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30468
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"An ""extreme snuff film"" in which Hillary Clinton and aide Huma Abedin are seen raping and mutilating a prepubescent girl is circulating on the dark web under the code name ""Frazzledrip."
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"Conspiracy theory web sites reported that Clinton can be seen mutilating a child during a Satanic ritual in an online video code-named ""Frazzledrip."""
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false
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Politics Conspiracy Theories, #QAnon, fake news, hillary clinton
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Somewhere on the dark web there exists a video of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and longtime aide Huma Abedin raping and mutilating a young child — at least, according to web sites devoted to promulgating outrageous “deep state” conspiracy theories. A YourNewsWire.com article published on 15 April 2018 reported, for example, that the “horrific” video was found on the hard drive of a laptop belonging to Abedin’s husband, former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner (who was jailed in 2017 for sexting with a minor): An “extreme snuff film” featuring Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin raping and mutilating a prepubescent girl is circulating on the dark web, according to sources familiar with the material. The video, code named Frazzledrip, has been circulating on the dark web since Monday, according to reliable sources who have viewed the material and confirm the content is “worse than any nightmare.” “The people who are coming back from viewing this tape are just not the same.”. Many people are unable to watch the video due to the horrific nature of the content, according to sources familiar with the tape. In the video, they take a little girl and they fillet her face, according to reports, and then they take turns wearing the little girl’s face like a mask. It is believed they were terrorizing the young girl, deliberately causing the child’s body to release Adenochrome into her bloodstream before bleeding her out and drinking the blood during a Satanic ritual sacrifice. Adrenochrome is an oxidation product of adrenaline (ephinephrine, norepinephrine) that is extracted from a living donor’s adrenal gland. According to those familiar with the elites’ drug of choice, the high is “intense” and “exotic”. The reports amounted to an escalation of a thoroughly discredited conspiracy theory (associated with such hashtags as #Pizzagate, #SpiritCooking, and #QAnon) alleging that Clinton and other so-called “deep state” conspirators run a massive Satanic pedophile ring based out of a Washington, DC pizzeria. YourNewsWire has granted uncritical credence to such theories in the past. The article’s author, “Baxter Dmitry,” took his cues from social media posts featuring still images allegedly extracted from the mysterious “#Frazzledrip” video. One of the earliest such posts appeared on Facebook during the first week of April 2018: Similar posts were widely shared on Twitter: However, it only took a few moments of investigating to determine that the sepia-toned images came not from incriminating footage found in some dank corner of the dark web, but rather from a maniacally inscrutable YouTube video uploaded (coincidentally or not) on April Fools Day 2018 (regrettably, that video has since been deleted). We found, moreover, that the image purporting to show Huma Abedin wearing a mask made from the face of a mutilated child (discernible at the 1:23 minute mark in the above video) was actually stolen from the web site of a well-known “underground” Indian restaurant in Washington, DC called Hush Supper Club. The masked woman is the restaurant’s proprietor, Geeta, who has been profiled in a number of national news venues. Here is the photograph in its original context: Insofar as it’s supposed to serve as evidence that Huma Abedin participated in a Satanic ritual involving the mutilation of a child, then, the video is demonstrably a hoax. However, that hasn’t stopped social media users from trying to find other imagery in the video to support the “snuff film” thesis, though the results — even with the addition of visual aids — remain laughably incomprehensible: In point of fact, there appears to be some disagreement among conspiracy theorists as to whether the two-minute YouTube clip and the much-ballyhooed “Frazzledrip” video are even one and the same. Some claim the YouTube video is only a teaser, and that somewhere a full-length version exists which — if and when it is made public — will finally expose Hillary Clinton for the murderous Satanic pedophile ringleader she truly is. Others suspect “Frazzledrip” may not really exist — that it’s actually a deep-state prank meant to make them look foolish. We were only able to find one other probable contender for the title of “the real Frazzledrip video,” and though we’ve not been able to vet its authenticity, we include it here so interested parties can make up their own minds (caution, the linked content may not be suitable for all viewers): https://t.co/T5bwLUihz7#frazzledrip. Here is the vid — Jeff Adams (@gonetobeans) April 15, 2018
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21951
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"Randi Shade Says opponent Kathie Tovo ""believes that Austin invests too much in the cops, firefighters and paramedics that protect our families and neighborhoods."
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Randi Shade says Kathie Tovo believes Austin invests too much in cops, firefighters and paramedics
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true
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City Budget, City Government, Public Safety, Texas, Randi Shade,
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"Randi Shade, the Austin City Council member in a June 18 runoff, says in a mailer sent voters after the May general election that her challenger, Kathie Tovo, ""believes that Austin invests too much in the cops, firefighters and paramedics that protect our families and neighborhoods."" In the mailer, Shade traces her characterization to Tovo’s answer on a questionnaire presented to candidates by the Austin Neighborhoods Council. Asked if the city's public safety contracts ""put an undue burden on the city budget,"" Tovo replied: ""Yes, Austin’s public safety budget makes up more than 65 percent of the general fund. The continuing growth of (the) public safety budget is limiting the ability of the city to deliver other services that are important to maintaining a high quality of life. Escalating public safety contracts are financially unsustainable and must be addressed for the long-term health of the city."" We can’t divine what anyone believes. For this fact check, we looked into positions Tovo has taken in her campaign. Specifically, we wondered if her criticism of escalating public-safety contracts as ""unsustainable"" amounts to saying the city spends too much on its police officers, firefighters and the like. We asked Tovo’s campaign to elaborate and also reviewed news accounts on her position on public safety spending. On May 19, Austin’s KVUE-TV quoted Tovo saying: ""I am very supportive of public safety, fire, and EMS."" A May 20 Austin American-Statesman news story quoted Tovo saying she would look for ways to reduce waste in all city departments but would not cut the number of police, firefighters or paramedics. ""If we can save money in other ways, we can have more (public safety employees) on the street,"" she said. And in an interview by the Austin Chronicle, posted online June 3, Tovo said she favors ""safe and secure neighborhoods, and so a big part of that is making sure we have police and EMS and firefighters out on the streets. I certainly don't support making cuts to those."" By email, Tovo spokesman Jim Wick said Tovo’s response to the questionnaire was ""intended to address the growing gap in the (city’s) general fund between spending on public safety contracts and spending on everything else. With the way the public safety contracts are structured right now, the spending is unsustainable without either cutting spending or raising taxes,"" Wick said. Wick noted that City Council Member Bill Spelman was quoted in a Sept. 19, 2010, Austin Chronicle story saying that adjusted for inflation, per-resident public safety spending had increased nearly 50 percent since 2000, while spending from the general fund on every other part of the budget increased 2 percent. Spelman is also quoted saying: ""We've taken all the new money we've gotten from property taxes, sales taxes, and what have you, and put it all into public safety. And none of it into parks, libraries, health and human services, development services, and so on."" Wick said in an interview that Tovo’s questionnaire answer speaks to ""the future, not the present"" and ""there is no place anywhere"" that Tovo has said she’d cut public-safety jobs. Tovo says in a more recent campaign mailer: ""I will not cut police, paramedics or firefighters."" So, Tovo seeks to corral public-safety contracts, but would not cut police, paramedics or firefighter jobs. That’s like having it both ways. Then again, by basing her claim solely on Tovo’s questionnaire, Shade ignores her opponent’s subsequent comments."
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35078
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A list documents U.S. President Donald Trump's various statements about the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus disease.
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What's true: The statements on this list are all correctly attributed to President Trump. What's false: However, this is not an exhaustive list of every comment Trump made about the coronavirus, nor does it represent all the actions his administration took during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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true
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Politics, COVID-19
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"On March 17, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that he had known the new coronavirus would result in a pandemic “long before it was called a pandemic.” But this statement rung hollow for some listeners, who noted that Trump had been downplaying the COVID-19 coronavirus disease since it first started spreading widely in China in January. The following day the hashtag #Trumpliedpeopledied was the top trending topic on Twitter, and a meme supposedly containing more than a dozen quotes from Trump in which he minimized the impact of the disease started to circulate on social media. It’s unclear who created this list of “Trump’s Responses to the Coronavirus Outbreak,” but it seems to align with reporting from The New York Times, NBC News, and The Washington Post. Generally speaking, the quotes in this list and the provided dates are all accurate. However, it should be noted that this list is not exhaustive and it does not document all the of the actions taken by Trump’s administration. For the source and context of each quote, keep scrolling: Trump made this comment on the CNBC show “Squawk Box” during an interview with Joe Kernen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the time, there were 500 cases reported in China and the first had just been recorded in the United States. Source: CNBC Trump made this comment on the Fox News program “Hannity.” A few days prior to this interview, the Trump administration suspended entry to the United States of foreign nationals who had recently visited China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau). Source: Fox News This comment was published on Trump’s Twitter account. On the same day, the White House asked Congress for $1.25 billion to help fund the government’s response to COVID-19 and stocks plummeted. Source: Twitter This comment was published on Trump’s Twitter account. Source: Twitter This is a mash-up of two comments Trump made during a trip to New Delhi, India, to meet with business leaders. Here’s an excerpt from a White House readout of Trump’s remarks at this business round table (emphasis ours): China is working very, very hard. I have spoken to President Xi, and they’re working very hard. And if you know anything about him, I think he’ll be in pretty good shape. They’re — they’ve had a rough patch, and I think right now they have it — it looks like they’re getting it under control more and more. They’re getting it more and more under control. So I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away. But we lost almost 1,000 points yesterday on the market, and that’s something. You know, things like that happen where — and you have it in your business all the time — it had nothing to do with you; it’s an outside source that nobody would have ever predicted. If you go back six months or three months ago, nobody would have ever predicted. The second portion of this quote comes from another statement Trump made during this same trip. New York Post reported: Trump said the death rate for Ebola was a “virtual 100 percent,” compared with the “1 or 2 percent” for the coronavirus, or COVID-19. “Now they have it, they have studied it, they know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine,” Trump said. The White House later clarified that Trump meant that the United States was close to a vaccine for Ebola, not the coronavirus. Source: The White House, New York Post Trump made this remark during a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Trump was asked if schools should be preparing for an outbreak. He responded: I would think so, yes. I mean, I haven’t spoken specifically about that with the various doctors, but I would think so, yes. I think every aspect of our society should be prepared. I don’t think it’s going to come to that, especially with the fact that we’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up. Source: The White House Trump made this comment to attendees at an African American History Month reception at the White House. At the time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was warning that COVID-19 would spread across the United States. Source: CNN Trump made this comment while talking to reporters on the White House lawn. Vox reporter Aaron Rupar shared a video of Trump’s comments: ""We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical."" — Trump on the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/id6YLzbmRE — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 28, 2020 Trump asked this question during a meeting with pharmaceutical executives and public health officials. One of the health officials flatly responded: No. Source: Vox Trump made this comment during the same meeting mentioned above. This quote appears in a transcript of the meeting provided by the White House (emphasis ours): The White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, has been meeting daily and coordinating closely with the state and local governments. Mike had a call today with 53 governors, and I heard it was a very good call, and everybody is very well coordinated. And the governors and the states — all of them; I can’t think of an exception — they’ve been really working closely with us. It’s been — it’s been a very good — a very good relationship. We will confront this challenge together, and we will continue to do exactly what we’re doing. And we’re going to be very successful. A lot of things are happening. A lot of very exciting things are happening, and they’re happening very rapidly. Source: The White House Trump made this comment during an interview on Fox News. At the time, the CDC was urging employers to have workers stay home. Source: CBS News Trump’s “work” comment caused significant controversy, leading Trump to clarify his remarks on Twitter. While Trump truly did say that “some of them go to work,” which may have downplayed the seriousness of the situation, he didn’t recommend at this time that people should keep going to work despite the pandemic. Source: Twitter Trump made this remark while touring the CDC facility in Atlanta, Georgia. Here’s a larger excerpt of Trump’s comment from the White House’s record: I think we’re doing a really good job in this country at keeping it down. We’ve really been very vigilant, and we’ve done a tremendous job at keeping to down. But who would have thought? Look, how long ago is it? Six, seven, eight weeks ago — who would have thought we would even be having the subject? We were going to hit 30,000 on the Dow like it was clockwork. Right? It was all going — it was right up, and then all of a sudden, this came out. At the time Trump made this comment, cases of COVID-19 in the United States had jumped to over 300. Source: The White House This comment also came during Trump’s visit to the CDC facility in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time, the United States had only conducted about 2,000 coronavirus tests. Source: The White House Again, this comment was made during Trump’s visit to the CDC in Georgia. Source: The White House Again, this comment was made as Trump toured the CDC facility in Georgia. At the time, the Grand Princess cruise ship was being held off the coast of San Francisco, California, and carrying passengers sickened with COVID-19. Here’s a video of Trump’s comment: ""I like the numbers being where they are. I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship"" — Trump explains that he doesn't want to let people off the Grand Princess cruise ship because he doesn't want the number of coronavirus cases in the country to go up pic.twitter.com/ELhZDjiZW9 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2020 Source: The White House This comment was published on Trump’s Twitter account. Source: Twitter This comment also comes from Trump’s Twitter account. Source: Twitter Trump made this comment while speaking with reporters on Capitol Hill after meeting with Republican senators. Trump’s full comments can be seen in a transcript from the White House: Well, this was unexpected. This was something that came out of China, and it hit us and many other countries. You look at the numbers; I see the numbers with just by watching you folks. I see it — it’s over 100 different countries. And it hit the world. And we’re prepared, and we’re doing a great job with it. And it will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away."
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29212
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Pope Francis granted diplomatic immunity to a Vatican diplomat suspected of child pornography offenses in the United States.
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What's true: The Vatican City, led by its head of state Pope Francis, refused an American request to waive Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella's diplomatic immunity, closing off the possibility of Capella's being prosecuted in the U.S. on child pornography charges. What's false: Pope Francis did not grant diplomatic immunity to Capella, who already possessed that status by default as an accredited Vatican diplomat.
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false
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Politics
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In June 2018, a court in the Vatican City convicted and sentenced Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, a former diplomat, after he admitted to possessing and distributing child pornography while commissioned in the United States. In response, YourNewsWire.com — which has a long history of publishing misleading and inaccurate stories as well as conspiracy theories and fake news — pointed the finger at Pope Francis himself, claiming that the pontiff had “granted [Capella] diplomatic immunity” in the case. A pedophile priest caught with child pornography while working in Washington has escaped prosecution by U.S. authorities because Pope Francis granted him diplomatic immunity, according to reports. Carlo Alberto Capella was in the U.S. as a senior Vatican diplomat when he was caught with a trove of indecent images and videos of children being sexually abused that investigators claim he was trading internationally with other pedophiles. Described as an “open and shut case” that should have landed the pedophile priest in prison for years, the U.S. authorities were “powerless” to prosecute him after the Vatican insisted he was diplomatically immune and must be allowed to leave the country, according [to the] Reuters news agency. Pope Francis did not “grant” Capella diplomatic immunity, since Capella was an accredited Vatican diplomat in the United States when he committed his offenses and therefore had immunity by default. However, according to reports, the Vatican did refuse a request from U.S. prosecutors to waive that diplomatic immunity, which would have left Capella open to criminal prosecution in the United States. When Vatican authorities recalled Capella from his post in Washington in the fall of 2017, they announced that Vatican prosecutors had already opened a criminal investigation against him, suggesting that diplomatic immunity was waived in this case for the purpose of bringing Capella back to the Vatican to face justice there, which he subsequently did. Background On 21 August 2017, the State Department notified the Vatican that an investigation had uncovered evidence that one of its diplomatic staff — later named as Carlo Alberto Capella — had distributed and possessed child pornography, according to a later Vatican statement. At some point between then and mid-September, the Vatican recalled him from his diplomatic post, and he returned to the Vatican. According to an unnamed State Department official cited by the Washington Post, the U.S. had asked the Vatican to waive Capella’s diplomatic immunity, but the Vatican refused to do so. This was corroborated by the Associated Press. It is highly likely that U.S. authorities would have expelled Capella from the country, a relatively infrequent and serious move in international diplomacy, if the Vatican had not recalled him first. According to State Department guidelines, expulsion is sought in cases where there is strong evidence of a “serious” crime (that is, a felony or violent crime), and the other nation’s officials refuse to waive immunity. The criminal immunity that foreign diplomatic and some consular personnel enjoy protects them from the normal jurisdiction of the courts with respect to alleged criminal activity. However, in those instances in which a person with immunity is believed to have committed a serious offense (any felony or crime of violence) and the sending country has not acceded to the U.S. Department of State’s request for a waiver of immunity, it is the Department’s policy to require the departure of that individual from the United States. Requiring the departure of a person who enjoys immunity is an extreme diplomatic tool, and it is used only after the most careful consideration to ensure that the United States is not perceived as having acted in an arbitrary, capricious, or prejudiced manner. Under U.S. Code Section 2252, receiving, possessing or distributing child pornography is punishable by a fine and between five and 20 years in prison (for repeat offenders, the term can be between 15 and 40 years). This makes the offenses Capella was suspected of felonies, meaning the State Department’s own policy of expulsion would likely have been implemented in his case. In September 2017, after Capella’s return to the Vatican, authorities in Canada announced that they too had been investigating his actions, and found evidence that he had possessed and shared child abuse images using a church computer during a visit to Windsor, Ontario at Christmas time in 2016. In a statement, Windsor Police wrote: In February of 2017 the Windsor Police Service Internet Child Exploitation Unit (ICE) received information that originated from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre (NCECC) indicating that a suspect in the city of Windsor had allegedly uploaded Child Pornography using a social networking website. Members of the Windsor Police Service ICE Unit launched an investigation. Investigators applied for and were granted judicial permission to review records related to the involved internet service provider address. Through investigation it was determined that the alleged offences occurred between December 24 – 27, 2016. Investigators believe that the offences occurred while the suspect was visiting a place of worship in Windsor, Ontario. Although the Vatican had already announced Capella’s return to Italy, Windsor Police issued a nationwide warrant for Capella’s arrest on charges of accessing, possessing and distributing child pornography. The Vatican investigation into Capella’s crimes led to his arrest and imprisonment in April 2018. On 30 May 2018, he was indicted on charges of possessing and distributing a “large quantity” of child pornography; his trial began on 22 June 2018. The Vatican City State Tribunal, composed of three judges, convicted Capella the following day, and Judge Giuseppe Dalla Torre sentenced him to five years in prison, the maximum sentence available under a child pornography law introduced in the Vatican City in 2013. Capella did not contest the charges against him, and blamed his actions on a “personal crisis,” dismissing them as “merely a bump in the road” and vowing to forge ahead in his ministry, the New York Times reported. Conclusion Monsignor Capella had diplomatic immunity by default, something bestowed upon him by the terms of the United Nations’ 1961 Vienna Convention. That immunity wasn’t granted to him by Pope Francis. However, it is true that the Vatican, led by its head of state Pope Francis, could have agreed to waive Capella’s diplomatic immunity, but chose not to do so. If they had, Capella would almost certainly have faced trial in the United States, the jurisdiction where his crimes took place. If convicted, he would likely have been given a prison sentence of longer than the five years he got upon his return to the Vatican. Under U.S. law, five years is the minimum sentence for possession and distribution of child pornography, whereas in the Vatican it is the maximum.
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9728
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Some with early-stage breast cancer can skip chemo, study says
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A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) looked into the most common type of breast cancer – early stage, without spread to lymph nodes and hormone positive, meaning the tumor’s growth is promoted by estrogen and/or progesterone. According to the Associated Press article on the study, more than 100,000 women in the US are diagnosed with this type. Doctors usually remove the tumor via surgery and prescribe hormone-blocking drugs, but they are unsure whether chemotherapy can offer additional benefits for some women. In this NEJM study, patients with this common breast cancer took a gene test to see whether their tumors would respond well to hormone-blocking drugs alone. Those labeled “low risk” based on this gene test skipped chemo and saw they had a very low rate of cancer recurrence within five years. The Associated Press article touches upon all the main points – costs of the gene test, study design and benefits, context – and we applaud how thoroughly the story addresses some of our criteria, especially on a tight deadline. Our main suggestion is to look for and report on conflicts of interest, especially if they concern the first author and are relevant to the study. In the US, breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women after skin cancer, with about 230,000 new cases diagnosed in women each year, according to the National Cancer Institute. Cancer treatments usually involve chemotherapy, which results in a long list of possible side effects and complications. In most cases, more than one drug is used, and patients could take these medications for years at a time. Not only that, cancer treatment drugs can be expensive. A typical weekly course of cancer drug Paclitaxel costs about $13,000, whereas the biweekly regimen is $23,000 to $40,000, according to one oncologist from Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic (login may be required). Any research that shows the benefits of forgoing chemotherapy could help patients avoid toxic side effects and complications and help curb the US’s epidemic of “over care” and spiraling health care costs.
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true
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genetic testing
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The story states the Oncotype gene test costs $4,175 and adds that many insurers, as well as Medicare, cover it. In the low risk population, women who had foregone chemotherapy had less than a 1 percent chance of cancer occurrence at another faraway spot, the story says. It also mentions that 16 percent of the 10,253 study participants were classified as low risk. Later down in the article, it lists more study findings: “After five years, about 99 percent had not relapsed, and 98 percent were alive. About 94 percent were free of any invasive cancer, including new cancers at other sites or in the opposite breast.” The only feedback we have is that the story could have been a bit clearer in pointing out that all of these figures pertained to the low-risk group. But the quantifying of benefits was good enough to merit a Satisfactory rating here. We give the story the benefit of the doubt here. It mentions that adding chemo exposes patients “to side effects and other health risks,” but it doesn’t detail what those effects are. Two other people mentioned in the story refer to “complications” and chemo being “not pretty,” but the story does not elaborate on these comments. The National Cancer Institute lists a slew of side effects from undergoing cancer treatment, such as bleeding, fertility problems and hair loss. On the flip side, researchers mentioned it’s possible that patients in the low risk group could experience relapses in the future, and it’s unclear if early administration of chemo would have helped in these cases. We address this point in the “Quality of Evidence” section, since researchers addressed this as a study limitation in their paper. No limitations of the study are raised or addressed in the Associated Press article, and it also does not provide any critical perspectives on the research. We always encourage stories to take a questioning, skeptical stance toward new research, but we’re not sure how easy it would be to find someone to offer a hard-nosed assessment of this study, especially on a tight deadline. The findings look solid. One study limitation that the researchers acknowledged was that they expect more relapses with longer follow-up times (i.e. more than 5 years), and they’re not sure if administering chemotherapy for this low risk group could have prevented recurrences further down the line. Then again, the study also notes in the discussion section that chemotherapy primarily impacts recurrences within 5 years. A breast cancer specialist says, “There is no chance that for these patients, that chemotherapy would have any benefit,” and we wonder if the story should have pushed back against this a bit — especially since the study is ongoing and only completed a 5-year follow-up for the low risk population. But overall we think the coverage was Satisfactory. There is no disease mongering in this article. The Associated Press interviews five experts for the article – one is the study’s lead author and the rest are independent sources. This is a strong point in the story. But while the story also mentions the funding source (National Cancer Institute), there was a relevant conflict of interest that was overlooked here. Dr. Joseph Sparano, the study’s lead author, reported a patent “related to tests to predict responsiveness of cancer patients to chemotherapy treatment options” in his NEJM disclosure forms (p.79-80). Since we feel this is significant enough conflict of interest that should have been touched upon in the story, we give it a Not Satisfactory rating here. The story describes the usual course of treatment, which is surgery followed by years of a hormone-blocking drug, as well as chemotherapy. The Associated Press report talks about costs of the Oncotype DX gene test by California company Genomic Health and adds that other tests are also on the market. The Associated Press article does a good job providing some context to the NEJM study and states that past studies have looked into how women with varying levels of risk have fared. This is the first study to assign women treatments based on their scores and to track recurrence rates, the story says. The initial studies that led to widespread use of the test were (very large) retrospective validation studies. This is the first prospective study of its kind. The Associated Press article does not seem to be based on any news releases we found online. In addition, the story demonstrates original reporting with its four independent sources and comment from the lead author.
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35352
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Tanzania President John Magufuli secretly sent specimens from a fruit, quail, and goat to a lab testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus disease in humans — and the results came back positive.
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The following day, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network published a new story with the headline, “Tanzania COVID-19 lab head suspended as president questions data,” including the president’s claim regarding the fruit and animals.
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unproven
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Politics, COVID-19
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In early May 2020, as the reported number of people infected by the COVID-19 coronavirus disease worldwide exceeded 1.2 million, people suspicious of the news media and politicians’ portrayal of the pandemic began widely sharing social media posts that claimed Tanzania President John Magufuli sent non-human samples to a COVID-19 testing lab and they came back positive. Aiming to sound the alarm on allegedly faulty testing practices, several of the posts included a photograph of Magufuli, smiling in a crowd of people, with text including: “[He] has outsmarted somebody. He allowed coronavirus testing kits to be imported into his country. […] The tests were given human names and ages as they were sent off for results. They tested positive.” Numerous people contacted Snopes to investigate the posts, including one person who identified as a resident of Tanzania, where the government has reported less than 500 COVID-19 patients and 16 deaths as a result of the virus. “This has created a lot of confusion among family and friends,” the reader said. “I’m afraid that people might actually refuse testing/avoid to be tested out of fear of getting infected,” referring to the claim’s suggestion that COVID-19 testing kits could be contaminated and that’s why the non-human samples tested positive. For our research, we first looked at where the claim about Magufuli originated. In televised remarks on May 3, the president said he was placing an order for an herbal tonic drink developed in Madagascar and touted as a cure for COVID-19 — despite the fact that there were no proven scientific remedies for the disease at the time of this writing. Rather, scientists and public health officials said the best way to stay healthy during the pandemic was to avoid exposure to the virus. On May 4, 2020, BBC News published a story titled, “Coronavirus: Tanzanian president promises to import Madagascar’s ‘cure. '” Responding to the speech and news coverage, scientists and health officials — including those with the World Health Organization (WHO) — in the following days issued advisories against self-medicating with purported remedies for COVID-19. Among their concerns, scientists said the drink could drive resistance to malaria drugs. In an April 20 statement, which the scientific journal Science translated into English for Snopes’ interpretation, the National Academy of Medicine of Madagascar said, “It is a drug whose scientific evidence has not yet been established, and which risks damaging the health of the population, in particular that of children.” Here’s how that is related to the claim in the above-displayed meme: Within the same televised statement, the president questioned the credibility of the national laboratory where lab technicians processed COVID-19 tests, essentially alleging that they were mishandling samples and the number of positive tests were exaggerated as a result. In a BBC News story about Magufuli’s endorsement of the herbal drink, the news outlet translated the president’s comments to English, stating: He said he had secretly had some animals and fruits tested at the laboratory and that a papaya (paw-paw), a quail and a goat returned positive samples. “That means there is possibility for technical errors or these imported reagents have issues,” he said, without giving more detail.
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22669
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Despite claims that you can 'keep the health care plan you like,' the Obama Administration has predicted that as many as 7 out of 10 Americans with employer-provided health coverage could lose their current health plan.
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Rep. Blake Farenthold says health care law will force 70 percent of workers to lose their current plan
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false
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National, Health Care, Workers, Blake Farenthold,
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"On Jan. 23, 2011, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas -- a freshman lawmaker who ousted a Democratic incumbent in 2010 -- wrote an op-ed in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times explaining his decision to vote to repeal the Democratic-backed health care law. One of the reasons he cited was this: ""Despite claims that you can 'keep the health care plan you like,' the Obama administration has predicted that as many as 7 out of 10 Americans with employer-provided health coverage could lose their current health plan,"" Farenthold wrote. Farenthold was referring to President Barack Obama’s frequent claim that under the proposed law, ""if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."" We fact-checked that claim in 2009 -- before the final version of the bill was passed -- and ruled it Half True. Later that year, Obama began using a less sweeping version of the claim -- that if you ""already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid, or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have."" We rated that statement True. When we saw Farenthold’s statement, we wondered whether the Obama administration really acknowledged that ""as many as 7 out of 10 Americans with employer-provided health coverage could lose their current health plan."" We tried contacting Farenthold’s office, but his staff did not respond to our inquiries. However, Michael Tanner -- a health care expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, which has been critical of the health care bill -- suggested that Farenthold may have been referring to a fact sheet the administration assembled and posted at the informational website HealthCare.gov. This fact sheet explained how health plans can be ""grandfathered"" under the law, which was passed in early 2010 and which becomes fully operational in 2014. The law allows plans that existed on March 23, 2010, to be ""grandfathered,"" which means that they do not have to comply with new provisions that took effect last fall, such as requirements to provide preventive services without cost-sharing and direct access to ob-gyn care without a referral. To keep their grandfathered status, these plans must not significantly cut benefits or increase out-of-pocket spending for consumers. (Minor policy changes and increases to keep pace with medical inflation do not threaten a plan’s grandfather status.) While acknowledging significant uncertainty about how employers will react to their options, the fact sheet offers estimates of how many plans the administration expects to opt for grandfathered status, both for the 133 million Americans whose plans are provided by large employers and the 43 million with plans provided by small employers (fewer than 100 employees). We aren’t looking at the nation’s 17 million individually purchased policies, because Farenthold’s claim specifically referenced employer-provided health care. According to administration projections, between 71 and 87 percent of large-employer plans will be grandfathered in 2011, and between 36 and 66 percent will remain grandfathered by 2013. For small plans, the administration expects between 58 and 80 percent to be grandfathered in 2011 and between 20 and 51 percent to be grandfathered in 2013. So, in his op-ed, Farenthold used the highest estimate for the percentage of plans that will have lost their grandfather status by 2013 and therefore changed to comply with the health care law, though he does hedge somewhat by saying ""as many as."" Still, we don’t think these numbers fully support Farenthold’s claim. For one thing, if your plan loses its grandfather status, it won’t necessarily mean that you’ll ""lose (your) current health plan,"" as Farenthold writes. Health care specialists said they expect that in many cases an employer (or the insurance carrier the employer uses) will change the plan in ways that are significant enough to end grandfather status but which will not terminate the plan or result in a radical change in its coverage. While some employers may decide to end health care coverage entirely (and thus pay a penalty under the bill), many will continue to offer a similar plan but perhaps with more extensive requirements mandated under the law, possibly along with higher premiums. Indeed, one way that your employer’s plan could lose its grandfather status would be if the employer decides to make it more generous to patients. In this case, ""losing"" the plan would be a net gain for the patient, not a net loss. This is certainly how supporters view the law -- they see the shift from a grandfathered plan to one with new patient benefits and protections as a good thing, not a bad thing. Opponents counter that un-grandfathered plans will force patients to pay more even if they don’t want the new benefits. There’s also a broader issue. Saying that the law could force 70 percent of Americans to lose their current health plans ignores that many people lose their current health coverage every year for reasons having nothing to do with the new law. Both Obama and Farenthold failed to acknowledge this point, but more on that in a moment. Answering the question of how many Americans ""lose their current health plan"" for reasons that have nothing to do with the new law is surprisingly tricky. Health care experts we contacted said they’d never seen a comprehensive statistical look at that question, so we pieced it together as best we could. We found one study by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, which looked at a statistically representative sample of Americans over a period of 48 months. Unfortunately, the data is old -- it’s from the mid-to-late 1990s -- but one finding was that 26.3 percent of fully employed Americans lacked health coverage for at least one month in the 48-month period studied. That statistic only addresses people who lost coverage entirely, at least temporarily. It doesn’t include people who switched jobs (and thus health plans) without losing coverage. That’s common in an economy as dynamic as the United States’. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that, on average, slightly more than 3 percent of employees leave their jobs in any given month. The Census Bureau study also didn’t count those who stayed in the same job but whose company changed insurance carriers, or whose insurance carriers changed the terms of a client company’s plan. Data on this phenomenon is scarce. We found some data in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2007, just over 14 percent of the entire U.S. population ""switched"" health insurance coverage. However, this probably underestimates the rate of switching for the people Farenthold was referring to -- those who have employer-based coverage. The HHS study included people of all ages, including those covered by Medicare, who rarely switch. In addition, the study would capture a switch between, say, an Aetna plan and a United Health Care plan but would not necessarily catch a shift between one type of Aetna plan and another type of Aetna plan. We found another relevant study by Mercer, a private consulting firm. Mercer's National Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Plans, an annual study of nearly 3,000 employers released every November, includes a question on whether employers will ask employees to pay a greater share of health care costs in the upcoming plan year -- for instance, by changing from an HMO to a PPO or by raising deductibles and other forms of cost-sharing. Beth Umland, the head of research for Mercer's health & benefits consulting practice, said that in each of the years from 2005 to 2008, roughly 25 percent of companies said they made changes to their plans that would result in employees paying a greater share of the cost. In 2009 and 2010, she said, that percentage rose to one-third of companies each year. So if you add up the workers who lose coverage entirely, who change jobs, who work for companies that change insurance carriers or plan terms significantly, or whose employer’s insurance carrier is merged or bought out, a significant number of Americans were already losing ""their current health plan"" before the new law was passed. The data is too scattershot to know how large or small the percentage is, but it seems reasonable to assume that the number is not trivial. In fact, the percentage could well be higher than the administration's lower- to mid-level projections for de-grandfathering. Why does this matter? Because knowing that many workers every year are already required to change plans -- even if they like them -- would provide a different impression of the statistics Farenthold cites. And this confusion owes a lot to Obama’s original promise. When Obama said, ""If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan,"" he never acknowledged that many working Americans were already unable to keep the same coverage every year. That set up an unrealistic perception of what the health care bill would do -- and it gave his opponents a perfect opportunity to make the bill’s impact seem problematic. Later he modified the claim to say that if you ""already have health insurance through your job, Medicare, Medicaid or the VA, nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor that you have."" But by the time Obama changed how he made this point, it was already too late -- his opponents had seized on the initial comment and cited it repeatedly. That said, this item is about Farenthold’s claim, not Obama’s, and we find problems with it. If Farenthold is using the administration’s estimates for lost grandfather status, he’s taken the most extreme point on a wide range of possible outcomes. More important, it’s not clear that an employee whose plan loses grandfather status would be losing his current health plan in anything more than a technical sense; many workers could actually end up with a more generous plan. Finally, Farenthold ignores that many employees lose their current health plans for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with the health care law. To suggest that the law is the reason for 70 percent of employees being forced off their plans, as Farenthold does, ignores all other reasons for such changes. And he is incorrect when he says the Obama administration predicted that. UPDATE: Shortly after our story was published, Farenthold’s office replied to our inquiry. They confirmed that the Congressman was referring to the administration’s projected rates of grandfathering, specifically citing Table 3 in the official regulation. We stand by our ruling."
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10957
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Study backs dual therapy for brain cancer: Method parallels Kennedy regimen
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This is a solid, concise report on the benefits of adding chemotherapy to radiation treatment for brain cancer. It does a good job reporting the key findings of benefit responsibly and clearly, using both absolute and relative terms. It also describes the methodology and caveats. The reader comes away understanding that the new report shows improved survival but is by no means a cure. It makes plain that with either therapy, a large majority of patients die within 5 years of diagnosis. The reporter also does a fine job of putting the findings in the context of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s recent diagnosis and treatment of the same kind of tumor. This makes the story relevant and personal. Yet the reporter does not distort the story so it’s more about Kennedy rather than the findings. As the ratings show, the reporter should have consulted with one source with no connection to the study or the treatment. Further, the failure to mention the potential harms of the treatment–a paramount quality-of-life issue for patients–is a significant omission.
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true
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"The story fails to report the costs of the treatments alone and together. As a matter of course, costs should be reported, even when not central to the story’s theme. The story does a solid job of presenting the benefits in absolute terms with the most relevant clinical endpoint–10 percent of people who got the combination treatment were alive 5 years after diagnosis. It uses absolute data to compare results at the three-year mark as well. Elsewhere it compares survival rates in relative terms, i.e., ""five times more likely to be alive."" Because the death rate is so high with either treatment approach, quality of life remaining–which is seriously affected by harms or side-effects of treatment–is a relevant, perhaps dominant, issue. The reporter should have explored the side effects of the treatment and the quality of life issues for each treatment. The published study at the center of the story is a clinical trial of techniques currently in use. The reportage about the study, including quotes from two oncologists, makes clear that the evidence shows improved outcomes but not a ""cure."" The reporter mentions the caveats that the findings apply only to those 70 and younger, and that those under 50 benefitted the most. The story sticks closely to the facts of the published study, without exaggerating the gravity of the disease. The mention of Ted Kennedy getting the treatment serves to make the story timely, interesting and relevant without excessive emotion. But the story does overgeneralize the application of this treatment. The story refers to ""brain cancer"" and ""tumors,"" yet the findings apply only to glioblastoma, a small subset of brain cancers. This could invite unwarranted hope in readers that the findings apply to many types of brain cancer. The story cites two sources, the lead author of the study and the oncologist who treated Sen. Kennedy. While it’s appropriate to interview both, neither is a disinterested observer. A third source, entirely independent of the study and its findings, should have been consulted. The study explains that surgery with radiation is the longstanding treatment, and that the addition of chemotherapy to the treatment is in increasing use. The reporter should have acknowledged, however, that doing nothing is an option. It would be good for readers to know what life expectancy is with no treatment. The story makes clear that the both parts of the brain cancer treament, radiation and chemotherapy, are available and sometimes used together. Citing the fact that Sen. Edward Kennedy received a similar treatment emphasizes its availability. The story makes clear the combination treatment is available and currently in use. It explains that the current publication follows previously published studies of the treatment. There does not appear to be a press release linked to the study’s publication."
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2016
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Study underlines cannabis link to psychosis.
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People who use cannabis in their youth dramatically increase their risk of psychotic symptoms, and continued use of the drug can raise the risk of developing a psychotic disorder in later life, scientists said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
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In a 10-year study of links between cannabis use and psychosis, Dutch researchers found that cannabis use almost doubled the risk of later psychotic symptoms. Experts commenting on the results said the major challenge for health authorities was to deter enough young people from using cannabis so that rates of psychosis could be reduced. “This study adds a further brick to the wall of evidence showing that use of traditional cannabis is a contributory cause of psychoses like schizophrenia,” said Robin Murray of the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, who was not involved in the research. Wednesday’s findings, published in the British Medical Journal, echo research last year which found that young people who smoke cannabis for six years or more are twice as likely to have psychotic episodes, hallucinations or delusions. Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug in the world, particularly among adolescents, and is increasingly linked to added risks of developing mental illness. But scientists say it is not yet clear whether the link between cannabis and psychosis is causal, or whether it is because people with psychosis use cannabis to self-medicate to calm their symptoms. For this study, a team of Dutch researchers led by Jim van Os from Maastricht University studied a random sample of 1,923 adolescents and young adults aged 14 to 24 years. The study took place in Germany and the researchers separated out anyone who said they were already using cannabis and excluded those with pre-existing psychotic symptoms so they could look at links between new cannabis use and psychosis. They found that so-called “incident,” or new, cannabis use almost doubled the risk of new psychotic symptoms, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, socio-economic status, use of other drugs and other psychiatric problems. They also found that in those who were already using cannabis at the start of the study, continued use increased the risk of persistent psychotic symptoms. There was no evidence for self-medication effects since psychotic symptoms did not predict later cannabis use, they said. Peter Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, said the study suggested authorities should take “a cautious and thoughtful approach to cannabis legislation.” “It’s important to remember that psychosis is a very complex bio-psycho-social phenomenon...but this important paper certainly reminds us that there’s a strong link to the use of cannabis,” he said in an emailed comment.
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4098
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South Alabama researchers to aid in study of West Nile virus.
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Researchers from the University of South Alabama are working on a study to learn more about deadly West Nile virus.
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true
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Health, General News, Infectious diseases, Alabama, West Nile virus, United States
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Genetic material from infected mosquitoes will be sent to Yale University, according to a statement from South Alabama. Workers at Yale’s public health school will sequence DNA to help understand how the virus and spread over the last two decades in the United States. “They are looking at how the virus has evolved over time by sequencing genomes,” said Jonathan Rayner, who works in infectious diseases at the South Alabama medical school. South Alabama said it is the first school in the state to join in the project. West Nile virus killed nearly 170 people nationwide last year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 2,647 cases of West Nile virus were reported last year, which was 550 more cases than in 2017.
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28132
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Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by guns than have been killed in all wars in U.S. history.
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What's true: The number of gun deaths in the U.S. since 1968 exceeds even relatively high estimates of the number of deaths in all wars in American history and among U.S. military personnel in conflicts abroad. What's false: The gap between the two totals may be significantly smaller than stated in some versions of this claim.
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true
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Politics
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In the aftermath of the 1 October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the American public attempted to come to grips with the scale of gun violence in the United States. One oft-cited statistic posted in social media by “The Other 98%” maintained that 1.3 million Americans had been killed in all the wars in U.S. history, while 1.5 million Americans had been killed by firearms (in non-military use) since 1968 alone: NBC News reported similar figures: More Americans have died from gunshots in the last 50 years than in all of the wars in American history. Since 1968, more than 1.5 million Americans have died in gun-related incidents, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By comparison, approximately 1.2 million service members have been killed in every war in U.S. history, according to estimates from the Department of Veterans Affairs and iCasualties.org, a website that maintains an ongoing database of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Different versions of this claim have been prominently offered in recent years by sources such as New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof in 2015, and PBS Newshour contributor and commentator Mark Shields in 2012. All these claims contain casual uses of the qualifier “Americans” in reference to gun deaths, which is somewhat confusing because not everyone who has been killed by firearms in the United States was an American citizen, and official sources for gun death statistics do not offer breakdowns by nationality. Therefore, we assume that “Americans” is used here for rhetorical effect, rather than as a functional statistical category, and deal with the total number of gun deaths occurring in the United States since 1968. Similarly, according to the historian Don H. Doyle, the U.S. Civil War saw around 543,000 foreign-born (i.e., immigrant) soldiers fighting on the Union side alone, so a significant number of Civil War deaths might have involved non-American citizen combatants, but we’ll count them all as “Americans.” (Indeed, non-U.S. citizens have likely served and died fighting for the U.S. side in every American military conflict since the Revolutionary War, but probably in much greater numbers during the Civil War than any other.) Support for this claim often uses sources that relate only to combatant deaths in wars and do not include civilian or other non-combatant deaths (the latter being figures which might also include non-U.S. citizens). One could argue that civilian deaths in wars should be included (although estimates of these deaths are much less reliable than for fatalities among military personnel), but we are limiting our analysis to include only combatant deaths in military conflicts. We’ll break this analysis into two parts: the total number of deaths in the United States involving firearms since 1968, and the number of deaths in the U.S. and among American combatants across all wars in American history. Gun deaths The estimated total number of firearms-related deaths from 1968-2016 is 1.58 million. The official number for 1968-2015 is 1.55 million, and we have assumed the number of deaths in 2016 as being the mid-point between the two previous years (2014 and 2015). In most cases, the source of these figures is the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS). For figures from 1968 to 1991, we consulted the CDC directly Deaths in wars For combatant fatalities, our main source is an April 2017 summary published by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which lists the following figures: The Civil War Trust, a non-profit organisation primarily dedicated to preserving American battlefields, estimates that around 6,800 people died in battle during the Revolutionary War, with an additional 17,000 deaths caused by disease, and between 8,000 and 12,000 more deaths occurring among those held as prisoners of war. The upper end of this estimate range, then, would put the total number of deaths associated with the American Revolutionary War at 26,800. Similarly, the Civil War Trust estimates that around 15,000 Americans died during the War of 1812, a significantly higher number than the 2,260 battle deaths estimated by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Civil War is an interesting case. Based on from the work of two late 19th and early 20th century historians, the widely accepted figure for deaths in this conflict was reckoned as 618,222 for about a century. In 2011, however, J. David Hacker ( then of Binghamton University) published a significant upwards revision of that total, estimating that the likely death toll was between 650,000 and 851,000. Taking the mid-point in this estimate range assumes about 750,000 combatant deaths for the Civil War. Because of the enhanced statistical sophistication involved in Hacker’s research, and what appears to be acceptance and support of his estimate among historians, we are going to use 750,000 as the estimated death toll among combatants in the Civil War. Figures for the Global War on Terror are taken from the Department of Defense’s Defense Casualty Analysis System and are valid as of October 2017. Afghanistan war: Iraq war: If we rely on the Department of Veterans Affairs summary, while accepting J. David Hacker’s 750,000 estimate for the Civil War, the total number of deaths among American combatants in all U.S. military conflicts, using high estimates for each, is thus 1,481,862 — about 100,000 less than the total number of firearms-related fatalities in the U.S. between 1968 and 2016. So even using the higher end of available estimates for war deaths throughout American history, the grand total of those deaths is still lower than the total of firearms-related fatalities since 1968, a period of just 49 years. Although this disparity between war deaths and gun deaths is smaller than the gap claimed by the Other 98% (200,000) or NBC News (300,000), the imprecision of casualty estimates (especially for the Civil War era) allows for a considerable margin of error.
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27420
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Essential oils can be poisonous to pets.
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In 2014, another Facebook user, Julie Muzynoski Miklaszewicz, also shared her story about her cat being affected by a diffuser, though in her case the animal lived, although it suffered chemical burns after knocking the device over.
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true
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Medical, ASPCA, birds, cats
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A Michigan woman’s online account of her family cat’s brush with eucalyptus oil used in a diffuser spurred concern among fellow pet lovers on social media — and experts say those worries have some truth to them. Sue Murray said in her 7 January 2018 post that she had unwittingly poisoned the cat, Ernie, by using a diffuser in her house with eucalyptus oil to alleviate her head cold. She said: The first couple days I didn’t notice any symptoms with Ernie, but on the fourth day, he was lethargic, unstable on his feet and was drooling excessively. My husband instinctively Googled eucalyptus oil. It stated that it can be toxic to cats and they can’t metabolize it and stated all of Ernie’s symptoms. It also said that without medical attention, it could be fatal! So I took him to the Vet right away! The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) lists essential oils like eucalyptus, orange and lemon (among others) as being among the leading causes for tremors among cats. The group also has warnings on its website for products that may contain essential oils. According to Tina Wismer, the medical director for the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, cats exposed to essential oils can absorb it through their skin or orally. In some cases, she said, owners inadvertently put them at risk by applying substances with a high concentration of essential oils on their cats while trying to treat other problems, such as an open wound or ear mites: Most of the problems are seen when owners apply 100-percent essential oil [products]. There’s some essential oils used for flea control are typically less than 5 percent. So that’s a big difference. Before using products containing essential oils on their pets, she said, owners should make sure that they are labeled for use with that specific species: We don’t want to use dog products on cats. Cats are special. They don’t have a whole lot of metabolyzing enzymes in their liver unlike other animals, so they’re a lot more sensitive to a lot of toxins. Owners using diffusers like Murray did, Wismer explained, should move their cats to another room while doing so and avoid using the device for extended periods of time in order to minimize the risk that oil droplets could get onto their fur. The most common symptoms for cats exposed to essential oils, she said, were drooling, vomiting, coughing, and sneezing. While any animal can potentially have an issue with oils spread by diffusers, she said, birds are even more susceptible than cats: Birds have a very different respiratory system than mammals do, and it’s very sensitive to inhaled toxins. We’ve had birds [affected by] new carpet in the house, or teflon pans. A lot of different ways. Another post circulating online in February 2018 described a dog owner’s account of her pooch’s “acting weird” after being exposed to essential oils: We asked Wismer about this case as well, and she told us: All pet owners should be careful about exposing their animals to essential oils. Generally speaking, cats have more sensitivity to many toxins, including essential oils, than dogs do, because they have fewer metabolizing enzymes in their liver. With that said, dogs can develop the same symptoms as cats, including drooling, vomiting, sneezing, and coughing, and dogs with prior respiratory conditions can be particularly at risk for more serious effects.
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8636
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Exclusive: Pressed by Trump, U.S. pushed unproven coronavirus treatment guidance.
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In mid-March, President Donald Trump personally pressed federal health officials to make malaria drugs available to treat the novel coronavirus, though they had been untested for COVID-19, two sources told Reuters.
