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36630
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Indonesian teenagers are smoking pads and tampons for a buzz.
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Are Young People Boiling Menstrual Pads to Get High?
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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A strange story about Indonesian youths finding a interesting “new” way to get high made the rounds in November 2018: taking sanitary pads, boiling them into a soup, and then drinking the ensuring slurry after it cooled. The pads, the story helpfully assured us, could be either new or used, and that diapers could also do the trick (although oddly, no mention was made of tampons):A pad is removed from its wrapper and boiled for about an hour, after which the water is cooled.The sanitary product is squeezed into the container, after which the water is drunk, he told Pos Belitung.Describing the resulting beverage as ‘bitter’, he told the newspaper he and his friends drink it ‘morning, afternoon and evening’.The newspaper also reported that nappies had been used to achieve the same ‘legal high’ drink.There are indeed reports of this out of Indonesia. One story quoted a Senior Commander Suprinarto, head of the Central Java chapter of the National Narcotics Agency, who said the chlorine in the boiled mixture causes hallucinations and a sensation of floating or flying — but despite what more recent stories are reporting, this has apparently been going on for some time:“The used pads they took from the trash were put in boiling water. After it cooled down they drank it together,” Suprinarto said, as quoted by kompas.com.Jimy Ginting, an advocate for safe drinking, said that it was not a new phenomenon.In 2016, groups of teenagers in Belitung, Bangka Belitung Islands, and Karawang, West Java, did the same.“I don’t know who started it all, but I knew it started around two years ago. There is no law against it so far. There is no law against these kids using a mixture of mosquito repellent and [cold syrup] to get drunk,” Jimy told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.This does appear to be a legitimate phenomenon as covered by Indonesian news agencies among youths seeking a new way to get high, but it is not clear how widespread it is or whether it actually works (and we don’t recommend trying it out for a variety of extremely good reasons. )Chlorine is a naturally occurring element used broadly as an all-purpose disinfectant because of the ease with which it kills germs. It is not harmful when it is heavily diluted — in fact, it is used to purify drinking and swimming water, but can be quite dangerous in higher quantities. Chlorine bleach is also used to lighten and whiten fabrics by the same mechanism it uses to purify and disinfect:How does bleach kill bacteria to disinfect surfaces? It works in something of the same way that heat does to kill germs. Inside a bacteria cell are thousands of protein molecules that are intricately folded. These proteins are essential to a bacteria’s life. Bleach causes these proteins to unfold or to clump together. This clumping is the same kind of thing that happens when you heat an egg — the protein molecules in the egg solidify as they clump together.If you put bleach in water, it will kill bacteria and tend to lessen anything that might be coloring the water. That’s why chlorinated water is so common in municipal water systems and swimming pools. Tap water might have a chlorine concentration of 1 part per million (anywhere from 0.2 ppm to 4 ppm is legal). A swimming pool can go as high as 4 parts per million for swimming, and can go much higher for shock treatments.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a rundown of the signs of heavy exposure to the element:During or immediately after exposure to dangerous concentrations of chlorine, the following signs and symptoms may develop:-Blurred vision -Burning pain, redness, and blisters on the skin if exposed to gas. Skin injuries similar to frostbite can occur if it is exposed to liquid chlorine -Burning sensation in the nose, throat, and eyes -Coughing -Chest tightness -Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Thesemay appear immediately if high concentrations of chlorine gas are inhaled, or they may be delayed if low concentrations of chlorine gas are inhaled. -Fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema) that may be delayed for a few hours -Nausea and vomiting -Watery eyes -WheezingWe have not found any reliable references that clarify whether the chlorine in the pads or diapers (if that’s the culprit) can be at all intoxicating, whether the pulmonary edema contributes to the feeling of lightheadedness, or if something else entirely is responsible. We also have not been able to find many reliable sources indicating whether this is indeed a trend or just the work of a few young people in Indonesia who are unusually committed to getting a cheap buzz.Until more evidence appears one way or another.
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11087
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Rotavirus Vaccine Urged for Babies:
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In this story we learn that there is a new rotavirus vaccine for babies, replacing an earlier vaccine that had been pulled from the market due to safety concerns. This vaccine is FDA approved and now available. Although there is mention of a large study conducted by Merck, there is no description of the study design, so readers have no way of evaluating the strength of the evidence and no quantitative estimates of benefit are provided. The fundamental question, ‘how well does the vaccine work?’ is left unanswered. Furthermore, the story states that this vaccine appears to be safer than the previous one, however there is no evidence provided to support this claim. The author states that the vaccine will cost $187.50 for the three-dose series, making it one of the most expensive vaccines ever marketed. Although the author does say that this cost will put a strain on state-sponsored vaccination programs, there is no attempt to try to quantify the magnitude of this strain or comment on the potential cost-effectiveness of this new vaccination program. The costs are likely to be significant. Even if the U.S. healthcare system will be able to pay for it, Americans are the least likely to benefit from it since only 50-60 American children die of rotavirus per year. In third world countries, however, the story is different. Thousands of children worldwide die every year from rotavirus infection because of the lack of good medical care to treat the symptoms, and one wonders if Third World children will have access to this drug.
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false
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The author states that the vaccine will cost $187.50 for the three-dose series, making it one of the most expensive vaccines ever marketed. Although the author does say that this cost will put a strain on state-sponsored vaccination programs, there is no attempt to try to quantify the magnitude of this strain or comment on the potential cost-effectiveness of this new vaccination program. No quantitative estimates of benefit are provided. How well does the vaccine work? The author states that this vaccine appears to be safer than the previous one, however there is no evidence provided to support this claim. Although not statistically significant, there were more cases of intusussecption with the vaccine in the trials. Although there is mention of a large study conducted by Merck, there is no description of the study design, therefore, we have no way of evaluating the strength of the evidence. Although the author provides some information on the prevalence and seriousness of rotavirus in the US and abroad, he does not mention that there are multiple strands of rotavirus and the vaccine is not equally effective against all of them. The vaccine is about 75% effective in preventing disease (especially severe diarrhea) and the incidence of emergency room visits and hospitalizations is also reduced. The author does exaggerate the seriousness of rotavirus in the U.S, because although all kids get infected with the virus, few have disease from it and it only accounts for about 40-50 deaths. The author does quote an independent source, an epidemiologist from the CDC. No mention of alternatives. There is no evidence that this story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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36113
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Image depicts former President Jimmy Carter, 95, building a charity homes while still visibly recovering from a fall with a black eye.
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’95-Year-Old Former President Jimmy Carter Building a House With a Black Eye’ Meme
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On October 8 2019, a Reddit user shared the following animated image to r/gifs, purportedly showing former United States president Jimmy Carter building homes for Habitat for Humanity while still visibly recovering from a fall-related injury (as evidenced by a black eye):95-year-old former President Jimmy Carter helps building homes one day after falling and receiving stitches above his eye from gifsAccording to the title, the image showed Carter just one day after a fall sufficiently severe to cause deep bruising on his left eye. A similar post proved popular the following day on Imgur, titled simply “Be like Jimmy”:Text to the left of two images of Carter (and his black eye) read:THIS IS JIMMYJIMMY IS 96 YEARS OLDJIMMY HAD BRAIN CANCER IN 2015JIMMY BROKE A HIP IN MAY 2019JIMMY SHOWED UP ON MONDAY TO HELP BUILD HOUSES FOR HABITAT FOR HUMANITYJIMMY IS A BADASSAccording the meme, Carter was 96 as of October 2019, he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2015, he broke his hip in May 2019, and (implicitly) he suffered a fall on October 6 2019 — but “showed up” the following day to “help build houses for Habitat for Humanity.”Much of the meme was reasonably easy to verify, but not as easy as it first appeared. While the meme stated Carter was 96, Google users would likely find a top result and a feature box claiming Carter was 94 or 95 respectively:Jimmy Carter was born on October 1 1924, the likely reason for October 2019 pages that misstated his age. The Reddit post correctly described his age (95), but when the claims appeared in an Imgur meme the following day, his age was miscalculated as 96.Both posts contend that Carter was injured in a fall, placing the injury on October 6 2019 and the photographs one day later. CBS News reported that Carter was indeed injured in a fall at home on October 6 2019:Former President Jimmy Carter fell [October 6 2019] at his home in Georgia and needed some stitches above his brow, but “feels fine,” his spokeswoman said. Deanna Congileo said in an email that the 39th president fell [October 6 2019] in Plains, Georgia, and received stitches.Mr. Carter turned 95 on [October 1 2019], becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone.That article also mentioned that Carter still managed to attend a Habitat for Humanity event on the night he was injured:Mr. Carter appeared at the ceremony with a black eye and a bandage. He received 14 stitches. Despite his injuries, the Carters said volunteering was their top priority. The Nashville project marked Mr. Carter’s 36th build.The same article also mentioned Carter’s 2015 “dire cancer diagnosis,” as well as a May 2019 hip replacement:Mr. Carter survived a dire cancer diagnosis in 2015 and surpassed George H.W. Bush as the longest-lived U.S. president in history this spring. He has had some trouble walking after a hip replacement in May [2019], but regularly teaches Sunday School.In late August 2019, CNN reported Carter was busy building with Habitat for Humanity after hip surgery following a fall in May 2019:Former President Jimmy Carter, who underwent hip surgery last spring [2019] following a fall, plans to resume his decades-long role as a volunteer house builder with Habitat for Humanity this fall [2019], a spokeswoman for the Carter Center confirmed to CNN [in August 2019].CNN added that Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter have been volunteering with the organization since 1984:Together, they’ve worked alongside “more than 103,000 volunteers in 14 countries to build, renovate or repair 4,331 homes,” according to a fact sheet from the organization. In 2017, the former president was admitted to a hospital in Winnipeg, Canada, after becoming dehydrated while working outdoors for Habitat. He was released the following day.CNN noted that in addition to a 2015 brain cancer diagnosis, Carter also underwent surgery that same year on his liver — a detail not mentioned in the meme:In addition to the hip surgery earlier [in 2019], Carter has also undergone several other medical treatments, including successful treatment in 2015 for cancer spots on his brain and a separate operation that same year to remove a “small mass” from his liver.The meme’s final claim was that it, like the Reddit post, showed Carter building homes one day after his October 2019 injury. According to TIME and People, that claim was also accurate:With a bandage above his left eye and a large, red welt below it, former President Jimmy Carter was greeted by a cheering crowd Monday morning [October 7 2019] as he prepared to help build a home with Habitat for Humanity in Nashville.Carter fell at home on Sunday [October 6 2019], requiring 14 stiches, but he did not let his injuries keep him from participating in his 36th building project with the nonprofit Christian housing organization. He turned 95 last Tuesday [October 1 2019], becoming the first U.S. president to reach that milestone.People reported that Carter acknowledged his injury before the building began:As he addressed the tumble and his newly-bruised face, Carter said nothing could keep him from making the trip to Tennessee to help build homes.“I wanna explain my black eye,” he said, according to video of his remarks. “I got up this morning … I was getting ready for church, right after that we had a family reunion and we were coming to Nashville.”“I fell down and hit my forehead on a sharp edge and I had to go to the hospital,” Carter explained. “And they took 14 stitches in my forehead and my eye’s black, if you noticed.”“But I had a No. 1 priority and that was to come to Nashville to build houses!” he added.A Reddit post said that an animated GIF showed Jimmy Carter at age 96, building houses one day after he was injured in a fall, which is correct. A subsequent Imgur meme misstated Carter’s age, but added that he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2015 (true) and that he broke a hip in May 2019 (also true.) Images of Carter’s black eye at a Habitat for Humanity building site were published in news coverage of his appearance at the charity’s worksite.
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10694
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Drug may delay hypertension in high-risk patients
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The Boston Globe offers interesting short summaries of health/medical/science topics. This one presents the results of a recent study of a drug called candesartan in people who have pre-hypertension to prevent hypertension. It was really a study of this drug in addition to the usual lifestyle recommendations (DASH diet, weight loss, reduced sodium, physical activity and moderation of alcohol intake). But the story didn’t make this clear and gave the lifestyle changes little attention. The story did not provide a framework for understanding how often pre-hypertension progresses to hypertension. The story could have (should have?) stressed that, while the drug may prevent pre-hypertension from turning into hypertension, that does not tell us if this early treatment reduces hard clinical outcomes (stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease and mortality). Without this information, it is not possible for people to determine whether they should take action regarding a pre-hypertensive state and if so, to make a balanced assessment of the relative risks and benefits of the treatment options available.
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mixture
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The story didn’t provide any cost estimate for candesartan. It did mention that there was a need to conduct analysis examining the risk to benefit ratio including costs. The story stated that “They found that during the study, patients who received candesartan were 66 percent less likely to develop true hypertension than those who received the placebo.” That’s a relative risk reduction (or benefit, depending on how you view it); but readers would be better guided by the absolute risk reduction figures. Fainting and abnormal potassium levels were mentioned as harms of treatment, though there was no indication of how common these harms might be. Another harm not mentioned was that it is known from other studies that labeling someone as ‘hypertensive’ can severely affect their quality of life (self perception). The story clearly identifies that the evidence comes from a publication in the April 20th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. While this article does not frame pre-hypertension as a disease per se, it does suggest its ‘treatment’ will prevent development of hypertension. But the story doesn’t give any context for the percentage of people with pre-hypertension who actually go on to develop hypertension. The drug may prevent pre-hypertension from turning into hypertension, but the story does not tell us if this early treatment reduces hard clinical outcomes (stroke, heart attack, peripheral vascular disease and mortality). Less than optimum: The sole source of this article appears to be a New England Journal of Medicine article. No additional sources were apparent. Strong point: The story stated, “CAUTIONS: This study was funded by AstraZeneca the maker of candesartan and the company was also involved in the analysis of the data.” Although two of the lifestyle recommendations for management of pre-hypertension (i.e. low-salt diet and regular exercise) were mentioned, the article relied on the New England Journal of Medicine article for estimates for the efficacy of lifestyle interventions to reduce hypertension instead of studies of these (and other lifestyle) interventions. Individuals receiving either the drug or placebo in this trial also received printed materals about lifestyle modifications and review and reinforcement of diet and exercise at all visits. This means that the study was really about the potential benefit of the drug in addition to usual lifestyle recommendations. That should have been made clear. The story is about a trial of a drug called candesartan, which is currently approved for treating hypertension. Researchers studied it for managing a condition that is now called pre-hypertension. But the story didn’t make clear where the drug stood with the FDA for approval for the use described in the article. It’s fairly clear from the story that the use of medication as a means of reducing the risk of developing hypertension in patients with pre-hypertension but without other conditions is new. Does not appear to rely on the press release from AstraZeneca distributed when the study was presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting.
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20590
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"Alan Bates Says ""80 percent of the health care dollars are spent by 20 percent of the population."
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Does 20% of the population really use 80% of health care dollars?
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true
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Oregon, Health Care, Public Health, Alan Bates,
|
"Health care debates are always fertile ground for fact-checkable claims. A recent debate on the Oregon Senate floor over the state’s reform plans was no different. During the debate, Sen. Alan Bates was trying to argue the point that the state’s health care system needs to focus on the folks who are highest cost and better integrate their care. A small portion of folks use the most resources, he said, so better organization, more working together, should make a dent in overall costs. ""We spend twice as much money per person in the U.S. than any industrialized country in the world and yet we have the worst outcomes,"" he said. ""Our health care system is literally awash in dollars."" Same old, same old. But then he said something that really caught our attention: ""Eighty percent of the health care dollars are spent by 20 percent of the population."" We remembered this 80-20 rule from economics class. Quite a few things are said to split that way. Business owners, for instance, sometimes say that just 20 percent of their clientele account for 80 percent of their sales. But we hadn’t heard the rule applied to health care -- and, honestly, we weren’t even sure the ""rule"" held up to scrutiny. So we gave Bates’ office a call. An aide there said that the 80-20 split was general knowledge, and that the senator heard it recently from the director of the Oregon Health Authority. That led us to OHA spokeswoman Karynn Fish, who pointed us to two sources. The first was an Oregonian article by Bill Graves that was about this topic exactly: high-cost patients. In his story, Graves notes that at CareOregon, a Portland managed care organization for Oregon Health Plan, about 25 percent of the adult patients accounted for 83 percent of the spending in 2011. That number seemed to reflect the same general principle Bates had mentioned during the floor session. Debra Read, a senior evaluation associate with CareOregon, said the figure was fairly standard across the board when it comes to health care -- though she couldn’t say whether it also applied to children. ""That’s well supported, not just in our data."" The reason for the high cost of a few, she said, comes down to hospital visits, where most people wind up when they’re managing a chronic condition or they’re in the last stages of a terminal illness. ""When you look at health care costs overall, the hospital is the thing that costs the most, vastly costs the most. … So it’s basically driven by hospital costs. The sicker you are, the more likely you are to go to the hospital."" The second source that Fish gave us was a chart from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. That chart showed exactly what Bates said: Twenty percent of the population accounts for 80 percent of total expenditures. Maybe even more shockingly, the chart also shows that just 5 percent of the population accounts for 50 percent of all expenditures. The agency cited several studies for the chart, with publication dates running from 2002 through 2006. To get a more current take on the situation, we phoned Stephanie Bernell, a professor with Oregon State University’s Health Management and Policy Program who specializes in the economics of health care. She said the 80-20 split was ""a very reasonable thing for somebody to say."" She cited a fuller report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality that further explored the way in which a minority of Americans account for the largest bulk of spending. Bernell said she was even more interested in whittling down that 20 percent, noting again that just 5 percent account for 49 percent of health care expenses. ""I think the stories are more interesting when you get into who’s in that 20 percent, "" she said. People consume the most health care at the beginning and the end of life, she said. Births are expensive and so is the latter part of life when ""chronic conditions start to creep up."" That brings us to our ruling. Bates said that 20 percent of the population accounts for 80 percent of the health care dollars spent. His claim is backed up by two studies from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. That data is a little old, but newer numbers from CareOregon show the same split and a professor who studies the issue also confirmed the senator’s claim. We give this statement a . Return to OregonLive to comment on this PolitiFact Oregon ruling."
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1568
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Study finds cosmic rays increased heart risks among Apollo astronauts.
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Apollo astronauts who ventured to the moon are at five times greater risk of dying from heart disease than shuttle astronauts, U.S. researchers said on Thursday, citing the dangers of cosmic radiation beyond the Earth’s magnetic field.
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true
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Science News
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The study by researchers at Florida State University and NASA found that three Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, or 43 percent of those studied, died from cardiovascular disease, a finding with implications for future human travel beyond Earth. The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, was the first to look at the mortality of Apollo astronauts, the only people so far to travel beyond a few hundred miles (km) of Earth. It found that the chief health threat to the Apollo astronauts came from cosmic rays, which are more prevalent and powerful beyond the magnetic bubble that surrounds Earth. NASA disputed the findings, saying it was too early to draw conclusions about the effect of cosmic rays on Apollo astronauts because the current data is limited. The results of the study have implications for the United States and other countries, as well as private companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which are planning missions to Mars and other destinations beyond Earth. For the study, the researchers examined the death records of 42 astronauts who flew in space, including seven Apollo veterans, and 35 astronauts who died without ever going into space. They found the Apollo astronauts’ mortality rate from cardiovascular disease was as much as five times higher than for astronauts who never flew, or for those who flew low-altitude missions aboard the space shuttle that orbited a few hundred miles above Earth. A companion study simulated weightlessness and radiation exposure in mice and showed that radiation exposure was far more threatening to the cardiovascular system than other factors, lead scientist Michael Delp said in an interview. “What the mouse data show is that deep space radiation is harmful to vascular health,” he said. So far, only 24 astronauts have flown beyond Earth’s protective magnetic shield, in missions spanning a four-year period from December 1968 to December 1972. Of those, eight have died, seven of whom were included in the study. The cause of death of the eighth astronaut, Apollo 14’s Edgar Mitchell, who died in February 2016, has not been released, so he was excluded from the study, Delp said. Mitchell was the sixth person to walk on the moon. Delp and colleagues are working on a follow-up study that includes more detail on family medical histories, smoking and other factors.
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13954
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"The House Zika bill ""limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus"" in Puerto Rico."
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Nelson, along with many other Democrats, said the Zika funding bill would limit access to family planning and contraceptives that would help stop the spread of the Zika virus. The legislation would have blocked the flow of money to one organization, Profamilias, the Planned Parenthood chapter in Puerto Rico. However, the bill also provided funds that would potentially help clinics and hospitals in nearly every municipality on the island. There would be some pockets without services, but it is unclear that Profamilias would be positioned to fill those gaps. At the same time, Profamilias serves women who might be more at risk of infection because they tend to be young and poor. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details.
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mixture
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Abortion, Public Health, Florida, Bill Nelson,
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"Emergency money to block the spread of the Zika virus won’t be coming any time real soon. A $1.1 billion funding measure failed to win enough support for an up or down vote in the Senate. The major stumbling point wasn’t the money (though Democrats wanted additional funding). Rather, it was the strings that were attached to the measure as it relates to combatting the virus in Puerto Rico. After the House passed the bill on a largely party line vote, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., berated it. """"The House Zika bill is a disaster,"" Nelson said June 24, 2016. ""Not only does it take $500 million in health care funding away from Puerto Rico, it limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus and prevent terrible birth defects. This is not a serious solution."" We wondered about Nelson’s claim that the House Zika bill ""limits access to birth control services needed to help curb the spread of the virus,"" in Puerto Rico. What the bill said The conference report (the bill that emerged from negotiations between top Senate and House Republicans) included two pots of money of particular importance for Puerto Rico. There was $80 million through the Social Services Block Grant program, and $40 million for community health centers. By and large, these dollars were targeted toward Puerto Rico, where the Zika virus has been transmitted widely by mosquitoes. The words that limited how this money could be spent applied to the block grant program. Those dollars were ""for health services provided by public health departments, hospitals, or reimbursed through public health plans."" Helen Hare, spokeswoman for the Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told us this language cut out Profamilias, the Puerto Rican branch of Planned Parenthood. ""They are a key provider of women’s health care in Puerto Rico, and women would not be able to get the kind of care they need to protect themselves,"" Hare told us. This is about more than abortion services, Democrats say. Zika can be transmitted through sex. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says, ""Condoms can reduce the chance of getting Zika from sex if used correctly from start to finish."" Hare said Profamilias served 8,000 people in 2015. Republicans counter that the bill would have funded many health clinics and women would not be denied care. Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee, told us that even though Profamilias would be ineligible, the money could go to clinics across the island. There’s no debate that the limits applied to Profamilias. So the central question is, would that restriction make much of a difference? There are two ways to sort this out. You can look at where clinics are located and you can look at if they serve different types of women. Mapping health care Many Puerto Ricans live in rural areas and struggle to get by on very modest incomes. Martin Kramer with the Health and Human Services Department’s Health Resources and Services Administration told us that the island territory has 20 community health centers operating at 84 sites. HHS sent them $5 million in April to fight Zika. ""That money was for contraceptive services, community education and to hire new staff,"" Kramer said. Thanks to the Primary Care Association of Puerto Rico, there’s a map of where those clinics are. According to HHS, that network provides contraceptive services to more than 16,600 women each year. The map shows the municipal boundaries that serve as Puerto Rico’s counties. We went to the HHS Data Portal and a list of clinics in the public health insurance plan to add in hospitals and public health clinics. Out of a bit under 20 municipalities not served by the community health clinics, we found about eight that lacked any facility that we could identify. What’s important to note is that everywhere Profamilias lists a clinic -- Arecibo, Caguas, Carolina, Isabela, Moca, Ponce and San Juan -- has another type of facility that would have been eligible for additional funding to combat the spread of Zika. Profamilias clientele One expert we spoke with said that while Puerto Ricans may have had access to another clinic, Profamilias serves a specific type of client. ""The Planned Parenthood-style clinic tends to serve very young, very poor women,"" said Peter Shin, an associate professor in public health at George Washington University. Shin has studied health services in Puerto Rico. ""It takes a different set of tactics to reach the teenage or young adult women,"" Shin said. Shin said these clinics generally do better at connecting with women who are more at risk at having unprotected sex. In addition, because poverty and Zika often go hand in hand, these women are more at risk because they are poor. Our ruling Nelson, along with many other Democrats, said the Zika funding bill would limit access to family planning and contraceptives that would help stop the spread of the Zika virus. The legislation would have blocked the flow of money to one organization, Profamilias, the Planned Parenthood chapter in Puerto Rico. However, the bill also provided funds that would potentially help clinics and hospitals in nearly every municipality on the island. There would be some pockets without services, but it is unclear that Profamilias would be positioned to fill those gaps. At the same time, Profamilias serves women who might be more at risk of infection because they tend to be young and poor. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details.
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26550
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“There was no effort” to get American experts into China after it announced the coronavirus, and “we had one person in-country (and Trump) pulled him out of the country.”
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Top Health and Human Services officials offered to send American experts to China within a week after China revealed a new virus was on the loose. China resisted American and World Health Organization teams, but eventually allowed a WHO team —that included some Americans — to enter the country. CDC shrank its China office in 2019, largely driven by a reduction in efforts to control HIV/AIDS.
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false
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National, China, Coronavirus, Joe Biden,
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"Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has targeted what he sees as a couple of key failures by President Donald Trump that made the coronavirus crisis worse. In a CNN virtual town hall, Biden talked about the early days as the virus spread from China. ""I said, among others, that, you know, you should get into China, get our experts there, we have the best in the world, get them in so we know what's actually happening,"" Biden said March 27. ""There was no effort to do that. He didn't put any pressure on (Chinese President) Xi. I guess because of his trade deal, which wasn't much of a deal. And in addition to that, what happened was, we had one person in-country who was working. He pulled him out of the country."" There are two claims to sort out: that Trump made no effort to get American epidemiologists into China, and that he pulled out the one person who was working there. Biden’s first claim distorts the American response, and the second skips over other changes that took place at the same time. The words of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Jan. 28 undercut Biden’s sweeping statement that ""there was no effort"" to get experts into China. Azar said that by Jan. 6, about a week after China confirmed the existence of a new virus, ""we offered to send a CDC team to China."" ""I reiterated that offer when I spoke to China's Minister of Health on Monday (Jan. 27), and it was reiterated again via the World Health Organization today,"" Azar said. ""We are urging China: More cooperation and transparency are the most important steps you can take toward a more effective response."" There is no question that China resisted the presence of outside experts. The World Health Organization was working its own medical diplomacy to get more visibility into the China situation. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus met with Xi on Jan. 28 in Beijing. That was a month into the pandemic and while he won approval for the deployment of a WHO team, that didn’t happen until Feb. 10. The WHO group included some Americans, but in a statement, the Health and Human Services Departments said the Chinese ""limited the ability and timing for CDC staff to participate in the WHO joint mission."" Biden’s campaign staff said that Trump himself should have pressed the issue in his conversations with Xi. We asked the White House press office if he had and got no comment. Regardless, Azar, a high-ranking member of the cabinet, did tell his Chinese counterpart that the United States was ready to provide people. In a Jan. 27 tweet, Trump said he had broadly done the same. ""We have offered China and President Xi any help that is necessary. Our experts are extraordinary,"" Trump said. Biden said Trump pulled the ""one person"" in China ""who was working."" This, his staff said, referred to the July 2019 departure of an American epidemiologist from the CDC’s China office. (The CDC maintains offices in countries around the world. The one in China dates back to 2003.) Reuters reported that the CDC epidemiologist, Linda Quick, would have been in a position to help Chinese experts respond to the emerging disease precisely because she was embedded in China’s CDC to train Chinese specialists. The CDC’s website shows that the U.S. staff in China went from eight in March 2019 to three in December 2019. The change was driven by a shift in the U.S. strategy to combat HIV/AIDS, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department said. ""The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief under the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator moved to a regional model in this region and based on the epidemic in China to date, changes were made to the existing footprint,"" the department’s statement said. In July 2019, the CDC said it would complete its PEPFAR-funded work in China that year. The department’s statement also said that CDC began ""scaling up"" before the outbreak. That didn’t necessarily mean additional U.S. staff. The program hires more Chinese staffers than American ones. Biden said that Trump made ""no effort"" to get American experts into China and pulled the ""one person"" the U.S. had on the ground out of China. Trump’s personal role is unclear, but his Health and Human Services secretary did make the effort to get U.S. experts inside. The department reached out to China in the first week of January, and secretary Azar asked his Chinese counterpart again in late January. China resisted outsiders, both from the U.S. and WHO. Biden’s assertion that Trump pulled the ""one person"" out of China has more substance, but is not as straight-forward as he made it sound. An American CDC epidemiologist left in July and was not replaced. The overall American staff went from eight down to three. According to the Health and Human Services Department, the staff reduction was mainly driven by changes in the U.S. strategy to reduce HIV/AIDS. Biden made it sound as though everyone left, but some CDC staff remained. The first claim is, at best, exaggerated, and the second is murky on the details."
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4052
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Health officials warn of new species of tick found in state.
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Public health and agriculture officials are warning New York residents, farms and visitors to take precautions outdoors as a new tick species has been found in the state.
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true
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Health, New York, Ticks, Insects, Public health
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The Departments of Health and Agriculture and Markets issued a warning Tuesday for an insect commonly known as the “longhorned tick,” which was recently discovered in multiple locations in Westchester County. Health experts worked with researchers at Fordham University in the Bronx and at New York Medical College to identify the new species. The identifications were confirmed by researchers at Rutgers University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Officials say the tick can also pose a threat to livestock. The tick is native to the Pacific region but has been found recently in New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Arkansas.
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11445
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Breakthrough for macular degeneration
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This story is about FDA approval of an injectable treatment for wet macular degeneration which is reported to result in improved vision. It is not clear from the story how exactly this treatment differs from other FDA approved treatments for this disease. The article discussed the use of a similar drug (Avastin) which is considerably less expensive but has not been studied for this application and does not have FDA approval for this use. The stoory did not explain how the two similar products made by Genetech might differ. The article failed to mention the other similar injectable drugs (Macugen, Visudyne) which are currently on the market and FDA approved for treating wet macular degeneration. While the article presents the drug as “a major breakthrough” and a “quantum leap forward,” there is very little context given to back up these claims. It failed to present details on both the magnitude of benefit that could be expected and any information on the harms of treatment (harms that are readily found even on the drug company’s website).
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mixture
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The cost – $2000 a dose – was mentioned. The story said that “For those on Medicare without drug coverage, that is an out-of-pocket expense and even with drug plans, there might be a huge co-pay.” But the story did not indicate whether Part D Medicare or other health insurance would pay for this medication. Nonetheless we’ll give it a satisfactory score on this criterion. The story did not adequately describe the size of the potential benefit from the drug. There was merely a line that said, “The drug works so well that 95 percent of patients had stable or improved vision. And 40 percent, like Frye, could see 3 or more additional lines on an eye chart.” What does that mean in real-life terms? There were no mention of potential harms from this treatment. Even the drug company’s website lists the risks of serious eye infection, detached retina, increase in eye pressure, blood clots, red eyes, eye pain, and small specks in vision. Though the story mentioned that Lucentis reversed vision deterioration from macular degeneration, there was not enough information about the clinical trials that evaluated this drug, nor anything about the extent to which vision might be expected to improve, nor anything about how long it took to get an effect and how long the effect lasted. There was merely a line that said, “The drug works so well that 95 percent of patients had stable or improved vision. And 40 percent, like Frye, could see 3 or more additional lines on an eye chart.” No obvious elements of disease-mongering. While the article did include quotes from spokespersons for Genentech, the company that makes Lucentis and a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the reader can’t evaluate whether the latter had financial ties with the company. It would have been more helpful to either establish the sources’ objectivity or else to include comments from some objective experts who didn’t have ties to this drug or its manufacturer. Although there was mention that other treatments have only been shown to stop progression of the disease but not “significantly reverse deteriorating vision,” there were no specifics about these other FDA approved treatments (other injectables, laser treatments, etc.). There was some discussion about the use of Avastain, a drug similar to Lucentis, that has not been approved to treat macular degeneration but is used to do so. For a drug that the story describes as “a major breakthrough” and a “quantum leap forward,” there is very little context given to back up these claims. The story explains that Lucentis (ranibizumab injection) “won federal approval Friday.” The story reports on a new FDA approved injectable medication to treat the wet form of macular degeneration. It acknowledged some of the controversy over how “novel” the drug really is when it said, “Many doctors are upset because Lucentis is nearly identical to a Genentech cancer drug called Avastin that doctors have been using without FDA approval to treat macular degeneration at a cost of about $1,000 a year. The company says the drugs are different and Lucentis is the one that has been tested.” Because the story turned to multiple sources and acknowledged the controversy about how “novel” Lucentis really is, it does not appear to have relied solely or largely on a news release.
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5462
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Seattle infectious-disease outbreaks cause concern.
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Public health officials are becoming increasingly concerned about a variety of outbreaks of serious infectious diseases among people who are homeless in Seattle and throughout King County.
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true
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Health, Infectious diseases, Disease outbreaks, Seattle, Public health
|
The Seattle Times reports Seattle-King County Public Health is investigating outbreaks of Group A Streptococcus, shigella, and a rare group of infections transmitted by body lice among people who are homeless. Health officials also are monitoring a potential outbreak of hepatitis A, a potentially fatal disease that spread in San Diego. The county board of health passed a resolution Thursday urging more sanitation and hygiene services for unsheltered homeless people. At the meeting, Seattle officials described efforts to increase toilets, hot water and hand-washing stations at the city’s six sanctioned encampments, and to bring hand-washing kits to the city’s many unsanctioned camps. ___ Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com
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35740
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In August 2020, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had a hair appointment at a salon in San Francisco — at a time when hair salons were forbidden to operate in the city due to COVID-19.
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Even though the restrictions on hair salons were relaxed on Sep. 1, 2020, one day after Pelosi’s appointment at eSalon, it is not the case that the visit would have been allowed if she had simply waited 24 hours.
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true
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Politics, COVID-19
|
In September 2020, several readers asked Snopes to look into the facts surrounding high-profile news reports that claimed U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had visited a hair salon in San Francisco, California, despite a city ordinance that required non-essential businesses to remain closed as part of broader efforts to contain the spread of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. On Sept. 1, 2020, Fox News published an article with the headline “Pelosi Used Shuttered San Francisco Hair Salon for Blow-Out, Owner Calls it ‘Slap in the Face. '” The network reported that: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited a San Francisco hair salon on Monday afternoon for a wash and blow-out, despite local ordinances keeping salons closed amid the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News has learned. In security footage obtained by Fox News, and timestamped Monday at 3:08 p.m. Pacific Time, the California powerhouse is seen walking through eSalon in San Francisco with wet hair, and without a mask over her mouth or nose … Salons in San Francisco had been closed since March and were only notified they could reopen on Sept. 1 for outdoor hairstyling services only. … Salon owner Erica Kious, in a phone interview with Fox News on Tuesday, shared details of Pelosi’s visit. Kious explained she has independent stylists working for her who rent chairs in her salon. “One of the stylists who rents a chair from me contacted me Sunday night,” Kious said. A screengrab of the text message she received from one of her stylists, and obtained by Fox News, said: “I’ll be there at 2:45 tomorrow. Pelosi assistant just messaged me to do her hair.” Kious replied: “Pelosi?” “I was like, are you kidding me right now? Do I let this happen? What do I do?” Kious told Fox News, while noting that she “can’t control” what her stylists do if they rent chairs from her, as “they’re not paying” at this time. Kious cast Pelosi’s visit as a double standard. “It was a slap in the face that she went in, you know, that she feels that she can just go and get her stuff done while no one else can go in, and I can’t work,” Kious told Fox News, adding that she “can’t believe” the speaker didn’t have a mask on. (From the footage, it appears Pelosi had some kind of covering around her neck.) “We’re supposed to look up to this woman, right?” Kious said. “It is just disturbing.” Other major news outlets, including CNN and USA Today, followed up on Fox News’ reporting. Pelosi has claimed that she was the victim of a politically motivated “setup,” and the man who styled her hair has lashed out at the salon owner, claiming the latter authorized the appointment in advance, contrary to her assertion that she was outraged to hear about the visit. However, it is nonetheless true that Pelosi did visit the salon in San Francisco on Aug. 31, 2020, at a time when the city required non-essential businesses, including hair salons, to remain closed. On Sept. 1, 2020, the San Francisco Department of Public Health introduced a new set of orders (Order of the health officer No. C19-07h). Among many other provisions, the new rules relaxed existing restrictions on what the document categorized as “personal service providers” — hair salons, nail salons, barber shops, skin care, and so on (page 24). Beginning at 9 a.m. on that date, those businesses could operate outdoors, under certain conditions, and with certain exceptions. Until then, an earlier set of orders (issued on Aug. 14, 2020) meant that businesses like hair salons could not operate at all. Since Pelosi’s visit to eSalon took place on Aug. 31, the earlier, stricter orders were still in place at that time. A spokesperson for Pelosi confirmed for Snopes that the visit had taken place, writing in an emailed statement that the business (that is, eSalon) had told her local rules allowed it: “The Speaker always wears a mask and complies with local COVID requirements. This business offered for the Speaker to come in on Monday and told her they were allowed by the city to have one customer at a time in the business. The Speaker complied with the rules as presented to her by this establishment.” As we have shown, any understanding that local rules allowed a hair salon at that time to operate with even one customer in the building was mistaken. The spokesperson later clarified for Snopes that Pelosi’s staff had not had any contact with Kious herself and confirmed CNN’s earlier reporting that the Aug. 31 salon visit came about because another stylist, who usually goes to Pelosi’s home, was not available on that date but recommended a colleague from eSalon. Therefore, the appointment was arranged with that “substitute” stylist, and not Kious, but Kious did know about it in advance. Although Pelosi’s spokesperson asserted that “the Speaker always wears a mask,” the security footage from the salon, provided to Fox News, clearly shows her walking between two rooms without a mask over her mouth or nose for at least a few seconds. Pelosi addressed that discrepancy in a combative exchange with reporters at an event in San Francisco on Sept. 2, 2020, which can be viewed in full here. She explained: I just had my hair washed. I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair. Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair? I always have a mask. I always have a mask. For me, for the people I’m encountering, but for my family as well. But I don’t wear it when I’m getting my hair washed, and that picture was when I just came out of the bowl, of getting my hair washed. Pelosi was asked if she thought she should apologize to service industry workers for her actions. She replied: “Well I don’t. I think that this salon owes me an apology for setting [me] up.” She added: “I take responsibility for trusting the word of a neighborhood salon that I’ve been to, over the years, many times, and that when they said ‘We’re able to accommodate people one person at a time’ and that ‘We can set up that time,’ I trusted that. As it turns out, it was a setup. So I take responsibility for falling for a setup. And that’s all I’m going to say on that.” Kious appeared as a guest on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show later that evening and denied having “set up” Pelosi. However, around the same time, an attorney representing the stylist in question, Jonathan DeNardo, provided an explosive statement to several news outlets, including Snopes. In it, attorney Matthew Soleimanpour claimed that Kious had in fact authorized the appointment with Pelosi in advance, contrary to her assertions, and had made “vitriolic and incendiary comments” about the lawmaker in a phone call with DeNardo: Mr. DeNardo has worked at eSalon for approximately six (6) years and regularly communicates with the salon owner, Erica Kious. In fact, Mr. DeNardo received advance approval from Ms. Kious the day prior to the appointment during a telephone discussion on August 30, 2020 at 9:26 pm, wherein Mr. DeNardo advised Ms. Kious that he would not proceed with Speaker Pelosi’s appointment without Ms. Kious’ authorization. Ms. Kious took special interest in the appointment during this telephone call, wherein she made several vitriolic and incendiary comments about Speaker Pelosi and her purported responsibility for temporarily suspending operations of Ms. Kious’ business, despite such orders actually being put into place not by Speaker Pelosi, but by Governor Gavin Newsome and San Francisco Mayor London Breed. Ultimately, Ms. Kious authorized Mr. DeNardo to proceed with Speaker Pelosi’s appointment. […] The fact that Ms. Kious is now objecting to Speaker Pelosi’s presence at eSalon, and from a simple surface-level review of Ms. Kious’ political leanings, it appears Ms. Kious is furthering a set-up of Speaker Pelosi for her own vain aspirations. Mr. DeNardo’s name has now been dragged through the mud for simply following Ms. Kious’ recommendations […]. Snopes invited Kious to respond to the allegations made in DeNardo’s statement, but we did not receive a response in time for publication.
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4239
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Study shows higher levels of carcinogen near Waukegan plant.
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People living near a suburban Chicago medical equipment sterilization facility face higher cancer risks from toxic air pollution, a new study found.
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true
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Cancer, Chicago, General News, Waukegan, Air pollution, Illinois, Environment, Pollution
|
The University of Illinois study found that participants who lived near the Medline Industries plant in Waukegan had higher levels of the cancer-causing chemical ethylene oxide in their blood than those who lived farther away, The Chicago Tribune reported. “Facilities emitting dangerous chemicals like ethylene oxide should not be located near homes, schools, businesses, parks or other areas frequently used by the public,” said Susan Buchanan, UIC researcher who oversaw the testing. Ethylene oxide, also known as EtO, can cause DNA to mutate and trigger breast cancer, leukemia and lymphomas, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A Medline spokesman said no conclusions can be drawn from the limited sampling “since the raw data, methodology or official summary from the UIC researchers has not been released.” Though the company has limited ethylene oxide emissions to 150 pounds annually, down from 3,058 pounds it reported in 2014, complying with a new state permit to reduce its emissions, community activists say the continuous exposure only increases their cumulative risk of developing cancer. They are pushing Gov. J.B. Pritzker to crack down on Medline with the same legal authority he did with another sterilization facility that closed permanently in September. Tea Tanaka, co-founder of the group Stop EtO and who lives 4 miles from Medline, was among the volunteers in the UIC study. The concentration of ethylene oxide in her blood was among the highest of the study participants. “If this (UIC) study doesn’t do it, I’m not sure how else to convey to legislators and Gov. Pritzker that their inaction is harming us for corporate profits,” Tenaka said. ___ The dateline of this story has been corrected to reflect that Waukegan is in Illinois, not Wisconsin.
