the same face and the same body, with each of them controlling only one side. Soon afterwards, links and excerpts referencing the claims made in the original article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered it mistaking it for a genuine news item. However, the original article was just another spoof from World News Daily Report, a fake news web site whose stock in trade is publishing fantastically fictional stories. World News Daily Report‘s disclaimer page states that: World News Daily Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within worldnewsdailyreport.com are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to politicians and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction. The photograph included with the article was that of a real child, but not one possessing two different minds inside a single head. It’s a picture of a three-year-old Indian child who had survived the development of hydrocephalus (i.e., an excessive accumulation of fluid in the brain): Roona Begum, three, required emergency surgery last year after large amounts of water flooded her brain — a condition known as hydrocephalus. The rare illness caused her head to swell and her skull to deform. But one year on Roona is able to eat and crawl and may even start school later this year. “The doctors said she would not live — but she has survived,” said Roona’s mother Fatima Khatun, 23. “She is much better now. She can hold her head straight and she can move her head from side to side on her own. “She responds to other kids and she will smile if other kids call out her name. “I would be very happy if she could stand and talk and be like a normal child. We hope she will one day go to school.” Roona, from Tripura, western India, is still unable to walk because of the weight of her head despite doctors reducing its circumference from 37ins to 23ins. The youngster was treated at the Fortis Memorial Research Institute and Hospital in New Delhi after international sympathy prompted the facility to waive the huge medical bill and treat Roona for free. Neurosurgeon Dr Sandeep Vaishya said he had been surprised by the rate of her recovery. He said: “I see a lot of improvement, which I didn’t expect. She has started laughing, she makes a lot of sounds and she occasionally speaks a few words. “She has gained a lot of weight and her activities have improved a lot. But whether she will be able to live a normal life, nobody can say. “But most likely I don’t think she will be absolutely normal because with such a severe case of hydrocephalus there has to be some damage to the brain. “But with the improvement she has shown we are hopeful she will be able to do some things.”
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1988
|
Do bedbugs carry superbugs?.
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Researchers in Canada have found bedbugs carrying antibiotic-resistant superbugs, a surprise finding because scientists had thought the pests were not capable of spreading infections.
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true
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Health News
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The study was done by a team in a poor corner of Vancouver, where both bedbug infestations and strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria are increasing. Dr. Marc Romney, a medical microbiologist at St. Paul’s Hospital/Providence Health Care in Vancouver, decided to see if the two were related. Romney and colleagues removed five of the pests from the clothes and skin of infested patients and tested them. They found bedbugs carrying two types of drug-resistant bacteria, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. “I was a little surprised. Historically, bedbugs have not been associated with infections,” Romney said in a telephone interview. He said scientists have tested bedbugs to see if they carry blood-borne diseases, such as hepatitis or HIV. But so far, they have not been reported to carry infection. Infestations of the bloodsucking bugs, which can cause severe itching, have made a comeback in cities such as Paris and New York in recent years. Romney said the strain of MRSA they found requires skin to be somewhat compromised, and he thinks the bedbugs are providing that as people scratch their bites. “Maybe the bedbug’s bite is breaking down the patient’s skin,” he said. He said that some of these pests may be carrying MRSA and going from individual to individual. “The data are preliminary, but it suggests maybe there is an association,” Romney said. “Even though they can’t carry hepatitis B and HIV, maybe they can carry resistant bacteria.” “Maybe it is yet another factor that could be responsible for this large increase in resistant bacteria in inner cities in North America,” he said.
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10688
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Don’t Stay Up Waiting For A Pill To Fight Jet Lag
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Only 250 words but with 5 links to offer more context to the discerning reader.
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true
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NPR
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No discussion of cost, which we wish had been included. Not applicable. There was no quantification of benefit – so we can’t give a satisfactory score. But we also don’t feel an unsatisfactory score is warranted since the story made clear that “regulators weren’t buying the evidence put forward by the company to prove the medicine’s benefits in treating travelers’ “excessive sleepiness” outweighed its risks.” Solid job reviewing most common side effects and links to other, rare but life threatening problem. Given the brevity of the piece, the evaluation of evidence – and of the history of this drug – was good. There was no disease-mongering. We always look for an independent perspective. Granted, the story was based on an FDA review. But we really only got a quote from a company statement. Not applicable. There was no discussion of other approaches to jet lag. But we acknowledge that this short blog piece was written to address the news of the day – the new regulatory review. So this news – in this news format – need not try to do it all. As stated above, we appreciate how it gave context and history even with its tight 250-word space. The story explains that Nuvigil is already approved for some uses but not for jet lag. In a brief piece, the story gave a good history of this drug and now its second “thumbs down” from regulators on the application for marketing approval for jet lag. It’s clear that the story didn’t rely solely on a news release, but, rather, demonstrated a grasp of the history of this product and its regulatory review.
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792
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Sierra Leoneans sue government for alleged environmental failings at diamond mine.
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Sierra Leoneans living next to the country’s largest diamond mine are taking their government to West Africa’s regional court for failing to protect them from alleged environmental lapses by the company that runs it, a subsidiary of Octea Limited
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true
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Environment
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The complaint, filed to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) court of justice on Thursday, alleges that the government failed to act when residents of Koidu, the largest city in the diamond-rich Kono district, complained about water contamination and damage to their houses from blasting at the mine. It also said the government had failed to ensure that the company relocate hundreds of households away from the blasting site, as required by Octea’s 2003 mining license agreement. “The State has violated (the plaintiffs’) right to a suitable environment,” it said. The complaint follows a lawsuit filed by the residents against Octea in Sierra Leone’s High Court in March seeking $288 million in damages for “degradation or destruction of land, destruction of homes and loss of livelihoods and ... dumping of toxic mine waste,” among other allegations. On July 22, a judge ruled that case was “adjourned for judicial recess” until the end of September. Octea, a subsidiary of BSG Resources, founded by Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz, did not respond to emailed requests for comment on Thursday. It has described the accusations in the March case as “baseless and without merit.” The Sierra Leone government also rejects the complaints as unfounded. “It’s our job to conduct regular evaluations of [Octea’s] conduct in regards to the environment, and we have never found them not to be compliant,” said Ibrahim Turay, regional representative for the Environmental Protection Agency in Kono District. He added that it was mainly residents who refused to go to the resettlement area who were continuing to have problems. The cases highlight how communities in developing countries are becoming emboldened to use courts to pursue grievances against international mining firms. In the new complaint, the residents demand the government address their concerns and pay compensation “for their emotional suffering resulting from their degraded quality of life and health, and the instability and uncertainty of their resettlement status.” The complaint also alleges that the Sierra Leone government failed to protect its citizens when security forces killed four people during protests against the mine in 2007 and 2012. Seven plaintiffs say police opened fire on demonstrators and bystanders, killing two people at each protest, court documents show. Four of the plaintiffs say they were shot while fleeing the scene or while hiding from police. A spokesman for Sierra Leone’s security services did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Following the 2007 and 2012 incidents, Octea subsidiary Koidu Limited made a goodwill payment to Sierra Leone’s mines ministry to disburse to victims of the violence, the complaint filed on Thursday said. Koidu Limited has not acknowledged making any payment. Ibrahim Bokarie, a community activist and plaintiff who was shot in the foot during the 2007 protest, said he received 3,000,000 leones ($313) towards his medical bills but that it was insufficient. “Even with a new government in place, it’s the same old story,” he told Reuters. “That’s why we’re challenging the government in an international court. Enough is enough.” ($1 = 9,570.0000 leones)
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11641
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Incredibly, some Tallahassee politicians want to make Florida a sanctuary state.
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"Corcoran said, ""some Tallahassee politicians want to make Florida a sanctuary state."" Corcoran’s ad was referring to Gillum and Democratic politicians, who sponsored legislation in support of sanctuary cities. Gillum was critical of Trump’s executive order threatening to suspend funding, but he has not offered a specific statewide policy for not cooperating with detainer requests from immigration enforcement officials. Last year, Florida Democrats sponsored legislation that emphasized immigration enforcement as a federal responsibility, not a local one, but that bill died in committees."
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mixture
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Immigration, Florida, Richard Corcoran,
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"A dramatic new ad for tougher immigration policies by Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran’s political committee has drawn national attention and criticism from Democrats. Since Corcoran’s Watchdog PAC released the ad in late January, it's been aired hundreds of times on Fox News channels and garnered more than 30,000 views on YouTube. The 30-second video features a white woman walking down the streets of a suburban neighborhood when a supposed illegal immigrant, dressed in jeans and a hooded jacket, turns around to shoot her. Corcoran says the situation mirrors the fatal shooting of Kate Steinle, who was shot in July 2015 while walking with her father on a San Francisco pier. Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented immigrant, was charged with the crime. Prosecutors argued that Zarate intentionally killed Steinle. But, Garcia Zarate’s lawyers argued that her death was unintentional. They said Garcia Zarate, a homeless man, found and picked up a cloth-wrapped gun and that it accidentally fired, the shot ricocheting and traveling about 78 feet before hitting Steinle in the back. He was acquitted of murder and involuntary manslaughter charges in December 2017, but Republicans, including President Donald Trump, cite the case when criticizing sanctuary city policies throughout the nation. ""This could have happened to any family, anywhere,"" Corcoran says in the voice-over. ""Incredibly, some Tallahassee politicians want to make Florida a sanctuary state."" We wanted to sort out Corcoran’s claim that some Tallahassee politicians support statewide sanctuary-city policies. There is no specific legal definition of sanctuary cities, but the term generally describes jurisdictions that to some extent limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials. Typically, these cities don't honor federal requests to detain illegal immigrants in their custody who they would otherwise release. These policies are generally set at the local levels and are enacted by police department and sheriff’s offices. Watchdog PAC’s communication director Taylor Budowich gave PolitiFact Florida a factsheet for the ad. It included two news articles. One was about Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and the other was about Democratic lawmakers who introduced legislation in 2017 that would have protected sanctuary cities in Florida. We’ve looked at whether Gillum wants to make Florida a sanctuary state before and we rated it . We found that the claim was extrapolated from Gillum's vows to fight back against Trump's attack on sanctuary cities. Budowich also pointed to a news article which talked about Gillum’s response to President Donald Trump’s January 2017 executive order to penalize cities that don't comply with federal immigration agents by withholding federal funds. After the executive order was announced, Gillum took to Twitter and posted a lengthy statement to attack Trump’s decision as ""inconsistent with our highest values,"" adding the United States can ""protect national security interests and have a secure border without criminalizing people who are here undocumented."" Gillum’s campaign said as governor he would support an approach like in Tallahassee that emphasizes immigration enforcement as a federal responsibility, not a local one. But Gillum has not offered a specific statewide policy for not cooperating with detainer requests from immigration enforcement officials, so his position is murkier than what Corcoran’s is describing. ""Mayor Gillum regularly talks about how illegal immigrants should not be ‘criminalized’ based on being in the country illegally,"" Budowich said. ""So, call it sanctuary cities or wholesale amnesty, it's equally as wrong and defies the rule of law."" As for the other Tallahassee politicians, the factsheet cites a 2017 bill (HB 1407) that was sponsored by Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, and Rep. Al Jacquet, D-Lantana. The bill died in the Criminal Justice subcommittee in May, but it would have prohibited local law enforcement officials from ""making an inquiry or recording information concerning the immigration status of certain persons."" In the article, Smith explained that the bill was meant to garner trust between local law enforcement and sanctuary communities. ""This important legislation strengthens those critical local relationships and creates trust to keep all of our communities safe,"" Smith said in the piece. One final note. The ad implies that undocumented immigrants could murder a family member ""any family, anywhere."" There is no national database or study tracking how many people have been killed by undocumented immigrants or the nationality of the victims, but numerous studies have found that immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens. Corcoran said, ""some Tallahassee politicians want to make Florida a sanctuary state."" Corcoran’s ad was referring to Gillum and Democratic politicians, who sponsored legislation in support of sanctuary cities. Gillum was critical of Trump’s executive order threatening to suspend funding, but he has not offered a specific statewide policy for not cooperating with detainer requests from immigration enforcement officials. Last year, Florida Democrats sponsored legislation that emphasized immigration enforcement as a federal responsibility, not a local one, but that bill died in committees."
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36079
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The State of New York kicked 26,000 children out of school after mandating vaccines, but despite this was unable to prevent an outbreak of chickenpox in schools in October 2019.
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Did New York State Kick 26,000 Students out of School Over Vaccinations — Only to Still Have Chickenpox Cases?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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On October 19 2019, a Facebook user shared a letter sent by a Rocky Point, New York school district concerning reported cases of chickenpox, along with a list of its symptoms and other information about the virus:Alongside the letter (dated October 18 2019), the user claimed:Hey New York … you kicked 26,000 children out of school for not being completely up to date on vaccines. Well … chicken pox is now in your school.According to the post and subsequent shares, the state of New York had “kicked 26,000 children out of school” for not being completely up-to-date on their vaccines. Furthermore, chickenpox was purportedly present in one school in Rocky Point, New York, despite state laws about mandatory vaccines and schooling.Another Facebook user shared an image of the letter, reiterating the claim and saying that “there is now an outbreak of Chickenpox in a Rocky Point NY School and the UNVACCINATED are NOT there 🤦🏻♀️🤣.” Commenters espousing an anti-vaccine perspective also shared copies of the letter on Twitter, claiming that the population affected had been completely vaccinated:Chickenpox outbreak in a 100% vaccinated population… because #vaccineswork @DrPanMD @NYGovCuomo👏👏👏Guys. You've proven your point (plot) entirely. pic.twitter.com/l39rNQIPDR— Stephanie Lynn (@mommy_rose0604) October 19, 2019A separate tweet also described a “chickenpox outbreak” in Rocky Point in October 2019. A similar sentiment that the “outbreak” occurred in a “100% vaccinated population” was shared to Reddit’s r/ShitMomGroupsSay on October 21 2019:Is “va((ine” The new hip way to throw shade at vaccines? Is she trying to get past an algorithm? Why’d she still use the correct spelling elsewhere then? from ShitMomGroupsSayThere were also, of course, memes:The letter began:Chicken pox [sic] (varicella) has been reported in our school. It is possible to get the disease even if you have been vaccinated. Below is a description of the virus. If you have any questions regarding the virus, please contact your physician or the Health Office at [number].Although the letter indicated chickenpox was “reported in [the] school,” it did not suggest that any cases of chickenpox were confirmed, did not clarify exactly what was meant by “reported,” nor that an “outbreak” was present in any way, shape, or form. It said simply that “chickenpox was reported,” before immediately stating that it is potentially possible to catch chickenpox even for those who have already been vaccinated for varicella.Another common claim was that 26,000 children in the state of New York had been “kicked out” of school for not being fully vaccinated. A September 3 2019 New York Times article (“Get Vaccinated or Leave School: 26,000 N.Y. Children Face a Choice”) included that figure — not as a number of children kicked out, but as a count of the number of children who were previously exempted from vaccination requirements for religious reasons:With the start of school [in September 2019], [parent Jacquelynn] Vance-Pauls, along with the parents of about 26,000 other New York children who previously had obtained religious exemptions to vaccinations, are facing a moment of reckoning.Under [a] new law, all children must begin getting their vaccines within the first two weeks of classes and complete them by the end of the school year. Otherwise, their parents must home school them or move out of the state.The measles outbreak that prompted the new law is actually easing. [In September 2019], Mayor Bill de Blasio declared an end to the measles outbreak in New York City, its epicenter. Since the start of the outbreak in October 2018, there have been 654 measles cases in the city and 414 in other parts of the state, where transmission has also slowed.In August 2019, efforts by some parents affected by the law to block a June 2019 law eliminating religious exemptions to vaccination were unsuccessful:Acting Supreme Court Justice Denise Hartman of Albany issued a decision [in August 2019] that upheld the law passed in June [2019] in response to the worst measles epidemic in decades.In her decision, Hartman acknowledged the “magnitude of disruption and potential harm” families may suffer if they have to violate religious beliefs and vaccinate their children, home-school them or move out of state. School begins [in late August 2019] for many children across the state.But the judge said in her ruling she cannot overstate the “potential harm to unvaccinated individuals if the injunction is granted.”She said the courts for at least a century have upheld state compulsory vaccine laws. She cited a 1944 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said, “The right to practice religion does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death.”All 26,000 children mentioned in that coverage were affected by the June 2019 change to New York State law eliminating religious exemptions to vaccines. However, we found no subsequent reporting indicating whether all 26,000 children in the estimated group remained unvaccinated.In May 2019, state lawmakers and parents of immunocompromised children lobbied to remove religious exemptions under then-current law, but medical exemptions were not affected. In that debate, the religious exemption was described as a “loophole” for anti-vaccination parents:… [State] Sen. [Brad] Hoylman said the religious exemption provides a loophole for anti-vaccination parents — those who do not have earnest religious objections are using the exemption to get around the requirements that would otherwise apply to them. Under the current system, parents fill out a form and a school supervisor is tasked with evaluating the claim.“The truth is most of these just slide through uncontested because who is in a position to question someone else’s religious beliefs?” said Hoylman. “That is why we need to remove religion from the equation altogether.”As of October 23 2019, the New York State Department of Health’s “Immunization Laws and Regulations” page listed varicella among mandatory immunizations under state law:New York State (NYS) Public Health Law Section 2164 and New York Codes, Rules and Regulations (NYCRR) Title 10, Subpart 66-1 require every student entering or attending public, private or parochial school in New York State (NYS) to be immune to diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, poliomyelitis, hepatitis B, varicella and meningococcal in accordance with Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations. In the 2019-20 school year, meningococcal immunization is required for grades 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12.Every child in day care, Head Start, nursery school or prekindergarten in NYS must be immune to diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, poliomyelitis, hepatitis B, varicella, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease.Public Health Law Section 2164 provides for medical exemptions to immunization.Under that law, immunity to varicella broadly included having previously contracted chickenpox:Immunity means that … for varicella, a child has either had a positive serologic test, as defined in subdivision (h) of this section; laboratory confirmation of disease, as defined in subdivision (k) of this section; or had the disease as verified by a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant statement[. ]A New York City joint Department of Health and Department of Education fact sheet notes:Documented serologic evidence of immunity to measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, or varicella meets the immunization requirements for these diseases. Diagnosis by a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner that a child has had varicella disease is acceptable proof of immunity to varicella.That same sheet addressed implementation of the law in students who were noncompliant for various reasons. In that guideline, varying levels of compliance were evident as of October 2019 — students who had not received newly mandatory vaccinations were admitted provisionally as long as they adhered to the CDC’s “‘catch up’ schedule”:New students may enter school or child care provisionally with documentation of at least this initial series of immunizations. Once admitted provisionally, subsequent vaccines must be administered in accordance with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) “catch up” schedule for the child to be considered “in process” and remain in school[.] Alternative schedules are not acceptable. Students must complete the entire series to comply with the law. Students who have not been immunized within the provisional period must be issued exclusion letters and excluded from school or child care until they comply with the requirements.One of the claims in circulation involved an “outbreak” of varicella or chickenpox in a population that was “100 percent” vaccinated. Again, the letter neither mentioned an “outbreak” nor even a confirmed case of chickenpox, and state regulations allowed for immunity acquired by previous infection (as confirmed by a blood test) as compliant. A complete set of New York’s vaccination requirements for schoolchildren is available on health.ny.gov [PDF].All that said, the Centers for Disease Control’s varicella vaccination page explains that even in a populace with a “100 percent” varicella vaccination rate, cases would likely occur:Two doses of the chickenpox vaccine is more than 90% effective at preventing chickenpox. When you get vaccinated, you protect yourself and others in your family and community. This protection is especially important for people who cannot get vaccinated, such as those with weakened immune systems, or pregnant women.Some people who are vaccinated against chickenpox may still get the disease. However, the symptoms are usually milder with fewer or no blisters (they may have just red spots) and mild or no fever. The risk of getting chickenpox after two doses of chickenpox vaccine is lower than after only one dose of chickenpox vaccine. Talk with your healthcare provider if you have questions about chickenpox vaccine.Also, two doses of varicella vaccine are recommended for individuals who have never had chickenpox and have never been vaccinated. In compliance with the law, some vaccinations involved were almost certainly incomplete:CDC recommends two doses of chickenpox vaccine for children, adolescents, and adults who have never had chickenpox and were never vaccinated. Children are routinely recommended to receive the first dose at age 12 through 15 months and the second dose at age 4 through 6 years … People 13 years of age and older who have never had chickenpox or received chickenpox vaccine should get two doses, at least 28 days apart.To recap, claims of a “chickenpox outbreak” in Rocky Point spread on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit after a district-wide letter dated October 18 2019 began circulating. These claims were rife with misinformation, disinformation, and outright confusion over the content of the letter and a June 2019 change to New York’s state law, which eliminated religious exemptions for vaccination in students — of which there were 26,000 estimated at the time the law was passed. (Medical exemptions were not eliminated.) We found no indication that the state removed 26,000 children from school.The letter described “reported” chickenpox in Rocky Point, not an outbreak or even a case, leading to widespread chagrin at its purported appearance in a “100 percent vaccinated” population. Elements of the law meant that as it was implemented, some students might not be fully vaccinated against chickenpox as of October 2019. But even if they all were, the varicella vaccine is 90 percent effective at preventing infection, and nearly 100 percent effective against severe varicella. Even vaccinated people remain at risk of contracting a mild form of varicella, but typically not severe varicella.
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37782
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Someone put a tampon into a Los Angeles police officer's Starbucks drink.
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Did a Los Angeles Police Officer Find a Tampon in His Starbucks Cup?
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false
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
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Police in Los Angeles accused workers at a nearby Target store of tampering with an off-duty officer’s drink in June 2020, reigniting debate following other questionable claims by law enforcement agencies — but the object in the drink wasn’t what was initially claimed.According to KTTV-TV, the officer allegedly found what he described as “a tampon” inside the Frappuccino he ordered at a Starbucks located within the Target in Diamond Bar, a small city in Los Angeles County. Reporter Bill Melugin posted a photograph of the alleged tampon on Twitter:The officer was reportedly not wearing his uniform and paid for the drink with a debit card issued by a police credit union.We contacted Target seeking comment; the company sent us the same statement it gave to KTTV:We take this allegation seriously. We have reviewed video footage and have not found any suspicious behavior. We have shared the video with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and look forward to the conclusions of their investigation.Reached for comment and asked how the officer determined that the alleged object was a tampon, the sheriff’s department also shared a statement:Walnut Station Detectives are investigating an incident of alleged poisoning of food or drink at a local business. The incident was reported to have occurred Friday, June 19, 2020 at approximately 2:30p.m., on the 700 block of Grand Avenue in the city of Diamond Bar. The victim as a male White 36 years-old. This is an ongoing investigation. No further information is available at this time.The claim was formally debunked in late July 2020, when — according to KTTV — police determined that there was no “attack.” The staff member who prepared the drink unwittingly “scooped up a cleaning cloth that had fallen into ice” into the officer’s drink.“The investigation was unable to prove malicious intent on the part of the store employee,” Sheriff Alex Villanueva said in a statement.The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union representing local officers, initially called the alleged incident a “disgusting assault on a police officer was carried out by someone with hatred in their heart.”But even before the company’s statement, the claim of “assault” drew skepticism. Two separate news sites, Jezebel and Vice, conducted their own tests to see whether a tampon dipped into a Frappuccino would come out looking like the object in Melugin’s photo. The results of both tests ran counter to police allegations. According to Jezebel’s Megan Reynolds:The substance found in the Frappuccino does not resemble any sort of tampon that I’ve ever used or seen in the wild. It’s long, it’s clumpy, and if you look at it quickly, resembles a cat hairball or maybe some paper towels. A tampon doesn’t expand lengthwise and if it did, the shape would be uniform and not lumpen and irregular, as this item is. Tampons expand widthwise to accommodate a wide variety of body shapes and types. Everyone’s vagina is different, but a tampon that resembled housing insulation or a long clot of cotton batting would be entirely ineffective.Meanwhile, Vice reported that the object posted in Melugin’s photograph measured 4.957 inches, nearly an inch longer than the final length of the tampon the site used to recreate the alleged incident by soaking it in water and then leaving it inside a Frappuccino for two hours.“Suspicious, but not outside the realm of possibility for a lesser-quality tampon,” Vice noted. “Other things to keep in mind is that it appears the very bottom of the tampon is cut off in the photo uploaded to Twitter, and we do not know what zoom the image was taken at.”The intentional poisoning claim from Los Angeles police came less than a month after police union officials in New York City accused workers at a Shake Shack restaurant in Manhattan of doing the same to their own colleagues. As the New York Post reported:A lieutenant from the Bronx blasted out an email to the unions that six cops “started throwing up after drinking beverages they got from shake shack on 200 Broadway.”It was unclear why the sergeant and lieutenant escalated the situation.Detectives easily closed the case after interviewing five employees and reviewing surveillance footage showing the shakes were made normally, sources said.The machine was cleaned before the officers ordered, according to sources, and it still contained residual milkstone remover — a typically acidic solution used to combat buildup in dairy equipment.But by 10:45 p.m., the Detectives Endowment Association was declaring that Finest had become “ill” after being “intentionally poisoned by one or more workers at the Shake Shack” — as Police Benevolent Association president Pat Lynch made a show of visiting Bellevue while his union declared at 10:47 p.m. that police officers came “under attack” from a “toxic substance, believed to be bleach.”The allegation was debunked only one day later when Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison posted, “After a thorough investigation by the NYPD’s Manhattan South investigators, it has been determined that there was no criminality by shake shack’s employees.”It is worth noting that the “shunned policeman” is a known urban legend — a subtheme of the “shunned serviceman” folklore. The stories generally revolve around either some sort of attempt to poison or harm the aggrieved party via something put in their food or drink, or outright refusal to serve them. Stories of this nature are very rarely (if ever) true.Update July 29, 2020 9:41 a.m. PST: Updated throughout following determination that the object found in the drink was not a “tampon.”Comments
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37865
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Citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) or the American Disability Act (ADA) exempts anyone who opts not to wear a mask in public during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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COVID-19 HIPAA Face Mask Exemption ‘Passes’
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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Chances are in early May 2020 you saw at least one Facebook post depicting a somewhat-official looking printable document: A viral image claiming that Americans in any state where masks had been mandated or otherwise advised in public places were specifically exempt from any such public health rule or law due to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA):HIPAA Mask Exemption Meme Origin and ClaimsThe iteration above appeared to be the most widely circulated, and atop an icon of a masked individual with a circle and a slash over it, it read:I am exempt from the Governor’s regulation mandating face mask usage in public. Wearing a facemask poses a health risk to me.Under the ADA and HIPPA, I am not required to disclose my medical conditions to you.Department of Justice ADA Violation information line: 800-514-0300Organizations and businesses can be fined up to $75,000 for the first ADA violation and $150,000 for any subsequent violation.TO ALL GOVERNMENT AGENTS: PLEASE PROVIDE LAWFUL AND NECESSARY CONSIDERATION TO AID THE BEARER IN THE UNIMPEDED EXERCISE OF THEIR CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS. Thank you for your understanding and assistance.The version embedded above was shared by a former congressional candidate from Illinois named James Marter on May 2 2020, and the image itself was automatically scanned by meme aggregator iFunny.co the following day. It’s not clear when or in which particular state the meme originated, and others with more specific threatening language [PDF] also circulated.An Appended Link to the CDC’s HIPAA Landing PageMarter linked to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)’s boilerplate HIPAA definitions page, which shed approximately no light on how the claims of the mask exemption meme were somehow related to HIPAA. That page began with a definition of HIPAA’s “Security Rule”:Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)HIPAA Security Rule The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) is a federal law that required the creation of national standards to protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued the HIPAA Privacy Rule to implement the requirements of HIPAA. The HIPAA Security Rule protects a subset of information covered by the Privacy Rule.That portion of the page indicated that the HIPAA Security Rule required national standards in order to “protect sensitive patient health information from being disclosed without the patient’s consent or knowledge.” Although arguably the “consent” portion could be relevant, the “knowledge” portion was not.Directly beneath that, HIPAA’s “Privacy Rule” defined the scope of the two rules:HIPAA Privacy Rule The Privacy Rule standards address the use and disclosure of individuals’ health information (known as “protected health information”) by entities subject to the Privacy Rule. These individuals and organizations are called “covered entities.” The Privacy Rule also contains standards for individuals’ rights to understand and control how their health information is used. A major goal of the Privacy Rule is to ensure that individuals’ health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public’s health and well-being. The Privacy Rule strikes a balance that permits important uses of information while protecting the privacy of people who seek care and healing.To reiterate, Marter chose that link and that link alone to substantiate his claims about HIPAA’s relevance to the patchwork of public health directives recommending or requiring the usage of face masks in public areas. The second of the two rules — the Privacy Rule — involved individuals (i.e., bearers or a printed or laminated COVID-19 HIPAA exemption pass) and “covered entities.”So who are covered entities? According to the same page:Of the four covered entities, three were clearly irrelevant on their face: Providers, plans, and billers or data handlers. None of those entities were of the sort to whom such a document might be presented. The fourth, “business associates,” still fell under people directly handling protected health information — processing of claims or review of healthcare. None of the covered entities were targeted by the HIPAA mask exemption sheet — that would presumably be retail store owners, restaurants, and other public places or spaces whose purpose and function had no relation to health.In short, none of HIPAA’s covered entities were relevant to the claims about face mask exemptions.Exceptions to HIPAAAlthough covered entities were not restaurants, stores, malls, bowling alleys, hair salons, or other public places possibly following health and safety directives regarding masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, the portion following was still relevant to the claims.Even if restaurants, stores, and bowling alleys were “covered entities” under HIPAA, a section titled “Permitted Uses and Disclosures” followed immediately thereafter. It explained in part:Permitted Uses and Disclosures A covered entity is permitted, but not required, to use and disclose protected health information, without an individual’s authorization, for the following purposes or situations:… Public interest and benefit activities—The Privacy Rule permits use and disclosure of protected health information, without an individual’s authorization or permission, for 12 national priority purposes[. ]Those 12 exemptions were as follows:Five of the twelve listed conditions for HIPAA exemptions involved laws, rules, or public health in general. The site OSHA Healthcare Advisor addressed HIPAA claims and mask wearing in 2012:Q: Our healthcare facility is requiring employees to get the flu shot or they will have to wear a mask when within 6 feet of patients. Is this not a violation of employee or patient privacy?A. The Privacy Rule only protects the privacy of patient, not employees. Requiring non-vaccinated employees to wear a respiratory mask to protect the health of patients does not violate the patient’s privacy and may prevent the spread of infection.Notably, some portions of HIPAA’s Privacy Rule were waived in March 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic:Effective March 15, 2020, for example, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex M. Azar (Secretary) waived certain penalties and sanctions under the HIPAA Privacy Rule against hospitals in its March 2020 COVID-19 and HIPAA Bulletin.COVID-19 Face Mask Exemptions Under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA)According to ADA.gov:To be protected by the ADA, one must have a disability, which is defined by the ADA as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment. The ADA does not specifically name all of the impairments that are covered.Under any claimed or covered exemption to COVID-19 face mask orders under the ADA, an individual must have a legally recognized disability as defined by its provisions. The meme appeared to cobble together what someone believed HIPAA’s privacy mandates were along with the ADA’s accommodations, but the ADA did not entitle anyone to claim a disability they did not in fact have.Additional, expanded detail on legally mandated requirements for the ADA had largely to do with accessibility in matters such as architecture and mobility — not skirting public health law. An example from the ADA’s most relevant portion (Title III) illustrated the actual purpose of that law:Public accommodations must comply with basic nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment. They also must comply with specific requirements related to architectural standards for new and altered buildings; reasonable modifications to policies, practices, and procedures; effective communication with people with hearing, vision, or speech disabilities; and other access requirements. Additionally, public accommodations must remove barriers in existing buildings where it is easy to do so without much difficulty or expense, given the public accommodation’s resources.Disabilities Precluding or Preventing Compliance with COVID-19 Face Mask OrdersWe were unable to locate any example of a disability preventing the use of face masks in public or private spaces. However, business site JDSupra.com addressed claims reported by employers from employees asserting a disability (unspecified) preventing them from wearing face masks.People reading the COVID-19 HIPAA/ADA mask exemption meme might expect the provisions of both laws meant it was as simple as claiming a disability prevented them from wearing face masks. However, that guidance explained that was not actually the case and described how such a claim might progress:“We are requiring all employees to wear face coverings in accordance with recent CDC guidance and several employees have said they can’t wear them due to medical conditions.”Requiring a face mask or covering is a workplace rule that can be enforced by the employer, but the requirement may need to be accommodated, just like other workplace rules, for a disabled employee. In this case, the employees should be sent home and you should begin the ADA interactive process to find out what prevents them from wearing face coverings and whether there are any accommodations that would enable them to do so. It is entirely possible that no accommodations will exist and you do not need to waive the requirement (just like you don’t have to waive other workplace rules for an individual with a disability, like those related to workplace safety), but you still need to go through the interactive process before making that determination.If someone provides a legitimate medical reason for not wearing a face covering and you determine that there are no accommodations that would enable to employee to do so, the employee should be placed on an unpaid leave of absence until face coverings are no longer required. The same analysis should be performed for other types of temporarily required equipment or clothing, such as latex gloves. Again, this type of leave is not covered by the FFCRA and would be unpaid.Even in the far stricter realm of employer/employee relations, claims about inability to wear a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic did not necessarily mean the claimant was accommodated by relaxation of the rule. The employer was advised to determine why the employee might need such an accommodation; if no accommodation existed, the employee would be placed on unpaid leave “until face coverings were no longer required.”It is not clear if the printed HIPAA/ADA mask exemption document was intended for employees to present to employers — but if that was the intent of some users, they might be surprised to learn their claim could preclude their ability to work and be paid “until face coverings are no longer required.”The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) issued similar guidance, requiring further investigation of any such claim:If an employee refuses to wear a mask that has been required by state or local order or is otherwise strongly advised by OSHA or the CDC, then the employer should first attempt to explain the requirement to the employee and convince the employee of the need to wear the mask, [attorney Todd] Logsdon said. If an employee continues to refuse the legal or safety requirement, the employer may be able to suspend the employee. [Attorney Kathy Dudley] Helms noted that the employer needs to determine if a worker’s disability prevents him or her from wearing a mask. If so, the employer should engage in the normal interactive dialogue under the Americans with Disabilities Act, verify that the employee cannot wear a mask and state what possible accommodation would allow the employee to work.“If the employee finds a mask uncomfortable or prefers not to wear one, that is likely insufficient and an employer can require it as a condition of employment,” she said, noting that union settings may be different, and employers should consult their collective bargaining agreement.In short, it appeared employers were well within their rights to require employees wear masks — and, further, to suspend those who refused to comply. Even workers with a disability purportedly precluding the use of face masks were not legally guaranteed an exception (and seemed unlikely to receive one. )States and Other Jurisdictions Requiring or Recommending Masks in Public During COVID-19We located no centralized source for precisely which jurisdictions required masks, and the recommendations varied quite a lot — which is undoubtedly how so much disinformation is able to thrive about this very topic.Similar orders or mandates existed in cities, counties, and various jurisdictions. Notably, the orders were not identical — some addressed only employees, others customers, and some affected users of public transit.The Scope of COVID-19 Mask MandatesDetails in the above-linked news outlets demonstrated a relatively consistent patterns of the scope of COVID-19 mask orders, mandates, or other public health directives:No Shirt, No Shoes, No ServiceIf we go back to the claims of the meme and try to interpret its claims under HIPAA and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it fell apart under relatively little scrutiny. Employers were within their rights to require masks, and many states issued an array of orders requiring the use of masks in stores, restaurants, and other essential businesses.The ADA applied only to a legally recognized disability, and employers were not required to allow employees with a legitimate disability precluding or preventing the use of a face mask to continue working for the duration of the pandemic. Moreover, under those conditions, the employee could be placed on unpaid leave.It seemed the balance of the claims pertained to members of the public demanding entry to public places but refusing to comply with jurisdictional orders they wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. In short, the meme was largely aimed at putative patrons or customers of a business and their demand they be admitted or served while refusing to comply with public health orders.Most people are familiar with “no shirt, no shoes, no service” signs, or the ability of a business (restaurants or stores) in particular to refuse service for reasons related to health, safety, or discretion:A business can legally ban a customer not only based on its discretion, but also for health, safety, or other similar reasons, such as the customer being unruly, disrupting the business or its operations, causing injury, stress, or upset to employees, contractors, or other customers.Business are within their rights to refuse service for a variety of reasons — so long as those reasons are not race, religion, sexual orientation, or membership in any other protected class. (It did not appear “not wanting to wear a mask” had yet become a protected class. )COVID-19 Mask Mandate Refusal as Described in the Meme: Will It Work?Just as discretion is a primary reason businesses maintain the right to refuse service, they also maintain the ability to not refuse entry to unmasked customers:Lindsay Wiley, director of the Health Law and Policy Program at American University Washington College of Law, says that while [jurisdictional in Washington, D.C.] signage is mandatory, it’s essentially up to the businesses to determine how it will be enforced. While the mayor is telling individuals to wear masks, she isn’t mandating that in the order itself — such an order would be susceptible to constitutional rights challenges, according to Wiley. […]It’s also not exactly clear what fines or other measures the mayor would take in cases where people or businesses fail to comply; the order gives wide latitude for enforcement. “Any individual or entity that knowingly violates this Order may be subject to civil, criminal and administrative penalties, including sanctions or penalties for violating D.C. Official Code 7-2307, including civil fines or summary suspension or revocation of licenses,” the order reads. That section of the D.C. Code gives the mayor the ability to fine entities up to $1,000 per violation and revoke, limit, or suspend licenses. […]The Metropolitan Police Department said in an emailed statement that “retail food establishments may deny customers entry or ask them to leave based on a failure to wear a mask or follow other social distancing standards.” When MPD officers encounter or receive complaints about people who violate the mayor’s orders, “the goal is to obtain voluntary compliance,” the statement reads, and “members will educate the public on health and safety risks as well as the potential consequences if they do not comply.”By the same token, it’s possible a retail or food service employee presented with a copy of the meme would be unaware it’s not really legally solid, and permit an unmasked person to enter based upon its implied claims. (But that wouldn’t mean they were accurate claims. )COVID-19 Mask Mandate Exemption, in SummationA viral image claiming HIPAA and the ADA exempted anyone who didn’t want to wear a mask from localized COVID-19 face mask mandates didn’t appear to be legally sound — even in the more regulated employer/employee relationship and even in the presence of a legally documented disability, individuals “unable” to wear masks might be sent home without pay for the duration of the pandemic. Businesses were within their rights to refuse entry to anyone not complying with local public health ordinances requiring masks, and even in the event a legally documented disability prevented the wearing of masks, no one was entitled to jeopardize public health due to their own disability. It was possible those who printed and presented the COVID-19 mask exemption document would be allowed entry, but we found no legal basis permitted people who didn’t want to wear masks from violating regional public health ordinances.Update, June 25 2020In late June 2020, a number of Facebook posts about the HIPAA and ADA “face mask exemption passes” began circulating — this time warning business owners that the referenced “FTBA” stood for “Freedom to Breathe Association”:That post (and others like it) referenced a domain name printed on the “pass,” “ftbagency.com,” and the poster said “a real government organization the website would be .gov not .com.” Beyond that, the domain in question as of June 25 2020 was not functional and led to the following Wix.com website builder message:Looks Like This Domain Isn’t Connected To A Website Yet!ADA.gov Warns: ‘*COVID-19 ALERT: Fraudulent Facemask Flyers*’An undated alert shared to ADA.gov warned Americans “not to rely on the information” presented on the social media posts and printed passes, describing them as “fraudulent”:*COVID-19 ALERT: Fraudulent Facemask Flyers*The Department of Justice has been made aware of postings or flyers on the internet regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the use of face masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of which include the Department of Justice’s seal.These postings were not issued by the Department and are not endorsed by the Department.The Department urges the public not to rely on the information contained in these postings and to visit ADA.gov for ADA information issued by the Department.For more information and technical assistance about the ADA, please contact the ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (voice) and 800-514-0383 (TTY).As indicated above, the Department of Justice “urge[d] the public not to rely on the information” spreading in the posts on on the ADA/HIPAA “mask exemption pass” printouts, and disavowed the use of its seal. The ADA shared the message on its own website in an attempt to defray the widely-spreading and dangerous disinformation.Comments
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Louisiana hopes to fight coast erosion by mimicking nature.