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true
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Health News
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Shortly afterward, the federal government published highly unusual guidance informing doctors they had the option to prescribe the drugs, with key dosing information based on unattributed anecdotes rather than peer-reviewed science. While Trump, in a series of tweets and press comments, had made his opinions on the drugs, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, well known, the nature of his behind-the-scenes intervention has not been previously reported. The guidance, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has received scant notice outside medical circles. The episode reveals how the president’s efforts could change the nature of drug oversight, a field long governed by strict rules of science and testing. Rarely, if ever, has a U.S. president lobbied regulators and health officials to focus their efforts on specific unproven drugs. “The president is short-circuiting the process with his gut feelings,” said Jeffrey Flier, a former dean of Harvard Medical School. “We are in an emergency and we need to rely on our government to ensure that all these potential therapies are tested in the most effective and objective way.” In a statement to Reuters, the White House said the president had not launched a “pressure campaign” but was taking appropriate action. “The President’s top priority is the health and safety of the American people which is why he has brought together the federal government and private sector, including doctors, scientists, and medical researchers, for an unprecedented collaboration to expedite vaccine development,” said the statement, which did not address Reuters questions about the CDC guidance. Administration supporters say the CDC document, highlighting options, makes sense at a time of medical calamity with no proven treatment. And, they note, chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have been prescribed for years with known risks. Any potential risk to coronavirus patients, some argue, is worth taking given the health crisis. “In a perfect situation you would never do this,” said a public health specialist who recently left government. “But if you know what the safety downside is, and the patient is ready to try it, it’s worth a try.” It has long been known that in certain patients, and with prolonged use, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine can cause an interrupted heartbeat or a cardiac arrhythmia, the medical literature shows. A new research paper says these “may pose particular risk to critically ill persons.” In a series of conversations last month, President Trump personally instructed top officials at the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to focus on the two drugs as potential therapies, said two sources familiar with the president’s efforts. In seeking a medical breakthrough to the global crisis, Trump had contacted Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA administrator, and other top health officials, questioning whether they were moving rapidly enough to make the drugs more widely available, one source said. “He was not happy because of the bureaucracy.” Trump did not raise his voice or express anger, but did emphasize the “urgency” of fast-tracking access to the drugs, the other source said. A cascade of federal action soon followed to make the drugs more available, including the federal government’s grant of emergency authorization to supply them nationwide. An NIH spokeswoman said the agency was “not the source of the content” of the CDC-compiled document. The CDC said it presented the guidance to doctors at the request of a coronavirus task force, which urged prompt action. An FDA spokesperson declined to discuss any push by the president or address the CDC-issued guidance. The agency, in a statement to Reuters, said it acted appropriately when, later in March, it issued an emergency order allowing the drugs to be prescribed and distributed. “It was determined, based on the scientific evidence available, that it is reasonable to believe that the specific drugs may be effective in treating COVID-19, and that, given there are no adequate, approved, or available alternative treatments, the known and potential benefits to treat this serious or life-threatening virus outweigh the known and potential risks,” the FDA statement said. The first official action came March 21, at the height of the president’s efforts, when the CDC prepared a document, Information for Clinicians on Treatment Options for COVID-19 Patients, that included a section on the antimalarial drugs. The document describes possible prescription information for coronavirus patients, while at the same time proposing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as an option in coronavirus treatment. It was the first time the federal government’s disease control agency had officially floated the idea. “Although optimal dosing and duration of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 are unknown,” the document says, “some U.S. clinicians have reported anecdotally” about different hydroxychloroquine doses. The document does not name the clinicians, say whether their treatment was successful or explain the paper’s sourcing. Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, says she was surprised to read the document guidance, after Reuters pointed it out to her. “Geez!” she said. “No references, no nothing! Why would CDC be publishing anecdotes? That doesn’t make sense. This is very unusual.” Flier, the former Harvard dean, agreed. “It’s kind of offering these drugs up and suggesting that doctors might prescribe them when it’s obviously not established whether or not they are effective or harmful,” he said. The CDC declined to detail the interactions of its director, Dr. Robert Redfield, with President Trump. In a statement, the agency said the guidance was prepared at the request of the coronavirus task force and doctors who “requested CDC review the literature, compose, and post the information as quickly as possible.” “The agency did,” the statement said. The CDC would not disclose the identities of the authors who prepared the document, nor detail its sourcing. The document said it was reviewed by the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), Division of Viral Diseases. Trump’s push for action came after Fox News on March 16 reported on a small French study highlighting the effectiveness of one of the drugs, hydroxychloroquine. Fox News interviewed a lawyer it said was involved, Gregory Rigano, who said “we have strong reason to believe that a preventative dose of hydroxychloroquine is going to prevent the virus from attaching to the body and just get rid of it completely.” Rigano, appearing on Fox News again two days later, said the president “has the authority to authorize the use of hydroxychloroquine against coronavirus immediately.” Rigano did not respond to an emailed request for comment from Reuters. On March 19, Trump vowed to make the drugs more widely available. “It’s shown very encouraging – very, very encouraging early results,” he said at a press conference. “And we’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately. And that’s where the FDA has been so great. They – they’ve gone through the approval process; it’s been approved. And they did it – they took it down from many, many months to immediate.” In fact, the drug had not gone through an FDA review process by then. At the same press conference, FDA administrator Hahn said regulators were taking “a closer look.” “That’s a drug that the president has directed us to take a closer look at, as to whether an expanded-use approach to that could be done to actually see if that benefits patients,” Hahn said. In a press release that day, the FDA emphasized it was merely investigating whether the drugs “can be used to treat patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19 to potentially reduce the duration of symptoms.” Studies were underway, the FDA added, “to determine the efficacy in using chloroquine to treat COVID-19.” While the FDA approves drugs for the U.S. market and oversees the testing, the CDC is the key agency coordinating the response to infectious diseases and providing information about them. At that point, the CDC had not singled out the drugs. Two days later, on March 21, the president personally pushed the health officials. The president also tweeted that the drugs should be “put in use immediately.” Trump, citing the study, promised that the drugs demonstrated “a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine.” That’s when the CDC posted its newer guidance to doctors, appearing to give the stamp of approval on using hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine directly for COVID-19 patients. While the document doesn’t recommend the drugs be used, it cites them as a possible option. Meanwhile, the agency heads began publicly shifting their stance. After initially expressing caution, the FDA’s Hahn on March 23 told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that preliminary data showed the drugs might indeed help treat the disease. Now, millions of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine pills are on their way to the public, donated by drugmakers, including Novartis’ Sandoz, Bayer and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. The FDA issued an emergency authorization on March 28 allowing them to be prescribed and distributed from the Strategic National Stockpile. A paper in Annals of Internal Medicine, the premier internal medicine journal, this week warned of the dangers of touting the drugs, given the unproven evidence and their potential shortage for other uses, such as treatment for patients with lupus. In a statement to Reuters, the paper’s authors, Drs. Jinoos Yazdany and Alfred H.J. Kim, on one hand called the CDC document “direct and factual, if its purpose is to outline what we do know.” But they also expressed concern that the guidance may “leave the reader free to interpret this information depending on their bias. We do think a document like this should more clearly state what this means for health care providers.” Noting the president’s tweets in their report, the authors urged the medical community and the U.S. government to send “clear messages” that include a proper interpretation of available data “to counteract misinformation, including misleading statements or articles with ‘clickbait’ material.”
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17499
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"On foreign policy, Joe Biden was against aid for Vietnam, said the fall of the Shah was ""a step forward"" for human rights in Iran, opposed Reagan's defense build-up and voted against the first Gulf War."
|
Gates’ assessments of Biden’s positions on South Vietnamese aid, the Reagan defense build-up and the first Gulf War are accurate, according to our research. However, we found no solid evidence that Biden actually said the fall of the Shah was a step forward for human rights in Iran. Experts will continue to debate whether foreign policy decisions of Gates and Biden will be viewed favorably by historians. But Gates portrayal of Biden’s record was accurate, with the exception of the unproven claim about Biden’s comments on Iran.
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true
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National, Bush Administration, Foreign Policy, History, Homeland Security, Iraq, Military, Robert Gates,
|
"A new memoir from former Defense Secretary Robert Gates hit the book shelves this month, drawing both praise and criticism for its candid insights into the two most recent presidents Gates worked for, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and their administrations. Washington reporters immediately latched on to Gates’ portrayal of Vice President Joe Biden. Biden, he said, is a nice guy — ""simply impossible not to like"" — but ""wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."" Ouch. Asked to back up his harsh words Jan. 13, 2014, on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Gates replied: ""Frankly, I believe it. The vice president, when he was a senator — a very new senator — voted against the aid package for South Vietnam, and that was part of the deal when we pulled out of South Vietnam to try and help them survive. He said that when the Shah fell in Iran in 1979 that that was a step forward for progress toward human rights in Iran. He opposed virtually every element of President Reagan's defense build-up. He voted against the B-1, the B-2, the MX and so on. He voted against the first Gulf War. So on a number of these major issues, I just frankly, over a long period of time, felt that he had been wrong."" This is not an argument without consequence. Biden served for years on the Foreign Relations Committee, including several stints as chairman, and he was picked as Obama’s running mate in part because of his experience in world affairs. For someone of Gates’ stature to publicly criticize a sitting vice president is uncommon. We can’t — and won’t — weigh in on whether Biden was on the right or wrong side of history. That’s a debate that likely will never end. Nor are we stipulating that Gates’ examples are the definitive list by which the last 40 years of U.S. foreign relations will be judged. But we did wonder if Gates’ description of Biden’s history was accurate. That led us to this review of the career of a man who first entered the Senate in 1973 and who twice has acted on his presidential ambitions and may again in 2016. History between Biden and Gates Biden won his first election in 1972 at just 29, fueled by the anti-war sentiments of a generation wary of the Vietnam conflict. Biden later said he ""wasn’t against the war for moral reasons; I just thought it was stupid policy."" At other times in his career, Biden advocated for military intervention. Most notably, Biden was an early and instrumental advocate of military intervention in the Serbia and Kosovo conflicts during the Clinton administration. He reportedly called Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic ""a damn war criminal"" to his face and later said his work in the Balkans was one of his two ""proudest moments in public life."" Biden and Gates have not always disagreed. In his memoir Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, Gates recalled fighting military leaders in 2007 to get more money to protect troops on the ground against roadmines. It was Biden who offered an amendment to fund Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to the tune of $1.5 billion. It passed unanimously. But there’s clearly tension between Gates and Biden. Gates wrote that just sitting next to Biden was ""awkward"" because they so frequently were at odds. Biden is mentioned on nearly six dozen pages of Gates’ 600-page memoir, often in an unflattering light. Biden, too, has not always been so kind to Gates. When President George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1991, Biden not only voted against his confirmation, he openly criticized Gates. ""I believe it is time for us to look forward. I have been disappointed in the past in Mr. Gates’ analytical skills, especially in regard to the Soviet Union,"" Biden said, according to the Senate record. ""I have chosen to err on the side of new thinking."" A few minutes later, Gates won confirmation by a vote of 64-31. When Gates was confirmed overwhelmingly by the Senate 95-2 to Secretary of Defense under the second Bush, Biden was one of three senators not to vote. Clearly, these two men have some history. But what about Gates’ claims regarding Biden’s record? Let’s go through them one by one. Biden ""voted against the aid package for South Vietnam."" On April 10, 1975, President Gerald Ford requested Congress to provide nearly $1 billion in military and humanitarian aid to South Vietnam within nine days. By this point, American intervention in Vietnam was waning after two decades of involvement, and Ford’s request was the final attempt to bring U.S. assistance to the war-torn country. On April 25, 1975, the Senate approved a conference report to provide some financial assistance on a 46-17 vote. Biden, just two years after taking office, voted against the measure. The bill ultimately died in the House. And on April 29, as the South Vietnam capital of Saigon was captured, Ford order an evacuation of all remaining U.S. personnel from Indochina. Biden said when ""the Shah fell in Iran in … 1979 ... that that was a step forward for progress toward human rights in Iran."" We were not able to find evidence that Biden spoke positively of the fall of the Shah. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was the leader of Iran until January 1979, when he and his family were forced out of the country by backers of Ruhollah Mostafavi Musavi Khomeini, an exiled cleric critical of the regime. Khomeini returned to the country in February 1979 to claim power as supreme leader and proclaim the Islamic Republic of Iran, the state it remains in today. An extensive search through newspaper archives found no instances of Biden speaking positively of the Shah’s ouster. Jules Witcover, author of Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption, does not recall coming across such a statement in his research, either. We found reference to the statement in a 2008 opinion piece published by the New York Post that heavily criticized Obama’s choice of Biden as his VP. But there was no source for it. The comment has continued to circulate in conservative media, again without citation. We contacted both the Post and the author to ask for a source, but we didn’t hear back. Through a publicist, we asked Gates to back up the claim. They simply referred us back to his book. We found no other source for this statement, and especially no original citation, so we have significant doubts that it’s accurate. We will update this point if more evidence comes to light. Biden ""opposed virtually every element of President Reagan's defense build-up. He voted against the B-1, the B-2, the MX and so on."" Following World War II, the United States’ approach to the Soviet Union and the spread of communism centered on containment. President Ronald Reagan changed that, said Barry Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a national security think tank. ""If you read through key national security documents written under Reagan, they basically turn their back on containment and say, ‘we can win this thing,’"" Watts said. ""And the defense build-up under Reagan is the concrete substantiation to put increased pressure on (the Soviets)."" During the next eight years, Reagan would push Congress to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defense. One such proposal was to bring back the B-1 bomber, a plane canceled under President Jimmy Carter. On Dec. 3, 1981, Biden voted for an amendment to eliminate funds for the B-1 from the defense appropriation bill. The amendment failed, and the defense spending bill passed the Senate a day later with $2.4 billion for the B-1. Biden did not vote on the Senate bill. The same bill also contained $2 billion for the MX, an intercontinental ballistic missile known as the ""Peacekeeper."" Biden voted for an amendment that would have eliminated some funding for the MX, which failed. The B-2, also known as the ""Stealth bomber,"" was a secret project for much of the 1980s. Funding for the project was included in the 1987 defense spending bill, but the amount was classified. Biden voted for the final bill, but we could not find his position on that particular appropriation. However, from 1989 to 1992, Biden continually voted for measures that stripped funding from the B-2 project, according to voting record scorecards kept by the Council for a Livable World, a group that advocates for nuclear arms control. As for the rest of the defense build-up, Biden voted in favor of the final military spending compromise resolutions passed by Congress throughout the Reagan years, his office noted. But he also often voted against many of the administration’s military priorities during the amendment phase. Biden annually earned high ratings in the 1980s voting scorecards from the Council for a Livable World, which generally opposed Reagan’s defense build-up. The exception was in 1987 and 1988, when he earned low marks after missing many of the votes while running for president. Biden ""voted against the first Gulf War."" Biden was a staunch opponent of the first invasion of Iraq in 1991 under President George H.W. Bush. The day before the vote, he delivered a blistering speech against the war and accused Bush of threatening to usurp the constitution to commit troops without congressional consent. But Biden was not alone in his dissent. The House had its longest debate in the history of the chamber in deciding whether to go to war, according to the Los Angeles Times, and the Senate only narrowly passed the joint resolution authorizing use of force in Iraq, 52-47. Biden voted no, citing a torn Congress and country. ""Even if you win today, you still lose,"" Biden said on the day of the vote. ""The nation is divided on this issue."" Our ruling Gates’ assessments of Biden’s positions on South Vietnamese aid, the Reagan defense build-up and the first Gulf War are accurate, according to our research. However, we found no solid evidence that Biden actually said the fall of the Shah was a step forward for human rights in Iran. Experts will continue to debate whether foreign policy decisions of Gates and Biden will be viewed favorably by historians. But Gates portrayal of Biden’s record was accurate, with the exception of the unproven claim about Biden’s comments on Iran."
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4937
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NC woman charged after taking in animals during hurricane.
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A woman who took in more than two dozen dogs and cats during Hurricane Florence has been charged with practicing veterinary medicine without a license.
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true
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Goldsboro, Veterinary medicine
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Tammie Hedges, founder of Crazy’s Claws N Paws animal rescue, was arrested Friday after 27 dogs and cats were confiscated from a temporary shelter. Hedges told the News-Argus of Goldsboro she felt she had to help the animals brought to her during the storm. Hedges said she gave amoxicillin to some sick animals and also used a topical antibiotic ointment. She’s also charged with soliciting a donation of Tramadol, a prescription painkiller sometimes used for dogs and cats. In a statement, Wayne County said animal control officers had “serious concern regarding the practice of veterinary medicine without a license and the presence of controlled substances.” ___ Information from: Goldsboro News-Argus, http://www.newsargus.com
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21648
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Social Security doesn’t contribute a penny to the deficit.
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UPDATED: Retiree group says Social Security doesn't contribute a penny to U.S. deficit
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false
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Deficit, Federal Budget, Social Security, Texas, Alliance for Retired Americans,
|
"CORRECTION, Sept. 29, 2011: This fact check originally said that without changes in law, the Social Security trust fund is projected to be exhausted in 2036. That is incorrect, a reader pointed out, though 2036 is the year Social Security is expected to no longer cover full benefits--again, barring changes in law. This correction, reflected in the amended text below, does not affect our original rating. The Texas AFL-CIO’s Ed Sills noted in his July 12 email blast of labor-related news that a Washington group was urging people to call their U.S. senators about preserving Social Security. In asking its members to call their senators, the Alliance for Retired Americans said: ""Social Security faces an immediate threat from politicians in Washington"" who want to cut the program’s cost-of-living inflation adjustment ""to reduce the deficit. But Social Security doesn’t contribute a penny to the deficit."" Not a cent? That’s an eye-catching claim because last year for the first time since 1983, Social Security’s income from payroll taxes did not cover what it paid beneficiaries. The Social Security Administration’s summary of its 2011 annual report says the program ran a ""cash deficit"" of $49 billion in 2010 and is projected to run a $46 billion deficit in 2011. The summary attributes these shortfalls in part to the weakened economy. It also says that in 2012-14, the agency expects such deficits to shrink as the economy strengthens. In subsequent years, though, Social Security’s deficits are expected to grow rapidly as the ""number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers."" The agency doesn’t say Social Security is going broke. Through 2022, it says, ""annual cash deficits will be made up by redeeming trust fund assets"" from the U.S. Treasury. Some ""trust fund"" background: When Social Security’s payroll tax income exceeds payments to beneficiaries, the government spends the surplus as general revenue and the Treasury gives Social Security interest-bearing bonds in return. When Social Security has to redeem its ""trust fund assets"" to cover a difference between income and payments, it is relying on these bonds and the interest they generate. As of December 2010, there was about $2.6 trillion in Treasury bonds and related interest in Social Security’s trust fund. Barring changes in law, the agency’s summary report says, the trust fund will not have enough money to cover full benefits starting in 2036. ""Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085,"" the summary states. So the question is, when Social Security’s trust fund is used to cover benefits, is Social Security contributing to the government’s overall deficit, which was approaching $1.4 trillion when we started this review? David Blank, spokesman for the Alliance for Retired Americans, said the group made its not-a-cent claim because Social Security is financed by the payroll tax paid by workers and employers on each worker's first $106,800 of annual income, supplemented by income from the government bonds purchased by the program in surplus-income years. ""Social Security is prohibited from spending any money beyond what it has in its trust fund,"" Blank said by email. ""This means that it cannot lawfully contribute to the federal budget deficit, since every penny that it pays out must have come from taxes raised through the program or the interest garnered from the bonds held by the trust fund."" Blank’s bottom line: Social Security ""is a self-financed program."" Correct, said Ben Veghte, a research associate at the National Academy of Social Insurance, whose mission is to ""promote understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security and a vibrant economy."" Veghte told us that because Social Security is considered an ""off-budget"" independently financed program, it simply can’t contribute to the general government deficit. When it needs to draw on revenue from bonds that were purchased in earlier years, he said, it’s simply fetching due returns. At this time, he said, Social Security is funding 83 percent of its benefits from payroll taxes, 13 percent from interest on bonds and 3 percent from taxing the benefits of high-income recipients. Neil Buchanan, a professor of law at George Washington University who’s disputed claims that Social Security is in the ditch, said the program’s 2010 and expected 2011 cash deficits might have been hurried along because of the latest recession, but it’s long been known that as baby boomers started to retire, each year’s payroll tax income for Social Security would stop covering all the costs of benefits. However, Buchanan said, it’s possible to conclude that the recent cash deficits contributed a trivial amounts to the federal deficit. Jagadeesh Gokhale, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, said in an interview that whenever Social Security taps proceeds from its U.S. bonds, it’s clearly affecting overall government spending because the Treasury has to get the money somehow, usually by borrowing money from another source. ""Basically the liability of the federal government to Social Security is going to be exchanged for liability to the public,"" Gokhale said. ""So, yes, if Social Security is redeeming Treasury IOUs to pay scheduled benefits, it is contributing to the federal government’s unified federal deficit."" Unified? The Social Security Administration says the ""unified"" budget encompasses all of the government’s budgetary activities, excluding Social Security and Post Office operations, with the unified budget deficit being the measure that determines how much the government has to borrow from the public to meet its obligations. Then again, it notes, ""those involved in budget matters often produce two sets of numbers, one without Social Security included in the budget totals and one with Social Security included. Thus, Social Security is still frequently treated as though it were part of the unified federal budget even though, technically, it no longer is."" Feeling flummoxed, we heard back from June O’Neill, who headed the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for part of the 1990s. O’Neill, an economics professor at Baruch College, City University of New York, aligned with Gokhale of the Cato Institute, saying that whenever Social Security doesn’t collect enough in payroll taxes to cover benefits, its need for additional money naturally ripples through the entire budget. She pointed out, though, that Social Security in 2010 and this year is hardly responsible for a big part of the deficit. Also, she stressed, it would have been incorrect to say Social Security contributed to deficits before last year. That’s because more money came in via payroll taxes than was paid out in benefits. O’Neill said all government programs contribute to the deficit. ""There’s nothing special about"" Social Security on this point, she said. Put another way, she said, the CBO tracks government receipts and expenditures; Social Security’s money in and money out are included. We’re expertised out. And our conclusion is that there's a legitimate rationale for saying Social Security doesn’t contribute to the deficit. After all, it draws on a payroll tax to pay for itself and has built up $2.6 trillion in Treasury IOUs and interest to cover cash shortfalls. However, when Social Security draws from its trust fund, as it did last year and will again this year, it is asking Treasury for money that has to come from the overall budget. And these transactions contribute to the overall federal deficit--not much perhaps, but more than a penny. Editor’s note: PolitiFact Ohio checked a slightly different claim about Social Security."
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40831
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There are fewer doctors and nurses employed in mental health.
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There are around 5,000 fewer nurses specialising mental health between August 2010 and 2017. The number of fully trained doctors specialising in psychiatry and psychotherapy has also gone down by 105 over the same time, but if you count junior doctors the number has increased.
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true
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mental-health
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4,300 more staff employed in mental health trusts since 2013. This is not how many mental health specialist staff there are. It is the increase in all staff in English trusts with over half their outpatient activity in mental health specialities. Some of the staff were effectively re-categorised into the mental health category during this time, rather than being newly hired. There are fewer doctors and nurses employed in mental health. There are around 5,000 fewer nurses specialising mental health between August 2010 and 2017. The number of fully trained doctors specialising in psychiatry and psychotherapy has also gone down by 105 over the same time, but if you count junior doctors the number has increased. Claim 1 of 3
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26291
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Hospitals get paid $750 for patients who die from the flu, $17,500 for COVID-19.
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Amounts paid to hospitals can vary based on the payer; private insurers typically pay much more than Medicare. Medicare pays hospitals based primarily on the diagnosis, and the amount is not affected by whether a patient dies. The $17,500 corresponds to an average of what Medicare might pay for one type of COVID-19 patient. Experts said no hospitalization would generate a payment as low as $750.
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false
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Medicare, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Medicare is adding 20% to its regular reimbursements to hospitals for the treatment of COVID-19 victims. That’s a result of a federal stimulus law that was passed in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But do hospitals get paid 23 times as much for a patient who dies from COVID-19 as for a patient who dies from the flu? That’s the claim of a Facebook post that says: ""Check this out! Hospitals get $750 if you die from the flu, and $17,500 if you died from COVID-19. Now think about that!"" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We’ve looked into other claims that point to the differences in reimbursement levels to suggest that hospitals have a financial incentive to improperly diagnose cases as COVID-19. But experts say if anything, the illness is being underdiagnosed. In any case, the dollar amounts claimed in this post about flu and COVID-19 are misleading. The main thing to know is there are no set amounts paid to hospitals for either type of patient. The $17,500 claimed roughly matches the average amount Medicare paid hospitals before this year’s outbreak for a patient with a COVID-like respiratory infection, such as pneumonia, who needed a certain amount of care. But private insurance typically pays twice as much as Medicare does, Tricia Neuman, who leads Kaiser Family Foundation’s program on Medicare policy, told PolitiFact. As for the amount claimed for a flu patient, ""no hospitalization ever costs $750 and has not in 30 years,"" said Gerard Anderson, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management. The federal government has decided to pay hospitals extra for treating COVID-19 patients on Medicare. Congress added the provision because hospitals have lost revenue from routine care and elective surgeries that they couldn't provide during the crisis, and because the cost of providing even routine services to COVID patients has increased. From March through June, hospitals will lose an estimated $202.6 billion as a result of the high cost of COVID-19 care and lost revenue from canceled procedures, according to the American Hospital Association. Under the CARES Act, the largest of the three federal stimulus laws enacted in response to the coronavirus, Medicare pays hospitals a 20% ""add on"" to its regular payment for COVID-19 patients. But there is no indication that hospitals are over-identifying patients as having COVID-19 for the sake of padding their revenue. If anything, evidence suggests the illness is being underdiagnosed. Medicare pays hospitals based on a diagnosis; whether a patient dies does not affect the amount. And even then, the same diagnosis might trigger one reimbursement amount at one hospital, and a different payment at a hospital in another location, to take into account wage differences across the country and other factors. Neuman said $17,500 was roughly the average amount paid for a particular type of patient with a COVID-related diagnosis — one who has respiratory infection with complications and who needs a ventilator for up to 96 hours. That’s based on estimates Kaiser did in 2017. The 20% add-on would raise that payment to nearly $21,000. As for the Facebook post’s claim of a $750 payment for a flu patient, ""there is almost nothing in a hospital that only costs $750,"" said Dr. Bob Kocher, a partner at the Venrock venture-capital firm and a senior fellow at the Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California. ""An emergency-room visit costs more than that."" Moreover, a patient with the flu who is admitted to a hospital and then dies typically would have multiple comorbidities, such as a heart condition, requiring a range of treatments and incurring costs substantially larger than $750, said Joseph Antos, a scholar in health care at the American Enterprise Institute. ""There is no single number that correctly characterizes Medicare's payment, but it is fair to say that the numbers presented here do not represent a true average Medicare payment for either type of patient,"" Antos said. A Facebook post claimed that hospitals get paid $750 for patients who die from the flu, $17,500 for COVID-19. The $17,500 was roughly the average amount Medicare paid for a particular type of patient with a COVID-related diagnosis — one who has respiratory infection with complications and who needs a ventilator for up to 96 hours, according to Kaiser Family Foundation estimates for 2017. But hospitals are not paid set amounts for patients who die from the flu or from COVID-19. Medicare pays hospitals based primarily on a diagnosis, and the amount is not directly affected by whether a patient dies. And payments vary based on how much treatment a patient needs, the location of a hospital, to take into account wage differences, and other factors. The post misrepresents the way hospital reimbursements are determined and uses misleading numbers."
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22973
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Nobody has played clips over and over ... of President Obama (saying), 'If they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun.'
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Radio host Joyce Kaufman claims candidate Obama said he'd tote a gun
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true
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Candidate Biography, Pundits, Florida, Joyce Kaufman,
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"All that talk about complicated matters such as Social Security and deficits and tax brackets can get a little wonky in the midst of campaigns and the post-election season. So it's not that unusual for a candidate, a politician -- or a talk show host -- to hammer home a point with a touch of violent rhetoric. And when a political figure mixes talk about elections or policy with words about war, battles or weapons, it certainly draws attention -- and sometimes controversy. We'll walk you through such a controversy that involves three political figures -- a Democratic president, a conservative South Florida talk show host, and a fiery talking newly elected Republican congressman -- and a slew of words that relate to violence (bullets, guns, knives). And we'll mix in a popular movie. Joyce Kaufman, a South Florida conservative radio talk show host on WFTL-850 AM, garnered national attention after newly elected U.S. Rep. Allen West hired her as his chief of staff a week after the Nov. 2, 2010, election. West is the Republican who ousted U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, the two-term Democrat who represents Congressional District 22, which spans parts of coastal and suburban Broward and Palm Beach counties. On Nov. 9, the day after West announced he had hired Kaufman, MSNBC liberal commentator Rachel Maddow's 9 p.m. show had a piece that included a clip of Kaufman at a July 3, 2010, rally in Broward County in which she said: ""I don’t care how this gets painted by the mainstream media, I don’t care if this shows up on YouTube, because I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendment rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will."" The Second Amendment, remember, is the right to keep and bear arms. Early in the morning Nov. 10, someone sent an e-mail to Kaufman that stated: ""I'm planning something big around the government building here in Broward County, maybe a post office, maybe even a school. ..."" The threat led to a lockdown of Broward schools Nov. 10 and an FBI investigation that remains open. By Nov. 11, Kaufman announced that she was stepping down from her chief of staff post because she didn't want to tarnish West. She took to the airwaves to discuss her decision, her vows to take out other Democrats in Congress, and to bash the media. On her radio show Nov. 12, Kaufman suggested she isn't the only political player to use rhetoric that some could interpret as inciting violence. ""Nobody has played clips over and over again on the FOX (News network), which is supposed to be fair and balanced, of President (Barack) Obama said, 'If they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun,' "" Kaufman said. ""I've never heard that clip played. We all know it was said. Did the cow play that? No. Of course not. Because we knew what he meant. These are metaphors, these are ways of stating in large terms simple facts. President Obama was saying if they try to fight us and pick at us with amendments we will come at them with legislation. And that's what he did. I knew that’s what he meant."" For this Truth-O-Meter we wanted to check Kaufman's claim that Obama said ""If they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun."" We'll also explain the cow reference. A simple Google search of the words ""Barack Obama"", ""knife"" and ""gun"" turned up several hits. A June 14, 2008, article from Politico stated that Republicans were pouncing on this comment from Obama reported by the press pool: "" 'If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,' Obama said in Philadelphia last night. 'Because from what I understand, folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.' "" We found the same quote June 14, 2008, in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog. Obama was quoting from the 1987 movie The Untouchables about gangster Al Capone (played by Robert De Niro) and the efforts of government agent Eliot Ness (played by Kevin Costner) to bring down Capone during Prohibition in Chicago. The trailer on YouTube contains the quote that Obama borrowed -- muttered by actor Sean Connery playing cop Jimmy Malone -- in a sinister voice: ""You want to get Capone? Here is how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That is the Chicago way."" We also found a June 23, 2008, article in the Chicago Tribune, which stated that Obama meant the line delivered at the Philadelphia fundraiser as a joke. We obtained Kaufman's quotes about Obama by listening to her noon-3 p.m. Nov. 12 show. Typically PolitiFact Florida provides links to a transcript of the show itself so that readers can see or hear the quotes directly from the source. But Steve Lapa, the station's vice president and general manager, said that WFTL does not provide a transcript or archive her show. In a telephone interview Nov. 15, we read Kaufman's quotes back to her to verify that we're quoting her accurately. ""I don't know,'' she said. ""I'm taking your word for it. It sounds plausible."" But Kaufman had a couple of tweaks: She said she thought Obama made the remarks during his 2008 campaign -- which he did. ""I'm not so sure he was talking about legislation and amendments in straight-forward terms,'' she said. ""He was talking about the arena of ideas."" Kaufman said her point was that Obama was using a metaphor, and the media treated his statement about a gun differently than her remark about bullets. ""Nobody thought he was going to bring a gun,'' she said. ""My goal certainly wasn't to incite violence. .... I was encouraging people to go out and use their vote."" Here is a longer video of Kaufman's now-famous ballots and bullets speech on the Post on Politics, a blog of the Palm Beach Post. OK, now about that cow reference. Speaking of the Obama quote, Kaufman said: ""Did the cow play that? No. Of course not."" Kaufman told us that her reference to ""the cow"" was about Maddow -- the MSNBC commentator who played the clip of Kaufman. ""I endearingly call her Rachel Mad-cow,"" Kaufman said. For this Truth-O-Meter, our goal was to evaluate whether Obama said ""if they bring a knife to the fight we'll bring a gun,"" as Kaufman claimed. We found several news articles quoting Obama as saying exactly that and he's never denied it (though the Chicago Tribune said it was meant as a joke)."
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26320
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Facebook post Says gloves shouldn’t be worn in public because “if you are wearing the same set of gloves all over town you are only spreading germs everywhere you go.”
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Health experts say the general public should not wear gloves. Frequent hand-washing is all that’s needed to protect against the flu and COVID-19. Wearing gloves doesn’t really protect the wearer since the coronavirus doesn’t seep in through skin, and they don’t inhibit disease spread since they pass the virus between surfaces as easiliy as bare hands. People who wear gloves too long or dispose of them improperly end up increasing the virus spread and their own exposure.
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true
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Public Health, Wisconsin, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Face masks have become a go-to accessory in America’s grocery stores and remaining public areas, with some prominent retailers even requiring them for entry. But many shoppers have taken it on themselves to go a step further — donning gloves as well. This pseudo-surgical garb may feel safer, but is it? One business that doesn’t think so posted a sign outside banning gloves, and a picture posted May 5, 2020, that went viral on Facebook. Here’s what it said in part: ""If you are wearing the same set of gloves all over town you are only spreading germs everywhere you go. Every door you touch, the cart, the supplies, your phone, your car door, your face, money and change. … DON’T WEAR THE SAME GLOVES EVERYWHERE!"" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It seemed a good time to settle this question. Does wearing gloves really hurt more than it helps? Most likely, yes. Here’s what the experts have to say. The glove guidance for the general public is simple from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Don’t. ""CDC doesn’t recommend the general public use gloves. Gloves can be a source of contamination, even for the wearer, if not properly removed,"" spokeswoman Kate Grusich said in an email. ""COVID-19 spreads through respiratory droplets that can land on surfaces. If the wearer touches a variety of surfaces during the day while wearing the same pair of gloves, contamination can definitely be transmitted from one surface to another."" The CDC’s online guide for glove use recommends wearing them when cleaning or caring for someone who is sick. It expressly notes gloves are a bad choice for running errands. ""The best way to protect yourself from germs when running errands and after going out is to regularly wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol,"" the website says. But we don’t even have to take the CDC’s word for it. Infectious disease experts across the country agree gloves are a bad idea for general use. People may assume gloves are a solution on their own without recognizing that in the medical field they’re only part of the process. Gloves are disposed of as soon as the medical personnel leave a contaminated area, and hands are washed before and after removing. ""We’re seeing a lot of people out in public wearing gloves, which isn’t wrong so to say,"" said Dr. Patricia Dandache, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic said this in a online post by the organization. ""But unfortunately, most people aren’t wearing or disposing of their gloves correctly, which defeats the whole purpose."" And removing gloves is a tricky process. The CDC gives detailed guidance on it because even health care professionals struggle to do it in a way that avoids contamination. A 2019 study in the American Journal of Infection Control found 37% of health care workers using their normal glove removal technique contaminated themselves in the process. Even if gloves were removed correctly, they’re problematic because people often wear them to multiple places. ""With or without gloves, if you touch one thing then touch something else, you’re potentially transmitting it (the virus) from one place to another,"" Dr. David Cutler, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., told Healthline. And the gloves aren’t providing any additional protection from COVID-19, said Mary Beth Graham, medical director of infection prevention and control at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee. ""For things like influenza, COVID, etc., these are things where hand hygiene is sufficient,"" she said. ""The virus isn’t going to go in through the pores of your skin on your hand. It’s going to get into you if you’re touching commonly touched surfaces and then going in to touch your nose, your mouth, your eyes … before you do hand hygiene (washing)."" All of which brings us to perhaps the largest danger of glove-wearing — the false sense of security. ""Wearing gloves may make someone feel safe, but it will also make people very lax in regards to recognizing that the key part of even wearing gloves is hand hygiene,"" Graham said. ""Gloves are nothing without hand hygiene."" A viral Facebook post warned against wearing gloves in public because keeping the same set on means ""you are only spreading germs everywhere you go."" Infectious disease experts around the country agree gloves largely do more harm than good. They don’t really protect the wearer since the coronavirus doesn’t seep in through the skin. And they don’t limit the disease spread since they are often worn too long or removed incorrectly. And perhaps most notably, wearing gloves can stop users from washing hands as often, which is the step that actually kills the coronavirus."
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11494
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New Doubts About Popular Joint Surgery
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This story takes a skeptical look at the heavily marketed procedures known as minimally invasive total joint replacements. It does a nice job of pointing out the problems patients are experiencing, the surgeons’ relatively steep learning curve with the new techniques and tools, and the absence of long-term data comparing the new technique to traditional total joint replacement. It draws on a deep bench of sources representing a variety of viewpoints– three patients, three orthopaedic surgeons, and one industry spokesperson. However, the story fails to describe the quality of evidence showing that the new techniques may cause more problems than the traditional approaches, and it omits mention of high-quality published studies that support this point. It also fails to quantify the purported benefits of the new techniques, though several studies have looked at them. What are readers to make of the suggestion that “proponents” say the new approach shortens recovery times or reduces postoperative pain? What do the data say? Do the purported benefits last beyond the first few weeks or months? The story does not mention published randomized controlled trials showing that there is no clinically important difference in outcomes beyond the immediate postoperative period in hips or beyond 9 months in knees. By focusing on personal stories about complications, the story doesn’t deliver hard data about benefits. A more complete accounting of the evidence would help readers decide whether there are any extra benefits from the new approach that make added complications worthwhile.
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true
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The story cites a cost of ~$40,000 exclusive of hospital costs, and says this is roughly the same as traditional total joint replacement. The story’s focus is on harms of treatment, but readers are left wondering about its purported benefits. (e.g. cutting less tissue and muscle, shorter scar, quicker recovery, less postoperative pain). The story provides no quantitative estimate of these (or other) potential benefits, though several studies have looked at them. This is a major limitation of the news story. By focusing on personal stories about complications, the story doesn’t give readers the hard data about benefits they need to make a well-informed medical decision. (See evidence above.) The article provides ample reporting on the potential harms of minimally invasive surgery (e.g., “uneven leg lengths, broken hip bones, slightly off-kilter knee joints and pain in the knee because of hardened cement left in the wound”). The story cites three studies to support its argument that minimally invasive surgery may not be as great as many people think. But the quality of the studies is unclear. And it’s puzzling why these particular studies are cited when better ones exist that would help support the same points. The story does not provide any evidence to help readers judge whether the purported short-term advantages of minimally invasive procedures (promised “shorter recuperation times” and less postoperative pain) have proven true in carefully monitored studies. Yet published randomized controlled trials have shown that there is no clinically important difference in outcomes beyond the immediate postoperative period in hips (Dorr, J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2007;89(6):1153-60. Chimento, J Arthroplasty. 2005;20(2):139-44. Ogonda, J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2005;87(4):701-10) or beyond 9 months in knees (Karachalios, J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2008;90(5):584-91). Hip and knee osteoarthritis afflict millions of Americans, and this story fairly represents their predicament. The story cites three patients, three orthopaedic surgeons, and one spokesperson for a company that manufactures the implants and tools used in the new procedure. The article compares the new surgical techniques to traditional total joint replacement, and explains why it may be better or worse than longstanding approaches. The story says nearly half of all total joint surgeries are now being done with so-called “minimally invasive” approaches. The article explains that minimally invasive hip replacements are relatively new and were “pioneered in the early part of this century.” There is no obvious use of text from the press release.
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24587
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Republicans Chuck Grassley, John Boehner and John Mica flip-flopped on providing end-of-life counseling for the elderly.
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Rachel Maddow says Republicans Chuck Grassley, John Boehner and John Mica flip-flopped on end-of-life counseling
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mixture
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National, Health Care, Pundits, Rachel Maddow,
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"We've had to set the Truth-O-Meter on fire in the past several weeks because of the ridiculously false claims about end-of-life counseling in the health care reform bill. So it looked like a real gotcha when bloggers dug up what appeared to be hypocrisy – that a number of Republicans who have recently harrumphed about end-of-life consultations in the health care bill had voted for something similar in the 2003 Medicare drug bill. This was MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s take on this discovery: ""As we have reported recently, many Republican officials have enthusiastically embraced the conspiracy theory that health care reform is a secret plot to kill old people,"" Maddow told viewers. ""Health reform really isn‘t really a secret plot to kill old people. The part of the House bill that is cited by the conspiracists to supposedly prove their point actually says that Medicare will cover consultations about living wills, advanced directives — if patients want to talk to their own doctors about what they want to happen at the end of their own life. That's it. ""But that hasn‘t stopped people like Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on health care in the Senate, who said, quote, 'We should not have a government program that determines if you‘re going to pull the plug on grandma.' Then there was House Minority Leader John Boehner who said, quote, 'This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.' And putting the exclamation point on ridiculous — Florida Rep. John Mica, who said, quote, 'There are death counselors. There is authorization for reimbursement for those counselors for Medicare. You have a whole new cottage industry.' ""Well, as Amy Sullivan reports on Time magazine's 'Swampland' blog today, Sen. Grassley and Congressman Boehner and John Mica have another thing in common in addition to being 'deathers.' They all also voted for the 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. That bill in part provided funding for end-of-life counseling. And I quote, 'Counseling the beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options and advising the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.' Or as these things are now known in Republican circles, death panels. ""In all, 204 Republicans in the House and 42 Republicans in the Senate voted for the death panels. And there was not a peep about then-President Bush having a secret plan to kill old people. ""Bottom line? Either Republicans like Chuck Grassley and John Boehner and John Mica have totally changed their minds about whether living wills are really a secret plot to kill old people or they voted for something just a few years ago that they actually thought was a secret plot to kill old people. Take your choice."" Maddow (unlike her cited source, Sullivan) glossed over an important difference in the language of the two bills. The 2003 bill applied to terminally ill patients, including those in hospices, whereas the 2009 bill applies to Medicare recipients — that is, everyone over 65. The current bill would reach many more Americans than the 2003 language did — all healthy seniors nationwide, rather than just those who are terminally ill. The current bill would allow consultations every five years — something that, almost by definition, cannot happen in a hospice setting, where stays are often two months or less. It would shift the time frame for discussing these issues to years before someone falls seriously ill. We turned to independent experts to see whether they thought the bills were significantly different, as Boehner’s staff suggested to us. And the consensus of the experts was that the bills are indeed different. Robert Applebaum, a gerontologist at Miami University in Ohio, said that ""calling advanced planning a 'death panel' is ridiculous, but comparing this legislation to (the drug bill version) is not factual either."" Applebaum said that the drug bill ""really focused on hospice care, while the proposed legislation is really about planning for future health care. … One of the problems with hospice is that the vast majority of patients wait until they are very close to death to even consult hospice. … So the (drug bill) legislation was relatively inconsequential"" in terms of the numbers and types of people it affected. We presented Applebaum’s reasoning to three other academic experts in gerontology — J. James Cotter of Virginia Commonwealth University, Julie Masters of the University of Nebraska at Omaha and John Krout of Ithaca College — and all agreed that Applebaum’s reasoning was sound. We also asked Amy Tucci, the president and CEO of the Hospice Foundation of America, and she said she agreed that the two bills are ""apples and oranges."" ""The 2003 legislation did not encourage or compensate doctors generally for having the conversation with people before a health crisis was looming,"" Tucci said. ""The 2003 legislation really only pertained to hospice doctors, who could be compensated for providing an evaluation of a patient and/or having a discussion with a prospective hospice patient about care plans, which would mean the services they're entitled to under hospice, other options for care, and so on. These evaluations would be to ensure that the patient was hospice eligible, which would be an evaluation that certified that the patient had six months or less to live."" By contrast, Tucci said, the current legislation ""intends for the conversation to be held with … doctors who a patient would see, theoretically, long before the onset of some kind of terminal illness."" When PolitiFact asked Maddow what she thought of our experts’ perspective, she said she still believes the lawmakers’ positions on the two bills are hypocritical. She cited a quote that Grassley reportedly made to a crowd of 300 in Winterset, Iowa, on Aug. 12, 2009, that ""in the House bill, there is counseling for end of life. You have every right to fear. You shouldn’t have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before. Should not have a government-run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma."" Grassley, Maddow said, ""supported the 2003 bill covering 'end-of-life' counseling and 'advanced care planning' specifically for patients who were terminally ill. To be clear: he voted for it for terminally ill people, and he's railing against it for all seniors, despite saying, 'You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before."" It's not only disingenuous for Sen. Grassley to deride measures he earlier supported as 'pull[ing] the plug on grandma,' it is rank hypocrisy for him to state that he has a particular objection to this counseling when it occurs at the actual end-of-life."" We see her point, but it's clear to us from our interviews with experts that there's a distinct difference between the 2003 law and the 2009 bill. Yes, there's the appearance of inconsistency given the similar purpose for both bills, but the 2009 bill is more far-reaching than the 2003 law, which was focused narrowly on hospice patients. So we find Maddow's claim that they flip-flopped to be ."
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7639
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Hitting cancer early: AstraZeneca's bid to outmaneuver rivals.
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AstraZeneca (AZN.L) suffered its biggest daily share price drop a year ago after a key cancer drug trial failed amid feverish speculation the chief executive might quit.
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true
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Health News
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Yet today two-thirds of analysts tracked by Thomson Reuters recommend the stock, making it one of the sector’s biggest consensus buys, and CEO Pascal Soriot says he is “absolutely” happy to carry on into the 2020s as he chases early use of modern cancer drugs. “I don’t have any plans to retire anytime soon,” he told Reuters. Soriot and his team are increasingly confident that while AstraZeneca may have lost one part of the battle for cancer market dominance, it can still win elsewhere by targeting tumors before they have spread around the body. That is the second element of a twin-track strategy to differentiate AstraZeneca in the hot area of immune system-boosting drugs, which has seen rivals - led by Merck & Co (MRK.N) - leap ahead in late-stage or metastatic disease. The idea that immunotherapy may actually work best in less sick patients is logical, since the immune system’s natural role is to destroy nascent tumors. Indeed, some cancer doctors believe this could become the main battleground in future. “It’s not yet prime time ... but in the long run I think we will move immunotherapy to a more front-line early disease situation and I hope we will be treating more patients in that setting than in late-stage disease,” said John Haanen, an oncologist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. JUMP-START AstraZeneca already has a jump-start here, since its Imfinzi immunotherapy is the new standard of care in treating early inoperable stage III lung cancer. That win follows a decision to run a study in this setting ahead of competitors. “It was a smart move by AstraZeneca and they are now absolutely in business,” said Haanen. Imfinzi sales will be a major focus for investors when the company reports half-year results on July 26. Competitor Merck last month presented similar stage III results from a small study, but a larger trial using Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (BMY.N) Opdivo drug recently stopped recruiting patients, suggesting direct competition is not imminent. AstraZeneca hopes to build on this lead in the so-called adjuvant setting, where drugs are given after surgery to keep the cancer from coming back. Its BR.31 immunotherapy trial with Imfinzi was the first to start adjuvant therapy for lung cancer and the company thinks it could be the first to complete a major trial, with disease-free survival data due in 2020. “We are certainly hopeful to be the first,” said David Berman, the group’s head of immuno-oncology. Berman jumped ship from Bristol-Myers three years ago and believes his new employer has hit on a winning strategy. “By moving to early stage you can actually leapfrog competitors who are ahead of you in stage IV,” he said. Still, the race is on in both the adjuvant and neoadjuvant setting, where treatment precedes surgery. With each trial taking several years, picking winners is not easy. “If everyone is similar on timing, then it is going to come down to data,” said Liberum analyst Roger Franklin, who rates AstraZeneca a hold. Lung cancer is by far the biggest killer among cancers and the top commercial opportunity for so-called PDx immunotherapy infusions expected to be worth $15 billion in sales this year, according to Thomson Reuters’ consensus forecasts. AstraZeneca estimates the majority of lung cancer patients are being diagnosed relatively early in the disease, when there is a better chance of a cure. One issue that concerns doctors is how long patients treated post-surgery should take immunotherapy drugs, especially given that they cost nearly $150,000 a year. Most of the adjuvant trials now under way against various cancers are designed to give drugs for one year. Haanen is skeptical: “Do you really need a year’s treatment? Probably not.” AstraZeneca is also pushing its early treatment mantra beyond immunotherapy with its lung cancer pill Tagrisso, which works is targeted at patients with specific genetic mutations that are particularly common in the booming Chinese market. With a clear lead in this particular treatment area, AstraZeneca has time to build out its Tagrisso business in early disease through two big ongoing clinical trials. Dan Mahony, a healthcare fund manager at Polar Capital, is bullish on AstraZeneca’s prospects but reluctant to predict how the fight will play out in the long term. Still, he says: “There’s more going on at AstraZeneca than met the eye a year ago.”
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18325
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The UK has an unarmed police force and a firearm fatality rate that is 40 times lower per capita than in the U.S.
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"Peter Nightingale, a University of Rhode Island professor, wrote that ""the UK has an unarmed police force and a firearm fatality rate that is 40 times lower per capita than in the U.S."" It’s true that some police officers in the United Kingdom are armed, but it’s a very small percentage. The vast majority are unarmed. And Nightingale is on target in saying that there are far fewer gun deaths in the United Kingdom than in the United States. On balance."
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true
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Rhode Island, Criminal Justice, Education, Crime, Public Safety, Guns, Peter Nightingale,
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"The Rhode Island Board of Education voted on May 23, 2013, to authorize its two colleges and the University of Rhode Island to arm their campus police if they so chose. Prior to the vote, as the board and the General Assembly were considering the issue, URI Prof. Peter Nightingale expressed his opposition. In a commentary published May 8 on RIFuture.org, Nightingale wrote that the proposal came out of ""little more than violence and fear-enhancing recommendations."" He wrote that having armed police can lead, out of fear, to shooting unarmed people. And he drew this comparison: ""The UK has an unarmed police force and a firearm fatality rate that is 40 times lower per capita than in the U.S."" We wanted to know whether he got his facts right. We tried to contact Nightingale, who teaches physics, but he did not return phone messages or e-mails. Anyone who read about the recent knife attack on a British soldier in London, in which the accused assailants were eventually shot by armed police, might immediately question the first part of the statement. So we checked to see what British news accounts, police department information and other documents would show about whether the police in the United Kingdom are unarmed. A BBC News Magazine article, published online in September 2012 and headlined ""Why British police don’t have guns,"" said that ""to most inhabitants of the UK -- with the notable exception of Northern Ireland -- it is a normal, unremarkable state of affairs that most front-line officers do not carry guns."" Most, the article said. It goes on to say that ""each police force has its own firearms unit."" Then we found statistics from the Home Office, a government department in the United Kingdom that is responsible for everything from issuing passports, to reducing crime, to dealing with threat of terrorism, indicated that there are ""authorized firearms officers"" throughout the United Kingdom. In the year ending March 31, 2011, there were 6,653 such officers in England and Wales -- about five percent of the total -- down from 6,979 the previous year. Most but not all the police in Scotland do not regularly carry firearms, according to Police-Information.co.UK, a site for those involved in law enforcement in the United Kingdom. And the number of times armed officers fired their guns in a year in England and Wales, according to the figures reported by the government, can sometimes be counted on one hand. During 2010-2011, police ""discharged a conventional firearm in three incidents,"" a drop from six such incidents in 2009-2010, according to data published by the British Parliament. In the year ending March 31, 2011, the use of armed officers was authorized in 17,209 operations in England and Wales. Of that total, the Metropolitan Police -- known as the Met -- who cover metropolitan London, were authorized to have armed officers in 4,672 operations. The Metropolitan Police, according to its website, has a Specialist Firearm Command, known as SCO19, which ""provides firearms-related support to our unarmed colleagues."" ""When the officers first arrive they will make an immediate assessment. If an armed containment is deemed necessary to isolate an armed suspect from the public, then two of the crew will deploy leaving one to control the incident, calling for further armed support and liaising with the local senior police officer,"" the Metropolitan Police website states. ""All these officers are personally armed with 'Glock' 17 self-loading pistols and two of the officers have access to 'Heckler and Koch' MP5 carbines."" And, the Metropolitan Police site adds, the force has specialist firearms officers who ""undergo advanced firearms training and are also available 24 hours a day."" Next, we looked at the second part: that the United Kingdom firearm fatality rate is 40 times lower per capita than in the United States. Gunpolicy.org, a firearm safety database hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health in Australia and partly co-funded by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, keeps data on gun deaths by nation. In 2011, the rate of gun deaths of all kinds, including suicide, was 10.3 per 100,000 population in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the rate was 0.25 per 100,000. That is indeed 40 times less than the rate in the U.S. So Nightingale’s figure checked out. (The gap is even wider for ""gun homicides"": in 2011, the United Kingdom’s rate was 0.04 per 100,000 people, 90 times less than the 3.6 per 100,000 in the United States.) Our ruling Peter Nightingale, a University of Rhode Island professor, wrote that ""the UK has an unarmed police force and a firearm fatality rate that is 40 times lower per capita than in the U.S."" It’s true that some police officers in the United Kingdom are armed, but it’s a very small percentage. The vast majority are unarmed. And Nightingale is on target in saying that there are far fewer gun deaths in the United Kingdom than in the United States. On balance,"
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11504
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Mother’s blood test reveals baby’s sex
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Reuters reports on a new survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which reinforces the accuracy of a certain blood test for determining the sex of a fetus as early as seven weeks along in pregnancy. We like how the Reuters story clearly discusses the numbers from the JAMA study, and points out that – while accurate – this kind of blood test could still lead to false information for some parents. But we find the New York Times story gives more consumer information for US audiences, explaining that “the tests have been available to consumers in drugstores and online for a few years.” Earlier sex-determination in pregnancy could lead to parents choosing (or trying to choose) the gender they prefer. Internationally, it is already clear that some parents in China and India are deliberately choosing male babies, and aborting female fetuses. The research reported in these two stories, a survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association, does not directly address these larger ethical implications. But the study’s lead author, Diana Bianchi, does stress that she wants to examine “why people are buying these things” and the consequences of consumer access to over-the-counter testing for fetal gender.