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5809
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Dutch Olympic champion completes 195-kilometer charity swim.
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On one of the hottest days of the Dutch summer, Olympic long-distance swimming champion Maarten van der Weijden completed a marathon swim Monday along the route of a famous Dutch speedskating race, to raise money for cancer research.
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true
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Skating, Winter Olympics, Netherlands, Health, Europe, General News, Marathons, Olympic Games, Europe, Swimming
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Van der Weijden finished the 195-kilometer (121-mile) swim through canals in the northern province of Friesland in just over three days, swimming slowly into the city of Leeuwarden Monday evening followed by a flotilla of boats and stand-up paddlers. As he reached the finishing point, he stopped, punched the air then slowly and gingerly clambered up a ladder out of the water, supported by helpers because his legs were weak after his long swim. “I did it!” an exhausted Van der Weijden said in images broadcast live on national television. Van der Weijden has been a Dutch celebrity since winning the 10-kilometer open water swim at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after surviving leukemia, and has used his fame to raise millions for cancer research. He completed the swim less than a year after having to give up his first attempt after 163 kilometers (101 miles) due to ill health. This time, he stopped briefly for meals, quick naps and to have his face slathered in sunblock during his swim. “Last year, I suffered. This year, I really enjoyed it,” he said before being driven away in a golf buggy so that he could head to a hospital for a checkup. Cheered on by thousands of supporters throughout the weekend, Van der Weijden had to endure chafing in his black and yellow wetsuit as he slowly swam through the 11 towns that make up the route of the speedskating race that is only staged in winters when ice covering canals is thick enough to hold thousands of skaters. The last race was in 1997.
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19365
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The truth is, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. Planned Parenthood refers women to mammography providers, serving as the middlewoman, if you will.
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Karen Handel seeks to set the record straight on Komen, Planned Parenthood in new book
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true
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Georgia, Health Care, Karen Handel,
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"Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel came out firing on all cylinders in her book, ""Planned Bullyhood."" Handel, who most recently served as the former vice president of public policy at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, included criticisms of Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, state politics and decisions at Komen. Included in the book is a detailed account of this year’s much-publicized controversy at the breast cancer nonprofit organization. In early February, Komen announced it would no longer make grants to organizations that were under local, state or federal investigation. Planned Parenthood, which received more than $600,000 annually from Komen to perform breast examinations and conduct breast health education at 19 of its centers, was facing an investigation by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., into whether the organization had violated a prohibition against using federal funds for abortion services. After a firestorm of criticism, Komen reversed its decision, and Handel resigned less than a week later. Some critics suggested Handel was behind Komen’s policy decision. But in her book, Handel says Komen had considered ending the relationship with Planned Parenthood ""for at least a decade,"" as Komen restructured its grant model to focus on measurable outcomes to fighting breast cancer. That focus, she said, excluded much of what Planned Parenthood did. In her book, Handel makes pointed statements regarding Planned Parenthood’s services, noting that the organization promoted itself as a provider of mammograms to poor women. ""The truth is, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms,"" she wrote. ""Planned Parenthood refers women to mammography providers, serving as the middlewoman, if you will."" We wondered whether this was of the organization known for being a key player in women’s health issues. Does Planned Parenthood really not provide mammograms? And, if not, how does the organization handle the services? And does it receive or provide funding for the work? The argument over mammography and other services at Planned Parenthood has been ongoing for several years. Much of the debate centers on a congressional push last year to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which has been cited as the country’s leading abortion provider. The federal government pays Planned Parenthood about $75 million a year to offer cancer screenings, breast exams and other care to lower-income women. That money cannot be spent on abortion services. The funding cut, which passed the House, was shot down in the Senate. Organization President Cecile Richards denounced the cuts in February 2011 on HLN’s ""The Joy Behar Show."" During that interview, Richards said that if the bill to cut funding ever became law, millions of women in the country would lose access to health care, not to abortion services but to basic family planning services, such as mammograms and cancer screenings. Richards was immediately challenged on her statement by the California-based anti-abortion group Live Action, which secretly recorded phone conversations between an actress and employees at various Planned Parenthood clinics. The actress, supposedly seeking a mammogram, was told the service was not available and in some cases was referred elsewhere. Richards said her comments on Behar’s show were taken out of context. So are mammograms on Planned Parenthood’s service menu? We asked, and in an email response, a spokeswoman for the organization said doctors and nurses at Planned Parenthood health centers provide clinical breast exams and refer patients to facilities with technicians for mammograms based on breast exams, age or family history. Planned Parenthood also refers women to breast specialists when a potential abnormality is found and follow-up tests are needed. And with the organization’s expanded breast health initiative, Planned Parenthood will be able to cover the cost of this specialized care for more women, the email said. Handel’s statement that Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms and only refers clients for those services at other facilities is supported by the organization itself."
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35542
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A 7-year-old named Emily Jones was decapitated in England by a Somali migrant.
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What's true: Emily Jones, 7, was killed by a stranger at a park in England in March 2020. A 30-year-old woman was arrested at the scene and, as of this writing, is being held under the Mental Health Act. What's false: Jones was not beheaded. What's undetermined: Police described the person arrested as a 30-year-old woman with a history of mental problems. Claims that this person was a Somali migrant are based on unfounded speculation.
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false
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Crime
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On March 22, 2020, a young girl named Emily Jones was killed by a stranger while playing in a park in England. BBC News reported at the time: Bolton stabbing: Girl, seven, killed by stranger in park A seven-year-old girl has died after being stabbed by a stranger in a park. The girl suffered serious injuries in the attack at Queen’s Park in Bolton at about 14:30 GMT, Greater Manchester Police said. A force spokesman said despite the “best efforts of her family and medical responders, she died a short while later”. A 30-year-old woman, who was not known to the family, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder. Initial reports about Jones’ death did not identify the woman who was arrested. With this information unknown, some social media users attempted to fill in the blanks by claiming, without evidence, that Jones had been killed by a Somali migrant. When the local news outlet Manchester Evening News reported that Jones had suffered a serious stab wound to her neck, this gruesome detail soon morphed into the false claim that this little girl was beheaded. By May 2020, a meme containing a photograph of Jones and a piece of text claiming that she had been “beheaded” by a Somali migrant was circulating on social media: A 7-year-old named Emily Jones was truly killed by a stranger in a park in England. She was not beheaded, as claimed in this meme, and police did not identify her killer as a Somali migrant. This claim is based on little more than speculation and is being spread by neo-Nazi websites such as The National Vanguard. Although police have not released the identity of the woman arrested, they did say that the approximately 30-year-old woman had a history of mental illness. As of this writing, she is being held at a secure facility under the Mental Health Act. BBC News reported: A 30-year-old woman, who was not known to the family, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder.
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34697
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NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre was disqualified from the draft due to a psychological condition.
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A years-old Internet rumor suggests the gun rights figurehead may not be mentally sound enough to pass a background check.
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unproven
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Politics Guns, national rifle association, selective service, wayne lapierre
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It was originally organized in 1871 to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis” in the United States, and it seems to have succeeded; generations later, the National Rifle Association has become the United States’ most high-profile gun rights lobbying group. The organization’s executive vice president and CEO is Wayne R. LaPierre, an outspoken defender of the Second Amendment and critic of all but the most minimal gun control policies. In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 which resulted in the deaths of more than two dozen children and adults, LaPierre famously suggested that a “national database of lunatics” would do more to solve the nation’s gun violence problem than banning the assault-style weapons so often used in such crimes. LaPierre’s repeated assertions linking gun violence with mental illness (assertions vigorously challenged by mental health professionals) appear to have backfired on him, at least on the Internet, supplying fodder for rumors and memes promoting the claim that he obtained a medical (4-F) draft deferment during the Vietnam War by reason of a “nervous disorder.” Most variants state or imply that he actually faked the condition: NRA President Wayne LaPierre rec’d Viet Nam draft deferment for mental illness labeled “nervous disorder”. Shouldn’t be able to own a gun. — Shayne (@Zoocritter) September 24, 2013 Wayne LaPierre faked a “nervous disorder” to squirrel out of serving his country in Vietnam. Coward with a gun. Great combo #NRAFail — Progressive Texas (@ProgressiveTex) February 8, 2013 NRA Lapierre dodged Vietnam draft by claiming “nervous disorder”. Due to this mental illness, it’s time to give his guns back #gunsense : — US Gun Violence (@usgunviolence6) January 3, 2017 Although we were unable to ascertain precisely when or where this claim first appeared, it dates back at least as far as 2006, when the following entry was added to an informal online database called “Who Served in the Military?”: Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association — did not serve (apparently pulled lottery #97 in 1969 as a campus radical at SUNY-Albany, but weaseled out by getting a family doctor to claim he had a nervous disorder). No sources were cited to corroborate this entry. According to the registrar’s office of the State University of New York in Albany, Wayne LaPierre never attended the school. On the contrary, after graduating from Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia in 1967, LaPierre entered Siena College in Loudonville, New York, from which (according to a statement from the college) he graduated in 1972. He went on to earn a postgraduate degree at Boston College. Given his birthdate (8 November 1949), LaPierre would indeed have been assigned the number 97 in the first-ever Selective Service lottery of the Vietnam era, placing him in the “most likely to be drafted” category for 1970. However, we’ve found no public record or published mention of LaPierre ever having served in the military. Our queries to the NRA public affairs office concerning Mr. LaPierre’s military service and/or draft deferment status went unanswered. We were able to obtain Wayne LaPierre’s Selective Service record from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, however. It shows that he registered for the draft on 13 November 1967, a few days after his 18th birthday, listing his occupation as “student.” Under the rules then in force, a registrant could qualify for a student deferment “if he could show he was a full-time student making satisfactory progress in virtually any field of study,” the Selective Service web site says. LaPierre’s Selective Service classification record shows that he was classified 2-S (registrant deferred because of activity in study) in January 1968. His student deferment was renewed every year through 1970. Although the student deferment should have kept him immune from the draft until he graduated in 1972, the record states that LaPierre reported for an armed services physical exam in August 1971 (while still at Siena College), and shortly thereafter was reclassified 1-Y (registrant qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency). During the Vietnam War period, receiving a 1-Y classification was essentially the same as being classified 4-F (registrant not qualified for military service). The 1-Y deferment was eliminated at the end of 1971, at which time all registrants who had previously received it, LaPierre among them, were administratively reclassified 4-F. Like that of Donald Trump, who also received a 1-Y draft deferment, LaPierre’s classification record includes the notation “yxx,” meaning he was found unqualified for military service based on medical reasons. However, it does not state the exact nature of the disqualifying condition(s). We can confirm, then, that in NRA executive president Wayne LaPierre received a medical deferment from the draft in 1971, but to date no evidence has come to light proving it was because of a “nervous disorder” (feigned or real), or any other psychological condition.
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9969
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Drinking Green Tea May Protect Eyes
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The leap from rats drinking green tea to possible benefits in humans is never mentioned. Enough said. This is the kind of story that contributes to journalism losing impact and credibility. And HealthDay subscribers like HealthFinder.gov and Drugs.com pick up and republish a story like this – spreading it even further. Readers are flooded with info like this in a tsunami of information overload. Meantime, no one is any smarter from this story about how to evaluate evidence.
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false
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"Not applicable. The cost of green tea is not in question. None. If you’re going to play the rat research game, you should at least tell us the scope of the ""benefit"" seen in rats. How many tested? How many successes? It feels almost ridiculous to have to comment on whether the story discussed harms seen in the rats drinking green tea, but, no, it didn’t. But we weren’t the ones who chose to publicize this rat research. However, if you’re going to play this rat research game and trumpet benefits, you better be prepared to at least theoretically discuss potential harms – or lack thereof. No evaluation of the limitation of rat studies. No explanation of what ""reducing harmful oxidative stress"" means. Not applicable. in only a 169-word story, there wasn’t space given to describe glaucoma or other eye conditions. No independent expert was quoted – only a study author from a news release. No such comparison given. Not applicable. The availability of green tea is not in question. No context about other green tea research or other glaucoma prevention research. The story admits its source is an American Chemical Society news release. No other perspective is included."
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1814
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Paracetamol no better than placebo for low back pain, study finds.
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Paracetamol, a painkiller universally recommended to treat people with acute low back pain, does not speed recovery or reduce pain from the condition, according to the results of a large trial published on Thursday.
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true
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Science News
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A study published in The Lancet medical journal found that the popular pain medicine was no better than placebo, or dummy, pills for hastening recovery from acute bouts of low back pain or easing pain levels, function, sleep or quality of life. Researchers said the findings challenge the universal endorsement of paracetamol as the first choice painkiller for lower back pain. “We need to reconsider the universal recommendation to provide paracetamol as a first-line treatment,” said Christopher Williams, who led the study at the University of Sydney in Australia. Lower back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In the United States alone, costs relating to the condition are estimated to be more than $100 billion a year. Currently, every back pain treatment guideline in the world recommends paracetamol as the first-line analgesic and Williams said this was despite the fact that no previous studies have provided robust evidence that it works in this condition. Tim Salomons, a pain expert at Britain’s University of Reading whose own research has found that cognitive behavioral therapy could be used to treat chronic pain, said this latest study showed the challenge of treating the condition. “It is vitally important we continuously challenge conventional wisdom about treating pain,” he said in an emailed comment. “Even though paracetamol has a good safety profile, every drug has side effects. If the drug is not doing what it is being prescribed to do, pain patients might be better off without.” In Williams’ trial, 1,652 people from Sydney with acute low back pain were randomly assigned to receive up to four weeks of paracetamol, either in regular doses three times a day, or as needed, or to receive placebos. All those involved received advice and reassurance and were followed up for three months. The results showed no difference in the number of days to recovery between the treatment groups - with the average time to recovery coming out at 17 days for each of the groups given paracetamol, and at 16 days for the placebo group. Paracetamol had no effect on short-term pain levels, disability, function, sleep quality, or quality of life, the researchers said, and the number of patients reporting negative side effects was similar in all groups. Christine Lin, an associate professor at the George Institute for Global Health and the University of Sydney who also worked on the study, said the reasons for paracetamol failing to work for lower back pain were not well understood. “While we have shown that paracetamol does not speed recovery from acute back pain, there is evidence that paracetamol works to relieve pain for a range of other conditions, such as headaches, some acute musculoskeletal conditions, tooth ache and for pain straight after surgery,” she said in a statement about the findings. “What this study indicates is that the mechanisms of back pain are likely to be different from other pain conditions, and this is an area that we need to study more.” Experts who were not directly involved praised the study but cautioned that guidelines should nevertheless not be changed on the basis of a single piece of research. “More robust and consistent evidence, including verification of the results in other populations, is needed,” Bart Koes and Wendy Enthoven from the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands wrote in a Lancet commentary. They also called for more studies on whether other simple analgesics could add extra benefits on top of giving advice and reassurance to patients.
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14335
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"Rick Scott's Starbucks heckler Says Rick Scott ""stripped women of access to public health care."
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"The Starbucks activist said Scott ""stripped women of access to public health care."" Scott signed a law this year that cuts off state funding for any clinic that provides abortions, including Planned Parenthood. We heard estimates that it will cut anywhere from $114,000 to $500,000 for Planned Parenthood, which provides other health services to low-income women. It’s possible to wrongly assume from Jennings’ statement that Scott slashed women’s health care services broadly across the state. The cut targets abortion clinics, so it isn’t a cut for health care offices that don’t provide the procedure, such as county health departments. There is some truth to the statement, but it’s too soon to tell exactly how the law will curtail women’s access to publicly supported health care."
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mixture
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Abortion, Florida, Rick Scott's Starbucks heckler,
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"When Gov. Rick Scott walked into a Starbucks in downtown Gainesville, he got an earful from a woman who attacked his positions on health care. A video of the woman yelling at Scott for about a minute drew more than 259,000 hits on YouTube in about 24 hours and was shown on national television the next day. ""You cut Medicaid so I couldn’t get Obamacare,"" yelled the woman, Cara Jennings, a former Lake Worth city commissioner who is now a stay-at-home mother. ""You are an a------! You don’t care about working people. ... You should be ashamed to show your face around here."" Scott countered by saying, ""We’ve got a million jobs."" ""A million jobs? Great. Who here has a great job or is looking forward to finishing school? Do you really feel like you have a job coming up?"" Jennings said. ""You stripped women of access to public health care. Shame on you, Rick Scott! We depend on those services."" In this fact-check we will explain whether Scott ""stripped women of access to public health care."" Jennings is referencing a law Scott signed in March that pertains to clinics that provide abortions. (Here is our fact-check about her comments on Medicaid, an issue on which we gave Scott a Full Flop for changing his position on Medicaid expansion in 2015. We also checked Scott's claim about 1 million jobs.) Scott’s action related to public health care The Palm Beach Post in 2010 described Jennings, then a city commissioner, as an advocate for the poor, illegal immigrants and homeless. We could not reach Jennings for comment. She told the Palm Beach Post and ABC Action News in Tampa that she had been reading about Scott signing a bill that cuts money for Planned Parenthood. Here's what Jennings had to say on Facebook: ""I am upset about the awful bill Governor Scott signed last week - cuts funding to Planned Parenthood and restricts abortion access. Just last night I looked online to see if there is a march planned to defend our rights to abortion. And then today, the Governor walked into the coffee shop I was at.....and left with no coffee. (video credit to the stranger who recorded the scene)."" On March 25, Scott signed a bill that removes state funding from any clinic that does abortions. HB 1411 passed the House 76-40 and the Senate 25-15, and it takes effect July 1. A key provision in the law is that it prohibits public funding for an organization that owns, operates or is affiliated with a licensed abortion clinic. The law includes several requirements for abortion clinics, including annual licensure inspections, and prohibits selling or transferring fetal remains. In 2014, there were 72,073 abortions performed in Florida. Federal funding is already banned for abortions due to the federal Hyde Amendment, which includes limited exceptions. Florida’s Medicaid program will cover an abortion if needed to save the life of the mother or if she got pregnant as a result of rape or incest. Those exceptions continue under the new law. Planned Parenthood serves about 5,500 Florida patients through Title X, a family-planning program that it provides through a state contract, and about another 2,000 more people through Medicaid in Florida. The state Department of Health spent about $139,000 for the Title X services provided by Planned Parenthood in 2014-15 and expected to spend about $163,000 in 2015-16. The Florida Medicaid program paid about $106,000 in claims to Planned Parenthood in 2014-15, according to staff analysis of the bill. Planned Parenthood offers many types of services beyond abortion, including birth control, STD testing and cervical cancer screening. These are the types of services that state dollars supported. So how much will Planned Parenthood lose in annual funding? We heard figures ranging from $114,000 from Scott’s office to $500,000 from Planned Parenthood. Scott’s office argued that the funding cut is small compared to the overall state dollars given to clinics. ""Over $5 million in state funds are provided for non-abortion services at many charitable clinics and county health departments,"" according to a March 30 statement by Scott. ""HB 1411 makes sure no state funds can indirectly fund abortions by supporting the same institutions that perform them. For Planned Parenthood, this would only affect about $114,000 in funds they get annually."" Family planning services remain funded at various clinics and centers that don’t provide abortions, including all 67 county health departments. So Jennings exaggerated when she said that Scott ""stripped women of access to public health care"" because access to certain types of health care remain available. The Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates issued its own statement that Scott was low-balling the amount of money clinics could lose. Laura Goodhue, executive director of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, told PolitiFact Florida that she expects the total loss of money to be closer to $500,000. In a news release, Planned Parenthood said Scott was downplaying the effects ""of patients losing access to care by only sharing the state funds that would be prohibited under this legislation. However, because the legislation is broadly written, Planned Parenthood will also lose access to reimbursements from local government entities and federal funding from the Title X program that is contracted through local county Health Departments."" Planned Parenthood arrived at a potential figure of losing $500,000 based on $50,000 for Medicaid, $147,000 for Title X, and then funding for specific services or counties -- the largest chunk in Palm Beach. The two Planned Parenthood affiliates each had a budget of about $11 million last year. Planned Parenthood is determining whether it can find alternate sources of funding, so it couldn’t yet say how many fewer patients may be served. Also, 70 percent of Planned Parenthood centers are located in medically underserved areas, which means that sometimes they are ""the only place where people can receive publicly funded family planning services,"" according to Planned Parenthood. Critics of Florida’s new law say similar provisions in Texas led about 20 clinics to shut down. Critics of the Texas law argued that it was unconstitutional before the U.S. Supreme Court in March. A spokesman for the ACLU of Florida said that it is analyzing the impact of the law but it hasn’t announced any decision about whether it will challenge it in court. Supporters of the bill, such as John Stemberger of the Florida Family Policy Council, argued that it will protect women. The federal government has warned state officials that the bill may place Florida out of compliance with federal Medicaid law that bans states from restricting individuals from accessing care from any qualified provider. But it’s unlikely federal officials will consider action until the law goes into effect July 1. Our ruling The Starbucks activist said Scott ""stripped women of access to public health care."" Scott signed a law this year that cuts off state funding for any clinic that provides abortions, including Planned Parenthood. We heard estimates that it will cut anywhere from $114,000 to $500,000 for Planned Parenthood, which provides other health services to low-income women. It’s possible to wrongly assume from Jennings’ statement that Scott slashed women’s health care services broadly across the state. The cut targets abortion clinics, so it isn’t a cut for health care offices that don’t provide the procedure, such as county health departments. There is some truth to the statement, but it’s too soon to tell exactly how the law will curtail women’s access to publicly supported health care."
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5174
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Senate confirms acting EPA chief for permanent role.
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The Senate on Thursday confirmed former coal industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, despite concerns by Democrats and one Republican about regulatory rollbacks he’s made in eight months as the agency’s acting chief.
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true
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John Barrasso, Politics, Scott Pruitt, North America, Environment, Donald Trump
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Senators voted 52-47 to confirm Wheeler, who was nominated by President Donald Trump after former administrator Scott Pruitt resigned last year amid a series of ethics allegations. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Senate environment committee, called Wheeler “uniquely qualified” to lead EPA and said that under Wheeler the agency is putting forward proposals that “both protect our environment and allow the country’s economy to flourish.” But Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said Wheeler was failing to protect the environment and human health and was “nominated to unravel and undo the environmental protections that are now in place.” Wheeler, 54, was confirmed as deputy administrator last April and became acting chief in July after Pruitt resigned. He worked at the EPA early in his career and was a top aide at the Senate Environment Committee before becoming a lobbyist a decade ago. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the sole Republican to oppose Wheeler. She said in a statement that, unlike Pruitt, Wheeler “understands the mission of the EPA and acts in accordance with ethical standards. However, the policies he has supported as acting administrator are not in the best interest of our environment and public health, particularly given the threat of climate change to our nation.” Collins said she was particularly concerned that EPA has proposed to roll back rules regulating mercury emissions from power plants and moved to replace the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s signature proposal to combat climate change. “There is no doubt that the greenhouse gas emissions driving climate change pose a significant threat” to Maine and the nation, Collins said, adding that pollution from coal-fired power plants threatens Maine’s natural resources, “from our working forests, fishing and agricultural industries, to tourism and recreation.” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., who supported Wheeler’s nomination as deputy last year, voted against his promotion. As acting administrator, Wheeler “hasn’t demonstrated a desire or a will to make any meaningful progress on clean drinking water standards and has rolled back clean air standards that are directly impacting West Virginians,” Manchin said. He cited the agency’s failure to limit the amount of highly toxic chemicals contaminating drinking water in West Virginia and around the country. The EPA has announced plans to place legal limits on the chemicals but has not yet done so. The perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known collectively as PFAS, have been linked to health threats ranging from cancer to decreased fertility. “I believe immediate action must be taken, and these efforts lack a sense of urgency,” Manchin said. Like Collins, Manchin also said he was concerned at EPA’s attempt to undo rules designed to limit emissions of mercury, which can damage the brains of infants and young children. Environmental groups, meanwhile, slammed Wheeler, saying that while his behavior is “less cartoonish” than Pruitt, he supports the same policies. “Wheeler wants to turn the EPA into a wish-granting service for polluters, no matter the cost to public health or wildlife. But it’s only a matter of time before his dirty dealings land him in the same trash heap as his predecessor,” said Emily Knobbe, EPA policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental group. America’s Power, a trade group that represents coal producers, applauded Wheeler’s confirmation. “During his time as acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler has been seen as a thoughtful leader who understands the need for sensible environmental policies,” said Michelle Bloodworth, the group’s president and CEO. Wheeler’s “long experience in public service demonstrates his integrity in serving EPA’s mission,” she said.
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5083
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Lawsuits filed against operator of medical equipment cleaner.
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Nearly three dozen people have sued the operator of a suburban Chicago medical equipment cleaning plant they claim emits fumes that have adversely affected their health, lawyers for the plaintiffs announced Tuesday.
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true
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Cancer, Chicago, Health, Lawsuits, Suburbs, Medical equipment, General News
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The 32 lawsuits filed against Sterigenics LLC this week in Cook County seek damages from the company, which operates a plant in Willowbrook. Jeanne Hochhalter is one of those suing Oak Brook-based Sterigenics. She said Tuesday that the cancer she developed is directly related to the long-term release from the plant of the chemical ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen. “I got breast cancer. I have no family history of it,” Hochhalter said, adding she’s undergone 15 surgeries during the last six years. A Sterigenics spokesman said the company “has consistently complied with applicable regulations.” The spokesman added the claims against Sterigenics lack merit and “we intend to vigorously defend against them.” In February, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency shut down the Willowbrook plant after air quality monitoring recorded spikes of ethylene oxide in surrounding neighborhoods. Attorney General Kwame Raoul and DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin in July reached an agreement with Sterigenics that will allow the plant to reopen after additional emission capture and control equipment is installed. Sterigenics also agreed to fund $300,000 in community projects designed in coordination with the state to benefit the environment and the local community. When the agreement was announced, Sterigenics president Philip Macnabb said resolution of the matter puts the company a step closer to resuming the work of sterilizing vital medical products and devices for patients in Illinois and beyond. But Hochhalter and others who are suing Sterigenics argue the plant should never be allowed to reopen. “Unfortunately and regrettably, Sterigenics seems to be on a path back to business as usual,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Todd Smith.
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11216
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Cautionary note about prostates
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"First, kudos to the Baltimore Sun for affording this piece almost 1,000 words at a time when many health news stories are limited to 300 words. This is a thoughtful story reporting on the results of a recent study which found that the use of hormone therapy in the treatment of localized prostate cancer in older men was not beneficial. Particular strengths of the story include: Terrific interview segments with the lead author and with two urologists. The perspective that some urologists may have once seen a ""financial windfall"" in the use of hormone therapy, explaining some of the expansion in its use. One weakness: The story could have (should have?) added the important point that screening for prostate cancer is not proven effective yet and remains controversial. One of the reasons so many elderly men are thrown into this difficult decision-making thicket is that the use of the PSA blood test has led to many men being diagnosed with prostate cancers of unknown significance, and leading many of them to pursue the hormone therapy that they felt rendered benefit without side effects. Bottom line of this study: that theory was wrong."
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true
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"Although the story mentioned that this treatment was a profit center for some clinicians, it did not provide information about the costs to consumers. The story was crystal clear about the lack of benefit from the use of hormone therapy to treat older men with localized prostate cancer in terms of overall survival or risk of death from prostate cancer. The story was very complete and then included information about the subset of patients – those older men with localized prostate cancer with a more aggressive cell who comprised about 5% of the study population and appeared to derive some benefit in terms of reducing the number that died of prostate cancer but still without enhancement of overall survival. While not indicating frequency of occurrence (except for loss of sexual function which was reported to occur in all individuals), the story listed the side effects known to occur as a result of this treatment. The story mentioned that the study reported on was to be published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. It also mentioned that the study used information from a database to derive its conclusions. But it could have commented on how this type of evidence stacks up in the hierarchy of evidence. Not all studies and study types are equal and journalists should begin educating readers about the differences in the quality of the evidence. Again, a jump ball call, but we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt. There is no overt disease mongering. But there are some subtle undertones thereof. If the story is to include data about the number of deaths attributable to prostate cancer, it could tell another important side of the story. In the era of rampant use of the PSA blood test — essentially a man’s lifetime risk of being diagnosed is about 16% (because of increased detection with PSA screening), but his lifetime risk of dying of prostate cancer is only about 3%. These numbers should be very reassuring to men in that most men are not destined to die of their prostate cancer. In addition, we still do not know if all this screening (and increased detection of prostate cancer) is doing men any benefit, as the effectiveness of prostate cancer screening in terms of survival benefit remains uncertain. But because the story drove home the point early that there is new doubt about ""the the common public perception that doing something for cancer is always better than doing nothing,"" we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt. This story included quotes from two clinicians in addition to an author of the study reported on. Although the story did not indicate, the two additional clinicians did not seem to have ties to the study reported on. This story did an admirable job laying out for readers that not taking action, in the case of the older patient with localized prostate cancer, was, in fact, a better approach than the treatment. While overall survival did not differ between the groups, those that did not have the treatment would not be at risk of the side effects of the treatment. This story indicated that the treatment was ""popular"" and was available from urologists. The story explained that hormone therapy had been used for some time for treatment of prostate cancer which has spread beyond the prostate where there is evidence demonstrating benefit. It was also clear that since the 1990s urologists ""have expanded the use"" to treat localized prostate cancer. Does not appear to rely on a press release."
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9640
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‘Second Skin’ May Reduce Wrinkles, Eyebags, Scientists Say
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Melanie Gonick/MIT This New York Times’ story provides a detailed explanation of research developing an artificial “second skin” that may have both cosmetic and medical uses. The story discusses several experiments leading to the product, its availability and the connections between the academic researchers who discovered it and the companies planning on marketing it. However, as with an NBC story on the same story–which we also reviewed–this information is given without succinct, numerical details on what the study findings showed. This new “second skin” claims to solve some cosmetic skin problems associated with aging. If proven correct, it will be a product with assured public appeal.
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mixture
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cosmetics,dermatology,marketing,second skin,xpl
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The story doesn’t discuss costs of the would-be product, even though the story emphasizes that the technology is in private product development and data is being gathered for future FDA approval consideration. Though we’re told there’s a new published paper about several pilot studies, the story does not include any hard numbers from the research on what the measured benefits were. The photos included with the story–do they represent a best-case scenario? They have the potential to skew reader perception. The story mentions harms indirectly by citing a lack of irritation or allergic reactions among those test subjects that used it. This at least clarifies the findings about some of the obvious potential harms, so we’ll rate this Satisfactory. But, we do think the the story could have pointed out that long-term effects are still unknown. For example, what happens if you get some of this in your eye? There are some hints of study details included in the story that help the reader assess evidence quality, such as this line: “…people were randomly assigned to use second skin or a placebo under their eyes. Trained observers graded the subjects on the appearance of the undereye skin.” But overall, we felt it was challenging to assess the evidence quality based on what the story included. How many people were in these tests? How long were they? What are the next steps? Given the tone of the piece–lots of medical language and interviews with researchers–and that it appeared in the Times’ Health section, we feel this story disease-mongers a normal life event (aging). For example, it refers to under-eye bags as “a condition that plagues so many middle-aged and older people.” Are under-eye bags really a “condition” in need of treatment? The story clearly uses sources beyond those provided by the news release. It also gets applause for pointing out clearly the connection between the researchers and the companies licensing the product saying, “All of the authors on the new paper have an equity interest in Living Proof and so, indirectly, in Olivo,” (the two identified companies). NBC’s story on the same research didn’t make this financial connection nearly as clear. We’ll give the story credit in this rating since it mentioned current practices in treating dry skin, one of the touted uses of this new product, and explains how those current practices are less than optimum. It doesn’t however mention that surgery is the common approach to addressing undereye bags. The story establishes these as preliminary studies, adding that they haven’t obtained enough data yet to submit the product for FDA approval. It’s made clear that a cream that changes into a second skin that is somewhat protective, ostensibly harmless, and cosmetically appealing is clearly novel. The story clearly went far beyond the university’s news release in explaining the research.
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35544
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By ignoring a ban on performing COVID-19 autopsies, researchers in Italy discovered that the disease is caused by a bacteria — not a virus — and can simply be treated with aspirin.
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An inaccurate copypasta description of this study from mid-May interpreted those results as evidence that Covid-19 stemmed from “a serious pathophysiological diagnosis error,” that death from the disease stems from thrombosis (or blood clotting), and that the COVID-19 “ought to be fought with antibiotics, antivirals, anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants.” This is how aspirin entered the zeitgeist. As a drug with anticoagulant properties, it could theoretically be employed to reduce complications from thrombosis.
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false
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Medical
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A recurring bit of pandemic misinformation alleges that COVID-19 is not caused by a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) or, for that matter, any virus at all. Despite voluminous evidence that COVID-19 is a viral infection, this claim — or aspects of it — persist online. In general, the same flawed pseudoscientific argument has been employed in multiple instances to suggest that COVID-19 — with over 20 million cases and a death toll of over 160,000 at the time of this reporting — is just a big classification error. The claim that went viral on several social media platforms blends the misinterpretation of a preliminary and unpublished research paper with the baseless assertion that the World Health Organization (WHO) mandated that no autopsies be performed on COVID-19 victims — a paranoid flourish used to imply a global conspiracy. By ignoring this alleged ban, the story goes, Italian doctors revealed that COVID-19 was actually a bacteria, and that, for some reason, aspirin can cure the disease. The only factual element of the above narrative is that Italian researchers analyzed autopsy results of COVID-19 patients. They published a preprint of a research study based on post-mortem lung analyses of 38 patients in two Italian hospitals in April 2020. That study, which explicitly stated that COVID-19 is caused by coronavirus, suggested that a condition known as Diffuse Alveolar Damage (DAD) was the “predominant” feature of all of the cases. This potential finding was notable since pneumonia was thought to be the primary factor leading to death in COVID-19 cases at the time. While it is a general medical term used to describe a damaging immune and blood-clotting response to a lung injury, DAD is not a disease, but instead a condition potentially caused by a variety of diseases. That finding — along with the presence of clotting cells known as “platelet-fibrin thrombi” in the patients’ lungs — suggested to the authors that preventing complications from blood clotting (coagulopathy) could be a promising area for potential COVID-19 treatments. After this paper was uploaded to the preprint server MedRxiv, misinformation followed.
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10316
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Brain Scans Predict Dyslexia Improvements
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Potential harms are not mentioned, while potential benefits are inflated. This story falls far short of the CNN report we also reviewed. Good reading skills are fundamental to educational, social and financial success. Dyslexia is a type of reading disability characterized by difficulties in word recognition, spelling and decoding. Most studies suggest early intervention is important, but little is known about why some children respond better than others. This research suggests that brain scans can provide insight to underlying mechanisms of dyslexia and perhaps help track and refine interventions that could be tailored to individuals.
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false
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Imaging studies,WebMD
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Sophisticated imaging of the brain and its function is an expensive diagnostic tool. Applying these sophisticated tests to all children would be a huge expense. While other stories at least mentioned cost (for example the CNN report quoted the author of the study as saying, “…as the usage of fMRI becomes more useful and commonplace, the high cost per scan would go down”) this story fails to do so. The study was a small one and deserves many cautions in its interpretation. The authors of the study for example, noted, “…these findings suggest that brain imaging may play a valuable role in neuroprognosis….” Compare that caution conclusion with, “Scientists using brain scanning technologies say they have been able to predict with 90% accuracy which children with dyslexia will be able to improve reading skills over a period of a few years.” Although the study did not speak to any interventions, the story suggests otherwise in a subheading, “Study Suggests Interventions to Help Dyslexics Learn to Read.” The story demonstrates an all too familiar bias with regard to screening tests; there are no down sides. A couple of words of caution (again the CNN story got it right) about the implications of testing and test results would have been useful. If, for example, the fMRI and DTMRI scans are as accurate as this study indicates, might treatment be withheld from children who do not have the brain scan results that promise likely improvement? While the story does describe the study in some detail, including its relatively small size, there are many aspects that are not addressed. We are not provided with any information about interventions that may or may not have occurred in the intervening 2-1/2 years or anything about the children enrolled and possible important differences at baseline. Again, the CNN story does a much better job evaluating the evidence. We would have liked to have seen a brief comment on the prevalence numbers quoted for dyslexia. While the numbers quoted are correct, the variation is dependent of the definition used and the testing methods. The only comments from an expert who was not a member of the research team come from the director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The story fails to tell readers that this institute provided funding for the study and issued a news release praising the results, thus the source doesn’t seem to be as independent as readers deserve. This story provided even less background than other stories about current methods for assessing dyslexia and responses to interventions. Functional MRI and Diffusion Tensor MRI are research tools not routinely available in community hospitals and not routinely used in clinical practice. The story does not provide any information on their availability. It also doesn’t tell us anything about the two approaches and why/how they are different. It just name-drops fMIR and DTI as if readers are supposed to know what that means. The story refers to the background of research that suggested certain brain regions might have a connection to the reading ability of people with dyslexia; and it makes clear what is new about the findings of this study. At least three quotes come from a news release. Other quotes came from responses to e-mailed questions – which may not provide the same insight as a telephone or in-person interview. We appreciate the labeling of the comments as coming from e-mail exchanges and news releases. But we don’t think the best journalism was employed on this criterion. Why the reliance on a news release? And why not at least a phone interview with McCandliss?
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10818
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Tequila Plant May Help Fight Bone Loss
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"HealthDay published – and at least one major news organization (BusinessWeek) republished – this overly enthusiastic story about what substances in tequila plants, garlic and onions may do to ""fight bone loss"" and a host of other problems. Read the review for full details. The credibility of journalism is called into question with stories like this. Independent vetting? None. Making the leap from mouse research to what ""can be used"" in products for children and infants to help prevent various diseases? Indefensibly definitive language."
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false
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"Not applicable. Cost not discussed but there is no product yet to cost estimate. First, this was in mice – a fact that was minimized in the story. But we don’t know how many mice were tested. Was it two? Was it 200? And we’re only given a relative benefit statistic – ""50 percent increase in levels of a protein associated with the build-up of new bone tissue."" 50% of what? Yet this mouse story allowed the researcher – based on a quote from a news release – to say: Shameful. Not a word about potential harms. It took 5 paragraphs – half way through the story – before it was mentioned that the research on bone growth was in mice. And even then no caveats were provided about interpreting such evidence. Besides the headline claim about fighting bone loss, the story states that ""Experimental studies suggest that fructans may be beneficial in diabetes, obesity, stimulating the immune system of the body, decreasing levels of disease-causing bacteria in the intestine, relieving constipation and reducing the risk of colon cancer."" Are you sure you didn’t leave something out? No independent sources. No such comparisons provided. Not applicable. The availability of these plants is not in question. The story briefly mentioned past experimental studies suggesting benefits from fructans. The story admits that it is based on ""background information in a news release from the American Chemical Society."""
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10363
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Birth defect-antidepressant link found
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"Previous studies show that a small number of infants born to women who took SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) anti-depressants throughout pregnancy may experience heart and lung problems, and these infants may go through a withdrawal. The large case-controlled studies discussed in this story provide new evidence that these and other birth defects of the intestines and brain may be associated with certain medications, such as paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft), but the risk is still very small. The story describes the study designs and provides quantitative evidence translated for a lay audience. The story provides perspective for these statistics by reminding the reader that the absolute number of birth defects associated with anti-depressants was very small and ""not enough to draw firm conclusions."" The story does not quantify the benefits of using anti-depressants during pregnancy; however, the focus of the story was the potential risks of certain anti-depressants, not the potential benefits. Information on the benefits would be useful. Though the risk of birth defects with SSRIs is small, women may not wish to expose a developing fetus to anti-depressants during the first trimester. The story does not mention non-medication treatment options for women managing depression during pregnancy. The story assumes that women who are not treated with SSRIs or other medications will self-medicate via drugs or alcohol; however, some women may be helped with behavioral counseling and other psychosocial support. Finally, the story does an excellent job of citing both study authors and independent sources who provide perspective on this research. The story notes potential conflicts of interest by listing sources’ financial ties with pharmaceutical makers, and by noting the funding sources for these studies, showing the industry competition at play in this research."
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true
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"The story does not list the cost of SSRIs or other anti-depressant medications, but this is not vital in this story. A women may choose to take less or no anti-depressant medication during pregnancy based on the recent data. The story notes the prevalence of depression in pregnant women. The story also notes the decisions women face when choosing to treat depression during pregnancy. Women who do not use medication to treat serious depression may cause harm to themselves or to their unborn child via self-harm or by using drugs and/or alcohol. The story does not quantify the benefits of using anti-depressants during pregnancy; however, the focus of the story was about the potential risks of certain anti-depressants, not the potential benefits. Information on the benefits would be useful. The story focuses on two recently published studies which found an association of certain birth defects of the heart, brain and intestines in children born to women who took certain SSRI antidepressants during pregnancy. The story provides data on these harms. The story describes the study design and provides quantitative evidence translated for a lay audience. The story provides perspective for these statistics by reminding the reader that the absolute number of birth defects associated with anti-depressants use during the first trimester was very small and ""not enough to draw firm conclusions."" No overt disease mongering. The story puts the risk of birth defects with anti-depressants in proper perspective. The story could also have noted the number of infants born each year with such defects as well for context – the number of infants (19,471) in these studies was accrued across years yet the story may give the impression that these congenital defects are more common than they are, especially if the general public is not aware that there are roughly 4 million births a year in the US. The story does an excellent job of citing both study authors and independent sources who provide perspective on this research. The story notes potential conflicts of interest by listing sources’ financial ties with pharmaceutical makers and by noting the funding sources for these studies. Excellent work to make information on sources’ potential biases clear and concise. The story does not mention the availability of non-medication treatment options for women with depression. Thought the risk of birth defects with SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) is small, women may not wish to expose a developing fetus to anti-depressants during the first trimester. The piece subtly suggests that medical management is the only treatment when other therapeutic options are supported by an evidence base. Sentences like ""..could complicate decisions by pregnant women about whether to use of continue taking antidepressants, because untreated depression…"" imply an individual is ""untreated"" for her depression if not taking medications. This could have been an ideal venue to note the availability of other effective options. The story does mention that women have been prescribed anti-depressants in pregnancy, as they have been a standard treatment for depression since the 1980s. The story notes that the finding that SSRI medications may cause certain birth defects is not new. Previous studies show that a small number of infants born to women who took anti-depressants throughout pregnancy may experience heart and lung problems, and they may go through a withdrawal These case-controlled studies discussed in this story provide new evidence that these and other birth defects of the intestines may be associated with certain medications, such as paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft), but this risk is still very small. Information in this story does not appear to be taken from a press release. The story contains independent reporting and sources are well identified. Good attention to funding sources and industry competition that is in play."