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Back when the Mississippi River flowed wild, its ever-shifting waters acted as a continent-sized earth mover, picking up sand and dirt from the North, depositing it in the Delta region and eventually creating the land that is now south Louisiana.
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true
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Mississippi, Floods, General News, Mississippi River, Louisiana, Science, U.S. News, Erosion
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Thousands of years later, the mighty river is held in check with man-made levees and flood-control systems. But Louisiana officials are making plans to tap into the Mississippi’s ancient power to build new land as a way to reverse coastal erosion and ease the threat of rising seas. Engineers hope to remake some eroded marshes by cutting into the levees and siphoning off sediment-rich water that can be channeled into coastal basins. When the sediment settles out of the water, it will slowly accrue into soil. “The fundamental problem in coastal Louisiana is that lack of sediment, and so we’re trying to mimic the way Mother Nature would have delivered that sediment to our coast in the past,” said Bren Haase, who leads the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Some skeptics question whether the idea poses its own environmental risks. But if it works, the project will restore a crucial buffer against storm surges and offer new habitat for migratory birds and fish that rely on wetlands. Saltwater is eating away at the coast, accelerated by a network of canals cut for oil and gas development, navigation and logging. The state estimates that it has lost just over 2,000 square miles of land _ a tract about the size of Delaware _ since 1932. If nothing is done, as much as 4,200 square miles could vanish over the next 50 years depending on sea level. Using the river to rebuild the coast has been discussed for decades, but it was not until settlement money from the 2010 BP oil spill became available that plans began in earnest. The explosion killed 11 people on a rig leased by BP and resulted in millions of gallons of oil spewing into the gulf for three months. Louisiana is putting much of its share of the settlement toward coastal restoration, including spending a little more than $2 billion on two projects dubbed Mid-Barataria and Mid-Breton for the bodies of water in which they will be placed. One of the key advantages of the sediment-diversion system is that it can operate continuously for decades, as opposed to dredging, which involves a onetime effort to scoop sediment from one location and deposit it in another. “For a dredge project, we may be talking 100 acres, 200 acres or 1,000. We’re doing some of the bigger dredge projects we’ve ever done before, but we’re still talking low thousands. Diversions have the potential for tens of thousands of acres,” said Brad Barth, sediment diversion program director with the CPRA. As the diverted river water drains from the basin, the sediment settles out and begins accumulating. Over time, it piles up, first under the water and then emerging above the surface. Eventually, vegetation such as marsh grass or willow trees can take root. State officials are in the permitting process. The earliest start to construction would be in 2021 or 2022. But an airboat tour through the marshes created by an existing diversion project gives a hint of what might lie ahead. The Davis Pond Diversion was built to channel freshwater from the Mississippi into Barataria Bay to balance out salinity levels that have risen as Gulf water encroached. The diversion carries a fraction of the water that the two larger projects will, and building land was not the goal but a happy byproduct. Where there used to be open water, grass and willows now grow on a ridge. The land is so dense that a person can walk on it _ a major change in about a decade, said Rudy Simoneaux, a state coastal engineer. When it comes to the Mid-Barataria project, the time frame for land emerging above the surface would depend on a lot of factors such as water levels in the Mississippi. But Simoneaux said results could be evident in five years. “I think you would see those natural ridges start to form, and you would see the woody formations happen just the same as here,” he said. Not everyone is as eager. Robert Campo’s family has been in the fishing industry since 1903. Fishermen still come to his dock in Shell Beach to buy brown shrimp for bait. Campo and others worry the diversions will flood their fishing areas with dirty Mississippi river water, destroying an industry vital to the state’s economy and culture. Shrimpers worry they’ll have to travel much farther to fish; oystermen worry about losing millions of dollars invested in oyster reefs. “We all want coastal restoration. Trust me, I’m a big advocate for it. I think we need to rebuild this whole coast. But there’s other ways of doing it ... with minimal effects to our fisheries,” Campo said. Diversion opponents also point to recent flooding-fighting efforts on the Mississippi. Fed by rain and melting snows in the Midwest, the Mississippi ran unusually high for months earlier this year. The Army Corps of Engineers twice opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway, which protects New Orleans’ levees by channeling huge amounts of river water into normally brackish Lake Pontchartrain, a huge tidal basin that drains into the Gulf. The sudden release of freshwater into saltwater ecosystems killed oysters, diminished fish catches and damaged livelihoods. Skeptics question how much land will be built. R. Eugene Turner, a professor at LSU’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, has argued in a recent study that existing diversions _ including Davis Pond _ have led to overall land loss. Haase, from CPRA, said operators will have much more control over the diversion systems than they have over the spillway. A system of monitors will alert them to how the ecosystem is responding so they can make changes. He said the federal permitting process will help identify areas, such as oyster grounds, that might be affected by the diversions, so the state can help them. “If we’re going to get to where we think we need to get on our coast, bold action is required,” Haase said. “These are bold projects.” ___ Follow Rebecca Santana on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ruskygal .
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Turkey could impose stay-at-home order if coronavirus outbreak worsens.
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Turkey could order the public to stay at home if coronavirus infections continue to spread, the government said on Thursday as it clamped down further on medical equipment leaving the country.
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Health News
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The government announced such a measure for people older than 65 over the weekend, but not for the general public as some other countries have done. Istanbul’s mayor urged national authorities to do so on Thursday, saying nearly a million people were still using public transport in the country’s largest city. The respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus has killed 75 people in Turkey after cases surged in two weeks to 3,629. (Click here here for a graphic of the virus's global spread) “Complete social isolation is always on our agenda,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said on AHaber TV. Asked whether a complete curfew would be announced, he said: “If we cannot prevent the epidemic with these measures, we can of course take the highest measure.” To contain the virus, Ankara has closed schools, cafes and bars, banned mass prayers, and suspended sports matches and flights. President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey, which has a population of about 83 million, would overcome the coronavirus outbreak in two to three weeks. However, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu called on the government to impose a general stay-at-home order, at least in his city if it was not possible nationwide. “We are in the most critical phase of the outbreak,” he said on Twitter. “If the necessary steps aren’t taken today, it is evident there will be disappointment in the future.” Separately on Thursday, the government decreed that companies now need permission from authorities to export medical tools used for respiratory support, given rising domestic demand. The rule covers the export of ventilators and related gear, oxygen concentrators, intubation tubes and intensive care monitors, and other medical equipment. Ankara previously said it would stop exporting locally made face masks. Turkey’s Higher Education Council said there would be no face-to-face classes in the spring term, distance learning would continue and university exams would be postponed to July 25-26. Ankara has also rolled out measures to cushion the blow to its economy, announcing a $15 billion economic package including support for businesses and hard-hit sectors such as tourism and transport. The central bank said it was monitoring the economic impact of the outbreak and would deploy all policy tools resolutely to ensure the smooth functioning of financial markets. And the Turkish banking watchdog has decided to provide flexibility for banks’ liquidity ratio requirements until Dec. 31 due to the outbreak, it said.
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41206
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In 2008, US children got 36 vaccines and the autism rate was 1 in 150.
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US children were recommended to get around 13 vaccines, which involved about 39 doses, in 2008. It was estimated that about 1 in 88 children has autism disorders.
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false
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online
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In 2008, US children got 36 vaccines and the autism rate was 1 in 150. US children were recommended to get around 13 vaccines, which involved about 39 doses, in 2008. It was estimated that about 1 in 88 children has autism disorders. In 2013, US children got 46 vaccines and the autism rate was 1 in 88. US children were recommended to get around 13 vaccines, which involved about 53 doses, in 2013. In 2012, 1 in 69 were estimated to have autism disorders and in 2014, it was 1 in 59 (we found no figures for 2013). Increasing numbers of vaccines are associated with increasing rates of autism. Dozens of scientific studies have shown there is no link between autism or autism spectrum disorders and vaccines. Claim 1 of 4
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Absentee voting is different from mail-in voting and has more protections against fraud.
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There is no objective difference between absentee voting and voting by mail. All mail ballots, regardless of how they are requested, are treated the same once they’re cast. They all require verification before being counted.
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false
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Elections, Donald Trump,
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"As many states prepare for increased mail voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump has repeatedly raised concerns about the voting process. He’s ly suggested that there’s a difference between traditional absentee voting and states’ expanded mail voting, especially when it comes to verifying and securing votes. At a July 30 press briefing, Trump was asked about a tweet earlier that day in which he floated delaying the Nov. 3 election. That idea was quickly shot down by numerous Republican leaders as well as Democrats. At the briefing, Trump repeated his objections to voting by mail. ""Absentee is different. Absentee, you have to work. You have to send in for applications. You have to go through a whole procedure,"" Trump said. He went on to distinguish between his right to have a ballot delivered to him and the rights of the general public to cast votes via mail. ""For instance, I’m an absentee voter because I can’t be in Florida, because I’m in Washington,"" Trump said. ""I’m at the White House, so I’ll be an absentee voter. We have a lot of absentee voters, and it works. We’re in favor of absentee, but it’s much different than millions of people in California. They’re going to send out tens of millions of voting forms. Well, where are they going to go? You read where postmen are in big trouble now. You read where city councils are in big trouble now. Voter fraud all over the ballot."" Trump has made this point numerous times this summer. • June 25: ""Like, I'm in White House, and I have to vote in Florida, et cetera, et cetera. You're an absentee; that's okay. But people go through a process for that. ... But the mail-in ballots, they mail them to anybody. And they send them out by the millions. I think I read over 30 million ballots are going to be sent out in California."" • July 10: ""Absentee Ballots are fine because you have to go through a precise process to get your voting privilege. Not so with Mail-Ins."" • July 15: ""So absentee ballot: Great. Mail-in ballot: Absolutely no good. It makes no sense. A governor sends out millions of ballots all over the place; they don't know where they're going."" We have debunked Trump’s hoods about voter fraud and election rigging, including for mail-in ballots. Proven cases of non-citizens casting ballots are rare. For this fact-check, we will explain why absentee and mail-in ballots are the same thing, and that, whatever term you use, the verification process is the same. ""There’s really no distinction,"" said Darren Hutchinson, a law professor at the University of Florida and an elections expert. ""So, it’s basically a hood that’s been repeated over and over and over again."" The coronavirus pandemic has raised concerns about voters’ safety as they wait in crowded polling places on Election Day — some may choose not to show up at all. Because of this, some states have encouraged the use of mail voting. (Five states had already run virtually all-mail elections: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.) In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring counties to send all active registered voters a mail-in ballot about a month before the Nov. 3 election, joining the all-mail election states plus Vermont and Washington D.C. Other states are allowing voters to request those ballots, either online or by mail. In the states that allow broad use of mail ballots, there is no distinction in how a voter requests ""absentee"" ballots and other types of mail ballots. Trump may not like the policy of sending out ballots to all registered voters, but it is wrong to suggest that ballots cast that way are different from absentee ballots or that they aren’t subject to the same scrutiny. Part of the linguistic confusion may be generational: Many states have phased out the use of the term ""absentee,"" including California and Florida. In 2016, for instance, the Florida Legislature unanimously voted to change the phrase ""absentee"" to ""vote-by-mail,"" in order to ease confusion among voters who mistakenly believed that they had to be away from home to request a ballot by mail. Some election advocates now use the term ""vote at home,"" because ballots in some states can be dropped off in person at designated lockboxes rather than mailed. So when Trump says he’s an absentee voter in Florida because he’s ""at the White House,"" that’s not accurate. It doesn’t matter where he is; Trump, like any other registered Florida voter, can cast a ballot without going to an in-person site. Regardless of the terminology, elections experts say there is no difference between how ""absentee"" and ""mail-in ballots"" are treated. In 34 states and Washington, D.C., voters can use ""no excuse"" absentee voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Under no-excuse absentee voting, the voter does not need to attest that they will be out of the jurisdiction on Election Day, or that they cannot get to the polls because of an illness or disability. There is no special process that absentee out-of-town voters go through that other mail-in voters do not, Hutchinson said. The verification process actually begins well before any ballot is sent out. It starts with voter registration, a process which requires officials to determine if someone is eligible. Election offices also periodically update their registration lists, including removing inactive voters or those who have died. Many states are members of the Electronic Registration Information Center, which sends each member state reports showing voters who have moved within their state or out of state, have died or duplicate registrations. Once a completed ballot is received by election officials, the identity of every voter is confirmed. In California, for instance, county elections officials check every vote-by-mail ballot to see whether the voter has already cast a ballot elsewhere. All ballot envelopes have unique barcodes, and local jurisdictions use specific paper types and watermarks for their ballots. Officials then compare the voter’s signature against the signature on the voter’s registration record. ""Fundamentally, it’s the same thing,"" said Amber McReynolds, Denver’s former director of elections and chief executive officer of the National Vote at Home Institute. ""Ballots are handled exactly the same regardless of whether or not it's an absentee ballot or a vote-by-mail ballot."" States typically allow voters an opportunity to correct mistaken information they’ve filled in on their ballot, or if officials see too much of a discrepancy between the signature on file and the signature on the ballot. When voters are notified of any problems with their information on the envelope, they are able to fix the problem in time to have their ballot counted. Procedures to help voters track their ballots also helps with the verification process. For example voters in Palm Beach County, where Trump is a registered voter at Mar-A-Lago, can use the county website to track when the ballot was mailed to the voter and when it was received by the elections office. In Denver, voters can sign up to get information via text about their ballot, including when it was approved to be counted. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said July 31 the increase of mail ballots is the problem this cycle. ""Mass mail-out ballots are going to be more at risk of fraud,"" she said, citing multiple news reports about delays in tabulating results or rejection of mail ballots, including those that arrived after the deadline. There have been delays in counting mail-in ballots, including in New York, and other problems including voters who said their requested ballots never arrived. All of those problems raise concerns about how some states that are unaccustomed to widespread voting by mail will gear up for the Nov. 3 election. However, that doesn’t mean that there is any difference in verifying these votes. Trump said, ""Absentee is different (from mail-in ballots). Absentee, you have to work. You have to send in for applications. You have to go through a whole procedure."" There is no distinction between absentee voting and voting by mail. All mail ballots, regardless of how they are requested, are treated the same once they’re cast, and they require verification before being counted."
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Since 1980, over 145 incidents have been documented of suction entrapment in swimming pools and spas, including 36 deaths of children.
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State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte says there have been more than 145 incidents of pool drain entrapments since 1980, resulting in the deaths of 36 children
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true
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Children, Consumer Safety, Texas, Leticia Van de Putte,
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"Filing legislation that would require someone selling property to disclose whether a home swimming pool or hot tub has a hazardous drain, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said in a press release: ""Too many Texas children are harmed and killed in pools."" ""Since 1980, over 145 incidents have been documented of suction entrapment in swimming pools and spas, including 36 deaths of children,"" according to her Feb. 16 press release. Her proposed legislation amends the state’s seller’s disclosure notice so that sellers say whether the property has a single blockable main drain in a pool, hot tub or spa, which ""may cause a suction entrapment hazard for an individual."" Van de Putte spokeswoman Sarah Gomez told us the senator has offered pool safety legislation the past three sessions. In 2009, the Senate approved her measure requiring residential pools and spas built or installed in Texas to be enclosed by barriers preventing small children from entering unsupervised, among other stipulations. It died in the House. Responding to our request for back-up for the senator’s numbers, Gomez sent us the background from a 2007 federal law, an earlier study of entrapment dangers and articles indicating a federal agency has long tracked entrapment incidents and resulting deaths. The background section of the 2007 Virgina Graeme Baker Pool and Safety Spa Act, a federal law setting tougher safety standards for public pools and spas, says that at least 33 children 14 and younger died from 1985 through 2000 as a result of drain entrapment. Gomez also provided a May 2006 study by Safe Kids Worldwide, a Washington-based group which launched in 1988 to advocate childhood injury prevention. The group joined with Nancy Baker to advocate for the act named after her daughter, who drowned in a hot tub at a family friend’s home in Virginia after she was entrapped by the drain’s suction. The study states that ""entrapment occurs when part of a child’s body becomes attached to a drain as a result of the powerful suction of the water circulation system, or an arm or leg is inserted into a drain with a missing or broken cover."" A child can drown if the suction overpowers his or her ability to disengage. According to an October 2003 Pool & Spa News article, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed 147 suction entrapment incidents from 1985 and March 2002, resulting in 36 deaths — not all of them children. We asked Gomez about the senator’s reference to 36 child deaths, Gomez said Van de Putte misread that statistic. ""It was 36 total deaths,"" she said. ""It was not intentional and she was not trying to mislead anyone."" Next, Tanya Chin Ross, director of policy for Safe Kids Worldwide, pointed us to a May 2010 memo from the product safety commission tracking drain entrapments and deaths each year from 1999 to 2009, listing 94 entrapments in pools, spas and whirlpool tubs — including 49 incidents in residential facilities. The agency’s tally suggests that at least six entrapped children died from 2001 through 2009, a result that would make the total of confirmed child deaths from such incidents since 1985 at least 39. According to the memo, the commission eliminated reports that didn’t involve drain entrapments or were duplicates. Commission spokeswoman Kathleen Reilly told us that the agency investigates incident reports it receives directly. Otherwise, the agency tries to confirm claims ""by getting as much data as possible,"" including hospital and police reports, she said. Reilly told us that between 1985 and 2009, the agency received reports of 154 incidents resulting from pool, spa, hot tub or whirlpool entrapments, including 54 deaths; she didn’t have a count for children who died. Finally, we sought Texas-specific data. Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services, told us the agency tabulates pool drownings, but not yet drain entrapments. All told, it looks like Van de Putte understates the 154 people, at least, who have been sucked into a U.S. pool or spa drain. While her backup information didn’t prove that 36 children died as a result, the sources we culled suggest that at least 39 children have perished."
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2879
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Regeneron, Bayer to co-develop Eylea combination treatment.
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U.S. based-Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc and Germany’s Bayer AG said they would co-develop an antibody for use in combination with Eylea, their treatment for a form of age-related blindness.
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true
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Health News
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Bayer’s unit, Bayer HealthCare, will pay Regeneron $25.5 million upfront and share global development costs for the program, the companies said in a joint statement. Both the Eylea injection and the new combination treatment is to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD) - the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. “Given the multi-factorial nature of wet AMD, there is a potential for additional benefits to patients by addressing different pathways responsible for this devastating condition”, Bayer HealthCare global development head Kemal Malik said. Regeneron will hold marketing rights to the drug in the United States, while Bayer will have rights outside the U.S. The two companies will split the profits from outside the U.S. Regeneron is eligible to get up to $40 million in option and milestone payments once the drug is approved. The drug is expected to be tested for safety and efficacy early this year. AMD is a chronic condition that requires visually impaired patients to make monthly visits to the clinic. Since its launch in late 2011, Eylea has become one of the fastest-growing medicines in the history of biotechnology, grabbing market share from rivals such as Roche AG’s Lucentis. Bayer and Regeneron are also collaborating on the development of Eylea, which is currently being tested for use in diabetic macular edema (DME) and macular edema following branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO). Tarrytown, New York-based Regeneron closed at $268.68 on the Nasdaq on Monday.
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27299
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Some immigrant children were placed with human traffickers during the Obama administration.
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We have reached out to HHS with a number of questions regarding the care of newly-separated children and the method with which they will be tracked and eventually reunited with parents. We have not received a response.
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true
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Politics, immigrant children, immigration, trump administration
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On 17 June 2018, right-wing blogs published a flurry of stories reporting that the administration of former United States President Barack Obama had handed immigrant children over to human traffickers. The reports were posted in response to the public outcry over a policy enacted by Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, whose administration in April 2018 announced a “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Under this policy, all adults who are caught crossing the southern U.S. border between ports of entry are being charged with federal crimes and then separated from accompanying children. As the policy went into effect, news reports documenting scenes of distraught, traumatized children being torn from their parents by immigration authorities, and images migrant children being held in cages, created a backlash from both sides of the political spectrum against the Trump administration. In response to the growing fallout, the president’s supporters wrote up stories criticizing his predecessor based on a 2015 criminal case and 2016 Senate report stemming from a Marion, Ohio human trafficking ring that used migrant children for forced labor on an egg farm. Right-leaning blogs like WesternJournal.com’s Conservative Tribune for example confusingly reported the media was “silent” about the case while aggregating their story from a New York Magazine report: The left-leaning media stayed strangely silent when the detention of migrant children went on for years before Trump took office… and now it looks like they also kept quiet when Barack Obama’s administration literally placed immigrant children in the hands of human traffickers just a few years ago. “The United States government placed an unknown number of Central American migrant children into the custody of human traffickers after neglecting to run the most basic checks on these so-called ‘caregivers,’” New York magazine reported in 2016, based on a Senate report. It’s an obviously false statement that the “left-leaning media stayed strangely silent” about the case, because a simple Google search reveals it has been thoroughly reported on by local and national outlets and is the subject of a PBS documentary film. As the text notes, Conservative Tribune’s own story was based on such reporting. In July 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted a ring of traffickers led by Aroldo Castillo-Serrano and accused them of smuggling children into the United States. They were also accused of lying to Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) by posing as relatives in order to gain custody of children in its care and use them for forced labor in Marion, a city north of Columbus. The federal indictment, filed in U.S. district court in Ohio accuses Castillo-Serrano and his conspirators of forcing the children to live in squalid trailers and work six or seven 12-hour days a week, using threats and physical violence as coercion. According to the Justice Department, Castillo-Serrano pleaded guilty in August 2015 to counts related to trafficking. He was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison and ordered to pay restitution to the victims. The case spurred a Senate subcommittee investigation led by Rob Portman (R-Ohio) which concluded the processes used by ORR to screen sponsors “are inadequate to protect the children in the agency’s care.” At the time, HHS lacked a system to screen potential sponsors for signs of trafficking, like accumulating multiple unrelated children. It did not physically assess homes children were being placed in and did not do adequate background checks on adults residing in those homes. The report found that in 2014, “HHS permitted a sponsor to block a child-welfare case worker from visiting with one of the victims, even after the case worker discovered the child was not living at the address on file with HHS.” As a result of the investigation, HHS and the Department of Homeland Security entered into an agreement to hammer out a joint plan that would address the issues raised in the report. As of 26 April 2018, that still had not happened according to Portman, who released a statement blasting the agencies for their failure to take action. He wrote: The agreement said the agencies would enter into a detailed “Joint Concept of Operations” that would spell out what the agencies would do to fix the problems. They gave themselves a deadline of February 2017. That was over a year ago. It’s now April 2018. We still don’t have that Joint Concept of Operations — the JCO — and despite repeated questions from Sen. Carper and me, as well as our staffs, over the past year, we don’t have any answers about why that is. In fact, in a recent meeting, a DHS official asked our investigators why we even cared about the JCO. The issue of HHS’s lack of accountability for unaccompanied immigrant children came to a head in May 2018 when HHS acting assistant secretary of Administration for Children and Families Steven Wagner told a Senate oversight committee that the agency could not account for 1,475 children it had placed with sponsors from October to December 2017. The furor over that story accompanied outrage over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, with critics raising concerns that the federal government was unnecessarily overwhelming an already-overburdened system with traumatized children. To make matters worse, an investigation published 19 June 2018 by McClatchy revealed that the figure was only a snapshot from a three-month period and the number of children who are unaccounted for by HHS is actually nearly 6,000. The figure is likely exacerbated by an April 2018 agreement that allows background check information, including immigration status, of caregivers like parents and relatives to be shared with immigration authorities. McClatchy reported: The new estimate comes as backlash widens over President Donald Trump’s’ decision to separate parents and children. Advocates argue the growing numbers of unaccounted children should be expected as families and sponsors become more fearful of federal officials that is now using information from government social workers to run immigration checks and, in some cases, target sponsors, including parents and family members, for removal.
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36363
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"Proposed laws in North Carolina will make it so putative rape victims cannot ""withdraw consent"" once a sex act has started."
