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China starts to report asymptomatic coronavirus cases.

April 1, 2020

Chinese health authorities began on Wednesday reporting on asymptomatic cases of the coronavirus as part of an effort to allay public fears that people could be spreading the virus without knowing they are infected with it.

China, where the coronavirus emerged late last year, has managed to bring its outbreak under control and is easing travel restrictions in virus hot spots. But there are concerns that the end of lockdowns will see thousands of infectious people move back into daily life without knowing they carry the virus, because they have no symptoms and so have not been tested. Up to now, the number of known asymptomatic cases has been classified, and it is not included in the official data, though the South China Morning Post newspaper, citing unpublished official documents, recently said it was more than 40,000. In an effort to dispel public fears about hidden cases of the virus, the government has this week ordered health authorities to turn their attention to finding asymptomatic cases and releasing their data on them. Health authorities in Liaoning province were the fist to do so on Wednesday, saying the province had 52 cases of people with the coronavirus who showed no symptoms as of March 31, they said in a statement on a provincial government website. Hunan province said it had four such cases, all of them imported from abroad, it said in a statement on its website. The National Health Commission is due to start reporting aggregate, national data on asymptomatic cases later on Wednesday. There is debate among experts about how infectious asymptomatic cases are but the commission has said all cases would be centrally quarantined for 14 days.It said 1,541 people with asymptomatic coronavirus infections were under observation as of the end of Monday. China has had more than 81,000 cases of the coronavirus and 3,305 deaths.

2true

Health News

7533

Amid virus, Saudis close Islam’s holiest sites to foreigners.

Saudi Arabia on Thursday closed off the holiest sites in Islam to foreign pilgrims over the coronavirus, disrupting travel for thousands of Muslims already headed to the kingdom and potentially affecting plans later this year for millions more ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan and the annual hajj pilgrimage.

Jon Gambrell

The unprecedented move, which wasn’t taken even during the 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide, showed the growing worry about the virus across the Middle East, which has more than 360 confirmed cases. The region’s hardest-hit nation is Iran, which is Saudi Arabia’s biggest nearby rival, with the death toll reaching at least 26, the largest behind only China, where the epidemic began. The number of infections in Iran has spiked by over 100 to at least 254, but a World Health Organization official said he believes that figure is “a substantial underestimate of the true number.” Those Iranians who have fallen ill include Vice President Masoumeh Ebtekar, better known as “Sister Mary,” the English-speaking spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and sparked the 444-day hostage crisis, state media reported. Saudi Arabia barred pilgrims from Mecca, home to the cube-shaped Kaaba that the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims pray toward five times a day, and also the holy city of Medina. Authorities also suspended entry to travelers holding tourist visas from nations affected by the virus. “We expect that this will give Saudi Arabia a chance to really strengthen their own disease control measures for the moment,” said Rick Brennan, the WHO’s emergency director for the Eastern Mediterranean. The kingdom’s Al Saud ruling family stakes its legitimacy in overseeing and protecting the sites, and it appeared to reflect worries about pilgrims spreading the virus. The outbreak’s epicenter in Iran is the holy city of Qom, where the faithful are drawn to a famous Shiite shrine that has stayed open despite calls by the civilian government for it and other sites to be closed. Authorities have canceled Friday prayers in Qom, Tehran and other cities. There have been no confirmed cases of the virus in Saudi Arabia, although infected Saudis are under care in neighboring Bahrain. “We ask God Almighty to spare all humanity from all harm,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement announcing the decision. By leaving the suspension of travel to the holy sites open-ended, Saudi Arabia has raised the possibility of disruption for Ramadan and the hajj. The news shocked the world’s Muslims, many of whom save their entire lives for a chance to see the Kaaba and walk along the path of the Prophet Muhammad and visit his tomb in Medina. Some of them who are already headed to Saudi Arabia heard about the ban as they reached airports in Pakistan, Indonesia and Turkey. Authorities at Cairo’s international airport said the decision created “intense confusion” and “extreme anger” among thousands of passengers waiting for flights. Reinforcements were called to control the crowd as the news broke, according to security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t allowed to talk to reporters. “This is a long-awaited journey for me and my four members of family,” said Achmad Warsito, a disappointed pilgrim in Indonesia. “No words can describe how I feel today.” Disease outbreaks have always been a concern surrounding the hajj, which is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lives. Pilgrims fought off a malaria outbreak in 632, cholera in 1821 killed an estimated 20,000, and another cholera outbreak in 1865 killed 15,000 before spreading worldwide. More recently, Saudi Arabia faced danger from a different coronavirus, one that causes the Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. The kingdom increased its public health measures during the hajj in 2012 and 2013, urging the sick and the elderly not to take part. In recent years, Saudi officials also instituted bans on pilgrims coming from countries affected by the Ebola virus. Since the new coronavirus emerged in December, it has sickened 82,000 people globally and caused more than 2,800 deaths from the illness that has been dubbed COVID-19. While millions attend the hajj, which this year is set for late July into early August, millions more visit the kingdom’s holy sites year round. Those other pilgrimages are referred to as the umrah, which drew 7.5 million people in 2019 alone. One of the biggest times for the umrah is the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins at the end of April. The exact dates for the hajj and Ramadan always depend on the sighting of the moon due to the lunar calendar. Pilgrims spend upward of 10 days at holy sites, mingling in tight quarters. Many are older, have pre-existing diseases and come from countries “with suboptimal disease surveillance,” according to a letter Thursday in The Lancet medical journal. Respiratory infections already are the most-common illnesses. “We do not need to wait for the first case to emerge in Saudi Arabia’s holy sites,” the letter said. “The time for preparedness is now.” Dr. Ziad A Memish, a Saudi professor who studies infectious diseases and co-signed the letter, welcomed the kingdom’s decision. “This is a very tough decision,” he told The Associated Press. “But with the rapid spread of COVID-19 and a lack of good diagnostics, preventative vaccines and therapeutics, this is the best decision that could be taken at such difficult times.” Kristian Ulrichsen, a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, called the Saudi decision “unprecedented.” “Given the worldwide spread of the virus and the global nature of the umrah, it makes sense from a public health and safety point of view,” he said, “especially since the Iranian example illustrates how a religious crossroads can so quickly amplify the spread and reach of the virus.” Dalia Samhouri of the WHO’s regional health emergencies department told AP that the Middle East “is plagued by emergencies,” adding that two-thirds of its 22 countries are “directly or indirectly facing complex emergencies.” She said weak health systems increase the vulnerabilities of populations and the risk of disease spread so that they “may not have the capacity to early detect and rapidly respond to the COVID-19.” Brennan, the WHO regional director, said “the biggest area of concern” was Iran. “We believe the figure 250 is a substantial underestimate of the true number,” he said. “And that’s because our disease surveillance now, our documentation, hasn’t really caught up with the disease yet. But we expect in the coming days that the numbers will increase substantially.” Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour seemed to address that, saying new labs in Iran were conducting tests and the number of confirmed cases could continue to rise. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised medical workers, calling their efforts “very invaluable.” The virus has struck the official in charge of Iran’s response, as well as at least two lawmakers. The state-run IRNA news agency reported that Ebtekar, the Iranian vice president and hostage-takers’ spokeswoman, had been infected and had quarantined herself at home. She had attended a Cabinet meeting Wednesday with President Hassan Rouhani and other top officials and appeared pale in video on state media. During the 1979 hostage crisis, Ebtekar threatened to “destroy” the Americans if a military raid tried to rescue them. IRNA separately reported 81-year-old cleric Hadi Khosroshahi, Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, died of the coronavirus infection at a Tehran hospital after falling ill in Qom. ___ Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; Isabel DeBre and Maggie Michael in Cairo; Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia; Andrew Wilks in Ankara, Turkey; and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed.

/c4ac610a64f25244ad85e71d6377ac8f,/1631a414cfba8ae39dee4b82748b129b,/tag/VirusOutbreak,/ec38e76474ad5512c18cfcfa116552c8

2true

Dubai, AP Top News, Iran, Religion, United Arab Emirates, International News, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Flu, Ramadan, Travel, Epidemics, United Nations, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak, Europe, General News, Health, Islam

26496

“Mass vaccination for COVID-19 in Senegal was started yesterday (4/8) and the first 7 CHILDREN who received it DIED on the spot.”

April 13, 2020

There is not yet a COVID-19 vaccine. Seven children weren’t vaccinated and then died in Senegal.

Ciara O'Rourke

"Scientists around the world are racing to develop vaccines against COVID-19 and some trials are underway. There aren’t, however, ""mass vaccinations"" happening in Africa that are causing kids to die, as a recent Facebook post claims. ""Mass vaccinations for COVID-19 in Senegal was started yesterday (4/8) and the first 7 CHIDLREN who received it DIED on the spot,"" it says. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The misinformation seems to stem from a video post on Facebook on April 4 that claimed to show the arrest of someone who allegedly injected vaccines into children near Dakar, according to France 24. A French voiceover in the video says: ""There is a big scandal in Senegal. There is a guy who came into a house to get kids vaccinated for coronavirus. He vaccinated seven children who died on the spot."" But France 24 noticed that the voiceover covers another voiceover in Wolof, one of the national languages spoken in Senegal. In the Wolof version of the video, the voiceover says: ""He’s a guy who came to the neighborhood today with injections supposedly against the coronavirus. He entered the house of the Mbodji family. He said he is there to administer vaccines."" The death of seven children isn’t mentioned. Alassane Mbodji, who lives at the house in the videos, told France 24 that ""everything that is said on social networks is . No one died of any vaccine. Our children are healthy."" She told the news station that a man came to the home and introduced himself as an agent of the Ministry of Health who was there to raise awareness about the threat of coronavirus. He wore a T-shirt with a health department logo, she said. ""But in the discussions, we quickly realized that he was not an agent of the Ministry of Health. He did not have a badge. He had cosmetic products for sale in his bag,"" she said. Because he was pretending to be a public agent to sell his products — flouting rules barring people from entering others’ homes — she reported him to the authorities, according to the story. A spokeswoman for Senegal’s health ministry told Agence France-Presse the Facebook claims were inaccurate. ""There is no vaccine,"" she said."

https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/13-04-2020-public-statement-for-collaboration-on-covid-19-vaccine-development, https://www.facebook.com/jason.yates.77715/posts/2816533881727550, https://observers.france24.com/fr/20200408-test-vaccin-covid-19-enfants-senegal-video-coronavirus, https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-clinical-trial-investigational-vaccine-covid-19-begins, https://factcheck.afp.com/senegalese-children-did-not-die-coronavirus-vaccine-which-does-not-yet-exist

0false

Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,

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"Britain sets out plans for first ""3-parent"" IVF babies."