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true
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Reuters Health
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The story mentions the estimated cost of test, but does not note that consumers can get the test without a doctor’s involvement in the US. Reuters examines how parents may benefit from earlier results in pregnancy if their unborn child is at risk of a serious genetic defect that is sex-linked. However, the story also points out that there is some chance of mistakes with the early testing. We’re just surprised that neither Reuters nor the NY Times pointed out in absolute terms that 5 out of every 100 tests of girls and 1 of every 100 boys will be wrong – 6 out of a hundred multiplied by millions of pregnancies a year is a lot of errors even if uptake is small. It’s also worth noting that most research achieves better performance results than when the tests are used in the real world. We give this a barely passing grade, because the story does quote one ethicist raising doubts about how parents may use the test. She points out: “Remember, gender is not a disease.” Reuters does not use the word “abortion.” Seems to be a bit light on the harms side of the social equation. The story explains that the JAMA study surveyed 57 other studies, including abouty 6,500 pregnancies in all. Reuters clearly discusses the alternatives for determining fetal sex, including chorionic villi and amniotic fluid sampling, and ultrasound. They don’t exaggerate the benefits or problems with gender testing. The story uses independent sources, and notes that the lead author of the JAMA study, Diana Bianchi, is an investor in a related cell-free fetal DNA test for Down syndrome. This story explains the existing alternatives – ultrasound and more invasive sampling methods. But it doesn’t do as good a job as the competing NY Times story in describing other types of tests (urine tests) that have been developed. The test to determine fetal gender is available in the United States, as an unregulated procedure outside a doctor’s purview. The Reuters story does not mention this. The competing NY Times story was explicit on this. The test is not novel. The story explained this was a “fresh look at the medical evidence for the blood test.” The story does not rely solely on a news release.
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Wolf says $4.5B plan could help schools clean up lead paint.
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Gov. Tom Wolf is pitching his plan to finance a multibillion-dollar capital plan by taxing Marcellus Shale natural gas production as a way to help Pennsylvania schools clean up environmental health hazards.
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true
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Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Health, Tom Wolf, Environmental health
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The Democrat on Thursday toured Taggart Elementary School in Philadelphia as he works to raise support for his plan. That school like others in Philadelphia is in the midst of removing lead paint. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported last year that 80 of the city’s 148 elementary schools had at least 50 reports of environmental hazards, such as flaking lead paint. Wolf’s proposal will be up to the Legislature, where the Republican-controlled House has rejected Wolf’s previous overtures to tax natural gas. Under Wolf’s plan , a $4.5 billion bond would fund a wide range of projects, from controlling floodwaters to fighting blight.
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2899
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U.S. compounding pharmacies start to register with FDA.
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A small number of U.S. compounding pharmacies have begun registering with the Food and Drug Administration under new legislation designed to tighten control of the custom medication makers following a deadly outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to a pharmacy in Massachusetts.
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true
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Health News
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So far, 11 compounding pharmacies have taken up the option under the Drug Quality and Security Act of registering with the FDA, a move they hope will give them a marketing edge. The law signed in November aims to clarify the FDA’s authority to regulate compounding pharmacies after federal regulators were blamed for not acting soon enough to shut down the pharmacy at the center of the meningitis outbreak. Names of the registered facilities were posted on the FDA’s website on Thursday. They range from big players such as Pharmedium Services LLC to smaller outfits such as Marlborough Hospital in Massachusetts and Medi-Fare Drug and Home Health Center in Blacksburg, South Carolina. Some of the firms have already been inspected, and even received warning letters from the FDA, while others have yet to be inspected. According to the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists, which represents pharmacists who make custom medications, there are about 3,000 pharmacies which compound sterile products - those that are at the greatest risk for contamination. Centers that choose to register with the FDA must pay a fee, adhere to good manufacturing standards, subject themselves to routine inspections by the agency and report adverse events associated with their products. In return, they join a new class of compounding firm known as outsourcing facilities. These are allowed to sell products in bulk to hospitals and physician practices in the absence of individual prescriptions. Pharmedium was one of the first to sign up. Its chief executive, David Jonas, said in a statement in December that going forward, “there will be more consistent regulations and consistent oversight, which should raise the level of confidence among hospital leaders, providers and their patients.” Pharmacists have long mixed tailored medications for patients based on individual prescriptions; but over the past two decades the practice has mushroomed, with some pharmacies selling thousands of doses of regularly used mixtures for physicians to keep on hand for future use. In 2012, the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, distributed a contaminated steroid often used to treat back pain. The product has been associated with more than 750 cases of fungal meningitis, including 64 deaths. The scandal prompted Congress to pass a law clarifying the FDA’s regulatory authority over drug compounding. The rules governing outsourcing facilities under the new law are not as strict as those governing pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer Inc, whose products must be reviewed and approved by the FDA before they can be sold. But they are stricter than those governing a compounding pharmacy that chooses not to register. Pharmacies that do not register with the FDA will be regulated by state boards of pharmacy. They will be allowed to compound a certain amount of product in advance of receiving a prescription but will not be allowed to sell without a prescription. The FDA can inspect them in response to a complaint, but the agency would require a court order to access records. The FDA’s hope is that healthcare organizations will choose to buy from an FDA-regulated facility, and that customers will press their suppliers to register with the agency. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg sent out hundreds of letters to hospitals on Wednesday encouraging them to purchase compound medication only from FDA-registered suppliers. “As a purchaser of compounded drugs, you can play an important role in improving the quality of compounded drugs by requiring compounding pharmacies that supply drugs to your facility to register as outsourcing facilities,” she wrote. The FDA said it is too soon to tell how many will ultimately sign up. “We’re hopeful that market forces will drive more firms to register with FDA as outsourcers,” agency spokesman Steven Immergut said, “but only time will tell.” Allan Coukell, who oversees medical programs at The Pew Charitable Trusts, said he is encouraged by the number of firms that have registered since the law was passed on November 27th. “Very few have gotten off to as fast a start as this one,” he said.
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5575
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Pharmacist in meningitis outbreak gets 8 years in prison.
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A Massachusetts pharmacist convicted for his role in a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak fought through sobs as he apologized to victims and their families Wednesday before being sentenced to eight years in prison.
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true
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Meningitis, Health, Boston, North America, Massachusetts, Business, AP Top News, Science, Courts, Sentencing, Public health, U.S. News
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Nearly 80 people died and almost 800 were sickened in what’s considered the worst public health crisis in recent U.S. history. The fungal meningitis outbreak was caused by mold-tainted steroid injections produced by the New England Compounding Center. Glen Chinn, who ran the so-called clean rooms where the drugs were made, sobbed as he struggled through his statement during his sentencing hearing in Boston’s federal courthouse. Chin said he knows some victims will never forgive him, but he’ll continue to pray that they will find some sort of peace. “I realize these are just words and nothing will bring back your loved ones,” the 49-year-old said, occasionally turning to look directly at the victims and their relatives seated behind him. “But believe me when I say that I am truly sorry that this ever occurred,” he said. Prosecutors wanted a 35-year-sentence for Chin, pointing to the devastating impact the outbreak had on families across the country. Chin’s lawyers asked for about three years behind bars. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan relayed how a victim’s daughter said she heard her mother’s scream of pain from floors below when the daughter visited her mother in the hospital. The daughter compared the sound of her mother’s screams to the sound of the ship careening into the ocean in the movie “Titanic,” Strachan said. “That’s the sound that she has in her head when she thinks about her mother’s death,” Strachan said. “It’s the sound made by Glenn Chin’s conduct.” Mary Beth Krakowski of South Bend, Indiana, whose aunt died at age 88 after being injected with the contaminated drugs, told Chin he had a chance to be a “hero” and blow the whistle on the pharmacy’s dangerous practices. “How did you get lost? How did you lose those ideals? How could you have fallen so far to become uncaring, cold and callous enough to put the patients’ welfare behind your personal gain?” asked Krakowski, the niece of Alice Machowiak. Chin was convicted in October of racketeering and mail fraud but was cleared of second-degree murder, which could have brought a life sentence. He had had been charged with the deaths of 25 people in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Throughout his trial, prosecutors portrayed him as a callous employee who cut corners and ignored warning signs of unsafe production methods to boost production and profits. Chin’s attorneys argued that he didn’t deserve more time behind bars than the pharmacy’s co-founder, Barry Cadden, who’s serving a nine-year sentence for his role in the outbreak. Cadden also was acquitted of second-degree murder. Chin’s attorneys said Cadden was the one calling the shots and that Chin just couldn’t stand up to his boss. They said there was no evidence Chin caused the drugs to become contaminated. “There is more to Glenn Chin than NECC,” attorney Stephen Weymouth told the judge, pointing to the dozens of letters written by friends and family that described him as a mentor and loving father to his two young children. “This will be Glenn Chin’s own prison from which he will never be able to get out of for as long as he lives,” Weymouth said. After the sentencing, victims expressed their dismay at what they considered to be a light sentence and the fact that neither Chin nor Cadden were convicted of murder. “I want somebody in there blamed for the deaths,” said Willard Mazure, Jr., of Michigan, who became sickened after receiving an injection in 2012. “We’ve got 80 people dead, and nobody is responsible.” The judge ordered Chin to report to prison in March. ___ Follow Alanna Durkin Richer @aedurkinricher . Read more of her work here .
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9069
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No significant difference in pain relief for opioids vs. non-opioid analgesics for treating arm or leg pain
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The release focuses on a recent study, published in JAMA, that evaluated the effectiveness of four painkillers in addressing acute arm or leg pain in emergency room patients. One of the painkillers was a combination of the over-the-counter medications acetaminophen and ibuprofen; the other three painkillers were combinations of acetaminophen and an opioid (oxycodone, hydrocodone or codeine). The study found that — within the two-hour window being evaluated — there was no statistical significant difference in the effectiveness of the four drugs, indicating that acetaminophen/ibuprofen is a viable alternative to opioids for addressing acute pain. The release does a good job of describing the study and placing it in the context of the “opioid crisis” in the U.S. However, the release does not address cost or potential harms, and does not make clear how this study builds on or differs from previous research on how non-opioid painkillers differ from opioid painkillers. As the news release notes, “the United States is facing an opioid epidemic.” According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, at least 2 million Americans had an addiction to prescription painkillers in 2015 — and more than 20,000 people died from prescription painkiller overdoses in the same year. And data from the National Institute of Drug Abuse show that this problem is on the rise. In other words, the subject matter is timely and important. But patients and healthcare providers also deserve a little additional context for this work. Is this the first study to compare non-opioid and opioid painkillers? The release doesn’t tell us. (It’s not.) How do they compare on cost? Is the non-opioid option risk free? These are important questions, and ones that could be addressed quickly. The release would have been stronger if it had done so. An editorial in JAMA editorial notes that the ibuprofen-acetaminophen combination has been studied and used more in other countries, and that many people get their first opioid prescription from the ER, so cutting down on opioid use and distribution from ERs could make a significant dent in the epidemic. This was a main reason for the study.
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mixture
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JAMA,pain relief
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Costs are not discussed. The costs of ibuprofen and acetaminophen are fairly low — but the relevant opioids are also relatively inexpensive. For the relevant dosages, the costs would be more or less comparable, with the hydrocodone/acetaminophen combination likely being the most expensive. This is a tough one, since the release does not quantify the extent of the pain reduction. The release notes only that “After 2 hours pain was less in all participants, without any important difference in effect between the four groups.” There were differences between the groups, but those differences were not statistically significant. However, given that we often call out news releases that make a big deal out of statistically insignificant differences, we approve of the way that issue is handled here — thus the satisfactory rating. The release does address the harms associated with the use (or misuse) of opioid analgesics. However, the release doesn’t address the potential harms from ibuprofen or acetaminophen in a meaningful way. The closest it comes is a sentence noting that “further research to assess longer-term effect, adverse events and dosing is warranted.” But there are some things we already know. As the Mayo Clinic notes, ibuprofen use may increase risk of heart attack or stroke, and may also cause stomach or intestinal bleeding. And acetaminophen can harm the liver if taken in too large a quantity. Granted, the risk of these things is low — particularly if it is used only in the short term to address acute pain — but it would have been relatively easy to address. The JAMA study didn’t assess harms either; still a statement to this effect could have been made. The release does a pretty good job of describing the study and explaining the strengths (and weaknesses) of randomized clinical trials like this one. It would have been a little stronger if it had explained how pain was measured. The one error we’ll point out is that the release refers to the study population as consisting of 416 patients. The paper makes clear that five of those patients were excluded from the analysis because they had already taken analgesics before treatment at the emergency room, meaning that the relevant study population was actually 411 patients. It’s an easy mistake to make, but it’s a mistake. No disease mongering here. The release says only that information about financial disclosures and funding are available in the JAMA article itself — which isn’t very helpful. For the record, the study was funded (at least in part) by the National Institute on Aging, and there don’t appear to be any conflicts of interest — but the news release could have said as much. The entire release (and the study it is discussing) are based on the comparison of alternatives for addressing acute pain in an emergency room environment. The release does not address this explicitly, but it is fairly clear from the context that all of these painkillers are already clinically available. The release does not discuss any previous research in this area, nor does it make clear what sets this work apart from previous research. This is a significant oversight. As the paper itself notes: “Relatively few ED [emergency department] studies have compared the efficacy of the 3 most commonly used opioid analgesics in the ED and none has compared them in a single study. Although opioids are considered to provide stronger analgesia than nonopioid analgesics, 1 ED-based study found that adding combination oxycodone and acetaminophen to naproxen did not improve pain relief at 1 week in patients with acute low back pain. Several postsurgical studies have found combination nonopioids to be as effective as a combination of codeine and acetaminophen.” This is really useful information. Among other things, it tells us that previous studies have found similar results — but not in the context of addressing acute pain in the emergency room. In other words, it makes clear how this study builds on and is different from earlier research. That’s important. No unjustifiable language here.
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3186
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Notre Dame fire wakes the world up to dangers of lead dust.
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It took a blaze that nearly destroyed Paris’ most famous cathedral to reveal a gap in global safety regulations for lead, a toxic building material found across many historic cities.
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true
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AP Top News, Travel, Paris, General News, Fires, France, Environment, International News, Business, United Nations, Health, Europe, Pollution
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After the Notre Dame fire in April spewed dozens of tons of toxic lead-dust into the atmosphere in just a few hours, Paris authorities discovered a problem with the city’s public safety regulations: There was no threshold for them to gauge how dangerous the potentially-deadly pollution was from the dust that settled on the ground. Since then, The Associated Press has found this regulatory gap extends far beyond France. Officials in other historic European capitals such as Rome and London, as well as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization also have no such outdoor lead dust hazard guidelines. The reason, they say, is that although there are lead regulations, no one contemplated a conflagration on a lead-laden building the scale of Notre Dame — whose spire towered nearly 100 meters (330 feet) high. Poisoning from lead dust can cause permanent loss to cognitive ability, seizures, coma, or death — and exposure is of greatest risk to pregnant mothers and to young children, who can easily transfer toxic dust into their mouths. After 250 tons of lead on Notre Dame’s spire and roof was engulfed in flames in central Paris on April 15 and authorities alerted Parisians to an environmental health risk, they were forced to cobble together disparate and incomplete research to set a makeshift safety level in an attempt reassure the public. “When the Notre Dame fire happened, we didn’t have any threshold for what represented dangerous lead levels outdoors,” Anne Souyris, the Paris City Hall deputy mayor in charge of public health, told the AP. “It was a wake-up call ... the amount of lead that was burned in Notre Dame was unprecedented.” Officials were surprised to discover that while safety guidelines exist in France for lead levels inside buildings and schools, as well as in paint, soil and air pollution, there were zero hazard guidelines for lead accumulations in public spaces, such as dust on the ground. The inherent danger and the regulatory gap for lead dust became impossible to ignore for French officials as it collected as a toxic film on the cobblestones of Paris’ Ile-de-la-Cite following the fire. “The authorities basically tried to create safety guidelines after the fire by piecing together a mixture of old fragments of data and reports,” Souyris said. “But there was really nothing official ... we simply didn’t realize that lead outside might be a problem.” On July 18 — three months after the inferno — Paris’ Regional Health Agency (ARS) said it designated 5,000 micrograms per square meter (4,180 mcg per square yard) as a concerning level for lead dust in public spaces. It also acknowledged there was an “absence of regulatory thresholds ... regarding the presence of lead in dust deposited on roads.” AP learned from health officials that this figure was compiled by using incomplete data, including a French Culture Ministry report assessing lead levels in Paris monuments. Some media outlets reported that registered levels of lead contamination in locations surrounding the fire-damaged cathedral ranged between 500 and 800 times the official safe levels. But health officials told the AP that Paris still does not have any official regulatory threshold. The World Health Organization told AP it also has no outdoor safety guidelines for lead dust and has no “immediate” intention to create any. New legislation for hazard safety in Britain following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire also did not cover lead-dust hazards. The U.K. Environment Ministry told AP it doesn’t “have a specific threshold for unsafe lead dust levels in the U.K. in public places.” It said the hazard focus after Grenfell, an apartment building constructed in the 1970s, “was more on asbestos than lead due to the age of the building.” In the U.S., where many buildings were constructed after lead hazards were widely recognized, the Environmental Protection Agency has no lead dust hazard standards for outdoor public spaces. Lead is ubiquitous in Paris’ 19th-century architecture — in roofs, gilded balconies, floors and terraces — and not just in its most famous cathedral. In 1853, Napoleon III chose Baron Haussmann to carry out a near-total renovation of Parisian boulevards and parks in an era that used lead prolifically — designs that still dominate the city. French officials say there are so few guidelines on lead dust levels because it was not a problem they had to confront until the unprecedented Notre Dame fire. It took four months for the city to complete a deep-clean operation of the sidewalks even as tourists, residents and merchants walked streets around the cathedral daily. Paris City Hall issued a new action plan this fall to address lead — including cleaning and testing in places that host children, increased monitoring of children with high levels of lead in their blood and an independent epidemiological study of lead health impacts in a city that has used the toxic element since the Middle Ages. “Paris is a beautifully preserved city,” Souyris said. “But we realize we have also beautifully preserved its lead.” Experts say Paris’ rare status as a highly conserved historic city makes it a particular danger spot for lead. “Preservation does make Paris unusual,” said Neil M. Donahue, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “Incineration of one of the most famous roofs in the world may be especially dramatic, but there is no alchemy in this world. Lead will remain lead forever.” The fire in Paris’ spiritual heart increased awareness among authorities and the public to the dangers of lead. In June, Paris’ Regional Health Agency advised that all pregnant women and children under 7 years old living near the site take a test for lead levels. The agency said 12 children in the surrounding areas tested positive for elevated lead levels in their blood since the fire. None have been hospitalized or prescribed medication, but officials said it was impossible to predict the long-term health consequences of the fire. One child’s lead exposure came from a source other than the cathedral: the lead balcony of his family’s apartment. But it illustrates how the fire awakened Parisians to the dangers of lead. It’s unlikely the child would have been tested at all without the catastrophe. Despite the lead fallout from the fire, experts say tourists should not alter travel plans to one of the most visited cities in the world. But toxic lead dust remains a problem inside the burned-out cathedral, after tons of molten and airborne lead contaminated its interior. The inside clean-up is a delicate and painstaking process, complicated by French President Emmanuel Macron’s five-year timeline for the restoration to be completed — a deadline many experts say is unrealistic. Aline Magnien, director of the Historic Monuments Research Laboratory, recently dispatched her team of scientists to figure out how to remove the toxic lead from inside the UNESCO world heritage site, which is over 850 years old, without damaging it. “It’s a race against the clock,” she said. “The lead is a real problem. The cathedral is exceptionally precious. And we don’t have the luxury of time.” ___ Follow Thomas Adamson on Twitter: @ThomasAdamson_K ___ Associated Press writers Giada Zampano in Rome, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Frank Jordans in Berlin, David Caruso in New York and Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed to this report
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23683
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The Department of Health and Human Services is providing $160 million to the state of Pennsylvania to set up a new high-risk insurance pool program that would cover any abortion legal in the state.
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John Boehner, GOP claims that federal taxpayers will fund Pennsylvania abortions simply untrue
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false
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Abortion, Ohio, Health Care, John Boehner,
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"As Congress struggled to pass health reforms earlier this year, anti-abortion groups and members of Congress fretted the legislation would permit taxpayer dollars to be used for the controversial procedure, overturning years of precedent that banned use of federal money for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mother’s life. To ease those fears, President Obama signed an executive order that reaffirmed the bans would continue in health insurance programs developed under the new bill. Obama’s gesture was needed to win support from key anti-abortion Democrats, including Bart Stupak of Michigan, Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Steve Driehaus of Cincinnati. But Republicans still weren’t convinced. ""Make no mistake, a ‘yes' vote on the Democrats' health care bill is a vote for taxpayer-funded abortions,"" House GOP Leader John Boehner of Ohio said at the time. As states prepare to implement a part of the law that encourages them to create temporary high risk plans for people with pre-existing medical conditions who have trouble finding affordable insurance, Republicans like Boehner and anti-abortion groups like the National Right to Life Committee are claiming the new high risk insurance pools will provide a backdoor way for the federal government to fund abortions. Pennsylvania was among the first states to put together a plan, and publicize its details. ""The Department of Health & Human Services is providing $160 million to the state of Pennsylvania to set up a new high-risk insurance pool program that would cover any abortion legal in the state,"" Boehner said in a news release July 13. ""This is the boldest admission yet from the Obama administration that the President’s Executive Order on taxpayer-funded abortion was a sham,"" Boehner said. ""The fact that the high-risk pool insurance program in Pennsylvania will use federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions is unconscionable."" Ohio’s eight GOP members of Congress have kept up the chorus. On July 15, Rep. Jim Jordan of Urbana claimed the Pennsylvania high-risk insurance program would include abortion coverage and demonstrate that Kaptur, Driehaus and Obama violated their promise that ""ObamaCare would not allow tax dollars to be used to take the life of unborn children."" ""The Stupak-Kaptur-Driehaus executive order, signed by President Obama was not worth the paper it was printed on,"" Jordan’s statement said. ""It was merely a ploy to give so-called pro-life Democrats an excuse to vote for a federal takeover of health care that allows taxpayer funding of abortion.."" Then on July 19 the group of eight – Boehner, Jordan, Steve LaTourette of Bainbridge Township, Patrick Tiberi of Genoa Township, Jean Schmidt of Loveland, Michael Turner of Centerville, Bob Latta of Bowling Green and Steve Austria of Beavercreek – wrote to Gov. Ted Strickland expressing concern that other states’ high risk health plans will cover elective abortions, and urging Strickland to make sure that doesn’t happen in Ohio. ""Your voice as Governor is needed to help ensure that not a dime of the $152 million in federal funds Ohio is set to receive for its high-risk pool plan goes toward covering abortions,"" their letter said. At Strickland’s request, Ohio Department of Insurance Director Mary Jo Hudson replied with a letter that insisted the high risk pool the state plans to launch on Aug. 1 will comply with federal law, and not cover abortion services ""except in the cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered."" Will these new plans actually permit individuals with pre-existing medical conditions to get federally funded abortions? Boehner’s statement is nearly identical to one made by the National Right to Life Committee that we analyzed. They said that the Obama administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to pay for health insurance plans that cover ""any legal abortion."" Here’s what we found when we analyzed that statement July 16. Pennsylvania’s 60-page proposal outlines a standard health care plan that says this about abortion: ""Includes only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of 18 Pa.C.S. § 3204-3206 and 35 P.S. §§10101, 10103-10105. ... Elective abortions are not covered."" Those statute numbers refer to Pennsylvania's abortion laws, where abortion is, for the most part, legal. The code says that abortions may be performed if a doctor determines that ""in his best clinical judgment, the abortion is necessary."" The only mention the statute makes of forbidding an abortion is when it is ""sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child."" Douglas Johnson, National Right to Life Committee’s legislative director, said those statute numbers mean that the proposal is meant to include any legal abortion. ""We know how this stuff works,"" Johnson said. ""He'll say 'It's not elective, it's necessary.'"" The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services responded in a statement issued July 14: ""In Pennsylvania and in all other states abortions will not be covered in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) except in the cases of rape or incest, or where the life of the woman would be endangered."" Pennsylvania’s insurance department, issued its own statement July 15: ""Pennsylvania will – and has always intended to – comply with the federal ban on abortion funding in the coverage provided through our federally funded high risk pool. This program will provide much-needed assistance for the sickest of the sick. The likelihood that any of those covered will seek abortion services is remote, but if they do need such services, they will have to pay for them out their own pocket."" The Department of Health and Human Services is still developing regulations for many aspects of health care, and they're trying to do it with some haste. New Mexico, for example, submitted a plan for the Pre-existing Condition Health Insurance Plan that explicitly included abortion services, but then withdrew it quickly when it learned that the federal government would forbid the services, Associated Press reported. The Obama administration has clearly stated it won’t allow abortion to be covered under the new plans, save for cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. State officials in Pennsylvania and Ohio have insisted their new programs will comply with the federal ban. The high-risk plans in question are designed to cover older people with chronic health conditions rather than the healthy young women most likely to seek elective abortions."
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20260
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"Kathleen Falk Says Gov. Scott Walker signed abortion, sex education and discrimination bills ""in secret."
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Kathleen Falk says Gov. Scott Walker signed bills affecting women in secret
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false
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Transparency, Women, Wisconsin, Kathleen Falk,
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"In the world of politics, it’s known as ""the Friday dump"" -- the tradition of officials delivering bad news (usually as it relates to themselves) at week’s end or before a holiday. The idea is to ensure light media coverage. Democrats and liberal interest groups accused Republican Gov. Scott Walker of an all-time classic dump on Good Friday, when Walker’s office announced by news release he had signed four bills they had labeled as part of a ""war on women."" What’s more, they said he concealed the fact they were signed. In an April 6, 2012, news release, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kathleen Falk challenged Walker to ""explain to the people of Wisconsin why in secret, he allowed legislation that will restrict women’s access to health care and equal pay and will end age-appropriate sex education for students to become law."" She added that Walker had ""violated the trust of the people."" Wait. Can a bill signing announced by news release really constitute ""a secret""? The four bills at issue prevent people subjected to employment discrimination from seeking damages in state court; reverse a 2010 ban on abstinence-only sex education courses; create new requirements for getting medical advice before abortions; and prohibit insurance plans offered in Wisconsin under the federal health care reform law from covering some abortions. Democrats say they are part of a broader GOP ""war on women."" Republicans said the bills protect women and reverses ill-advised legislation passed when Democrats had control. But what about the signed-in-secret part? The bills, of course, were argued and approved in public. And once signed into law, they ultimately are published. So from that perspective no bill signings are secret. Sometimes, bills are signed in elaborate ceremonies in front of TV cameras that are announced in advance. Most bills, though, are signed quietly by the governor and announced via news release. Let’s look at this case more closely. Walker faced a legal deadline, based on when the bills passed, to sign or reject the four bills. That deadline was Thursday, April 5, 2012. That day, the Journal Sentinel’s Capitol bureau reporters -- and other media members -- asked Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie if the bills had been signed. He declined to directly say. To back up her statement, Falk’s campaign alleged there had been a one-day gap between when Walker signed the bills and his office’s April 6, 2012 announcement, which listed the four among 51 bills that had been signed. We checked legislative records, and they listed the bills being signed on Thursday (most of the others were signed on Friday). In addition to April 6, 2012 being Good Friday, it was opening day for the Milwaukee Brewers -- a ""Friday dump"" bonus. The news release, issued at about 12:30 p.m. -- a couple hours before the first pitch at Miller Park -- offered no comments about any of the bills. It was the first time Democratic lawmakers, who are copied on the releases, were notified they had been signed. So, Democratic lawmakers -- and the public -- were not notified in a timely fashion about the four bills in question. What’s more, the release said Walker ""signed bills into law today"" (italics ours). So, the public notice itself was misleading on when they were signed. We asked Werwie precisely when and where the four bills were signed. He would only say that it was not ""the dark of night"" as critics alleged, and that Walker didn’t sign them in his office because ""he didn’t have time."" On that same day, Walker signed two job-creation bills at Palermo’s Pizza in Milwaukee. This underlines a point about bill signings and announcements: In the same manner politicians call attention to popular measures with public signings (for political advantage), they can downplay controversial ones by skipping one (also seeking political advantage). In the end, it all becomes public. The secretary of state gets the bills within 24 hours of a signing, and publishes them. To find out more, we called the sponsors of the four bills. They told us there was a private signing ceremony -- on Thursday, April 5, 2012, at the governor’s Milwaukee office. The Republican sponsors were invited to attend, according to Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) and an aide to Rep. Michelle Litjens (R-Oshkosh) though neither of those officials could make it. Some additional information: The general timing of Walker’s move was influenced by the Legislature’s actions. The bills in question were not sent to Walker until March 29, 2012. The state constitution gives Walker six working days to sign or veto. So the timing with Easter Week was determined by lawmakers, while the specific day that week was Walker’s call. A big-batch signing itself is not unusual, especially in the rush at the end of a legislative session. Earlier that week, Walker issued a similar news release announcing 36 bill signings. Our conclusion Echoing others, Falk took Walker to task for signing the four bills ""in secret."" Falk’s words suggest at the very least a highly unusual effort to conceal an official action. And the record reflects that. It’s clear to us that Walker cloaked the signing from reporters, and delayed his announcement to the public and Democratic lawmakers. But although Walker sought to quietly approve these bills -- that’s his prerogative. The timing was only partially in his control, and it’s not unusual to sign big batches of bills out of direct public view, for practical reasons or political ones. We think it’s a stretch to call it ""secret"" when the signing will ultimately become public -- and when it was announced in a news release. In short, we think there’s an element of truth to Falk’s claim but it ignores critical facts that could give a different impression. That’s our definition of ."
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17322
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I've been a cop in Lake County, Michigan, since 1982 thereabout. I conduct federal raids with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers.
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"Nugent said he is and has been a cop in Michigan and that he conducts raids with several federal and state law enforcement agencies. He said ""we are re-arresting fugitive felons"" and painted a vivid picture of being with agents immediately afterward. ""When we are done with these kinds of raids, we get together and our hearts are broken that we have to face these monsters,"" Nugent said. The single piece of this narrative that Nugent confirmed is one ride-along with U.S. Marshals in 2005. He is not a cop in Michigan by any conventional meaning of the word. No agency said that he presently plays any role in any of their raids. Nugent may have been passionate but his words take him far beyond the facts."
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false
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Candidate Biography, PunditFact, Guns, Ted Nugent,
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"Until last week, Ted Nugent was best known as a rock musician, a bow hunter, and an ardent supporter of gun rights. But his recent description of President Barack Obama as a ""subhuman mongrel"" eclipsed all of that, especially at a time when he has campaigned on behalf of a Texas Republican candidate for governor. Those words are rooted in Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda and the writings of white supremacists. The uproar drew a terse apology from the singer of hits such as ""Cat Scratch Fever."" But in an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett, he insisted that he had not drawn on the rhetoric of racist literature. At least for the word ""mongrel,"" Nugent said the word was used in his time in law enforcement. ""I've been a cop in Lake County, Michigan, since 1982 thereabout. I conduct federal raids with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers and heroes of law enforcement. ""And we are re-arresting fugitive felons let out of their cages after murdering and raping and molesting children, carjacking. And we keep going after these guys. ""The adrenaline is something like you will never experience, I hope you never have to experience it, but when we are done with these kinds of raids, we get together and our hearts are broken that we have to face these monsters. We call them mongrels. We call bad people who are destroying our neighborhoods mongrels."" Is Nugent a cop? Does he ""conduct federal raids with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers?"" We wanted to know. 'I've been a cop in Lake County, Michigan, since 1982 thereabout' Lake County, Mich., is located about 90 miles north of Grand Rapids. It has about 11,500 residents and describes itself as ""an outdoor recreation paradise."" Nugent is a reservist for the county sheriff's office, Sheriff Robert Hilts told us. But, ""He’s never joined us for any raids. Fortunately, we don’t have those sorts of problems up here."" Hilts said Nugent has no authority or official responsibilities. The only activity involving Nugent that Hilts could recall was raising money on behalf of the department and for a local boy who has cystic fibrosis. ""We’re always searching the woods for a hunter that’s lost or hurt,"" Hilts said. ""He helped us buy a four-wheel drive offroad vehicle so we could reach people faster."" 'I conduct federal raids with the DEA and ATF and U.S. Marshals and the FBI and Texas Rangers' Nugent does not seem to be a cop in the way most people would understand that word. The picture was about the same for the federal agencies Nugent named. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) told us, ""We are not aware of him conducting any raids with us."" We asked the Texas Department of Public Safety on what occasions Nugent had joined Texas Rangers on raids. Press secretary Tom Vinger said, ""In regards to your question about the Texas Rangers, that did not occur."" Joe Moses, a 22-year veteran special agent at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told us they have no record or recollection of Nugent participating in any of their operations. However, when there are special projects that involve many federal, state and local agencies, they wouldn’t necessarily know the name of everyone who showed up. At the same time, Moses said there are strict standards for who is involved in an actual raid. ""You would not have someone who didn’t hold the status of a police officer or federal agent participate in such an operation,"" Moses said. The process of arresting a person or collecting evidence must withstand challenge in a courtroom. It is not a place for the inexperienced, Moses told us. The FBI said it could neither confirm nor deny Nugent’s participation in a raid. When we reached out to Nugent, an assistant did not provide evidence that Nugent participated in raids with the FBI, the DEA or the ATF. Instead, Nugent’s assistant Linda Peterson wrote, ""Ted has been active in the following: U.S. Marshal Service FALCON fugitive task force arrest raids in Texas …"" That’s not quite what it sounds like, either. Nugent and a film crew ""went on a ride-along with a U.S. Marshals-led task force in Waco, Texas, in 2005,"" agency spokesman Dave Oney said. Oney believes they were shooting footage for Nugent’s television show Spirit of the Wild. With the U.S. Marshals, observers work under clear limits. ""They cannot go with us into private residences,"" Oney said. ""So, he would have had to remain in the vehicle or on the sidewalk or some other public area."" That ride-along took place about nine years ago. No law enforcement agency told us that Nugent has any current role in their efforts to apprehend felons. Other evidence While Nugent’s response to our questions was brief, we did find his description of being at an FBI handgun training facility built around video simulations. The article is undated, but in it Nugent wrote he had recently taken part in Operation FALCON with the U.S. Marshals. Nugent found the training experience very realistic. ""Let me tell you, when the room goes dark and the video begins to roll, you become so totally engulfed in the scenario that you are 100 percent psychologically living the event as if it is real life,"" he wrote. ""It is no longer a video as far as your mind tells you."" It is possible this may have shaped his recollections. Our ruling Nugent said he is and has been a cop in Michigan and that he conducts raids with several federal and state law enforcement agencies. He said ""we are re-arresting fugitive felons"" and painted a vivid picture of being with agents immediately afterward. ""When we are done with these kinds of raids, we get together and our hearts are broken that we have to face these monsters,"" Nugent said. The single piece of this narrative that Nugent confirmed is one ride-along with U.S. Marshals in 2005. He is not a cop in Michigan by any conventional meaning of the word. No agency said that he presently plays any role in any of their raids. Nugent may have been passionate but his words take him far beyond the facts."
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18932
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"The so-called doc fix in the fiscal cliff deal will cut payments ""for treating illnesses disproportionately impacting minorities, including end stage renal disease and diabetes."
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Marcia Fudge claims the fiscal cliff deal included cuts in payments for illness that disproportionately impact minorities
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true
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Ohio, Federal Budget, Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare, Marcia Fudge,
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"If you read about the fiscal-cliff deal Congress made on New Year’s Day, one fact above others stood out. Through compromises -- more unsavory or unprincipled to some than to others -- America’s economy did not topple over. Neither side got everything it wanted, noted U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat who voted for the deal. One compromise in particular still leaves Fudge uneasy: the funding measures used to keep Medicare from cutting its pay to physicians by 26.5 percent. To avert the physician pay cuts, Congress diverted money from several other medical programs, Fudge said in a Jan. 1 news release. This took care of the so-called Medicare doc fix -- but it also happened to take money from programs that pay for ""treating illnesses disproportionately impacting minorities, including end stage renal disease and diabetes,"" Fudge said. She said this must be addressed in the new session of Congress. Did Congress really get the money to keep paying doctors for treating seniors (via Medicare,) by cutting what it pays hospitals and others for treating diabetes and other diseases? PolitiFact Ohio took a look. It turns out that Fudge, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, was correct on the funding. Whether this will harm patients is a matter of debate. Government accountants have wanted some of these changes for some time. Hospitals say the bean counters miss the big picture -- the real cost of treating patients -- by focusing too narrowly on line items. To understand this, let’s start with a quick explanation of the doc fix. It is a remnant of laws, the most recent in 1997, designed to hold down federal spending by linking the nation’s rate of economic growth to government payments for providers in Medicare, the 1965 program that brought federal health insurance to retirees. The problem is, medical costs often rise much faster than the overall economy (measured by the gross domestic product). In recent, low-inflation years, the formula linking the two would automatically require payment cuts to doctors. Some doctors who serve seniors say they might get paid so little that they would stop accepting new patients or quit practicing. So Congress halts these reductions every year, though it keeps the law. This year’s cut would have been particularly deep because of the cumulative build-up of past deferrals. But as we said, Congress found a fix. It required coming up with about $30 billion to pay. Where did the money come from? According to the Kaiser Health News blog, Congress decided to cut the amount that Medicare pays to hospitals for inpatient or overnight care by reducing annual base payment increases. This would save $10.5 billion over 10 years, the Kaiser news service said. Congress found another $4.2 billion by reducing what are known as ‘disproportionate share"" payments made by Medicaid, the government’s program for low-income Americans, to hospitals that treat an unusually high share of the poor. And it got $4.9 billion by changing the way it bundles payments for treating end-stage renal disease starting in 2014 There are other changes, including a requirement that companies start competing with bids to sell diabetes test supplies, ending what government auditors say are over-payments. But you get the idea. These and other cuts are detailed in reports by the medical trade press, including The Medicare NewsGroup and Becker’s Hospital Review. If this sounds like Congress took from Peter to pay Paul, the president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, Chip Kahn, might agree. He put it that way to Kaiser Health News: ""It is not in the best interest of patients or those who care for them to rob hospital Peter to pay for fiscal cliff Paul."" The American Medical Association also expressed its concerns. Outrageous? Consider the rationale: Congressional watchdogs maintain these programs were overpaid or abused in the past, and could function in the future with less money. According to several studies and audits by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative agency that reports to Congress, hospitals were overpaid while Medicare transitioned toward paying them a bundled sum for treatment based on a patient’s disease or diagnosis. The old system paid for individual services, treatments and tests, some of them poorly coordinated and duplicative. Overpayments occurred during the transition that started in 2008. Additionally, some ambulance services were overpaid for emergency transport of diabetes patients who did not need emergency or ambulance services, according to examinations by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services. By cutting such payments by 10 percent, starting next October, Congress freed up additional money for the doc fix. And the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services paid for more dialysis-related drugs -- as much as $880 million in 2011 -- than patients with kidney failure actually used, according to a December, 2012, GAO report. This was due to a bundled-payment calculation that did not account for a significant drop in the usage of certain drugs -- 23 percent lower in 2011 than in 2007, the GAO found. The GAO specifically recommended that Congress tweak the law so CMS had clear authority to alter its dialysis payment calculations. Congress did so as part of the fiscal cliff and doc fix deal. But the medical industry is unhappy about this and the other cuts. It says that the GAO failed to factor in costs for which it is never reimbursed. ""Making cuts of the magnitude GAO is recommending would impose great financial strain"" on smaller dialysis organizations ""and could lead to fewer choices and access to care problems for patients,"" Katrina Russell, president of the National Renal Administrators Association, told American Medical News in December. Fudge, too, does not like this change. Her district not only includes every major hospital system in Cuyahoga County, as her communications director, Belinda Prinz, told us, but also has a significant black population. African-Americans have a disproportionately high incidence of diabetes and are 1.8 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites, according to the American Diabetes Association. One in four African-American women over age 55 has diabetes, Prinz said in an email, citing this and other American Diabetes Association figures. Complications can cause blindness, kidney disease, heart attacks and strokes, and amputations sometimes result -- with African-Americans 2.7 times as likely to have lower-limb amputations, the association says. So where does that leave us with Fudge’s claim? Fudge did not specifically say minorities will be harmed by the spending cuts. Her statement was factually accurate. But she suggested that harm will result, saying that cuts will be made to programs that treat diseases disproportionately affecting minorities, including end stage renal disease and diabetes."" The impact is unsettled for now. The GAO and inspector general have called out some of these programs for waste or unnecessary spending. Yet Fudge is in good company -- namely, the American medical community, although like any constituency, it too has its interests to protect. Because her claim requires this additional information to fully understand,"
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3090
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Justin Bieber says he’s battling Lyme disease.
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Justin Bieber says that he has been battling Lyme disease.
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true
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Justin Bieber, Entertainment, New York, General News, Ticks, Lyme disease, Health, Celebrities, Music
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In an Instagram post on Wednesday, the pop star wrote that “it’s been a rough couple years but (I’m) getting the right treatment that will help treat this so far incurable disease and I will be back and better than ever.” Lyme disease is transmitted by Ixodes ticks, also known as deer ticks. Lyme can cause flu-like conditions, neurological problems, joint paint and other symptoms. Though Bieber called it incurable, in the vast majority of cases, Lyme disease is successfully treated with antibiotics. “While a lot of people kept saying justin Bieber looks like (expletive), on meth etc. they failed to realize I’ve been recently diagnosed with Lyme disease, not only that but had a serious case of chronic mono which affected my, skin, brain function, energy, and overall health,” Bieber wrote. The Grammy-winning singer said he will discuss battling the tick-borne infection on his upcoming YouTube docu-series, “Justin Bieber: Seasons,” which debuts Jan. 27. The 10-episode show will follow Bieber while he creates his new album and will also highlight his private life. “You can learn all that I’ve been battling and OVERCOMING! !,” he wrote.
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10793
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IU doctors say screening could save lives, money
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This story reports on a study that analyzed the cost-effectiveness of testing newborns for a set of eight metabolic conditions. The fact that there is no uniform set of screening tests and each state varies in its screening requirements is a problem that should be addressed. However, there are some flaws with this story. The story does not explain that this was a cost-effectiveness analysis, a simulation model of different screening strategies, not a randomized trial. No actual patients were studied, rather assumptions were made based on the existing literature. Furthermore, the story does not provide any quantification of benefits and does not mention any harms of screening. The most important harms would be related to false positive results, which could result in unnecessary treatment and undue anxiety for the parents. The story mentions the cost of the screening tests (between $1.90 and $25 for each). However, these are very different from the cost-effectiveness results reported in the study, which were as high as $94,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). This figure represents the actual societal costs of the screening test. Because so few newborns have the diseases in question and many positive results turn out to be false positive, the true costs to the healthcare system are greater than just the cost of the test itself. The story repeatedly states that screening could save money, but it is not clear if this is the case or not. Most components of the multi-test screening strategy did dominate (i.e., less costly, more effective) the no-test strategy, however two did not – they were more effective, but also more costly. The story appeared to rely too heavily on a press release from the Indiana School of Medicine. Not only are the same numbers reported in the story as the press release, but almost identical quotes are used as well. The story also only quotes the two principal investigators of the study – who are also both quoted in the press release. The story does not provide any additional perspectives. For the study abstract in Pediatrics: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/117/5/S1/S287 For the Indiana University Press Release: http://medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/
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false
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The story mentions the cost of the screening tests (between $1.90 and $25 for each). However, these are very different from the cost-effectiveness results reported in the study, which were as high as $94,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). This figure represents the actual societal costs of the screening test. Because so few newborns have the diseases in question and many positive results turn out to be false positive, the true costs to the healthcare system are greater than just the cost of the test itself. The story repeatedly states that screening could save money, but it is not clear from the abstract if this is the case or not. Most components of the multi-test screening strategy did dominate (i.e., less costly, more effective) the “no-test” strategy, however two did not – they were more effective, but also more costly. No quantification of benefits of screening for the set of eight disorders is provided. Although the story does state that the disorders are found in 3,000 infants nationally, this figure applies to the current screening strategy, not to the new proposed strategy. The story does not provide the reader with estimates of how many more disorders would be detected with this new strategy compared to the existing one. The story does not mention any harms of screening. The most important harms would be related to false positive results, which could result in unnecessary treatment and undue anxiety for the parents The story does not explain that this was a cost-effectiveness analysis, a simulation model of different screening strategies, not a randomized trial. No actual patients were studied, rather assumptions were made based on the existing literature. By describing the prevalence as 1 out of 1000 children born every year, the story does not appear to engage in disease mongering. The story only quotes the two principal investigators of the study – who are also both quoted in the press release. The story does not provide any additional perspectives. The story does mention the alternatives – such as no testing or testing for some combination of other diseases. The story does mention that screening for multiple diseases is available. The story does not mention if bundling the screening tests through tandem mass spectrometry is new or not. The story appeared to rely too heavily on a press release from the Indiana School of Medicine. Not only are the same numbers reported in the story as the press release, but almost identical quotes are used as well. The story only quotes the two principal investigators of the study – who are also both quoted in the press release. The story does not provide any additional perspectives.
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29781
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In 2017, 2018 or 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the public about a shipment of Zika-contaminated bananas.
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Breaking13News.com routinely produces junk news and has a particular proclivity for sensationalist, shocking headlines and celebrity death hoaxes, some of which we have debunked in the past.
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false
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Junk News
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In May 2019, a nearly two-year-old hoax re-emerged online claiming that federal health authorities in the United States had warned the public about the dangers of imported bananas that were supposedly contaminated with the Zika virus: In August 2017, the website Breaking13News.com published an article with the headline “Zika Virus Found in Recent Shipment of Bananas; CDC is Warning of Safety Concerns,” which claimed that: “Public health officials used their strongest language to date in a warning about a Zika outbreak in the United States, after 2 million bananas shipped from Ecuador to the U.S. were found to be contaminated with the Zika Virus. Reports are confirming that 125 people across the U.S. have been hospitalized or admitted to the E.R. for symptoms confirmed to be Zika … ” The post continued on to say: “CDC says bananas you have purchased in the last 10 days should be discarded. Local grocery stores will not be selling bananas until the FDA allows for more shipments, which they say could be weeks or months as they handle this international crisis. If you see any bananas being sold locally, speak to management and notify them of this serious issue.” In reality, no discovery of a Zika-contaminated shipment of bananas was made, either in August 2017 or since then, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) therefore did not offers any warnings about such a food, nor tell consumers to throw out bananas they had purchased. Those claims were no more than fabrications. Zika is not spread through the ingestion of food in the first place, but rather primarily through mosquito bites, and in some cases through sexual intercourse or from a pregnant woman to her unborn child. The United States saw highly publicized outbreaks of Zika in 2016 and 2017, but the CDC website noted that as of 28 May, no cases existed of local Zika transmission (as opposed to cases where U.S. residents became infected while travelling abroad) in 2018 or 2019. To most observers, the banana shown in the article might appear to be infected or rotten in some way, given that it contains small black lumps. In fact, that photograph shows a wild banana with large seeds and was taken from the website FusariumWilt.org.
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6610
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Pea-sized pill delivers insulin shot from inside the stomach.
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Scientists figured out how to hide a shot inside a pea-sized pill — creating a swallowable gadget, inspired by a tortoise shell, that can inject medicines like insulin from inside the stomach.
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true
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Technology, North America, Science, U.S. News, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts
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Patients usually prefer oral treatment, and comply with it better, but many compounds, including insulin for diabetes, can’t survive the harsh trip through the digestive system. The new invention, reported Thursday by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-led research team, has been tested only in animals so far. But if it pans out, it might offer a work-around to make not just insulin but a variety of usually injected medicines a little easier to take. “It’s like a miniaturized rocket launcher” for insulin, said Willem Mulder of Mount Sinai’s Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute, who wasn’t involved in the new research. Scientists have spent decades trying to develop oral insulin and replace at least some of the daily shots that many people with diabetes require. Attempts include ways to protect insulin from digestive breakdown and then help it be absorbed through the intestine into the bloodstream. So far none has reached the market, although some closely watched candidates are being tested. An ingestible injection could bypass the hazards of that journey — letting insulin absorb through the wall of the stomach, said Dr. Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist at Boston’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital and a senior author of the study. “The way this works is it travels down the esophagus in seconds, it’s in the stomach within a few minutes, and then you get the drug,” said Traverso, who worked with a team from the lab of MIT inventor Robert Langer and insulin maker Novo Nordisk. The first challenge: How to make sure the device lands where it can poke into the right spot, even if someone’s moving around. Researchers looked to nature for ideas. A certain tortoise, the leopard tortoise from Africa, can right itself if flipped onto its back thanks to the steep curve of its shell. Researchers crafted a miniature capsule with a similar shape and a weighted bottom, so that once it reaches the stomach it automatically rolls in the right direction to latch on, Traverso explained. Next the team designed a micro-injector, like a needle only made of dried insulin compressed into a sharp point. To power it, researchers bound a tiny spring to a hardened sugar disk. Stomach acid gradually dissolves the sugar until the spring pops, shooting the insulin into the stomach wall. In pigs, the ingestible injection lowered blood sugar to levels comparable to standard shots, according to the study published Thursday in the journal Science. Once the insulin was absorbed, the capsule, made of stainless steel and a biodegradable material, floated free and was excreted. “It’s a very clever idea, that is meant to solve a very long-standing problem,” said University of Pittsburgh chemical engineering chairman Steven Little, who also wasn’t part of the research. Because the gadget passes through, “the only thing administered to the body is this little injector.” One hurdle: It works on an empty stomach, with nothing to get in the way of the device latching on. Traverso said that means it might one day replace morning insulin shots but not post-meal doses. If poking into the stomach wall sounds worrisome, Traverso said gastroenterologists have long used bigger needles to deliver medicines during certain gastric procedures and their patients fare well. The stomach muscle is thick enough not to worry about a micro-injection piercing all the way through, and the animal studies found no side effects. But Traverso said more research is needed to see how the stomach handles daily micro-injections over many months. Additional animal studies are under way, and Traverso hopes human testing can begin within three years. ___ 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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9862
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New tests screen for gum disease, oral cancer
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This is a story based on one true-believer-dentist’s use of oral DNA tests on 24 patients so far. Although we’re not even told what the experience is with those 24. Feels like an ad for the dentist and for the company marketing the tests. The problem of oral cancer in younger adults was dramatically overstated. It is not clear that detecting HPV in the oropharynx results in any clinical benefit, even with heightened screening. This story is confusing because it mixes together oral HPV screening and bacterial testing. Single source stories aren’t good practice in any form of journalism; in health care stories they are particularly dangerous. Where were the independent perspectives on this trend? Where were the data to back up the use of these tests?