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10526
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More men at risk for prostate cancer as a result of less regular screening
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This news release reports on an attempt to measure the impact of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations on PSA testing. A main point of emphasis in the release is the fact that diagnoses of intermediate- and high-risk prostate cancer were reduced after the draft guideline was changed due to the USPSTF “thumbs down” on the PSA test. While the release contends based on that finding that the USPSTF guidelines may lead to “missing important opportunities to spare men with higher risk cancers from progressive disease and cancer death,” the larger question of whether more or fewer men will get advanced prostate cancer and die from it isn’t addressed by the study — and the release should have been clearer about that fact, rather than headlining the release, “More men at risk of prostate cancer…” Perhaps just as important — but given less air time in the release — is the fact that there are fewer cases of low-risk cancers being diagnosed. This finding suggests that the USPSTF guideline seems to be effective in reducing overdiagnosis. This study and the subsequent release raise questions about our societal perspective on the trade off between under- and over diagnosis of serious diseases like prostate cancer. Reducing overdiagnosis of low-risk disease has obvious health and economic benefits, but it’s possible that reduced screening might also lead to a small increase in the risk of dying from an aggressive cancer (although high-quality evidence to date doesn’t necessarily support this supposition as noted below in our review). Many people are unwilling to accept the flaws of screening tests–and the fact that the absolute benefits of screening programs are often quite small. This has been a contentious issue in the breast cancer screening world–where the evidence-based supporters for more rational screening are portrayed as heartless killers of women. As demonstrated by this study and news release, It’s also an ongoing concern in prostate cancer arena.
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mixture
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Cancer,Journal news release,Prostate cancer
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There is no mention about the costs of PSA tests or of the resulting low-risk cancers that may be unnecessarily irradiated, surgically extracted, or robotically removed. Similarly, there’s no mention of the costs of treating advanced cancer — both for health care (advanced cancer treatments can be extremely expensive–e.g., Provenge) and life years lost. The apparent benefit of the USPSTF guidelines is the 37.9% reduction in the incidence of low-risk cancers–the over-diagnosed cancers that lead to over-treatment. While this benefit takes second billing to the potential risks of finding fewer higher-risk cancers in the release, there is at lease some discussion of this benefit. The fact that the rate of non-localized cancer did not increase in the study is reassuring–though the follow-up time is actually way too short to know whether trend will be durable. The harm of not screening is implied to be an increased risk for prostate cancer mortality because diagnoses of high-risk cancers could be delayed. We’ll award a Satisfactory here, although we’d note that we don’t have high quality data supporting this supposition. The PIVOT trial of surgery vs. watchful waiting for men who were mostly screen-detected was negative. Only post-hoc analyses showed a potential survival benefit for aggressively treating high-risk cancers. One modeling study suggested that screening can be associated with net gain of quality-adjusted life years–though the 95% confidence interval also includes a net loss. Another potential harm associated with screening are the adverse effects of treatment (whether necessary or unnecessary). The release notes that “radiation therapy and surgery have a negative impact on quality of life,” but this is somewhat euphemistic as we’re talking about potential for incontinence, impotence, and biopsy-related sepsis as well as death. There are hard numbers citing the rates of incontinence and impotence related to prostate surgery, so those certainly could have been cited here discussing harms. The release contains a reasonable description of how the study was carried out. But there are a couple of major problems. One is that these data are observational in nature — we don’t actually know that less frequent screening is the causal factor leading to fewer prostate cancer diagnoses. Yet the assumption throughout the release is that the guidelines are the direct cause of the reduction in cancer diagnoses. Second, the release makes no real attempt to differentiate between prostate cancer diagnoses and prostate cancer mortality. The message from the release is that fewer diagnoses will likely lead to more aggressive cancers, but as noted above, the evidence supporting that scenario is not strong and this study actually didn’t find an increase in non-localized cancers. We think there’s some fear-mongering going on related to the downside of following USPSTF guidance. Specifically the headline, which states that “more men are at risk of prostate cancer” due to following these guidelines. While it’s true that fewer men are being diagnosed with cancer, the idea that more men are “at risk” of aggressive cancer isn’t addressed by the study at all and may not be true. The study actually found that the rate of non-localized cancer did not increase during the study. The headline seems very one-sided considering that the study also shows a steep drop in the diagnosis of low-risk cancers, something which has clear and tangible benefits. The release does not discuss funding for the study and does not disclose the fact that some authors have financial relationships with companies that make prostate cancer tests and treatments. The alternatives are to screen (or at least screen more selectively) vs. not to screen. Although the story at least raises the comparison, the only way to truly compare the alternatives is to look at mortality outcomes, ideally with randomized trials. We have data from the ERSPC (European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer) showing that screening reduces mortality by about 1/1000; the US PLCO (Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian) Cancer Screening Trials was negative. A key message is that men need to make informed decisions and be aware that a potential trade off with not screening is that the risk of dying from prostate cancer might be slightly increased. However, the current study is unable to provide data to quantitate that risk. It is pretty clear from the release that PSA testing and related treatment are widely available. The release establishes what is new and noteworthy about this study. There are no inappropriate claims to novelty. The headline is arguably unjustified, but since we’ve already dinged the release for that infraction above, we’ll award a Satisfactory here since we see nothing else that’s egregious.
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16186
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Amendment 2 on medical marijuana won a higher percentage of the vote than the last six Florida governors, including Jeb Bush’s 2002 landslide.
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Pollara said Amendment 2 won a higher percentage of the vote than the last six Florida governors, including Bush’s 2002 landslide. He’s right about the 2002 contest, and when you look back at the last six elections (eight, really) as Pollara intended, that’s true, too. But there’s a glaring outlier when you look at the last six people elected governor -- Graham’s 1982 win, when he garnered 64.7 percent of the vote.
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true
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Florida Amendments, Florida, United for Care,
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"Floridians turned down a state constitutional amendment for medical marijuana, but it’s clear a majority of voters were all for the idea. Amendment 2, which would have changed the state’s Constitution to allow the sale of cannabis for ""certain medical conditions"" such as cancer and Parkinson’s disease, rang up 57.6 percent of the vote. Unfortunately for the measure’s supporters, amendments require at least 60 percent of the vote to pass. That close margin means that medical marijuana will continue to be debated, and not just in Florida. Two dozen states have medical marijuana laws, and Oregon and the District of Columbia voted to decriminalize recreational pot in the same general election. Ben Pollara, the campaign manager for the group behind the amendment, United for Care, tweeted two days after the election that the drug proved more popular than Florida’s governors. The tweet read: ""#YesOn2 got a higher % of the vote than the last 6 #flgov including @JebBush in his 2002 landslide #tallyorbust #2016."" We know the last couple of elections Gov. Rick Scott hasn’t even had to break 50 percent of the total votes in order to win, but is Pollara right about the last six Florida governors not garnering as much as 57.6 percent? The voting rolls The Twitter shorthand ""#flgov"" generally refers to the gubernatorial campaign, but has been used interchangeably to denote any tweet about a governor, too. We reached out to Pollara to ask him to clarify whether he meant the last six governors or the last six gubernatorial elections, because there’s a difference. Pollara told us he meant the last six gubernatorial elections, going back to Lawton Chiles’ victory over Jeb Bush in 1994. But because of the tweet’s wording, we looked at the last six governors elected, some of whom served two terms, going back to the 1978 campaign. Keep in mind, we’re looking for governors who won 57.6 percent of the vote or higher. Election year Governor Winning votes Total votes Percentage 1978 Bob Graham 1,406,580 2,530,468 55.6% 1982 Bob Graham 1,739,553 2,688,566 64.7% 1986 Bob Martinez 1,847,525 3,386,171 54.6% 1990 Lawton Chiles 1,995,206 3,530,871 56.5% 1994 Lawton Chiles 2,135,008 4,206,659 50.8% 1998 Jeb Bush 2,191,105 3,964,441 55.3% 2002 Jeb Bush 2,856,845 5,100,581 56.0% 2006 Charlie Crist 2,519,845 4,829,270 52.2% 2010 Rick Scott 2,619,335 5,359,735 48.9% 2014 Rick Scott 2,865,075 5,950,867 48.2% Source: Florida Department of State, Division of Elections If we were to look only at the last six elections, Pollara could be correct, because the highest margin of victory going back to 1994 was Bush’s 56 percent in 2002 against Bill McBride. As Pollara noted when we contacted him, if you’re counting that way, it could be the last eight elections. But if we’re going by individuals elected governor, there’s one obvious outlier: Graham, who was immensely popular and beat Republican state legislator Skip Bafalis with 64.7 percent of the vote in 1982. For comparison, Amendment 2 garnered 3,370,323 out of 5,849,118 votes cast for the measure to get that 57.6 percent. That’s more individual votes than any winning candidate has ever received. Our ruling Pollara said Amendment 2 won a higher percentage of the vote than the last six Florida governors, including Bush’s 2002 landslide. He’s right about the 2002 contest, and when you look back at the last six elections (eight, really) as Pollara intended, that’s true, too. But there’s a glaring outlier when you look at the last six people elected governor -- Graham’s 1982 win, when he garnered 64.7 percent of the vote."
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3553
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Pope on World Food Day laments paradox of hunger, obesity.
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Pope Francis is calling for lifestyle and dietary changes to address the paradox of a world in which people suffer from malnutrition in some areas and obesity in others.
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true
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Nutrition, Religion, International News, General News, Lifestyle, Health, Business, Pope Francis, Obesity, Europe, Vatican City
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In a message Wednesday for the U.N.’s World Food Day, Francis lamented the “distorted relationship between food and nutrition” that he blamed on the world economy’s profit-at-all-cost mentality. Francis noted that while obesity used to be a problem of the developed world, it is increasingly wreaking havoc in poorer countries, leading to increased cases of diabetes, heart problems and even eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. He said: “Nutritional disorders can only be combatted by the cultivation of lifestyles inspired by gratitude for the gifts we have received and the adoption of a spirit of temperance, moderation, abstinence, self-control and solidarity.”
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2679
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Gene pattern predicts who will live the longest.
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Researchers have found a pattern of genes that predicts with more accuracy than ever before who might live to be 100 or older — even if they have other genes linked with disease.
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true
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Science News
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An Afghan watchman smiles at the camera as he sits outside a shop at a market in Kabul May 26, 2010. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood Their findings, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, offer the tantalizing possibility of predicting who might hope for a longer life. They also cast doubt on the accuracy of tests being marketed now that offer to predict a person’s risk of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Several teams of researchers have identified gene patterns linked with extreme old age. But the researchers led by Paola Sebastiani and Dr. Thomas Perls at Boston University say theirs provides the best accuracy yet. They studied more than 1,000 people who lived to be 100 or more and matched them to 1,200 other people to identify the genetic patterns more common in the 100-year-olds using an approach called a genome-wide association study To their surprise, the longest-lived people had many of the same genes linked with diseases as everyone else. Their old-age genes appeared to cancel out the effects of the disease genes. “A lot of people might ask, ‘well who would want to live to 100 because they think they have every age-related disease under the sun and are on death’s doorstep, and certainly have Alzheimer’s’, but this isn’t true,” Perls told reporters in a telephone briefing. “We have noted in previous work that 90 percent of centenarians are disability-free at the average age of 93. We had long hypothesized that to get to 100 you have to have a relative lack of disease-associated variants. But in this case, we’re finding that not to be the case.” They identified 19 patterns among about 150 genes and said these patterns predicted with 77 percent accuracy who would be in the extreme old-age group. “Some signatures correlate with the longest survival, other signatures correlate with the most delayed age of onset of age-related diseases such as dementia or cardiovascular disease or hypertension,” Sebastiani said. The researchers stressed that having these genes is unlikely to give a person a free pass to smoke, drink and overeat. Sebastiani said Seventh Day Adventists have an average life expectancy of 88, eight years more than their average U.S. contemporaries. “They get there by virtue of the fact that they have a religion that asks them to be vegetarian, they regularly exercise, they don’t drink alcohol, they tend to manage their stress well through religion and time with family and they don’t smoke,” she said. “It really does speak to the incredible importance of lifestyle factors.” The Boston researchers said they do not plan to market a test for the long-life genes and are working to design a free website where people who have had their DNA sequenced can check and see if they have any of them. “The methodology that we developed can be applied to other complex genetic traits, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” Sebastiani said. Currently about 1 in 6,000 people live to be 100 and 1 in 7 million makes it to 110. The researchers said beliefs that certain populations in places such as Russia or Azerbaijan are more likely to have centenarians have been shown to be untrue. Perls said he does not see the findings leading to youth elixirs, but hopes they may be used to help delay the start of age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s.
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3923
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Sorry, wrong number: Statistical benchmark comes under fire.
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Earlier this fall Dr. Scott Solomon presented the results of a huge heart drug study to an audience of fellow cardiologists in Paris.
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true
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Medication, General News, AP Top News, Science, U.S. News, Weekend Reads
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The results Solomon was describing looked promising: Patients who took the medication had a lower rate of hospitalization and death than patients on a different drug. Then he showed his audience another number. “There were some gasps, or ‘Ooohs,’” Solomon, of Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, recalled recently. “A lot of people were disappointed.” One investment analyst reacted by reducing his forecast for peak sales of the drug — by $1 billion. What happened? The number that caused the gasps was 0.059. The audience was looking for something under 0.05. What it meant was that Solomon’s promising results had run afoul of a statistical concept you may never have heard of: statistical significance. It’s an all-or-nothing thing. Your statistical results are either significant, meaning they are reliable, or not significant, indicating an unacceptably high chance that they were just a fluke. The concept has been used for decades. It holds a lot of sway over how scientific results are appraised, which studies get published, and what medicines make it to drugstores. But this year has brought two high-profile calls from critics, including from inside the arcane world of statistics, to get rid of it — in part out of concern that it prematurely dismisses results like Solomon’s. Significance is reflected in a calculation that produces something called a p-value. Usually, if this produces a p-value of less than 0.05, the study findings are considered significant. If not, the study has failed the test. Solomon’s study just missed. So the apparent edge his drug was showing over the other medication was deemed insignificant. By this criterion there was no “real” difference. Solomon believes the drug in fact produced a real benefit and that a larger or longer-lasting study could have reached statistical significance. “I’m not crying over spilled milk,” he said. “We do set the rules. The question is, is that the right way to go about it?” He’s not alone in asking that question. “It is a safe bet that people have suffered or died because scientists (and editors, regulators, journalists and others) have used significance tests to interpret results,” epidemiologist Kenneth Rothman of RTI Health Solutions in Research Triangle Park, N.C., and Boston University wrote in 2016. The danger is both that a potentially beneficial medical finding can be ignored because a study doesn’t reach statistical significance, and a harmful or fruitless medical practice could be accepted simply because it does, he said in an email. The p-value cutoff for significance Is “a measure that has gained gatekeeper status ... not only for publication but for people to take your results seriously,” says Northwestern University statistician Blake McShane. It’s no wonder that a statistician, at a recent talk to journalists about the issue just before Halloween, displayed a slide of a jack-o’-lantern carved with this sight, obviously terrifying to anyone in science or medicine: “P = .06.” McShane and others argue that the importance of the p-value threshold is undeserved. He co-authored a call to abolish the notion of statistical significance, which was published in the prestigious journal Nature this year. The proposal attracted more than 800 co-signers. Even the American Statistical Association, which had never issued any formal statement on specific statistical practices, came down hard in 2016 on using any kind of p-value cutoff in this way. And this year it went further, declaring in a special issue with 43 papers on the subject, “It is time to stop using the term “statistically significant’ entirely.” What’s the problem? McShane and others list several: — P-value does not directly measure the likelihood that the outcome of an experiment just is a fluke. What it really represents is widely misunderstood, even by scientists and some statisticians, said Nicole Lazar, a statistics professor at the University of Georgia. — Using a label of statistical significance “gives more certainty that is actually warranted,” Lazar said. “We should recognize the fact that there is uncertainty in our findings.” — The traditional cutoff of 0.05 is arbitrary. — Statistical significance does not necessarily mean “significant” — or that a finding is important practically or scientifically, Lazar says. It might not even be true: Solomon cites a large heart drug study that found a significant treatment effect for patients born in August but not July, obviously just a random fluctuation. — The term “statistical significance” sets up a goal line for researchers, a clear measure of success or failure. That means researchers can try a little bit too hard to reach it. They may deliberately game the system to get an acceptable p-value, or just unconsciously choose analytic methods that help, McShane and Lazar said. — That can distort the effects not only of individual experiments, but also the cumulative results of studies on a given topic, so that overall a drug can look “a lot better than it actually is,” McShane said. What should be done instead? Abolish the bright line of statistical significance, and just report the p-value along with other analyses to give a more comprehensive outline of what the test result may mean, McShane and others say. It may not be as clear-cut as a simple declaration of significance or insignificance, but “we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on,” Lazar said. “I think it will be easier to weed out the bad work.” Not everybody buys the idea of doing away with statistical significance. Prominent Stanford researcher Dr. John Ioannidis says that abolition “could promote bias. Irrefutable nonsense would rule.” Although he agrees that a p-value standard of less than 0.05 is weak and easily abused, he believes scientists should use a more stringent p-value or other statistical measure instead, specified before the experiment is performed. McShane said that although calls for abolishing statistical significance have been raised for years, there seems to be more momentum lately. “Maybe,” he said, “it’s time to put the nail in the coffin on this one for good.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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26200
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“Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump not wearing a face mask in public.”
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Health experts say Americans should wear a face mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but President Trump has been reluctant to do so in public. Democrat Darren Jackson, the minority leader in the North Carolina House of Representatives, said two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Trump's decision. There's one poll that supports his exact claim, and several others showing that roughly 66% of Americans want Trump to wear a mask.
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true
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Public Health, North Carolina, Coronavirus, Darren Jackson,
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"When North Carolina legislators returned to the Capitol, the House minority leader showed up wearing a surgical mask bearing the state flag. Health experts recommend that Americans wear face masks while in public to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, which can be transmitted through aerosol droplets. So Darren Jackson, the Democratic leader in the GOP-controlled state House, has urged his colleagues to do the same. And on May 27, Jackson offered some advice for President Donald Trump. ""Two thirds of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump not wearing a face mask in public, and the vast majority supports elected officials being required to wear masks in government buildings,"" Jackson tweeted. Is he right about the polling on Trump? Overall, yes: Polls show that most poll respondents believe the president should wear a mask, though the level of support varies by political affiliation. When we reached out to Jackson, he cited an online survey of 1,012 people by Navigator Research, a pollster that works with Democratic and progressive clients. Their poll question asked, ""Do you approve or disapprove of Donald Trump’s decision NOT to wear a face mask while in public?"" Of the group, 27% said they approve, and 65% said they disapprove. This poll was conducted using an opt-in system, with respondents volunteering to participate. However, the data was weighted for ""a variety of demographic variables"" to approximate the national registered voter population, the firm said. A look at other polls using a variety of survey methods found similar results when asking whether Trump should wear a mask in public. The Navigator poll stands out because it asked people whether they approved of Trump’s decision, while other polls asked about masks without mentioning his behavior. Still, the results were comparable. Here's what they found: Quinnipiac poll between May 14-18: 67% support Huffington Post and YouGov poll over May 14-16: 63% support Politico and Morning Consult poll between May 8-10: 70% support Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted May 13-18: 72% support The Quinnipiac and Kaiser polls used phone calls, while the HuffPost/YouGov and Politico/Morning Consult polls were online. The most obvious divergence of views comes from partisan identification. While these surveys consistently show overall support for Trump wearing a mask, Republicans are far less enthusiastic. Here’s the amount of support for the idea from Republicans in each poll: Quinnipiac: 38% support HuffPost/YouGov: 46% support (with 44% among ""Trump voters"") Politico/Morning Consult: 58% support Kaiser Family Foundation: 48% support The HuffPost/YouGov gave respondents the option to answer ""I don’t care either way,"" which was the most common answer among Republicans and Trump voters. So, among these four polls, support for Trump wearing a mask ranges between 63% and 72% among all types of voters, but it drops to between 38% and 58% among Republicans. And the Navigation Research poll found that 54% of Republicans approve of Trump’s decision not to wear a mask. Jackson said ""two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump not wearing a face mask in public and the vast majority supports elected officials being required to wear masks in government buildings."" In each of five polls, between 63% and 72% of all respondents said Trump should wear a mask."
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27005
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"The city of Austin has ""removed, seemingly, any legal consequences to the actions where the homeless lie, sleep, where they defecate."
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"Abbott said that Austin officials ""have removed, seemingly, any legal consequences to the actions where the homeless lie, sleep, where they defecate."" Austin has taken steps to allow for public camping in more areas than were previously permissible, but there are still limitations to where people who are homeless are allowed to sleep and lie in public — and legal consequences in place for violating the policy. The city has not changed its policies surrounding public urination or defecation — both actions are prohibited."
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false
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Homeless, Texas, Greg Abbott,
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"In early January, a man stabbed one person to death and injured others at an Austin shopping center. His attack ended at a burrito shop, where he jumped from the roof and later died from his injuries. Police later identified the attacker as a man experiencing homelessness, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to highlight the incident as part of his ongoing assault on homeless policies in Austin. ""What Austin has done over the past half year is to perpetuate a sense of lawlessness in the city by the homeless,"" Abbott told reporters at the Capitol. ""They have removed, seemingly, any legal consequences to the actions where the homeless lie, sleep, where they defecate."" Austin has changed the parameters of its ordinances regulating public camping related to homeless people multiple times since first suspending a ban on camping in public in June. But even when the regulations were at their most lax, they included provisions preventing camping in certain areas and legal consequences for violating the policy. Abbott did not return requests for comment seeking more information about his claim. Removal of camping ban in Austin Abbott has been publicly sparring with Austin leaders over the city's homeless policies since June, when the City Council voted to make public camping (except in parks) legal, as long as a person did not endanger ""the health or safety of another person or of themselves; or make usage of such area unreasonably inconvenient or hazardous."" The original policy made it legal for people to sit, sleep or panhandle on public sidewalks as long as they didn't engage in behavior or actions deemed aggressive. There were questions about the scope of the policy from the beginning. The Travis County Republican Party said the changes gave homeless people more rights than property owners and allowed for ""homeless camps on private property, business frontage, and even public sidewalks. ""We rated that claim . People were in violation of the ordinance if they continued camping in an unauthorized area after being notified by law enforcement that they were violating the policy and given ""a reasonable opportunity by a law enforcement officer to correct the violating conduct."" The policy also prohibited people from obstructing areas with ""high pedestrian traffic and a high incidence of petty crime related to public disorder."" The policy did not outline a specific penalty for violating these rules, which means an offense would be a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500. The ordinance change did not affect city policy related to defecating. Urinating or defecating in public view or ""in or on a public street, alley, sidewalk, yard, park, building, structure, plaza, or utility right-of-way or other public place"" is a Class C misdemeanor. Changes to Austin's policy In October, the City Council changed its camping ordinance again, adding more specific language defining camping and dictating where camping is permissible. The ordinance states that, unless there is an imminent health or safety threat, law enforcement officers must advise people violating the ordinance of places where they can sleep legally or about available shelter or housing in the area. They also are expected to contact a ""city designee who has the authority to offer to transport the person or provide the person with services."" A person commits an offense under this policy if they do not change their behavior after being notified by law enforcement that they are violating city code. An offense is still a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500. In early November, state and city officials started enforcing the new ordinance and took steps to clear out camps set up under highway overpasses and in areas near the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless. At least three people were arrested during the initial push to enforce the ordinance. One man was charged with camping in an area not designated for camping and two others were charged with resisting law enforcement activities in enforcing the policy. Again, urinating or defecating in public are still prohibited actions in Austin. Our ruling Abbott said that Austin officials ""have removed, seemingly, any legal consequences to the actions where the homeless lie, sleep, where they defecate."" Austin has taken steps to allow for public camping in more areas than were previously permissible, but there are still limitations to where people who are homeless are allowed to sleep and lie in public — and legal consequences in place for violating the policy. The city has not changed its policies surrounding public urination or defecation — both actions are prohibited."
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29255
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Suave brand shampoos and conditioners contains thioglycolic acid and cause hair loss.
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What's true: A Suave brand hair treatment product that was discontinued in 2012 contained thioglycolic acid. What's false: Suave brand hair treatment products do not contain thioglycolic acid or formaldehyde.
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false
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Business, shampoo, suave, viral facebook posts
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In February 2018, two warnings concerning Suave brand hair care products made the rounds on social media. The first one claimed that a Suave shampoo formulation contains thioglycolic acid, which is “extremely corrosive” and caused her hair to fall out in clumps: The poster of that message allowed that the radiation pills she was taking to treat an unspecified blood disorder might have been and causing her hair loss, but nonetheless maintained that she had “burning my hair off for months” by using a shampoo containing thioglycolic acid. However, the ingredient lists from the shampoo and conditioner labels for the Suave Professionals products shown in the Facebook post (almond and shea butter) do not include that ingredient: Water (Aqua), Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocoamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Chloride, Glycerin, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Aloe Vera), Cymbopogon Schoenanthus Oil (Lemongrass), Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower/Leaf Extract, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Dimethiconol, Fragrance (Parfum), Carbomer, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, TEA-Dodecylbenzenesulfonate, PPG-9, Tetrasodium EDTA, TEA-Sulfate, DMDM Hydantoin, Citric Acid, PEG-45M, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Mica (CI 77019), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891). Water (Aqua), Cetearyl Alcohol, Dimethicone, Stearamidopropyl Dimethylamine, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice (Aloe Vera), Cymbopogon Schoenanthus Oil (Lemongrass), Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Oil Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower/Leaf Extract, Lavandula Angustifolia (Lavender) Flower Extract, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Behentrimonium Chloride, Fragrance (Parfum), Dipropylene Glycol, Lactic Acid, Potassium Chloride, Amodimethicone, Disodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin, PEG-150 Distearate, PEG-7 Propylheptyl Ether, Cetrimonium Chloride, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone. In response to comments about this issue posted on their Facebook page by concerned customers, representatives from Suave confirmed that thioglycolic acid (typically used as a depilatory and in hair perming kits) was not present in those products: In 2013, plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleged that Suave Professionals Keratin Infusion 30-Day Smoothing Kit, a hair treatment product for women who wanted “smooth, shiny manageable hair with no frizz” (but was not a shampoo or cleansing product) “contains an ingredient or combination of ingredients that causes significant hair loss upon proper application” and that Unilever, Suave’s parent corporation, knew this but failed to disclose that fact. Those allegations primarily hinged on damage putatively caused by the extended use of thioglycolic acid on hair as a relaxant and expressed ancillary concerns involving the use of a supposedly carcinogenic common preservative: The product claimed to be based in keratin, a protein naturally found in hair and would not contain dangerous chemicals, but pictures attached to the complaint showed some women suffering visible bald spots, broken and discolored hair, and burned scalp … The plaintiffs claimed the product deceivingly used an ingredient that would release formaldehyde — a cancer-causing substance that could also lead to symptoms including irritation, skin sensitivity and breathing difficulties, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The 2013 suit was settled in 2014, by which time the treatment product in question had long since been removed from the market. The ingredient mentioned in the lawsiot (DMDM Hydantoin) is an extremely common antibacterial agent and preservative that works to release formaldehyde in small quantities, but is not itself “formaldehyde” and is not linked with hair breakage or loss. Regarding the use of formaldehyde-releasing preservatives in consumer products, manufacturer Procter & Gamble explains that they are present in quantities far too small to pose safety concerns: Formaldehyde occurs widely in fruits, vegetables, meats, and your own body, as it is formed naturally in small amounts by your breakdown of food into energy. Similarly, formaldehyde releasing preservatives, such as DMDM hydantoin, release very tiny amounts of formaldehyde, just enough to keep products from spoiling, but well below safe amounts. The formaldehyde releasing preservative we use is mainly DMDM hydantoin, but we also use Imidazolidinyl urea, Diazolidinyl urea, and Quaternium-15 in a very few products where they would be disclosed on the label. Suave brand shampoos and conditioners do not contain thioglycolic acid (nor formaldehyde), and “formaldehyde releasing” preservatives are in no way exclusive to Suave products nor known to harm the health of consumers or their hair. Its presence in personal care topical products is extremely common and a method of inhibiting the growth of bacteria. In other words, if that ingredient was causing hair loss, it would not be exclusive to products from Suave.
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China capital to roll out tough anti-smoking laws.
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Beijing will ban smoking in restaurants, offices and on public transport from Monday, part of unprecedented new curbs welcomed by anti-tobacco advocates, though how they will be enforced remains to be seen.
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true
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Health News
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Health activists have pushed for years for stronger restrictions on smoking in China, the world’s largest tobacco consumer, which is considering further anti-smoking curbs nationwide. Under the rules, anyone in China’s capital who violates the bans, which include smoking near schools and hospitals, must pay 200 yuan ($32.25). The current fine, seldom enforced, is just 10 yuan ($1.60). Anyone who breaks the law three times will be named and shamed on a government website. And businesses can be fined up to 10,000 yuan ($1,600) for failing to stamp out smoking on their premises. “Restaurant staff have a duty to try to dissuade people from smoking,” said Mao Qunan, of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. “If they don’t listen to persuasion, then law enforcement authorities will file a case against them.” The government will also no longer allow cigarettes to be sold to shops within 100 meters of primary schools and kindergartens, according to state media. Smoking is a major health crisis in China, where more than 300 million smokers have made cigarettes part of the social fabric, and millions more are exposed to secondhand smoke. More than half of Chinese smokers buy cigarettes at less than five yuan (80 U.S. cents) a pack. Parliament passed legislation last month banning tobacco ads in mass media, public places on public transport and outdoors. Many Chinese cities have banned smoking in outdoor public places, but enforcement has been lax. Bright red banners, typically used to display government slogans, have been posted around Beijing with anti-smoking messages. The city has also set up a hot line on which violators can be reported, the China Daily reported. The names of people and companies who violate the rules more than three times will be posted on a government website for a month, state radio said. Anti-tobacco advocates said they were more confident in the government’s will to enforce the bans after a series of tougher measures in recent months, including a bigger tobacco tax. “We couldn’t say this is the strongest law in the world,” said Angela Pratt, of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative. “But it’s certainly up there with the strongest, in that there are no exemptions, no exceptions and no loopholes on the indoor smoking ban requirement.”
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2476
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Paleontologists discover dinosaur tail in northern Mexico.
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A team of paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a 72 million-year-old dinosaur tail in a desert in northern Mexico, the country’s National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) said on Monday.
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true
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Science News
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Apart from being unusually well preserved, the 5 meter (16 foot) tail was the first ever found in Mexico, said Francisco Aguilar, INAH’s director in the border state of Coahuila. The team, made up of paleontologists and students from INAH and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), identified the fossil as a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur. The tail, found near the small town of General Cepeda, likely made up half the dinosaur’s length, Aguilar said. Paleontologists found the 50 vertebrae of the tail completely intact after spending 20 days in the desert slowly lifting a sedimentary rock covering the creature’s bones. Strewn around the tail were other fossilized bones, including one of the dinosaur’s hips, INAH said. Dinosaur tail finds are relatively rare, according to INAH. The new discovery could further understanding of the hadrosaur family and aid research on diseases that afflicted dinosaur bones, which resembled those of humans, Aguilar said. Scientists have already determined that dinosaurs suffered from tumors and arthritis, for example. Dinosaur remains have been found in many parts of the state of Coahuila, in addition to Mexico’s other northern desert states. “We have a very rich history of paleontology,” Aguilar said. He noted that during the Cretaceous period, which ended about 65 million years ago, much of what is now central northern Mexico was on the coast. This has enabled researchers to unearth remains of both marine and land-based dinosaurs. The presence of the remains was reported to INAH by locals in June 2012. After initial inspections, excavation began earlier this month. The remains of the tail will be transferred to General Cepeda for cleaning and further investigation. (This version of story corrects to show researchers were paleontologists, not archaelogists)
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744
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After Dorian, disease is next threat on shattered Bahamian island.
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Piles of debris, decaying human and animal corpses and fetid water on storm-hammered Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas are posing a new risk for those who survived Hurricane Dorian’s wrath: Disease.
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true
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Environment
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As the insect population temporarily cleared when Dorian slammed into the islands on Sept. 1 with top sustained winds of 185 miles (298 km) per hour, water-borne and insect-borne diseases, including malaria and dengue fever, are fresh threats for those who remain or return to the island, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said in a report this week. Disease outbreaks could further drive up the death toll of one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record, which currently stands at 50, but which Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said he expects to significantly increase. Some 1,300 people have been registered as missing in the storm’s wake and the Bahamian Ministry of Health has requested 500 body bags, according to the PAHO. Former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham believed hundreds of people were dead on Abaco, the local Nassau Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday, citing an interview with Ingraham after he toured that island. The health risks could be compounded on Abaco, where officials plan to erect two tent city relief centers to house about 4,000 people near Marsh Harbour, John Michael-Clark, co-chairman of the Bahamas’ disaster relief and reconstruction committee, told reporters this week. That figure matches the number of people PAHO estimates remained on Abaco after the storm. Many who evacuated Abaco to Nassau told Reuters this week they ultimately plan to return to the island to rebuild their homes and lives. In addition to the vast of destruction on Abaco, some hospitals and health clinics across the islands are only partially operational after sustaining severe storm damage, and face a shortage of personnel and medical supplies. “Getting the infrastructure back up and running is really key in safety planning,” said Dr. Elizabeth Greig, a physician and disaster response expert with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “Having safe sources of potable water and effective sanitation is key to keeping populations healthy in temporary housing conditions, along with making sure those shelters are structurally safe and not overcrowded, which can lead to the passing around of respiratory and gastrointestinal viruses.” Still, efforts to recover and keep disease at bay may be sabotaged by further weather events. The Caribbean basin remains in the midst of hurricane season with heavy weather over the islands on Thursday, and the U.S. National Hurricane Center was monitoring a system that has a 70% chance of becoming a tropical storm. The World Health Organization earlier this week said the establishment of early warning systems would be critical to staving off sickness. It emphasized the need for short-term healthcare, water and sanitation improvement, disease monitoring, and widespread collection of health statistics on the most affected islands for at least the next six months. The Bahamian Ministry of Health has requested extra supplies of Diphtheria and Hepatitis A vaccines for health care providers working in storm-hit areas, the PAHO said. Around Marsh Harbour, where officials estimate that 90% of the homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed, survivors remained worried. “Every day, they’re picking up bodies, who knows how many died?” said Izlaine Jean, 39, a housekeeper and private chef. “We don’t know if it’s safe to live here ... we know we can’t drink the water, so how can we survive?”
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"A Census Bureau worker says he was told to skew information to bring the unemployment rate down ""as we headed into an election season."
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"Hasselbeck said Julius Buckmon was ""on one side of the scale"" and his fabricated interviews helped push the unemployment rate lower in September 2012. Buckmon did not work for the Census Bureau in 2012 and even if he had, people familiar with the workings inside the bureau doubt it would have made a difference. If he had slanted all of his reports to show a brighter employment picture, he would have likely been found out. If he slanted a smaller number, it would have no statistical impact."
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false
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Census, Jobs, PunditFact, Elisabeth Hasselbeck,
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"A drop in the unemployment rate right before the 2012 election has given conservatives a whiff of conspiracy. On the Fox News Channel morning show Fox and Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Elisabeth Hasselbeck discussed a New York Post report that alleged Census Bureau workers cooked the books between August and September 2012, dropping the unemployment rate from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent. Hasselbeck said the report, from a Post columnist, identified one Census Bureau worker who admitted to fudging data in the past. ""Now we're finding out there was someone on one side of the scale,"" Hasselbeck told viewers. ""There was a name, Julius Buckmon. ... He told in an interview that he was told to make up information as he went along. This is on crucial information as we headed into an election season."" The report was also cited on Fox News’ The Five and later on Hannity. We decided to see if Buckmon is indeed a smoking gun about the reported 2012 fraud. We also wanted to learn a little bit more about how the unemployment rate is calculated and what impact a Census Bureau employee can have. The 'Post' report The original New York Post report from columnist John Crudele essentially reaches the same conclusion as Hasselbeck, though perhaps not as definitively. Using an unnamed source, Crudele builds a case that Census Bureau workers were told by their supervisors to help drive down the unemployment rate ahead of the 2012 presidential election. The source also handed over a piece of evidence -- the case of Census Bureau worker Julius Buckmon. Buckmon was part of a Census Bureau team that helped collect information used to calculate the unemployment rate, which is based on a survey of about 60,000 households. The Census Bureau is in charge of the people who ask the questions. The data is then collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the Labor Department, which in turn creates monthly employment statistics. Buckmon said he made up at least some of his results instead of surveying households. Buckmon told the Post about a conversation with his supervisor at the bureau. ""It was a phone conversation — I forget the exact words — but it was, ‘Go ahead and fabricate it’ to make it what it was,"" Buckmon said. The problem for Hasselbeck is that Buckmon wasn’t working for the Census Bureau in 2012. According to the Post, the alleged incident he described took place in 2010. Buckmon left the Census Bureau in August 2011, Census Bureau officials told us. So Hasselbeck incorrectly overlapped Buckmon’s story with the rest of the Post article, which relies on an anonymous source. (Buckmon did not return our calls seeking comment.) The unemployment report To be clear, we cannot say if the Post article is correct in its other points. But experts we spoke with agreed that it would be extremely difficult to alter the nationwide unemployment rate. William Shobe, director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the University of Virginia and head of the Virginia chapter of the Association for University and Business Economic Research, said it’s important to remember that there are many measures of unemployment, including privately produced surveys. ""And they all agree, within the margins of error,"" Shobe said. ""The immediate conclusion that you can draw from that is that no rogue interviewer or group of rogue interviewers have managed to budge the unemployment far (or at all, mind you) from the value it would have had otherwise."" Shobe added that any effort to fudge the national numbers would require the participation of interviewers across the country. ""Otherwise you would see only a localized move which would wash out as noise in the national stats,"" Shobe said. Former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Katharine Abraham backs up Shobe’s point. Abraham, who served as commissioner from 1993-2001 under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said that the typical interviewer handles between 35 and 55 households. That would translate to anywhere between about 1,000 and 1,700 interviewers to cover 60,000 households. ""Even if an interviewer made up all of his or her interviews,"" Abraham said, ""each interviewer's share of the full sample is small enough that it would be rather unlikely for the made-up interviews to have affected the topside unemployment numbers at all."" In addition, Abraham said the Census Bureau doesn’t trust its staff blindly. It has a regular and random process of going back to the same households that were interviewed and interviewing them again. As for the drop in the unemployment rate that led to suspicions of manipulation, Abraham remembers the popular reaction at the time, but says the monthly numbers can jump around. ""It's just not that surprising that, in the context of an unemployment rate that was generally trending downwards, there would be months when it took a big drop,"" Abraham said. We should note that the Post story has gained traction beyond the media. Rep, Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chair of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter to the head of the Census Bureau, saying he found the allegations ""shocking."" Issa told the bureau to deliver many documents, including emails to or from Buckmon and any investigations of alleged falsification of data. Our ruling Hasselbeck said Julius Buckmon was ""on one side of the scale"" and his fabricated interviews helped push the unemployment rate lower in September 2012. Buckmon did not work for the Census Bureau in 2012 and even if he had, people familiar with the workings inside the bureau doubt it would have made a difference. If he had slanted all of his reports to show a brighter employment picture, he would have likely been found out. If he slanted a smaller number, it would have no statistical impact."
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6800
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Wisconsin charter school open to students of all abilities.
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Imagine you walk into a classroom where kindergartners, second-graders and third-graders are working together. The older students guide the young as they share ideas. There is a flurry of movement as they remain active, learning in various forms — from handmade models to technology.
