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30571
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A worker at Cadbury plant was arrested for contaminating the company's products with HIV-infected blood.
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Rumors that a worker at Cadbury plant was arrested for contaminating the company's products with HIV-infected blood are a variant of an old and false rumor.
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false
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Food, aids, cadbury, Food Contamination
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Claiming that various company’s food products have somehow become contaminated with HIV/AIDS has been a prevalent form of hoax for many years, targeting foodstuffs from pineapples to canned goods to soft drinks. A more recent wrinkle in that decades-old trope posited in 2018 that an employee of Cadbury, a British multinational confectionery company, was arrested for “adding his HIV-infected blood” to the company’s products: This rumor was nothing more than a variant of an old hoax that was previously aimed at Pepsi, with virtually no difference other than the substitution of one company’s name for another’s: No warnings have been issued, nor any arrests made, in conjunction with a supposed HIV contamination of Cadbury products, and as we noted in a similar previous article, the possibility of such an occurrence’s taking place is low to non-existent: HIV does not long survive outside its host medium of human bodily fluids: blood, semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, saliva, tears. (Which is not to say HIV can be transmitted by every one of those: according to the CDC, “Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown to result in transmission of HIV.”) The CDC says except under laboratory conditions, HIV is unable to reproduce outside its living host; it does not spread or maintain infectiousness outside its host. Therefore, were HIV-tainted blood to be mixed into foodstuffs or beverages, the virus would neither survive nor while it was still viable multiply and so replenish itself.
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3560
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Who gets to give dietary advice? Health coach fights law.
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In California, Heather Del Castillo offered tips on natural eating as a health coach. But in Florida, the title didn’t qualify her to give nutrition advice.
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true
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Nutrition, AP Top News, Health, Florida, Lifestyle, U.S. News
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After getting a complaint that she was working without a license, Florida officials sent a cease-and-desist order and fined her $750. Del Castillo sued, saying her free speech rights were violated. Now, a federal court is expected to rule on her lawsuit as other states weigh regulations on professional dietary advice. The case highlights the confusion around dietitians and health coaches, and how their qualifications differ. “I literally didn’t even know I was doing anything that was wrong,” said Del Castillo, who noted her business was legal when she was living in California. Health coaches like Del Castillo can get certificates from a variety of programs, but the title doesn’t have a consistent meaning and anyone can use it. Many say they can give clients advice on how to achieve their health goals through lifestyle changes. Registered dietitians complete months of supervised practice, pass a national exam and take continuing education courses — requirements that are echoed in the licensing laws of states that have them. While they too can help people meet health goals, dietitians say they also have the qualifications to advise patients managing chronic diseases or other medical problems. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, which represents registered dietitians, says Del Castillo’s lawsuit poses a threat to other licensing laws that protect public health, such as those for doctors. It notes that it supports dietary licensing laws only for advice on medical conditions, such as diabetes and obesity. “If they’re talking about wellness and general nutrition, that would not be affected,” said Pepin Tuma, an academy spokesman. The Institute for Justice, a free market group that took up Del Castillo’s case, has for years challenged professional licensing requirements and says dietary advice should be protected as free speech, regardless of the context. It says advice about food and health is ubiquitous and that Florida’s law gives a monopoly to select individuals. State laws vary. A few have no rules, while others require licenses only if people want to use titles such as “dietitian” or “nutritionist.” Florida restricts the dietary practice more broadly to licensed individuals. Claudia Haupt, a Northeastern University law professor, said licensing laws would be most legally defensible in fields where there’s real potential danger people could be hurt. She said licensing would be harder to defend for florists or interior decorators, but noted it’s plausible that bad dietary advice can cause harm. In court filings, Florida said its law protects people from incompetent advice. It said Del Castillo did not have the qualifications to obtain a dietary license but got a certificate as a “holistic health coach” from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, an online school. Darrell Rogers, a school spokesman, said laws like the one in Florida are outdated and that it’s rare for health coaches to face fines. The school helped connect Del Castillo with the Institute for Justice. Del Castillo’s case also touches on disagreements about nutrition. Del Castillo is a trainer for Crossfit, which is known for high-intensity workouts and has been critical of the dietetics field. The company has fought licensing laws for fitness trainers and says it will fight any attempts at new or stricter dietary licensing laws that could prevent its trainers from giving nutrition advice. It has donated to the Institute for Justice for Del Castillo’s case. Laura Boll-Peifer, a health coach in New Jersey, has a more moderate view. Like many other health coaches, she said her specialty is helping people achieve the goals they set for themselves and that dietitians are better suited to handle medical conditions like eating disorders or high cholesterol. But she was reluctant about introducing a dietary licensing law in her state. “It’s just so hard to know where to draw the lines,” she said. The National Board for Health & Wellness Coaches recently launched a certification exam for health coaches to bring more consistency to the field. In the meantime, states may contemplate new or updated rules on dietary advice. After a separate challenge by the Institute for Justice, North Carolina had clarified its dietary licensing law. Last year, the state also narrowed the scope of the law to require licenses only for medical conditions. But that might not settle all questions. Charla Burill, executive director of North Carolina’s dietetics board, noted that someone who’s obese might get help for a medical condition, or for general diet tips. “Obesity could be a gray area,” she said. ___ Follow Candice Choi on Twitter: @candicechoi ___ 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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10753
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The U has developed a test vaccine for CMV, which can cause babies to be born deaf or retarded
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"The story reports on an animal trial of a cytomegalovirus (CMV) vaccine in pregnant guinea pigs. The story does not mention that CMV is species-specific, so results from a guinea pig trial are not directly applicable to humans. CMV infection in newborns is an under-appreciated problem and the story did provide some useful information to readers. However, the story provided no quantitative evidence from the study and failed to put the research into the context of other CMV vaccine research, some of which may be further along. A story on such animal research must remind readers that the vaccine has not yet undergone even safety testing in humans. There is only one brief line that the researcher ""hopes to begin testing the vaccine on people later this year."" But as the editorial accompanying the journal article makes clear, there are several vaccines well along in development other than the one described. A university news release mentioned twice (once as early as the second paragraph) that human trials had not yet begun. This story mentioned plans for human testing only once – 11 paragraphs deep. The story does not discuss the expected cost of any CMV vaccine or who should receive it – except for the final line from the researcher projecting that ""the best strategy for eradicating CMV some day would be universal immunization of young children."" What would that cost? Would women of childbrearing age get it? All adults? If it's not too soon to report on such animal research, it's not too soon to start asking such questions. The story cites the lead author of the study and a researcher/policy maker from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the organization that funded the study – both of whom have an interest in announcing positive results. The story should have offered the perspective of someone not affiliated with the study, especially since there are other vaccines under development. The accompanying editorial in the journal in which this study was published provided balance. Even that editorial writer could have added needed perspective to the story."
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mixture
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"Two aspects of health care costs were ignored in this story. There is no discussion of the expected cost of a CMV vaccine. (This is significant, as the researcher is quoted saying the ""best strategy for eradicating CMV would be universl immunization of young children."") And the story does not discuss the potential cost savings of a vaccine that was safe and effective in humans – in terms of post-partum care and on-going pediatric care for children born with CMV-related disabilities. The story provides no quantitative evidence from the study cited. The new vaccine group (there were actually two vaccines studied) was improved, but the CMV infection rate was about 50%. One would expect that a story on a human vaccine trial would quantify benefits, so one should certainly expect that a far more preliminary stage of animal testing should give an idea of how big a potential benefit was seen. The story does not mention the potential harms of a vaccine. Granted, they may be unknown at this time as human testing has not begun, but the fact that human trials of safety (much less efficacy) have not yet begun should have been emphasized along with the species-specific nature of such research. The story does not mention the study design or provide any quantitative data from the study. CMV infection has species-specific outcomes. Pup death is a consequence in guinea pigs whereas deafness is the manifestation in humans. The trial demonstrated an improvement in the pup survival as noted in the article. However, the transmission rate in the study population was not statistically different from the controls. So transmission from mother to fetus still occurred at the same rate. The story was apparently based on the journal article cited, but the accompanying editorial in that journal put the vaccine trial into perspective, yet it was not cited in the story. That editorial refers to some CMV vaccine research in early human trials – beyond the stage of this work. No overt disease-mongering in the story. The story cites the lead author of the study and a researcher/policy maker from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the organization that funded the study – both of whom have an interest in announcing positive results. The story should have offered the perspective of someone not affiliated with the study, especially since there are other vaccines under development. The accompanying editorial in the journal in which this study was published provided balance to the article. Even that editorial writer could have added needed perspective to the story. The story could have made more clear what is stated so clearly in an editorial accompanying the research article in the journal cited: ""no means of preventing congenital CMV infection or its cognitive, motor, or sensory sequelae is available or even on the visible horizon."" Nonethless, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story reports on an animal trial of a CMV vaccine in guinea pigs. A story on such animal research must remind readers that the vaccine has yet to even undergo safety testing in humans. There is only one brief line that ""he hopes to begin testing the vaccine on people later this year."" Nonethless, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story – in 9 words – made passing reference to the fact that this is ""one of the first experimental vaccines against the virus."" But we learn nothing more about how this research compares with the other trials. Nonetheless, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. Although the University of Minnesota sent out a news release on this research dated February 21, and this story was published on February 22, we have no direct evidence that the story relied solely or largely on a news release."
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8806
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Group wants FDA to pull J&J birth control patch.
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A U.S. advocacy group is urging the Food and Drug Administration to pull Johnson & Johnson’s birth control patch from the market after studies found an increased risk of dangerous blood clots.
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true
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Health News
|
In a petition filed with the FDA on Thursday, Public Citizen’s Health Research Group said the amount of estrogen released from the Ortho-Evra patch varies widely among individual women, and those who absorb too much were at greater risk for blood clots and other painful side effects. “The considerable safety concern of high-dose, variable estrogen exposure tips the balance of risks and benefits against the availability of Ortho-Evra as a contraceptive,” wrote Sidney Wolfe, head of the research group. Ortho-Evra has seen its use slip in the wake of such data, which led to warnings on the patch’s label as recently as January, when a study of women ages 15 to 44 found blood clots known as venous thromboembolisms were about twice as likely in women using the patch versus birth control pills. The FDA at the time said the patch was safe and effective when used as directed and urged patients to talk to their doctors about the risk. Estrogen used in contraceptives has long been known to increase the risk of blood clots, which can trigger heart attacks or strokes. Women who use Ortho Evra can be exposed to about 60 percent more estrogen than pill users. “If Ortho-Evra had been designed as a pill, it is unlikely to have been approved because of its increased estrogen content,” Wolfe said. The FDA has said the chance of developing a clot is low. For every 10,000 women who use hormonal contraceptives for one year, some three to five of them will develop a clot, the agency has said. The manufacturer said Ortho Evra was safe and effective when used according to directions. The patch has risks and benefits like all hormonal contraceptives, and the product label “has always stated the known risks associated with its use,” said Gloria Vanderham, a spokeswoman for Ortho Women’s Health and Urology, the Johnson & Johnson unit that makes the product. Still, about 2.7 million prescriptions were written for the patch last year, keeping it among the top 200 brand-name drugs sold in the United States, according to data cited by the petition. More than 9.9 million prescriptions were written in 2004. U.S. sales of the patch totaled about $153 million in 2007, according to data from health care information company IMS Health. That was a 37 percent drop from 2006. The company has marketed the patch as a more convenient alternative to daily birth control pills, which are less effective if a dose is missed. Wolfe conceded that data showed patients do comply better with the patch, but added there was no difference in the number of patients who ended up pregnant. FDA spokeswoman Rita Chappelle said the agency had no comment on the petition.
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9809
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New European pill works against uterine fibroids
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This AP story (the version we reviewed was published in the Denver Post) was superior in the way it clearly explained the researchers’ potential conflicts of interest and described the design of the studies. Uterine fibroids are common, and although not life-threatening, can cause debilitating symptoms in some women. Although surgery remains the only curative treatment, drug treatments could reduce the number of women who opt for more invasive approaches. This is a key area for fully informed, shared decision-making – a point that could have been emphasized in this story.
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mixture
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Associated Press,women's health
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Nothing about costs, even though the drug in question is a version of a drug already on the market. We thought it would have fit nicely after the fifth paragraph. Although it may seem intuitively obvious that drug treatment would be preferable to surgery, it is unclear how long women with fibroids would need to continue drug treatment since it is not curative. So cost becomes an important long term issue. We will give the story a satisfactory grade on this because what was provided was adequately and clearly stated. But we would prefer to see absolute numbers rather than just percentage comparisons. We’d also prefer some additional comments about the rate of surgery seen in the comparison study. Of the 100 women who completed the study who received ulipristal, 55 had some form of elective surgery (55%). In comparision, 53 of 95 women who completed the study who were treated with leuprolide had surgery. So, in the final analysis, there was no difference in the number of women who decided for surgery.” The story focuses mostly on the side effects of the other treatments tested, not the low-dose morning after pill that was the subject of the story. It says, “In both studies, Esmya stopped the bleeding and shrank fibroids in most patients and worked as well as the shot, but with fewer side effects.” It does not make clear what the side effects were for Esmya. The competing WebMD story included the statement that “it remains to be seen if the drug is safe for long-term, intermittent use.” The story nicely describes the study’s design and provides more information than the WebMD piece we reviewed. For one, it provides the number of people studied, which signals to readers that the findings have the potential to actually make an impact. “The two studies involved about 550 premenopausal women whose fibroid symptoms were serious enough that surgery was planned.” No disease mongering, and this story had a very measured tone. It says, “Fibroids are benign growths in the uterus that are common in women during their childbearing years, mostly in their late 30s and 40s. They usually go away after menopause.’ Unlike the WebMD story, AP explained that the study was funded by a drugmaker. The AP reported, “Drugmaker PregLem paid for the latest studies. The researchers included company employees; Donnez and others have been on its scientific advisory board.” The comparisons to hormone shots that were made in the study are well described. But other options are not fully explained. The story says “Despite newer, less invasive alternatives, the rate of hysterectomies remains high, Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mayo Clinic, wrote in an editorial in the journal.” But then Stewart goes on to say, “It’s amazing to me that so many women have uterine fibroids and yet the treatments we have available are pretty few and far between.” So which is it? Are there newer, less invasive options or are options to surgery few and far between? WebMD’s story was similarly incomplete and confusing on this point. The story does a good job spelling out what is available where, in both Europe and the United States. The story starts out with a pretty strong claim for novelty, saying, “New research offers hope for the first pill to treat a common problem in young women: fibroids in the uterus.” But, in reality, there are other drugs – including mifepristone – that have shown some effectiveness in reducing symptoms. The story did not rely on a press release.
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11542
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Life-Saving Test: How One Minute Can Save Your Life
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This morning TV news segment on transnasal endoscopy promises a live, in-studio demonstration of a new, one-minute test that can save lives from a little-known epidemic cancer. Great story–but, alas, not true. The device demonstrated, the TNE, has been the subject of research for nearly a decade and has been in clinical use for several years. Its chief advantage appears to be that it does not require anesthesia, not that it detects cancer more accurately. The cancer is rare and deadly, killing over 85 percent of patients within 5 years of diagnosis, even with early intervention and treatment. Over 99 percent of patients who are diagnosed with the precursor condition, Barrett’s esophagus, do not go on to develop cancer. The test takes not one minute but, in the live demonstration, at least 5 mintues. Some published materials claim the test can take about 10 minutes. But the one-minute claim appears to be a Good Morning America exclusive. So what is new here? We do get to see a guy wearing a suit having a thin tube run up his nose and into his stomach without gagging, all while we get to view his innards live onscreen. Not bad for the morning news. Plus, people who for whatever reason may be facing a conventional upper endoscopy will benefit from learning about this sedation-free alternative. But none of this excuses the segment’s theatrical bravado, intellectual negligence and poor journalistic hygiene. How do things like this wind up on the air?
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false
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"The segment fails to report how much the transnasal endoscopy costs, how much the device itself costs, or whether insurance pays for it. As it happens, it appears the TNE costs considerably less than standard endoscopy–$500, as quoted in a 2007 article, vs. $3,000–due to the fact that anesthesia is unnecessary. However, that raises a health policy issue that needs to be considered. The widespread availability of a relatively benign office based test could result in widespread adoption and overuse could overwhelm any individual patient savings. All of this would have been useful to mention. The host makes a game attempt to verify the benefits of TNE: ""But you have a procedure, and again, this can detect Barrett’s very early so you can be watching it, make changes that could eventually even prevent half of these cancers?"" To his credit, the physican declines to respond affirmatively. Still, the story fails to make the case that TNE can increase early detection, or that early detection will lead to reduced mortality. The role of TNE in the management of patients with symptoms of GERD is unclear at the present time. Less than 1% of people with Barrett’s will go on to develop esophageal cancer. The doctor doing the procedure live says there are no risks; the network’s medical editor says there may be some throat irritation afterwards. The literature does suggest that risks of complications are very low, especially compared to the risks of the conventional procedure done under sedation. But the procedure carries small risks of nosebleeds and vomiting. About 5 percent of patients in early research could not complete the procedure due to discomfort or anxiety. Very rarely, the esophagus is punctured or injured. As with any diagnostic procedure, TNE carries risks of misdiagnosis and unnecessary, ineffective and harmful treatment. These risks are especially true with Barrett esophagus, since the condition usually does not turn into cancer. Researchers are trying to determine which cases are most necessary to treat, but at this point they do not know. The story presents no evidence demonstrating the TNE is effective or safe. The segment repeatedly exaggerates the prevalence of esophageal cancer, confuses it with Barrett esophagus, and incorrectly implies a life-saving test has just been introduced. At the opening, the segment says esophageal cancer is ""one of the fastest growing cancers"" in the U.S., with the ""rate of new cases increasing 400 to 500 percent per year."" It’s hard to know what’s meant by this. The number of new diagnoses is certainly not quadrupling or quintupling each year. If we assume the diction is correct–that the rate of increase in new cases is 400 to 500 percent per year–that’s an odd statistic to use. One fears it is being cited because it sounds scary, not because it helps put the cancer in perspective. The same can be said for the statement that esophageal cancer is ""twice as deadly"" as melanoma. It’s not clear what’s being compared or why this comparison matters. The story also overstates the link between Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal cancer. The host says ""fully [sic] half of the cases may be related to the nation’s growing problem with acid reflux,"" though the American Cancer Society estimates the number at 30 percent. The segment correctly indicates that reflux can lead to Barrett’s esophagus which in turn can lead to esophageal cancer. But NIH says about 1 percent of adults may have Barrett’s esophagus. Of these, the American Cancer Society estimates, one half of 1 percent are diagnosed with esophageal cancer each year. The host leads the piece with what she calls ""a very big headline"" about health, that there is ""a test"" that can ""help thousands"" avoid cancer. She encourages viewers to ""gather everyone you know and join around this morning"" and learn about the test. They are likely to be disappointed. TNE is not new; it is a fairly recent improvement to a diagnostic test that’s been available for years. It is not proven to detect more cases of Barrett’s or cancer. There is no new treatment for the disease, and the risk factors are well known. And finally, the host says the TNE takes ""one minute."" The tube hits the patient’s nose at 3:42 of the segment, and isn’t removed until about 8:45. That’s at least 5 minutes. What gives? Sources include: There is not a truly independent source here. The producers should have interviewed a disinterested ENT who could put the transnasal method in context, and discuss what is known about early detection and treatment of Barrett and esophageal cancer. The segment should have plainly laid out the differences in risks and benefits of conventional vs. transnasal endoscopy. There is some controversy about the appropriate approach to following patients with GERD or GERD-like symptoms. The piece should also have mentioned other diagnostic techniques, including barium X-rays, CT scans and ultrasound. The segment fails to make clear where the TNE procedure is available. TNE has been studied extensively and has been in clincial use for several years. The story fails to report this; in fact, it implies otherwise. There does not appear to be a press release linked to this broadcast."
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25914
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“I, all the way back in January, warned (President Trump that) this pandemic was coming. I talked about what we needed to do.”
|
Biden expressed concern about the coronavirus weeks before Trump did, and as early as January, he recommended following the Obama administration’s approach on Ebola, including international cooperation and the use of sound science. In a January op-ed, Biden referred to “the possibility of a pandemic” and said the number of cases would increase, though he was not more specific on timing or steps to counteract the virus. Biden offered his first detailed plan on March 12, the day after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
|
true
|
Public Health, Coronavirus, Joe Biden,
|
"When presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden appeared on the July 20 premiere of Joy Reid’s MSNBC show, ""The ReidOut,"" he repeated an assertion about how he was more aware of the risks of the novel coronavirus early on than his opponent, President Donald Trump. Referring to Trump, Biden said, ""I, all the way back in January, warned him this pandemic was coming. I talked about what we needed to do."" Other news outlets have previously fact-checked similar assertions by Biden, but we’ll take a crack at his newest remark on Reid’s show. We found that Biden did warn about a potential pandemic as long ago as January, and talked about some steps the administration should take. A fuller, detailed plan came weeks later. Biden’s primary warning about the coronavirus came in a USA Today op-ed he published on Jan. 27, which was six days after the first coronavirus case in the United States was announced. Here are the op-ed’s key passages about the novel coronavirus: ""The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president. … The outbreak of a new coronavirus, which has already infected more than 2,700 people and killed over 80 in China, will get worse before it gets better. Cases have been confirmed in a dozen countries, with at least five in the United States. There will likely be more. … To be blunt, I am concerned that the Trump administration’s shortsighted policies have left us unprepared for a dangerous epidemic that will come sooner or later."" While Biden told Reid that he had ""warned"" Trump that ""this pandemic was coming,"" his January op-ed did not word it so definitively. In the op-ed, Biden referred to ""the possibility of a pandemic"" and he said one ""will come sooner or later."" The World Health Organization did not declare a pandemic until March 11. Trump was tweeting as late as Feb. 24 that the coronavirus ""is very much under control in the USA."" Still, Biden’s wording in the Reid interview suggested that his warnings were more definitive than they were. His comment to Reid that he ""talked about what we needed to do"" as far back as January was more big picture than specific. Much of the op-ed set forth the ways in which the Obama administration, which Biden served as vice president, handled the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak, including marshaling a cooperative international response and relying on sound science for decision-making. Biden contrasted the Obama playbook with the ways that Trump, then a private citizen, ""sought to stoke fear and stigma"" about Ebola. International cooperation and a reliance on science are big-picture elements of fighting a disease outbreak in its early stages. Biden also wrote in the op-ed that, as president, he would ""ask Congress to beef up the Public Health Emergency Fund and give me the power to use the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to declare a disaster if an infectious disease threat merits it. I will also renew funding — set to expire in May — for the nationwide network of hospitals that can isolate and treat people with infectious diseases, and fully fund the Global Health Security Agenda so the world is ready for the next outbreak."" Beyond that, Biden did not offer much specificity for battling the coronavirus in January, when public-health officials around the world were just beginning to grasp the nature of the virus and the steps that would be required to contain it. In the U.S., public-health officials were beginning to contemplate the potential need for extensive social-distancing measures in February and early March. Biden held an in-person rally in Detroit as late as March 9 before canceling a rally for the first time on March 10. The following day, the NBA abruptly suspended its season, triggering a cascade of cancellations of events and gatherings around the country. On March 12, Biden offered a more detailed plan. In remarks posted on Medium, Biden thanked those ""who are already making sacrifices to protect us — whether that’s self-quarantining or cancelling events or closing campuses."" He went on to say that fighting the coronavirus ""will mean making some radical changes to our personal behaviors: more frequent and more through handwashing and staying home from work if you are ill, but also altering some deeply ingrained habits, like handshakes and hugs, and avoiding large public gatherings."" Biden also urged free testing for everyone who needs it; making sure communities have the hospital beds, staff, medical supplies and personal protective equipment needed to treat patients; efforts by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Defense Department to provide temporary hospitals; and fast-tracking of vaccine clinical trials by the National Institutes of Health and approvals by the Food and Drug Administration. Biden’s plan came four days before the White House issued recommendations that senior citizens and people with serious health concerns should stay home, initially for 15 days. The White House formally declared a national emergency on March 13. Biden’s campaign told PolitiFact that an op-ed was not the venue to flesh out a full plan; it was intended more as an outline. Biden said, ""I, all the way back in January, warned (President Trump that) this pandemic was coming. I talked about what we needed to do."" Biden expressed concern about the coronavirus weeks before Trump did, and he recommended the Obama approach on Ebola, including international cooperation and the use of sound science, in January. He warned of the possibility of a pandemic several weeks before the WHO declared one, and predicted that there would be more cases in the U.S. But while he spoke broadly in January about how the U.S. should approach the crisis, he did not offer a detailed plan until March 12, a day after the WHO declaration."
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9609
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Exclusive: Doctors to Test a Groundbreaking Treatment for Strokes
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This story explains that researchers at the Cleveland Clinic are searching for a first patient for a trial testing whether deep brain stimulation (DBS) might be helpful in improving the outcome of physical therapy in disabled stroke patients. It provides little solid evidence that such a procedure would lead to a positive clinical outcome. Nevertheless, the story suggests that this serious invasive brain surgery might work and the headline describes it as potentially “groundbreaking.” The story also overlooks that the costs per patient would seem prohibitive for the volume of people who might seek it out. Later in the story, things get a little less breathless: We find out there are harms associated with this surgery, including some that might not yet be known. As this Time Magazine story points out, around 800,000 Americans suffer strokes each year and half of those are disabled by these events. A procedure that might improve their quality of life would be a boon to public health. DBS carries significant risks, is expensive, and this story provides little evidence to support its enthusiastic claims.
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true
|
deep brain stimulation,stroke
|
While this story admittedly is announcing a new procedure never tried in human stroke patients, it conveniently glosses over the sheer complexity of what is being proposed–intricate brain surgery for stroke patients–a procedure that inevitably will cost tens of thousands of dollars, and that if successful will actually only be an adjunct to aid in subsequent physical therapy following a stroke. Given that the story says that annually, nearly half of stroke patients will be disabled — 400,000 — the cost of using this procedure on even a portion of those represents a staggering public health cost. Human trials have not yet begun. The story discusses rat research: “But for 10 years, Machado and his team have been studying the effects of DBS on rats. They found that rats with strokes who received DBS had more proteins in the brain that are associated with brain plasticity—and twice as many synapses or connections between nerve cells compared to rats with strokes who did not undergo DBS.” But no data were provided to explain what “more proteins” means – how much more? In how many of the rats? What is the significance of twice as many synapses? So the discussion of the animal research is almost meaningless. Nonetheless, we’ll grade this Not Applicable since it’s clear there are no human data to report. However, this does raise the question of why this pre-trial announcement is newsworthy in a national news outlet. Near the end, the story does mention that “DBS is a type of brain surgery, and comes with risks like bleeding, infection and need for more surgeries” so it earns a Satisfactory rating. It also points out some harms may be unknown. But we would have been happier if the risks were not buried in the last paragraph of the story by which point, odds are, some people would have stopped reading. While the story is raising the hopes of stroke patients, it actually provides little evidence that the proposed procedure will work or be “groundbreaking” as the headline states. It mentions that DBS has been effective with some Parkinson’s disease patients in eliminating some symptoms of that illness. But it only suggests that in earlier studies in rats, DBS was associated with an increase in proteins in the brain associated with plasticity, meaning that it might be facilitating the brain’s ability to repair stoke damage. The earlier animal studies found DBS was associated with many more nerve synapses, suggesting improved communication between nerve cells. But neither of these findings necessarily mean an improved clinical outcome for patients, which is the hope actually raised by the story. The leap from animal research to humans–or from use in people with other conditions–is not emphasized strongly enough. There is no disease-mongering of stroke in the story. The story only quotes a single source–the head of the clinical trial who will also be the person leading the DBS surgery. There is no discussion about potential conflicts of interest. The story does point out that the standard treatment for stroke victims who suffer a disability is physical therapy. However, clot busting drugs and other early intervention methods are also being tried as means to improve stroke outcomes. This story is pretty clear that actual clinical application of DBS for stroke patients is a long way off, given that the first patient on which this will be tried hasn’t been identified yet. So we’ll rate this a marginally Satisfactory, with the caveat that stories like this which raise patient hopes prematurely can do real harm to people and their families. We would have liked it better if the story had spelled out how many steps it will take before this becomes an actual treatment (if ever). The novelty of the investigation of deep brain stimulation for stroke patients is made clear. There is no indication that this story relied on a news release. A quick check of the Cleveland Clinic’s website shows no release touting this research project.
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34102
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A man named Rudolph Fentz who had mysteriously disappeared 74 years earlier turned up alive in Times Square in 1950.
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Well, I have lived most of my life; I can be robbed of only a few more years. But it seems too bad — this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can’t we have it?
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false
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Paranormal
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In 1950, a New York City police officer who was working missing-persons cases examined the body of an approximately 30-year-old man that was brought into the morgue. The man had shown up in the middle of Times Square at 11:15 p.m. that evening, “gawking and looking around at the cars and up at the signs like he’d never seen them before,” then was quickly hit and killed by cab when he tried to cross a street against the traffic lights. The pockets of the deceased’s clothing held multiple pieces of coinage and currency of forms that had not been produced for several decades, yet many of them were in mint condition. His possessions also included items from types of businesses that no longer existed in New York City (i.e., a bill from a livery stable and a brass slug from a saloon), a letter postmarked in 1876, and cards bearing the name Rudolph Fentz with an address on Fifth Avenue. Further investigations turned up no listings for a “Rudolph Fentz” in New York City phone directories; the Fifth Avenue address listed on the dead man’s cards had been a business rather than a residence for many years, and no one there had heard of Rudolph Fentz; the deceased’s fingerprints matched none on file; and no current missing-persons reports or inquiries fit the details of the body in the morgue. Moreover, the dead man’s clothes appeared to be about 75 years out of date in style, his apparel bore tags with the name and address of a tailor whom no one had ever heard of, and his hat bore a tag from a store that had gone out of business many years earlier. The investigating officer finally turned up a listing in an old phone directory for a “Rudolph Fentz, Jr.,” a man in his sixties who had passed away five years earlier. His widow had since moved to Florida, but by mail she supplied the information that her husband’s father, Rudolph Fentz, had disappeared sometime in the 1870s, having gone out for a walk around 10:00 p.m. one evening and never returned. A search of the missing-persons file for 1876 turned up a report for a “Rudolph Fentz,” whose clothing and address corresponded to those of the man killed in Times Square in 1950. This ostensible report from NYPD Capt. Hubert V. Rihm about the unexplained disappearance — and inexplicable reappearance 74 years later — of what appeared to be Rudolph Fentz has been reproduced in various forms since the 1970s as one of the many tales that seemingly confirms the existence of time travel. Yet it is not a true account at all, but rather an excerpt from a short story titled “I’m Scared,” which was penned by science fiction writer Jack Finney (whose best known work was the novel “The Body Snatchers”) and published in Collier’s magazine in 1951. In that story, the narrator is puzzled when he catches a broadcast of a radio program that had gone off the air several years earlier. He then tracks a series of unusual events that are indicative of temporal disturbances: A man received a telephone call from his sister that she insisted she hadn’t made until three days later; a bank discovered that a check had been deposited the day before it was written; a letter mailed from Wyoming was delivered to a New York City address just seventeen minutes later; and a man was shot and killed by a gun that police had found and impounded the previous day. The narrative involving Capt. Rihm and the reappearance of Fentz was the longest and most detailed vignette offered in “I’m Scared” as evidence of the narrator’s discovery of rifts in time occurring all around New York City. The cause of those temporal disturbances — and the message of “I’m Scared” — was explicated in the story’s closing paragraphs: Haven’t you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I head so many people wish that they lived “at the turn of the century,” or “when life was simple,” or “worth living,” or “when you could bring children into the world and count on the future,”or simply “in the good old days.” People didn’t talk that way when I was young! The present was a glorious time! But they talk that way now. For the first time in man’s history, man is desperate to escape the present. Our newsstands are jammed with escape literature, the very name of which is significant. Entire magazines are devoted to fantastic stories of escape — to other times, past and future, to other worlds and planets — escape to anywhere but here and now. Even our larger magazines, book publishers and Hollywood are beginning to meet the rising demand for this kind of escape. Yes, there is a craving in this world like a thirst, a terrible mass pressure that you can almost feel, of millions of minds struggling against the barriers of time. I am utterly convinced that this terrible mass pressure of millions of minds is already, slightly but definitely, affecting time itself. In the moments when this happens — when the almost universal longing to escape is greatest — my incidents occur. Man is disturbing the clock of time, and I am afraid it will break. When it does, I leave to your imagination the last few hours of madness that will be left to us; all the countless moments that now make up our lives suddenly ripped apart and chaotically tangled in time.
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9540
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Scientists develop new type of HIV test on a USB stick
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Via Imperial College London and DNA Electronics This Reuters story draws readers in with news that scientists have developed a quick HIV test on a USB stick, which could be useful in the developing world. While the story hints at the underlying method —a unique lab-on-a-chip test to estimate the amount of HIV in a person—it glazes over the study’s two-test design. And it’s a big miss: The story confuses the effectiveness of the traditional, test tube-based method with that of the experimental USB stick test that researchers hope will replace it, ultimately overstating the latter’s sensitivity. The reason this happened is because it seems to be based entirely on a news release, which also seems to misunderstand the study’s design. But Reuters wasn’t alone; the Washington Post, International Business Times, Gizmodo, Live Science, and other outlets similarly relied on the press release and mischaracterized the study’s results. News outlets have a responsibility to report accurately on medical research, and go a step beyond the news release. In this case, it appears most news organizations dropped the ball. These inaccurate news stories could very well stoke false hope among HIV field workers and their patients, and further erode public trust in news media.
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false
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HIV/AIDS
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The cost of either test in the study isn’t shared, and it’s a simple question to ask for a ballpark figure on what a mass-produced lab-on-a-chip might cost. Absent that number, a comprehensive HIV viral load test with traditional (and bulky) equipment is about $24.90 to $44.07. Such tests are recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) 6 months after the start of anti-retroviral treatment, at 1 year, then every year after that. The story doesn’t correctly report the sensitivity of the lab-on-a-chip method, and an Imperial College London (ICL) news release (which the Reuters story seemed to rely on heavily) gets this wrong, too. The key thing each piece missed: There were two tests. The study used a scaled-up and better-understood test tube assay (which indicates a positive through a fluorescence reaction) to validate and compare to the lab-on-a-chip test (which uses acidity/pH). The researchers ran biological samples through each test to cross-reference them. Here’s how the numbers break down: The tube assay was 95% sensitive (meaning it missed 5% of HIV-positive samples) when more than 1,000 copies of HIV-specific RNA were present per milliliter — a limit WHO says is an acceptable sensitivity. Between 50-1,000 copies, the tube assay dropped to 88.75% sensitivity. (We’ll note here that some lab-grade tests can detect 100 times fewer copies with close to 100% sensitivity.) The pH-based lab-on-a-chip test, meanwhile, was 88.8% sensitive at more than 1,000 copies and 76.1% with 50-1,000 copies. That’s a far cry from 95% accurate. The physical harms are pretty obvious, as the story’s comparison to a diabetes blood sugar test makes clear: Patients need to get a spot of blood onto the sensor. But the more important harm isn’t discussed here, where a simple “this isn’t ready for the field” statement would have covered. More than 11 in 100 HIV-positive people getting a false-negative test is not very comforting; they could be misled to think their anti-retroviral therapy is still working when it might not be. As previously noted for our second criteria (quantifying benefits), the story didn’t correctly report the lab-on-a-chip’s “real-world” sensitivity, i.e. with human blood plasma. The assertion that 991 blood samples were run through the lab-on-a-chip test is wrong, too—only 164 were. The others were done with the non-electronic tube-based test. The two different tests aren’t mentioned, described, or distinguished in any way. It doesn’t appear the writer spoke with the researchers or read the abstract of the study, which summarizes all of these key points. We didn’t find any outlandish descriptions of HIV or AIDS. We did see any original quotes from an independent source, nor the study’s authors. Readers are told “current tests to detect virus levels take at least three days and involve sending a blood sample to a laboratory,” which is basic but we’ll mark this one satisfactory. However, knowing how often the WHO recommends viral-load tests be taken, and how sensitive and specific they are, would have made this story stronger. We’re told the technology is in the “early stages” and is thus not yet available. The story notes the exploratory nature of the test and its speed, at least relative to a standard (though unnamed) lab test, hinting at its novelty. Quotes were copy and pasted directly from the ICL press release, and we didn’t detect any signs of original reporting. From the news release: “However, monitoring viral load is crucial to the success of HIV treatment. At the moment, testing often requires costly and complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result. We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB chip.” And the Reuters news story: “Monitoring viral load is crucial to the success of HIV treatment. At the moment, testing often requires costly and complex equipment that can take a couple of days to produce a result,” said Graham Cooke, who co-led the research from the Imperial’s department of medicine. “We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB chip.”
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7941
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Germany confirms at least 28 new coronavirus infections.
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Germany on Monday confirmed at least 28 new coronavirus cases, bringing the number of infections in Europe’s most populous country to 157 from 129 on Sunday, the Robert Koch Institute for disease control said, adding the risk was now “moderate”.
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true
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Health News
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More than half of the cases - 90 - are in the large western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where several schools and day care centers remained closed on Monday to try to prevent the spread of the virus after staff members tested positive. Lothar Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said that authorities had traced the origin of 140 cases in Germany. Most of the known coronavirus cases in Germany have been mild so far. Authorities have reported no deaths in connection with the new virus. Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Monday it was up to local authorities to decide whether to hold large events in Europe’s largest economy after Switzerland on Friday banned events drawing more than 1,000 people due to the disease. “The federal government has formulated some parameters in the crisis committee but...the Infection Protection Act foresees that the decision is in the hands of local authorities,” Spahn told a news conference. The organizers of the International Craftsman Fair said on Monday they decided to cancel the business event, scheduled to take place in Munich from March 11-15, as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread of the highly infectious disease. Germany’s ITB Tourism Fair - which was due to take place this week - has been canceled due to the spread of the coronavirus, organizers Messe Berlin GmbH said on Friday. Carmaker BMW (BMWG.DE) said on Monday that an employee in Munich had been tested positive for novel coronavirus. Some 150 people at BMW’s research and development center are being quarantined at home for two weeks after coming into contact with the infected colleague, a BMW spokesman added. Vodafone (VOD.L) confirmed that one of its German employees was infected with the virus. “We can confirm that several of our employees in the UK have been in contact with a person visiting the office, who has tested positive for the coronavirus,” a Vodafone spokesperson added. “As a precautionary measure, we have identified those employees and asked that they work from home.”
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16976
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As unbelievable as it sounds, your tax dollars are funding the federal government's Zombie Apocalypse Plan. I kid you not.
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"Palin wrote on Facebook, ""As unbelievable as it sounds, your tax dollars are funding the federal government's Zombie Apocalypse Plan. I kid you not."" People who worry about the zombie apocalypse will not be comforted to hear this, but there is no plan. The CDC played off the zombie apocalypse craze in 2011 as way to pass along real information about preparing for emergencies that don't involve zombies. They wrote up a tongue-in-cheek blog post, which successfully generated plenty of attention. So when the zombies come, you’re on your own. And Palin’s claim is False. May 28 update (2:04 p.m.): Since our fact-check first posted, our zombie friends have alerted us to some more zombie government business that we think is worth mentioning. None of it affects our rating of False. In the first case, the Washington Examiner reported on the Department of Homeland Security allowing federal government contractors to potentially be reimbursed for attending HALO Corp.'s 2012 Counter-Terrorism Summit. As part of the summit, Halo put on a ""live war game of a zombie apocalypse, complete with 40 actors in full zombie makeup,"" the Washington Examiner reported. In the second, Foreign Policy magazine found a 2011 military training document that included plans for a zombie attack. But it’s not really a ""plan."" It’s part of a training exercise, the magazine reported. ""The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario,"" Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. ""This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."""