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false
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Cancer,Des Moines Register,Screening
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the story says the tests cost $150 each. Of course, it also states that the manufacturer of the periodontal tests recommends re-testing in 6 weeks. So these costs are adding up. We wish the story addressed whether insurers cover these. No discussion of the sensitivity or specificity of the tests. The ultimate benefit from any screening test (HPV for example) should be decreasing the burden of disease (deaths and poor outcomes from oral cancer), or loss of dentition from periodontal disease. The story doesn’t address this: after you find it (HPV or troublesome bacteria) can you improve human health by screening for oral cancers in those who have it (for the case of HPV) or treating the bacteria in a targeted manner (for the pathogenic bacteria)? What is the false positive rate of these tests? And how quickly do costs mount once that cascade of events begins? There was no discussion of the evidence for these tests. How well do they perform? As oral hygiene has improved, there’s been a longstanding observation that dentistry periodically re-invents itself, carving out new turf to remain profitable. Whether that observation is warranted or not, we wish there had been some independent expert perspective on the trend toward these tests being done in the dentists’ office. The problem of oral cancer in younger adults is overstated. Although periodontal disease is common and problematic, the story made it sound alarming. Additionally, the story did not clarify how good the test is at detecting pathogenic bacteria versus oral flora. There are no independent experts quoted – something badly needed in the story. The story doesn’t discuss the option of NOT being screened. Interestingly, the one patient interviewed said she “kind of questioned it a bit” before agreeing to the testing, but we’re not told what her concerns were. Of course, the other alternative for the bacterial testing is just to treat the most common bacteria presumptively, which is usual practice. An independent expert could have been called on to compare the approaches. The story explains that the manufacturer says the periodontal tests have been available for nearly two years and the HPV test since January 2010. The story states that “researchers anticipate salivary testing mayh become the diagnostic tool of the future.” Those researchers aren’t named – just an interview with “one of the few dentists in the metro area offering the tests.” Are medical doctors using the tests? We really aren’t given any context beyond this one dentist’s practice and her experience with 24 patients. We can’t be sure of the extent to which the story relied on a news release. We do know it apparently only relied on one doctor’s experience using the tests.
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17060
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"Sarah Palin Says Attorney General Eric Holder recently revealed ""this idea to have government have gun owners wear special bracelets that would identify you as a gun owner."
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"According to Palin, Holder recently revealed ""this idea to have government have gun owners wear bracelets, special bracelets, that would identify you as a gun owner."" That’s far from the truth. Holder said he wants the federal government to explore gun safety measures, including smart-gun technology that would prevent weapons from being fired by anyone except their rightful owner. The comment in question came as he explained why his agency is seeking federal money for grants to spur research into safer guns. He listed fingerprint identification and the gun talking ""to a bracelet or something that you might wear"" as tools that could prevent a gun owner’s firearm from being used by someone else. Some smart guns are powered by bracelets with embedded radio signal transmitters, but that’s just one way this could work. The purpose of accessories worn in order to fire a smart gun is not to help the government track owners or identify them (again, Holder is pursuing no such policy). The goal of the emerging technology is to minimize shootings caused by suicides, children or stolen guns."
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false
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Government Regulation, PunditFact, Guns, Sarah Palin,
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"""Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists"" was not the only questionable thing Sarah Palin said during her recent speech to National Rifle Association enthusiasts. In stirring up concerns about gun rights, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee turned conservative rabble-rouser misrepresented comments from Attorney General Eric Holder about investments in smart-gun technology. ""Every day we are seeing more and more efforts to strip away our Second Amendment rights,"" Palin told the crowd. ""They are trying,"" she said, before leading into her claim about Holder. ""Recently, he reveals this idea to have government have gun owners wear bracelets, special bracelets, that would identify you as a gun owner,"" Palin said. ""Well, hey, Holder, you don't want to go there, buddy."" There is more to the story than Holder wanting gun owners to wear identifying bracelets. Holder’s comments on gun bracelets Holder uttered the words ""guns"" and ""bracelet"" before a House appropriations subcommittee on April 4, 2014, as he testified about his agency’s 2015 budget request. U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., asked Holder about requested grants to ""encourage development of innovative gun safety technology."" Holder explained the grant request stems from a White House-driven meeting amid talk of gun regulation reforms. ""We talked about how guns can be made more safe by making them either through fingerprint identification, the gun talks to a bracelet or something that you might wear, how guns can be used only by the person who is lawfully in possession of the weapon. ""It’s those kinds of things that I think we want to try to explore so that we can make sure that people have the ability to enjoy their Second Amendment rights, while at the same time decreasing the misuse of weapons that lead to the kinds of things that we see on a daily basis, you know, where people, kids especially, are struck down by ..."" Harris cut him off, saying ""sure, no one wants that to occur,"" and moved on. Holder’s comment about new gun technology was picked up a few days later in an April 7 Washington Free Beacon story under the headline, ""Holder: We Want to Explore Gun Tracking Bracelets."" From there, it was picked up by Fox News, InfoWars, Townhall.com and the National Rifle Association, among others. In each case, the coverage focused on the idea of ""gun tracking bracelets."" But the technology doesn’t track gun owners, and it doesn’t always require a bracelet. Smart guns and the Department of Justice Holder had smart guns on his mind because of President Barack Obama and reforms he sought after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Obama directed Holder, via one of 23 executive orders, to release a report on gun safety technology ""and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies."" As he mentioned in his testimony, the department’s National Institute of Justice released a report in June 2013 assessing the marketplace, and Holder chaired a meeting with industry leaders and experts at the White House. Smart guns are also called ""owner-authorized guns,"" ""childproof guns"" and ""personalized guns."" Basically, these are firearms made with electronic chips and sensors that can discern an authorized user from an unauthorized user. The gun will fire if it recognizes the owner and won’t if the owner is not recognized. Some high-tech models include a fingerprint reader that works kind of like the one in new iPhones (or James Bond’s personalized gun in Skyfall). Other models include the capability to read a radio signal from a transmitter embedded into a bracelet, ring, watch or pin worn by the gun owner, or even a chip implanted in the hand. ""If that is within a certain programmed distance to the gun, the gun mechanically makes itself operable,"" said Stephen Teret, a smart-gun proponent, professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Center for Law and the Public’s Health. ""If it’s not within a certain distance, the gun won't work."" So the short signals emitted in smart-gun technology do not function like GPS on mobile phones and other devices. The lack of GPS technology would prevent the government from identifying and tracking gun owners, should the government try, said Mike Bazinet, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm and ammunition trade group. Bazinet noted that doesn't mean the group isn't concerned about that prospect. The technology could require a bracelet. It could also require a watch, a ring, a pin, or even just a fingerprint, experts say. The point is there is no plan to identify gun owners with a ""scarlet letter"" bracelet. Origins and controversies Teret says the earliest smart gun was developed by Smith & Wesson in the 1880s. The manufacturer added a metal lever to the back of its handguns, requiring a person to press the the lever and the trigger at the same time to fire the weapon. A child’s hand would be too small to do that, thus preventing accidental injuries and deaths. Manufacturers started thinking about incorporating electronics into guns in the early 1990s to make them safer. The concept had support from the Bill Clinton administration, lost steam during the George W. Bush years, and then re-emerged after the Newtown, Conn., school shootings under Obama, Teret said. International companies, such as Armatix in Germany and TriggerSmart in Ireland, are ahead of the curve, thanks in part to less political resistance, Teret said. But there is technology emerging in the United States. Utah-based Kodiak Industries is offering the Intelligun, a fingerprint-locking system installed onto a 1911-style, .45 caliber pistol, for $399. This year, a California gun retailer told the Washington Post he planned to sell the Armatix iP1 .22 caliber pistol, an $1,800 product that works with a black stopwatch and PIN code that emits radio signals to the gun when worn by the right user. It was supposed to be the first smart gun sold in the United States, but the owner and Armatix representative received backlash from gun rights activists, and the plans were scrapped. Here’s what the iP1 looks like: It’s not the development of smart guns that concerns the firearms industry, Bazinet said. It’s government’s embrace of them. A New Jersey law, the only one of its kind, requires after three years from the first smart gun being sold in the United States that all new guns sold in the state be built with this technology. To Bazinet, smart guns won’t be ready for mass use until police forces are using them. His group has warned about defective guns and dead batteries while saying consumers should be able to buy them if they want. Of course, none of this information changes the veracity of Palin’s comments about ID bracelets for gun owners. It just shows how wrong she was. Emails to Palin’s political action committee were not returned. Our ruling According to Palin, Holder recently revealed ""this idea to have government have gun owners wear bracelets, special bracelets, that would identify you as a gun owner."" That’s far from the truth. Holder said he wants the federal government to explore gun safety measures, including smart-gun technology that would prevent weapons from being fired by anyone except their rightful owner. The comment in question came as he explained why his agency is seeking federal money for grants to spur research into safer guns. He listed fingerprint identification and the gun talking ""to a bracelet or something that you might wear"" as tools that could prevent a gun owner’s firearm from being used by someone else. Some smart guns are powered by bracelets with embedded radio signal transmitters, but that’s just one way this could work. The purpose of accessories worn in order to fire a smart gun is not to help the government track owners or identify them (again, Holder is pursuing no such policy). The goal of the emerging technology is to minimize shootings caused by suicides, children or stolen guns."
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8304
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China tightens Russia border checks, approves coronavirus vaccine trials.
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China has approved early-stage human tests of two experimental vaccines to combat the new coronavirus as the country where the disease was first detected battles to contain imported cases, especially from Russia.
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true
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Health News
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China says that Russia has become its largest source of imported cases, with a total of 409 infections originating in its northern neighbour. Chinese there should stay put and not return home, the state-owned Global Times said on Tuesday. “Chinese people have watched Russia become a severely affected country ... This should sound the alarm: China must strictly prevent the inflow of cases and avoid a second outbreak,” the paper, which is run by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, said in an editorial. China’s northeastern border province of Heilongjiang saw 79 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, all Chinese citizens travelling home from Russia, state media said. Mainland China reported 89 new cases. Heilongjiang’s provincial authority said on Tuesday it had established a hotline to reward citizens as much as 5,000 yuan ($710) for handing over or reporting illegal immigrants. China has reported 82,249 coronavirus cases and 3,341 deaths. It reported no new deaths on Tuesday. Mongolia also confirmed 13 new cases, which it said had were all in people who had come from Russia. As China fights to prevent a second wave of coronavirus infections, two experimental vaccines will be tested on humans, the Xinhua state news agency reported. They are being developed by a Beijing-based unit of Nasdaq-listed Sinovac Biotech (SVA.O) and by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products, an affiliate of state-owned China National Pharmaceutical Group. In March, China gave the green light for another clinical trial for a vaccine candidate developed by China’s military-backed Academy of Military Medical Sciences and Hong Kong-listed biotech firm CanSino Bio (6185.HK). U.S. drug developer Moderna (MRNA.O) said earlier it had begun human tests of its possible vaccine with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But despite hopes for a vaccine, the epidemic could stretch on for up to two years and precautions such as masks and preventing big gatherings may need to continue, Zhang Boli, president of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, told reporters. “We have to make preparations for the long term,” he said. China’s coronavirus task force decided on Monday to boost health resources at its borders. It will build hospitals and establish isolation points near the frontiers and also strengthen cooperation with neighbours. However, officials acknowledged that China’s long border, with numerous country roads, paths, ferry crossings and mountain passes, made it difficult to control. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Tuesday that authorities on both sides of the border should collectively take measures against illegal crossing. “This responsibility must be shouldered by both sides to uphold order in the border area,” he said, adding that there are about 100,000 Chinese nationals in Russia. To ensure no infected people slip in from Russia, China has put in stringent measures in Suifenhe, a city in Heilongjiang with a checkpoint into Russia. Train services from the city have been reduced and cars need a special pass to leave. Piao Minghua, deputy head of customs in the area, told Reuters that everyone entering Suifenhe had to be tested for the coronavirus, give details of contacts and undergo quarantine. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes once every three days, many shops are closed and markets largely deserted. Despite the tight scrutiny, imported cases of COVID-19 have more than doubled in Suifenhe over the past four days to 322, with 79 new infections detected on Monday, the local government said. “Most of the new confirmed cases in Suifenhe that have appeared since the border shut-down are previously asymptomatic people who have now developed symptoms,” Hao Jun, a disease control expert with the Heilongjiang Health Commission, told a news conference on Tuesday. To cope with a possible worsening of the crisis, Suifenhe has converted an office building into a hospital that would provide 600 beds for patients. “The temporary hospital is a back-up plan and, if needed, it will immediately go into operation,” acting mayor Wang Yongping was quoted by Xinhua as saying. Though the northeast border remains China’s priority, state media said more than 100 people had been arrested in March for illegally entering China through its southwestern border in Yunnan province. Thousands of people, mostly Chinese workers and traders, were flooding back into Yunnan from Laos and Myanmar this month. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged Asian countries to work more closely in the fight against coronavirus, Xinhua said. “The battle against COVID-19 has made us more aware that we are in a community with a shared future,” Li told a video summit on Tuesday attended by Southeast Asian countries, Japan and South Korea.
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16654
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"President Barack Obama’s latest executive order ""mandates the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of ‘respiratory illness.’ "
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"Infowars.com said Obama’s latest executive order ""mandates the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of ‘respiratory illness.’"" That’s a fundamental misreading of the executive order Obama signed and the power the federal government has. The updates Obama made to a 2003 executive order do not mandate the apprehension and detention of people who show signs of ""respiratory illness,"" has nothing to do with the current Ebola crisis and only affect people entering the country or crossing state lines."
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false
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Ebola, Public Health, PunditFact, Bloggers,
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"The arrival of two Americans infected with the Ebola virus at an Atlanta hospital has ginned up the fear mill and the conspiracy website Infowars.com has fused fear of infection with fear of Big Brother. When the first American was admitted to Emory University Hospital’s special infectious disease treatment center, Infowars.com wrote, ""United States officials brought an affected (sic) patient into the country only days after President (Barack) Obama signed an executive order mandating the detention of Americans who show signs of ‘respiratory illness’."" At another point, the article says Obama’s latest executive order ""mandates the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of 'respiratory illness.' "" The article correctly reports that President Barack Obama signed an executive order on July 31, but beyond that, the accuracy quotient falls rapidly. As for the Ebola patients, government officials did not bring them back to America, as Infowars said. While the State Department facilitated the paperwork for the medical evacuations, these people arrived in a private chartered jet paid for by the religious charities they worked for, Serving in Mission and Samaritan’s Purse. At a news conference, Bruce Johnson, the president of Serving in Mission USA, said his group has spent about $1 million on the two patients since their illness was discovered. Second, and more important for this fact-check, is what the executive order says. It's much more targeted than the article describes, it isn’t aimed at Ebola, and while it allows health officials to quarantine someone with a highly contagious disease, it does not mandate it. On July 31, Obama modified a 2003 executive order from President George W. Bush. The original listed the communicable diseases for which the Department of Health and Human Services was authorized to issue an isolation or quarantine order. Bush specifically mentioned Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), a disease associated with ""fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness."" Obama updated the particular reference to SARS to include a broader array of possible respiratory illnesses. The new text reads as follows: ""Severe acute respiratory syndromes, which are diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness, are capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled. This subsection does not apply to influenza."" To be clear, the update has nothing to do with Ebola or the current outbreak. Ebola is not a respiratory disease (the most prominent signs are diarrhea and vomiting) and the original 2003 executive order already listed Ebola. The White House press office told PunditFact that the change was aimed at Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), an illness with symptoms that do match the updated executive order. More critically for our examination, the updated order does not ""mandate"" the apprehension and detention of people who show signs of respiratory illness. Wendy Parmet, a law professor at Northeastern University School of Law, is one of three legal scholars who prepared a report for the American Civil Liberties Union that warned about overreach by the government in responding to pandemics. While Parmet said the new text is very broad, it has clear limits. ""It only applies to those with symptoms of a disease that have caused or have the potential to cause a pandemic, or have the potential of causing mortality or serious morbidity,"" Parmet said. ""I wouldn’t think the typical cold would apply."" In fact, the order specifically excludes the flu. What happens if you do have Ebola, or MERS, or one of the other afflictions specified in the executive order? Title 42 United States Code Section 264 gives the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to isolate an infected person. The department must determine that a person presents a risk to public health. Its authority is limited to people as they enter the country or attempt to travel from one one state to another. In other scenarios, the power to isolate or quarantine individuals rests with the states, Parmet said. Our ruling Infowars.com said Obama’s latest executive order ""mandates the apprehension and detention of Americans who merely show signs of ‘respiratory illness.’"" That’s a fundamental misreading of the executive order Obama signed and the power the federal government has. The updates Obama made to a 2003 executive order do not mandate the apprehension and detention of people who show signs of ""respiratory illness,"" has nothing to do with the current Ebola crisis and only affect people entering the country or crossing state lines."
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28618
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President Trump opened National Parks and wildlife refugees to coal mining.
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What's true: President Trump signed an executive order in March 2017 that lifted a moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal mining. What's false: The overturned moratorium was temporary, and federal lands were still being used for coal mining in the meanwhile.
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mixture
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Politics Environment, donald trump, executive orders
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In March 2017, multiple web sites published articles under headlines, such as “Trump Opens National Parks and Wildlife Refuges for Coal Mining,” which were true in a literal sense, but didn’t convey that public lands had not been fully and permanently closed to such activity in the first place. On 28 March 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Presidential Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth” that overturned several environmental regulations implemented during the Obama administration, such as a temporary (three-year) moratorium on the leasing of federal lands for coal mining: Federal Land Coal Leasing Moratorium. The Secretary of the Interior shall take all steps necessary and appropriate to amend or withdraw Secretary’s Order 3338 dated January 15, 2016 (Discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to Modernize the Federal Coal Program), and to lift any and all moratoria on Federal land coal leasing activities related to Order 3338. The Secretary shall commence Federal coal leasing activities consistent with all applicable laws and regulations. The Obama administration placed a three-year moratorium on the leasing of federal lands for coal mining in January 2016 in order to review how domestic coal production aligned with the United State’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This moratorium did not, however, completely halt coal production on public lands — Secretary’s Order 3338 temporarily stopped new coal mining efforts from starting up on public lands but but allowed existing coal mining projects to continue in operation: The Obama administration will halt new coal mining on public land for the next three years with immediate effect as it undertakes a review of the “environmental and public health impacts” of coal production. The wide-ranging review, applauded by climate and environmental groups, will assess how federal coal production fits in with the US’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. It will also ensure “American taxpayers are earning a fair return for the use of their public resources” — raising the possibility of a hike in royalties or a new levy on coal producers. About 40% of US coal is mined on public land. Barack Obama flagged new restrictions on coal exploitation in his State of the Union address, saying: “I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.” The department of interior, which oversees leases on public land, stressed that coal would continue to be an important part of the US’s energy mix and that current operations would not be affected by the freeze in new leases. It is estimated there is around 20 years-worth of coal production already under way, with 50 pending leases set to be affected by the decision. “The federal coal program is in needs of modernization, as we haven’t down a top-down review for the past 30 years,” said Sally Jewell, secretary of the department of interior. “The lease program was designed to get as much coal out of the ground as possible. It’s time to take a careful look to see if it best serves the needs and priorities of today.” Although President Trump’s executive order lifted this moratorium a few years earlier then originally intended, it did not “open” public lands to coal mining, as such activity had already taken place and was still underway. The order did, however, allow for federal lands to be leased to coal companies for new mining operations that were precluded while the moratorium was in effect: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has ended the federal government’s Obama-era moratorium on coal-mining leases on federal land. Zinke signed an order repealing the pause in leases in his Washington, D.C., office, surrounded by Republican lawmakers, lobbyists and staffers. The action implements parts of an executive order that President Trump signed — focused on repealing environmental policies and restrictions on energy production — under the goal of increasing energy independence. That means the Bureau of Land Management can now resume the process of allowing new coal-mining leases on its land. So yes, President Trump signed an executive order that allowed for the issuance of new coal mining leases for federal lands. But existing coal mining operations on federal lands were still ongoing, and the moratorium that precluded the issuance of new coal mining leases was due to expire in 2019.
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10921
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Trigger happy? A new spray aims to delay amorous men
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"The Wall Street Journal story raised questions about the validity of estimates that 20-30% of men had premature ejaculation. The MSNBC story, on the other hand, took that estimate at face value (the higher end of the range, in fact) and called it ""a real problem."" Then it termed the study results ""a big improvement."" We far preferred the added balanced info given readers of the WSJ story. There’s been a lot of advertising disease-mongering of erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation (or, as marketing people try to drum the labels into us: ED and PE). As a drug company prepares to make its case to the FDA to get marketing approval, journalists should apply a bit more balance and scrutiny of the evidence than was seen in this blog entry."
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false
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"No discussion of cost. If this was based on info given at a company briefing, you had the folks right there who could have answered this. What are they projecting? Too simplistic. It just lumped the findings into one statement: ""…the men extended that time to a mean of 3.3 minutes."" The story frames this as ""a big improvement"" without any input from the volunteers or their partners about whether it actually was. Not one discussion of even one potential harm. The Wall Street Journal story, by comparison, at least mentioned the side effects found in the studies. But neither story answered these questions: Are there long term effects from lidocaine exposure that have been found in other studies? Does the body build up resistance to lidocaine? This isn’t a short term problem that can be solved with a few weeks of therapy. It is usually a life long problem, and these stories should have been framed that way both in discussing the benefits and the harms. No evaluation of the quality of the evidence. No questions raised about study design and the combination of two studies of unknown quality. Which tells you more? The MSNBC story that says ""up to an estimated 30 percent of men"" have premature ejaculation. Or a Wall Street Journal story that says: ""Surveys have suggested that as many as 20% to 30% of men may suffer from premature ejaculation, though these figures are often drawn from broadly worded survey questions and may overstate the number of men with significant problems."" We think the former falls short. The story quoted one urologist who attended the drug company’s briefing on the drug. The story says that ""Men have tried everything from rubber bands, to masturbation endurance training (yes, really), to taking anti-depressants (because those drugs have a usually unwanted side effect of delayed ejaculation) to prolong their “latency.” "" But that’s the only discussion of alternatives we’re given. We’re not given the context the Wall Street Journal gave us when it reported: While a savvy consumer could surmise that the drop is not ready for prime time given its ""PSD502"" name, the story never clearly stated that it is not FDA approved and not even in the pipeline for marketing approval yet. The story explains that the concept is not new – that the experimental drug is a combination of two common topical painkillers. Not applicable. It’s unclear to what extent the story was influenced by a news release."
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40331
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There are several versions of this eRumor but all of them say that commonly sold cocoa mulch contains theobromine which can be lethal to cats and dogs. One version tells the story of a pet owner who lost a dog because of cocoa mulch.
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Cocoa Mulch Contains an Ingredient Harmful to Pets
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true
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Animals, Warnings
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It’s fairly well known that some animals should not eat chocolate and according to the experts we checked with that warning applies to cocoa mulch as well, although the number of reported animal deaths is very low. The villain is theobromine, a chemical that is similar to caffeine. It can give a boost to humans but dogs and cats cannot always metabolize it successfully and it can be lethal to them. That is especially true of the shells of the cacao beans, which are ground up and used in cocoa mulch, and contain even higher levels of theobromine than the bean. Most packaging of cocoa mulch makes it clear that it’s not for human or animal consumption. It also appears that all cocoa mulch is not the same. One manufacturer we checked with, the maker of Mirana cocoa mulch, said that their mulch is the result of a series of processing steps and that the level of theobromine in their mulch is barely detectable. We did find at least one documented case reported in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA).. The report says that a dog that had ingested cocoa mulch developed convulsions and died 17-hours later. An analysis of the stomach showed ingested cacao bean shells and lethal levels of theobromine. The AVMA has issued a release because of this new eRumor about cocoa mulch. It says that according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), there have not been any reports in 2006 of animals dying from cocoa mulch ingestion. In the years spanning 2004 and 2005 there were 16 cases of cocoa mulch ingestion reported, none of which resulted in death. The ASPCA says that the account of the death of the dog named Calypso that is in the eRumor is “suspect.” The symptoms are not completely consistent with death from cocoa bean ingestion. The ASPCA says that although vomiting is a common result, the dog is described as having had a single seizure the next day during a walk and then dying suddenly, which is not what would be expected. Updated 5/25/06 Comments
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10340
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A Guiding Hand: Robots are showing up in ever more surgical suites.
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The article describes a newer surgical technique for prostate cancer that involves using robotic devices controlled by a surgeon. Unfortunately, this is just another article on how to “slice and dice” the prostate when it’s not even clear that surgery is needed for early prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is often slow-growing and many men may not ever need treatment. What’s more, it’s not clear that one treatment option is superior to another. The article also overstates what is currently known about robotic radical prostatectomy; a meta-analysis reported that it was too early to tell whether the technique actually improved outcomes, yet the article uses one study to make claims of benefit without telling readers anything about the strength of that study. The article also becomes unbalanced by focusing on one man’s particulary rosy experience with the new technology, even if experts quoted point out that there isn’t evidence that this new technology is superior. The story story also failed to discuss side effects or harms of the new technique and didn’t mention other treatment options besides various surgical approaches and seed implantation.
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mixture
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The article’s main focus is about robotic surgery for prostate cancer, although other applications are mentioned. Comparitive costs are given for a robotic radical prostatectomy, laparoscopic prostatectomy, and open prostatectomy. The article does not quantify benefits. It reports puported benefits (less blood loss, avoid damaging nerves during surgery) but there isn’t much evidence to support these claims. There are no harms of treatments mentioned. The article mentions in a general way that “impotence and incontinence are common following surgery to remove the prostate…” Yet presenting one person’s very rosy experience with the new technology–…”had no difficulty with either incontinence or impotence”–seems unbalancing. The article mentions a study published in the British Journal of Urology in 2003, but it fails to state the nature of the study. Readers don’t know whether the article’s conclusions are based on a randomized, controlled trial–the gold standard–or some other, weaker evidence. What’s more, this is only one study. A meta-analyses published in 2004 (Humphreys) found no compelling evidence for claims that robotic prostatectomies resulted in improved outcomes. Since the focus is on prostate cancer, more information about the natural history of prostate cancer, particularly early prostate cancer should be given. Importantly, there is no mention that early prostate cancer may not even need to be treated and that a man may survive just as long with or without treatment, which would make the distinction between which way to “slice and dice” the prostate less important. Unfortunately, researchers can’t predict which prostate cancers will eventually harm a man or even whether treatment for early prostate cancer is beneficial. The article appropriately obtains various expert opinions about the claims of superiority of this surgical approach. Some experts appropriately point out that there is no evidence that this is superior to other approaches. While the article does mention cryo, seeds, and other forms of surgery for prostate cancer, the article doesn’t mention other treatments, which could include active monitoring or radiation. Viewers are left with the impression that surgery is needed and is really the only option for treating prostate cancer. The article states the robotic tool is available at selected hospitals throughout the country and that availability is expected to increase. The article appropriately describes the emergence and history of this treatment–it is not new, but is becoming more popular. No obvious elements of a press release.
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28158
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Department of Health and Human Services appointee Charmaine Yoest repeated the false claim abortion causes breast cancer.
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What's true: Charmaine Yoest said in a 2012 New York Times profile that she believed abortion led to breast cancer, at a time when the belief had been long disproved by myriad studies. What's undetermined: Whether Yoest maintained that belief in 2017.
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true
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Politics Quotes, abortion, breast cancer, charmaine yoest
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On 28 April 2017 President Donald Trump named Charmaine Yoest, former head of an anti-abortion group, as assistant secretary of public affairs for the United States Department of Health and Human Services. On 1 May 2017, claims appeared that Yoest’s position on abortion encompass the discredited belief that terminating pregnancies cause breast cancer: …the White House announced a new round of appointees, among them Charmaine Yoest, who nabbed a job as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, Public Affairs. The position involves imparting health information and policy to the country at large, which is a problem given that Yoest seems to have a grasp on medical science that’s slippery at best … To start with, there’s her troubling belief that abortion raises the odds of breast cancer (Yoest is a breast cancer survivor herself). Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion group where Yoest served as CEO from 2008 to 2016, trumpets this widely debunked view on their site, and in 2012, a New York Times writer interviewing Yoest was baffled that she insisted on such a falsehood… Rumors about Yoest’s position circulated on Twitter and Facebook in the wake of her appointment. The article cited a November 2012 New York Times profile in which Yoest erroneously asserted that abortion was a known cause of breast cancer: Yoest says that her ideas about abortion are driven by science. “I can speak as someone who spent 10 years getting a Ph.D. at one of the top universities in the country, working with the data to get it to pass muster,” she told me the first time we met … I was surprised, then, when the next thing she said was that abortion increases a woman’s risk of breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have rejected that claim, citing, among other research, a 2004 analysis of 53 studies involving 83,000 women that found no link between abortion and a higher rate of cancer. Yet Yoest was insistent. Since that 2012 interview, Yoest has not made that claim again that we could find. She testified at the confirmation hearings of Supreme Justices Elena Kagan and Sandra Sotomayor, and did not repeat the assertion in her testimony at either hearing. Although it is impossible to know for certain what Yoest truly believes about the alleged link between abortions and breast cancer, up until February 2016, Yoest was president and chief executive officer of Americans United for Life, a pro-life law and policy organization whose web site includes the claim: Studies reveal that the long-term physical and psychological consequences of abortion include an increased risk of: As the New York Times noted in 2012, the American Congress of Gynecologists and Obstetricians (ACOG) found in 2009 that rigorous studies demonstrated “no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk.” As early as 2003, the National Cancer Institute said: …existing population-based, clinical, and animal studies on the relationship between pregnancy and breast cancer risk [indicated] that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer. The American Cancer Society maintains that rigorous and exceptionally broad data gleaned in Europe in the 1990s determines that after adjusting for known breast cancer risk factors, “the researchers found that induced abortion(s) had no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer.” We reached out to Yoest for comment, but have not yet received a reply.
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11600
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Stool test good for catching colon cancer: study
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Maybe somebody is paying attention to our criteria checklist. As you read this story, one by one, they are addressed (except for one). It is important to remind consumers that there is good evidence for what stool tests – especially the newer versions – can accomplish. From a public health perspective – looking at population-wide benefits – they make a great deal of sense because you can reach large numbers of people at low cost. Oftentimes, colonoscopy dominates the discussion about colon cancer screening, when, in fact, there are many reasons to shine more of the attention on the stool test.
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true
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Cancer,Reuters Health
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Costs of FOBT and of colonoscopy were included. Sensitivity and specifity of the test were explained very well. Unlike many stories on screening tests, this one included information on false positive findings and the need for further testing. Story was careful to include the fact that in the study 10% of all participants had a false-positive finding on the stool test. Thorough analysis of how the study was done, including easy to understand discussion of sensitivity and specificity. No disease mongering. Appropriate lifetime risk stats were cited. We wish the story had included an interview with a US screening expert or a member of the US Preventive Services Task Force. Good comparisons between the newer FOBT test, the older stool test, and colonoscopy. The story explains that immunochemical FOBT is now largely replacing the older blood stool test. The growing popularity of the FOBT test…and that this study addresses the fact that “there’s been surprisingly little evidence that it really is highly specific to colon cancer were established in the story. The story did not rely solely on a news release.
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32245
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"Hillary Clinton cancelled a campaign event because of ""bizarre eye movements."
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We found no evidence that Clinton suddenly cancelled her North Carolina campaign event over strange eye movements, nor did we find any evidence of anything wrong with her eyes in September 2016. While Clinton suffered a concussion in 2012, there is no evidence that she has been diagnosed with strabismus or any long-term eye anomaly as a result of it. Even if she did have strabismus, presence of the condition does not automatically imply poor health overall.
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false
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Junk News, 2016 election, election 2016, health
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On 20 September 2016, a YouTube user uploaded a video comparing the eye movements of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with those of a lizard, claiming that she “began to exhibit bizarre eye movement and strabismus (crossed eyes) during her speech in Philadelphia yesterday before unexpectedly canceling today’s scheduled events”: Clinton (who is not a lizard person) did cancel a lunch fundraiser in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on 20 September 2016, with the stated reason for the cancellation being a “change in the campaign schedule,” according to Raleigh television station WRAL. The caption on the video claimed it was taken from a speech Clinton delivered on 19 September 2016 in Philadelphia. Although that video is zoomed in close on Hillary Clinton’s face, the full video of her speech reveals nothing particularly strange or alarming about her eye movements: Speculation about Clinton’s health has raged since at least 2014, when Republican strategist Karl Rove noticed she was wearing special eyeglass lenses and claimed she had a “traumatic brain injury.” The Washington Post confirmed Clinton wore a lens overlay called a Fresnel prism after suffering a concussion to treat double vision, but her condition was temporary. According to Internet theorists, Clinton may also have a condition known as strabismus, in which both eyes don’t always work together. Strabismus affects around 4 percent of the population and can be caused by heredity or uncorrected farsightedness, and people who have suffered head injuries or strokes are at higher risk for developing it. The condition can become more obvious to observers when a person is “tired, ill, or has done a lot of reading or close work,” according to optometrists.
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28006
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A wealthy Toronto lawyer bequeathed his estate to whichever woman gave birth to the most babies in the ten-year period following his death.
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When Charlie Millar raced up a set of stairs that October afternoon and keeled over a few minutes later from a fatal heart attack, he had no idea that one of his many blue sky investments was going to substantially enrich his estate years after his death. He likewise had no notion that the affluent 1920s would soon yield to the Dirty Thirties, a time when every dime mattered, when families would go hungry, and hope would be at a premium. With those two factors unknown to him, not even the author of the comedy had an inkling of just how “uncommon and capricious” his final jape would ultimately turn out to be.
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true
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Legal Affairs, pregnancy legends
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Charles Vance Millar was a prominent lawyer who practiced in Toronto from 1881 until his death in 1926. He went to his grave a bachelor, and due to some interesting investments (Charlie liked the longshots), this irascible 73-year-old left a considerable estate. Millar was both a student of human nature and possessed of a perverse sense of fun. His best jokes turned on others’ greed and love of money, and his pet theory was that every man had his price; the trick was to figure out what it was. (One of his favorite pranks was to leave $1 bills on the sidewalk, then watch the expressions of passersby as they furtively pocketed them.) His last will and testament exemplified his unusual sense of humor and put to the test his notions about every man having his price. Given Millar’s obvious familiarity with the law, he had to have known what the execution of his will would do to the judicial system he’d long been part of; indeed, that was probably the motivation behind his wacky stipulations. Millar’s death afforded him one last chance to tweak the beard of the legal system, and he took it. The will itself was a marvel of playfulness. As Millar himself noted: This Will is necessarily uncommon and capricious because I have no dependents or near relations and no duty rests upon me to leave any property at my death and what I do leave is proof of my folly in gathering and retaining more than I required in my lifetime. The Millar will is now primarily remembered as the instrument that sparked The Great Stork Derby of the 1930s in Canada, but it also contained several other oddball bequests worthy of mention: Though these smaller bequests kept Toronto entertained for weeks (thoughts of clergymen scrambling after jockey club shares worth half a penny convulsed the populace as did the mental picture of three bickering lawyers battling it out in Jamaica), it was the infamous Clause 9 that earned Millar his place in history. Simply put, he directed the residue of his estate be given to the Toronto mother who gave birth to the most children in the ten years immediately following his death: All the rest and residue of my property wheresoever situate I give, devise and bequeath unto my Executors and Trustees named below in Trust to convert into money as they deem advisable and invest all the money until the expiration of nine years from my death and then call in and convert it all into money and at the expiration of ten years from my death to give it and its accumulations to the Mother who has since my death given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children as shown by the Registrations under the Vital Statistics Act. If one or more mothers have equal highest number of registrations under the said Act to divide the said moneys and accumulations equally between them. And what a ten years it was! In addition to all the babies being born and the media excitement over same, two external events took place that elevated this unusual bequest into the realm of legend: the building of a tunnel from Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit, Michigan, and the onset of the Great Depression. Following hard on the heels of the easy money of the 1920s, the Depression hit struggling families doubly hard. Jobs were difficult to find and didn’t pay much even if ultimately secured. Small families headed by one wage earner were fighting to get by. (A significant number of families lacked even that one income. In 1933, between a quarter and a third of all working-age Canadians were unemployed.) A bequest that had been little more than a curiosity during the halcyon days of the 1920s became the only beacon of hope for a brighter future to a few lucky families. In those dark, grim days, even those families not part of the baby race themselves cheered on those who were. For those few years, there was a way out; there was a Fairy Godmother to believe in. That Fairy Godmother’s magic dust turned out to be the dirt under the Detroit River. Valued at a nominal $2 (total) at the time of Millar’s death, his 100,000 shares in the Windsor/Detroit tunnel project turned a $100,000 estate into one worth $750,000 by the time the race hit the home stretch. The minimum wage back then was $12.50 for a 60-hour week, and many were lucky to be getting even that. Even a small share of the Millar fortune would change lives. The media tracked the event with growing interest, and the mothers in the race became household names. It should be stressed that it doesn’t appear any of the women got in the family way by trying for the prize. Likely as not, these same women would have had just as many young ones even if there’d never been a Stork Derby. A look at the family stats of the 1933 front runners bears this out: the five women leading the pack had 56 kids between them, but only 32 of the children were eligible to be counted under the terms of the Millar will. But before the babies could be counted up and the money distributed, certain legal determinations had to be made. Was Clause 9 legal? If not, who would claim the residue of the estate? Did the Stork Derby contribute to public immorality? What constituted “Toronto”? Should stillborn children count towards the total? What about children whose births weren’t registered in the manner Charlie Millar had specified? Indeed, what about illegitimate children? The court wrangled with these questions for years after the mothers crossed the finish line in 1936. Millar’s distant relatives made a few runs at invalidating the will and claiming the jackpot as well, and the whole shebang danced itself through the Supreme Court of Canada before being resolved. The race ended in a tie when four women demonstrated nine properly registered live births apiece during the specified ten-year period. They were: Annie Katherine Smith, Kathleen Ellen Nagle, Lucy Alice Timleck and Isabel Mary Maclean. Each of them received $125,000. Two other mothers who had given birth at least ten times during the specified period were given a settlement of $12,500 each: Lillian Kenny and Pauline Mae Clarke. Keeping Mrs. Kenny away from sharing in the jackpot was the misfortune that two of her children were stillborn. (Millar’s will was interpreted to refer to “live children” only.) In Mrs. Clarke’s case the disqualifying factor was the obvious illegitimacy of several of her offspring. (Although Mrs. Clarke was still married to her original husband, she was living with and had borne several children by another man. The law of the time stipulated that references in wills to children meant legitimate children only unless otherwise noted.) The $25,000 shared by these two women was considered a small price to pay to get out of yet another round of appeals. The four triumphant families — the Smiths, Nagles, Timlecks, and Macleans — went on to spend their winnings in a consistently sensible manner. Homes and automobiles were bought, and children’s educations were provided for. The Macleans even managed to drop entirely from view, protecting the family from the overblown media interest that had sprung up around the winners. So why did Charlie Millar do it? His will’s “necessarily uncommon and capricious” statement likely contains the answer. As he said, he had no one to leave the money to. Moreover, he had no obligation to leave anything, so what he chose to do with his property was his business. One stroke of the pen ensured that his name would live on long after most of his contemporaries’ were forgotten. That same pen stroke also transformed him from a childless bachelor into the father of 36 kids, each of them growing up with loving thoughts of him.
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29001
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Expired boxes of cake and pancake mix are dangerously toxic.
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"What's true: Pancake and cake mixes that contain mold can cause life-threatening allergic reactions. What's false: Pancake and cake mixes that have passed their expiration dates are not inherently dangerous to ordinarily healthy people, and the yeast in packaged baking products does not ""over time develops spores."""
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mixture
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Food, allergies, baking, cake
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In April 2006, the experience of a 14-year-old who had eaten pancakes made from a mix that had gone moldy was described in the popular newspaper column Dear Abby. The account has since been circulated widely on the Internet as scores of concerned homemakers ponder the safety of the pancake and other baking mixes lurking in their larders: DEAR ABBY: I recently made a batch of pancakes for my healthy 14-year-old son, using a mix that was in our pantry. He said that they tasted “funny,” but ate them anyway. About 10 minutes later, he began having difficulty breathing and his lips began turning purple. I gave him his allergy pill, had him sit on the sofa and told him to relax. He was wheezing while inhaling and exhaling. My husband, a volunteer firefighter and EMT, heated up some water, and we had my son lean over the water so the steam could clear his chest and sinuses. Soon, his breathing became more regular and his lips returned to a more normal color. We checked the date on the box of pancake mix and, to my dismay, found it was very outdated. As a reference librarian at an academic institution, I have the ability to search through many research databases. I did just that, and found an article the next day that mentioned a 19-year-old male DYING after eating pancakes made with outdated mix. Apparently, the mold that forms in old pancake mix can be toxic! When we told our friends about my son’s close call, we were surprised at the number of people who mentioned that they should check their own pancake mix since they don’t use it often, or they had purchased it some time ago. With so many people shopping at warehouse-type stores and buying large sizes of pancake mix, I hope your readers will take the time to check the expiration date on their boxes. — SUE IN WYANTSKILL, N.Y. DEAR SUE: Thank you for the warning. I certainly was not aware that pancake mix could turn moldy and cause an allergic reaction in someone with an allergy to mold — but it’s logical. I wonder if the same holds true for cake mix, brownie mix and cookie mix. If so, then a warning should be placed on the box for people like me. We hear so often about discarding prescription and over-the-counter medications after their expiration dates, but I don’t recall warnings about packaged items in the pantry. Heads up, folks! With so many people scratching the bottom of the pocket and of course the pantry shelves…. be aware of the warning given below! I always thought that “old” mixes that were past their expiration date would just not rise/bake correctly. This is scary! Somebody wrote: Before my surgery I bought quite a few Duncan Hines cakes mixes that were on sale. A couple of months ago I decide to use one, I checked the expiration date and found it past, all the boxes were passed the expiration date. I phoned Duncan Hinds to ask if the one that was only two months passed if it was OK. She told me in no uncertain words to throw them all out, she even said to open the boxes and throw the mix in the garbage, just in case someone picked it up and used it. Cake Mixes & Toxins- **PLEASE READ** Pass this on to ALL in your address book. You never know whose life you may save by doing so. For those of you at work, PLEASE remember to check your cupboards when you get home tonight!!! A student at HBHS (high school) had pancakes this week and it almost became fatal. His Mom (registered nurse) made him pancakes, dropped him off at school and headed to play tennis. She never takes her cell phone on the court but did this time and her son called to say he was having trouble breathing. She told him to go to the nurse immediately and proceeded to call school and alert the nurse. The nurse called the paramedics and they were there in 3 minutes and worked on the boy all the way to the hospital. He came so close to dying. Evidently this is more common then I ever knew. Check the expiration dates on packages like pancakes and cake mixes that have yeast which over time develop spores. Apparently, the mold that forms in old mixes can be toxic! Throw away ALL OUTDATED pancake mix, brownie mixes, Bisquick, cake & cookie mixes, etc., you have in your home. P.S. Tell this to your children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and anyone else who keeps these types of mixes in the cupboard. P.P.S. This warning especially applies to any person(s) with mold allergies. There is truth in this tale, yet its inherent warning is overblown. In a nutshell, staledated pancake and other baking mixes pose no danger to you unless: How old the mix is has no bearing on its safety — a mix that is well within its freshness date yet has come to contain mold spores could prove fatal to someone with a mold allergy, while one that is a year or two beyond its “Best use by” date but did not contain mold spores would be perfectly safe. While we cannot vet the incident described by “Sue in Wyantskill” involving her 14-year-old son, the underlying claim is demonstrably true — it is possible for someone who chows down on pancakes made from a mix that has sat around too long to suffer a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction to the molds that have grown therein. We know this to be so because it has happened before, and the resultant death was documented. In 2001, two pathologists practicing in Charleston, South Carolina, reported on an unnamed 19-year-old who died in such a manner. While home on vacation from college, the victim, a young man with a history of allergies (including mold), polished off two pancakes made from a packaged mix that had sat open in a kitchen cabinet for about two years — even though his two friends stopped eating their portions, complaining that the griddlecakes tasted like rubbing alcohol. Very quickly thereafter, while watching television, the ill-fated collegian experienced shortness of breath that was not relieved by his inhaler. He asked his friends to take him to a clinic not far from the home, and he was reported to have turned a bit blue from lack of oxygen (i.e., became cyanotic) during the ride. While he did manage to walk into the clinic on his own, once inside he suddenly collapsed in cardiopulmonary arrest. He failed to respond to resuscitative efforts and was pronounced dead. The cause of his death was determined to be anaphylaxis due to an allergic reaction to molds. Anaphylaxis is a rapidly developing immunologic reaction that occurs when those who have allergies come in contact with the substances they are allergic to. When it kills, it does so by triggering fatal respiratory or cardiac arrest. The pancake mix that delivered a toxic payload was analyzed and found to contain four rather nasty molds: Penicillium, Fusarium, Mucor, and Aspergillus. The decedent had not been allergic to eggs (which are a component of pancakes), so there was no doubt as to which allergy had killed him. It had been mold, and nothing but. There was a death, and it had been due to ancient pancake mix. Or, rather, to an allergic reaction to the mold that had grown in the stale pancake mix. It needs be kept in mind there is nothing inherently toxic about pancake mix that has passed its freshness date; the product’s aging does not transform it into a poison, nor does the growth of mold within opened boxes of flapjack powder turn it into something that will fell all who ingest it. Only those who have allergies to mold are at risk, and even then, for the pancake mix to pose a hazard it has to contain mold spores, not just be over the hill. In October 2008 the pancake mix warning was expanded to include cake, biscuit, and brownie mixes. I am sure this would apply to all pkg. baking goods and cereals. A student at HBHS (high school) had pancakes this week and it almost became fatal. His Mom (registered nurse) made him pancakes, dropped him off at school and headed to play tennis. She never takes her cell phone on the court but did this time and her son called to say he was having trouble breathing. She told him to go to the nurse immediately and proceeded to call school and alert the nurse. The nurse called the paramedics and they were there in 3 minutes and worked on the boy all the way to the hospital. He came so close to dying. Evidently this is more common then I ever knew. Check the expiration dates on packages like pancakes and cake mixes that have yeast which over time develop spores. Apparently, the mold that forms in old mixes can be toxic! Throw away ALL OUTDATED pancake mix, Bisquick, brownie mixes etc you have in your home. P.S. You might want to tell this to your children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces and anyone else who keeps these types of mixes in the cupboard. Unlike what the e-mailed caution would have folks believe, there is nothing magical about yeast which causes it to “over time develop spores.” For mold to gain access to a food product, the foodstuff has to be exposed to its spores. Pancake mix cocooned in an unbleached wax paper, plastic, or a foil pouch within its outer packaging wouldn’t have this contact and should still be safe no matter how old it gets. However, mix sold unpouched in cardboard boxes or paper sacks would likely be at risk even if the box or sack hadn’t previously been opened, because such packaging would not necessarily keep dampness out, and mold thrives in damp environments. What does all this mean? If you don’t have a mold allergy, you needn’t fear your pancake mix; if you do have such a sensitivity, you shouldn’t keep your flapjack makings around for a few years after opening the box or pouch it came in. It’s not worth dying over 50¢ worth of pancake mix, so when in doubt, throw it out.
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4511
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NH adult positive for mosquito-borne Jamestown Canyon virus.
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New Hampshire’s Department of Health and Human Services says an adult from Laconia has tested positive for a mosquito-borne virus.
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true
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Health, Canyons, General News, Laconia, New Hampshire
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The department said Wednesday the adult tested positive for the Jamestown Canyon virus, transmitted by infected mosquitoes. It’s the second time a case has been identified in the state this year; it was identified in a Kingston resident in August. Reports of Jamestown Canyon virus in humans are rare, but have increased over the last several years. This is New Hampshire’s eighth case since the state’s first report of the disease in 2013. The department says most illnesses caused by the virus have been mild, but moderate-to-severe central nervous system involvement has been reported, including fatal infections.
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1118
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In New York, confusion reigns in the emerging CBD edibles business.
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New York state officials told food growers and processors in mid-December that they had the state’s blessing to produce and sell tea and chocolates laced with CBD, the cannabis derivative reputed to ease anxiety and other ills without marijuana’s high.