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Is North Carolina Changing Rape Laws So Victims Cannot ‘Withdraw Consent’?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Politics
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Amid a rash of near-total abortion bans in various American states in May 2019, a screenshot of two tweets regarding sexual consent laws in North Carolina caused further confusion on social media.As of May 22 2019, one of the two tweets was deleted, but one was still live:what the fuck is happening in america right now https://t.co/shIfrbUBrK— veronica 🌹 (@okok_veronica) May 17, 2019In the screenshot, both the deleted tweet and its live response were visible:At the top, the original tweet read:How they gonna change the criteria of consent[? ]A photograph of a television screen displaying what appeared to be a news graphic read:GETTING AWAY WITH RAPE? NORTH CAROLINA SEX ASSAULT LAWS UNDER SCRUTINYRAPISTS PROTECTED BY LOOPHOLE? NC LAW: CONSENT CANNOT BE WITHDRAWN ONCE SEX STARTS [… lawmakers] considering a bill that would change criteria for consentBased on the graphic, readers inferred:However, some telling portions of the graphic included text questioning if “rapists” were “protected” by a loophole, and another suggesting that (existing) North Carolina laws held that “consent cannot be withdrawn once sex starts.”Commenters on the one of two tweets that had not been deleted pointed out that the graphic could be read another way:that's the current law in NC. right now they're trying to change that so that consent can be revoked during sex.— Julia Towns (@townsjulia) May 18, 2019The top is the current law , they are trying to change it so that people CAN revoke consent, this picture is worded weird but if you look into it it’s actually a good thing!! !— pride month bitches (@_ThatGothBitch_) May 18, 2019According to a 2017 Fayetteville Observer article, North Carolina’s atypical handling of rape and sexual consent comes from case law that was established in 1979:In 1979, the North Carolina Supreme Court, in State v. Way, ruled that women cannot revoke consent after sexual intercourse begins.Jeff Jackson, a Democratic state senator who represents Mecklenburg County, is working to get the law changed. He said many other women have approached him privately about cases in which they withdrew consent for sex, but the law would not permit the men to be charged.“Legislators are hearing more and more about women who have been raped and are being denied justice because of this crazy loophole,” Jackson said. “North Carolina is the only state in U.S. where no doesn’t mean no.”Jackson is the sponsor of Senate Bill 553, which would criminalize the failure to stop intercourse when a woman who had originally consented changed her mind.In March 2019, the same news organization reported that the 2017 efforts did not result in a change to the law:Rep. Chaz Beasley and Sen. Jeff Jackson, Democrats from Mecklenburg County, proposed a bill in 2017 to criminalize continued sex after revocation of consent. The General Assembly never acted on the measure.The same article noted that North Carolina’s handling of rape cases was heavily influenced by that anomalous “loophole”:This problem [of differing accounts between the accuser and accused] exists nationwide, but it is heightened in North Carolina because of a 40-year-old legal precedent that says a person cannot revoke consent after the act begins. Continuing to have sex after being asked to stop does not constitute a crime.North Carolina is the only state in the nation where this is true, said Skye David, staff attorney for the N.C. Coalition Against Sexual Assault.In April 2019, Jackson once again attempted to revise consent provisions in North Carolina law with Senate Bill 563:Senate Bill 563 would change that. The proposal, which was filed [in April 2019], would amend state law to say that any person who consents to a sexual act can withdraw consent at any time during the act. The bill would mean any person who continues with the sex will be considered committing “sexual act by force.”Democratic State Senator Jeff Jackson is one of the bill’s sponsors. He said current state laws make it harder to prosecute sex assault cases.“Law enforcement officers have declined to take out charges because of this law. Fixing this has been on my to-do list since joining the state senate,” Jackson said.On May 9 2019, The News & Observer reported that Jackson’s effort was unsuccessful:A bill that would make it illegal to continue to have sex with someone who told the other person to stop has died in a state Senate committee.North Carolina may remain the only state in the country where someone cannot be charged with rape for continuing to have sex with a partner who told them to stop. It stems from a 40-year-old legal precedent.Despite the demise of the Senate measure, it remains possible for a similar provision to be added to another piece of legislation. A state representative who has sponsored a separate bill reversing other precedents affecting sexual assaults told Carolina Public Press [in May 2019] that he would not object to the addition of such language to his bill, which passed the House without opposition.As of May 2019, efforts to change the consent provision in North Carolina law remained unfruitful. Nevertheless, the circulating screenshot about the law appeared to involve a sort of reverse reading of the situation. In 1979, case law established in the state that consent for sex could not be withdrawn with respect to rape prosecution. Lawmakers sought not to enact such a provision, but to overturn it.
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11254
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Lung Cancer Screening Often Raises False Alarm
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An article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine adds new fuel to the debate over the utility of lung cancer screening. The ongoing results of the National Lung Screening Trial from the National Cancer Institute are highly anticipated and many hope it will bring some clarity to this controversial topic. The full results won’t be available for another year or two, however this week’s publication provides a look at an important drawback of screening: false positive results. Preliminary results show that up to a third of all suspicious nodules found on CT scan were not actually cancer. For the patient, this means unnecessary anxiety, additional follow-up testing, and potentially risky and invasive procedures. Fundamentally, whether or not screening the benefits of screening justify these risks remains to be seen. This story, in relatively few words, is notably strong in describing these risks, not only in quantitative terms, but in terms that are meaningful to someone considering screening. Both CT scans and x-rays generate significant numbers of false positive results when used to screen for lung cancer. Patients should carefully consider the consequences of these tests before initiating screening.
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true
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The story clearly states the cost of a CT scan. The story could have commented on the fact that insurance may not cover it as a screening test. Because the story focuses on the false positivity rate of CT scanning, it would not be necessary for it to also quantify the potential benefits. The story is particularly strong in its description and quantification of potential harms from CT screening. Not only does the story quantify the percentage of false positive results, but it clearly and vividly describes what they mean to the patient. The story does a good job of describing the current study, a large randomized trial from the National Cancer Institute. No disease-mongering in this story. The story could have been improved by quoting independent experts who could have provided more perspective on the importance of these findings. The story compares CT scanning to conventional X-rays as a screening method. CT scanning to detect and/or diagnose lung cancer is clearly widely available. CT scanning to detect and/or diagnose lung cancer is not a new idea. Whether to use this technology to screen widely for lung cancer is a relatively new and highly controversial idea. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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8434
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Malaysia to step up coronavirus tests with Korean antigen rapid kits.
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Malaysia has approved the use of antigen rapid test kits from South Korea, as it looks to increase its coronavirus testing among high-risk groups and in places where clusters are detected, a health official said on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy said last month it was considering buying 1 million rapid antigen test kits from South Korea in an effort to screen more people for the virus. The health ministry has placed orders for the test kits and expects to get the first batch by next week, after tests showed a sensitivity level of 84.4% for the coronavirus, the director-general of health Noor Hisham Abdullah told reporters. “Now that we have a test kit that is fast, portable and is cheap ... that will make the difference,” Noor Hisham told a daily news conference. Malaysia, which until Monday had the highest number of confirmed cases in the region, has relied solely on polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, laboratory tests to confirm the presence of the novel coronavirus as serology, or antibody, rapid test kits proved unreliable. However, a rising number of suspected cases and the need for more testing put a strain on the 43 laboratories set up to process samples, with more than 8,000 results pending reported this month, before the health ministry stopped publishing backlog data. Health authorities have also resumed using the serology test kits as a final check at the end of a 14-day mandatory quarantine period for suspected coronavirus cases, in a bid to reduce the backlog of tests at laboratories. Malaysia reported 110 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus on Thursday, raising its tally to 5,182. The health ministry also reported one new death, taking the total number of fatalities from the outbreak to 84.
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24432
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Guantanamo Bay detainees will get the H1N1 vaccine.
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Hannity says H1N1 vaccines will be given to Gitmo detainees
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true
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National, Health Care, Pundits, Terrorism, Sean Hannity,
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"The Obama administration's handling of the H1N1 vaccine has given conservatives plenty to complain about. First, the government got behind schedule with its massive vaccination plans. And then came reports that the Pentagon was planning to vaccinate the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sean Hannity complained of the hypocrisy on his Nov. 2, 2009, show. ""So you were hoping to get the H1N1 vaccine,"" he said. ""Well, if the vaccine hasn't reached a doctor's office near you, that might be because it's on its way to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. That's right. A military spokesman announced Gitmo detainees will receive the vaccine sometime this month. That's well before it's expected to be available to the public at large. Seems the Obama administration has its priorities straight. Doesn't it?"" Given the confusion over the program -- and a White House denial about the Guantanamo vaccinations -- we decided to look into Hannity's claim. It all started on Oct. 30, when CNN ran a story quoting Maj. Diana R. Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay, who said the Pentagon would be offering the H1N1 vaccines to people held at the camp. ""Detainees at JTF Guantanamo are considered to be at higher risk and therefore they will be offered the H1N1 vaccination,"" she told CNN. ""JTF Guantanamo conducts safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detainees. As such, we must provide detainees the medical care necessary to maintain their health."" The Associated Press ran a similar story on Nov. 2. The news sparked an onslaught of criticism from lawmakers of both parties. They said pregnant women, children and the elderly should have priority access to the limited supply of vaccines over the Guantanamo detainees. On Tuesday, Nov. 3, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in a press briefing that, ""There is no vaccine in Guantanamo and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo."" But the same day, a Pentagon spokesman said that a shipment of vaccines would eventually be sent to the prison, although he said the detainees would get the vaccine only after it was given to active-duty troops, contractors and others working for the government. The most recent news reports say that about 300 vaccines arrived at the installation on Monday, Nov. 9. According to the Associated Press, it's unlikely those vaccines will be given to prisoners. Instead, they are meant for military personnel, contractors and U.S. workers at the base. ""We have an obligation to provide for the health of [the detainees], but we're faced with a situation where we have a limited amount of vaccines at this time,"" Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told PolitiFact. Assuming there are enough supplies, the detainees would eventually be given the vaccine, he said. The White House told us that, to date, no prisoners have been vaccinated, but that priority for the vaccine would follow this order: U.S. forces, deployed health care workers (civilian and contractor), civilians, detainees and non-US Defense Department contractors. So, Hannity is correct. Current plans say that the vaccines will eventually be offered to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba."
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10750
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New lenses offer hope for better sight
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For those who struggle with vision problems, a variety of newer types of lenses could help. This story reports on one such type of lens. Unfortunately this story does little to inform the reader of just what this lens can and can’t do. The story falls short on describing the availability, harms, costs and evidence to support the new lenses. It does not adequately describe the treatment options or quantify the benefits. Although the story does quote two experts, they are not independent. Both are employees of the lens companies. The story should have quoted at least one independent expert who could comment on how the new lenses fit with current practice. This would have substantially strengthened the piece. In the end, the story read like an ad – not an accurate, balaned and complete piece of journalism.
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false
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Although the story mentions the cost of the machines, this is not enough information on costs. More important to the consumer is how much more these types of lenses cost over traditional lenses and whether insurance will cover it. This is particularly important to many older people who may have this problem and be living on a fixed income. The story does not quantify the benefits of the lenses; only personal anecdotes were provided. The story does not mention any potential harms of the new lenses. Other than describing one patient’s experience, the story does not comment on the strength of the available evidence to support the new lenses. Although the story does not appear to exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of vision problems, the story could have been more clear about the specific types of vision problems that the new lenses address. Although the story does quote two experts, they are not independent. Both are employees of the lens companies. The story should have quoted at least one independent expert who could comment on how the new lenses fit with current practice. This would have substantially strengthened the piece. The story does not mention the alternatives or how this new technology will fit with existing options. Because the machines are new and expensive, it’s not clear whether the technology is widely available. It would have been helpful if the reporter could have provided basic facts about where the testing and lens development is available. The story clearly states that the lenses are a new idea. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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2127
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Bad night's sleep can hamper body's insulin use.
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Just one sleepless night can hamper the body’s ability to use insulin to process sugar in the bloodstream, according to a study which scientists say might help explain why diabetes is on the rise.
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true
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Science News
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A man sleeps while riding the subway in New York, April 20, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Researchers said their findings suggest it may be no coincidence that while sleep duration has shortened in western societies in the past decade there has also been an increase in cases of “insulin resistance” and adult-onset diabetes. “Our findings show a short night of sleep has more profound effects on metabolic regulation than previously appreciated,” said Esther Donga, director of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, who led the study published on Wednesday. Type 2 diabetes is caused by the body’s inability to adequately use insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, to control glucose sugar produced from food. Sugar levels rise and can damage the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and major arteries. The disease, linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, is reaching epidemic levels. An estimated 180 million people now suffer from diabetes around the world. Previous studies have found that several nights of poor sleep can result in impaired use of insulin, but Donga said this was the first study to examine the effects of only a single bad night’s sleep. The Dutch scientists examined nine healthy people — once after a night of eight hours sleep and once after a night of just four hours. The findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), showed that partial sleep restriction during a single night reduced some types of insulin sensitivity by 19 to 25 percent. “Our data indicate that insulin sensitivity is not fixed in healthy (people), but depends on the duration of sleep in the preceding night,” Donga wrote in the study. “In fact it is tempting to speculate that the negative effects of multiple nights of shortened sleep on glucose tolerance can be reproduced, at least in part, by just one sleepless night.” A study by U.S. scientists published last year found that people who slept less than six hours a night were 4.5 times more likely to develop abnormal blood sugar readings in six years compared with those who slept longer. Experts say adults typically need between seven and nine hours sleep a night. Donga said further studies were needed to see whether ways of improving sleep duration could help stabilize glucose levels in patients with diabetes.
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16468
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More than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners.
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"Brown implored the NFL community and beyond to consider a shocking statistic: ""According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners."" He went on to estimate how many women have been killed by their partners since the day Rice attacked his now-wife in an elevator -- a practice experts said isn’t scientifically precise but is a common practice. As for the three-deaths-a-day figure itself, experts said it is accurate. By some measures, the daily average is actually closer to four deaths. There are some ways that Brown could have been more precise, but they do not obscure his point."
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true
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Criminal Justice, Crime, Women, PunditFact, James Brown,
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"Advocates for victims of domestic violence say the one good thing to come out of the Ray Rice scandal is more Americans are aware of just how big of a problem this is -- and it’s not limited to the NFL. CBS Sports announcer James Brown touched on this in a 90-second monologue directed to all men during the Sept. 11 pregame broadcast of Thursday Night Football, which coincidentally featured Rice’s former team, the Baltimore Ravens, against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Brown urged men to learn ""what healthy, respectful manhood is all about"" and to ""give help or to get help, because our silence is deafening and deadly."" Then he pulled out a stirring statistic. ""Consider this: According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners,"" Brown said. ""That means that since the night Feb. 15 in Atlantic City (the night Ray Rice hit now-wife Janay Rice on the elevator) more than 600 women have died."" The figure is used across several outreach group websites, including Futures Without Violence, the Domestic Abuse Shelter of the Florida Keys, the National Network to End Domestic Violence and the Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Experts say the claim is accurate. While the veracity of crime statistics in general can be questioned due to underreporting by victims and mislabeling by the investigating officer, murder statistics are reliable, experts say. The biggest repository for national crime statistics is the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report, which is based on data collected from local law enforcement agencies. Callie Rennison is a University of Colorado Denver public affairs professor who analyzes crime trends. Crunching federal figures, Rennison found 3.3 women died at the hands of their intimate partners per day in 2010. To get that figure, she divided the number of intimate partner homicides with female victims (1,192) by the number of days in the year. More than three days a day is alarmingly high, but it’s also down from a recent high of 4.2 deaths per day in 1993. Rennison did not run a similar calculation for the most recent years available, 2011 and 2012, but the trend holds. Of course, this is a daily average and not an exact representation of how many women are killed by their current or former partners. ""So strictly scientifically speaking, it is a risk to estimate how many people have been killed in domestic violence incidents since Feb. 15,"" said Mary Koss, University of Arizona public health professor. ""However, doing so is not fundamentally wrong and crime experts do it frequently."" Because the number of male victims in intimate partner homicides is much lower, so too is the daily average. There were 305 of these deaths in 2010, which amounts to a daily average of 0.84. James Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor, sliced the data differently for his own count of intimate partner homicides. He factored in unsolved homicide cases believed to have involved intimate partners. The result: slightly higher deaths per year. Using his numbers,the daily average of female deaths was 3.84 in 2010, 3.61 in 2011, and 3.68 in 2012. Brown could have been a touch more precise with his wording by saying ""partners and former partners"" instead of just ""partners,"" but Rennison says that level of distinction is probably more important to academics. ""Generally when we talk in our field (about FBI or Bureau of Justice Statistics figures), we’re talking about current or former spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, and it can include same-sex partners as well,"" she said. Our ruling Brown implored the NFL community and beyond to consider a shocking statistic: ""According to domestic violence experts, more than three women per day lose their lives at the hands of their partners."" He went on to estimate how many women have been killed by their partners since the day Rice attacked his now-wife in an elevator -- a practice experts said isn’t scientifically precise but is a common practice. As for the three-deaths-a-day figure itself, experts said it is accurate. By some measures, the daily average is actually closer to four deaths. There are some ways that Brown could have been more precise, but they do not obscure his point."
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8185
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Vanuatu to impose coronavirus travel restrictions ahead of election.
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The South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu which has no confirmed cases of coronavirus is set to ban travel to and from any country with more than 100 cases of COVID-19, as it prepares to go to the polls for a general election on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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The new restriction would include a ban on travel from regional heavyweight Australia, which has nearly 500 coronavirus cases, an official from Vanuatu’s National Novel Coronavirus Taskforce told Reuters. Vanuatu, population 300,000, will hold a general election on March 19, with the electoral commission encouraging voters to stand two-meters apart and use hand sanitizer at polling booths. “Many people are looking forward to the election and I don’t think COVID-19 will be an issue,” said Russel Tamata, communications officer for the Vanuatu taskforce. An advisory expected to be released on Wednesday will warn Vanuatu citizens not to travel to, or transit through, a list of countries with 100 COVID-19 cases or more, said Tamata. International flights wouldn’t be stopped, but arriving passengers would need to show a medical clearance proving they had undergone 14 days of quarantine before arriving in Vanuatu. Multiple South Pacific island nations have restricted flights and banned cruise ships from ports for 60 days, hitting crucial tourism revenues in the region, after six COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the Pacific islands. “This is going to be devastating for Pacific economies. Whether it’s aid, trade, migration or tourism, all those countries depend on major countries like Australia and China for their supply chains,” said Jonathan Pryke, director of the Australia-based Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands program. “They are using their relative isolation as a remote island as a strength to put the wall up. It makes sense given the fragility of their health systems.” The Pacific region has recorded three coronavirus cases in French Polynesia and three in Guam - although most island nations cannot screen for the virus onshore which is potentially masking its spread. The Post Courier newspaper in Papua New Guinea said the health minister had confirmed a man with a history of travel to Europe was being tested for COVID-19 after developing a fever. Vanuatu is sending COVID-19 test samples to overseas laboratories and receiving results seven days later. The island country expects to conduct the first tests onshore in a “few weeks”, said Posikai Samuel Tapo, director for Vanuatu’s health security services.
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12345
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"Mark Pocan Says Scott Walker recently said ""he got his bald spot from hitting his head on a cabinet, and it's not a joke, he actually said that his bald spot came because he hit his head on a cabinet."
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"Pocan claimed Walker recently said ""he got his bald spot from hitting his head on a cabinet, and it's not a joke, he actually said that his bald spot came because he hit his head on a cabinet."" Walker did make that claim, but it surfaced two years ago, during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. So it was not as recent as Pocan indicated. Nor was it as farfetched as he suggested, at least according to two experts on hair loss."
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true
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Candidate Biography, Wisconsin, Mark Pocan,
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"Just when you thought it was safe to move on from the 2016 presidential campaign, a topic that grabbed a brief turn in the spotlight has again come to, well, a head: Gov. Scott Walker’s explanation for his bald spot. How did it resurface? Credit -- or blame -- U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison, who began by ripping into Walker’s plan to make Wisconsin the first state in the nation to require needy but able-bodied adults to work and submit to drug tests to get Medicaid coverage. On June 6, 2017, Walker’s administration asked the federal government for permission to require the tests, which would apply to people seeking coverage through the state’s BadgerCare program. ""Unemployment is low, and the percentage of people working in Wisconsin is among the best in the nation,"" Walker said in a statement at the time. ""This application is a step in the right direction, and we’re continuing to build on Wisconsin’s legacy as a leader in welfare reform."" A few days later, on June 8, 2017, Pocan slammed the proposal as unoriginal during a radio interview on ""The Thom Hartmann Program."" He was responding to a caller -- Dave from Hoffman Estates, Ill. ""This is one we’ve seen in other states,"" Pocan said. ""It just costs money. It hasn’t been proven to find people who are using drugs who are getting the money. It’s one of these demonizing tools of the poor again."" Then his policy rip, turned into this riff: ""Trust me, Scott Walker has not had an original thought in his head for a long, long time,"" Pocan said. ""The most original thing he said recently is that he got his bald spot from hitting his head on a cabinet, and it’s not a joke. He actually said his bald spot came because he hit his head on a cabinet."" To be sure, Pocan has less hair than Walker. But is Pocan right? When asked for backup, Pocan spokesman David Kolovson cited a statement from a Oct. 18, 2014, Wisconsin State Journal article: ""The bald spot, (Walker) said, was the result of a repair incident in the kitchen when he banged his head on an open kitchen cabinet door while making repairs requested by his wife, Tonette."" Kolovson also cited a June 15, 2015, Washington Post article that quoted Walker: ""And I wish I could grow a little bit more hair on my scar up there,"" he said, mentioning his bald spot, which he says is the result of having bumped his head while fixing a sink years ago and not natural aging. A similar statement showed up in a Sept. 4, 2015, article on BBCNews.com. Carolyn Jacob, a board certified dermatologist, said Walker’s explanation is not outside the realm of the possible. ""It really depends on if he actually cut his scalp on the cabinet,"" said Jacob, a medical doctor and director of Chicago Cosmetic Surgery and Dermatology. ""A scar would form and would not grow hair."" ""However,"" Jacob continued, ""if he suddenly developed a circular spot in the same area, it may be unrelated but coincidental. We often see alopecia areata (circle/patches of hair loss) on patients, and no one knows why anyone gets it."" Another expert, Ronda Farah, a medical doctor and assistant professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of Minnesota, also spoke in general terms and not directly about Walker. She said an injury or trauma to the head could cause a bald spot. ""If you have trauma to the head that leaves a scar, you could definitely get a bald spot."" Farah said. ""In general, I have seen hair loss at areas of trauma and scarring on the body and scalp."" A spokesman for Walker’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Our rating Pocan claimed Walker recently said ""he got his bald spot from hitting his head on a cabinet, and it's not a joke, he actually said that his bald spot came because he hit his head on a cabinet."" Walker did make that claim, but it surfaced two years ago, during the early stages of the 2016 presidential campaign. So it was not as recent as Pocan indicated. Nor was it as farfetched as he suggested, at least according to two experts on hair loss."
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31182
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The Hobby Lobby chain is closing all its stores in protest over a federal contraceptives mandate.
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Federal prosecutors over claims that the company had bought artifacts smuggled from Iraq that were deliberately mislabelled.
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false
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Medical, contraception, hobby lobby, obamacare
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In a 12 September 2012 USA Today op-ed piece, David Green, the CEO and founder of the Hobby Lobby chain of arts-and-crafts stores, expressing his family’s opposition on religious grounds to a new government health mandate that required employers to provide insurance coverage to their employees for contraceptives: When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family. We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are 1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and 2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve also raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage. But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business must provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions. Which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million per day in government fines. [Rest of article here.] Hobby Lobby filed a federal lawsuit challenging that mandate because it included such contraceptives as the morning-after pill and IUDs, which the plaintiffs considered to be forms of abortion: The lawsuit by the Oklahoma City-based chain claims the government mandate is forcing the company’s owners “to violate their deeply held religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines, penalties and lawsuits.” Failure to provide the drugs in the company’s health insurance plan could lead to fines of up to $1.3 million a day, the company said. “By being required to make a choice between sacrificing our faith or paying millions of dollars in fines, we essentially must choose which poison pill to swallow,” David Green, Hobby Lobby CEO and founder, said in a statement. “We simply cannot abandon our religious beliefs to comply with this mandate.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City, alleges the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate is unconstitutional and requests an injunction to prohibit it from being enforced. Hobby Lobby is self-insured and will be required to comply with the mandate by Jan. 1 [2013], the start of its health insurance plan year. Hobby Lobby is the largest and only non-Catholic-owned business to file a lawsuit against the Health and Human Services mandate that forces all companies, regardless of religious conviction, to provide coverage of drugs the lawsuit alleges are abortion-inducing, including the morning-after pill and week-after pill. “The Green family’s religious beliefs forbid them from participating in, providing access to, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting abortion-causing drugs and devices,” the lawsuit states. The lawsuit says the family also has “a sincere religious objection” to providing coverage for certain kinds of intrauterine devices and alleges they can cause the death of an embryo by preventing it from implanting in the wall of a woman’s uterus. The morning-after pill works by preventing ovulation or fertilization. In medical terms, pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the wall of the uterus. If taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can reduce a woman’s chances of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent. But critics of the contraceptive say it is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it can prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus. The text of that piece was widely referenced online under misleading headlines such as “Hobby Lobby May Close All 500+ Stores in 41 States,” based on the notion that David Green would shutter the entire chain rather than comply with the federal mandate, even though he neither announced nor threatened such a course of action (although he did vaguely suggest that the company might not be able to afford the potential financial penalties for refusing to comply with the mandate). The lawsuit finally played its way out in court in June 2014, when the Supreme Court ruled that closely held, for-profit companies (such as Hobby Lobby) could claim a religious exemption to the Affordable Care Act requirement that they provide health insurance coverage for contraceptives: The Supreme Court ruled that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. The 5-to-4 decision, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to challenges from other corporations to many laws that may be said to violate their religious liberty. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the court’s five more conservative justices, said a federal religious-freedom law applied to for-profit corporations controlled by religious families. He added that the requirement that the companies provide contraception coverage imposed a substantial burden on the companies’ religious liberty. He said the government could provide the coverage in other ways. Similar Hobby Lobby closure rumors circulated in mid-2017, after the chain was fined $3 million by
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1992
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Scientist seeks to banish evil, boost empathy.
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Simon Baron-Cohen has been battling with evil all his life.
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true
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Science News
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Cambridge University psychology and psychiatry professor Simon Baron-Cohen in an undated photo. REUTERS/Handout As a scientist seeking to understand random acts of violence, from street brawls to psychopathic killings to genocide, he has puzzled for decades over what prompts such acts of human cruelty. And he’s decided that evil is not good enough. “I’m not satisfied with the term ‘evil’,” says the Cambridge University psychology and psychiatry professor, one of the world’s top experts in autism and developmental psychopathology. “We’ve inherited this word.. and we use it to express our abhorrence when people do awful things, usually acts of cruelty, but I don’t think it’s anything more than another word for doing something bad. And as a scientist that doesn’t seem to me to be much of an explanation. So I’ve been looking for an alternative — we need a new theory of human cruelty.” Baron-Cohen, who is also director of the Autism Research Center at Cambridge, has just written a book in which he calls for a kind of rebranding of evil to offer a more scientific explanation for why people kill and torture, or have such great difficulty understanding the feelings of others. His proposal is that evil be understood as a lack of empathy — a condition he argues can be measured and monitored and is susceptible to education and treatment. Baron-Cohen defines empathy in two parts — as the drive to identify another person’s thoughts and feelings, and the drive to respond appropriately to those thoughts and feelings. It is also, he says, one of the most valuable resources in our world — one which is currently woefully underused. “We all have degrees of empathy... but perhaps we are not using it to its full potential,” he explained in an interview with Reuters after delivering a lecture in London. He says erosion of empathy is an important global issue that affects the health of communities, be they small ones like families, or big ones like nations. If we all used our ability to empathize more, and recognized its value, he says, conflicts such as the decades of tit-for-tat violence between Palestinians and Israelis could be resolved. “If you think about conflict resolution at the moment, usually we are dependent on diplomatic channels, legal frameworks, or military methods. But all those things operate at a very abstract level and they don’t seem to get us very far. “Empathy is about two people — two people meeting, getting to know each other and tuning in to what the other person is thinking and feeling.” As an example, Baron-Cohen cites the meeting of minds between Nelson Mandela and the then South African president F. W de Klerk, which helped end apartheid in the early 1990s. “The progress that came out of just that one relationship — well, arguably, it broke through where all other methods had failed, and at far less cost in terms of human life,” he says. A Jewish upbringing peppered with tales about the horrors of the Nazis’ treatment of Jews and other minorities was early motivation for Baron-Cohen to seek to deconstruct human cruelty He cites times when his father told him how the Nazis turned Jews into lampshades, or into bars of soap, and a tale about the mother of a family friend whose hands had been severed by Nazi scientists who switched them around and sewed them back on again so that her thumbs were on the outside. “Today, almost half a century after my father’s revelations...my mind is still exercised by the same single objective: to understand human cruelty,” he writes in his book. In the book, entitled “Zero Degrees of Empathy” in Britain, and “The Science of Evil” in the United States, where it comes out in July, Baron-Cohen seeks to pick apart and define components of empathy — including hormones, genes, environment, nurture, and early childhood experiences. Citing decades of scientific research, he says there are at least 10 regions of the brain which make up what he calls the “empathy circuit.” When people hurt others, either systematically or fleetingly, parts of that circuit are malfunctioning. Baron-Cohen also sets out an “empathy spectrum” ranging from zero to six degrees of empathy, and an “empathy quotient” test, whose score puts people on various points along that spectrum. Drawing a classic bell curve on a graph, Baron-Cohen says that thankfully, the vast majority of humans are in the middle of the bell curve spectrum, with a few particularly attuned and highly empathetic people at the top end. Psychopaths, narcissists, and people with borderline personality disorder sit at the bottom end of the scale — these people have “zero degrees of empathy.” But rather than labeling them as evil, Baron-Cohen says they should be seen as sick, or “disabled,” and we should seek to understand why they have such an empathy deficiency and help them replace it. Baron-Cohen shies away from saying that psychopaths can be “cured” of extreme behavior, but he argues strongly against locking them up and saying there is nothing society can do. “I try to keep an open mind. I would never want to say a person is beyond help,” he explains. “Empathy is a skill like any other human skill — and if you get a chance to practice, you can get better at it.”
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11505
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Gaining on death, cooling therapy catches on slowly
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This in-depth (3400 word) report on cooling patients after cardiac arrest in order to reduce the risk of brain damage offers readers a wealth of detail on therapeutic hypothermia, the available evidence of its effects, and some of the apparent reasons most hospitals have yet to put it into routine use. The story specifically notes the small numbers of patients that have been studied in controlled trials, as well as the fact that many patients would need to be treated in order for one additional person to recover fully. The story also makes a potent case that institutional and individual inertia and resistance to change has slowed the adoption of this technique despite recommendations from leading professional groups. However, the only patient featured in the story is a man who fully recovered. The powerfully emotional telling of his cardiac arrest, his treatment, the strain on his family and their joy at his recovery may overwhelm the hard data indicating that while cooling does appear to offer benefits (and no greater risk of harm), the overwhelming majority of such patients will not recover despite receiving therapeutic hypothermia. We couldn’t ask for a more comprehensive statement of the available facts, and yet it seems likely that most readers will come away from the story believing that cooling has more powerful effects than even its strongest advocates would claim. The likelihood of surviving and thriving after an out of hospital cardiac arrest has been low for a host of reasons. As the story notes approximately 300,000 Americans suffer a heart attack outside the hospital with only a minority surviving and going back to their pre-event status. Over the years, evidence has been mounting that cooling may improve both survival and brain function in cardiac arrest patients. The balance of the data has now swung to the recommendation side. Unfortunately, American medicine is notoriously slow to embrace recommendations by national and international organizations. The reasons for this hesitancy are not clear. The story highlights what has been a decade-long debate and an ongoing implementation challenge.