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false
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Federal Budget, PunditFact, Sarah Palin,
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"Sarah Palin’s Facebook page is a popular venue where her 4.2 million fans can track her political endorsements, follow her reality TV appearances and join in on her outrage about how the country is being run. Recently, the former GOP vice presidential nominee and Alaska governor made an ""unbelievable"" connection between the abuse of tax dollars and zombies. ""As unbelievable as it sounds, your tax dollars are funding the federal government's Zombie Apocalypse Plan. I kid you not,"" Palin wrote May 22. ""(Google it; it really is the strangest thing. It’s not like government isn't trillions in debt and wasting billions of your dollars everyday ... but I digress.)"" We took her advice to heart and did some digging. After a few Internet searches and some interviews, we found this: The government does not have a plan for the zombie apocalypse. We repeat: There is no zombie apocalypse plan. ""Nor do we conduct any research or know of any viruses or other conditions that would result in zombie-type behavior,"" said Centers for Disease Control spokesman Llelwyn Grant. That’s probably not all-too surprising given the lack of real-life zombies. But since Palin was so matter-of-fact about the plan being real, we’ll explain where she got her information. Palin’s claim is based on a public outreach strategy developed by the communications office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2011. Officials aimed to grow the audience of their annual, and tired, message about preparing for hurricanes and other disasters by connecting it with a zombie apocalypse, like the one depicted in AMC’s The Walking Dead (which PolitiFact Georgia dutifully fact-checked). CDC officials created a tongue-in-cheek blog post from Dr. Ali Khan, assistant surgeon general and director of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. Khan wrote: ""The rise of zombies in pop culture has given credence to the idea that a zombie apocalypse could happen. In such a scenario zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder 'How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?' ""Well, we’re here to answer that question for you, and hopefully share a few tips about preparing for real emergencies too!"" Khan advised people to build emergency survival kits before a zombie outbreak that include water, non-perishable food, a battery-powered radio, tools, medications, cleaning supplies, vital documents and a first-aid kit -- supplies that are key to surviving the aftermath of a hurricane or tornado. And Khan advised families to create an emergency plan detailing where to go and who to call if zombies show up, though ""you can also implement this plan if there is a flood, earthquake or other emergency."" Reading the screed makes clear that Khan was having fun with the zombie fascination, and that this wasn’t an actual government plan to fend off walkers. The CDC, however, does offer real tips for preparing for and responding to explosions, nuclear blasts, smallpox, Anthrax, earthquakes and other hazardous situations. Zombies didn’t make the official list. Most people realized the joke. The Atlantic bemoaned the lack of meaningful advice for effective zombie-killing weapons, hot-wiring cars, figuring out the best time of day to travel, ""or really any worthwhile strategy for keeping zombies out of your house."" As a PR stunt, it was pretty effective. The CDC department expected a week’s worth of attention but it stretched over a year, leading to an elaborate graphic novella generated within the agency and a ""CDC Zombie Apocalypse Team"" T-shirt produced by the CDC Foundation that benefited disaster and health programs. It earned a spotlight in national media, including the New York Times, CNN and Fox News, where host Bill O’Reilly dubbed the campaign one of the ""dumbest things of the week."" Most CDC blog posts get between 1,000 and 3,000 hits, according to a case study of the campaign for the University of Southern California. But the zombie post crashed the server after getting tens of thousands of hits, and generated more than 4.8 million page views in the two years after its launch. A chunk of the online traffic came from the agency sharing the blog post on Twitter. Palin attacked the zombie apocalypse plan (remember, not a real how-to guide) as wasting tax dollars. But this doesn’t appear to be a story about wasted stimulus grants or $16 muffins or IRS Star Trek parodies. In this case, the CDC was using an unorthodox tactic to disseminate real information. People may argue with the method, but the campaign was designed to get people prepared for real disasters. The CDC says the zombie apocalypse campaign did not require outside contractors and did not take much time. Essentially, the project cost the hours that it took to produce it by its in-house staff. We asked for more specifics but did not hear back by our deadline. Stock images of zombies cost the team $87, but there were not many initial expenses because the project was based on social media sharing, according to the USC case study, co-authored by the CDC staffer who drafted Kahn’s original blog post. When the campaign became Internet gold, the CDC spent $20,000 on posters, postcards and copies of the graphic novella for libraries, schools and scout troops, the report says. The CDC retired its zombie attack campaign, but it remains online to accommodate public interest, a spokesman told us. Officials blogged in 2012 about ""teachable moments"" from The Walking Dead, such as keeping your gas tank half full during an emergency and keeping a first-aid kit around to quickly treat cuts induced by rooting around rusty cars in search of abandoned gasoline. For the record, the CDC says it would take a zombie apocalypse very seriously, conducting an investigation into the disease, helping to quarantine infected citizens and sending medical teams into the field. But it’s not banking on it happening. Our ruling Palin wrote on Facebook, ""As unbelievable as it sounds, your tax dollars are funding the federal government's Zombie Apocalypse Plan. I kid you not."" People who worry about the zombie apocalypse will not be comforted to hear this, but there is no plan. The CDC played off the zombie apocalypse craze in 2011 as way to pass along real information about preparing for emergencies that don't involve zombies. They wrote up a tongue-in-cheek blog post, which successfully generated plenty of attention. So when the zombies come, you’re on your own. And Palin’s claim is . May 28 update (2:04 p.m.): Since our fact-check first posted, our zombie friends have alerted us to some more zombie government business that we think is worth mentioning. None of it affects our rating of . In the first case, the Washington Examiner reported on the Department of Homeland Security allowing federal government contractors to potentially be reimbursed for attending HALO Corp.'s 2012 Counter-Terrorism Summit. As part of the summit, Halo put on a ""live war game of a zombie apocalypse, complete with 40 actors in full zombie makeup,"" the Washington Examiner reported. In the second, Foreign Policy magazine found a 2011 military training document that included plans for a zombie attack. But it’s not really a ""plan."" It’s part of a training exercise, the magazine reported. ""The document is identified as a training tool used in an in-house training exercise where students learn about the basic concepts of military plans and order development through a fictional training scenario,"" Navy Capt. Pamela Kunze, a spokeswoman for U.S. Strategic Command, told CNN. ""This document is not a U.S. Strategic Command plan."""
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8538
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Brazil's Amazonas state warns its health system overwhelmed by coronavirus.
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Brazil’s Amazonas state warned on Thursday that its health system has been overwhelmed by the coronavirus epidemic, with all intensive care beds and ventilators already taken as a result of the outbreak.
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true
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Health News
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As the virus spreads across the country from its epicenter in Brazil’s wealthiest city of Sao Paulo, it is highlighting the huge discrepancies in healthcare provisions in this continent-sized country. Manaus, a city of 2 million in the heart of the Amazon rainforest and the capital of Amazonas, has been particularly hard hit, with 800 confirmed cases. The state as a whole has had 40 deaths out of around 900 confirmed cases. Manaus is the only city in the state with intensive care units (ICUs). Rosemary Pinto, head of the state health system, pleaded for people to heed social distancing orders aimed at shutting down all but essential activities. “There are still too many people in the streets,” she said at a news conference. “Families are sitting out on chairs in front of their homes. There are lines at the banks, including elderly people who are at risk, and that is why so many are dying,” she said. The crisis led the state governor to replace his health secretary on Wednesday. “Most of the cases are concentrated in Manaus, but when the virus spreads to the interior of the state and reaches the indigenous communities, it will be a catastrophe,” said Marcelo Ramos, a federal lawmaker representing Amazonas. Health experts and anthropologists have warned of the danger of the pandemic decimating Brazil’s 850,000 indigenous people because they have no immunity to external diseases and live in communal homes where social distancing is not possible. So far, the indigenous health service Sesai has reported only six cases of coronavirus among indigenous people. Four of them are on the upper reaches of the Amazon river near Peru and Colombia, one case is in Manaus, and one reported on Wednesday involves a Yanomami 14-year-old who is stable in an intensive care unit in Boas Vista, capital of Roraima state.
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2489
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Differences between the sexes stretches to fitness formulas.
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When it comes to fitness, experts say men generally want to be bulkier and women want to be trimmer and everyone wants to do what they are good at.
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true
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Health News
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That’s why as more women tackle brawny boot camps and men seek flexible peace on the yoga mat, crossing traditional gender lines, intelligently, can be a good idea. “Women want to lose body fat, men want hypertrophy (bulk),” said Geralyn Coopersmith, national director of the Equinox Fitness Training Institute. There are also hormonal, structural and body composition differences between the sexes, said Coopersmith, who trains the personal trainers for the chain’s fitness centers. “So if they’re both training for a marathon they’ll train in very similar ways but we’ll look out for different things.” Women’s wider hips leave them more prone to knee injuries, while men, pound for pound, will always have more lean body tissue. “Technically the man is more fit in that regard,” she said. It’s harder for women to tackle extreme workouts, such as Crossfit or P90X, Coopersmith said, but they can do it. “They’re not going to beat the men but will probably get pretty good at it and get very fit,” she said, adding that too many young, healthy women don’t challenge themselves enough. Dr. Michele Olson, an exercise physiologist with the American College of Sports Medicine said while everyone needs aerobic, strength and flexibility, the activities needed to achieve it can be very different, depending gender and age. “In the early years women need to focus on bones and men on aerobics,” said Olson, a professor at the Auburn University Montgomery Human Performance Lab, in Alabama. She added that research shows it’s important for younger women to take on activities with sufficient impact, such as jogging, jumping rope or step aerobics, at least 20 minutes twice a week, to develop good bone density. “Bone density can fail women in their 40’s,” said Olson, “while men tend to have robust bones until very late in life.” She added that heart health is especially important for men, who are plagued with heart disease at a younger age. They need to focus on the correct exercises for the heart, including low-impact cardio exercises like bicycling or swimming. Women at any age should lift weights, she said, adding interval-style training is more efficient in burning the mid-belly fat women tend to store after menopause. “It doesn’t have to be a boot camp. You can do it on a treadmill by adjusting speed or incline at one-minute intervals,” she explained. As men age, their lack of flexibility catches up with them, but estrogen has made the tendons of women more elastic. “Women and men both play to their strengths,” she said. “Even as children, athletes naturally select what they feel they’re good at.” Connecticut-based fitness instructor Ellen Barrett believes the genders require different fitness formulas. Even a simple bicep curl might not work for a woman, whose range of motion is generally greater, said Barrett. Super-intense, military-style workouts and long-distance running are among the activities Barrett feels are made for men, while Pilates and yoga are so much more woman-friendly. Barrett said when she attends a yoga class with her husband “it’s like a tale of two cities.” “I feel like I’ve had a massage,” she explained. “My husband has to recover.”
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9757
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Brain training app could help people with schizophrenia
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The story describes study findings regarding an iPad game that appeared to help a small group of schizophrenia patients improve their so-called “episodic” memory — meaning their ability to remember things such as where they may have left their keys. The study discussed in the story evaluated a very small group of people (22), meaning that it may be useful for determining whether it’s worthwhile to pursue a larger study — but that it is impossible to tell whether the iPad game would have any real impact on schizophrenia patients in general. Similarly, the story doesn’t make clear how much improvement the game provided for the patients who participated in the study. The story made a bit of a leap in saying the training helped participants “in their daily lives at home and at work.” Statistical significance was reached on a scale that attempts to measure functioning at home and work, but it’s too much to say with this small group and short-term study whether it actually made a difference. More detail, and a clear statement that this is only the first step in assessing the efficacy of such games for schizophrenia patients, would have been valuable. The story did call it a “proof-of-concept” study, but we don’t think that a general readership will necessarily know what that means. According to the CDC, schizophrenia is thought to affect between 0.5% and 1.1% of people around the world. The disease has a host of symptoms, from hallucinations to disorganized thinking, which are often treated with pharmaceuticals (with varying success). However, there are limited pharmaceutical interventions to help schizophrenia patients deal with memory problems — which are common among schizophrenia patients. Because so many people are affected by schizophrenia, it’s certainly worth tracking the development of a low-cost intervention that could help address a common symptom. However, it’s important to place these development stories in context, so that readers can have a good understanding of how effective such interventions might be and how far they are from use in clinical applications. Informed readers should discern that “could help” in the headline and “may improve” in the first line – after such a small, short-term study – means that just the opposite may be true.
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false
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computer app
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The story doesn’t discuss cost at all. The relevant iPad game is, presumably, not free. And even if it were, a patient would need to own or have access to an iPad (definitely not free). While these things may be presumed, it’s still worth mentioning. For example, it would be good to know if the game were free, or if it could be accessed on a PC — in which case patients may have more low-cost options for accessing the game. Even if – or especially if – it were a low-cost intervention, that would be worth a one-line mention. The benefits aren’t quantified at all. The story simply tells us that patients who played the game “made significantly fewer errors and needed significantly fewer attempts to remember the location of different patterns specific tests.” This is somewhat understandable, since the paper itself offers no specific numbers, and includes a graph that makes it difficult to assign numbers to patient performance. However, one way to address this would have been to ask one of the researchers. It’s questionable whether a 7.9 change on the Functioning scale (100 points total) translates into improved functioning in the real world. On the cognitive tasks, pretty much anyone who does cognitive tests (even some with dementia) get better over time, whether they are aware they are going testing or not. It’s a practice effect. It’s not clear that there are any potential harms associated with playing the game. We’ll rate this not applicable. The story doesn’t mention study design at all, which is problematic. Also, the journal article on which the story is based says that there were 22 patients involved in the overall study, who were randomly assigned to either play the game or to have “standard” treatment (the paper is not clear on how many patients played the game versus getting standard treatment). But the story says that 22 patients played the game. In short, the story makes it impossible for readers to get a handle on the quality of evidence to support the benefits being claimed. No disease mongering here. There are no independent sources in the article. And, while there don’t appear to be any conflicts of interest, it would likely have been worth noting that the “brain game” research was funded by Janssen/Johnson & Johnson — a large pharmaceutical company. The story says “There is increasing evidence that computer-assisted training can help people with schizophrenia overcome some of their symptoms,” but doesn’t tell us which symptoms or which types of training are relevant. The story also doesn’t tell readers whether there are other possible pharmaceutical, lifestyle, or cognitive training interventions that may help schizophrenia patients retain or improve episodic memory. Indeed, other computer systems are being explored as well as stimulation of brain regions using electro-magnetic fields. And options being used in clinical practice are skills training explained on the National Alliance on Mental Illness website. The story doesn’t tell readers whether the game, called “Wizard,” is currently available for iPad users. This is particularly problematic, because searching for an iPad game called Wizard returns a number of options. Are any of those options the correct game? What is the current stage of availability? The idea that brain games may be able to help schizophrenia patients deal with memory issues is not a new one. As the Washington Post noted in a 2013 story on using brain games to address schizophrenia symptoms, “Clinical trials aimed at FDA approval are being conducted at a dozen sites in collaboration with the Schizophrenia Trials Network, a group of university-based researchers.” Some discussion of this other work would have been good. The story draws extensively from a Cambridge University news release about the study, including pulling quotes from the lead author directly from the release (without telling readers where the quote came from).
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21737
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Michael Doherty Says Planned Parenthood provides about 140 visits for prenatal care in each state.
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Sen. Michael Doherty claims Planned Parenthood only provides 140 visits for prenatal care in each state
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false
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New Jersey, Health Care, Michael Doherty,
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"When Democrats and Republicans met on the floor of the New Jersey Senate on July 11 to discuss overriding vetoes handed down by Gov. Chris Christie, the debate ultimately turned to whether $7.5 million for family planning services should be reinstated -- some of which would go to Planned Parenthood centers. Democrats touted the importance of that funding for New Jersey families. Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen) said of the clients served: ""They are women who come for prenatal and postnatal health services so that they do have healthy families."" But Republican Sen. Michael Doherty argued that the organization doesn’t provide much prenatal care. ""There's a lot of talk about prenatal care and the fact is that Planned Parenthood just does not provide many prenatal visits. It's about 140 visits for each state in the entire country,"" said Doherty, who represents Warren County and parts of Hunterdon County. ""So we’re talking (about) an organization we’re supposed to be sending people we care about to get top-notch care for prenatal visits and it turns out that they don’t really see a lot of patients."" A resolution to override that veto failed in a 25-14 vote. PolitiFact New Jersey found that Doherty, a conservative, was right about prenatal care representing a small part of the services offered by Planned Parenthood, but he is wrong about there being about 140 visits in each state. Using the senator’s own reasoning, the number would actually be around 800 visits per state. First, let’s explain where Doherty received his information. Doherty referred us to a fact sheet prepared by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., showing that 7,021 prenatal clients were served nationwide in 2009. Based on that figure, Doherty determined there were, on average, about 140 prenatal patients per state. Here’s the problem: the fact sheet said ""clients,"" but Doherty referred to ""visits"" on the Senate floor. Clients refers to people. Visits refers to the numbers of times a client goes to Planned Parenthood. When we checked with Michele Jaker, executive director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of New Jersey, she said Planned Parenthood centers provided a total of 40,489 prenatal visits across the country in 2009, which is the latest data available. Using the same formula that Doherty did, that number equates to about 809 visits per state. Jaker could not provide the number of visits in New Jersey, but said 581 prenatal clients were served in the Garden State in 2009. ""His number right off the bat is wrong,"" said Jaker, referring to Doherty. Jaker added in an email that Doherty’s approach -- dividing the number of prenatal patients by 50 states -- was not an accurate assessment, because several states ""only have one health center and don't have the facilities to provide prenatal care."" Told about our findings, Doherty said: ""I think you’re splitting hairs."" But for his overall argument that Planned Parenthood sees few prenatal patients, Doherty is right. According to the same fact sheet, ""other women’s health services,"" which includes prenatal care, only accounted for 10 percent of all services provided by Planned Parenthood nationwide in 2009. According to figures provided by Jaker, prenatal clients represented about 0.6 percent of the 91,617 patients served by New Jersey centers in 2009. Jaker said the number of prenatal clients served by Planned Parenthood is due to limited funding and the needs of the community. If a center cannot provide prenatal care to a woman, it will refer her to another resource in the community, she said. ""If there are enough providers who do prenatal care for low income women, it may not be a service we need to provide,"" Jaker wrote in an email. ""We could cover the needs of our patients through referrals."" Pointing out how many pregnancies may go unnoticed, Dr. Donald Chervenak, president-elect of the New Jersey Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, noted how Planned Parenthood is helpful in providing pregnancy testing. Through earlier prenatal treatment, other medical problems can be addressed sooner, Chervenak said. Back to Doherty’s statement: The senator said Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide many prenatal visits, saying the figure was ""about 140 visits for each state in the entire country."" That figure is way off, because Doherty was using the number of clients. The actual number would be more like 800 visits per state. Figures provided by Planned Parenthood confirm that prenatal care represents a small part of the services offered, but since the senator’s figures were inaccurate to such a large degree, To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com."
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16083
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"Doonesbury Says 3,000 Americans ""died of gunfire"" between the time of the Ebola scare in Dallas and the midterm elections."
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"Garry Trudeau, speaking through his characters in Doonesbury, said that in the time between the Ebola scare in Dallas and the election, ""statistically"" about 3,000 Americans died from gunfire. The latest data from the CDC bears that out. Using a five-year average, we found 3,041 deaths in the relevant time period. Given that the debate over gun deaths in this country often centers on homicides or accidental shootings, it is important to note that about two-thirds of the total would likely be suicides. Plus, the CDC data counts the deaths of residents, which might include some noncitizens. Still, the number of deaths is in line with what Trudeau said, even if the precise figures will vary. The claim is accurate but it requires some clarification."
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true
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Public Health, PunditFact, Guns, Doonesbury,
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"A day before PolitiFact unveiled that exaggerations about Ebola took top honors as the 2014 Lie of the Year, the comic strip Doonesbury took aim at the very same target. The strip’s author Garry Trudeau imagined an interview between his characters NPR host Mark Slackmeyer, and Fox News correspondent Roland Hedley. Hedley: We’re very proud of our Ebola unit. We covered Obama’s bungling of the epidemic from the Dallas debacle to the election. Slackmeyer: Have any idea how many Americans died from Ebola during that time? Hedley: Um ... No. I’d have to run the numbers on that. Slackmeyer: None. Not a single one. Want to know how many died of gunfire during that same period? Hedley: I don’t see how that’s relevant. Slackmeyer: Statistically, about 3,000. For the record, Trudeau is correct about the number of Americans who died from Ebola. The two people who succumbed on American soil were not American citizens. But we wanted to take a closer look at Trudeau’s statement that ""statistically, about 3,000"" people died of gunfire between the events in Dallas and the November election. That word ""statistically"" struck us as a particularly careful choice. To refresh your memory, Thomas Eric Duncan was admitted to a Dallas hospital on Sept. 28. Duncan ultimately died and then two nurses who treated him contracted the disease. They both survived. The election took place on Nov. 4. Trudeau explained to us that he based his number on annual deaths due to guns that he found on a website run by the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia. The yearly totals only went through 2011 so Trudeau looked back five years and took the lowest number. He divided to find the weekly average and used that for the five weeks between Duncan becoming ill and the election. ""It's obviously only a statistically typical five-week period,"" Trudeau said. ""For all I know there could have been a major lull in gun violence in October. But for purposes of argumentative contrast, I felt it accurately reflected the magnitude of harm our epidemic of gun violence inflicts."" Using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s aptly named Wonder database, we found monthly numbers that ran through 2012. For simplicity, we summed deaths for October and the first four days of November. This approach was slightly more precise than Trudeau’s and as this table shows, it more than confirmed Trudeau’s claim. (Adding a few days in September would only make the case stronger.) Year October Nov. (4 days) Total 2012 2,733 364 3,097 2011 2,748 344 3,092 2010 2,725 336 3,061 2009 2,655 333 2,988 2008 2,626 339 2,965 Average 3,041 We don’t know exactly how many people died over that time period in 2014, and we won’t know for about a year. But Trudeau’s figure is very much in line with past trends, and as Trudeau noted to us, the numbers have been stable for many years. Suicide looms large The most important caveat to Trudeau’s statement is that it includes suicides. In 2012, the CDC classified 20,666 deaths as due to ""intentional self-harm"" by any sort of firearm. The number of deaths by assault, or what we might call homicide? 11,622. Gun violence is an umbrella term that covers all manner of deaths when a weapon is fired. It includes suicide, criminal homicide, police shootings, cases when the intent is unknown, and a strange category called ""exposure to inanimate mechanical force - firearm."" When you hear about gun violence, it might suggest solely people killing each other. That would be inaccurate. Roughly two-thirds of the deaths are people killing themselves. Also, the CDC data records the death of residents, but it doesn’t track their citizenship status. Trudeau contrasted gun deaths with the deaths of Americans due to Ebola. We found no information that made the distinction. A note about Fox News While Fox News devoted many minutes if not hours to Ebola coverage, and not always with pinpoint accuracy, on Oct. 15 host Shepard Smith delivered a 4-minute monologue saying that fear of Ebola is ""not based in fact or reason."" Smith decried the tendency of politicians and news organizations to hype the hysteria. Our ruling Garry Trudeau, speaking through his characters in Doonesbury, said that in the time between the Ebola scare in Dallas and the election, ""statistically"" about 3,000 Americans died from gunfire. The latest data from the CDC bears that out. Using a five-year average, we found 3,041 deaths in the relevant time period. Given that the debate over gun deaths in this country often centers on homicides or accidental shootings, it is important to note that about two-thirds of the total would likely be suicides. Plus, the CDC data counts the deaths of residents, which might include some noncitizens. Still, the number of deaths is in line with what Trudeau said, even if the precise figures will vary. The claim is accurate but it requires some clarification. Accordingly,"
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40088
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A Halloween warning not to eat Sherwood brand Pirate’s Gold milk chocolate coins because they could contain melamine, a substance that could be toxic.
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Melamine Scare In Milk Chocolate Coins
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true
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Food / Drink, Warnings
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This warning is true in Canada only. October 8, 2008 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued a warning that “the public not to consume, distribute, or sell the Sherwood Brands Pirate’s Gold Milk Chocolate Coins described below. This product is being recalled due to positive test results for melamine conducted by the CFIA.” Melamine is an industrial chemical compound that some Chinese milk-based product manufacturers have added to their products in an attempt to artificially inflate the reading for protein levels. Chronic exposure to melamine can cause a number of severe health issues including bladder or kidney stones, acute kidney failure, reproductive damage, respiratory irritation and bladder cancer. Because the Pirate’s Gold chocolate coins are only marketed in Canada, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not issued a recall. Melamine is a real health threat, however, and the FDA has posted a general warning about this substance found in food products imported from China. Click for FDA Warning On October 24, 2008, the Sherwood company issued a statement on their website regarding their “commitment to test and assure the safety of all our products”, and “Immediately upon the issuance of a warning by FDA about possible melamine contamination in milk-containing products from China we began to work with independent labs to confirm our products are free of melamine”. Click for CFIA warning updated 10/29/08 Comments
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7609
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Nursing home deaths soar past 3,600 in alarming surge.
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More than 3,600 deaths nationwide have been linked to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, an alarming rise in just the past two weeks, according to the latest count by The Associated Press.
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true
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AP Top News, Nursing homes, Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, Virus Outbreak, U.S. News
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Because the federal government has not been releasing a count of its own, the AP has kept its own running tally based on media reports and state health departments. The latest count of at least 3,621 deaths is up from about 450 deaths just 10 days ago. But the true toll among the 1 million mostly frail and elderly people who live in such facilities is likely much higher, experts say, because most state counts don’t include those who died without ever being tested for COVID-19. Outbreaks in just the past few weeks have included one at a nursing home in suburban Richmond, Virginia, that has killed 42 and infected more than 100, another at nursing home in central Indiana that has killed 24 and infected 16, and one at a veteran’s home in Holyoke, Mass., that has killed 38, infected 88 and prompted a federal investigation. This comes weeks after an outbreak at a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland that has so far claimed 43 lives. And those are just the outbreaks we know about. Most states provide only total numbers of nursing home deaths and don’t give details of specific outbreaks. Notable among them is the nation’s leader, New York, which accounts for 1,880 nursing home deaths out of about 96,000 total residents but has so far declined to detail specific outbreaks, citing privacy concerns. Experts say nursing home deaths may keep climbing because of chronic staffing shortages that have been made worse by the coronavirus crisis, a shortage of protective supplies and a continued lack of available testing. And the deaths have skyrocketed despite steps taken by the federal government in mid-March to bar visitors, cease all group activities, and require that every worker be screened for fever or respiratory symptoms at every shift. But an AP report earlier this month found that infections were continuing to find their way into nursing homes because such screenings didn’t catch people who were infected but asymptomatic. Several large outbreaks were blamed on such spreaders, including infected health workers who worked at several different nursing home facilities. This past week, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that regulates nursing homes issued recommendations urging nursing homes to use separate staffing teams for residents, and to designate separate facilities within nursing homes to keep COVID-19 positive residents away from those who have tested negative. Dr. Deborah Birx, who leads the White House coronavirus response, suggested this past week that as more COVID-19 tests become available, nursing homes should be a top priority. “We need to really ensure that nursing homes have sentinel surveillance. And what do I mean by that? That we’re actively testing in nursing homes, both the residents and the workers, at all times,” Birx said.
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8461
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Trump administration halts wildfire prevention tool in California over coronavirus.
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The U.S. Forest Service has suspended controlled burns on public lands in wildfire-prone California because of the coronavirus pandemic, upsetting officials who see the program as key to preventing seasonal infernos like those that devastated parts of the state in 2018.
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true
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Environment
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The decision comes as forecasters predict yet another above-average year for wildfires in parts of the state because of dry conditions, and follows President Donald Trump’s repeated criticism of California’s own forest management work following the 2018 fires. “Safety of the public and our wildland fire responders is priority number one,” said Jonathan Groveman, a spokesman for the Forest Service in California, whose office suspended controlled burns at the end of March. He did not say when the work would resume. The Forest Service controls about 60 percent of California’s 33 million acres (13.4 million hectares) of forests. John Giller, fire director for the U.S. Forest Service region in Washington and Oregon, confirmed controlled burns were suspended in those states as well, and said the agency’s “focus this spring is on the immediate decisions we can make to help communities face this pandemic.” Suspending the work allows Forest Service employees to stay home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and ensures that smoke from controlled burns does not make people in nearby communities more vulnerable to the symptoms of the deadly respiratory illness, said Kaari Carpenter, a Forest Service spokeswoman in Washington. Decisions about whether to suspend burns are at the discretion of regional offices, the USFS said. California officials said they disagreed with the decisions and were continuing their own forest management work on state lands through the pandemic. “I have no understanding as to why they made that decision,” said Thom Porter, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire. “We’re very much in support of continuing our fuel-management projects. We see those as critical to protecting lives and property.” In 2018, the state experienced its deadliest and most destructive fire season ever as 1.67 million acres (676,000 hectares) burned, killing dozens of people. Trump has since repeatedly blamed California’s fires on the state’s supposed mishandling of its forests. In 2018, Trump also signed an executive order to speed projects to reduce “hazardous fuels” on federal lands through forest thinning, burning and timber sales. The U.S. Forest Service treated some 223,000 acres (90,245 hectares) in California last year using prescribed fires and other methods, according to spokesman Nathan Judy. Cal Fire is planning to burn about 25,000 acres (10,120 hectares) this year on state and private lands, similar to what it did in 2019. It wants to more than double that amount in the next six years, Porter said.
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24719
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"Washing your hands and covering your mouth when you cough ""makes a huge difference"" in reducing transmission of the flu."
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Studies show handwashing reduces disease
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true
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National, Health Care, Barack Obama,
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"President Barack Obama was asked about swine flu at a prime-time news conference marking his first 100 days in office. The reporter wanted to know if Obama would consider quarantines or closing the border with Mexico, where the flu appears to have started. Obama said his health advisers were not recommending closing the border. ""But the most important thing right now that public health officials have indicated is that we treat this the same way that we would treat other flu outbreaks, just understanding that because this is a new strain, we don't yet know how it will respond to that,"" Obama said. ""So wash your hands when you shake hands. Cover your mouth when you cough. I know it sounds trivial, but it makes a huge difference,"" Obama said. ""If you are sick, stay home. If your child is sick, keep them out of school. If you are feeling certain flu symptoms, don't get on an airplane, don't get on any system of public transportation where you're confined and you could potentially spread the virus."" We wondered about hand-washing and covering your mouth when you cough. Have our mothers been right all these years? Indeed, Obama's remarks mirror the advice from the Centers for Disease Control almost perfectly. When it comes to preventing the flu, the CDC recommends the following: • Avoid close contact. • Stay home when you are sick. • Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing. • Clean your hands. • Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. • Practice good health habits, like getting lots of sleep, getting exercise, and eating nutritious food. We also found numerous independent scientific studies that found handwashing significantly reduced the transmission of disease, including the MRSA bacteria and the flu. The University of Michigan School of Public Health is in the midst of a two-year study examining whether face masks and handwashing can reduce the transmission of the flu. The study tracked the spread of flu among college students in university dorms, and used a control group to compare outcomes. Initial results indicate that face masks and hand sanitizing reduced the transmission rate of the flu by as much as 50 percent. But knowing you should wash your hands and doing it are two different things. And putting your hands under the faucet for three seconds and then wiping them on your slacks doesn't count. Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, has been trying to raise awareness of the importance of handwashing in hospitals. Studies show that doctors and health care workers wash their hands only about half the time they should before examining patients, said Lisa McGiffert, the director of the group's ""Stop Hospital Infections"" campaign. ""Some people think that this is such a simple thing that it couldn't make a difference. But it does,"" McGiffert said. ""This is what the experts have been trying to get health care workers and doctors to do for decades, and it does make it difference."" Hand sanitizers are a good substitute for handwashing, and coughing into your arm is better than coughing into your hand, she said. To make sure you've washed your hands thoroughly, sing Happy Birthday (silently, please). When the song is over, you've washed long enough. And regular soap works just fine. Obama said that handwashing and covering your mouth when you cough can make a huge difference. The scientific consensus on handwashing backs him up."
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7198
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A GOP favorite faces a Democratic groundbreaker in Vermont.
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In front of a small group of supporters on a chilly fall morning, Christine Hallquist laid out her economic development plan for a state that she feels is being left behind by prosperity in larger states and urban areas.
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true
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Vermont, Universal health care, North America, Bernie Sanders, Gun politics, Internet access
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She reiterates her Bernie Sanders-esque call for a $15 per hour minimum wage, universal health care and paid family leave while adding that high speed internet access is critical for everyone in Vermont, even those who live in the state’s most rural areas. Hallquist, Vermont’s Democratic candidate for governor, argues that Republican Gov. Phil Scott vetoed a series of legislative calls to address those economic issues and that he doesn’t understand just how critical high-speed broadband is for the state. “Vermont is a microcosm of what’s happening in rural America,” Hallquist said. “We’re seeing flights to the city, aging demographics and increasing rates of poverty.” What Hallquist, who until she announced her candidacy for governor this year led a rural electric cooperative, doesn’t mention is her status as the nation’s first major-party transgender gubernatorial candidate. Within the state, her campaign is focused on the issues facing Vermonters, but looking at her race from outside, she proudly carries the mantle as a way to reduce stigma. “I think balancing has been pretty easy because locally, reporters talk about local issues,” Hallquist said before the rally in the Vergennes city park. “Nationally, people talk about the identity. It’s pretty straightforward. I don’t find it a problem at all.” After winning the Democratic nomination in August, Hallquist, 62, received death threats from across the country. Since then, she is unaware of any others and she says the people of Vermont are focusing on her ideas. The day after the primary, Scott said in a statement that he wouldn’t tolerate “hateful, discriminatory and disrespectful speech of any type.” “A person’s gender doesn’t dictate whether they’re fit for public office,” he said. “What does is their commitment to serve, their ideas to improve peoples’ lives, and their ability to listen.” Prior to the Vergennes rally, Greg Burdick, 68, a Republican and part-time city employee who also works in real estate, said as he was walking by the park that he was backing Scott because, among other reasons, he liked the governor’s position of no increased taxes. When asked whether Hallquist’s transgender status affected his thinking, he answered, “No.” “I’m pretty open to that,” Burdick said. “It’s not my place to make the call.” Before the primary, The Victory Fund, a Washington-based political action committee that backs LGBTQ candidates across the country, rated Hallquist a “game changer.” The organization says Hallquist is one of at least 244 openly LGBTQ candidates who will appear on the ballot across the country. “For Christine Hallquist to be running a competitive race for governor of a U.S. state is a tremendous leap forward for the trans community,” said Victory Fund spokesman Elliot Imse. “There are hundreds of thousands of trans young people all across the nation who are scared, unsure about their futures, but can look to Christine as someone who is proving to them that anything is possible regardless of their gender identity or expression.” By historical standards, Hallquist’s quest to defeat a first-term incumbent is quixotic. No sitting Vermont governor has been defeated since 1962, and Scott, whose first political ad calls for a return to civility in politics, remains liked. A poll released Monday by Vermont Public Radio and Vermont Public Television, gave Scott a 14 point lead. Scott, the former owner of a construction company and a part-time race car driver, spent his first two years saying the best way to help Vermont’s struggling families is to keep taxes and fees low for everyone, while minimizing what he feels are governmental burdens on job-creating business owners. “We want Vermonters to keep more money in their pockets,” Scott said during a debate hosted by the news organization VtDigger. “What we’ve been doing over the last decade or two is just raising taxes, raising taxes, increasing the burden on Vermonters.” But as a popular Republican in liberal Vermont, Scott is also a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is liberal on many social issues, and last winter, after what police described as a near-miss school shooting, he urged the Legislature to pass what turned out to be the state’s first significant gun ownership restrictions. While the move angered many of Vermont’s fervent gun owners, it won him praise from others who favored the restrictions — mild by the standards of other states. The election isn’t drawing the money of the 2016 race, when Scott was competing for an open seat. As of the Oct. 15 campaign finance filing deadline, Scott had raised just over $560,000, while Hallquist had raised just under $440,000. At the same point in the 2016 campaign, Scott had raised just over $1.3 million, while his Democratic opponent, Sue Minter, had raised $1.7 million. During a series of debates Scott and Hallquist have gone back on forth on their political philosophies and vision for the future of Vermont. “Vermonters have a real choice,” Hallquist said during one debate. People are listening to the debate. “I loved what I heard,” said Jeremy Holm, 50, an actor who plays agent Nathan Green on “House of Cards,” lives in Vergennes and attended Hallquist’s rally. “It’s really refreshing to hear a candidate who understands the nuts and bolts of what’s going on and can articulate how to solve the problems we have, and is also realistic about the solutions. We don’t see that very often.”
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4344
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1 case of tuberculosis confirmed in Mississippi high school.
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A case of tuberculosis has been confirmed at a Mississippi high school.
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true
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Health, Mississippi, Jackson, Tuberculosis
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News outlets reported the Mississippi Department of Health has been working to notify students and staff members at Provine High School in Jackson who may have been exposed. Health department officials say they will test about 200 students and faculty in the next few weeks. Tuberculosis is a respiratory infection that spreads when a person inhales airborne germs over an extended period of time in a confined area with someone who has the disease. Symptoms include persistent coughing, coughing up blood, night sweats and weight loss. State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers says school officials have taken all necessary safety precautions. A meeting is set at the school Thursday to discuss the case.
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26463
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Donald Trump Says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi deleted a video of her telling people to go to Chinatown.
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Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory agency said the herbicide is not a public health risk.
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false
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Public Health, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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Some legal experts believe Bayer will have a tough time convincing appellate courts to throw out verdicts and lawsuits on those grounds. Bayer has a better shot if a business-friendly U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, experts said. But that could take years. Bayer has come under intensifying pressure after a third consecutive U.S. jury on Monday found Roundup to be carcinogenic, awarding more than $2 billion to a couple who used the chemical on their property - the largest verdict in the glyphosate litigation to date. Bayer, which inherited the Roundup litigation with its $63 billion acquisition of Monsanto last year, faces lawsuits by more than 13,400 plaintiffs nationwide, alleging the product causes cancer. The Germany-based company’s shares have been hammered since the first Roundup cancer verdict against it last August, wiping out some 40 billion euros ($44.76 billion) in market value and leaving Bayer worth less than the price it paid for Monsanto. Bayer denies that Roundup causes cancer, saying decades of studies have shown glyphosate and the weed killer to be safe. On Wednesday, the company said it will argue that the lawsuits, which are brought under state law, conflict with guidance from a federal agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. On April 30, the EPA reaffirmed prior guidance saying that glyphosate is not a carcinogen and not a risk to public health when used in accordance with its current label.. Citing the EPA decision, Bayer has repeatedly rebuked plaintiffs’ calls to add a cancer warning to Roundup, saying the agency would reject that change. Under the legal doctrine of preemption, state law claims are barred if they conflict with federal law. “We have very strong arguments that the claims here are preempted ... and the recent EPA registration decision is an important aspect of that defense,” William Hoffman, one of Bayer’s lawyers, said during a call with reporters on Wednesday. Hoffman said the argument applied to all U.S. Roundup lawsuits. Preemption is generally regarded as a “silver bullet defense” because it stops claims across the board, said Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. But Zimmerman and three other legal experts agreed that Bayer faces a big hurdle convincing appeals courts that the EPA determination on glyphosate shields it from state law claims. They cited a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the EPA’s approval of a product does not necessarily bar state law claims. The ruling, Bates v Dow Agrosciences, gives broad leeway to juries to decide if such claims should proceed, they said. Judges in the three Roundup cases that have gone to trial against Monsanto all rejected the company’s preemption argument, citing this ruling. “In light of the Bates decision, it’s going to be an uphill battle for the company to win on preemption on appeal,” Zimmerman said. Bayer also said it will argue on appeal that trial courts improperly admitted evidence that was not backed up by science. But legal experts said appellate courts generally defer to lower court evidentiary rulings. Lars Noah, a law professor at the University of Florida, said Bayer’s chances of success would increase significantly if the Supreme Court takes up the Roundup appeals. The high court only accepts around 70 cases each year, but a business-friendly majority on the court could be inclined to hear the dispute, said Alexandra Lahav, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. Since 2005, the high court has decided at least three preemption cases in favor of companies, none of which involved the EPA. The Supreme Court will soon rule in another case that rests on whether a U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval preempts tort claims. In that case, plaintiffs sued Merck & Co over the company’s alleged failure to warn of the risk of serious bone fractures associated with its osteoporosis drug Fosamax. Merck, which denies the allegations, argued the lawsuits should be preempted because the FDA did not require an additional fracture warning in the drug’s prescribing information. During a January hearing, the Justices appeared to side with the company. Bayer in a statement on Thursday said it does not believe the 2005 Bates ruling posed a barrier for the appellate courts due to other Supreme Court rulings since then. Noah agreed that the Court has more recently signaled its appetite to limit lawsuits that contradict opinions by experts at regulatory agencies. “The Bates decision by now sticks out like a sore thumb,” Noah said. “Bayer has more than enough ammunition in recent Supreme Court cases to show the trial court judges got it wrong.”
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25777
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“DEVELOPING: Kamala’s sister takes hydroxychloroquine.”
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Maya Harris, the sister of Sen. Kamala Harris, announced in April that she takes hydroxychloroquine for lupus, not COVID-19.
|
mixture
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Candidate Biography, Facebook Fact-checks, California, Coronavirus, Paul Sperry,
|
"In April, appearing on ""The View,"" Sen. Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump a ""drug pusher"" for promoting hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat or prevent malaria and to treat autoimmune conditions such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. As we’ve previously reported, the drug is not a cure for COVID-19, and research on whether it could provide relief from symptoms of the disease is inconclusive. In July, the FDA released a summary of safety issues related to using hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients. On Aug. 12, the day after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden named Harris as his running mate, Paul Sperry, the former Washington bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, tweeted what looked like a bombshell. ""DEVELOPING,"" it said. ""Kamala’s sister takes hydroxychloroquine."" We reached out to Sperry about the tweet but did not immediately hear back. Fact is, this story has already, well, developed. Maya Harris, Kamala Harris’ sister, broke the news exactly four months earlier. ""I have lupus,"" Maya Harris tweeted on April 12, sharing an article she had written for the Atlantic. ""I haven’t spoken publicly about it before now. But then coronavirus hit, killing black people at alarming rates & Trump unnecessarily put lupus patients—disproportionately black women—at higher risk."" In the story, Maya Harris writes: ""Not long ago, Donald Trump started talking and tweeting about hydroxychloroquine, which I have taken for most of my adult life, as if it were a miracle drug—a ‘game changer’ for treating COVID-19, the president insists. Immediately, thousands of people began hoarding it, causing shortages that have resulted in lupus patients—and their doctors—struggling to get the supply they need."" Sperry’s tweet is technically accurate: Maya Harris does take the drug. But, as many people pointed out in their replies to the tweet, it’s wrongly cast as if this is breaking news. Other comments make clear that at least some people are reading an unsaid suggestion: that she takes it to treat or prevent COVID-19. She uses the drug for lupus."
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8789
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Tau drug shows early promise in Alzheimer's.
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An Alzheimer’s drug that attacks abnormal tangles in the brain appeared to slow progression of the disease, British researchers said on Tuesday, but doctors cautioned that the results are early.