February 27, 2014

Britain proposed new regulations on Thursday that would make it the first country in the world to offer “three-parent” fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on incurable diseases to their children.

Kate Kelland, Health, Science Correspondent

The move was praised by doctors and but feared by critics, who say the technique will lead to the creation of genetically modified designer babies. The technique is known as three-parent in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor. The British plans come as medical advisers in the United States began a series of public hearings this week to consider whether there is scientific justification for allowing human trials of the technique. The treatment, only at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would for the first time involve implanting genetically modified embryos into women. The process involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. It is designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells. Announcing draft plans to allow the technique and launching a public consultation on them, Britain’s chief medical officer Sally Davies said the proposed move would give women who carry severe mitochondrial disease the chance to have children without passing on devastating genetic disorders. “It would also keep the UK in the forefront of scientific development in this area,” she said in a statement. But David King of the campaign group Human Genetics Alert accused the government of “jumping the gun” in laying out new laws before the treatments had been thoroughly investigated. “If passed, this will be the first time any government has legalized inheritable human genome modification, something that is banned in all other European countries,” he said in a statement. “Such a decision of major historical significance requires a much more extensive public debate.” Although some critics of mitochondrial transfer say it is akin to creating designer babies, replacing faulty mitochondria with healthy ones would not be genetic engineering in the usual understanding of the term. It would not make a child smarter, sportier, more attractive, or otherwise different from what his genome and environment would produce in the normal way. Britain said the proposed new rules would be subject to public scrutiny and parliament’s approval. Many scientists, campaigners and medical experts welcomed the government’s decision. Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust international medical charity, urged the government to “move swiftly so that parliament could debate the regulations at the earliest opportunity and families affected by these devastating disorders can begin to benefit”. Peter Braude, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at King’s College London, welcomed the move, saying: “It is true that genetic alteration of disease risk is an important step for society and should not taken lightly.” “However the proposed changes to the regulations ensure it will be limited to informed couples, who understand from sad personal experience the significant effects of their disease, and are best placed to balance the risks of the technology with the possibility of having children without mitochondrial disease,” he added. Scientists are researching several three-parent IVF techniques. One being developed at Britain’s Newcastle University, known as pronuclear transfer, swaps DNA between two fertilized human eggs. Another, called maternal spindle transfer, swaps material between the mother’s egg and a donor egg before fertilization. A British ethics panel review of the potential treatments in 2012 decided they were ethical and should go ahead as long as research shows they are likely to be safe and effective. Because Britain is in the vanguard of this research, ethical concerns, political decisions and scientific advances are closely watched around the world. Britain’s public consultation on the draft regulations began on Thursday and was scheduled to run until May 21, 2014.

2true

Health News

5853

US sexually transmitted disease hit another high.

Health officials are reporting another record increase in infections from three sexually transmitted diseases.

Mike Stobbe

More than 2 million new cases of chlamydia (kluh-MID’-ee-uh), gonorrhea (gah-nuh-REE’-uh) and syphilis were reported in the United States last year — the most ever. The diseases are treatable with antibiotics. Rates for all three have been rising for several years. Health officials have said better testing and diagnosis have helped increased detection of cases, but also that treatment and prevention programs have been hurt by budget cuts. Chlamydia is the most common, with nearly 1.6 million cases reported last year. About 470,000 gonorrhea cases were reported, and 28,000 cases of the most contagious forms of syphilis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the numbers Tuesday. ___ Online: CDC report: https://www.cdc.gov/std/stats16/default.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/std/stats16/default.htm

2true

Health, Sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Syphilis

6691

Apollo 11 at 50: Celebrating first steps on another world.

A half-century ago, in the middle of a mean year of war, famine, violence in the streets and the widening of the generation gap, men from planet Earth stepped onto another world for the first time, uniting people around the globe in a way not seen before or since.

Marcia Dunn

Hundreds of millions tuned in to radios or watched the grainy black-and-white images on TV as Apollo 11′s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 , in one of humanity’s most glorious technological achievements. Police around the world reported crime came to a near halt that midsummer Sunday night. Astronaut Michael Collins, who orbited the moon alone in the mother ship while Armstrong proclaimed for the ages, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” was struck by the banding together of Earth’s inhabitants. “How often can you get people around our globe to agree on anything? Hardly ever,” Collins, now 88, told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “And yet briefly at the time of the first landing on the moon, people were united. They felt they were participants.” He added, “It was a wonderful achievement in the sense that people everywhere around the planet applauded it: north, south, east, west, rich, poor, Communist, whatever.” That sense of unity did not last long. But 50 years later, Apollo 11 — the culmination of eight years of breakneck labor involving a workforce of 400,000 and a price tag in the billions, all aimed at winning the space race and beating the Soviet Union to the moon — continues to thrill. “Think of how many times you hear people say, ‘Well, if we could land a man on the moon, we could certainly do blah, blah, blah,’” said NASA chief historian Bill Barry, who like many other children of the 1960s was drawn to math and science by Apollo. “It really, I think, has become a throwaway phrase because it gets used so often. It gets used so often because I think it had an impact.” For the golden anniversary , NASA, towns, museums and other institutions are holding ceremonies, parades and parties , including the simultaneous launch of 5,000 model rockets outside the installation in Huntsville, Alabama, where the behemoth Saturn V moon rockets were born. Apollo 11K and Saturn 5K runs are “go” at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. In nearby Titusville, the American Space Museum and local businesses will mark the exact moment of the moon landing by lifting cups of Tang, the powdered orange drink that rocketed into orbit with the pioneers of the Space Age. Armstrong, who expertly steered the lunar module Eagle to a smooth landing with just seconds of fuel left, died in 2012 at 82. Aldrin, 89, who followed him onto the gray, dusty surface, was embroiled recently in a now-dropped legal dispute in which two of his children tried to have him declared mentally incompetent. He has kept an uncharacteristically low profile in the run-up to the anniversary. Many of the Apollo program’s other key players are gone as well. Of the 24 astronauts who flew to the moon from 1968 through 1972, only 12 are still alive. Of the 12 who walked on the moon, four survive. A vast majority of Earth’s 7.7 billion inhabitants were born after Apollo ended, including NASA’s current administrator, 44-year-old Jim Bridenstine, who is overseeing the effort to send humans back to the moon by 2024. Back in 1961, NASA had barely 15 minutes of human suborbital flight under its belt — Alan Shepard’s history-making flight — when President John F. Kennedy issued the Cold War-era challenge of landing a man on the moon by decade’s end and returning him safely. At the time, the Soviets were beating America at every turn in the space race, with the first satellite, Sputnik, the first spaceman, Yuri Gagarin, and the first lunar probes. JFK’s challenge struck John Tribe, one of Cape Canaveral’s original rocket scientists, as impossible. “I was used to facing up to impossible things. We were in the rocket business, so we were doing some weird and wonderful things back in those days. But, yes, it was an unbelievable announcement at that time,” he said. “It took a lot of guts.” NASA’s Project Mercury gave way to the two-man Gemini flights, then the three-man Apollo program, dealt a devastating setback when three astronauts were killed in a fire during a 1967 test on the launch pad. The pace was relentless amid fears the Soviets would get to the moon first. Cape Canaveral’s Bill Waldron remembers working “seven days a week, 12 hours a day, six months at a clip” on the lunar modules. “You know how we got to the moon as fast as we did is because we burned people out,” said Homer Hickam, a retired NASA engineer whose autobiography, “Rocket Boys,” became the 1999 movie “October Sky.” “Come to Huntsville, go to the cemetery, look at all those young men who are dead down there. They worked themselves to death,” Hickam said. “Or better yet, go to the courthouse and look at all the divorce records. They abandoned their families.” The pressure was so intense leading up to the flight that Collins developed tics in both eyes. Collins privately gave the mission 50-50 odds of total success. Launch day — Wednesday, July 16, 1969 — dawned with an estimated 1 million people lining the sweltering beaches and roads of what had been renamed Cape Kennedy in memory of the slain president. Among the VIPs: Vice President Spiro Agnew, former President Lyndon Johnson and wife Lady Bird, aviation legend Charles Lindbergh, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov and TV’s Johnny Carson. Civil rights demonstrators who had descended on the launch site to question America’s spending priorities temporarily stood down to gaze skyward. The firing room was filled with 500 launch controllers and managers in white shirts and skinny ties, including Wernher von Braun, the German-born mastermind behind the Saturn V. The Saturn V stood 363 feet (110 meters) tall, the largest, most powerful rocket ever flown. Unbeknownst to most of the world, just two weeks earlier, the Soviets’ even mightier moon rocket exploded moments after liftoff, destroying the Kremlin’s moon dreams. At 9:32 a.m. EDT, the Saturn V roared off Pad 39A, its astronauts hurtling toward their destination and destiny 240,000 miles (386,000 kilometers) away. The command module, Columbia, and the attached lunar module, Eagle, reached the moon three days later. The next day, July 20, Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface in the lunar module. Collins wasn’t overly concerned about Armstrong and Aldrin getting down to the moon. Rather, he worried about them getting off the moon and back to the mother ship. He kept his fears to himself. “If it was unthinkable, it was unsayable also,” Collins told the AP. “We never discussed or hinted at their getting stranded on the moon. I mean, we were not fools, and we knew darn well that a lot of things had to go exactly right for them to ascend as they were supposed to do.” President Richard Nixon even had a speech prepared in case of disaster: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.” As it turned out, descent proved more alarming than ascent. With minutes remaining to touchdown, the Eagle was rattled by one computer alarm then another. Caution lights flashed. But flight controllers had rehearsed that very scenario right before the flight, and so guidance officer Steve Bales knew it was safe to proceed rather than abort. Then a boulder-strewn crater the size of a football field appeared at the target landing site, and Armstrong had to keep flying, looking for somewhere safe to put down. Aldrin called out the distance to the surface — 75 feet, 40 feet, 30 feet — as Mission Control informed the astronauts of the fuel remaining. Sixty seconds left. Thirty seconds. Finally came word from Armstrong: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” The time was 4:17 p.m. “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again,” Mission Control’s Charlie Duke radioed back. (He would walk on the moon three years later.) Armstrong descended the nine-rung ladder first, his left boot, size 9½, touching the lunar surface at 10:56 p.m. Aldrin followed him out 18 minutes later. Working in one-sixth Earth’s gravity, they gathered rocks , set up experiments, planted an American flag stiffened with wires to make it look as if it were waving in the windless vacuum and took a congratulatory call from Nixon, who observed, “For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.” Dave Waldrup of Reston, Virginia, watched on TV that day, his 15th birthday, and recalled thinking: “Wow! What are we going to do next? It’s literally not just the sky, but outer space is the limit. And I can’t wait to be part of it.” He went on to become an Air Force pilot and is now a volunteer at the National Air and Space Museum. The moonwalk lasted 2½ hours. The Eagle later reunited with Columbia, and the three astronauts headed home, splashing down July 24 in the Pacific. After spending 2½ weeks in quarantine in case they brought back deadly moon germs, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were given a ticker-tape parade in New York, followed by a frenzied monthlong world tour in which they met kings, queens and Pope Paul VI. Five more missions took men to the surface of the moon — Apollo 13 had to be aborted because of an explosion — before Project Apollo came to a premature end, the last three flights on the schedule scrapped. NASA put the entire Apollo tab at $25 billion, equivalent to more than $150 billion in today’s dollars. The first lunar landing, at least, lifted America’s spirits — indeed, the planet’s — when it needed it. “The Vietnam War, civil strife, racial strife, all kinds of stuff going on that was bad, which I wasn’t paying much attention to because I was working so hard in the space world. The Cold War and all of that,” said JoAnn Morgan, Apollo 11′s lone female launch controller. “It was such a demonstration of the power and the passion of our country.” She added: “I mean, literally, we did exactly what JFK said we would do.” ___ Follow AP’s full coverage of the Apollo 11 anniversary at: https://apnews.com/Apollo11moonlanding ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2018/ap-hhmi-expand-collaboration-to-bolster-health-science-coverage,/0d43af9418f44bc6a2f829c14dcccf48,/12556818033a470d823168a37f57ed6c,/Apollo11moonlanding,/04b0c55bd2cb44f2917a352e17c6e291,/c0d6977d310042af96bb7e2e3287a268,/a0dc542966c44c75bc391fecd5aa911b,/06958017741449b7a7dc29b1a5aca773,/c1919542260b49af8a1ff8228f11d5a2,/16bf61b0677d458b837fba2bab0463a4,/8bad42bcddb94c91860c76b71f994e45,/4d952f9b4c684899960fe85d807434d6