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true
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The story does a good job in articulating the expense associated with universal adoption of cooling methods including a calculation of cost per life saved and number needed to treat. The story notes that the calculations of costs are based on limited data and certain assumptions; nevertheless, some readers may still get the sense that the calculations are more precise than they actually are. The story does a generally careful job of pointing out that while the evidence indicates more cardiac arrest patients could benefit from cooling, many patients either don’t fit the profile and most of those that do still are unlikely to fully recover even if treated with cooling. The story describes the presumed benefits of cooling in both absolute and relative terms. At various points in the story in gives both percentages (which give a generous impression of the potential benefit), but also absolute numbers and the number of patient that would need to be treated in order to see at least one benefit (that give readers a more conservative impression.) However, the personal story of a patient who recovered well may overwhelm the careful presentation of the statistics showing that the large majority of patients do not recover fully despite cooling, thus giving readers an inflated sense of the benefits of the technique. The story accurately reports that the trials done to date have not found that patients who underwent cooling had any higher rate of adverse effects than those who received standard care. However, as the Cochrane Collaboration review of the evidence noted, the studies have included a small number of patients and have not always used consistent or carefully controlled; therefore there may be a risk of adverse events that hasnot been documented. The story points out that the clinical trials of therapeutic hypothermia for people who have been resuscitated after cardiac arrest involve a total of only a few hundred patients. The story also refers to some of the conclusions of a systematic review of the evidence by the Cochrane Collaboration and a 2005 guideline statement from the American Heart Association that support the use of cooling in such cases. However, the story does present an optimistic view of these reports. For example, referring to the Cochrane review, the story suggests that, “…cooling increased the number of people with good brain function by more than half, and overall survival to hospital discharge by slightly more than one-third.” The language suggests that these outcomes were actually seen in studies. In reality these are projections based on the studies surveyed. This is perhaps a subtle point but important because the number is based on a statistical inference and not on “real data.” Readers are likely to get the sense that the evidence is conclusive, when actually there is still considerable uncertainty. The guideline of the American Heart Association rates the evidence supporting cooling for patients who had ventricular fibrillation as being Class IIa, meaning that while the weight of the evidence favors efficacy, “there is conflicting evidence and/or a divergence of opinion about the usefulness/efficacy.” References: Hypothermia for neuroprotection in adults after cardiopulmonary resuscitation Cochrane Collaboration 2010 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/o/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004128/frame.html 2005 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation and Emergency Cardiovascular Care Part 7.5: Postresuscitation Support http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/112/24_suppl/IV-84 The story provides statistics related to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and outcomes associated with standard as well as hypothermic resuscitation. The information is provided in an objective fashion. The story quotes numerous sources including several with noted ties to the manufacturers of cooling devices. Those with ties to industry are clearly identified in the story. The story does a reasonable job articulating the outcome differences seen with standard and hypothermic resuscitation and in providing information on expected outcomes with more widespread acceptance. It also notes that there are a variety of ways to cool the body and that while expensive devices are available that can rapidly cool the body from the outside or using intravenous saline, there is not yet enough evidence to conclude that one technique produces better outcomes than another. The story makes clear that most hospitals capable of treating cardiac arrest patients could apply therapeutic hypothermia using either simple techniques, such as ice bags, or sophisticated cooling systems. It also points out that many hospitals do not routinely use the technique. Comments from experts point to organizational roadblocks and resistance to change as the reason that therapeutic hypothermia is not used more often in appropriate cases. The story points out that key clinical trials on this technique were published in 2002 and that it has been recommended by major professional groups since 2005. The heart of the story is about the barriers to adoption of a therapy that appears to be beneficial. It does not try to portray cooling as a new discovery. The story does not rely on a press release. Numerous experts in the field are quoted and a summary of a well respected Cochrane Collaboration review as well as references to trials and guidelines are provided as background.
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26638
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"The coronavirus ""snuck up on us,” adding that it is “a very unforeseen thing.”"
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Members of the Trump administration have been sounding the alarm for months. Public health experts have been warning for years about the threat of a pandemic.
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false
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National, Public Health, Health Check, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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"Unveiling a series of policies meant to mitigate the threat of COVID-19, President Donald Trump also sought to respond to criticisms that his administration has been slow to deal with what is now a worldwide pandemic. In particular, the president defended his administration on the issue of insufficient testing resources and what experts say is a looming shortage of medical equipment and personnel. His argument? No one saw this coming. ""It snuck up on us,"" Trump said at a March 18 media briefing. Later, he added that the virus is ""a very unforeseen thing."" Trump has repeated that idea a lot lately. But the claim doesn’t square with the evidence. Public health researchers have been warning for years about the threat of a pandemic. And members of his administration have been sounding the alarm for months now – even while, just earlier this month, Trump was still comparing the virus’ severity to the flu, and arguing that it ""will go away"" if people ""stay calm."" We contacted the White House, which declined to comment on the record. Meanwhile, independent experts told us this claim is deeply misleading. Both in Washington and internationally, health officials had been warning about the dangers posed by COVID-19 since at least January, with some early signals going back as far as December when the illness emerged in the Wuhan province of China. Those warnings continued into February, well before the White House began taking serious steps to increase testing and treatment efforts – a delay that experts said has significantly undermined the national response. Indeed, by mid January, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told the president that the virus – which had already spread through China – could pose a threat domestically, too, according to reporting by The New York Times, Washington Post and Politico. Then, by the end of the month, Azar had declared it a ""public health emergency"" in the United States. According to the Times report, Dr. Robert Redfield, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had also by that point realized ""that it had a great ability to go global."" ""The alarm was sounded in January,"" said Jennifer Kates, a global health expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. ""This wasn’t a surprise."" (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) At that point, researchers told us, decisive and widespread federal action could have made a big difference. But publicly, Trump was still comparing the virus to the flu, downplaying the risk on Twitter and television, and declaring repeatedly that the virus was under control. Warnings from others continued. On Feb. 25, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, who runs CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, also highlighted the risk the virus would pose. And of course, the coronavirus warnings didn’t just come from Washington. On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization declared the virus a ""Public Health Emergency of International Concern,"" citing its rapid spread since December, when it first emerged in China. In doing so, ""we were alerting all countries of very real threat of international spread,"" said Margaret Harris, a WHO spokesperson. By Feb. 24, WHO had told reporters that the virus had a real risk of becoming a global pandemic, and warned that all countries should be prepared. The weeks-long gaps between those warnings and federal efforts to actually test for coronavirus, and to treat it, matter greatly, Kates said. ""It was very visible what was happening and what measures we should be taking,"" she told us. Had the White House acted earlier, in particular by stepping up efforts to test for the virus and isolate cases immediately, the virus may not have spread as quickly, global health experts said. The ongoing efforts to ""socially distance"" even people without symptoms – which have large economic and health downsides, are less effective and less enforceable, researchers told us – wouldn’t be as necessary as they are now. ""Delays of days here matter. When we start throwing away weeks, we really change what’s possible,"" said Christopher Mores, a global health professor at George Washington University. ""If we had done a little more of anything, we would find ourselves in a better situation than where we are right now."" Meanwhile, people in public health and national security had been warning for years about a looming pandemic – and noting that the United States wasn’t adequately prepared for the devastation it could wreak on both citizens’ health and the economy. The only details missing were what pandemic and when precisely it would strike. ""Public health experts have been shouting that a major pandemic is likely and, in fact, is the greatest security threat we face,"" said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University who studies public health law. As for claims that something like COVID-19 ""snuck up on us"" or was ""very unforeseen""? ""It is simply astonishing and simply untrue,"" he said. Researchers pointed us to countless reports – including some by government officials – that highlighted the threat of a pandemic. In May 2018, researchers at Johns Hopkins University put out a paper warning that respiratory viruses posed a ""global catastrophic biological risk."" In particular, the researchers warned about RNA viruses -- viruses made up of the traditionally single-stranded ribonucleic acid, and also cause illnesses such as the common cold, influenza, hepatitis C and polio. Their warning wasn’t off: COVID-19 is indeed a respiratory illness caused by an RNA virus, from the same specific viral family -- that is, the coronavirus family -- as SARS and MERS. Then, in October 2019, the World Economic Forum, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted an event to discuss how public and private interests would have to respond in the event of a pandemic. That was only one of many such ""simulations"" run by health experts concerned about how the U.S. would respond to a looming pandemic threat. ""Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before one of these epidemics becomes global—a pandemic with potentially catastrophic consequences,"" read the event description. And months later, in Jan. 2019 – more than a year before the president’s advisers sounded the coronavirus alarm – the topic of a global pandemic emerged again, in a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. ""We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support,"" reads the report. In fact, the report suggested animal-to-human transmission as a source for the next major pandemic – which, experts say, is in fact how COVID-19 emerged. And, finally, reporting from Politico shows that, when Trump entered office, members of the Obama administration warned about the threat of a looming viral pandemic – and noted that, if it occurred, the nation didn’t have the medical resources to handle it. ""Many people saw this coming, although, of course, it was not known exactly when,"" said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Put another way: Experts have been talking about the need for pandemic preparedness, Mores recalled, for at least as long as he has been studying global health. He’s been in the field for 25 years. President Donald Trump said COVID-19 ""snuck up on us,"" and was ""a very unforeseen thing."" In fact, the president heard warnings about this specific virus from his advisers and the global health community for months. And public health and national security experts had been highlighting the risks for even longer about the threat of some kind of pandemic – even if the details weren’t yet known. Indeed, it is because of Trump’s slow response to the pandemic that ""social distancing"" is now required at such a large-scale level. Earlier, more focused testing and sequestering of people with the virus could have mitigated some of the response now required, experts told us. Trump’s claim is incorrect, and in fact flies in the face of years’ worth of evidence."
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11085
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Study: Drug may delay, prevent blindness for millions of older Americans
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This release explains results from a review of health records of thousands of patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) who also had taken the drug levodopa (L-DOPA). Researchers questioned whether the drug might slow or prevent the onset of this disease. They found an association between delayed onset of AMD in seniors who took L-DOPA. These patients were diagnosed with AMD up to eight years later than those not taking the drug. The release is mostly cautious about presenting the association but omitted some information we consider crucial, namely costs, alternative therapies, the absolute size of the benefit observed, and full disclosure on a significant conflict of interest. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a serious illness affecting millions of the elderly. It is the number one cause of blindness among older people and robs them of their central vision, leaving only peripheral vision in most cases. This impairment severely affects their quality of life. The discovery of an association between the drug levodopa (L-DOPA) and AMD through a large data search may lead to better understanding of how AMD starts if a future randomized trial validates the hypothesis. If an existing drug is shown to be effective against AMD, it could save both time and expense in bringing a therapy to patients in need.
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mixture
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Foundation/nonprofit news release
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While the release is relatively cautious, it fails to mention the costs of its suggested treatment in any way. One assumes from the release that patients would be taking L-DOPA for a considerable length of time, which could represent a substantial expense. L-DOPA has been prescribed for patients with Parkinson’s disease and other maladies for years and offering an estimate of yearly costs of the drug should have been easy, and would have helped readers gauge the value of this research in terms of patient care. Levodopa is generally prescribed in combination with another drug or drugs but the treatment cost of L-DOPA alone is several thousand dollars annually. The release states that, based on the evaluation of a 37,000 clinic records of patients who took L-DOPA and noting those from the group that also developed AMD, that there appears to be a correlation between patients’ taking of L-DOPA and their later development of AMD. It states that those taking the drug tend to develop the disease eight years later than those who don’t. The release also suggests that in addition to delaying onset of the disease, the drug may also prevent it, although it is less clear in that claim. However, these numbers only portray relative risk rather than absolute risk and the number needed to treat (NNT). The numbers of people who developed AMD was relatively small, making it likely that the NNT would be very large (very many need to be treated in order to prevent or delay one case of blindness). Because the statistics used do not give readers a complete sense of the benefits attributable to to L-DOPA, we’ll rule this Not Satisfactory. At no point does the release mention any harmful effects from taking L-DOPA. And while patients might arguably be willing to face greater risks in order to retain their eyesight, it doesn’t excuse the release for omitting relevant details. L-DOPA has been given to patients for years and the list of possible side effects — both physical and mental — is considerable. Patients reading stories or releases touting the possible treatment use of new drugs deserve to know the full story including possible negative effects of the drug’s use. To its credit, the release explains early — in the second paragraph — that the research is a retrospective study of patient records. This informs knowledgeable readers of the inherent limitations of retrospective studies but readers not familiar with research may not understand that retrospective studies cannot show causality, that one thing leads to another. We’ll give them a grudging satisfactory in this category but with a caution about the overall message of the release — that L-DOPA can delay or prevent AMD. It may very well do so, but this kind of study cannot prove that. But again, transparency is offered when the authors of the study are quoted saying that this research justifies the performance of future randomized clinical trials specifically looking at the benefits and any additional risks of long term L-Dopa for prevention or delay of AMD. While it describes the prevalence of AMD, the release doesn’t commit disease mongering. The release identifies the funding sources of this research but does not alert readers to the conflict of interest disclosure found in the published results. While the lead author has not yet received income from the drug application, he is the patent holder. “Dr. McKay is an inventor on an approved patent for the use of L-DOPA to treat or delay AMD,” according to the published paper. Just because he hasn’t received royalties yet doesn’t mean he or his institution will never accept royalties if and when L-DOPA is approved for treating AMD. The release should have called attention to this. No alternatives are mentioned. While there is no known effective cure for AMD, there are treatments available to slow the progression of the disease or prevent severe vision loss including drug injection, laser therapy and vitamin supplementation. L-DOPA is readily available to patients now and the story makes this clear. The idea that an established drug might be effective against a disease other than what it was intended to treat is novel enough to justify a release touting the findings of an acceptable study. And the release makes clear that this study was prompted by earlier studies in mouse models that supported a role for L-DOPA in AMD. We’ll give the benefit of the doubt here because the release does not use overtly unjustifiable language. But the use of words such as “prevention” implies causation, which this study was incapable of showing. A better way to phrase this might be to say “There is an association between taking L-Dopa and having AMD start at a later age.”
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7302
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Planned Parenthood sues over Arizona abortion laws.
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Abortion rights groups filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Arizona laws they say unnecessarily restrict access to the procedures and leave most rural areas without clinics.
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true
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Health, Lawsuits, Arizona, Planned Parenthood
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The legal action by Planned Parenthood Arizona targets laws that prohibit anyone other than a physician from performing abortions; require patients to visit clinics twice over a 24-hour period for counseling; and bar the use of telemedicine in providing abortion services. The intent of the laws is to “impede both women and medical providers so systematically that abortion becomes more onerous and even unavailable to many,” according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit says the statutes have led to a 40% reduction in the number of abortions provided by Planned Parenthood since 2011. In addition, the laws are medically unjustified and have led to the closure of Planned Parenthood offices in Yuma, Goodyear, Prescott Valley and Chandler, the lawsuit states. Abortion services are still provided in the Phoenix and Tucson areas, as well as Flagstaff. But the Flagstaff clinic didn’t offer abortion services for three years because Planned Parenthood was unable to recruit a medical professional who met the state’s requirements. The facility is operating again one day a week and has had to reduce services, according to the lawsuit. “This is a travesty,” Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood of Arizona, said in a conference call with reporters. The lawsuit was filed against Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Arizona Medical Board Executive Director Patricia McSorley, Arizona Department of Health Services and Arizona State Board of Nursing Executive Director Joey Ridenour. “Planned Parenthood might be disappointed its business model is failing, but we’re talking about human beings, not appliances,” Brnovich said in a statement. “Planned Parenthood should work to change the law if it doesn’t like the policies, not rely on the courts to do its bidding.” The Department of Health Services declined to comment on the lawsuit, and McSorley said she had no comment. Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which backs anti-abortion legislation but isn’t a party to the lawsuit, said the laws being challenged are vital to ensuring that women who are considering an abortion are able to make informed decisions. Howard said the number of abortions performed each year by Planned Parenthood has decreased to about 6,500 from about 10,000 a decade ago. The lawsuit said women who live near clinics face delays because there are too few providers to meet the demand for abortion services. Women who don’t live near clinics face similar delays, plus they must travel long distances to get to clinics, Howard said. Planned Parenthood alleges the laws violate due-process protections because they lack any legitimate benefit and impose undue burdens on women seeking abortions. The suit asks the court to bar the enforcement of the laws. ___ Follow Jacques Billeaud at twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud.
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27470
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The Guggenheim Museum planned to host a Chinese art exhibition that included three installations condemned as cruel to animals.
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Although these works have been exhibited in museums in Asia, Europe, and the United States, the Guggenheim regrets that explicit and repeated threats of violence have made our decision necessary. As an arts institution committed to presenting a multiplicity of voices, we are dismayed that we must withhold works of art. Freedom of expression has always been and will remain a paramount value of the Guggenheim.
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true
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Critter Country, animal cruelty, animals, art
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Controversy surrounded a planned exhibition of Chinese art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, in September 2017, amid claims that it featured animal cruelty. In a petition posted to Change.org, Stephanie Lewis wrote: The Guggenheim is gearing up for a special exhibit to air for three months beginning Oct 6, 2017 called “Art and China after 1989.” If the Guggenheim’s plans stay as they are, the exhibit will feature several distinct instances of unmistakable cruelty against animals in the name of art. We received several inquiries from readers about this. The petition highlighted and objected to three works from the exhibition: a seven-minute video showing eight dogs strapped to treadmills and forced to run on them while facing each other in pairs; a video showing pigs with Roman letters and Chinese characters stamped on them having sex; and a table covered in a see-through dome containing insects and reptiles. In its preview, The New York Times described these three exhibits. On Peng Yu and Sun Yuan’s “Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other”: The seven-minute video shows four pairs of American pit bulls tethered to eight wooden treadmills. The camera closes in on the animals as they face each other, running at high speed. The dogs are prevented from touching one another, a frustrating experience for animals trained to fight. The dogs get wearier and wearier, their muscles more and more prominent, and their mouths increasingly salivate. On Xu Bing’s “A Case Study of Transference”: The original version of the work featured two live pigs — a boar and a sow — having sex in front of audiences at one of the early informal art spaces in Beijing. The backs of the pigs were stamped with gibberish composed from the Roman alphabet and invented Chinese characters. The Guggenheim drew the line on live pigs in the museum, and settled for a video of the Beijing performance, said Philip Tinari, a guest curator, from the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. On Huang Yong Ping’s “Theater of the World”: …a simple table with a see-through dome shaped like the back of a tortoise. On the tabletop hundreds of insects and reptiles — gekkos, locusts, crickets, centipedes and cockroaches – mill about under the glow of an overhead lamp. During the three-month exhibition some creatures will be devoured; others may die of fatigue. The big ones will survive. From time to time, a New York City pet shop will replenish the menagerie with new bugs. The Times preview also includes photographs which appear to support these descriptions. Whether or not these exhibits meet your personal definition of animal cruelty, Stephanie Lewis’s petition accurately describes the basic facts about them. On 25 September 2017, the Guggenheim Museum announced that these three installations would not be included in the forthcoming exhibition. Out of concern for the safety of its staff, visitors, and participating artists, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has decided against showing the art works Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other (2003), Theater of the World (1993), and A Case Study of Transference (1994) in its upcoming exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World.
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11561
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Study questions angioplasty use in some patients
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This is a well written story about a study that raises concerns about the use of angioplasty and stenting for the treatment of patients who have had a heart attack more than 12 hours before and are no longer experiencing chest pain (angina). It lays out current medical practice and the rational for this practice; it then explains the nature of the data demonstrating that for this particular group of patients, the more invasive intervention is no better in preventing future heart attacks, heart failure, or death than treating these patient only with the medication they would receive after the intervention. The story provides useful insight into the importance of clinical trials, even for treatments that the experts 'believe' to be best.
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true
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"The estimated cost for having a stent placed in a coronary artery was mentioned. The benefits of the two treatments in terms of reducing the risk of heart attack, heart failure, or death in this particular patient group (individuals who had had a heart attack more than 12 hours before and were no longer experiencing angina) were found not to differ as reported in the story. The harms associated with the use of drug coated stents were presented in this story. The reader needed to infer that a harm associated with stents was the propensity of the artery to ""close again"". Ideally, a story should mention both the frequency and severity of adverse effects. But since the focus of this story was on a study showing that the rates of heart attack and death were comparable for different approaches (""either heart medicines only or balloon treatment and stents with heart medicines""), we consider this as satisfactory. The story described the design of the study, presented the results of the study and explained the significance of the observations. No obvious elements of disease-mongering. The first author of the study discussed, the director of the NIH institute funding the study, and an expert in the field not associated with the study all appeared to be sources of information for this story. The story presented the treatment options following a heart attack as a balloon treatment (angioplasty) and stent along with optimal medical management OR optimal medical management alone that were discussed in the study outlined. It's clear from the story that this is a widely used procedure. The treatment discussed in the story is not a novel treatment nor was it portrayed as such. This story does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release"
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30056
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The test of a 5G cellular network is the cause of unexplained bird deaths occurring in a park in The Hague, Netherlands.
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As compelling as this kind of testimony may be to Erin Elizabeth’s Health Nut News, the facts are this: No 5G test occurred during the time that the mysterious starling deaths occurred, and the only person suggesting otherwise is someone with a vendetta against both objective reality and 5G wireless. Even if a 5G test had occurred, however, no mechanism exists that would explain how it could have affected starlings at all, let alone only starlings and no other birds or animals in the region.
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false
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Science, 5g, erin elizabeth, health nut news
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On 5 November 2018, Erin Elizabeth’s medical conspiracy blog Health Nut News “reported” a seemingly disturbing story out of the Netherlands with the headline “Hundreds of birds dead during 5G experiment in The Hague, The Netherlands.” It turned out that Elizabeth’s article was the wholesale regurgitation of a series of Facebook posts authored by a man named John Kuhles who runs several anti-5G conspiracy websites and social media pages. Kuhles, who recently suggested that the devastating November 2018 California wildfires were triggered by a direct energy weapon as an act of revenge from the “Ruling Elite” to punish the state for vetoing a “mass 5G deployment” plan, tied the factual existence of unexplained bird deaths at a park (Huijgenspark) in The Hague, Netherlands, to a non-existent test of a next generation cell phone network (5G) that Kuhles claimed (without evidence) took place simultaneous with the bird deaths: About a week ago at The Hague, many birds died spontaneously, falling dead in a park. You likely haven’t heard a lot about this because it seems keeping it quiet was the plan all along. However, when about 150 more suddenly died- bringing the death toll to 297- some started to take notice. And if you are looking around that park you might have seen what is on the corner of the roof across the street from where they died: a new 5G mast, where they had done a test, in connection with the Dutch railway station, to see how large the range was and whether no harmful equipment would occur on and around the station. And harm happened, indeed. Immediately afterward, birds fell dead from the trees. And the nearby ducks that were swimming seemed to react very oddly as well; they were simultaneously putting their heads underwater to escape the radiation while others flew away, landing on the street or in the canal. Again, almost at the exact same time that those animals died, near the station, Holland Spoor was tested with a 5G transmitter mast … All the information that follows comes from John Kuhles’ public Facebook page. It is true a series of mysterious bird deaths has occurred at a park in The Hague. According to the municipal government, the birds began to die on 19 October 2018, and soon afterwards those deaths inspired a dog ban in Huijgenspark as a precautionary measure: Between Friday, 19 October and Saturday, 3 November 2018, 337 dead starlings and 2 dead common wood pigeons were found. The municipality cannot rule out the possibility that the birds were poisoned. This is why the municipality has taken extra precautionary measures and announced a temporary ban on dogs for Huygenspark. Testing performed by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority ruled out West Nile virus and the usutu virus, but it had not yet ruled out other viruses or poisoning as of 12 November 2018. A team of experts will continue to investigate the cause of these deaths: The municipality, together with De Wulp bird rescue, has asked experts in fauna research to look into this question. The cause of death for the birds is being investigated by Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (Lelystad), Dutch Wildlife Health Centre (Utrecht), Erasmus University (Rotterdam) and Universiteit Gent. Initial results are expected in mid-November 2018. Mysterious bird deaths, though great fodder for conspiracy cranks, are not uncommon. Due to their unexplained nature, they are popular with those seeking to stoke fears or make political or religious points. In 2011, for example, Arkansas, Louisiana, and parts of Sweden were the site of thousands of bird deaths in a short time, which the media dubbed “the aflockalypse.” Contemporaneous reporting by the Associated Press made it clear that these mass die-offs are quite common and often unexplained: Since the 1970s, the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin has tracked mass deaths among birds, fish and other critters, said wildlife disease specialist LeAnn White. At times the sky and the streams just turn deadly. Sometimes it’s disease, sometimes pollution. Other times it’s just a mystery … On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. 5G is the proposed 5th generation cellular network, and it is technology that is largely still in development. Various countries have tested forms of it, including The Netherlands, but its widespread adoption is not expected until 2020. We will discuss the technical aspects of 5G compared to existing cellular technology in the next section, but widespread access to this technology is a priority for the Dutch government, and they have performed tests of the technology a handful of times. One such test did occur in an area generally near Huijgenspark, but it took place on 28 June 2018, and it was not followed by a massive bird die-off. For this test, the Dutch equivalent of the FCC provided a one-day permit for the telecommunication company Huawei to use the 5G frequencies needed for the test: Huawei has demonstrated a live 5G network in The Hague, using 100 MHz of spectrum in the C-band at 3.5 GHz. As the frequencies are not normally available for mobile services in the Netherlands, the Telecom Agency granted a special one-day permit for the demonstration at the KPN office in the Voorburg area. The band is available for local licensing, but in allotments far smaller than the full 100 MHz width that is standardized for 5G. No evidence suggests that any other 5G test ever occurred in The Hague or that a 5G antenna was installed near that park conveniently out of view. We reached out via Twitter to the Dutch company NS, the operator of the train station allegedly involved in the 5G test, and a representative told us that they were “unaware that recent 5G tests were conducted at this location.” A representative of KPN, the largest mobile operator in The Netherlands, told us via Twitter that “I can be very clear about this matter; there are no 5G tests in Den Haag. This is a complete hoax.” Huawei, the cellular provider who took part in the one-day June test, did not respond to our inquiry about a test occurring, but the Dutch equivalent to the FCC asserted that no such test occurred. It bears mentioning that Kuhles has since walked back his claim that a 5G test occurred at all (though this fact does not appear to have dissuaded Erin Elizabeth from running with her story), and he has now moved the goalposts so far as to claim that perhaps it was just a whole lot of 4G LTE networks getting up in those birds’ business. Either way, from a scientific standpoint his ideas would generously be described as dubious. Promoters of 5G technology promise faster data rates along with reduced energy and financial cost. For the most part, these improvements will come from utilizing higher frequency radio bands and the development of more advanced cellular towers: Typically when a new mobile wireless technology comes along (like 5G), it’s assigned a higher radio frequency … The reason new wireless technologies occupy higher frequencies is because they typically aren’t in use and move information at a much faster speed. The problem is that higher frequency signals don’t travel as far as lower frequencies, so multiple input and output antennas (MIMOs) will probably be used to boost signals anywhere 5G is offered. In Europe, 5G will make use of three frequency ranges: a low-frequency 700MHz “coverage layer,” a 3.4-3.8GHz band which will be the primary bandwidth, and a “super data layer” in the higher frequency 24.25-27.5GHz band. This latter range is more theoretical and is not what has been tested in The Netherlands thus far, as the only known test of 5G in the Hague utilized the 3.4-3.8GHz band. Regardless, all of these frequencies fall within a range considered by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (first in 1998 and again in 2009) to be safe: It is the opinion of ICNIRP that the scientific literature published since the 1998 guidelines has provided no evidence of any adverse effects below the basic restrictions and does not necessitate an immediate revision of its guidance on limiting exposure to high frequency electromagnetic fields … The plausibility of the various non-thermal mechanisms that have been proposed is very low. In addition, the recent in vitro and animal genotoxicity and carcinogenicity studies are rather consistent overall and indicate that such effects are unlikely at low levels of exposure. Therefore, ICNIRP reconfirms the 1998 basic restrictions in the frequency range 100 kHz–300 GHz until further notice. Radio waves used in cellular technology can be described both by their frequency (or wavelength) and in terms of the energy being used to carry that frequency. The aforementioned restrictions refer to limits on the energy carrying a signal, which create exposure limits for various frequencies. Dr. Eric van Rongen, a member of the Health Council of the Netherlands and the Chairman of the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, told us via email that the levels of exposure in the 5G frequency range are comparable to existing technology: The levels of exposure would be comparable to those of the current (3G and 4G) networks, and thus very low, much lower than the exposure limits. The only way one could imagine death of birds as a result of exposure to electromagnetic fields is with very high level exposure that results in considerable heating … But the levels that are used by mobile telecom antennas are not strong enough for this to happen. There are maybe millions of such antennas around the world and this has never been reported. “Even if there would have been 5G exposure,” he told us, it is “very unlikely that that could cause the [bird] mortality.” One of the great benefits to being a conspiracy blogger, outside of the fact that copy and pasting a Facebook post counts as “reporting” and that objective reality need not be considered, is that you don’t really need to follow up or correct yourself even when the person pushing a given conspiracy completely changes his tune. Erin Elizabeth’s post, which has been shared well over 125,000 times on Facebook, included all of Khule’s posts on the subject up to 2 November 2018. But on 8 November 2018, Kuhles posted again, appealing to his own authority while making sure everyone knew he wasn’t really all that serious about that whole 5G thing in the first place. He brushed off factual criticism by calling his doubters sheeple and capitalizing certain words to make the letters LIE more prominent: Some think there is “no 5G” in Den Haag. That is a lie (or mis-perception) the so called “conclusions” of some (pseudo)-skeptics. Some “Authorities” claim a lot and is parroted by lesser authorities and beLIEved by the masses … it is a system of beLIEfs, false assumptions copy catted … That problem is with almost all controversial topics, nothing new … most ppl just love to be told “what is” … My 5G conclusions are assertions/conjecture with a QUESTION mark!
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23668
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"Karen Handel ""would have felt like it was OK to go in and abort"" Sarah Palin's son Trig, who has Down syndrome."
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Group says GOP candidate Karen Handel would be OK aborting child with Down syndrome
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false
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Abortion, Georgia, Melanie Crozier,
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"Now that the Republican gubernatorial runoff is on, some Georgia abortion foes are taking aim at front-runner Karen Handel. Handel placed first in the GOP primary despite Georgia Right to Life's criticisms that she's not pro-life enough. A late endorsement by conservative darling Sarah Palin helped her rocket ahead of opponents. And that's what concerns Melanie Crozier, the director of the Georgia Right to Life's Political Action Committee, Crozier said in a recent article for Politico, an online news site. ""[Palin] has a son with Down syndrome, and under Karen Handel’s laws, Handel would have felt like it was OK to go in and abort that child,"" said Crozier. Crozier added that they plan to back Nathan Deal, Handel's opponent in the GOP runoff. We did a double take. Handel is fine with aborting a fetus that tests positive for Down syndrome? No, she's not, Handel said. Her campaign called Crozier's statement a ""cruel and revolting lie."" She called on Crozier and GRTL President Dan Becker to step down. We requested to speak with Crozier. Instead, GRTL sent us a press release on their opposition to Handel's views on in vitro fertilization. But Crozier did talk with WSB-TV. In the interview, she apologized for making a statement that was unclear and said she was really criticizing Handel's views on in vitro fertilization. GRTL thinks doctors should create only as many embryos as they plan to implant. Handel thinks that if any are left over, they should be considered for adoption. Crozier has not asked for a correction or clarification on the Politico story, according to its author. GRTL and Handel have tangled before. She, like other GOP candidates, has declared herself ""pro-life,"" but some claim she's not ""pro-life"" enough. In statewide runs, Handel has consistently opposed abortion except in the cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake. GRTL supports only one exception: the life of the mother. Handel has taken hits from GRTL for her views for years, but she has stood her ground. When Handel ran for secretary of state in 2006, GRTL sent out a postcard naming her primary runoff opponent as the race's only true right-to-life candidate. Handel won without the organization's support. GRTL and Handel were at loggerheads again in June, after Becker used the word ""barren"" to talk about Handel's struggles with fertility and her position on abortion. She has previously talked publicly about how she tried unsuccessfully to have a child for 10 years. And when Palin announced her endorsement of Handel on July 12, GRTL issued a press release to say they were ""stunned"" because Handel's views on abortion showed she did not cherish the lives of children with genetic disorders as much as she should. Palin's son Trig was born in 2008 with Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes physical problems and cognitive delays. In a July 22 interview with Lori Geary on WSB-TV, Crozier tried to clarify the statement she made to Politico. Crozier: ""What I’m saying is, if a baby who is created through the process of in vitro fertilization ..."" Geary: ""Which again, Palin’s was not ..."" Crozier: ""But we’re saying, if this was the case, and was found to have Down syndrome, Karen Handel is OK with that life being exterminated."" Handel's campaign denies this claim as well. ""They're making a series of reaches beyond anything Karen believes,"" said her campaign spokesman Dan McLagan. What Crozier told Politico doesn't stand up to to scrutiny. Neither does her clarification. GRTL failed to provide any evidence whatsoever for the statement that Handel thinks it is fine to abort a child because it has Down syndrome. And the organization failed to explain how it came to its conclusion. The group should have known that they were misrepresenting Handel's beliefs. They've been quibbling with her stances for years. After Handel called for the resignation of GRTL's leadership, the group backed so far off its statement that Crozier claimed she wasn't really talking about aborting children with Down syndrome. Instead, she told WSB-TV, she was really talking about in vitro fertilization. But, as Geary pointed out, Trig wasn't conceived in a test tube. How could the subject apply to him? Crozier made a baseless and outrageous statement. She earns PolitiFact's lowest rating, ."
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4075
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Illinois lawsuit filed against top e-cigarette maker.