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true
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Health News
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The drug, made by private biotechnology company TauRX and called Rember, produced a significant improvement in key measures of thinking and memory in people with moderate Alzheimer’s disease, company officials said. The drug is among the first to attack tangles of tau protein in the brain that are strongly associated with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease. “We’ve demonstrated for the first time we can halt the disease by a treatment that aims to dissolve the tangles,” said Claude Wischik of the University of Aberdeen and chairman of TauRX Therapeutics in Singapore. The researchers tested 321 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease at 17 centers in the United Kingdom and Singapore, they told the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago. They evaluated the patients at intervals over seven years. “We’ve held the disease at bay for a total of 19 months, whereas the control group declined at the expected rate,” he said in an interview. But other doctors said the drug needed more study. “It’s a phase 2 trial,” said Dr. Sam Gandy, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who serves on an advisory council of the Alzheimer’s Association. “Predicting anything from a phase 2 trial is dangerous. All I can say is it is encouraging enough to move on to a phase 3 trial,” Gandy said. Phase 3 trials look at whether a drug works in large groups of people. “I would very much like to believe it is going to work but we don’t know,” Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, director of the division of neurology for the National Institute on Aging, said in an interview. Many researchers have been working to develop drugs to target amyloid plaques, the sticky clogs that build up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The theory had been that if drugs can remove these plaques, doctors could alter the course of disease. But several drugs that have managed to remove these plaques have failed to show a benefit to patients. Researchers presented results on a nasal spray on Monday that targets tau. In people with mild cognitive impairment, a precursor to Alzheimer’s, it helped improve some measures of memory over three months. Morrison-Bogorad said she is encouraged that researchers are now studying the tangles of Alzheimer’s disease in addition to amyloid. “I think eventually we will have a combination cocktail of drugs. I don’t think it will be one thing,” she said. Alzheimer’s disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.
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8376
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Canadian military town prepares for coronavirus evacuees.
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A small town in central Canada that is host to the country’s largest air force base is preparing, with some apprehension, for the arrival of some 200 evacuees from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak.
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true
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Health News
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Canada plans to fly the evacuees to the base in Trenton, Ontario, the country’s main military hub for air transport, and hold them in quarantine for two weeks. The outbreak has killed 492 people and sickened nearly 25,000 worldwide. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday the plane was expected to arrive on Friday. “We understand that because of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), they are much more prepared for things like that,” said Cindy McMaster, 55, who manages the local Bargain Bin discount store. “But it’s not fair to say people aren’t worried or scared, because they are. And it is a concern in our area.” SARS, a contagious respiratory illness, killed 44 people in Canada in 2002-2003, the only country outside Asia to report deaths from that virus. Government health officials say Canada is better prepared this time. The evacuees arriving from China will be separated from each other and from others on the base, although family units will be kept together, the government has said. They will all stay at Yukon Lodge, a new facility on the base which resembles a small chain hotel. Individuals will only be moved to a hospital if they require acute care, said the local health authority, but local hospitals were prepared, with 21 negative-pressure rooms at four of them. “I was in the military, I know how it works,” said resident Joyce Aucoin, 81. “There’s going to be people upset about it but once they’re here and once they’re settled and they see what’s going on, I think it will all pass.” Lynn Cao, 60, who owns a tobacco shop in the town, had been concerned about the plane arriving until she received reassuring emails from friends on the base. Cao said she was more anxious about her mother and sister, who live near the Chinese capital Beijing, and had sent them a large number of face masks to limit their chances of infection. Masks were already sold out at most of the town’s pharmacies, and at some, even before the airlift was announced. “It just seems like everything is so overblown,” said Frank Meiboom, president of the local rotary club. “Let’s bring these people home, bring them back to Canada and give them the best care we can and say ‘welcome home.’”
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28848
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"The Obama administration has proposed revising power guidelines that could affect eagles, but the President hasn't issued a ""kill order"" allowing the slaughter of thousands of bald eagles per year."
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What's true: Proposed revisions to wind power guidelines could allow wind power companies to injure or kill more bald and golden eagles per year without penalty. What's false: The revised guidelines are unlikely to lead to thousands of additional eagle deaths because they impose more stringent requirements on wind power companies to minimize such accidents, and there's little evidence that wind turbines currently kill anywhere close to 4,200 eagles per year.
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mixture
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Politics Politicians, bald eagles, barack obama, liberty writers
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In early May 2016, a number of alarmist blog posts reported that President Obama had issued a “kill order” allowing more than 4,000 bald eagles to be slaughtered each year for the next 30 years. A popular version published by Liberty Writers was heavy-handed with symbolism, maintaining that President Obama “really hates” bald eagles: Bald Eagles are one of the most enduring symbols of being American. They are a majestic bird of prey. They were on the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife until 2007, but were just removed by Obama. They have been endangered for decades, but Obama thinks it’s okay to allow their slaughter. *** Wasn’t he satisfied with killing America already? Obama doesn’t have any issues destroying America. Now, he wants to take down our national symbols. He has also approved the handing out of permits to wind farms that have killed off thousands of Bald Eagles. Obama is doing this in the name of “conservation.” He and his liberal friends at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service are giving out 30-year-permits to wind farms like candy. He really hates the Bald Eagle. *** No, really. Wait till you see how the are getting killed by the thousands. The basis of this claim was something rather different than what sites such as Liberty Writers were reporting, however. As an ABC News article of 4 May 2016 noted, what has been widely described as a “kill order” for bald eagles is actually revisions to existing wind-energy guidelines that, in part, pertain to accidental bald and golden eagle deaths involving wind turbines. According to the revised guidelines, the time permit of limits granted to wind power companies would be extended from five to 30 years (with renewals still required every five years), and the number of eagles that could permissibly (i.e., without financial penalty) be killed or injured each year by wind power companies would be increased. However, wind power companies would be required to take steps to minimize such losses and would have to take additional measures if they exceeded the stated limits or substantially affected bald or gold eagle populations: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed a new plan that would allow energy companies to operate with permits lasting up to 30 years, while also raising the number of bald eagles they can kill or injure per year without incurring hefty penalties to 4,200, which is nearly four times the current limit. A source within the Obama administration said this is the best plan put forward to actually help conservation efforts, maintaining this new proposal is a “strong protection” for bald and golden eagles. Currently, wind power companies can hold permits for five years at a time, which, according to the source, doesn’t give companies good financial footing. By extending the permit to 30 years, it can encourage the development of wind energy, a key source of renewable power that has increased exponentially in recent years. The 30-year permits would still have to be reviewed every five years, and companies would have to submit reports of how many eagles they kill or injure. The proposal will grant access to critical data about eagles, the source said. It will also allow the administration to work with companies in where the companies place their machines — hopefully to help avoid possible eagle populations. “The permitting system gives us access to eagles and eagle mortalities that we wouldn’t otherwise have,” the source said. “It’s a great mechanism for us to work proactively to prevent eagle deaths.” Under the new proposal, companies would pay a $36,000 fee for a permit, which exempts them from the hefty penalties for killing or injuring eagles. Companies would have to commit to take additional measures if they kill or injure more eagles than estimated, or if new information suggests eagle populations are being affected. The change in regulations doesn’t mean that power companies are suddenly going to be setting their wind turbines to “eagle kill” mode and bagging the limit of 4,200 bald eagles per year, however. A 2013 article published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Raptor Research found that “concerns over the effects of [turbine-related deaths] on North America’s Bald Eagles and Golden Eagles exist, but are weakly substantiated due to a lack of published documentation of mortalities.” That study aimed to “summarize documented cases of eagle mortality at wind energy facilities in the contiguous United States” for the 15-year period prior to its publication. Between 1997 and June 2012, researchers identified 85 combined bald eagle and golden eagle fatalities attributed to wind turbines, or roughly 5.6 deaths per year in the entirety of the contiguous United States. Moreover, of those 85 total eagle deaths in a 15-year period, only six were bald eagles. The remaining 79 deceased birds were golden eagles. Those findings were illustrated in a state-by-state table: Additionally, conservationists asserted that the risk posed to eagles by wind turbines was far less than the risk created by the effect of climate change on the birds’ habitats: Yet many environmentalists say wind power ultimately benefits birds. It is a “a growing solution to some of the more serious threats that birds face, since wind energy emits no greenhouse gases that accelerate climate change,” Terry Root of Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, said in a statement accompanying the study’s release. [In September 2014], a National Audubon Society report said that hundreds of bird species in the U.S. — including the bald eagle and eight state birds, from Idaho to Maryland — are at “serious risk” due to climate change. It said some species are forecast to lose more than 95% of their current ranges. “Our scientists are still reviewing this particular study,” says Audubon spokesman David Ringer. He says his group strongly supports “properly sited wind power as a renewable energy source that helps reduce the threat posed to birds and people by climate change.” He says it has helped develop guidelines for the wind industry to minimize harm to wildlife. So revisions to wind power guidelines allow for the possibility that wind power companies could kill more bald and golden eagles without penalty (up to 4,200) than they have in the past. However, there is little evidence that many eagles have been killed or injured under the existing rules, and the revisions are balanced by requirements that wind power companies implement more stringent safeguards to protect such animals, such as enabling the collection of valuable information about eagles, and helping to foster sources of energy (such as wind power) that do not threaten eagles through the degradation of their existing habitats.
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11401
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High-risk lung cancer patients may not need annual screenings
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This news release summarizes a study published in Lancet Oncology which looked at the appropriate frequency of screening using low-dose computed tomography (CT) for lung cancer in former smokers. The 7-year study included more than 19,000 individuals with an initial negative CT scan. These patients were much less likely to have lung cancer on future scans compared to those whose initial scans had detected an abnormality. The news release provides good descriptions of the benefits and evidence from the study. A re-analysis of the world’s largest lung cancer screening trial could have major consequences for patients and health systems. This study found that if initial low-dose CT screening is negative then less frequent subsequent screening seems reasonable. The study also pointed out an important side effect of reduced screening: reduced exposure of patients to radiation and over-diagnosis. In addition, reducing the frequency of screening CT from once a year to even once every two years in a sub group will reduce the costs of screening dramatically.
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true
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Academic medical center news release,Cancer,Diagnostic tests,Screening tests
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The release appropriately mentioned that a changed frequency of screening could save millions of dollars in subsequent screenings and “reduced downstream” effects of false positive tests. A thorough discussion of the absolute numbers affected gives a good sense of the magnitude of the benefits. The release noted, “In the first year after a negative screen and before the scheduled first annual screen, 17 patients (0.9 percent of all initial negative LDCT participants) were diagnosed with lung cancer.” Another benefit described is the potential to dramatically reduce the number of false positive tests. According to the release, almost 40 percent of the entire group of patient volunteers (26,231 people) in the 7-year National Lung Screening Trial were given a false positive study result. Excessive radiation exposure and risk of false positives were both mentioned. The news release does a good job describing how the researchers achieved their findings, the demographics of the patients involved, and the absolute numbers for outcomes (the small number of patients who encountered cancer following a clear initial CT scan). The release says that the researchers examined data taken from a large prospective study. It would have been good to spell out for readers that this study was retrospective — a re-analysis of components of a larger randomized controlled trial. The news release does allude to some of the limitations of the research stated in the discussion section of the published results. For example, the release makes note of the high incidence of false positives inherent in screening tests. The published report also states that the study could not clearly discern whether the low incidence of tumors in the group studied was due to early, slow growing tumors (“a direct effect of indolent biological behaviour”) or to volunteers being resistant to tobacco-induced lung injury. The lead study author is quoted in the release saying “improving the accuracy of LDCT screening for lung cancer would also significantly reduce the number of annual screens.” Taken on the whole, we give the release a Satisfactory for this criteria. No disease mongering here. This was a balanced news release. No funding or conflicts of interest were mentioned in the news release. While changes in lung cancer screening schedules could have benefits for a wide range of people, we’d still like the release to address the issue of sponsorship. We’re not implying there was a conflict (we don’t know if there were outside funders), but if a manufacturer did sponsor such a study it could pose a potential for conflict of interest that readers should be made aware of. The release mentions alternatives in two different contexts. Chest radiography was an alternative test to CT scans. The study set out to analyze the most beneficial frequency of screenings and concluded that less frequency is a better alternative for smokers with an initial negative screen. The release doesn’t specify where low-dose CT is used and if most readers can access it. We do know that the screen has been approved for use in the United States and is being adopted by some health centers. There were no misleading statements of novelty of the CT screening, just novelty of interval which were appropriate. The release has suitable, measured language throughout.
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1848
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Paralyzed woman uses thoughts to move robotic arm.
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Using just her thoughts, a 58-year-old paralyzed woman instructed a robotic arm to grasp a cup of coffee and guide it to her mouth where she sipped from a straw, the first drink she has been able to serve herself in 15 years.
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true
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Science News
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The woman is one of two patients in the ongoing trial of BrainGate neural interface, an experimental brain-computer interface technology that may one day give paralyzed individuals more mobility. “This is another big jump forward to control the movements of a robotic arm in three-dimensional space,” said John Donoghue, who leads the development of BrainGate technology and is the director of the Institute for Brain Science at Brown University in Rhode Island. “We’re getting closer to restoring some level of everyday function to people with limb paralysis,” said Donoghue, whose study was published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. To manage the feat, researchers used a tiny sensor about the size of a baby aspirin that is loaded with 96 electrodes designed to pick up nerve activity. Scientists implant that into a part of the brain called the motor cortex that is involved in voluntary movement. When a paralyzed patient implanted with the device thinks about moving an object, the electrodes pick up those nerve signals and send them to a nearby computer, which then translates them into commands to operate assistive devices, such as the robotic arms used in the study. So far, the experimental device has been used to allow patients to operate a computer cursor and control simple robotic devices. The latest study involved two patients, both paralyzed by strokes that left them unable to communicate or move. In the trial, the woman and a 66-year-old man learned to do complex tasks with a robotic arm by imagining themselves moving their own arms and legs. The robotic arm was attached to a computer rather than their bodies. They tested the system using two robotic arms, one developed by the German Aerospace Center’s Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics and the other by DEKA Research and Development Corp, through funding from the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. “Our goal in this research is to develop technology that will restore independence and mobility for people with paralysis or limb loss,” said Dr. Leigh Hochberg, a neuroengineer who holds appointments at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Brown University and Harvard University. Hochberg said there was much more work to do before that could happen. The researchers need to test the technology in many more patients. Currently, the sensor is connected to the computer through computer cables leading from the user’s skull, but ultimately the team envisions a wireless system that would be fully automated and remain stable for decades. The system also needs to be refined for speed and control. Even so, the findings are encouraging, Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National Institutes of Health, which supports the research, said in a statement. “The researchers have begun the long, difficult process of testing and refining the system with feedback from patients, and they’ve found that it is possible for a person to mentally control a robotic limb in three-dimensional space. This represents a remarkable advance,” he said.
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12488
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"Greg Abbott Says Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez ""declared that she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes."
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"Abbott said Hernandez ""declared that she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes."" That’s a distortion of Hernandez’s statements and her announced policy. The sheriff made it clear she wouldn’t automatically honor all requests to hold suspects for ICE. But the policy specifies several violent crimes for which the department directly grants the hold requests and it reserves the office’s right to exercise discretion in the interests of justice. Abbott, a seasoned judge and former state attorney general, should know better. We find this claim incorrect and ridiculous. The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. "
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false
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Immigration, Criminal Justice, Crime, Texas, Greg Abbott,
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"Greg Abbott gave a backhanded howdy (or the back of his hand) to a Democratic sheriff in May 2017 before he approved the Republican-driven proposal intended to keep local communities from shielding unauthorized immigrants from deportation. The governor explained his support of Senate Bill 4 during what may have been the planet's first exclusively Facebook Live signing of legislation into law: ""This law cracks down on policies like the Travis County sheriff who declared that she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes. Those policies are sanctuary city policies and won’t be tolerated in Texas. Elected officials and law enforcement agencies, they don’t get to pick and choose which laws they will obey."" Three days earlier, the referenced sheriff, Sally Hernandez, issued a statement suggesting that while SB 4 wouldn’t enhance public safety, she'd go along: ""While I hate seeing a state law like this come to pass,"" Hernandez said, ""I have always followed the law and that will not change."" We previously found False an Abbott claim that Hernandez was refusing to enforce a federal law regarding communication about jailed immigrants. The sheriff's published policy declares otherwise. Still, did Hernandez declare that she wouldn’t detain known criminals accused of violent crimes, as Abbott said? Abbott offers no backup We asked Abbott’s office for the basis of his fresher claim and didn’t hear back. You could read the governor to have said that Hernandez, who was sworn in as sheriff in January 2017, put in place rules against keeping convicts accused of violent crimes behind bars — a broad unsupported charge given that the county continues to prosecute crimes of all kinds. But in the context of Abbott's mention of ""sanctuary city policies,"" he surely was referring to Hernandez’s announced policy, effective Feb. 1, 2017, that the county would no longer automatically grant requests by federal authorities to ""detain"" specified suspects for up to 48 hours so agents could investigate and possibly hasten deportation. Hernandez, in her January 2017 announcement of the policy, said the department would honor ICE detainer requests only if an inmate was charged with or convicted of capital murder, murder, aggravated sexual assault or human smuggling — or if federal agents obtained a court order or arrest warrant for a suspect. Otherwise, inmates would be able to post bail and be released, no matter their immigration status. Hernandez said before the policy took effect: ""Our community is safer when people can report crimes without fear of deportation. I trust the court system and our judges to assess the risks and set appropriate bonds and conditions for all who are incarcerated."" Policy says… Let’s look at the wording of the policy, then gauge whether, as Abbott said, Hernandez was saying she wouldn’t detain known criminals charged with violent acts. The policy states the sheriff’s office ""shall comply with ICE detainer requests under the following circumstances: (a) when the detainer request is accompanied by a judicial warrant or court order for continued detention or notification, to the extent required by the judicial warrant or court order; or (b) when the individual who is the subject of the ICE detainer is charged with or has been convicted of the following felonies under Texas law: (1) Capital Murder, Tex. Penal Code Sec. 19.03; (2) Murder -- First Degree, Tex. Penal Code Sec. 19.02; (3) Aggravated Sexual Assault, Tex. Penal Code Sec. 22.021, and (4) Continuous Smuggling of Persons, Tex. Penal Code Sec. 20.06."" Separately, we noticed, the policy leaves wiggle room for the sheriff to hold inmates facing other charges. A portion states the office ""reserves the right to exercise discretion in any individual case to ensure that justice is served."" Policy in practice When we asked the sheriff’s office about Abbott’s claim, spokeswoman Kristen Dark said by email that no inmates placed in the Travis County Jail ""will be released without making bond or having his or her charges disposed by a judge."" Abbott’s description of the sheriff’s detainer policy, Dark wrote, wasn’t accurate because the policy provides for detainers to be granted automatically for several violent crimes and also gives the office discretion to ""ensure that justice is served."" Dark wrote: ""In each and every case,"" the office’s ""command staff reviews an inmate’s current charge/s as well as criminal history. If there is any indication of violence in that data, the ICE Detainer Request is honored,"" she said. A spreadsheet We asked Dark if the agency had recently analyzed when jail personnel approved or rejected ICE detainer requests. In reply, Dark emailed us a spreadsheet, covering department decisions from March 1, 2017 through May 5, 2017, which she described as its May 5, 2017, response to an open-records request by KUT News. The sheet doesn’t show past convictions for any crimes, so we didn’t see a way to reach conclusions about individuals not being detained despite their criminal histories. But what about letting individuals go despite current violent-crime charges? Over the two-plus months, according to the sheet, ICE detainer requests were approved by the department for around 200 individuals charged with crimes, with many individuals listed as remaining in jail. Charges filed against the detainer-approved individuals include sexual abuse of a child; manslaughter; aggravated sexual assault; and driving while intoxicated, according to the sheet. The sheet identifies 15 individuals already released to ICE in response to detainer requests. Related charges include DWI; assault causing bodily injury; aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (two men); terroristic threat of a family member; manufacture of a controlled substance with the intent to deliver; possession of marijuana; burglary of a habitation; sexual indecency with a child; and aggravated sexual assault of a child. On the flip side, the sheet lists about 90 individuals mostly released by the county after detainer requests were denied. Many of the people were arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated or possessing small amounts of marijuana, neither of which would necessarily signal a violent crime. We counted nine individuals among the 90 who were each arrested for an alleged assault causing bodily injury to a family member--domestic violence, Dark told us by phone. Eight of these inmates were released on personal recognizance bonds, the sheet states, after the sheriff declined to approve a detainer requested by ICE; the ninth was released by a judge’s order, the sheet says. We asked Dark about the rationale for declining detainers on those individuals. By email, Dark replied: ""The nature of the behavior that resulted in the arrests was not aggravated and therefore, did not meet the threshold required for"" the office to automatically ""honor the ICE detainer request."" Dark said by phone that further research revealed that five of the individuals had previously been released to ICE, possibly even deported. Dark’s email said: ""If ICE has past experience with the individuals, they should know the status and be able to quickly get a warrant or court order. If presented with a warrant,"" the sheriff’s office ""would gladly have turned these inmates over to ICE upon the disposition of their charges by a judge,"" Dark said. The sheet shows too that a man who allegedly made a terroristic threat was released on a personal recognizance bond after the sheriff denied a detainer request. Dark said by email the individual had allegedly told a security guard at a bar, ""I’m going to shoot you."" Dark said no weapon was found in his possession. Our ruling Abbott said Hernandez ""declared that she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes."" That’s a distortion of Hernandez’s statements and her announced policy. The sheriff made it clear she wouldn’t automatically honor all requests to hold suspects for ICE. But the policy specifies several violent crimes for which the department directly grants the hold requests and it reserves the office’s right to exercise discretion in the interests of justice. Abbott, a seasoned judge and former state attorney general, should know better. We find this claim incorrect and ridiculous. ! PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim."
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11421
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Spanish flu vaccine late, but welcome
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"This article presents interesting scientific work that has resulted in regeneration of the Spanish flu virus of 1918-1919 and two approaches that were successful in producing a 100% effective immune response in mice challenged with the regenerated flu virus. Although this story did mention that the study results were 'proof of concept', this may not be a familiar notion for most readers and the story was not explicit that the vaccines developed afforded protection from this particular flu to mice and may or may not have direct translation to humans. In fact, the study mentioned that the method of immunization is far less effective in humans than in the mouse model studied. The story confuses species when it says, ""Now, working with mice, scientists have shown that a vaccine can prompt the body's natural defenses to mount an attack on the virus–and that bodes well for future efforts to fight dangerous flu strains."" (Emphasis added.) The article neglected to point out that existing antiviral drugs have shown to be of benefit in the mouse model for at least some forms of the Spanish Flu virus (genetically engineered). The article suggests that we are defenseless and while that may be true, there is evidence to suggest otherwise."
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mixture
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"There was no estimate of costs for this treatment; however the study reported on work that was proof of concept and it is understandable that costs would not be discussed in such a story. The story mentioned that the two vaccines protected the exposed mice from infection, but failed to mention that research found that the protection resulted in 100% survival in vaccinated mice in comparison with 100% mortality for the mice that were not vaccinated. However – once again – the story did not clarify that the treatment has not been shown to be safe or effective in humans. From the journal article it is actually very difficult to determine if there were any toxicities noted in the research, however it does appear that all of the immunized animals survived. But the journalist could have clarified this. Although this story did mention that the study results were 'proof of concept', this may not be a familiar notion for most readers and the story was not explicit that the vaccines developed afforded protection from this particular flu to mice and may or may not have direct translation to humans. In fact, the study mentioned that the method of immunization is far less effective in humans than in the mouse model studied. The story confuses species when it says, ""Now, working with mice, scientists have shown that a vaccine can prompt the body's natural defenses to mount an attack on the virus–and that bodes well for future efforts to fight dangerous flu strains."" (Emphasis added.) This story did explain the virulence of the Spanish flu virus from 1918-1919 and that this particular Spanish flu strain has not been seen since until 2001 when it was constructed in the laboratory. A researcher hypothesized that an equally virulent flu could kill as many as 100 million people worldwide. The story was good to point out that this particular approach has relevance to individuals working in a laboratory setting where they might have exposure to this flu, as opposed to the population at large. One scientist, who was said to not be involved in the study, was briefly quoted about the potential importance of this scientific observation. This story did not mention any of the FDA-approved antiviral medications that are currently available. The fact that current antiviral medications have shown activity against this virus and that this method of immunization may be less desirable in humans provided the reader with something less than full context. The story was less than clear that the vaccines were developed in and shown to be effective for mice. There was no mention that the vaccines have not been assessed for benefit or harms to humans. This story correctly report on the novel result that scientists have created vaccines against the catastrophic Spanish flu but should have noted that the method of immunization is not as effective for humans as for mice. This story did not appear to be based solely or largely on a press release."
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28898
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Bill Maher smoked a joint during a live broadcast of 'Real Time with Bill Maher,' and the FCC imposed a hefty fine.
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What's true: Maher maintained the joint (or blunt) was real. What's false: Maher was fined by the FCC.
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mixture
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Entertainment, bill maher, killer mike, medical marijuana
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During 12 February 2016’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, host Bill Maher produced and lit what appeared to be a joint as he launched into a talking point about the legality of marijuana. The segment focused on the possibility of a repeal of medical or recreational marijuana laws. The light-up occurred at roughly the 5:58 mark (portions of the video contained profanity and drug references): Social media users wondered whether Maher (who immediately began coughing before passing the joint to rapper and guest Killer Mike) legitimately smoked pot during his show. Maher addressed the questions via his Twitter account, stating that a 2010 segment involving Zach Galifianakis was staged, but this was legitimate: Yup, that was real last night. And, I think, a first. (Zach’s was fake but he paved the way!) America, fuck yeah! — Bill Maher (@billmaher) February 13, 2016 On 13 February 2016, the web site Satira Tribune claimed that Maher faced Federal Communications Commission fines of $1.7 million: Friday night’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher ended with Maher lighting up a joint after a pro-marijuana statement. The FCC immediately fined him $1.7 million, the largest fine since Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl halftime in 2004. There was no truth to the second part of the rumor. If the name Satira Tribune didn’t tip readers off to its status as a fake news site, its tagline (“satirical news for satirical folks”) provided all necessary information to dismiss the claim. As to whether Maher truly lit up during Real Time, the item he lit and inhaled created a distinctly marijuana-like puff of smoke, and Maher himself stood by a claim that the joint was real. On several occasions the comic referenced possessing and using a medical marijuana card, often with the running joke that it was for a “trick knee,” “bad back” or “whatever.”
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12206
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Every one of the financial bad management practices that I inherited, every one of them, have either been eliminated or cut significantly.
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"Emanuel says his administration has either ended or curtailed ""every one"" of the poor management practices that were in place when he took office in 2011. He described each of those practices in a speech in 2015 and his office provided explanations backed by official data of how each has been addressed. Yet while claiming a new era in good budget practices, the administration used budget-speak to keep the $70 million cost for Year 2 of Emanuel’s police plan out of the ""lowest-in-a-decade"" preliminary budget gap. Emanuel’s curtailment of expensive ""scoop and toss"" refinancing is admirable in city government, but it’s of little solace to property taxpayers who still foot the bill for it from Chicago Public Schools. Emanuel indeed inherited significant fiscal headaches from Daley, but fixes he is taking credit for like phasing out scoop and toss were initiated only after the problems were exposed by media investigations. It’s also worth noting that it wasn’t until after Emanuel won election to his second term that a major credit rating agency downgraded the city’s credit to near junk bond status, timing that suggests if nothing else he was slow to act. Factoring in the caveats and history. "
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mixture
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City Budget, Illinois, Rahm Emanuel,
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"It’s not easy finding silver linings in the dark clouds that define Chicago city finances, but Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his spin machine are doing their best. Fresh off unveiling a preliminary Fiscal Year 2018 budget that forecasts a deficit of $114 million -- the city’s smallest in 11 years -- Emanuel focused on the sun behind the clouds that have led him to pile on city debt at very high interest rates and cope with a major rating agency downgrading the city’s credit rating to junk bond status. ""Every one of the financial bad management practices that I inherited, every one of them, have either been eliminated or cut significantly,"" Emanuel said after the report’s July 31 release. He repeated the claim on Aug. 9 in an address to the Chicago Investors Conference. Has Emanuel really rid city budget-making of the practices from the days of former Mayor Richard M. Daley that dug the hole from which he’s now trying to lift Chicago? What are these ""financial bad management practices?"" And, perhaps most important of all, has he set city finances on a distant path to soundness or is he merely trying to perfume a fiscal pig. We decided to check. The assertion brought to mind a curious public relations stunt Emanuel trotted out occasionally for the TV cameras in the early months of his administration. He would pose in front of a giant scorecard filled with goals he had set for himself that were then checked off as accomplished. In sum, Emanuel wrote the test and then declared he had aced it. A sense of déjà vu came over us when we contacted the mayor’s Office of Management and Budget for an explanation of Emanuel’s claim to have weeded out the bad old days of city financial management. Spokeswoman Molly Poppe provided an extensive list and explanation of the practices to which Emanuel referred. They were outlined, she said, in a speech Emanuel delivered to The Civic Federation, a government finance watchdog group, on April 29, 2015, three weeks after his election to a second term. * Ending by 2019 the practice of ""scoop and toss"" in which the city pays short-term expenses with long-term debt; * Ending risky ""swaps"" in the City’s general obligation debt portfolio; * Converting all of the City’s general obligation variable debt to fixed-rate; * Pay legal settlements from operating funds, rather than with long-term debt * Replenish the city’s ""rainy day fund"" -- a pool of money maintained to deal with immediate emergencies -- from which $1.2 billion had been removed for operating expenses from 2009 to 2011. Here again, Emanuel is setting his own benchmarks then declaring them met. By that standard at least, there may be merit to the chest-thumping. On the other hand, the suggestion that the mayor has fixed or is fixing ""every one"" of the bad financial practices he inherited suggests the arrow is pointing up for city finances when a range of other meaningful indicators is still flashing a bright red danger sign. In its analysis of Emanuel’s 2017 budget, the Civic Federation noted that the administration had adhered to its pledge to gradually wean the city from ""scoop and toss"" borrowing and borrowing to pay legal settlements. The budget ""makes significant improvements from its past practices by continuing to reduce ‘scoop and toss’ borrowing by $63 million in FY2017 and incorporating large expenses such as judgements and settlements into its operating budget rather than funding them through borrowing,"" the Civic Federation reported. Between FY 2015 and FY 2017, ""scoop and toss"" debt refinancing fell from $225 million to $62 million. ""Scoop and toss"" is such a bad practice that the audience at the Aug. 9 Chicago Investors Conference burst into applause when Emanuel mentioned in his speech his intent to stop it entirely by 2019. It’s a practice that was used throughout city government to mask operating costs by turning them into long-term debt. The Chicago Tribune described it as ""equivalent to taking out a 30-year mortgage to buy a car and making your children — or grandchildren — pay it off, with interest."" Whether the 2019 termination target represents a laudable accomplishment or the unnecessary prolonging of the city’s addiction to a terrible fiscal practice is open to debate. ""I would have liked to have seen them stopping that practice earlier,"" said Richard Ciccarone, president and CEO of the municipal finance analysis firm Merritt Research Services and an audience member at Emanuel’s speech. The termination of risky swaps and variable-rate debt are covered in the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for 2015 and 2016. These practices subjected city debt to changing interest rates, much the way variable-rate mortgages affect homeowners. The interest rate is low when the loan is taken out but can skyrocket at any time due to changing market conditions. To avoid borrowing to finance legal settlements and judgments, the city steadily increased the amount it budgeted from $28.7 million in 2012 to $46.7 million this year, Poppe said, allowing the city by 2016 to avoid borrowing for these costs. The city also no longer uses proceeds from the long-term lease of the Chicago Skyway or the infamous parking meter privatization to balance its budget. Since 2012, only interest from those deals has been transferred to the city’s main checking account. The policy has added $40 million to the city’s ""rainy day"" reserves, a pool of money maintained ""to mitigate current and future risks, emergencies, or unanticipated budget shortfalls."" The current principal balance is roughly $620 million with an additional $17 million in interest income pending transfer. On its face, Emanuel’s statement appears to hold up. But face value rarely delivers the whole story in politics, and a deeper look is required here. Clearly, Emanuel intended to convey that city government had turned the page on its long history of irresponsible budget practices. Emanuel first made the claim about ending the bad practices he inherited during his presentation of the city’s 2018 Annual Financial Analysis on July 31. That also was when he noted that the expected $114 million gap was the smallest the city had faced since 2007. (The preliminary budget is an early snapshot of how the next city budget would fare without spending cuts or tax and fee increases, which typically get added on later to bring the real budget into balance.) But the headlines in the days immediately afterward focused on $70 million that was not included in the budget projection but will be spent next year as Emanuel fulfills his promise to add hundreds of officers to the Chicago Police Department. ""I should know by now: In dealing with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration, you never take anything at face value because you're always being spun,"" wrote Crain’s Chicago Business political columnist Greg Hinz after noticing the $70 million omission. Indeed, Emanuel since his earliest days as mayor has displayed a proclivity for downplaying key pieces of information that may punch holes in financial claims. The pledge to break the bad habits we’re discussing here didn’t come until Emanuel won reelection to his second term in April 2015. Less than two weeks later, Moody’s Investors Service dropped the city’s bond rating to junk status, although other rating agencies have not gone that far. Emanuel has stressed that some ratings agencies have upgraded the city’s long term financial outlook from negative to stable. Still, Emanuel’s pledge to change things didn’t come until 18 months after the Chicago Tribune exposed the depth of the city’s fiscal rot in a devastating investigative series titled ""Broken Bonds."" The Administration’s Annual Financial Analysis explains the mayor’s rationale for leaving out the police costs this way: ""In addition to addressing the 2018 operating deficit, the City will move forward with the second year of its two-year hiring plan in the Chicago Police Department and further investments in training, technology and personnel to support police reform efforts by the Administration. This increased cost is not incorporated into the 2018 operating deficit as it is a new investment for the upcoming year, not an existing, structural expense currently in the City’s corporate budget."" (Click here and scroll to the section ""2018 Corporate Fund Projections"" for more detail.) No matter how it’s labeled, the cost of new CPD personnel, along with the official budget gap projection of $114 million, will be borne by Chicago taxpayers. Emanuel has not discussed how the city will close the gap and pay for the new police ""investment."" Things got even more complicated on Aug. 11, when Chicago Public Schools announced it faces a $269 million shortfall in its 2018 budget and wants the city to fill the gap. And while the city appears to be following Emanuel’s timeline on ending ""scoop and toss"" by 2019, city taxpayers still are getting hit hard by the practice. Cash-strapped Chicago Public Schools this year relied on it to generate $500 million in operating cash. As the Chicago Tribune noted, city taxpayers ultimately will pay $835 million in interest over the 30-year financing period. That’s a $1.35 billion investment for $500 million in operating capital that will be spent within two years. Technically, CPS is separate from Chicago city government, but Emanuel effectively controls both. Ciccarone noted that city officials ""have worked very hard"" to ensure that the bond market treats the two as separate entities. This is important because the school district’s finances are in far worse shape than the city’s. Emanuel says his administration has either ended or curtailed ""every one"" of the poor management practices that were in place when he took office in 2011. He described each of those practices in a speech in 2015 and his office provided explanations backed by official data of how each has been addressed. Yet while claiming a new era in good budget practices, the administration used budget-speak to keep the $70 million cost for Year 2 of Emanuel’s police plan out of the ""lowest-in-a-decade"" preliminary budget gap. Emanuel’s curtailment of expensive ""scoop and toss"" refinancing is admirable in city government, but it’s of little solace to property taxpayers who still foot the bill for it from Chicago Public Schools. Emanuel indeed inherited significant fiscal headaches from Daley, but fixes he is taking credit for like phasing out scoop and toss were initiated only after the problems were exposed by media investigations. It’s also worth noting that it wasn’t until after Emanuel won election to his second term that a major credit rating agency downgraded the city’s credit to near junk bond status, timing that suggests if nothing else he was slow to act. Factoring in the caveats and history."
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26300
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Janel Brandtjen Says Gov Tony Evers’ administration deemed dentists non-essential
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The executive order from Gov. Tony Evers classified dental offices as essential Dentists could individually choose how to operate when the order was in effect, but Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services recommends they follow CDC guidelines, which meant postponing elective procedures and visits.
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false
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Health Care, Public Health, Wisconsin, Coronavirus, Janel Brandtjen,
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Amid the political upheaval over when and how and how fast to reopen Wisconsin, there was a point on May 11, 2020, when Gov Tony Evers relaxed his stay-at-home order to allow small retail establishments to reopen, so long as they limited shoppers to five or fewer. The state Supreme Court later voted 4-3 to toss out Evers’ order entirely, saying his administration had to work with the GOP-controlled Legislature on any continued restrictions. In the wake of Evers’ May 11 action, state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, R-Menomonee Falls, offered this tweet targeted at Evers: @Gov Evers liquor stores are open, strip malls can have 5 customers, but dentists are non-essential?! Is she right? Were dentists considered non-essential under the safer-at-home order? The short answer: No. Let’s start with the order itself: Executive Order #28. Under Section 13, essential businesses include healthcare and public health operations. And, elsewhere within the order, dental offices are classified under healthcare and as public health operations. So, that order did not block dentists from seeing patients. Meanwhile, an online map from the American Dental Association that tracks the extent to which dentists nationwide have been able to offer services shows the vast majority of states, including Wisconsin, allowing elective and emergency procedures. Of those, as of May 14, 2020, the map showed seven states allowing only emergency procedures. (No state had dentist offices closed entirely.) Beyond that, Wisconsin is listed among only four states – including California, Rhode Island, and Delaware – that explicitly designated dentists as essential. That said, the American Dental Association has recommended dentists remain open only for emergency procedures and postpone elective procedures. And the Wisconsin Dental Association follows ADA recommendations. Similarly, the state Department of Health Services recommends dentists follow guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which include postponing elective procedures and non-emergency visits. So, on a practical level, many dentist offices held off on doing routine visits, such as cleanings and checkups. But that was due to their own choice, and consistent with guidelines from dental groups and health agencies. It was not forbidden under Evers’ order. When asked for backup for the claim that dentists were deemed nonessential, Brandtjen didn’t cite the order itself. Rather, in an email, she said Wisconsin dentists planned to start opening their offices in early May, but claimed the state Department of Health Services notified the Dentistry Examining Board that those who did could put their licenses in jeopardy. Jennifer Garrett, communications director for the Department of Safety and Professional Services, said examining board members were advised by legal counsel May 6, 2020, that dentists should follow DHS guidelines, and could face penalties if they did not. But, as evidence, that is off point, particularly with such a narrow claim. As noted, the Evers order declared dentists essential — the opposite of what Brandtjen claimed. Brandtjen tweeted that under orders from Evers, dentists were classified as non-essential, and therefore had to remain closed. But Evers’ order — unlike those from many other governors — explicitly declared dentists, like other health care workers, were essential. Thus, they were allowed to stay open, even if many chose to limit their offerings to emergency work.
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11107
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NIH study confirms benefits of intensive blood pressure management among seniors aged 75 and older
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This news release reports on new results from an on-going and major clinical trial — the SPRINT (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial) — that compared the outcomes of two groups of elderly hypertensive people given different systolic blood pressure goals — 140 mm of mercury versus 120 mm of mercury. And while it does report that the clinical outcome for those in the lower target group was better than that of the higher target group, the release (from the National Institutes of Health [NIH] section dealing with heart and lung disease) gives scant details that might help readers apply the results to their own situations. The omissions mirror problems we’ve seen in previous NIH press communications about the SPRINT study, which we’ve called attention to repeatedly on our blog: NIH, news media, need to slow down on the SPRINT hype NIH SPRINT study sparks questions about overtreatment of mild hypertension Do published SPRINT study results live up to premature NIH news release hype? Informed patients need one thing not provided in SPRINT trial news: what were the absolute benefit/harm numbers? The public has gotten conflicting recommendations on what the optimum goal for blood pressure treatment should be for seniors. The recommendations range from 140 mm Hg for adults to 150 mm Hg for adults aged 60 and up, and to 160 mm Hg for people over 80. The release states that, “About three-fourths of the U.S. population aged 75 and older live with hypertension, a leading contributor to cardiovascular disease and death,” which certainly argues for the importance of any strategy that can mitigate this condition. If changing either a medication or its dosage can bring about a better clinical outcome, then surely that is important.