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true
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Health, General News, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Charter schools
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You approach two students at a work station who are creating an image of a farm based on what they had seen during a field trip the day before. You introduce yourself. One of the students speaks up, tells you his name, then points to the boy next to him. “This is my friend, Tim. He doesn’t use words, but he’s OK.” This is a scenario Agnesian Director of Behavioral Health Autism Services Dr. Matt Doll describes as possible at North Fond du Lac’s new charter school, The Treffert Way for the Exceptional Mind. And they’re not alone. Around the country, schools like Treffert Way are turning toward new and more inclusive educational methods to not only benefit traditional students, but those of all abilities. Longstanding partnership leads to new school The school builds upon a partnership between two educational institutions: Agnesian Healthcare’s Treffert Center and School District of North Fond du Lac. Opened in 2016, The Treffert Center is developed off methods of world-renown autism, hyperlexia and savant expert Dr. Darold Treffert, and helps students with unique abilities. The School District of North Fond du Lac called upon the center’s — and Doll’s — resources as they sought ways to support students in childcare and education, while having an inclusive environment, said now-Treffert Way speech and language pathologist Beth Dardis. Over the years, the center and district worked on other projects together, including: evaluations; bringing Agnesian Beyond the Boundaries of Autism to classrooms for behavioral treatments; studying strengths-based learning; conducting research on how to best help a student with hyperlexia with Dr. Treffert; and creating a new reading curriculum. All involved shared a common goal: to use their services to create a new way to learn by building upon the strengths of students. Their answer? A new charter school for children of all abilities. Formal meetings for Treffert Way began in 2017, and Aaron Sadoff, North Fond du Lac school district’s superintendent, supported the school district and Treffert Center staff writing a grant to help the charter school take off. The group completed the writing process in fall. As it opens for the 2019-2020 school year, Treffert Way will operate in a portion of the district’s Early Learning Center and enroll 40 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. A grade will be added each year, so students who start with the program may continue through high school, said occupational therapist Karen Bartelt, who worked within the district before starting with Treffert Way. A nonprofit, Treffert Way operates as a school through a charter provided by the district. This allows it access to the district’s resources, like extracurricular activities and staff, while also giving it the autonomy to have “a little more creativity” when it comes to education, Doll told the Fond du Lac Reporter. An approach informed, in part, by the successes of other charter schools Across the country, schools — particularly charter schools — have used this leniency to implement unique educational techniques. From a handful of those, the North Fond du Lac team — which also includes special education teacher Tiffany Dolan and teacher Tim Williams — found inspiration and guidance. When Design39Campus opened in 2014 in San Diego, it was the result of a directive given to teachers: to re-imagine education. Typical education is “student-centered,” said Design39 Principal Joe Erpelding, meaning a teacher can choose to share the information in any way they choose to get it across to students. Bartelt said the traditional classroom setting and model is not beneficial to all students for a variety of reasons, including the pace of the classroom and the number of classmates. As a parent to a child with autism, Treffert Way Board Vice President Liaison Laurie Develice perceived the only options with her child were akin to trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole, rather than focusing on his strengths and passions. A shift in focus could create a sense of accomplishment and self-worth, and in turn would help students work on improving other skills, she said. Bartelt and Dardis recognized this, too, as individualized education plans, known as IEPs, were often centered on weaknesses. Over the years, they watched “brilliant” students with learning differences graduate and become either unemployed or underemployed, not reaching the potential they could have with the use of strengths and mentorship experiences, Bartelt said. At the charter school, instructors hope to remedy that. The school will operate on the “Treffert approach,” which identifies a child’s strengths and helps grow those strengths through integrating them into education, and puts a focus on relationships, Doll said. Throughout each lesson, topics students are passionate about, such as sports, cars and animals, will be brought in, helping them to “instinctively learn and grow faster,” said Wisnet owner and board member Rick Kolstad. As a learner-centered school, Design39 teaches in a similar way, designing lessons around “learner experiences” to teach a child to be both career-ready and life-ready, Erpelding said. When hiring teachers, Design39 looks for “superpowers,” such as rock climbing or owning a small business, which gives those teachers skills to integrate into classes and inspire learning. In Design39 classrooms, children get to help create the lessons and are encouraged to follow their curiosities. If a student brings in money from a grandparent for show-and-tell, it can spark a conversation about currency classmates have from around the world, and turn into a lesson where the coins are mapped and exchange rates explored, Erpelding said. Data support strengths-focused education. A 2010 Gallup poll of 259,310 students in grades five through 12 found 84% of students who said “my school is committed to building the strengths of each student” were engaged in school. In Galt Joint Union Elementary School District in California, where a strengths-based education was implemented, the percent of students “meeting or exceeding standards rose from 37 to 43.1 in English language arts and from 25 to 35.9 in math,” while the number of suspensions and failing grades decreased, according to the Hechinger Report, an online news source that covers “inequality and innovation in the classroom.” Celebrating neurodiversity through positive relationships with peers Along with strengths, Treffert Way will put relationships into the spotlight. Classrooms will integrate children who are neurotypically developed — or who do not have autism or varying developmental or intellectual differences — and those who are neurodiverse and have “unique abilities and skills,” Doll said. Supports used in the district with non-neurotypical students will be incorporated to create an environment that helps them “know what is to be expected and to make sense of their day,” as well give them a way to communicate and be regulated, Bartelt said. For young, nonverbal children, this means using visuals to represent tasks and their schedules, Dardis said. Bringing together students with diverse abilities has been a success at Treffert Academy. In classrooms of all skill levels, children are seen supporting each other’s special interests and meeting each other where they are at as they learn cognitive skills, as well as empathy and grit. At the academy, children created drawings with a visiting neurodiverse artist who didn’t “largely speak,” said Doll. However, when a 4-year-old girl exchanged drawings and ideas with him, he did. It was the first time he had really engaged with other kids, Doll said. “When you consider diversity, children normally don’t see the differences,” Doll said. Creating neurodiverse classrooms is also important at Minneapolis’ Spero Academy. In a state where charter schools act as their own district, Spero Academy is the only kindergarten through sixth-grade charter school primarily focused on helping students with disabilities in the state. For every student, the academy creates personalized learning plans and specialized education plans, even those without an IEP — 8% of the academy’s population, said Curtis Windham, the academy’s director. Academy classrooms are also held at a one-to-four student-to-teacher ratio, and children are separated into three different types of learning groups. There are grade-level classrooms for students who do not have IEPs or for those who do but are higher functioning, to promote an inclusive environment where they can learn together, Windham said. Additional support rooms are utilized in the second level, where students have the inclusive environment for 60% of the day and 40% receive personalized instruction. In personalized learning support rooms, children receive individualized instruction all day, rather than moving into the blended classrooms. In each class, children learn socioemotional skills, which help them integrate into basic conversations and interactions, and become successful outside of school as well, he said. Atypical classroom setup a common thread among neurodiverse charters Integration may also come from mixing students of various grade levels. At i4 Learning Community School, mixed-grade classrooms help to bridge the power of strengths and relationships. Part of the Kewaskum School District in Fond du Lac and Washington counties, i4 is one of three elementary options available to parents, according to Principal Jake Flood. As they engage in individualized learning at i4, students are separated into kindergarten through second grade and third through fifth grade cohorts. For the youngest students, there is a 4K stand-alone classroom. This provides students the opportunity to “pay it forward,” as they grow from the youngest students into the cohort’s leaders, Flood said. In addition to whole- and small-group instruction, Treffert Way students will work in multi-age classrooms based on interests and strengths, according to Dardis. The rooms themselves will take on a hub-like setup. Students will maintain a home-base classroom, while traveling from classroom to classroom throughout the day. Rather than desks, students will work at work areas and stations to encourage movement and thinking, Williams said. According to a study by the National Academics of Science Engineering Medicine in 2013, students who were more active “show greater attention, have faster cognitive processing speed, and perform better on standardized academic tests than children who are less active.” Dardis said: “So many schools are looking at ‘we need that time to teach. We have to have that academic (time).’ It’s backfiring. It really is. Kids are having more behavior problems because of that.” Further helping to allay behavioral issues is the relationship between the student and teacher. Having teachers like Williams and Dolan, who will serve as the primary educators at the school and understand the children’s background and their thought process, makes the difference in education, Doll said. “It isn’t that (teachers) taught us a really cool thing,” he said. “It’s about the relationships we had with them. You don’t have a lot behavioral issues or learning issues when you’re in a relationship, because you’re really reaching someone at their basic level.” Preparing students for life beyond the classroom Relationships at Treffert Way are also expected to extend outside the classroom. One major part of the school will bring students and local industries together to learn. Many times, children begin thinking too late about what they want to do in their lives, Doll said, when they should be having experiences of what is possible at age 10 and younger. “That’s why our focus is getting out into the community and exposing children to lots of opportunities and possibilities, so as they continue to develop, they recognize their strengths, and they can continue to grow those into life-sustaining careers,” Doll said. From a young age, students will work with community organizations, such as on Farm Fridays. The organizations also will act as mentors to them, with the hope of creating internships with local businesses for students. Schools will mentor students on skill sets, while mentoring students on the different ways students think and use their strengths, Bartelt said. By giving students various experiences, students will be able to find their spark and “have a better of idea” of what they would like to do post-graduation, Develice said. While her son had a passion for animation and video editing, it was difficult to find mentors in the field. High school teachers ended up being a resource, she said. At Tomorrow River Community Charter School in Amherst, which draws students from 16 different school districts, experiential learning is a large part of the curriculum. Based on the Waldorf education model, classrooms are trauma sensitive and offer a “warm, soft, comforting environment,” where they learn at a developmentally appropriate rate, Founder and Executive Director Chamomile Nusz said. Prior to first grade, students learn through storytelling, poetry and songs. At the age of 6 or 7, when brains can start to understand abstract concepts, the school begins with traditional academics, and by third grade, they are on par with testing results as children in public schools, Nusz said. When learning math and reading, rarely are they reading from a textbook, watching a video or sitting in a lecture. Instead, they engage in hands-on activities. In the nature education course, children are taught by students at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. On 200 acres of land, students learn to take care of chickens, garden and care for the grounds. Music is interwoven through lessons with flute, pentatonic flutes, recorders and violin. Even through the school’s new virtual program, students learn through interaction. Experts in various fields also teach to the students, and each month students take a field trip to a place related to the community. “We teach to the head, the heart and the hand,” Nusz said. “They’re not just good test takers, they’re good at figuring out any problem we put in front of them.” As the movement swells, schools see enrollment increases At each school — and at Treffert Way — the end goal is to have children love learning throughout their lives and thrive no matter their plans post-high school. “One of the unique things is that we can spend a great deal of time really looking at the whole child along with whatever their strength is in order to fully develop that person into a strong, unique person that they could become when they may not have in a traditional setting,” said Edward Jedlicka, a licensed, professional counselor who specializes in psychotherapy as well as autism evaluation and diagnosis services at Agnesian Healthcare. Along with Doll and Supervisor of Autism Services Megan Puddy, Jedlicka is part of the team from Agnesian working with the school. Parents in the area — and around the United States — are responding well to these concepts. When the first informational meeting was held, the Treffert Way team feared only a few people may come. Instead, 30 to 40 showed up. At Tomorrow River, enrollment has grown from 50 students in 2013 to 180 in its seventh year. Spero Academy has a waiting list large enough to build another school at the 168-student capacity and still have students left over. Since opening in 2014, Design39′s enrollment grew from 840 to more than 1,100. Ideas already taking root among institutions of higher education In the Fond du Lac area, the ideas of The Treffert Center and Treffert Way are reaching into other organizations. Some area colleges are “very interested” in Treffert Way’s approach, said Williams. Instead of seeing students who do not go on to college or have high rates of failure, by working with the colleges, the school can help both students and colleges be prepared, Bartelt said. At The Treffert Center, a Transition Leadership Group, composed of students who are in high school or have graduated, with a majority being savants, receive help as they transition to various careers and examine the skills needed for success, Jedlicka said. Moraine Park Technical College — which has a disability resources program to assist students with various challenges — also held training to teach instructors how to more effectively work with students who have autism or are “twice exceptional” as they transition. As they open this school year, Treffert Way staff hope to see other schools — and the community at large — join the trend. Each child, no matter what they or their family is dealing with, is doing their best, said Bartelt, and instead of leaping to judgments, people should meet them where they’re at and “look at growth from there.” “Everybody has a different vision of success,” she said. “Everybody has something to contribute, and some of these quirky kids, they might come up with something to change the world someday.” ___ Information from: The Reporter Media, http://www.fdlreporter.com
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4063
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Health officials warn about rise in tick disease.
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Ticks are active again this season and residents should take steps to prevent tick bites in what’s expected to be a record year for human cases of the tick-borne disease anaplasmosis, the Vermont Department of Health said Wednesday.
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true
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Vermont, Health, Ticks, Lyme disease, Burlington, Infectious diseases
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The illness is spread by blacklegged ticks — the same tick that spreads Lyme disease. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle pain, malaise, chills, nausea, cough and confusion, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Unlike Lyme disease, a rash is rare with anaplasmosis. The disease can be fatal if not treated correctly. The number of human cases of the illness jumped from three in 2010 to 201 last year, according to the Health Department. Already this year the number of reported human cases has exceeded last year’s count, said Bradley Tompkins, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the department. “We’re very concerned about the rate of anaplasmosis that we are seeing all over Vermont, and especially in the southern part of the state,” he said. Vermonters are urged to protect themselves from tick bites between now and Thanksgiving, when adult ticks are actively feeding before winter, the Health Department said. Besides anaplasmosis and Lyme disease, the blacklegged tick also carries babesiosis, Borrelia miyamotoi and Powassan virus. To gauge the prevalence of disease in the state’s blacklegged tick population, officials tested more than 2,000 ticks between 2013 and 2016. Tompkins said 60 percent of the ticks tested positive for at least one disease. “These numbers mean it’s even more important to be on your guard,” Tompkins said. “It’s easy to think of ticks as a summer concern, but they are out in force right now.” Officials advise using EPA-registered tick repellent, cover up to keep ticks off of skin and check your body for ticks.
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39731
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Much of the extra virgin olive oil sold in the U.S. is fake because it’s made with genetically modified soybeans and unapproved chemicals.
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Your Extra Virgin Olive Oil Could Be Fake
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true
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9/11 Attack on America
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"Many shoppers have been squeezed into buying cheap (or even fake) olive oil over the years, so this eRumor is true. Claims that some brands of extra virgin olive oil are cut with soybean or vegetable oils have been around for years. And some in the olive oil industry have drawn heat for using labels that make it hard to tell where their products come from, and what quality they are. A chain email that outlines some of those claims made the rounds in early 2015. It was based on a story that appeared in the New York Times opinion section in January of 2014: “Much of the oil sold as Italian olive oil does not come from Italy, but from countries like Spain, Morocco and Tunisia … The oil is then pumped into a tanker truck and shipped to Italy, the world’s largest importer of olive oil. Meanwhile, shipments of soybean oil and other cheap oils are labeled olive oil, and smuggled into the same port. At some refineries, the olive oil is cut with cheaper oil. Other refineries are even worse. They mix vegetable oils with beta-carotene, to disguise the flavor, and chlorophyll for coloring, to produce fake olive oil. Bottles are labeled ‘Extra Virgin’ and branded with ‘Packed in Italy’ or ‘imported from Italy.’ Oddly, this is legal, even if the oil does not come from Italy — although the source countries are supposed to be listed on the label.” You should look for the phrase “produced in Italy” if you want to make sure that’s where your olive oil came from. Some of the other claims came from a study by the UC-Davis Olive Center (yes, UC-Davis has an Olive Center). Researchers carried out a yearlong study that evaluated olive oil based on standards set by the International Olive Council (IOC). Sadly for lovers of olive oil, 73% of the top five extra virgin olive oil brands sold in the U.S. failed. That means, researchers said, “These samples are oxidized, of poor quality, and/or adulterated with cheaper refined oils.” Other forms of olive oil fraud have been around even longer. In 2007, author Tom Mueller covered the problem for New Yorker magazine: “The American market, which is worth about one and a half billion dollars, is the largest outside Europe, and is growing at a rate of ten percent a year. Yet the Food and Drug Administration considers olive-oil fraud a relatively rare problem and does not routinely test oils for adulteration. Instead, the agency relies on major producers and trade groups, like the North American Olive Oil Association — whose members include several companies that also belong to ASSITOL — to alert it to suspicious products. With the industry acting as a watchdog, Martin Stutsman, a specialist in adulterated food at the F.D.A., told me, “you don’t waste your resources on surveys that are likely to make somebody comfortable but that don’t do much toward protecting the public health.” “In February, 2006, federal marshals seized about sixty-one thousand litres of what was supposedly extra-virgin olive oil and twenty-six thousand litres of a lower-grade olive oil from a New Jersey warehouse. Some of the oil, which consisted almost entirely of soybean oil, was destined for a company called Krinos Foods, a member of the North American Olive Oil Association. Krinos blamed the fraud on its supplier, DMK Global Marketing, which in turn blamed the Italian bottlers from whom it had bought the oil. The marshals destroyed the oil, but no criminal charges were brought against Krinos or any other companies. “My experience over a period of some fifty years suggests that we can always expect adulteration and mislabeling of olive-oil products in the absence of surveillance by official sources,” David Firestone, an F.D.A. chemist who was the agency’s olive-oil specialist from the mid-sixties to 1999, told me.” Tom Mueller went on to write a book on olive oil fraud called, “Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil.” In 2012, the USDA expanded its Quality Monitoring Program and included extra virgin olive oil. Olive oil producers were “invited” to voluntarily comply, but that didn’t pan out. Time reports: “Even though concerns over poor quality, mislabeling and outright fraud surfaced a few years ago, olive oil continues to be plagued with credibility issues, even as it finds its way into more American homes and countries around the globe attempt to set quality-control standards. The state of extra-virgin olive oil — which is extracted from olives via mechanical means, not chemicals or heat — has been particularly controversial. While some industry insiders insist that stories of rampant adulteration are greatly exaggerated, others beg to differ… “In the hope of improving matters, the USDA invited olive-oil brands to comply voluntarily with its Quality Monitoring Program. But so far only one company — Pompeian, the second largest olive-oil bottler in the U.S. — has chosen to participate. To do so, Pompeian officials say, they have had to greatly increase the size of their quality-control department, spending “several hundred thousand dollars” for staffing, training, research and record keeping.” After a long history of fraud and scandal in the olive oil industry, the moral of the story is to be careful when shopping for extra virgin olive oil. Comments"
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18617
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"Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's"" were it not for ""overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators."
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"Bachmann said that ""scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's"" were it not for ""overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators."" The 10-year goal may or may not be plausible, but if it’s not, there’s wide agreement that the three factors Bachmann mentioned are not the primary obstacles. Instead, researchers pointed to stagnant funding and the fact that Alzheimer’s is a particularly tricky disease to research, given its slow and stealthy advances. If Bachmann was looking to score points about bureaucracy and taxation, she has made a particularly poor choice of case study. Bachmann has taken a popular theme and assigned it to a complicated health condition, simply to score political points. The experts say her claim is unfounded."
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false
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National, Health Care, Government Regulation, Regulation, Science, Michele Bachmann,
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"Are bureaucrats, high taxation and trial lawyers keeping America from tackling Alzheimer’s disease? Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said they are during a speech to CPAC, the annual conservative conference. After recalling the history of vaccinations against polio, Bachmann said, ""We have another disease ... that's hurting us today. It's called Alzheimer's. ... There is no known treatment for Alzheimer's on the horizon. … Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's, if we'd only put our mind to it. So why aren't we seeking to cure diseases like Alzheimer's, or diabetes, juvenile diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease? How did we possibly get to this point of political malpractice? Because our government, proclaiming to care so much, has created a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators. That's not caring. It's time we care."" We wondered if it was accurate for Bachmann to say that ""scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's"" were it not for ""overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators."" So we checked with a variety of Alzheimer’s researchers and policy experts. (Bachmann’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.) We found a strong consensus among Alzheimer’s disease experts that Bachmann’s factors are either minor obstacles or not obstacles at all. Instead, they cited two primary concerns -- insufficient funding and the complexity of the disease itself. First, let’s look at funding. ""The only thing keeping us from developing successful treatments for Alzheimer's disease is the lack of adequate funding for research from NIH and other federal agencies,"" said Robert A. Stern, a neurologist and neurosurgeon, as well as a director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Boston University School of Medicine. ""That has nothing to do with her naive and scary statements. It only has to do with Congress deciding that it is worth spending money on."" We should note that the Obama administration did shift $50 million into Alzheimer’s research for fiscal year 2012 and requested an additional $80 million for fiscal year 2013. It also dedicated nearly $80 million in stimulus money to Alzheimer’s for each of two fiscal years, 2009 and 2010. Still, these temporary increases were not built into the ongoing baseline. The baseline level has remained fairly constant since Obama took office, at about $450 million a year. And that amount is due to be cut back this year due to the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. ""After many years of expansion under the Clinton administration, the budget for the National Institutes of Health has remained relatively stagnant for more than a decade,"" said Deborah E. Barnes, an Alzheimer’s specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. ""This has put the squeeze on scientists. In the past, the top 25 percent to 30 percent of research proposals would receive funding. Now it is the top 5 percent to 10 percent. This means that a lot of really good research is not being funded, and our progress toward finding a cure for Alzheimer's and other important disorders has been slowed. The funding for NIH comes from taxpayer dollars, so excessive taxation is clearly not the problem."" The other key obstacle our experts cited is the nature of the disease itself. If Bachmann is looking for diseases that have been sidetracked by bureaucratic or regulatory hurdles, ""Alzheimer's is about the worst example she could give,"" said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin. The disease, she said, ""develops over years from causes still unclear. The real dilemma for Alzheimer's drug trials -- or for trials of any disease that develops slowly with symptoms that may easily be due to other diseases and which may be of varying intensity -- is that there is no form of standard clinical trial that can test interventions and cures within a reasonable time frame."" As a result, she said, the FDA has allowed various kinds of abbreviated trials that don’t evaluate progress in slowing or reversing the disease itself. Instead, they track ""surrogate markers"" -- indicators that seem to suggest that a drug is helping. But not all markers translate over time into clinical benefit, she said. Such practical challenges have produced a trail of broken hopes. In a 2012 ""setbacks report"" on Alzheimer’s drug research, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the nation’s leading trade group for drugmakers, tallied 101 ""failed"" Alzheimer’s drugs since 1998, with a rate of 34 setbacks for every drug approved. And even the medicines that have won approval have provided symptomatic relief to some patients, rather than actually rolling back the disease itself. One might expect PhRMA, one of the most influential pro-business lobbying groups in Washington, to applaud the notion that overzealous regulation, high taxation and aggressive plaintiffs attorneys are curbing the industry’s efforts. But in the case of Alzheimer’s, at least, the ""setbacks report"" doesn’t even touch on those issues. So what does the report point to instead? It talks largely about the practical challenges of dealing with a complicated disease. ""Scientists still do not fully understand the underlying causes and mechanisms of the disease, particularly when it comes to separating potential causes from effects of the disease. This makes selection of viable targets for new medicines very difficult,"" the report says. It adds that ""the limited utility of current models of the human disease is a huge barrier in preclinical testing of drug candidates."" The difficulty of finding testable indicators of the disease, the report continues, ""makes it particularly challenging to evaluate, enroll, follow up, and retain patients in clinical studies. Ultimately this leads to long and very expensive clinical trials."" Our ruling Bachmann said that ""scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's"" were it not for ""overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators."" The 10-year goal may or may not be plausible, but if it’s not, there’s wide agreement that the three factors Bachmann mentioned are not the primary obstacles. Instead, researchers pointed to stagnant funding and the fact that Alzheimer’s is a particularly tricky disease to research, given its slow and stealthy advances. If Bachmann was looking to score points about bureaucracy and taxation, she has made a particularly poor choice of case study. Bachmann has taken a popular theme and assigned it to a complicated health condition, simply to score political points. The experts say her claim is unfounded."
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8961
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Zika vaccine shows promise for treating deadly brain cancer
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged foreign tourists not to be deterred by deadly wildfires that have razed large swathes and sent smoke as far as South America, even as authorities fretted about renewed dangers ahead.
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false
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American Society for Microbiology,glioblastomas,Zika vaccine
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Morrison made the plea on Wednesday as he visited Kangaroo Island, a usually wildlife-rich tourist attraction off the south coast hit twice in recent weeks by blazes. “Australia is open, Australia is still a wonderful place to come and bring your family and enjoy your holidays,” Morrison told reporters after meeting tourism operators and farmers. “Even here on Kangaroo Island, where a third of the island has obviously been decimated, two thirds of it is open and ready for business,” he said. “It’s important to keep the local economies vibrant at these times.” Tourism accounts for 3.1 % of Gross Domestic Product and last summer season Australia attracted 2.71 million holidaymakers. But this year, hotel occupancy has dropped and some normally crowded resorts are ghost towns due to the crisis. Officials confirmed another firefighter died in a vehicle crash last Friday while on duty, bringing the death toll to 26. In Victoria state, authorities urged people in fire-risk areas to consider evacuating, ahead of a temperature spike on Friday that could fan fires. GRAPHIC: A devastated east coast - here “These fires remain dangerous, they remain dynamic, remain volatile, and the conditions we are going to see can give significant life to these fires,” Victoria Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville said. Thousands of people are homeless due to fires that have scorched more than 10.3 million hectares (25.5 million acres) of land - an area the size of South Korea. Many towns were without power and telecommunications and some were running low on drinking water supplies. Smoke has blanketed cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. The bushfires follow a three-year drought that experts link to climate change and that has left bushland tinder-dry. GRAPHIC: Bushfires in New South Wales raise air pollution levels - here Following are latest events in the crisis: * Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an A$11 million ($7.56 million) relief package while visiting Kangaroo Island. * The three major cities in Australia’s southeast, Sydney, Melbourne and the capital Canberra, were blanketed in thick smoke. * Sixty-seven firefighters from the United States and Canada landed in Australia, joining 40 compatriots already on the ground. Australian authorities have requested another 140 personnel, who are expected in the next two weeks. * A university of Sydney ecologist doubled his estimate of animals killed or injured in fires to 1 billion. * Community leaders asked people to donate money instead of food and clothing because small communities are being overwhelmed by goods they do not need. Authorities also warned about online donation scams. * Smoke has drifted across the Pacific, affected cities in South America, and may have reached the Antarctic, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said. * The fires have already emitted 400 megatonnes of carbon dioxide and produced harmful pollutants, the European Union’s Copernicus monitoring program said. * Victoria Emergency Services Minister Lisa Neville asked activists to “reconsider” a planned protest on Friday, suggesting it would distract police from fire zones. * The group, Uni Students for Climate Justice, was undeterred, saying tens of thousands wanted to protest. “Cops are not worried about resources, they are worried about people standing up against the government’s inaction. The rallies on Friday are going ahead,” it said on Facebook. * Moody’s Analytics said the cost of fires could easily surpass the deadly 2009 Black Saturday fires that destroyed 450,000 hectares of land at an estimated toll of A$4.4 billion. * There are 129 fires ablaze across New South Wales state, with around 65 uncontained. All the fires were at “advice” level, the lowest alert. Victoria had 40 fires with 13 “watch and act” alerts. * Prime Minister Morrison has pledged A$2 billion ($1.37 billion) to a new National Bushfire Recovery Agency. * Britain’s Prince Charles joined a list of global figures sending support, referring to the “appalling horror unfolding in Australia” in a video.
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23953
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"Taxpayer-funded benefits to illegals"" in California are ""a skyrocketing cost under Obamacare."
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The Netherlands and France are trying to convince fellow European nations at a conference in The Hague to end tax exemptions on jet fuel and plane tickets, as part of a drive to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050.
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false
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Immigration, National, Candidate Biography, Elections, Federal Budget, Health Care, Message Machine 2010, Poverty, Steve Poizner,
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In the first major initiative on air travel tax in years, the conference on Thursday and Friday - which will be attended by about 29 countries - will discuss ticket taxes, kerosene levies and value-added tax (VAT) on air travel. The Netherlands wants to agree on steps toward ending the near complete lack of taxation on air travel and France is also pushing for an end to tax breaks on jet fuel, as European leaders discuss carbon neutrality at a separate summit in Brussels.. “The new president of the commission will have to present plans for the fight against climate change in Europe. It is a no-brainer that the possible contribution of the aviation sector will be put on his agenda in the first week in office,” Dutch deputy finance minister Menno Snel told Reuters. The conference will be attended by European Union economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici and finance and environment ministers. The goal is to present conclusions to the new European Commission, which will be sworn in this autumn. If no EU deal is found, the Netherlands plans to introduce a 7.50 euro ticket tax for departing passengers from 2021. Friends of the Earth estimates that between 1990 and 2016, aviation emissions more than doubled, while overall emissions fell by 43%. A combination of low aviation taxes, a proliferation of budget airlines and the rise of Airbnb have led to a boom in intra-European city-trips. The conference organizers hope that higher taxes will lead to changes in consumer behavior, with fewer people flying and choosing less carbon-intensive transport options instead. Research has shown that if the price of air travel goes up by one percent, demand will likely fall by about one percent, according to IMF tax policy division head Ruud De Mooij. He said that in a typical tank of gas for a car, over half the cost is tax, which not only compensates for CO2 emissions but also for congestion, accidents and road maintenance. “Airline travel is nearly entirely exempt from all tax, despite having many externalities of its own. Ending its undertaxation would level the playing field versus other modes of transport,” he said. Introducing a kerosene levy could be the quickest way to restore the tax imbalance that has given airplane travel a huge cost advantage over cars and trains, activists say. Environmental NGOs such as Transport and Environment (T&E) have long criticized the EU for being a “kerosene tax haven”. “Europe is a sorry story. Even the U.S., Australia and Brazil, where climate change deniers are in charge, all tax aviation more than Europe does,” T&E’s Bill Hemmings said. The US, Australia and Japan charge excise duty on jet fuel according to a European Commission report on aviation tax released this month. But not a single EU country taxes kerosene although a 2003 EU directive allows countries to agree bilaterally to tax fuel on flights between them. “It’s really strange: emissions at high altitude are more dangerous than emissions on the ground, but we tax them on the ground and not in the sky,” Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson told Reuters. Snel said that, contrary to popular belief, the 1944 Chicago Convention does not block countries from taxing kerosene - only from taxing fuel already in a plane’s tanks upon landing. The EU report shows that just six out of 28 EU member states levy ticket taxes on international flights, with Britain’s rates by far the highest at about 14 euros for short-haul economy flights and up to 499 euros for long-haul business class. French ticket taxes are as low as 1 euro for short-haul economy and 45 euros for long-haul business class, while EU-wide the average weighted tax per passenger is around 11 euros. This compares with an average 15 euros in the US and as much as 30-40 euros in Australia, Mexico and Brazil. Tickets for flights between EU cities are exempt from VAT in all EU countries, but 23 EU member states charge VAT on domestic flights at rates ranging from 3% in Luxembourg to 27% in Hungary with an average weighted EU VAT of 4 euros per ticket. Introducing VAT on intra-EU flights would require agreement from the 28 EU member states, and is widely seen as an unlikely outcome in The Hague. At a subdued Paris Airshow this week, it was evident that environmental pressures are being felt by the aerospace industry which is looking at options such as biofuel and new technology like electric planes. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) is also developing the CORSIA carbon offset scheme, under which airlines would fund cuts to CO2 emissions elsewhere. Friends of the Earth says there are no easy answers and that the only way to reduce airline CO2 emissions is by constraining aviation trough taxation, frequent flyer levies and limiting the number of flights at airports. “Flying is the fastest way of frying the planet,” T&E’s Hemmings said.
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14827
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"In France, they have a (surveillance) program a thousandfold more invasive"" than the United States."
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"Paul said that ""in France, they have a (surveillance) program a thousandfold more invasive"" than the United States.’ "" The term ""a thousandfold"" is impossible to measure and is presumably a rhetorical flourish on Paul’s part. Still, we found five notable areas in which the French system offers law enforcement and government officials more unfettered tools than American officials have the ability to use."
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true
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National, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Rand Paul,
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"Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul argued against excessive surveillance and the bulk collection of electronic communication data, saying the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., show it isn’t successful. ""The Paris tragedy ... happened while we were still doing bulk collection,"" Paul said on the Dec. 6, 2015, edition of NBC’s Meet the Press. ""All bulk collection. Also in France, they have a program a thousandfold more invasive collecting all of the data of all the French. Yet they still weren't able to see this coming."" We wanted to gauge whether the French system is far more invasive than the one in the United States. Mass surveillance 101 The key U.S. surveillance laws include the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, passed in 1978, and the USA Patriot Act, which was passed in 2002 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Portions of these laws have been variously reauthorized and revised, but the most relevant parts for analyzing Paul’s claim have to do with two broad topics: the process for eavesdropping on specific targets, and the collection of ""bulk"" metadata, which is information about the timing and frequency of electronic communications but not the content. France had already been engaged in bulk data collection on a scale similar to or even more expansive than the United States, according a 2013 report by leading French newspaper Le Monde. But this year -- between the Jan. 7 terrorist attack on magazine Charlie Hebdo and the Nov. 13 attacks across Paris -- France clarified its policy with the passage of a new law on surveillance. The controversial law was initially passed in June and upheld in August by France’s Constitutional Council with some limited revisions. Where the two countries’ surveillance programs are similar The French approach mirrors that of the U.S. approach in several ways. The French law requires Internet and telecommunications companies to install ""black boxes"" that vacuum up raw data about users that can be searched by computerized algorithm. This is broadly similar to the once-secret data-collection program known as PRISM, which came to light due to revelations by whistleblower Edward Snowden. (The current status of the bulk data collection program is somewhat murky; authorization for bulk data collection expired on June 1, 2015, and then was extended by lawmakers for six months on an interim basis to facilitate transition to a new system. That period has just ended.) In addition, French law enforcement can seek permission to eavesdrop on specific targets, and that means that people who interact with those approved targets can have their communications scrutinized in that process as well, whether or not they themselves are suspected of being involved in illegal activities. This mechanism is broadly similar to the one in the United States. And French law enforcement, like U.S. law enforcement, has the ability under the law to conduct ""warrantless"" wiretaps that sidestep prior judicial approval, at least in some cases. Finally, critics of both countries’ laws have said they both contain inadequate provisions for transparency and whistleblower activities. Snowden has previously said that weak whistleblower protections helped convince him to go public about the National Security Agency’s activities rather than following official protest channels. These similarities aside, there are at least five ways in which France’s system is arguably more muscular than the one in the United States. Where the French system goes further than the United States’ system • Judicial review. Under the United States’ Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, law enforcement officials must go to a special judicial court to receive permission to conduct electronic surveillance of American citizens. Historically, law enforcement officials have generally gotten what they’ve wanted from the court, leading critics to question how much of a hurdle this is. Still, the fact that members of the judiciary are passing judgment on the government’s requests does provide at least a modicum of independent oversight. By contrast, under the French system’s analogous body, only a minority of members of the National Commission for the Control of Intelligence Techniques -- six of 13 -- are judges. Another six are legislators and the last is a technical expert. The panel can be overruled by the prime minister. ""Because there is no opportunity for independent and neutral judges to decide whether surveillance of a particular target is justified (in the French system), there is a heightened risk that government officials might engage in improper monitoring,"" wrote Nathan A. Sales, a Syracuse University law professor in an analysis commissioned by the bar association of Paris while the law was being debated. Sales held senior positions in the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush and was involved in the drafting of the Patriot Act. • Lack of ""minimization."" The United States’ system takes steps, albeit imperfect ones, to focus intelligence collection on suspicious behavior, thereby ""minimizing"" the amount of unrelated data swept up. These can involve restricting who can see the information, how long it may be retained, and whether or how it can be disseminated, Sales wrote. By contrast, the French system has few if any such protections, Sales wrote. He suggested an area of particular concern is a ""lack (of) any limits on the monitoring of privileged communications between attorneys and their clients."" • Search and seizure. One of the more contentious parts of the Patriot Act has involved delayed-notification searches -- that is, searches of properties in which the target not only isn’t present but is not even notified about the search until well after it takes place. These are sometimes called ""sneak and peek"" searches, or ""sneak and steal"" when it involves seizing and removing items from the location. These types of searches existed before the Patriot Act, but their use was tightly constrained; the Patriot Act loosened the rules. The French system, meanwhile, permits even more expansive action for tracking data and communications during such searches than the United States does, critics say. Under the French law, bugs, cameras and keystroke loggers could be planted during such searches, according to multiple media reports. • Location-based surveillance. The French law allows the use of devices variously known as ""proximity sensors,"" ""cell site simulators,"" ""IMSI catchers"" or ""Stingrays."" Rather than targeting surveillance on a specific person, these devices allow surveillance of cellphone calls and text messages at a given location. Privacy advocates say this technology is likely to capture communications by uninvolved bystanders. In the United States, it is Justice Department policy to seek a FISA probable-cause warrant before using such techniques. On paper, at least, that appears to be a tougher hurdle than what the French law includes. • Going beyond terrorism. The Patriot Act includes terrorism in its title (it’s the final ""t"" in the acronym ""patriot""), and at the FISA court, the government must show that the target is an ""agent of a foreign power,"" which has generally been interpreted to mean a spy or a terrorist. By contrast, the French law includes some broader justifications for action, including protecting France’s ""economic, industrial and scientific interests"" and prevention of ""organized delinquency."" ""In general, I think it’s accurate to say that French surveillance law is more permissive than U.S. surveillance law,"" Sales said in an interview. Bob Turner, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law, agreed. ""Our system is far more respectful of individual rights,"" Turner said. ""The French have no equivalent to the Fourth Amendment (protection against search and seizure), and both law enforcement and intelligence services routinely collect data that would require a warrant here."" Our ruling Paul said that ""in France, they have a (surveillance) program a thousandfold more invasive"" than the United States.’ "" The term ""a thousandfold"" is impossible to measure and is presumably a rhetorical flourish on Paul’s part. Still, we found five notable areas in which the French system offers law enforcement and government officials more unfettered tools than American officials have the ability to use."
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10242
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Bitter Taste Receptors Found in Lungs May Aid Asthma Patients
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"At least the University that issued the news release must be happy. For comparison, an Associated Press story at least gave some context by saying ""that discovery might one day lead to better treatments for diseases such as asthma"" and that the research team ""hopes to begin tests in humans within a year."" We didn’t get that from this story. Readers should expect journalists to do independent reporting to vet research claims that are made – even those from university news researchers. That didn’t happen in this story."
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false
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"Not applicable. Despite how unclear the story is about what an early stage of research this is in, it IS very early – too early to project drug costs. So we can’t criticize the story for not discussing costs. But we can’t praise it for being so unclear about the early research either. The story merely stated that ""The researchers tested different bitter compounds on human and mouse airways, individual airway smooth muscle cells, and on mice with asthma. They found that these compounds all opened lung airways more profoundly than current drugs."" It’s not clear from that statement how the human airway testing was done, nor how significant the opening was. There was no discussion of potential harms from the predicted ""completely new approach."" This is the core of our criticism. There is not one word of caution about jumping to conclusions from such early research. The final sentence admits the research is ""preliminary"" but no context is given for what that means and no caveats are provided about what is still unknown or what could go wrong between this stage and eventual – possible – drug development and human use. The story includes none of the material from the news release – upon which it’s clearly based – that would have given some idea of the extent of the problem with asthma and COPD. Because it doesn’t give any such background about asthma or lung problems, we rule this not applicable. There was no perspective given from any independent expert. There was no comparision with existing drugs – only the prediction that ""This could replace or enhance what is now in use, and represents a completely new approach."" The opening line says the ""finding might lead to improved treatments"" but there is never anything more substantive than that to help readers understand how far from human use this idea may be. In fact, a researcher’s quote – taken from a news release – may even confuse readers into thinking this is imminent when he is allowed to say ""New drugs…are needed. This could replace or enhance what is now in use and represents a completely new approach."" When? Now? Tomorrow? Next year? What hurdles are yet to be cleared? The story gives no context for how this research fits into the broader picture of research in this field. The story appears to be just a rewrite of a university news release with no independent reporting."
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6872
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Congolese boy dies in US after surgery for facial tumor.
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A Congolese boy who traveled to Los Angeles to undergo surgery to remove a large tumor on his face died late Friday after having an adverse reaction to anesthesia.
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true
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Los Angeles, Health, Tumors, North America, Africa
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The Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which co-sponsored 8-year-old Matadi Sela Petit’s travels and medical procedures, announced his death Saturday on social media. The foundation headed by the former NBA star said that during the delicate surgery on Dec. 16, the boy suffered a rare and unexpected genetic reaction to anesthesia. “Despite the diligent efforts of his medical caregivers, Matadi did not recover and he passed away last night,” the statement said. Calls to the foundation and doctors at the Osborne Head and Neck Institute were not immediately returned Saturday. In photos and videos posted on Instagram, Mutombo greeted the boy when he arrived at the airport with his father and accompanied him to a medical appointment. Matadi was born with a cleft lip and a tumor on one side of his cheeks that grew into the size of a balloon. “We are devastated by the loss of Matadi and our heart goes out to his father, his mother and the rest of his family, and all his old and new friends,” the statement said. “We are comforted by the knowledge that a whole ‘village’ adopted Matadi and joined forces to offer him treatment that was not available in the Democratic Republic of Congo and which would have given him the opportunity to have a new and different life.”
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28710
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President Obama signed a law permanently protecting the federal funding of Planned Parenthood.
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"What's true: A rule change proposed by the Obama administration forbids states from withholding Title X funding for family planning providers for any reason other than an inability to provide services effectively, thus banning attempts to defund providers (like Planned Parenthood) that also offer abortion services; the new rule goes into effect on 18 January 2017. What's false: The rule change, which is only ""permanent"" until this or another administration decides to revise it again, was enacted by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and does not require President Obama's signature to go into effect."