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An Illinois teenager who fell ill with a lung disease after vaping for over a year sued a leading e-cigarette maker on Friday, accusing it of deliberately marketing to young people and sending the message that vaping is cool.
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true
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Chicago, Health, Media, General News, Social media, Illinois, Lung disease, U.S. News, Lawsuits
|
Attorneys filed a lawsuit in Lake County Circuit Court on behalf of 18-year-old Adam Hergenreder, who was hospitalized at the end of August for about a week after complaining of nausea and labored breathing. The 85-page suit argued Juul Labs conveyed in advertisements and through social media campaigns that kids could boost their social status by vaping. It also said Juul never fully disclose their products contain dangerous chemicals. “To put it mildly, Adam didn’t stand a chance to avoid getting hooked on these toxic timebombs,” said Hergenreder’s lawyer, Antonio Romanucci. The filing comes as health officials investigate hundreds of breathing illnesses nationwide reported in people who used vaping devices. An Illinois man died in August after contracting a lung disease linked to vaping. Hergenreder recently told the Chicago Tribune that last year he started buying homemade devices filled with THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana, off the street. Vaping companies say blame should be put on those black-market devices, called dab sticks, for a spate of hospitalizations. Friday’s lawsuit did not directly raise that issue, including whether it is possible that the makeshift devices containing THC could have caused or contributed to Hergenreder’s illness. Hergenreder, from the Chicago suburb of Gurnee, was released from the hospital on Sept. 6 with “significant lung damage,” according to the lawsuit. He appeared with his mother and his attorney at a Friday news conference announcing the litigation. San Francisco-based Juul said in a Friday statement that it’s “never marketed to youth” and has ongoing campaigns to combat underage use. It added that its products are meant to help adult smokers wean themselves off traditional paper-and-tobacco cigarettes, which Juul called “the deadliest legal consumer product known to man.” Among the precautions Juul said it’s taken to ensure young people aren’t drawn to its e-cigarettes was to close Juul’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. The company said it has also deployed technology that restricts a sale until someone’s age is verified. The new lawsuit accused Juul of sometimes relying on indirect advertising to children, including by employing social media users with huge followings to promote Juul products in tweets or Instagram posts. The lawsuit also names a gas station in Waukegan as a defendant, accusing it of regularly selling Hergenreder nicotine-based Juul products when he was too young to legally buy them. Federal law prohibits e-cigarette and all other tobacco sales to those under 18.
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38968
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ISIS terrorists in Syria have been stricken with a flesh-eating plague.
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ISIS Hit with Fleshing-Eating Plague
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mixture
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Health / Medical, Religious
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It’s true that hundreds of ISIS fighters in Raqqa, Syria, have been stricken with a flesh-eating virus called leishmaniasis. However, the impact the virus has had on ISIS appeared to be exaggerated in reports that referred to it as a “plague.” America’s science envoy to the Middle East said in January 2015 that there was a “perfect storm” for outbreaks of infectious disease in the areas of Syria and Iraq that were under ISIS control, the Independent reports: “Dr. Peter Hotez, a leading global health expert, said an outbreak of leishmaniasis, a disfiguring disease spread by sand flies, was already ‘out of control’ in Syria, and he also warned about the rising risk posed by Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers) in a region where many hospitals have closed and disease surveillance control measures are hampered by fighting.” There had been a total of 100,000 cases of the flesh-eating virus reported in Syria by April 2015. It wasn’t clear how many ISIS fighters were infected. Many of the ISIS fighters who were infected, however, refused medical treatment, which led to even more outbreaks, the Mirror reports: “It causes large open wounds which eat away at flesh, is fatal if not treated with a simple course of medicine. But the jihadi fighters are refusing medical treatment, which has led to more outbreaks. People in the Islamic State’s capital Raqqa, in war-torn Syria, are at the highest risk. Doctors from non-government organization (NGO) Medecins Sans Frontieres were initially trying to curb the outbreaks but have now left since Islamic State set up. And other medical centers have closed down after medical staff fled the violence. Local medics who have very little experience of treating the virus are left to deal with patients, which has led to it spreading extensively.” The impact of the flesh-eating virus on ISIS isn’t known, but the terrorist group’s activity toward the end of April 2015 indicated that it was far from being wiped out. ISIS was engaged in “intense clashes” with Kurdish fighters, Business Insider reports. Medical have professionals warned that the flesh-eating virus could become a widespread epidemic in Syria, but that hadn’t appeared to have happened when this eRumor went viral. Comments
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36434
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"Rod Serling's ""The Twilight Zone"" originally endeavored to sneak weighty political topics past network censors who gutted his prior social commentaries."
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Did Rod Serling’s ‘Twilight Zone’ Use Sci-Fi to Push Politics Past Network Censors?
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true
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Entertainment, Fact Checks
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The beginning of April 2019 also marked the premiere of the third television iteration of The Twilight Zone. This time, Rod Serling’s mid-century television classic series was rebooted with producer Jordan Peele at the helm.On the day the first two episodes were released — “Nightmare at 30,000 Feet,” a remake of the classic William Shatner episode, and “The Comedian” — actor Kumail Nanjiani, who stars in the latter episode, tweeted:“I hope they don’t ruin The Twilight Zone reboot by making sociopolitical arguments.” – a true Twilight Zone fan— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) April 1, 2019A commenter responded to this with a claim that Serling’s original Twilight Zone was in fact a vehicle to surreptitiously use science fiction as social commentary on what was at the time censorship-happy network television:For the kids: Rod Serling literally created THE TWILIGHT ZONE because he was tired of network execs trying to censor his sociopolitical statements, so he dressed those statements up in science fiction. https://t.co/lKkZbn3cPg— Phil Nobile Jr. (@PhilNobileJr) April 2, 2019In an April 1 2019 Newsbusters article, “2019 Politics and Profanity Enter ‘The Twilight Zone’ Revival,” the author describes the original as “probably one of the most impactful and thought-provoking shows of all time”:Second, the people behind the project have been far too eager to politicize it. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Simon Kinberg commented, “The world we live in 2019 is clamoring socially, politically, morally for a new Twilight Zone. Our politics are so upside down, and because the divisions are getting wider, it’s time for a show that can be entertaining but also provide moral and social parables.” Honestly, the last thing anyone should want nowadays is more politics. Not when algorithms can be considered racist nowadays.Finally, the new revival also features Jordan Peele as both producer and narrator. The filmmaker behind Get Out and Us has hardly been shy about his liberal outlook. Just recently, he stated that he “doesn’t see himself” casting a white man as a lead in the future because he’s “seen that movie.” In literally any other context, judging someone by their skin color is the definition of racism. Peele may have the right to hire whomever he wants for his movies, but I have the right to criticize his reasons.So far, Peele’s racial preferences don’t seem to be affecting the series too badly since at least one of its episodes has a white male lead. However, some upcoming episode descriptions, such as one involving a racist cop who shoots a black teenager, still promise some foray into racism. For now, we just have to focus on other ways the revival undermines the original.Many people seemed to be shocked to discover that sociopolitical commentary was part of science fiction:Are they just rehashing the traditional stories of the Twilight Zone and just going full SJW with it? Basically a STD flare up on another franchise?— D. Howell (@dan_depot) April 2, 2019so, I’m a huge fan of the original #TheTwilightZone and was down on this new reboot because no Rod, no Twilight Zone. this new reboot’s first episode was a yawn until it came to the unnecessary political humor, lewd humor, and bad language. the original was good without needing— #PrideMonth 🏳️🌈 (@esparzanash911) April 2, 2019Holy shit get ratioed. (Also, massive LMAO to anyone thinking The Twilight Zone has never been political). pic.twitter.com/C6vIiPkHPW— PokyGem (The VVitch stan account) (@PokyGem023) April 2, 2019But social commentary has always been part of science fiction, and The Twilight Zone was never any different. A February 2018 The New York Review of Books assessment of The Twilight Zone Encyclopedia observes that the “show’s subversive credentials … is one of the secret threads running through” the book, quoting one passage:Though networks of the period avoided tackling uncomfortable topics like the Holocaust in traditional television dramas, Serling often exploited his show’s fantasy milieu and allegorical approach to storytelling to evade the kind of censorship that constrained more realistic programs. CBS network programming head James Aubrey might complain that sponsors avoid such material like the plague — after all, how do you explore the Holocaust and then sell toilet paper or underarm deodorant? — but Serling always stuck to his guns.A subsequent portion of the review goes over Serling’s difficulties with network censorship:Besides the other wartime fables like “A Quality of Mercy,” “King Nine Will Not Return” and “Deaths-Head Revisited,” in which an ex-Nazi is driven insane by the ghosts of Dachau, Serling demonstrated his intolerance for discrimination and right-wing ideologies in the all-black cast of “The Big Tall Wish,” the lynching story “I Am the Night—Color Me Black,” written in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination, and “He’s Alive,” starring Dennis Hopper as an American Nazi, who, “like some goose-stepping predecessors… searches for something to explain his hunger, and to rationalize why a world passes him by without saluting.” The Encyclopedia’s entries on virtually all of these explicitly progressive episodes give an account of the political interference Serling faced from the network. In “handsome, arrogant, egotistical” station executive James Aubrey, he found his most tenacious adversary, who consistently shortchanged The Twilight Zone, which was never a sure thing in the ratings, for the likes of Gilligan’s Island and The Beverly Hillbillies. Serling also weathered significant public outcry: an editorial partially reprinted in the Encyclopedia accused the show of Communist sympathies and criticized “He’s Alive” by observing that “the speech of the young Nazi, in the purely political aspects, sounded a great deal more like Barry Goldwater, a man of Jewish lineage, than it did like Hitler.” Serling, who was born Jewish and converted to Unitarianism, responded with characteristically biting candor that:[The far right seems] to feel that racism, bigotry and hatred should be of little consequence to us in view of the fact that communists are trying to take over our government, invade our schools, and subvert our institutions… But I submit that we have other enemies no less real, no less constant, and no less damaging to the fabric of a democracy. It’s when we hear denials that these people exist, and that their poison is being disseminated, and that any comment to the effect is irrelevant—I wonder if The Twilight Zone isn’t something more than a television idea.… Serling recalled in his last interview, before dying during heart surgery in 1975 the age of fifty, that he was motivated by his disgust at postwar bias and prejudice, which he railed against so virulently that he confessed “to creating daydreams about how I could… bump off some of these pricks.” But writing ultimately covers more ground, and Serling confined his daydreams to television and film (he famously co-wrote Planet of the Apes, another buffet of Cold War anxieties served up as an alternate-reality blockbuster).A May 2011 editorial in the Guardian printed well before Peele’s Twilight Zone said that after having “almost all the contemporary political references excised from an early drama about a crooked senator, [Serling] hit upon the idea of using science fiction and fantasy to smuggle in more controversial elements, in plain sight of the moneymen.” A November 2016 analysis by St. Mary’s University History in Media project describes a pivotal instance of censorship in Serling’s career after he tried to represent the lynching of Emmett Till in a script in the late 1950s:However, it was Serling’s “A Town Has Turned to Dust” that would be his most controversial moment… “A Town Has Turned to Dust” followed the story of Emmett Till, the young black boy brutally murdered in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. CBS decided to censor Serling’s script by making the black boy that was supposed to represent Till into a Mexican boy; they also made it seem as though it was the boy’s fault by depicting him as “getting out of line.”The network’s censorship removed many of the painful truths regarding the prejudices in America during this time. Serling would turn to the avenue of science fiction in order to escape this kind of censorship; in the words of Serling, “You know, you can put these words into the mouth of a Martian and get away with it.” Serling’s desire to get away from censored forms of media led to the creation of The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), a science fiction series that showcased people’s greatest fears ranging from alien invasion, death, ghosts, and even the effects of the Cold War on American society.A 2002 NPR Morning Edition retrospective and interview with Serling’s widow Carolyn Serling reiterated his frustration with political censorship:“He had said, ‘You know, you can put these words into the mouth of a Martian and get away with it,'” remembers Carolyn Serling. “If it was a Republican or Democrat they couldn’t say it. I mean, he wanted to deal with the issues of the day. We’re looking at bigotry, racism, prejudice, nuclear war, ethics, witch-hunts, loneliness. All of these things were verboten.”A clip features Serling himself describing the Till reference being censored in 1959, and he addresses the general difficulty in working with networks at the time:In the same interview (available here), Serling denied he intended to use The Twilight Zone a vehicle to discuss “social evils.” Starting at around 11:40, Serling described himself as a “tired non-conformist,” but claimed he would not use his scripts as “vehicles of social criticism.”However, in April 2019, Smithsonian pointed once again to Serling’s attempts to dramatize the Till murder as a flashpoint for the series:After haranguing from CBS executives, Serling had to move the story back 100 years, erase any direct allusion to Till, as well any black and white racial dynamics in the script … as Serling himself later put it, “If you want to do a piece about prejudice against [black people], you go instead with Mexicans and set it in 1890 instead of 1959.”Serling had also learned his lesson from his earlier dust-up with the Daily Variety. In his interview with Wallace, he demurred about whether or not his new show would explore controversial themes. “…[W]e’re dealing with a half-hour show which cannot probe like a [Playhouse 90 production], which doesn’t use scripts as vehicles of social criticism. These are strictly for entertainment,” he claimed. After Wallace followed up, accusing him of giving up “on writing anything important for television,” Serling easily agreed. “If by important you mean I’m not going to try to delve into current social problems dramatically, you’re quite right. I’m not,” he said.Of course, that couldn’t have been further from the case. His missteps with adapting the Till tragedy for television forced him to realize that to confront issues of race, prejudice, war, politics and human nature on television he had to do so through a filter.Many histories of Serling and his creation touched on its subversive and covert themes —which were indeed designed to foil censorship attempts by network censors when it came to the political issues of the day. In the clip above, Serling expresses disgust at censorship he faced in his attempt to depict the lynching of Emmett Till in the lead-up to the show’s debut.
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34070
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Mixing cream of tartar with orange juice will flush nicotine from your body and help you quit smoking faster.
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Because no published support exists for the claim that cream of tartar can play any role in either the removal of nicotine from the body or as an aid to quit smoking, and because the scientific facts used to make that argument are incorrect, distorted, or irrelevant, we rank this claim “False.”
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false
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Medical
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A viral story on Shareably first published in May 2018 claims that a mixture of orange juice and cream of tartar “will flush nicotine from your body and [help you] quit smoking faster.” Though Shareably’s article is currently driving the bulk of viral traffic on this subject, the claim has a history on the internet going back at least a decade. Before diving into the science, several reasons exist to be suspicious of the article from a media literacy standpoint. Far from citing any peer-reviewed scientific paper, the article states that its primary source of information is an article from the company Providr, a clickbait mill Snopes exposed for fraudulent Facebook practices in multiple 2018 investigations. The article itself, which in reality devotes only a few sentences to the headline claim, cites questionable websites like Natural Health and Healing 4 You and Organic Facts to support its argument. Finally, that claim relies on one of the most overused tropes in pseudoscientific literature: the notion of “detoxifying your body” through nutrition: Low potassium is associated with just about every single health issue caused by smoking … This is why it is effective to use while quitting smoking. It puts potassium back into your system and gets your adrenal glands working in conjunction with the rest of your body. Then your body naturally decides which toxins to eliminate through bowel movements, urine, and sweat. Everyone knows the importance of keeping vitamin C. What many people don’t know is that nicotine blocks your ability to adequately absorb it into the blood. On the upside, one glass of OJ delivers well above the recommended daily value. So when you drink a glass mixed with Cream of Tartar, you twice [sic] the medical benefits. Potassium tartrate (and other potassium chemicals) exists as potassium ions in the body, which are undeniably crucial for several important cellular processes, and a factor in multiple health conditions. Despite its chemical importance, no scientific basis exists for any claim that it can affect the removal of nicotine from the body or ease the cessation of smoking. Instead, Shareably relies on vague, scientific sounding non sequiturs that do not actually provide support for the headline claim. Patrick Mulholland, a professor at The Medical University of South Carolina and an expert in the biological processes underlying addiction, described the claim as “ridiculous,” telling us via email that “there is currently no known mechanism by which increasing [potassium] in the diet will reduce smoking or relapse in individuals with nicotine dependence.” The most obvious implication made with these vague internet claims is that smoking somehow lowers levels of potassium in the body — a medical condition known as hypokalemia. “There is no evidence that smoking itself causes hypokalemia” Mulholland told us. In fact, he added, “acute nicotine exposure can increase [potassium] levels” in the bloodstream. In other words, smoking cigarettes, while undeniably bad for your health, does not create a potassium deficiency in the body that could be rectified by the addition of more potassium. (As another problem, “little is known” about how potassium levels in the body are affected by diet in the first place.) What about the claim that potassium helps “flush” nicotine out of the body by “get[ing] your adrenal glands working in conjunction with the rest of your body” such that “your body naturally decides which toxins to eliminate through bowel movements, urine, and sweat?” This is essentially gibberish. Cream of tartar has “a long history” as a purging agent for one simple reason: it has a diuretic effect, which means it increases the amount of water expelled from the body in urine. It is unclear, however, how that action would serve to increase the metabolism — i.e. breakdown — of nicotine. These chemicals are broken down into metabolites by the liver before being excreted as urine. Further, from an addiction standpoint, the rapid removal of nicotine from the body — even if potassium tartrate could cause that effect — would counterproductively serve to increase the frequency of cravings, not reduce them. The alleged role Shareably suggests vitamin C plays in this process is even less precise. A closer look at these arguments reveals them to be especially flimsy. The first proffered argument does not actually provide support for the assertion that potassium helps you remove nicotine and/or quit smoking, it merely suggests adding the orange juice to replace all the lost vitamins from the purging. To be clear, this would be a solution to a problem that didn’t exist before the treatment, not a path toward quitting smoking. Another explanation they provide is simpler, but decidedly less-impressive sounding: “drinking [orange juice and cream of tartar] will drastically alter the way things taste, including cigarettes,” implying that the unpleasant taste would make people less likely to smoke. This explanation may hold the closest relevance to their claims of smoking cessation, but it is one that is unsupported by any actual scientific research. The National Institute on Drug Abuse does not endorse that notion, and a review of the literature suggests that very few people, if any, have tested it. As a final note, consuming too much cream of tartar can lead to adverse health effects on its own — there have been rare cases of “life-threatening” hyperkalemia (too much potassium) resulting from people using cream of tartar as a cleanse. One of the driving features of pseudoscientific clickbait is that it floods a reader with bits and pieces of actual science that are then misrepresented or distorted. This article is no different. For example, the piece asserts that “low potassium is associated with just about every single health issue caused by smoking.” Correlation is not causation. The association presented here is used to falsely suggest that because people with low potassium and people who smoke share similar medical maladies, supplementation with potassium would be the solution. The problem with this argument is that one of the most common symptoms that chronic smokers experience is also the defining feature of hypokalemia: hypertension. Hypertension, in turn, is a major factor in most of the other complications — cardiac problems, etc. — at issue in smoking. That link does not mean smoking-connected hypertension is related to potassium levels in the bloodstream, nor has any research been published supporting that notion. Similarly, the article asserts that nicotine “blocks your ability to adequately absorb [vitamin C] into the blood.” While it is true that smokers generally have lower levels of vitamin C in their body, this association is used to support the notion that vitamin C has an important role to play in smoking-related maladies without ever explaining what role vitamin C deficiency is alleged to play in either preventing the removal of nicotine from the body or prolonging someone’s efforts to quit smoking.
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7307
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Ohio cuts funding for Planned Parenthood after court OK.
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The Ohio Department of Health is ending grants and contracts that send money to Planned Parenthood after a divided federal appeals court upheld a state anti-abortion law that blocks public money for the group.
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true
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Planned Parenthood, Health, Courts, Ohio, North America
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The department notified recipients and contractors Thursday that it will end that funding within a month to comply with the law, unless the court delays the effect of its ruling as Planned Parenthood has requested. The health department said the law requires it to ensure state and certain federal funds aren’t “used to perform or promote nontherapeutic abortions.” The law targeted funding that Planned Parenthood receives through the department. That money is mostly from the federal government and supports education and prevention programs. Planned Parenthood said the funding provides “essential services” to tens of thousands of Ohioans that other health centers can’t replace. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio President Iris Harvey called the decision “heartless” and said it puts “politics over people.” “This cruel ruling blocks funding that allowed Planned Parenthood to provide essential services that reduce black infant mortality, prevent violence against women, and provide cancer screenings, HIV tests and sex education,” she said in an emailed statement. On March 12, the full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower federal court ruling when it voted 11-6 to uphold the state law. The majority opinion said that while Planned Parenthood contends the Ohio law will unconstitutionally deprive women of the right to access abortion services without undue burden, that conclusion is premature and speculative because the organization has said it will continue to provide abortion services.
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29859
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A video shows an extreme thrill ride found at an amusement park.
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Although the thrill rides displayed in The Centrifuge Brain Project may be nothing more than products of the filmmaker’s imagination, one YouTube commenter spoke for many in stating: “I dunno how to explain this but watching these rides gives me a real deep primal fear and makes me feel uncomfortable. There’s something alien about these rides with their freakish size and unnatural movements. I know they’re fake but they still scare the shit out of me by just watching them. This is pure nightmare fuel.”
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false
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Fauxtography
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In the last few decades amusement park thrill rides have been growing increasingly faster, higher, and steeper — to the point that it’s now sometimes difficult to distinguish between real “nail-biting freak-outs” and software-created renderings of gravity-defying attractions. A case in point is the following video, which has long been generating “Is this real?” inquiries from viewers who have encountered it on various social media platforms unaccompanied by any explanatory information: In fact, this scene does not depict a thrill ride to be found at any amusement park. It’s actually an excerpt from the 2012 short film The Centrifuge Brain Project, created by Till Nowak using a mixture of live action and digital animation, as described on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) website: Based on his childhood fascination for the strange atmosphere of amusement parks Till Nowak created the fictional documentary ‘The Centrifuge Brain Project’. He collected footage and used digital animation to create a series of non-existing thrill rides. Dr. Laslowicz is convinced: Making his machines more powerful brings him comes closer to the solution for all our problems. An obvious mistake or just typical human? The film is narrated by “Dr. Nick Laslowicz” (as portrayed by Leslie Barany), who has picked up on a project to “study the effects of kindergarten rides on the learning curve of 4-year-old children” that has been extended to “building larger, stronger devices to examine the effects also on adults.” Dr. Laslowicz leads the viewing audience through a succession of increasingly bizarre amusement rides conceived and created to further his study — including one lasting a whopping 14 hours on which, the researcher laments, “some people fell asleep and missed their stops and had another 14 hours, and you can imagine the problems that entailed.” The “ride” seen above appears near the tail end of the film, around the 5:37 mark:
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7640
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Sanofi and Regeneron's Dupixent gets more positive feedback from U.S. FDA.
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The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulator has given more positive feedback on the Dupixent eczema treatment being developed by drugmakers Sanofi and Regeneron, the companies said on Tuesday.
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true
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Health News
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Dupixent was launched in the United States in April 2017 for the treatment of moderate-to-severe eczema in adults, and the product is seen as a key sales driver for both companies. They said the FDA had accepted for a priority, or expedited, review the license application for the use of Dupixent in adolescents aged 12 to 17 with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis, where the disease was inadequately controlled with topical therapies, or when such treatment was medically inadvisable. Last month, Dupixent also received approval from the FDA as an additional maintenance therapy in patients with two types of asthma. Dupixent had revenues of 225 million euros ($256.8 million) in the third quarter, Sanofi reported in October, as the company also lifted its overall 2018 profit target. Sanofi and Regeneron are developing Dupixent to treat conditions including paediatric asthma, chronic sinus infection with nasal polyps, and adolescent eczema. ($1 = 0.8760 euros)
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1685
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Type, frequency of e-cigarette use linked to quitting smoking.
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Two new studies looking at whether electronic cigarettes help smokers to quit their deadly habit have found that while some of them can, it depends on the type and how often it is used.
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true
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Science News
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The research — welcomed by experts in a field marked by a dearth of good scientific evidence and intense lobbying — suggests daily use of so-called “tank” e-cigarettes, designed to be refilled with nicotine-containing liquids, is most likely to help smokers quit. Many experts think e-cigarettes, which heat nicotine-laced liquid into an inhalable vapor, are a lower-risk alternative to smoking, but questions remain about their use and safety. The charity Action on Smoking and Health says more than 2 million adults in Britain use e-cigarettes. So-called “cigalike” e-cigarettes are disposable or use replaceable cartridges, while “tank” models look quite different and have refillable containers of nicotine “e-liquid”. Researchers who conducted the two new studies, published in the journal Addiction and Nicotine & Tobacco, said they show that smokers wanting to use e-cigarettes to quit should use them daily and try “tanks” rather than “cigalikes”. “Our research indicates that daily use of tank models that can be refilled with liquid may give smokers a better chance of quitting smoking,” Ann McNeill, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London who was involved in both studies, told reporters. The two studies were based on a survey of around 1,500 smokers in Britain in December 2012, followed up one year later. The first found 65 percent of daily e-cigarette users in December 2012 tried to quit smoking in the next year compared with 44 percent of non-users. Some 14 percent of daily e-cigarette users had cut their consumption of tobacco cigarettes by at least 50 percent over the previous year, compared with only six percent of non-users. In the second study, researchers found that of 587 people using e-cigarettes at the one year follow-up, 76 percent used “cigalikes” and 24 percent used “tank” models. Almost a third of daily tank users had quit smoking, compared with 13 percent of smokers not using e-cigarettes. “At this point we don’t know why people who use tank type e-cigarettes daily are more likely to have quit,” said Sara Hitchman, who led the second study. “Research suggests that tanks might deliver nicotine more effectively and perhaps be more satisfying ... but there may also be other factors, including price and the ways that tanks allow the user to adapt the product.”
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15577
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There are more members of the U.S. Senate than the number of WI families who would benefit from GOP estate tax break.
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Australia will provide A$3 million ($2.03 million) for research on the use of cannabis to help cancer patients, its health minister said on Sunday, as the demand for medicinal cannabis products grows rapidly.
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true
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Taxes, Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin,
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While legal in most of Australia, such products are allowed only to patients on the prescription of a doctor, and a license is required to grow and make medicinal cannabis. On Sunday, Health Minister Greg Hunt said access had been permitted to more than 11,000 patients, with most approvals this year. “There have only been a limited number of well-designed clinical studies on medicinal cannabis, and we need to increase the evidence base to support medical professionals,” a ministry statement cited him as saying. Health ministry data shows 78 companies now licensed to grow and harvest medicinal cannabis, up from one in March 2017. Hunt was speaking at a fundraising walk led by Olivia Newton-John, the English-born Australian singer and actress who became an ardent advocate of medical cannabis after being diagnosed with cancer. “I’m a great proponent of it, for general health, for pain, for sleep, for anxiety,” Newton-John told Nine News television last week. “I really believe it is important in my journey.” Newton-John’s experience and efforts had helped shine a light on the benefits associated with medicinal cannabis, Hunt said, adding that the government would work to ensure access for Australian patients. “But only when it is prescribed by a medical professional,” he added. The government looks unlikely to change its stance on the recreational use of cannabis, however. Federal law prohibits such use, although late in September, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) became the first of the country’s six states and two main territories to legalize cannabis for personal use. Attorney-General Christian Porter is awaiting a copy of the final version of the ACT bill before deciding whether the federal government should override the territory legislation, the Weekend Australian newspaper said on Saturday. The ACT law, due to take effect from January 31, conflicts with national drug laws that ban possession of marijuana.
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12803
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"Blogger Says White House adviser Steve Bannon said, ""Nobody can blame you for beating your wife if it’s out of love."
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Trump adviser Steve Bannon did not say it’s OK to beat your wife if you love her
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false
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Fake news, PunditFact, Bloggers,
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"Like a virus, an old fake news story that claims White House adviser Steve Bannon is an advocate of domestic abuse has made the leap from one site full of contrived articles to another. A Nov. 14, 2016, post on USPOLN.com (short for U.S. Political News) starts with a headline that reads, ""Stephen Bannon: ‘Nobody Can Blame You For Beating Your Wife If It’s Out Of Love’."" It was flagged by Facebook as being potentially fake, as part of its crusade to winnow fake news from users’ social media feeds. The story has been popular on Facebook, which notes the USPOLN.com story link has been shared more than 58,000 times in the past four months. The story, which is not real, makes up quotes about Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News who became White House chief strategist for President Donald Trump. The post includes a reference to real charges Bannon faced in 1996, when his then-wife Mary Louise Piccard accused him of domestic abuse. Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness. Those charges were dropped in August 1996 when Piccard did not appear in court. The couple divorced in 1997. The post cites a Politico interview (which is fake), quoting Bannon as saying that marriage is great because ""you get to do all the things you’re not supposed to in a relationship."" The quote isn’t worded the same way as the headline. ""And just like there’s no rape in marriage, so too can nobody blame you if you smack your wife around a couple of times so long as you’re doing it out of love,"" Bannon is quoted as saying. ""As a matter of fact, I’ll have you know that some women actually enjoy being beaten by their husbands, and I don’t mean that in everyday life. I’m talking about when they’re performing their marital duties."" Again, Bannon did not say these things. They’re made up. USPOLN.com, which we’ve written about before, identifies itself as ""a US Political News and hybrid News/Satire platform on the web."" The domain is registered to an address in Kosovo. The site didn’t respond to our attempts to contact them via email. But the story actually comes from yet another joke site, in an Aug. 26, 2016, post on Politicops.com. That site is related to the site Newslo.com, which refers to itself in a disclaimer as ""the first hybrid News/Satire platform on the web."" The same story also appears on other sites in the Newslo family, like Politicalo.com and Politicot.com. The articles were posted the day after stories recounting Bannon’s 1996 ran in outlets like Politico and the New York Times. Newslo.com stories take a small bite of real news or quotes by real people and build fake stories around them. They feature a pair of buttons that allow readers to highlight the true parts of their stories, so readers can conceivably know the difference. But on other sites without the buttons, there’s no way to know. The Bannon story originated on a site known for generating fake stories."
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32834
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Photograph shows crates in which calves are kept immobilized for six weeks before they are slaughtered for veal.
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None of this is to say that the lives of dairy cows are ideal ones, that dairy cows are never mistreated, or that calves raised for veal purposes don’t sometimes endure cruel and inhumane living conditions (including being kept in virtually immobile confinement in veal crates for their entire 16-week long lives). But the cause of animal welfare is poorly served by the propagation of misinformation such as the inaccurate and misleading photograph/text pairing seen here.