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false
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Government agency news release
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The release makes no mention of costs associated with the differing strategies. It states that hypertensive elderly patients receive medication to lower their systolic blood pressure to either 140 mm of mercury or 120 mm of mercury, and that, on average, the patients who had a lower targeted blood pressure required an added medication. But no specific drugs are mentioned, so readers cannot judge whether there would be cost differences between this recommended regimen and their current therapy. The release points out that those study participants whose blood pressure goal was 120 mm of mercury had 33 percent fewer cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or heart failure, and had a 32 percent reduction in the risk of death, compared to those participants with a higher goal. Based on this, it recommends that people 75 and older benefit from a lower systolic blood pressure. But these numbers don’t tell the whole story. It should be noted that these relative reductions correspond with absolute risk reductions of only about 0.8 to 1.3 percentage points — reflecting a number needed to treat (NNT) of roughly 100. In other words, approximately 100 people need to be treated to this target in order for 1 person to experience an improved outcome. The other 99 don’t benefit but have the potential to experience adverse effects. The release makes no mention of the possible adverse reactions to medications that lower blood pressure, although these are widely known. Nor does the release mention any adverse reactions among the study participants other than those that were used as endpoints for the study — myocardial infarctions, strokes and heart failure, for example. The published research article notes that while treatment carried risk of side effects for both patient groups studied, the differences between the serious side effects (low blood pressure, fainting, acute kidney injury) encountered in each group weren’t significantly significant. Another issue not addressed in the release is that these patients were followed very closely by study staff and were examined initially every 3 months. In clinical practice, patients are often not seen that frequently which means that some patients might not get the level of monitoring needed to prevent or treat emerging complications. We were pleased to see that the release cautioned patients to “talk to their doctor to determine whether this lower goal is best for their individual care.” The release provides data on the number of participants, their general age and whether their targeted systolic blood pressure targets were 120 mm of mercury or 140 mm of mercury. It also states the clinical outcomes comparing the two targeted groups. While additional information would have been helpful for readers, the amount given is just barely sufficient for readers to see the benefits of the research. One of the limitations of the study not mentioned in the release is that the study was stopped early; the subjects in the trial were followed for only 3 years. A majority of hypertensive patients will require lifetime medications, so the long-term benefits and harms of intensive therapy remain unknown. The release does not appear to commit disease-mongering. While this release does identify the main funding sources for the trial, it fails to mention any potential conflicts of interest, even though the paper itself discloses that three of the authors had numerous financial links to pharmaceutical firms. Again, the release explains a trial which presumably used different medications and/or different doses to reach the targeted systolic blood pressure levels (although none are identified). It offers no information on alternative mechanisms for reaching those goals and without more information on what approaches were used, it would be hard to cite alternatives. Without naming the drugs used in the study, the release leaves us to assume the ready availability of any of the medications. It would have been easy for the news release to indicate that the study did not use any investigational agents — just widely available blood pressure medicines. Unfortunately, the release doesn’t explain that, thus netting an unsatisfactory rating. The release doesn’t claim novelty. Instead, it makes it clear that the latest results reinforce earlier findings about blood pressure management and stresses that the latest results are “reporting additional details about a widely-publicized study.” The release does not appear to use any unjustifiable language. We also were glad to see that patients are cautioned to discuss — not request — this treatment approach with their doctors.
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28599
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"President Trump ordered the White House bathed in blue light to honor fallen police officers, something President Obama ""refused"" to do."
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"What's true: President Obama did not order that the White House be lit in blue to commemorate police officers slain in the line of duty. What's false: He did not neglect to honor their sacrifice in other ways, such as flying flags at half-staff; there is no evidence that he specifically ""refused"" to light up the building in blue."
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mixture
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Politics, barack obama, donald trump, white house
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On the evening of 15 May 2017, the White House was illuminated in blue light to commemorate Peace Officers Memorial Day, a national observance for fallen police officers instituted by President John F. Kennedy in 1962. President Trump noted the occasion in a tweet linking to his 2017 Police Officers Memorial Day proclamation: #PeaceOfficersMemorialDay and#PoliceWeek Proclamation: https://t.co/o4IXVfZuHw pic.twitter.com/UMJ6hklx4a — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017 “Police officers are the thin blue line whose sacrifices protect and serve us every day, and we pledge to support them as they risk their lives to safeguard ours,” the proclamation said: In humble appreciation of our hard-working law enforcement officers, Melania and I will light the White House in blue on May 15. I call upon all Americans to observe Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. I also call on the Governors of the States and Territories and officials of other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on Peace Officers Memorial Day. I further encourage all Americans to display the flag at half-staff from their homes and businesses on that day. Conservative-leaning media outlets seemed to unanimously point out in their reporting on the event that President Barack Obama had, in their words, “refused” to memorialize fallen officers with blue lighting after five Dallas policemen were killed by a sniper in July 2016. For example, the Washington Examiner reported: Former President Barack Obama lit the White House in rainbow colors after the Supreme Court ruling that allowed same-sex couples nationwide to marry in June 2015. Following the attack on police officers in Dallas last July, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association Foundation asked Obama to illuminate the White House in blue in honor of the five fallen officers. Obama ordered flags to be flown half-mast, but did not light up the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW building. Contemporaneous press reports confirm that despite the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association’s request, the Obama administration chose other means to memorialize the Dallas victims. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest spoke about the decision during a 13 July press conference: REPORTER: The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association announced on Friday that they may request to the White House that it be illuminated in blue in honor of the fallen officers in Dallas. Knowing that the White House has previously been illuminated, both in 2013 in pink for breast cancer awareness and again in 2015 in the wake of the same-sex marriage ruling by the Supreme Court, has there been any consideration or any thought given to lighting the White House in blue in honor of law enforcement? EARNEST: I don’t have much to say about the potential consideration. I can tell you that’s not something that we plan to do at this point. The President certainly has, in a variety of ways, acknowledged the tragedy and honored the life of the five Dallas police officers who were killed last week. The President, while he was overseas, ordered flags across the country lowered to half-staff as the nation mourns the loss of those police officers. And, of course, the President traveled to Dallas just yesterday to speak at the memorial service that was organized to honor their service and honor their sacrifice. And after that service concluded, the President spent more than an hour with the families of those who were lost and spent time visiting with some of those who were injured, including police officers who were injured in that shooting. So there are a variety of ways that the President and this administration have chosen to conspicuously demonstrate our deep gratitude and our solemn condolences in the aftermath of the shooting that claimed the lives of five police officers in Dallas last week. Notably absent from the Obama administration’s explanation of the matter was why the idea of blue lighting was nixed, though it clearly was. As Josh Earnest stressed, Obama did commemorate the Dallas tragedy in a variety of other ways, including flying flags at half-staff and visiting with injured officers and the families of those who were slain. As reported elsewhere, the White House was illuminated on other occasions during Obama’s occupancy, including bright pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month (an annual tradition started by George W. Bush) and in rainbow colors to celebrate the Supreme Court ruling in favor of gay marriage in 2015: America should be very proud. #LoveWins pic.twitter.com/qH1OA1BV2j — White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) June 27, 2015 President Trump has ordered the use of blue lighting on the White House on one previous occasion, World Autism Awareness Day on 2 April 2017. A distinction that ought to be made is between the sort of event Obama was asked to observe with blue lighting (the commemoration of five police officers murdered in Dallas in 2016) and the one President Trump observed (Peace Officers Memorial Day, held annually on 15 May). Regarding the latter, President Trump and every previous president since JFK, Obama also observed Peace Officers Memorial Day, with flags flown at half-staff and proclamations honoring the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers. Blue lighting, however, does not seem to have been on his agenda.
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7369
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Nebraska to require coronavirus plans from nursing homes.
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Nebraska will require long-term care centers to develop formal plans outlining how they’ll keep the coronavirus from spreading among the vulnerable residents who live in those facilities, Gov. Pete Ricketts said Friday.
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true
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Pete Ricketts, Omaha, Health, General News, Nebraska, Nursing homes, Virus Outbreak
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Facilities such as nursing homes and assisted living centers will have to submit plans to state regulators explaining how they intend to identify ill people and deal with visitors for the rest of the year. They’ll also have to discuss their disinfection protocols. The announcement comes as state officials scramble to keep the virus from spreading among long-term care facilities, whose residents are generally older and have underlying health problems. Long-term care residents are among the hardest-hit population groups in Nebraska, accounting for at least 75 of the state’s 113 coronavirus deaths. At least 82 long-term care facilities have reported coronavirus cases in Nebraska, including 35 with cases among residents. Nebraska health officials reported a one-day jump of six COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, as new cases were reported among police and several Omaha-area nursing homes. Ricketts said state officials will consult with long-term care facilities on the project. The plans will also focus on residents’ mental health needs, he said. Six deaths from the coronavirus were reported Thursday, bringing the state’s total to 113, according to the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. The state’s total number of cases since the outbreak began jumped to nearly 9,500. Nebraska’s hospitals still have a large number of beds, intensive-care unit space and ventilators if needed, according to the department’s online virus tracking portal. The numbers were reported as the Good Samaritan Society nursing, long-term and hospice care facility in Omaha reported 15 infected residents — including three residents who have died. The Omaha World-Herald also reported Friday that 68 cases of the virus have been confirmed among residents and staff of Life Care Center in Omaha’s Elkhorn community, while 10 residents and one staff member at the CountryHouse in neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa, had tested positive as of Friday. The Omaha Police Department also reported a sixth officer testing positive for the virus. State health officials said it’s not practical to test all of Nebraska’s long-term care residents because such testing would have to be repeated to ensure no new cases have emerged. “A test just tells you whether you’re positive or negative at that point in time,” said Dr. Gary Anthone, the state’s chief medical officer. For some infected people, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe illness or death. But for most people, it causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. ___ Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte
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9756
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A Green Light for Red Palm Oil as Health Aid? Manufacturers cite healthy antioxidants and heart benefits
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The “Verdict” of this story on red palm oil may not be what marketers want to read, but this overview story packs a delicious and nutritious serving of information for consumers trying to see through swirling health claims. The story covers a lot of ground, even addressing environmental and human rights concerns, so it is understandable that not every detail made it into the final edition. But there are enough specifics, a good sample of expert opinions, and an overall impression that a lot of homework went into providing readers with a clear summary of the evidence. Like a solid review article that provides clinicians with an overview of the body of evidence about a condition or treatment, a well done consumer advice article such as this one helps busy readers get the big picture quickly. With a broad scope, the story is understandably short on some details, but it gives readers a clear message, and the feeling that the reporter and editors were thorough in their research and objective in their summary. Most people in developed countries – so most people who read the Wall Street Journal – don’t need additional vitamin E or A. They do need more stories like this in their news diet.
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true
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antioxidants,red palm oil
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The story mentions some specific brands and prices. Although lots of suggested benefits are mentioned and not quantified, we will still give this story a passing mark, because the “Verdict” is that there isn’t enough evidence to prove red palm oil provides any specific health benefits. To put it another way, readers are given a clear message that while there are many claims and hints bouncing around, the documented health benefit of red palm oil is zero… and that is a hard number. As with benefits, the potential harms of red palm oil are just generally summarized. Still, the story points out that this oil and others like it can produce harm (and clearly contain plenty of calories). A nice touch is that the potential harms addressed by the story include environmental damage caused by poor agricultural practices, as well as potential exploitation of workers in developing nations. While those domains are typically outside our scope, they are clearly relevant to consumers looking to make informed purchases. The satisfactory rating here is based mostly on the general impression that the reporter and editors of the story were thorough in their research on the topic. That said, when the story mentions specific studies, it would have been nice to see some reference to the limitations of those studies, which include small numbers of patients, as well as measurements that may not actually indicate real health effects. The story is careful and measured in both specifics and overall tone. A strength of the story is that there are quotes from several sources. It’s nice to see that in a story that offers a broad overview of a topic, valuable space is still given to conflicts; in this case, pointing out that the studies hinting at some potential health benefits were funded by industry groups and that the lead author is a paid consultant to a manufacturer. Although the story does not provide detailed comparisons of red palm oil to other oils… or other ways of getting health benefits for the heart or other organs… there are some specifics about how various processing methods affect the oil and some brief references to other types of cooking oils. And again, the overall message is that there is not enough evidence to support claims that red palm oil has any special health benefits, which implies that it is not better than alternatives. As noted above, the story mentions some specific brands. It also provides some details about the differences between varieties of red palm oil. There is no claim of novelty. The story includes multiple sources. It is clearly not based on a news release.
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26497
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45 nations had already moved” to enforce travel restrictions with China “before the president moved.”
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Credible estimates say either 36 or 45 countries moved faster than the U.S. to enact various restrictions on travel from China — from the suspension of visa programs to entry denial. Experts say Biden is wrong to say that the U.S. travel restriction was slow. It came shortly after the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency and around the same time as other nations’ restrictions.
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mixture
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Public Health, Coronavirus, Joe Biden,
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"President Donald Trump routinely claims that he went against everyone’s wishes when he decided to restrict travel from China to curb the spread of the coronavirus in the United States. Because he did, and fast, thousands of lives were saved, Trump says. But Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Trump’s response wasn’t all that quick. Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on April 5 that Trump trailed dozens of other countries in issuing travel restrictions on China. (This was a week before Stephanopoulos confirmed he had COVID-19.) ""He indicated that I complimented him on dealing with China. Well, you know, 45 nations had already moved to keep, block China's personnel from being able to come to the United States before the president moved,"" Biden said. ""It's about pace. It's about the urgency. And I don't think there's been enough of it, urgency."" PolitiFact decided to put Biden’s claim on the Truth-O-Meter. Taken literally, Biden’s statement that 45 countries blocked Chinese personnel from ""being able to come to the United States"" doesn’t make sense — the countries were dealing with travel from China into their own countries, of course. Biden’s campaign did not provide an on-the-record clarification. Based on the context of the interview, Biden’s point was that 45 nations imposed restrictions on travel from China before the United States’ own restriction, therefore the United States was slow on this front. We found that the United States acted around the same time as did many other countries. It wasn’t the first to restrict travel from China, but it wasn’t the last, either. COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, was first detected in Wuhan, China, and was reported by Chinese authorities to the World Health Organization on Dec. 31, 2019. On Jan. 30, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern over the coronavirus outbreak. On Jan. 31, the Trump administration announced the United States would temporarily ban the admission of people who were in China 14 days prior to their attempted travel to the United States. The restriction took effect Feb. 2, and it exempted U.S. citizens, green card holders, and certain other people. What was the rest of the world considering? We consulted Think Global Health, an initiative of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations that is tracking travel restrictions on China due to COVID-19. By the group’s count, Biden is correct about 45 nations restricting travel from China before the United States.That number covers variations of travel restrictions in effect up to and including Feb. 1. Think Global Health’s tracker includes partial or total land border closures, suspension of flights to and from China, visa restrictions, such as a pause on visa-on-arrival programs, and entry restrictions (similar to what the United States implemented). ""While the United States was not one of the first countries to impose restrictions against travel from China, nor was it late to do so relative to the actions of others,"" said Samantha Kiernan, a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. ""Rather, the United States acted around the same time that many other countries did."" The Marshall Islands is among nations that had travel restrictions on China even before the World Health Organization’s Jan. 30 declaration. After the declaration, many countries, including the United States, announced their own travel restrictions. For perspective, the U.S. measure went into effect after Italy on Jan. 31 suspended all flights to and from China, but it happened before South Korea’s entry restriction that started Feb. 4. There are many ways to slice the numbers on travel restrictions, said Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. In a March 23 blog post, Nowrasteh estimated that at least 36 other countries imposed travel restrictions on people coming from China around the same time as the United States. ""Some countries, for instance, began forcing Chinese nationals to get a visa around this time whereas before they were allowed visa-free entry,"" Nowrasteh said. ""That’s an additional travel restriction, but a less onerous one than that imposed by President Trump."" Nowrasteh agreed that the United States’ restriction wasn’t far behind from others. ""There are many points on which to criticize the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19, but they were not slow in instituting a travel ban on China,"" Nowrasteh said. ""The real question is whether that restriction worked and there is little evidence to suggest that it did."" Not really Global health specialists told Kaiser Health News that there is little to no evidence that Trump’s restrictions restrained COVID-19, because they came too late and didn’t have the follow-up necessary to make a real dent. Research suggests that well-implemented travel restrictions can buy time, but that time has to be used effectively — to ramp up emergency preparedness and bolster activities like testing and isolating people who may have been exposed. As late as Feb. 29, the WHO advised against travel or trade restrictions related to COVID-19 outbreaks, saying: ""Travel bans to affected areas or denial of entry to passengers coming from affected areas are usually not effective in preventing the importation of cases but may have a significant economic and social impact."" Biden claimed that ""45 nations had already moved"" to enforce travel restrictions with China ""before the president moved."" The extent of travel restrictions vary — from the suspension of visa programs to entry denial. According to one tracker of travel restrictions, Biden’s 45 figure checks out. Other research shows that the number is around 36. Where Biden misleads is on the relative speed of the U.S. compared with others. The U.S. travel restriction came shortly after the WHO declared a public health emergency and around the same time as other nations, experts said. Biden’s statement that Trump’s travel restriction was slower than 45 other countries is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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29634
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An infographic describing how to amputate a gentleman’s arm is a genuine historical document.
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As the graphic at issue was made in 2011, however, claims that it is a historical document are false.
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false
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Medical
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Since 2011, internet users may have encountered a darkly humorous and macabre infographic titled “The Gentleman’s Guide to Amputation.” It’s a popular graphic that does well on social media, but “historical photo” social media accounts have repeatedly published it without context. For example, the popular (but frequently debunked) Twitter feed History Lovers Club has posted the graphic at least five times since March 2017, most recently on Sept. 11, 2019: Gentleman's Guide To Amputation …. Wow!!! pic.twitter.com/CmHhEsH6v1 — History Lovers Club (@historylvrsclub) September 12, 2019 The image is not a historical document but a piece of art created by an artist who goes by the online handle “Onorobo.” Posting the image to Tumblr on Oct. 11, 2011, Onorobo described it as “an info-graphic I drew for class.” That being said, the picture does, for the most part, accurately reflect 19th-century surgical practices. Here is an infographic titled “Methods of amputation at the upper and lower arm” created by the French medical illustrator Nicolas Henri Jacob in the 1830s, courtesy of the Wellcome Trust digital collections: Dark humor about the process that centered around the need for alcohol would also not have been out of the question. Here, also from the Wellcome Trust, is a 1902 cartoon titled (from French) “We can rest a little,” showing a surgeon having some chilled champagne mid-way through a painful amputation:
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11532
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Beer ingredient may fight prostate cancer
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"The story reports that an ingredient found in beer may help prevent prostate cancer or enlargement. While the story provides some details about the history of this ingredient and lets readers know this is still being researched and cautions them not to rush out to buy more beer, there are several areas for improvement. There is no information about prostate cancer, specifically that it may not cause harm even if a man does develop it. There is also no description of the evidence upon which claims are based or even a description of the effects, or ""benefits,"" observed so far in research. And, there is absolutely no information about potential harms. What's less clear is whether the story should have talked about how this option might fit into existing options for prevention, which themselves have benefits that are somewhat unclear. Finally, almost the entire story is a direct copy of an Oregon State University news release. There is no independent corroboration that there may be any health benefits from this compound. (Publisher's Note: this same story appeared in many print and broadcast news reports across the U.S., demonstrating the impact of one Associated Press story that comes directly from a news release.)"
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false
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"There is no mention of potential costs of treatment, although this would be difficult to do for a product that is not yet widely available or even well-researched in terms of what amount or dosage would be needed and how often. The story mentions that 17 beers would be needed for an effect, yet readers don't know what that ""effect"" is or over what timeframe. There is no quantitative estimate of benefit. There is no mention of potential harms. There is no discussion of the clinical evidence upon which the claims are based. Readers don�t know how reliable the studies were or even what was found that leads reserchers to believe there is a health benefit. The story provides no information on prostate cancer or its natural history, including the fact that prostate cancer may not cause harm, even if a man develops it. There is no independent corroboration that there may be health benefits from this compound. The story states that the compound may prevent prostate cancer (and enlargement, which is not cancerous) in the opening and headline. There is no mention of other strategies–particularly other complementary and alternative approaches–for preventing prostate cancer. However, since this new option hasn't been well-studied and any effects on cancer are not known, it would be difficult to compare this new idea with existing prevention approaches, which themselves have varying degrees of scientific evidence to support them. The story tells readers that future research could make the compound more available (for instance, in pills or through highly-concentrated hops in beer or other dietary sources). It also tells readers that a beer is currently available in Germany that has 10 times as much of the compound as typical beers. So, the story provides enough information for readers to understand that this ""treatment"" is not yet widely available. The story implies that this latest finding is novel, but also states that previous publications on health effects drew international attention. Given the past findings, this is not really new as implied. Almost the entire story is a direct copy of an Oregon State University news release, viewable at: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2006/May06/beer.html"
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9736
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Panel Says Aspirin Lowers Heart Attack Risk For Some, But Not All
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A federal task force has issued a recommendation to limit the daily ingestion of low-dose aspirin among Americans to individuals with a clear risk of heart attack or stroke. This story delivers that message effectively but lacks the quantitative specificity that would have helped readers/listeners fully understand the possible benefits or harms of continuing their aspirin-a-day habit. While a brief radio story may well be unable to be that specific, providing the additional information on the outlet’s text version of the story would be helpful. Many individuals with low risk of heart attack or stroke now take daily, low-dose aspirin in preventive mode. If such a practice is—at best—useless or—at worst—harmful, folks need to know that. This story makes a solid effort to inform.
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true
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aspirin,Dr. Steven Nissen,US Preventive Services Task Force
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Cost is not a component of this story, but it does not appear to be as relevant an issue to this piece compared with other stories. The story is clear about age ranges and health conditions that may make taking aspirin useful but does not offer any quantitative translation of the extent of benefits for these groups. It similarly doesn’t make the quantitative case for the dearth of benefits for individuals who fall outside of these conditions. The recommendations issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) suggest that the absolute benefit is in fact quite modest, unless you are already at high risk for cardiovascular diseases. The article highlights the risks of taking aspirin daily, in particular the risk of bleeding. The article even brings in an independent source, Dr. Nissen, who discusses the bleeding risks. The story would have been stronger had it helped the reader/listener understand the likelihood of those harms, as the ubiquity of aspirin use in our culture may lead individuals to downplay the medicine’s possible harms. However, the story does enough to clear our bar here. The reader/listener will find no information about how the USPSTF utilized evidence to reach its recommendation. It would’ve been helpful for the article to contrast the new guidelines with the previous ones in place. In particular, what new evidence prompted the USPSTF to change their recommendations? To its credit, the story offers a narrative that is the antithesis of disease-mongering. Its primary goal is to inform the public that a task force of experts is recommending less use of a common, over-the-counter medicine. The daily use of aspirin, for most reasonably healthy Americans, appears to be a “wash”; that is, both its benefits and harms will be negligible for most of us. That last point is mentioned but could have been explained a bit more thoroughly. The story doesn’t delve into potential conflicts of interest, but it does point out that the task force is an independent panel, and interviewed Dr. Nissen who is not part of the panel. The main point of the story is a recommendation to modify existing aspirin use habits. So it nicely sets up a comparison between current practice and recommended behavior. The story also nods to other approaches and medications (e.g. cholesterol and blood pressure drugs). Low-dose aspirin is readily available, of course, and the story makes this clear. The story suggests that the typical healthy American NOT avail him/herself of this resource. The story makes it clear that the USPSTF recommendation differs from current practice among healthy adults. We think it’s clear that the story is not based solely on a news release.
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33386
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A phony carpark attendant collected parking fees outside the Bristol Zoo for over twenty years.
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Similarly, in May 2008 a maintenance worker with the Birmingham [Alabama] Parking Authority collected fees from motorists attending a nearby charity event then directed them to leave their cars on a private lot. Many of those vehicles were subsequently towed and their drivers charged $200 to retrieve their cars.
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false
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Crime
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Urban legendry comprises many different tales of swindlers who have managed to take in large amounts of money not through violence, intimidation or overt theft, but by impersonating figures authorized to collect funds from the public. By falsely posing as washroom attendants, sales clerks, toll collectors, bank guards, or the like, these criminals need not resort to the use of guns or threats to acquire their booty; they simply take in cash innocently handed to them by unsuspecting patrons who believe they are engaging in ordinary, authorized transactions. By the time anyone realizes something’s amiss (because, for example, a particular establishment starts hearing about its “washroom attendant” from customers even though it has never hired anyone for such a position), the scammers are long gone. ONe tale of larcenous ingenuity is a remarkable example of this genre in that it posits a crafty crook didn’t simply pull off a phony “parking lot attendant” ruse for a short while and then abscond with a few hundred pounds in ill-gotten gains, but that he kept up the deception for over twenty years and took in hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pounds before “retiring” to live a life of luxury. According to legend, he was able to achieve such amazing longevity at his unauthorized profession because he plied his trade in a parking lot used by zoo visitors, and both the zoo and the local city council each thought the other was responsible for the operation of (and thus the collection of funds from) the carpark: From The London Times: A Well-Planned Retirement Outside England ‘s Bristol Zoo there is a parking lot for 150 cars and 8 buses. For 25 years, its parking fees were managed by a very pleasant attendant. The fees for cars ($1.40), for buses (about $7). Then, one day, after 25 solid years of never missing a day of work, he just didn’t show up; so the zoo management called the city council and asked it to send them another parking agent. The council did some research and replied that the parking lot was the zoo’s own responsibility. The zoo advised the council that the attendant was a city employee. The city council responded that the lot attendant had never been on the city payroll. Meanwhile, sitting in his villa somewhere on the coast of Spain or France or Italy is a man who’d apparently had a ticket machine installed completely on his own and then had simply begun to show up every day, commencing to collect and keep the parking fees, estimated at about $560 per day — for 25 years. Assuming 7 days a week, this amounts to just over $7 million dollars … and no one even knows his name. The locale now mentioned most frequently in circulating versions of this legend is Bristol Zoo Gardens, a 12-acre site in Clifton. This United Kingdom zoo is the fifth oldest in the world and a long-established major tourist attraction in Bristol. Bristol Zoo visitors utilize one of three car parks: one on College road, one on Clifton Down, and an overflow lot on the Downs during the high season. Usage charges for these lots are: Day visitors: £2 per car Members: £1 per car Corporate, hospitality and business visitors: £2 per car In reference to the Bristol Zoo, at least, this tale is purely the stuff of fiction rather than fact. The Bristol Zoo says it has never experienced any confusion over parking attendants, and that it has several attendants and more than one car park, none open to coaches. Moreover, in response to our inquiry about the tale, a Bristol Zoo representative told us: We have had numerous similar enquiries lately but I can assure you that this rumour is not true. This story originated with a feature on urban myths published in the Bristol Evening Post back in 2007 to coincide with April Fool’s Day, not as a reporting of a real-life event. After an American writer spun the legend out into a full-length book in 2010, This Is Bristol reported: After an April Fool’s story in the Evening Post three years ago, the rogue tale of a parking attendant who pocketed cash from visiting cars and coaches for decades, made its way around the globe on spam emails, blogs and internet forums. The story in the widely-circulated email stated that the car park at Bristol Zoo had been manned by a single attendant for 23 years, who had taken advantage of a mix-up between the Bristol Zoo and the city council over who was responsible for the operation to collect drivers’ money for himself before retiring on the proceeds. Bristol Zoo insisted there had never been any confusion over parking attendants and made it clear it had several attendants and more than one car park. People have run parking scams in which they’ve directed motorists to leave their cars on lots they neither owned nor had the authority to grant temporary permission for their use, but none got away for it very long, let alone “for 25 years” as the e-mailed tale would have it. In December 2009, a Brooklyn man broke into a closed city-owned garage, opened it, and began charging people for parking. He was chased off the site the next day by police, who subsequently tracked him via the DNA he left on a soda can and arrested him on charges of burglary and criminal impersonation.
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7464
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The week that was: A balance of economy and public health.
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As heads of state, local leaders, business owners and individual citizens weighed the costs of re-opening the global economy, fears of new outbreaks grew. A central question emerged: How much infection and loss of life will emerge amid the push to restart business?
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true
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AP Top News, Religion, Health, General News, International News, Business, Virus Outbreak, Public health, Economy
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The scope of economic devastation deepened. The U.S. government reported the worst set of job numbers since record keeping began in 1948. The infection rate is rising in many states as doors reopen. In Waterloo, Iowa, the virus is “devastating everything.” The community is home to a meatpacking plant, and residents are worried it is becoming a vector for the virus. In Dawson, Georgia, rural poverty had already left generations of scars. Then the virus came, preying on those who were already sick and vulnerable. In Brazil, freshly dug graves are filling up from Manaus to Rio de Janeiro. The 75th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe was a reminder that celebrations, at least in a traditional sense, are still paused. In most places there were no parades, no last gatherings for veterans in their nineties. Instead, there were solemn remembrances spent in isolation. Here’s what you need to know from this week’s AP coronavirus coverage: GOVERNMENT RESPONSE A decision to shelve detailed guidelines about how leaders should decide to reopen from top U.S. disease control experts came from the highest levels of the White House, the AP reported. Shortly after the story was published, certain parts of the guidelines were fast-tracked for approval by the Trump administration. Leaders in Germany began to draw up plans in the event of a second wave of infections. In Italy, an urgent effort to find new victims and trace their contacts grew. France worked up a “reconfinement plan” in the event of a new wave. Does 2020 look a lot like 1918? Even amid scientific progress, there are a lot of comparisons to the COVID-19 world and the 1918 flu pandemic. The coronavirus relief aid poured out by Congress made big winners of small states. An Associated Press analysis shows that some states with small populations and relatively few COVID-19 cases took in an out-sized share of the $150 billion in federal money that was designed to address coronavirus-related expenses. GLOBAL ECONOMY The job losses in the U.S. fell disproportionately on African Americans, Latinos, low-wage workers and people with no college education, exposing the deep seams of inequality within the world’s wealthiest nation. Around the world, people who struggled to get by even before the coronavirus pandemic face newfound or worsening poverty and hunger. Here are 10 takeaways from the worst jobs report in U.S. history, and here’s what you need to know if you’re among those who have been laid off. Despite all the grim economic news, the U.S. stock market just rocketed to its best month in a generation. Here’s why. The virus has hit some sectors particularly hard. Uber, Lyft, Airbnb and other companies that bank on people’s willingness to share personal space are struggling. Several dozen malls across the country reopened, giving visitors a taste of what pandemic shopping looks like. Store workers have found themselves being asked to enforce the rules that govern that shopping, a tension-filled role for which most have received little or no training. An AP analysis found that 70 percent of Olympic sports organizations applied for aid — a stunning indicator of the frailty of the world’s most dominant Olympic sports system. HEALTH AND SCIENCE Hundreds of people on three continents already are rolling up their sleeves for a flurry of COVID-19 vaccine tests with more to come this summer, but proving which if any shots truly work is a tall order. Governments are placing bets on smartphone apps to reduce the spread of the coronavirus as they contemplate reopening their societies. But their decisions on which technologies to use — and how far those allow authorities to peer into private lives — are highlighting the uncomfortable trade-offs between protecting privacy and public health. INEQUALITY The suffering exacerbated by the coronavirus is growing more for those most vulnerable. In the Washington suburbs, an immigrant couple suddenly out of work struggled to feed their young daughter — and themselves. They were among many people of color hit hard by the crisis. Many of those in America struggling the most were still waiting for relief payments from the government, while many African-Americans looked at the mainly white protesters demanding the economy reopen as another sign their safety was being ignored. Hidden from view at sea, tens of thousands of crew and staff remained trapped on hundreds of cruise ships. Tens of thousands of other hidden people were at risk in an odd no man’s land in a Jerusalem neighborhood no one really controlled. In the nearby Gulf, the virus has cast light on the foreign workers carrying out the essential work in hospitals and grocery stores. Meanwhile, health officials worried that indigenous people around the globe, already suffering major health crises, would be more at risk from the virus. RIPPLES: THE VIRUS AND CULTURE Navigating the holy month of Ramadan can be a challenge for Muslims in the United States in regular circumstances. Add a virus that shuts down most human interaction and you have an entirely new set of circumstances, captured in the stories of a half-dozen people around the country. In New York City, meanwhile, feeding the hungry has become an important Ramadan activity. As people ventured back out into the world – and argued whether to do so – the question hung over all of them: What might public space be like in this post-isolation existence? Those who are or were actually under house arrest weighed in on comparisons to their circumstances, while others worried about the oldest people in the equation – centenarians. And people who rely on television as their lifeline showed they were taking notice – and critiquing – the homebound backgrounds of our TV personalities and pundits. ONE GOOD THING AP’s daily series, “One Good Thing,” tells stories of kindness and self-sacrifice during the pandemic. Often, subjects of these stories say their efforts were stoked by tears and anxious feelings. But rather than give up, the subjects of this week’s stories show that dire situations fueled ideas to benefit others. And the results were much bigger than they ever could have imagined. Scared for friends who had contracted the new coronavirus and worried about her daughter’s schooling and husband’s work, Whitney Rutz cried and screamed into her pillow. Then, the Portland, Oregon, resident started baking. As a child during the World War II siege of Leningrad, Galina Yakovleva learned how to make the best of fearful times. Today she’s using those lessons as she brings food and supplies to needy people locked down in the coronavirus pandemic. GROUND GAME AP’s daily podcast, “Ground Game: Inside the Outbreak” chatted with U.N. chief correspondent Edith Lederer about how the world agency is addressing poorer nations, which may not see spread of the virus for another three to six months. NCAA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brian Hainline also joined the discussion and outlined how college sports officials are thinking about when teams can start practicing and playing again. VIRUS DIARY AP journalists are documenting what it’s like to live and cover the story of the virus simultaneously. And they are often overcoming deep obstacles. Zimbabwe AP photojournalist Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi describes the struggle to get water, and what his options are when the water truck doesn’t come. “We might get municipal water out of a tap at home once or twice a week if we strike it lucky.” LIVES LOST Ordinary lives have extraordinary impact. The AP’s Lives Lost series aims to capture the stories of the people the pandemic has taken around the globe. Explore the impact of their lives here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of April 26-May 1 here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of April 19-April 25 here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of April 12-18 here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of April 5-11 here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of March 29-April 4 here. Find AP’s top virus coverage for the week of March 22-28 here. Follow overall AP coverage of the virus outbreak on Understanding the Outbreak here.
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13511
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American Unity PAC Says Ted Strickland supported giving $150 billion to Iranian regime that persecutes women, Christians and gays.
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An American Unity PAC digital ad claims that Strickland supported giving $150 billion to Iran without a commitment from that regime to stop its harsh treatment of Christians, gays and women. Strickland said he supported the Iran nuclear deal last year during his campaign, but he didn't hold federal office when the deal was completed and he didn't vote in favor of it. There are other problems with the ad. For one, the $150 billion estimate is too high, experts say. Also, separate U.S. sanctions for human rights violations remain in place and continue to be enforced. And Strickland’s symbolic support of the deal wasn’t tacit approval of Iran’s persecution of women, non-Muslims, and homosexuality.
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false
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Ohio, Human Rights, Islam, Nuclear, American Unity PAC,
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"A conservative group that supports gay rights accused Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland of supporting the Iran deal despite the country’s cruelty to women, Christians and gays. As the video flashes images of women wearing hijabs and children in distress, the words ""Ted Strickland: $150 billion for Iran"" appear. The script says, ""In Iran, a woman’s life is worth half her husband’s. Christians, persecuted. It’s illegal to be gay. People stoned, beaten and hanged for what they believe, how they were born, and who they love."" Then the ad pivots to Strickland, and says that he ""supported giving billions to that regime -- without concessions for human rights violations -- when we had leverage."" The kicker: ""Ted Strickland didn’t stand up for the vulnerable. That’s why we can’t trust him to stand up for us."" The digital ad is paid for by American Unity PAC, a group that describes itself as ""focused exclusively on protecting and promoting candidates for U.S. Congress who support freedom for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity."" Considering that Strickland was not in an elected office when Congress voted to approve the Iran nuclear deal in September 2015, it seems like an odd jab. We took a closer look at Strickland’s role. American Unity PAC did not respond to our inquiry. Strickland favored Iran deal The purpose of the Iran nuclear agreement was to reduce the likelihood and ability of Iran to develop weapons-grade nuclear material, and to prevent development of nuclear weapons. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to end its freeze on Iranian assets. What did Strickland have to do with the agreement? He was not in office at the time, having served as governor from 2007 to 2011. In August 2015, his Senate campaign released a statement in favor of the deal. ""Everyone agrees we must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and there is no question that this strong, enforceable agreement with the support of the UN Security Council is a far better way to achieve that goal than war,"" Strickland said. But the ad goes further to say Strickland supported $150 billion to Iran. PolitiFact visited this topic in August 2015, after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Iran gets ""$150 billion"" in the deal. PolitiFact rated that claim Half True. Much of the money Iran gets in the deal was Iran’s to begin with, but it was inaccessible due to international sanctions, said Tom Sutton, political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University. And the commonly repeated $150-billion figure is too high of an estimate. Sutton told PolitiFact Ohio, ""The U.S. agreed to end the freeze on Iranian assets that was imposed after the 1979 Iranian revolution and hostage crisis. It totals, at most, $100 billion, not $150 billion."" Leverage The ad says that the Iran nuclear deal gave the country billions ""without concessions for human rights violations, when we had leverage."" But there are separate, existing sanctions in place with regard to Iran’s human rights abuses. As the White House clarified, after the deal, ""U.S. statutory sanctions focused on Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and missile activities will remain in effect and continue to be enforced."" The National Iranian American Council reported that even after the lifting of sanctions in the nuclear deal, ""Iran will remain one of the most sanctioned jurisdictions in the world."" The concessions that were made in exchange for constraints on Iran’s nuclear program ""in no shape or form"" diminish the U.S. ability to confront human rights violations in Iran, they said. ""Supporting this agreement does not imply that Strickland supports all of the egregious, unjust practices of Iran highlighted in the ad,"" Sutton said. ""By comparison, the United States under all presidents has maintained an alliance with Saudi Arabia, including weapons sales, but that does not imply sanctioning or support for gender segregation and the harsh punishments used in Saudi Arabia, like stoning adulterers."" Sutton pointed out that several countries that have political and diplomatic relationships with the United States -- such as like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria -- and are places where female genital mutilation has been documented. Maintaining those ties does not equate to a nod in support of female genital mutilation. Our ruling An American Unity PAC digital ad claims that Strickland supported giving $150 billion to Iran without a commitment from that regime to stop its harsh treatment of Christians, gays and women. Strickland said he supported the Iran nuclear deal last year during his campaign, but he didn't hold federal office when the deal was completed and he didn't vote in favor of it. There are other problems with the ad. For one, the $150 billion estimate is too high, experts say. Also, separate U.S. sanctions for human rights violations remain in place and continue to be enforced. And Strickland’s symbolic support of the deal wasn’t tacit approval of Iran’s persecution of women, non-Muslims, and homosexuality.
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17240
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"Millions of Americans are ""paying more and getting less"" under Obamacare."
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"Americans for Prosperity said ""millions are paying more and getting less"" under Obamacare. We found their explanation of ""less"" rather dubious. Most people on the individual market are getting more benefits under the law. At worst, they’re paying more to get more, though in many cases they’re actually paying less."
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false
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National, Health Care, Americans for Prosperity,
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"Americans for Prosperity has been active on the airwaves already this election cycle. The group, which opposes Obamacare, has run a handful of ads featuring people telling health care ""horror stories"" meant to tug on the heartstrings. We’ve looked at a couple and explained how they can be misleading. But a pair of new ads take an entirely different tack to undercut support from Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Udall of Colorado. (It has also run against Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark.) In these ads, a woman on screen trashes political ads in her 30-second personal pitch. ""People don’t like political ads. I don’t like them either. But health care isn’t about politics,"" she says. ""It’s about people. And millions of people have lost their health insurance, millions of people can’t see their own doctors, and millions are paying more and getting less."" We’ve tackled claims about lost insurance and access to personal doctors before. But we haven’t heard someone say that the health care law is causing people to pay more for less, so we decided to check it out. Paying more There are a lot of factors in the health care law — and health insurance in general — that make it difficult to pin down whether people are paying more or less for coverage. In general, insurance premiums were increasing every year well before Obamacare became law. In fact, rates have increased consistently during the last 15 years. But there are signs that the rate of the increase has declined since the law was passed. Kaiser Family Foundation, for example, surveyed people who purchase insurance through their employer. Here are the average annual cost of premiums: Year Single % increase Family % increase 1999 $2,196 $5,791 2000 $2,471 12.52% $6,438 11.17% 2001 $2,689 8.82% $7,061 9.68% 2002 $3,083 14.65% $8,003 13.34% 2003 $3,383 9.73% $9,068 13.31% 2004 $3,695 9.22% $9,950 9.73% 2005 $4,024 8.90% $10,880 9.35% 2006 $4,242 5.42% $11,480 5.51% 2007 $4,479 5.59% $12,106 5.45% 2008 $4,704 5.02% $12,680 4.74% 2009 $4,824 2.55% $13,375 5.48% 2010 $5,049 4.66% $13,770 2.95% 2011 $5,429 7.53% $15,073 9.46% 2012 $5,615 3.43% $15,745 4.46% 2013 $5,884 4.79% $16,351 3.85% Other than a sharp increase between 2010 to 2011, the Obama years have experienced the smallest rate increases of the last 14 years. Throughout much of the early 2000s, premium increases of 9 percent or more were the norm. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid also found a slowdown in the increase in health costs during the last four years, including a modest 4 percent increase from 2011 to 2012. The government attributed the decrease in health costs to the economic downturn. Kaiser, too, said the recession accounted for much of the decline, though they said the health care law may have played a role, too. Because of the law, people making up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level are now eligible for subsidies to buy insurance, and for many of them, costs are going down. Those costs are capped at a percent of their income. But some people may see rate increases on existing policies or as they transition to new plans. Insurers can no longer deny individuals with pre-existing conditions, and there is now a much larger pool of people looking to purchase coverage. For younger, healthier people, this means they are now taking on some of the financial burden so older or sick people can buy insurance at a reasonable price. (This is especially true for young males, since young women were often charged more, and even more so if they don’t qualify for premium subsidies.) There were also people who previously purchased very cheap plans. But those policies provided very little coverage or capped their benefits at low levels, which the new health care law bars. So they’re getting more coverage, albeit at a greater cost. Getting less? Which gets us to our next point. We found it strange that the ad claimed that people are getting less under the Affordable Care Act. In fact, we’ve usually heard the opposite from critics of the law that people are now paying for types of coverage they don’t need. The favorite example is single men who now will now have maternity coverage if they buy a plan on the individual market. In October 2013, Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., grilled Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius on this very point. ""An insurance policy has a series of benefits whether you use them or not,"" Sebelius said during her testimony on the Hill. ""And that is why the health care premiums are increasing this high,"" Ellmers said. ""We’re forcing them to buy things that they will never need."" ""Individual policies cover families. Men often do need maternity coverage for their spouses and for their families,"" Sebelius responded. ""To the best of your knowledge, has a man ever delivered a baby?"" Elmers asked. The discussion ended there. So are you getting less coverage, or getting more than you need? We asked Americans for Prosperity to clarify their position. ""Getting less speaks to a multitude of data points that has been America's Obamacare experience so far: botched website, shrinking provider networks, a string of broken promises, missed deadlines, and unilateral rule changes that have kept the entire country in limbo ever since this debacle rolled out,"" said spokesman Levi Russell. That’s a pretty ambiguous definition of ""less."" We think most people would assume ""less"" is referring to the amount of coverage or benefits under the law. Americans are getting more benefits under the law in a number of ways -- including, in some cases, being able to buy affordable insurance for the first time. In addition, insurance purchased in the individual and small group marketplace must meet 10 essential health benefits. This includes coverage for emergency services and hospitalization, prescription drugs, free preventative coverage for things ranging from basic immunizations to HIV screening, and maternity care. The law also caps out-of-pocket costs, providing greater protection from exorbitant hospital bills. The most a person could pay for health care in a year is $6,300; the most a family can pay is $12,600. Before the law passed, some insurers capped annual or lifetime benefits, forcing people who thought they were covered to pay large hospital bills once they passed the threshold. People with pre-existing conditions are also seeing a lot more benefits, since they previously couldn’t buy a policy at all. So it’s a tough sell to say millions are getting less. And for many, they aren’t paying more, either. Our ruling Americans for Prosperity said ""millions are paying more and getting less"" under Obamacare. We found their explanation of ""less"" rather dubious. Most people on the individual market are getting more benefits under the law. At worst, they’re paying more to get more, though in many cases they’re actually paying less."