2true

Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, AP Top News, Apollo 11 moon landing, General News, Moon, Michael Collins, U.S. News, Science

9464

New Product Is First to Claim It May Reduce Peanut Allergies

September 19, 2017

This New York Times story covers the health claims of Hello, Peanut!, a powdered peanut product that allows parents to gradually expose their infants to peanuts, in accordance with pediatricians’ and allergists’ advice that the practice reduces the risk of children developing peanut allergies. The recently released, updated medical advice promoting early exposure to peanuts is a complete reversal from the American Academy of Pediatrics’ previous guidelines, which said that high-risk infants should avoid peanuts up to age 3. New guidelines are based on the results of one study conducted in 628 infants at high risk for peanut allergy, which found that early introduction of peanuts significantly decreased the frequency of the development of peanut allergy and modulated immune responses to peanuts. The story covers the science behind the change as well as a range of reactions concerning the new product and its qualified health claim. The story was strong on many points, though we wished it had better explained what a qualified health claim is, and why changing guidelines based on one study can be risky. While the story details the study that the qualified health claim is based on, it does not help readers understand how to interpret that limited evidence.

Jill U. Adams,Allison Dostal, PhD, RD,Joy Victory

The story cites the product’s cost: $25 for the introduction kit and and $20 for the maintenance kit, which lasts for about three weeks. The story does not indicate how many weeks that proper use entails, but the randomized trial cited by the AAP in forming their recommendations (the Learning Early about Peanut Allergy (LEAP) study) continued peanut exposure until age 5. If Hello, Peanut! was used for the same duration, the total tab would be just over $1,900, a not-insignificant expense. Other less costly alternatives to include mixing smooth peanut butter into pureed fruits and vegetables – which is suggested by the AAP in the new guidelines. Yet, this alternative is not mentioned by the NYT. The LEAP study spurred the reversal in advice for exposing infants to peanuts, a decision that then led to the formulation and release of Hello, Peanut! as well as the qualified health claim it now carries. The NYT story details the fact that LEAP study results indicated that by the time infants turned 5, only 1.9% of the 530 allergy-prone children who had been fed peanuts regularly since infancy had developed an allergy, compared with 13.7% of the children who had not consumed peanuts. The story covers directions for Hello, Peanut!’s use in great detail, and also emphasizes that if a baby develops a reaction, parents should discontinue use and contact their pediatrician. The story also discusses potential harms of the product specifically in terms of unintended use. Quoted sources worry that consumers might mistake the product as a cure for peanut allergies as opposed to a preventative tactic. Feeding the product to a child with an existing peanut allergy would likely cause an allergic reaction. The story’s initial focus is the labeling on this product — FDA approved language allows the product to claim it “may reduce the risk of developing peanut allergy.” The language also requires this caveat: “the evidence supporting this claim is limited to one study.” While the story details the study that the qualified health claim is based on, it does not help readers understand how to interpret that limited evidence. The NYT could have devoted some text to describing exactly what a qualified health claim is and why the FDA made its decision to allow it to appear on this product, as well as the weaknesses inherent in basing wide-reaching guidelines on limited evidence. Peanut allergies can result in serious and potentially life-threatening reactions in kids who are exposed. No disease-mongering here. The story quotes the physician-developer of the product, government officials and physician-patient advocates. While we would have liked an expert source with no direct ties to industry or advocacy, we’ll rate this Satisfactory. The story notes that peanut butter can be diluted with water to make a soupy, infant-friendly, peanut-containing food at less cost than the packaged powder product. The story makes clear that the product is available for purchase and goes so far as to hyperlink to its website, where people can place an order. We’d call this establishing availability – sure. But it also might go a step beyond and risk actually advertising the product under scrutiny in the story. The main thrust of the story is the novelty of the FDA approving the claim of a health benefit with this product. The story does not appear to be based on a news release.

http://www.aappublications.org/news/2017/01/05/PeanutAllergy010517,https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4416404/,https://www.fda.gov/Food/NewsEvents/ConstituentUpdates/ucm575001.htm

2true

allergies,peanuts

38336

A viral blog post titled “This Antibiotic Will Ruin You” warns about the long-term health dangers of flouroquinolones antibiotics that go by common names like Cipro, Levaquin, Avalox, and generics that end in “oxacin,””ox” or “quin”

March 21, 2017

Health Warnings About Flouroquinolone Antibiotics

Rich Buhler & Staff

Health warnings about the dangers of flouroquinolone antibiotics that went viral in March 2017 are based on credible scientific studies — but there’s disagreement among researchers about how much risk flouroquinolones poses to normal people. Warnings about flouroquinolones went viral in March 2017 after a post appeared at the WordPress blogs site Mountains and Mustard Seeds under the headline, “This Antibiotic Will Ruin You.” No author is listed for the blog. The site publishes post on a range of topics, mostly centered on faith and spirituality. The author of the post writes that she was given flouroquinolones antibiotics to treat a urinary tract infection in 2010. In the years that followed, the author detailed a lengthy list of medical conditions that apparently resulted from her exposure to flouroquinolones: In 2010, I took Cipro for a UTI and it changed my life forever. A round of antibiotics literally changed the path I was walking, into a path that I couldn’t even crawl on. Multiple spontaneous tendon and ligament ruptures, spinal degeneration, and arthritis that is widespread. We are talking multiple joint dislocations and surgeries to most of my large joints and spine. Twenty surgeries in the last 7 years if you wanna count. I said T W E N T Y. Given that the author of the post isn’t identified, we can’t verify her personal experiences with flouroquinolones. And, while their are credible health advisories related to the antibiotic’s use, it’s safe to say that the author’s experience with flouroquinolones was far from normal. Flouroquinolones have been in widespread clinical use since 1989. These antibiotics work by preventing bacteria DNA from uncoiling, which is required for bacteria to replicate in the body. Today,  flouroquinolones are broken down into two classes: an older group, ciprofloxacin, and a new group, Gemiflocin. There are a range of uses for these antibiotics, the American Family Physician reports: Clinical applications beyond genitourinary tract infections include upper and lower respiratory infections, gastrointestinal infections, gynecologic infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and some skin and soft tissue infections. In August 2015, the FDA advised medical providers to restrict flouroquinolone antibiotic use for certain uncomplicated infections in light of “disabling side effects” that can co-occur in patients: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising that the serious side effects associated with fluoroquinolone antibacterial drugs generally outweigh the benefits for patients with acute sinusitis, acute bronchitis, and uncomplicated urinary tract infections who have other treatment options. For patients with these conditions, fluoroquinolones should be reserved for those who do not have alternative treatment options. An FDA safety review has shown that fluoroquinolones when used systemically (i.e. tablets, capsules, and injectable) are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side effects that can occur together. These side effects can involve the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system. The FDA has warned about increased risk of tendon rupture after fluoroquinolones use since 2008. A 2010 study found that “there is enough data to suggest that fluoroquinolones (FQs )should be used cautiously” in patients who could be more susceptible to tendon rupture and tendinitis: those older than 60, those receiving corticosteroid therapy, and those with renal failure, diabetes, mellitus or a history of musculoskeletal disorders. Patients greater than 60 years of age who were recently treated with a FQ for 1 to 30 days were at a 1.5-fold and a 2.7-fold greater risk for development of tendon disorders and tendon rupture as compared to patients less than 60 years of age, respectively.Some authors have recommended that patients with a history of Achilles tendinitis and advanced age should not be prescribed FQ antibiotics. Although the prevalence of FQ-induced tendon injury is low in the general population (0.14–0.4%), the risk of tendinitis/tendon rupture is substantially increased in patients with chronic renal failure, hemodialysis, and systemic corticosteroid therapy. So, it’s true that tendon problems have been found in people with certain pre-existing conditions, the data does not point to an increased risk to those who didn’t meet that criteria. Perhaps even more alarming, fluoroquinolones have been linked to neurotoxicity and brain disorders. But this isn’t a new development, having been listed as a possible side effect since 2004, Web MD reports: Peripheral neuropathy is damage to the nerves that send information to and from the brain and spinal cord and the rest of the body. Damage interrupts this connection, and the symptoms depend on which nerves are affected. In general, the symptoms are in the arms and legs and include numbness, tingling, burning, or shooting pain. Peripheral neuropathy has been listed as a side effect of fluoroquinolones since 2004. There have been reports of long-lasting nerve damage and disability in patients taking this type of medication. So, in the end, warnings about the side effects of fluoroquinolones — potential for tendon issues, spinal issues, and neurological issues — are accurate. However, the author of the Mountains and Mustard Seed blog post does not describe a typical drug reaction, based on scientific data. Even so, the FDA has modified it’s warnings about fluoroquinolones, and the serious risks cannot be ignored. That’s why we’re reporting this one as “mostly truth.” Comments

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2true

Health / Medical

32456

Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein has stated that she opposes the use of vaccines.