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mixture
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Politics, barack obama, christian news, planned parenthood
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In September 2016, the Obama administration proposed a rule change in the Title X Family Planning Program, which allocates federal funds to state and local agencies for distribution to organizations providing contraception and other non-abortion-related family planning services. The rule change would prevent those agencies from withholding funds for any reason other than an inability to provide those services effectively. According to the New York Times, the revision was aimed at stopping organized efforts to defund Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it provides abortion services in addition to those specified under Title X: Opponents of Planned Parenthood in recent years have cut funding to the organization that goes through the Title X Family Planning Program, which provides federal money for services like contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screenings. (Like all federal programs, it is largely barred from paying for abortions.) State and local governments distribute that money to health care providers, and at least 14 states took actions to cut the share they direct to Planned Parenthood. [T]he Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule that could stop states from doing this. The rule would make clear that state governments must apportion Title X funds based on a provider’s ability to perform family planning services effectively — not on other factors like whether a provider also offers abortions. Pro-life advocates such as Tennessee Rep. Diane Black, a member of the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives, attacked the proposed rule as an example of “political favoritism” on the part of the Obama administration, according to a Christian News report: “This latest stunt from President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services should surprise absolutely no one,” she said in a statement. … “We’ve known all along that the Obama Administration will go to untold lengths to protect its friends in the big abortion industry.” Black outlined she plans to write a letter explaining why a number of members of Congress oppose the move. “We must use the full force of Congress and the grassroots strength of the national pro-life movement to defeat this absurd rule and prevent the Obama Administration from acting unilaterally to carry out political favors and prop up a scandal-ridden abortion provider,” she stated. The Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) contended that the the revision is necessary to remedy the “deleterious effects” of funding restrictions imposed by states for reasons other than the ability to provide covered services: In the past several years, a number of states have taken actions to restrict participation by certain types of providers as subrecipients in the Title X Program, unrelated to the provider’s ability to provide the services required under Title X. In at least several instances, this has led to disruption of services or reduction of services. Since 2011, 13 states have placed restrictions on or eliminated subawards with specific types of providers based on reasons unrelated to their ability to provide required services in an effective manner. When the state health department is a Title X recipient, these restrictions on subrecipient participation can apply. In several instances, these restrictions have interfered with the “capacity [of the applicant] to make rapid and effective use of [Title X federal] assistance.” PHSA sec. 1001(b). Moreover, states that restrict eligibility of subrecipients have caused limitations in the geographic distribution of services, and decreased access to services through trusted and qualified providers. States have restricted subrecipients from participating in the Title X program in several ways. Some states have employed a tiered approach to compete or distribute Title X funds, whereby entities such as comprehensive primary care providers, state health departments, or community health centers receive a preference in the distribution of Title X funds. This approach effectively excludes providers focused on reproductive health from receiving funds, even though they have been shown to provide higher quality services, such as preconception services, and accomplish Title X programmatic objectives more effectively. The one thing all parties seem to agree on is that the proposed change would indeed stop local and state agencies from blocking the funding of family planning providers for any reason other than effectiveness. Contrary to what was reported, however, the revision, which was finalized on 19 December 2016 by the Department of Health and Human Services, does not go into effect until 18 January 2017.
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7600
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SC vows to ramp up COVID-19 testing; first in nursing homes.
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South Carolina health officials vow over the next two months to more than triple the number of coronavirus tests performed in the state.
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true
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Columbia, Henry McMaster, General News, Business, South Carolina, Nursing homes, Virus Outbreak, Public health
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The promise comes as state officials lift restrictions on businesses and experts saying a further return to normal for schools and larger gatherings can only happen with large amounts of testing and the ability to trace back anyone an infected person had significant contact with in the past two weeks. “The virus was chasing us. But now we are turning the table and chasing the virus,” Gov. Henry McMaster said Thursday as the Department of Health and Environmental Control announced the ramp up in testing. DHEC wants to test 2% of the population — or about 110,000 people — in both May and June, said the agency’s new Public Health Director Dr. Joan Duwve. The state has been at the bottom of rates of testing compared to the population. But health officials said that was because the federal government was sending testing supplies to the hardest hit areas. Many of the May tests will go to nursing homes. Beginning Monday, a private lab will be paid $2.5 million out of the agency’s emergency funds to test all 40,000 residents and workers in South Carolina’s 169 nursing homes. Those facilities have already seen about 12% of all the state’s coronavirus cases and 28% of all deaths, DHEC said. Workers and residents can opt out of testing. “We’re not going to hold anyone down and require they be tested,” Duwve said. Outside of nursing homes, DHEC plans to expand testing into nearly two dozen places it has identified as hot spots or potential hot spots. Several of the free testing clinics that take anyone have already started or will soon in the suburbs northeast of Columbia, where ZIP codes of the highest COVID-19 infections rates in the state are found. The testing is being paired with a public campaign to try to stem an unusually high number of cases among blacks. African Americans make up about 27% of South Carolina’s population, but 44% of the coronavirus cases and 46% of the deaths, according to DHEC statistics. Several black legislators are welcoming and sponsoring the testing in and near their district, but say the racial disparity in the virus is just a reflection of bigger problems, like South Carolina’s refusal to expand Medicaid. “It’s not that African Americans are more susceptible to dying from COVID-19. It’s African Americans have a larger history of health disparities,” said Rep. Kambrell Garvin, a Democrat from Columbia. DHEC also said it is hiring nearly 1,000 people called contact tracers that will investigate infected people to figure out who they had close contact with in the past two weeks so they can also be isolated and kept from spreading the disease. Another component, antibody testing to see if someone has had the virus, is still months away and at the moment might not tell much, Duwve said. “They can’t tell you If you will never get sick again. We just don’t have that information,” she said. There have been nearly 7,150 cases of the coronavirus confirmed in South Carolina, and 316 deaths, according to DHEC’s Thursday update. The economic toll of the virus also keeps spreading. Nearly 47,000 people in South Carolina filed new unemployment claims for the week ending May 2, the Department of Employment and Workforce announced Thursday. It did mark third week the total claims have fallen, from a high of 89,000. But the more than 450,000 unemployment claims filed in the seven weeks since the COVID-19 pandemic started represent around 19% of the state’s workforce. The state has paid $831 million in jobless claims, the agency said. ___ Follow Jeffrey Collins on Twitter at https://twitter.com/JSCollinsAP. ___ Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak.
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33161
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One fart burns 67 calories.
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If you take a moment to think about this, the answer is rather obvious: none! When you fart, your muscles relax and the gas pressure in your bowels do all the work in expelling the gas. The only way you would achieve a measureable figure in the calories burned farting is if you really strained yourself to the limit.
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false
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Medical, farting, weight loss
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In mid-November 2015, many Internet users became aware that Google returned an interesting search result to those who asked the search engine if farting burned calories: Although Google may return the results shown above to such a query, the source the search engine cited for this information, a Facebook page called “F A C T,” does not offer any evidence proving this claim. In fact, the only source provided by “F A C T” was Google itself: “Google is your friend if you think these facts are false.” The Facebook page “F A C T,” however, didn’t pull this number out of thin air. The claim that a single fart burns approximately 67 calories has been floating around the internet since at least 2009, when an Internet troll responded to a question on ChaCha thusly: How many calories does farting burn? The amount of calories burned by farting would depend on how long the fart lasts and how much energy you use to do it. Some people believe you can burn up to 67 calories by releasing gas. It should be noted that similar inquiries posed via ChaCha also prompted answers of less than one calorie, not very many calories, and no calories. So how many calories do you burn during a single fart? Unsurprisingly, we weren’t able to uncover much scientific research on the subject. But according to a post on the web site Fat Loss School, the number is much lower than 67: Some people get a bit desperate when it comes to weight loss. They start wondering which of their daily activities burns enough calories to warrant increasing the frequency. We get questions about calorie consumption in a host of different scenarios. But perhaps the strangest question posed to date is: how many calories do you burn by farting?
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10808
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Pomegranate juice could help kidney patients
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Early and frequent caveats such as: the findings have not yet been vetted by independent experts the study needs to be replicated by other centers the researchers were only able to rule out chance as the cause of the reduction in the second visit to the hospital (one of the findings reported). It also made excellent use of two independent and skeptical experts. It also appropriately used absolute risk reduction figures, not just the more impressive-sounding relative risk reductions. There’s been so much hype of pomegranate juice. It is refreshing and important to see a journalist tell the story but to do with facts and data – and with independent perspectives – rather than becoming a marketing arm of the juice industry.
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true
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Diet studies,Kidney Disease,Reuters Health
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The story included a price estimate for one brand of pomegranate juice – about $4 for a 16 oz. bottle. Good use of absolute risk reduction: “According to the findings, among 50 patients drinking pomegranate juice for a year, about two would have to go to the hospital at least twice. By comparison, that number would be nearly 11 in patients not drinking the juice.” Good job. The story states that the “team had found no side effects, but added that kidney patients should be aware of the high potassium content in the juice, given the delicate balance of nutrients in their blood, and talk to their doctor if they consider drinking it.” Strong evaluation of the evidence, including several caveats and perspectives of skeptical independent experts. The story also emphasized: There was no disease mongering in the story. Quotes from two skeptical independent experts made this a solid piece. Again, the Marion Nestle concluding quote was key: “Pomegranate juices — like most if not all fruit and vegetable juices — have antioxidant activity. Does this make pomegranates better than any other fruit? Investigators have yet to show this.” Not applicable. The availability of pomegranate juice is not in question. Good job on this, citing research over at the last 3 years, but also concluding with this quote from Marion Nestle: “This study does not demonstrate anything special about pomegranate juice.The effects of juice were compared to a placebo, not to any other kind of juice that might have exactly the same effect. …The pomegranate people are spending millions to prove what I could have told them in the first place. Pomegranate juices — like most if not all fruit and vegetable juices — have antioxidant activity. Does this make pomegranates better than any other fruit? Investigators have yet to show this.” It’s clear that the story did not rely solely or largely on a news release.
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1461
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Stephen Hawking's thesis, wheelchair heading for auction.
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From a copy of his PhD thesis to his wheelchair, items belonging to Stephen Hawking are headed for auction, offering fans of the late British physicist famed for his work exploring the origins of the universe a chance to buy some of his possessions.
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true
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Science News
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Known for his acclaimed research on black holes, the wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffered from motor neurone disease and used an electronic voice synthesizer, died in March at the age of 76. “On the Shoulders of Giants”, which also features documents penned by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, will feature 22 lots from Hawking’s estate, including one of five known copies of his PhD thesis, “Properties of expanding universes”, estimated at 100,000-150,000 pounds ($127,480 - $191,220). “Stephen Hawking was a huge personality worldwide. He had this amazing ability to connect with people,” Thomas Venning, head of the Books and Manuscripts department at auction house Christie’s London, told Reuters. “The whole idea...was to provide something that was accessible to his admirers so that people could connect with him and remember his extraordinary story.” Also up for sale are a copy of Hawking’s best-selling book “A Brief History of Time” signed with his thumb print, estimated between 2,000 and 3,000 pounds, as well as awards and medals given to the scientist, priced at 10,000-15,000 pounds. Other documents, an invitation for a reception for “Time Travellers” as well as a motorized wheelchair Hawking used, are also being sold in the Oct. 31 - Nov. 8 online auction. It has already attracted interest from Asia, the Middle East, the United States and Australia, according to Venning. “(Hawking) traveled across the world and he has fans in the U.S., he has fans in Asia,” he said.
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6684
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NIH cancer chief to serve as acting FDA commissioner.
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The head of the National Cancer Institute will temporarily take charge of the Food and Drug Administration next month after the departure of its current chief.
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true
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Health, Business, U.S. News, Alex Azar, Cancer
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The appointment Tuesday of Dr. Ned Sharpless comes a week after Scott Gottlieb unexpectedly announced his resignation. Sharpless currently heads the National Institutes of Health’s cancer division, which directs billions in federal funding and grants for research. His name has been circulated as one of several government officials likely to succeed Gottlieb on a permanent basis. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the search for a new FDA commissioner is underway. The FDA’s top official is nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate, typically following public hearings before health lawmakers. Last Tuesday, Gottlieb said he would step in down in April after less than two years leading the FDA, a massive public health agency that regulates the food, drug, medical device and tobacco industries, among others. He was widely viewed as one of President Donald Trump’s most effective administrators, serving as a key messenger on the federal response to rising drug prices, the opioid epidemic and underage use of e-cigarettes. Gottlieb said he wants to spend more time with his family after commuting weekly to Washington from his home in Connecticut. During his tenure, Gottlieb launched a series of ambitious public health initiatives, including a plan to make cigarettes less addictive by drastically cutting nicotine levels. But that plan and many others have barely progressed beyond the earliest stages, raising questions about their timeline and prospects for completion. FDA commissioners report to the White House, but generally have broad leeway to choose their priorities. Sharpless has publicly supported FDA’s efforts to more tightly regulate tobacco and crack down on underage vaping. E-cigarettes are generally viewed as less harmful than traditional tobacco products, but they usually contain nicotine which can harm the adolescent brain. Some research also suggests that teenagers who use e-cigarettes are more likely to try regular cigarettes. Sharpless has led the National Cancer Institute since October 2017. He previously was a professor and administrator at the University of North Carolina, where he also earned his medical degree in 1993. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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33816
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After collapsing at a post-concert party, a rock star was rushed to an emergency room, where doctors pumped a pint of semen out of his (or her) stomach.
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Although this tale is rarely related as a belief tale these days (i.e., the tellers generally realize they’re passing on something that’s merely a wild story and not an account of an actual occurrence, even if they continue to claim the latter), similar tales about a girl who inadvertently blurts out an embarrassing question in a biology class and a girl who has an unfortunate mishap with a hot dog are still widely related as true events.
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false
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Risqué Business, homosexuality, music
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Good legends never die; they simply morph to fit the changing times. Way back when, in less sexually open times, the guys in high school who weren’t getting any (which was most of them) would tell salacious and spiteful tales about those ubiquitous symbols of youthful sexual desire: cheerleaders. If you couldn’t have them, the next best thing was to dismiss them as tawdry sluts of easy virtue so lacking in moral that they would perform disgusting sexual acts (e.g., oral sex) on an entire football team a la Clara Bow. As in all good “sour grapes” tales, these tarts got their comeuppance when their deviant behavior caused them to fall ill, requiring trips to the hospital where astonishing amounts of semen were pumped from their stomachs, revealing their nasty little sexual proclivities to the world. (They didn’t just suck; they swallowed, too!) When the concepts of teenage sex and oral sex began to lose their power to titillate and shock, the target of the legend changed to the new symbols of debauchery and excess: rock stars. In that incarnation the disapproved element of homosexuality was added, as the tale began to be told only about male rock stars, specifically those rumored to be something less than 100% heterosexual — primarily Elton John and Rod Stewart — but with all the same details (the collapse, the trip to the emergency room, the pumping of copious amount of seminal fluid from the stomach) intact: Last week Elton John collapsed at a party, and had to have his stomach pumped. They extracted more then a gallon of semen, I swear to god its true. Never mind that the amount of semen supposedly pumped out of the subject generally exceeded the capacity of even the largest of stomachs, would have required continuously performing blow jobs for about three days straight to ingest, that semen [in any quantity] isn’t toxic, and that someone who ingested too much would at worst feel nauseated for a little while or throw up but wouldn’t be subjected to stomach-pumping. Plausibility has never been a barrier to the spread of popular urban legends. The following people have had this legend attributed to them: Rod Stewart, Elton John, David Bowie, Marc Almond, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Jeff Beck, Jon Bon Jovi, the drummer for Bon Jovi, the lead singer for New Kids on the Block, the Bay City Rollers (what, all of them? ), Alanis Morrissette, Li’l Kim, Foxy Brown, Britney Spears, and Fiona Apple. The amount of ejaculate retireved from the star’s stomach is often specified, such as 7 ounces, 1 gallon, 10 gallons. In his 2012 autobiography, singer Rod Stewart attributed the connection of his name with this legend to rumors spread by a disgruntled assistant: [Stewart] claims his one-time sidekick Tony Toon made up the tale after he was fired for taking a male lover back to a hotel room he was sharing with the star’s seven-year-old stepson. Toon accompanied Stewart and his then-wife Alana on a vacation in Hawaii, and the hotel was overbooked. The assistant and Alana’s son wound up sharing a room. Stewart explained, “We had our children Sean and Kimberly in a room with us, and we asked Toon to share a room with Alana’s son Ashley, who was then seven. Toon, of course, couldn’t resist pulling some bloke in the bar that evening and taking him back to the room. I fired him in the morning. “Toon’s revenge was absolutely inspired. He fed the press a story in which, as a consequence of an evening spent orally servicing a gang of sailors in a gay bar in San Diego, I had been required to check into a hospital emergency room to have my stomach pumped … I have never orally pleasured even a solitary sailor, let alone a ship’s worth in one evening. And I have never had my stomach pumped, either of naval-issue semen or of any other kind of semen. “With minor variations … this story has stayed with me ever since. Say what you like about Tony Toon — and God rest his soul — but he was good at his job.” Nowadays this legend keeps resurfacing, attributed to whatever singer (male or female) is currently disliked for being too popular or too lightweight or too cute (frequently teenage singers with legions of fawning adolescent fans, such as the New Kids on the Block or Britney Spears). Some versions still attempt to shock (rather than simply denigrate their targets) by including elements of bestiality. (That is, in some tellings the stomach contents are said to have included dog semen, as if sperm typing were a category of test a hospital would routinely perform under the circumstances.)
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9372
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FDA expands use of Novartis MS drug to pediatric patients
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This incredibly short news brief reported on the FDA’s expanded approval of a drug for relapsing multiple sclerosis called Gilenya (fingolimid) to treat children and adolescents 10 and older. The drug was previously approved for use in adults. This news flash was targeted at investors and addressed the availability and novelty of this drug. Still, we think it should have gone beyond what was contained in an FDA news release to mention the high cost and potential harms of this drug along with the limited evidence about its long-term safety and effectiveness in young people. We’ve written about how MS patients can be harmed when news media outlets take news releases about treatments at face value, without exploring the limitations of the evidence. This is a case in point. There’s no cure for MS, an inflammatory, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communication between the brain and other parts of the body. It’s hoped that new drugs may be able to prevent episodes of worsening function and appearance of new symptoms, called relapses, which may lead to progressive declines in function and greater disability. News reports should offer cautious reporting. That’s particularly true with drugs such as this one, which was approved via the FDA’s Breakthrough Therapy designation, an accelerated review process that allows approvals of drugs for serious conditions based on preliminary evidence that they might offer a substantial improvement over existing therapies.
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false
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Multiple sclerosis
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There was no cost data. Gilenya costs $8,210 for a 30-day supply, according to the web site drugs.com. The story stated: In a clinical trial 86 percent of patients receiving Gilenya remained relapse-free after 24 months of treatment, compared to 46 percent of those who were administered another MS drug. However, it didn’t explain how many relapses patients in either groups experienced, so readers can’t tell how much of an impact these drugs actually had. No potential harms were mentioned. The FDA said side effects of Gilenya in pediatric trial participants were “similar to those seen in adults,” with the most common being headache, liver enzyme elevation, diarrhea, cough, flu, sinusitis, back pain, abdominal pain and pain in extremities. The FDA added there are other serious risks with the drug including slowing heart rate, infections including a rare brain infection, vision problems, swelling and narrowing of the blood vessels in the brain, respiratory problems, liver injury, increased blood pressure and skin cancer, as well as potential harm to a developing fetus. The story didn’t give a sense of the strength of evidence behind this drug. For example, it didn’t tell readers what the comparison drug was in the trial, nor how many children were in the trial. According to the FDA, the clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of Gilenya in treating pediatric patients with MS included 214 patients aged 10 to 17 and compared it to the drug interferon beta-1a. Novartis said it was the first clinical trial of the drug specifically designed for children and adolescents with relapsing MS. The story also could have mentioned that it’s unclear whether the frequency of relapses will accurately predict a patient’s degree of disability years later. The story stated that MS is “among the most common causes of neurological disability in young adults,” but numbers would have helped. According to the FDA, 2-5% of people with MS get symptoms before age 18 and its estimated that 8,000 to 10,000 children and adolescents in the U.S. have MS. There were no independent sources, and the fact that Novartis funded the study to support the FDA approval isn’t mentioned. The story mentioned that Gilenya was compared with another drug, but it doesn’t go into specifics. It also doesn’t mention that corticosteroid medications can be used to reduce inflammation. The story mentioned that Gilenya has already been approved to treat adults with MS. However, it would have been stronger it had mentioned that the expanded indication is for ages 10 and older. The story reported that Gilenya is the first FDA-approved drug to treat pediatric patients suffering from relapsing MS. This appears to be accurate. The story appears to have relied solely on the news release. But it was less informative and had fewer details than the news release.
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10945
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Yoga helps treatment, study finds
|
Yoga is not new, but yoga for people in active cancer treatment is a relatively new strategy. The story reported a scientific study of the effect of yoga on quality of life for women undergoing breast cancer treatment. The story provides a good description of study design and some quantification of the benefits of treatment. Self-rated scores of well-being and physical stamina were higher in the yoga group vs. the group without a twice-a-week yoga class. Biophysical markers of stress and immune function are also being measured. The impact of “getting together” with a group of women in similar circumstances cannot be overlooked, and this study could not be blinded, so the women in the yoga group were aware they were in the “active” arm of the trial. This could have a strong placebo effect.The proposed study assigning one group to stretching and another to yoga will further evaluate the meditative value of group yoga for breast cancer patients. The cost of yoga classes is not mentioned. While yoga is generally inexpensive and can be practiced with little to no equipment, it may not feel inexpensive to many people (particularly for the many women in the over 65 population at highest risk for breast cancer and living on a fixed income). The story mentions alternative treatments to yoga as simple stretching, however, the story could have included more information on strategies to feel well during active cancer treatment. This might include other complementary alternative therapies (e.g. massage, acupuncture), physical therapy, talk therapy, cancer support groups, etc. Yoga is gentle and has little potential for harm, but women interested in pursuing this during breast cancer treatment should check with their oncologist before embarking on a yoga program, particularly if they have had more extensive surgery than simple lumpectomy. When lifting heavy weight (including body weight) there is the possibility of worsening arm lymphedema, excess fluid which collects in tissue and causes swelling in some women who have been treated with axillary node dissection surgery and radiation. The initial results of this pilot study were presented at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting; they have yet to be peer-reviewed in a medical journal. Overall, this was a generally well-written and reported piece.
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true
|
The cost of yoga classes is not mentioned. While yoga is generally inexpensive and can be practiced with little to no equipment, it may not feel inexpensive to many people (particularly for the many women in the over 65 population at highest risk for breast cancer and living on a fixed income). Many women have difficulty paying for their medication. Although a DVD or VHS yoga tape may be relatively inexpensive, we don’t know that this intervention would have the same results. The story provides some quantification of the benefits of treatment. The report was quite clear that self-reported outcomes were improved, not including anxiety and depression. The researchers are awaiting further quantitative data on immune function and stress levels via blood and saliva samples in both groups. No mention of the harms of yoga. Yoga is gentle and has little potential for harm, but women interested in pursuing this during breast cancer treatment should certainly check in with their oncologist before embarking on a yoga program, particularly if they have had more extensive surgery than simple lumpectomy.When postures are performed incorrectly, there is the potential for physical injury. Also not mentioned was the possibility of worsening arm lymphedema, excess fluid which collects in tissue and causes swelling in women who have been treated with axillary node dissection and radiation as part of breast cancer surgery. Women with lymphedema would need to be especially careful so that they would not hurt their affected arm. They may also need to avoid certain postures, as lifting heavy weight (including body weight) may worsen lymphedema. The story provides details of the study design and discusses how the effect of yoga was measured in two randomized groups of women treated for breast cancer. The comment by Dr. Alan Kristal, an epidemiologist not affiliated with the study, appropriately notes that scientific studies of yoga’s medical benefits are rare, but necessary. The proposed future study assigning one group to stretching and another to yoga will further evaluate if the meditative component of yoga is of value, or if the increased feelings of well-being are due to the physical movement involved in the postures. The impact of “getting together” with a group of women in similar circumstances cannot be overlooked. Also, this study could not be blinded, so the women in the yoga group were aware they were in the “active” arm of the trial. This could have a strong placebo effect. No evidence of disease mongering. Yoga is presented as a complementary mind-body intervention to reduce some of the fatigue (mental and physical) of breast cancer treatment. The story mentions that Dr. Lorenzo Cohen is the lead author of the pilot study on yoga to improve quality of life during breast cancer treatment. Dr. Cohen would have little to gain from this study or by promoting yoga. The story mentions alternative treatments to yoga as simple stretching. However, the story could have included more information on strategies to feel well during active cancer treatment. This might include other complememtary alternative therapies (e.g. massage, accupuncture), physical therapy, talk therapy, cancer support groups, etc. Not enough information was presented. Although it is not explicitly stated in this story, yoga is a form of exercise and meditation available to most people. Yoga is accessible in most areas of the country, although transportation to classes might be a barrier for some. Although books or video on yoga instruction would broaden availability, this was a story about a study of in-person instruction, which would probably have different results than an “in home” program. Yoga is not new, but yoga for people in active cancer treatment is a relatively new strategy. There is no evidence this story is taken from a press release. The results of this pilot study were recently presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, and a source other than the study author is cited.
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704
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Indonesia's ragtag firefighters on frontline of Borneo's forest blazes.
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From soon after sunrise, a group of volunteers gathers every day on Indonesia’s portion of Borneo island to throw themselves into the desperate fight against the worst forest fires in years.
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true
|
Environment
|
But the firefighters in the once verdant district of Pulang Pisau often have only makeshift equipment, with little more than face masks to protect against choking smoke from the blazes. “We can’t afford to provide fireproof suits for the volunteers, so they wear what they own, but the important thing is to ensure their safety,” said Mulyadi, a military officer overseeing the effort. (Click reut.rs/2mrnvad for a picture package on the firefighters tackling Borneo's blazes) The volunteers, often clad in sandals or trainers, line up in military fashion alongside others from the army, police, the disaster mitigation agency and non-government bodies, such as Greenpeace, for a briefing on the day’s tasks. The fires have sent a choking smog across Borneo and Indonesia’s island of Sumatra, as well as the neighboring nations of Malaysia and Singapore, carried by shifting winds. This year’s hot spots are the most numerous since devastating blazes in 2015, as an El Nino weather pattern exacerbates the annual dry spell. Indonesia has sent more than 29,000 military, police and disaster agency personnel, along with 34 water-bombing helicopters, to fight the fires, its disaster agency has said. Yudi Oktama, 21, said he had spent about two months as a volunteer, popularly referred to by the abbreviation “satgas”, for “satuan tugas”, or task force in Indonesian, and received a stipend of 100,000 rupiah ($7) a day. Saleh Hendra, 41, another volunteer, said the hardest part of the job was trying to tackle stubborn fires on peatland, which is especially flammable and can repeatedly reignite. “There is more sorrow than happiness (in this work),” he said, describing long days in the field that often force the volunteers to skip Muslim Friday prayers. Asked if he was afraid, he responded, “What else can we do? The fear is there but we’re concerned because of our families.” The role of volunteers includes educating residents on ways to avoid slash-and-burn clearance of new land for plantations, a practice often blamed for the fires.The district in Indonesia’s province of Central Kalimantan on Borneo is home to 126,000 people, and about a fifth of its 95 villages are vulnerable to forest fires in the dry season. It is often a struggle to find water to pour on the flames, as more than half the area’s 9,000 wells were dry, said Mulyadi, who uses only one name. Some residents use buckets of water to douse flames threatening their homes, often marooned in scorched areas of gnarled and charred tree trunks. As night falls, firefighters don headlamps, flashlights, or fall back on just the torch on their handphones to illuminate their path. In the provincial capital of Palangkaraya, the air pollution index has hovered above 500 for days, a level that environment officials classify as dangerous. “The air quality is similar to inhaling 50 cigarettes at the same time,” said Sumarni Laman, a volunteer at the city’s Ranu Welum Foundation, who works to preserve the culture of the region’s Dayak people and protect forests. Shopkeeper Risa Astrinova said she worried about the health of her six-year-old, who suffers from asthma. “I’m afraid for my son, he has just been discharged from the hospital last year,” added Astrinova, 31, who was forced to close her small shop for a week because of the smoke.
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36309
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"There were non-white mermaids in Disney's first ""The Little Mermaid"" media from the early 1990s."
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Disney, Ariel, and the ‘White Mermaids’ Dispute
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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In early July 2019, Haile Bailey’s casting as main character Ariel in a live-action reboot of Disney’s animated film The Little Mermaid caused controversy on social media, sparking a meme about another person of color having appeared in the original animated television series from the early 1990s.In the meme linked above, what appears to be a screenshot of The Little Mermaid is overlaid with the following text:Just so we’re clear, there are racists right now trying to use science to prove that mermaids, non-existent mythological characters, are white.By the way, meet Gabriella from the 1992 cartoon.The meme referenced various commenters on social media using pseudoscience to “prove” that mermaids — which by all accounts do not actually exist — can only be white, a number of tweets and other posts took exception to the selection of Bailey, who is a black woman, portraying Ariel. One argument held:My opinion on why mermaids are white is that they live so deep underwater that sunlight hardly reaches them, thus the lack of melanin. It doesn’t matter what ocean they’re from cos they could’ve been migrating seasonally like fishes. But maybe im thinking too much.And again:Mermaids live in ocean. Underwater = limited sunlight. Limited sunlight = less melanin. Less melanin = lighter skin color. Because they live underwater, which has no access to light beyond a certain depth, Ariel and every other mermaid in existence would be albinoBut a number of claims about Ariel’s purported canonical whiteness rested on the canon in Disney’s original The Little Mermaid, appealing to the purported lack of diversity in movies and shows produced by the company throughout the 1990s. In turn, memes appeared describing the purported existence of Gabriella, a friend of Ariel’s in the series.Prior to the announcement of Bailey’s casting as Ariel, a short video about Gabriella circulated on Facebook in March 2019:Gabriella was also mentioned in a December 2017 article, where she was described as deaf and Latina:For little girls of the 90s, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” was more than a box office sensation. It was an adventure into an another world, an introduction to romance, and an important lesson on why as women we need our voices. Yeah, ICYMI: “The Little Mermaid” was hopped up on all types of feminism.It was a huge deal. So much so that the studios launched a television series of the same name in 1993 that deep-dove even further into the adventures of Ariel’s life and lessons on girl power. Most importantly, the show introduced the production giant’s coolest representation of intersectional feminism of ALL time.In the television series “The Little Mermaid,” Gabriella was Ariel’s deaf Latina mermaid friend, AKA: Disney’s great educator of diversity.Gabriella’s entry on the Disney Fandom Wiki noted she appeared in the television version of The Little Mermaid in 1992:Gabriella is a recurring character in Disney’s 1992-93 television series The Little Mermaid. She is a deaf Latina mermaid who communicates in sign language; her friend Ollie, an octopus, serves as her interpreter. The character of Gabriella was based off of a girl who was a fan of the show but had died during the show’s first season.As mentioned in several of the above links, the character of Gabriella was modeled after a young fan of The Little Mermaid who died of leukemia:When 2-year-old Gabriella Angelina Bommino died of leukemia [in November 1992], her parents despaired that “we would never know what our daughter would look like when she was older,” her mother, Antonietta Bommino, said.Through the work of Disney animators, however, the Bommino family, along with a national television audience, on Saturday will see an artist’s impression of what Gabriella would have looked like as a teen-ager. The studio combined plans to introduce a hearing-impaired character in its CBS cartoon series “The Little Mermaid” with a tribute to the little girl who may have been mermaid Ariel’s biggest fan.“We didn’t have a name or a face for the character, and when we heard about Gabriella, it all fit together,” “Little Mermaid” writer and producer Patsy Cameron said. […]For five months [in 1992], while she endured painful bone-marrow tests and treatments, Gabriella watched the 1989 animated “The Little Mermaid” feature three or four times a day. It so happened that she was being treated at Children’s Hospital in San Diego and that Cameron had done volunteer work there as a teen-ager. Late last October, Cameron decided to visit the hospital and called the Child-Life Program offering to bring copies of a children’s book she’d written and “Little Mermaid” mementos … Cameron and her partners, Tedd Anasti and Jamie Mitchell, were so moved by Gabriella’s story and her affection for “The Little Mermaid” that they decided, with the Bomminos’ permission, to incorporate her in their series.In a sequence from the show, Ariel and Gabriella dance:The memes about Gabriella’s canonical appearance in 1992’s television The Little Mermaid are accurate. The character of Gabriella was a Latina mermaid modeled after a young fan of the film who died while the show was being developed, and despite the input from numerous self-styled internet pundits, living under the sea did not affect the melanin content of her skin.
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33889
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"The Roman orator Cicero issued a warning about a nation's being destroyed by ""treason from within."
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The application of the faux Cicero “treason” quotation to President Trump began before his Helsinki press conference with Putin, and this “Two thousand year old warning” meme appears to have first been posted in August 2017 by the anti-Trump Facebook page “Politicked.”
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false
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Questionable Quotes, donald trump
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In July 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump was the target of many critics who took umbrage with his appearing to take the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin over allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As Trump stood next to the Russian president at a press conference following a Russia–United States summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, Associated Press White House reporter Jonathan Lemire asked Trump whether he believed Putin’s denials about Russian interference in the election, or the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that such interference had indeed taken place. Trump replied that he didn’t “see any reason why it would be” Russia who meddled in the 2016 election, saying that “I have great confidence in my intelligence people,” but adding that “President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial, today”: President Trump later backtracked on his remark, asserting that he had intended to say “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia” who meddled in the election, and affirming that “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place”: However, by that time President Trump’s remarks in Helsinki had prompted a wave of criticisms, including from within the Republican party, with some observers even accusing President Trump of treason. Most prominently, John Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, maintained that Trump’s words and actions were “nothing short of treasonous”: Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you??? — John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) July 16, 2018 Democratic Congressman and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland endorsed Brennan’s description in comments he offered reporters, and the New York Daily News‘ front page carried the punning banner headline “OPEN TREASON”: . @realdonaldtrump derides reports with which he disagrees as “fake news,” then buys the Russian narrative hook, line, sinker, pole and boat. https://t.co/TGHurpVDKy An early look at Tuesday’s front… pic.twitter.com/BXsoZsIT4B — New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 16, 2018 Against that background, an old warning about a nation’s being destroyed by “treason from within,” purporting to be from the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (better known as “Cicero”), found popularity on social media after a Facebook page called “Impeach Trump, Impeach Pence, Keep Impeaching” posted it in the form of a meme on 14 July 2018, two days before the Helsinki summit: Although these words are now widely attributed to Cicero, in fact they originated in the 20th century, with novelist Taylor Caldwell’s 1965 book A Pillar of Iron. Even though that work often drew directly from the recorded speeches and letters of Cicero for its dialogue, it was nonetheless a work of fiction, and the warning from Cicero about “treason from within” was an invention of Caldwell’s and not a reproduction of Cicero’s own words. Context In one section, Caldwell wrote about the Cataline Conspiracy, a major event in the history of the Roman Republic in which a Senator named Lucius Sergius Catilina (known as “Catilina”) led a plot to set fire to the city of Rome and assassinate several high-ranking officials — including the republic’s two consuls, Cicero and Gaius Antonius Hybrida (known as “Hybrida”). The Roman republic was led by two executives, known as “consuls“, who were elected to one-year, non-consecutive terms by the Centuriate Assembly (composed of Roman citizens). The assembly elected Cicero and Hybrida to serve as consuls in 63 B.C.E, much to the resentment of Catilina, who had unsuccessfully campaigned for the same office. Cicero found out about Catilina’s conspiracy and, invoking emergency powers, had some of its leaders arrested and executed without trial. Catilina himself was killed in battle alongside his troops, while attempting a somewhat futile march on Rome. Five years later, a Roman politician named Publius Clodius Pulcher (“Clodius”) proposed a set of laws, including one which would make it punishable by death to execute any Roman citizen without trial. As a result, Cicero faced the prospect of being exiled from Rome, or even executed, over his earlier order to put to death the leaders of the Catiline conspiracy. These events prompted the imagined scene in which Caldwell put the words in question into Cicero’s mouth, as he defended his actions before the Senate: Catilina menaced Rome. That is now history. There was no time for the proper processes of law, as well, my lords, you know. Catilina should have taken any legal time to complete his plans, to fire Rome, to destroy her, to massacre tens of thousands, including many in this Senate, to have brought chaos and disaster to our country. The hour was desperate; moments were precious. There could be no delay. Rome must strike, or Catilina would. For this day’s work, lords, you have encouraged treason and opened the prison doors to free the traitors. A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the carrier of the plague. You have unbarred the gates of Rome to him. Cicero went into exile, as the historians Plutarch and Cassius Dio recounted, but only for around a year before returning to Rome after the Senate voted in favor of recalling him. In 43 B.C.E., he was assassinated at the behest of Mark Anthony, a supporter of Julius Caesar’s who served in the Second Triumvirate after Caesar’s assassination. These facts provide one clue that the quotation in the meme is not authentic as offered: it is dated to 42 B.C.E., a year after Cicero died. Cicero did not write or utter the words attributed to the fictionalized version of him created by Caldwell, and we found no evidence of any similar phrases occurring in either the orator’s own letters and speeches or the accounts of historians such as Plutarch and Cassius Dio who documented this period in Roman history. However, Cicero did vehemently attack Catilina (as he similarly attacked many other Roman politicians, throughout his career) in a series of speeches known as the Catiline Orations, delivered in the Roman Senate during the Catiline Conspiracy and after the capture of its ringleaders. The speech from Caldwell’s novel at times resembles Cicero’s actual attacks on Catilina in certain stylistic ways — for example Cicero’s description of Catilina’s secrecy and underhandedness, in the first oration: For what is there, O Catiline, that you can still expect, if night is not able to veil your nefarious meetings in darkness, and if private houses cannot conceal the voice of your conspiracy within their walls;—if everything is seen and displayed? Change your mind: trust me: forget the slaughter and conflagration you are meditating. Cicero likened Catilina and his co-conspirators to a disease upon the Roman republic, and also warned about the threat from within the city, just as he did in Caldwell’s fictional speech, describing Catilina as “an enemy in the city” and declaring that “The only plots against us are within our own walls — the danger is within — the enemy is within.” Usage in American Political Debate Caldwell’s “treason” speech, falsely attributed to Cicero, has occasionally featured in American political debate for decades,in various contexts, and with various politicians or ideologies positioned as the “traitor” in question. In fact, the misattribution began within months of the publication of A Pillar of Iron. In October 1965, the segregationist Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, Millard Caldwell (no relation to the author), gave a speech to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons using an extended metaphor to compare the decline of the Roman republic with the perceived decline of conservative mores and individual rights in the United States at that time. Among a series of correctly attributed quotations from Cicero, Caldwell included the “treason” speech from A Pillar of Iron, which had been a best-seller that year, adding: “Does that sound like 1965 and the subversives in high places who have been exposed, and those who are not yet exposed?” In May 1995, the Militia of Montana (a paramilitary anti-government group known for spreading conspiracy theories) was invited to give a statement to the U.S Senate Judiciary committee’s subcommittee on terrorism, which was examining the subject of domestic terrorism just weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing. In their statement, the militia group included a section of Caldwell’s “treason from within” speech, although not attributing to any source: May God be with all America as he watches over the shoulders of you who write her laws. A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. America has nothing to fear from patriots maintaining “vigilance.” She should, however, fear those that would “outlaw” vigilance. In recent years, internet users taking part in political debates have used the quotation to target “progressives,” in the context of the reauthorization of the Patriot Act in 2006, the administration of former U.S. president Barack Obama, in the context of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Another statement about the necessity of balancing budgets, also part of the dialogue invented by Taylor Caldwell for A Pillar of Iron, has similarly been attributed as the genuine words of Cicero for the last several decades. (A more recent list wrongly ascribed to Cicero’s offering of a description of “the situation during his lifetime” originated with a source other than Caldwell’s book.)
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10791
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Topical skin creams effective to treat superficial basal cell carcinoma: New study
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This is a news release about a study carried out in the Netherlands that looked at 3-year data from more than 600 patients with superficial basal cell carcinoma (BCC) who were treated topically with non-surgical, noninvasive therapies. The study compares two different forms of topical treatment with photo-dynamic therapy (which employs a photosensitizing agent along with a particular type of light). The study found that after 1-3 years of follow-up, the ointments — imiquimod and fluorouracil — compared favorably with photo-dynamic therapy. The release does a nice, pithy job of summarizing the issues being addressed as well as the advances in knowledge that resulted. It includes lots of numbers — totals and percentages, which we applaud. It notes high in the release that the work is a randomized, controlled clinical trial, which we also applaud. But we think it might have been more complete had it noted that surgery is the most common treatment for skin cancers and is an option for the superficial ones studied here, and if the authors declared no conflicts of interest, especially since the authors talk about potential drawbacks of a cheaper treatment. BCC is the most common form of skin cancer and most of its harm is from local spread. Basal cell carcinomas rarely kill but surgical treatment can be painful and, in certain areas of the face, may be disfiguring. If superficial basal cell carcinomas can be treated topically without sacrificing efficacy, that would be useful information for patients and their doctors to know. And the need to know appears to be growing. Although data are not strong, some studies indicate that between the 1960s and the 1980s the prevalence of non-melanoma skin cancers more than doubled. Although 58%-80% of the patients in this study were cured, many (20-40%) were not and that implies additional treatment was necessary. For some individuals, getting it solved the first time may be more important than the cosmetic effect. There may also be some individuals who may find it difficult to apply the topical treatment for the time needed and that there are differences in costs among not only these topical treatments but also compared to surgery.
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true
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Cancer,Journal news release
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The news release notes that “Fluorouracil has the advantage of being less expensive than imiquimod,” a statement for which we rank this satisfactory. But it would have been more complete if we had been told how much cheaper, and how the topical treatments compare with the cost of surgical removal or photo-dynamic therapy. The news release gives us lots of data — a total of 601 patients with a superficial BCC participated in this study: 202 patients were treated with methylaminolevulinate photodynamic therapy (MAL-PDT), 198 with imiquimod cream, and 201 with fluorouracil cream. And then it gives us the results: “Around 80% of patients with superficial BCC were tumor free after imiquimod treatment after three years. The clearance rate was 68% for patients treated with fluorouracil and 58% for individuals receiving PDT.” The news release makes no mention of the side effects of either drug. The news release does note that, between 1- and 3-year follow-up, “more recurrences were diagnosed in the fluorouracil group compared with the imiquimod group.” It would have helped to know how many more recurrences. The study, a follow-up, was described as a randomized, controlled clinical trial. We’d like to have seen some mention of follow-up rates (the number of patient volunteers that completed the trial) — even as simple as follow-up was good and there were no differences among the three groups. It also would have been nice to know who assessed the outcome. Ideally, it would be someone blinded to which treatment was received. The news release tells us that “more than 80% of all skin cancers are BCC, arising from the basal cells (i.e., small, round cells found in the lower layer of the epidermis),” that more than 2 million cases occur each year in the United States, and that outcomes are excellent. It also tells us that a person’s lifetime risk of developing a BCC before age 85 is one in five. It would have been more complete had it said where it got those figures. The release doesn’t mention funding sources. The study notes that several topical agents are available in addition to surgery. It might also have mentioned that surgery can be done as a one time thing and probably has better outcomes. The news release implies that each of these are available treatments and the goal is to compare existing treatments. The release states that this is the first study to look at long-term outcomes from use of ointments for superficial skin cancers. No unsupported claims were made.