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A text reproduces Theodore Roosevelt's words regarding the assimilation of immigrants into American culture.
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A copy of this letter, obtained from the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, can be viewed here.
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true
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Politics Quotes, immigrants, theodore roosevelt
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Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907. “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” Theodore Roosevelt 1907 Theodore Roosevelt was about to finish his first two-year term as governor of the state of New York when the Republican Party chose him as its candidate for vice president in the 1900 national election. The Republicans were victorious at the ballot box that year, but Roosevelt held the vice-presidency for less than a year before he was elevated to the White House upon the assassination of President William McKinley on 14 September 1901, thereby becoming the youngest person ever to hold the office of President of the United States. Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president in 1904, and among his many notable achievements was his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for his part in the negotiations leading to the Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Although Roosevelt did not hold public office again after leaving the presidency in 1909 (his efforts to regain the White House as a third party candidate in 1912 proving unsuccessful), he remained active in the public political sphere. In the waning years of his life, as World War I raged in Europe and America entered the conflict on the side of the Allies, he frequently spoke of his belief that immigrants taking up residence in the U.S. should assimilate into American society as quickly as possible, learn the English language, eschew hyphenated national identities (e.g., “Italian-American”) and declare their primary national allegiance to the United States of America. On 1 February 1916, for example, Roosevelt advocated measures for strengthening and ensuring the “loyalty” of American immigrants: Theodore Roosevelt, speaking at a luncheon given yesterday by Mrs. Vincent Astor for the National Americanization Committee in the Astor Court Building, declared that one of the reasons why many German-Americans have shown greater love for their native land that for their adopted country is that the German system demands greater loyalty than is demanded in this country, and a greater contribution to the common welfare. “And all of you know I am free from a taint of neutrality,” he added, “so I can say this without suspicion.” The encouragement of better housing conditions and a compulsion to learn the English language, Colonel Roosevelt said, would help the process of Americanization. “We cannot make the Americanization movement a success,” Colonel Roosevelt said, “unless we approach it from the economic standpoint. It is true that governmentally Germany is an autocracy. But there has been a great deal more industrial freedom there than many of our old industrial communities. The German Government says we expect you to work out good results, to get together with the laborer, and yourselves decide what you are going to pay to the doctors who are to pass upon the health of the employes, and the amount of damages any employe merits. The Government insists upon a great amount of self-government by the people themselves. “I feel that by insistence upon proper housing conditions we shall indirectly approach this. I want to see the immigrant know that he has got to spend a certain amount of his money in decent housing; that he will not be allowed to live on $2.50 per month board basis. “Let us say to the immigrant not that we hope he will learn English, but that he has got to learn it. Let the immigrant who does not learn it go back. He has got to consider the interest of the United States or he should not stay here. He must be made to see that his opportunities in this country depend upon his knowing English and observing American standards. The employer cannot be permitted to regard him only as an industrial asset. “We must in every way possible encourage the immigrant to rise, help him up, give him a chance to help himself. If we try to carry him he may well prove not well worth carrying. We must in turn insist upon his showing the same standard of fealty to this country and to join with us in raising the level of our common American citizenship. “If I could I would have the kind of restriction which would not allow any immigrant to come here unless I was content that his grandchildren would be fellow-citizens of my grandchildren. They will not be so if he lives in a boarding house at $2.50 per month with ten other boarders and contracts tuberculosis and contributes to the next generation a body of citizens inferior not only morally and spiritually but also physically.”1 A few months later, Roosevelt expanded on this theme in a series of Memorial Day speeches he delivered in St. Louis: Moral treason to the United States was charged by Mr. Roosevelt, in an address delivered before the City Club, against German-Americans who seek to make their governmental representatives act in the interests of Germany rather than this country. He characterized the German-American Alliance as “an anti-American alliance,” but added that he believed that its members “not only do not represent but scandalously misrepresent” the great majority of real Americans of German origin. Using the motto “America for Americans” for all Americans, whether they were born here or abroad, the former President declared that “the salvation of our people lies in having a nationalized and unified America, ready for the tremendous tasks of both war and peace.” “I appeal to all our citizens,” the colonel said, “no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind, and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intriguers and mischiefmakers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed, or birthplace or of national origin.” Col. Roosevelt said he came to St. Louis to speak on Americanism — to speak of and condemn the use of the hyphen “whenever it represents an effort to form political parties along racial lines or to bring pressure to bear on parties and politicians, not for American purposes, but in the interest of some group of voters of a certain national origin or of the country from which they or their fathers came.” He was equally against the native American of the wrong kind and for the immigrant of the right kind, the former President declared, but the immigrant who did not become in good faith an American “is out of place” in the United States. He said each nation should be judged by its conduct and that the United States should oppose encroachment on its own rights, whether Germany, England, France or Russia be guilty of misconduct. “The effort to keep our citizenship divided against itself,” the colonel continued, “by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans, and every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means down at the bottom an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter Old World rivalries amd jealousies and hatreds.”2 In a Fourth of July speech in 1917, Roosevelt urged the adoption of linguistic uniformity, including a requirement that all foreign-language newspapers published in the U.S. should also include English translations: Touching on the matter of language, Col. Roosevelt declared that “We must have in this country but one flag, and for the speech of the people but one language, the English language. During the present war all newspapers published in German, or in the speech of any of our foes, should be required to publish, side by side with the foreign text, columns in English containing the exact translation of everything said in the foreign language. Ultimately this should be done with all newspapers published in foreign languages in this country.”3 Likewise, on 27 May 1918, Roosevelt urged in a speech at Des Moines, Iowa, that English be the sole language of instruction used in American schools: English as the sole language for schools, newspapers and other usage in this country was urged by Theodore Roosevelt in an address here tonight under the direction of the National Security League … In voicing his approval of the recent proclamation by Gov. Harding, ordering that English be the only medium of instruction in public or private schools in Iowa, Col. Roosevelt said: “This is a nation — not a polyglot boarding house. There is not room in the country for any 50-50 American, nor can there be but one loyalty — to the Stars and Stripes.”4 The comments quoted at this head of the page are more in the same vein; excerpts not from (as claimed in the accompanying text) a statement made by Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 (while he was still President), but from a letter written shortly before his death in January 1919, just a few months after the armistice that ended the fighting in World War I: NEW YORK, Jan. 6. — What was the last public statement by Col. Roosevelt was read last night at an “All-American concert” here under the auspices of the American Defense society, of which he was honorary president. “I cannot be with you and so all I can do is to wish you Godspeed,” it read. “There may be no sagging back in the fight for Americanism merely because the war is over. “There are plenty of persons who have already made the assertion that they believe the American people have a short memory and that they intend to revive all the foreign associations which more directly interfere with the complete Americanization of our people. Our principle in this matter should be absolutely simple. “In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. “If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. “We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul [sic] loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”5
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New research has uncovered that the true cause of fibromyalgia is an excess number of specific nerves found near a specific kind of blood vessel in the hands and feet, ending the controversy over the disease’s cause and mechanism.
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What's true: A 2013 study published in Pain Medicine studied the hands of 24 female patients and discovered an excess number of specific nerves surrounding a specific kind of blood vessel, hinting at a possible physical and identifiable cause for the disease. What's false: The study is no longer new, despite its having been billed as such for the past five years, nor has it changed the prevailing scientific view about the disease, which most argue is caused by an heightened sensitization of the nervous system.
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false
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Medical, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, medical research
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Since at least June 2013, a nearly identical article has appeared on a number of websites with the headline “Fibromyalgia Mystery Finally Solved!” These stories, which continue to appear online, begin with the same claim: Researchers have found the main source of pain in Fibromyalgia patients, and contrary to what many believe, it does not stem from the brain. The findings mark the end of a decades-old mystery about the disease, which many doctors believed was conjured in patients’ imaginations. […] Up until recently, many physicians thought that the disease was “imaginary” or psychological, but scientists have now revealed that the main source of pain stems from a most unlikely place — excess blood vessels in the hand, legs and foot. Fibromyalgia is is an enigmatic condition that disproportionately affects women; it is associated with clinically unexplained pain, potentially combined with other symptoms of unknown medical origin. As reported in a 2014 review paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association: Fibromyalgia may be considered as a discrete diagnosis or as a constellation of symptoms characterized by central nervous system pain amplification with concomitant fatigue, memory problems, and sleep and mood disturbances. Before diving into the research claims made in this “fibromyalgia solved” brand of clickbait, it is important to mention that framing the issue as a debate between those who think the pain is “imaginary” and those who think it is “real” is an extremely reductive description of the medical hypotheses surrounding fibromyalgia, and, indeed, of pain itself. The most common explanation for the symptoms that present as fibromyalgia in the scientific literature is a phenomenon dubbed “central sensitization”, in which the central nervous system (either through physical trauma or another cause) lowers its threshold for registering external signals as pain. As described in a 2009 review: Instead [of being caused by an external factor], central sensitization represents an abnormal state of responsiveness or increased gain of the nociceptive system [the part of the sensory nervous system that sends pain signals]. The pain is effectively generated as a consequence of changes within the [central nervous system] that then alter how it responds to sensory inputs, rather than reflecting the presence of [a physical source of pain]. While central sensitization may not have an external source, the pain is no more “real” or “imaginary” than any other pain caused by an actual physical stimulus. The study referenced in the viral stories, published in 2013 in the journal Pain Medicine, makes an argument for a physical, detectable source of the condition. The study focused on a specific kind of blood vessel in the hand — arteriole venule shunts — that can direct blood flow to bypass the hands in response to temperature, as described in a 2013 press release from the University of Albany, where the research was conducted: In humans, these types of shunts are unique to the palms of our hands and soles of our feet which work like the radiator in a car. Under warm conditions, the shunts close down to force blood into the capillaries at the surface of the skin in order to radiate heat from the body, and our hands get sweaty. Under cold conditions, the shunts open wide allowing blood to bypass the capillaries in order to conserve heat, and our hands get cold and put on gloves. The researchers, who were also associated with a biotech company (INTiDYN) that developed the imaging technique used in the study, analyzed biopsies from 24 female patients with fibromyalgia and compared them to a number of healthy control subjects. The authors found that there was a significant excess number of nerves around these shunts in the fibromyalgia patient’s hands. The senior author on the paper, Frank Rice, explained the potential significance of the findings in their press release: “Instead of being in the brain, the pathology consists of excessive sensory nerve fibers around specialized blood vessel structures located in the palms of the hands,” said Dr. Rice, President of Intidyn and the senior researcher on the study. “This discovery provides concrete evidence of a fibromyalgia-specific pathology which can now be used for diagnosing the disease, and as a novel starting point for developing more effective therapeutics.” Outside of providing an explanation for fibromyalgia pain, the authors suggest this mechanism could also relate to other symptoms commonly associated with the condition: In human and nonhuman primates, the [hair-free skin found on the hands and feet] plays a major role in thermoregulation and the maintenance of core body temperature as well as the apportionment of blood to other organs such as skeletal muscle during periods of high metabolic demand. Therefore, [an excess of nerves near arteriole venule shunts in the hair free skin on the hands of fibromyalgia] patients may contribute to extreme tenderness and pain in the hands, but may also contribute to the chronic widespread deep pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive dysfunction associated with [fibromyalgia]. While the study is real, it was limited in its scope due to its low sample size. Further, it does not appear to have shifted the debate away from hypotheses that revolve primarily around central sensitization, despite claims that the mystery had been “solved”. A 2015 review on the condition released by the Mayo Clinic describes the state of the field: Earlier there was some doubt about whether there was an “organic basis” for these related conditions, but today there is irrefutable evidence from brain imaging and other techniques that this condition has strong biological underpinnings, even though psychological, social, and behavioral factors clearly play prominent roles in some patients. The pathophysiological hallmark is a sensitized or hyperactive central nervous system that leads to an increased volume control or gain on pain and sensory processing. While the study is real and their specific results are not in question, it was neither new as of 2017, nor did it substantively change the debate on the cause of fibromyalgia, much less “solve the mystery”.
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BP boss Looney sets out to 'reinvent' oil giant with zero carbon goal.
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BP set one of the oil sector’s most ambitious targets for curbing carbon emissions on Wednesday as new chief executive Bernard Looney began the biggest revamp in its 111-year history.
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true
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Environment
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While investor groups welcomed the 2050 targets set out by Looney, which put BP ahead of rivals Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Total (TOTF.PA), Equinor (EQNR.OL) and all of the U.S. oil majors, environmental campaigners criticized a lack of detail. “We have got to change and change profoundly because the world is changing fast and so are society’s expectations of us,” Looney said in his first major speech as CEO, after earlier highlighting a need to “reinvent BP”. “It is aiming to reduce and neutralize the carbon in the oil and gas that we dig out of the ground,” Looney added. BP did not say how it intends to get emissions from its operations and barrels produced to net zero and halve the intensity of emissions by all products it sells, including diesel and petrol, a measure known as Scope 3. The company has tried, and failed, to reinvent itself before, with a pioneering plan to build a large renewables business in the early 2000s which ended with huge losses. One possible way to hit greenhouse gas reduction targets is to buy offset certificates and bet on carbon capture and storage technology, which is not yet used on a commercial scale. But Charlie Kronick, Oil Advisor from Greenpeace UK, was skeptical about how BP can deliver. “How will they reach net zero ... When will they stop wasting billions on drilling for new oil and gas we can’t burn?” Shares in BP were up 1.3% at 1423 GMT, roughly in line with the broader European energy sector index .SXEP after the news, which confirmed a Reuters report in January. The world’s top oil and gas companies are under heavy pressure from investors and climate activists to meet the 2015 Paris climate goal of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. U.S. groups such as Exxon (XOM.N), Chevron (CVX.N) and ConocoPhillips (COP.N) are far less ambitious with their greenhouse gas reduction targets than their European rivals. Stephanie Pfeifer, a member of the global Climate Action 100+ Steering Committee and CEO of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change welcomed BP’s plan. “Building on the positive engagement with BP ... investors will continue to look for progress from the company in addressing climate change. This includes how it will invest more in non-oil and gas businesses,” she said in a statement. BP’s absolute net zero carbon target relates to every barrel it produces, based on its equity stake in oil and gas fields, from the well to the petrol station. It does not encompass oil products which BP markets, but does not produce itself. BP, which produced around 2.64 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2019, said it would cut emissions to net zero from some 415 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. Near term plans will be published by a September investor day, Looney said, adding BP is likely to produce fewer barrels by 2050. “We welcome BP’s recognition of the reality we now live in but 2050 is too late,” a spokeswoman for climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion said. (Graphic: Oil majors' carbon emissions png - here) Anglo-Dutch group Shell has set Scope 3 targets based on intensity rather than on absolute reduction terms. Intensity-based targets measure the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of energy or barrel of oil and gas produced. That means that absolute emissions can rise with growing production, even if the headline intensity metric falls. Scope 3 emissions vastly exceed greenhouse gases caused by the production of crude oil, natural gas and refined products, including electricity generation, typically by a factor of about six among oil majors, according to Reuters calculations. BP will also set “new expectations” for relationships with trade organisations and be ready to quit if they are not aligned. Last year, BP invested around $500 million in low-carbon technologies including wind power, electric vehicle battery charging systems and solar power firm Lightsource BP. That compared to an overall budget of $15.2 billion in 2019. In perhaps its biggest-ever corporate shake-up, BP will dismantle the traditional model of an oil and gas production, or upstream, unit and a refining, trading and marketing, or downstream, unit to “become more integrated and more focused”. A new production and operations unit, which includes oil and gas production as well as refining and chemicals, will be led by Gordon Birrell. Meanwhile, customers and products will be led by Emma Delaney, gas and low carbon energy by Dev Sanyal and innovation and engineering by David Eyton. (Graphic: Going green? png - here)
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Trump warns Americans of a tough two weeks ahead in coronavirus fight.
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President Donald Trump warned Americans on Tuesday of a “painful” two weeks ahead in fighting the coronavirus, with a mounting U.S. death toll that could stretch into the hundreds of thousands even with strict social distancing measures.
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true
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Health News
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In perhaps his most somber news conference to date about the pandemic, Trump, who has faced criticism for playing down the threat of the outbreak in its initial phases, urged the population to heed guidance to limit groups to no more than 10 people, work from home and not dine in restaurants or bars. “It’s absolutely critical for the American people to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. It’s a matter of life and death,” Trump said. White House coronavirus coordinator Deborah Birx displayed charts demonstrating data and modeling that showed an enormous jump in deaths to a range of 100,000 to 240,000 people from the virus in the coming months. That figure was predicated on Americans following mitigation efforts. One of Birx’s charts showed as many as 2.2 million people were projected to die without such measures, a statistic that prompted Trump to ditch a plan he articulated last week to get the U.S. economy moving again by Easter on April 12. The president said the next two weeks would be “very, very painful.” The modeling showed the number of deaths across the nation would escalate and peak roughly around mid-April. “We want Americans to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead,” Trump said, predicting light at the end of the tunnel after that. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who said previously that the pandemic could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 people in the United States, said all efforts were being made to make those numbers lower. “We’re doing everything we can,” he said. The federal guidelines, which now are in place through the end of April, include admonitions to avoid discretionary travel, not visit nursing homes, and practice good hygiene. “There’s no magic bullet. There’s no magic vaccine or therapy. It’s just behaviors: Each of our behaviors translating into something that changes the course of this viral pandemic over the next 30 days,” Birx said. Vice President Mike Pence said the mitigation efforts were having an impact. “We have reason to believe that it’s working,” Pence said of the guidelines. “Do not be discouraged.” Trump said he planned to remain at the White House for the most part over the next 30 days. He added the White House was looking at a possible travel ban for Brazil. After the White House earlier discouraged Americans from wearing masks if they were not sick, the president encouraged the practice on Tuesday, but said people should use scarves so as not to divert supplies from healthcare professionals.
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37498
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H.R. 5717 would require that gun owners obtain federal licenses for both new gun purchases and their existing firearms.
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Does H.R. 5717 Require That Gun Owners Be Licensed by the Government?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Politics
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A graphic spreading online opposing a gun safety bill misconstrues its origin in an effort to paint it as an attempt at government overreach capitalizing on the COVID-19 pandemic.The meme, which contains a strange spacing gap resembling a copy-and-paste effort, states:House Bill H.R 5717 will add 30% tax on all guns and a 50% tax on all ammo and will require a fed license to purchase both, this is trying to pushed thru [sic] immediately!! Pass this on and vote NO!! Also it says you would need this federal license to own handle or shoot any guns you all ready [sic] own !! !Please pass this on to everyone you know, sneaky sneaky they are ! !The claim that the bill is “sneaky” or that it was introduced as a response to COVID-19 is unproven. Democratic Party Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia released a statement touting his introduction of the bill on January 30 2020; the Senate version was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, nine days after the first U.S. case of the disease was confirmed in the state of Washington and the same day the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic.“The Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act will save lives and make our country safer — without infringing on any law-abiding individual’s right to own firearms,” Johnson said at the time:This comprehensive bill is a compilation of the best ideas to create a workable set of laws that will strengthen life-saving background checks, protect communities with bolstered enforcement, improve mental health services and fuel research to make guns safer. It is time for Congress come together and end the epidemic of gun violence in this country once and for all.The validity of the various haphazardly-spelled claims made in the graphic is mixed. The bill would, for instance, implement federal licensing requirements for buying or owning new firearms; to obtain a license the firearm owner would need to be at least 21 years old and much like motorists, complete both hands-on testing and a written examination while also going through a criminal background check.However, the bill also states that residents in states with licensing requirements “substantially similar” to those at the federal level would not need to submit separate applications. Existing firearm and ammunition owners would also be exempt from having to apply for a license to own their weapons under the bill, provided that they “lawfully possessed” them beforehand.The measure does establish a 30 percent excise tax and a 50 percent excise tax on firearms and ammunition, respectively, similar to taxes imposed on tobacco and alcohol. According to the bill, the funds raised by the tax increase would fund both more federal research into gun-related violence and a newly-created program, the Community Violence Intervention Fund, that would work to prevent such incidents.On March 10 2020, the bill was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.
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1782
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Allowing blood donations from gay men could help save over a million lives - U.S. study.
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(This story from Sept. 19 has been refiled to correct stated position of medical groups in paragraph 6)
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true
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Health News
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Lifting a ban on blood donations from gay men would increase the amount of available blood by hundreds of thousands of pints (liters) each year and save more than a million lives a year, a California study showed on Friday. The U.S. Federal Drug Administration has banned gay men from donating blood since 1983, when it was discovered that HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was being transmitted through transfusions. Eliminating the ban could bring in roughly 615,300 pints (291,145 liters) of blood annually, while allowing donations from gay men who had not had a sexual partner in a year could yield 317,000 pints (150,000 liters), the study estimated. With a five-year policy, nearly 300,000 pints (142,000 liters) could be collected, according to the study by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The American Red Cross suggests that each blood donation has the potential to be used in life-saving procedures on three individuals,” said study co-author Ayako Miyashita. “Our estimates suggest that lifting the blood donation ban ... could be used to help save the lives of more than 1.8 million people.” The American Medical Association, the American Red Cross and AABB, formerly the American Association of Blood Banks, said in a statement this summer that the lifetime ban on blood donations for men who have had sex with other men should be modified. HIV has targeted a disproportionate number of gay men since the 1970s, with 72 percent of new HIV infections in 2010 affecting gay and bisexual male youth. The United Kingdom allows gay men to donate blood if they have not had a sexual partner in 12 months. In Canada, the cut-off is five years. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency was continuing to re-evaluate policies but does not plan to lift the ban until scientific evidence can show that won’t increase the risk of infection for patients receiving blood transfusions. “We applaud the critical contributions made by blood donors and we are sensitive to the concerns of potential donors and other individuals affected by current blood safety policies,” said the spokeswoman, Jennifer Rodriguez. The study analyzed data collected in 2008, 2010 and 2012 through the General Social Survey, a national poll conducted by University of Chicago researchers, with a sampling error of plus or minus one percent. It also relied on data from the American Red Cross.
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2519
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Tabata metes out fitness in short, repeated flashes.
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For people who are too bored or busy to spend an hour on a treadmill an exercise regime that was developed for athletes but is being taught in gyms may help to build fitness in less time.
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true
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Health News
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The Tabata Protocol is a four-minute regime that measures fitness in seconds - 20 seconds of full-out work followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated eight times. Although it can boost fitness levels of the healthy and time-pressed, experts say it is not for everybody and should not be done every day. “Tabata is about all-out maximum effort,” said Jessica Smith, a Miami-based fitness expert and Tabata coach, adding it is a good workout in a shorter amount of time, especially for people who don’t have hours to spend at the gym. “The intensity has to be high to get the benefits, but you don’t want to do it too often.” The Tabata Protocol was developed by Dr. Izumi Tabata after the Japanese scientist conducted tests on two groups of athletes, comparing moderate intensity training with high intensity interval training (HIIT). He found that short bursts of highly intense exercise were at least as effective as hours of steady moderate training. While Tabata falls under HIIT, its preset work-to-rest ratio is more specific, and usually more demanding, than other interval workouts, which can encompass anything from boot camps to circuits. “HIIT has more leeway,” said Smith. “The intervals can be longer.” The Tabata Protocol can be followed with kettlebells or on treadmills. Rachel Buschert, who leads a Tabata group fitness class at an Equinox gym in New York, follows the protocol as closely as she can in a group fitness setting. “The idea is to tax your body in 20 seconds,” she explained. The high intensity work, which often consists of push-ups, squat thrusts and jumps, fills about 20 minutes of the 45-minute class. The rest is recovery, warm up and cool down. For general fitness, a Tabata class twice a week is recommended, but should not be done on consecutive days. Buschert recommends people who try Tabata start from a base of aerobic fitness. “If you can’t do one push-up, how can you do 20?” she said. “This is for that person who wants to up the ante.” Mark P. Kelly, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, said HIIT has been proven effective in improving athletic performance and enhancing weight loss. “During high-intensity intervals the heart rate goes really high and remains high even during the rest periods,” he said. “Various hormones kick in that build muscles and burn fat.” HIIT also pushes the anaerobic threshold, the level of exercise intensity at which lactic acid builds up in the body faster than it can be cleared away, to enable the exerciser to perform at even higher intensity. Kelly said the Tabata Protocol, while effective, is definitely not for the beginner, but for the experienced and even advanced exerciser. Dizziness and shortness of breath are two quick indicators that people overdoing it. Kelly advocates a well-rounded program, especially for the non-athlete. “Harder or more is only better up to a point,” he explained. “Do other things. Maintain flexibility, maintain good joint mobility. Do resistance to strengthen muscles. Do longer aerobics. Build your aerobic base first.”
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Review of evidence finds e-cigarettes may help smokers quit.
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Evidence suggests e-cigarettes help smokers quit, but more research is needed to confirm this and find out if “vaping” nicotine is better than using patches or gum, scientists said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
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In an international review of available evidence, researchers found a paucity of robust scientific studies on e-cigarettes and their capacity to help people stop smoking, but said data so far pointed at likely benefits. “Although our confidence in the effects of electronic cigarettes as smoking cessation interventions is limited because of the small number of trials, the results are encouraging,” said Peter Hajek, a professor of clinical psychology and a member of the research team at the Cochrane Review, a respected research network that determines relative effectiveness of different health interventions. The uptake of e-cigarettes, which use battery-powered cartridges to produce a nicotine-laced vapor, has rocketed in the past two years, but there is fierce debate about them. Because they are relatively new, there is a lack of long-term scientific evidence on their safety. Some experts fear they could be a gateway to tobacco smoking, while others say they have enormous potential to help millions of smokers around the world kick their deadly habit. The Cochrane Review’s study, a so-called meta-analysis, drew on two randomized trials covering 662 smokers, and also considered evidence from 11 observational studies, to examine the effects of e-cigarettes on quit rates and on helping people cut down their cigarette smoking by at least half. It also looked at side effects reported by e-cigarette users and found no evidence of serious problems. The results showed about 9 percent of smokers who used e-cigarettes were able to stop smoking at up to one year, compared with around 4 percent who used placebo e-cigarettes. Data on reducing smoking in people who did not quit showed that 36 percent of e-cigarette users halved the number of conventional cigarettes they smoked, compared with 28 percent of placebo users. Only one of the trials compared e-cigarettes’ quit success rate with patches, and this suggested they were about equal. Robert West, director of tobacco research at University College London, said in an emailed comment that the findings suggested e-cigarettes could be a valuable public health tool. “It’s early days but so far it seems that these devices are already helping tens of thousands of smokers to stop each year.”
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Video captures a woman who thwarted and subdued an armed man attempting to rob attendees of a Mother's Day event.
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A compelling video captured an off-duty female Brazilian police officer shooting and subduing an armed robber.
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true
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Fauxtography
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In mid-May 2018, many social media users encountered a video seemingly showing a female onlooker shooting, disarming, and subduing a man who had pulled out a gun and threatened a group of women and children waiting outside the entry to a building: VIDEO: The 2nd Amendment hard at work defending Americans Although some viewers believed the video encounter to be staged, it captured a real event — albeit one that took place in Brazil (not the U.S.) and featured a protagonist who was an off-duty veteran police officer (not a coincidentally armed civilian bystander). According to the Brazilian daily newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, the events seen in the video unfolded as follows: A military police officer accompanied by her seven-year-old daughter reacted to a robbery in front of a school in the Jardim dos Ipês neighborhood in Suzano on Saturday morning [May 12], killing the assailant. Katia del Silva Sastre, 42, was off-duty when she fired three times at the thief, identified as Elivelton Neves Moreira, 21. Moreira fell to the ground and was then disarmed. He was taken to the hospital, where he died. The incident occurred around 8:00 AM. Mothers and small children were waiting outside the gates of a private school for a Mother’s Day party when they were approached by a young man armed with a .38 caliber revolver who announced his intention to rob them. The police officer pulled out her pistol and shot the robber in the chest and leg. The suspect fell backwards onto the street, dropping his weapon in the process. The officer walked over to him, turned him face down, and subdued him until the arrival of medical and police assistance. According to the officer’s husband, Lieutentant Andre Alves, the suspect got off one shot, but it is not known whether he fired before or after Katia shot him. “The first shot richoted off something. On his second attempt to fire, his weapon jammed. Thankfully [Katia] was faster than he was, because when a thug discovers he’s being confronted by a police officer, he shoots to kill,” Alves said. Alves said that Katia has been with the police force for 20 years. “In our profession we must always be alert. I was recently shot in the arm while on duty,” Alves said. According to Alves, Katia is doing well. “She is calm, knowing that she acted correctly. Everything ended fine. It would have been a greater risk if the suspect had found out she was a cop first,” he said. Similarly, Globo.com reported that: A military off duty police officer, who had gone to a Mother’s Day celebration at the school where her daughter is studying in Suzano, shot a suspect in front of the unit. According to the Military Police, the 21-year-old suspect was carrying a .38 caliber revolver and had already approached other mothers awaiting the opening of the gate, as well as having searched the school’s security to see if they were armed. According to the MP, the police officer observed the man’s actions and heard a woman saying it was robbery. At this point, the police officer moved away, pulled out the gun and fired three times at the suspect. Police also said that the suspect, who had already fired a shot that did not hit anyone, made a second attempt to fire, which failed. That was when the police officer approached the suspect. The suspect was taken to Santa Casa de Suzano but was unable to withstand his injuries and died. The police officer is from the 4th Battalion of Special Police Actions, East Zone of the capital. The case was referred to the Suzano Central Police District Parts of Brazil, such as São Paulo (where this incident took place), are known for high rates of crime, including armed street robberies: Crime continues to be the principal threat to visitors to São Paulo; armed street robberies are common. Current statistics indicate that crime has not decreased since the last presidential elections in 2014. In fact, crime levels remain high and continue to rise in many areas in the state of São Paulo. Crimes and related violence can be attributed to street gangs and organized crime groups throughout the state. São Paulo continues to experience violent crimes (murder, rape, kidnappings, armed assaults, burglaries). In São Paulo, robbery, assault, burglary, and theft are concerns for foreigners and Brazilians alike. Criminals are determined and sophisticated. All neighborhoods in the city of São Paulo are susceptible to crime. There are daily reports of armed robberies that occur regularly in the affluent residential sections of Jardims, Morumbi, Campo Belo, and Moema, where government and business leaders and a majority of the U.S. Consulate employees reside. Public transportation hubs, hotel sectors, and tourist areas have the highest crime rates. Laptop computers are the number-one target of thieves and criminals in São Paulo. Travelers should seek to use alternative and more concealable means of transporting information (thumb drives, CD/DVD ROMs). If laptops are brought to São Paulo, they should be stored discretely in luggage and/or placed in the trunk of a vehicle. Comprehensive crime statistics are published by the Secretary of Public Security. Street crime is a problem, especially in the evenings and late at night. Caution is required when travelling at night through rural areas and satellite cities due to the significant potential for roadside robberies. Motorcycle-borne robberies are prevalent throughout São Paulo. In such instances, one to two criminals on motorcycle identify an isolated victim, pull alongside his/her, present a firearm, and steal belongings (cellphone), and evade the area.
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Rural schools enroll 40 percent of American children, but receive only 22 percent of federal education funding.
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In ‘Billions’, a U.S. television show set in the world of hedge funds, traders at the fictional Axe Capital regularly attend sessions with an in-house psychiatrist.
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false
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National, Education, John Edwards,
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In real life, finance professionals are rarely so open about seeking psychological help. On Wall Street and in the City of London, hyperambition and an ‘always on’ attitude are richly rewarded and people are often wary of revealing something that could be perceived as a weakness. Two out of three people working in financial services have experienced mental health issues as a result of work or where work was a related factor, according to a 2018 survey, broadly in line with the wider workforce. The Mental Health at Work poll questioned over 4,600 British employees from a range of industries. Many don’t tell their bosses for fear of damaging their careers. “Stigma definitely still exists,” said Beth Robotham, an executive director at Goldman Sachs in London. “Legislation is supposed to protect people from that kind of discrimination and employers are trying much, much harder but it would be naïve of me to say that that wasn’t an issue any more.” Robotham experienced anxiety attacks when she was in charge of recruiting bankers focused on the healthcare sector for Goldman in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in 2010. It took her months to tell her managers and seek help. “I just assumed that people like me must just fall out of ‘the system’, and therefore I should just keep quiet or else I will be pushed out,” she said. Robotham, deputy chair of the City Mental Health Alliance, which promotes good mental health among London’s financial workforce, is one of a growing group of executives choosing to speak publicly about their problems to reassure others they are not alone. People can experience anxiety, depression and other mental health issues regardless of their job. But punishing schedules can pile on extra pressure. All-nighters and 100-hour work weeks are not unusual in investment banking, particularly when working on deals or public offerings of debt or equity. Some 44 percent of banking employees said they felt under excessive pressure to perform in their work, according to a survey of over 70,000 people carried out by Britain’s Banking Standards Board last year. A quarter said that working at their firm was bad for their health. In recent years, banks have tried to lighten workloads, relax dress codes and give staff more time to focus on life outside the office to retain talent and avoid costly burnout. But bankers with mental health problems, especially those still early in their careers, are often reluctant to flag them in case their bosses think they can’t hack the pace. Matt Evans, global head of investment bank recruiting and head of firmwide recruiting for EMEA at JPMorgan, said he spent nearly 20 years concealing his struggle with depression until the bank’s ‘This Is Me’ campaign in 2017 prompted him to share his experiences. “There’s been no downside for me in telling my story. The support I’ve had has been significant,” he said. “I got promoted to MD after disclosing my condition.” Evans was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder and took three months off last year. He was phased back into work in December and says he is “100 percent convinced” the break will have no impact on his professional prospects. But not everyone shares his confidence around attitudes to mental health. While it is illegal for employers to discriminate against people for having mental health problems, more than half of 2,000 UK workers surveyed by health-tech firm Mynurva feared telling their manager would hinder their chances of promotion, while 57% believed disclosure would harm relationships with colleagues. Mynurva, which provides online counseling, also reported a surge in demand from financial executives who are bypassing their employers’ services because they fear the consequences. “The findings show the fear and embarrassment employees have when disclosing their condition to their employer. And it explains why professionals would rather suffer in silence than seek the necessary help,” said Dr Zain Sikafi, CEO of Mynurva. One in four people will be affected by mental or neurological disorders at some point in their lives and the annual cost to the global economy is estimated at $1 trillion in lost productivity, according to the World Health Organization. Brian Heyworth, global head of client strategy at HSBC and chairman of the City Mental Health Alliance, wants his bank and others to help employees before they become seriously ill. “In an organization of 235,000 people, some will be having suicidal thoughts but many more will be sliding along the spectrum towards that point. We want to anticipate and prevent that,” he said. HSBC is considering hiring on-site counselors as part of its ‘Healthiest Human System’ initiative, the brainchild of CEO John Flint. JPMorgan’s first UK-based on-site counselor is due to start work at the bank’s offices in London’s Canary Wharf this summer. The bank already has full-time counselors in nine U.S. locations, including New York, Delaware, Chicago and Texas and also offers a Resilience App providing stress management tips. Goldman Sachs is planning to train dozens of UK staff as mental health first aiders so that they can spot signs that colleagues may be starting to spiral due to stress or anxiety — including changes in appearance, working habits or social patterns, Robotham said. Goldman has also launched a paid internship program in the United States for people who identify as ‘neurodiverse’. Neurodiversity covers a wide range of neurological differences including autism, dyslexia, developmental disorders and mental health conditions. As the public profile of mental health grows, employers in Britain who fail to show adequate mental wellbeing provision for staff could be sued under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations Act 1999, which compels employers to assess the nature and scale of health risks at work, including stress. “The harm and detriment to an employer stemming from these kinds of issues are not solely financial, they can inflict greater damage to reputation, public image, productivity and retention,” said Matthew Cole, partner at law firm Prettys. Cole said he had not seen any significant rise in the number of staff seeking damages from employers due to stress-related conditions but said companies were very sensitive to the risk. “If an employee ends up with a psychiatric condition which prevents them from working in an environment where they might have otherwise earned six figures, that can amount to some significant liabilities.” Prevention is much cheaper. Britain’s Mental Health Foundation estimates that mental health support in the workplace could save UK businesses up to 8 billion pounds a year. The charity puts the cost of providing information and advice on mental health online and via workshops at around 80 pounds per employee per year. Heyworth has grappled with anxiety and depression since childhood and was hired by HSBC after a period of leave from Bank of America. He knows that he is one of the lucky ones, both banks knew of his mental health problems and were supportive. “Make no mistake, we are still in the foothills on this journey,” he said. “The positive thing is that more people are now asking for help, but we also need to accept that there are probably more people who need help too. The next phase of the challenge is creating the conditions where we can reverse that trend.”
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Two-year, EU-funded Study Reveals a Medical Food in the Form of a Daily Nutritional Drink Can Help to Conserve Memory, the Ability to Think and Perform Everyday Tasks, as well as Reduce Brain Shrinkage in People with Very Early Alzheimer's Disease (AD)[1] (Pre-dementia)
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People have been waiting for three years to learn more about a yogurt-based drink that showed some positive results in a memory-loss study by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. Coverage of that study mentioned prominently that the nutritional drink was made by Dannon, the yogurt company. Something that tastes good and also helps you remember where you put your keys? What’s not to like? But this update to that study received a bewilderingly opaque treatment in this news release. We have to wonder why the release avoided spelling out cost, benefits, risks, and the overall contours of the study. There is a lot of space spent on the organizations involved in the study and far too little on what they actually did and, most importantly, found. The release notes that the research was presented as a “late-breaking presentation” at an international medical meeting but offered no easy way to access the research. The release directs us to the LipiDiDiet website for more information on the study, but there we are told: “15 October 2015 We are pleased to note that there is considerable interest in the LipiDiDiet clinical trial. Data from the LipiDiDiet clinical trial are currently being analysed. We will make the results public through various channels, including through this website.” When clicking on promising headlines that looked like they might take us to actual studies, we’re told to click on another news release. Finding a treatment for Alzheimer’s dementia, in its many stages, has proven to be a frustrating exercise with no clear options at the moment. That is what makes the potential for a nutritional approach that might delay or reduce the disease effects so appealing. It is that appeal that makes reporting on results of studies critically important. This particular release is important as the makers of the product are knocking at America’s door. If the product is dubbed a “medical food” as opposed to a supplement, the FDA may regulate it and require it be available by prescription only.