July 28, 2016

Dr. Stein’s stated position is that she “supports vaccinations” and acknowledges that “we have a real compelling need for vaccinations,” so it’s not true to say that she is on record as holding an anti-vaccination political position. However, her somewhat equivocal statements surrounding that issue allow for a fair bit of leeway and interpretation — many others who proclaim to “support vaccinations” in concept effectively undercut their positions by raising objections to the “vaccination process” or the “vaccination industry.”

Kim LaCapria

Scenes of dissent and disunity at the July 2016 Democratic National Convention raised the profile of Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, considered a secondary choice by some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders. While Stein’s campaign made inroads with disgruntled progressives, a counterpoint repeatedly emerged: According to some opinion pieces and rumors, Dr. Stein (an internist with 17 years of field experience) opposes the use of vaccines. The rumor stemmed from an 11 May 2016 Reddit AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) hosted by Stein, in which she fielded questions from site users, during which she was asked “What is your campaign’s official stance on vaccines and homeopathic medicine?” Stein responded at length, but she mostly offered her views on the “medical-industrial complex” rather than addressing the subject of vaccinations and homeopathic medicine. She praised vaccines’ “huge contribution to public health” while tacitly criticizing mandatory vaccination policies and U.S. regulatory agencies: I don’t know if we have an “official” stance, but I can tell you my personal stance at this point. According to the most recent review of vaccination policies across the globe, mandatory vaccination that doesn’t allow for medical exemptions is practically unheard of. In most countries, people trust their regulatory agencies and have very high rates of vaccination through voluntary programs. In the US, however, regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs. So the foxes are guarding the chicken coop as usual in the US. So who wouldn’t be skeptical? I think dropping vaccinations rates that can and must be fixed in order to get at the vaccination issue: the widespread distrust of the medical-industrial complex. Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like smallpox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure — each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them. In an age when industry lobbyists and CEOs are routinely appointed to key regulatory positions through the notorious revolving door, its no wonder many Americans don’t trust the FDA to be an unbiased source of sound advice. Monsanto lobbyists and CEOs like Michael Taylor, former high-ranking DEA official, should not decide what food is safe for you to eat. Same goes for vaccines and pharmaceuticals. We need to take the corporate influence out of government so people will trust our health authorities, and the rest of the government for that matter. End the revolving door. Appoint qualified professionals without a financial interest in the product being regulated. Create public funding of elections to stop the buying of elections by corporations and the super-rich. (It is true that the Green Party [not Dr. Stein herself] once included homeopathic and alternative medicine prominently in their platform, but that stance was officially dialed back in April 2016.) We contacted Dr. Jill Stein’s campaign for clarification on her position regarding vaccinations, and while we did not receive an immediate response, Stein shared our article and tweeted to proclaim that “of course I support vaccinations”: As a medical doctor of course I support vaccinations. I have a problem with the FDA being controlled by drug companies. — Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) July 29, 2016 On 30 July 2016, we received a response to our query from Press Director Meleiza Figueroa, who provided a statement from Dr. Stein to clarify her stance on vaccines: I think there’s no question that vaccines have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases — smallpox, polio, etc. So vaccines are an invaluable medication … We have a real compelling need for vaccinations. Nonetheless, David Weigel noted in the Washington Post that Dr. Stein’s statements echo language used by vaccination opponents, and that her call for vaccines “to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them” may be misplaced: Stein’s warning about corporate influence in the vaccine approval process is often voiced by “anti-vaxxers.” In reality, most members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee work at academic or medical institutions, not drug companies. But for Stein, the fact that people saw corporate and lobbying influence running rampant meant that some skepticism was warranted.

0false

Medical, green party, jill stein, reddit

41712

The gap in UK life expectancies is falling.

January 24, 2020

Not true. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor, and between the northeast and London, is rising.

Leo Benedictus

Men in Teesside have the same life expectancy as those in Ethiopia. Men in one very deprived ward of Stockton have the same life expectancy as men in Ethiopia, according to figures from the World Bank in 2017. This isn’t the case for Teesside as a whole. The gap in UK life expectancies is falling. Not true. The life expectancy gap between rich and poor, and between the northeast and London, is rising. Claim 1 of 3

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2918e720-94c6-45a9-9488-e49b85853d78, https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2918e720-94c6-45a9-9488-e49b85853d78, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44985650, https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/search/life%20expectancy#page/0/gid/1/pat/101/par/E06000004/ati/8/are/E05001527, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN?locations=ET, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/datasets/lifeexpectancyatbirthandatage65bylocalareasuk, https://www.stockton.gov.uk/media/1586115/stockton-town-centre-ward-profile-2019.pdf, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/constituencies/E14000970, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/datasets/lifeexpectancyatbirthandatage65bylocalareasuk, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/healthstatelifeexpectanciesuk/2016to2018, https://www.longevitypanel.co.uk/_files/LSP_Report.pdf, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/nationallifetablesunitedkingdom/2016to2018

0false

health

7719

Desperate Mongolians send children into countryside to escape choking winter smog.

February 4, 2019

Mongolia has extended school winter holidays in the world’s coldest capital and many families have sent children to live with relatives in the vast, windswept grasslands to escape choking smog and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia.

Munkhchimeg Davaasharav

The temperature is expected to drop to minus 32 degrees Celsius (minus 26F) in Ulaanbaatar on Monday night, as residents burn coal and trash to try to keep warm and concentrations of smog particles known as PM2.5 routinely exceed 500 mg per cubic meter, 50 times the level considered safe by the WHO. Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite landlocked between Russia and China, has invested public money and foreign aid to tackle pollution, but improvement has been slow, with residents saying inaction has been compounded by a corruption scandal that has paralyzed parliament. In a crowded township more than 40 miles from Ulaanbaatar, Jantsandulam Bold’s five grandchildren are breathing more easily after fleeing the capital. “Fresh air and sun are most important for kids to grow healthy and robust,” says Jantsandulam, 57, making milk tea for her grandchildren in her home, a thickly padded felt hut known as a “ger”, or in Russian, a “yurt”. “This little one had flu when he came here but the fresh air has treated him well,” she said, pointing at her five-year-old grandson. The children are nearing the end of a two-month break, with schools due to reopen next Monday. About 60 percent of Mongolia is covered by grassland, where the mining of copper, gold, coal and other minerals provides employment, while the Gobi desert envelops the South. But almost half the population live in Ulaanbataar. Reuters calculations based on U.S. Embassy data show annual average PM2.5 concentrations hit 100 micrograms in Ulaanbaatar in 2018. They soared to 270 in December. PM2.5 in China’s most polluted city of Shijiazhuang stood at an average 70 micrograms last year, down 15.7 percent from 2017. The World Health Organisation recommends a concentration of no more than 10 micrograms. The WHO said 80 percent of Ulaanbaatar’s smog was caused by coal burning in “ger” districts, where thousands of rural migrants, used to a nomadic lifestyle, have pitched huts. It estimates air pollution causes more than 4,000 premature deaths a year. A joint study by the U.N. International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and Mongolia’s National Centre for Public Health said children living in one smog-prone district of Ulaanbaatar had 40 percent less lung function than those living in the countryside. “Air pollution aggravates respiratory diseases and children under five are most vulnerable as their organs are still not mature,” said Bolormaa Bumbaa, a doctor at Bayangol District’s Children’s hospital in Ulaanbaatar. Families have already set up a pressure group known as Moms and Dads Against Smog, but after the protests they organized in Ulaanbaatar were ignored, the group decided to focus on encouraging residents to take action to protect themselves, said Mandakhjargal Tumur, a group coordinator. “I don’t believe the government will do enough to reduce pollution in coming years,” she said. “That’s why we are now focusing on raising awareness.” At the Bayangol hospital, Ulzii-Orshikh Otgon, 34, was forced to bring her 10-month-old daughter Achmaa in with pneumonia for the second time in a month. “I believe it’s because of the pollution,” she said, adding that home air purifiers did little to help. “Just by opening the door, our home fills with smog,” she said while breastfeeding Achmaa in the waiting room. Doctors advised her to take her children out of Ulaanbaatar but she has no relatives in the countryside and rent is expensive. “Decision makers have said for years they are fighting pollution,” she said. “They just wasted billions of tugriks on useless stoves and processed coal, which don’t change anything.”

2true

Environment

1615

Once 'King,' cotton farming on a long decline in U.S. south.

November 17, 2015

Fields along the Mississippi River Delta once gleamed white in the autumn with acre upon acre of cotton ready to be picked.

Chris Prentice

But to see the decline of a cash crop once nicknamed “King Cotton” one need look no further than the 300 acres (121 hectares) that Michael Shelton farms in Clarksdale, Mississippi, about 75 miles (120 km) down river from Memphis. The fields were recently cleared of wheat and soybeans, and just one long row of cotton, which Shelton, 65, said he planted “for memory.” “I wanted to say I planted cotton every year,” said Shelton, who is black and whose property includes the 40 acres (16 hectares) his ancestors acquired in the late 19th century, not long after the abolition of slavery. With cotton prices near their lowest in six years, Shelton is far from alone in cutting back on the crop. U.S. farmers this year planted the fewest acres of cotton since 1983, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. In the southern states of Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Arkansas, once the heart of cotton country, growers expect to harvest some of their smallest crops since the year after the U.S. Civil War ended, according to the oldest government data available. It’s not just low prices driving down cotton planting. This year marks the first the U.S. cotton farmers are getting by without a subsidy program that had long been the subject of a trade dispute between Washington and Brazil. For Shelton, the only one of eight siblings to go into farming, that is just the latest in a long line of hits his business has taken. “One thing I’ve found lately is it’s become an expensive business,” Shelton said. Many of the United States’ remaining 18,000 cotton farms - a number that’s fallen by half in less than 20 years - see themselves on the losing end of that long skirmish at the World Trade Organization. Washington paid $300 million to Brazil to settle the subsidy squabble and agreed to stop subsidy payment programs to cotton farms that totaled about $576 million in fiscal 2013, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. The farm law that passed last year phased out payments to farmers of many crops, leaving growers more exposed to market conditions. U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan of the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Nutrition described the shift as “not your father’s farm bill.” “The political climate has changed, that’s hurt cotton’s standing,” said John Robinson, an agricultural economist with Texas A&M University. “The old world doesn’t exist. That’s gone with the wind.” It has left some farmers feeling exposed to low prices and the potential of rising debt levels, ultimately raising the prospect of further exodus from the fiber in areas where growers can grow food crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans. Don Shurley, a cotton economist with the University of Georgia said the problem was an economic one: “Can cotton remain profitable to keep farmers growing it and stay in business?” With the price of cotton running at about 60 cents per pound, down 35 percent from 2014 highs, many farmers are finding it is costing them more to grow the crop than they earn. Falling demand has also taken a toll, with global consumption down 9 percent from a peak of 122.5 million bales nine years ago. The industry’s most pervasive worry ultimately is not cost, but consumption. Cotton has struggled to recover demand lost amid price spikes in 2008, 2010, and 2011, which drove consumers towards clothes made of other fibers, such as polyester and nylon. Other Southern cotton farmers have coped with the long slide in prices by planting ever more acres, following the lead of their Midwestern counterparts who plant corn and wheat, and eke out slightly more profit from larger-scale operations. Ronnie Lee, of Dawson, Georgia, has taken the large-scale route. Since starting out farming 35 acres (14 hectares) in 1987, he and now his three sons have steadily grown their operation to 30 times the size of Shelton’s. Today they plant some 9,000 acres (3,642 hectares) of owned and leased land, as well as picking cotton for others with their three $600,000 mechanical pickers, operating a crop-dusting service and running a gin that will pack as many as 90,000 bales of cotton this year. Despite the size, Lee emphasizes that his business is still a family farm. “We’re a true family farming operation,” he said during a rare lunch break on a recent rainy afternoon. “Why do I have to be small to be a family operation? A small guy today can’t survive.” (This story has been corrected to fix miles/kilometers conversion in paragraph 2)

2true

Environment

7529

Virus death rate still uncertain as mild cases are missed.