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false
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Uncategorized, veal
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It is an undeniable fact that much of the food we consume is animal meat. But even though most of us are familiar with the types of animals we typically eat — cow, pigs, chickens, fish — comparatively few consumers have much familiarity with the processes involved in animal food production: where those animals come from, how they’re raised, what they’re fed, the conditions under which they live, how they’re slaughtered, etc. Animal rights activists often post pictures and videos online to try to call public attention to some food animals who live and die in appallingly inhumane conditions, but an item about the housing of calves raised for veal production, however well-intentioned, is woefully inaccurate: What’s pictured here are not crates in which calves are imprisoned within an hour of their birth, condemned to spend their entire lifespans stuffed into little boxes that don’t even provide them enough room to turn around in order to keep their meat “tender” before they’re marched off to slaughter after only six weeks. (Veal calves are typically raised for 16 weeks, not six.) This photograph actually shows calf hutches that are used to house calves being raised for dairy (not veal) purposes, and those hutches provide plenty of room for calves to turn around and as well as attached runs so that the calves can spend time outdoors: As a post on the Heim Dairy Farm’s blog explained, dairy farmers house calves in hutches for the first eight weeks of their lives for several reasons, including to protect the calves from illness, shelter them from weather, and better monitor their development: The many benefits of housing calves separately can be summarized simply as management. Individual housing allows us to know exactly what is going in and coming out of each calf. This helps us monitor their development as well as identify illness. This may surprise you, but most of our calves can’t talk (ok, none of our calves can talk). The most common signs that a calf isn’t feeling well are loose manure, called “scours”, or lack of appetite. Individual housing allows us to know quickly and certainly which calf is scouring or not eating. We can then give that calf the extra attention and treatment that she needs. Sick calves bring me to the next reason for individual housing. Kind of like kids at day care, calves in groups can spread illness to each other pretty quickly. Keeping a calf separated from her peers early in life, while her immune system is developing, limits her exposure to bacteria other than her own and therefore reduces the risk that she will get sick. Each of our calves is given their own plastic hut with their own hog panel (3′ fence panels) to form a run in front of their hut, their own grain bucket and their own milk/water bucket. Obviously we reuse these items, but the huts and buckets are sanitized between calves, and if a calf is sick, her buckets can be sanitized more often. Our hutches keep calves warm in the winter and offer shade in the summer, and vents and a window can be closed or opened as needed to enhance comfort. Similarly, Dairy Carrie explained that housing of newborn dairy calves in hutches is undertaken for their own health and physical protection: One of the most common questions I have from people about calves is why we don’t keep baby calves with their mothers on a dairy farm. Or why we keep calves in those little houses and not with their moms. My answer is that we do let the mama cows lick off their babies, but after that we take over care of the calf. We do this for many reasons. The first is that our cows calve in a group pen, if you have ever been in a situation where you have a pack of baby-hungry women and a newborn you can imagine what the calving pen is like after a calf is born. Often times a cow other than the one who gave birth will want to claim the new calf as her own. Some times several cows want the calf to be theirs. This usually upsets the actual mother of the calf and since cows can’t use words, a lot of pushing and head butting comes into play. The problem with this is that these cows get so caught up in wrestling that they forget that there is a brand new baby in the area and the calf can get stepped on and hurt or even killed. The second reason we take over for the cows is that just like a human newborn calves don’t have much of an immune system built up yet. For the same reason that new moms refuse to hand over their precious bundle of joy to a hacking, sneezing and feverish person we do what we can to stop the spread of any bugs to the baby calf. Since no one has been able to litter box train a cow yet, manure happens and as you can imagine manure can carry said bugs. A third reason we take over and one that will resonate with any mother who has nursed her child … Calves are born with teeth and they are sharp! When a calf is hungry they will wander up to their mother and take their cute little heads and punch their mother’s udder with it to get them to let down their milk. I am not certain why a cow is designed to reward bad behavior, but they are. Then the calf with start to suckle, teeth and all. While a beef cow’s udder is more built for this kind of thing a dairy cow’s udder just doesn’t handle the abuse as well. Although the calf hutches come in different sizes, as can be seen here they typically provide plenty of space for a young calf (or even two calves) to move about and turn around comfortably: The hutches also include runs that provide calves access to the outdoors and additional living space: And they provide calves shelter against the elements and temperature extremes:
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30683
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"A ""Do Not Adopt a Pitbull"" ad will be airing during Super Bowl LII in February 2018."
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We previously surveyed the issue of breed-specific legislation and dog bites in an article on this site.
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false
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Critter Country, pitbulls, super bowl
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In early 2018, social media users were sharing a football-themed video clip, one which exhorted viewers “Do Not Adopt a Pitbull” and featured scenes of cheering crowds overlaid with text statements reading ” They killed the most kids,” “They killed the most family members,” and “One breed killed 75% of the people who were mauled to death in 2017”: The video quickly drew the ire of many pitbull owners and aficionados, who were aghast at its sweeping and condemnatory anti-pitbull rhetoric. The clip bore the imprint of the Dog Bite Law web site, which is linked to Kenneth M. Phillips, an attorney who specializes in — not surprisingly — dog bite law: Welcome to the #1 dog bite law resource on the Internet since 1998! Its author, Kenneth M. Phillips, is the only lawyer in the USA who, since the 1990s, has represented just dog bite victims all over the country. He has earned tens of millions of dollars for children and adults bit by dogs, and the families of people killed by dogs. He works for clients without charging anything up front, and answers questions about dogbites for free. If you want to learn about dog bite law, this website has 1,000 pages of solutions, unbiased legal information and “straight talk” for dog bite victims, their lawyers, dog owners, property owners, and people who adopt-out, train or work with dogs. It was unlikely that this clip would be aired as a commercial during the upcoming NFL Championship Game (commonly known as the “Super Bowl”) on 4 February 2018: Such an airing would be a tremendously expensive undertaking (with 30-second Super Bowl commercial spots now selling for about $5 million) and would quite possibly run afoul of the NFL’s policies regarding acceptable commercial content. Most likely the timing of the video’s spread (i.e., during the NFL playoffs) and its use of football imagery caused some social media users to presume it was intended to be a Super Bowl ad. Indeed, Mr. Phillips confirmed for us that this video originated with him and was not something to be aired during the Super Bowl: You are correct that [the video] will not air during the Super Bowl. You also are correct that I am responsible for it. The video in question is a pastiche which features wildly cheering football fans set against several terribly real facts about the dangers presented by pit bulls. It is a political piece of sorts because of the controversy surrounding bans of this breed in a number of jurisdictions. Here are the important facts which are fully documented and available on dogbitelaw.com: Of the 31 Americans killed by dogs in 2016, 23 were killed by pitbulls and their mixes, and 12 of those 23 victims were either the owner of the pitbull or a member of the pitbull owner’s family. (See details given by Colleen Lynn.) In 2017, of the 39 Americans killed by dogs, 29 were killed by pitbulls and their mixes, and 18 of those 29 victims were either the owner of the pitbull or a family member (including a relative). (See Colleen Lynn.) In 2017, dogs killed 15 children out of the 39 total human fatalities. Pit bulls kllled 8 of the 15 youths. (See Colleen Lynn.) Approximately 75 studies conducted in 28 USA states, as well as cities, counties and Canadian provinces, establish that the number of pit bull attacks on humans far exceeds the number of attacks on humans by other breeds. (The studies are summarized and linked at Dogsbite.org, Pit Bulls Lead “Bite” Counts Across U.S. Cities and Counties, Sept. 1, 2016.) In the 13-year period from 2005 to 2017, pit bulls killed 283 Americans. (Colleen Lynn, 12-Year U.S. Dog Bite Fatality Chart and Colleen Lynn, 2017 U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities.) In 2017, 39 Americans were fatally mauled by dogs, and 29 of the 39 were killed by pit bulls. There are 3.6 million pit bulls in the USA, including purebreds and mixes, making them about 6.6% of the canine population. (Merritt Clifton, Most Popular Breed in US Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog.) They are responsible for over 80% of all canine homicides. (Colleen Lynn, 2015 U.S. Dog Bite Fatalities.) While pitbulls are often cited as contributing to the largest number, or greatest percentage of, dog bite incidents and fatalities per year, defenders of pitbulls maintain that it is among the least aggressive of canine breeds, that attack or bite incidents attributed to pitbulls often involve other breeds mistakenly identified as American Pit Bull Terriers, and that human behavior — not some inherent quality of breed — is what leads to companion animal attacks: Pit bulls make up only 6% of the dog population, but they’re responsible for 68% of dog attacks and 52% of dog-related deaths since 1982, according to research compiled by Merritt Clifton, editor of Animals 24-7, an animal-news organization that focuses on humane work and animal-cruelty prevention. [But] there is a growing backlash against the idea that pit bulls are more violent than other dogs. “There is not any breed of dog that is inherently more dangerous,” said Marcy Setter of the Pit Bull Rescue Center. “That’s simply not true.” But critics say that pit bulls are inherently dangerous no matter how they’re treated, because violence is in their DNA. “Why do herding dogs herd? Why do pointing dogs point? They don’t learn that behavior, that’s selective behavior,” says Colleen Lynn, president and founder of DogsBite.org, a national dog-bite-victims group dedicated to reducing dog attacks. “Pit bulls were specifically bred to go into that pit with incredible aggression and fight.” “Every kind of dog is neglected and abused,” Clifton agrees. “And not every kind of dog responds to the neglect and abuse by killing and injuring people.”
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7314
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New Hampshire urges recent arrivals from China to stay home .
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New Hampshire public health officials are asking all travelers who have arrived in the state from China in the last 14 days to stay home and watch for symptoms of the Coronavirus.
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true
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New Hampshire, Health, General News, China, Coronavirus, Donald Trump, Public health, United States
|
China’s death toll from the new virus rose to 259 on Saturday. The United States declared a public health emergency on Friday and President Donald Trump signed an order barring entry to foreign nationals who visited China within the last 14 days. The restrictions don’t apply to immediate family of American citizens and permanent residents. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services said it will work with federal officials to implement the new monitoring program. It recommends those who previously arrived in New Hampshire from China stay home and watch for symptoms of fever or respiratory illness.
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6383
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Scotland bans bargain-basement booze in public health move.
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Bargain booze has become a little more expensive in Scotland, which says it is the first country in the world to introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol.
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true
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Health, Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, International News, Business, Europe, Public health
|
From Tuesday, retailers must charge at least 50 pence (68 cents) per unit, amounting to about 70 pence for a bottle of beer or 5 pounds for a bottle of wine. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon praised Scotland for being “bold enough and brave enough” to take the step. “All of the evidence says that minimum unit pricing will reduce deaths from alcohol-related illnesses, reduce hospital admissions and generally reduce the damage that alcohol misuse does to our society,” she said. The measure, which public health advocates call a watershed moment, has been a long time coming. Scottish lawmakers approved minimum pricing in 2012, but it was delayed for six years by legal challenges from the Scotch Whisky Association, which argued the move unfairly hit responsible drinkers on low incomes Britain’s Supreme Court finally rejected the distillers’ challenge last year. Health campaigners say minimum pricing will save lives and money. Almost a fifth more alcohol is sold per adult in Scotland than in other parts of Britain, and Scottish authorities say alcohol misuse causes about 697 hospital admissions and 22 deaths a week. Scotland sets its own health policies, and campaigners are pressing for similar action in other parts of the U.K. The Alcohol Health Alliance, a coalition of medical groups, says there are almost 23,000 alcohol-related deaths a year in England, which has roughly 10 times Scotland’s population of 5 million. Britain’s Home Office said minimum pricing was “under review and the government will consider the evidence of its impact once it is available.” Norine Aslam, who runs the Top Cellar liquor store in the Edinburgh suburb of Leith, said she was “all for” the move. “It’s like everything, change is difficult,” she said. “But I think it’s a positive change so it’s just a hurdle that everyone needs to get over. “I think it’s more positive than negative, so I think it will be good.”
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3707
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New York joins states suing e-cigarette maker Juul.
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New York has joined the ranks of states suing the nation’s biggest e-cigarette maker, Juul Labs Inc., saying the company used deceptive marketing practices to reel in young users.
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true
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New York, San Francisco, Epidemics, Public health, Health, Lawsuits, General News, Vaping, U.S. News, Tobacco industry regulation
|
Attorney General Letitia James announced the lawsuit Tuesday against San Francisco-based Juul Labs Inc. It alleges the company contributed to a youth vaping epidemic using misleading sales tactics on popular social media sites. The suit also alleges that Juul advertising touted e-cigarettes, which contain nicotine, as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes. In a written statement, Juul Labs said it had yet to review the lawsuit. “We remain focused on resetting the vapor category in the U.S. and earning the trust of society by working cooperatively with attorneys general, regulators, public health officials, and other stakeholders to combat underage use and convert adult smokers from combustible cigarettes,” it said. The company previously ended the U.S. advertising campaigns and shut down the social media accounts that are the subject of the lawsuit. It also stopped selling most flavors of its e-cigarettes after complaints that they were aimed at attracting young users, not just smokers looking for an alternative to cigarettes. California sued the company on Monday and North Carolina in May. Illinois, Massachusetts and several other states are also investigating Juul, which James said represents 70% of the e-cigarette market. In the latest government survey, one in four high school students reported using e-cigarettes the previous month, despite federal law banning sales to those under 18. “Juul basically took a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook,” James, New York state’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer, told a news conference at her Manhattan office. The lawsuit was filed in state court in Manhattan. It requires Juul to stop targeting minors and pay fines for various alleged violations. The suit comes as health officials have been investigating deaths and illnesses tied to some vaping products. Most who got sick said they vaped products containing THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana. Officials believe a thickening agent used in black-market THC vaping products appears to be a culprit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 42 deaths linked to vaping and 2,172 injuries, according to the federal agency’s latest count. Juul’s products contain nicotine, not THC, but politicians have used the illnesses and deaths to hammer all e-cigarette makers. James said the death of a 17-year-old boy in the Bronx, linked to vaping, spurred her to file the lawsuit. “As a result of all of their advertising, a significant number of young people thought that e-cigarettes were safe,” James said. She said other companies that produce e-cigarettes may be targeted in the future. “All individuals who are responsible for the destruction that has been caused in the state of New York, you can be assured this office will pursue those individuals and not be limited to any one particular company,” James said. Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a statement saying that “it is undeniable that the vaping industry is using flavored e-cigarettes to get young people hooked on potentially dangerous and deadly products, and the predatory marketing practices used by these companies have no place in New York.” ___ This story has been updated to correct that the lawsuit accuses Juul of misleading the public about potential health hazards of e-cigarettes and contributing to a vaping epidemic by touting e-cigarettes as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes, but it does not claim the company’s marketing practices contributed to 42 deaths and thousands of injuries nationwide.
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30613
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Keanu Reeves gave an envelope of cash to a stranger in order to help pay for a kidney transplant.
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Keanu Reeves’ off-screen life has proven to be a popular subject on the internet. In December 2016, for instance, a viral (and mostly true) video relayed some tragic moments from the actor’s personal life.
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false
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Entertainment, keanu reeves, matrix, meme
|
Frequent internet users have likely come across at least one story about the generosity of actor Keanu Reeves. Perhaps it was the video of the Speed star giving up his seat on the subway, or maybe it was a report about his involvement with charitable causes such as PETA, or his donations to fund children’s hospital and cancer research. Or maybe it was the story of how Keanu bought motorcycles for the stuntmen after filming The Matrix. Or, most likely, it was the (exaggerated) tale of how the actor gave away a portion of his Matrix salary to the crew. Stories of Reeves’ generosity became so prevalent that by February 2018 they had morphed into a bit of an internet joke. Internet users started sharing outlandish and imaginary tales about how he had come to their unlikely rescue. The following meme, for instance, claimed that Reeves randomly gave an envelope full of cash to a stranger after learning that the man’s son needed a kidney transplant: Today Keanu Reeves pulled up at my place of work so we started talking then I mentioned that my son needed a kidney transplant surgery and I couldn’t afford it at the moment he stood silent for a few minutes then went to this car and came back and gave me this envelope full of money. This is not a true story. Both of these images predate this meme and are not related to one another. The photograph of Reeves and a fan was taken in January 2018. The original photographs have been deleted from Facebook but a Keanu Reeves fan page stated that it was taken by “Mar Felipe” somewhere in Los Angeles. When these images first circulated they were not attached to any claims about a kidney transplant: Gracias Mar Felipe 05 enero 2017 Cuando te encuentras caminando a Keanu Reeves en las calles de Los angeles https://t.co/TCjlgkQsiS pic.twitter.com/qoqp3TdXm6 — KCR America Latina N (@keanulatino) January 7, 2017 We haven’t been able to locate the exact origins of the photograph featuring an envelope full of cash, but this image has been circulating since at least February 2017, well before it was associated with a story about Keanu Reeves and a kidney transplant.
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8419
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Love wins: wedding preparations resume in Wuhan as coronavirus lockdown lifts.
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Peng Jing stifles a laugh as she looks into the eyes of her tuxedo-clad fiancee, Yao Bin, who is in turn trying not to step on the long train of her white wedding dress.
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true
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Health News
|
“Smile!”, shouts the photographer as he snaps away. Weddings, birthdays and celebrations have been cancelled around the world because of the coronavirus pandemic but in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the virus first appeared, they are finally resuming as authorities relax a strict lockdown that separated families, friends and lovers for over two months. Peng, a 24-year-old receptionist and airport worker Yao, 28, had been looking forward to getting married and carrying out wedding tasks including an elaborate photo shoot, when the epidemic abruptly put their plans on hold. “We were supposed to register our marriage on Feb. 20, 2020” she said, referring to what was supposed to be one of the country’s most popular wedding dates thanks to the incidence of number “2” and its connotations with couplehood. The city’s lockdown on Jan. 23 put a halt to that, and prompted marriage registration bureaux across China to shut amid efforts to curb the virus. More than 50,000 people have been infected in Wuhan and 2,579 have died from the virus. “I sent her home and the next day the lockdown happened,” Yao said, recalling how abrupt it was. “I was very unhappy.” While Yao’s job meant that he was allowed to continue to leave the house for work, the couple avoided seeing each other, only managing to talk, or sometimes argue, through games or messaging app WeChat. “He kept wanting to send me things to eat and drink because the lockdown meant that we couldn’t go out to buy things, but I was scared, like what if he caught something while on the way? The situation was very serious at the time,” she said. They only managed to meet in person at the end of March, when Peng’s office reopened. “I was overwhelmed with emotions,” he said of that meeting. The couple registered their marriage last Saturday, days after the city’s marriage registration bureau and are now making preparations to hold their traditional wedding feast in May. It will be a simple one, however, as continued epidemic control efforts in the city mean that big gatherings are still frowned upon and hotels are not taking bookings. Instead, they will hold it at Yao’s family home, they said. “Of course (the epidemic) has had an impact, but it doesn’t stop the two of us and cause us to give up,” he said. “But of course if the conditions allow it, I want to give her the best.”
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13293
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We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns.
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"Clinton said, ""We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns."" She’s correct that all deaths from guns have exceeded 33,000 during the most recent three years for which we have data. That said, it’s worth noting that roughly two-thirds of these were suicides."
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true
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National, Crime, Public Safety, Guns, Hillary Clinton,
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"Early in the third presidential debate in Las Vegas, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton got into a back and forth over guns. At one point, Clinton said, ""We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns."" Is she correct? According to data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, there were 33,599 people who died due to guns in 2014, the most recent year available. And the number has topped 33,000 for three years running. So Clinton has a strong point. That said, it’s important to note that she is bundling together homicides, suicides and other types of gunfire, including accidental discharges and legally permissible killings such as those by law enforcement. As the following chart shows, suicides account for the largest share of gun-related deaths -- about two-thirds in recent years. And while gun-related suicides have risen by 10 percent since 2010, the number of non-suicide gun deaths has remained roughly the same. Year Deaths by guns (including suicides) Suicides alone Deaths by guns excluding suicides 2014 33,599 21,334 12,265 2013 33,636 21,175 12,461 2012 33,563 20,666 12,897 2011 32,351 19,990 12,361 2010 31,672 19,392 12,280 Average per year, 1999-2014 31,102 18,223 12,879 Clinton phrased her statement carefully -- she referred to people who ""die from guns"" without specifying the circumstances of how they were shot. Still, the fact that suicides represent such a large share of gun deaths is a detail worth noting. Our ruling Clinton said, ""We have 33,000 people a year who die from guns."" She’s correct that all deaths from guns have exceeded 33,000 during the most recent three years for which we have data. That said, it’s worth noting that roughly two-thirds of these were suicides.
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15608
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The families that are covered through the Low Income Pool is a different group of individuals than are covered by Obamacare.
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"Scott said, ""The families that are covered through the Low Income Pool is a different group of individuals than are covered by Obamacare."" This makes it sound as if the people who would qualify for Medicaid under an expansion are completely different than patients who leave hospitals with unpaid bills the LIP fund helps pay to providers. Health policy experts said that while there would still be uninsured people not paying their bills under an expansion, plenty of overlap exists between the two, especially at lower incomes."
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false
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Health Care, Medicaid, State Budget, Florida, Rick Scott,
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"Washington may favor expanding Medicaid, Gov. Rick Scott argues, but it won’t help the people being served by the soon-to-expire Low Income Pool, called LIP. Speaking to reporters, Scott said he doesn’t share the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ position that growing Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act is a better solution than renewing the current LIP fund. The LIP program, which mostly helps cover hospital costs for uninsured and underinsured patient visits, is set to expire June 30. ""The families that are covered through the Low Income Pool is a different group of individuals than are covered by Obamacare,"" Scott said. Given the context, we’re taking ""Obamacare"" to mean Medicaid expansion; we contacted Scott’s office, but they didn’t elaborate. One of the chief arguments for Medicaid expansion is that it would cover uninsured Floridians, many of whom receive care at hospitals and clinics that then turn to the LIP program to offset costs. We decided to check if Scott was right about those being two different sets of potential patients. LIP vs. Medicaid The debate over Medicaid expansion and the loss of federal matching money for the $2.2 billion LIP fund has roiled the state Legislature this year. While the Senate wants a Medicaid expansion based on private insurance, the House refuses. Adding fuel to the fire is that Washington in 2014 said it would not renew the LIP, a temporary program funded since 2005 by both state and federal taxes. That led to a billion-dollar hole in the budget and a standoff that requires a special session in June. One of the primary arguments for expansion has been that more than 800,000 Floridians would be covered under a broader Medicaid program. The Affordable Care Act allows Florida to cover all adults with incomes below 138 percent of federal poverty level. (100 percent is currently $11,770 for an individual and $24,250 for a family of four). The pro-expansion side points out this means the hundreds of thousands of newly eligible Floridians would be able to enroll in Medicaid and have access to the physicians and preventive care it offers. Advocates say this would preclude the need for LIP money, as most of the uninsured who typically turn to emergency room visits for care would then be insured. But just because you are uninsured doesn’t necessarily mean you are poor enough to qualify for an expanded Medicaid. The LIP fund helps reimburse care providers for services rendered instead of directly covering patients. That means it pays for anyone who is uninsured, whether they would qualify for Medicaid or not. Experts told us those who don’t qualify for Medicaid would include undocumented immigrants and people above 138 percent of the federal poverty level without insurance. But that second group at least enjoys the benefit of being able to get subsidized policies if their incomes are less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. Even if they don’t choose to enroll in one of those policies, the option exists. It’s also not right to say that potential Medicaid beneficiaries and those helped by LIP are mutually exclusive groups, as Scott makes it sound. Chances are that most of the uninsured making these uncompensated ER visits are the poorest patients, Harvard health policy professor Ben Sommers told us. ""Technically yes, some portion of the people potentially served by the LIP would not be identical to the people covered by the ACA (Affordable Care Act),"" he said. ""But in broad strokes, the main people who benefit from the LIP would benefit even more from the Medicaid expansion and ACA Marketplace coverage."" Florida has the second-highest total of low-income, uninsured adults in the nation behind Texas, so insuring them through Medicaid would mean hospitals would get paid for their services, those analysts said. It’s much more effective than attempting to pay emergency bills after the fact. ""If you have insurance you may know that you can get preventive care like vaccinations, mammograms or primary care,"" said Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University. ""If there is only uncompensated care, more people are likely to skip preventive and primary care because they will worry about the cost ... and only get care when they are quite sick and need emergency or hospital care."" Our ruling Scott said, ""The families that are covered through the Low Income Pool is a different group of individuals than are covered by Obamacare."" This makes it sound as if the people who would qualify for Medicaid under an expansion are completely different than patients who leave hospitals with unpaid bills the LIP fund helps pay to providers. Health policy experts said that while there would still be uninsured people not paying their bills under an expansion, plenty of overlap exists between the two, especially at lower incomes."
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33654
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Women: Take off your clothes and scare terrorists!
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Does the President want all American women to strip off in hopes of frightening the terrorists still in our midst?
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false
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September 11th, naked, nude, terrorism
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Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001] The President has asked that we unite for a common cause. Since the Islamic people cannot stand nudity, they consider it a sin to see a naked woman that is not their wife. Tonight at 7:00, all women should run out of their house naked to help weed out the terrorists. The United States appreciates your efforts, and applauds you. God bless America. Variations: In circulation in e-mail in October 2010 was this version: WALK NAKED IN America DAY Don’t forget to mark your calendars. As you may already know, it is a sin for a Muslim male to see any woman other than his wife naked and if he does, he must commit suicide. So next Saturday at 1:00 P.M. Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists. Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort. All patriotic men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to demonstrate their support for the women and to prove that they are not Muslim terrorist sympathizers. Since Islam also does not approve of alcohol, a cold 6-pack at your side is further proof of your patriotism. The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity. God bless America ! P.S. It is your patriotic duty to inform others. If you don’t send this to at least 1 person, you’re a terrorist-sympathizing, lily-livered coward and are possibly aiding and abetting terrorists. Origins: Oh, if only it were that simple! The above incitement to female nudity is offered in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, yet we have folks ask us if it was on the up-and-up, hence this article. No, the President of the United States of America has not made such a request. It’s incongruous to believe that a man whose term began with the suggestion that he was instituting a dress code at the White House would now be advocating public nudity as a response to terrorism. (The dress code brouhaha was put to rest in a statement made by Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, during a 15 February 2001 press briefing.) Whether or not Muslims are offended by female nudity is a moot point — clearly the terrorists aren’t. An examination of the activities of the hijackers in the days and months leading to the September 11 attacks show that at least some of them “enjoyed naked lap dancers in Daytona Beach” [Palm Beach Post]. Nudity is thus highly unlikely to provoke such a strong reaction in any remaining operatives as to cause them to jump up and announce themselves. In a nutshell, those whose patriotism urges them to take action are well advised to do it with their clothes on. The neighbors might stand for such nonsense once, but trooping the colors every night at 7 p.m. would be pushing it. No need to unfurl Old Glory, in other words. One of the ways humans deal with tragedy and times of uncertainty is to resort to humor. Akin to the piece quoted above, this next bit first circulated in mid-October 2001 has caused many a smile: Don’t go to the bathroom on October 28th. CIA intelligence reports that a major plot is planned for that day. Anyone who takes a poop on the 28th will be bitten on the ass by an alligator. Reports indicate that organized groups of alligators are planning to rise up into unsuspecting American’s toilet bowls and bite them when they are doing their dirty business.I usually don’t send emails like this, but I got this information from a reliable source. It came from a friend of a friend whose cousin is dating this girl whose brother knows this guy whose wife knows this lady whose husband buys hotdogs from this guy who knows a shoeshine guy who shines the shoes of a mailroom worker who has a friend who’s drug dealer sells drugs to another mailroom worker who works in the CIA building. He apparently overheard two guys talking in the bathroom about alligators and came to the conclusion that we are going to be attacked. So it must be true. The above is a parody of the Mall Risk rumor (wherein the friend of a friend of a girl who was dating a now-disappeared Afghani reports on a letter the jilted gal received that warned her not to take flights on September 11 or be in the malls on Halloween). Though it should be obvious that any “warning” about stealth alligators organizing for a day of ass biting has to be a joke, our incoming mail proves otherwise — some have in all seriousness asked if this was a real threat they had to prepare for. Perhaps these folks have never heard the saying about being “up to your ass in alligators.” Finally, a punning bit of humor that nobody (we know of) has taken seriously: Latest news reports advise that a cell of 4 terrorists has been operating in West Virginia. Police advise earlier today that 3 of the 4 have been detained.The West Virginia State Police stated that the terrorists Bin Loafin, Bin Drinkin, and Bin Fightin have been arrested on immigration issues. The Police advise further that they can find no one fitting the description of the fourth cell member, Bin Workin, in the state. Police are confident that anyone who looks like Workin will be very easy to spot in the community.
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1740
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Ancient DNA reveals history of horse domestication.
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Speed, smarts, and the heart of a champion: using genomic analysis, scientists have identified DNA changes that helped turn ancient horses such as those in prehistoric cave art into today’s Secretariats and Black Beautys, researchers reported Monday.
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true
|
Science News
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Understanding the genetic changes involved in equine domestication, which earlier research traced to the wind-swept steppes of Eurasia 5,500 years ago, has long been high on the wish list of evolutionary geneticists because of the important role that taming wild horses played in the development of civilization. Once merchants, soldiers and explorers could gallop rather than just walk, it revolutionized trade, warfare, the movement of people and the transmission of ideas. It also enabled the development of continent-sized empires such as the Scythians 2,500 years ago in what is now Iran. It was all made possible by 125 genes, concluded the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Related to skeletal muscles, balance, coordination, and cardiac strength, they produced traits so desirable that ancient breeders selected horses for them, said geneticist Ludovic Orlando of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, who led the study. The result was generations of horses adapted for chariotry, pulling plows, and racing. Genes active in the brain also underwent selection. Variants linked to social behavior, learning, fear response, and agreeableness are all more abundant in domesticated horses. The discovery of the genetic basis for horse domestication was a long time coming because no wild descendants of ancient breeds survive. The closest is the Przewalski’s horse. By comparing domesticated species to their wild relatives, scientists figured out how organisms as different as rice, tomatoes and dogs became domesticated. With no truly wild horses to study, Orlando’s team examined DNA from 29 horse bones discovered in the Siberian permafrost and dating from 16,000 and 43,000 years ago, and compared it to DNA from five modern domesticated breeds. Some genes in today’s horses were absent altogether from the ancient ones, showing they arose from recent mutations. Among them: a short-distance “speed gene” that propels every Kentucky Derby winner. Geneticists not involved in the study suggested that analyzing equine DNA from around the time of domestication, rather than millennia before, might show more clearly what genetic changes occurred as horses were tamed. “Comparing ancient genomes to modern genomes is tricky,” said Arne Ludwig of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin.
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7133
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West St. Paul police required to speak to therapist.
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A new initiative in West St. Paul requires police officers to have an annual mental health wellness checkup.
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true
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St. Paul, Mental health, Health, General News, Minnesota, Work-life balance
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Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association executive director Andy Skoogman says officers’ jobs are demanding, sometimes even traumatic, yet many resist seeking therapy when they need it to avoid appearing weak. Skoogman says that may be changing. Ellie Family Services will handle the checkups. Co-owner Erin Pash tells the Star Tribune the counselors will not take notes. There will be no written records of conversations with the officers. Pash says officers can talk about whatever they want during the one-hour session, from parenting issues to work-life balance. ___ Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
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11159
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One-a-day pill being tested in S. Florida shows promise in AIDS fight
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This is a confusing article, with the title suggesting its focus was a pill taken once a day for treatment of AIDS. The first third of the article provided a frenetic overview of the evolution of AIDS treatments and the last third outlined what was on the horizon in terms of AIDS vaccines. This middle third of the article dealt with an AIDS treatment taken once a day which is currently under consideration by the FDA. It has been tested in a clinical trial that included sites in south Florida, as well as sites around the United States and Europe. It failed to quantify the benefit of the once-a-day treatment and it neglected to mention the harms associated with its use. It did not refer to any source material, so it did not enable readers to obtain more information on any aspect of what was discussed in the article. This article did not adequately cover the subject of its title.
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false
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There was no information given on cost of treatment. Reducing HIV levels in the blood to undetectable levels is not an accurate reporting of the results of the study. The article does mention that the once-a-day dosing regimen is more convenient, however it does not provide any numbers for how much better patient compliance actually was. The article failed to mention the harms associated with treatment. For example, the development of HIV mutations associated with drug resistance was the same with the once-a-day pill as with the treatment it was compared with. Both groups reported a large number of adverse events (63%). In addition, it did not mention the increase in fat deposition in the arms and legs of the individuals in the once-a-day regimen. These are important oversights. Other than mentioning that the patient highlighted in the article has been part of a clinical trial, there is no reference to the trial (what was tested, what were the outcomes, where one could get more information on the trial). There are certainly elements of disease-mongering in the story, such as when it says: “The meds have so reduced his level of HIV that it’s undetectable in his blood, although still there.” He and others like him lead very normal lives.” Nonethless, given the severity of the disease, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt and grade it satisfactory. There was information from various people involved in AIDS care or research or from people who were infected with HIV. However, the story failed to give perspectives from leaders in the field. In addition, the title “One-a-day pill being tested in S. Florida shows promise in AIDS fight” could lead one to conclude that the story is about one small clinical study as opposed to Study 934 which involve patients in sites all around the United States and Europe. The article mentions that the treatment is not appropriate for all patients. The article alludes to some different combinations of drugs used for AIDS management. The article refers to a patient who, it claims, “will be one of the first in the country to get the one-a-day AIDS pill once it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, as is expected this summer or fall.” There is no justification for this estimate of approval. The pill described would represent the first combination therapy for the treatment of HIV that necessitates taking medication only once a day. It is, however, a re-packaging of two existing treatments. The pill detailed in the article combines medications manufactured by two different companies which have joined together for this venture. Does not appear to use a press release as a primary source, althought it is difficult to tell and there is no reference to where the study is published.
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7473
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US says Chinese hackers might be targeting virus researchers.
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Organizations conducting research into COVID-19 may be targeted by computer hackers linked to the Chinese government, according to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.