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9297
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Clinical studies show 'CHORI-bar' results in broad scale health improvements: Benefits apparent after 2 months of consumption of the nutrient bar
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Researchers at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI; recently renamed UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital) announce the development of a “micronutrient and fiber-dense supplement bar” that apparently led to improved metabolism and weight loss in overweight and obese individuals in clinical trials. But a supplement bar that prompts weight loss would be an extraordinary development (assuming it contains no amphetamines), and so we’d need some accordingly robust evidence to back up such claims. Unfortunately, this news release isn’t up to the task. Though it cites “broad scale health improvements” in the headline, the release offers no data that would substantiate a beneficial effect to consumers of the “CHORI bar.” It provides only vague, advertising-like claims such as this one: “The full potential of food-based supplements to do the work of some drugs without their negative side effects is just beginning to be seriously investigated.” Who would not jump at the chance to consume something as simple-sounding as a nutrient bar that leads to weight loss? If the CHORI bar is the real thing, it will be a boon to individuals seeking to lose weight, as well as to the coffers of its developers and manufacturers. Given that it is still in clinical trials and that scientists have yet to discover the constituents of the bar that work this magic on our metabolism, however, the CHORI bar deserves a muted response from journalists and the public.
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false
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CHORI bar,supplements,weight loss
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There is nary a mention of cost, although participants in the clinical studies consumed two CHORI bars per day for a couple of months, suggesting anyone relying on this intervention will need to keep beaucoup bars in the pantry. The peer-reviewed article on which the news release is based quantifies the results of the study, which don’t seem to square with a claim of “broad scale health improvement.” According to the study abstract, a group of “less-inflamed” participants lost 2.4 pounds of body weight over the course of 2 months while eating the bars. But the news release refers generally only to such things as “improved metabolism” and “reduction in weight and waist circumference,” offering no specifics. The text extols the benefits of the bars with no mention of possible harms. We’d suggest that there is possible harm in replacing actual foods containing a wide variety of nutrients (and many potentially beneficial compounds that we don’t know anything about) with a supplement bar processed in a factory. The peer-reviewed rendition of the study also finds no clear downsides, although it did note that “chronic inflammation [which can accompany obesity] blunted most improvements,” suggesting that some folks will be helped far less by the bars than will others. The release clearly states that the findings are the result of clinical trials, but it does not indicate that only 43 individuals participated in those trials and that the studies were not randomized. It also doesn’t explain that researchers didn’t monitor what else the participants were eating during the studies. As the researchers acknowledge, “it is not known whether participants altered their food choices or consumed fewer calories during the trials. If such changes occurred, they could have contributed to the positive effects observed.” We think the release needed a bit more about these limitations to earn a Satisfactory rating here. Obesity is a big problem, and this press release does not overstate it. That said, the contribution that the CHORI bar might make to reducing the problem is hard to determine. One can find no information about either funding or potential conflicts of interest. A brief look at the manuscript reveals that the investigators were funded by the CHORI itself, a charitable foundation, and the lab company Quest Diagnostics. A number of industry sponsors provided the materials for the bars, including Dow Chemical.The study authors reportedly have a patent on the CHORI bar concept. The story notes, “Conventional approaches that encourage weight loss by improving dietary habits, reducing caloric intake and modifying activity can be successful, but prove difficult for many to initiate and sustain.” We’ll call that sufficient for a Satisfactory rating here. One can only assume that something at the clinical trial stage is not yet available to consumers. But the press release does not make that clear. Some enthusiastic commenters out there can’t wait to get their hands on the product! The text makes a strong pitch for novelty, indicating that the CHORI bar is unlike the typical nutrient bar that one can buy in the store. And yet the news release notes that this has been in development for 10 years and there have been prior publications from the authors in clinical tests. The release makes unjustified claims of “broad health improvement” that aren’t backed up by evidence The very idea that the bar may be effective for individuals who make no other changes in their diet or physical activity levels is highly questionable. The release crosses over into salesmanship in several instances such as this one: “The power of nutrient-rich, properly formulated food-based supplements, such as the CHORI-bar, to move dysregulated metabolism in a healthy direction may help reverse obesity-associated conditions, and thereby reduce the risk of future chronic diseases.”
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2459
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Giant panda gives birth in Washington, but who's the daddy?.
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A giant panda gave birth to a cub at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington on Friday - though it’s not immediately clear who the father might be.
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true
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Environment
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The birth of the cub, which has not yet been named, is the third for the mother, 15-year-old Mei Xiang, who could be seen cradling the new arrival on the zoo’s “Panda Cam” shortly after giving birth on Friday evening. The baby panda appears healthy, said zoo director Dennis Kelly, adding that scientists will take a closer look at it in the next couple of days. The cub was conceived through artificial insemination on March 30, using a mixture of fresh and frozen semen collected from two different male pandas, the zoo said. One was Tian Tian, who lives in the National Zoo, the other Gao Gao, a resident of the San Diego Zoo. Scientists will perform a paternity test in the coming weeks to figure out which male panda sired the cub, the zoo said. Giant pandas are one of the world’s most endangered species. Their natural home lies in a few mountain ranges in central China. There are about 1,600 known to be living in the wild and some 300 in captivity, mostly in China. Female pandas are able to conceive only for two or three days in the spring, which makes reproduction difficult. The gestation period is about five months. Tian Tian, was given a chance to impregnate Mei Xiang on his own before zoo breeders resorted to artificial means. Most pandas bred in captivity are conceived through artificial insemination. Determining whether a panda is pregnant can be tricky. Females can experience a “pseudopregnancy” that causes hormone spikes and changes in behavior, such as reduced appetite and mobility - similar to the symptoms of an actual pregnancy. Scientists saw no evidence of a fetus the last time they administered an ultrasound on August 5, but suspected a baby might be on the way about a week later, when Mei Xiang started spending long hours licking her body and cradling her toys. Mei Xiang’s first cub, was born in 2005 and now lives in China. Her second cub died six days after birth in 2012.
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4104
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Minnesota declares outbreak of hepatitis A.
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Minnesota health officials say there’s an outbreak in cases of hepatitis A, a virus that can cause severe liver damage.
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true
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Health, General News, Infectious diseases, Minnesota, Hepatitis
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Twenty-three cases have been identified with 13 patients requiring hospitalization for the virus, which is spread by unsanitary conditions. The state Department of Health is advocating for broader vaccination efforts in high-risk areas, such as jails and homeless shelters. The department’s infectious disease director, Kris Ehresmann, tells the Star Tribune that declaring a state outbreak will unlock federal resources, including greater access to an adult vaccine that’s in limited supply. Ehresmann says nine counties are reporting recent cases, including Chisago, Dakota, Hennepin, Kanabec, Kandiyohi, Mille Lacs, Pine, St. Louis and Washington. In the last three years, there have been 23,000 cases of hepatitis nationally, with 233 deaths. ___ Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
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3140
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Mysterious mummy found in Iran could be father of last shah.
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Construction workers in Iran may have unearthed the mummified remains of Reza Shah Pahlavi, the father of the country’s last monarch, nearly four decades after the Islamic Revolution toppled the dynasty.
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true
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Dubai, AP Top News, Iran, Religion, United Arab Emirates, International News, Middle East, Science, Reza Pahlavi, Islam
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The recent find of the gauze-wrapped body has triggered intense speculation and revived discussion of Iran’s dynastic past, which the clerically-run government has spent decades trying to suppress. A mob demolished Reza Shah’s tomb shortly after the 1979 revolution, and the family lives in exile. The monarchy’s widespread abuses did much to fuel the revolution, but its mystique persists as Iran grapples with economic woes and calls for reform ahead of the 40th anniversary of the uprising. Reza Shah’s grandson, the U.S.-based exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, has tweeted that he believes the remains to be those of his grandfather even as Iran waits for forensic experts to determine whose body they found. Workers discovered the mummified remains while on a project at the Shiite shrine of Abdul Azim, whose minarets rise behind the site where Reza Shah’s mausoleum once stood. A digger pulling away dirt and debris uncovered the body, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. Pictures of the body, as well as one man posing with it, quickly ricocheted across social media in Iran. A spokesman for the shrine dismissed the idea of a mummy being found there. However, Hassan Khalilabadi, the head of Tehran City Council’s cultural heritage and tourism committee, was quoted by the state-run IRNA news agency on Monday as saying it’s “possible” the mummy is the body of Reza Shah. Authorities say they’ll need to conduct DNA tests to confirm whose body it is. State television has yet to report on the find, likely due to restrictions on discussing the Pahlavis. State media typically refer to the Persian dynasties, including the Pahlavis, as “despotic,” focusing on the abuses of the monarchs’ feared SAVAK intelligence agency and their lavish lifestyles. Reza Shah’s own rise gave birth to modern Iran, which was still called Persia until he ordered foreign diplomats to cease using the name. He came to power in 1925, ruling as an absolute autocrat who used taxes and the country’s burgeoning oil revenues to rapidly modernize the nation. His decisions echo today, particularly his 1936 decree banning women from wearing long, flowing black robes known as chadors. He ordered men to wear Western clothes and bring their wives to public functions with their hair uncovered, borrowing from the secularization of the Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a contemporary. The ban became a source of humiliation for some pious Muslim women. Shiite clerics, angry over his secular beliefs, purges and mass arrests of opponents, held grudges that would foment the coming revolution. Controversies over the chador and hijab persist in Iran today . Iran’s strong trade ties with Germany, Reza Shah’s push for neutrality in World War II and Western fears over its oil supplies falling to the Nazis ultimately sparked a Russian-British invasion of the country in 1941. Reza Shah abdicated in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at the insistence of the occupying British forces. Reza Shah died in South Africa in 1944. His body was taken to Cairo, mummified and remained there for years before being brought to Iran. It was placed in a grand mausoleum near Tehran, which then-President Richard Nixon visited in 1972. After 1979, however, Islamists viewed the mausoleum as an affront. Iranian cleric Ayatollah Sadegh Khalkhali, who ordered the executions of hundreds after the revolution, led a mob of supporters who used sledgehammers, jackhammers and other tools to demolish the mausoleum. Khalkhali later would write in his memoirs that he believed the shah’s family took Reza Shah’s body when they fled the country. The shah’s family, however, maintained the body remained in Iran. His son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was buried in Cairo after dying of cancer in 1980. Today, Iran’s youth remain fascinated by the time before the revolution. Television period pieces have focused on the Pahlavi dynasty, including the recent state TV series “The Enigma of the Shah,” the most expensive series ever produced to air in the country. While incorporating romances or mobsters into the tales, all shows uniformly criticize the royal court. Reza Shah’s grandson, Reza Pahlavi, has seen his profile rise following the election of President Donald Trump, who appears to hold the future of the Iran nuclear deal in the balance. From exile, the crown prince has agitated for an end to Iran’s theocracy. Gauging national sentiment about restoring the monarchy remains impossible. Pahlavi took to Twitter on Tuesday to say he believed the remains were his grandfather’s, asking Iranians to offer condolences online and take part in peaceful demonstrations. He earlier warned Iran’s current government “not to hide anything.” ___ Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellap . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .
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2311
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Food firms seek to rebuild trust with labeling, ad pledge.
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The world’s top food and drink companies announced a raft of measures on Wednesday to try to improve the industry’s image, including stopping advertising junk food to children by 2018, harmonizing nutritional labeling and fighting deforestation.
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true
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Health News
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The Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), an industry network of some 400 retailers, manufacturers and other players from 70 countries with combined sales of 2.5 trillion euros ($3.4 trillion), agreed the commitments at its annual summit in Paris. “It is not business as usual anymore. Pressure is mounting from all sides and angles,” Paul Bulcke, chief executive of Nestle, the world’s biggest food and drink firm behind brands such as Kit-Kat and Nescafe, told the meeting. “We need to show them we are a responsive and responsible industry, now more than ever.” Food manufacturers and retailers have come under mounting pressure in recent years over their role in a range of issues from the global obesity epidemic, to climate change and deforestation due to the growth of palm oil production. The steps announced on Wednesday included a commitment to stop targeting advertising to children under 12 years by 2018 of products that fail to meet certain nutrition criteria and to introduce industry-wide labeling by 2018 to help consumers make healthier food choices. Bulcke said the CGF board also agreed that members would make company policies on nutrition and product formulation public by 2016. The CGF promised its members would aim for zero net deforestation by 2020 through the more sustainable sourcing of key commodities and begin phasing out hydro fluorocarbons, blamed for contributing to global warming, in new refrigeration units by 2015. In 2011, top U.S. food and drink makers including Coca-Cola and Kellogg Co agreed to industry-created voluntary nutrition guidelines for products marketed towards children under the age of 12. But the food, beverage and restaurant industries as a whole have successfully fought most government oversight on food advertising to children. In October 2013, U.S. legislation was proposed that would require uniform front-of-package food labels in a move to streamline labels and clarify certain claims on nutrition. In Europe, regulations that go into effect in December 2014 change existing legislation on food labeling that would require nutrition information on processed foods, origin labeling of unprocessed meat, the highlighting of allergens such as peanuts and better legibility. ($1 = 0.7383 euro)
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Novartis says cutting prices on malaria drug.
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Switzerland’s Novartis AG is cutting prices for its malaria drug Coartem by a fifth to improve access to treatment, especially in Africa, it said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
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Novartis said on Wednesday it would reduce prices for the drug from this Friday, which is World Malaria Day, and it was able to supply the drug more cheaply due to efficiency improvements at its production facilities in China and the United States. Malaria, which is caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes, kills nearly a million people a year and is particularly deadly for young children and adolescents in Africa. The disease causes the death of one child every 30 seconds, mainly African children under the age of five, according to the World Health Organisation. Novartis said it supplied Coartem to the public sector without profit and had sent more than 160 million treatments to malaria-endemic countries since 2001. Malaria has become resistant to some drugs, and work on a vaccine has been slow, but Coartem, a pill that consists of older drug lumefantrine plus an artemisinin derivative, is an effective treatment. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/ )
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Resveratrol May Slow Aging in Humans
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"An egregious headline shouts ""Resveratrol May Slow Aging in Humans."" But 10 people took the active substance in the trial and the only outcomes reported in the story were intermediate or surrogate markers – blood levels of various ""pro-inflammatory markers."" Read Dr. Michael Kirsch’s excellent blog post, ""Evidence-based Medicine in Disguise: Beware the Surrogate!"" This is exactly the kind of story he describes when he wrote, ""Why do some medical studies, which achieve breaking news status, often fall so short of our expectations?"" Gullible people may jump at anti-aging stuff in the news. This study is far from being ready for prime-time – and so was the story."
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false
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"No discussion of the cost of the supplements used in the study. Doesn’t cost matter? How many of the 10 people taking resveratrol had changes in ""pro-inflammatory markers""? All of them? Half of them? How big were the changes? How meaningful were the changes? We weren’t told any of this. Anything we put in our mouths has the potential to cause harm – a concept not recognized in this story. The story called the study results ""promising"" and said, as a matter of fact, that ""resveratrol suppresses inflammation."" But deeper in the story one of the researchers said ""something in the extract other than resveratrol"" may have been the reason for the anti-inflammatory effects. So which is it? The story never addressed the limitations of drawing conclusions from a study that had just 10 people in the active arm of the trial taking the resveratrol supplements. Intermediate endpoints or surrogate markers – such as blood levels of ""pro-inflammatory markers"" do NOT equate to ""may slow aging"" as the headline suggests. Yet the story made the leap to say that ""resveratrol reduces inflammation in humans that could lead to heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes."" But let’s drop back to a bigger picture: Shouldn’t we introduce at least a line in the story about whether aging is a disease requiring treatment? This is the way the story was framed – appearing in WebMD’s ""Healthy Aging Health Center"" with four mentions of aging in the short story. Only two authors of the study were quoted – no independent expert source was cited. Since the story framed this primarily as an anti-aging therapy – with possible impact on heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes thrown in – it would have been helpful for readers to be reminded about proven approaches to any of these conditions. But the story gave no such comparisons. The story says that resveratrol can be found in common food sources. But the study was about resveratrol supplements in pill form and the story never explained to readers whether these were available. Are they at the corner drug store or health food store? Are they experimental? The story should have explained. The story discussed a little bit of past research, suggesting that interest in resveratrol is not new. Not applicable because we can’t be sure of the extent to which the story was influenced by a news release. We do know that no truly independent source was quoted in the story."
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The author of the email says her 4-year old daughter ate hand sanitizer at pre-school and was rushed to the hospital with potentially deadly alcohol intoxication.
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Four-year old girl intoxicated from hand sanitizer
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true
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Health / Medical, Warnings
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The story is true, although with one glaring factual error. According to a Fox 23 Tulsa television interview with her parents, Matt and Lacey Butler, Little Halle was in a pre-kindergarten class at Okmulgee Primary School in Okmulgee, Oklahoma when a teacher did what seemed to be right, gave Halle some hand sanitizer to clean her hands before eating lunch. Instead of rubbing it in, however, Halle ate it. She licked it from her hand. Shortly afterwards her behavior was alarming enough that she was taken to a local hospital. Matt Butler says that when he arrived at the emergency room, his daughter was leaning against a wall, that her eyes would not focus, and she could not walk. Doctors determined that she was intoxicated. The eRumor says her blood alcohol level (BAC) was 85 percent, which nobody would survive so that figure is obviously wrong. A BAC of .40% would be considered a lethal level. Hand sanitizers have an alcohol level of more than 60 percent. Hard liquor, by comparison, is 40 percent alcohol while most beers are less than 5 percent alcohol. Unlike other poisons and alcoholic beverages, however, most hand sanitizers are easily accessible to children and most of us would not think about the danger. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warns that alcohol can cause drunkenness as well as serious poisoning leading to seizures, coma, and even death in young children—and that children are more sensitive to the toxic effects of alcohol than adults. Updated 8-28-09 Comments
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Experts worry CDC is sidelined in coronavirus response.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly found its suggestions for fighting the coronavirus outbreak taking a backseat to other concerns within the Trump administration. That leaves public health experts outside government fearing the agency’s decades of experience in beating back disease threats are going to waste.
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true
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AP Top News, U.S. News, Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, Politics, Infectious diseases, Donald Trump, Virus Outbreak, Michael Pence, Public health, U.S. News
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“You have the greatest fighting force against infectious diseases in world history. Why would you not use them?” said Dr. Howard Markel, a public health historian at the University of Michigan. The complaints have sounded for months. But they have become louder following repeated revelations that transmission-prevention guidance crafted by CDC scientists was never adopted by the White House. The latest instance surfaced Thursday, when The Associated Press reported that President Donald Trump’s administration shelved a CDC document containing step-by-step advice to local authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places during the current pandemic. The administration has disputed the notion that the CDC had been sidelined, saying the agency is integral to the administration’s plans to expand contact tracing nationwide. But it’s clear that the CDC is playing a much quieter role than it has during previous outbreaks. The nation’s COVID-19 response has seen a strange turn for the CDC, which opened in 1946 in Atlanta as The Communicable Disease Center to prevent the spread of malaria with a $10 million budget and a few hundred employees. Today, the agency has a core budget of more than $7 billion — a sum that has been shrinking in recent years — and employs nearly 11,000 people. The CDC develops vaccines and diagnostic tests. Its experts advise doctors how best to treat people, and teach state, local and international officials how to fight and prevent disease. Among the CDC’s elite workforce are hundreds of the world’s foremost disease investigators — microbiologists, pathologists and other scientists dispatched to investigate new and mysterious illnesses. In 2009, when a new type of flu virus known at the time as swine flu spread around the world, the CDC held almost daily briefings. Its experts released information on a regular basis to describe the unfolding scientific understanding of the virus, and the race for a vaccine. The federal response to the coronavirus pandemic initially followed a similar pattern. CDC first learned in late December of the emergence of a new disease in China, and the U.S. identified its first case in January. In those early days, the CDC held frequent calls with reporters. It also quickly developed a test it could run at its labs, and a test kit to be sent to state health department labs to detect the virus. But February proved to be a disaster. The test kit was flawed, delaying the ability of states to do testing. A CDC-run surveillance system, meant to look for signs of the virus in people who had thought they had the flu, was slow to get off the ground. Officials at the CDC and at other federal agencies were slow to recognize infections from Europe were outpacing ones from travelers to China. But politically speaking, one the most striking moments that month was something that the CDC — in the eyes of public health experts — got perfectly right. In late February, Dr. Nancy Messonnier — a well-respected CDC official who was leading the agency’s coronavirus response — contradicted statements by other federal officials that the virus was contained. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen – and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” she said. Stocks plunged. President Donald Trump was enraged. The White House Coronavirus Task Force moved to center stage. Vice President Mike Pence took control of clearing CDC communications about the virus. CDC news conferences stopped completely after March 9. Messonnier exited the public stage. CDC Director Robert Redfield continued to keep the low profile he’s had since getting the job. Two other task force members — Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force coordinator, and Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health — became the task force’s chief scientific communicators. Health experts have praised Fauci, but they say CDC’s voice is sorely missed. “At the White House briefings, they (CDC) should be talking about antibody tests and if they work. How long do people have the virus if they’re infected? What are the data for that? The issue ought to be front and center. These are the questions CDC can answer,” said Dr. James Curran, a former CDC star scientist who is now dean of Emory University’s public health school. The government has continued to look to CDC officials for information and guidance, but there have been repeated instances when what the agency’s experts send to Washington is rejected. In early March, administration officials overruled CDC doctors who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, the AP reported. Last month, USA Today reported that the White House task force had forced the CDC had to change orders it had posted keeping cruise ships docked until August. The post was altered to say the ships could sail again in July, the newspaper reported. And last week, officials nixed CDC draft guidance that was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. The 17 pages of guidelines were never approved by Redfield to present to the White House task force, said an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They were only discussed at the task force level once the drafts leaked publicly, and no decisions about them were ever made. Still, the CDC guidelines were the subject of intense debate at the upper echelons of the White House. Some officials saw them as essential to helping businesses and other organizations safely reopen. Others, including chief of staff Mark Meadows, did not believe it appropriate for the federal government to set guidelines for specific sectors whose circumstances could vary widely depending on the level of outbreak in their areas, according to a person familiar with the discussion. What was necessary for a coffee shop in New York and one in Oklahoma was wildly different, in their view. They worried about potential negative economic impact from the guidelines, and some aides expressed doubts about whether the government should be prescribing practices to religious communities. The decision not to issue detailed sector guidance is also in keeping with the White House’s strategic decision to leave the specific details of reopening to states. While Trump had at one point claimed absolute authority to detail how and when states open, he’s adopted a largely hands-off approach as more and more states begin to lift lockdowns. Trump suggests his decision is in keeping with the principles of federalism, but White House aides acknowledge that it also lessens the political peril for the president — who has come under pressure from conservative allies, particularly in states that haven’t experienced wide outbreaks, to swiftly reopen the country. On a conference call Thursday afternoon with the House members on the White House’s “Opening Up America” panel, lawmakers in both parties pressed the White House to release sector-specific guidance of the sort currently held up by the administration. “There was clear bipartisan support for the need to have CDC guidance and the need to have best practices,” said Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla. The CDC did not respond to a Thursday request for an interview with Redfield. In a recent interview with the AP, the agency’s No. 2 administrator, Dr. Anne Schuchat, was asked to address reports that CDC recommendations were being ignored in Washington. She paused, and then replied slowly. “The CDC is providing our best evidence-based information to policy makers and providing that on a daily basis to protect the American people,” she said, without further comment. ___ Dearen reported from Gainesville, Florida. Miller reported from Washington. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect the proper spelling of the last name of Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla.
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Animal abuse is often an indicative trait of future acts of violence against humans.
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State senator says animal cruelty lead to violent adults
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true
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Georgia, Crime, Robert Brown,
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"State Sen. Robert Brown wants to strengthen Georgia's animal cruelty laws and made his case at a recent hearing. ""Animal abuse is often an indicative trait of future acts of violence against humans,"" said Brown, a Democrat from Macon, ""and prosecuting such behavior is our first line of defense against potentially dangerous criminals."" Is it ? Are people who abuse animals more likely to hurt people? ""He's right,"" said Mary Lou Randour, professional outreach director for animal cruelty for the Humane Society of the United States. ""It's just another example of the type of people who are anti-social and aggressive."" Animal cruelty became a hot topic in these parts in 2007 when one of the state's biggest athletic stars, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, was accused of participating in a dogfighting ring with some of his longtime friends. Vick pleaded guilty, served time in prison and is now the starting QB for the Philadelphia Eagles. Randour sent us links to several academic studies that link animal abuse to violence against people. We looked at those. And we looked at a variety of other information relating to the subject. Researchers have been conducting more detailed studies on the subject for several decades. The findings are similar: - The Chicago Police Department looked at 332 animal cruelty and related cases from July 2001 to July 2004. Police found 70 percent of suspects had prior arrests for other felonies. Eighty-six percent of them had two or more prior arrests. - A 2007 study of some women in domestic violence shelters found their abusers were 11 times more likely to have harmed or killed a pet. - A 1983 study of alleged child abuse found evidence in 60 percent of the cases of possible earlier animal abuse. - Of 117 men serving time in South African prisons for crimes ""of aggression,"" nearly two-thirds of them admitted to cruelty to animals, according to a 1999 study. Brown authored legislation in 2000 that allows animal abuse to be charged as a felony. The senator said he pushed for the changes, in part, from anecdotal stories of people who abused animals when they were young and committed felonies against people as adults. Brown also was swayed by FBI agents who made the connection between animal abuse and violence against people. Brown said he's considering legislation that would create tougher penalties on people who abuse animals in the presence of children. Brown said he's not sure whether it will pass when the Legislature convenes in January because he understands lawmakers will be focused on the state's budget challenges and there will be a large freshman class at the Gold Dome next year. ""We want to look at a remedy [to the existing law] that will have some broad impact,"" he said. Brown appears to have done his homework on his claim about the connection between animal abuse and violence against humans. There is overwhelming research that Brown is right. This one is a slam-dunk."
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9460
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Strange but true: Sleep deprivation can help depression. Penn scientists want to know why
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The story reports on a University of Pennsylvania research study that probed 66 other studies, in what is known as a meta-analysis. Researchers examined how sleep deprivation — anything from three to four hours of sleep followed by 20 to 21 hours awake to no sleep for 36 straight hours — could ease depression symptoms. In studies they probed, 45 percent to 50 percent of patients reported feeling less depressed. But the benefit does not last long, and the story wisely gives readers this context. This is something we wished had been emphasized in the news release on this study, which we also reviewed. Depression is a major cause of disability in the US and around the world, with estimates that 16.1 million adults in the US had an episode in 2015, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The most common treatment for depression is drugs, antidepressants, which don’t work for everyone and have side effects. This study of other studies was partly trying to narrow the focus on when sleep deprivation works in order to help researchers launch new studies to try to understand the mechanisms of this benefit. The story helps readers understand this: “He’s [researcher] not hoping to use sleep deprivation as a treatment but thinks that pinpointing what it does to the brain will help doctors develop other, more sustained treatments.”
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true
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depression
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The release does not mention costs. One may assume there is no cost to sleep deprivation but the deprivation in the studies was mostly monitored in inpatient facilities, which can be expensive. The story just squeaks by on this, but we want to especially compliment the story for pointing out that the benefits are short-lived. While the story does not use a lot of numeric quantification, it does provide important context for how to view the study results. Here’s what it says about benefits: “Their work confirmed that sleep deprivation — anything from three to four hours of sleep followed by 20 to 21 hours awake to no sleep for 36 straight hours — is indeed a powerful antidote to depression. In the 66 studies they analyzed, 45 percent to 50 percent reported feeling less depressed.” But this is the part that puts a context around that for readers: “That sounds great, but there’s a huge problem: For more than 80 percent of patients, the antidepressant effects are lost as soon as they get a good night’s rest. Repeated exposure to sleep deprivation has had mixed results.” The story does not include the potential harms of sleep deprivation, which are extensive. The story explains that the study was a meta-analysis of other studies, and it points out important limitations to help readers understand that quality of the evidence. There was no disease mongering, and we thought the story did a good job of explaining the mysteries that still surround sleep’s relationship to mood. While sleep deprivation seems to create a temporary lifting of depression, it is also true that insomnia is a frequent symptom of depression. The story includes contradictions that remain to be resolved for researchers. The story did not include any independent sources. The story briefly hints at the other common treatments: drugs (notably antidepressants) and talk therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy. The story explains it is not widely available as a therapeutic in clinics. “Experts theorize that sleep deprivation may reset the circadian clock. But it is rarely used for treatment because it wears off so fast. “I know of about three clinics worldwide that routinely use it,” Gehrman said. There are some studies showing that it can be helpful when combined with light or antidepressant medication treatment.” The story explains that the study was novel primarily because of the meta-analysis approach. The story does not rely on the news release, and demonstrates independent reporting by adding details and quotes that were not part of the release.
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3000
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Iowa governor calls for sales tax increase, other tax cuts.
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Iowa Gov Kim Reynolds asked lawmakers on Tuesday to consider increasing the state sales taxes by 1 cent to raise money to boost funding for water quality, the environment and mental health care programs.
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true
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Legislature, Water quality, Iowa, Constitutions, Health, General News, Environment, Kim Reynolds, Sales taxes, Constitutional amendments, Mental health
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A 1-cent sales tax increase is expected to generate about $540 million in new revenue a year starting in 2021. Some of the funding will go into a water quality and environmental programs voters passed 10 years ago in a constitutional amendment but the legislature never funded. Reynolds is proposing using $100 million a year for water quality and $52 million a year for conservation and outdoor recreation programs from the sales tax. Some of the state previous funding for such programs will move into the new fund, however, raising concerns about whether it’s a net gain for water quality and the environment. Reynolds said the increase in water quality funding is about 31% and for conservation about a 14% increase. To offset the tax increase she proposed an income tax cut by an average additional 10 percent beyond the rates set in the 2018 tax cut for next year. Reynolds said the top income tax bracket in Iowa a year ago was nearly 9% and with a new round of cuts she proposes it would be 5.5% by 2023. She also proposes a property tax cut of $77 million by reducing mental health care funding raised through the property tax levy and budgeting $80 million from the state general fund to pay the cost. That means the state would pay about 70 percent of mental health care costs and counties 30 percent. Counties now pay all the costs through property taxes. Reynolds proposal is in her annual Condition of the State address delivered to lawmakers on the second day of the 2020 session. Democratic legislative leaders expressed concern that funding mental health programs with a sales tax may not guarantee funding in the future. “I think Iowans need assurances beyond just what she’ll do. Who knows how long she’s going to be our governor, but we need to make sure that there’s stable funding in place,” said Senate Democratic leader Janet Petersen. Republican leaders said tax changes must reduce the tax burden and Reynolds plan appears to do that, but they wouldn’t commit until seeing details. “I think that’s in line with what most of us want and whether we can get everything together and get something passed through both chambers and on the governor’s desk still remains to be seen,” said Senate President Charles Schneider. House Democratic leader Todd Prichard said his biggest concern is with tax cuts whether the state can meet obligations to pay for priorities. “We have to fund education. We have to fund our health care system. We have to do those things that Iowans expect of us from the state. How she’s going to make that happen I don’t know. Again, it comes to a question: is that a burden shift? Is that a burden shift to the sales tax which is a regressive tax? Liberal action group Progress Iowa said the tax shift isn’t a positive move for Iowans. “Governor Reynolds continues to push snake oil solutions at the expense of Iowa families. Today she promoted an income tax cut that would be paid for in large part by raising the sales tax, which hits hardest on working families,”said Matt Sinovic, the group’s executive director. Other budget areas for which Reynolds seeks additional funding: —Schools: $103 million in new funding for local school districts, an increase of about 2.5%. —Broadband in rural areas: An additional $15 million and adjustment to the state match so Iowa can continue to leverage private and federal funding to build out broadband. —Childcare: Expand Early Childhood tax credits. Currently, they are available to families making $45,000 or less. Reynolds recommends that be doubled to $90,000. Reynolds also recommended policy changes to lawmakers including a renewed request to pass a constitution amendment that no longer bars felons from voting after they’ve served their sentence and an amendment that says the Iowa Constitution does not create a right to an abortion.
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"Mike Pence once said that condoms are ""too modern"" and ""too liberal"" and offer a poor defense against sexually transmitted diseases."
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Rating this claim comes down to a matter of semantics. Yes, Mike Pence used the words “too modern” and “liberal” during the course of a discussion that encompassed condom use and stated that condoms are “very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases.” However, he technically didn’t apply the words “modern” and “liberal” to condoms themselves (and wasn’t referencing them as a birth control device); rather, he described Colin Powell’s advocacy of condom use as a “too modern” and “liberal” answer to the problem of preventing sexually transmitted diseases.
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true
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Politics, mike pence
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On 11 August 2016 the Patheos blog published an item titled “Mike Pence: Condoms Are Too Modern” reporting that the Indiana governor and Republican vice presidential nominee had dismissed the prophylactic devices as “too modern and too liberal”: Mike Pence claims condoms are too modern, and too liberal. Donald Trump’s running mate is a dangerous Christian extremist who wants creationism taught in public schools and believes the government should pay for gay conversion therapy. In addition, in 2015, as Governor of Indiana, Pence allowed an HIV outbreak to spread, choosing prayer over a clean needle exchange. But perhaps one of the most idiotic claims made by Pence is that condoms are too “modern,” too “liberal,” and offer a poor defense against sexually transmitted infections and diseases. The comments Pence (then a Congressman) actually made in this regard stemmed from a February 2002 CNN panel discussion about abstinence education. Anchor Wolf Blitzer opened the segment by explaining a current controversy over remarks made by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had just appeared on MTV and responded as follows when asked about the Pope’s stance on condom usage by Catholics: I certainly respect the views of the holy father and the Catholic Church. In my own judgment, condoms are a way to prevent infection, and therefore, I not only support their use, I encourage their use among people who are sexually active and need to protect themselves. Blitzer introduced his panelists and asked for their comments about what appeared to be a difference in position between Powell and then-President George W. Bush on the matter of science-based sex education: At least one conservative group says the Bush administration is sending out, quote, “mixed signals.” And in related news, the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, says New York’s public hospitals will begin offering abortion training to all OB-GYN medical students. According to National Public Radio, the Republican mayor says this sort of training would make abortion more available nationally, and that fact has many abortion opponents up in arms. Two high-profile Republicans on the record here — Colin Powell endorses condom use for sexually active young people, and New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg, presses for abortion training. Let’s open up our debate here. With me now, Republican congressman Mike Pence of Indiana; Democratic congresswoman, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. Congressman, first to you. What’s wrong with what Secretary Powell have to say about endorsing condom use for those who are sexually active? Pence replied by reiterating the Bush administration’s advocacy of abstinence education and challenging Secretary Powell’s endorsement of condom usage as effective protection against sexually transmitted diseases: Well, Wolf, I think it was — given the enormous stature that Colin Powell rightly has, not only in America but in the world community, it was a sad day. I don’t think any administration has had a worse day since boxers and briefs on MTV. And the truth is that Colin Powell had an opportunity here to reaffirm this president’s commitment to abstinence as the best choice for our young people, and he chose not to do that in the first instance, but — and so I think it’s very sad. The other part is that, frankly, condoms are a very, very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases, and in that sense, Wolf, this was — the secretary of state maybe inadvertently misleading millions of young people and endangering lives. Reps. Pence and Schakowsky continued to debate abstinence education and the efficacy of condoms in preventing sexually transmitted diseases: PENCE: Well, I just simply believe the only truly safe sex, Wolf, as the president believes, is no sex. And we ought to, with leaders of the stature of the secretary of state, we ought to be sending a message to kids across the country and the opportunity had across the world that abstinence is the best choice for young people. But let’s be clear, last year, the National Institute of Health, Wolf, and some 28 separate experts said at least a half dozen to ten sexually transmitted diseases for which condom use has zero preventative value. [Colin Powell] is simply wrong. SCHAKOWSKY: That’s like saying we shouldn’t [give] flu shots because it doesn’t protect against anything else. There are 34 million people in Sub Sahara and Africa alone who are infected with AIDS and millions more in the United States. We’re saying, let’s not make it any worse; we could make it better. This is one way to do it. Is it the cure all, is it the perfect solution? No, but it’s obviously something that will help. This is a — he was making a 21st century, humane and responsible answer to a 21st century problem. PENCE: The problem is it was too modern of an answer, Wolf. It was — it truly was a modern, liberal answer to a problem that parents like me are facing all over America, and frankly, all over the world.
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Pfizer data on failed cholesterol drug offers hope
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"The idea that high levels of HDL (or good cholesterol) are associated with decreased risk of heart disease is well established. Much less clear, however, is whether targeting the HDL component alone with a drug could reduce the risk of heart diseae. In December 2006, The ILLUMINATE study, a large clinical trial of an HDL-targeted drug was terminated early due to increased deaths, cardiovascular events and elevated blood pressure among the participants. Published in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, to coincide with the American Heart Association meeting, is the full report of the results of this trial. This story reports on these results, however, rather than focusing on what is known about what went wrong in this study, the story instead overhypes the hypothetical idea that other more ""clean"" versions of the drug could avoid the downsides of the failed drug. The story could have done more to point out that many researchers are now questioning the HDL/heart disease hypothesis. But the story does a good job of presenting the harms of the failed drug in terms of natural frequencies (actual numbers) instead of relative rates. Although the story accurately describes the ILLUMINATE study presented at the meeting, the story repeatedly exaggerates the claims that there is a future for HDL-targeted therapeutics. Starting with the headline and throughout the story, the possibility that other drugs targeting HDL could be viable is consistently overhyped in this story. At this point there is no evidence that targeting HDL will be an effective strategy and hopes that a more ""clean"" version of the drug will not have the harms of the failed drug is nothing but conjecture. Finally, the story does not quote any independent experts or researchers, a major flaw of this story. Perhaps an indpendent expert could have put into perspective for the reader the fact that this story focuses on a small, theoretical part of the overall story at the expense of the facts."
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mixture
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"The story does not mention costs, or potential costs of the new drug. At least a general statement could have been made about costs of combination drugs. The story does a good job of presenting the harms of the failed drug in terms of natural frequencies (actual numbers) instead of relative rates. The story mentions the increased risk of death, heart disease and elevated blood pressure with the failed drug. However, in the absence of evidence, the story should not be suggesting that a more ""clean"" version of the drug would not have such harms. Although the story accurately describes the ILLUMINATE study presented at the meeting, the story repeatedly exaggerates the claims that there is a future for HDL-targeted therapeutics. Starting with the headline and throughout the story, the possibility that other drugs targeting HDL could be viable is consistently overhyped in this story. At this point there is no evidence that targeting HDL will be an effective strategy and hopes that a more ""clean"" version of the drug will not have the harms of the failed drug is nothing but conjecture. The story does not exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of heart disease, the target of the new drug. However, the story could have done more to point out that many researchers are now questioning the HDL/heart disease hypothesis. The story does not quote any independent experts or researchers, a major flaw of this story. It’s not clear that anyone was actually interviewed, since only a study and an editorial were cited. Perhaps an independent expert could have put into perspective for the reader the fact that this story focuses on a small, theoretical part of the overall story at the expense of the facts. The story does not mention other, established ways to raise HDL, such as exercise, statins, moderate alcohol consumption, etc., even though these have modest effects on HDL. The story clearly states that the HDL-targeting drugs are still in the early stages of development. The story does not make any claims about when a new drug would be available, however whether it will ever happen is still highly theoretical. However, atorvastatin was studied along with torcetrapib and a note that it is available commercialy and is the largest selling cholesterol lowering drug would have been useful to the readers. The story correctly categorizes the drug as the first of its kind in this class. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information."
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25667
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Greg Abbott Says crime is on the rise in Austin and a new study showed that it “is the No. 1 city in America in the year-to-year percentage increase in murders, with a percentage increase of more than 64% for the first half of this year.”
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"Abbott said crime is on the rise in Austin, which is ""the No. 1 city in America in the year-to-year percentage increase in murders, with a percentage increase of more than 64% for the first half of this year."" Abbott’s figures are from a Wall Street Journal analysis of homicides in cities across the country, and they are reflected in reports from the Austin Police Department. But the issue is the conclusion he is drawing from these figures. Experts said crime data of this scale (changes in small numbers over a short time period) does not accurately reflect a crime trend or the safety of a specific area. They also said focusing on the percentage change in discussions of shifts in smaller values can overstate increases or decreases over time. Abbott’s statement is accurate, but leaves out important details and needs more context."