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true
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Health News
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But since then, New York City health inspectors have seized thousands of dollars worth of CBD-infused food and drinks at the Fat Cat Kitchen and other local cafes and restaurants, and warned owners to stop selling them or face penalties. The crackdown came just weeks after federal law explicitly made CBD legal across the country. The New York City crackdown highlights the inconsistencies that have emerged in federal, state and local rules governing CBD, bewildering the small but growing number of businesses selling edibles in New York and other states. “I’m trying to be compliant with the law, but no one seems to be fully aware of what the law is and isn’t,” said C.J. Holm, the owner of the Fat Cat Kitchen, which touts CBD coffee and cookies on a sidewalk chalkboard. Consumer interest in CBD tinctures, topical creams and edibles has grown in recent years in step with the piecemeal legalization of marijuana, which is now permitted as either a medical or recreational drug in 33 states while still banned by the federal government. In 2018, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $300 million on CBD food and drinks, according to a report by Cowen Washington Research Group. The Coca-Cola Company and other food giants have expressed interest in the sector. The 2018 Farm Bill, enacted in December, was intended in part to clear up the legal status of CBD by legalizing cannabis extracts derived from strains of the plant, known as hemp, that contain very low concentrations of THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana. But the law also created new confusion for businesses wanting to sell CBD food or drink. For some, it is impossible to follow one set of regulations without being in breach of another. In New York, for example, officials at the state Department of Agriculture issued guidance in December saying it was legal to sell “CBD tea,” “chocolates with CBD drizzle” and other CBD edibles, so long as the products are made and marketed as dietary supplements, which are governed by more stringent standards than ordinary food. But the department also warns that doing this will run afoul of rules issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which said it was unlawful to add CBD to food or to market it as a dietary supplement. That is because the agency, for the first time last year, had approved a drug that contained CBD as the active ingredient. New York City health inspectors have taken the FDA rule seriously. At the Fat Cat Kitchen, Holm was startled when a health inspector impounded her CBD powder, honey, snacks and raw cookie dough in February. Similar scenes played out at four other eateries in the city. Soon afterward, Holm and other restaurateurs received a letter from the department saying inspectors would resume the seizures after July 1. It is unclear whether the city’s Health Department will allow cafes and restaurants to sell CBD edibles even as a dietary supplement, despite New York state officials saying such products are legal. When asked, Michael Lanza, a Health Department spokesman, repeated the department’s position that it is following the FDA ban on CBD food and drink in any form. An FDA spokesman declined to comment on New York’s regulations. Colorado, Maine and other states have attempted to clarify the status of CBD-laced edibles by passing laws allowing the addition of CBD to food. The FDA has said it may make an exception for CBD, allowing it as a food additive or dietary supplement even though it is now a listed drug. It will hold a public forum on the issue in Maryland on May 31. With the conflicting rules and at best haphazard enforcement, Holm and other CBD vendors say they are pressing ahead, devising their own strategies that they feel are at least a gesture toward compliance. Igor Yakovlev, who stirs CBD into honey on New York’s Staten Island, prints a disclaimer on each Beezy Beez Honey jar stating that the FDA has not “evaluated or approved” his product. Holm, in consultation with a lawyer, noted that the FDA bans CBD being added to food for “interstate commerce,” and reasons she is fine to sell CBD coffee so long as the extract is produced and processed in New York. “It is so confusing because you can ask three different attorneys and get three different answers,” said Allan Gandelman, a farmer in Cortland who founded the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association earlier this year. “So you decide you’re going to blaze a path forward, and produce a product that customers really want, and go for it until the government gets its act together.”
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36825
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Bill Clinton was expelled from Oxford in 1969 after he was accused of raping a woman named Eileen Wellstone.
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Bill Clinton Was Expelled from Oxford for Rape-Unproven
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unproven
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Politics
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President Bill Clinton didn’t finish his degree program at Oxford, but there’s no proof that he was expelled or asked to leave the school because of rape allegations. And it’s true that a woman named Eileen Wellstone came forward in 1999 with allegations that Clinton sexually assaulted her after the two met in a pub, but there’s no way for us to say at this point whether those accusations are true or false. The earliest account we found was a Free Republic article from 2002 that recounted an investigation led by a man named Doug Thompson working for now-defunct publication called Capitol Hill Blues: According to Thompson’s research, the reason that Clinton did not finish his studies at Oxford was that he was removed from the school and the country. The reason was his sexual assault on Eileen Wellstone whom he had met in a pub. Thompson claims to have verified the information from a State Department employee who had known the circumstances in the case. The report called for fellow classmates or instructors who knew Clinton at Oxford to come forward with information. We actually found accounts from classmates who knew Clinton at Oxford, and they don’t appear to jive with the picture of Clinton painted in the article (more on that later). More recently, accusations that Clinton was expelled from Oxford for rape resurfaced during the 2016 presidential election as Donald Trump faced rape allegations of his own from 11 women. Roger Stone, a longtime Clinton opposition researcher and Trump supporter, brought the Oxford allegations against Clinton back into the spotlight with social media posts like this one: As it turns out, Clinton’s time at Oxford was an issue in the 1992 presidential campaign, too. President George H.W. Bush argued on the campaign trail that Clinton’s time abroad had tainted his worldview and had left him disconnected with the American people. That led to the U.K.’s Independent to reach out to Clinton’s former classmates and instructors about how Clinton’s spent his time there “beside smoking dope.” The article reports hat Clinton was accepted to Oxford on a two-year Rhodes scholarship in 1968 after graduating from Georgetown. Clinton’s classmates described him as “a softie” and passionate objector to the Vietnam War, and the draft in particular: Clinton never completed his degree. In part this was due to his worry about the draft. According to one contemporary, he thought his first year would be his last and so there was little point in doing the work for a two-year degree; in his second year it was too late to start. This was not seen to matter. Many American Rhodes scholars treated their time at Oxford as a version of the Grand Tour. They had their degree and planned to go to law school when they returned to the US; Oxford was an interesting interlude. And Clinton’s fellow classmates don’t paint a picture of Clinton as a lady’s man or womanizer. At the time, Clinton was described as overweight and out-of-style with modern British trends: But jokes aside, Clinton was not, in the opinion of the women who knew him well at Oxford, a womaniser. Mandy Merck recalls: ‘Bill was plumpish, and ill-kempt, not a ladies’ man, although he was flirtatious in an amiable way. In any case, English women at Oxford were indifferent to Rhodes scholars. Mick Jagger-type men with tight hips and flared trousers were in, not wide-bottomed Americans.’ Looking back, Katherine Gieve says: ‘My abiding impression of Bill is that he was a softie; he wasn’t afraid of expressing his feelings.’ Sara Maitland remembers that he took her up to London to the Albert Hall to hear a Mahalia Jackson concert. At the end, Jackson sang, unaccompanied, a version of the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Bill was just in floods of tears. He said that the music reminded him of home, and it was strange to hear it in the Albert Hall, and it made him just homesick.’ Merck remembers: ‘Bill was the first boy I ever ‘came out’ to. In fact, he was just about the first person outside my circle I ever felt that I could tell I was a lesbian.’ While some of the other Rhodes scholars disapproved, Clinton simply treated it as an interesting fact. In the end, there’s no way to prove any of the facts surrounding the Eileen Wellstone’s rape accusations. We also can’t definitively prove that Clinton was expelled or “quietly asked to leave Oxford” for his conduct there.
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40377
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This is a forwarded plea for a 5 year old boy named Noah Biorkman who is said to be in the last stages of cancer. The email says his family is requesting that people all around the country mail Christmas cards to their son early, as he is not expected to live to see Christmas, 2009.
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Send Christmas Cards to a young cancer patient named Noah Biorkman
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true
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Pleas
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This was a grass roots effort started in 2009 by the family of Noah Biorkman of South Lyon, Michigan. Biorkman was in hospice and and passed away at home on November 23, 2009 after a long battle with Stage IV neuroblastoma, a form of cancer that occurs in infants and young children. According to Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ, the family celebrated Christmas the weekend of November 14th, 2009 and reported on November 9, 2009 that so far the “response has been overwhelming. In just one day alone, the Post Office in South Lyon delivered 80,000 pieces of mail.” According to a November 23, 2009 article found on the “Click on Detroit” Web site the family released this message to those who sent cards, messages and gifts: “Scott and I, along with our families, would like to thank everyone for the continued support over the past few years during Noah’s illness. As most of you know, Noah has received more than 1 million Christmas cards over the past few weeks. The outpouring of love and compassion has been remarkable and we are extremely grateful. We are now asking for everyone please respect our privacy during this very difficult time. The funeral services will be for family only. We are asking that instead of sending cards and flowers to Scott and me; please make a donation in Noah’s name to either of the organizations below. With your donation, Noah’s legacy will live on for many years to come, if not forever.” The article also said that young Noah was particularly fond of an angel figurine ornament that he received because it reminded him of where he’ll soon be. When asked about it he said, “In heaven, and I’m going to be an angel.” Instead of flowers and cards the family requested that donations be sent to: Department of Pediatrics and Oncology University of Michigan 1500 East Medical Center Drive D4202MPB Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-5718 Checks payable to: The University of Michigan — Noah’s Pediatric Oncology Fund Or Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan 230 Huron View Blvd. Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103 Checks payable to: Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan — Memo: Noah Biorkman updated 11/24/09 Comments
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9333
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GLIOBLASTOMA: ZIKA VIRUS COULD DESTROY BRAIN CANCER THAT KILLED JOHN MCCAIN
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This story reports results from a study in which researchers deployed a Zika virus vaccine to target and kill human glioblastoma brain cancer stem cells, which had been transplanted into mice. Glioblastoma is the most common and malignant form of primary brain tumor, and has most recently been in the news as the disease that killed Senator John McCain. It is incurable despite aggressive treatment with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Median survival time is less than 2 years. The story does express some limitations of the study findings, which we appreciate. But given how preliminary this evidence was, we think there was room for improvement–especially in the headline (no mention of mice) and when countering some speculation about how the virus might “hunt” down cancer in people. Any new ideas about cancer treatment are exciting. The idea of using the “bad side” of viruses for good purposes is intriguing. However, as the story states, it’s not yet known if this virus is safe for use in humans, and finding that out is likely to take several more years of research. The story has relevance because the nation has recently been in mourning after the death of Senator McCain. It’s also interesting because the threat of Zika infection has been a real concern in certain parts of the U.S., so its potential use as a treatment of brain cancer feels like a fascinating paradox.
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true
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vaccines,Zika virus
|
This is a report of the results of a clinical trial in mice. It’s too early to estimate costs for human treatment. However, some discussion of the steep, sometimes bankrupting, costs of cancer treatment is always a good idea. We learn from this story that mice with the attenuated Zika virus lived 50 days, in comparison to mice in the control group that lived 30 days. We aren’t given specific numbers on how much tumor development was delayed. We’ll award a satisfactory grade since the story did at least quantify the overall survival difference between the two groups (something rarely reported on in coverage of rodent studies). However, given that this was a study in mice, we were looking for strong cautions that we simply have no evidence if this will work in humans, which is true of all animal studies on potential human treatments. That’s a deficit we’ll address below under the Evidence criterion. The story reports that the Zika virus had no adverse health effects in mice, but that it is possible it might destroy healthy neural tissue in humans. Again, the story needed to caution that we have no idea how this might help–or hurt–humans. Given the uncertainty around animal studies ever leading to an effective treatment, we question the appropriateness of running a story in a major newsweekly in the first place. But if journalists decide that this type of research is worthy of coverage, we think they should do more to clarify in some detail how far away we are from a potential treatment for humans. That point was mentioned in the story but didn’t come across strongly enough here, especially since one of the researchers speculated that “Before undergoing surgery, cancer patients could be given the Zika vaccine to “let the viruses hunt down the GSCs [glioblastoma stem cells] and eliminate them.” It would have been a good idea to point out we don’t know if this “hunting” will work similarly in people. Most importantly, based on this type of evidence, we are far from knowing if this will increase the quality of life and overall survival time for people with brain cancer. No disease mongering was noted in the story. The story does include an independent source though we wish the source had been tapped more to explain the very limited human implications of the research. Normal cancer treatments such as radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy are mentioned, and described as not successful in the long run against human glioblastoma brain cancer. It’s clear this treatment isn’t available for use in humans. The story could have put the findings into clearer perspective if it noted that availability for human is at best 5 to 7 years in the future–and actually may never come to pass. We do not learn from this story that multiple versions of oncolytic viruses have been explored for virotherapy against human Glioblastoma, with promising results. Thus, although the use of Zika virus may be new, research into using viruses to treat this cancer is well under way. The story cites an expert not affiliated with the research project, and gives a full background regarding the Zika virus and Senator John McCain. It does not appear to rely on a news release.
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7370
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Historically black colleges work to help students amid virus.
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Ja’nayla Johnson worked hard in high school with the dream of being the first in her family to graduate from college, but she started to doubt herself as several colleges rejected her. Then Bennett, a small historically black women’s college in North Carolina, saw Johnson’s potential and offered her a full scholarship.
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true
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AP Top News, Race and ethnicity, Health, General News, Nashville, Lifestyle, Virus Outbreak, U.S. News
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“Bennett means everything to me,” Johnson said. When the campus announced it was shutting down because of the coronavirus, “I was scared out of my mind.” The sophomore said she has suffered from depression that forced her to withdraw for a semester last year and didn’t think returning home to California would be good for her mental health. She also didn’t think she would be able to continue her studies back home, where she would feel obligated to care for younger siblings. Bennett staff provided a house for Johnson and another student along with money for necessities. The school of 268 students helped Johnson, and others like her, despite its somewhat shaky financial condition and concerns that COVID-19 could make things worse. It is a perilous time for the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, which have long struggled with less funding and smaller endowments than their predominantly white peers and are now dealing with the financial challenges of the coronavirus. HBCUs have the added challenge of educating a large population of low-income and first-generation students who now need more help than ever. Those students will get a morale boost on Saturday as President Barack Obama delivers a commencement speech for HBCU graduates amid an uncertain future for their schools. Bennett is on probation from its accrediting agency for financial instability. Because of that, the school was already making plans for a possible decrease in enrollment. President Suzanne Walsh said the coronavirus is just another challenge the school will overcome. Brian Bridges, with the United Negro College Fund, said that even HBCUs facing serious financial trouble can survive the coronavirus. “They’ve persisted for 150-plus years of underfunding and Jim Crow segregation,” he said. “They know how to make a way out of no way.” Forrest Harris is president of American Baptist College, a small liberal arts school in Nashville best known for educating U.S. Congressman John Lewis when he was helping plan the city’s lunch counter sit-ins. With a tiny endowment, the school relies heavily on tuition from its 100 students and is facing a “significant revenue loss” from COVID-19. Harris is confident the school will continue educating social justice leaders. Harris is a graduate of Knoxville College, an HBCU that lost its accreditation and closed down for several years but is now accepting students through an online program and working toward the goal of restoring the campus. “HBCUs are hard to die,” Harris said. “They have a resilient spirit and a tradition of educating African Americans in communities that are going to fight hard for them.” That doesn’t mean the schools never die. St. Paul’s College, in Lawrenceville, Virginia, was 125 years old when it closed in 2013 after struggling financially and accreditation woes. Morris Brown College in Atlanta has been trying to reearn accreditation after a financial scandal over a decade ago forced bankruptcy and near closure. It currently enrolls 35 students. Even at the better-endowed HBCUs, officials are bracing for a tough few years. Morehouse College President David Thomas said after the last recession enrollment at the all-men’s school in Atlanta dropped from about 2,800 to 2,100. “It will always be the case that black families are disproportionately affected by recessions and economic downturns,” Thomas said. “We’re already preparing ourselves for the idea that students who didn’t need aid before will need it now because someone has lost a job. Already parents are sending emails.” HBCUs were founded at a time when African Americans were barred from many white-serving institutions. Harry Williams, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, said they are the “backbone of the African American middle class.” While colleges today are integrated, HBCUs still play an important role in educating black Americans. A 2019 study found that two-thirds of low-income students at HBCUs end up in at least the middle class, and the schools do a better job of lifting up those students than primarily white institutions despite fewer resources. A Government Accounting Office report found HBCUs educated more than 226,000 African American students pursuing college degrees in 2017. Meanwhile, their median endowments are only about half of those at similar non-HBCUs. Congress has approved over $1 billion in emergency relief to minority-serving institutions, and a portion of that is earmarked specifically for needy students. Administrators say the aid will help but won’t make them whole. Delaware State University has raised $600,000 for an emergency fund for students but has received applications with needs totaling $1.2 million for things like transportation, housing, food and technology, President Tony Allen said. Like many other schools, Delaware sent laptops to students who lacked them and worked with telecommunications companies to provide Internet service. But Alabama State University President Quinton Ross said he has students who live in rural areas where broadband Internet just isn’t available. Students had to “complete their coursework using the old correspondence course,” he said. Ross, who is an Alabama State alumnus, said HBCUs have traditionally been “a shelter in a time of storm” and sending students home was “one of the most difficult decisions our team has ever had to make.” At Morehouse, the school is housing around 20 students who could not return home in an Atlanta hotel. They include graduating senior Lanarion Norwood, who grew up just a few minutes away from the campus in a neighborhood he was desperate to leave. Norwood was rejected three times by Morehouse, but convinced the school to place him on a probational summer program and then enroll as a student. He has spent every summer on campus, working for the same program he attended after high school. “It was kind of magical when I first stepped onto the Morehouse campus,” Norwood said. “Since then, there’s never been any other place for me.”
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35356
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Born Basic Anti-Bac hand sanitizer was recalled in the U.S. after being found to contain methanol, a poisonous chemical.
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Real Clean Distribuciones SA de CV, the Mexico City-based company that makes the product, announced the recall on July 23, 2020. Other products included in the recall were Scent Theory KEEP CLEAN Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer, Scent Theory KEEP IT CLEAN Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer, and Lux Eoi Hand Sanitizing Gel to the consumer level.
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true
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Medical, COVID-19
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In a viral video posted to the social media platform TikTok in August 2020, user Christian Grech stated that the brand of hand sanitizer he held in the video had been recalled because it contained the dangerous chemical methanol. The video racked up hundreds of thousands of views not long after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had cautioned that a large and growing list of hand sanitizer brands were toxic. Some others were also recalled #recall #fyp foryou #handsanitizer #covid19 ♬ original sound – christian.grech It’s true that Born Basic Anti-Bac hand sanitizer was recalled in 2020. Per the FDA’s searchable list of products that are either contaminated or potentially contaminated, Born Basic Anti-Bac Hand Sanitizer 70% alcohol was tested and found to contain methanol. According to the FDA, “Substantial methanol exposure could result in nausea, vomiting, headache, blurred vision, permanent blindness, seizures, coma, permanent damage to the nervous system or death.” Born Basic Anti-Bac Hand Sanitizer containing 65% alcohol was also recalled because it was “purported to be made at the same facility that produced methanol contaminated product.”
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4948
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E-cigarette giant Juul’s campaign donations favor Democrats.
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E-cigarette giant Juul Labs gave nearly $100,000 to members of Congress during the first half of 2019 as the company faced the bulk of the blame for a surge of underage vaping and calls for tighter government regulation of the industry.
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true
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AP Top News, Government regulations, Health, General News, Political action committees, Politics, Elections, Campaigns, Business
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The donations from Juul’s political action committee represent a sharp increase over last year’s total, according to a Federal Election Commission report released Thursday that shows most of the money went to Democrats. The boost in contributions is the latest sign of the company’s expanding influence operation in Washington and around the country. An explosion of underage vaping has put Juul in the crosshairs of a number of Democrats, who have accused the company’s early advertising and marketing of leading to the current wave of vaping by American teens. Juul is ramping up its political giving as Congress considers legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase all tobacco and vaping products from 18 to 21. Juul and cigarette maker Altria — which controls 35% of the vaping company — have backed a Senate bill that raises the age nationally. The bill does not include additional measures that anti-tobacco groups say are needed to curb youth use, such as banning flavored products and online sales. Ted Kwong, a spokesman for Juul, said in a statement the company strongly prefers to support bills to raise the purchase age that are free of additional provisions, “as we believe it is one of the most effective ways to prevent underage use.” The new FEC figures show that Democrats, who won control of the House during last year’s elections, received $74,000 from Juul’s PAC between Jan. 1 and June 30 while Republicans received $22,500. Kwong said the company “strives to support candidates on both sides of the aisle” as part of its mission to “improve the lives” of smokers and “combat underage use.” Juul contributed $2,500 to Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga. Bishop has co-sponsored legislation to exempt most e-cigarettes on the market from health reviews by the Food and Drug Administration. Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., received $7,500, the largest donation to a single lawmaker. Richmond is co-chairman of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s campaign and a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. The company gave $5,000 each to the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ political action committees. The company also gave $2,500 to the ASPIRE political action committee that raises money for Asian American candidates for Congress. Juul donated $5,000 each to Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Shaheen has called e-cigarette companies the “culprits of this epidemic” of underage vaping. Legislation introduced by Shaheen would force manufacturers to fund anti-vaping education and prevention efforts for teenagers through federal user fees. The company reported giving $2,500 to a left-leaning group called VoteVets. But Jon Soltz, chair of VoteVets, said the organization didn’t accept the money. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., also didn’t want Juul’s donation. Ryan King, the senator’s spokesman, said Friday her campaign did not accept the $5,000 contribution “and has promptly returned the check.” Juul executives have said the company never intended its e-cigarettes to be adopted by underage teenagers. During a congressional hearing last week, Juul co-founder James Monsees testified that Juul developed its blockbuster vaping device and flavor pods for adult smokers who want to stop. “Combating underage use” is the company’s highest priority, Monsees added. Most health experts say that e-cigarettes are probably less harmful than traditional paper-and-tobacco cigarettes, which can cause cancer, lung disease and strokes. But neither Juul nor any other e-cigarette has yet been approved by the FDA to help smokers quit. Juul has assembled an extensive network of lobbyists amid mounting concern over e-cigarettes and warnings from the FDA that regulatory steps may be inevitable to combat what public health officials and anti-smoking groups have described as an epidemic of youth vaping. The company also has become a generous political donor, giving tens of thousands of dollars over the last 18 months to candidates for state and national offices as well as political organizations, according to the FEC data and state campaign finance records. During the first half of 2019, Juul spent $1.9 million on lobbying Congress, the White House and the FDA as the company expanded its pool of Washington insiders with ties to Republicans and Democrats in positions of authority. Among those lobbying on Juul’s behalf are Jim Esquea, who worked during the Obama administration as an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Ted McCann, who was a top policy aide to former House Speaker Paul Ryan. Juul hired Fulcrum Public Affairs in January, adding to its lobbying ranks former aides to Obama-era Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Rep. Maxine Waters, the California Democrat who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. In California, where Juul is headquartered, the company has donated close to $99,000 since early last year to members of the state legislature, political action committees and committees set up to influence the outcome of ballot measures. About a third of the money went to Assemblymember Adam Gray, a Democrat from Merced who chairs the powerful Governmental Organization Committee. Gray’s reelection campaign received $8,800 from Juul, and the company gave $25,000 to Valley Solutions, Gray’s ballot measure committee. Legislation introduced by Gray and other assemblymembers earlier this month to curb youth use of vaping products was criticized by the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network as an industry-friendly measure that should be called the “Juul Market Share Protection Act.” Gray said in a statement sent by his spokesman that the financial support he receives “plays zero role in how I represent my district or how I make decisions on public policy.” Despite Juul’s public commitment to keeping its products out of teens’ hands, the company has fought in California and other states against legislation that anti-tobacco groups have argued would help to move toward that goal. Juul and the Vapor Technology Association, a trade group that lists Juul as a platinum member, opposed a California bill that would have banned flavored tobacco products, arguing such a prohibition would only hurt adults trying to quit smoking. Juul and Altria lobbyists in Arizona supported legislation to raise the minimum buying age for tobacco products and e-cigarettes to 21 but which included language that would bar cities and counties from imposing regulations on tobacco and e-cigarettes. Local governments often impose stricter rules than the state does. Kwong said this was the only bill that had a hearing and “provided us an opportunity to publicly support.” In Montana, Juul opposed measures to require convenience stores that sell e-cigarettes to keep them behind the counter and to apply the state’s tobacco tax to e-cigarettes. Juul didn’t testify against the tax measure in Montana, but several Montana vape shop owners did. “Taxing a product that helps people? I don’t see the point in that,” said Ron Marshall of Freedom Vapes.
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10407
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First-ever prostate cancer treatment uses gold nanoparticles to destroy tumorous cells
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In a University of Texas news release remarkably light on evidence, but heavy with superlatives, a novel technique to treat prostate cancer using gold nanoparticles is presented to the world. Two testimonials, one from the lead researcher testing this new approach and a single patient who underwent the procedure, cannot together purport to be a solid basis for judging the worthiness of this bit of new high tech wizardry. We know that other techniques to treat prostate cancer, including active surveillance, have varying levels of success but there is no sense how those compare to the gold nanoparticle approach. A safer, less invasive way to treat prostate tumors would surely be welcomed yet only under a few important caveats: The new technique must come with reliable evidence that is is as effective and safer than current treatments, and be offered at a cost that is acceptable to patients and the medical community.
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false
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Academic medical center news release
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No discussion of cost, but one could imagine that a treatment made from gold is not likely to be inexpensive. There are no data to speak of in this news release so no reliable discussion of benefits either. The only harms discussed are those in relation to competing treatments. Other than learning that this is a “small clinical trial,” the news release was remarkably void of any discussion of the quality of the data collected. It is impossible to judge the quality of evidence as discussed in the news release. Given that this study is not yet complete (ClinicalTrials.gov lists a December 2018 completion date), there may be no evidence to report regarding either benefits or harms (other than the anecdote of one patient). Regardless, the primary outcome of this study is whether the gold nanoparticle therapy can ablate (or destroy tumors without removing them) prostate lesions at 3-month follow up. Thus, this study will not be providing practice-changing evidence. Furthermore, based on the enrollment criteria, many of the subjects would have low- to very-low risk prostate cancers — which are best managed with active surveillance. Consequently, the treatment could hardly be described as life-changing. The release doesn’t engage in disease-mongering. Prostate cancer can be fatal for some men and this release does not exaggerate the dangers of prostate cancer, even though the release appears to downplay the concept of active surveillance which is a suitable option for many men. The funder(s) of the study aren’t mentioned. We don’t know how heavily the lead researcher, his research center or partners, or even the patient could be conflicted with the company developing the technology. That information would have been very helpful. We learn about other alternatives: “Treatment options have traditionally included radical prostatectomy, which is the removal of the prostate gland and some of the tissue around it, radiation therapy and cryotherapy, among others. These methods carry the potential to have a negative impact on urinary function and sexual performance.” and “The side effects of current prostate cancer treatments can be extremely traumatic. This new technology holds the potential to eliminate those life-altering effects, while still removing the cancer tissue and reducing hospital and recovery time.” While this is useful information it is inadequate. Impotence and urinary incontinence are often the downstream consequences of prostate cancer treatment but how did the rates of these adverse effects compare to the gold nanoparticle treated group? We don’t know. In addition, the other treatment methods also carry the potential of curing cancers. We can’t say the same for the new technology. The release gives the sense that this new technique is very experimental, and being done inside the bounds of a trial, but that is never made very clear. The trial will enroll only 45 patients and the follow up (a repeat biopsy) is only for 3 months. The novelty of this technique seems to be its major claim to relevance yet the description of its novelty barely passes muster. For example, we don’t learn if gold nanoparticle research is being done for other types of tumors or other types of conditions. This news release is flush with unjustifiable language including describing gold nanoparticles as “tumor-seeking missiles on a mission to remove prostate cancer.” It would be nice to see a description of a cancer treatment that didn’t rely on military metaphors. Also objectionable: “This procedure is the first in the world that is precise enough to potentially avoid negative ramifications like urinary incontinence or sexual impotency.” Really? What about active surveillance? “This therapy could be life-changing….” True. But where is the evidence to justify that claim? While patients are entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, the news release has some over-riding responsibility to offer context. The patient said: “I wasn’t afraid to try the most cutting-edge technology.” But the release could have explained that patients should always be aware that there are risks in participating in trials involving experimental treatments.
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11428
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New treatment seen for back-pain relief
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This story reports on the experience of one physician, the owner of a spine center, in performing spinal decompression therapy for herniated disc. The claims of very high recovery rates at reduced cost allowing patients to avoid invasive surgery are very appealing. However, this story is flawed in many ways. The story only quotes one physician, the owner of a center that provides spinal decompression. This is a major flaw in the story. The story should have quoted other clinicians or researchers to provide some context for the claims being made. The story quantifies the benefits of treatment in relative terms only. Also, the story does not compare the effectiveness of spinal decompression to other alternatives. The story says that “research has shown 86 to 94% success rate with decompression.” Compared to what? Most people with back pain find that the pain resolves on its own or with minimal intervention. Furthermore, the story does not explain the strength of the available evidence, which is not very strong. The story does not provide adequate information on the novelty of decompression, on potential harms of the treatment, or on the advantages and disadvantages of the treatment compared to the alternative options. Although the story does explain that this treatment is available and claims that the treatment is common on the West Coast but not in the Midwest, this is not sufficient information on availability. By describing a patient who “came crawling into my practice,” the story crosses the line into disease mongering. This case represents an extreme example of herniated disc. Many patients are not as bothered by symptoms. The story also starts out by saying that this is a new treatment for herniated discs, but later claims that it can be used to treat a wide variety of back pain conditions. The story also does not explain that this treatment should not be used in people who have had back pain for less than a few months, for whom exercise and time would be the best course of treatment. The story does mention the cost of the treatment, which is not covered by insurance. The story should have compared the cost to other available treatments.
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false
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The story does mention the cost of the treatment, which is not covered by insurance. The story should have compared the cost to other available treatments. Nonetheless we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and score it satisfactory. The story quantifies the benefits of treatment in relative terms only. The story says, “Research has shown an 86 percent to 94 percent success rate.” Readers need to know: 86 to 94 percent of what? And how is “success” measured? Also, the story does not compare the effectiveness of spinal decompression with that of other alternatives. The story does not mention any potential harms of this approach. The story does not explain the strength of the available evidence, which is not very strong. By describing a patient who “came crawling into my practice,” the story crosses the line into disease mongering. This case represents an extreme example of herniated disc. Many patients are not as bothered by symptoms. The story also starts out by saying that this is a new treatment for herniated discs, but later claims that it can be used to treat a wide variety of back pain conditions. The story also does not explain that this treatment should not be used in people who have had back pain for less than a few months, for whom exercise and time would be the best course of treatment. The story only quotes one physician, the owner of a center that provides spinal decompression. This is a major flaw in the story. The story should have quoted other clinicians or researchers to provide some context for the claims being made. Although the story mentions surgery and painkillers, this is not sufficient information on alternative options. Although the story does explain that this treatment is available and claims that the treatment is common on the West Coast but not in the Midwest, this is not sufficient information on availability. The story doesn’t give the reader any information on where to look for the treatment other than the owner of one facility. Although the story refers to the treatment as “new,” this is not sufficient information on the novelty of decompression. There is no way to know if the story relies on a press release as the sole source of information.
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37989
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"Image of a car fire shows what looks to be a ""fire elemental,"" ""fire demon,"" or ifrit/efreet/afrit."
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What Do You See in This Image of a Vehicle on Fire?
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unproven
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Reporting, Social Media
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On December 10 2019, a Facebook user shared the following photographs of a vehicle on fire — one of which includes an apparent image of a figure in the flames:Alongside the two photographs, the user wrote:Caught a picture of this vehicle on fire this morning can you guys see what I see?? Let me know what you seeThousands of Facebook users apparently saw what the user saw, sharing it on to their own pages; one user shared it on publicly to The Jinn Group. In the comments one person asked if the accident involved any fatalities, and the user’s friends described an “evil spirit” in the second of the two photographs:“It’s standing perfect”“Evil spirit at it’s finest!”“It’s a evil spirit”“Yeah I see it …”“By The Car Door?”The Basic FactsBased on the poster’s supposed location and visible landmarks in one of the images, the photograph shows an “Aberdeen Road” in or around Detroit, Michigan and outlying towns. We were unable to locate any news articles about a vehicle fire in those areas on or around December 10 2019.As for the photographs, the first of two showed a large plume of black smoke visible behind an intersection with one street sign visible (“Aberdeen Rd.”) The second was clearly taken from a vehicle, and primarily showed a separate vehicle — a beige SUV — engulfed in flames in front of a Dollar General store.In that photograph, the primary focus was part of the inferno. In the center of the image, as if exiting the flaming driver’s side of the car, was what looked to be a humanoid figure made of fire. The figure was clearly not a person, but also quite clearly maintained a solid form.So, what was it?In FolkloreCommenters alternately described it as a “demon,” a “fire demon,” “the literal devil,” or asserted the figure was clearly the result of a “curse” on the vehicle’s owner or driver. Fans of the HBO vampire drama True Blood might have seen a passing similarity with the figure due to a character on the show and a plotline involving a vengeful spirit from Iraq. (American Gods has also referenced the same mythology. )In Islamic folklore and mythology, the figure would be seen as an ifrit, an often malevolent djinn:Alternative Titles: ʿifrīt, ʿifrītah, afreet, afrit, afrite, efreet Ifrit, also spelled afreet, afrit, afrite, or efreet, Arabic (male) ʿifrīt or (female) ʿifrītah, in Islamic mythology and folklore, a class of powerful malevolent supernatural beings.The exact meaning of the term ifrit in the earliest sources is difficult to determine. It does not occur in pre-Islamic poetry and is only used once in the Qurʾān, in the phrase “the ifrit of the jinn” (Qurʾān 27:39), where it seems to designate a rebellious member of the jinn (supernatural beings). The phrase recurs in the Hadith (narratives recounting Muhammad’s words, actions, or approbations) … Popular tales generally depict an enormous winged creature of smoke, either male or female, who lives underground and frequents ruins … As with the jinn, an ifrit may be either a believer or an unbeliever, good or evil, but is most often depicted as a wicked and ruthless being.According to The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, ifrits do not always have a threatening nature:Pl. afarit. Rebellious and wicked spirit, although some afarit are believed to be helpful. Mentioned in the Quran and hadith in the context of jinn, particularly rebellious ones. The term was popularized in folklore such as Alf laylat wa’l-laylah (The thousand and one nights). Afarit are male and female and may be believers or nonbelievers; they may marry humans but usually marry among themselves. If the term is used to refer to animals and humans, it connotes shrewdness, strength, and resourcefulness.Other commenters described the figure as an “elemental,” or more specifically, a “fire elemental.” The concept of elemental entities is prevalent in occult literature and across cultures in folklore, typically corresponding to four elements — earth, air, water, and fire.Fans of the Travel Channel series Dead Files might recognize the concept from some episodes, where paranormal investigators regularly claim that such entities are supernaturally disturbing the show’s subjects.According to Wikipedia’s summary of Dead Files episodes, one of the show’s two investigators (Amy Allan and Steve DiSchiavi) cited an “elemental” capable of harming subjects in at least two episodes — one in Belvedere, Illinois, and one in Grant Township, Michigan.For Season 9, Episode 13 (“Easy Prey,” June 8 2018), a description reads:A desperate couple claims paranormal activity is trying to kill them. During the disturbing investigation, Amy encounters a malicious dead man and an elemental capable of physically harming the living.Incidentally, the specter of an elemental entity also factored into the episode one week prior, in Lake Shawnee, West Virginia. Travel Channel’s site hosts the entire episode “Easy Prey,” which you can view here.Just after the 34:10 mark of the 43-minute long video, Allan tells the subjects of that episode that an “earth elemental” is present on their property, and can cause problems for “the living.” Allan describes the elemental:So this is a being that was originally part of the Earth … but something caused this thing to separate itself from the Earth, and it became its own conscious entity. I think that this thing more than likely has affected every person who has lived here … what it likes to do is create hardships in people’s lives, and in very extreme cases, it can cause death.In turn, DiSchiavi, a former New York City homicide investigator, produces a stack of death certificates of the property’s former residents and asks Allan if the elemental could have caused those deaths. Allan opines it may have caused “some,” and further states that its removal was not a matter as simple as destroying its purported habitat; the residents of the property then complain of declining health and unusually frequent misfortune.Incidentally, four categories of elementals exist in this folklore: gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. Salamanders are the elementals of fire. Viewers of cooking reality shows might recall the name “salamander” is also shared with a commercial broiler — also called a “salamander.”In ScienceFor every explanation in supernatural or paranormal lore, there is almost always an attendant theory rooted in science.Human recognition of a humanoid form in the vehicle’s flaming wreckage could also be explained as “pareidolia,” “the phenomenon of recognizing patterns, shapes, and familiar objects in a vague and sometimes random stimulus.” A common example is the tendency of people to see simple to highly elaborate shapes in cloud formations.April 2014 research published in the journal Cortex, titled “Seeing Jesus in toast: Neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia,” described in its abstract a strong positive demonstration of a human tendency to see faces where none are present:Face pareidolia is the illusory perception of non-existent faces. The present study, for the first time, contrasted behavioral and neural responses of face pareidolia with those of letter pareidolia to explore face-specific behavioral and neural responses during illusory face processing. Participants were shown pure-noise images but were led to believe that 50% of them contained either faces or letters; they reported seeing faces or letters illusorily 34% and 38% of the time, respectively … Whole brain analyses revealed a network specialized in face pareidolia, including both the frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Our findings suggest that human face processing has a strong top-down component whereby sensory input with even the slightest suggestion of a face can result in the interpretation of a face.A 2012 article in The Atlantic explained further:Pareidolia was once thought of as a symptom of psychosis, but is now recognized as a normal, human tendency. Carl Sagan theorized that hyper facial perception stems from an evolutionary need to recognize — often quickly — faces. He wrote in his 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World, “As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper.”After a high-profile news story involving pareidolia in May 2013, BBC reported:[In May 2013], US department store JC Penney sold out of a kettle thought to look like the leader of the Third Reich after the resemblance was noted on social news site Reddit.A chicken nugget shaped like US President George Washington earned more than £5,000 ($8,100) on eBay last year.A decade earlier, some 20,000 Christians travelled to Bangalore to pay homage to a chapatti with the image of Christ burnt on it. Some visitors even offered prayers to the glass-encased flatbread.In 2011 a Tumblr site that specialises in finding things that look like Hitler posted a photo of a modest terraced house in Swansea. Its angled roof resembles a comb-over, and the moulding over the house’s door is said to evoke the dictator’s trademark moustache.As the same news organization noted in July 2014, the phenomenon is not new, nor is it exclusive to faces:Pareidolia, as this experience is known, is by no means a recent phenomenon. Leonardo da Vinci described seeing characters in natural markings on stone walls, which he believed could help inspire his artworks. In the 1950s, the Bank of Canada had to withdraw a series of banknotes because a grinning devil leapt from the random curls of the Queen’s hair (although I can’t, for the life of me, see the merest hint of a horn in Her Majesty’s locks).Kang Lee, one of the authors of the Cortex study excerpted above, spoke to BBC about his research. Lee said the power of suggestion was a factor in subjects “seeing” figures or faces where they did not exist. And in the Facebook post, the user twice induced fellow users to “see what I see”:Given some subtle priming, they reported seeing a person about 34% of the time. Any contours that appeared in the images would have been extremely fuzzy — yet somehow, the brain was conjuring the illusion that a person was staring back. “It turns out it’s pretty easy to induce this phenomenon,” says Lee.In SumOn December 10 2019 a Facebook user shared photographs of what appeared to be a “fire demon,” a “fire elemental,” or a djinn known as an ifrit captured during an unspecified vehicle fire. More than 10,000 users shared the post, most of whom presumably “saw” something in the flames. Fire entities exist in culture-spanning folklore about elementals, as well as Islamic folklore about fire djinn. But an alternate, more scientifically palatable, and in our opinion no less fascinating explanation involves pareidolia, a documented tendency in humans to see faces and figures which do not exist.Comments
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33778
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Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak began when Yankee first baseman Wally Pipp sat out a game with a headache.
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In the case of Wally Pipp there was no inopportune headache, no “delightful and romantic story” — just a case of a slumping player who lost his job to an up-and-comer and never got it back. But his replacement was the stuff of legend (the indestructible ballplayer finally felled by a fatal disease), and so he became part of a legend that mixed fact and fiction and grew so large even some of the participants came to believe in its fictional aspects.
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false
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Sports, baseball
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Few people who lived through events such as the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 or the terrorist attacks against America on 11 September 2001 would deny that they immediately recognized those events to be momentous ones — points at which history took a sudden left turn and unexpectedly headed off down a different path. Not all events are recognizable as momentous at the moment they occur, however; sometimes their historical significance is only evident in retrospect, after the passage of many years. No one anticipated, for example, that when an 18-year-old machine shop worker clutching a battered guitar walked into the office of the Memphis Recording Service during the summer of 1953 and paid to record himself performing a couple of songs (ostensibly as a gift for his mother), Elvis Presley was on his way to becoming a towering figure in American popular music and a national icon. Nor did anyone realize that when an 18-year-old boy recently returned from a stint driving Red Cross ambulances in post-war France made his way to Kansas City in 1919 and took a $50/month job drawing farm equipment ads for the Pesmen-Rubin Commercial Art Studio, Walt Disney had taken his first step towards founding a multi-million dollar entertainment empire. Likewise, in the world of sports, 2 June 1925 was not recognized as a significant date until many years later. That was the day on which a youngster out of Columbia University, Lou Gehrig, took over first base duties for the New York Yankees, holding the position for the next fourteen years and embarking on a Hall of Fame career that saw him play in an astounding 2,130 consecutive games — a streak that ended only when a fatal disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) so eroded Gehrig’s physical skills that he could no longer perform on the field. (Gehrig died two years later, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is now commonly known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.”) Once that date came to be recognized as something significant, it also became the centerpiece of a baseball legend — Gehrig got his big break only because Wally Pipp, the Yankees’ regular first baseman since 1915, sat out a game with a headache: It was a long time between headaches. Wally Pipp had the first one. His head was buzzing when he reported to the Yankee Stadium on June 2, 1925. “I can’t play today, Hug,” the big first baseman told Miller Huggins, the mite manager. “Take an aspirin, Wally,” Hug said. “I’ll let that kid Gehrig fill in for you while you rest.” It sure was quite a rest. Not until May 2, 1939, was the name of Lou Gehrig ever out of a Yankee line-up. (Technically Gehrig’s streak began a day earlier when he entered a game as a pinch-hitter, but 2 June 1925 marked the beginning of his tenure as the Yankees’ first baseman.) The Pipp-Gehrig legend is a cautionary tale for the ages: In those days baseball players were supposedly made of sterner stuff and played through injuries and pain; a veteran wouldn’t dare to beg his manager for a day off unless he had a bone poking through his skin. But, legend has it, Wally Pipp allowed a minor ailment like a headache to keep him out of a game, and as a result he lost his starting job to a rookie, never got it back, and was traded away at the end of the season. If only Pipp had been made of that sterner stuff, who knows what might have happened? Maybe he would have kept his job, Gehrig would have quit or been traded, and the name Wally Pipp might now be remembered as something more than the answer to a trivia question. As I’ve long been an avid fan of baseball history, my interest in the Gehrig legend was piqued when I read a then-new book about Babe Ruth and came across a passage that suggested the accepted Pipp-Gehrig tale was all wrong: Take Wally Pipp. Today, he’s remembered as a trivia question: the guy replaced in 1925 by Lou Gehrig, who then went on to play a remarkable 2,130 games in a row. Even worse is the myth that surrounds the tale — that Pipp, the “man in the shadow,” as the Times once called him, didn’t play that day because he had a headache, a story that appeared 14 years after the actual incident. No, Pipp didn’t play that day because he was suffering from a headache — try a fractured skull, the lingering effect of a batting-practice beaning from hard-throwing Yankee rookie Charlie Caldwell, better known in later years as Princeton University’s football coach. Hmm, I thought to myself, if it was true that Wally Pipp gave way to Lou Gehrig because his skull had been fractured by a batting practice pitch, and this was the first I’d heard of it despite having been a devoted baseball fan for 35 years, this sounded like the kind of story to write about. The first step in the process of writing such an article was attempting to verify what I’d just read, so I picked up another baseball book, one which chronicled 100 years of New York Yankee history, and flipped through it to see what it had to say about the events of 1925: On June 2, [Pipp] stepped in to take batting practice against a prospect out of Princeton named Charlie Caldwell. Trying to impress, Caldwell was throwing hard. An errant pitch hit Pipp on the temple. He went down and stayed down. The semiconscious first baseman was hustled off to the hospital, where he stayed for the next two weeks. When he returned, the Yankees had a new first baseman. Huggins used Pipp’s injury to make a move he’d been contemplating for several weeks. The season was over, and it was time to experiment. He told Lou Gehrig, “You’re my new first baseman.” Gehrig, who’d played sparingly thus far, including a pinch-hit performance the day before, took over at first base on June 2. He wouldn’t relinquish the spot for 13 years. So far, so good — two different sources said the same thing. But I knew from long experience that it’s always best to corroborate historical information found in secondary sources by referring to contemporaneous documentation whenever possible, so I searched issues of the New York Times from 1925 to find an original article about Pipp’s beaning. I soon discovered that the sources quoted above were wrong: Wally Pipp suffered his batting practice injury on 2 July (not 2 June) 1925, a full month after he’d been supplanted at first base by Lou Gehrig, as the New York Times reported on 3 July 1925: Suffering from concussion of the brain as a result of being hit by a pitched ball in batting practice at the Yankee Stadium yesterday afternoon, Wally Pipp, the Yankees’ veteran first baseman, was resting comfortably at St. Vincent’s Hospital last night. It was stated early this morning that the player would live. His condition was described as serious, but he was conscious and clear-headed. An X-ray picture was taken early in the evening, but it was said at the hospital that no report is expected from this until this morning. Pipp was taking his regular turn in batting practice when Charley Caldwell, the former Princeton star, shot over a fast ball that flew high and inside. The ball hit Pipp, a left-handed batsman, over the right ear. He dropped in his tracks and was carried to the clubhouse, where trainer Al Woods and club doctors worked over him. Pipp regained consciousness within a few minutes, but shortly afterward again became insensible. He suffered from violent nausea, but there was no bleeding from the head, as in the case of Ray Chapman, the Cleveland shortstop, who was fatally injured when a pitched ball hit him at the Polo Grounds in mid-summer of 1920. After working over the injured Yankee, the doctors ordered him removed to St. Vincent’s Hospital, the same institution in which Babe Ruth was a patient this Spring. Pipp recovered quickly after arriving at the hospital, but suffered from pain and shock. An opiate was administered last night and he fell into a quiet sleep. In the opinion of surgeons, Pipp had a narrow escape from the fate that overtook Chapman five years ago. The brilliant Indian shortstop was hit on the head by a ball thrown by Carl Mays, then a Yankee pitcher. Chapman did not lose consciousness instantly, but walked off the field aided by teammates. In the clubhouse he collapsed, was operated on late that night and died early the next morning at St. Lawrence Hospital. Chapman was hit on the left side of the head, causing a depressed fracture, a rupture of the sinus and a clot on the brain. Well, so much for that. But I still had to consider the possibility that even if Pipp wasn’t suffering from the effects of a fastball to the head when he gave way to Lou Gehrig, he might still have had a headache that kept him on the bench that day. Although the author of the Babe Ruth book quoted above was wrong about why Pipp was taken out of the Yankee line-up, he raised a good point in noting that the headache story didn’t surface until 14 years later (presumably in a 1939 article about the end of Gehrig’s streak). I verified that the first mention of Pipp’s having a headache on 2 June 1925 didn’t appear in the New York Times until 1941, in an article about Lou Gehrig’s death. A long gap between occurrence and first reporting of an incident is one of the hallmarks of urban legendry, often an indicator that someone made up a fictitious story long after the fact, so the non-mention of Pipp’s headache until 14 years later raised a red flag. Of course, we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see such a story show up in the press right away, since nobody knew in 1925 that Gehrig was going to set a record for consecutive games played; several years elapsed before Gehrig’s streak became noteworthy to the point that reporters would have started digging around for background on its origins. Still, Gehrig’s streak was noteworthy long before it ended — he obliterated the previous record of 1,307 consecutive games played in 1933, and newpapers were tracking his streak at least as far back as 1930, so why didn’t the headache story surface in the press earlier than 1939, the year Gehrig’s streak finally came to a halt? While researching this item, I came across an intriguing statement at the end of a retelling of this story in a New York Times article about Gehrig’s death: An odd little incident gave Gehrig his start and an even stranger disease, one almost totally unknown for a robust athlete, brought it to an end. Columbia Lou’s string of consecutive games began, innocently enough, when the late Miller Huggins sent him up to bat for Peewee Wanninger on June 1, 1925. The husky 22-year-old promptly singled. Huggins was impressed by the way Gehrig had delivered, but according to the tale that is told he had no notion of using him as a first baseman. The Yankees had a star at the initial sack in those days, Wally Pipp. But Pipp was troubled with frequent headaches. On June 2 he was bothered by pains in his head. “Has any one an aspirin tablet?” asked Pipp. Huggins overheard him and, on a sheer hunch, decided to use the “kid” — Gehrig — at first base. He never left the line-up again until his voluntary resignation fourteen years later. Perhaps that story is not cut from the whole cloth. Gehrig has denied it, but Pipp insists just as vehemently that it is true. The last few sentences indicate that there was some doubt over the authenticity of the “headache” explanation as far back as 1941, and that Pipp and Gehrig had made contradictory statements about its truthfulness. The latter point would tend to support the story as true: Pipp seemingly had no reason to confirm a story that was somewhat embarrassing for him (i.e., he lost his starting job because of a headache), while Gehrig seemingly did have motive to deny it (i.e., he would want to be seen as a player who earned his starting spot through hard work and superlative skills, not because he happened to be in the right place when someone else came down with a minor ailment). Still, that wasn’t much to go on. A little more digging revealed the source of the confusion that took in later writers: a 1953 article in which Wally Pipp himself misremembered the sequence of events surrounding his injury and his replacement by Gehrig: The story has grown to be an accepted fact. On June 2, 1925, Wally Pipp, the regular Yankee first baseman, reached into his locker and took out an aspirin bottle — so the legend would have everyone believe. “What’s the matter, Wally?” asked the observant Miller Huggins, the Yankee manager. “I have a headache, Hug,” answered Pipp. “Suppose you take the day off,” suggested Hug. “I’ll use that big kid, Gehrig, at first base today.” Fourteen years and 2,130 consecutive games later, Lou Gehrig called it a career after setting an endurance record which promises to defy all challengers. Pipp never returned to the Yankee line-up again after reaching for that aspirin bottle. But did he ever reach for it? “It’s a very delightful and romantic story,” chucked Pipp the other day. “I realize that its [sic] grown to be accepted as the truth. But it just isn’t correct. I won’t deny that I had a headache that day. I had one which was a pip. Ha, ha. And I’m not trying to make a pun, either. Here’s what actually happened. “I was taking batting practice that day and the guy who was pitching for us was a big, strong kid from Princeton, Charlie Caldwell. He’s now the Princeton football coach and a might successful one, I might add. Charlie whistled one in and, somehow or other, I just couldn’t duck. The ball hit me right here on the temple. Down I went and I was much too far gone to bother reaching for any aspirin bottles. “No, sir. They carted me right off to the hospital. It’s funny how you remember little things, relatively unimportant trifles. As I was wheeled into the room, the nurse remarked, ‘What’s this — another baseball man? Ring Lardner, the baseball writer, was in this same room yesterday. Now we have a baseball player taking his place.’ “I was in that hospital for two solid weeks. By the time I returned to the Yankees, Gehrig was hitting the ball like crazy and Huggins would have been a complete dope to give me my job back. He wasn’t a dope. So he didn’t do it. Not only was Gehrig a better ballplayer than I was, but he was 22 and I was 32. It was as simple as that. But please don’t believe that aspirin story. It just isn’t true.” It’s hard to explain how a man who claimed to remember even “unimportant trifles” could mix up such significant milestones in his life as losing his starting job with the New York Yankees and nearly dying from a batting practice beaning, events that occurred a full month apart, but evidently he did. Perhaps his memory simply waned with the passage of time, or perhaps he unconsciously (or even deliberately) conflated two different events to come up with one story that reflected his past in a better light. (Back in Pipp’s day sportswriters often resorted to euphemism to express things they could not say directly — for example, a player who missed a game due to a hangover might be said to have been suffering from “the flu” or “a headache.” Therefore, Pipp might have sought to preserve his reputation by making it clear that any “headaches” he suffered while a player had specific medical causes and were not alcohol-related.) Still, nothing I uncovered to this point definitively established whether or not Wally Pipp sat out the game of 2 June 1925 because he had a headache. Another avenue of thought then occurred to me: if Pipp truly skipped a game due to a headache, why wasn’t he back in the starting line-up a day or two later? He was the Yankees’ regular first baseman (and had been for over ten years), and it wasn’t the case that Gehrig was so immediately impressive that Yankee manager Miller Huggins never considered taking him out of the line-up again. In fact, Huggins pulled Gehrig for a pinch-hitter several times that first month, and on 11 July the New York Times noted that Huggins was not yet bowled over by Gehrig’s prowess at the plate: In the meantime Miller Huggins is not completely satisfied with the daily exhibitions of Lou Gehrig. The mite one went so far the other day as to send Fred Merkle, the ancient ex-Giant, to first base against a left-handed pitcher. Gehrig’s hitting against right-handers has been robust enough, but he is still weak against the portsiders. So if the only thing wrong with Pipp was a headache, why didn’t he play another game at first base after Gehrig finally got a chance to start at the position? The answer is found by considering the context of what was going on with the Yankees in 1925. After winning three straight American League pennants between 1921-23, the Yankees finished a couple of games off the pace in 1924 as the Washington Senators captured their first flag ever. New York expected to regain the top spot in 1925, but that was the year Babe Ruth’s excesses finally caught up with him. The Yankee slugger had allowed his weight to balloon to a hefty 260 pounds during the off-season (his normal playing weight at the time was about 215), he fell ill during spring training, and he finally collapsed on a train as the Yankees were heading north to start the season. The Bambino was hospitalized for several weeks with a mysterious ailment (rumors about the true cause of his condition include a severe case of gonorrhea, exhaustion, influenza, poor diet, a hernia, and alcoholism) and missed the first two months of the season, and even after he returned he was weak and relatively ineffective for the rest of the year. (In 1925 Ruth batted .290 with only 25 home runs and 66 RBI, his lowest totals ever until his final year with the Yankees.) With Ruth either missing or too weak to play at full capacity, and some key players slumping (second baseman Aaron Ward and catcher Wally Schang were both in their last full seasons with the Yankees), New York tumbled to a dismal seventh-place finish (in an eight-team league) in 1925. With his team already near the bottom of the standings and eleven games under the .500 mark at the beginning of June, manager Miller Huggins decided to shake up his line-up and replace some of his slumping veterans with younger players. Contemporaneous news accounts leave no doubt that Wally Pipp did not sit out the game on 2 June 1925 with a headache; he was deliberately benched by a manager who had charge of a team that was playing poorly and who opted to sit down some of his older players to give others a try. The New York Times published the following account of Gehrig’s first game as a starter on 3 June 1925: Miller Huggins took his favorite line-up and shook it to pieces. Wally Pipp, after more than ten years as a regular first baseman, was benched in favor of Lou Gehrig, the former Columbia University fence-wrecker. Aaron Ward, another old standby, surrendered second base to Howard Shanks. Steve O’Neill and Wally Schang perched themselves comfortably on the bench while Benny Bengough donned the mask and protector. The most radical shakeup of the Yankees line-up in many years left only three regulars of last season in the batting order — Dugan, Ruth and Meusel. Another Times report from later in the week reinforced that Miller Huggins had altered his line-up by removing several older veterans (including Pipp) who were underperforming in order to give younger players a chance to get in the game: The main news of the week was the return of Mr. Ruth and the shake-up of the Yankees, neither of which had been expected at this early date by the experts. It was inevitable that some day the Babe would come back to the team and that one or two of the ailing veterans would journey in the opposite direction, but nevertheless the two events constituted a glad surprise to fandom. The Babe may be too sick to play, but the Yanks are also too sick to get along without him. For the present it may be a case of the halt leading the blind, but in the near future the combination of Ruth and a new, younger line-up should produce cheerful results. Miller Huggins’s withdrawal of Ward, Pipp and the Schang-O’Neill combination was an admission that the absence of Ruth was not the only thing wrong with the club. Not all of these men are through — Ward least of all; but they were in a slump, and Huggins did the obvious thing by injecting a little of youth into the team.