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true
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Understanding the Outbreak, International News, General News, Politics, Health, China, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak
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Neither agency cited any specific examples Wednesday, but they warned that institutions and companies involved in work on vaccines, treatments and testing for the novel coronavirus should take additional security measures to protect data and be aware of the potential threat. “China’s efforts to target these sectors pose a significant threat to our nation’s response to COVID-19,” said a statement from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “This announcement is intended to raise awareness for research institutions and the American public and provide resources and guidance for those who may be targeted.” It comes amid heightened tensions between the two countries over the source of the outbreak and Trump administration complaints that China did not adequately alert the world to the danger posed by the new coronavirus. The warning also echoes long-standing U.S. complaints that China has engaged in the wholesale theft of technology and trade secrets to build its economy. Institutions that have received media attention for their efforts related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, should assume that they would be targeted and should take precautions, the Department of Justice said. “The potential theft of this information jeopardizes the delivery of secure, effective, and efficient treatment options,” it said. The FBI and the cybersecurity agency said they were issuing the alert to raise public awareness of the potential threat and said additional technical details would be released in the coming days. China has defended its response to the virus, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian denied the government was involved in any attempt to steal virus-related data on Monday, after some media reported on the warning in advance. “We are leading the world in COVID-19 treatment and vaccine research,” Zhao told reporters. “It is immoral to target China with rumors and slanders in the absence of any evidence.”
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8795
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Flu bugs growing resistance to drugs: studies.
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Seasonal flu viruses are developing the ability to evade influenza drugs globally, but how and why this is happening is not clear, experts told a conference on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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Flu vaccine drips out of a syringe as a nurse prepares for a patient at a clinic in central London November 22, 2005. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez Europe is the worst-affected by strains of influenza that resist the effects of antiviral drugs, but the resistance is growing globally, they told a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “A significant proportion of resistant viruses were observed in Europe this winter,” Dr. Bruno Lina of Claude Bernard University in Lyons, France, told the meeting. The resistance also varies by strain, with a quarter of H1N1 flu viruses resistant in Europe and about 11 percent of H1N1 in the United States, but far fewer cases of H3N2 and influenza B viruses. Their findings show that flu viruses — already known to mutate speedily — may be even more unpredictable than anyone thought. Experts fear drugs may become quickly useless to fight an unusually severe flu season or the emergence of a new strain of flu that may cause a pandemic. They have been stressing the need to develop new flu drugs and also quicker and better ways to make vaccines. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been collecting samples of the annual flu viruses to check them against the four available flu drugs: amantadine and rimantadine, and the newer drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. The viruses changed rapidly over the past 2007-2008 flu season, Lina said. “We started with something like 10 percent in Europe,” Lina said. By April of this year, 25 percent of the viruses tested were resistant to Tamiflu. U.S. flu viruses developed a sudden ability to evade the effects of the older drugs amantadine and rimantadine during the 2005-2006 flu season, said Dr. Larisa Gubareva of the CDC. In 2006 the CDC said no one should use those drugs any more. Doctors had hopes for two newer drugs — Roche AG’s Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir and licensed from Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza, known generically as zanamivir. But already resistance is being seen to Tamiflu, a pill that can be taken to treat symptoms and also to prevent infection. Lina’s team tested more than 2,600 samples of flu viruses from patients in Europe and found baffling patterns of this resistance that appeared to have nothing to do with actual use of Tamiflu. For instance in France, 54 percent of those tested in Paris carried the mutation that would give resistance to Tamiflu, compared to 29 percent in southeastern France. “Which makes absolutely no sense,” Lina said. Patients showed no difference in their symptoms if they were infected with resistant virus, he noted. “It’s difficult to understand. I have no idea why these viruses emerged,” he said. And in Europe, the H1N1 viruses were the most resistant. Gubareva said tests across the United States, Canada and Mexico showed very quick development of drug resistance among H1N1 viruses. As of May 15 resistant viruses had been detected in 18 U.S. states out of 43 where virus samples from patients were tested, she said. In Canada, resistant virus was found in nine of 13 provinces. But only 6 percent of H3N2 and influenza B samples tested in North America had genetic mutations giving resistance to Tamiflu, she said.
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20424
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"Rick Perry Says that in fiscal year 2010, ""nearly 80 percent of women served"" in the Texas Women’s Health Program received services from a provider other than a Planned Parenthood clinic."
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On its face, Perry’s statement is accurate. Nearly 80 percent of the women served in the Women’s Health Program in fiscal 2010 did receive a service from a non-Planned Parenthood provider. However, Perry’s statement implies that 8 in 10 program beneficiaries did not visit Planned Parenthood clinics, and that’s off-base. Thirty-two percent of the women swept up in the 80 percent statistic were also served by Planned Parenthood. And it’s likely that in some of those cases, the only contact a woman had with a non-Planned Parenthood provider was the processing of her lab work. The available state data show that 54 percent of Women’s Health Program clients in fiscal 2010 received all their services from a provider not linked to Planned Parenthood.
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mixture
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Abortion, Health Care, Public Health, Women, Texas, Rick Perry,
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"Gov. Rick Perry has been using statistics to help defend the state’s decision to exclude Planned Parenthood clinics from a family planning program for low-income Texas women. Perry’s office suggested in a tweet posted March 15, 2012, that Planned Parenthood’s involvement in the Texas Medicaid Women’s Health Program is minimal, saying: ""In FY 2010, nearly 80% of women served received WHP services from non Planned Parenthood providers."" Scott Braddock, then hosting a Houston radio news program, responded with a tweet of his own, urging us to check whether Perry is right. We looked into Perry’s claim amid debate over the state’s decision, which has led the Obama administration to set in motion a phased-in cutoff of federal funds for the program. And we found a weakness in the governor’s figure. The state started the Women’s Health Program in 2007. It offers free family planning services, including birth control, to low-income women between the ages of 18 and 44. The goal is to reduce the number of births paid for by Medicaid — the health insurance program for the poor and disabled that is jointly financed by the federal government and the state — by reducing the number of unplanned pregnancies. In Texas, adult women generally aren’t eligible for Medicaid unless they are pregnant or disabled. The Women’s Health Program — which is largely financed by the federal government — extends family planning services to women who don’t qualify for Medicaid but whose future births would. Through the program, eligible women receive an annual family planning exam that may include a Pap smear as well as other health screenings. The program also pays for birth control such as pills and condoms and family planning counseling. To participate in the program, providers — including doctors and clinics — must be enrolled with the state as Medicaid providers and certify that they do not perform elective abortions. Since the program’s start, dozens of Planned Parenthood health centers in Texas have qualified because they don’t provide abortions and are legally separated from Planned Parenthood clinics that do. That is changing, however. The Texas health and human services commissioner signed a rule in February 2012 barring entities affiliated with abortion providers from the program, disqualifying Planned Parenthood health centers that do not provide abortions. In response, the Obama administration declined to renew the program, arguing that Texas’ new rule violates federal law by restricting women’s abilities to choose their own caregivers. Perry has pledged to continue the program with state money — and without Planned Parenthood. So, is Perry correct that during the state’s fiscal year 2010 — Sept. 1, 2009, through Aug. 31, 2010 — nearly 80 percent of the women who received services under the program did so from a provider that wasn’t Planned Parenthood? For answers, Perry spokeswoman Catherine Frazier pointed us to the state’s Health and Human Services Commission. Stephanie Goodman, a commission spokeswoman, told us that Perry’s ""nearly 80 percent"" figure is based on a data analysis that included three statistics for fiscal 2010: 1) The total number of women who were served under the program (106,711) 2) The number who received services from a Planned Parenthood clinic (49,162) 3) The number who received services from ""all other providers"" (84,805) To arrive at the ""nearly 80 percent"" figure, Perry’s office calculated that 84,805 (number of women served by ""all other providers"") is 79.5 percent of 106,711 (total number of women served). Alternatively, 49,162 (number served by Planned Parenthood) is 46.1 percent of 106,711. So, according to state data, Planned Parenthood served 46 percent of 2010 clients while other types of providers served 80 percent. That’s a total of 126 percent! How can that be? If you look at the numbers closely, you’ll see that when added together, No. 2 and No. 3 are greater than No. 1. In other words, the number of women who received services from Planned Parenthood in fiscal 2010 plus the number of women who received services from ""all other providers"" adds up to more than the total number of women served in the program that year. That’s because some women received services from both types of providers, so they were counted in both categories: 27,256 women, to be exact. Why the overlap? We found a couple of possible explanations. In an email, Frazier touched on one: Some women ""see more than one provider in a year."" While it’s true that about 40 percent of women saw a Planned Parenthood provider in fiscal 2010, Frazier wrote, it’s also true that almost 80 percent went to a provider that was not part of Planned Parenthood. Goodman told us that some portion of the 27,256 women served by both a Planned Parenthood clinic and another type of provider could have simply changed their providers during the year. Goodman said that can happen for many reasons. ""Our clients tend to move more than most people — that’s a reflection of their income and the difficulty in maintaining housing,"" she said. Sarah Wheat, interim co-CEO of the Austin-area Planned Parenthood, suggested that some women might go to a Planned Parenthood center for Women’s Health Program services when they need to be seen immediately — for example, if they are having trouble with their birth control — and can’t get an appointment with their regular doctor. Wheat said that’s because Planned Parenthood clinics can often serve women more quickly than other types of providers. The other possible overlap reason: Goodman told us that a woman would be counted in both categories if she had an office visit at a Planned Parenthood clinic that was followed by the Planned Parenthood sending tests from the visit to an outside lab for processing. In that case, the only ""services"" that a woman would have received from a non-Planned Parenthood provider would be lab testing. Wheat told us that it’s common for Planned Parenthood centers to send tests for Women’s Health Program clients to be processed at an outside lab. Goodman told us that the commission did not have data available that would show how many of the 27,256 women recorded as having been served by both Planned Parenthood and another type of provider showed up in the ""all other providers"" category for lab work alone, although she said it’s probably a significant number. Subtract the number of women in the ""all other providers"" category who were also served by a Planned Parenthood provider in fiscal 2010 and you get 57,549. That’s the number of women who got all of their Women’s Health Program services from providers not linked to Planned Parenthood — or 54 percent, not 80 percent, of the women served in the program in those 12 months. When we pointed that out to the governor’s office, Frazier told us via email that the 80 percent figure shows that Planned Parenthood can’t claim they service an entire 45 percent of women in the program. ""Whether it’s lab work or an actual doctor’s visit, these non-(Planned Parenthood) providers are absorbing a large part of the services provided to women under the program,"" she said. Our ruling On its face, Perry’s statement is accurate. Nearly 80 percent of the women served in the Women’s Health Program in fiscal 2010 did receive a service from a non-Planned Parenthood provider. However, Perry’s statement implies that 8 in 10 program beneficiaries did not visit Planned Parenthood clinics, and that’s off-base. Thirty-two percent of the women swept up in the 80 percent statistic were also served by Planned Parenthood. And it’s likely that in some of those cases, the only contact a woman had with a non-Planned Parenthood provider was the processing of her lab work. The available state data show that 54 percent of Women’s Health Program clients in fiscal 2010 received all their services from a provider not linked to Planned Parenthood."
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6673
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Hashtag stirs debate over role of Christian schools in US.
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For their supporters, the thousands of Christian schools across America are literally a blessing — a place where children can learn in accordance with biblical teachings, untainted by the secular norms of public schools.
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true
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Karen Pence, New York, North America, Science, Michael Pence
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To critics, many of these Christian schools venture too often into indoctrination, with teachings that can misrepresent science and history and potentially breed intolerance toward people with different outlooks. “These schools are front and center in the politicization of knowledge and that’s problematic,” said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida. The polarized views have been highlighted in recent days after the appearance of an #ExposeChristianSchools hashtag on Twitter. It was introduced by Chris Stroop, an Indianapolis-based writer and activist, on Jan. 18, shortly after news broke that Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, would be teaching at a Christian school in northern Virginia that lists “homosexual or lesbian sexual activity” as among the disqualifying criteria for prospective employees. Stroop, 38, calls himself an “ex-evangelical.” He says he attended Christian schools in Indiana and Colorado almost continuously from first grade through high school and recalls pervasive messaging that demeaned LGBT people and discouraged the empowerment of women. “Not everything about it was bad — I had teachers I liked who encouraged me academically,” said Stroop, who went on to earn a Ph.D. at Stanford. “But I don’t think education as indoctrination is right.” The news about Karen Pence’s teaching job was quickly followed by debate over the behavior of boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky during a visit to Washington, D.C. While opinions varied widely as to whether the boys had behaved badly, that incident further fueled debate over faith-based schools. Within days, there were thousands of responses to #ExposeChristianSchools on Twitter, including many personal stories of bad experiences by people who attended them. One man said his school required students to sign an agreement promising not to listen to “worldly” music. Others faulted their curriculum, such as a Christian biology textbook that cited Scotland’s fabled Loch Ness Monster as evidence of flaws in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Even as the critiques multiplied, many people took to Twitter to defend Christian schools. Among them was Greg Lukianoff, an attorney active in promoting freedom of speech on college campuses. He said he was an “outspoken atheist” beginning in the seventh grade and frequently skipped school. “Only as an adult did I realize how kind & tolerant my Catholic high school was towards me,” he tweeted. In a telephone interview Friday, Lukianoff said he had forged close friendships with people from religious and secular schools, and felt it was unproductive to generalize about them. Even Brian Toale, a 65-year-old New Yorker who says he was repeatedly sexually abused in the early 1970s by a staffer at his Catholic high school on Long Island, recalls many positive aspects of his school years. “The education itself was top notch,” he said. “I did have several extracurricular activities where I learned stuff and made friends I still have today.” But Toale, who eventually converted to Judaism, says the school administration failed to properly vet the person who abused him, and later treated him with disdain when he reported the abuse. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 5.9 million students — a tenth of the national prekindergarten through 12th grade total — attend private schools in the U.S. About three-quarters of them attend one of the roughly 22,000 Christian schools. By far, the Catholic Church accounts for the biggest share of this group, operating more than 6,300 schools serving more than 1.8 million students — about 20 percent of them non-Catholics. The totals are down sharply from the early 1960s when there were more than 5.2 million students in almost 13,000 Catholic schools nationwide. The Council for American Private Education identifies 4,154 schools as “conservative Christian,” serving about 664,000 students. Julie Ingersoll, the religious studies professor, says those schools are faring well, at least in the eyes of their supporters. She notes that many are now able to access publicly funded tax credits and vouchers in various states, and often can operate with limited regulation. “But this leaves kids vulnerable on all kinds of levels, which of course was what the hashtag was about,” Ingersoll said in an email. “It’s been portrayed as a campaign against Christianity from ‘the left,’ but it was really a group of young adults who grew up in Christian schools (and Christian home schooling) explaining how they believe they were personally harmed by it.” “These harms were often related to sex, gender, shame, and abuse,” she wrote. “But stories also detailed impoverished education, especially when it came to science and history.” The Rev. Russell Moore, a high-profile official with the Southern Baptist Convention, said the recent criticisms of Christian schools reflect some broader societal trends that have riled conservative religious leaders. “There’s a certain mindset in America that sees any religious conviction as authoritarian,” Moore said. Overall, Christian schooling “is in a very good place,” Moore said. “There are some phenomenal evangelical schools, preparing their children with remarkable academic rigor.” John Gehring, Catholic program director at a Washington-based clergy network called Faith in Public Life, graduated from an all-male Catholic prep school near Baltimore. He has suggested in recent articles that such schools — while admirable in many ways — could do a better job of teaching their students about the church’s historical role in exploitation and oppression. “I’m frustrated by the overheated commentary where Christian and public schools are almost viewed as enemy combatants in the culture wars,” Gehring said. “Each has their place, and like any institution they have strengths and weaknesses. The Catholic schools I attended through college shaped my understanding of justice and cultivated a spirituality that frames my life, even if those environments could sometimes be a little cloistered and privileged.” ___ Follow David Crary on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CraryAP
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7604
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State suspends Portland nursing home license over virus care.
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State officials are ordering a Portland nursing home with the largest and most fatal coronavirus outbreak in Oregon to close.
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true
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Health, General News, Oregon, Nursing homes, Portland, Virus Outbreak, Public health
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The move comes after Department of Human Services officials found that Healthcare at Foster Creek “demonstrated a consistent inability to adhere to basic infection control standards,” The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. The nursing homes “continued operation poses a serious danger to the public health and safety,” the agency said in a letter signed Monday. Officials said Tuesday in a statement that the department ordered an emergency suspension of the facility’s license. “We have worked on multiple strategies to contain the COVID-19 outbreak at Healthcare at Foster Creek and have concluded that moving all residents is mandatory at this stage,” said Mike McCormick, interim director of the department’s Office of Aging and People with Disabilities, which licenses long-term care facilities. About 117 residents and staff at Foster Creek have fallen ill with the coronavirus and at least 28 residents have died as of Tuesday, according to state data. The facility didn’t immediately respond to a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment. In mid-April, Department of Human Services’ inspectors found staff violating protocols necessary to contain infections. At that time, the department created a lengthy list of requirements for the nursing home to improve practices and evacuated 20 people to local hospitals. The department will evacuate the few remaining residents, officials said. A suspension means the nursing home could be allowed to reopen at a later time.
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30272
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Pictures of President Trump suffering a stroke are being used to spread a virus that wipes computers and cellphones.
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(NOTE: The picture displayed above was taken from a fake news story circulated in August 2016.)
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false
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Computers, donald trump, Virus Hoaxes & Realities
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It’s not uncommon for scammers to post headlines and images on social media that tease compelling news stories (such as celebrity deaths, horrible accidents, or earth-shaking political developments) in order to lure users into clicking through on them. Those users don’t end up viewing information or video about the promised stories, however, but instead are often led to sites that promote scam offers (such as sweepstakes surveys) or distribute computer viruses and other malware. Since at least as far back as early 2017, warnings have been circulated via WhatsApp, text messaging, and social media sites that opening a photograph supposedly showing Donald Trump suffering from a stroke will unleash a virus that will wipe the data from your cellphone or computer: Urgent!!! Dear brothers & sisters, if you have received Pictures of Donald Trump suffering from a stroke, please do not open it but delete it immediately because it will destroy all info in your computer & handphone. Please pass this to all your friends & groups. Urgent notice Brothers and sisters in the group: Just received the picture if you received the “Trump Suffering from Stroke”, please do not open it and delete it immediately. Now it has been confirmed that this is a relatively young Filipino Internet youth. Attacking Chinese computers and mobile phones will cause the computer to lose all information. Please send it to each group and inform each other. President Trump has not suffered a stroke, of course, and such messages are nearly identical to an earlier fake virus warnings that cautioned users not to click on a picture of “two police officers arresting Donald Trump.” Like that previous variant, The “Trump suffering from a stroke” messages do not reference any real virus or malware threat and should be ignored as hoaxes.
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21895
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Judith Zaffirini Says 11 percent of the nation’s fatal car crashes in 2009 were attributed to distracted driving.
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State Sen. Judith Zaffirini says 11 percent of fatal car crashes in 2009 were attributed to distracted driving, such as texting
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true
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Public Safety, Texas, Judith Zaffirini,
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"Advocating for a statewide ban on texting while driving, state Sen. Judith Zaffirini warned the practice can cause fatal crashes. ""In 2009, 11 percent of fatal crashes — that's 995 out of 5,474 — in the U.S. were attributed to this kind of driving, distracted driving,"" the Laredo Democrat said on the Texas Senate floor on May 25. The proposal, which later won legislative approval, was vetoed Friday by Gov. Rick Perry. Still, we wondered if distracted driving really plays into more than 1 in 10 fatal car accidents. To back up the statistic, Zaffirini spokesman Will Krueger pointed us to a September 2010 ""distracted driving"" study by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The study says the department describes a ""distraction"" as a ""specific type of inattention that occurs when drivers divert their attention from the driving task to focus on some other activity."" In 2009, the study says, 45,230 drivers were involved in 30,797 fatal U.S. crashes. In those crashes, 33,808 people were killed. And, it says, distraction was reported for 11 percent (5,084) of the drivers involved in those fatal crashes. Notably, that’s not 11 percent of the crashes, which is how Zaffirini put it. It turns out, though, that distraction figured into a bigger percentage of fatal crashes in 2009 — 16 percent, according to the study, up from 10 percent in 2005. The vast majority of distracted-driving related fatalities — 84 percent — were associated with driving in a careless or inattentive manner. That could include using cell phones, eating or talking, according to the study. The study relies on fatal crash data that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System annually collects from the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The study also relies on a sample of police-reported crashes from the National Automotive Sampling System General Estimates System. The study warns that data on distracted-driving-related crashes and resulting injuries and fatalities is limited because investigations are conducted after the fact and police accident reports vary across jurisdictions, creating reporting inconsistencies. For example, ""some police crash reports"" have a field devoted to identifying whether ""distraction"" led to a crash, according to the study, whereas other reports only give officers the chance to mention distractions in narrative accounts of the accident. Also, if a driver dies during a crash, law officers may not have enough information to judge whether distraction played a role. Lastly, we searched for other data on distracted driving. According to a 2009 distracted-driving fact sheet from the National Safety Council, more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific studies have identified risks associated with cell phone use while driving. The sheet cites two studies concluding that drivers who use cell phones are four times more likely to be involved in a crash — a 1997 New England Journal of Medicine examination of hospital records and a 2005 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study linking crashes to cell hone records. An April 2006 paper by the Canadian Automobile Association and the Traffic Injury Research Foundation summarizing the findings and recommendations from a 2005 International Conference on Distracted Driving notes that ""crash-based studies are retrospective. They begin with the outcome (the collision itself) and endeavour to reconstruct what factors were associated with, or contributed to, the collision."" Each method for analyzing the risks involved with distracted driving ""has strengths and limitations and because of this no study is definitive,"" according to the report. ""There is no single research approach or design that will answer all the questions about the magnitude and characteristics of the problem and the risks it poses."" Where does that leave us? In warning against the dangers of texting while driving, Zaffirini misstated the percentage of fatal crashes attributed to distracted driving: It’s 16 percent, not 11 percent."
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17926
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The CDC issued a report commissioned by President Obama just earlier this year, and it found some very inconvenient facts. Armed citizens are less likely harmed by attackers. Effectiveness of gun control laws is mixed. Gun buybacks don't work.
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"Cupp said that a CDC report this year found: ""Armed citizens are less likely harmed by attackers. Effectiveness of gun control laws is mixed. Gun buybacks don't work."" The report, which summarized the state of gun research and outlined areas for new investigation, cited studies that showed crime victims who used guns had lower injury rates. But it also noted a need to explore other factors and ""confirm or discount"" earlier research. On gun control laws, the research itself is mixed — and there’s a ""paucity of reliable and valid data"" on which to base it. The report did cite evidence that gun buybacks don’t work. Cupp exaggerated the findings of the CDC report, which merely rounded up studies as it argued for more and better research. In most cases, the report was intended to spur more research, not settle controversial claims once and for all."
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mixture
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National, Health Care, Public Safety, Pundits, Guns, S.E. Cupp,
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"Did a report commissioned by the president find ""some very inconvenient facts"" about gun control? Conservative CNN Crossfire host S.E. Cupp broke it down in an episode last week: ""The CDC issued a report commissioned by President (Barack) Obama just earlier this year, and it found some very inconvenient facts. Armed citizens are less likely harmed by attackers. Effectiveness of gun control laws is mixed. Gun buybacks don't work. Shouldn't we be looking at irrefutable evidence, irrefutable evidence?"" Her liberal co-host Van Jones quipped, ""Oh, now Obama's CDC is irrefutable?"" We’ve looked into the state of gun research, which has been starved of federal funding since the late 1990s. Did a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offer strong evidence? The report Cupp mentioned was inspired by mass shootings during 2011 and 2012 in Tucson, Ariz.; Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis. and Newtown, Conn. In January 2013, President Barack Obama directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research causes and prevention of gun violence. The agency turned to the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council to bring together experts to come up with a ""research agenda."" They released a 113-page report in June that also summarized what’s known. Rather than break new ground, it focused on the need for more work. ""In the absence of this research, policymakers will be left to debate controversial policies without scientifically sound evidence about their potential effects,"" it said. Later, it urged: ""There is a pressing need to obtain up-to-date, accurate information about how many guns are owned in the United States, their distribution and types, how people acquire them, and how they are used."" Here’s what it noted about armed citizens, gun control laws and gun buybacks. ‘Armed citizens are less likely harmed by attackers’ The research committee summarized research on the ""defensive use of guns."" It did cite specific studies that showed lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims: ""Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies,"" it said. It cited four studies, three involving criminal justice professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University, who was on the committee. But it also pointed out that effectiveness of such tactics likely varies depending on the type of victim, offender and circumstance. ""So further research is needed, both to explore these contingencies and to confirm or discount earlier findings,"" the report said. It also pointed out that ""even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public — concealed or open carry — may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. ""For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade homes of gun owners this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use."" It cited three studies from the 1990s by Arthur Kellermann, now a policy analyst at Rand Corp., then said: ""Although some early studies were published that related to this issue, they were not conclusive, and this is a sufficiently important question that it merits additional, careful exploration."" ‘Effectiveness of gun control laws is mixed’ ""Mixed"" definitely describes the state of the research, according to the report, if not the effectiveness of the laws themselves. ""Whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue,"" it said, noting that the ""effectiveness of various types of control is inadequately researched."" It goes on to cite studies that fall all over the map. Firearm legislation is associated with lower rates of fatal firearm violence. Except when it’s not. Even studies that show correlation have a hard time showing one thing causes the other. ""A paucity of reliable and valid data, as discussed in the sections above, is a major barrier to the development of the most effective policies, strategies, and interventions for prevention of firearm violence. Nonetheless, many interventions have been developed and studied, and they point to areas requiring important additional research,"" the report finds. Gun buybacks don't work There’s evidence gun buybacks don’t work, the report says. ""For example, in 2009, an estimated 310 million guns were available to civilians in the United States … but gun buyback programs typically recover less than 1,000 guns,"" it said, citing two two studies. It mentioned that on the local level, buybacks may function to raise awareness of gun violence. But it also cited a 2002 study that showed in Milwaukee, Wis., for example, ""guns recovered in the buybacks were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides."" Our ruling Cupp said that a CDC report this year found: ""Armed citizens are less likely harmed by attackers. Effectiveness of gun control laws is mixed. Gun buybacks don't work."" The report, which summarized the state of gun research and outlined areas for new investigation, cited studies that showed crime victims who used guns had lower injury rates. But it also noted a need to explore other factors and ""confirm or discount"" earlier research. On gun control laws, the research itself is mixed — and there’s a ""paucity of reliable and valid data"" on which to base it. The report did cite evidence that gun buybacks don’t work. Cupp exaggerated the findings of the CDC report, which merely rounded up studies as it argued for more and better research. In most cases, the report was intended to spur more research, not settle controversial claims once and for all."
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10169
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Want to Cut Cancer Risk? Try Munching Pistachios
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"This is the kind of story that comes with the daily drumbeat of health/medical/science research stories – a story that gets a brief light-hearted comment at the watercooler because of the cute headline – ""Want to Cut Cancer Risk? Try Munching Pistachios."" But it’s a story that delivers almost no meaningful information. Why? Because it: was based on a very small, very short-term study didn’t explain the limitations of drawing conclusions from such a study appears to have come directly from a news release without any independent reporting. included no independent perspectives on whether the findings were important or not. doesn’t explain that this study – because of small size and short duration – may not have a meaningful impact on the literature about dietary factors and cancer prevention. Lung cancer is the top cause of cancer death in men and women in the US. So prevention is an important issue that demands better attention than this."
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false
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"The cost of pistachios isn’t in question. The story stated that the "" pistachio group showed significantly higher blood levels of gamma-tocopherol"" What does that mean? And what difference could it mean in peoples’ lives? Of course, not much can be said about such a small, short-term study, which makes the entire discussion of potential benefit – and the newsworthiness of the story – questionable. There was no discussion of potential harms, but we will grade this as Not Applicable because this is not an intervention likely to cause harm. The story never comments on the limitations of drawing conclusions from such a small (18 people in each group), short-term (4 weeks) study. The story says that ""Eating pistachios every day might reduce your risk for lung cancer and other malignancies."" What other malignancies? The story never explains. No independent sources were quoted in the story. Again, everything seems to have come from a news release. The story didn’t give any context about nutritional approaches to reduce cancer risk. The availability of pistachios isn’t in question. No context was given about any other past research looking at vitamin E or gamma-tocopherol. And there is a substantial body of literature on this topic already from large cohort studies across the world. The story appears to rely entirely on a news release. The researcher’s quotes are the exact same quotes that appear in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research. There is no evidence of any independent reporting having been done on the story."
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10946
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Fighting addiction with a pill
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"This CBS News segment on the drug Suboxone (sublingual buprenorphine) explores the medication’s use as a way to treat addiction to prescription painkillers. Its key strength is its lucid explanation, using a video, of the physiology of addiction and the drug’s mechanism of action. But the piece falls far short of health journalism best practices in several significant ways. To illustrate the drug’s effectiveness it draws heavily on a single anecdote, which tells the story of a patient who appears to have an unusually successful outcome. It does not cite published research or interview independent sources to verify the drug’s safety and efficacy. It fails to identify the one physician interviewed as lead investigator in the current clinical trial. It implies the drug is new and novel, yet it has been approved for use as a drug addiction treatment for five years and is not widely used. It fails to explain that the current clinical trial is exploring whether Suboxone, used with counseling in people who are addicted to prescription painkillers, can help people withdraw from the painkillers in one phase and then taper fairly quickly off Suboxone. It fails to explain that the vast majority of patients who take Suboxone relapse, and that many of those who can stay off the drug to which they are addicted go onto long-term maintenance therapy with Suboxone. The story appears to draw heavily on an article appearing in the Fall 2007 issue of NYU Physician, a publication of the New York University School of Medicine and Hospital Centers, employer of study lead investigator Marc N. Gourevitch. The NYU Physician piece focuses on the story of Brian, the same man who is the focus of the CBS News segment. The CBS piece appears to adapt language from the magazine article. In one place the article reads: The hope is that this will eventually do for drug addiction what SSRI’s like Prozac did for depression: convince both primary-care physicians and the public that addiction is a chronic brain disease, not a character flaw. The physician-reporter in the CBS piece says: The hope is that one day Suboxone can do for painkiller addiction what drugs like Prozac did for depression: convince people that it’s more of a brain disease, not so much a character flaw. It is also worth pointing out that Brian, according to the NYU Physician article, has had an outcome more complex than viewers might believe. In the NYU article, Brian is quoted as saying that after his initial treatment with Suboxone, his withdrawl was ""the worst three weeks of my life,"" with ""sleepless weeks of nausea, chills, diarrhea, apathy, and intense, uncontrolled cravings for opiates."" The CBS segment about Brian did not include this information."
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false
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"The focus of the segment is, properly, the high costs of addiction to painkillers. Still, it fails to state how much Suboxone costs. The segment fails to report how effective Suboxone is at treating addiction. No data. Thus, also no data comparing with alternatives (methadone and/or psychotherapy or abstinence-based treatments). The drug labeling states that the drug was shown in two trials to be about 17 and 28 percent effective (compared to 6 percent and 9 percent for placebo). The drug has considerable safety issues, yet the story didn’t discuss any of them. The segment does not present any clinical evidence to describe the medication’s effectiveness. In the interview with Brian, the segment explores the psychological impact of painkiller addiction. But it does not exaggerate the risks or severity of the condition. Still, it is worth pointing out that the segment fails to state that many patients taking medicines for pain may be physically dependent on them, but do not ""abuse"" the medicine to get ""high"" and on balance benefit from its use. The news piece concerns only people abusing these painkillers, so it may imply that any use of these medications is problematic. This is not true. There are several important shortcomings here: The segment refers to methadone early on. But it does not mention counseling as a stand-alone option for addiction to painkillers, or other drug- or non-drug options. The segment states that Suboxone (sublingual buprenorphine) is available from ""any doctor, even a family physician."" It’s a bit more complicated than that. In order to prescribe Suboxone, a physican without specialized training in addiction needs to be certified by submitting an application to the federal government, completing an 8-hour training course and meeting other criteria. The segment is unclear about availability in a second case. The segment itself implies (correctly) that the drug is currently available. But then the host says the drug is currently in clinical trials. The physician-reporter’s response does not clarify that these trials are for approval of an additional, specific use of the currently available drug. The segment in places implies the drug is new and novel (by referring to the current clinical trial, by using the word ""new"" to describe it, and by emphasizing its hope for revolutionalizing treatment). But it also states that it is currently available. This leaves the viewer uncertain about what’s ""new"" here. So what is new? Buprenorphine has been an approved parenteral analgesic for decades. The drug was approved in 2002 as an alternative to methadone–a drug to be taken as a more benign replacement for the more addicting drug being abused, such as heroin. It enables withdrawal from the addicitive drug, which may be followed by other addiction treatments or maintenance therapy. The current trial involves only patients who are addicted to painkiller medications like OxyContin. The study is designed to determine whether those taking Suboxone and getting supportive counseling can taper off Suboxone fairly quickly and become entirely drug-free. The article does not rely on any press release. It does, however, appear to draw heavily on an article appearing in the Fall 2007 issue of NYU Physician, a publication of the New York University School of Medicine and Hospital Centers, employer of study lead investigator Marc N. Gourevitch. The NYU Physician piece focuses on the story of Brian, the same man who is the focus of the CBS News segment. The CBS piece appears to adapt language from the magazine article. In one place the article reads: The hope is that this will eventually do for drug addiction what SSRI’s like Prozac did for depression: convince both primary-care physicians and the public that addiction is a chronic brain disease, not a character flaw. The physician-reporter in the CBS piece says: The hope is that one day Suboxone can do for painkiller addiction what drugs like Prozac did for depression: convince people that it’s more of a brain disease, not so much a character flaw."