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false
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Alzheimer's disease,Independent research center news release,industry/commercial news releases
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Presumably, the aim here is to make an over-the-counter nutritional drink along the lines of Ensure for people to take as they age to stave off memory loss. If that’s the case, the release should explain what something like this costs to make and what it might cost on the shelf. We had to read the release three times to make sure, but, rest assured, there are no useful numbers about the benefits found in this study. Let’s be clear, the study did not meet its expected primary outcome related to cognitive function and only three of the host of secondary outcomes. So, from the purely scientific approach, Fortasyn Connect did not demonstrate a predefined clinical effect. The Australian not-for-profit, NPS Medicine Wise group concluded in a 2014 report that Fortasyn failed to demonstrate a significant effect in cognitive decline based on three previously published studies. We don’t know the possible risks associated with drinking an amalgam of different food products. And this release provides no insights. Previous studies have suggested that the nutritional product is well tolerated and did not appear to cause any harms. That being said, we think that this should have been noted in the report. The presentation of evidence seems particularly weak in this release. The release begins with a number of secondary outcomes and doesn’t note that the primary endpoint was negative until the third paragraph. That’s spin — and an attempt to distract from the most relevant findings and highlight less important ones that happened to be positive. And even when the release does get around to acknowledging this, it speculates that the main reason the drink didn’t work is because “Cognitive decline over the study period was less than originally expected.” Well, maybe, but then again maybe the effect of the drink was less than expected and that’s why it didn’t work. Presenting the results at a medical conference and sending a news release (but not providing access to the study so research peers and journalists can review and accurately report on it) does not instill a lot of confidence in the findings. The news release liberally applies hype on a narrowly focused area called “early dementia” and focuses on the purported benefits of this drink for this phase of mental disorder. It is important to note that not all people with mild cognitive impairment (what the release calls early dementia) go on to develop full blown symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The release focuses on the involvement of the European Commission, but it omits the involvement of Dannon, the massive food company, which holds the patent on the nutritional drink being studied. While the release makes it clear — and accurately so — that there are no pharmaceutical treatments for dementia, it also states “We have known for a while that diet can reduce the risk of developing dementia.” We disagree. No diet has ever been shown to reduce the risk of dementia. The best we’ve got are epidemiological studies that show an association between diet and dementia risk. That’s not the same as reducing risk. The release also says that “single nutrients simply aren’t powerful enough to fight a disease like Alzheimer’s alone.” That’s a gross oversimplification that could lead people to think that more is better when it comes to vitamins and dementia. The release doesn’t state whether the product is available in the United States. It is not. However, the product is marketed widely in Europe under the brand name Souvenaid. The release claims novelty with this statement: “This is the first time a randomised, double-blind, clinical trial has shown that a nutritional intervention can help to conserve the ability of patients with very early AD (pre-dementia) to carry out everyday tasks, such as paying bills, or finding your way around, as measured by the Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes (CDR-SB) – a combined measure for the ability to think and perform everyday tasks.” While a nutrition drink to improve memory in people with early Alzheimer’s disease would certainly be a novel addition to the treatment tool chest, we think the novelty boat already sailed three years ago when there was significant coverage of the three previous double-blind studies. The release includes some statements that raise a red flag when we see them and the evidence provided in the release doesn’t support them. Some examples: “This is exciting because it shows that in the absence of effective drug options, we really have found something that can help slow down some of the most distressing symptoms in very early AD (pre-dementia); especially in those who started the intervention early. Indeed those patients who have lost the least cognitive function, have the most to gain.” “The LipiDiDiet study illustrates that this nutritional intervention can help to conserve brain tissue and also memory and patients’ ability to perform everyday tasks – possibly the most troubling aspects of the disease.” The evidence presented doesn’t demonstrate that the nutrition drink “can help slow down” early Alzheimer’s memory loss nor that it “can help to conserve brain tissue.” But while this is a close call, we’ve already come down hard on this release for similar issues and these statements arguably aren’t egregious enough to merit another ding here. So we’ll rule it Satisfactory with reservations.
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"New prohibitions on public drinking and cannabis use ""in every province of Canada"" were scheduled to come into force in July 2019."
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In reality, regulations on public drinking and smoking vary from province to province and city to city in Canada, in contrast to Canada-Eh.info’s false claim of a new nationwide crackdown on both behaviors — “new tougher laws in every province” — scheduled for implementation in July 2019. As such, the claim is false.
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false
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Junk News
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A blog with a pattern of publishing false and misleading stories about Canada claimed that a nationwide crackdown on public drinking and cannabis smoking was imminent in that country. In June 2019, Canada-Eh.info published a post with the headline, “Canadians Can Be Fined $1,500 for Drinking or Smoking Weed in Public, Starting Next Month,” which reported that: “Mayors are considering to bring [sic] this [sic] new tougher laws in every province of Canada, you will no longer will be able to consume alcohol or smoke weed responsibly in parks or on beaches. Fines vary from province to province, but they can be up to $1,000 in in provinces like British Columbia and Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador.” The report continued on to say: “If you get caught with open alcohol in Toronto right now, you could face a fine of up to $125 and a whopping $230 in Vancouver. Tougher rules are coming for most people who like to consume alcohol or weed in public. Starting next month if you are caught drinking beer or smook [sic] weed in public, the police will pour out your alcohol and make you pay a fine $1,500.” As has been the case with previous Canada-Eh stories we have examined, the claims here were at times ambiguous and confusing. More broadly, the narrative of an imminent nationwide crackdown on public drinking and smoking in July 2019 — “new tougher laws in every province of Canada” — was false. As was the case with previous stories, Canada-Eh republished an almost-identical version of the post just two days later, on 12 June. Canada has no uniform nationwide policy on public alcohol consumption or cannabis use. Policies are determined by provincial governments or municipal authorities in individual cities and towns throughout the country. Most cities and provinces have historically prohibited public drinking (which belies the article’s claim about a new crackdown on such behavior), but Canada’s legalization of cannabis in 2018 prompted some governments to rethink their approach to drinking in public places, as the Canadian Press reported: As all corners of the country prepare for a seismic shift in how and where people consume marijuana, several cities are considering whether it would make sense to legalize drinking alcohol in parks as well — a move an expert said would bring antiquated laws in line with the way people already behave. “I think a lot of people who want to have a bottle of wine in a public park on a Sunday are probably going to be doing that anyway,” said Mitchell Kosny, interim director of Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning. The idea of legalizing alcohol in parks and on beaches has come up in Toronto and Vancouver, both of which are in the midst of municipal elections and both of which are in provinces that will allow people to toke in public come Oct. 17. Kosny said he suspects the idea is floating around now because election candidates and front runners may want to appear “open-minded.” Toronto Mayor John Tory floated the idea at an event Thursday, pointing out that it would seem counterintuitive to allow people to smoke pot in parks but not drink a beer — especially since people are already bringing wine and beer to their picnics. In Ontario, for example, smoking or vaping in any workplace or enclosed public place is prohibited, with the punishment ranging from a $1,000 fine for the first offense to $5,000 for subsequent offenses. However, the ban doesn’t extend to smoking or vaping in open-air public spaces. While the province of Ontario had traditionally banned drinking alcohol in public, the government’s 2019 budget, launched in April 2019, introduced a new tailgating permit to allow public alcohol consumption at certain sporting events and introduced a measure that would allow cities within Ontario to designate public areas, such as parks, for alcohol consumption. By contrast, authorities in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, moved in 2018 to ban smoking on all public municipal properties such as roads and sidewalks, even in open air. As a further illustration of how complex the interaction of provincial and municipal authority in Canada is, Québec’s provincial government introduced legislation in February 2019 that would prohibit public cannabis use but later reportedly resiled from those plans after the mayor and police chief in Montréal declared the regulations would be unenforceable.
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A potential cure for metastatic prostate cancer? Treatment combination shows early promise
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Britain’s Greggs launched a vegan version of its popular steak bake on Thursday, aiming to capitalize on the success of the meatless sausage roll that has boosted the baker’s profits and helped fuel an 80% rise in its share price last year.
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false
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Elsevier Health Sciences
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Greggs said the new product mirrored the original but used meat substitute Quorn instead of steak in its filling. The launch, which was trailed on social media, comes a year after it introduced its vegan sausage roll, which it said was one of its fastest selling products of the last six years. Chief Executive Roger Whiteside said: “Our Vegan Sausage Roll launch was a huge success and we’ve been working tirelessly to expand our vegan friendly offering and provide more delicious savory food on-the-go options for people looking to reduce their meat intake.” A growing number of Britons are either reducing their consumption of meat or are cutting it out of their diets altogether. Sales of red meat in Britain fell by 185 million pounds ($244 million) last year, although sales of poultry and fish increased slightly, according to The Grocer, which cited research by Nielsen. Retailers and supermarkets are responding to the trend by introducing more vegan and vegetarian ranges and menu options. Greggs said its vegan steak bake will cost from 1.55 pounds ($2.05), initially across 1,300 shops from Thursday and a further 700 on Jan. 16. The company will update on Christmas trading on Jan. 8.
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1320
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Scientists devise new, more accurate peanut allergy test.
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British scientists have developed a far more accurate blood test to diagnose peanut allergy, offering a better way to monitor a significant food hazard.
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true
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Health News
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Peanuts are the most common cause of fatal food-induced anaphylaxis, or severe allergic reaction, and allergy cases among children have risen sharply in recent years. Britain’s Food Standards Agency estimates up to one in 55 children have a peanut allergy. In contrast to existing skin-prick and other blood tests that produce a large number of false positive results, the new diagnostic has 98 percent specificity, researchers from the Medical Research Council (MARC) reported on Thursday. Current tests, in use for decades, are based on looking for antibodies - but they cannot differentiate between sensitivity and true food allergy. As a result, doctors often have to conduct a further round of testing in which patients are fed incrementally larger doses of peanut in a controlled hospital setting to confirm their allergy, a process that can itself trigger anaphylactic shock. So-called oral food challenges require the presence of an allergist and specialist nurses and they cost around 1,000 pounds ($1,360) to conduct. The new blood test is five times cheaper. Dr. Alexandra Santos, an MRC scientist and paediatric allergist at King’s College London, who led the research, believes the new test will not only save money on testing but also reduce by two-thirds the number of stressful oral food challenges that are needed. The development of the new test follows advances in science that allow the detection of biological signals from much small blood samples than in the past. “The technology has evolved. Now we have better ways to look at immune cells and to see how they respond,” Santos said. The new tests focuses on mast cells, which play a pivotal role in triggering allergic symptoms, such as skin reactions or constricting of the airways. In a study involving 174 children, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Santos and colleagues showed the new test tracked closely the severity of allergies, with the worst-affected patients having the most activated mast cells. The team is now discussing plans for the widespread roll-out of the test with an unnamed commercial partner. There are also plans to adapt it to other foods, such as milk, eggs, sesame and tree nuts. There are currently no approved drugs for peanut allergies, although two biotech companies - U.S.-based Aimmune Therapeutics and France’s DBV Technologies - are working to develop rival treatments. Santos said the new blood test could play a role in monitoring patients’ response to such medicines.
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Indonesia ferry passengers jump ship amid coronavirus fears.
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Several passengers on an Indonesian ferry jumped into the sea and swam ashore after authorities sought to block the vessel docking due to fears of suspected coronavirus cases, as tensions rise over the spread of the disease across the archipelago.
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true
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Health News
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The ferry travelling from via Indonesian Borneo and the island of Sulawesi was blocked when trying to make port in Maumere in the eastern island of Flores, amid fears three crew members on board had contracted the novel coronavirus. Passengers flung themselves into the sea in life vests and swam ashore as authorities debated whether the ship, the Lambelu, would be permitted to dock, an official said. “We ask for the passengers to cooperate with health protocols before disembarking from the ship and refrain from any actions that could be harmful,” Wisnu Handoko, an official at the transport ministry, said in a statement. Videos shared on social media showed medical workers in protective gear carrying out tests on board the Lambelu after it was allowed to dock, before passengers were moved into quarantine on land.The ferry was carrying 255 passengers, mostly migrant workers returning home from Malaysia, after the neighbouring country imposed a coronavirus lockdown. In a sign of growing anxiety about the spread of the coronavirus, residents in Maumere gathered at the port to protest the ship’s arrival on Tuesday. As of Wednesday, Indonesia had recorded 2,956 cases of the coronavirus and 240 deaths, with many of the cases in the capital Jakarta though a growing number in other provinces. There are fears in less developed parts of the country, including Flores where there are no confirmed cases, that people travelling from other cities could spread the disease to areas where healthcare facilities are ill-equipped. Tests conducted on passengers from the Lambelu on Tuesday evening were sent to a laboratory on Java island with passengers in quarantine expected to wait up to a week for the results. Weeks before Eid, the end of the Islamic fasting month when millions of Indonesians traditionally travel from cities to their hometowns and villages, the coronavirus outbreak has exposed tensions between central and regional governments, with some regional leaders seeking to impose lockdowns. President Joko Widodo has sought to limit transmission of the highly contagious COVID-19 respiratory disease through social-distancing but has resisted general lockdowns adopted in many countries.
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"John Kerry suggested that the media cover acts of terrorism less often, and perhaps people might not ""know what's going on."
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It is true that John Kerry said media coverage of terrorist acts might not be beneficial in efforts to reduce terrorism, and that he specifically said people “wouldn’t know [what was] going on.” But those two sentences are part of a larger speech in which Kerry warned wall-to-wall coverage of terror attacks “quickly feed the frenzy that can come with opposition and panic and hysteria,” exacerbating tensions between civilians and terror groups, and possibly inspiring subsequent terrorist acts.
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true
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Politics, dhaka, john kerry, misleading
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On 29 August 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared at a press conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh and made statements about terrorism that were widely criticized in the days after his appearance. Kerry spoke about terrorism, the media, and whether coverage of terror acts led to an increase in such events. In American news reports, Kerry’s remarks were truncated in segments in which pundits castigated his comments: Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on. The quote is accurate and unedited, but a full transcript of Kerry’s remarks (available on the U.S. State Department’s web site) offers a good deal more context: In Iraq, Daesh kills people because of who they are. It kills Yezidis because they are Yezidis. It kills Shia because they are Shia. It kills Christian[s] because they are Christian. It kills people because they aren’t who they are and who they want you and will force you to be. They attack culture. They attack history. And that is why I describe the fight against violent extremism as one of the world’s most important challenges. And it will take a generation or more to solve it, but let me tell you something: We are defeating Daesh and we will defeat Daesh. We will defeat al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, and we are on the road to achieving that now. But we have to continue. It’s not just the battlefield; it’s the minds. And if we have too many young people who can’t go to school, or too many young people who are frustrated, or they can’t find a job – if we leave those minds out there for extremists to recruit, then it will continue and none of us would be doing our jobs if we allowed that to happen. Remember this: No country is immune from terrorism. It’s easy to terrorize. Government and law enforcement have to be correct 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But if you decide one day you’re going to be a terrorist and you’re willing to kill yourself, you can go out and kill some people. You can make some noise. Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn’t cover it quite as much. People wouldn’t know what’s going on. (Applause.) The fact is we have to stand together, and the United States is standing with Bangladesh in this fight. (Applause.) Now, just as important, we understand that to defeat terrorists, we have to uphold, not betray, the democratic principles that we cherish and they abhor. There may be no single answer to the question of why somebody becomes a terrorist – there are a lot of reasons. But make no mistake, democracy still provides the most resilient and the most reliable platform that we have for preventing and responding to violent extremism. Why? Because when individuals can address their grievances, when you have an opportunity to come together and speak and not fear that you’re going to go to jail, when you have an ability to be able to talk and argue and fight over an issue, build consensus about facts – that’s the way that civil society is able to flourish: when people can freely participate in public debate and are less vulnerable to being subverted by lies, by distortions, by a fake presentation of a peaceful religion, Islam. So it’s important that people have a stake in building up their society, not being inspired to use violence to tear it down. Now some may argue that it’s more difficult to live up to the core values of democracy when countries face a genuine threat. And I understand that. But guess what? You can go in two directions. I believe that when a country faces those kinds of threats, it’s even more important to uphold the values of democracy. Because if you don’t, you will more quickly feed the frenzy that can come with opposition and panic and hysteria. Kerry took questions from local journalists, including one about whether government anti-terror actions were sufficient. In response to that question, Kerry cited the influence of media and social media on terrorist groups and lone wolf actors: … we made it very clear, as you have just said in your question, that there is evidence that ISIL in Iraq and Syria has contacts with about eight different entities around the world, and one of them is in South Asia. And they are connected to some degree with some of the operatives here, and we made that very clear in our conversation. There was no argument about it. I think when the minister says, “home grown,” it’s not a foreign fighter who’s coming in to do it, it’s somebody here who’s chosen to do it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t influenced by elsewhere – on the internet, social media, and so forth. Kerry again referenced Islamic State propaganda and its influence when answering a question about the role of Bangladesh in the global effort to stop terrorism: We have made significant progress. More and more now, I’m beginning to read the stories of how Daesh is feeling the pressure, people are escaping to get out and go back home or wherever. Now, that helps us solve the problem in Syria and Iraq, but it leaves us with a problem in these other countries where people go back to, or where the social media and propaganda of the group reaches out to. So our job is to fight on every front: on the financing front, the foreign fighter front, the communications front, the counter-messaging front, and particularly on the prevention front initially, so that education, jobs, fairness, transparency, accountability in society – all of those things are helping to give young people a sense of a possibility of a future, not a sense of futility and despair and frustration.
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21848
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Rep. Jim Renacci’s plan to end Medicare also puts nursing home care for 3,000 seniors in the district in immediate jeopardy.
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DCCC says Rep. Jim Renacci plan would jeopardize nursing home care
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false
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Ohio, Health Care, Medicaid, Medicare, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
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"The ""Path to Prosperity"" budget document that Republicans in the House of Representatives adopted in April has become a path to propaganda for Democrats who are using the proposals it contains in an effort to discredit its Republican supporters. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blitzed the media June 8 with news releases that claimed particular GOP congressmen who voted for the plan would jeopardize nursing home care for senior citizens in their district. One targeted freshman Rep. Jim Renacci from Ohio’s 16th Congressional District. ""Rep. Jim Renacci’s plan to end Medicare also puts nursing home care for 3,000 seniors in the district in immediate jeopardy,"" the news release said. It asserted the ""Republican-Renacci plan"" might force grandma ""to move out of the nursing home because families can no longer afford her long-term care."" This seemed like an odd claim to make about Renacci, an entrepreneur who built a personal fortune of more than $30 million through businesses that included a chain of nursing homes. PolitiFact Ohio decided to take a look. A popular soundbite has been to label the GOP plan as a plan to kill Medicare. This claim, though, also ties in nursing home care funded by Medicaid. Medicaid is the nation’s largest payer for nursing home care, bankrolling 64 percent of nursing home patients and 13 percent of assisted living residents, according to the American Health Care Association, a trade group for the nursing home industry. The Republican plan would convert the federal share of Medicaid into block grants. Republicans say that would maximize states’ flexibility to focus benefits on specific needs. Presently, the only option for states to reduce costs, they say, is across-the-board cuts in reimbursements to doctors, which leads to fewer doctors willing to see Medicaid patients. The GOP budget would initially give states the same allotment for Medicaid they get today, only in block grant form. The change would start in 2013. The amount would grow each year to account for inflation and population. However, Medicaid expenditures would not grow as much as they would under current law. In support of their claim, The DCCC referred us to a series of reports produced by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which aim to break down the district-by-district impact the GOP budget would have on Medicare and Medicaid. Democrats contend the GOP proposal, with its new flexibility for the states, would mean that states no longer have to abide by current federal requirements for the money’s use, thus jeopardizing nursing home care. The Medicaid report for Renacci's district says 3,000 constituents have nursing home care paid by Medicaid, a figure it got from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal spending for Medicaid under the House GOP plan would be 35 percent lower in 2022 and 49 percent lower in 2030 than it would be if the program was left alone. Its implementation would keep federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP - the Children’s Health Insurance Program - under 6 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, rather than having it rise to around 12 or 14 percent, as would be expected under current scenarios. This would make Medicaid funding more predictable from a federal perspective, but it would lead to greater uncertainty for states as to whether the federal contribution would be sufficient during periods of economic weakness. Federal payments for Medicaid under the proposal would also be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts, the CBO says, although states might be able to achieve greater efficiencies with the flexibility provided by the changes. Both AHCA and AARP fear that converting Medicaid to a block grant program would have negative effects on nursing home patients. An issue brief from the nursing home group says block grants ""threaten care for frail seniors and the disabled."" Whether nursing home care would continue to be paid for by Medicaid would be up to individual states if the program is converted to a block grant, AARP state government relations director JoAnn Lamphere said in an interview. ""If you recognize that the bulk of Medicaid spending goes to nursing homes, you would have to conclude that nursing homes would be severely impacted,"" Lamphere said. So where does that leave the DCCC’s claim on the Truth-O-Meter? There is an element of truth to the DCCC claim, but it also ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. The DCCC packs a lot of misinformation into a single sentence. On the Truth-O-Meter."
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4068
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Yakima County reports 18 hepatitis A cases.
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Yakima County has 18 confirmed cases of hepatitis A, a number authorities say will likely increase in the weeks and months ahead.
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true
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Health, General News, Yakima, Hepatitis, Homelessness
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The Yakima Herald-Republic reports all cases are all tied to people experiencing homelessness and those using illicit drugs. The Yakima Health District, in partnership with the Union Gospel Mission and Yakima Neighborhood Health Services, has vaccinated 129 people since the outbreak was reported in early November. Health officials also have been working with the Camp Hope homeless encampment and offering vaccines at clean needle exchanges. Health officials expect the number of cases will continue to increase. Because the incubation period for hepatitis A is 15 to 50 days, someone can be infected and not know they are spreading it, said Melissa Sixberry, director of disease control for the health district.
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29451
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Dozens of veterans' bodies were left to rot in a Chicago-area VA hospital's morgue.
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"What's true: A Chicago-area CBS affiliate reported that two unclaimed veterans' bodies may not have been buried in a timely fashion due to delays outside the VA's control. What's false: An image that appeared with some versions of the story dated to 2010, had nothing to do with VA hospitals or morgues, and misleadingly suggested that it proved numerous ""rotting"" veterans' bodies had been ""stacked"" in an overcrowded morgue."
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false
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Fauxtography, military, tribunist, veterans affairs
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On 30 September 2016, the official-looking Tribunist.com web site published an article reporting that a backlogged Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital morgue in Chicago had left the remains of deceased veterans scandalously “stacked to capacity at times”: The latest scandal to break paints another bleak picture. A whistle-blower at an Illinois VA hospital has leaked news that bodies of dead veterans have been left unclaimed in the morgue for up to two months … The level of decay was so pronounced that at least one of the bodies had liquefied. When the staff tried to remove it, the body-bag burst. Complaints were lodged with the VA’s inspector general last month about the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital’s handling of cadavers. In some cases, veterans’ families had not claimed the bodies. The complaint names Christopher Wirtjes, chief of Patient Administrative Services. “The Chief of PAS has the funds available,” the complaint reads, “yet has no sense of urgency to lay the veteran to rest.” … “Some veteran’s remains have been left in our hospital morgue for 45 days or more until they are stacked to capacity at times,” reads the complaint. Kirk has taken his concerns to VA Secretary Bob McDonald. Wirtjes has been under scrutiny before. The Office of Special Counsel found Wirtjes had devised a secret wait list that was exposed in 2014. The Tribunist site is not (as implied) tied to a major newspaper such as the Chicago Tribune, and the image appended to their article was an unrelated photograph from 2010 that had nothing to do with VA burial backlogs and misleadingly suggested that claims about dozens of rotting veterans’ corpses stacked on shelves awaiting burial or release in the Chicago VA morgue had been photographically documented: The claim wasn’t entirely fabricated, however. On 26 September 2016 WBBM-TV reported on allegations that the burial of two unclaimed bodies at a VA morgue in Chicago had been delayed: The Department of Veterans Affairs investigated the claims echoed by WBBM and the Tribunist and maintained that although some isolated veteran burial issues may have occurred in Chicago, “allegations related to consistent problems with dignified and timely burials [are] unsubstantiated”: Internal emails reveal at least two unclaimed vets sat inside the morgue for at least 30 days this summer, allowing the bodies to badly decompose. The VA said an investigation continues but signaled it has not uncovered any widespread problem. “We take whistleblower allegations very seriously and absolutely agree that all of our veterans deserve dignity and respect, in life and in death. While our investigation into this matter is still ongoing, we have found allegations related to consistent problems with dignified and timely burials to be unsubstantiated. However, we have taken this opportunity to review our policies and procedures and are currently working to improve them,” a spokesperson said. Claims about the VA morgue in Chicago so far remain localized and have to do with the burial of two veterans whose bodies were left unclaimed by relatives. We contacted the Department of Veterans Affairs, and a spokesperson told us that the morgue had a capacity of nine and currently held two decedents (neither of whom had been there for more than eight days): Honoring the men and women who nobly served our nation — in both life and death — is a solemn obligation the Department of Veterans Affairs takes seriously. Consequently, when allegations surfaced that some Veterans who succumbed to illness under the care of Edward Hines Jr VA Hospital may not have been buried in a timely manner, an immediate investigation was launched. While that investigation is ongoing, preliminary results reveal no evidence of lack of timely final care. Staff at Hines VA Hospital conducted a fact-finding investigation that shows over the last two years, the vast majority — more than 95 percent — of Veterans’ remains are being respectfully handled within seven days, and more than 99 percent within 30 days. Additionally, VA’s Office of Medical Inspector (OMI) spent significant time at the facility interviewing employees and reviewing related materials. And while we are awaiting OMI’s final report, we remain confident that our Veterans have been receiving dignified and timely burials. While rare, there have been exceptions in which decisions and requests by next of kin created delays. It is in this area where Hines has already begun improving its policies and procedures to determine when to declare a Veteran’s remains as unclaimed and how to ensure more timely burials for these exceptions. Once a final report from OMI is complete, the VA will take additional actions as appropriate.
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10016
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Narcolepsy Drug Eyed for Cocaine Users
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This story discusses modafinil (trade name Provigil) as a potential treatment for the withdrawal symptoms of cocaine addiction, such as fatigue, depression and lack of concentration. The drug may also blunt some of the desire for a cocaine “high”. While modafinil is listed as “legal”, the drug is not yet approved to treat cocaine addiction. Only small pilot studies have been conducted on the safety and effectiveness of the drug. Modafinil is currently only approved to treat narcolepsy and other sleep disorders. The story provides no information on the cost of taking this medication daily, and no estimate of how long someone experiencing cocaine withdrawal would need to take modafinil. Treatment of cocaine addiction with modafinil is listed as new, and large scale, randomized clinical trails of the drug for this use have yet to be conducted. While early studies of the drug seem promising, the story gives no evidence regarding the effectiveness of this drug over other treatments and no information about the potential side effects of taking this drug. The discussion of modafinil allowing former cocaine addicts to “think strategically” is an overstatement, as there is no evidence in the pilot study of improved decision making with modafinil. Insomnia is listed as a typical side effect of modafinil, but the story doesn’t describe how common this is in people who take the drug for withdrawal symptoms of cocaine dependence. In the pilot study mentioned, side effects were twice as common in the treatment group, and included nausea, anxiety, tachycardia, loss of appetite and urinary tract infection. Only 40 of 62 patients completed the 8-week study, though side effects are not listed as the reason for 22 patients not completing the study. The story doesn’t discuss any other pharmacological, psychosocial or behavioral interventions for cocaine abuse, although cognitive behavioral therapy was part of the treatment for all patients in the pilot study mentioned. While treatment of the biochemical and physical symptoms of cocaine addiction is important, there are other variables involved in drug abuse, including negative psychological and environmental factors that are not blunted by the use of modafinil or any pharmacological treatment. The pilot study principal investigator, who is interviewed in the story, is a hired speaker for Cephalon, maker of modafinil, though this is not mentioned in the article. The disclosure is readily available in the source journal article.
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false
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No mention of the cost of taking modafinil daily. The story doesn’t give any quantitative evidence of the benefits of this drug over placebo to reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings for cocaine, though this evidence is provided in the journal article for the small pilot study. Abstinence from cocaine was measured as clean urine tests and of the 24 test required, 43% of the modafinil group vs. 24% of the placebo group were without evidence of recent cocaine use. Futher evidence from larger randomized trials is needed. The discussion of modafinil allowing former cocaine user to “think strategically” might be an overstatement as there is no evidence in the pilot study of improved decision making with modafinil. The story doesn’t mention the incidence of side effects in the pilot study or from other trials. Insomnia is mentioned in the story, but we’re not told how common this is in people who take the drug for withdrawal symptoms of cocaine dependence. Side effects were twice as common in the treatment group in the pilot study and included nausea, anxiety, tachycardia, loss of appetite and urinary tract infection. The story doesn’t give any quantitative evidence or any description of the pilot study. This was a randomized, double-blind study of 62 cocaine addicted patients (mostly male) taking modafinil or placebo for 8 weeks. Cognitive behavioral therapy was also part of treatment for both groups. Only 40 patients completed the 8-week study, though reportedly none dropped out due to side effects of the medication. No real evidence of disease mongering. The drug is promoted here to treat cocaine addiction and the incidence of this addiction is reported at 1.5 million in the U.S., however only about 250,000 were in substance abuse treatment (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). The story doesn’t mention any potential conflict of interest of the sources cited. Dr. Dackis is a hired speaker for Cephalon, maker of modafinil, though this is not mentioned in the news story. The disclosure is readily available in the source journal article. The story doesn’t mention any other pharmacological, psychosocial or behavioral interventions, although cognitive behavioral therapy was part of the treatment for both the placebo and treatment groups in the pilot study conducted by Dr. Dackis and mentioned in the article. While modafinil is “legal”, it is still only FDA approved to treat narcolepsy and some cases of obstructive sleep apnea. The drug is also approved to treat shift work sleep disorders (i.e. the inability to adjust sleep hours due to overnight shift work), as this CNS stimulant has fewer side effects than caffeine or amphetamines. It is not yet approved to treat cocaine addiction. While the story explains the drug’s current availability, it could have emphasized more clearly that the new use is still an unapproved use. Nonetheless, we give this a satisfactory score because of the cautions included in the story. Treatment of cocaine addiction with modafinil is described as new and large scale clinical trails of the drug for this use have not been conducted. This drug is thought to reduce some of the withdrawal symptoms of cocaine addiction, such as fatigue, depression and blunt the desire for the euphoria or cocaine “high”. No evidence this is taken from a press release. There are reputable sources from the NIH National Institute of Drug Abuse cited, in addition to the principal investigator of the pilot study.
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42002
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"Meme claims 7,182 students have been ""killed in U.S. schools"" since 2012."
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A meme circulating online claims that 7,182 students have been “killed in U.S. schools” since 2012, but that number is inflated. It likely refers to all firearm fatalities involving children, including suicides and shootings off campus.
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false
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Memes, military deaths, school shooting,
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A meme circulating online claims that 7,182 students have been “killed in U.S. schools” since 2012, but that number is inflated. It likely refers to all firearm fatalities involving children, including suicides and shootings off campus.Dozens of students have been shot and killed on school grounds since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14, 2012. We counted 64 through the end of 2018.But a meme circulating online has inflated that number to 7,182. It appears to be a misrepresentation of the 7,000 pairs of shoes laid out in front of the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate the number of children who had been killed by gun violence since the Sandy Hook shooting, according to Avaaz, the advocacy group that planned it. That event was in March 2018, and it’s pictured in the meme.The 7,000 figure was likely based on a study that found that nearly 1,300 children are killed by guns each year, including suicide, which makes up about 38 percent of those deaths. The study counted deaths overall, not just those that happened at school.The number of students killed in school shootings varies depending on the methodology used to count the deaths — but none of the counts are as high as 7,182.For example, Everytown, a group that advocates reducing gun violence, has counted 170 deaths from 2013 to the end of 2018. That number includes all victims killed on school grounds, including school employees and people unrelated to the school. It also includes shootings that occurred on school property when school is not in session, including at night.We used a stricter set of criteria, counting the number of students who died after being shot on school grounds, during school hours or after being shot on college campuses — or at student housing — where they were enrolled for classes.So, our count doesn’t include incidents such as the accidental shooting of Kaden Robert, 15, who died in 2014 after playing basketball at a high school in Benton, Missouri. Robert was sitting in a truck owned by a friend’s grandfather when he was handed a loaded gun that accidentally discharged and killed him.We also didn’t include the accidental death of Sierra Guyton, 10, who was caught in crossfire while she was on her school’s playground in Milwaukee one spring evening the same year, or the many suicides that have taken place on school grounds.We based our count on the FBI’s list of active shooter incidents, the database of school shootings kept by researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security, and the list kept by Everytown.Seventeen of the 31 school shootings we found in which a student died happened on college or university campuses. You can click through on the map at the bottom to see where each incident we found took place.The meme compares the number of students killed in school to the number of U.S. military members killed “in COMBAT” overseas since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. That number, according to the meme, is 6,915 — which is close to correct. According to the Department of Defense, 5,429 members of the military have been killed in action since then.Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here.“Monument for our Kids.” Press release. Avaaz. 28 Feb 2018.“Sandy Hook shooting: What happened?” CNN.com. Accessed 14 May 2019.Everytown. “Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States.” Everytownresearch.org. 11 Feb 2019. Federal Bureau of Investigation. “2000 to 2017 Active Shooter Incidents.” Accessed 9 May 2019.Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2018.” Accessed 9 May 2019.Riedman, David and Desmond O’Neill. “CHDS — K-12 School Shooting Database.” Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Accessed 9 May 2019.U.S. Department of Defense. “Casualty Status as of 10 a.m. EDT May 13, 2019.” Accessed 13 May 2019.
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2804
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No serious side effects with Merck allergy pill: FDA documents.
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No serious safety concerns were raised over Merck & Co’s experimental pill for ragweed allergies, according to FDA documents Friday, ahead of a meeting next week of outside medical experts who will discuss whether the drug merits approval.
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true
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Health News
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The Allergenic Products Advisory Committee will meet on Tuesday to review Ragwitek, a pill placed under the tongue that, if approved, would be an alternative to regular injections administered by doctors for ragweed pollen allergies. At the meeting, the panel will be asked to discuss whether available clinical trial data supports the safety and the efficacy of the product in persons 18 years of age and older and make recommendations to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The committee will also be asked to recommend to the agency whether any additional studies of the drug might be needed. The FDA documents appeared to favor the drug’s safety, saying “none of the adverse events categorized as serious by investigators or (Merck) are considered related to the study drug.” The document also said “there were no deaths in any of the five clinical development trials of Ragwitek.” About 30 million people in the United States suffer allergies to ragweed pollen, the FDA said. Analysts see eventual Ragwitek sales of about $300 million. However, Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said sales could reach as much as $1 billion if enough allergy sufferers prefer the pill to injections. The pill, which is comprised of extracts from short ragweed pollen, would be taken daily beginning 12 weeks prior to the start of the ragweed pollen season and throughout the season. Merck filed its application seeking U.S. approval of Ragwitek last March. The drug, and another pill for grass pollen allergies called Grastek, are being developed along with Danish Drugmaker ALK Abello. In December, an FDA advisory committee unanimously recommended approval of Grastek. Merck shares were down 9 cents at $51.51 on the New York Stock Exchange, against the broader markets, which were down more than 1 percent.
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7209
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‘Veep’ star Julia Louis-Dreyfus says she has breast cancer.
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Julia Louis-Dreyfus says she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
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true
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AP Top News, Cancer, Health, Media, Entertainment, Social media, Universal health care, North America, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Breast cancer, TV
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The star of “Veep” and “Seinfeld” posted word of her illness Thursday on social media. A spokeswoman for Louis-Dreyfus confirmed the posts were authentic. On her Twitter account, the actress wrote that one in eight women get breast cancer. “The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring family and friends, and fantastic insurance through my union. The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let’s fight all cancers and make universal health care a reality,” she tweeted. Louis-Dreyfus’ publicist said no further details about her condition would be provided at this time, adding that the actress “is incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support and well wishes.” Hundreds of messages from well-wishers quickly poured in on Twitter. “Sending you love and light and prayers of support,” actress and producer Roma Downey wrote. “We love you,” ″Veep” co-star Tony Hale tweeted. Louis-Dreyfus won her sixth Emmy Award on Sept. 17 for her portrayal of former POTUS Selina Meyer in HBO’S “Veep.” “Our love and support go out to Julia and her family at this time. We have every confidence she will get through this with her usual tenacity and undaunted spirit, and look forward to her return to health and to HBO for the final season of VEEP,” HBO said in a statement. Louis-Dreyfus received the diagnosis the day after the Emmys aired, and it played no part in the previously announced decision to end the show after next season, HBO said. HBO said on Sept. 6 that the comedy’s producers decided to bring it to a close after season seven, with an air date yet to be announced. “Veep” writers will continue working on scripts and production will be adjusted as needed, HBO said.
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16263
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Money towards the Ebola vaccine is basically cut in half to what it was. More cuts are coming under the congressional sequester.
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"Cutter said, ""Money towards the Ebola vaccine is basically cut in half to what it was,"" and ""more cuts are coming under the congressional sequester."" Whether money for the vaccine was cut in half depends on the metric you use. It’s true if you compare 2010 to the 2014 estimate, when vaccine research spending fell from $37 million to $17.2 million, but not if you use other parameters. The financial picture for the NIH is not expected to substantially brighten any time soon amid constraints from budget-control measures, though given the emergence of the threat in the United States and the massive attention to the issue, Congress and the president could choose to increase funding for Ebola going forward."
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true
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Ebola, Federal Budget, Public Health, PunditFact, Stephanie Cutter,
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"If you’re tracking news of the Ebola virus, you’ve probably heard accusations that budget cuts are responsible for the lack of a vaccine. National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins told Huffington Post that ""we probably would have had a vaccine in time"" for the Ebola outbreak were it not for a 10-year drop in federal research dollars. (PolitiFact explored that idea.) His colleague, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, contradicted Collins on the Oct. 19 edition of Meet the Press. When host Chuck Todd asked if Collins’ comments about budget cuts driving the absence of a working vaccine was ""hyperbole,"" Fauci said he did not agree with Collins. ""You can't say that. I think you can't say we would or would not have this or that. Everything is slowed down. But I wouldn't make that statement,"" Fauci said. Later in the Ebola-centric episode, Democratic strategist Stephanie Cutter picked up on Fauci’s statement that research slowed with funding. ""In fact, money towards the Ebola vaccine is basically cut in half to what it was,"" she said. ""More cuts are coming under the congressional sequester."" We wanted to know if funding for an Ebola vaccine had been cut in half from ""what it was"" and if more cuts were coming under the sequester. Cutter did not respond to our query. How much we spend on Ebola vaccine research The National Institutes of Health, which houses Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the biggest source of medical research dollars in the world. In-house scientists work on some projects, while other grants are doled out to scientists at research institutions and universities. These research agencies have had cutbacks just like the rest of the federal bureaucracy, including in biomedical research. The government put a big emphasis on these illnesses in 2001, as officials grew more worried about bioterrorism threats like anthrax and smallpox. The NIH’s specific research into Ebola virus prevention and treatment is also lower than it once was, though whether it was ""half as much"" depends on a subjective, selective timetable. A spokeswoman for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases provided a breakdown of the agency’s Ebola research since 2003, including vaccine-specific expenses. (These numbers exclude stimulus dollars and are not adjusted for inflation.) The chart below shows the trend in the agency’s spending on research into an Ebola vaccine, therapeutics (or treatments), as well as total Ebola research spending, which folds in those categories and also includes basic research into how the disease works and diagnostics (complete chart data here). Since Cutter specified Ebola vaccine research, let’s focus on that (it’s the blue line). It’s hard to say what normal spending in this area is, as dollars have fluctuated between a low of $11.6 million to a high of $37.2 million depending on the year. But if you compare 2010 spending to 2014 spending, spending indeed dropped by more than half, falling from about $37.2 million to $17.7 million. The 2009-10 fiscal year was one of higher-than-usual spending. The year before, spending was $20.8 million. The story for total Ebola research spending by NIH is similar, reaching a high of $59 million in 2006 before falling, peaking again in 2010 and then trailing off amid recession fallout. No doubt, research money has not kept up with rising research costs, especially in the recent austere budget climate. The sequester and cuts to come Let’s compare spending before and after the sequester that Cutter mentioned. Remember that funny word, sequestration? It hasn’t been in the news much, but it’s not going away, and it has a big influence on whether the NIH keeps funding things like Ebola research at substantial levels. (See PolitiFact’s guide here.) The sequester is the result of a 2011 disagreement between the White House and Congress over how to solve the debt ceiling problem. Because a congressional ""super-committee"" failed to come up with $1.2 trillion in targeted cuts, across-the-board spending cuts of 5 percent went into effect in 2013. An agreement reached by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., in December 2013 offered slight relief from the sequester, setting budget caps for 2014 and 2015 discretionary (non-military) spending that exceed the amount required by the sequester. In the 2011-12 fiscal year, before the sequester, spending on Ebola vaccine research was $22.5 million. In 2013, after the sequester, this spending fell to $17.2 million. It picked up slightly to an estimated $17.7 million in 2014. Clearly, budget cuts are leading to reduced dollars for finding an Ebola vaccine. But it is not half of its pre-sequester amount, so Cutter’s statement is an overstatement by this measure. What does this mean for future medical research? Spending will surely remain tight and will still be outpaced by the cost of research. But exactly what continued austerity means for Ebola research also remains to be seen. Of the many diseases affecting or feared to affect Americans, Ebola was not one, so it was not given a super-high priority in past National Institutes of Health budgeting. Congress provides the funding for NIH, but agency leaders make the call on which research gets what level of funding. The NIH has generally tried to make its budget cuts even across its more than two dozen sub-institutes that focus on specific disease research, said Benjamin Corb, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology director of public affairs. If this trend holds, Ebola research will likely take another cut, though spending priorities could change in the face of the dangerous outbreak in West Africa. Already, the agency has pushed ahead with some close-to-finished treatments in effort to respond to the disease, such as the ZMapp drug that was used to treat two American missionaries who contracted Ebola but has not yet been produced in large supply. The spending cap for the 2014-15 fiscal year is essentially flat, so spending will still be tight for all research, said David Reich, a former House Appropriations Committee staffer and consultant to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. If inflation is factored in, it’s certainly a cut, he said. ""We don’t know where they’re going to be until the process is finished,"" he said. An NIH spokeswoman said the agency did not yet know how sequestration would affect Ebola research. Experts caution that more money for Ebola research would not necessarily mean more results, though they agree that more money would have probably led to more developed testing of products. Our ruling Cutter said, ""Money towards the Ebola vaccine is basically cut in half to what it was,"" and ""more cuts are coming under the congressional sequester."" Whether money for the vaccine was cut in half depends on the metric you use. It’s true if you compare 2010 to the 2014 estimate, when vaccine research spending fell from $37 million to $17.2 million, but not if you use other parameters. The financial picture for the NIH is not expected to substantially brighten any time soon amid constraints from budget-control measures, though given the emergence of the threat in the United States and the massive attention to the issue, Congress and the president could choose to increase funding for Ebola going forward."