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23251
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"Dan Webster ""would force victims of rape and incest to bear their attacker's child."
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"Alan Grayson says Dan Webster would ""force"" rape and incest victims ""to bear their attacker's child"""
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true
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Abortion, Message Machine 2010, Women, Florida, Alan Grayson,
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"In his new toned-down version of the ""Taliban Dan"" attack ad, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., one of the most outspoken Democrats in the House, narrows his focus to three points. The first ad, released Sept. 25, 2010, garnered mostly negative attention for labeling his Republican challenger, former state House Speaker Daniel Webster, ""Taliban Dan."" PolitiFact Florida looked at Webster's longstanding connection to a conservative Christian group and ruled one part of that ad False and another part Half True. On Oct. 6, 2010, the Grayson camp released a new ad that covers much of the same territory, but which eliminates some of the more provocative language and claims from the first ad. As soon as we heard about the new ad, we knew we had to fact-check all the claims. Here's a full transcript of the new ad: Daniel Webster's Washington backers are attacking Alan Grayson on women's issues. The facts on Webster's record: Fact: Webster sponsored a bill to create a form of marriage that would trap women in abusive relationships. Fact: Webster is an advocate for a group that teaches that mothers should not work outside the home. Fact: Webster would force victims of rape and incest to bear their attacker's child. Those are the facts. Don't let Daniel Webster make the laws we will have to live with. The one we'll check now is the claim that Webster ""would force victims of rape and incest to bear their attacker's child."" First, we tried to confirm Webster's position on abortion. His campaign website has a section titled ""Sanctity of Life"" that says, ""Daniel Webster would support legislation that the Constitutional protections of life and liberty extend to the unborn."" He also earned the most stringent anti-abortion rating (and an endorsement) from the Republican National Coalition for Life -- ""pro-life without discrimination."" And we saw a 1996 St. Petersburg Times profile that reported that Webster ""opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest."" We checked with his campaign to confirm whether he is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and a spokeswoman confirmed it. So Grayson's ad is correct on Webster's philosophical beliefs about abortion. But does that mean that Webster ""would force victims of rape and incest to bear their attacker's child""? We don't think that's so clear-cut, since Webster's legislative efforts on abortion, while extensive, have stopped well short of what Grayson's ad suggests. Webster's legislative record is extensive, having served 28 consecutive years representing the Orlando area. He was elected to the state House in 1980 and was re-elected until 1998. He then served in the state Senate from 1998-2008. From 1997-1998 he served as House speaker, the first Republican to hold that position since 1875. There is no question that Webster was a consistent opponent of abortion throughout his career in Tallahassee. Webster earned a 100 percent ""A"" rating from the Christian Coalition of Florida his last four years in the state Senate -- one of only two to receive a perfect rating each year. In 1988, Webster sponsored a law requiring parental consent for some abortions by minors. The law passed, but ultimately was ruled unconstitutional. As speaker in 1997, he helped pass two bills seeking to limit abortions. The first, the Woman's Right to Know Act, required doctors to give women seeking abortions special pamphlets explaining the procedure and listing alternatives. The second bill banned a controversial and rare type of late-term abortion. In 1998, he voted in favor of a parental notification bill. This bill was passed, but then vetoed. Meanwhile, in 2004, while serving in the state Senate, Webster proposed a bill that would create guardians for unborn children. The bill did not pass. In 2005, he helped author legislation that required parents be notified if their minor child was intending to get an abortion. This bill passed and was signed into law. And in 2008, his final year in elected office, Webster proposed a bill that would require women getting an abortion to first have an ultrasound of the fetus performed. That bill failed on a 20-20 vote in the Senate. (A similar bill passed this year, before being vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist.) Two of these bills did not have exceptions for rape or incest victims, but we don't think they provide sufficient support for the ad's sweeping statement about Webster's intentions about rape and incest victims. The 1997 late-term abortion bill addressed a rare sub-segment of all abortions, while the 1998 parental notification bill affected minors only and provided them with the right to notify a judge instead of their parents. All told, this represents a lot of legislative activity on abortion. However, our review of Webster's time in the Legislature also uncovered a pattern of pragmatism. Most strikingly, in 2006, after South Dakota passed a sweeping abortion ban, Webster decided against attempting to enact a similar law in Florida. South Dakota's anti-abortion law banned abortion in all cases -- including rape or incest -- only allowing it in order to save the life of the mother. Webster said that the climate in Florida wasn't right for such a bill, particularly after the heated debate over whether the government should intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who died after a feeding tube was removed at her husband's request. The Schiavo case became a cause celebre for opponents of abortion. ""Based on the vote last year on the Terri Schiavo issue, it appears the the climate in the Florida Senate is not right for pro-life legislation,"" Webster said. Two years later, when he proposed the ultrasound legislation, Webster included exemptions for victims of rape, incest, domestic violence or human trafficking. ""I'm pro-life, so I want to see as many people at least think as long as they can about it,"" Webster said during the 2008 ultrasound bill debate. ""There's nothing I can do about changing the law. Abortions are going to be offered. But I'd like to at least give (women) the very best information."" So where does this leave us? There is no question that Webster believes that abortion should be banned except to save the life of the mother, and that gives the Grayson campaign a lot of cover for its charge. But this fact doesn't support the ad's claim completely. By charging that Webster ""would force victims of rape and incest to bear their attacker's child,"" the ad steps beyond the realm of a candidate's personal belief and into the realm of what they would actually do if elected to office. It's impossible to know precisely what abortion bills Webster would propose or support if he were to be elected to the U.S. House. We asked Webster's campaign how he would vote if a bill were to come up in Congress restricting abortion in cases of rape and incest, but he declined to answer the question because it is a ""hypothetical."" They added that of his thousands of votes in the legislature, Webster did not sponsor or vote for such a measure. A close examination of his legislative career suggests that his hard-line philosophy has been tempered by a more pragmatic streak at times. Most strikingly, when Webster was faced with a 2006 South Dakota model that would do pretty much what Grayson said Webster would support, Webster declined to forge ahead, even as some abortion opponents urged such an effort. The Grayson camp discounts this example, saying it's only natural for a politician to advance his philosophy when the time is right and hold back when it's not expedient. They have a point. Still, Grayson's charge has a substantial grounding in the truth."
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9416
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New approach to abdominal aortic aneurysm saves lives
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This story reports on the use of customized stents and 3-D mapping to treat abdominal aortic aneurysms, which are enlargements of the lower part of the aorta, the major blood vessel that supplies blood to the body. The story provides no data to back up the claim that this procedure reduces complications, saves more lives, and results in quicker recoveries compared with stent procedures that don’t have these features. It also doesn’t mention how much this technology costs and engages in disease-mongering. In the U.S., medical devices may be used in patients before anyone knows if they’re safe or effective. Too often, news stories on new devices leave out this reality. In this case, this story focuses more on one patient’s harrowing story, and high-tech buzzwords like “personalized” medicine and “3-D printing.” The reader won’t come away informed about the benefits, risks, costs and alternatives.
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false
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aneurysm,medical devices
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There’s no discussion of how much this procedure costs or whether it’s covered by insurance, and no comparison with stent procedures that don’t include the 3D printing and customized fit. Actual data is nowhere to be found to back up the assertion that this technique saves lives and results in quicker recoveries than other treatments, and it’s not clear what the procedure is being compared to. Instead, there’s one patient anecdote with an unsubstantiated statement that her condition “nearly killed her.” Ideally, the story should have made clear what data, if any, compares these customized stents to standard stents. There’s no mention of potential risks associated with this procedure or any stent insertions for abdominal aortic aneurysms. Further, there’s no discussion of whether the procedures and devices involved have undergone safety trials. There’s no discussion of the quality of evidence to support this procedure. Was there a randomized clinical trial? It doesn’t say. The story is rife with fear-mongering. The video states that 200,000 patients have abdominal aortic aneurysms and calls it a “death sentence” and a “ticking time bomb.” The printed version said it is “a hidden, often deadly heart condition with no clear known cause” and “can be immediately life-threatening if it grows large enough to rupture. The chance of survival when it ruptures is less than 10 percent.” The story doesn’t make it clear how many people with this condition are really at risk of dying. According to the CDC, aortic aneurysms were the primary cause of 9,863 deaths in 2014 and a contributing cause of at least 17,215 deaths in the U.S. in 2009. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Some aneurysms will never rupture. Many start small and stay small, although many expand over time. Others expand quickly. Predicting how fast an abdominal aortic aneurysm may enlarge is difficult.” The article also doesn’t mention risk factors, which include tobacco use, family history, hypertension, and prolonged alcohol use. It’s also unclear why the story calls abdominal aortic aneurysm a “heart” condition; it’s a vascular condition, meaning a condition affecting the body’s system of arteries and vessels. One of the sources, Gustavo Oderich, MD, has reported being a consultant for Cook Medical and W. L. Gore, both makers of endovascular grafts. The story did not disclose this. The story isn’t always clear about whether it’s comparing the 3D technique with open surgery or with stent procedures that do not use the technology. In any case, there’s no data to make the safety and effectiveness distinctions clear. The story says “doctors sometimes use a stent to repair the aorta, but it doesn’t always work since the aneurysms are often in places where a stent can’t fit. And even if the stent does fit, patients often undergo a long, painful recovery.” It says, “Using a minimally invasive endoscopic vascular surgical technique, patient recovery times are quicker.” The story also does not make it clear that not every case requires surgery. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Depending on the size and the rate at which your abdominal aortic aneurysm is growing, treatment may vary from watchful waiting to emergency surgery. Once an abdominal aortic aneurysm is found, doctors will closely monitor it so that surgery can be planned if it’s necessary. Emergency surgery for a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm can be risky.” The story states: “So far doctors at Mayo Clinic have done this personalized procedure on more than 450 patients. They are now training doctors nationally.” It’s not clear how many doctors are being trained. Also, we’re assuming they’re referring to the 3-D printing aspect of this procedure. But regarding the endoscopic procedure, it’s not clear how widely available it is. It’s also not clear if this custom-printed device is still being tested in clinical trials. The story explains that the approach allows a surgical team to “create an individualized model of the patient’s aorta.” “Each anatomy of the patient is different and that’s the problem, that’s why we need stents that are actually specific for the patient,” it quotes vascular surgeon Dr. Gustavo Oderich, MD, saying. “The 3-D prints are used to rehearse the operation. We can anticipate challenges by practicing the procedure beforehand.” The story does not appear to be based on a news release.
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3149
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Outdated, dangerous childbirth practices persist in Europe.
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When Clara Massons was in labor with her son, a midwife climbed onto her bed and pushed down on Massons’ belly, explaining that she was helping to deliver her baby. For the next few hours, the midwife and a doctor took turns pressing down during contractions, using an old, now controversial technique for troubled deliveries.
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true
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AP Top News, International News, General News, Barcelona, Health, United Nations, Europe, Weekend Reads
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Masson said her pleas to stop were ignored at the Barcelona hospital where she delivered two years ago, and she later complained to authorities. The hospital said doctors took “appropriate measures” during her delivery. “I thought I was going to die,” she said. “For one month after, my belly was blue and purple.” The technique is known as the Kristeller maneuver and was first described in an 1867 German textbook. It is sometimes used during the second stage of labor to assist delivery and avoid a cesarean section when complications arise. But many doctors in developed countries say they have stopped using it because of the potential for broken bones, organ damage, and other complications. The World Health Organization does not recommend the technique. Yet the procedure is still commonly performed in many European countries, highlighting how once-accepted practices can persist even long after they’re considered to be unnecessary or even dangerous. Europe has some of the world’s lowest maternal and infant death rates, and assertions of mistreatment during childbirth are more common in Africa, Asia and Latin America. But the Kristeller maneuver and some other medical practices related to childbirth have come under increasing scrutiny in Europe, including complaints about inadequate anesthesia, surgical incisions during vaginal births and failure to seek patient consent for certain procedures. “Depending on the act, these practices rise to the level of a human rights violation,” said Mindy Roseman, director of a global justice and women’s rights program at Yale Law School. “Not obtaining consent from women for medical procedures, not providing pain relief or doing something that’s not scientifically justified, that is simply not the standard of care and it’s troubling wherever that occurs.” Last year, Croatian lawmaker Ivana Nincevic Lesandric drew attention to the anesthesia issue when she complained to Parliament she did not receive any for an emergency procedure after a miscarriage. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in (a) much more painful situation in my life,” Lesandric said. In response, the Speaker of the House chastised Lesandric for speaking over her allotted time and for publicly sharing such intimate details, saying it put him in an awkward position. The Ministry of Health, while not directly commenting on her case, said doctors typically use a local anesthetic for such procedures. Officials suggested there may have been a “misunderstanding” on Lesandric’s part regarding the type of anesthesia she received. Dr. Frederick Mercier, chair of obstetrics for the European Society of Anesthesiology, said general anesthesia is “most often used” in procedures like the one Lesandric had. He said local anesthesia isn’t used because “it is less effective.” In the days following her speech to Parliament, a childbirth advocacy group asked for and received hundreds of complaints about medical care from Croatian women. Three U.N. human rights experts, including two from Croatia, later said the responses “showed a pattern of abuse and violence against women undertaking medical procedures.” “I see it as another #MeToo campaign where certain issues were not being seen as human rights violations and were being tolerated,” said Ivana Radacic, a Croatian who sits on a panel for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. In submissions for a U.N. report presented in October, several European countries or government-appointed experts acknowledged lapses in how informed consent from women during childbirth was obtained. The Czech Republic wrote that women were sometimes given documents to sign “without any explanation or information on the nature or reason for the procedure.” Dr. Ozge Tuncalp, a maternal and reproductive health care expert at WHO, said the U.N. health agency has noted increasing reports of mistreatment by women seeking health care in Europe. “Some of these things have become common practice and people think this is what they’re supposed to do, so it is very difficult to undo,” she said. The WHO says a once common procedure — a surgical incision to enlarge the vagina during childbirth and prevent tears — should not be used in more than about 10% of women and that consent should be mandatory. Yet government figures show rates range from 30% to more than 90% in countries including the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Romania. In France, a 2018 government report estimated that half of women who had the incision weren’t told beforehand. In Italy, one survey estimated 61% of women did not consent. Marta Busquets, a Spanish lawyer, said she asked the two midwives handling her delivery not to make the incision, but that they cut her anyway. “I felt really humiliated, but it’s my word against theirs,” she said. The hospital would not comment on her case, but said the procedure should not be performed routinely and that it obtains verbal consent when it is performed. In October, the Council of Europe passed a resolution on “obstetrical and gynecological violence.” Among other recommendations, it called on European member countries to implement laws on informed consent and to create specific reporting and complaint mechanisms, including sanctions for mistreatment. How often the Kristeller maneuver is used isn’t clear since it often isn’t included in medical records. Doctors, nurses and midwives in countries including Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Spain told The Associated Press they see it used on a weekly, if not daily, basis. A French government report last year estimated it was used in about 22% of births. In Italy, researchers concluded in a 2018 study that the Kristeller technique was documented in medical records only in about 10% of cases. “The evidence says it’s not helpful, it’s actually harmful,” said the WHO’s Tuncalp. “The fact that so many women are getting an intervention that both national and international guidance recommend against, is very worrying.” The technique is prohibited in the U.K., according to Dr. Patrick O’Brien, of Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. In the United States, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said they had no guidelines on the Kristeller maneuver because it is not recommended. “I can’t think of any reason you would resort to this,” said O’Brien. Dr. Ligita Jokubkiene of Sweden said she thinks it is still used because many doctors and midwives aren’t aware of the dangers. She learned it in medical school but no longer performs it herself. “If the woman was having bad contractions or if we wanted the delivery to go a bit quicker, it was easier to press on the woman and try to get the baby out fast,” she said. Spain’s Ministry of Health instructed health professionals to stop using it in its 2007 guidelines. But in a 2016 evaluation, government officials found it was still being done in about a quarter of women having vaginal births. Massons and her husband, Toni, remain troubled by the birth of their son Jaume, now 2. Massons was told the technique was needed because her labor had slowed, and because the baby was in a worrying position. In a letter to Massons that she shared with the AP, Dr. Miquel Gomez, medical director of the private Barcelona hospital where Massons gave birth, wrote that doctors took “appropriate measures.” The ombudsman for the Catalonia region noted the Kristeller technique was “discouraged” but not legally banned. WHO’s Tuncalp said that transforming medical care — and not just guidelines — is very difficult. “It can take generations of doctors to actually change practices in the labor ward,” she said.
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9924
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Fan use linked to lower risk of sudden baby death
|
This is a story reporting on a first examination of fans to try to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). While the story framed the new observation in terms like “seemed to lower the risk” and “seems to suggest,” this new finding could have been put more clearly in the context of the hierarchy of factors which reduce the chance of SIDS. The story also failed to explain anything about the type of fan or “dose’” of fan use (i.e. box, oscillating, facing into the room, blowing on the child or not, moving air in or out of the window). So readers got no insight that would enable them to take action. The fact that the study upon which the story is based didn’t reveal such details is no excuse; the story needed that information or needed to explain why it wasn’t in the study. This study almost feels like an early Phase I drug trial in which the exact dose and benefit have not yet been determined. The story could have framed it that way. It’s a case where the potential flaws of a study design (case-control study) are important and could have been explained.
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true
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The story didn’t need to comment on the cost of fans or the electricity to power them. The story reported that 3% of babies who died of SIDS had fans on in their rooms, while 12% of babies who did not die of SIDS has fans on in their rooms. This is actually a very confusing way of reporting this sort of information but is a side effect of the study design which can only provide information about the proportion of those with the exposure by outcome. From these numbers, one could come to understand that more babies who had fans on in their rooms did not die of SIDS but that having a fan on in the room did not prevent all SIDS deaths. The story would have been improved by explaining that the ‘benefit’ also varied quite widely by other coinicident circumstances. This is valuable to explain to readers so that they could appreciate that reducing risk of SIDS depends on many factors. There was no discussion of potential harms associated with fan use in the room where an infant sleeps. While the study on which this story was based may not have commented on potential harms, the story should have probed further. Few (if any) things affecting one’s health come without tradeoffs. The terms used in this story to describe the potential for benefit were appropriately cautious. While it did include quotes indicating that more research was necessary, the story did not do an adequate job of explaining that the results of this one study should have been considered as preliminary, even if they are in line with previous theory. The results are possibly flawed given a study design that is better suited for generating hypotheses than for establishing causal links. There are problems with recall bias in case-control studies. The fact that the report was lacking in detail about how the fans were used or anything about what approach is best is a problem worth mentioning. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. The story drew from a published paper and comments from the senior author of the paper and another expert in the field without ties to the authors of the paper reported on. The second sentence of the published study lists some of the factors which have been shown to be associated with decreased risk of sudden infant death. It may have helped for the story to include all the factors mentioned in the paper and perhaps provide readers with some insight as to the magnitude of benefit seen. That said, one problem with the story is that it failed to detail anything about the types of fan, how they were set up, or explain why these details were lacking. The story didn’t need to comment on the widespread availability of fans. However the study did not report details about the type of fan or ‘dose’ of fan use (i.e. box, oscillating, facing into the room, blowing on the child or not, moving air in or out of the window). This should have been mentioned in the story. As mentioned in the story, the study on which the story is based made the claim that this was the first time fan use in the room where an infant sleeps was examined as a factor affecting the risk of sudden infant death. Does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release.
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29744
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"Stormy Daniels wrote a ""suicide note"" admitting she lied about having an affair with Donald Trump before she committed suicide."
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The AmericanNewsNow story ended with a threatening note: “Apparently, the only honest Democrat is a dead Democrat.” The site appears to no longer be live.
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false
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Junk News
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If you are experiencing distress, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit online here. On 16 January 2019, the junk news site AmericanNewsNow.us posted a disturbing story falsely reporting that adult film actress Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford) had committed suicide after leaving a note admitting she never had an affair with U.S. President Donald Trump: Clifford’s death is something that you should have heard about on the liberal-run mainstream media, but there’s a reason they’re not saying a peep — her suicide note.” “I deeply regret all the pain I have caused President Trump,” the note found with her body reads. “The truth is that I lied, that Michael Avenatti encouraged me to lie. I have never had sexual relations with our President.” Falsely reporting deaths of celebrities and other public figures is a long-standing type of internet hoax, and this instance was no different — Daniels, 40, was alive and well. As of this writing, her most recent public appearance was at a 16 June 2019 block party in the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, where she posed for photographs and donated proceeds to the New Orleans Abortion Fund. Daniels rose to prominence when she filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump related to a non-disclosure agreement in which she was to be paid $130,000 in “hush money” to remain silent about an alleged affair between the two. Daniels has since become an outspoken Trump critic, all of which has inevitably drawn the ire of the president’s supporters.
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10852
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Next big thing? Big cholesterol drop with new drug
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This AP story reports on a new study presented at a cardiology meeting and published online via the New England Journal of Medicine. The research is particularly newsworthy because of the dramatic effects on both LDL (“bad”) and HDL (“good”) cholesterol. The story was better in a number of ways than the competing USA Today coverage of the same study. (Please note: we reviewed the first version of each story that we found – not any subsequent versions the news orgs may have published.) Important caveats were conveyed up front and potential conflicts were described more completely. In addition, this story presented the data on patients’ cholesterol levels before and after treatment, and compared them with what is considered healthy; USA Today only provided the percentage change in cholesterol. Both stories contained quotes that were overly optimistic, but this story avoided the worst excesses that the USA Today piece succumbed to. This story could have been improved with the inclusion of at least some information about the likely costs of the drug, if approved. Cardiovascular disease remains number one cause of death in the US and other developed countries. And many people still suffer heart attacks despite being treated with high doses of statin drugs, which lower bad cholesterol. So researchers are looking for new ways to lower bad cholesterol further or increase good cholesterol, which might also help reduce risk. But it’s not enough to show that a drug has beneficial effects on these measures, which are only markers for heart disease risk. We also need data showing that the drug actually prevents heart attacks and deaths.
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true
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Associated Press
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As with the competing USA Today coverage, this story didn’t mention costs. We feel that some discussion of this issue was warranted. The story did a better job than the competing USA Today coverage of focusing on what was actually shown in the study. Importantly, it told us the average good and bad cholesterol levels for drug and placebo-treated patients before and after treatment. It also told us how these levels compare with those that are considered healthy. By contrast, the USA Today story only provided the percentage increase and decrease, and didn’t tell us whether the patients achieved targets associated with reduced disease risk. We learn that the new drug doesn’t raise blood pressure the same way its predecessor, torcetrapib, did, but we don’t learn that the new drug lowered LDL cholesterol to levels that might not be safe in 17.6% of patients, who had to stop taking the medicine. This story was better than the competing USA Today piece on several fronts. Most notably, it cautioned within the first three paragraphs that we don’t know whether the cholesterol benefits seen in this study will translate into reduced risk of heart attacks and deaths. We have to wade to the bottom of the USA Today piece before any similar reservations are expressed. Similarly, while the story contains some syrupy quotes, it avoids the worst excesses that we saw in the USA Today coverage. With that being said, we think the story could have done a better job of tempering the enthusiasm of some these sources.
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22840
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George W. Bush Says that in his first 17 months as president, the United States doubled its world-leading $500 million a year commitment to fighting global AIDS.
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President Bush says the United States doubled its commitment to fighting AIDS abroad in his first 17 months in office
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true
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Federal Budget, Health Care, Foreign Policy, Texas, George W. Bush,
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"President George W. Bush devotes a chapter of his memoir, Decision Points, to his interest in stopping AIDS abroad. ""When I took office, the United States was spending a little over $500 million a year to fight global AIDS,"" Bush writes. ""That was more than any other country. Yet it was paltry compared with the scope of the pandemic."" In May 2001, he writes, he endorsed the creation of a Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, making an initial U.S. pledge of $200 million, an amount increased to $500 million by early 2002. And in June 2002, he writes, he announced the International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative. ""In 17 months,"" Bush said, ""we had doubled America's commitment to fighting global AIDS."" By the time Bush completed his second term, in early 2009, such annual U.S. spending exceeded $5 billion, according to a breakdown posted online in February 2010 by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But we wanted the back story. We started from an October 2009 PolitiFact inquiry, per a statement by U2's Bono, who credited Bush with tripling U.S. spending against AIDS in Africa. In 2008, the United States accounted for more than half (51.3 percent) of all the the global AIDs relief disbursed by governments around the world, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS. When adjusted for the relative size of the countries' economies, the United States ranked fourth highest, considerably higher than most European countries. The only ones that spent more proportionately were the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Bono's homeland, Ireland. Kaiser spokesman Craig Palosky passed along a June 2004 report, ""Analysis of aid in support of HIV/AIDS control, 2000-2002,"" whose authors include a program run by the United Nations. A table in the report shows the United States donated the most money to the AIDS fight in 2000, accounting for $329 million in such funding. The United Kingdom ranked a distant second, at $117 million. In 2003, Bush initiated a $15 billion plan to address global AIDS relief, mostly for countries in Africa where the AIDS epidemic is staggering. And then in 2008, Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — more than tripled the HIV/AIDS relief budget to $48 billion over five years. We asked Eric Lief, a former senior advisor with the U.N. Joint Program on HIV/AIDS, to analyze Bush's statement about funding. (Lief now works for the Henry L. Stimson Center, a non-partisan public policy institute.) Via e-mail, he said: ""The Bush administration showed real leadership on global HIV/AIDS. U.S. funding grew exponentially during the eight Bush years. But global funding is still far short of anything close to global need."" For particulars, Lief pointed us to a December 2006 Congressional Research Service report, ""Trends in U.S. Global AIDS Spending: FY2000-FY2007."" In fiscal 2000, the year before Bush was sworn in as president, annual U.S. spending on global HIV/AIDS assistance and to combat TB and malaria totaled $236.1 million, the report says. It totaled $564.5 million in fiscal 2001 and a little more than $1 billion in fiscal 2002. Subtracting out what Lief told us was the share of funding focused on battling TB and malaria, we estimated AIDS-specific funding at $518 million for fiscal 2001 and $930 million the year after--amounting to an increase of about 80 percent. Finally, we heard back from David Drake, a representative of Bush's publisher, the Crown Publishing Group, after asking him for evidence behind Bush's statement. Drake said in an e-mail that by the end of June 2002, Bush had committed $500 million to the Global Fund and another $500 million to the International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative. A former Bush adviser, Jay Lekfowitz, writes in a January 2009 article in Commentary magazine that the initiative was intended to increase the availability of preventive care, including drug treatments, and to devise delivery systems that would reach pregnant women and newborn children in two Caribbean nations and eight African ones (with four to be added later). Drake said Bush announced the second $500 million on June 19, 2002, just before the end of his 17th month as president. He was sworn in Jan. 20, 2001."
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486
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Malaysia to work with UNICEF on polio vaccination in Sabah state.
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Malaysia’s health authorities on Sunday said they are working with UNICEF to bring polio vaccines to the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, where the country’s first polio case in nearly three decades was detected last week.
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true
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Health News
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A three-month-old infant was diagnosed with polio on Dec. 6 after being admitted to hospital with a fever and muscle weakness, the first such case since 1992. It comes after the Philippines, north of Borneo, reported its first cases of polio since 1993 in September. Malaysia’s health ministry had said the child was infected with a polio strain that shared genetic links with the virus detected in the Philippines. “We are planning to work with the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, to get vaccine supply at a low cost for an immunization program for non-citizen children in Sabah,” Director-General of Health Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a statement. Noor Hisham said the plan is to have UNICEF subsidize the cost of the vaccines, and to administer the vaccinations with the help of selected non-governmental organizations and the Philippines government. No new cases have been detected so far, though authorities are still waiting for the results of stool samples taken from people who had close contact with the infant and the surrounding area where the child lived, Noor Hisham said. “The health ministry would like to stress that the best way to eradicate polio is through immunization. Contagious diseases such as polio know no boundaries,” Noor Hisham said.
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9126
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With health care cuts looming, low-cost magnesium a welcome option for treating depression
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If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This news release from the University of Vermont reports on a study showing an association between taking magnesium supplements and a decrease in depression and anxiety symptoms in people with mild-to-moderate depression. The release simplifies and overstates the benefits of magnesium without offering any comparisons (beyond vague statements) with current pharmaceutical treatments for depression. It also ignores any mention of the study’s limitations. Because depression is a global problem, an inexpensive, easily accessible supplement with no side effects that could be used to combat depression would be widely welcome — but only if it is viable. This release doesn’t make the case that magnesium is the answer for a condition that affects millions. According to the CDC, almost 8 percent of Americans age 12 and older have depression in any two-week period. There’s a stigma attached to mental illness, which can prevent some people from seeking treatment. Using magnesium to fight depression is a tempting solution because not only is it low-cost, but it can be bought over-the-counter without the need for a psychological evaluation. Unfortunately, this news release might encourage people to take the treatment of their mental health into their own hands using only supplements, instead of seeing a doctor or psychologist.
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false
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depression,Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont,magnesium
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Despite claiming the low cost of magnesium supplements as a benefit, the release doesn’t include the cost. A quick google search shows that magnesium tablets can be bought online or in stores for less than $15 per bottle. According to the news release, consuming magnesium chloride “resulted in a clinically significant improvement in measures of depression and anxiety symptoms.” But the release made no mention of what these measures were, or how the measurements were taken. The published study notes that the primary outcome measure was a mental health questionnaire given by phone bi-weekly (the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, or PHQ-9). Like any survey, this method of data collection is vulnerable to bias in the form of self-reporting. In the published study, the researchers said that the results of the PHQ-9 survey are clinically significant if there is a 5-point or more difference between treatment and baseline. The net improvement was a difference of 4.2 points, but when the researchers adjusted for other factors (including age, race, gender, smoking, alcohol use, and treatment adherence), the difference rose to 6 points, making it clinically significant. Importantly, however, the duration of this treatment benefit beyond this brief trial is unknown. None of these nuances were mentioned in the news release. The news release made no mention of potential harms of magnesium supplements although it notes the treatment is safe on two occasions. The actual results, however, were not quite as straightforward. The authors noted in the published study, “The most common reason for a negative response was that “magnesium did not help mood” (46%), followed by side effects (20%). The most common side effect, diarrhea, was reported by 8 participants. In addition, the published study notes that people with gastrointestinal disorders or kidney disease could not participate in the study since high levels of magnesium are not safe for these patients. The news release provides a description of the study, “an open-label, blocked, randomized cross-over trial involving 126 adults in outpatient primary care clinics.” While this is adequate for an experienced reader, we would have liked to have seen a bit more information about the actual mechanics of the study and the trial limitations included in the release. The authors of the study did an admirable job in discussing the limitations of their design. Unfortunately, these were not carried over to the release. Among the limitations: There was no placebo arm of the trial, and while the participants were randomized, the trial wasn’t blinded for either the participants or the researchers. Both of these can lead to bias in the study results. The study participants took the magnesium supplement for just 6 weeks. There’s no way to know if the slight benefit extended beyond the study period. The news release doesn’t mention whether the study volunteers were on other medications or treatment plans to help their depression. This could be an important factor, especially if some participants were on prescription anti-depressant medications or in counseling, and others were not. No disease-mongering here. The news release called depression an “enormous disease burden.” This is true—depression is a huge problem that affects millions of people. The World Health Organization says more than 300 million people worldwide suffer from depression. The news release didn’t mention either the funding sources or address conflicts of interest. These were noted in the study and could have been easily included in the release. The news release makes some statements suggesting magnesium supplements are as effective as SSRI anti-depressants and offer lower cost and fewer side effects. No evidence is offered for this and the study was far too small and too brief to demonstrate magnesium effectiveness. The release should have delved into this area more, especially because there are so many current treatments for depression. For example, the release offered no mention of other classes of anti-depressant medications or non-drug interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy. The news release mentioned that magnesium can be found over-the-counter. The release says that “few clinical trials have studied the supplement’s effects.” It also quotes the lead researcher as saying, “This is the first randomized clinical trial looking at the effect of magnesium supplementation on symptoms of depression in U.S. adults.” While this might be the first clinical trial in the US, there have been other studies (which the researchers referenced in their paper) that have looked at the effects of magnesium on depression in adults. Specifically, they mention two observational studies–one that took place in Norway, and one that looked at adults with type 2 diabetes. The news release doesn’t use sensational language.
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23549
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"Said he won the Democratic primary ""without one ... negative TV spot."
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Barnes said he ran positive TV campaign in primary
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true
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Georgia, Message Machine 2010, Negative Campaigning, Roy Barnes,
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"The day after last week's nasty primary runoff for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, the Democratic contender, former Gov. Roy Barnes, emerged unbruised. It had been a rancorous couple of weeks for the GOP. Candidate Nathan Deal accused opponent Karen Handel of running an entirely negative campaign, a claim PolitiFact Georgia ruled in an earlier item. Handel called Deal ""a corrupt relic of Washington, D.C."" Supporters of Deal, who won the runoff, claimed Handel supports aborting children with Down syndrome. We ruled that . Barnes, who won his party's primary without a runoff, took full advantage of the rival party's ugliness during a Channel 2 Action News interview. He called his Republican opponents ""honorable people"" and said that it's possible to run a campaign without calling names. ""Well, you know, I think that we were proud that we ran the Democratic primary without ... one negative TV spot,"" he told anchor Carol Sbarge. Really? Not a single one? As the front-runner, Barnes didn't need to go negative, Emory University political science professor Merle Black said. Polls consistently indicated Barnes could win the Democratic primary without a runoff. That allowed him to stay on the sunny side of politicking, Black said. ""It was not in his interest to run anything negative because he was so far ahead of everybody else,"" Black said. ""One of his main goals is to unify his party, and you don’t do that by going negative."" To make sure Barnes played a clean game, we examined his eight 30-second TV campaign spots for evidence of negative campaigning. ""Providence"" In this commercial, Barnes sits on a pew in a sunny church. A harp plays in the background, and Barnes gives a 'mea culpa' for the sins he committed during his term as governor. At the time, critics complained he was heavy-handed. Voters ousted him in 2002 in favor of Sonny Perdue. ""As governor, my heart was in the right place, but I didn’t listen or slow down to explain why I had to make some difficult decisions. For that, I apologize,"" Barnes says. Barnes' only swipe was against the Georgia General Assembly, which, he says, ""plays its games."" ""Taxes"" Sitting before the front porch of a bungalow, Barnes says he has a record of lowering taxes for homeowners. Once again, Barnes' bogeymen are ""the politicians under the Gold Dome"" who ""took away our tax cut"" to give money to special interests, he says. ""It’s not right. It’s not fair. And when I’m governor, it won’t stand,"" he finishes. ""Chalkboard"" This commercial starts with Barnes pointing over a hilly vista, holding what appears to be architectural drawings. ""Roy Barnes will make Georgia work again,"" a male announcer says. The voice adds that the number of jobs in the state grew during Barnes' term as governor, a claim we ruled Half True in a previous item. He also promises to end teacher furloughs ""forever"" and to ""scrub corruption."" The commercial reserves its harshest words for the state Legislature and ""big business."" ""Foreclosure"" Barnes returns to the bungalow in ""Taxes"" to plug his plan to ease the suffering of homeowners by ensuring banks negotiate before foreclosing on homes. The commercial features a crying mom, a boy clutching a stuffed elephant and a law enforcement officer who helps the woman carry possessions from her home. The bad guys? Bankers and their lobbyists. ""They slapped you on the back to lend you the money and slapped you in the face when you got in trouble,"" Barnes says. ""Education"" Barnes sits with ordinary people at a diner and tells them his plans on education. He promises he won't furlough teachers or ""cut the school year in order to pay for special-interest tax breaks."" ""I will make smaller classes. I will increase teachers pay. I will make education No. 1,"" he says. ""Pine Pellets"" Sun shines through thick stands of pine trees. Birds twitter and a slide guitar sighs. An announcer pitches Barnes' plans to get Georgia into the renewable energy business and calls the state the ""Saudi Arabia of pine trees,"". ""When I’m governor, we’ll turn our renewable forests into a job-creating industry,"" Barnes says. The ad says nothing negative. ""State Buildings"" This ad featured Roy Barnes' plan ""to put people to work -- immediately,"" as an announcer says. Barnes tells a group of men and women wearing hard hats that he can put tradespeople in jobs retrofitting state buildings for energy independence or efficiency. The group nods in agreement. ""I think a paycheck would be great,"" one man replies. Again, nothing negative. ""Travel for Jobs"" Barnes walks through an airport, meets with people in a boardroom and concludes ""we can’t bring jobs to Georgia with the rest of the country laughing at us."" Once again, the General Assembly is the problem, but Barnes doesn't single out any particular legislator. The commercial says the Legislature passed goofy laws about microchips in the brain and stem cell research and talked about seceding from the union, a claim we ruled . Those actions make Georgia look too weird for businesses interested in relocating, he says. So did Barnes run an all-positive TV campaign? While Barnes took quick jabs against special interests, banks, lobbyists and the General Assembly, these were mainly brief asides in otherwise positive commercials. The ads focused on his record and campaign promises and made no attacks against specific primary rivals. Two of Barnes' key opponents in the primary agree with Barnes' contention that he kept things positive -- at least on TV -- in the Democratic primary. Russ Willard, a spokesman for state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, said Baker agrees that Barnes kept it clean in the primary. ""He [Baker] agreed with that Roy did not run negative TV ads during the primary campaign,"" Willard said. Another Barnes opponent in the primary, state Rep. DuBose Porter, D-Dublin, said Barnes had such massive statewide name recognition that Barnes did not have to go on the attack. ""I think that’s probably correct,"" Porter said of Barnes’ positive-campaign pronouncement. ""He just kept stealing all of my ideas."" Still, Barnes' commercials were no love fest. Although he did not target candidates, he bad-mouthed special interests and big business. He also threw some punches at the state Legislature. We rule Barnes' claim ."
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9982
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The Pill Protects Against Cancer
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This article reports on a significant study that quanitifies the link between taking oral contraceptives and a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. The news report has several key strengths: It describes the methodology of the meta-analysis in considerable detail It presents the size of the risk reduction in several ways–including the essential matter of how many women can expect to get ovarian cancer if they do or don’t take the pill It explores possible explanations for the reduction in risk, and contains necessary cautions about the drugs’ side effects It explains that women should not take the results to mean they should take oral contraceptives purely for the purposes of cancer risk reduction The article also does a good job of putting the findings in a cultural context, indicating how many lives may have been saved, and how these effects are likely to spread to the developing world as more women there use oral contraceptives.
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true
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"Oral contraceptives are inexpensive and often available discounted or free at health clinics. The article does not compare various methods of birth control (or preventing ovarian cancer) so cost is not an issue in this report. The article does an excellent job explaining the benefits various ways: The article briefly mentions the potential side effects of birth control pills, including the slightly elevated risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer, plus blood clots and high blood pressure. Given the dramatic findings about the reduced risk of ovarian cancer, this is useful information. The article is based on an ambitious meta-analysis, published in a top-tier journal, of many studies conducted over several decades. Its methodology is described in considerable detail. The article does not exaggerate the seriousness or frequency of ovarian cancer. The article draws on the study itself, the editorial published along with it, the lead author and two additional medical sources with knowledge in the field. The article does an excellent job of mentioning other actions that can reduce ovarian cancer risk (having children, tying fallopian tubes) to explain why an oral medication that reduces risk is so valuable. It also makes clear that no experts are suggesting women take birth control pills purely for cancer reduction–that the risk reduction, as the study’s lead author puts it high in the story, is ""a nice bonus."" Oral contraceptives are widely used, and their availability is not an issue in this piece. The novelty of birth control pills or their protective benefits are not at issue in this report. There is no evidence the article draws on a press release."
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4043
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Minnesota health official warns of more Lyme-carrying ticks.
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Minnesota residents may believe this past winter was rough, but state health officials say it wasn’t bad enough to kill off the deer ticks that carry Lyme disease.
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true
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Health, Ticks, Minnesota, Lyme disease, Insects
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Dave Neitzel, an epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health, told Minneapolis Public Radio that the cold kills ticks only if the insects are exposed to the air, and that the insects mostly survived the harsh cold this winter by staying insulated under a thick blanket of snow . The health department has been conducting field surveys in areas that are historically tick infested. Early results indicate there are more deer ticks now compared to this time last year. “We have a little piece of cloth that we drag behind us in the woods and we stop every 15 to 20 meters and we pull ticks off of ourselves and pull ticks off of the cloth,” Neitzel said. “A very simple sampling method, but it works really well.” Deer ticks carry Lyme disease, which can cause fever and fatigue, joint damage and, if left untreated, heart and neurological problems. Since he began studying tick-borne diseases in the 1980s, Neitzel said Minnesota has gone from experiencing a handful of Lyme cases every year to more than a thousand. He urged outdoor enthusiasts who spend time in brushy or wooded areas to protect themselves from tick bites with repellents containing DEET or — his preference — permethrin, especially during May, June and July, when Lyme disease is most prevalent. “It can be applied to clothing before you go out,” said Neitzel. “It not only kills ticks effectively, but it’s a strong repellent too.” ___ Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mprnews.org
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15005
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In 40 years, 23,000 chemicals came on the market and only four were regulated.
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"Whitehouse’s spokesman said the senator used the wrong verb at Hasbro. He asked us to test a different statement that uses a different verb and refers to different facts. We did. In both cases, we found evidence that the number of regulated or restricted chemicals was far greater than the tiny number that Whitehouse and his office referred to in their various statements. Cheryl Hogue, an assistant managing editor at Chemical & Engineering News, agrees that EPA’s regulatory authority is greatly limited by the 1976 law. But she also told us,""Every new chemical that comes on the market has to give a notice to EPA…Is that regulation?,"" she asked. ""A lot of chemical companies would call that regulation."" The 1976 law is weak, and it looks like Congress might make it tougher. But Whitehouse used the wrong verb and he mixed up the facts to make his case for change when he claimed that ""only four"" of 23,000 chemicals ""were regulated."""
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false
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Environment, Rhode Island, Public Health, Sheldon Whitehouse,
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"U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse recently joined Hasbro executives at their downtown headquarters to push a bill to regulate thousands of chemicals, including hazardous substances that pose a risk to children. From behind a blue podium that was as brightly colored and as plastic as a child’s toy, Whitehouse made this claim: ""In 40 years, 23,000 chemicals came on the market and only four were regulated."" This certainly sounded like the Wild West of unregulated chemicals to us: 22,996 chemicals on the market and only four run-ins with regulators? It was clear early on that our fact-checking of the statement would pivot on the definition of ""regulated."" Our dictionary tells us that to ""regulate"" is ""to control or direct by a rule."" Whitehouse’s go-to expert on chemicals, Richard A. Denison, a lead senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, was at the event and provided some immediate clarification after the senator spoke. The EPA blocked four chemicals from the marketplace after the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976. That, Denison said, was the regulation Whitehouse was talking about. So almost 23,000 other chemicals went unregulated? That didn’t line up with a 2010 report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Inspector General. Through September 2008, according to the report, EPA ""regulated 1,432 chemicals by means of Consent Orders."" The consent-order process, which involves negotiations with manufacturers, is quite different from the process that EPA used to block those four chemicals. But it’s a form of government regulation nevertheless — the outcome of a process in which manufacturers of a new chemical must, by rule, file a notice with the government and receive the EPA’s approval. We contacted Whitehouse spokesman Seth Larson for clarification. Larson told us that Whitehouse had been ""speaking off the cuff."" Larson asked us to consider a somewhat similar statement made in two news releases issued to publicize the Hasbro event. ""In almost 40 years,"" says the news release. ""TSCA has restricted just five chemicals of the more than 80,000 that are in commerce — and even failed to ban asbestos."" The five chemicals referenced in the release are different from the four substances that Whitehouse referred to at the Hasbro podium. The five chemicals were among 62,000 chemicals already in existence in 1976, while the four substances were among chemicals created after the law was passed, according to Denison. Our research into the restriction of ""just five"" substances took us right back to the more than 1,400 chemicals that OIG says EPA regulated through the consent-order process set forth in the 1976 law. The agency, according to its website, can establish conditions for safe use via a ""consent order,"" with the manufacturer agreeing to: toxicity testing, warnings, worker protections, ""restrictions"" on use and releases to ""water, air and land."" But Denison says the orders are negotiated case by case, behind closed doors, and the terms can remain secret or are heavily redacted in the few instances they become public. Still, the 1,400 chemicals have been regulated or restricted in some way. And the EPA even refers to certain negotiated requirements as ""restrictions."" Denison, in a later email, referred us to a collection of comments that high-level EPA officials have made regarding the five particular chemicals Whitehouse cited in the news releases. We noticed that in each case, the EPA officials had qualified their remarks in ways that Whitehouse didn’t. However, from a broader perspective, none of this analysis undercuts Whitehouse’s basic argument that the 1976 law isn’t protecting the public and it needs an overhaul. While many companies have agreed to restrictions under EPA pressure, the overall regulatory environment is extremely lax. Regulators don’t know the toxicity of many chemicals in the marketplace. ""It is important to note that almost 90 percent of pre-manufacture notices submitted to EPA complete the review process without being restricted or regulated in any way,"" the agency says on its website. More than 60 senators have signed on as supporters of the legislation backed by Whitehouse. Hasbro’s chief executive, Brian Goldner, says Hasbro is on a mission ""to make the world a better place for children and their families, and this reform will be a victory."" Our Ruling Whitehouse’s spokesman said the senator used the wrong verb at Hasbro. He asked us to test a different statement that uses a different verb and refers to different facts. We did. In both cases, we found evidence that the number of regulated or restricted chemicals was far greater than the tiny number that Whitehouse and his office referred to in their various statements. Cheryl Hogue, an assistant managing editor at Chemical & Engineering News, agrees that EPA’s regulatory authority is greatly limited by the 1976 law. But she also told us,""Every new chemical that comes on the market has to give a notice to EPA…Is that regulation?,"" she asked. ""A lot of chemical companies would call that regulation."" The 1976 law is weak, and it looks like Congress might make it tougher. But Whitehouse used the wrong verb and he mixed up the facts to make his case for change when he claimed that ""only four"" of 23,000 chemicals ""were regulated."""