How deadly is the coronavirus that exploded from China? The answer reflects a hard reality about fast-moving outbreaks: As cases pop up in new places, the first to get counted are the sickest.

Lauran Neergaard

A straight count of deaths reported worldwide suggests the new virus may be more deadly than the flu, according to the head of the World Health Organization. “Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. But the U.N. agency is reporting a number that health authorities know will keep fluctuating — and it’s far too soon to predict whether it ultimately winds up worse than flu or about the same. “In every outbreak there are at least two competing biases that make the case fatality rate look higher or lower,” said Dr. Marc Lipsitch of Harvard’s School of Public Health. Some ill people may die while many people with mild or no symptoms are being missed, he explained, “because the testing has been so variable and not adequate in many places.” WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE DEATH RATE? The WHO’s latest estimate that 3.4% of patients have died is in line with what the agency has been reporting for over a week. When it took a close look at what’s happening in China, WHO concluded 2% to 4% of patients in the city of Wuhan — the outbreak’s epicenter where a flood of early severe cases overwhelmed health centers — had died. By the time people elsewhere in China were getting sick, authorities were better able to test for the virus and uncover people with mild cases. Consequently, the death rate in the rest of the country was strikingly lower, 0.7%. That number has fluctuated since but is still pretty close — even though the number of deaths being reported every day in China is dropping as the outbreak stabilizes there. WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD? The outbreak has worsened in Iran, where as of Tuesday 4.4% of the more than 1,500 patients so far known to have COVID-19 have died. That number is helping to drive the global death calculation. Outside of Hubei province in China and Iran, the death rate globally as of Tuesday was about 1%. WHY ARE DEATH RATES HIGHER EARLIER IN AN OUTBREAK? In most places dealing with a sudden jump in illnesses, testing people with the earliest mild symptoms — a fever or cough — is low on the priority list. That means death rates may appear artificially high until authorities get a better handle on how widespread the illness really is. The U.S., for example, is still trying to ramp up its capability to test widely, amid criticism that person-to-person spread was going undetected. Further complicating all this math: Scientists have been taking in-depth looks at patients treated in different hospitals, an important step as authorities learn how to battle it. One such study in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine examined 1,099 patients in 500 hospitals in China, many of them beyond Wuhan. They put the death rate at 1.4%. In other words, who gets counted — and where — makes a difference. HOW DOES COVID-19 COMPARE TO OTHER DISEASES? A cousin of this new virus caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2003, and about 10% of SARS patients died. Flu is a different virus family, and some strains are deadlier than others. On average, the death rate from seasonal flu is about 0.1%, said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Even if the right number for the new coronavirus is 0.7%, that’s still worse than the average flu season. But again, the number of infections matters. Millions of people get the flu every year around the world, leading to an annual death toll in the hundreds of thousands. There’s no way to know how many people ultimately will get the new coronavirus. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan says the new coronavirus isn’t as transmissible as flu, so “it offers us a glimmer ... that this virus can be suppressed and contained.” What’s the difference? Flu can be spread before symptoms appear, which helps fuel each year’s influenza season. WHO insists asymptomatic spread doesn’t appear to be driving the COVID-19 outbreak. WHO’S MOST AT RISK FROM COVID-19? Last week’s report by National Health Commission of China scientists shows how easy it is for many cases to be missed early on: 44% of patients had fever when they were admitted to the hospital, but 89% ultimately developed it. In all, 16% developed severe illness after hospital admission; about 5% were treated in an intensive care unit; and 2.3% needed machines to help them breathe. Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung diseases, are more at risk of severe illness, although some younger adults have died. On average, WHO says people with mild cases recover in about two weeks, while those who are sicker can take anywhere from three to six weeks. ___ AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

https://www.ap.org/press-releases/2018/ap-hhmi-expand-collaboration-to-bolster-health-science-coverage,/tag/VirusOutbreak,/bb2cf07b457526fa2836ba33c254aca1,/cbde0ac8f6b52a37206a6f374e1f0398,/595d161ab707ef2da043fcc3b238464a

2true

AP Top News, Understanding the Outbreak, Health, General News, Flu, China, United Nations, Death rates, Virus Outbreak

23098

I lost my health insurance and my doctor because of Obamacare.

October 27, 2010

Republican House candidate Reid Ribble says he lost his health insurance and doctor because of federal health care reform

James B. Nelson

"When it comes to federal health care reform, for many the biggest concern is the most personal one: Can they keep their doctor? During the fierce debate over the proposal, President Barack Obama repeatedly assured voters they could keep their doctors. Now comes Reid Ribble, a Republican challenging two-term U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen (D-Appleton) in a swing seat in northeastern Wisconsin. He’s got a bone to pick with the president. This was the headline on a recent news release: ""Reid Ribble losing doctor, health insurance provider because of Obamacare."" ""I lost my health insurance and doctor because of Obamacare,"" Ribble says in the release. ""If I am elected to Congress, I will go to Washington to make sure no one else loses their doctor because of Obamacare."" That’s a powerful claim. And it could be potent, because Kagen -- who voted for the health care reforms -- is an allergist, prefers to be addressed as ""Doctor"" and includes ""M.D."" after his name on his official Congressional website. Let’s take a look at what happened. Ribble is chairman of The Ribble Group, which owns two Fox Valley roofing companies. Ribble says he sold the business last year to a relative, but an earlier PolitiFact Wisconsin item  could not fully establish that was a fact. In any case, he remains chairman and a paid consultant. And he is covered by its health insurance carrier, Principal Financial Group. In September of 2010, Principal -- a Des Moines-based Fortune 500 company -- announced it was getting out of the health insurance business. Over the next 36 months, Principal will turn over coverage to UnitedHealth Group Co., one of the country’s largest health insurance providers. The change affects some 14,000 employers who provide coverage to 830,000 employees. For more than a decade, Ribble’s doctor has been N. Carter Noble, an Appleton-based family care physician who is part of the Affinity Medical Group. Principal has a coverage agreement with Affinity; UnitedHealth does not have an agreement with Affinity. Ribble’s coverage with Principal ends Dec. 31, 2010. That means Noble will be out of network if Ribble is covered by UnitedHealth. This is the central point cited in the campaign’s news release. So is Reid Ribble -- and presumably thousands of other Principal customers -- an early victim of health care reform? Hardly. Officials with Principal Financial told PolitiFact Wisconsin the decision was made because the company is primarily involved in retirement and asset management -- not health care. The company has $284.7 billion in assets under management, serves 18.9 million customers worldwide, and employs some 14,000 people. Health insurance generates about 3 percent of the company’s revenues, a percentage that is shrinking as other areas grow. ""The medical business continues to be one that undergoes rapid change, which would mean investing additional capital into the business to be able to offer competitive products,"" Principal’s chairman and CEO Larry D. Zimpleman said at the time of the announcement. ""For us, that just does not make sense."" A Principal spokeswoman, Susan Houser, said Ribble should not blame health care reform for the company’s decision: ""In addition to strategic fit going forward, we considered a number of other factors (including the regulatory environment), but our strategy and ability to invest in our growing businesses was the real driver. Our decision certainly did not hinge on (health care) reform, but it was among many factors."" In fact, Susan Voss, the Iowa State Insurance Commissioner, said, ""The issue of their leaving the health insurance market has been under review for almost a decade."" Congress gave final approval to health care reform and Obama signed it into law last spring. Some provisions have kicked in already, while others are years away from taking effect. The provision that requires employer-provided insurers to spend at least 80 percent to 85 percent of their premiums on coverage takes effect in January 2011. The company’s decision got pulled into the national health care discussion after comments from another executive, Dan Houston, president of Principal’s retirement, insurance and financial services businesses. He told the Wall Street Journal that health care reform will make it more difficult for small insurers to compete. Here’s what the Journal wrote: ""In the past, scale hasn’t mattered,"" said Mr. Houston. ""But with administrative costs getting the focus,"" the company would have to grow significantly to stay in the business. The New York Times called Principal’s decision ""another sign of upheaval emerging among insurers as the new federal health law starts to take effect."" The story quoted two health care experts -- Len Nichols from George Mason University and Robert Laszewski, a consultant in Alexandria, Va. -- as saying more small insurers are likely to take similar steps. That may play out. But nowhere did it say that Principal was getting out of the business solely because of health reform, as Ribble suggests. So where does this leave Ribble? After all, he certainly isn’t the first consumer to have to figure out his medical care because companies changed coverage. The Ribble Group -- or Ribble on his own --  could choose another insurance carrier, one that includes Affinity in its network. Affinity has its own insurance company, Network Health Plan, and also accepts patients covered by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. Ribble could continue to see his doctor, but presumably pay more because he is out of network. Or, once the changeover is completed, Ribble could change doctors. Where does that leave us? Ribble says he lost his insurance and his doctor because of federal health care reforms -- a great line for voters. But a line just the same. Principal Financial Group says it made a decision to get out of the insurance business, which made up 3 percent of its revenues -- a share growing ever smaller as other aspects grew. What’s more, the decision was under consideration for years before Obama and his health reform plan came along. Ribble isn’t losing his insurance, his ability to get insurance or even, to be technical about it, his doctor. He and The Ribble Group have choices available -- including an insurance carrier run by his favored health care system. His statement forces us to call for the burn unit: ."

https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2010/oct/20/democratic-congressional-campaign-committee/democratic-group-says-republican-us-house-candidat/, http://www.ribbleforcongress.com/2010/10/12/reid-ribble-losing-doctor-health-insurance-provider-because-of-obamacare/, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/Principal-Financial-to-exit-apf-1971457064.html?x=0&.v=4, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/health/policy/01insure.html?_r=2&th&emc=th, http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100930/BUSINESS/100930003/Principal-Financial-to-transfer-health-insurance-biz-to-UnitedHealthcare, https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704789404575524281126700388.html, http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=125598&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1477633&highlight=

0false

Health Care, Wisconsin, Reid Ribble,

17934

I’ve never supported legislation that invades people’s choices about contraception.