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18082
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"Lone Star Project Says Greg Abbott ""converted over $1 million in federal grant money intended for use to prosecute online sexual predators and other cyber crimes and instead used it to harass and prosecute senior citizens who were assisting other senior citizens in applying for mail-in ballots."
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"The Lone Star Project said Abbott ""converted over $1 million in federal grant money intended for use to prosecute online sexual predators and other cyber crimes and instead used it to harass and prosecute senior citizens who were assisting other senior citizens in applying for mail-in ballots."" Actually, less than $100,000 of a grant—less than one-fifteenth of it--was spent investigating alleged violations of election law. The grant aid also wasn't restricted, or necessarily intended for, other purposes. So there was no conversion. Senior citizens were pursued, but our sense is it’s an eye-of-the-beholder question whether the investigations were harassment."
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false
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Criminal Justice, Elections, Legal Issues, Crime, Texas, Lone Star Project,
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"A pro-Democratic group says Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican aspirant for governor in 2014, misspent $1 million-plus bothering elderly Texans. The Lone Star Project said in a July 14, 2013, blog post, ""Just a few years ago, Abbott converted over $1 million in federal grant money intended for use to prosecute online sexual predators and other cyber crimes and instead used it to harass and prosecute senior citizens who were assisting other senior citizens in applying for mail-in ballots."" That's a familiar claim; the project said in a May 18, 2006, press release that Abbott and Gov. Rick Perry had decided to divert ""part of $1.4 million in federal funds."" Abbott aides countered that the grant-aided voter investigations were legitimate expenditures, in response to referrals. What's what? Grant spending aired before In 2006, Abbott touted his office’s efforts to prosecute and deter voter fraud and Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland recently told us by email that the initial grant aid helped the office carry out an array of initiatives from June 2005 through September 2006. Strickland sent a spreadsheet indicating too that the grant was renewed through September 2008. Ultimately, about $3.2 million was spent on multiple initiatives, the spreadsheet indicates, while Strickland told us $93,579 in grant funds ended up being spent investigating possible violations of election law. The amount of grant money spent on election-law cases has previously been publicized. A Nov. 13, 2009, Austin American-Statesman news story quoted the attorney general’s office as saying that about $93,000 in grant funds went toward voter investigations, with the rest of some $690,000 in costs covered by state funds, though total spending was expected to grow because cases were pending. At the time, 22 voter cases had ended with guilty pleas or verdicts, Abbott’s office said, and one had been dropped. By email, Angle pointed out that Abbott earlier ballyhooed much more spending against voter fraud. A Jan. 25, 2006, Abbott press release said the agency’s new Special Investigations Unit, poised to help local authorities identify, investigate and prosecute voter fraud offenses, was established with a $1.5 million grant from Perry’s office. Similarly, a March 1, 2006, Abbott release said officials in the agency’s unit, ""working through a $1.5 million grant from the governor’s office,"" had been visiting key counties to conduct voter fraud training for law officers. An Abbott commentary at the time had nearly identical language. Then again, the governor’s earlier grant announcement listed other priorities--not even specifying voter fraud. Perry’s Aug. 23, 2005, press release said $1,476,848 awarded under the federal Byrne Grant program would be spent on assisting local law enforcement agencies in investigations of cyber crimes, child pornography, organized crime, fugitives, criminal consumer fraud, public corruption and other criminal activities. Byrne grants noted for flexibility Amounts aside, did Abbott have permission to spend grant funds on voter investigations? By email, Angle conceded Byrne dollars could be spent investigating voter fraud, though he said the Lone Star Project is unaware of such aid being used that way in any other state. At the federal level, the National Center for Justice Planning, which teams the Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice and the National Criminal Justice Association, refers to the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance grant, which originated in 1968, as the nation’s ""cornerstone federal justice assistance program."" Byrne’s strength, the center says, lies in its flexibility with states and local communities permitted to spend the funds on areas including law enforcement, crime prevention and education. Separately, Strickland emailed us the attorney general’s June 1, 2005, grant application, which said the sought funds would enable additional staff to focus on Internet criminal investigations, fugitive apprehensions, criminal consumer fraud investigations and ""fraudulent voter and public corruption investigations."" The application also said: ""There seems to be a generally accepted method in which groups of campaign workers have gone door-to-door for years to help elderly or disabled voters obtain a mail-in-ballot, then the workers collect the voted ballots from the voters with intent to mail them outside of the presence of the voter. These investigations take several weeks or months to complete, as there are numerous documents to collect and analyze, and multiple witnesses."" Prosecutions as persecutions? Finally, did the state harass and prosecute senior citizens? Senior Texans were pursued in connection with a 2003 state law requiring individuals conducting absentee ballot campaigns to disclose certain information, including their names, if they handle a ballot or ballot application. According to an April 18, 2008, story in the liberal Texas Observer magazine, Willie Ray of Texarkana, 69, was indicted after she and her granddaughter, Jamillah Johnson, helped homebound senior citizens get absentee ballots and, once they were filled out, put them in the mail. In a Feb. 17, 2006, press release, Abbott said that Ray, a member of the Texarkana City Council, and Johnson were charged with illegally possessing and transporting ballots of several voters before the November 2004 elections. ""The integrity of our election process must be protected,"" Abbott said. The release also mentioned largely similar voter indictments in Reeves, Hardeman, Bee and Nueces Counties. A Jan. 31, 2008, Abbott press release described indictments of several Duval County residents, aged 55 to 71, for helping voters misrepresent themselves as disabled. The release said the helpers also did not identify themselves on the outside of ballot envelopes. The Observer and Dallas Morning News each referred to an incident described in a lawsuit joined by the Texas Democratic Party against the state. The Observer story said Fort Worth's Gloria Meeks, 69, was a community activist who helped homebound seniors vote by mail. Its story said, ""Meeks is in a nursing home after having a stroke, prompted in part, her friends say, by state police who investigated her--including spying on Meeks while she bathed--and then questioned her about helping"" others vote. According to the lawsuit, later settled, Meeks said she had seen two investigators ""peeping at her through her bathroom window"" while she was taking a bath on Aug. 10, 2006 and ""later learned that these two persons were investigators"" with the attorney general’s office. By email, Strickland said the agency denied that the investigators intentionally peeped. The agency’s legal response said the investigators were standing on Meeks’ porch when their attention ""was drawn to a nearby window because of movement from inside the window, and the investigators looked toward the window."" In a May 18, 2008, Morning News story, the newspaper said it had tallied 26 cases, largely involving mail-in ballots, that had been prosecuted by Abbott, all of them against Democrats and almost all involving blacks or Hispanics, with no revelations of ""large-scale"" voter fraud schemes with the potential to swing elections. In 18 cases, the newspaper said, the ""voters were eligible, votes were properly cast and no vote was changed -- but the people who collected the ballots for mailing were prosecuted. Eight cases, the story said, involved ineligible voters or manufactured votes: ""They include a woman who voted for her dead mother, another in which a Starr County man voted twice, and three South Texas women who used addresses to get voter registration cards for people who did not exist."" By email, Strickland sent a roster showing agenc involvement from late 2005 through June 2013 in prosecuting individuals on election-law charges including alleged violations tied to carrying ballots for others. About 25 cases resolved from November 2005 through November 2008, the chart indicates, with 13 guilty pleas, three guilty jury verdicts, two ""nolo contendere"" pleas, five pre-trial diversions, one deferred adjudication and one dismissal. Most of the convictions related to possessing someone else’s ballot or carrier envelope. Strickland emailed another chart indicating that 23 election-law cases developed by state investigations were resolved and seven are pending. Angle said by email that the point of the claim holds. ""The entire process was intended to harass and intimidate minority senior voters,"" he said. Our ruling The Lone Star Project said Abbott ""converted over $1 million in federal grant money intended for use to prosecute online sexual predators and other cyber crimes and instead used it to harass and prosecute senior citizens who were assisting other senior citizens in applying for mail-in ballots."" Actually, less than $100,000 of a grant—less than one-fifteenth of it--was spent investigating alleged violations of election law. The grant aid also wasn't restricted, or necessarily intended for, other purposes. So there was no conversion. Senior citizens were pursued, but our sense is it’s an eye-of-the-beholder question whether the investigations were harassment.s ."
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3956
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City of Richmond offering free flu shots throughout December.
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The city of Richmond, Virginia, is offering free flu shots to anyone 6 months or older during the month of December.
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true
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Health, Richmond, General News, Flu, Virginia
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Anyone who wants to receive a vaccine can visit the Richmond City Health District clinic any business day except Dec. 13, Christmas Eve and Christmas. No appointment is necessary, and no payment, insurance or government identification is required. This is an attempt to increase the city’s immunity, according a statement released Tuesday. Getting vaccinated is especially important for young children, older adults, those with chronic health conditions and expectant mothers, according to health officials. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns the flu is a potentially serious disease that can lead to hospitalization and sometimes death. Vaccination has been shown to significantly reduce a child’s risk of dying from influenza, according to the CDC.
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12905
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"The HIV virus has been ""detected in Walmart bananas after 10 year old boy contracts the virus."
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Fake news claims that Walmart bananas have HIV virus are fruitless
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false
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Fake news, PunditFact, CNNews3.com,
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"Fake news is bananas by nature, but one particularly slippery claim is actually about bananas said to be infected with HIV. ""HIV virus detected in Walmart bananas after 10 year old boy contracts the virus,"" reads the headline on a post we first saw on Feb. 6, 2017, from a website called CNNews3.com. Facebook users flagged the story as part of the social media platform’s efforts to stamp out fabricated news stories. The fake story, which is undated, said eight children younger than 17 had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS in the month of March (it doesn’t say in which year). All eight allegedly ate bananas purchased at a Tulsa, Okla., Walmart store, with the boy in the headline developing symptoms within a week. The text falsely says Walmart stores are recalling bananas nationwide. The post included a contrived photo (shown above) featuring a red-streaked banana. The screenshot is made to resemble a breaking news alert from CNN. But the website is not the real CNN, and there is no epidemic of HIV-infected bananas. The story is instead a symptom of a long-running online infection of fake news stories about disease-ridden fruit. CNNews3.com is filled with several obviously untrue posts about libidinous gorillas and dubious Big Mac ingredients made up to look like news reports, as well as other headlines that could be construed as real without any indication otherwise. The site’s administrators did not answer our attempts to contact them, but it’s obvious that CNNews3.com is attempting to masquerade as the cable news giant with a similar name. For the record, HIV can’t survive outside the human body, so it’s not possible for the virus to live in a fruit like a banana. The CNNews3.com tries to cast doubt on this by noting researchers were puzzled by the banana-borne infections. Here’s what is true: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its website that the virus cannot be spread by food. ""Even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus,"" the CDC says. This particular fake story is a variation on an Internet hoax that has been around for a few years. One version said the World Health Organization issued a warning about bananas being infected with HIV in India. Another said the South African government warned its citizens of a similar problem, then took down warnings to avoid a panic. This particular strain of the story can plausibly be traced back to one Facebook user’s photos of red-streaked bananas in November 2015. User Anna Aquavia claimed that her friend’s sister bought bananas in Nebraska that had been injected with HIV-positive blood. The photos are now gone, but you can see them at this Washington Post story. The Post credited the images to a Colorado woman named Amanda Andrys, who said Del Monte told her the red streaks were from a bacteria-induced disease called mokillo. Mokillo is more colorfully known as finger-tip rot, and can be a problem for banana growers. The disease doesn’t harm humans, but it does require banana growers to disinfect farming equipment. Once we peeled back the layers on this story, it was obviously a fake.
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7428
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Patient testing for virus in N. Carolina to expand greatly.
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North Carolina health officials greatly expanded the scope of COVID-19 testing in the state Friday, encouraging doctors to order tests for higher-risk individuals even when they show no symptoms.
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true
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General News, Virus Outbreak, Public health, North Carolina
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The new protocol from the public health leaders comes as North Carolina has shown a significant jump in completed tests in recent weeks thanks to more laboratory capacity and materials. More than 231,500 tests have been completed in North Carolina since the pandemic began, according to state health data. That marks an increase of more than 12,000 tests compared to Thursday, smashing the previous day-over-day record. “We want anyone who needs a test to get one. This is particularly important for those at high-risk for severe illness, those at greatest risk for exposure and those who are being disproportionately impacted by this virus,” state Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said in a news release. That could include people age 65 or over, African American residents, prisoners, migrant workers, grocery-store clerks and first responders. People with symptoms and those is close contact with COVID-19 patients also should continue to have testing access, the protocol says. Cohen told reporters her agency is also moving toward periodic testing of all nursing home residents and staff in the state. Facility-wide testing now occurs when an outbreak is confirmed, she said. More than half of the 641 virus-related deaths in the state have involved nursing home residents. “We need to be even more proactive now that we have the supplies, now that we feel like we have the capacity to do it,” Cohen said at a media briefing. Cohen’s agency also has posted online a list of more than 200 testing collection sites statewide.
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26965
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Tweets Says drinking a bleach solution will prevent you from getting the coronavirus.
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"Conspiracy theorists are spreading a dangerous claim that says drinking a bleach solution will ward off the coronavirus. The spray, known as Miracle Mineral Solution, is a bleaching agent that fringe groups falsely tout as a ""miracle cure"" for several ailments. But officials have repeteadly warned consumers against injesting it, saying doing so could cause severe vomiting and liver failure."
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false
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Consumer Safety, Fake news, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Tweets,
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"Social media users are spreading a dangerous conspiracy theory that says drinking a bleach concoction will prevent contracting the 2019 coronavirus strain at the center of a current outbreak. Don’t fall for it. We came across the claim in a Jan. 28 tweet by Twitter user ""Chief Police 2"" that urged their followers to buy ""20-20-20 spray"" to ward off the virus. The spray is also known as MMS, or Miracle Mineral Solution, a bleaching agent that’s been touted by anti-vaxxers and QAnon theorists as a ""miracle cure"" that can treat everything from autism to cancer. The same account tweeted about MMS in relation to the coronavirus multiple times, saying that drinking the solution will instantly ""kill the deadly virus."" The tweets also share a now-deleted YouTube video that told people to buy and drink the mixture. (YouTube banned videos promoting MMS in 2019.) OH LORDY, It is going to get worse, much worse. The Evil Depopulation Agenda is in full swing. PROTECT YOURSELF. Get the 20-20-20 spray. watch this video. Website that has it is in the video & description. https://t.co/cWfMQZHoY5 The tweet 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.) This type of ""cure"" is dangerous and should not be taken seriously. It is also one of the latest hoaxes that have spread online about the coronavirus, which originated in Wuhan, China, and, as of Jan. 30, has killed about 170 people and infected more than 7,700 worldwide. While some Clorox cleaning agents have been found to be effective against prior coronavirus strains when used on surfaces to stem the spread of the virus, the products should never be ingested. There is no scientific evidence that drinking bleach, MMS, or other sodium chlorite products will help cure or prevent disease. The Food and Drug Administration has released multiple warnings about the ""dangerous and potentially life threatening side effects"" of the solution and urge people not to drink it. ""The FDA recently received new reports of people experiencing severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration and acute liver failure after drinking these products,"" the organization said in an August 2019 news release. ""The FDA is not aware of any scientific evidence supporting the safety or effectiveness of MMS products, despite claims that the solution is an antimicrobial, antiviral and antibacterial. The FDA encourages consumers to talk to a health care professional about treating medical conditions or diseases."" Backers of the QAnon conspiracy are recommending drinking a bleach solution to ward off the deadly 2019 Novel coronavirus. While the MMS solution has been touted by fringe groups as a ""miracle cure"" for a number of ailments, officials have repeatedly warned consumers against ingesting it, saying that doing so could cause severe vomiting, diarrhea and acute liver failure. This alarming theory is full-on !"
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11430
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Mixed Result in Treating Schizophrenia Pre-Diagnosis
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This story discusses a randomized, double-blind trial of Zyprexa for the prevention or delay of schizophrenia in high-risk young adults experiencing early symptoms of psychosis (schizophrenia is a more severe, chronic psychotic disorder). Due to potentially serious side effects, Zyprexa and similar anti-psychotic drugs are not currently FDA approved for prevention of schizophrenia in patients identified at high-risk of developing this psychotic disorder. The story mentions that this was a small clinical trial and the idea of identifying patients at high-risk of developing a psychotic disorder and treating them with a drug like Zyprexa is still new and has several risks, with very limited long-term benefit. There is no mention of other treatment options for patients who show signs of psychosis or who go on to develop schizophrenia. The story mentions some of the harms of treatment with Zyprexa seen in this short-term trial, but there is no mention of the long-term side effects or safety of taking this medication. Diabetes and complications of the metabolic syndrome have been noted in many patients taking newer anti-psychotic medications, including Zyprexa. This may be a result of the significant weight gain from the drugs. The FDA has issued an additional warning hypoglycemia and diabetes as a result of taking Zyprexa: http://www.fda.gov/medwaTCH/SAFETY/2004/zyprexa.htm The story lists the limited benefit of taking Zyprexa to delay psychosis after one year of treatment, but this difference was only marginally statistically significant. The story does not mention that after the medication was stopped, these patients showed more severe psychotic symptoms than when they were first recruited for the study, suggesting that while symptoms were blunted, the disorder had progressed despite anti-psychotic medication. Additionally, many of the patients did not complete the study, so from the 60 initially recruited, only 12 completed the full 2-year trial. Results from such a small number of patients would not be generalizable to a larger population of patients at high risk of developing a psychotic disorder. There is no mention of the cost of Zyprexa and no mention of how long this medication would need to be taken to prevent a severe psychotic break in susceptible young adults. There is appropriate discussion that Zyprexa is made by Eli Lilly and that the study was partly funded by this manufacturer and the National Institute of Mental Health. Sources other than the study authors are cited and provide some perspective on the treatment and outcome of the trial.
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mixture
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No mention of the cost of Zyprexa and no mention of how long this medication would need to be taken to prevent a severe psychotic break in susceptible adults. These drugs cost around $200/month. Add in physician visits and monitoring for onset of diabetes, weight gain, and hyperlipidemia and you can easily come up with $300/month. Provides some quantification of the benefit of taking Zyprexa to delay psychosis after one year of treatment, but this difference was marginally statistically significant, which is also mentioned. What the story does not report: After the medication was stopped, these patients showed more severe psychotic symptoms than when they were first recruited for the study, suggesting that while symptoms were blunted, the disorder progressed despite the use of anti-psychotic medication. Mentions primary harms of treatment as weight gain seen in this short-term trial, but there is no mention of the long term side effects or safety of Zyprexa. Diabetes and complications of the metabolic syndrome have been noted in many patients taking newer anti-psychotic medications like Zyprexa. This may be a result of the significant weight gain from the drugs. The FDA has issued an additional warning about patients developing hypoglycemia and diabetes as a result of taking Zyprexa: http://www.fda.gov/medwaTCH/SAFETY/2004/zyprexa.htm The story mentions the trial design and that eligibility consisted of a screening instrument and evidence of early symptoms of schizophrenia. Fewer patients taking Zyprexa converted to full psychosis during the first year of treatment, but the difference between this group and the placebo group was not statistically significant. What is not mentioned is that the trial was blinded, but there was significant weight gain among the patients who took Zyprexa. As these medications are known to cause weight gain, this may have biased the clinical assessment of these patients. Additonally, many of the patients did not complete the study, so from the 60 initially recruited, only 12 completed the full 2-year trial. Results from such a small number of patients would not be generalizable to a larger population of patients at high risk of developing a psychotic disorder and experiencing early symptoms of schziphrenia, which is mentioned in the story. The story discusses the prevalence of schizophrenia as 3 million in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, this number is closer to 2 million. (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizoph.cfm) Mentions that Zyprexa is made by Eli Lilly and that the study was partly funded by this manufacturer (also funded by National Institute of Mental Health). There is no mention of other treatment options for patients who show signs of psychosis or who develop schizophrenia. Psychotherapy (including cognitive behavioral therapy) in conjunction with medication has been tried with some success in other studies to help patients manage symptoms (i.e. delusions, hallucinations) and improving functioning. Zyprexa is not FDA approved for prevention of psychosis in patients identified at high-risk. The story mentions that this was a preliminary trial and explains that the idea of identifying patients at high-risk of developing a psychotic disorder and treating them with a drug like Zyprexa is still very new, controversial and has several risks, with very limited long-term benefit. The story mentions that this is a clinical trial. Anti-psychotic drugs are not typically used in clinical practice for the prevention or reduction in severity of psychotic episodes because of the potential for harmful side effects. No evidence this story relies on a press release. Sources other that the study authors are cited and provide some perspective on the treatment and outcome of the trial.
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21402
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"Michael Skindell Says that in the recent year homeowners across Ohio have signed mineral rights agreements ""and I understand that over a billion dollars worth of leases have been signed to date."
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State Sen. Michael Skindell says oil, gas companies in Ohio have spent $1 billion plus on drilling leases
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true
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Environment, Ohio, Michael Skindell,
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"Ohio Gov. John Kasich has enthusiastically cheered the money-making prospects of hydraulic fracking, a technique used to extract oil and gas from underground shale. Eastern Ohio, with its energy-laden Utica and Marcellus shale formations, is high on the list of targeted areas where companies are looking buy up rights to drill for the lucrative resources below. But many have voiced environmental concerns over the process, which pumps millions of gallons of chemical-laced water and sand deep into horizontal wells under high pressure. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying hydraulic fracking’s effects on drinking water. And New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican whose pugnacious and conservative style is often compared with Kasich’s, last month ordered a one-year moratorium on the practice so more information can be gathered. Enter Ohio State Sen. Michael Skindell. Skindell, a Lakewood Democrat, this month introduced Senate Bill 213, which would institute a ban on hydraulic fracking until the EPA completes its study and lawmakers have time to digest it. A companion bill would require companies to disclose chemicals it uses when drilling. Both pieces legislation are aimed at what Skindell sees as a fracking bonanza. ""In the recent year, we have seen the oil and gas companies go to homeowners throughout Ohio and encourage them to sign leases and turn over mineral rights for this process,"" Skindell said during a Statehouse news conference to promote the two bills. ""And I understand that over a billion dollars worth of leases have been signed to date."" That billion-dollar figure caught PolitiFact Ohio’s attention, given the relatively fledgling fracking market. , reports across Ohio have pegged the Utica shale formations in eastern Ohio as a new frontier of sorts. But $1 billion? We went to Skindell to learn his source. Skindell shared with us a web link to a March story published by the Dayton Daily News. The newspaper focused on one company, Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City. Chesapeake, the article noted, ""has reportedly spent $1 billion acquiring leases in Ohio without drilling a producing well, a figure reported by the Wall Street Journal on March 7."" By the time it left Skindell’s lips, it was a fact repeated at least third-hand. If it was a fact all. So off to the Wall Street Journal we went. The March 7 story attributed the $1 billion figure to Chesapeake. Journal reporter Ryan Dezember referred PolitiFact Ohio to earnings statements and other financial documents from the publicly held company. Mindful that the news at this point was 6 months old, Dezember theorized that the figure had likely grown. Sure enough, a transcript of a July 29 conference call between Chesapeake executives, investors and analysts and Chairman and Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon confirmed this. ""... We’ve spent between $1.5 billion and $2 billion acquiring leasehold in the Utica,"" said McClendon, referring to the shale in eastern Ohio. And of course, Chesapeake wouldn’t have invested that amount if executives weren’t convinced the resources could yield much more. In a financial report issued the day before the conference call, Chesapeake noted that officials believed the Utica shale play could add between $15 billion and $20 billion in value. Chesapeake is not the only party interested in Ohio shale. Clif Little, an Ohio State University extension educator in Guernsey and Noble counties, said more than 1,200 property owners have taken his ""leasing farmland for oil and gas"" classes this year. Drilling companies, small oil and gas companies, landowner associations and attorneys all are attempting to secure deep drilling rights, Little added. ""The $1 billion figure is an old figure,"" Little wrote in an email. ""The amount invested in the Utica and Marcellus would far exceed that number today, but I am no longer keeping track of investment figures."" Although he might not have been right on the money, Skindell was very much in the ballpark with respect to Chesapeake’s figures. If anything, he undersold the political point he was trying to make: that Ohio is on the cusp of a fracking boom. Skindell’s words were ""over a billion dollars worth of leases,"" and clearly that is the case."
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34116
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"The daddy longlegs is the ""world's most poisonous animal."
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In the pantheon of venomous animals, the box jellyfish is a particularly bad creature for humans to encounter. With the realm of venomous spiders, the funnel web spider or the brown recluse spider are among the most dangerous to people.
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false
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Critter Country, Wild Inaccuracies
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This claim has a few ambiguities to it. First of all, “poisonous” and “venomous” are two distinctly different qualities: poisonous animals give off toxins which are absorbed when they are touched or eaten by attackers; venomous animals transmit toxins by injecting them into their victims. Secondly, more than one type of critter is referred to as a “daddy longlegs.” The crane fly, a winged insect which looks like a large mosquito, is called a daddy longlegs in some parts of the world (such as England), but it is not venomous (nor is it a type of spider). The pholcus phalangioides, also referred to as the long-legged cellar spider, is an example of a “daddy longlegs” spider, probably the one referred to here as being the world’s “most poisonous animal”: In terms of being poisonous (i.e., posing a danger to people who might eat or handle it), a daddy longlegs spider can’t compare to the South American poison dart frog. And according to the Spiders and other Arachnids site at the University of California, Riverside, there’s no evidence that daddy longlegs spider venom poses any danger to humans: There is no reference to any pholcid spider biting a human and causing any detrimental reaction. If these spiders were indeed deadly poisonous but couldn’t bite humans, then the only way we would know that they are poisonous is by milking them and injecting the venom into humans. For a variety of reasons including Amnesty International and a humanitarian code of ethics, this research has never been done. Furthermore, there are no toxicological studies testing the lethality of pholcid venom on any mammalian system (this is usually done with mice). Therefore, no information is available on the likely toxic effects of their venom in humans, so the part of the myth about their being especially poisonous is just that: a myth. There is no scientific basis for the supposition that they are deadly poisonous and there is no reason to assume that it is true.
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6102
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Groups plan new lawsuit over Fairbanks-area air pollution.
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Environmental groups say they are planning another lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to push action in addressing air pollution in the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
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true
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Clean Air Act, Fairbanks, Alaska, Air pollution, Environment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lawsuits, Pollution
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The nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice sent a 60-day notice Wednesday that it would be suing the EPA “for failing to perform a nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act,” the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported . The planned suit is over missed deadlines for filing a new plan for reducing elevated levels of a toxic particulate that is found largely in wood smoke and is linked to a number of health problems. When the air is stagnant during winters in the Fairbanks area, emissions from home heating linger at ground level. The elevated pollution in parts of Fairbanks and North Pole were declared seriously out of attainment with the federal Clean Air Act last year. Earthjustice claims the borough has the “worst fine particulate matter air pollution in the nation,” reaching levels of more than double the recommended limit for unhealthy air. Earthjustice is representing Fairbanks-based Citizens for Clean Air, Anchorage-based Alaska Community Action on Toxics, and the California-based Sierra Club. “The Clean Air Act sets clear deadlines for planning and achieving compliance with air quality standards,” said Jeremy Lieb, an attorney for Earthjustice. “The EPA and the state have repeatedly missed these deadlines, showing disregard for the health consequences of continued serious air pollution. We will continue to take legal action necessary to hold the agencies to their obligations to clean up the air in Fairbanks.” The state was required to submit a proposal for addressing pollution by the end of last year. State and borough officials are working on the plan. The EPA was to determine if the plan was complete by the end of June. An EPA spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. ___ Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
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26096
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“President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this (police reforms) during their eight-year period.”
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Trump’s claim ignores key initiatives and priorities of the Obama administration. After the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., Obama created a task force to specifically identify better policing practices. Law enforcement and criminal justice experts said improving policing was a priority for the Obama administration and it investigated misconduct at local police departments.
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false
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Criminal Justice, Crime, Public Safety, Donald Trump,
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"Amid mounting calls from Americans for changes in policing practices and end to excessive use of force, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that he said is intended to encourage police departments to adopt the highest professional standards. Reforming policing practices is difficult, and the Obama administration didn’t even try to do it because it didn’t know how to do so, Trump claimed. ""We will have reform without undermining our many great and extremely talented law enforcement officers,"" Trump said June 16. ""President (Barack) Obama and Vice President (Joe) Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period. The reason they didn't try is because they had no idea how to do it, and it is a complex situation."" PolitiFact reviewed measures taken by the Obama administration and consulted with law enforcement and criminal justice experts to evaluate Trump’s claim. Trump’s statement is wrong. ""The Obama administration did more with respect to police reform and misconduct than any administration in the modern area and it was a personal commitment for the president and for Attorney General Eric Holder,"" said David Kennedy, director of the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We asked the White House and Trump’s reelection campaign for information that backed Trump’s claim. We did not hear back. Obama in December 2014, through an executive order, established the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. The task force issued its final report in May 2015, after holding public listening sessions across the country and getting testimony and recommendations from community and faith leaders, law enforcement officers, academics, and others. One of the recommendations focused on law enforcement policies and community oversight, saying policies must reflect community values and not lead to practices with disparate impacts. Law enforcement agencies should have review boards that look into cases of officer-involved shootings and other serious incidents that can damage community trust or confidence in the agency, the report said. ""Not only should there be policies for deadly and nondeadly uses of force but a clearly stated ‘sanctity of life’ philosophy must also be in the forefront of every officer’s mind,"" the report said. ""This way of thinking should be accompanied by rigorous practical ongoing training in an atmosphere of nonjudgmental and safe sharing of views with fellow officers about how they behaved in use of force situations."" The report ""still serves as an important playbook for the policing field on where reform should be going,"" said Laurie Robinson, a professor at George Mason University and co-chair of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Beyond the task force, the Obama administration also investigated police departments for patterns or practices that violated constitutional or federal rights. Those investigations don’t center on one single incident. They examine broader behavior to determine whether there’s misconduct within a department. The administration also pushed for consent decrees, court-enforced negotiated agreements that specify remedies departments must implement to correct misconduct. The notion that the Obama administration didn’t try police reform because they didn’t know what to do is not accurate, said Kennedy, the research center director at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The Obama-era policies were aimed at preventing police violence and police misconduct, improving policing and police-community relations, he said. ""That was an administration that made these issues a priority,"" said Kennedy, who was part of the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice. PolitiFact tracked more than a dozen promises Obama made about criminal justice, including his pledge to ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies. Toward the end of his tenure, we rated that a Compromise, because no related bill passed Congress during Obama's administration, but the Justice Department did overhaul its rules to address racial profiling. In 2016, the Justice Department under Obama said it would continue to help implement the task force's findings and train law enforcement agents to recognize and address implicit bias, unconscious or subtle associations that individuals make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups. Trump’s claim that Obama and Biden didn’t even try police reforms is ""patently ,"" said Sean M. Smoot, director and chief legal counsel of the Police Benevolent and Protective Association of Illinois and a member of the Obama task force. The Obama administration also sought funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services within the Justice Department. The office provides police departments technical and training assistance, hiring grants, and also access to mental health and wellness resources. Trump's budget proposals have sought to eliminate the office. ""Fortunately for the law enforcement field, Congress has rejected those budget requests and continues to fund the COPS office,"" Smoot said. Trump said, ""President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period."" The record shows that is not true. After the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson and related racial justice protests, Obama established a task force to examine better policing practices. The Obama administration also investigated patterns or practices of misconduct in police departments and entered into court-binding agreements that require departments to correct misconduct."
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1895
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Italy risks worst environmental disaster in 20 years.
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Italy risks its worst environmental disaster in more than two decades if the 2,400 tonnes of thick fuel in the capsized Costa Concordia pollutes one of the Mediterranean’s most prized and pristine maritime reserves.
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true
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Environment
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Seven days after the 114,500 tonne liner capsized off the Tuscan coast, its vast wreck is shifting precariously on an undersea ledge, threatening to slide further and undermining plans to pump the oil out safely. The ship keeled over after striking a rock and is now lying on its side on a shelf in about 20 meters of water off the little island of Giglio. Eleven people were killed and 21 are still unaccounted for. With hopes of finding any survivors all but gone, experts warn that beyond the loss of lives, this could turn into Italy’s worst maritime environmental emergency since the sinking of the Amoco Milford Haven, loaded with 144,000 tonnes of oil, off the coast of Genoa in 1991. The clean up of that area was completed in 2008, 17 years after the accident, and the Haven shipwreck is still on the seabed, said Luigi Alcaro, head of maritime emergencies at ISPRA, Italy’s government agency for the environment. “If the Costa Concordia slides further down and the fuel begins seeping into the water, we could be talking years and dozens of millions of euros before it can be cleared up,” Alcaro told Reuters. The amount of fuel on board the Costa Concordia, 2,380 tonnes of heavy diesel fuel and lubricating oil, is comparable to that carried by a small oil tanker, Environment Minister Corrado Clini told parliament this week. The fuel tanks appear to be intact for now. Clini said even a contained leakage would be highly toxic for the flora and fauna in the area, a natural maritime park noted for its clear waters, varied marine life and coral. The Giglio island is a renowned diving site and the surrounding archipelago is home to more than 700 botanical and animal species, including turtles, dolphins and seals. Alcaro said the most optimistic scenario would be to stabilize the ship and pump the oil out through a technique known as “hot tap.” “The oil on the ship is very thick and sticky, so you’d have to drill a hole in the hulk and warm it up to make it more fluid and easier to extract,” he told Reuters. “That could be done in about a month for the 13 external tanks on the ship. There are another 10 tanks inside, and those are a lot more difficult to reach,” he said. But if the ship slips deeper underwater, it would actually be better if the tanks ruptured open and the fuel floated up to the surface, he said. “There would be panic for a couple of weeks of course but a ‘black sea’ of fuel would make it visible and easier to recover. The very worst scenario is having oil slowly leaking out.” He pointed to the precedent of the cruise ship Sea Diamond, which sank off the Greek island of Santorini in April 2007, saying oil from the wrecked vessel kept seeping into the water for three years at the rate of 30 kg a day. Tourism is the top industry on Giglio and locals are worried about the potentially devastating impact of pollution. “If there’s a massive fuel spill, we might as well close everything down, throw away the key and come back in 10 years,” said Massimiliano Botti, 40, owner of the Porta Via restaurant along the Giglio quay. “Environmental damage is what concerns us most. If the oil pollutes the coast, we’re ruined.” Giglio’s mayor Sergio Ortelli said the recovery of the fuel was likely to start within the next 48 hours, but the wreck shifted further on Friday as the weather worsened, forcing a new suspension in the rescue work. “We can only hope that the weather remains acceptable, that efforts to stabilize the wreck continue speedily, and that God gives us a hand to preserve what many consider a little Mediterranean paradise,” Fulco Pratesi, founder of the conservation group WWF in Italy, wrote in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
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14696
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Since John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, more Americans have died by gunfire within our own country than American servicemen and women who were killed in all our wars.
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The Virginia Center for Public Safety says that since 1963, more Americans have been killed by gunfire than have been killed in all U.S. wars. Figures going back to 1968 show about 1.5 million firearms deaths have occurred since then. That doesn’t include data from gun deaths from 1963 to 1967, years for which figures aren’t available, so this is a conservative estimate on firearms deaths since Kennedy was assassinated. In contrast, a high-side figure for U.S. war deaths shows that about 1.4 million service members have been killed in conflicts.
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true
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Guns, Virginia, Virginia Center for Public Safety,
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"During a recent rally at Capitol Square in Richmond, gun control advocates handed out fliers with a grisly statistic. ""Since John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, more Americans have died by gunfire within our own country than American servicemen and women who were killed in all our wars,"" says the brochure, distributed on Jan. 18 by the Virginia Center for Public Safety. The claim is familiar to PolitiFact; it’s been vetted by our colleagues in the national office twice over the years. We decided to take a new look through the lens of the latest available data. War casualties The most comprehensive list we found on U.S. war dead was compiled in January 2015 by the Congressional Research Service. It included casualties from the Revolutionary War through Operation Inherent Resolve, which is targeting the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. The number of U.S. dead in all those conflicts comes to nearly 1.2 million, according to the research service. We should add a qualifier here: The research service says that during the Civil War, the nation’s deadliest conflict, Union and Confederate losses combined were 525,000 to 530,000. But a 2012 study by a Binghamton University historian estimated the combined toll was much higher -- about 750,000. If we use that higher Civil War figure, it would bring the total U.S. deaths in military conflicts to about 1.4 million. Gun deaths The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides a series of hard figures and estimates of yearly gunfire deaths in the U.S. from 1968 to 2014. They add up to about 1.5 million fatalities. The Virginia Center for Public Safety’s claim on gun deaths goes back a little bit further, to 1963. We couldn’t find figures going back to that year, since the oldest year for which data were available was 1968. A CDC chart shows 24,000 gun deaths occurred that year. With that in mind, the figure of 1.5 million deaths since November 1963 surely is an underestimate of the level of gun violence since then, because it excludes four years. The actual number probably is close to 1.6 million. A key thing to know about these figures: They include not just murders but all gun deaths. In 2013, according to CDC data, 63 percent of gun deaths were suicides; 33 percent were homicides; and the rest were from accidents, legal interventions and undetermined causes. Our ruling The Virginia Center for Public Safety says that since 1963, more Americans have been killed by gunfire than have been killed in all U.S. wars. Figures going back to 1968 show about 1.5 million firearms deaths have occurred since then. That doesn’t include data from gun deaths from 1963 to 1967, years for which figures aren’t available, so this is a conservative estimate on firearms deaths since Kennedy was assassinated. In contrast, a high-side figure for U.S. war deaths shows that about 1.4 million service members have been killed in conflicts."
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26664
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"Silver Solution used on strains of coronavirus ""totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it.”"
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"Our ruling Sellman claimed that a Silver Solution used on strains of coronavirus ""totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it."" Sellman claimed that a Silver Solution used on strains of coronavirus ""totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it."" No, no, and no. No, no, and no. There are no pills or remedies that cure any strain of human coronavirus including COVID-19. In fact, Sellman’s ""silver solution,"" and colloidal silver, can hurt you, and not just your wallet. There are no pills or remedies that cure any strain of human coronavirus including COVID-19. In fact, Sellman’s ""silver solution,"" and colloidal silver, can hurt you, and not just your wallet."
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false
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Public Health, Missouri, PunditFact, Coronavirus, Sherill Sellman,
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"As the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, so does misinformation surrounding the illness, heightening global anxiety. On March 10, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) filed a lawsuit against televangelist Jim Bakker and his production company for advertising and marketing a silver solution that he and his guest, Sherill Sellman, falsely implied could cure coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During the broadcast, naturopathic doctor Sherill Sellman claimed the silver solution had killed other viruses. Coronavirus is a family of viruses. Other notable outbreaks have been SARS and MERS. ""Well, let's say it hasn't been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours,"" Sellman said. ""Totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it."" As Sellman spoke, a message appeared on the bottom of the screen advertising the sale of four, 4-ounce bottles of the silver solution for $80. So, is there any silver solution that kills any strain of coronavirus? In a word: No. On March 9, the Food and Drug Administration issued warning statements to seven companies, including the Jim Bakker Show, informing them to stop selling products they claimed cure the coronavirus. The products cited in the letter were teas, essential oils, tinctures and colloidal silver, according to the FDA news release. This wasn’t the Jim Bakker Show’s first warning. On March 3, New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office sent a cease and desist letter to Bakker for misleading the public about the effectiveness of the silver solution as a cure for the novel disease. We reached out to Sellman to see what actually was in this silver substance, but never got a response. One ingredient, though, is colloidal silver, a liquid that contains silver particles. Often it is peddled as an immune boosting, disease curing dietary supplement, but there is no scientific evidence to back up these claims. In fact, colloidal silver can be dangerous to your health. Its side effects include permanently turning your skin a bluish-gray and causing poor absorption of certain drugs and antibiotics, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Coronaviruses, known for their crown-like spikes, are a large family of viruses that can be found in many different types of animals including cattle and bats. Rarely, the coronaviruses that infect animals can evolve and create new human coronaviruses that make people sick. There are seven strains of coronavirus that can infect people, and most people get cold-like symptoms. Three strains, including COVID-19, can cause acute respiratory distress and spread rapidly. While much about the pandemic causing disease is still unknown here’s what scientists do know: ""COVID-19 spreads between people who have been in close contact or through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes."" ""Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure and include fever, a cough and shortness of breath."" ""Older adults and people who have serious chronic medical conditions like heart or lung disease are at a higher risk of getting very sick from this illness."" ""There is currently no vaccine to prevent COVID-19."" Sellman claimed that a Silver Solution used on strains of coronavirus ""totally eliminate it. Kills it. Deactivates it."" No, no, and no. There are no pills or remedies that cure any strain of human coronavirus including COVID-19. In fact, Sellman’s ""silver solution,"" and colloidal silver, can hurt you, and not just your wallet."
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10923
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Keep an ovary, preserve a brain
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"There is mounting evidence that removing the ovaries early, prior to menopause, increases a woman’s risk of heart disease, fracture, and now, potentially, neurologic deficits. For these women, using estrogen replacement therapy may be beneficial to block these effects as well as treating symptoms. This story reports on the results of a large cohort study showing that women who had their ovaries removed prior to menopause had an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s Disease. This short piece adequately represents the novelty and availability of oophorectomy, sufficiently describes the harms of the procedure and does not engage in disease mongering. However, the story fails to describe the strength of the available evidence, does not quote multiple independent sources and does not describe any alternatives to the surgery. Most importantly, however, the story does not adequately quantify the harms of oophorectomy. Specifically, the story provides quantification in relative terms only by stating that ""surgical removal of the ovaries before menopause raises by half a woman’s risk of neurological problems."" What that statement does not show is how rare those neurological problems are. By stating the increased risk in purely relative terms, the story appears to inflate the actual risk. See our primer on absolute versus relative risks."