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8277
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Condom shortage looms after coronavirus lockdown shuts world's top producer.
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A global shortage of condoms is looming, the world’s biggest producer said, after a coronavirus lockdown forced it to shut down production.
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true
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Health News
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Malaysia’s Karex Bhd (KARE.KL) makes one in every five condoms globally. It has not produced a single condom from its three Malaysian factories for more than a week due to a lockdown imposed by the government to halt the spread of the virus. That’s already a shortfall of 100 million condoms, normally marketed internationally by brands such as Durex, supplied to state healthcare systems such as Britain’s NHS or distributed by aid programs such as the UN Population Fund. The company was given permission to restart production on Friday, but with only 50% of its workforce, under a special exemption for critical industries. “It will take time to jumpstart factories and we will struggle to keep up with demand at half capacity,” Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat told Reuters. “We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” he said. “My concern is that for a lot of humanitarian programs deep down in Africa, the shortage will not just be two weeks or a month. That shortage can run into months.” Malaysia is Southeast Asia’s worst affected country, with 2,161 coronavirus infections and 26 deaths. The lockdown is due to remain in place at least until April 14. The other major condom-producing countries are China, where the coronavirus originated and led to widespread factory shutdowns, and India and Thailand, which are seeing infections spiking only now. Makers of other critical items like medical gloves have also faced hiccups in their operations in Malaysia. In emailed comments, a spokesman for Durex said operations are continuing as normal and the company was not experiencing any supply shortages. “For our consumers, many of whom will be unable to access shops, our Durex online stores remain open for business.” “The good thing is that the demand for condoms is still very strong because like it or not, it’s still an essential to have,” Goh said. “Given that at this point in time people are probably not planning to have children. It’s not the time, with so much uncertainty.”
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1459
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Beekeeper therapist uses venom to heal his patients.
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On his rooftop in the outskirts of Cairo, Omar Abulhassan raises thousands of bees — not for the honey, but their venom.
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true
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Health News
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After reading about the benefits of bees in the Koran, Abulhassan, 30, decided five years ago to raise the insects and use the venom in alternative therapy. He believes bee stings can relieve pain and cure illnesses such as rheumatism. “These are not the only benefits,” said Abulhassan, who has no medical background. “It helps with having a better mood.” He now treats about five people a month. In a typical session, he’ll use six bees to sting his patient in different parts of the body. Mohamed Abdelfattah, 29, a regular patient, said the therapy improves his mood and makes him feel healthy. “I constantly receive treatment using bees to increase my immunity and body strength,” said Abdelfattah. The benefits of bee-sting therapy have not been scientifically proven, said Mahmoud Abdullatif, an experienced beekeeper and member of the Arab Federation of Beekeepers. “This needs studies and scientific equipment and research so that we can understand what the bee venom contains and how we can benefit,” he said.
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2759
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Sanofi sues Lilly over challenge to top diabetes drug Lantus.
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French drugmaker Sanofi sued Eli Lilly and Co for alleged patent infringements concerning its top-selling Lantus diabetes treatment, delaying the U.S. company’s plans to produce its own version of the drug.
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true
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Health News
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Lantus is the world’s most prescribed insulin product, with annual worldwide sales of about $7 billion. It is set to lose patent protection in the United States, the world’s largest pharmaceutical market, in February 2015. Sanofi’s lawsuit, filed on Thursday, triggers an automatic 30-month stay of approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, keeping Lilly’s biosimilar drug off the U.S. market until mid-2016, more than a year later than its previously expected launch date. Sanofi’s shares were higher in earlier trading, but ended down 0.8 percent at 72.80 euros. Shares in Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, whose own rival to Lantus, called Levemir, accounts for 15 percent of its sales, rose 3.64 percent to 219 Danish crowns. “Any delay provides Sanofi and Novo increased pricing power in the $6 billion U.S. basal insulin market,” Citigroup analysts wrote. Deutsche Bank analysts said the move also raised the possibility of a further, multiyear extension of exclusivity for Lantus if, in the end, the court found that Sanofi’s patents had indeed been infringed. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, comes a month after Eli Lilly applied to the FDA for permission to sell a biosimilar version of Lantus, known chemically as insulin glargine. Indianapolis-based Lilly, in its FDA submission, challenged the validity of several patents on Lantus. But it also said it would not launch its product before Sanofi’s patent on the active ingredient in Lantus expires in February 2015. But Sanofi hit back in its lawsuit on Thursday, alleging that Lilly had infringed on four of its patents. Lilly responded to the lawsuit on Friday, denying any patent infringement. “Lilly respects the intellectual property of others and does not believe the application for approval of its new insulin glargine product infringes any valid claim of the asserted patents,” Lilly’s general patent counsel Doug Norman said in a statement. Eli Lilly shares were up 21 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $53.48 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Lantus accounts for close to a fifth of Sanofi’s total sales and over a third of its operating profit. Analysts estimate U.S. sales of the drug grew by 22 percent in 2013 to 3.8 billion euros ($5.15 billion). Sanofi, which publishes full-year results next Thursday, is striving to return to growth after a difficult 2013 that featured problems in Brazil and several product setbacks. Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher told Reuters last month he was confident its diabetes business could grow beyond 2015. Sanford Bernstein analyst Tim Anderson said in a research note that the 30-month delay would raise Sanofi’s earnings per share from 2015 through 2020 by about 6 percent and reduce Lilly’s EPS for the period by about 2 percent. ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum forecast annual sales of about $1 billion by 2020 for a Lantus biosimilar, half of which would go to Lilly’s partner Boehringer Ingelheim. “In the worst case scenario, Sanofi blocks Lilly completely and the FDA never approves the drug, effectively removing all sales,” he wrote in a note. The delayed launch of Lilly’s biosimilar drug will also give Sanofi more time, before cheap competition for Lantus hits the market, to switch patients to a new long-acting follow-up product known as U300, which could get FDA approval in 2015. “Time is important in any switching strategy, so any delay would be supportive to the franchise’s long-term growth,” Jefferies analysts wrote. ($1=0.7373 Euro)
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9101
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New meta-analysis finds a plant-based vegetarian diet is associated with lower cholesterol
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This news release reports on a meta-analysis that examined the effects of a plant-based vegetarian diet on cholesterol and triglyceride levels measured in the blood. The release does a good job of describing the benefits of a plant-based vegetarian diet compared to other diet types as it relates to cholesterol. It also makes mention of other mechanisms that could account for the observed changes seen in cholesterol levels and appropriately uses terms like “association” and “correlation” when describing the findings rather than cause-and-effect language. However, the release goes too far in crediting a vegetarian diet for reductions in heart attacks, strokes, and premature death. Those outcomes weren’t part of the analysis. Other things that would have made the release better: less reliance on a very subjective anecdote and an explanation of the limitations of observational studies. It would have also been good to note that cholesterol is a surrogate marker for heart disease, not a specific health outcome. Finally, readers would be better served with a more balanced comparison with other types of diets, including the Mediterranean diet. A healthy diet can be used as a form of prevention and treatment for many chronic diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. However, what makes a diet “healthy” can vary from person to person. Research from both observational studies and randomized clinical trials can help healthcare providers and patients identify a diet type that best suits a patient’s medical and lifestyle needs. It’s important that when reporting on this research journalists don’t minimize the efforts required to implement and sustain these changes.
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mixture
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cholesterol,Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,vegetarian diet
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The release gives a brief nod to costs, acknowledging that the diet would fit into “nearly every” budget. But we’d like to see a bit more. The costs of adhering to a plant-based vegetarian diet could be prohibitive for some, particularly those without easy access to fresh produce markets. While it would take some effort to estimate the annual cost of eating this way for a person or family, the cost consideration could at least be acknowledged. This release clearly states the benefits of a plant-based vegetarian diet for cholesterol. In clinical trials, a plant-based diet was reported to lower total, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels by 12.5 mg/dL, 3.4 mg/dL, and 12.2 mg/dL respectively. In observational studies, a plant-based diet was associated with reductions in total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol levels of 29.2 mg/dL, 3.6 mg/dL, and 22.9 mg/dL respectively. The release also included information on the lack of association between dietary patterns and blood triglyceride (a type of fat) levels — an important mention of results that were not statistically significant. However, the case description based on the physician’s subjective personal experience was over the top and detracted from the more balanced aspects of the release. The release doesn’t address harms but does suggest registered dietitians and the menus found in federal recommended dietary guidelines could help people transition to a plant-based diet. There is mounting evidence that plant-based diets may be associated with reduced risk for many health conditions, as long as one eats a balanced diet and in moderation. We’ll rate this one Not Applicable. The release does some things well here. It provides details on the types of studies analyzed and the findings from each type (randomized or observational). It addressed why there were greater risk reductions seen for total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol levels in the observational studies compared to the clinical trials — “…likely due to long-term adherence to plant-based eating patterns and changes in body composition.” It also mentions some of the underlying mechanisms that may be responsible for a plant-based diet’s effects on cholesterol, such as lower body weight, a reduced intake of saturated fat, and an increased intake of plant foods. But the release goes too far in crediting a vegetarian diet for reductions in heart attacks, strokes, and premature death. That wasn’t the study outcome and it’s very unlikely a randomized clinical trial was performed measuring these outcomes. The release would have been stronger if it had pointed out that cholesterol is a surrogate marker for heart disease, not a health outcome, and if it had mentioned the limitations of meta-analysis and of observational studies — the main one being that observational studies do not show cause and effect. There is no evidence of disease mongering. The release notes that the research is funded by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. Reporters will have to dig a little deeper to learn that group supports an activist agenda on behalf of animal rights, which may have a bearing on its health and diet recommendations. But the release meets our minimum standard for a satisfactory grade. This release compares the effects of several other diet types on cholesterol levels to a plant-based vegetarian diet. Readers learned that a plant-based vegetarian diet is associated with greater reductions in total, HDL, and LDL cholesterol levels than omnivorous (diets based on both animals and plants), low-fat, calorie-restricted, or conventional diabetes diets. However, the release lumps most of these alternative diets into one group to arrive at a comparison between vegetarian diets and the others. Since there are large differences in cholesterol levels between the plant-based vegetarian diet and each alternative diet type it would have been helpful to readers to break these comparisons down by individual diet. More importantly, it could be argued that these benefits may also apply to a “plant-based” diet that’s not vegetarian. Strong clinical trial evidence supports a Mediterranean style of eating that doesn’t require completely cutting out meat. The release notes that registered dietitians can help people transition to a plant-based vegetarian diet. It also recommends the vegetarian diet plans contained in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Is it novel to show that vegetarian diets are associated with lower cholesterol? Other studies have examined the relationship between vegetarian diets and plasma lipid levels, and comparing them with omnivorous diets, found there was no difference in high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-c). We wondered if there was some other aspect of the study that made it novel. The release notes that the study goal was to examine the association between a vegetarian diet and plasma lipid levels “throughout the lifespan.” According to the published study, this was the first meta-analysis to do so on a “long-term” basis. However, to be included in the analysis, clinical trials and observational studies only had to be 4 weeks of duration — hardly “long-term.” Overall, the release did not raise any of our red flags for sensational language. However, caution should be exercised before making statements such as that found in the physician testimonial: “Within the first month of making the dietary change, he effortlessly lost 10 pounds.” Losing weight by making and sustaining dietary changes is rarely an effortless process. It takes time, commitment, and often, social support from family and friends. This characterization can be misleading for readers.
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8191
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Hong Kong to quarantine all visitors to preserve success of coronavirus efforts.
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Hong Kong will quarantine for 14 days all people entering the city starting midnight on Thursday to prevent an “explosion” of coronavirus cases around the world compromising one of the world’s most successful outbreak limitation campaigns.
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true
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Health News
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Speaking at her weekly press briefing on Tuesday, the Chinese-ruled city’s leader Carrie Lam also advised residents to avoid all non-essential travel. Hong Kong detected its first cases as early as January, but thanks to severe social distancing measures and a strong community response has managed to avoid the scale of contagion seen in other countries and territories. It now faced the risk that visitors carrying the virus could spread it in Hong Kong, undoing the city’s efforts so far, which have involved significant economic and social sacrifices. Schools, which have been shut since January, were unlikely to resume on April 20 as initially planned, Lam said. “In many countries the number of confirmed cases can be described as explosive,” Lam said. “If we don’t adopt some strict measures ... I’m afraid all precaution efforts done in the past two months would be wasted. It will affect the public health of Hong Kong.” Four of the 157 confirmed coronavirus patients in Hong Kong have died. Fifty of the latest 57 cases were people with recent travel history, Lam said. Hong Kong had previously designated three public housing blocs for quarantine, but those will be reserved for the high-risk cases. The lower-risk cases will be asked to stay under home quarantine or be placed under surveillance, which can include electronic wristbands with movement trackers, irregular landline phone calls and other means. The outbreak in Hong Kong has brought back memories of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and triggered a strong response from the community. Hand sanitizers are freely available in shopping malls and office buildings, where people’s temperatures are also checked electronically. Door handles, elevator buttons and other surfaces regularly exposed to crowds are disinfected several times a day. Most residents wear masks and avoid large social interactions. For more than a month streets and other public areas have been largely deserted as many residents worked from home. Many companies are yet to recall all staff to their offices. Those measures have taken a heavy toll on an economy already facing its worst recession in a decade, with retailers and the tourism sector warning they are struggling to survive.
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9198
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Breath test could help detect stomach and esophageal cancers
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This news release about a breath test to detect stomach and esophageal cancers discusses the potential benefits of a screening test that could distinguish useful indications of early-stage, but serious, cancer in the breaths of average people –.if future research shows it can work in the real world. But that’s a bit off track from what the researchers tested. The underlying trial merely showed that in most cases breath analysis could distinguish between people who were already known to have stomach or esophageal cancer (advanced in most cases) with people who did not have any signs of cancer. The release did note at the end that researchers have yet to study whether this breath analysis can detect cancers among people in the general population. That’s an important point and one that would have been good to emphasize earlier in the release. The release gave only the briefest nod to the existence of numerous other breath tests for cancer that are being studied and didn’t explain how this particular research compares to other efforts. While this research is a necessary step, there is scant support for the claims in the release that this screening test “could detect cancer” in apparently healthy people and the suggestion that the test could mean “earlier diagnosis and treatment, and better survival.” Those claims dominated news coverage of the research announcement, as seen here, here and here. Detecting early cancer and then showing that early detection lowers stomach cancer mortality has not been demonstrated. HealthNewsReview.org also reviewed a HealthDay story on the breath test study findings.
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mixture
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breath test,esophageal cancer,European CanCer Organisation (ECCO),stomach cancer
|
This research is only at its earliest stages, so is it too early to expect cost information? If it’s not too early to promote a technique in a news release it’s not too early to provide a ballpark cost. The release does tout potential savings from avoiding “unnecessary” endoscopies but without also considering that an easy test could send many healthy into further testing or even treatment they didn’t need. A 20% false positive rate, which this test apparently offers, could translate into a huge number of expensive endoscopies. The release claims benefits, including early detection, avoidance of unnecessary endoscopies and more successful treatment that were not actually looked at in the underlying study. In essence, the release speculated about an ideal, proven breath test, while the research report merely indicated that the results of a preliminary trial suggest that the concept would be worth trying in conditions that more closely resemble the real world. The release should have noted that even if such a breath test could reliably detect these cancers at an earlier stage that does not necessarily mean patients would live longer. It could be that deadly stomach and esophageal cancers are resistant to treatment early in their course, so that early detection would merely provide bad news sooner. The effectiveness of treatments is a separate question. The claim that the test is “85% accurate overall” also merits scrutiny. What appears to be an accurate test in a small group in which half of them have the disease, turns out to be not so favorable when you screen a normal population in which the disease prevalence is low. For instance, with a specificity of 80%, 20% of those without cancer will have a positive test (false positive rate of 20%). If you have 300 people (as in the study) there will be 60 false positives. In the study there were 150 people with cancer and 124 will have a positive test (80% sensitivity). So out of 184 positive tests, 124 will actually have cancer. That is a positive predictive value of 67% (assuming if I test positive, I have a 2/3 chance of having cancer). Now take a hypothetical population where the prevalence of cancer is 1/1000. There will be one person with cancer (they will probably have a positive test) but there will be 200 healthy people, without cancer, who will also have a positive test! In that case only 1 out of 201 positive tests is actually a person with cancer and the PPV is .005 or less than half of one percent. If the test is positive you have a 1/201 chance of having cancer (the other 200 people don’t have cancer!). And those 200 other people have probably suffered some harm by having a false positive test. The release makes no mention of the harms of such a breath test. If the release is going to discuss potential unproven benefits, it should also mention the potential harms of screening tests including false positives, false negatives leading to over- or under-diagnosis. Chief among these harms would be falsely labeling healthy people as possibly having cancer and then subjecting them to invasive testing or even treatments that turn out to be unnecessary. Based on the statistics in the study abstract, an 81% specificity suggests that almost one-out-of-five people taking the test would be labeled as possibly having cancer when they don’t. However, the 80% sensitivity suggests that at present about one-in-five people with cancer would be missed. (Computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer is about that). The numbers get much worse, as discussed above, when we consider using the test in the general population of people who aren’t likely to have stomach cancer. The release suggests that the results of this trial provides evidence that a breath test could detect early stage cancer. However, that is not what the trial tested. The cancer patients in the trial had already been definitively diagnosed by conventional methods and most had advanced cancers. Since none of the participants had an early cancer that would not be detected by conventional methods, it is too early to say anything about the ability of such a breath test to detect early stage cancer. The trial abstract made clear that what researchers found was that about 85% of the time they could distinguish between a healthy person and a person with known cancer — but it then clearly noted that the breath test still has to be tried with participants who are more like the people who would actually be candidates for such a test in the future, if further research goes well. It is only near the very end of the release that it is noted that researchers still need to “assess the ability of the test to pick up cases within a group that is likely to contain only a small percentage of cancers.” We wish that important point had been emphasized, and much earlier in the release. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering and provides statistics on the numbers of stomach and esophageal cancers diagnosed globally each year, which matches other sources, and this puts the disease in context for readers. But when it notes that these types of cancers have a low 5-year survival rate of 15%, it would have been better to also tell readers that, while deadly, these two cancers are relatively uncommon (accounting for less than 10% of cancer diagnoses even after excluding common, nonmelanoma skin cancer) and appear to be largely preventable through improvements in diet and other living conditions. Funders are named in a sidebar to the release on the EurekAlert! website. Ideally, the funders would also be listed in the release text so that when the release is republished that information is available. The study abstract noted that the researchers stated they had no conflicts to declare. The release seems to be favorably comparing this breath test, which is a screening test, to conventional diagnostic methods, including endoscopy, even though there is not yet any evidence to support comparisons. The release would have been improved with a more careful distinction of who the screening test is geared for — is it a screening tool for healthy people to help rule out cancer or is it only for those with cancer symptoms? It is clear that the breath test is not available. The release did not make any predictions about when such a test might make its way through the full course of experimental trials. We’ll give the release a pass on this since a breath test for screening for these specific cancers would be a new development, if proven effective, and the release does reference other research that formed the foundation for the new study. However, the release did not explain how this research is distinct from other work in the area. It would have been helpful had the release noted that many research teams around the world are evaluating breath tests to detect various types of cancer and other diseases. A report out of Israel in 2015 sparked wide news coverage of research into a breath test that appeared to be able to distinguish stomach cancer from pre-cancerous lesions, many of which do not develop into cancer. As noted above, most of the “promise” of the breath test is based on hoped-for developments, not what was actually demonstrated in this trial. It is too early to say whether the ability to often distinguish between compounds in the breath of healthy people and those in the breath of people with established, often advanced, cancers means that it is at all likely that this test will someday be able to pick out important cancers in people in the general population.
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5839
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Wyoming records increase in cases of syphilis.
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Wyoming health officials say 34 cases of syphilis have been reported in the state this year, a 36 percent increase from 2017.
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true
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Sexually transmitted diseases, Health, Wyoming, Casper, Syphilis
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The Casper Star-Tribune reports the state Department of Health announced Wednesday the syphilis increase, which mirrors rises in other sexually transmitted diseases. Courtney Smith, the department’s communicable disease surveillance program manager, says the state has alerted health care providers to encourage them to promote testing and treatment. Officials said earlier this year that gonorrhea rates in the state increased by 50 percent from 2016 to 2017. The state also reported a rise in the number of cases of Chlamydia. The department recommends abstinence, limiting sexual partners, “correct and consistent condom use,” and regular testing to avoid contracting syphilis and the other STDs. ___ Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com
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16266
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"EMILY's List Says Scott Walker is ""forcing some women to undergo a transvaginal probe to get an abortion."
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"In a TV ad, EMILY’s List said Walker is ""forcing some women to undergo a transvaginal probe to get an abortion,"" while an image on the screen said Walker ""endorses mandating transvaginal ultrasounds."" The law doesn’t mandate transvaginal ultrasounds, rather it says the woman seeking an abortion can choose either a transvaginal or transabdominal ultrasound. But medical professionals say that the new requirement, as a practical matter, means some women have to get a transvaginal ultrasound. For a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important information, our rating is Half True. You can comment on this item on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website."
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mixture
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Abortion, Health Care, Message Machine 2014, Public Health, Technology, Women, Wisconsin, EMILY's List,
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"In backing Mary Burke in the Nov. 4, 2014 election for governor, at least three abortion rights organizations have produced ads highlighting Gov. Scott Walker’s opposition to abortion. But one TV ad from EMILY’s List, a Washington, D.C.-based group, might be the most blunt. Halfway into the 30-second spot, released Oct. 21, 2014, the narrator says Walker ""is forcing some women to undergo a transvaginal probe to get an abortion."" As the words are spoken, a headline appears on the screen that reads: ""Scott Walker endorses mandating transvaginal ultrasounds."" It is made to look like a newspaper headline, but it comes from an article on the left-leaning Think Progress blog. A medical device is also shown. A series of readers asked us to check the claim. ""Transvaginal"" is the attention-grabbing word in the claim. But as we’ll see, the reference to ""some women"" is important, too. Abortion and ultrasounds The ad alludes to a July 2013 Wisconsin law that requires women seeking an abortion to get an ultrasound -- either transabdominally, which is done externally, or transvaginally. Wisconsin is among two dozen states that require an ultrasound before an abortion is performed. In Wisconsin, exceptions are made in cases of sexual assault or medical emergency. The governor’s office praised the measure, saying it ""improves a woman's ability to make an informed choice that will protect her physical and mental health now and in the future."" The law was opposed by the Wisconsin Medical Society, among others. The society said the measure as a ""direct infringement on the patient-physician relationship"" and for injecting ""non-evolving government mandates into medical science."" (Another part of the law, which would require doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges, has been blocked in an ongoing court battle.) As we turn to the EMILY’s List claim, one note: The use of ultrasounds among abortion providers is not new, even though the Wisconsin law requiring them is. A couple of weeks after Walker signed the measure, the clinic director and another worker at Affiliated Medical Services, a Milwaukee abortion provider, noted in an opinion piece in the Huffington Post that their clinic has ""always"" required ultrasounds. ""If you go to an abortion clinic that doesn't insist on an ultrasound, you should walk out the door. It's just bad medicine,"" they wrote. The Milwaukee clinic workers also pointed out, however, that the Wisconsin law does not require a transvaginal ultrasound and that they would have opposed that requirement. They said their clinic only does transvaginal ultrasounds when it is deemed medically necessary -- in cases of early pregnancy, morbid obesity, or ""anatomical variants"" in the uterus. Tracy Weitz, associate professor and director of the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, said that nationally, transvaginal ultrasounds are routine among abortion providers in the early stages of pregnancy. They can verify a pregnancy as early as four weeks, meaning women don’t have to wait through weeks of pregnancy symptoms and distress before choosing to have an abortion, she wrote. Evidence for the claim As we’ve indicated, the law Walker signed does not mandate a transvaginal ultrasound -- though the headline used in the ad says Walker endorsed mandating that procedure. Rather, the law requires ""an ultrasound on the pregnant woman using whichever transducer the woman chooses"" -- either transvaginal or transabdominal -- according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Council. But there is more to consider. Under the law, the person doing the ultrasound must tell the pregnant woman during the procedure ""what the ultrasound is depicting,"" including the ""dimensions of the unborn child and a description of any external features and internal organs that are present and viewable on the image."" The person must also display the ultrasound images so that the pregnant woman may view them, but the woman can’t be forced to view them. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin told us that only a transvaginal ultrasound would enable a clinician to meet the requirements of the law for early-stage pregnancies, up to 12 weeks. And according to an August 2014 report from the state Department of Health Services, 84 percent of abortions in Wisconsin are performed at 12 weeks or less. EMILY’s List, meanwhile, noted that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says transvaginal ultrasound often is used in early pregnancy, whereas transabdominal ultrasound often is used after about 10 weeks of pregnancy. And the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that studies reproductive rights, says ""routine ultrasound is not considered medically necessary as a component of first-trimester abortion."" Barbara Lyons, the former executive director of Wisconsin Right to Life, which opposes abortion, told us that even if a medical situation indicates that a woman seeking an abortion should get a transvaginal ultrasound, the woman still has the final say and the Wisconsin law doesn’t mandate one over the other. ""In the end, she gets to make the decision,"" Lyons said. ""There is no mandate."" To sum up: The law doesn’t mandate a transvaginal ultrasound. But for some women, the fact that an ultrasound is required means they would have to get the transvaginal procedure, rather than a transabdominal one, in order to get an abortion. Our rating In a TV ad, EMILY’s List said Walker is ""forcing some women to undergo a transvaginal probe to get an abortion,"" while an image on the screen said Walker ""endorses mandating transvaginal ultrasounds."" The law doesn’t mandate transvaginal ultrasounds, rather it says the woman seeking an abortion can choose either a transvaginal or transabdominal ultrasound. But medical professionals say that the new requirement, as a practical matter, means some women have to get a transvaginal ultrasound. For a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important information, our rating is . You can comment on this item on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website."
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11640
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100% of heroin/fentanyl epidemic is because we don't have a WALL.
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"Coulter, alluding to the opioid crisis, said the heroin and fentanyl epidemic was ""100 percent"" caused by America’s lack of a border wall. Heroin is mostly trafficked from Mexico, mostly hidden in cargo – not by crossing the border through the desert. Fentanyl comes from both Mexico and Canada, and can also be transported through the mail. Coulter’s ""100 percent"" claim is far off-base no matter how we parse it."
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false
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Immigration, Drugs, North Carolina, Ann Coulter,
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"In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, President Donald Trump proposed a stricter immigration system that he says would keep Americans safer and help address the country’s opioid epidemic. Trump’s plan is built on four ""pillars,"" as he called them, one of which is a wall along America’s southern border. ""Our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country,"" Trump said, adding shortly thereafter: ""These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction."" The speech was roundly praised by conservative politicians and pundits, including Ann Coulter. Coulter is the author of several books and often appears on radio and television shows. While Trump’s speech didn’t linger on the relationship between opioids and Mexico, Coulter attempted to provide some context. ""Good he's talking about opioid crisis -- 100% of heroin/fentanyl epidemic is because we don't have a WALL,"" she tweeted. There are three claims to address here. One: the insinuation that the opioid crisis is limited to or caused by a rise in heroin and fentanyl use. Two: that all heroin and fentanyl used by Americans enters the country through Mexico. And three: the suggestion that building a wall along America’s southern border would drastically reduce opioid abuse. What are opioids? The National Institute on Drug Abuse describes opioids as a class of drugs that includes heroin, fentanyl and prescription pain relievers such as oxycodone (including OxyContin), hydrocodone (including Vicodin), codeine, morphine, and many others. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid pain reliever that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. More than 64,000 people died in 2016 from drug overdoses, the majority of which were linked to opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency Oct. 26 at the White House. What caused the epidemic? According to the final report by the U.S. Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, a commission Trump created, the current epidemic is a result of ""excessive prescribing of opioids since 1999"" compounded by the ""widespread availability of inexpensive and purer illicit heroin; the influx of highly potent fentanyl/fentanyl analogs."" The commission included former Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the chairman, Republican Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, former Democratic Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Republican Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Bertha Madras, an opioid expert and professor of psychobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. ""Examining national-level general population heroin data (including those in and not in treatment), nearly 80 percent of heroin users reported using prescription opioids prior to heroin,"" the Institute on Drug Abuse notes on a webpage explaining prescription opioids as a gateway drug. In 2015 alone, the Institute says, an estimated 2 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers, and 591,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder (the stats aren’t mutually exclusive). Where do heroin and fentanyl come from? International gangs based in Mexico ""remain the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States,"" and their most common method of smuggling drugs is vehicles legally coming into the U.S., according to a 2017 Drug Enforcement Administration report. And, as PolitiFact previously reported, heroin is most smuggled through Mexico. ""Opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in Mexico, believed to be the primary source of heroin for the U.S. market, have continued to surge, providing traffickers a steady stream of high-purity, low-cost heroin to market throughout the United States,"" the report says. As for fentanyl, it mainly originates in China and comes in through the southwest border, Canada and the U.S. Postal Service. Trump’s opioid commission says many users are ordering the pill-form of fentanyl online and having it shipped discreetly. The commission’s report references a Carnegie Mellon University study which found that revenues from online illicit drug sales increased from between $15-17 million in 2012 to $150-$180 million in 2015. Furthermore, the fentanyl found at the southern border tends to be less potent than the fentanyl shipped through the mail. ""Large volumes of fentanyl are seized at the [southern border], although these seizures are typically low in purity – on average approximately 7 percent,"" the DEA’s 2017 report says. ""Conversely, the smaller volumes seized after arriving in the mail directly from China can have purities over 90 percent and be worth much more than the fentanyl seized at the SWB."" Would a wall work? Probably not. Trump has said that building a wall between the United States and Mexico would curb opioid use in America, and experts told PolitiFact in October they’re skeptical a wall would have a drastic impact. Even though a lot of heroin comes from Mexico, it’s not always walked across the border. As PolitiFact pointed out in this fact check of Trump, traffickers typically smuggle the drugs in through secret compartments in vehicles crossing the border (through legal checkpoints and illegal crossings), transport them to stash houses in hub cities like Dallas, Los Angeles and Phoenix, and then distribute to the Midwest and East Coast. ""Traffickers hide their illicit cargo in secret, state–of–the art compartments designed for cars, or under legal goods in trailer trucks. And they have learned many techniques for fooling the border patrol,"" Vanda Felbab-Brown wrote in an August 2017 essay for the Brookings Institute, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. As Trump once accurately noted, smugglers also attempt to get drugs into the United States using catapults, drones, boats and tunnels. At least 232 tunnels were discovered on U.S. borders from 1990 to January 2017, according to the 2017 DEA report. The report notes that the most common method employed by Mexican traffickers ""involves transporting illicit drugs through U.S. ports of entry (POEs) in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor trailers."" As for fentanyl, Trump’s opioid commission seemed more concerned with shipments from China than couriers from Mexico. ""We are losing this fight predominately through China,"" the commission wrote in its interim report. ""This must become a top tier diplomatic issue with the Chinese; American lives are at stake and it threatens our national security,"" it says. ""Our inability to reliably detect fentanyl at our land borders and at our international mail handling facilities creates untenable vulnerabilities."" Josh Stein, North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, summarized the issue in an email. ""Traffickers predominately bring heroin from Mexico but usually through legal points of entry. Drug dealers import illicit fentanyl from China usually by air. To effectively combat the opioid epidemic … there are better investments than a wall."" Our ruling Coulter, alluding to the opioid crisis, said the heroin and fentanyl epidemic was ""100 percent"" caused by America’s lack of a border wall. Heroin is mostly trafficked from Mexico, mostly hidden in cargo – not by crossing the border through the desert. Fentanyl comes from both Mexico and Canada, and can also be transported through the mail. Coulter’s ""100 percent"" claim is far off-base no matter how we parse it."
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