September 16, 2013

"Cuccinelli, in a carefully-worded statement, says he’s never supported legislation that ""invades people’s choices about contraception."" While he’s never cast a vote on legislation that explicitly restricted birth control options, Cuccinelli for a decade has been one of the strongest anti-abortion voices in Virginia. He’s supported personhood bills that recognized life as beginning at the moment of conception or fertilization and bestowed human embryos with legal rights. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says such legislation could outlaw birth control pills and other forms of contraception that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a uterus. Cuccinelli’s wording also allows him to gloss over a vote he cast in 2003 against legislation that would have specified contraception does not constitute an abortion. So Cuccinelli’s claim has some accuracy, but omits his consistent support of bills that would have opened or protected legal avenues to challenge the use of certain contraceptives."

Sean Gorman

"Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is combating accusations that he’s tried to restrict the types of birth control Virginians could use. ""I’ve never supported legislation that invades people’s choices about contraception,"" Cuccinelli told reporters on Aug. 27 while campaigning in Northern Virginia. His comment was reported by The Washington Post and The Loudoun Times. Cuccinelli made a similar comment during a July 20 debate with Democrat Terry McAuliffe when he was asked by moderator Judy Woodruff, ""Would you again seek to make several forms of contraception illegal as you did several years ago?"" ""Well, I certainly didn’t do that several years ago,"" Cuccinelli replied. We examined Cuccinelli’s claim. At issue is his support of support of two ""personhood"" bills that sought to provide human embryos with legal rights. Both bills died in the General Assembly. Supporters say personhood laws provide a legal remedy to parents if an unborn child is killed by the negligent or criminal act of a third party. Opponents say the measures are a ruse to challenge abortion and contraception rights. In 2007, Cuccinelli as a state senator co-sponsored legislation that would have given pre-born humans the ""right to the enjoyment of life"" from the moment fertilization. Critics, including McAuliffe, say the bill would have outlawed birth control pills and other forms of contraception that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a uterus. As attorney general, Cuccinelli last year spoke at a rally for a similar bill that would have extended to human embryos and fetuses, from the moment of conception, ""all the rights available to others living in Virginia."" Anna Nix, a spokeswoman for Cuccinelli’s campaign, said her boss’s statements are accurate because the legislation he backed simply ""defined life and had no language or reference to any form of contraception or any access to contraception."" Nix added in a follow-up email that Cuccinelli ""does not believe the government should regulate contraception and supported this legislation because he is pro-life, and this bill would protect innocent life."" The debate on personhood’s effect on contraception centers on how various forms of birth control work. No one disputes that condoms and other forms of birth control that merely prevent fertilization would unaffected by a measure to provide legal rights to preborn children. But various forms of FDA-approved contraception can also work to prevent the implantation of fertilized egg in the uterus. For example, although birth control pills mainly work to prevent fertilization by preventing the release of an egg, they can also make the lining of the uterus inhospitable to implantation after its fertilized, according to WebMD. Emergency contraceptives if taken soon after intercourse can prevent the release of an egg to prevent fertilization. But if taken later, they can prevent the implantation of an egg. Some abortion opponents believe life begins at the moment of fertilization and consider anything that prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus as tantamount to producing an abortion. That’s sparked concerns from supporters of contraceptive access that conveying rights to human eggs from the moment of fertilization could open the door to limiting birth control products that can prevent affect implantation. Nix, in her statement, did not spell out exactly how Cuccinelli defines ""contraception."" We asked if he includes in his definition any method that prevents implantation of a fertilized egg, but didn’t get a clear response. ""The pharmaceutical structure for contraception is one that changes with ongoing medical research,"" Nix said. ""Ken Cuccinelli is not interested in legislating contraception."" We should note that as a state senator back in 2003, Cuccinelli voted against a Democratic measure that would have specified contraception does not constitute abortion. The bill, which passed the Senate but died in the House, defined contraception as methods that block fertilization or prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists weighed in on that debate last year warning that personhood laws being considered around the nation saying it threatened certain forms of contraception. ""Although the individual wording in these proposed measures varies from state to state, they all attempt to give full legal rights to a fertilized egg by defining `personhood’ from the moment of fertilization before conception (ie. pregnancy/implantation) has occurred,"" ACOG wrote. That would make condoms, spermicides and natural family planning ""the only legally allowed forms of birth control,"" the group said. In other words, the doctors said that only birth control devices that prevent sperm from joining an egg would remain legal. ""Thus, some of the most effective and reliable forms of contraception, such as oral contraceptives, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and other forms of FDA-approved hormonal contraceptives could be banned in states that adopt ‘personhood’ measures,"" ACOG said. Three days after ACOG’s statement, the Virginia’s 2012 personhood bill was approved by the Republican-led House on an almost straight party line vote. Democrats unsuccessfully offered an amendment that specified the legislation ""shall not be interpreted as affecting lawful contraception."" Two days later -- on Feb. 15, 2012 -- Cuccinelli endorsed the bill at rally on the Capitol grounds, although news stories contain no mention addressing contraception in his speech. The bill, however, died in the Senate. Both the 2012 and the 2007 measures may not have survived legal challenge even if they had passed. A.E. Dick Howard, a University of Virginia constitutional law professor, pointed out to us that the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 ruled that couples have a right of access to contraception. Our ruling Cuccinelli, in a carefully-worded statement, says he’s never supported legislation that ""invades people’s choices about contraception."" While he’s never cast a vote on legislation that explicitly restricted birth control options, Cuccinelli for a decade has been one of the strongest anti-abortion voices in Virginia. He’s supported personhood bills that recognized life as beginning at the moment of conception or fertilization and bestowed human embryos with legal rights. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says such legislation could outlaw birth control pills and other forms of contraception that prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a uterus. Cuccinelli’s wording also allows him to gloss over a vote he cast in 2003 against legislation that would have specified contraception does not constitute an abortion. So Cuccinelli’s claim has some accuracy, but omits his consistent support of bills that would have opened or protected legal avenues to challenge the use of certain contraceptives."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/contraception/against_1.shtml, https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/26/government-not-god-pac/pac-ad-says-obama-will-force-christian-groups-pay-/, http://www.webmd.com/sex/birth-control/birth-control-pills, https://www.guttmacher.org/media/inthenews/2013/04/11/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-first-virginia-debate-mcauliffe-versus-cuccinelli/2013/07/22/3da80af8-f31c-11e2-8505-bf6f231e77b4_blog.html, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836004/replies?c=1, http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/byaudience/forwomen/ucm118465.htm, https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/08/debbie-wasserman-schultz/debbie-wasserman-schultz-says-mitt-romney-supports/, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/ken-cuccinelli-birth-control_n_3832319.html, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/15/virginia-republicans-push-back-against-critics-of-/?page=all, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?071+ful+HB2797, https://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/us-anti-abortion-personhood-idUSTRE81E22A20120215, http://www.loudountimes.com/news/article/cuccinelli_says_government_shouldnt_legislate_birth_control432, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/cuccinelli-says-he-wont-limit-birth-control-expresses-mild-support-for-affordable-housing/2013/08/28/7fc077b2-1000-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html, https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/08/2/gr080207.html#t1, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/cuccinelli-vows-not-to-support-restrictions-on-birth-control/2013/08/27/cc038aae-0f3a-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html, http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForWomen/FreePublications/ucm313215.htm, http://delegatebob.com/news/press-releases/del-marshall-says-tim-kaine-misrepresents-his-personhood-bill, https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/nov/02/florida-democratic-party/florida-dems-say-romney-supported-law-could-have-b/, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=041&typ=bil&val=sb456, http://www.lifenews.com/2013/09/05/washington-post-falsely-claims-ken-cuccinelli-wants-to-ban-birth-control/, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=US&vol=492&page=490, http://www.acog.org/About_ACOG/News_Room/News_Releases/2012/Personhood_Measures, https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Webster+v.+Reproductive+Health+Services, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?121+ful+HB1+pdf, http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/article_5e825a9f-7937-556a-a931-55c011702ea9.html, https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/feb/10/health-care-law-catholics-birth-control/, http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?ses=031&typ=bil&val=sb1104

1mixture

Abortion, Sexuality, Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli,

9365

Automatic texting helps ease stress of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients

June 8, 2018

This story covered a four-month randomized feasibility trial to see how well a text messaging system relieved stress of women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. Based on an abstract presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, the story provided some interesting data, such as older women were more likely to text back to seek information. But it skimped on important details like cost, availability and how big the benefits were. Quality of life has historically been overlooked in cancer care, so it’s nice to see a news story that highlights research aiming to improve it. On the other hand, technology isn’t a panacea and news stories should quantify the purported benefits just as they would for drugs and other interventions.