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4530
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Boxed in? Warren confronts tough politics of health care.
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For Elizabeth Warren, it was supposed to be one more big idea in a campaign built around them: a promise that everyone could get government-funded health care, following the lead of her friend and fellow White House hopeful Bernie Sanders. Instead, “Medicare for All” is posing one of the biggest challenges to the Massachusetts senator’s candidacy.
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true
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Health care reform, General News, Politics, Campaigns, Election 2020, Elizabeth Warren, AP Top News, Medicare, Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders, Health
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Persistent questions about whether she would raise taxes on the middle class to pay for universal health coverage have dominated her campaign in recent weeks. Warren has refused to answer, arguing that it’s more important to note that overall costs would fall for nearly everyone but large corporations and the wealthy. That hasn’t quelled the criticism and, recognizing the push for specifics isn’t going away, Warren is promising to soon unveil details about how she would cover the costs of what would be a massive new federal entitlement. The release will test Warren’s ability to navigate the Democratic primary as she balances the demands of progressives who are open to new taxes against skepticism from moderates who say such levies would doom her in a general election. “She’s trying to thread the needle between the electorate that wants a simple answer and the facts that she knows and that she has to live with at some point down the road,” said Jim McDermott, a former Democratic congressman from Washington state who spent most of his career trying to move a “single-payer” plan. With the first votes just over three months away, Warren could leave many disappointed. If she aligns with Sanders, who acknowledges taxes will have to go up, she could further alarm Democrats worried she’s pushing the party too far to the left. If she doesn’t, that could alienate progressives who may accuse her plan of not going far enough. And any combination of the two might leave virtually everyone else still confused — wondering how to make the program’s eye-popping math work. That Warren is having to address health care questions on such starkly political terms may recall another, early campaign test she flunked: releasing the results of a DNA test last fall. Meant to quiet critics who questioned her past claims to Native American heritage, the move angered tribal leaders and energized critics like President Donald Trump who still gleefully deride Warren as “Pocahontas.” Warren says that, far from having boxed herself in politically, she’s been working on her health care plan for months and still sees it as a winning issue. Her campaign has consulted experts, is reviewing Sanders’ funding options on universal coverage going back to his 2016 presidential run and says it will always stay true to Warren’s promises that health care costs rise for the rich and big firms while falling for “hard-working families.” One expert Warren’s team has consulted is Robert Pollin, a University of Massachusetts Amherst economist who supports Medicare for All and has called for partially helping to pay for it using a sales tax. “We should all pay something,” said Pollin, who is a past donor to both Warren and Sanders but declined to discuss the specifics of his conversations with Warren’s campaign. “You’re going to get health care with no premiums, no deductibles, no fear of bankruptcy if you have a health emergency.” Warren has refused to commit to the idea of everyone paying a little. But presenting the payment specifics she’s promised means necessarily grappling with the possibility of higher overall costs for the program, since making health care free for the patient would encourage people to use more services. Sara Collins, vice president for coverage and access with the nonpartisan Commonwealth Club, said the key involves changing how the health care tab is divided up among employers, government and individuals. “The overall growth in spending isn’t that great, but it’s the ‘Who pays for it?’ that really changes,” said Collins, adding that costs would shift to the federal government, meaning “taxes will likely have to go up.” More pitfalls may emerge as the Warren campaign tries to estimate Medicare for All’s cost. Since the final product would have to be approved by Congress, its contents are impossible to predict. A study released last week nonetheless estimated the government would need $2.7 trillion for Medicare for All to be fully implemented next year — more than half the current federal budget. Sanders’ campaign estimated that the universal health coverage plan he first introduced in 2016 would cost $14 trillion over the next decade. His estimates for the current race are far higher, though he now wants to offer more coverage. Unlike Warren, Sanders has already released payment options, including higher taxes on wealthy Americans and an employee payroll tax of 7.5%. But he’s also suggested a 4% “premium” on income that kicks in after the first $29,000 for a family of four — very much affecting the middle class. Warren could possibly avoid that by imposing co-pay rules or limiting what’s covered. Her plan may institute payroll taxes to transfer what employers already spend on employee health care through private insurance to government-run Medicare for All. But that would give federal authorities more control over employee health costs than employers, potentially affecting jobs. “If your plan for health care involves the perception, even if it’s not reality, that you’re going to take away something that people have worked very hard to maintain — then it would be very problematic,” said Brandon Dillon, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. Warren’s predicament is striking since she emerged as a front-runner alongside former Vice President Joe Biden by proudly “having a plan” for everything but arguably the 2020 race’s top issue. She’s also spent months deftly floating above questions about paying for her other ambitious proposals, including offering universal child care and tuition-free education at public universities while canceling existing student debt, by proposing a wealth tax on the ultra-rich. That proposal effectively became a piggy bank to cover the costs of her other promises. The wealth tax won’t be enough to pay for Medicare for All, though. Warren’s avoidance of the middle-class tax question has helped the issue linger as a political liability — and not just in Washington political circles. Peter Schweyer, a Democrat in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives who is undecided in the presidential race, called pointed questions of Warren over Medicare for All during last week’s presidential debate “really good.” “She’ll need to figure out how to respond,” Schweyer said. ___ Associated Press writers David Eggert in Lansing, Mich., and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.
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4070
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Judge hears arguments over ban on flavored vaping products.
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A judge is hearing arguments over Gov. Steve Bullock’s temporary ban on the sale of flavored vaping products over increased teen use and a nationwide outbreak of lung injury and deaths.
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true
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Health, General News, Lung disease, Montana, Vaping, Steve Bullock
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An anti-tobacco advocate said Wednesday the ban fails to address the apparent cause of the lung disease, vaping THC, while a pediatrician said it’s needed to prevent another generation from becoming addicted to nicotine. The hearing before District Judge Jennifer Lint continues Friday in Hamilton with testimony from two more state witnesses. The Democratic governor announced the ban on Oct. 8 and said it would take effect on Oct. 22, but vaping store owners and the Montana Smoke Free Association challenged the 120-day ban. They argued it would force them to lay off employees and put them out of business. Lint stopped the ban from taking effect until she holds a hearing. On Wednesday, Boston University community health professor Michael Siegel said research indicates the lung disease appears to be linked to the vaping of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, not nicotine. “I think what’s happened with many health departments, especially on the state level, is that they are conflating the problem (of) youth vaping with this respiratory illness,” said Siegel, a long-time anti-tobacco advocate. “I think they are two separate problems, but by conflating them, it’s misleading people in the public to think that e-cigarettes are causing the outbreak, not THC.” “In order to curtail the outbreak, we need to stop youth from vaping THC,” he said. Since the pulmonary illness appears to be something new, Siegel said it’s unlikely that it would be caused by vaping products that have been available for years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports 1,888 cases of lung injury and 37 deaths nationwide, with most patients reporting a history of using vaping products containing THC. Montana has one reported death. The CDC recommends not using vaping products that contain THC and not buying any vaping products off the street. However, because the compound or ingredient that causes the lung injury is not known, the only way to assure you’re not at risk is to refrain from using all vaping products, the agency says. Pediatrician Lauren Wilson of Missoula testified the ban on flavored vaping liquid is needed to help prevent teens from becoming addicted to nicotine as their brains are still developing. She argued the flavored juices, like Slamming Watermelon and Strawberry Rolls, drive teens to try vaping. The long-term health effects are unknown, she said. Deanna Marshall of Freedom Vapes in Hamilton said nearly all of their customers are former smokers and 75% of them buy flavored vaping products. “We don’t have people coming in here wanting to start vaping,” she said. Other store owners said they have strict policies to prevent sales to minors. They don’t sell THC-laced products, they said. Jeff Lloyd, a school resource officer from Missoula, said most of the vaping products they find in schools are the smaller pod type commonly sold at convenience stores, rather than the liquid sold at vape shops.
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13504
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"Senate Majority PAC Says ""Marco Rubio wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare because he said they’re bankrupting our country."
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"TV ads say that Marco Rubio ""wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare because he said they’re bankrupting our country."" Rubio has repeatedly said since 2010 that those programs will bankrupt the United States. His plan to raise the retirement age would amount to a cut for those recipients. He supported the Ryan budgets that included reductions in future Medicare spending. The ad omits that his proposals to change Social Security would not affect current retirees or people nearing retirement."
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mixture
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Medicare, Social Security, Florida, Senate Majority PAC,
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"Two Democratic groups say Republican Sen. Marco Rubio wants to cut Social Security and Medicare -- programs that millions of Florida seniors rely on each year. ""Marco Rubio wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare because he said they’re bankrupting our country. But that’s what politicians say when the insurance industry bankrolls their campaigns. Marco Rubio has taken almost $1 million from the insurance industry which was profit from his privatization plans,"" says the narrator in a TV ad by the Senate Majority PAC and AFSCME People. The PAC aims to elect Democrats to the Senate, including U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, while AFSCME is a union representing public workers. We found that Rubio’s views are much more nuanced than the ad suggests. Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign About 21 percent of Florida’s population -- about 3.9 million people -- receive Social Security benefits. About 4 million Floridians use Medicare for health insurance. Both programs face long-term financing shortfalls, leading program trustees and experts on the federal budget to call on lawmakers to take action -- something many are unwilling to do out of fear of repercussions at the ballot box. Finding ways to pay for the programs in the long-term is important because together they accounted for 41 percent of federal program expenditures in fiscal year 2015. During his first U.S. Senate campaign in 2010, Rubio called for reforming entitlement programs. Specifically, Rubio said in 2010 that he was open to raising the retirement age. ""Privatization of the accounts has come and gone, (but) there are other alternatives, such as (raising) the retirement age, how you adjust payments in the future, 'need' measures, et cetera."" The retirement age came up again during a Fox News Sunday debate. Host Chris Wallace asked Rubio if he would raise the retirement age. ""I think that has to be on the table. That's got to be part of the solution. The retirement age that gradually increases for people of my generation, I think has got to be part of ...,"" Rubio said before getting cut off. Rubio was asked if he would support changing cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries. ""I think all of that has to be on the table, including the way we index increases in cost of living. All of these issues have to be on the table,"" Rubio said. ""They have to be options that I would be open to."" Rubio consistently said that while he wouldn’t make changes for those 55 and older, younger people such as himself (he was 39 at the time) would have to accept changes. After Rubio was elected The Senate Majority PAC’s ad cites Rubio’s comments from 2011. In March 2011, Rubio voted for a House-passed measure to cut about $61 billion from the budget through the end of the year. ""While reducing discretionary spending is an important goal, Washington is devoting a disproportionate amount of time to a tiny slice of the budget while ignoring the fact that continued inaction on saving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is bankrupting our country,"" Rubio said in a press release. In 2014, Rubio gave a speech at the National Press Club in which he again said inaction would lead to bankruptcy. Rubio called to ""gradually increase the retirement age for future retirees to account for the rise in life expectancy."" As for Medicare, he called for a ""premium support system"" that would give seniors a fixed amount of money to purchase insurance from Medicare or a private provider. That was similar to a plan by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. Rubio voted for the Ryan budgets that included reductions in future Medicare spending. The burden would have fallen on beneficiaries to pay more out of pocket. While running for president in 2016, Rubio again called for reducing the debt by making changes to Social Security and Medicare. At a March debate in Miami, Rubio reiterated his stance about raising the retirement age but not for those who are 55 or older. ""Social Security will go bankrupt, and it will bankrupt the country with it,"" he said. ""So what it will require is people younger, like myself, people that are 30 years away from retirement, to accept that our Social Security is going to work differently than it did for my parents."" Rubio’s 2016 race While running for re-election, Rubio reiterated the same proposals for Social Security. ""Marco's own mother relies on Social Security as her sole source of income,"" Rubio spokesman Michael Ahrens said. ""Marco would never do anything to hurt his mother or the millions of Florida seniors who depend on Social Security and Medicare, and he'll continue to fight to strengthen the programs for future generations."" His campaign staff also point to previous PolitiFact analysis that said that reining in the spending growth of a program like Medicare wasn’t the same as cutting it. Our ruling TV ads say that Marco Rubio ""wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare because he said they’re bankrupting our country."" Rubio has repeatedly said since 2010 that those programs will bankrupt the United States. His plan to raise the retirement age would amount to a cut for those recipients. He supported the Ryan budgets that included reductions in future Medicare spending. The ad omits that his proposals to change Social Security would not affect current retirees or people nearing retirement.
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17157
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The Koch brothers are one of the biggest polluters in the country.
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"Beckel said that the Koch brothers are one of the country’s biggest polluters. In this fact-check, we're talking about the Kochs' company, Koch Industries. Koch Industries operates over 100 plants across the country. According to one ranking, it is not responsible for the most significant releases but it does land within the top 30 on one list and the top 15 on another. Most people would count that as ""one of the biggest."" Most of those releases are legal under EPA permits. The EPA does not consider this level of pollution to pose a health risk in and of itself. However, it is still pollution."
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true
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Environment, PunditFact, Bob Beckel,
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"When a billionaire speaks, people listen, especially when that billionaire is Charles Koch. Koch, along with his brother David, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to get the low-tax, low-regulation government he wants. He’s backed the tea party-funded campaign ads to topple Democrats and deployed scores of lobbyists. Koch’s spirited defense in the Wall Street Journal of himself and Koch Industries was everything the talking heads on Fox News’ The Five could have asked for. The resident Democrat, Bob Beckel, set out to skewer the Koch brothers. The rest of the panel, like Greg Gutfeld and Kimberly Guilfoyle, praised them for their philanthropy and business success. Beckel was unimpressed. Beckel: ""The Koch brothers are one of the biggest polluters in the country."" Gutfeld: ""They pollute us with money."" (While this could be taken differently, this was praise.) Beckel: ""They pollute this country."" Guilfoyle: ""You don’t have any evidence to substantiate that."" Beckel: ""Yes, I do."" We tried to reach Beckel to hear about his evidence, but we got no response. What we found in its place was a report from the left-leaning Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Last year, the institute released two lists of the 100 firms with the most significant emissions in the nation. One list is for air and the other is for water. On the first, Koch Industries ranked 14th. On the second, it ranked 30th. Some of the companies ranking high on both lists include ExxonMobil, BASF, Bayer Group and Dow Chemical. Behind these rankings is data reported by companies to the Environmental Protection Agency and compiled in something called the Toxics Release Inventory. The Toxics Release Inventory provides the numbers of pounds of waste chemicals released into the environment by each facility. Every facility operates under a permit from the EPA. The EPA then takes this release information and runs it through a computer model that factors in the toxicity of the chemicals, how they get moved around and how close they are to population centers. What emerges is a score. (The technical name is the Risk Screening Environmental Indicator.) This score is a measure of risk. It doesn’t mean that a facility actually poses a threat to health, but a score that is 10 times higher than another means the ""the potential for risk is 10 times higher,"" according to the EPA. This method has been around since 1991 and been reviewed and refined several times since then. It’s important to remember that this information is just for each particular plant. What the researchers at Amherst do is tie each plant to its corporate owner and come up with a total score for a company. ""The match of facilities to the companies that own them is a substantial effort for us,"" said Michael Ash, chair of the economics department at UMass-Amherst and head of the project. To repeat, it’s by this measure that Koch Industries ranks 14th in the country in terms of companies sending emissions into the air and 30th in sending emissions into the water. The top air polluter, according to the analysis, is Precision Castparts. The top water polluter is Ohio Valley Electric. We wanted to know if there is anything analytically wrong with adding up the scores the way Ash's group does. We found that the business magazine Forbes has reported these results without challenging them. An environmental economist, Nicolaas Bouwes, who helped develop the Risk Screening Environmental Indicator at the EPA, told PunditFact that there is ""no problem aggregating the numbers."" ""The point of the model was to identify problem actors,"" Bouwes said. ""If you are at #14, there are issues to look into."" Koch Industries did not dispute the findings. ""Koch’s TRI (Toxic Release Inventory) number is what it is because we have a large number of U.S. manufacturing sites and we're a U.S.-based company,"" said spokesman Rob Tappan. Tappan is correct that Koch Industries has a large number of plants. It operates over 100 facilities that produce everything from plywood, to asphalt, to jet fuel. One of its companies makes Brawny paper towels. That water you bought at the store might come in a bottle made of plastic from a Koch Industries plant. The company runs nearly twice as many sites as the corporation with the next-largest number of plants, Honeywell, which has about 60. You would expect that releases would go up with each additional facility. On the other hand, when we dipped into the EPA’s data (using the database on the Right To Know Network), we found that on average, each Koch plant generated about five times as much as each Honeywell plant. Roughly speaking, the comparison was about 500,000 pounds of chemical releases compared to about 100,000. So the number of plants alone doesn’t explain the Koch brothers’ high numbers. Tappan underscored that the Political Economy Research Institute (the University of Massachusetts-Amherst group) has ""radical"" roots. Ash, he noted is a member of the Union for Radical Political Economics. That organization's website proclaims that it ""presents a continuing critique of the capitalist system and all forms of exploitation and oppression while helping to construct a progressive social policy and create socialist alternatives."" While that perspective is not mainstream, that by itself does not invalidate the institute’s findings. Tappan also notes that ""our manufacturing emissions meet all EPA standards, and we work hard to exceed them."" However, Koch Industries paid a $30 million civil fine in January 2000 for its role in more than 300 spills from oil pipelines and facilities in six states. At the time, the fine was the largest civil fine levied under any environmental law, according to the EPA. And last month, leaks at a Texas chemical plant cost the company a $350,000 fine with the promise to invest $45 million in equipment upgrades. Our ruling Beckel said that the Koch brothers are one of the country’s biggest polluters. In this fact-check, we're talking about the Kochs' company, Koch Industries. Koch Industries operates over 100 plants across the country. According to one ranking, it is not responsible for the most significant releases but it does land within the top 30 on one list and the top 15 on another. Most people would count that as ""one of the biggest."" Most of those releases are legal under EPA permits. The EPA does not consider this level of pollution to pose a health risk in and of itself. However, it is still pollution."
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9230
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Vitamin D reduces respiratory infections, says CU Anschutz study
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This a tidy little release that gives just enough information for reporters to decide whether it’s newsworthy. The release summarizes a randomized clinical trial which enrolled 107 elderly nursing home patients. Half the enrolled patients received a very large dose of vitamin D (3,300-4,300 units daily) and the controls were given a lower dose (400-1,000 units daily). The outcome of interest was that the high dose patients developed fewer respiratory infections than the control group. However, the patients in the high dose group also had more falls. What the release lacks is the right context to help readers understand the significance of the findings. We love the fact that, unlike most news releases, it makes mention of the potential side effects, twice even. But it falls short on a discussion of costs, benefits, alternatives, and funding sources. These would have been easy additions that would have added marginally to the length of the release. Reducing the rate of acute respiratory illness (ARI) in the elderly could lead to a reduction in serious infections leading to pneumonia and death.
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mixture
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respiratory infections,University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus,vitamin D
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There is no mention of costs in the release. Even though we are talking about vitamin D, which can be found at any drugstore for around $20 a bottle, we estimate that it could cost about $10 – $15 for a 30-day supply. The release did not provide adequate quantification of benefits. It said that of the 55 elderly people who received high doses of vitamin D, “those with higher doses saw ARIs cut nearly in half.” That’s quite vague. What was the rate before? Would all 55 have developed ARIs or only two? The release notes that the higher doses of vitamin D also had unintended side effects. It reports that the number of falls in the high dose group was significantly increased, although according to the study, the number of hip fractures was not different in the two groups. The release meets our standard here, but the finding of more falls should arguably have received more emphasis. Falls might lead to more hip fractures, which could cancel out any “lifesaving” benefits from reduced rates of respiratory infection. The release describes the basic outlines of the year-long trial, and it notes that the findings were published in a journal. The release also clues readers in to limitations of the study. It cautions that “the study is not definitive proof that vitamin D can prevent ARI.” It also states that “This finding requires a confirmatory trial, including whether high daily doses of vitamin D, rather than high monthly doses, makes patients less likely to fall,” according to the lead author. It’s worth noting that, according to the published study, less than 10 percent of the patients approached to take part in the study agreed to participate. This might suggest that the findings may apply to only a subset of nursing home patients. There is no disease mongering in the release. The release does not make any mention of funding sources. The published study lists government agencies, including the Veterans Administration, as sponsors. The release says that there are not enough good options for preventing ARIs, but it does not adequately explain the options. There’s no mention of availability, but it’s generally understood that vitamin D is widely available. The release notes that the clinical trial was the first to examine vitamin D’s impact on respiratory infections in nursing home residents, and explains clearly that the findings require a confirmatory clinical trial. We never like to see terms like “life saving” even when the word “potentially” is appended in the front. The headline on this release says, “A potentially life-saving discovery in older patients at high risk for these illnesses.”
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26608
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U.S. deaths since 1/22 (2020): COVID-19: 27, flu, 4,700; abortion: 118,000.
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The post’s numbers are inaccurate, but abortions do far outnumber deaths from COVID-19 and flu. The COVID-19 number is likely too low, and the flu number is too high. The number of abortions is roughly accurate. Abortion is an elective procedure, not a contagious illness.
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false
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Abortion, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"An anti-abortion post on Facebook attempted to use the coronavirus to advance its cause, stating: ""U.S. deaths since 1/22: COVID-19: 27 Flu: 4,700 Abortion: 118,000."" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Precise numbers for the period cited in the post are not available in any of the three categories, but the best numbers suggest these figures are inaccurate. Generally in the United States, however, elective abortions are performed at a much higher rate than deaths by COVID-19 or the flu, which are viruses that surely no one chooses to catch. Here’s what we know about the numbers during the roughly eight-week period from Jan. 22, 2020 through March 17, 2020, the date of the post: COVID-19 deaths: The first U.S. death from the novel coronavirus was reported on Feb. 29, 2020. By March 17, 2020, the number of COVID-19 related deaths was reported to be 110, more than four times what this Facebook post suggests. Flu deaths: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there would be 23,000 flu deaths during the 2019-2020 flu season, which began Sept. 29, 2019, according to the latest weekly update from the released March 14, 2020. That’s an average of 958 deaths per week, or 7,664 over the eight-week period this post describes, not, 4,700. Abortions: Abortions are reported on an annual basis. The latest figures, from the nonprofit Alan Guttmacher Institute, are for 2017, when there were an estimated 862,320 abortions. That’s an average of 16,583 per week, or 132,664 over eight weeks It’s worth pointing out that an abortion is an elective medical procedure, something that cannot be said for someone who is afflicted by contagion and dies. Precise numbers for Jan. 22, 2020, through March 17, 2020, are not available in any of the three categories. It’s generally true that the number of abortions in the United States far outpaces the number of deaths to COVID-19 or the flu. But the numbers included in this post are not in line with the best data. Abortion is an elective procedure, not a disease. For a statement that contains only an element of truth."
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26375
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“The (corona)virus just isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought it was.”
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Reputable scientists warned early in the outbreak that there was not a totally accurate picture of how deadly the coronavirus was. There’s still not. It’s misleading to compare, as Carlson did, the early reported case fatality rates, which reflect deaths among confirmed COVID-19 patients, with more recent infection fatality rates that estimate the death rate for all infected people. COVID-19 still appears more lethal than the seasonal flu, experts said. Infection fatality rates that may seem small can lead to mounting death tolls.
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false
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Public Health, Pundits, PunditFact, Coronavirus, Tucker Carlson,
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"Fox News host Tucker Carlson railed against continued statewide shutdowns meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus, claiming in a recent TV segment that they did little to flatten the curve and that ""the virus just isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought it was."" Citing recent studies from hotspots such as New York, Carlson said the virus is ""a full order of magnitude less deadly"" than public health officials warned. ""The virus just isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought it was, all of us, including on this show,"" he said. ""Everybody thought it was, but it turned out not to be."" More than 65,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s in spite of widespread mitigation efforts to reduce the spread. So how deadly is it? Estimating the lethality of COVID-19 has been a key question for epidemiologists. In the middle of a pandemic, moving targets make the death rate difficult to pin down. But experts told us Carlson’s statement is off-track. Many early mortality estimates were based on official counts of confirmed cases, but epidemiologists were consistent in saying those raw numbers didn’t reflect the virus’s deadliness with complete precision. Ideally, epidemiologists could divide the number of deaths by the number of infections to calculate what’s known as the ""infection fatality rate."" But there’s no way to get a complete count of the number of infected individuals, largely because so many mild cases go unreported. Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, said there could be as many as 12.5 COVID-19 infections for every confirmed case in the U.S. Still, scientists work with the data they have, even if it’s evolving and varies with patient demographics and location. Some of the first widely reported death rates were what are called ""case fatality rates,"" which are calculated by dividing the number of known deaths by the number of reported cases. On March 3, for example, the World Health Organization announced that 3.4% of confirmed coronavirus patients around the world had died — a case fatality rate. Experts told us at the time that the 3.4% was only a snapshot, and one that likely undercounted people with mild symptoms. A WHO spokesperson said it would ""change over time."" The global case fatality rate has actually risen since then. As of May 3, the WHO had tallied 3,349,786 confirmed cases worldwide and 238,628 deaths, for a case fatality rate of about 7%. Now, tests for antibodies in the blood of people exposed to the coronavirus are offering the first glimpses at what the infection fatality rate could be in states such as New York and California. The tests haven’t all been as accurate as many experts would like, and the studies of them haven’t all been peer-reviewed. ""It remains very clear that we do not know the precise mortality of COVID-19 infection,"" said the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Myron Cohen. But their preliminary results suggested the infection fatality rate may be below 1%, handing fodder to some who say the COVID-19 threat is overblown. Carlson said the new information shows COVID-19 is less deadly than expected. On his show, he cited widely disputed findings from two California doctors. A Fox News spokesperson also pointed to a White House press conference, a JP Morgan chart, and recent antibody studies in California and New York to support it. But Shaman, the epidemiologist, said Carlson was ""cherry-picking evidence."" Many early figures were case fatality rates, while the estimates reported as a result of recent antibody studies are infection fatality rates. They shouldn’t be conflated, Shaman said. Seemingly small infection fatality rates can also cause mounting deaths. The New York study showed the state’s infection fatality rate to be around 0.5%, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. That matches estimates from a model Shaman constructed, which he said put the U.S. infection fatality rate at 0.56%. But in a worst-case scenario where 70% of Americans are infected, a 0.5% rate could amount to 1.2 million U.S. deaths, Shaman said. And as we’ve reported, the death toll may be higher than we know. The infection fatality rate for the flu, which kills thousands of Americans annually, hovers under 0.1% and is calculated annually using a mathematical model that estimates the disease burden. There are other problems with Carlson’s sources, including the clip he played of one of two California physicians who gained national attention for calling to end the shutdowns. The doctors, who own an urgent care clinic, used the infection rate among patients tested at their clinic to extrapolate to the entire state and put the death rate at a tiny 0.03%. The University of Washington’s Carl Bergstrom wrote on Twitter that this amounts to ""sampling bias"" because patients at an urgent care clinic likely think they’re sick. The doctors’ calculations are like ""estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court,"" he said. The problem with this approach is that during a pandemic, the people who come into an urgent care clinic are not a random sample of the population. A large fraction of them are coming in precisely because they suspect that they have the disease.This generates sampling bias. The video was ""emphatically condemn(ed)"" by the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine; it was also removed from YouTube. Another report cited by the Fox News spokesperson, from the University of Southern California, followed a controversial study from Stanford University. A number of experts have since warned that both studies used antibody tests known to yield false positive results. (A USC spokesperson said results were adjusted to account for that.) Carlson’s claim that COVID-19 was projected to be deadlier for infected patients also discounts what many experts said months ago. ""No one knowledgeable thought it was as deadly as known deaths divided by known cases,"" said Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. ""Every responsible epidemiologist has been saying that the number of cases is certainly more than those we know about, especially in the U.S., where testing has been inadequate."" Many experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said preliminary case fatality rates could be inflated. The WHO said early on, including in mid- February, that the infection fatality rate would be lower than the initial case fatality rates. The Imperial College of London, which projected in March that the U.S. could see 2.2 million deaths if it had no response, estimated that 0.9% of infected COVID-19 patients would die. ""It is surprisingly mild only to those who were not listening to competent epidemiologists, and it is in fact considerably worse than seasonal flu,"" Lipsitch said. Carlson said the coronavirus ""just isn’t nearly as deadly as we thought it was."" Scientists warned early in the outbreak that the raw number of confirmed cases didn’t give a fully accurate picture of mortality. It’s misleading for Carlson to compare early case fatality rates — which divide the number of known deaths by the number of confirmed cases — with newer estimates of the infection fatality rate. The infection fatality rate should be lower, as experts have said for months. It’s premature to say as a matter of fact that a far rosier picture has emerged."
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A bill introduced to the Alabama Legislature would require a man to undergo a vasectomy within one month of his 50th birthday.
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What's true: A bill introduced in the Alabama Legislature would require all men to get vasectomies after their 50th birthday or the birth of their third child. What's false: However, the bill was intended as a form of protest over attempts to enact new abortion restrictions in Alabama and was not intended to be passed as written.
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mixture
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Politics
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We have previously seen some unusual bills proposed in state legislatures as a form of criticism over restrictions on women’s reproductive health care, such as the 2017 Texas “Man’s Right to Know Act” that proposed to fine men $100 if they masturbated outside of a vagina or a medical facility and thereby engaged in “an act against an unborn child, and fail[ed] to preserve the sanctity of life.” Similarly, in February 2020 Rep. Rolanda Hollis introduced a bill (HB 238) in the Alabama Legislature that “would require a man to undergo a vasectomy within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third biological child, whichever comes first.” As noted by The Associated Press, Hollis was “fed up with her colleagues’ attempts to outlaw abortion” and introduced the bill to send “the message that men should not be legislating what women do with their bodies”:
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27744
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It's possible to tattoo the whites of your eyes.
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The end result of this method permanently turns the whites of the eyes another color to create an otherworldly, striking look.
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true
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Junk News, Body Modifications
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Humans have been modifying their bodies as long as there have been tools available to do so. Tattoos, piercings, corseting, and other practices generally characterized as “transgressive” actually come with centuries of historical weight, and even newer types of body modification generally have precedents. Eyeball tattooing is no exception to this, despite popping up mostly in news stories after 2015, when an inmate in Alaska appeared in court with one of his sclera evidently tattooed: Jason Barnum, also known as “Eyeball,” was sentenced to 22 years in prison for shooting a police officer. His face and eye tattoos came up during the sentencing hearings as well; the prosecution said that his tattoos showed a specific behavior pattern, and Barnum argued that poor decisions earlier in life had left him unable to find work. At any rate, eye tattoos are real — and permanent. The BBC weighed in on the practice of eyeball tattooing in 2015, concluding that the tattoos are a strikingly visible way to proclaim one’s individuality to the world: Looking a little out-of-this world is something that appealed to Kylie Garth, a body piercer who works in Luna Cobra’s Sydney studio. Before deciding to change the colour of her eyeballs, Garth had experimented with a number of body modifications including face tattoos, piercings, elf-like pointed ears and a bifurcated tongue. “It was mentally intense,” she says of the several injections needed to colour her eyeballs a delicate blue-green, a colour she refers to as sea foam. “It feels like somebody is poking at your eye, then it feels like strange pressure and then it feels you have a bit of sand in your eye, but there’s no pain.” In 2007, a handful of stories ran on the practice of eyeball tattooing, mostly focusing on a tattoo artist named Luna Cobra who tattooed Garth’s sclera and who claims to have invented the modern practice: First and foremost, I, Luna Cobra, am the inventor of eyeball, or sclera, tattooing (tattooing the white of the eye in a solid or mix of colours). I first attempted the procedure on sighted human eyeballs in 2007 on three well-informed and consenting parties. Since then, I have fine-tuned both the technique and materials to increase the safety and minimize the risks of tattooing the eyeball. There are still risks involved, of course, but in the 8 years I have been performing this procedure, all my clients are all still ok. Secondly, I personally have not trained anyone else to do this procedure. I have appeared on various tv/news segments though, and have inspired many copycats worldwide. This is important to know because without the proper education, training, experience and guidance, these practitioners have caused vision impairments like blurred vision, spots or floaters, and even blindness. YES PEOPLE ARE NOW BLIND FROM EYEBALL TATTOOING. The practice of tattooing the sclera or the cornea (mostly the cornea, over the iris of the eye) stretches back to at least the first century A.D. and has been documented as a cosmetic enhancement (e.g., a way to alleviate unsightly scars on the iris) since then: Permanent colouring of unsightly corneal scars has been known for almost 2000 years. During the final decade of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century it was a commonly applied technique. Owing to the tremendous progress in microsurgical reconstructive procedures, corneal tattooing today will only apply for a minor and carefully selected group of patients. However, the procedure of coloring the whites of the eyes for elective cosmetic purposes has gained ground since Luna Cobra apparently developed it. That procedure is slightly less invasive, consisting of sandwiching pigments between the sclera and the conjunctiva of the eye, rather than depositing bits of ink just beneath the upper layer, as with a more traditional tattoo: Using the injection method of eyeball tattooing, where a larger area of ink is injected via a single hole, complex designs are not possible, and although fades from one color to another are possible to some extent, they can be difficult to control and master. The difficulty in controlling the spread of the ink makes this method inadvisable for the cornea (ie. over the iris and pupil) because of the danger of obscuring vision if the ink spreads over the pupil. Because only a few injections are required to completely cover the white of an eye with ink, many of the risks in the traditional method such as significant ink loss and ulceration are largely mitigated (although they are not eliminated). However, the injections can be difficult to control, and over-injection or injections that are too deep or too shallow carry significant risk — the appropriate zone is less than a millimetre thick, with serious consequences for missing it. The medical community uses almost exclusively the traditional tattoo method — although even after 150 years they have not come up with an agreed upon technique, which is very telling — whereas the body modification community uses almost exclusively the injection method. To date, attempts to tattoo the white of the eye using traditional needle methods have been extremely unsatistfactory, almost completely falling out. The general consensus is that injection is the only acceptable method of scleral tattooing.
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7908
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Philippine capital plans curfew as coronavirus deaths, infection tally spike.
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Manila announced nighttime curfews on Saturday and urged shopping malls to close for one month, in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus, as the Philippines reported its eighth death and the largest single-day increase in confirmed cases.
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true
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Health News
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The Philippines’ health department on Saturday confirmed three new fatalities, including a patient in southern Philippines, bringing the total number of deaths to eight. It also reported 34 new confirmed cases, bringing the total to 98. Details of the new cases are being validated and authorities are verifying reports of more infections, Health Assistant Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told a news conference. President Rodrigo Duterte has raised the country’s health emergency status to the highest level and issued quarantine measures in the capital, home to at least 12 million people. He also issued land and air travel restrictions to and from the capital on Thursday that will take effect on March 15, and extended school closures to April 12. The measures in the Philippine capital, if implemented fully, would be among the strictest in Asia, and come as European countries and the United States battle to contain a pandemic that has killed more than 5,000 worldwide. “To limit the spread of the virus, we need to limit the movement of people. We are slowing down the movement of people in Metro Manila,” Jose Arturo Garcia, general manager of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, told a news conference. Some of the capital’s residents flocked to bus stations and airports ahead of the travel ban that will start Sunday. The nighttime curfew will take effect on March 15 to April 14, but some employees will be exempt, Garcia said. He said people who violated the curfew would be turned back, but would not be reprimanded or arrested. Mayors will issue local ordinances for the temporary closure of malls and establishments, exempting shops offering essential services like groceries, banks and pharmacies. The capital is home to sprawling shopping malls, some of which are among the largest in the world.
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8263
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PM Johnson says coronavirus top priority, as first Briton dies.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson said slowing the spread of the coronavirus was now his government’s top priority, shortly after news on Friday that the first Briton had died of the disease after contracting it on a cruise ship moored in Japan.
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true
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Health News
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The country was right to be concerned about the virus, he said, as the number of people infected in Britain rose to 20. “The issue of coronavirus is something that is now the government’s top priority,” he told broadcasters in his first statement on the disease, adding that he would be chairing a meeting of ministers and officials on the subject on Monday. Britain’s health ministry said the most recent person to be infected was the first to have caught the virus in Britain, rather than during a trip abroad, and that it was trying to find the source of the infection. Mainland China - where the virus originated late last year - reported 327 new cases, the lowest since Jan. 23, taking its tally to more than 78,800 cases with almost 2,800 deaths. However, the disease is now spreading across the globe, with the first case reported in Nigeria on Friday and 888 people infected in Italy, Europe’s worst-hit country. Britain reported its first confirmed coronavirus case on Jan. 31 but there have been no deaths in the country so far. The British person who died was in Japan, where the Diamond Princess cruise ship had docked off Yokohama on Feb. 3. The virus - which causes a disease called COVID-19 - is transmitted from person to person in droplets when an infected person breathes out, coughs or sneezes. It can also spread via contaminated surfaces such as door handles. British health officials have urged the public to wash their hands to slow the spread of the disease, but have not recommended the use of face masks common in much of Asia. Sterling weakened sharply on Friday to its lowest level since October 2019, down more than 1% on the day as investors moved their money to safe-haven assets and British shares recorded their biggest weekly fall since the 2008 financial crisis. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said at the start of the day that Britain should prepare for economic damage from the virus as it disrupts business supply chains. A finance ministry spokesman said the government was keeping a close eye on the economic impact. “As the Governor said there has been no feed-through into economic data at this stage, but the government is actively monitoring the outbreak, and well prepared for any effect it may have on the UK economy,” he said.
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9274
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Maintaining a healthy heart through bile acids
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This release falls short in providing the reader with useful takeaway information about an important and interesting study published in PLOS ONE. The study involved the use of bile acids to prevent cardiac fibrosis in mice. The use of hyperbole, beginning with the title, the lack of adequate information about the study design, limitations and results, along with a suggestion that the treatment is even close to use in humans, is unfortunate. The study is important in that it adds to the existing knowledge about fibrosis in the heart and possible ways to prevent its occurrence. The release does little to demonstrate that fact in transparent ways. A new basic science discovery by researchers at the University of Alberta and McGill might translate into useful treatments for some people with heart failure over a decade from now (or never). The folks in Edmonton are understandably proud of their researchers, but contrary to the language of the release, their discovery offers no quick fix for anyone currently suffering from heart failure. One bile acid derivative did prevent heart failure in one strain of mutant mice, but it did not reverse or treat heart failure. Fibrosis is just one feature of “heart failure” which is really a diverse set of conditions, and it is possible a future treatment based on this research could make some patients feel better and live longer. While we currently have some medical treatments (ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, aldosterone antagonists, high tech pacemakers and defibrillators) that are shown to do that for certain patient groups, we still have no cure for heart failure. After years of additional research, the discovery in Alberta might or might not lead to additional treatments for congestive heart failure.
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false
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bile acids,cardiac fibrosis,mice studies,University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry
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At this stage of the research, cost is not of major concern. Having said that, tauroursodeoxycholic acid or TUDCA (the bile salt used in the experiments) is readily available from health food stores (for better or worse) and is relatively inexpensive. Beginning with the headline (“Canadian discovery may soon lead to the prevention of cardiac fibrosis”) and first sentence (“Groundbreaking research from the University of Alberta and McGill University…”) the release over reaches in its description of benefits — at least to humans, transgenic mice however should be thrilled. Jumping directly from a mouse model to humans is simply wrong in our view. As we pointed out above, suggesting that a drug in a pre-clinical study “…offers hope to those who are living with heart failure,” given the long and arduous process of regulatory approval does a disservice to people living with the disease. The research paper does not include any statement about potential toxicity other than to point out that none of the 162 mice died prior to the conclusion of the study. The release is silent on the issue. A few words about the potential toxicity (or the absence of risk if that’s the case) of TUDCA which is commercially available and has been studied for the treatment of biliary cirrhosis would have been in order. The release provides no information about the study (other than to say it was preclinical), nothing about study methods or results. It is not until the 8th paragraph of the 11 paragraph release that the reader is given a hint that the study was not conducted in humans: “The team is now pushing forward with additional studies to see if the same therapeutic effect can be achieved in humans.” Although the title suggests a bile acid was used in the experiments, the release does not specify TUDCA by name. There is little evidence of disease mongering. The information on heart disease is on point, although the 30% one-year mortality rate is higher than the often cited Meta-analysis Global Group in Chronic Heart Failure (MAGGIC), a 2012 study of 41,972 patients which found a 12-14% annual mortality rate. The release clearly notes the funding source, the Canadian Institute for Health Research. The release does not mention any of the existing treatments (both pharmacologic and device related) that are available to improve the symptoms of people living with heart failure. To the contrary, the release overly dramatizes the current state of heart failure treatments and the value of this early stage intervention with these statements: “It [the study] offers hope to those who are living with heart failure,” “Currently patients with heart failure have poor quality of life and a dismal prognosis. Improving their quality of life will do wonders for these individuals.” The release is silent on the availability of TUDCA, the bile salt used in the study. As noted above, it is available commercially as a supplement. However, due to the pre-clinical nature of the research it is premature and ill-advised to rely on TUDCA for cardiac fibrosis prevention. Groundbreaking discoveries are very rare events. Rather, medical discovery is more commonly a process of iteration, adding to existing information. Bile acids have been tested in humans suffering from heart failure previously, adding to an accumulating knowledge. (See: J Am Coll Cardiol. 59(6):585-92, 2012 Feb 7, a human trial that found improvement in peak post-ischemic blood flow, an obscure test sometimes used in heart attack and stroke research, but no improvement in how well patients functioned). The Edmonton study importantly adds to the discussion. The release notes:”Groundbreaking research from the University of Alberta and McGill University has opened the door towards the future prevention of cardiac fibrosis.” We suggest that the door was opened by previous research and this study opened it a bit wider. As we have pointed out on other occasions, the use of “groundbreaking” in a release is by and large unjustified but is becoming more commonplace across many platforms. (According to the Google Ngram Viewer, an online search engine that charts frequencies on the use of specific terms, the use of “groundbreaking” in books increased 175% from 1998 to 2007.) Additional language in the release, including the statements below, belie the fact that the study was conducted in transgenic mice. “The bottom line is that this shows for the first time that cardiac fibrosis is preventable.” “It offers hope to those who are living with heart failure,” The study is important and may lead to new options for treatment or prevention. The use of “groundbreaking” in its description takes away from the scientific significance of the work.
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22319
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In three years we could find close to 50 million gallons per day through a toilet replacement program.
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Water advocate says toilets could save nearly 50 million gallons daily
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true
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Georgia, Environment, Water, Sally Bethea,
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"Despite decades of legal squabbles over the Southeast’s precious water resources, the problem still looms large over Georgia. But take heart. And look down. Some of the solutions can be found in your toilet, the head of a water conservation group said recently. ""In three years we could find close to 50 million gallons per day through a toilet replacement program,"" Sally Bethea, founding director of Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said in a recent article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Can better commodes really flush away that much of the area’s water problem? Georgia has been battling for years with Florida and Alabama over how to divvy up the region’s water supply. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that if the states fail to reach a water-sharing agreement by mid-July 2012, metro Atlanta can take only the same amount of water it received in the mid-1970s -- when the population was less than a third of what it is today. Georgia appealed the ruling in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the state has a good shot at victory. Even if Georgia wins this battle, the available water supply might not meet the region’s long-term needs. So Bethea has targeted the potty, the modern household’s thirstiest water hog. Nationally and locally, governments have created programs to replace old-fashioned commodes that can use more than 3.5 gallons per flush with low-flow toilets that use as little as 1.28 gallons. This is how Riverkeeper came up with its number: Atlanta is part of the 15-county Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District, which includes counties as far north as Hall and as far south as Coweta. She said the planning district estimates that 850,000 homes have old-fashioned plumbing. The district already has programs in which residents receive rebates if they install low-flow toilets. But Bethea said she envisions a more dramatic change. In the mid-1990s, New York City ran a successful program that changed out the city’s old toilets with low-flow ones. Over three years, that effort switched about 1.3 million toilets and saved an estimated 70 million to 80 million gallons per day, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Under the privately managed program, which was heavily promoted to apartment building owners and plumbers, property owners received up to $240 per toilet to have them replaced by a licensed professional. Experts we interviewed think that New York City-style programs can be more effective than a typical rebate program. They are especially helpful for properties with low- or fixed-income residents who often live in older housing with outdated plumbing. Using EPA figures, Riverkeeper calculated that 8,120 gallons can be saved per person per year if a resident installs one new high-efficiency toilet, faucet and shower head in his home. If there are 2.5 people in the household, the savings totals 47.3 million gallons per day across the region, the group calculated. Bethea described her estimate as ""very conservative"" because many homes have more than one toilet or 2.5 residents. It doesn’t include savings when the upgraded plumbing fixes leaks, either. We found that Riverkeeper numbers are optimistic. The group’s figure for households with old-fashioned plumbing is out of date, according to data from the Water Planning District. Last year, it was about 615,000, or 27 percent less. And Bethea’s estimate for the amount of water saved per toilet is high. Her group assumed those toilets would date from the 1980s or earlier. The older the toilet, the more water it uses. But Atlanta’s housing stock is relatively new. Under an existing rebate program that will last until 2025, the Water Planning District expects the region to save 14 million gallons per day if 57 percent of homeowners use the program. District figures do not include savings from installing more efficient faucets and shower heads. But since those fixtures combined use thousands of gallons per year less than toilets, we think it’s reasonable to expect that they would not increase the amount of water saved to nearly 50 million gallons per day. In addition, the Atlanta region has characteristics that could weaken the impact of a New York City-style program. The Big Apple has far more apartments, which meant persuading a single apartment building owner to change made a dramatic difference. Plus property owners had a big incentive to switch toilets quickly because of changes in how the city billed for water. To Bethea’s credit, she used careful language. She said the region ""could"" save 50 million gallons per day, not that it ""would."" And while saving nearly 50 million gallons of water per day appears unlikely in light of water district numbers, it isn’t impossible. The region could have a higher-than-expected participation rate or proportion of very old toilets. The amount of water saved because the new plumbing fixes leaks could boost the total, and changing toilets over three years rather than 14 (under the rebate) does save more water, total. Therefore Bethea’s fundamental point rings true. A New York-style program ""could"" save 50 million gallons per day. The amount could easily be much lower, but even more conservative estimates place the savings in the range of tens of millions of gallons per day."
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10026
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Study: Other Drugs May Limit Plavix’s Effectiveness
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This story provided solid, concise reporting on results from a recent study that indicate that patients taking Plavix and a proton pump inhibitor medication had a greater number of adverse events. It explained the nature of the study and the frequency with which the problem occurred in those who took the combination of medications as compared to those who only took Plavix. The story mentioned that the FDA had taken action by communicating to doctors about the possible increase in problems with the use of this combination. This suggests that the potential for trouble goes beyond the specific subset of patients in whom it was documented. The story would have been strengthened by inclusion of comments from experts who might have help put these results in context. It would have valuable to include some additional background material to help readers understand why these two drugs might be so often prescribed for the same patient. While the study design was briefly described, the story should have explained the limitations on drawing conclusions from such a study. And costs were not discussed – a significant issue in this case.
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true
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There was no discussion of cost. The cost implications are important. The results of the study question the routine use of a costly drug, and cautions that the PPI only be used in select patients and not those who are on Plavix. It would been of interest to note that the alternative medications for the treatment of ‘heartburn and certain stomach problems’ are less costly than the PPI that appears to be problematic. The story did not explain why it is that these two medications might be so commonly prescribed for the same patient. It should have explained that Plavix, which is strongly recommended for use by patients who have had a revascularization procedure (such as coronary bypass or stent implantation), can often result in stomach upset and bleeding. The use of a PPI was thought to confer benefit as a preventative by lessening this gastric distress side effect. The story presented the data on the combined outcome of being re-hospitalized or dying from cardiovascular problems, indicating that this occurred in a higher percentage of patients taking the combination of a PPI and Plavix than in those taking Plavix alone. The story then went on to say that it appeared that this was due to an increase in re-hospitalization rather than cardiovascular death. It would have been more informative to simply present the data on the individual endpoints of rehospitalization and revascularization – both of which were higher in the group taking the medication combination; but that dying of any cause did not differ among the two groups. The story reported where and when the study had been published. It explained that it compared outcomes from two groups of patients discharged during a specific time period. That said, the story should have explained that in a retrospective cohort study (as opposed to a randomized clinical trial) investigators are not able to adjust for all factors. Nonetheless we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. Did not engage in overt disease mongering. The story included quotes from the lead author of the study and from a drug company representative. We wish the story had included the input of a clinician not connected to the study. However, we give credit because the story noted that one of the researchers received honoraria and research support from two drug companies. The story mentioned another class of medications, H2 inhibitors, that could be considered instead of proton pump inhibitors (PPI) for patients for whom guidelines strongly recommend the use of Plavix. It is interesting to know that while several brand name PPI’s were mentioned in the beginning of the story, omeprazole (Prilosec) was not listed. And at the end of the story, only the brand names for H2 blockers were listed. It would have been better to list both the brand and generic names. We think that’s a better practice in health journalism. The story makes clear that these drugs have been and continue to be readily available to patients. Given that the data presented were generated from patients discharged between 2003 and 2006, the story made clear that these medications have been given in combination for a while. There’s no evidence that the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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10819
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Exercise beneficial for colon cancer patients
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This story reports on the results of a study that looked at physical activity among colon cancer survivors that found that those who engaged in moderate activity 4 or 5 times a week were 50% less likely to experience cancer recurrence or death over a seven year period. These results are intriguing and of great interest not only to colon cancer survivors. However, by no means is this study conclusive and this story does little to address the uncertainties. The story provides estimates of benefit in relative terms only. We learn in the story that those who exercised more than six hours a week were 47% less likely to have a cancer occurence or die over the study period. But what does this mean? What are the absolute differences? The story should have provided more context for these numbers. The story does not mention harms. Although excerise can be safe, is it appropriate to recommend increased physical activity to cancer patients, especially those undergoing chemotherapy? Also, although the story does mention that the study was funded by Pfizer, the story does not attempt to quote an independent source who could provide some perspective on the importance of these findings. The story does describe the design of the study. However, the story should have clearly stated that this was an observational trial and was not randomized. As such, the reader cannot just assume cause and effect.
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false
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Costs are also not applicable in this situation. The story provies estimates of benefit in relative terms only. We learn in the story that those who exercised more than six hours a week were 47% less likely to have a cancer recurrence or die over the study period. But what does this mean? What are the absolute differences? The story should have provided more context for these numbers. The story does not mention any potential harms of exercise, particluarly in those with cancer. Although it does state “Anyone considering changing or beginning treatment of any kind should consult with a physician,” this is not enough information on harms. The story does describe the design of the study. However, the story should have clearly stated that this was an observational trial and was not randomized. As such, the reader cannot just assume cause and effect. By accurately describing the incidence of colon cancer, the story does not engage in disease mongering. Although the story does mention that the study was funded by Pfizer, the story does not attempt to quote an independent source who could provide some perspective on the importance of these findings. Treatment alternatives is not applicable in this story because the obvious alternative to exercise is not exercising. Because this study included exercise of any type, it is not necessary to comment on the availability of treatment. Novelty of treatment is not applicable in this story. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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8078
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Brazil doctor urges caution on coronavirus 'game changer' drug.