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mixture
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"Because the story discusses the potential harms of oophorectomy, the cost criterion is not necessarily applicable in this case. The story does not adequately quantify the harms of oophorectomy. Specifically, the story provides quantification in relative terms only by stating that ""surgical removal of the ovaries before menopause raises by half a woman’s risk of neurological problems."" What that statement does not show is how rare those neurological problems are. By stating the increased risk in purely relative terms, the story appears to inflate the actual risk. See our primer on absolute versus relative risks. The story adequately describes the potential harms of oophorectomy, including heart disease, hip fractures and now, potentially, neurological deficits. The story does not comment at all on the strength of the available evidence. The story does not appear to engage in diseae mongering. The story only quotes one expert who is the lead author on the study. The story does not discuss alternatives to oophorectomy. Clearly, oophorectomy, surgical removal of the ovaries, is available. Clearly oophorectomy is not a new idea. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information."
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3776
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Top Kenya court dismisses British American Tobacco challenge.
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Kenya’s Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a British American Tobacco challenge to regulations that charge the tobacco industry a fee to help compensate people affected by smoking.
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true
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Supreme courts, Health, General News, Africa, Courts, Kenya, Smoking, Tobacco industry regulation
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The regulations conform to the constitution and its goal of protecting the lives of Kenyans, the justices said. “It is not enough for the appellant (BAT) to say that the limitations are not justifiable. The limitation has to be weighed against the larger society. There is no way regulations can be made without considering the health of the people. It is like an ostrich burying its head in the sand,” said the judgment read by Justice Njoki Ndungu. The company had argued that the 2% fee was vague because it was not clear if it would be imposed on the raw material or the final product. Kenya’s 2014 Tobacco Control Regulations also bar smoking in public places and make cigarette companies to put picture-based warning of the adverse effects of cigarettes on the packets and improves protections against secondhand smoke. Tobacco advocacy groups celebrated the judgment. “The Supreme Court’s decision is a resounding victory for public health and allows the government to implement a law that will help protect Kenyans from the devastating consequences of tobacco use,” said Bintou Camara Bityeki, director of Africa programs, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Kenya, as a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, has international obligations to implement evidence-based measures to reduce tobacco use, Bityeki said. The costs of treating the death and disease caused by smoking in Kenya – diseases like heart disease, lung disease and cancer – far outweigh any supposed contribution the company makes, Bityeki said.
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2627
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Power walking falls between the ramble and the race.
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If watching the London Olympics has sparked an interest in race walking, with its singular hip-swinging, rolling gait, but the pace is not right, consider power walking, its more easygoing cousin.
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true
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Health News
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Whatever your fitness level, experts say, there will be perks. “Landing on the heel, rolling to the toes ... using short but fast strides are characteristic of both power and race walking,” said Dr. Dixie Thompson, head of the department of kinesiology, recreation and sport studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Race walking has been an Olympic event since 1906. “Race walking as a competition is very specific,” Thompson said. “I would define power walking as a type of walking that is purposely brisk, as a way to enhance fitness and increase caloric expenditure while walking.” Thompson, who has written about walking for fitness for the American College of Sports Medicine, said almost anyone who walks for physical activity could increase his or her pace without getting specific coaching. “Increasing the pace, even if your technique isn’t exactly right, still has a positive outcome,” said Thompson, who has been interested in walking for physical activity since the 1990s. Power walking or speed walking occurs at the upper end of the natural range for the walking gait. But unlike jogging or running, at least one foot is in contact with the ground at all times. “There’s less force placed on the joints compared to running,” Thompson said. “You’re not lifting yourself off the ground and landing. You’re never completely airborne, so you don’t have that jarring force.” But she cautions that overdoing any activity could lead to injury. “If you’re 250 pounds and have never walked, knees may be sore, back may be sore, ankles may be sore,” she said. Thompson said power walking could certainly be used as a way to meet American College of Sports Medicine guidelines, which call for a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate physical activity per week. “Most people would be in moderate intensity with power walking,” she said. “Some people can get to vigorous intensity, but you have to walk very, very fast.” San Diego-based fitness expert Tamilee Webb walks for fitness: on the beach, on mountain trails, and with her dog. “You want to keep moving, but you want to make changes that are right for your body as you age,” said Webb, 53. Older runners who switch to power walking often add hand weights to increase the intensity of their workouts, Webb said. “Always have a balance of cardiovascular (walking), muscle conditioning, and flexibility,” she advises. “Your upper body is not getting a lot of muscle tone with walking.” And invest in good walking shoes. “Do you have a high arch, a flat foot? Do you pronate?” she said. “My rule of thumb is: If it hurts, don’t do it.” Dr. Dan Solomon, the San Francisco-based spokesman for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, has seen a few 50-to-60-year-old runners switch to walking. These are usually people who realize their knees would not hold up for distances, he said, adding that it is difficult to convince a runner not to run. Wear and tear is not inevitable, Solomon said. “I’ve seen marathon runners who’ve done tens of marathons, and their joints are pristine,” he said. “It comes down to technique, along with some genetic predisposition to good cartilage.” Some people are unstable even when walking slowly, Solomon said, while others can be high-impact walkers without knowing it. “Typically I watch them, and I ask them about their history and if they have pain,” he said, adding that a gait analysis, usually conducted in a laboratory setting, is another option. Thompson urges people who walk for fitness to watch their pace. “A lot of people who go out for a walk are actually going out for a stroll,” she said.
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4335
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Cal State San Bernardino student diagnosed with TB.
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Health officials say a California State University, San Bernardino, student has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and they’re urging about 400 students and employees to be tested.
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true
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Health, General News, San Bernardino, California, Tuberculosis
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San Bernardino County health officials say they’re contacting those who may have been exposed to the illness from April through August. However, authorities say the risk of infection is low. The student with tuberculosis is receiving treatment and will return to school after being cleared by health authorities. Tuberculosis is spread through the air by repeated close contact with an infected person.
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9313
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Potential life-saving peanut allergy drug on horizon, scientists say
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This Fox News story describes a new treatment for kids with peanut allergy called AR101, which could help protect against severe reactions to peanut ingestion. It’s one of two stories we reviewed about this important and newsworthy study. The other was from CNN. This story does not appear to contain original reporting. Instead it relies on a news release, including multiple quotes from the study authors, one using the unfortunate word “breakthrough.” Significantly, it doesn’t address costs or harms. Peanut allergy is one of the most common food allergies. It typically presents early in life, is known for severe reactions, and is rarely outgrown. There currently are no treatments for peanut allergy, besides emergency care in the event of a reaction. So a treatment with the potential to make reactions less severe is certainly of interest.
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false
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allergies,peanuts
|
The story does not mention costs — particularly important since the treatment might have to be taken for life. Also, it’s expected to be marketed next year. The story reports the benefits of treatment in two different ways: “two thirds of people in the study were able to tolerate the equivalent of two peanuts per day after nine to 12 months of treatment,” and on average, “participants were able to tolerate a 100-fold higher dose of peanut at the end of the study than they did at the beginning.” That barely passes the bar. Unfortunately, both those descriptions are in the form of canned quotes from the study author and neither compares the result to the control group (which had a placebo treatment). We also think more detail could have been added to show the extent of benefit, and what it means for kids. For example, it would have been helpful to note that almost 20% of the treatment group withdrew from the study, which suggests many patients might quit the therapy. The story does not mention harms — and harms were significant. The CNN story reported that 11% of participants dropped out of the study as a result of untoward effects of treatment, and other participants (who completed the study) had allergic reactions requiring treatment. It also left out important issues such as the high dropout rate among those who received the treatment, and unknown long-term effects. The story notes how many study participants there were and explains this is “not a cure” and that patients would need to stay on the drug in order to be protected. However, we expect some exploration of the study’s strengths or weaknesses, including caveats such as the degree of commitment needed to comply treatment regime. The story appropriately characterizes peanut allergy as a “potentially life-threatening” condition, with peanut ingestion. There’s no data on how many people might benefit from this drug, however. The only sources quoted were authors of the study who had relationships with the company that makes the treatment. Independent sources could have provided more context, including a more balanced view of how this treatment might affect the care of people with peanut allergies. The story makes clear that there is currently no approved treatment for peanut allergy. However, we think the story should have explained that, as of now, the only option is avoidance of foods that contain peanuts or traces of peanuts, including foods produced in facilities that also process peanut-containing products. The story does not mention that AR101 is among at least four peanut immunotherapy products entering the market. The story makes clear that the treatment is not yet FDA-approved, and is not currently commercially available. The story says that the treatment would be a new one, making clear that no other approved product exists for treating peanut allergy. It could have added that immunotherapy — or exposing allergy patients to small, controlled doses of the food they’re allergic to — is not a new idea. The story appears to be based on a news release from the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. The quotes in the story were attributed to EurekAlert, which published the organization’s news release.
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7466
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FDA probes accuracy issue with Abbott’s rapid virus test.
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Federal health officials are alerting doctors to a potential accuracy problem with a rapid test for COVID-19 used at thousands of hospitals, clinics and testing sites across the U.S., including the White House.
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true
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Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, Politics, Racing for a Remedy, Virus Outbreak, Donald Trump
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The Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday it is investigating preliminary data suggesting Abbott Laboratories’ 15-minute test can miss COVID-19 cases, falsely clearing patients of infection. The test is used daily at the White House to test President Donald Trump and key members of his staff, including the coronavirus task force. The warning came one day after researchers at New York University reported results suggesting Abbott’s test can miss up to half the infections caught by a rival test made by Cepheid. The research has not been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal and was based on about 100 patients. The researchers found that Abbott’s test, run on the company’s portable ID NOW system, missed one-third of the infections caught by Cepheid’s test when swabs were stored in liquid used to transport laboratory samples. When the samples were kept dry the test missed 48% of the cases flagged by Cepheid’s test. The researchers called the test’s performance “unacceptable,” due to the risk of falsely clearing patients who could spread the infection to others. They acknowledged shortcomings of the study, including the time needed to transport patient samples to the device for processing. Abbott rejected the findings, saying the researchers used the test “in ways that it was not designed to be used.” “ID NOW is intended to be used near the patient with a direct swab test method,” the company said in a statement. The company pointed to other independent study results that found the test accurately detected 90% or more infections. Last month Abbott changed the instructions for its test to explicitly warn against putting patient samples in transport chemicals. The update came after researchers at the Cleveland Clinic reported a 15% false negative rate for samples stored in the chemicals. The FDA said in a statement it is reviewing the data with Abbott and working on a letter to health care providers about potential accuracy issues. The agency said physicians may need to confirm the results of a negative Abbott test if patients have signs and symptoms of the virus. Regulators said they are requiring Abbott to conduct follow-up studies on the test’s accuracy. “This test can still be used and can correctly identify many positive cases in minutes,” said Dr. Tim Stenzel, FDA’s diagnostics director. The FDA first cleared Abbott’s test in late March under emergency powers used to quickly accelerate the review of tests and treatments during a public health crisis. The agency has authorized more than 90 tests, effectively flooding the market with testing options amid persistent problems ramping up testing levels. For weeks, Trump has promoted Abbott’s test as a “game changer.” On Monday, the company’s ID NOW system and test cartridges were displayed prominently at a Rose Garden press conference meant to highlight the nation’s progress on testing. “These tests are highly sophisticated — very quick, very good,” Trump told reporters. The administration has shipped more than 235,000 of the tests to state public health laboratories. And Abbott has separately said it has distributed 1.8 million tests to health care facilities in all 50 states. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. ___ 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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11592
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Strips help snorers (and partners) sleep easier
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"This is a review of a column originally published in the Miami Herald but picked up in the Hartford Courant when we found it. Hardly a word is wasted in this 300-word evaluation of Breathe Right nasal strips’ effect on snoring. It’s informative and easy to read. It has clear consumer value and an explicit takeaway message. As the star rating shows, even in this brief space the item abides by most health journalism best practices. Unfortunately, the story has two serious flaws which nearly negate its excellent form and content: It fails to acknowledge that taken as a whole the evidence of benefit is equivocal, and some of the studies showing benefit are limited in significant ways (study size, methodology, lack of controls and consistent measures, etc.) The failure to dig for negative findings results in an inaccurate positive impression of the product’s effectiveness. This does not serve the public well. Interestingly, if the reporter had dug deeper and summarized the research findings more accurately, the consumer takeaway would be very similar: They might work, they probably don’t hurt, give them a try if you like. The second flaw of even greater consequence. The story implies, or at least permits a reading that suggests, Breathe Right strips can treat sleep apnea. The description of results from the Journal of Rhinology study are carefully worded: When used by people with snoring and sleep apnea, the strips ""reduced nasal obstruction"" for most study subjects. This could be misread to mean the strips successfully treated apnea. This is not the case. Apnea is caused when muscles of the palate or other tissue collapse and block airflow to the trachea. It is not caused by nasal obstruction. The strips may have improved nasal airflow for people with apnea, but this isn’t relevant to the underlying disease mechanism. Apnea is a serious condition with cognitive, cardiovascular and overall health consequences. It can be deadly. Breathe Right strips cannot treat it. The item allows readers to believe it can. The approach taken in this item is excellent. More health journalism should embrace this ""concentrated"" approach, paring out unnecessary information, avoiding conventional forms and focusing on consumer value. In a time of shrinking newshole and growing web distribution, this form can be very effective. But working in a tight, tailored format like this does not relieve health journalists of their most important obligations: Digging enough to find the truth, and protecting the public from harm. This item fails to do so."
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true
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"The price appears on the first line. Given the item’s brevity, it does a good job of quantifying benefits for one of studies: ""Some 18 out of 26 patients with sleep apnea and snoring reduced nasal obstruction when they used nasal strips in a 1999 study in Journal of Rhinology."" This lets readers know the study was small but showed benefits for most participants. It reports results as numbers of subjects benefiting, not by the often-misleading percentage. It implies it’s a clinical trial. It’s worth pointing out that the author of this item provides the specific data about the clinical trial most relevant to consumers–how it performed in use with heavy snorers. The earlier studies appear to be more proof-of-concept and physiological observations. As the item states, no serious side effects have been found. The Sleep Academy’s 2003 report cites only possible irritation and discomfort. Given the brevity of the item, the amount of evidence provided is very good. The piece mentions FDA approval and Mayo recommendation. It cites five clinical studies, with one of the most relevant described in a bit of detail. Unfortunately, the evidence cited is selective. There are several key studies showing the nasal strips to be ineffective. In 2003, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found insufficient evidence found the evidence of benefit on snoring ""equivocal"" and insufficient to permit clincial guidance on their use. This is a key failing of the item. The item does nothing to exaggerate the health impacts of snoring. If anything, it conflates snoring and apnea, at the risk of suggesting the latter is a mere annoyance rather than a chronic disease with serious health consequences. The author depends entirely on the conclusion of published studies. If you’re going to draw on a single type of source, this is the one to use. The item reports that some of the research was funded by the strips’ maker. The story would have benefited from a single quote or paraphrase from an independent ENT who could frame the use of these strips in clinical practice. And as cited earlier, the reporter somehow missed the considerable evidence showing no benefits or only very slight benefits. It failed to draw on one of the most obvious credible sources, the Academy of Sleep Medicine. The story does not mention other OTC or drug responses to snoring. It fails to mention the most common treatment for sleep apnea, a device called CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure), which keeps the airways open. While the item does not say so explictly, the nasal strips are familiar enough and priced in a way that implies easy over-the-counter availability. Novelty is not in question with a such a ubiquitous over-the-counter product. There does not appear to be a press release associated with the product."
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18222
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Wendy Davis Says 92 percent of Texas counties had no abortion provider in 2008.
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Davis said that in 2008, 92 percent of Texas counties had no abortion provider. Her statement matched the Guttmacher Institute’s findings, which seem supported by the locations of Texas abortion facility license holders as of late June 2013. But the institute’s study also said it likely undercounted facilities, while presenting an arguably more meaningful statistic; 33 percent of Texas women of child-bearing age lived in counties lacking abortion providers, meaning more than 65 percent lived in a county with a provider. Davis’ statement lacked these clarifications.
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true
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Abortion, Texas, Wendy Davis,
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"A Democrat bent on talking to death a proposal pitched by backers as improving the safety of abortion clinics while imposing other limits bandied a statistic about existing access to abortion toward the beginning of her filibuster. State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth quoted to Senate colleagues from written testimony submitted at a March 19, 2013, hearing on a different bill by Physicians for Reproductive Health, a group whose website says it advocates reproductive health services. From the testimony, which Davis called ""compelling,"" the senator apparently read aloud: ""‘While Texas women have the right to safe, legal abortion, in reality there are already very few facilities in Texas to provide this essential care. In 2008, 92 percent of Texas counties had no abortion provider.’"" Davis said the testimony attributed the statistic to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, a research group focusing on reproductive health issues. And is the statistic accurate? In a telephone interview, Guttmacher spokeswoman Rebecca Wind said the statistic came from the latest round of its occasional national study tabulating abortion providers by county, ""Abortion Incidence and Access to Services in the United States, 2008."" However, Wind counseled, another statistic built into each study can be more revealing. In Texas in 2008, she said, 33 percent of women of child-bearing age lived in the counties without abortion facilities, according to the study, which based its count of women on U.S. Census Bureau figures. Generally, Wind said, ""metropolitan areas have higher numbers of women and higher numbers of providers."" The study covering 2008 was published in 2010; Wind said an updated census, covering 2010-11, is to be published in 2014. The description of methodology in the study covering 2008 said, ""All facilities known or expected to have provided abortion services in 2007 and 2008 were contacted, including hospitals, clinics and physicians’ offices."" There were 67 Texas facilities, the report said. The study noted that it had likely missed some providers. ""Undoubtedly, some abortion providers were not counted because we were unable to identify them,"" the study said. A 1994 survey found Guttmacher’s 1992 count overlooked ""a number of small providers,"" it said. ""Undercounting has likely become more pronounced over the last decade"" as non-surgical facilities offered an abortion-inducing drug. We also looked for a state-level count of abortion providers by county. By email, Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, told us that according to the state’s most recent count, 74 facilities reported having performed abortions in 2011. Of those, the agency said, 41 were holders of an abortion facility license, 28 were hospitals, four were ambulatory surgical centers and one was a physician’s office. We did not obtain the locations or addresses of those listed in 2011, but Williams provided addresses for the state’s 36 abortion facility license-holders as of late June 2013 (a group that excludes hospitals, doctors’ offices and ambulatory surgical centers). By telephone, Williams said most Texas abortions are performed at such facilities. A small percentage of abortions take place in hospitals and physicians’ offices, she said. By our calculation, the 36 centers were located in about 18 Texas counties, or 7 percent of the state’s 254 counties. Geographically, they were located from Beaumont and Jefferson County near Louisiana west to El Paso County and from Lubbock County on the plains south to Hidalgo and Starr counties on the Rio Grande. The centers were mostly in the populous counties of Harris, Fort Bend, Dallas, Tarrant, Travis and Bexar. Our ruling Davis said that in 2008, 92 percent of Texas counties had no abortion provider. Her statement matched the Guttmacher Institute’s findings, which seem supported by the locations of Texas abortion facility license holders as of late June 2013. But the institute’s study also said it likely undercounted facilities, while presenting an arguably more meaningful statistic; 33 percent of Texas women of child-bearing age lived in counties lacking abortion providers, meaning more than 65 percent lived in a county with a provider. Davis’ statement lacked these clarifications, making it ."
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26767
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“I certainly supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden. ... I was there both times for them.”
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Mike Bloomberg defended Barack Obama in mid 2008 against attacks that Obama was anti-Israel. Bloomberg did not endorse Obama in 2008. Bloomberg endorsed Obama in 2012 in a post that included praise and criticism.
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mixture
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Elections, Michael Bloomberg,
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"The fact that Mike Bloomberg hasn’t been a Democrat his whole life keeps coming up in his 2020 presidential bid. At a CNN town hall, host Anderson Cooper asked Bloomberg why Democrats should trust him to lead their party. Bloomberg acknowledged his past as a Republican and an Independent. But he argued that he isn’t such a Democratic outsider if you look at who he supported. ""But if you want to know my Democratic credentials, I spoke for Hillary Clinton at the DNC Convention in Philadelphia in 2016,"" Bloomberg said at the Feb. 26 forum. ""I certainly supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden, (Biden) says no, but I was there both times for them, thank you very much."" Was Bloomberg really there for Obama and Biden in their 2008 and 2012 campaigns for the White House? It would be a stretch to say he was an enthusiastic Obama supporter. Bloomberg did not endorse Obama’s 2008 run, and while he did endorse him in 2012, that happened a week before the November election in an opinion piece that also criticized Obama’s record. ""Mike said he supported Obama both times. He voted for him both times,"" said Stu Loeser, a Bloomberg campaign spokesman. Obama’s 2008 bid was plagued with rumors that he was secretly a Muslim with anti-Israel views. Bloomberg, who is Jewish, flew to Florida in June 2008 to defend Obama. Bloomberg at that time was mayor of New York City. The rumors about Obama were lies, Bloomberg told the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, ""wedge politics at its worst, and we have to reject it — loudly, clearly and unequivocally."" Bloomberg told the audience he had not decided whom to support, the New York Times reported. When he was asked whether he would become an ambassador to Jews for Obama, Bloomberg said he would ""speak out against intolerance for both candidates,"" including Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. In a July 2008 speech to the Independence Party of Minnesota, Bloomberg spoke about both Obama and McCain, without picking a side. ""Now, we're lucky this year: we have two candidates who have shown, on at least some issues, that they are capable of thinking and acting independently of the special interests,"" Bloomberg said. Overall, Bloomberg delivered a largely neutral stance in 2008. He did not endorse either of the party candidates. Bloomberg endorsed Obama Nov. 1, 2012, in a Bloomberg.com post headlined, ""A vote for a president to lead on climate change."" Bloomberg lauded Obama’s efforts to reduce carbon consumption, for setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks, and for adopting tighter controls on mercury emissions. But he also said Obama had not done enough to build a coalition of centrists, ""which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction."" ""And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it,"" Bloomberg wrote in his endorsement. Loeser told PolitiFact that Bloomberg’s endorsement was ""designed to flip or lock down voters who still hadn't committed to Obama-Biden by the last days of the campaign."" Bloomberg said, ""I certainly supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden. ... I was there both times for them."" In 2008, Bloomberg defended Obama against attacks that he was anti-Israel, but Bloomberg did not endorse a presidential candidate that cycle. In 2012, he endorsed Obama’s re-election in a post that mixed in criticism of his record. Bloomberg’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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9300
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Mounting evidence demonstrates improved cognitive function from cocoa flavanol consumption
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This content-light release has a lot of persuasive power. For an eight-week, 90-person study, it makes some overly broad claims. Reporters should be wary. The danger is that a vague release like this will be simplified to a misleading message such as, “To improve memory, consider chocolate.” CBC News has a terrific story about why that irresistible message is not accurate. The cocoa drink studied here isn’t chocolate at all, and it’s certainly far from what you’d find in a packet of Swiss Miss. And though we gave the release partial credit for mentioning in an editor’s note that this product isn’t commercially available, we think that caveat buried at the end will likely get lost in a lot of news coverage. It certainly did in this story based on the release that claims, “Chocolate may be good for your brain.”
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mixture
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chocolate,cocoa,cognitive function
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One might say that everyone knows what a piece of chocolate costs. But this study isn’t about chocolate. It’s about a special concoction made out of the flavanols found in cocoa beans. As the release says, “the nutritionally matched drinks were specially prepared” using either “Mars’ patented Cocoapro process” or “a highly processed alkalized cocoa powder.” We have no idea what that would cost for a typical U.S. consumer to replicate in the kitchen, but if the cognitive benefits of this concoction are to be believed, then it would make sense to mention the possible costs. The release does not include a single number related to the benefits, and notes merely that there was “signficant” improvement with some dosages of flavanols. The release is structured in such a convincing way, as is the accompanying video, that it almost makes you believe that you should go out and try to make one of these drinks for yourself. Where are the numbers to back these assertions up? There is no explanation of harms, potential or actual, in the release. Our main concern is that consumers will think these findings apply to your typical chocolate candy bar, which is full of sugar and fat. While the release notes dryly that commercially available chocolate, “given its macronutrient profile … is not recommended as a health food,” we don’t think many readers will find this caveat that’s buried in an editor’s note at the end of the release. And even if they do, they might not understand what it’s getting at. The news release clearly identifies the experimental design, but does not speak to any limitations of an 8-week, 90-person study. And while it highlights the improvements seen in some study measures, it does not mention that no effect was found for other cognitive outcomes. It glosses over such findings with statements like this one: “As cognitive function was normal for this aged population, this study shows that even cognitively healthy individuals can quickly benefit from the regular inclusion of cocoa flavanols in their diets.” The release sets the right tone at the beginning and continues throughout describing loss of cognitive function dispassionately. In fact, we wish more stories treated aging this way: “It is normal for cognitive function to slightly deteriorate with age. Memory capacity begins to worsen, along with processing speed and the ability to form long-term memories.” The release was issued by Mars Inc., and it says high up, “This study, conducted by researchers from Italy’s University of L’Aquila and Mars, Incorporated”. While the release references Mars throughout, and we don’t think any reporter would be confused about who was behind the study, the release could have stated directly that Mars funded the study. The release compares three different types of cocoa drink. It does not compare these drinks to any other type of food or health intervention that may improve cognitive function. How do these effects compare to the sharpened focus observed, for example, with caffeine? The news release states in an editor’s note that this test product is not commercially available. The news release makes clear that this experiment is grounded in a larger research context, and that other studies of the effects of cocoa flavanols on cognitive function have been conducted. The release skates along the line here, as does the video. It uses phrases such as “are encouraging,” and “support the idea that,” and “can play an important role”. We’ll award a satisfactory, although the cumulative effect of this language does bring the release to the brink of Not Satisfactory.
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10978
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Moms who take folic acid, iron have smarter kids
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This story captures most of the good news from this study about the benefits of folic acid and iron supplementation in children in rural Nepal, but it skirts some of the thornier issues, namely the costs associated, the specific benefits and harms involved and the question of availability. We applaud the story for tackling an issue that is not U.S.-focused. We just wish a little more information had been included. Iron deficiency is a critically important public health problem worldwide, particularly in the developing world, and some studies have shown a link between iron deficiency and cognitive impairment. If vitamin and iron supplementation prove to be a low-cost and effective way to improve the lives of children in poor countries, we all will benefit.
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false
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Reuters Health
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There is no discussion of costs. This is a problem because even if the individual doses of iron and folic acid are relatively cheap, their application on a large population, including staff time, monitoring and the attendant paperwork, would no doubt become costly quickly. We’re talking about a study of 676 kids, but there are billions of children worldwide who could benefit from this type of intervention. Some nod to costs should have been made here. The benefits are not quantified, which is a shame. If there were tangible differences between the groups of kids, they should be spelled out. Literally billions of dollars in global health funding could be at stake for programs like this. Policymakers need strong guidance not optimistic quotes. We need to understand the absolute benefits of this program and others like it. Any vitamin supplement taken in very high doses can be harmful and some acknowledgment of this should have been made here. Even citing the author or another expert about a lack of observed or known harm would have been sufficient. The story gives very little attention to the study design, and it fails to bring a critical eye to the evidence. All the story does is allow one of the researchers to make a rather broad claim about the findings. “”What we showed is prenatal iron and folic acid supplementation had a significant impact on the offspring’s intellectual level and motor ability and ability during school age, which was a very exciting finding,” she said. “It had an impact across a range of function, including intellectual function, executive function and fine motor function,” factors that could affect a child’s later academic success.” The story says, “Iron deficiency is the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world, affecting 2 billion people, according to the World Health Organization. Early iron deficiency can interfere with nerve development, biochemistry and metabolism, hampering both intellectual and fine motor development.” It does not engage in disease-mongering. In fact, we would have liked to have seen a little more information about the problems associated with a lack of iron. The story does point out how the study was funded, but it does not make use of any experts other than one of the study’s authors. This is too bad because certainly another researcher in the field could have provided some context for how widely applicable a program like this would be. There are always significant barriers to scaleup for public health interventions in poor countries, and something as simple in theory as vitamin supplementation may not be simple on the ground. Another researcher or clinician with global health experience could have provided perspective. The story does not compare the approach used in the study with any other approach. One assumes that iron and folic acid supplements are widely available, but this may not be the case in some countries. There wouldn’t be a need for this sort of intervention if these nutrients were part of the regular diet in Nepal and other countries. At least some nod to how hard it might be to get access to these supplements was warranted. It also would have been helpful to include information about whether any existing public health programs routinely supplement with iron and folic acid in developing countries. What’s novel here is the real-world application of a supplementation program in a low-resource setting and then enough follow through to generate results connecting the intervention to actual improvements in health and behavior. The story does not rely on a news release.
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11162
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Risk of death higher for prostate cancer patients with heart disease who use hormone therapy
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A new study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association supports more conservative use of hormone therapy in men with advanced prostate cancer who also have heart disease risk factors. Although it has been known for some time that hormone therapy increases the risk of heart disease, the new study suggests that any benefit hormone therapy may provide from treating the prostate cancer may be cancelled out by harms from heart disease, particularly in men who are already at high risk. In these men, the study found an overall increase in mortality related to the hormone therapy. This study may change the risk-benefit equation for many men considering hormone therapy. What is clear is that heart disease risk must be a part of that decision. This story, in only about 500 words, meets the basic standard for all of our criteria. It is comprehensive in listing the side effects and harms of hormone therapy, which are numerous and varied. It quotes multiple sources and explains the design of the current study. It does a good job of quantifying the risk of heart disease by providing multiple ways of expressing that risk, both absolute and relative terms. The story also mentions the monthly cost of the therapy of $1,400 and that it is taken for 4 months on average. The story could have been improved by providing more content on the pros and cons of the alternatives to hormone therapy such as radiation/brachytherapy and surgery. But, overall, this was a good demonstration of how a story can address our ten criteria even in a relatively short piece.
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true
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The story mentions the monthly cost of the therapy of $1,400 and that it is taken for 4 months on average. The story does a good job of quantifying the risk of heart disease by providing multiple ways of expressing that risk, that is in both absolute and relative terms. The story clearly describes the side effects and harms of hormone therapy, which are numerous and varied. The story adequately describes the current study, including details about the subjects’ demographics, tumor characteristics, medical conditions and treatments to help readers better interpret the results. Because the story is clear that the new data concerns men with advanced prostate disease AND a history of heart disease, the story does not engage in disease mongering. The story quotes two experts who provide valuable perspectives. The story is also clear to point out whether or not they were involved in the current study. The story also mentions radiation and surgery as alternatives, although it could have provided more content on the pros and cons of these options. It’s clear from the story that hormone therapy for prostate cancer is widely available. Clearly hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer is not a new idea but what is new is that the man’s history of heart disease should be taken into consideration before initiation of treatment. Because the story quotes multiple sources the reader can assume that it did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.
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35152
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A homemade hand sanitizer made with Tito's Vodka can be used to fight the new coronavirus.
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A number of DIY articles on the internet explain how to make homemade hand sanitizer. While some of these articles specified that vodka containing at least 60% alcohol was required to make an effective hand sanitizer, others simply stated that any vodka would do. Good Housekeeping, for instance, published an article on March 2 that told readers they could make homemade hand sanitizer with any “plain vodka.”
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false
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Medical, COVID-19
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As the coronavirus known as COVID-19 spread around the globe in March 2020, a piece of advice repeated frequently was to wash your hands often. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends using soap and water, but the internet had another suggestion: Tito’s Vodka. A popular rumor on social media held that people could fight off the coronavirus by combining hand gel and Tito’s Vodka in a homemade hand sanitizer: This is not true. Tito’s Vodka cannot be used to make effective hand sanitizer.
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287
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The obscure advisory committees at the heart of the U.S. drug pricing debate.
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Expectations were high last year for three new migraine drugs hitting the market from Amgen Inc, Eli Lilly and Co and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
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true
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Health News
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Priced around $7,000 each, the drugmakers called them “breakthrough” treatments designed to prevent migraines when taken year-round, and estimated that millions of patients could benefit. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration said Amgen’s Aimovig – the first of the three drugs approved – was an “important addition” to available treatments. But a small group of external medical experts who quietly advise U.S. health insurers on new drugs was not impressed, according to a private meeting held at UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx offices in Chicago that was attended by Reuters. They concluded that all three medicines offered no clear benefit over drugs already on the market and that insurers could consider them optional when it came to health coverage. They advised putting limits into place on their use. While these experts do not discuss drug costs, their view of the clinical value of the new migraine drugs emboldened OptumRx, which manages prescription drug benefits, to demand steep discounts from the three manufacturers. Similar “pharmacy and therapeutics” (P&T) committees at rivals CVS Health Corp and Cigna Inc’s Express Scripts came to the same conclusion. The impact of their rulings will be on display on Tuesday, when Amgen, which co-markets the drug with Novartis AG, and Lilly report on their quarterly financial performance. When asked by Reuters about the OptumRx committee decision, the three drugmakers said the new therapies represent an important advance to patients who are not helped by existing treatments, or who have struggled to stay on their medications. They stress that for some patients, the new migraine drugs cut by half the number of days they experience headaches each month. These relatively unknown expert committees have been involved in drug coverage decisions for decades. Their identities are kept secret due to federal regulations aimed at preventing pharmaceutical industry interference. The committees make their decisions based on a drug’s clinical value, independent of cost, pharmacy benefit managers say. But their power has grown more recently with the consolidation of most of the U.S. pharmacy benefits business under OptumRx, CVS and Express Scripts. Taken together, their three advisory committees now guide drug coverage for more than 90 million Americans. P&T committees also hold sway over record numbers of novel and expensive medicines introduced into the U.S. market each year, more often with less evidence of effectiveness or safety than in the past. New drugs that may fall under their scrutiny in the next year include potentially life-saving therapies for spinal muscular atrophy and Duchenne muscular dystrophy as well as oral treatments for migraine, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Their decisions have new consequences as the pharmacy benefits companies they advise are more likely to exclude a new treatment from coverage if it is deemed on par with existing therapies. Or they can demand discounts - or rebates - from drugmakers in exchange for the coverage. “If the committee says (a treatment) is no better than the existing drug, there is a very decent possibility that it might get a less preferred status or not be included” for reimbursement, said Jack Hoadley, a health policy expert at Georgetown University. OptumRx’s ability to call the shots on drug coverage for more than 30 million people make it a formidable negotiator for clients like Ben Johnson, a pharmacy director for a health plan in Utah that covers about 20,000 railroad union workers. Johnson once relied on his own P&T committee to determine whether a drug was effective and worth the price. Now he is often among the dozens of OptumRx clients and consultants invited to observe the quarterly P&T committee meetings in Chicago. Handing that role to OptumRx has tripled the value of rebates that his plan receives, Johnson said. FROM “BREAKTHROUGH” TO “OPTIONAL” Drugmakers say pharmacy benefit managers such as OptumRx are middlemen that take too great a cut of the discounts they negotiate and ultimately drive prices higher. U.S. Congress and President Donald Trump have taken up that criticism, and the administration has proposed banning rebates in government health programs unless benefits managers hand over the savings to patients. OptumRx, Express Scripts and CVS say that their method of reviewing a drug’s benefit and subsequent price negotiations has lowered prescription drug costs, and that 95 to 98 percent of the discounts they receive are passed on to their clients. In the case of the migraine drugs, Amgen, Lilly and Teva were quick to advertise the potential benefits directly to U.S. consumers once they were approved, months before the pharmacy benefits companies made decisions on how to cover the drugs. Television commercials from the drugmakers highlighted how some patients had their headache days cut in half, or more. The manufacturers offered the drugs to commercially insured migraine sufferers for free for up to a year or even longer to entice people to try them. Their primary competition is older, cheaper generic drugs. Migraines affect more than 39 million Americans, mostly women, and Amgen estimated 8 million could be candidates for the preventative therapies, which are delivered by injection every month or few months. Analysts forecast $4 billion in annual sales by 2026 in major global markets. OptumRx convened its advisory committee of a dozen doctors and pharmacists last November to review the new migraine drugs. These experts pointed to clinical trial data showing that patients taking the new drugs experienced an average of 1 to 2.5 fewer migraine days a month than those treated with a placebo, and said that was on par with existing therapies, though there were no clinical studies directly comparing the two groups of medicines. The committee acknowledged that some patients saw a much bigger benefit from the new drugs, but said the data did not show who might be helped the most. They questioned the limited safety data and the unknown long-term effects on the body. “Let’s be cautious and see how it all plays out, but we need to look at these studies with a jaundiced eye,” one of the members said. The committee’s verdict: All three drugs should be considered “optional” treatments that provide no unique benefit. OptumRx Chief Medical Officer Sumit Dutta said the decision, based on available clinical data, provided balance to the drugmakers’ claims. “There are plenty of examples of drugs that have a lot of enthusiasm in the beginning,” but that later turned out to be problematic, Dutta said. Because OptumRx could choose not to cover any of the new migraine drugs, it could push aggressively for discounts. On February 1, it began to cover Amgen’s Aimovig and Lilly’s Emgality. Teva’s Ajovy would only be covered if patients did not benefit from the other two drugs. Leerink biotech analyst Ami Fadia estimates manufacturer rebates on the drugs are as high as 50 percent. Amgen said 200,000 U.S. patients have been prescribed Aimovig, with about half of prescriptions being filled for free. Teva and Lilly have not provided figures on patient use. Teva said in February it expects 2019 sales for Ajovy of $150 million. For its part, Express Scripts estimates that only 128,000 of its covered patients will be good candidates for the new therapies, and has a program to closely manage who receives them. OptumRx and CVS declined to provide similar forecasts.
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5847
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Numbers show jump in STD cases at the University of Kansas.
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New numbers show that cases of sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise at the University of Kansas.
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true
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Sexually transmitted diseases, Lawrence, Health, Kansas, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Education, University of Kansas
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The Lawrence Journal-World reports that recent numbers from KU’s Watkins Health Services show the number of gonorrhea cases diagnosed at KU jumped 39 percent from 2016 to 2017. University health officials say that marked the most dramatic jump on the campus of major sexually transmitted infections. The service’s health education resource manager, Jenny McKee, says KU’s climbing rates are part of a national surge in chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis that hit a record high in 2017. The spike is party attributed to increases in STD testing. Watkins Health Services has “bundled” testing for four major STDs — chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV — which McKee says has decreased the cost of testing. ___ Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com
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11300
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Device’s trial run gets high praise
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There’s nothing inherently wrong with a local newspaper story that lets readers know about local medical centers participating in a multi-center trial. But what can be wrong with such a story was seen in this story. It failed to: provide any data on harms or benefits go beyond a single positive anecdote of patient success offer any independent perspective, interviewing only a single conflicted source include any estimate of costs of this approach which could be considerable. There must be a big promotional campaign underway for this device, since the substance of this story – and the timing of it – is very similar to one we reviewed on NBC just a few weeks ago. This is not the way journalism should cover new medical devices. What kind of an environment does such unquestioning storytelling create for public discussion and understanding of medical technology assessment and comparative effectiveness research? Journalism can help the public understand more about scrutinizing evidence, about potential harms and about costs. These factors were sorely missing in this story.
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false
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"The story didn’t mention any of the costs of treatment involved – not the known nor projected costs of the device, of its implantation, of followup care, nor of battery replacement. No data – no evidence – was provided. The story mentioned the need for periodic battery replacement, but didn’t describe what that entails. Is it another operation? The story quotes one researcher saying ""We ask that (patients) don’t lift more than 10 pounds for a month."" Why? What happens if they do? What’s the track record of complications? The one patient profiled said she had swelling in her neck after the surgery. How often does that happen? How often do any complications occur with this device? The story was silent on quantifying the frequency or severity of the potential harms of this approach. The story presented no evidence – only anecdotes – yet it let one of the investigators get away with saying ""It’s only with this device that (patients are) able to bring their blood pressure under control."" Where are the data to back that up? There was no overt disease-mongering of the condition of difficult-to-control high blood pressure. Interviewing only the principal investigator of a trial, who has a vested interest in a successful outcome – without including the perspective of any independent expert – is not sufficient sourcing. Drug therapy for the control of hypertension was mentioned in the story but the emphasis was on the side effects of medications. Yet the story didn’t give sufficient details about the side effects of the device implantation or its operation. So there was an imbalance in the discussion of treatment options. There was also no discussion of other medical devices currently being investigated for the purpose of controlling blood pressure or lifestyle factors that affect blood pressure and cardiovascular risk. The story made it clear that the device is being tested ""at up to 50 clinical sites worldwide"" and listed the two local medical centers participating in the trial. There wasn’t any explicit discussion of the novelty of this approach, so this criterion is not applicable in this case. We can’t be sure of the extent to which the story may have been influenced by a news release. An Iowa Heart Center news release had this line: The Rheos® Hypertension Therapy System™ is a high blood pressure treatment which consists of an implantable device designed to electrically activate the body’s own natural blood pressure regulation system in order to treat drug resistant hypertension. The story had this line: The Rheos system is a high blood pressure treatment that is being tested for use in drug-resistant cases. It consists of an implantable device that electrically activates the body’s own natural blood pressure regulation system. Suspicious, but not evidence of total reliance on a news release."
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