Mary Chris Jaklevic,Mandy Stahre, PhD,Joy Victory

How much would a texting system cost? Who would pay for it? Would it require extra staffing at the doctor’s office? This story left us wondering. The story reported that women with the texting tool “reported an overall lower level of distress and a higher quality of life during their therapy” and “felt they had better communication with their doctors” versus women who received an American Cancer Society pamphlet on chemotherapy. A research states at the four-month mark “the gap was huge” between the texting and control groups. But there are no numbers to quantify what’s “huge.” The story stated texting “also played a role in helping patients feel like they were in control of their treatment, particularly during the first month.” But there was no data to quantify that benefit. The story said texting “did not affect the odds of developing symptoms of depression,” but didn’t say how many women got depressed. The story also didn’t differentiate between receiving the twice daily texts (content unknown) with being able to text someone questions. It’s unclear which component of the texting tool was the most effective. There don’t appear to be any harms associated with text messages, barring potential distraction while driving. Hence, this criterion doesn’t apply. The story mentioned this was a feasibility trial, implying there might be bugs that have yet be worked out. It also said 100 women participated. Still, there’s not a lot of information to help readers determine the strength of the evidence. For example, it could have explained that, as the abstract stated, “Further research is needed to develop additional tailoring and personalization per participants’ feedback.” And that it was presented at a conference, which means it’s preliminary data, not published or peer-reviewed. The story didn’t explain the context of the twice daily texts. Was it just information? Was the piece of the texts that was most helpful having someone available at any hour of the day to answer questions? To me, it could be that the information received through texts was specific to that person’s situation versus a generic pamphlet. Also, they said in the first paragraph that it was a “designed to see if texting could relieve some of the anxiety that comes with the fatigue, hair loss and other body changes that can accompany anticancer drugs.” What about anxiety that is caused by the cost of treatment or figuring out your next medical appointment will reveal whether the treatment is effective? Without understanding the context of the texts, it’s hard to judge the quality of the evidence that the program was effective at reducing anxiety related to fatigue, hair loss, and body changes. No disease-mongering here. We couldn’t find good data on how common chemotherapy treatments are and how many patients might benefit from better support and clinician communication, but certainly the number is great. There were no independent sources. While we couldn’t identify any conflicts of interest, some of the researchers receive payments from industry. The article fell short by not indicating who funded the study. The story mentioned a control group that received pamphlets about chemotherapy. It wasn’t clear if that was the current standard method of helping women cope. Also, the story could have explored existing options such as such as online support groups or regular check-ins with a doctor’s office, or already existing ask-a-nurse lines that are open all the time for patients. The story mentioned this was a feasibility study, signalling the system isn’t available. Still, it could have explored whether any text messaging systems are being used for chemo patients. The story lacked context about the increasing use of text messaging for patients support, including during chemotherapy, and it didn’t explain how this system works. Did clinicians answer patients’ texts, or were the answers given by a computer? It’s not clear. The story didn’t rely on a news release.

0false

breast cancer

10178

Calcium tied to lower cancer risk in older people

February 23, 2009

This report on a study about the links between calcium intake and cancer risk does several important things well: It puts these findings in the context of other research It translates the calcium amounts into dietary choices It describes the methodology and conclusions clearly, and includes useful caveats It makes the useful distinction between the benefits of calcium from diet and supplements It packs in the viewpoints of four sources into a fairly short story The story’s biggest shortcoming is a failure to put the relative risk reductions in the context of absolute risk. It’s hard to tell how meaningful a 20 percent risk reduction of head and neck cancer is. One suspects the 7-year risk of those cancers in this population is very small, but we don’t know. There’s also an issue that isn’t captured by the criteria in this review but is worth mentioning nonetheless. It appears that most dietary calcium came from dairy products. If that’s true, do the researchers know whether something in the dairy products other than the calcium that is responsible for the risk reduction? The fact that calcium supplementation didn’t have the same protective effects as calcium-rich foods raises the question. The reporter should have too.

It’s not necessary to compute the marginal extra costs, if there are any, of a diet high in calcium. The study cites a few benefits linked to supplements, but they are not central enough to the story to require discussion of costs. The reporter generally does a good job explaining which levels of calcium intake showed benefits against which cancers in both men and women. It names the cancers that were reduced the most and least by calcium intake. It mentions those that appeared to be linked to supplements rather than food. But the report fails to put the risk reduction numbers in the context of absolute risk. The study shows men with high calcium intake were 16 percent less likely than those with the lowest calcium intake to get colon cancer over 7 years. But it fails to tell us how big the underlying colon cancer risk is for these men. If that risk is 1 percent, a 16 percent drop in that risk is of little significance. If the risk is 40 percent, that’s very different. The story fails to mention the risks of excessive calcium intake, which include kidney problems and malabsorption of other minerals. As a matter of course, such risks should be mentioned at least briefly. Having said that, the reporter gets points for stating that intake levels above 1,200 milligrams per day did not show addiitonal benefits. This should be sufficient to prevent people from taking reckless action to boost their calcium intakes to very high levels. The report does a commendable job of describing the strengths and weaknesses of the study, as well as its methodology and study population, without using jargon. The reader comes away understanding that the study was big but not as rigorous as some smaller trials. The reader understands that the results are not conclusive. The comment at the end, indicating that the study group is likely healthier than the population as a whole, is particularly useful. The story does not exaggerate the severity or prevalence of the 10 types of cancer studied. Nor does it dramatize the potential of calcium to prevent cancer. For such a short story, the reporter does a good job of sourcing. The story includes the thoughts of the lead researcher and three independent experts. It’s worth pointing out that none of the experts is quoted directly; their viewpoints are paraphrased. Other reporters might have made only two calls and included live quotes. Those stories likely would have less credibility, not more. The study is about the benefits of higher calcium intakes, and it distinguishes properly between calcium from diet and supplements. There are certainly other ways to reduce cancer risk in the studied population, but the story is framed in a way that makes it unncessary to get into that. The availability of calcium-rich foods and calcium supplements is not in question. The story makes no claims for the novelty of a calcium-rich diet or the study’s general findings. There is no evidence that the reporter drew excessively on the press release linked to the study.

2true

22011

"Medicare ""only has about 50 percent of it paid for by either premiums or payroll taxes, and the rest is deficit spending ... or debt spending."

June 1, 2011

Pawlenty says half of Medicare paid for with deficit spending

Robert Farley

"In an appearance on ABC's This Week on May 29, 2011, Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty said the hard reality is that Medicare is ""going broke."" Medicare, Pawlenty said, ""only has about 50 percent of it paid for by either premiums or payroll taxes, and the rest is deficit spending and debit spending, or debt spending. So we have to fix it."" Medicare, which provides health care to about 50 million elderly or disabled Americans, is financed through a combination of funding streams: a Medicare payroll tax; general revenue (mostly from federal income taxes); premiums paid by Medicare users; and a tax on Social Security benefits and state payments toward the prescription drug benefit. We'll go a little deeper in the weeds. The program is financed through two separate trust fund accounts: the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund and the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) Trust Fund. Medicare payroll taxes go to the HI trust fund, which is primarily used to pay for inpatient hospital stays (otherwise known as Medicare Part A). The SMI trust fund is used to pay for physicians visits, outpatient care and prescription drug benefits (Medicare Part B and Part D). The SMI trust fund is funded primarily (about 75 percent) through general revenue, with most of the rest coming from patient premiums. Let's start with the first half of Pawlenty's statement, that ""only about 50 percent"" of Medicare is paid for by either premiums or payroll taxes. According to the 2011 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds, Medicare expenditures came to $523 billion in 2010. Here's a breakdown of the revenue side of the equation: • Payroll taxes, $182 billion • Premiums, $61 billion • Taxation of benefits, $13.8 billion • General revenue, $205 billion • Transfers from states for prescription drug benefits, $4 billion If you break out premiums and payroll taxes, Pawlenty is correct that they covered about half the cost of Medicare in 2010. Okay, but what about the second half of the statement, that the rest of Medicare expenses came from ""deficit spending ... or debt spending."" Lisa Potetz of the Washington consulting group Health Policy Alternatives Inc. and co-author of a 22-page ""Primer on Medicare Financing"" in July 2009, said characterizing general revenue as ""deficit spending"" is misleading. Yes, she said, the government is spending more than it is taking in. But not all government spending is deficit spending. In order for Pawlenty's statement to be accurate, you’d have to assume only the deficit portion of the budget is used for Medicare. Using Pawlenty's logic, she said, you could instead put Medicare funding first and then say all of defense spending is deficit spending. Potetz also believes Pawlenty's comment misleads because from its start in 1965, the Medicare program was set up to be partially funded by general revenue. ""His comment suggests that these things (payroll taxes and premiums) are supposed to pay for the program and aren’t doing their job,"" Potetz said. ""It was never the case that it was going to be entirely funded through payroll taxes and premiums. It's a little misleading to suggest something went awry."" In fact, for years, the HI trust fund ran a surplus and was used to fund other parts of the federal budget. To the extent you consider that ""banked"" money, there was a balance of about $344 billion as of last year. In recent years, however, hospitalization and nursing home costs have outpaced the amount coming in from payroll taxes (a problem that is expected to get much worse in coming years as more baby boomers reach retirement age). As a result, the HI fund has been ""drawing down"" its surplus, and is expected to deplete it within several years. At that point, the gap between what's taken in from payroll taxes and the actual cost of hospitalization would have to be picked up by taxpayers. The SMI trust fund -- again, the fund used to pay for physicians visits and prescription drugs -- was set up so that a portion is paid through patient premiums, but the majority is paid from the general revenue. Last year, the government paid $205 billion from general revenue into the fund. Cost projections for that program are cause for alarm, but the financing of the program was always intended to come primarily from general revenue, Potetz said. Medicare expert Marilyn Moon of the American Institutes for Research, an independent policy group, said a shift from hospital care to more outpatient care and physicians services has put a strain on the SMI fund, as has the prescription drug benefit added in 2006. But it's misleading to call general revenues put into the fund ""deficit spending,"" she said. We asked Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant for some backup for Pawlenty's statement, particularly that the amount not covered by payroll taxes and premiums comes from deficit spending. Conant pointed us toward two sources. The first was a Dec. 1, 2010, NPR interview with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office (and former chief economic policy adviser to U.S. Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign) who said, ""If you look past the next eight to 10 years, Medicare is the deficit problem. And there's simply no way we can address our fiscal problems without coming to terms with Medicare's future."" Conant also pointed to this warning from the 2011 annual report from the Medicare Board of Trustees:  ""The drawdown of Social Security and HI trust fund reserves and the general revenue transfers into SMI will result in mounting pressure on the federal budget. In fact, pressure is already evident. For the sixth consecutive year, a 'Medicare funding warning' is being triggered, signaling that projected non-dedicated sources of revenues -- primarily general revenues -- will soon account for more than 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays. That threshold was in fact breached for the first time in fiscal 2010."" It's certainly true that the cost of Medicare is growing and that general revenue -- primarily from income taxes -- is shouldering a growing share of the load. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office concluded the exploding cost of Medicare and other entitlement programs such as Medicaid and Social Security had put the federal budget on an ""unsustainable fiscal path."" One could argue that added Medicare costs to a budget that is already running a deficit is simply adding on more deficit spending. But inasmuch as Medicare has always been supplemented by general revenues, we think it's a little misleading to characterize anything not paid by Medicare payroll taxes or patient premiums as deficit spending."

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/trsum/index.html, http://www.gao.gov/financial/fy2008/citizensguide2008.pdf, http://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131701211/medicare-key-to-conquering-deficit-dilemma, http://www.cms.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2011.pdf, http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/7731-02.pdf, https://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/interview-tim-pawlenty-13713477

1mixture

National, Medicare, This Week - ABC News, Tim Pawlenty,

7579

Veterans with PTSD, anxiety turn to beekeeping for relief.