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mixture
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Crime, Texas, Greg Abbott,
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"In an effort to dissuade local governments in Texas from cutting police funding, state leaders have pledged to pursue legislation next year that would freeze property tax revenue for any city or county that cuts its law enforcement budget. The move came as the Austin City Council approved its $4.2 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which included plans for $21.5 million in immediate cuts to the city’s police budget and plans to shift to other city departments another $128 million in spending on civilian functions currently overseen by police. During an Aug. 18 press conference announcing the property tax proposal, Gov. Greg Abbott warned that now, more than ever, is a dangerous time for the city to cut its police budget. ""A new study showed that Austin, Texas, is the No. 1 city in America in the year-to-year percentage increase in murders, with a percentage increase of more than 64% for the first half of this year,"" Abbott said. ""Austin also has a year-to-year increase in the percent rate of aggravated robberies, increasing by 14%, and robberies increasing by 16%. When crime is on the rise, the last thing that we should do is to defund law enforcement."" Abbott’s comments on the percentage increase in homicides caught the most attention and drew pushback from some city leaders who said the statistic lacks important context. Namely, that the number of homicides in Austin is much lower than in other cities, which means any change will result in a large percent increase compared with earlier years. Abbott’s figures came from a Wall Street Journal article examining homicides in major cities during the coronavirus pandemic. The report found ""a sharp rise in homicides"" in 36 of the 50 biggest cities in the country, including in Austin. His statement reflected the numbers included in the report for Austin, but they lack important context about crime and homicides in the city. ""Assessing, even generally, the safety of a city just using crime statistics, they don’t tell you a lot of the story,"" said Carsten Andresen, an assistant professor of criminal justice at St. Edward's University. ""They don’t capture who goes in and out of a city, which parts of a city are safe."" Wall Street Journal data The Wall Street Journal analysis looked at data from police departments in each of the 15 largest cities in the country and compared the number of homicides recorded for the first six months of 2020 with the number of homicides recorded over the same period last year. The information was shared in a graph that accompanied the article. The analysis found that, of those cities, Austin recorded the largest percentage change in total homicides, with a 64.3% increase from the first half of 2019. By the end of June, the city had recorded 23 homicides, up from 14 at the same time last year. For comparison, six months into 2018 there were 18 homicides, in 2017 there were 13 and in 2016 there were 12. Chicago reportedly had the second largest percentage change in total murders, with an increase of 52.5%. By the end of June, the city had 433 homicides. Of those 15 cities, Austin had the second lowest count of homicides during the first six months of the year. Context behind Austin’s numbers The numbers included in the Wall Street Journal article are reflected in the June 2020 edition of Austin Police Chief Brian Manley’s monthly reports, which are published online. But the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story. Lt. Jeff Greenwalt, who heads the Austin Police Department’s Homicide and Aggravated Assault unit, said ""the percentage you see is a little more alarming than the actual numbers."" ""I think there is an underlying story to the snappy headline,"" Greenwalt said. ""While there is an increase, it is only a handful more because we have low numbers in the first place. The real statistic is going to be at the end of the year, where we compare to years past."" Even then, Andresen said using percentage change in this instance won’t accurately represent the situation at hand. ""First of all, homicide is such a small number,"" he said. ""You’re going to have huge percentage changes. I’ve always been told: don’t use percentages for numbers that are under 50. If you’re looking at 30 or 45, don’t use a percentage difference because the percentage changes are so big."" Homicides in particular are tricky to analyze over an extended period of time, as they tend to be isolated incidents and some months may see more than others. In order to speak to changes in the number of murders within a city, using six months of data is not enough, according to Michelle Richter, an associate professor of criminology at St. Edward’s University. ""You should be looking at at least five years’ worth of data,"" she said, noting that this kind of analysis should also account for changes in population size. ""I would not be alarmed by (that percentage), and this is the reason why: Austin has, for the most part in terms of long-term trends and patterns, one of the lowest violent crime rates,"" she said. ""You have to look at bigger data."" From 2014 to 2018 (complete 2019 data has not been produced), the number of murders in Austin fluctuated: ∙2018: 32 murders, or 3.3 murders per 100,000 residents ∙2017: 25 murders, or 2.6 murders per 100,000 residents ∙2016: 39 murders, or 4.1 per 100,000 residents ∙2015: 23 murders, or 2.5 per 100,000 residents ∙2014: 32 murders, or 3.5 per 100,000 residents Andresen said an analysis of month-to-month or year-to-year changes, should be focused on ""missed opportunities to be able to reduce those homicides in the future."" Greenwalt said his unit is working to investigate any identifiable trends or ""anything unusual going on"" in murders this year, but so far they have the same underlying causes the department experiences in other years. ""Most of the time, our homicides involve drugs and robberies,"" he said. ""Every once in a while we see family violence or an acquaintance."" He also noted that the department has nearly a ""100% solve rate"" on homicides this year. ""What he’s saying in and of itself is accurate, however there is just a lot more to the story,"" Greenwalt said of Abbott’s remark. Our ruling Abbott said crime is on the rise in Austin, which is ""the No. 1 city in America in the year-to-year percentage increase in murders, with a percentage increase of more than 64% for the first half of this year."" Abbott’s figures are from a Wall Street Journal analysis of homicides in cities across the country, and they are reflected in reports from the Austin Police Department. But the issue is the conclusion he is drawing from these figures. Experts said crime data of this scale (changes in small numbers over a short time period) does not accurately reflect a crime trend or the safety of a specific area. They also said focusing on the percentage change in discussions of shifts in smaller values can overstate increases or decreases over time. Abbott’s statement is accurate, but leaves out important details and needs more context."
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8581
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At-home COVID-19 deaths may be significantly undercounted in New York City.
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The daily tally of New York City residents who died at home with coronavirus-like symptoms exploded from 45 on March 20 to 241 on April 5, according to Fire Department of New York data - suggesting the city may be significantly undercounting COVID-19 deaths.
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true
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Health News
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Asked about the fire department numbers at a press conference Tuesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged that deaths at home haven’t been fully accounted for. “It’s right to assume the vast majority are coronavirus related,” he said. “And that makes it even more sober in the sense of how many people we are losing, how many families are suffering, how real this crisis is.” The fire department data are based on information collected during emergency calls involving cardiac or respiratory arrest, with fever and cough. Those are symptoms characteristic of a severe case of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Although those symptoms also could fit diseases such as influenza, the steep rise coincides with the surge in COVID-19 cases in New York City, the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus epidemic. The data raise questions about the city’s official tally indicating coronavirus deaths had leveled off in recent days (before rising again Tuesday). The official daily death count had stayed relatively flat, going from 309 on from March 31 to 290 on April 5, according the health department’s website. During that same period, according to the fire department data, the number of daily deaths at home among people with COVID-19-like symptoms rose from 167 to 241. A spokesman for the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which certifies findings on causes of death, said the official death count only includes those who had a test confirming they were infected with the virus. The spokesman did not know what portion of people who died at home had been tested but said the department and the city Office of Chief Medical Examiner are working on counting the cases in which the deceased did not have a test. The fire department would not comment on the significance of its figures, which first were reported on the website gothamist.com. According to the data, a total of 2,192 at-home deaths were reported from March 20 to April 5. The city death count as of that day, including hundreds of deaths among the nearly 16,000 hospitalized for the disease, was about 2,500. It now exceeds 3,200. Calls during the coronavirus outbreak in New York are swamping 911 emergency responders, the data show. Between March 20 and April 5, the number of Covid-19-like cases, including patients who survived, tripled, from 94 to 322, according to fire department data. The percentage of calls in which paramedics could not save the person rose from 48% percent to 75%. “It’s never-ending,” said a fire department paramedic lieutenant who asked not to be identified. “And it’s getting worse each day.” Before the coronavirus outbreak, the lieutenant said, the five boroughs averaged 10 to 20 calls a day that resulted in death.
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4074
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Number of confirmed vaping illnesses in Idaho grows to 6.
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Idaho public health officials say there are now six confirmed cases of vaping-related lung illness in the state.
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true
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Health, General News, Lung disease, Vaping, Public health, Idaho
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The Idaho Division of Public Health is working with health officials across the state to identify cases of severe lung illness in people who have reported vaping or using e-cigarettes. The first two confirmed cases of the illness were reported in Idaho about two weeks ago. On Friday, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare said that number had climbed to six. The outbreak of vaping-related lung disease has sickened at least 530 people in 38 states, and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says seven people have died nationwide as of Thursday.
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17606
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The 'Denver Post' has actually hired an editor to promote pot.
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"O’Reilly said the Denver Post was a ""far left concern"" that had ""actually hired an editor to promote pot"". This goes to the newspaper's intent. The Denver Post said it planned to cover many aspects of the unfolding story of legalized marijuana in the state, ranging from policy and laws to the culture of pot users. While that coverage has yet to unfold, the stated goals of the Post do not match O’Reilly’s description of the newspaper’s intentions and we heard nothing from the show that supported O’Reilly’s view."
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false
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After the Fact, Alcohol, Drugs, PunditFact, Marijuana, Bill O'Reilly,
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"The Denver Post’s decision to hire a ""pot editor"" to cover the legal recreational use of marijuana in Colorado has drawn the ire of Bill O’Reilly, who twice in four days attacked the newspaper on his Fox News program. Among other things, O’Reilly called the Post’s top editor a pinhead and warned that the paper was promoting intoxication that would put more dangerous drivers on the road. ""The Denver Post has actually hired an editor to promote pot,"" O’Reilly exclaimed on Monday’s show. Both of his guests on Monday’s show pushed back. Mary Katharine Ham argued that this was a legitimate matter of public policy. Juan Williams said since pot would soon be legal in Colorado, talking about it would be no different from the wine reviews you can find in many newspapers. O’Reilly would have none of it. ""You can drink wine without getting inebriated,"" he said. The only reason to use marijuana, O’Reilly said, ""is to get high."" We reached out to Fox News for more details from the show and did not hear back. This fact-check focuses on whether the Denver Post is promoting pot, but O’Reilly and his guests raised some important points and we’ll cover some of them too. Reporting vs. endorsing We should be clear that O’Reilly did not say the Post’s coverage would have the unintended effect of encouraging the consumption of marijuana. He said promotion was the newspaper’s intent, calling the Post a ""very far left concern."" We can never be entirely certain when it comes to intent but here is how the newly appointed editor, Ricardo Baca, described the scope of his mandate. ""We will have voices in the mix from all sides of the story,"" Baca said in an article published by his paper. ""You smoke (or eat or vaporize) everyday. You got high once in high school and never again. You stopped after you had kids but are thinking about returning. You’re anti-pot and wish it weren’t one of the biggest issues in Colorado. I want to talk with all of you."" Baca promised that the beat would cover cannabis culture and news ""from a professional, journalistic and critical point of view."" So yes, the Post will have a freelance pot critic and a freelance pot adviser, but it will also use staff reporters to follow how the legalization of marijuana unfolds in the state that has gone further than any other (although Washington runs a close second). Colorado’s unique status makes the Post’s work very intriguing to Dr. Eric Wish, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland. ""People have been debating this for a long time and there’s been no place where we could have an experiment to see what happens.,"" Wish said. ""Now the voters made Colorado the experiment. Anything that the Denver Post can do to inform people of the consequences of this experiment is going to be good. We need to know."" The Post’s editor says he expects the new beat to engage the public. That can mean many things. Safe to say, the newspaper plans to attract readers. That’s a long way from encouraging people to use marijuana. Comparing cannabis and alcohol Coloradans voted on a measure that aimed to treat marijuana the same as alcohol. Opponents, such as O’Reilly, would maintain that the two chemicals are so fundamentally different, we should never confuse them in our minds or our laws. We can’t resolve that dispute, but our research did produce some useful data. First, coverage of beer, wine and spirits is widespread. Barbara Fusco, director of sales and marketing at the Brewers Association, a beer trade group, searched one database and found 168 reporters and editors who report on beer, wine and spirits at daily newspapers nationwide. ""I’d consider this number low, as it doesn’t include magazines, newswires, blogs, websites or broadcast outlets,"" Fusco said. ""Of those, 168 reporters, 60 are specifically identified as covering beer."" That’s about twice as many beer reporters from five years ago when the association said fewer than three dozen papers had regular coverage. Arnie Robbins, executive director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, says based on what he’s seen, newspapers are expanding the space they give to all kinds of alcoholic drinks. ""On the New York Times baby boomer blog they have a column called A Quiet Drink,"" Robbins said. ""They cover where can you find a cool bar that isn’t crazy loud and it’s about the drinks there."" We visited A Quiet Drink and read about an ""iced black tea made with Jim Beam bourbon, simple syrup and cardamom pods"" and a mai tai ""with two kinds of rum — Zacapa 23 and Cana Brava — and a pleasant undercurrent of orange, from Creole Shrubb liqueur."" To our eye, this wouldn’t seem to discourage drinking. But O’Reilly’s main point was that you can drink without getting drunk while getting stoned is the only reason to smoke pot. This made us curious. Can we calibrate the effects of alcohol in ways that we can’t with pot? ""It may be a dichotomy to say you can do it with alcohol but not marijuana,"" said Wish at the University of Maryland. Wish pointed to reports of people who have used marijuana medically and were given the choice of using pills or smoking the drug. They said they were able to control the effects more precisely by smoking. Wish has many concerns about the consequences of legalization. He warns about the combined impact on driving with both alcohol and marijuana in the blood stream. He says if legal pot is taxed at too high a rate, it could encourage the use of cheaper synthetic cannabis which can be a very risky compound. But as to our relative ability to manage our consumption of alcohol and marijuana, he says we should not assume we do a great job with either. ""I’m not so sure people calibrate so well once they get inebriated,"" Wish said. Our ruling O’Reilly said the Denver Post was a ""far left concern"" that had ""actually hired an editor to promote pot"". This goes to the newspaper's intent. The Denver Post said it planned to cover many aspects of the unfolding story of legalized marijuana in the state, ranging from policy and laws to the culture of pot users. While that coverage has yet to unfold, the stated goals of the Post do not match O’Reilly’s description of the newspaper’s intentions and we heard nothing from the show that supported O’Reilly’s view."
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2608
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"Sexting"" again linked to risky sex among teens: study."
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One out of every seven Los Angeles high schoolers with a cell phone has sent a sexually-explicit text message or photo, and were also more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors, according to a study based on a 2011 survey.
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true
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Health News
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"The study, published in Pediatrics, found that the LA teens who had sent racy texts were seven times more likely to be sexually active than those who said they’d never sexted. “What we really wanted to know is, is there a link between sexting and taking risks with your body? And the answer is a pretty resounding ‘yes,’” said Eric Rice, a social network researcher from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, who led the study. A study of Houston, Texas high schoolers out earlier this summer found that one in four teens had sent a naked photo of themselves through text message or email, and those kids were also much more likely to be having risky sex. Rice’s findings are based on 1,839 students in Los Angeles high schools, most of who were Latino. Three-quarters of them owned a cell phone that they used regularly. On a survey sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just over 40 percent of teens with a cell phone said they’d had sex, and about two-thirds used a condom the last time they did. Rice said the rate of teen sexting in Houston may have been slightly higher than in Los Angeles because of demographic differences, but that overall the two reports are consistent. “Somewhere in the middle is probably a pretty good estimate of what’s going on nationally,” said Jeff Temple, a psychologist and women’s health researcher from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, who worked on the Houston study. His research found that girls in particular who’d sent naked photos were more likely to engage in risky sex, to have had multiple recent sex partners or to use alcohol and drugs before sex. “Sexting appears to be a reflection or an indication of actual sexual behavior,” Temple told Reuters Health. “What they’re doing in their offline lives is what they’re doing in their online lives.” With sexting, aside from the risky sexual behavior, there’s also the concern that naked photos will end up on the Internet and teens will be bullied online, or that students who receive explicit texts could be charged with child pornography. Temple and his colleagues are currently working on a study to see what typically comes first among teens - sexting or actual sex. Rice said that media coverage of sexting controversies could be a good way for parents or teachers to talk to teens about sexting and sex. ""Sexting might be an easier conversation for teachers to start having with teens than a full-on conversation that starts, 'Let's talk about sex,'"" he said. SOURCE: bit.ly/jsoh2P"
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38355
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A doll called “My Friend Cayla” contains a connected bluetooth listening device that is being used to spy on children and record their conversations.
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'My Friend Cayla' Doll Being Hacked, Used for Espionage
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mixture
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Warnings
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The maker of the “My Friend Cayla” doll and other “smart” kids’ toys faces allegations that its toys illegally record children’s interactions and send information back to the manufacturer over the internet without permission from the children’s parents. Warnings about the My Friend Cayla doll recording private conversations surfaced after Germany’s Federal Network Agency issued a notice on February 17, 2017, that parents should voluntarily destroy the toy over concerns that they have secret listening devices: It is precisely from toys as espionage devices that dangers arise: Without the knowledge of the parents, the conversations of the child and other persons can be recorded and forwarded. Through the toy, a company could also address the child or the parents individually with advertising. Furthermore, a toy, if the radio link (like bluetooth) is not adequately protected by the manufacturer, can be used unnoticed by nearby parties to listen to conversations. The consumer warning notes that similar “smart” toys that can make secret recordings have already been taken off the market in Germany, but it didn’t indicate that similar action was immediately being taken against the My Friend Cayla doll. But this isn’t the first time the My Friend Cayla doll has found herself in hot water. A complaint against the My Friend Cayla’s manufacturer, Genesis Toys, was filed with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the U.S. in December 2016: This complaint concerns toys that spy. By purpose and design, these toys record and collect the private conversations of young children without any limitations on collection, use, or disclosure of this personal information. The toys subject young children to ongoing surveillance and are deployed in homes across the United States without any meaningful data protection standards. They pose an imminent and immediate threat to the safety and security of children in the United States. As set forth in detail below, certain business practices by toy manufacturer Genesis Toys and speech recognition technology provider Nuance Communications violate both specific children’s privacy and general consumer protections in the United States. Both Genesis Toys and Nuance Communications unfairly and deceptively collect, use, and disclose audio files of children’s voices without providing adequate notice or obtaining verified parental consent in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), the COPPA Rule, and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. It is incumbent upon the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) to take action in this matter, and to enjoin Genesis Toys and Nuance Communications from such unlawful activities. The complaint continues that Genesis manufactures the physical My Friend Cayla and i-Que dolls and develops applications for them that are available through Google Play and the iTunes store. Genesis manufactures the physical Cayla and i-Que dolls and develops and provides the companion applications, available from the Google Play and iTunes app stores.2 And, the complaint alleges, the privacy issues lie in these applications that are then installed into the “smart” toys: The companion application for My Friend Cayla requests permission to access the hardware, storage, microphone, Wi-Fi connections, and Bluetooth on users’ devices, but fails to disclose to the user the significance of obtaining this permission. The i-Que companion application also requests access to the device camera, which is not necessary to the toy’s functions and is not explained or justified. After establishing a Bluetooth connection with the Cayla and/or i-Que doll, the mobile application connects the doll to the internet.25 The Cayla and i-Que applications record and collect conversations between the dolls and children. A child’s statements are converted into text, which is then used by the application to retrieve answers using Google Search, Wikipedia and Weather Underground. In addition to researching and providing factual answers to questions posed by the child, the application also allows the doll to provide appropriate responses to everything the child says, including conversational questions and comments. Cayla and i-Que encourage children to openly converse with the toys, as if chatting with a friend. According to Genesis, “Cayla can understand and respond to you in real-time about almost anything. . . She is not just a doll… she’s a real friend!” The complaint continues that researchers have discovered that My Friend Cayla is pre-programmed with dozens of phrases that reference Disney World and Disney movies, and that she tells children she loves going to Disney Land and wants to go to Epcot at Disney World — which amounts to deceptive advertising: This product placement is not disclosed and is difficult for young children to recognize as advertising. Studies show that children have a significantly harder time identifying advertising when it’s not clearly distinguished from programming. Brand placement is particularly hard for children to understand because children focus their attention on the content and utilize “fewer cognitive resources . . . to consciously scrutinize and evaluate placed brands.” Since the product placement is not disclosed, parents who purchase the doll for their children are unaware there is product placement in the conversations. Researchers also found that data collected from the toy is uploaded and stored in a cloud-based system with an IP address registered in Burlington, Massachusetts, the same city where software developer Nuance is located: Researchers found that both Apple and Android apps for Cayla upload data to the same IP address, 205.197.192.116, which is located in Burlington, Massachusetts, the same city where Nuance is headquartered. Geolocation data confirms that IP address 205.197.192.116 belongs to Nuance.43 29. Researchers observed that the data was sent while the app was recording the speech, and the size of the data sent indicated that the files being uploaded were sound files. The Cayla and i-Que Terms of Service state that Genesis and Nuance use speech data, including audio files and text transcriptions, to enhance and improve products. The complaint also states that companies’ terms of service are difficult to access, and that the companies fail to obtain a parent’s permission before transmitting data about the child to the company, amounting to a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). The German distributor of My Friend Cayla, Vivid GMBH, has argued that My Friend Cayla is not an espionage device and will challenge Germany’s recent ban of the doll in court, Sky News reports: Vivid GmbH said it was taking the allegations about My Friend Cayla “very seriously” and would challenge the sale ban in court. “She is not an espionage device and can be used safely in every respect according to the user manual,” said the German company in a statement. So, it’s clear that My Friend Cayla and other smart toys marked by Genesis Toys collects and transmits data about their interactions with children. Whether or not the toy violates U.S. or German laws is currently up in the air. For that reason, we’re calling this one truth and disputed. Comments
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17906
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The president’s own advisers have said there’s a war on coal.
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"McConnell said, ""The president’s own advisers have said there’s a war on coal."" A man who sits on a presidential advisory council did speak of a war on coal. It is accurate to call him an adviser. It is inaccurate to refer to more than one adviser but much more significant, it also falls wide of the mark to interpret his words as meaning that there is a war on coal. The adviser expressed support for that sort of policy, but press accounts at the time and the adviser’s own words today affirm that he did not say there is presently a war on coal."
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false
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National, Energy, Jobs, Mitch McConnell,
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"The unveiling of proposed regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants stirred up protests that the administration is waging ""a war on coal."" Under these rules, newly built coal-fired facilities could not release more than 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour. The most advanced plant today releases over 1,600 pounds. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., faces re-election next year. Just before the announcement, his campaign posted an ad on the Web called ""Stand for coal."" The ad uses excerpts from what sounds like a public speech by McConnell. Here’s how it begins: I don’t have to tell you there’s a war on coal here in America, and it’s really come home here in Kentucky. The president’s own advisers have said there’s a war on coal. And I want to remind people that whether they live in a coal county or not, a war on coal is a war on Kentucky, all of Kentucky. Because our great competitive advantage has been low utility rates. This administration, whether it’s Obamacare or the war on coal, needs to be stopped. And I tell you, I will be the leader of the forces that take on the war on coal. The second sentence stands out. It would be politically inflammatory if the president’s team was talking about waging a war on coal. More than 50 Democratic lawmakers come from coal-producing states, and they eye this issue warily. We decided to look at the substance behind McConnell’s claim that ""the president’s own advisers have said there’s a war on coal."" We emailed McConnell’s campaign, and they pointed to several news articles from June of this year. The articles reference Daniel Schrag, a Harvard geochemist and a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. They quote Schrag telling the New York Times that, ""Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed."" We’ll work through the three elements of McConnell’s claim one by one. Is Schrag an adviser? By title, Schrag is certainly an adviser. The president’s advisory council has 18 members and includes the former chief of Google, the president of Yale, chemists, biologists, physicists and computer scientists. It meets about seven times a year and the members talk about everything from city planning to mathematics education, from health care to information technology. Earlier this year, the council sent a letter to Obama suggesting half a dozen factors to include in his climate change policy. On that list, it recommended doing more to ""decarbonize"" the economy. It noted the administration’s ""efforts to increase coal’s usability through development of carbon capture and storage,"" and said the White House should speed that process along. One caveat: Most of the actual policy-making on climate change takes place at the Environmental Protection Agency and at the Department of Energy. We contacted Schrag and he said he was expressing his own views, not those of the administration. ""I do not have that knowledge nor that authority,"" Schrag said. Schrag said he has never met one-on-one with the president. Obama has met with the council as a whole a handful of times. Did more than one adviser say this? McConnell used the plural. ""The president’s own advisers have said,"" was his phrase. The McConnell campaign did not identify any advisers other than Schrag. We could find no others. There is no evidence that we are dealing with more than a single adviser. Did Schrag say ""we have a war on coal""? It is clear that Schrag himself would like to see a war on coal. However, he said he regrets using that term. ""A ‘war on coal’ is taken as an attack on coal miners, etc., and that was not my intention,"" he said. ""I don't want to fight a war on anyone. Indeed, I am a strong supporter of coal plants with carbon capture and storage."" Schrag said his actual words have been twisted. ""I never said that there was a war on coal. My statement was that, in my own personal opinion, a war on coal is needed -- not that the administration is waging a war on coal,"" Schrag said. Schrag does not say he was misquoted as such. Let’s look at his words again: ""Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed."" It is possible to interpret those words as saying, ""There is a war on coal but no one wants to say so."" But it is also possible to interpret them as, ""I think there should be a war on coal but the administration isn’t there yet."" A look at the headlines of the articles McConnell’s campaign sent us tends to support the second interpretation. The Washington Post had ""Obama science adviser calls for ‘war on coal’."" The Washington Times had ""Obama science adviser urges ‘war on coal’."" The Washington Times item said ""One of the White House’s advisers on climate change said that President Obama should use his global warming speech Tuesday to launch a ‘war on coal’."" If the administration did have a war on coal, there would be no reason for Schrag to say it was time to launch one. We should note that the original quote from Shrag in the New York Times was removed at some point from the New York Times story. There is no explanation by the New York Times as to why the quote was removed. Conservative bloggers noted the alteration of the story and copied the original context of Schrag’s quote. Daniel P. Schrag, a geochemist who is the head of Harvard University’s Center for the Environment and a member of a presidential science panel that has helped advise the White House on climate change, said he hoped the presidential speech would mark a turning point in the national debate on climate change. ""Everybody is waiting for action,"" he said. ""The one thing the president really needs to do now is to begin the process of shutting down the conventional coal plants. Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal. On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed."" The administration’s policy on coal The core of the president’s coal policy is clean coal. In practice, that means creating new methods to capture and store the carbon released when coals burns. The White House said the administration has spent about $6 billion to develop clean coal technology. Staff also pointed to an $8 billion loan guarantee program under the Department of Energy that has just begun. Under the program, private investors can apply to the government to eliminate the risk to lenders who put money behind a clean coal project. Recently, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, told a House committee that, ""We believe coal will continue to represent a significant portion of the energy supply in the decades to come."" Administration critics say its policies will produce a different result. The Institute for Energy Research favors deregulation and is headed by the former policy chief at Enron. The group posted an article on its website, ""EPA emissions rule will destroy U.S. coal industry."" The institute argues that the proposed rules ""will deny U.S. citizens the right to have new generating facilities built using coal."" The biggest problem for coal right now seems to be the market. While coal remains the primary fuel for producing electricity, it is losing ground against much cheaper natural gas. Utilities are shedding coal fired generators and adding ones powered by natural gas. According to reports on planned capacity changes submitted to the government’s Energy Information Administration, by 2016, there will be a net loss of 149 coal-fired generators and a net gain of 120 that use natural gas. Our ruling McConnell said, ""The president’s own advisers have said there’s a war on coal."" A man who sits on a presidential advisory council did speak of a war on coal. It is accurate to call him an adviser. It is inaccurate to refer to more than one adviser but much more significant, it also falls wide of the mark to interpret his words as meaning that there is a war on coal. The adviser expressed support for that sort of policy, but press accounts at the time and the adviser’s own words today affirm that he did not say there is presently a war on coal."
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1175
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Study finds possible link between sugary drinks and cancer.
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People who drink a lot of sugary drinks have a higher risk of developing cancer, although the evidence cannot establish a direct causal link, researchers said on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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The findings of a large study in France do suggest, however, that limiting intake of sugar-sweetened drinks may help to cut the number of cancer cases in a population, the scientists said. Consumption of sugary drinks has risen worldwide in the last few decades and is linked to obesity, which itself increases cancer risk. The World Health Organization recommends that people should limit their daily intake of sugar to less than 10% of their total energy intake, but also says a further reduction to below 5%, or about 25 grams a day, would be healthier. Many countries, including Britain, Belgium, France, Hungary and Mexico, have introduced, or are about to introduce, taxes on sugar with the aim of improving people’s health. Published in the BMJ British medical journal, this study analysed data from 101,257 French adults - 21% of them men and 79% women - and assessed their intake or sugary drinks. It followed them for a maximum of 9 years, between 2009 and 2018, to assess their risk for all types of cancer, and for some specific types including breast, colon and prostate cancer. The researchers also adjusted for several confounding cancer risk factors, including age, sex, educational level, family history, smoking and physical activity levels. The results showed that a 100 millilitre (ml) a day increase in consumption of sugary drinks was linked to an 18% increased risk of overall cancer and a 22% increased risk of breast cancer. When the sugary drinkers were divided into those who drank fruit juices and those who drank other sweet drinks, both groups were also linked with a higher risk of overall cancer. For prostate and colorectal cancers, no link was found, but the researchers said this might have been because the numbers of cases of these cancers in the study participants was limited. Experts not directly involved in the work said it was a well-conducted and robust study, but noted that its results could not establish cause and effect. “While this study doesn’t offer a definitive causative answer about sugar and cancer, it does add to the overall picture of the importance of the current drive to reduce our sugar intake,” said Amelia Lake, an expert in public health nutrition at Britain’s Teesside University. “The message from the totality of evidence on excess sugar consumption and various health outcomes is clear – reducing the amount of sugar in our diet is extremely important.”
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9725
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Heart Scan Can Fine-Tune Risk Estimate for Patients Considering Statins
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Credit NHLBI. This story hits almost all the high points we look for in a news report. It gives readers not only the basic summary of an analysis of how CT scan results showing levels of calcium deposits in coronary arteries are associated with 10-year rates of heart attacks and other cardiovascular disease, but it includes more than one skeptical voice and plainly discusses study limitations and potential harms. Still, our criteria are demanding, and the story falls a bit short on two points: disclosures of researcher relationships with industry and then alternatives available to people who might consider getting one of these scans. But the strengths of this story are an example of how to get it right. Too often, stories about medical tests fall into the “why not” category. This story lays out the potential benefits reported by researchers, but it also provides readers clear and useful explanations of the nuances and potential pitfalls of this sort of CT scan. The story is important because the number of people placed on statins has progressively increased over the years — and if some people can avoid these drugs without putting themselves at increased risk, then it’s probably good that they avail themselves of the opportunity.
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true
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Dr. Harlan Krumholz,statins
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The story reports that a CT scan looking for calcium in coronary arteries “typically costs between $75 and $100. Still, it is generally not covered by insurance and so is not often used to assess risk.” That’s enough information to clear our bar handily, although we’d note that such scans can also turn up lung nodules that require additional follow-up and related costs. The story reports that among study participants, those with a zero calcium score on a heart CT scan had only half the expected number of heart attacks or disabling chest pain over a 10-year period. That’s a relative comparison, which as we frequently note does not provide the full picture regarding benefit. But the story goes on to give readers a better sense of what these numbers mean in absolute terms. It explains the example of a person with a 12 percent risk of a heart attack over a decade based on the risk calculator recommended by the American college of Cardiology and others. That person actually turned out to have only a 4 percent 10-year risk, below the widely-used 7.5 percent risk threshold for recommending a statin. The story makes clear that the scan does not provide a direct health benefit, but it provides information to people who are trying to decide about whether to start taking cholesterol-reducing statins. To help with that decision, it would have been nice for the story to include some discussion of the benefits associated with statin use, especially the numbers needed to treat (NNT) with a statin in order to save a life. The story includes only one patient anecdote, a woman who was feeling depressed and had trouble getting out of bed when she took statins, and then decided to stop taking the drugs after having a CT scan that showed zero calcium. We often find fault with stories that introduce readers to only one patient, who claims to have greatly benefited; however, the placement of the anecdote low in the story and the preceding context that included limitations and expert cautions mean this single patient story doesn’t overwhelm the other information. Link to online Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) Risk Estimator: http://tools.acc.org/ASCVD-Risk-Estimator/ The story clearly lays out some of the ways that testing can go awry. It reports that the CT scans expose people to about the same amount of radiation as a mammogram, implying a level that many people routinely accept, though it does not go into detail about potential radiation effects. The story also explains the risk of “incidentalomas”, things that can pop up on this sort of scan besides coronary artery calcium, such as nodules in lungs, that might lead a person down a path of further testing and treatment. And it spells out the potential consequences of having a scan that reveals high levels of calcium deposits, prompting further testing and treatments, perhaps leading to substantial harms.Overall, we think the harms are admirably covered. The story points out that the study was observational, “not the highest level of evidence”. It goes on to explain that since people in the study were not randomly assigned to testing or no testing, the results do not demonstrate that changing current practice would change real health outcomes. The story reports that proponents are suggesting this sort of scan only for people who need more information to make a decision about statin treatment. It also includes skeptics who doubt the value of the test for most people. The tone is calm, not shrill. We saw no evidence of disease mongering. This was a split decision that we ultimately ruled Not Satisfactory. There are multiple independent sources in the story, so it clearly addresses that element of the criterion. However, the story does not report the financial relationships some of the study authors have with manufacturers of scanners and other medical devices. One of our reviewers argued that these scanning machines are essentially generic and that therefore a conflict of interest disclosure is not relevant in this case. Two others voted that the potential conflict, minimal though it might be, was still directly relevant to the story and merited a brief mention. This is an instance where a binary Satisfactory/Not Satisfactory rating does not capture the nuance involved in our decision-making, which is why we always encourage readers to pay more attention to the comments than the ratings. There is no mention of alternative risk calculators that include lifestyle and other factors, which people on the fence can use to help clarify their thinking about statin treatment. It also does not clearly point out that people who are uncertain about statin treatment can try the drug to see if they experience bothersome side effects. In other words, there are alternative ways for people to gather information that could help them decide about statin treatment. The story makes clear that this test is readily available, and points out that it is generally not covered by insurance. The story notes that CT scans for coronary artery calcium are not new, and that what is new is the analysis of how test scores are associated with 10-year rates of heart attacks and other cardiovascular disease. The story clearly does not rely on a news release. There is original reporting that includes feedback from the original authors of the paper as well as independent experts.
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3457
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Lawsuit: Pentagon withholding info from veterans’ advocates.
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A veterans group said the Pentagon has stopped releasing information that helps former service members to contest less-than-honorable discharges from the military.
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true
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Norfolk, Mental health, Health, Lawsuits, Virginia, Post-traumatic stress disorder, U.S. News, Veterans, General News
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The Defense Department has been breaking the law since April, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Virginia by the National Veterans Legal Services Program. The group says it lacks access to decisions made by military review boards. The boards grant or deny a veteran’s request to upgrade a less-than-honorable discharge. Veterans’ lawyers study those decisions in hopes of building successful arguments for their clients. The lawsuit comes at a time of growing recognition that a less-than-honorable discharge can stem from behaviors brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries. Liberal consideration is supposed to be given to veterans with combat-related mental health conditions and to those who were sexually assaulted while in the military. Lawyers and veterans’ advocates “often look” at the past decisions of military review boards, said Bart Stichman, executive director of the organization that filed the lawsuit. “These decisions are redacted to protect privacy,” he added. “You don’t see the name of the veteran who has PTSD or other personal information.” Lisa Lawrence, a spokeswoman for the Defense Department, said in an email that the military is “reviewing the complaint and will consult with the Department of Justice on an appropriate response to this lawsuit.” Dana Montalto, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Veterans Legal Clinic, backed up the lawsuit’s claim that discharge decisions have not been available. She said there are thousands of decisions going back at least 15 years. She said the lack of information hampers veterans’ efforts to change their discharge statuses and to get more help. Veterans can lose some or all of the benefits that are available depending on the level of their discharge status. “It would shock many people to learn that veterans are waiting years to get a decision from a review board, during which time they’re often shut out from receiving critical healthcare and support services that they desperately need,” she said. Montalto said military review boards have made significant efforts to account for mental health conditions. And requests that would not have been granted a decade ago are now being approved, she said. But she said success rates are still too low and that more needs to be done. “It may be surprising to know that post-9/11 vets have the highest rate of receiving less-than-honorable discharges than any era of veterans,” she said. “This generation is no less honorable and has notably volunteered.”
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11169
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Clinical Trial Demonstrates Success of Low FODMAP Diet
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This news release touts results from a single-blind randomized controlled trial of a diet that’s emerged in the last decade to relieve symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a tough-to-treat gut disorder with no cure. The low FODMAP (an acronym for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides And Polyols) diet eliminates foods that contain large amounts of short-chain carbohydrates that are poorly absorbed in the small intestine. In IBS patients those carbohydrates are believed to feed bacteria in the colon, generating gases that lead to bloating, abdominal discomfort, and changes in bowel function. The low-FODMAP diet restricts an array of foods including honey, high fructose corn syrup, high-fructose fruits such as apples, dairy, wheat, garlic, onion, legumes and beans, some artificial sweeteners, and stone fruits such as avocado and peaches. In the University of Michigan study, registered dietitians educated and monitored 83 patients assigned to either a low FODMAP diet or a healthy control diet in which FODMAPs were not excluded. The trial concluded that after four weeks, the low FODMAP diet improved quality of life, ability to perform activities, and sleep quality compared to the control diet. While the news release rightly encourages patients to consider dietary changes that could improve their symptoms, it would have been more helpful to readers if it included some cautions about the study’s limitations, potential cost of working with an advising dietitian, and the drawbacks of following such a restrictive diet. IBS is a chronic illness that affects an estimated 5 to 15 percent of the developed world but historically has been understudied and undertreated. Symptoms can have a profound effect on sleep, personal relationships, travel, diet, and sexual function, and impose both direct medical costs and indirect costs such as absenteeism from work and school along with decreased quality of life, according to a report in the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy. The report set the annual cost of IBS treatment in the U.S. at between $1.7 billion and $10 billion in direct medical costs (excluding prescription and over-the-counter drug costs) and $20 billion for indirect costs. There’s no diagnostic test for IBS, and in the past patients were often told their symptoms were the result of a mental disorder. The last decade has seen a surge in efforts to develop effective treatments, but new drugs have met with limited success and tend to be expensive. The low FODMAP diet was originally developed by a research team at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where researchers measured the FODMAP content of foods, creating a database and smartphone apps to help patients track intake. Studies have shown that a low FODMAP diet improves symptoms for a majority of IBS patients, but the diet is demanding because it rules out many common foods. It’s often used as a temporary elimination plan; after several weeks, when symptoms disappear, foods are reintroduced slowly over the course of months to help patients determine which specific foods trigger their symptoms. Rigorous study findings that support the efficacy of the low FODMAP diet in the U.S. could prompt more clinicians and patients to embrace it.
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mixture
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Academic medical center news release
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A low FODMAP diet might raise grocery bills, since it requires specialty products that eliminate wheat, lactose, fructose, and other common ingredients. It’s understandable that the news release doesn’t address a potential modest increase in food expenses. However, the cost of working with a registered dietitian over several months to adopt a low FODMAP diet and tailor it to a patient’s individual food tolerances is significant. That should have been addressed in the news release, along with how that cost might be offset by eliminating less effective pharmaceutical therapies and increasing the productivity of patients who regularly miss work because they are debilitated by IBS symptoms. The news release reports some numbers. It says more than half of the patients on the low FODMAP diet experienced “major improvement” of their abdominal pain compared with 20 percent of the control group, and 61 percent of low FODMAP patients had a “meaningful improvement” in quality of life versus 27 percent for the control group. However, it should have described for readers what these improvements mean from a clinical standpoint. Is the researchers’ definition of “major improvement” the same as what patients expect when they hear that term? Offering some specifics would have helped clarify. While a dietary intervention may seem relatively harmless, there are notable risks. Potential nutritional deficiencies and changes in gut bacteria following a low FODMAP diet long-term have not been studied. Some people may also find it inconvenient to be on a restricted diet that prohibits consuming their favorite foods. The release skips over some important details. First, diet studies are notoriously unreliable. The news release does not specify how researchers determined whether patients were actually following their assigned diets. Did they keep logs? Did they report their specific consumption to researchers? Did patients assigned to the control group avoid some FODMAPs anyway because they knew those foods might aggravate their symptoms? What accounted for symptom improvements of patients in the control group? And why might the low FODMAP diet have failed to work for all patients? The news release could have done a better job exploring these questions. Second, the news release does not explain the criteria for selecting patients to study, and how that might have affected the results. For example, if the selected patients had demonstrated an ability to adhere to treatment regimens, that should be considered when determining whether similar results could be achieved in a general population of patients. Further, the news release should have explained why nine of the 92 patients deemed eligible for the study did not complete the study period. Did some patients find the low FODMAP diet or the control diet too difficult to follow? Third, the news release should have mentioned that all patients in the study had one type of IBS, IBS with diarrhea. Two other types, IBS with constipation and IBS with mixed constipation and diarrhea, were not included. In general, we think the news release could have done a better job of underscoring the difficulty of following a low FODMAP diet and how that could undermine its efficacy, as well as explaining the diet’s role as a framework for eliminating symptoms before reintroducing foods one by one to test a patient’s tolerances. The release waits until the very end to address these thorny issues, including the need for patients to seek help from a dietitian and the need for researchers to determine why foods can trigger different reactions in different patients. There’s no evidence of disease mongering. The release says the research was funded by the University of Michigan Nutritional and Obesity Center and Prometheus Laboratories Inc. It might have disclosed that Prometheus Laboratories is owned by the global food and beverage giant Nestlé, and that it sells diagnostic tests for IBS. The news release mentions “medications that are often expensive, usually ineffective and frequently cause unwelcome side effects.” Some elaboration would have been useful. The majority of IBS patients actually do get relief from standard dietary changes and occasionally medications (depending on whether they have diarrhea or constipation predominant). This was a little misleading as the news release suggests that other methods aren’t effective. Information about the low FODMAP diet is widely available online. The news release states that the low FODMAP diet isn’t new. But it also states that the study is the “first of its kind,” “the largest of its kind,” and that this is the first time the FODMAP diet has been studied in the United States. The news release hypes the study’s importance as the “first of its kind study in the U.S.” and quotes a researcher saying it’s the “only methodically rigorous clinical trial” to show that dietary changes can improve not only symptoms but also quality of life for patients with IBS.” These phrases might overstate the study’s significance somewhat, since there’s ample evidence supporting the efficacy of a low FODMAP diet for some IBS patients. But overall, the language is justifiable.
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34599
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A Harvard study proved instant noodles and ramen can cause irreversible damage to your body.