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A Brazilian doctor leading a clinical trial of a malaria drug and antibiotic combination to treat the coronavirus urged caution on Wednesday, saying initial results of the drug that U.S. President Donald Trump called a potential “game changer” would take two weeks.
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true
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Health News
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On Wednesday, Brazil green-lighted the use of the related chloroquine to treat the coronavirus, even though its efficacy is yet unproven. The trial of hydroxychloroquine, which is being led by the Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo in conjunction with other Brazilian hospitals, began on Monday and is testing the effectiveness of the drug in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin on patients with COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have promoted hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as potential treatments for coronavirus infections as they try to assuage concerns over the virus and shield their economies from fallout of the outbreak. “For now it’s just wishful thinking, as much for (Bolsonaro) as for Trump,” Luiz Vicente Rizzo, a doctor at the Albert Einstein Hospital, said in an interview. “In a few weeks, with a bit of luck, we’ll be able to say, first if it works, then for whom it works and under what conditions,” he said. “I’m rooting for it to work, me and everyone else.” Rizzo’s timeline appears to contradict Bolsonaro, who tweeted on Wednesday that results could be released in the coming days. “The treatment ... has been shown to be effective in patients now being treated. In the coming days, these results can be presented to the public, bringing the necessary atmosphere of tranquility and serenity to Brazil and the world,” Bolsonaro said. Doctors have been encouraged by anecdotal reports that the combination of the two drugs is effective. Hydroxychloroquine is both an anti-malarial and an anti-inflammatory used to treat autoimmune disorders. Other trials are looking at hydroxychloroquine on its own, while the World Health Organization is coordinating a global study into chloroquine. Trump was criticized by some scientists for throwing his support behind a still unproven use of the drug. A senior doctor on his White House coronavirus task force, Anthony Fauci, said that while Trump had a “feeling” it would be effective, more data was needed. The dangers of such promotion became clear earlier this week when a man in Arizona died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate - an aquarium cleaning product similar to the drugs named by Trump. Rizzo urged patience. “I hope it works. ... Let’s see.”
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31155
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Criminals in the U.S. are using burundanga-soaked business cards to incapacitate their victims.
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Criminals in the U.S. are not using burundanga-soaked business cards to incapacitate their victims, despite a recurrent warning.
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false
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Crime, burundanga, crime warnings, scopolamine
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Our first sighting of the “burundanga” warning was an early May 2008 e-mailed alert that included precious little detail: the woman reported to have been drugged was identified only as “Jaime Rodriguez’s neighbor” rather than by her own name, and the attack supposedly happened “at a gas station in Katy,” with no further indication of location or even the type of station (Shell, Chevron, etc.). Indeed, even the question of which Katy was left open (we know of one in Texas and one in Missouri, and there may well be others): [Collected via e-mail, May 2012] The most dangerous drug in the world: ‘Devil’s Breath’ chemical from Colombia can block free will, wipe memory and even kill -Scopolamine often blown into faces of victims or added to drinks -Within minutes, victims are like ‘zombies’ — coherent, but with no free will -Some victims report emptying bank accounts to robbers or helping them pillage own house -Drug is made from borrachero tree, which is common in Colombia [Collected via e-mail, March 2012] At a petrol pump, a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a lady filling petrol in her car and left his visiting card. She said nothing but accepted his card out of sheer kindness and got into the car. The man then got into a car driven by another person. As the lady left the service station, she saw the men following her out of the station at the same time. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realised that the odour was on her hand; the same hand with which she had received the card from the person at the service station. She then noticed the men were immediately behind her and she felt she needed to do something at that moment. She drove into the first driveway and began to honk her horn repeatedly to ask for help. The men drove away but the lady still felt pretty bad for several minutes after she could finally catch her breath. Apparently, there was a substance on the card that could have seriously injured her. This drug is called ‘BURUNDANGA’. (Not known To People So Far but sufficient Information Is available in the Net) and it is used by people who wish to incapacitate a victim in order to steal from or take advantage of them. This drug is four times more dangerous than the date rape drug and is transferable on a simple card or paper.. So please take heed and make sure you don’t accept cards when you are alone or from someone on the streets. This applies to those making house calls and slipping you a card when they offer their services. [Collected via e-mail, May 2008] And Another Warning … Last Wednesday, Jaime Rodriguez’s neighbor was at a gas station in Katy. A man came and offered his neighbor his services as a painter and gave her a card. She took the card and got in her car. The man got into a car driven by another person. She left the station and noticed that the men were leaving the gas station at the same time. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the windows and in that moment she realized that there was a strong odor from the card. She also realized that the men were following her. The neighbor went to another neighbor’s house and honked on her horn to ask for help. The men left, but the victim felt bad for several minutes. Apparently there was a substance on the card, the substance was very strong and may have seriously injured her. Jaime checked the Internet and there is a drug called “Burundanga” that is used by some people to incapacitate a victim in order to steal or take advantage of them. Please be careful and do not accept anything from unknown people on the street. [Collected via e-mail, September 2008] Incident has been confirmed. In Katy, Tx a man came over and offered his services as a painter to a female putting gas in her car and left his card. She said no, but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car. The man then got into a car driven by another man. As the lady left the service station and saw the men following her out of the station at the same time. Almost immediately, she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her breath. She tried to open the window and realized that the odor was on her hand; the same hand which accepted the card from the man at the gas station. She then noticed the men were immediately behind her and she felt she needed to do something at that moment. She drove into the first driveway and began to honk her horn to ask for help. The men drove away but the lady still felt pretty bad for several minutes after she could finally catch her breath. Apparently there was a substance on the card and could have seriously injured her. The drug is called ‘BURUNDANGA’ and it is used by people who wish to incapacitate a victim in order to steal or take advantage of them. Four times greater than date rape drug; and is transferable on simple cards. So take heed and make sure you don’t accept cards at any given time alone or from someone on the street. This applies to those making house calls and slipping you a card when they offer their services. [Collected via e-mail, August 2018] I just received extremely disturbing news about my friend’s daughter. Her daughter is 22 and was at Woodfield Mall. As she was walking inside the mall, three men approached her and blew something in her ear. It made her feel as if she was going to pass out. When she didn’t pass out, they walked awy. She was finally able to get to the security offce and report the incident. Apparently, there have been other instances of this happening. PARENTS: DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CHILDREN TO GO TO WOODFIELD MALL ALONE. They may be in danger. Our daughter, age 16, is no longer allowed to go to Woodfield Mall without one of us being with her. What can be said with certainty, however, is that prior to the dissemination of this warning, no reports were showing up in the U.S. news of the day of people experiencing dizziness after being handed odd-smelling business cards by strangers, at gas stations or elsewhere. The account speculates the business card passed to the woman at the gas station had been imbued with burundanga, an extract of the datura plant (typically found in Colombia) which contains alkaloids such as scopolamine (the “Devil’s Breath” of the May 2012 e-mailed alert) and atropine. However, burundanga has no scent (or flavor), so even a card saturated with it wouldn’t be described as producing a “strong odor.” As well, this drug needs to be swallowed or inhaled if it is to have the effect described here; mere incidental tactile contact with an item permeated by it wouldn’t deliver a sufficient quantity to the intended victim’s system. The alkaloids contained in burundanga (scopolamine and atropine) are powerful toxins that at lower doses produce dry mouth, dizziness, sweating, and blurred vision, but at high doses can cause delirium and unconsciousness. Scopolamine has some legal medical applications, including its use as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease, as a sedative, and as a motion sickness preventive. Burundanga is said to render its ingesters into disoriented zombies (awake and talkative but powerless to resist orders) and is believed to be used by robbers and rapists in Colombia to render potential victims tractable. It is sometimes termed a “zombie powder” and is regarded as a date rape drug. At higher doses, the drug can cause disorientation, memory loss, hallucinations, and convulsion, and its effects can last for days. Burundanga-drugged victims have reportedly been found days after they’ve gone missing, wandering aimlessly with no clear idea of what happened to them. Those under its influence have been known to empty their bank accounts, and even to act as drug mules. Typically, the drug is slipped into the food or drink of intended victims, or is packed into cigarettes or sticks of gum which are then offered to the targets. There is controversy as to how much of their free will victims ultimately surrender under the drug’s sway. While there is little dispute that datura alkaloids do cause significant disorientation, there are those who believe burundanga’s supposed “brainwashing” effects are better understood in terms of disinhibition which causes people to act in ways they later regret. The U.S. State Department’s information about Colombia has for years cautioned travelers about such drugs. Its 21 June 2007 travel advisory about crime in that country said: The Embassy continues to receive reports of criminals using disabling drugs to temporarily incapacitate tourists and others. At bars, restaurants, and other public areas, perpetrators may offer tainted drinks, cigarettes, or gum. Typically, victims become disoriented or unconscious, and are thus vulnerable to robbery, sexual assault, and other crimes. Avoid leaving food or drinks unattended at a bar or restaurant, and be suspicious if a stranger offers you something to eat or drink. A 31 October 2011 State Department travel advisory about crime in Thailand echoes that advice about scopolamine, saying: There have been occasional reports of prostitutes or bar workers drugging people with the powerful sedative scopolamine in order to rob them. Tourists have also been victimized by drugged food and drink, usually offered by a friendly stranger who is sometimes posing as a fellow traveler on an overnight bus or train. In addition, casual acquaintances you meet in a bar or on the street may pose a threat. You should not leave drinks or food unattended and should avoid going alone to unfamiliar venues. While burundanga is a frightening drug, in all our searching for information on it we failed to come across news articles about its being used in the U.S. The regions in and around the country of Colombia appear to be its hunting grounds. In November 2008 this false story about burundanga-soaked business cards gained the appearance of credence when a United Kingdom police officer’s e-mail was circulated outside his department. Detective Constable Simon Lofting of Essex Police forwarded the much-traveled e-mail to intelligence officers to check if it was real, but what he meant strictly as a query somehow leaked to the general public with his signature block attached, thereby making it appear he was confirming the warning. Said the Essex Police of the matter: “The email has been exposed as a hoax. The whole story, which hints the incident happened in Essex, was from an urban myths website and was altered to include a warning from an Essex Police marine unit officer. Anyone who receives it should delete it from their inbox.” In July 2010 the following account, which places the assault in Kansas City, Missouri, and makes no mention of burundanga, began circulating in e-mail: Yesterday our law firm photographer was getting gas at the Quik Trip at I-435 and Wornall Road. As she was preparing to get back into her car, a young man handed her a sheet of paper, which she took just to be polite, threw it on the seat of her car and proceeded to pull out. She almost immediately felt sick, so she turned off of Wornall Road onto 103rd St. and pulled to the side of the road believing she was going to pass out. She realized that the same guy was right behind her in his truck. She got scared and sped down 103rd to a McDonald’s and ran in screaming for someone to call 911, with the guy running in behind her. Once he realized that police were on the way, the guy left the McDonald’s. The police and paramedics believe there was a super fast-acting halucinogen on the surface of the paper and that once it came in contact with her skin, it immediately caused her to feel like she was going to pass out. She is physically ok, but very shaken by the whole ordeal. She asked me to pass along her story so that no one else is harmed by a situation like this. Please be careful and don’t be afraid to seem rude to a stranger. This happened in our back yard. As with the case of the “perfume robbers” tale, the dissemination of the “burundanga” legend has been followed by copycat reports of such crimes supposedly taking place, most prominently in Houston and Kansas City (as noted above). In neither did police determine that events occurred as reported, that the reportees were truly the targets of criminals, that the putative victims were sickened by something present on pieces of paper handed to them, or that burundanga (or any similar drug) was involved at all. Of the latter incident, the Kansas City police chief posted the findings of his department’s investigation and concluded that “It is highly unlikely that such brief skin contact with any type of toxin could produce such a fast response. It’s more likely the victim suffered anxiety-related symptoms like a panic attack from the stress of the event. It is highly, highly unlikely that there is a man out there handing pieces of paper to women that drug them and render them ill.” Variations: In late November 2017, a years-old screenshot of a Facebook post about criminals and incapacitating drugs began recirculating on social media: Credited to “Angela Davidson” and timestamped “7 hours ago,” it read: Came out the store with my sister and this was on my car! I climbed n from the other side she drove us through a car wash so we didn’t touch it! The rumors going around are people are putting 100 on your car with chemical to make you pass out so they can kidnap you hurt you and take your car! Females watch this I thought it was a joke. Well it just happened to us so we drove around until we seen no one from the parking lot anymore. As of November 2017 the screenshot had been in circulation for at least three years, and the initial post long deleted. This version combines elements of the burundanga/scopolamine legend with a similar baseless rumor about carjackers using $100 bills as bait (popular during the high-traffic holiday season at malls and shopping centers in the United States). Although both rumors are widespread and enduring, no credible reports of any such incident have emerged.
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23288
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"Scott Bruun Says Kurt Schrader voted to cut $500 billion from Medicare, threatening ""thousands of Oregon seniors and their access to their current coverage."
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Scott Bruun says Kurt Schrader cut $500 billion from Medicare, hurting seniors
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false
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Oregon, Health Care, Medicare, Message Machine 2010, Scott Bruun,
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"Politicians love seniors. It's a bloc that stays put, pays attention and, most importantly, votes. So it's no surprise that the over-65 crowd figure prominently in elections. In Oregon's 5th Congressional District, Republican challenger Scott Bruun is accusing Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., of voting to cut $500 billion from Medicare, and hurting seniors. In Bruun's first television ad, ""Broken,"" he says: ""I believe that $500 billion in cuts to Medicare is wrong, and hurts our seniors."" In his second ad, ""Seen,"" he goes even further: ""The Kurt Schrader record. $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicare Advantage. Schrader's vote threatens thousands of Oregon seniors and their access to their current coverage."" Really? Thousands of seniors? At risk of losing their current health care? A quick check shows this is a common complaint among Republicans. Remember, in March not one Republican in Congress voted for President Barack Obama's controversial health care overhaul. PolitiFact National has already debunked the notion that seniors will be hurt by changes to Medicare called for by Obama's health reform plan. Bruun's campaign statements give the impression that less money will be spent on seniors, that $500 billion will be lopped from Medicare immediately, and that seniors are in danger of losing health care benefits. All that is misleading. To back up, Medicare is the basic federal health plan for seniors 65 and older. Medicare Advantage is a more generous version that some seniors choose to buy from private providers. It's true the federal government will reduce the growth of future spending on Medicare over the next decade. The reforms to Medicare will result in $500 billion in savings over 10 years. But the law does not eliminate $500 billion out of the current budget for Medicare. There are no cuts to guaranteed Medicare benefits. In fact, spending on Medicare will actually increase over the next decade, reaching $845 billion in 2019, up from $499 billion in actual spending in 2009, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Without reform, Medicare spending in 2019 was projected to be $943 billion. So then the question becomes, does a reduction in future spending mean a reduction in quality or quantity of medical services? No, says Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser foundation's Medicare Policy Project. The $500 billion in savings will come from a mix: Higher insurance premiums for wealthier seniors, reductions in payments for Medicare Advantage plans, a new panel to oversee reimbursement rates, and smaller-than-expected increases in payment rates to hospitals and other service providers each year. (Neuman provides an easy to understand 19-minute tutorial on the Kaiser Family Foundation's website.) Payment reforms to Medicare Advantage programs are long overdue. The programs are popular, but cost more. Reducing the payments to the private companies that provide the programs is projected to help trim $136 billion from Medicare Advantage over 10 years. But it's not all reductions and savings -- something else Bruun doesn't flesh out. On the plus side, health care reform means Medicare recipients will get more preventive health care services, such as wellness visits, and they won't face the ""doughnut hole"" gap in prescription coverage left by the original Medicare Part D. Cynthia Chilton, a Multnomah County counselor with Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance, said elder advocates are watching, but the situation looks OK for now. Premiums for next year will not skyrocket, she said, and seniors will get free preventive care visits starting in January. She rejects the claim that changes to Medicare will harm seniors. ""No, it doesn't mean that seniors will be hurt. It might be better,"" Chilton said. Finally, we note that as evidence, the Bruun campaign offered a July 2009 story by The Oregonian, which includes this sentence: ""The health care bill written by House Democrats calls for $500 billion in Medicare cuts over 10 years to help offset the enormous cost of providing care to 45 million uninsured Americans."" The context of the story was that Oregon providers could suffer disproportionately if payment rates go down. That's because services here are cheaper than in other states. The story ran in print with the headline ""Oregon health care hit for being too efficient."" More significantly, it was written before Oregon's congressional Democrats wrangled higher Medicare reimbursements for providers in Oregon in negotiations for their yes votes on reform in March. Overall, the health care reforms are designed to reward efficiency -- and that may be a good thing for seniors here. PolitiFact Oregon's view is that Bruun's statement contains some element of truth -- the $500 billion figure. But it ignores critical facts that would give voters a different impression. The ad conflates actual cuts with decreases in future spending, over the next decade for a program expected to expand, and it fails to mention any of the benefits to seniors under the new Medicare program."
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13251
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"California’s proposed tobacco tax ""diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient."
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"A recent No on 56 campaign ad claims: ""Prop 56 diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient."" The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that 82 percent of revenue generated by the measure, after some is directed to other funds, would be spent to ""increase the level of payment for healthcare, services and treatment provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries."" Experts who have examined Prop 56 say there’s a strong chance that higher reimbursement rates will attract more doctors and expand health care access for patients. There’s the smallest sliver of truth to the No on 56 campaign’s claim that providers ""don’t have to help even one more patient"" because the measure does not dictate how many new patients will be served. But the claim also asks one to suspend reality by believing no new doctors would be attracted by the higher rates and that current doctors would not add more patients. Even the addition of handful of new doctors would expand healthcare access, shooting down the campaign’s misleading statement."
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false
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Elections, Public Health, Taxes, California, No on 56 campaign,
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"Opponents of Proposition 56, California’s proposed tobacco tax increase, have raised more than $66 million to defeat the November ballot measure. Nearly all of that money has come from the tobacco industry and much of it has been spent on television ads criticizing the initiative. Supporters have raised nearly $30 million for it. Prop 56 would impose a $2 per pack tax increase on cigarettes statewide and fund health programs. A recent No on 56 TV ad features a retired doctor who makes a provocative claim about how the measure’s revenue would be spent: ""Prop 56 diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient,"" says Amador County Dr. Arnold Zeiderman, who appears in the ad wearing a white coat and stethoscope. Would the measure really distribute the bulk of the revenue to ""wealthy special interests"" with no mandate to serve more patients? We decided to check the facts. Our research The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office expects Prop 56 could generate up to $1.4 billion in tax revenue in its first year. A chunk of that would go to replacing losses to state tobacco funds that would likely see a dip if cigarette sales decline due to the tax increase. Five percent would be spent to administer the tax. And about $120 million would go to various state programs, from law enforcement to physician training to dental disease prevention. The LAO report says 82 percent of the remaining revenue -- anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion -- would be spent to ""increase the level of payment for healthcare, services and treatment provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries."" Medi-Cal provides health care for the state’s poorest residents. Health advocates have long argued the program’s reimbursement rates are too low to retain and attract doctors. Charles Rex Arbogast /AP file photo Expanding patient access? Supporters of Prop 56 say boosting reimbursement rates will lead to more doctors serving more Medi-Cal patients -- which runs against the implication in the ad that the measure won’t help ""even one more patient."" Scott Graves of the California Budget and Policy Center examined Prop 56 and concluded on the center’s website: ""Increasing Medi-Cal reimbursement rates would help to boost providers’ participation in the program and help ensure timely access to care — and possibly improved health outcomes — for the more than 13 million low-income Californians who rely on Medi-Cal to meet their health care needs."" The policy center is a nonprofit that advocates for programs aimed at low-income families. A spokeswoman for the No on 56 campaign acknowledged that 82 percent of the measure’s revenue would be set aside for increasing reimbursement rates. But the No campaign also said the measure does nothing to require more Medi-Cal patients are served. Supporters say that point is technically correct but distorts the point of the measure. ""We made a determination that it would be better to dedicate money to Medi-Cal broadly rather than setting an arbitrary formula,"" said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, the consumer advocacy group that helped draft Prop 56. ""The idea that this would help not even one new patient is sort of absurd. ... They're playing a little bit of a word game there."" ‘Misleading’ ad Manoj Viswanathan, a UC Hastings law professor who focuses on tax policy and has studied Proposition 56, described the No campaign’s advertisement as ""misleading."" The professor, who is not affiliated with either side, said the No campaign appears to rest the second portion of the claim by the retired doctor -- the idea that Medi-Cal providers ""don't have to help even one more patient"" -- on an ""unlikely"" scenario. ""Is there a universe where doctors see the exact same patients that they would have seen anyway, but are just getting paid more? Sure. I think that is a mathematical possibility. It just seems unlikely,"" Viswanathan said. According to the LAO, the California State Auditor would conduct audits of agencies receiving funds from the new taxes at least every other year. The Sacramento Bee examined claims by No on 56, and found questionable its description of Medi-Cal providers as ""wealthy special interests."" It notes those providers are ""doctors, clinics, hospitals, managed care plans and any other health-related group that get Medi-Cal payments because they provide services to eligible patients."" Our ruling A recent No on 56 campaign ad claims: ""Prop 56 diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient."" The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that 82 percent of revenue generated by the measure, after some is directed to other funds, would be spent to ""increase the level of payment for healthcare, services and treatment provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries."" Experts who have examined Prop 56 say there’s a strong chance that higher reimbursement rates will attract more doctors and expand health care access for patients. There’s the smallest sliver of truth to the No on 56 campaign’s claim that providers ""don’t have to help even one more patient"" because the measure does not dictate how many new patients will be served. But the claim also asks one to suspend reality by believing no new doctors would be attracted by the higher rates and that current doctors would not add more patients. Even the addition of handful of new doctors would expand healthcare access, shooting down the campaign’s misleading statement. We rated its claim . – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.
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36171
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After actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in an accident, his friend and colleague Robin Williams lifted his spirits by pretending to be a proctologist.
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Did Robin Williams Cheer Up a Paralyzed Christopher Reeve by Pretending to be a Proctologist?
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true
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Entertainment, Fact Checks
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In September 2019, the Facebook page “Clips of Our Past” shared the following meme, which presented an anecdote about Superman actor Christopher Reeve and purported actions taken by friend and fellow actor and comedian Robin Williams to raise his spirits in the wake of a life-altering accident:Beneath an image of Williams either whispering to Reeve or kissing him on the head, text read:When Christopher Reeve was in the hospital after the riding accident that paralyzed him, Robin Williams burst through the door wearing scrubs and announced in a Russian accent that he was a proctologist and needed to examine him immediately. Reeve said it was the first time he’d laughed since the accident, and from that moment on he knew that life was going to be OK.No additional reading was suggested in the post, which was shared more than 55,000 times. However, the incident in question was recounted on several occasions by both Reeve’s family members as well as by Williams himself in an appearance on Oprah.A June 2019 Biography.com page about Williams and Reeve’s friendship described the accident and subsequent Williams’ visit to Reeve (including the impression). Reeve was quoted as later recalling the visit during an interview with Barbara Walters, and crediting Williams’ humor as a pivotal point in his recovery:On May 27, 1995, Reeve was thrown from his horse during an equestrian jumping event in Virginia. He landed on his head, fracturing his first and second vertebrae. When he woke up in the hospital on May 31, he learned he was paralyzed from the neck down. Doctors told Reeve he had a 50 percent chance of surviving his injuries. Surgery was required to reattach his spine and skull.Fortunately, Reeve had the support of his family, and of friends like Williams. As Reeve was lying in his hospital bed, still grappling with what had happened, a visitor in a surgical gown and scrub hat entered the room. In a Russian accent, he told Reeve he was a proctologist there to perform an examination. When Reeve realized the supposed doctor was, in fact, Williams, reprising his character from the movie Nine Months, he laughed.Reeve, who’d been feeling depressed and uncertain about his future, hadn’t laughed since his accident. Being able to do that, thanks to Williams, changed his mindset. As he later explained to Barbara Walters, “I knew then: if I could laugh, I could live.”Reeve died in 2004, and Williams in 2014. After the latter’s passing, Reeve’s family again lauded the comedian and the story appeared in memorial articles. The news and entertainment show Today quoted Reeve describing his friend as his first visitor after the accident, and credited Williams with being the reason he started to feel hopeful again:“He was the first one to show up down in Virginia when I was really in trouble,” the late Reeve told then-TODAY anchor Katie Couric in an interview that aired Nov. 27, 1995, six months after his accident.“He came here one afternoon and just — thank God I wear a seatbelt in this chair because I would have fallen out laughing,” Reeve continued. “It’s funny. In the middle of a tragedy like this, in the middle of a depression, you can still experience genuine joy and laughter and love.”In 2014, Reeve’s family members once again said Williams showed him he was “going to be okay”:The family recalled a time after Reeve’s accident when Williams visited him at the hospital jokingly dressed as the proctologist he played in the movie “Nine Months,” saying he needed to give Reeve an immediate exam. Reeve was preparing for a surgical procedure that would re-attach his skull and spine — and come with only a 50-50 chance of survival. Williams showed up, snapped on a latex glove and broke out his character’s Russian accent to lighten the mood.“After our father’s accident, Robin’s visit to his hospital room was the first time that Dad truly laughed,” the family said in its statement. “Dad later said, ‘My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay. '”Williams also referenced the visit early on in Reeve’s recovery, including once on Oprah in 1996.Although celebrity anecdote memes can be difficult to verify, particularly when the parties referenced are deceased, the story about Robin Williams surprising his gravely injured friend in the guise of a “Russian proctologist” is well documented. Both Williams and Reeve’s relatives told the story in later years, and Reeve as well as his relatives specifically stated Williams’ “bit” in the hospital was a moment in which a depressed Reeve first felt he could carry on living and experience happiness.
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3667
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Capitol Watch: Health care industry awaits NY Medicaid plan.
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New York’s health care industry is waiting with some trepidation to see how Gov. Andrew Cuomo intends to plug an over $8 billion hole in the state’s Medicaid program.
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true
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Health care industry, New York, Andrew Cuomo, General News, Medicaid
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The Democrat is expected to release his annual budget proposal in the next two weeks, and the stickiest issue he has to address will be how to curtail spending on the program, which last year soared over its budget. New York’s Medicaid program is the nation’s largest, serving over 6 million people or about one in three New Yorkers. Cuomo first went after rising costs in 2011. Reforms to the program helped stem spending from 2011 to 2015, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. But spending growth has ballooned since spring 2018 as more and more New Yorkers sign up for longterm care services and the state’s minimum wage has gone up. New York has no plans yet to address a $1.7 billion gap through March alone. And the state faces a $6.7 billion hole over the next fiscal year starting in April. Democratic legislative leaders have said they want to address the deficit, but without cutting services to vulnerable New Yorkers. Health care providers are also hoping to avoid cuts to their payments under the program, which reimburses hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities for care provided to the poor. When the state cuts Medicaid payments, providers are hit twice as hard because the state also loses out on federal matching Medicaid funds. “The state already underpays providers for the healthcare services they deliver and we simply cannot balance the state budget on the back of struggling healthcare providers,” said Bea Grause, president of the Healthcare Association of New York State. In his State of the State address Wednesday, Cuomo noted that Medicaid spending growth was a problem, but didn’t immediately detail proposed solutions. He hinted that one potential reform is overhauling how local governments get reimbursed for their share of the program’s bills. Under Cuomo’s 2011 Medicaid reforms, the state has long agreed to pay a large share of those bills. Details on how that might change are likely to be included in Cuomo’s budget proposal due Jan. 21. Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa said this week that Cuomo’s efforts meant the state lost control of how local governments run Medicaid. It’s not the first time that Cuomo has spoken of big deficits in his annual address: The governor last year blamed federal cuts to the program for a $4 billion budget deficit. He also submitted and withdrew a proposed $500 million across-the-board Medicaid cut last spring. This year’s deficit — largely fueled by Medicaid — has led to Cuomo’s administration New Years’ Eve announcement of a 1% cut in Medicaid payments affecting hospitals, nursing homes and home-care providers. That cut partly reversed rate increases granted in 2018 for some providers. “The state budget should not repeat last year’s action, which produced a budget that was unrealistic and opaque,” the Citizens Budget Commission said in a statement. Larger-than-expected Medicaid bills led Cuomo’s administration to delay $1.7 billion in Medicaid payments last spring and push them into the 2020 budget. The governor’s office has said his administration plans to again delay $2.2 billion in Medicaid payments into the budget ending in 2021. But such steps alone won’t fix the Medicaid deficit of over $8 billion through spring 2021. DeRosa said the governor wants to take another look at reforming Medicaid this year. Health care providers worry that drastic future Medicaid cuts are on the way. Bryan O’Malley, executive director of the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York, said providers and Medicaid recipients shouldn’t bear the brunt of the state’s failure to anticipate the ballooning budget gap. He met with Cuomo budget officials Friday and said the state could save $175 million alone in Medicaid through changes like allowing personal aides to transport Medicaid patients. “The state certainly has enough data that it shouldn’t have taken anyone by surprise,” he said. “We should have planned for this several years ago.” A spokesman for the association representing New York counties said the group hopes to work with the state to create a “more fiscally sustainable Medicaid program.” Cuomo isn’t expected to propose a new tax on the wealthy demanded by left-leaning groups who criticize Cuomo’s “austerity” approach to Medicaid. Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins has repeatedly said raising taxes isn’t her priority. Leaders of New York’s health plans, meanwhile, worry the state will expand existing taxes on insurance to plug the gap. “For the last several years, our member health plans have been operating on extremely thin margins in the Medicaid program,” said Eric Linzer, president & CEO of the New York Health Plan Association.
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37505
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COVID-19 patients with high BMIs are being denied ventilators, and a circulating Google Docs guide can assist people in asserting their rights.
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Are COVID-19 Patients With High BMIs Being Denied Ventilators?
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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"As the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic became more omnipresent in American life in mid-March 2020, Twitter and Instagram rumors about coronavirus patients with high body mass indices being denied ventilator treatment began to spread.On Twitter on March 19 2020, @LindoBaconX cited @BigGirlsWorkout as a source for the claim:RT @biggirlsworkout: High BMI is currently being used to exclude people from ventilator treatment due to the shortage… I predict that in a year, doctors point to higher death rate for fat people from COVID and say, ""See? I told you so!"" BUT THEY ARE LITERALLY CAUSING IT NOW.— Lindo Bacon (formerly Linda Bacon) (@LindoBaconX) March 19, 2020High BMI is currently being used to exclude people from ventilator treatment due to the shortage of machines. I predict that in a year, doctors will point to the higher death rate for fat people from COVID and say, ""See? I told you so!"" BUT THEY ARE LITERALLY CAUSING IT NOW.— The Fat Personal Trainer (@biggirlsworkout) March 19, 2020The multifaceted claim held:However, the rumor as presented was entirely without even an anecdotal source for the COVID-19 BMI and ventilators claim. Typically, claims that popular were attributed to:Without a definitive source for any claim, it is difficult to determine its accuracy level under normal circumstances. When a source is provided, there is at least a starting point to see if any matching claims preceded the rumor.Consequently, any claims that COVID-19 patients with high BMIs were denied ventilators appearing after March 19 2020 were similarly sourceless — it was possible and even likely the initial rumor spawned its own iterations with a source retroactively added.On March 20 2020, a screenshot of the second, viral tweet was shared to Facebook:At least one person in the comments claimed that the tweet was “misleading.” Although that commenter’s “misleading” label would suggest they might go on to claim there was no evidence that high BMI patients were being denied ventilators, they in fact went on to defend the putative practice as the most equitable way of divvying up resources in short supply:I would say this is an unfair/misleading post. When you have to ration equipment like ventilators (VERY UNBELIEVABLE AND UNFORTUNATE THAT THIS IS HAPPENING AT ALL), those resources are given to those with the best chance of living and highest potential quality of life. If you look at it the same way as applying for an organ donation (like a new lung), wouldn’t you want it to go to the best candidate? I doubt the people being turned away are just “overweight.” They are more likely to be morbidly obese with several other comorbidities. This is very misleading.Although rumors about COVID-19, BMI, and ventilators began spreading fairly early on in the pandemic, they were followed by stories hammering home the chaotic reality of medical settings in the midst of the outbreak. On March 30 2020, WLNY described clinical settings in hard-hit places like New York as similar to a “war zone“:Across New York City, health care workers face tremendous challenges to treat patients, and at Brooklyn’s Brookdale Hospital Medical Center they are at their maximum capacity.Patient beds line the hallways as every inch of this building is now being used because of the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, reports CBS2’s Kevin Rincon.“Well, this is a warzone, a medical warzone,” said Dr. Arabia Mollette. “Every day I come, what I see on a daily basis is pain, despair, suffering and healthcare disparities.”Mollette works in the emergency room where more than 100 coronavirus patients have walked through with another 70 people under investigation.“This virus sees no it is no difference,” she said. “It has nothing to do with age, has nothing to do with access to healthcare, has nothing to do with socio-economics, race or ethnicity. This virus is killing a lot of people.”One day later, CNN reported that the same hospital in Brooklyn was nearly depleted of resources:As is the case with many other hospitals across the country, Brookdale Hospital is struggling to keep up with the demand for resources as more patients come in.“We need gowns, we need gloves we need masks we need more vents (ventilators),” Mollette said. “We need more medical space. We need psychological support as well. It’s not easy coming here when you know what you’re getting ready to face.”That reporting involved a shortage of respirators specifically, along with doctors’ concerns regarding an eventual position in which clinicians would have to “triage treatments based on resource availability”:But Dr. Amy Plasencia, chief medical resident at Brookdale Hospital, said the hospital has “a critical shortage of ventilators in relation to the numbers that we are seeing.”Ventilators are used on serious cases of Covid-19 to help patients breathe who are struggling to do so on their own, Plasencia said.Once patients are hooked up to the machines, they generally need to continue using them for one to two weeks or longer, she said.“Certainly no physician wants to be put in a position where they have to triage treatments based on resource availability,” she said. “But in this national crisis that is where we may be heading.”And on April 2 2020, WABC-TV and WNBC covered new purported guidance for EMS workers regarding changed protocols for resuscitation in the event of a cardiac arrest; however, the New York State Department of Health later disputed the validity of that guidance.On April 3 2020, we located a circulating undated Google Docs sheet titled “#NoBodyIsDisposable Know Your Rights Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage Protocols.” It began with an “Overview” section, which indicated it was created for people “facing potential triage discrimination based on disability or weight during the COVID-19 pandemic”:This is a “Know Your Rights” toolkit for people facing potential triage discrimination based on disability or weight during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This document covers rights and strategies for fat and disabled people of all ages. You can share it using the link: https://tinyURL.com/CovidKnowYourRights(Note: We hope to amend this document with more information related to age discrimination in the future. )IMPORTANT NOTICE: This toolkit is not legal advice or medical advice. Information has been sourced from the web, and is for general information purposes only. This is a changing situation. Laws differ by state and location. Policies differ by hospital. This document may change as things progress, so check back. This information may not be up to date. It’s up to you to be sure the information is correct and applicable to you.In total, the document numbered eleven pages; on page ten, an “about” section read:ABOUT USNoBody Is Disposable CoalitionWe are people targeted by triage plans during the COVID-19 pandemic — people with disabilities, fat people, old people, people with HIV/AIDS or other illnesses — and our loved ones who don’t want us to die. We are allies who want to help. We partner with social justice and civil rights organizations, as well as medical professionals to demand policies that avoid triage and avoid discrimination in triage.This Toolkit was produced with input from a lot of people – fat rights, disability, social justice and civil rights lawyers; leaders in fat liberation, elder services, and disability justice; doctors and nurses; students, artists and writers… Thank you to everyone for finding time in this crisis to share your knowledge.Overall, “#NoBodyIsDisposable Know Your Rights Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage Protocols” included what appeared to be a well-researched and painstakingly put-together document. In its “Background” section, its authors explained why they created it and for whom it was compiled:People are concerned that higher weight individuals are facing direct weight discrimination via triage protocols, or indirect weight discrimination (based on other diagnoses or stereotypes associated with higher weight). Such discrimination will have a disproportionate impact on many people of color, who already experience systemic inequalities and bias within the healthcare profession. Other groups, including the LGBTQIA community, may also be at risk.Of note is that the document did not claim that the practices was necessarily taking place, but instead it was presented as a guide for people potentially in high-risk groups to be armed with information for their own security in clinical settings during the pandemic.In that respect, “#NoBodyIsDisposable Know Your Rights Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage Protocols” was clearly a valuable document for many reasons during the coronavirus outbreak, and it did not need to be predicated on proof-positive instances of individuals discriminated against in hospitals. It merely needed to serve as a repository of information for disabled, LGBTQ+, and individuals at higher weights to reference in the event they suspected they were being treated insufficiently in a medical setting due to those factors.The document included several pages on “what to do before needing to go to the hospital,” covering organization of personal documents and the creation of a “connection kit” during social distancing measures. It also provided six points of “strategies for advocacy,” and continued:POTENTIAL SURVIVAL STRATEGIES TO CONSIDER IF YOU FACE DISCRIMINATION Warning: We hope that these strategies won’t be necessary to use. We also know that some of us will be in life or death situations, so it’s worth considering many options. We know that it will be exponentially harder for people of color, trans/non-binary folks, and other marginalized groups. We acknowledge that some of these strategies may cause the user harm and may be futile. For some people, it may be better to resist right away; for others, trying to be nice may be the best approach. Use what works for you, discard what does not.Those strategies included forming a relationship with nurses and doctors, as well as advising that people become acquainted with regional discrimination laws. The document added:If health care providers make you feel less deserving of the best chance to live, remember that there are hundreds of thousands of fat, disabled people and allies who know you deserve to live and we are rooting for you! You deserve to live!! !Again and throughout, the document raised an important distinction with respect to the rumor — regardless of whether it was occurring, the rumor itself made people feel powerless and raised fears that life-saving treatments might be withheld from specific groups.In late March 2020, rumors began circulating that COVID-19 patients who had a “high BMI” were being denied ventilator treatment. We were unable to verify the rumor was accurate, but we did locate a community resource (“#NoBodyIsDisposable Know Your Rights Guide to Surviving COVID-19 Triage Protocols”) created for anyone fearing that they might face medical discrimination. Finally, the BMI/ventilator rumors appeared less than two weeks before a series of alarming developments in coronavirus epicenters where doctors and regional medical groups both discussed and advised on how to strategically manage the distribution of resources — including later disputed, but existing, EMS orders to cease transporting patients in cardiac arrest to hospitals in New York City and on Long Island."
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5792
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Stabenow, Peters oppose Trump’s high court nominee Kavanaugh.
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Democratic U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan announced Friday their opposition to President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, saying Brett Kavanaugh’s judicial record clearly shows that he would limit access to health care and curtail environmental protections.
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true
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Access to health care, Gary Peters, Health, Michigan, Debbie Stabenow, Brett Kavanaugh, Courts, Donald Trump
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Stabenow, who is up for re-election to a fourth term, issued a statement expressing “deep concern” that Kavanaugh — a federal appellate judge — “believes the president is above the law.” It was a reference to his 2011 dissent in a case challenging the U.S. health care law in which Kavanaugh suggested that a president could decline to enforce a statute regulating private individuals if the president deems it unconstitutional, even if a court determines it to be constitutional. “Our founders created our democracy with three branches of government, not one. They created checks and balances so that it would be clear that no one is above the law,” Stabenow said, adding that “it is in the best interests of the people of Michigan for me to oppose the nomination” of Kavanagh. The two Republicans running to face her in November, John James and Sandy Pensler, have backed Trump’s pick. James said Stabenow’s stance was not a surprise. “Judge Kavanaugh is widely respected among his peers in the legal community, and Sen. Stabenow’s divisive language is yet another example of putting the interests of her party bosses and liberal donors over the interests of Michiganders, who voted for President Trump,” he said in a statement. Pensler accused Stabenow of “double talk.” “Judge Kavanaugh will make a great justice who allows the people rather than judges to determine law,” he said in a statement. Stabenow and Peters, a freshman senator, also opposed Trump’s last nominee for the high court, Neil Gorsuch. They expressed concerns that Kavanaugh would favor wealthy “special interests” over people, curtail environmental regulations, roll back women’s access to health care and make it harder to obtain affordable health insurance, especially for those with pre-existing medical conditions. Peters also said Kavanagh favored striking down net neutrality rules and the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established in 2010 to protect Americans against abusive financial products and services. “I’m deeply troubled by his efforts to undermine workers’ rights and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will only further stack the deck against hardworking middle-class families who are struggling to make ends meet,” Peters said in a statement. Republicans, who have a 51-49 edge in the Senate, want to have Kavanaugh confirmed by the start of the court’s session in October and before the midterm election. ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert
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37555
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South Korea has tested 200,000 people for coronavirus, prioritizing the most vulnerable people. The CDC only tested 77 people this week. Yet, the Utah Jazz was able to test all 58 players in a matter of hours.
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South Korea Tested 200,000, the CDC Tested 77 in a Week, and the Utah Jazz Tested 58 Players for COVID-19 in Hours?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On March 12 2020, Twitter user @SawyerHackett tweeted that South Korea had managed to test 200,000 people for novel coronavirus strain COVID-19, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) only tested 77 people in a week — adding that all 58 Utah Jazz players managed to secure coronavirus tests with little difficulty:South Korea has tested 200,000 people for coronavirus, prioritizing the most vulnerable people.The CDC only tested 77 people this week. Yet, the Utah Jazz was able to test all 58 players in a matter of hours.— Sawyer Hackett (@SawyerHackett) March 12, 2020Hackett said that South Korea not only tested a high volume of citizens, but the country also triaged that testing so those most in need of tests were seen first. By referencing “this week” on a Thursday (March 12 2020), Hackett likely meant the purported 77 CDC tests occurred in the week beginning Monday, March 9 2020. And finally, 58 Utah Jazz players constituted an entire basketball team.Even just reading the tweet without citations, it was clear Hackett was both referencing myriad levels of scale (a country, a basketball team, the CDC; unspecified time periods), as well as a disparity between at least two countries. In South Korea, he said, a large number of available tests were allocated by need, prioritizing the most medically fragile. In contrast, the claim that all 58 players on the Utah Jazz team received tests in one night versus 77 tests administered by the CDC tests inherently claimed the United States was testing the wealthy or powerful on request, leaving everyday Americans in something of a high-odds, high-stakes lottery.NBA teams consist of about 15 players in total, and there are 17 on the team’s roster. So where did the figure of 58 people come from? According to the Associated Press, two Utah Jazz players tested positive for COVID-19 on March 12 2020; other team members were tested along with Jazz staff and some reporters who had been covering the team:Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz confirmed [on March 12 2020] that he tested positive for the coronavirus, saying that he is personally dealing with the pandemic that has temporarily shut down the NBA and other major sports leagues.Later, Jazz teammate Rudy Gobert — the first NBA player to test positive, which prompted the league to suspend the season — also confirmed his status and apologized. “I was careless and make no excuse,” Gobert said in an Instagram post.Mitchell’s positive test was not known until early [on March 12 2020], the first full day of the NBA’s hiatus. Jazz players, staff and some beat writers covering the team were tested [March 11 2020] in Oklahoma City, where Utah was to play the Thunder in a game that was called off moments before tipoff once word about Gobert’s positive test was received.Ari Shapiro of NPR spoke with Eric Walden, one of the beat reporters mentioned above. Walden was self-quarantining because of the positive diagnoses of two Utah Jazz players, and Shapiro addressed concerns about test availability for professional athletes versus the general public in a set of questions about the trajectory of testing and quarantine.Shapiro asked how the Utah Jazz managed to secure “dozens” of COVID-19 tests for the exposed players, staff, and reporters; the specific number was not mentioned:WALDEN: As I understand it, Rudy Gobert, who was the first to test positive, and Donovan Mitchell, who was the second to test positive, are being kept quarantined in Oklahoma City. The rest of the team is on its way back to Salt Lake City.SHAPIRO: Do you understand how an NBA team got its hands on dozens of tests very quickly when so many Americans are reporting difficulty getting testing?WALDEN: It’s my understanding that once a positive test came back for Rudy Gobert, that the Oklahoma Department of Health was then called into the scene to do emergency testing on both the remaining players of the Utah Jazz and their traveling party, which included broadcasters and media, but to do the same for the Oklahoma City Thunder, who had concerns about the exposure as well.Walden said that testing was conducted by the Oklahoma Department of Health, not the Centers for Disease Control. The Daily Beast’s March 12 2020 article “How Did the NBA Push Through 58 Coronavirus Tests When Almost No One Else Can Get Them?” gave a more exact number of tests conducted on those thought to have been potentially exposed by infected players.It appeared that much of Hackett’s tweet may have been predicated on that article’s first paragraph:America’s response to a global pandemic has been lackluster, to say the least. Despite the near-constant stream of baffling and misleading utterances spewed by the president, the reality is that the ability to test for the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has paled in comparison to nations like South Korea, which has been examining 20,000 people a day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention only managed to run 77 tests from [March 8 2020] to [the morning of March 12 2020], according to Yahoo! News. On [March 11 2020], 2,728 people were tested by all 50 state labs, or an average of 55 people per state.But when an NBA player began exhibiting symptoms, that figure was surpassed. The state of Oklahoma completed 58 COVID-19 tests within a matter of hours on [March 12 2020], all to ensure that the virus didn’t spread any further than necessary. A powerful, wealthy pro sports league flexed the political capital and financial might required to get government officials to spring into action. The unintentional byproduct, though, is another, equally jarring number: 7,617 people in total have been tested for the virus by state labs as of [March 12 2020], and those 58 tests, or a staggering .8 percent, were conducted on employees of one professional basketball team. […]Here are a few more surprising digits. The 58 tests conducted represented 60 percent of Oklahoma’s peak daily capacity.Once again, a set of numbers was presented with varying contexts and parameters. They included:That reporting contextualized the tweet’s claims further; readers might have inferred from this that a total of 77 tests were conducted on the general public as of March 12 2020, but that statistic referred to a subset of tests performed only by the CDC in a period between March 8 and the morning of March 12 2020. The same reporting referenced a total of 2,728 tests conducted in 50 states — 2,728 divided by 50 states equaled 54.56 people per state (rounded up to 55. )Also in that reporting was a claim that South Korea was “examining” an average of 20,000 people per day — but “testing” was not specified. As the piece was worded, it was possible the average of 20,000 people daily were assessed for COVID-19 exposure or symptoms, and an unknown smaller subset went on to actually be tested.Regarding testing in the United States, the article referenced a March 12 2020 Yahoo! News item about the source of figures for COVID-19 testing from the CDC. It indicated as of March 12 2020, 1,784 people in total were tested by the CDC, and that on March 8 2020, 1,707 people had been tested in total. Subtracting the 1,784 figure from March 8 2020 from the 1,707 figure from March 12 2020 seemed to support the conclusion the CDC conducted a total of 77 tests “this week” — in other words, between Sunday March 8 and Wednesday March 11 2020, when Redd testified to Congress about the American public health response to the pandemic:“This is not a problem we can test our way out of,” said Stephen Redd, MD, head of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, in testimony on [March 12 2020]. It was an admission that, in a nation of 320 million, testing every person will be impossible … Redd also revealed in his testimony that the total number of people tested for the coronavirus by the CDC was 1,784. That means that, as of [the morning of March 11 2020], the CDC had tested only 77 people for the coronavirus since [March 8 2020]. According to a CDC spokesman, the number that had been tested as of [March 8 2020] was 1,707.Per Redd representing the CDC before Congress, 1,787 Americans in total were tested by the CDC since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between the beginning of the week on March 8 2020 and Redd’s testimony, an additional 77 people were tested.On March 11 2020, The Guardian‘s “Mass testing, alerts and big fines: the strategies used in Asia to slow coronavirus” reported some figures from South Korea:The reference to religious events was significant. More than 60% of cases in South Korea have been linked to a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive religious sect, in the south-eastern city of Daegu. While the outbreak placed huge strain on the city’s medical services, new infections appeared to slow after health authorities completed Covid-19 tests on 210,000 Shincheonji followers. Identifying so many cases among a single group, and in a relatively confined geographical area, appears to have helped slow the rate of infections. […][South Korea] is conducting about 15,000 tests a day, free of charge, and has carried out almost 200,000 screenings so far. It has also set up about 50 drive-through testing centres and distributed smartphone alerts about the movements of people who have tested positive.If both The Guardian and The Daily Beast’s figures were correct, the disparity between 20,000 people examined and 15,000 tested for COVID-19 daily might have been attributable to screening to ensure tests were not wasted on people who were not likely to test positive. For further context, South Korea had a population of about 52 million, versus that of the United States at 327 million; the population of the United States was just over six times as large as that of South Korea.Hackett’s tweet made several points about COVID-19 testing inside the United States versus other countries:According to testimony by CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response head Redd, the CDC conducted 1,784 tests for novel coronavirus as of March 8 2020, and a further 77 tests between that date and the morning of March 11 2020 — when Redd testified before Congress about the CDC’s response to the pandemic. As for South Korea, news organizations reported 200,000 total tests conducted, that a total of 20,000 South Koreans were being “examined” daily, and a total of 15,000 conducted tests daily were reported.Although the CDC performed just under 1,800 tests in total as of March 11 2020, individual states did the bulk of the testing within the U.S., and in a figure reported by The Daily Beast, just under 2800 people were tested nationally in one day the week of March 8 2020 — averaging 54.56 people tested daily per state. On a broader scale and rounding up, the various articles suggested just under 3,000 people tested daily in the US (population 327 million), and around 15,000 daily in South Korea (population 52 million). Going back to the 55 a day average, 58 people affiliated with the Utah Jazz team were tested in a single day in Oklahoma.Although the tweet dealt in a number of indirect comparisons, it is largely true in context that South Korea tested people numbering in the hundreds of thousands, whereas the United States was clearly not testing citizens at nearly the same rate. It bears mentioning that the CDC itself was not conducting the bulk of tests, a burden that fell on state health departments — nevertheless, the figure of 77 was accurate. Finally, with tests clearly in short supply, the NBA did somehow secure 58 tests in total for Utah Jazz players, staff, and reporters. The CDC resumed disclosing testing results via its website, and the total number of tests conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as by states was updated regularly as of March 13 2020. Those figures are available here.
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