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What's true: A 2014 study found some indication that frequent consumption of ramen was linked to adverse outcomes. What's false: The results of the study have not been reproduced, and the research states that instant noodles haven't been isolated as a single factor in adverse health outcomes.
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unproven
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Food, food warnings, harvard, instant noodles
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On 4 July 2016, the web site NextShark published an article reporting that a Harvard study had found that the consumption of instant ramen causes extensive health problems to those who frequently partake of that convenience food: Cheap, easy to prepare and undeniably delicious, instant noodles have become a favorite food in many countries around the world despite its reputation for being unhealthy. Also called ramen, the pre-cooked dried noodles packed with flavoring powder and seasoning oil, has often been criticized as a meal devoid of nutrients. Despite the meal being notoriously known to be high in carbohydrates and fat but very low in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, it has somehow retained its global popularity, A Baylor University and Harvard study published in the Journal of Nutrition revealed that eating instant noodles may increase risks of heart disease and stroke, according to Washington Post. The researchers analyzed the health and diet of 11,000 South Koreans between ages 19 and 64. The study showed that South Korean women were at high risk of metabolic syndrome due to the large amounts of ramen they consume. Curiously, the result was not found on male participants, which the scientists attribute to biological differences between the genders.Metabolic syndrome often lead to increased blood sugar and blood pressure levels, causing a higher risk of diabetes, stroke or heart disease. The culprit identified was the substance found in ramen called Tertiary-butyl hydroquinone (TBHQ), a petroleum industry byproduct used to preserve cheap processed foods. The claim gained traction in July 2016, but it was not new at that time. The article on which the claim was based was originally published in by Live Science in August 2014 and simply reiterated portions of the study along with commentary from a nutritionist on whether the research from Korea might also apply to noodle-eaters in the United States: The study was conducted in South Korea, an area known to have the largest ramen consumption group in the world, where people consumed 3.4 billion packages of instant noodles in 2010. But the findings could apply to people in North American too, said Lisa Young, a nutritionist and professor at New York University who was not involved in the study. “We [in the States] don’t eat it as much, but the ramen noodles are being sold, so this could apply to anywhere they’re sold, and they’re sold almost everywhere.” The research was later often billed as a “Harvard study,” but we couldn’t find any reference to Harvard in its text other than the affiliations of some its researchers. Information made available to the paper’s publisher indicated some funding came from the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute Cardiovascular Research Review Committee, but neither Harvard nor Baylor was directly involved with the research. According to NextShark, the study showed that South Korean women were at “high risk” of metabolic syndrome from heavy ramen consumption, but the supporting material painted a more detailed picture. In the paper’s methodology section, researchers stated that the study aimed to investigate the association between “dietary patterns, instant noodle consumption, and cardiometabolic risk factors by using the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) cross-sectional survey”, with subjects self-reporting their eating habits. Researchers also described using a “63-item food-frequency questionnaire,” or “FFQ,” and explained how instant noodles showed up as a dietary factor: Dietary intake information was collected by FFQ (frequency only with no portion-size question) and independent 1-d 24-h recall. The FFQ consists of 63 food and beverage items reflecting the most frequently consumed foods and other nutrients among South Koreans; it has been widely used for many diet-disease studies in Korea, supporting the validity of the FFQ … Participants were asked to choose from 10 possible frequency responses, ranging from “almost never” to “3 times a day” for each food. Food and beverage intakes from the FFQ were categorized into 38 food groups The median intake frequency was normalized by using a Z score to generate dietary pattern scores separately in males and females. In secondary analysis the median intake frequency of each food group was divided by total energy intake (nutrient density method) as assessed by 24-h dietary recall and normalized using a Z-score to generate energy-adjusted dietary patterns to decrease variation from differences in body size or physical activity and to decrease measurement error. Intakes of total energy, proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and sodium were calculated from the 24-h dietary recall data. We identified 2 major dietary patterns: the “traditional dietary pattern” (TP), rich in grain, legumes, potatoes, fish, mushrooms, seaweed, fruit, and vegetables, and the “meat and fast-food pattern” (MP), with less rice and cereal but rich in meat, soda, fried food, instant noodles, bread, cookies, fish paste, ice cream, hamburgers, and pizza. Similar dietary patterns were identified in men and women. Those with the highest quintiles of the MP also had a higher frequency of instant noodle intake (a mean of 2 times/wk in men and 1.2 times/wk in women) compared with the highest quintiles of the TP (a mean of 1.1 times/wk in men and 0.7 times/wk in women) Respondents organized themselves into two rough groups. The first consumed a more basic and traditional diet, while the second reported ingesting a laundry list of non-healthy items including fried food, pizza, soda, and instant noodles. The researchers examined the data from myriad viewpoints to assess the specific effects of instant noodles on dietary health among Korean participants and noted some mitigating factors in the results: Our study had several limitations. First, we cannot infer a causal relation given our cross-sectional study design. People diagnosed with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, or diabetes mellitus might reduce their consumption of unhealthy foods, leading to reverse causation bias. However, the stronger association between instant noodle consumption ≥2 times/wk and metabolic syndrome among women after excluding participants taking blood pressure–lowering and lipid-lowering medications or who had a history of diabetes mellitus might indicate the robustness of that association. Second, dietary pattern construction by principal components analysis may be limited by subjectivity in the proper number of extracted factors and food-grouping methods. Third, our FFQ was limited by the lack of portion size, but previous reports showed that a frequency-only FFQ might be sufficient for diet-disease relation analysis, because portion size contributes a relatively small amount of information on variation in intake. The paper concluded that traditional Korean eating patterns (including higher amounts of fish, rice, and vegetables) were associated with better outcomes than a more “modern,” junk-filled diet (e.g., fast food, fried food, and ramen): In conclusion, the TP was associated with a lower prevalence of abdominal obesity and marginally lower trends for elevated blood pressure, whereas the MP was associated with abdominal obesity, high LDL cholesterol, and decreased prevalence of low HDL cholesterol and hypertriglyceridemia. Independent of major dietary patterns, instant noodle consumption was associated with increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome in women. It is true that a study published in 2014 examined the potential adverse effects of instant noodle consumption in Korea, but the research relied on self-reporting, did not isolate instant noodles as a cause of health problems, and was not necessarily applicable to subjects outside that country.
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5814
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Jury awards family $130 million in medical malpractice case.
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A jury has awarded the family of a boy who suffered brain damage after being treated at a suburban Detroit hospital more than $130 million in a medical malpractice case.
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true
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Royal Oak, Medical malpractice, Pontiac, Detroit
|
The McKeen & Associates law firm announced the verdict Tuesday following a trial in Oakland County Circuit Court in Pontiac. The firm says that in 2006 technicians at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak delayed calling a code blue and failed to give chest compressions as required by the standard of care to then-2-month-old Vihn Tran. The boy’s brain was deprived of oxygen. He now suffers from cerebral palsy. Beaumont Hospital says in a statement that it took the case before a jury because the hospital believes the care delivered “was appropriate.” The hospital plans to appeal.
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31914
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Hours after Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana, the state had its first cannabis overdose.
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The Massachusetts marijuana overdose claim wasn’t The American Tribune‘s first foray into fake news based on cannabis-flavored current events. In late November 2016, the site reported that Green Party candidate Jill Stein embezzled money raised for 2016 election recounts to fund a “marijuana dinner party.”
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false
|
Junk News, fake news, marijuana, massachusetts
|
On 15 December 2016, the state of Massachusetts officially legalized recreational marijuana. Just after that, an article published by The American Tribune reported: Recreational marijuana has only been legal in Massachusetts for two hours, and we are now already seeing what looks like the first recorded marijuana overdose since legalization. The victim, a 24-year-old male, was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston after injecting nearly 5 grams of concentrated cannabis oil. This is the equivalent of around 50 marijuana cigarettes, known as “joints”. He was showing signs of dehydration and had been reportedly hallucinating before losing consciousness at 12:54 AM EST. The victim’s family prefers to remain anonymous at the moment as they process this difficult news. The article had no attribution and a timestamp of 2:14 a.m., but no other outlets subsequently reported what would have been an extremely newsworthy incident (given that there are no recorded overdoses attributed to the use of marijuana). An “About” page linked in The American Tribune‘s footer disclaimed: The American Tribune provides a satirical view of current events. Our articles should be taken with a grain of salt. Our articles are a parody of the terrible news coverage in 2016 and beyond.
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10010
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Stave off cognitive decline with seafood
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European Union lawmakers agreed on Monday to support a proposal on rules governing which financial products can be called “green” and “sustainable” after EU member states rejected a deal on it last week.
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true
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Academic medical center news release
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The proposal has the potential to make the EU a leader in the booming $200 billion green bond market. Last week, representatives from EU member states backtracked on their approval of a deal reached after months of discussions, noting concerns over the legislative text. Britain, France, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia had opposed the deal, fearing it would prevent investments in nuclear and coal projects from being labeled as green. This proposed law is a first step toward establishing a framework labeling system for sustainable investments. A full set of labels will be developed in 2021. The bill is expected to be approved by representatives from all EU member states on Wednesday and then sent to the EU’s executive, the European Commission, which will sign it into law.
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29243
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"Tilapia is a boneless, skinless, ""mutant"" fish that is full of cancer-causing dioxins, is worse to eat than bacon or hamburger, and is killing our families."
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The bottom line is that none of the supposed justifications for avoiding tilapia or claiming that “it’s killing our families” hold water. To the contrary, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) included tilapia in its 2017 list of “best choices” for seafood consumption by pregnant women and children, recommending two to three servings per week. The FDA also recommends eating a variety of fish, obviating the need to worry about balancing one’s intake of fatty acids.
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false
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Critter Country, bad science memes, fish, tilapia
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“Tilapia” is the market name of a variety of mild-flavored, inexpensive freshwater fish species commercially farmed, harvested, and consumed throughout the world. As of 2016, it was the fourth most popular seafood species eaten in the United States. Despite the recognized health benefits of consuming tilapia (and fish generally), however, the product has been maligned by claims that the farm-raised species are riddled with contaminants, lack essential nutrients, and contain a less desirable balance of omega-6 fatty acids versus omega-3 fatty acids than do other popular types of seafood. An Internet meme making the social media rounds since 2017 goes so far as to claim that tilapia is a “mutant” species not found in nature that is literally “killing our families” because it is so unhealthy to eat. True to form, the fear-mongering meme does not cite a single source to support its extreme claims: To begin with the most obvious flaw in this error-riddled presentation, it is illustrated with a commonly used stock photo of a tilapia fish showing that it does, in fact, have skin. Tilapia also have bones (as anyone who has ever cleaned or filleted one knows). Please enjoy this educational video: Health concerns have been raised about the consumption of farm-raised versus wild-caught fish, mainly due to questionable aquacultural practices that can result in fish diseases, which some producers treat with antibiotics. However, Environmental Defense Fund scientist Tim Fitzgerald told the New York Times in 2014 that fish farming practices have been improving, and alert consumers can find “healthy and eco-friendly farmed options” by choosing their merchants carefully. Fitzgerald recommended aiming for a mix of both wild and farmed seafood for best results. Tilapia fish are mostly vegetarian and subsist on algae and freshwater plants in the wild, although, as the meme indicates, under aquacultural conditions they are fed corn and soybeans. Given that the vast majority of corn and soybean varieties grown worldwide are now genetically manipulated to be herbicide-tolerant and insect resistant, unless otherwise labeled the likelihood that farm-raised tilapia have eaten genetically modified products is quite high. There is no scientific evidence to support the assumption that feeding farm-raised tilapia genetically engineered products makes the fish unsafe for humans to consume, however. In an article published on the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) web site, Iowa State University food scientist Ruth S. MacDonald notes that there is no evidence that altered DNA from GMO feed is transferred to the animals that consume it, nor that GMO foods generally pose a health risk to human beings. The scientific consensus on GMO safety remains strong. The claim that eating tilapia “is worse than eating bacon or a hamburger” appears to have been gleaned from web sites reacting to a 2008 study pointing out that farm-raised tilapia offers a less desirable ratio of health-promoting omega-3 fatty acids to potentially inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. A summary of the research said: “For individuals who are eating fish as a method to control inflammatory diseases such as heart disease, it is clear from these numbers that tilapia is not a good choice,” the article says. “All other nutritional content aside, the inflammatory potential of hamburger and pork bacon is lower than the average serving of farmed tilapia.” The article notes that the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, known scientifically as “long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids” (PUFAs), have been well documented. The American Heart Association now recommends that everyone eat at least two servings of fish per week, and that heart patients consume at least 1 gram a day of the two most critical omega-3 fatty acids, known as EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid). But, the article says, the recommendation by the medical community for people to eat more fish has resulted in consumption of increasing quantities of fish such as tilapia that may do more harm than good, because they contain high levels of omega-6 fatty acids, also called n-6 PUFAs, such as arachidonic acid. We hasten to note that there is an obvious difference between saying that the inflammatory potential of hamburger and bacon is lower than that of tilapia, and saying that eating tilapia is “worse” than eating those other foods. More importantly, the overall implications of the study have been challenged by other experts. Sanford Health nutrition researcher William S. Harris wrote that despite its particular fatty acid content, eating tilapia is still a healthy choice, and replacing it with bacon, hamburgers, or donuts is “absolutely not recommended”: Eating fish, especially oily fish, at least twice per week is recommended for heart disease prevention. Fish is low in total and saturated fats, high in protein and essential trace minerals, and contains long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA). Oily fish rich in these healthy omega-3s include salmon, trout, albacore tuna, sardines, anchovies, mackerel and herring. Our omega-3 needs can also be met by eating less-oily (lower-fat) fish more often. Tilapia and catfish are examples of lower-fat fish that have fewer omega-3s than the oily fish listed above, but still provide more of these heart-healthy nutrients than hamburger, steak, chicken, pork or turkey. Actually, a 3 ounce serving of these fish provides over 100 mg of the long chain omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. Considering that this is about the current daily intake of these fatty acids in the U.S., even these fish should be considered better choices than most other meat alternatives. Since they are also relatively low in total and saturated fats and high in protein, they clearly can be part of a healthy diet. According to Walter C. Willett, professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, the authors of the tilapia study overlooked the established health benefits of omega-6 fatty acids: [T]he notion that omega-6 fats are bad just hasn’t panned out. For one thing, how the body uses arachidonic acid doesn’t depend on the ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fats. For another, the argument overlooks the other good things that omega-6 fats do. These include lowering LDL and triglycerides, boosting protective HDL, and helping control blood sugar by making muscle cells respond more readily to insulin. In fact, “the doubling of the intake of omega-6 fat in the American diet since 1960 is one reason why heart disease deaths have declined since then,” says Heart Letter advisor Dr. Walter C. Willett, professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. As to the claim that “dioxin is found in this fish,” while it’s accurate to say that the toxic (and sometimes carcinogenic) chemical compounds known as dioxins sometimes turn up in both wild and farmed seafood (as they do in other foods), we came up short when we looked for proof that dioxins are found in tilapia more often than in any other seafood. Exposure to industrial contaminants such as dioxins is likely to vary according to where (i.e., in what countries) the fish are harvested. At least one scientific report found that farmed fish such as tilapia are no more prone to contamination by dioxins (or mercury, for that matter) than wild-caught specimens. Another study found that tilapia, like other smaller, relatively short-lived species, are less likely to accumulate such contaminants in their flesh than larger, longer-lived species such as salmon.
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8062
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With obesity and diabetes epidemic, Mexico braces for coronavirus.
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Four of the six people who have died from coronavirus in Mexico so far had diabetes, raising alarm bells that a country with one of the world’s highest rates of the condition may be more vulnerable than its relatively young average age might suggest.
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true
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Health News
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The World Health Organization has said people with diabetes and its related health complications are among those most vulnerable to severe cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly illness caused by the new coronavirus, along with the elderly. Mexico has the fewest retirement-age citizens among nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). But it has the highest rate of obesity after the United States, and related illnesses such as Type 2 diabetes are widespread. Mexico had 475 confirmed cases of COVID-19 - the illness caused by the virus - and six deaths by Thursday. Four of those who died had diabetes and two suffered from hypertension - both conditions that can exacerbate the illness. A seventh Mexican who died in Peru also had diabetes. While four of the victims were over age 60, the other two were 55 and 41. “Coronavirus isn’t that lethal, except for people who have underlying health conditions that complicate it,” said Dr. Abelardo Avila, a researcher at the Salvador Zubiran National Institute for Medical Sciences and Nutrition. “Unfortunately, that’s the case for many millions of Mexicans.” When details of the coronavirus deaths in Mexico became public, even health officials who had previously urged the population to remain calm began to acknowledge the scale of the problem the country is facing. “Obese people, particularly morbidly obese ones, are the ones who are at biggest risk to suffer complications if they contract coronavirus,” said Ricardo Cortes, a Mexican health official. In Mexico, an initially much-applauded tax on sugary beverages has yet to show major results, efforts to introduce food labeling have stalled and magazines like Diabetes Hoy line newspaper stands. Type 2 diabetes, by far the most common form of the disease, occurs when the body becomes resistant to insulin, or no longer produces enough. There is a direct correlation between the condition and obesity and poor diet, with more than 80% of diabetes cases are linked to obesity. And government data shows the chronic metabolic disease also often runs in families. Over time, diabetes can damage the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves. And rates have risen significantly in recent years. In Mexico, 10.3% of the population aged 20 or older - 8.6 million people - suffer from diabetes, according to government data from 2018, up from 9.2% six years earlier. After heart disease, diabetes is the most common cause of health-related death in Mexico. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is even more prevalent, affecting 18.4% of the population aged 20 or older - 15.2 million people - up from 16.6% six years earlier. Obesity reached epidemic proportions in Mexico after it joined a free trade agreement with the United States in the early 1990s and processed food became more easily available, several studies have shown. Mexico is now the largest consumer of ultra-processed food in Latin America and the fourth-largest in the world. Some 75.2% of the population aged 20 or older is either overweight or obese, government data shows, up from 71.3% six years earlier. “With the pandemic, the problem is becoming even bigger, unfortunately,” said Dr. Jose Luis Mora, who specializes in heart diseases and microbiology at the country’s Social Security Institute for State Workers. “The government is telling us that we shouldn’t worry but all the same we don’t see fast actions aimed at controlling the pandemic,” Mora said, adding that the prevalence of people with underlying health conditions has not featured in government plans. Unlike regional peers, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has not ordered a lockdown or other drastic measures to control spread of the coronavirus due to concerns the country’s already slumping economy would take an even bigger hit. Researcher Avila said Mexico should have acted more firmly years ago to encourage its population to change diets. Recently, companies have stopped government dietary health initiatives in the courts. “Mexicans are now dying because of their poor eating habits,” Avila said. “Mexico has to pay the price for not having done anything more meaningful earlier, it should have acted a long time ago.”
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34573
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"When asked by Hillary Clinton why she thought the U.S. hasn't had a female president yet, Mother Teresa answered, ""Because you probably aborted her."
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But none of the leads we’ve followed converge on a single source, much less an authoritative one. There doesn’t seem to be a source. It’s just “that story about that time Hillary Clinton got schooled by Mother Teresa” people tell at pro-life events. It is told consistently, mind you — apart from small details — but such is the case with most anecdotes this pointed and this short, regardless of whether they’re true or false. Until we encounter a citation that names an eyewitness source — or, better yet, quotes one.
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unproven
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Politics, abortion, hillary clinton, mother teresa
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In a Vatican ceremony on 4 September 2016, Pope Francis conferred sainthood upon Mother Teresa, the Albanian-born nun who famously devoted most of her life to ministering to the poor in India until her death in 1997 at the age of 87. He described her as a “model of holiness” and “generous dispenser of divine mercy,” citing, among other qualifications, Mother Teresa’s unwavering opposition to abortion in any form. “She was committed to defending life,” the Pope said, “ceaselessly proclaiming that ‘the unborn are the weakest, the smallest, the most vulnerable. '” For Americans, the canonization of Mother Teresa coincided with the home stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign, in which the two principal candidates, along with their parties, have taken opposite stands on the issue of abortion. Republican Donald Trump has declared himself “pro-life” and supports legal sanctions to “protect the unborn,” while Democrat Hillary Clinton says she’s committed to protecting “women’s access to critical health services, including safe, legal abortion.” The timing of the resurrection of an old anecdote about a meeting between Hillary Clinton and Mother Teresa — an anecdote some have called “apocryphal” even while passing it along — was probably not so coincidental. Most versions tie the story to a National Prayer Breakfast hosted by the Clinton administration in 1994, at which Mother Teresa was invited to speak and did not mince words about her feelings on abortion: The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, that father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. After the speech, Mother Teresa and First Lady Hillary Clinton — who, needless to say, held disparate opinions on the topic of the day — briefly conversed, as recalled by Clinton in her 2003 memoir, Living History: She had just delivered a speech against abortion, and she wanted to talk to me. Mother Teresa was unerringly direct. She disagreed with my views on a woman’s right to choose and told me so. Over the years, she sent me dozens of notes and messages with the same gentle entreaty. Mother Teresa never lectured or scolded me; her admonitions were always loving and heartfelt. I had the greatest respect for her opposition to abortion, but I believe that it is dangerous to give any state the power to enforce criminal penalties against women & doctors. I consider that a slippery slope to state control in China & Communist Romania. I also disagreed with her opposition — and that of the Catholic Church — to birth control. However, I support the right of people of faith to speak out against abortion and try to dissuade women, without coercion or criminalization, from choosing abortion instead of adoption. Mother Teresa and I found much common ground in many other areas including the importance of adoption. According to the anecdote that concerns us today, there was another verbal back-and-forth between Clinton and Mother Teresa on that occasion (or perhaps it was another occasion — there are varying versions of events), which began with the First Lady quizzing the future saint about, of all things, gender and politics: “Why do you think we haven’t had a woman as president yet?” First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton asked her guest over their lunch at the White House. The little woman sitting at table with Mrs. Clinton did not hesitate in her reply. “Because she has probably been aborted,” said Mother Teresa. It’s an exchange Hillary Clinton would vividly remember, one would think, yet she neglected to mention it in her memoir, nor has she ever spoken of it in public speeches or interviews. It doesn’t appear in biographies of Clinton or Mother Teresa. (The question of why the U.S. hadn’t yet seen a woman as president also seems a rather implausible query for Hillary Clinton to have posed to a conservative Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun.) The source most frequently cited by those spreading the story during the 2016 presidential campaign is an essay by educator Sean Fitzpatrick that appeared in the Catholic journal Crisis Magazine on 20 January 2016. Fitzpatrick used the anecdote as an epigraph without specifying where he found it. When we contacted him and asked for his help to authenticate it, Fitzpatrick replied that he has heard it told on many occasions over the years but doesn’t know of a definitive source. He pointed us to a few other iterations of the tale online, however, which at least led a few years further back, such as this variant published in the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press on 11 March 2010: Many years ago there was a large dinner party at the White House. At one end of the table there were two distinguished women carrying on a conversation. At one point in the conversation, one woman looked at the other and asked a simple question, “Why do you think in the United States of America with all of our liberties and all of our freedoms, we have never elected a female president?” The other woman, without looking up from her meal and with a very calm look on her face said, “Because you probably aborted her.” The woman who asked that question that day was then First Lady Hillary Clinton. The woman who answered that question was Mother Teresa. In this case, as in some others we found, the storyteller was identified as pro-life activist Shawn Carney, though we’ve no reason to think the story originated with him. It appears, in fact, to be standard fare at pro-life gatherings. Here is a mention from October 2010: We attended our annual banquet for Pregnancy Resources Center last night. The speaker recounted a conversation between two women several years ago in Washington DC who were attending the national prayer breakfast. One of the women, Hillary Clinton, said, “You know, I wonder why we have never elected a woman president?” The other woman, Mother Teresa, said, “Maybe it is because you aborted her.” We haven’t yet come across any instances of the story being told before 2009, however. One of the earliest examples is in a blog post written by Ohio Congressman Steve Chabot in October of that year: Now I agree with [Anita Dunn] on the pro-life crusader Mother Teresa, who reportedly when then Senator Hilary Clinton wondered why America had never had a woman President was rebuked by the diminutive nun as follows: “You probably aborted her.”
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41036
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If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap.
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It’s not yet known exactly how long the virus survives on surfaces.
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unproven
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online
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If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold. These are the symptoms for the common cold, but they don’t rule out Covid-19. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. Some Covid-19 patients do get pneumonia, and one of the symptoms is a dry cough. A runny nose doesn’t rule out Covid-19. The new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. There’s no evidence for this. There’s evidence that similar viruses transmit less well in the heat, but many countries with reported Covid-19 cases are experiencing temperatures higher than this. If someone with the new coronavirus sneezes, it travels about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. Environmental factors impact how far droplets from a sneeze can travel, but it is likely to be several metres. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. It’s not yet known exactly how long the virus survives on surfaces. It can survive for 6-12 hours on fabric and will be killed by normal laundry detergent . There’s no evidence the virus can survive in clothing and be transmitted this way. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. There’s no evidence that the temperature of liquids consumed can protect you from viruses. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes. There is no evidence yet on how long the virus can survive on the skin. But it is important to regularly wash your hands. You should gargle as a prevention with salt in warm water. There’s no evidence this will prevent or cure the virus. Covid-19 starts with a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. It then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and the lungs, causing pneumonia, which takes about 5 or 6 days. With pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty breathing. The nasal congestion makes you feel like you’re drowning. This is a roughly accurate description of the most common symptoms, although not everyone with Covid-19 gets pneumonia. The symptoms may not come in this order or at these times. There have been no reports of sufferers experiencing nasal congestion that makes them feel they are drowning. Claim 1 of 11
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11563
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Antibiotics Defeat Ear Infections In Little Kids, Studies Find
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This well written blog post accompanied a fairly thorough on-air discussion of two new studies showing the benefits of vaccines for treating middle ear infections in young children. A child with an ear infection can lead to a frightening and frustrating experience for parents. Because so many doctors are now used to the wait-and-see approach and other doctors are willing to give a child antibiotics just to make the parents happy, studies like this bring clarity to the science behind vaccine recommendations and they empower patients to ask the right questions. This story does a good job translating the consumer message.
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true
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NPR
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Neither the blog post nor the radio piece discussed specific costs, although the blog post did describe the antibiotic in question, Augmentin, as inexpensive. Since these are kids, the suspension would be used (10 days), and the cost according to Drugstore.com is $76. Because the criteria used in both studies may be substantially more stringent than those used clinically for the diagnosis, the costs of office visits also must be considered. In addition, the “cost” in the more abstract sense of how much antibiotic resistance “costs” society would have been a great addition to the story. Neither the blog post nor the radio piece quantified the benefits. The post says, “Both studies, which appear today in the New England Journal of Medicine, find these kids get over painful ear infections faster, and have less severe symptoms, if they get prompt treatment with Augmentin, an inexpensive antibiotic often used to treat respiratory infections.” This is understandable given how confusing the findings are in these articles. But, the story could have made use of one key number that was presented by the authors of the Finnish study: the number needed to treat. “The number needed to treat for 1 child to benefit from antimicrobial therapy, as calculated on the basis of the results of our study, is 3.8, as compared with 7 to 17 on the basis of the meta-analyses.” The possibility of antibiotic resistance is raised but never quantified in any way. Other harms are not mentioned. This is a significant omission. Both studies list adverse events, and the Finnish study saw a large number of children with adverse events. As the authors note, “An adverse event occurred in 85 children (52.8%) in the amoxicillin–clavulanate group and in 57 children (36.1%) in the placebo group (an increase of 16.7 percentage points with amoxicillin–clavulanate”. Of those who received the drug, 77 had diarrhea, 17 had vomiting and 14 had eczema. There also are harms from not taking the drugs, which were not mentioned. The blog post did not discuss the study’s design or say much about the evidence, but the accompanying radio story did. It said that the studies involved more than 600 kids with infections and that half were given immediate antibiotics and half were given a placebo. It would have been nice to know that these were “randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled” studies, as the journal articles note. This would have distinguished them from what the writer calls “a slew of studies over the past couple of decades indicating that most children with ear infections get better without antibiotics.” As the study from Finland notes, “Several guidelines for the management of acute otitis media recommend an observation period before antimicrobial therapy is even considered. These recommendations are based largely on meta-analyses that concluded that for 1 child to have relief of symptoms, 7 to 17 children must be treated with antimicrobial agents. However, some experts have suggested that the original studies included in the meta-analyses had important limitations, such as biases in patient selection, varying diagnostic criteria, and suboptimal spectrum or dosage of antimicrobial agents.” This is important context that would be helpful for readers in sorting out the importance of the findings. The story does not engage in disease-mongering. In fact, we wish it had spent a little more time explaining whether the only reason to give a child antibiotics was because of the pain and whether the infections ever spread or seriously threatened a child’s health. The story does a great job using independent experts who provided a reasoned, thoughtful discussion of the findings. The one omission was the failure in the blog post or the radio piece to report that two of the authors on the US study had received funding from the drug company that makes the antibiotic being studied: GlaxoSmithKline. However, the drug is available as a generic product (especially the suspension used in kids) and the NIAID funded the study, so we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. By talking with the experts, such as Dr. Jerome Klein of Boston University and Dr. David Spiro of Oregon Health Sciences, the blog post does a great job comparing the wait-and-see approach with the antibiotic approach. It also notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics endorses the wait and see approach and specifically speaks to the issue of correct diagnosis. We would have liked to have seen some definition of wait and see. And we wish the story had provided more data to back up some of the assertions made by the doctors. The story made it clear that the “wait and see” approach to ear infections is widely recommended. The accompanying radio piece reported that there are “13 million prescriptions every year for ear infections,” in part because only about 20% of doctors actually follow that approach. Both the blog post and the radio piece explained why these studies might start changing the way clinicians behave and might give parents more information for helping them demand the right kind of treatment. “Much of the confusion, experts say, has been caused by studies that weren’t careful enough about the diagnosis. If many children in prior studies didn’t really have ear infections, then it’s not surprising the antibiotics didn’t work for them, says Dr. Jerome Klein of Boston University, who wrote an editorial that accompanies the new studies.” The story does not rely on a news release.
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35665
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Some 59 people died after a pastor gave them Dettol to drink to supposedly prevent coronavirus.
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While it appears, based on 2016 press reports, that this pastor truly suggested the consumption of cleaning products in order to prevent or cure diseases, these photos do not come from March 2020 and are not evidence that 59 people died after a pastor told them to drink Dettol to prevent coronavirus.
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false
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Medical, COVID-19
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In March 2020, a rumor started to circulate on social media that 59 people in South Africa had died after a pastor told them to drink Dettol, a disinfectant cleaning product similar to Lysol, in order to prevent COVID-19 coronavirus disease. An article on the website Kenya Today was accompanied by an image supposedly showing this pastor, Rufus Phala, giving a woman Dettol to drink: South African Prophet Rufus Phala allegedly gave his members of Dettol, a household bleach to drink as a preventing medicine to Coronavirus and also as a sign of faith during a church service. Fifty-nine of them have been confirmed dead while four are in critical condition after drinking the Dettol. The claim that 59 people died after a pastor gave them Dettol to prevent coronavirus is false. This photograph is several years old, this news report has dubious origins, and this claim has been disputed by local authorities. South Africa police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo told the AFP news organization that this claim is false and that police were not involved in any investigations concerning 59 people who died from drinking Dettol. This claim appears to be a variation of a rumor that has been circulating since 2016. At that time, it was reported that South African pastor Phala had told his congregation to consume cleaning products such as Dettol as a sort of miracle cure. The above-displayed photograph, which was widely shared in 2020 as if it showed a recent incident, was included in a report by South Africa’s The Citizen on the 2016 allegations against Phala. In fact, this image, as well as several similar ones, has been attached to a variety of dubious claims over the years. In 2018, for instance, these same photos were used to illustrate a story about six people dying after drinking bleach in church. In 2019, these same images accompanied claims of 27 people dying from drinking JIK, another cleaning solution, in order to cast out demons:
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10108
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In Highly Lethal Type of Leukemia, Cancer Gene Predicts Treatment Response
|
acute myeloid leukemia (AML)Decitabine, a drug usually seen as a milder form of chemotherapy, may be an improved treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who also have mutations in the TP53 gene, according to this news release from Washington University in St. Louis. People with AML who have this gene mutation usually also have a more difficult-to-treat disease. In this study, researchers identified patients with TP53 mutations and then ran a drug trial to see if there was a correlation between the mutations and remission with decitabine. Remission with decitabine lasted about a year, while other remissions for this group following traditional chemotherapy usually average 4 to 6 months. The researchers found a similar response to the drug in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, often a precurser to AML. The release makes it abundantly clear that this is a preliminary trial result while providing a good description of benefits and an adequate overview of the trial. It would have been stronger with a brief discussion of costs for both decitabine and traditional treatment for AML. And since one of the benefits of decitabine is its lower toxicity, a brief discussion on reduced side effects would have been helpful to patients. About 20,000 Americans will be diagnosed with AML this year and about 10,400 will die of the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute’s surveillance data. Patients with TP53 mutations are considered to have poor prognosis using conventional chemotherapy, but according to this small study, use of decitabine appeared to induce remission in all TP53 gene mutation patients. Currently decitabine is used to treat elderly AML patients because it is an easier drug to tolerate than other chemotherapies. If a milder chemotherapeutic drug proves in a larger trial to increase the length of remission for a subgroup of AML patients, that’s welcome news. The news release, however, offers numerous cautions about the findings and it underscores that the drug treatment is not a cure.
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true
|
Academic medical center news release,Cancer
|
There is no discussion of cost in this story. Decitabine is an FDA-approved drug and costs are readily available, but nothing is said of the costs or the relative costs of other treatments. The release describes the benefit of the preliminary trial in sufficient depth and with appropriate cautions. It relates that each of the 21 patients with TP53 mutations had a remission, compared to 46 percent of the entire trial group of 116 that achieved some remission following treatment. According to the release, standard treatment typically induces remission in about 20 to 30 percent of patients with TP53 mutations. While the numbers look good from this trial, the researchers note that larger studies need to be done. The release doesn’t directly address harms from either decitabine or standard chemotherapy for AML. What are the common harms from chemotherapy and which of these side effects are reduced in decitabine? Because the focus of the release is on the trial results of a drug described as less toxic, we would have liked some context on what reduced toxicity means. The release points out that the trial was fairly small but that the objective of identifying TP53 mutation holders and assessing their response to decitabine appears to be successful. It describes how patients were selected and how their genetic mutations were identified. The release also reinforces the limitations of the study in various ways. Among them: the trial was quite small with just 21 of the 116 patients treated with decitabine having the TP53 mutation, and the researchers do not know why this subgroup of patients — who typically have a poorer prognosis — responded better than the whole to the drug. There is no disease mongering. The release provides appropriate context on the disease. The funding sources for this trial are clearly stated. However, the conflicts of interest disclosed in the published paper are not included in the news release. The disclosure states: “Dr. Uy reports receiving fees for serving on an advisory board and clinical-trial support from Novartis; Dr. Jacoby, receiving consulting fees and fees for end-point adjudication from Quintiles and clinical-trial support from Sunesis Pharmaceuticals; and Dr. Graubert, receiving consulting fees from Agios.” Each of the companies mentioned market cancer drugs so its appropriate to include the researchers’ financial ties with them in the release. While the alternative drugs used in chemotherapy are not mentioned by name, they are referred to as the standard therapy. Because it is already known that TP53 patients have a worse prognosis than other patients with the conventional drugs, it appears that therapy with this milder drug shows better outcomes. It is clear that decitabine is an existing FDA-approved drug. However, its off-label use in this trial does not mean that it is now available for other AML patients. The researchers note repeatedly that larger trials are required. The release claims that patients with a specific gene mutation may live longer if treated with a less intensive chemotherapy drug. A researcher is quoted saying: “What’s really unique here is that all the patients in the study with TP53 mutations had a response to decitabine and achieved an initial remission.” While the drug is not novel, its usefulness in treating this population of patients with a typically poor prognosis is a novel application. There is no unjustifiable language used and it is made clear that decitabine is not a cure for these patients.
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27722
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"Common usage of the phrase ""Always a bridesmaid but never a bride"" originated with an advertising campaign for Listerine mouthwash."
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Listerine, by the way, did more than merely bestow upon the English language a lasting turn of phrase. Prior to its being marketed as a breath freshener (its earlier uses were to sterilize gauze bandages, clean floors, irrigate nasal passages, and the product was even touted as both baldness and gonorrhea cures), folks weren’t overly concerned about their bad breath. Only a series of Listerine print ads (including “Often a bridesmaid but never a bride”) prompted consumers to buy mouth rinses to combat their halitosis.
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true
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Language, ASP Article, Phrase Craze
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Bridesmaids are female attendants who traditionally serve to ready the bride on her wedding day, plus in more modern times run various nuptial-related errands on her behalf in the months and weeks leading up to the big day. At one time they were chosen from among the unwed young women of marriageable age of the bride’s acquaintance, but these days neither age nor marital status bars a cherished friend or family member from serving in the bride’s retinue. Given that in earlier times the focus of the bridesmaid role was to supply the bride with a court of young, unwed lovelies, the saying “Always a bridesmaid but never a bride” was a sad one, in that the bride, by virtue of having snagged a husband, was viewed at having succeeded at her life’s task whereas her attendants — no matter how lovely or accomplished — as having failed. A woman who had been a bridesmaid a number of times was someone whose marriage prospects were dim indeed, in that she had clearly been passed over by the eligible men of her acquaintance in favor of others. (According to lore, being a bridesmaid too often is unlucky for the marital prospects of that bridal helper. Superstition has it that a gal who acts in this capacity three times dooms herself to perpetual spinsterhood. However, there is an out — go on to be a bridesmaid seven times and the curse is broken.) Given how vital making a good match was to the future of women’s lives in the not all too distant past, one would think the aphorism “Always a bridesmaid but never a bride” has been with us forever. Surprisingly, it dates to only the mid-1920s. Songwriter Fred Leigh may have been the first to use the phrase in the sphere of popular culture, penning a music hall ditty titled “Why Am I Always the Bridesmaid?” that included the following chorus: Why am I always the bridesmaid Never the blushing bride Ding, Dong, wedding bells Only ring for other gals But one fine day Please let it be soon I shall wake up in the morning On my own honeymoon. But the phrase entered the common parlance not through this musical tune, but through print advertisements run by Listerine brand mouthwash beginning in 1925 that were titled “Often a bridesmaid but never a bride” and featured a sad-faced yet fetching young woman. The text touting the use of Listerine to combat bad breath began “Edna’s case was a really pathetic one. Like every woman, her primary ambition was to marry. Most of the girls of her set were married — or about to be. Yet no one possessed more grace or charm or loveliness than she. And as her birthdays crept towards that tragic thirty-mark, marriage seemed farther from her life than ever. She was often a bridesmaid but never a bride.” That early advertisement launched a saying that continues to carry on strongly into the 21st century. Sports teams that habitually reach the playoffs but unfailingly fall short of seizing the championship are routinely dubbed “bridesmaids,” and one will hear members of such teams ruefully state “Always a bridesmaid but never a bride.”
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Marijuana backers balk at plan to revise ballot measure.
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A pair of pro-marijuana groups in Utah accused the Mormon church Thursday of “extreme undermining” of a medical marijuana ballot measure, alleging it is exerting its power to push through significant changes to the proposition.
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Legislature, Medical marijuana, Utah, Marijuana, Church and state, Rocky Anderson, Salt Lake City
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In a letter, the groups called for the cancellation of an upcoming special session of the Legislature set up as part of a pre-election compromise between pot advocates, the church and state lawmakers to gain the support of the church for medical marijuana. Key revisions to the ballot measure approved by voters last week are expected to be implemented at the session. The letter sent by attorney Rocky Anderson on behalf of the groups Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education, or TRUCE, and the Epilepsy Association of Utah, accuses the church of trying to interfere with the measure. “They lost. They ought to accept their loss and move on,” Anderson, a former Salt Lake City mayor, said in an interview. Doug Anderson, a spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in a statement that the faith stands behind the work it did to help craft a compromise it considers a “safer” medical marijuana program. “As members of the community, we have worked, from the outset, with medical professionals, law enforcement, educators and many other groups and prominent community leaders to seek the best for the people of Utah,” Anderson said, “to provide relief from human pain and suffering, especially where children are concerned.” The measure passed by voters creates a state-regulated growing and dispensing operation and allows people with certain medical conditions to use the drug in edible forms. It does not allow pot smoking. Under the plan crafted in the compromise, the measure would be changed to block some marijuana edibles like cookies that might appeal to children. It also won’t allow people to grow their own marijuana if they live too far from a dispensary. The letter was sent to the church, state leaders and the Utah Patients Coalition, the main group backing the initiative approved last week by voters. The coalition says it agreed to the Dec. 3 special session so it could prevent radical changes to the measure. The Mormon faith had opposed the ballot proposal over fears it could lead to broader use of marijuana. However, as the proposal seemed to gain support, the church agreed to the pre-election deal to allow access for people with serious medical needs. Mormons have long frowned upon marijuana use because of a key church health code called the “Word of Wisdom,” which prohibits the use of alcohol, tobacco and illegal drugs. The letter highlights the rift that developed among marijuana backers when the compromise was reached in October. Anderson called it a betrayal by other marijuana groups to “cower to the demands” of the Mormon church after about 52 percent of the state’s voters approved the measure. . He said the groups he represents are considering a lawsuit DJ Schanz, director of the Utah Patients Coalition, said the group would rather be part of the discussion that on the sidelines. He said it’s simply a reality that the religion has a major voice in Utah politics. About two-thirds of the state’s residents belong to the religion and the majority of state and federal lawmakers are Mormon. “We made a conscientious decision to not burn all the bridges down just to control the ashes,” Schanz said. By passing the measure, Utah joined a list of more than 30 states allowing patients legal access to medical marijuana.
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