Gently lifting a wooden frame containing dozens of Italian honeybees, Vince Ylitalo seemed transfixed as he and several other veterans inspected the buzzing insects.

Michael Casey And Mike Householder

“This is really cool,” he said, pointing to a bee with blobs of orange pollen on its hind legs. Ylitalo, who has battled PTSD after serving nearly 40 years in the military including two tours in Iraq, didn’t seem bothered by the bees swarming around his head or crawling all over the entrance to their hive. Instead, the 57-year-old logistics expert said the several hours spent working on the two hives each week at the Manchester VA Medical Center in New Hampshire was a respite of sorts from his anxiety and depression. Known as an apiary, the hives are located next to a lilac garden off a busy street. “I’m in this program to help me get out of the thought process of all those problems that I have,” said Ylitalo, who has struggled since leaving the Army in 2017. “It helps me think of something completely different. ... I’m just thinking about bees.” Researchers are beginning to study whether beekeeping has therapeutic benefits. For now, there is little hard data, but veterans in programs like the one in Manchester insist that it helps them focus, relax and become more productive. The programs are part of a small but growing effort by Veterans Affairs and veteran groups to promote the training of soldiers in farming and other agricultural careers. Standing near Ylitalo in her white bee suit, Army veteran Wendi Zimmermann said bees have helped her deal with the anxiety she feels outside her home — even though she initially feared being stung. She and Ylitalo are among 12 veterans that have taken part in beekeeping since the program started in May. “It gives you a chance to shut down and not think about the outside world. It shows me there is a way to shut my brain down to get other things accomplished,” Zimmermann said. “Before, my mind would be filled with thoughts constantly and I wasn’t accomplishing daily tasks.” While some of the programs are geared to giving soldiers the skills to become farmers and commercial beekeepers, others aim to address the challenges facing those returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq with brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues. The programs are careful to say that beekeeping is just one of several benefits that could help a troubled veteran. “The anecdotes we have heard are fantastic,” said Alicia Semiatin, who heads the mental health program in Manchester. “Folks find that it is really something that they benefit from at the time they are doing the beekeeping and the benefits seems to be carrying over not only for days but weeks afterward. What more could you ask for from treatment than something to that degree?” Similar stories have been heard from beekeeping programs from Brockton, Massachusetts, to Reno, Nevada. Those running the programs said there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that beekeeping is making a difference for those who spend time managing hives and harvesting honey. Beekeeping gives them a sense of purpose, helps them relax and allows them to block out dark thoughts, they said. “Beekeeping affords us the opportunity to really kind of engage in a different way with the natural world,” said Adam Ingrao, a fourth-generation soldier who runs Heroes to Hives through Michigan State University Extension. “You’re not thinking about what happened in Afghanistan or Iraq. You’re thinking about what’s happening right here, right now.” Ford Motor Co. is providing space to Heroes to Hives at Henry Ford’s old farm near Ann Arbor. The free program provides a nine-month beekeeping course to veterans, about 80% of whom have a disability. In Reno, Ginger Fenwick started Bees4Vets with her husband, Daniel, in 2018 after spotting a 1919 pamphlet written by the government that advocated beekeeping for veterans returning from World War I with shell shock. Bees4Vets trains 10 veterans a year to manage some of its roughly 30 hives at the agricultural experiment station at the University of Nevada, Reno and resident’s backyards in nearby Sparks. Inspired by concerns about high levels of suicide among veterans, the program focuses on those with PTSD or traumatic brain injuries from Nevada and northern California. It also has teamed up with a University of Nevada, Reno professor who studies PTSD to research whether beekeeping is helping veterans in the program. If a majority shows improvement, the program plans to study why and how — and whether beekeeping could be helping. “If there was anything we could do to help one family, one person, then it would be all worth it,” Fenwick said. Each veteran gets two hives to manage for the year and learns skills like honey harvesting and wax processing. One veteran who completed the program wants to start a honey mustard business; another wants to make lip balms using bee wax. At the University of Minnesota, Rebecca Masterman runs its bee squad. One of its programs works with veterans who manage 18 hives on the grounds of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. She said the program’s main goal is to expose veterans to beekeeping, though it also promotes the therapeutic benefits of working with bees. She was cautious, however, about commenting on whether beekeeping could be treatment for veterans with PTSD. “We know that beekeeping is an amazing experience,” said Masterman, whose program is seeking funding to study its impact on veterans with PTSD. “But at the same time, we’re not trying to do therapy without setting up an actual program that would specifically do therapy.” ___ Householder reported from Superior Township, Michigan.

https://www.beelab.umn.edu/bee-squad/bee-squad-programs/bee-vets,https://bees4vets.org/about-us/

2true

New Hampshire, Anxiety, Health, Manchester, General News, Insects, AP Top News, Bees, Iraq, Veterans, U.S. News

8038

German town converts gym hall to hold virus quarantine offenders.

March 27, 2020

A German town has turned a gymnastics hall into a facility to hold potential offenders against quarantine rules that stipulate a 14-day isolation period for those who test positive for the coronavirus and those who come into contact with them.

Equipped with 20 camping beds, mattresses, and toilets stacked with toilet paper - an increasingly hard-to-find commodity, the hall in the western town of Menden is empty for now. But council head Sebastian Arlt said he was open about who the facility might be used for. “We might house the homeless. It might also be used as additional capacity for hospitals if we have a situation like in Spain or France, if hospitals simply run out of space,” he said, standing in a hall that looked more like an army training facility than a gymnastics hall. “Or it could be used to house people who repeatedly defy the quarantine and deliberately put others in danger of being infected,” he added. “Then we could forcibly house them here.” Germany has recorded some 43,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 253 deaths. The government will need bed and intensive care capacity in hospitals should thousands of people need medical attention after contracting the virus. Restaurants, malls, gyms, cinemas and all non-essential businesses have been shut, and people have been instructed to stay at home unless they have to run essential errands or buy food. People have also been advised to stay 1.5 metres apart. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been in quarantine since Sunday after visiting a doctor who subsequently tested positive for the virus. Arlt said statistics in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia where Menden is located suggest that one if five people are not abiding by the quarantine rules. “The gym is fitted out like that to show quite plainly what happens to people who do not obey the rules,” he said. “We will use all methods available, and if we reach the conclusion that the situation will improve only if we use force, then we will do so with help from the police.”

2true

Health News

28576

An image accurately states the rights a rape or sexual assault victim universally has in the wake of an attack.

August 2, 2017

The rape and sexual assault flyer posted to Reddit offers a mixture of true, false, and likely region-specific information, running the risk of confusing rape and assault victims in the critical hours after an attack. Reference to the upper end of forensic and prophylactic services could lull individuals into a false sense of security, as does the lack of stipulation that minors or other at-risk individuals are often unable to seek medical care without police involvement.

Kim LaCapria

On 2 August 2017, a Reddit user shared a photograph of an information flyer regarding rape and sexual assault to the subreddit r/interestingasfuck: The poster did not provide a source or context for the image, and appeared to interact on Reddit primarily in the form of submissions. The flyer read: DID YOU KNOW after a rape or sexual assault… Everything you do/don’t do is YOUR CHOICE Although the document appears to be a handout from a rape crisis or advocacy center of some description it also looks as if identifying information (indicating jurisdiction, among other things) had been cropped out, priming the image to be shared by a larger audience. Nothing claimed in the flyer was particularly bad or harmful advice, but it also targeted assault victims and made promises that might not always be true, such as that a hospital escort would be available. Further, statements about preventive care following an assault are worthy of double-checking, because of the decreased efficacy of such treatments over the course of hours following an assault. The meme’s first claim is that it is possible to seek medical treatment without reporting the rape or assault to the police, a statement that is gray at best. Confidentiality standards maintained by the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) require sexual assault hotlines to adhere to privacy policies, but we found no sweeping guarantee in the United States that any third party was prohibited from reporting a suspected rape or assault to local authorities. According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, Inc., in some situations mandated reporters are bound to report suspected assault or rape regardless of the victim’s wishes: Depending on to whom you report the abuse, if it involves a minor, there may be mandatory reporting requirements for minor victims. Many states require that health professionals, school officials, and counselors report any accusations of sexual assault, rape, or unlawful sexual contact to child protective services and/or to the police if the victim is a minor. Mandatory reporting requirements vary by state. You can look up your states specific laws on mandatory reporting requirements for minors in RAINN’s State Law Database. If you are a minor and you want to talk to an adult about sexual assault or abuse without having it be reported to the police or child protective services, it may be a good idea to ask the adult if s/he is a mandatory reporter before you talk to him/her. If s/he says “yes,” you can ask if s/he can refer you to someone who you can talk to confidentially (who is not a mandatory reporter). Alternatively, you may want to call a national or state hotline anonymously without giving any identifying information about yourself. A 2013 question-and-answer piece published by Cleveland’s Plain Dealer clarifies: There is no requirement [a victim] talk to police [if they visit a hospital following a rape or assault]. However, a hospital must inform law enforcement that a probable crime has occurred. If you are an adult, the report can be made without providing your name. In 2014, Canadian broadcast outlet CBC reported that a hospital visit does not automatically trigger police involvement in Canada, again stipulating that minors do not have the option of refusing police involvement. The meme also said that evidence can be collected for up to five days and would be held for six months in the event the victim opted to involve police at a later date. This is potentially misleading. According to the National Center for Victims of Crime [PDF], the length of time kits are held by law enforcement fluctuates: This varies from state to state, but is generally equal to the statute of limitations for sexual assault in that state and the amount of time proscribed in the state’s evidence retention laws. There may be reasons to keep the kit indefinitely because of future changes in the statute or technological advances that may provide for future testing. The same organization noted that advances in DNA testing enabled evidence collection in some cases for up to 96 hours (four days) after an assault. But 12 to 24 hours [PDF] is optimal for investigative purposes, and evidence can deteriorate at the upper end of that window:   In general, once a body fluid dries to form a stain, the DNA is stable and, thus, can be analyzed over time. However, due to the adverse impact of various environmental conditions (mainly heat and humidity), biological material should be collected for use as evidence as soon as possible. In sexual assault cases, it is important to obtain evidence samples from the victim as soon as possible after the incident, preferably within 12-24 hours. Federal guidelines for sexual assault nurse examiners state that evidence in sexual assault cases should be collected within 72 hours, though some programs are expanding that deadline to 96 hours due to advances in DNA technology. With appropriate storage, DNA evidence collected properly and in a timely manner can be analyzed after the passage of any amount of time. In other words, four days is stretching the bounds of forensics, and not all jurisdictions hold samples for up to six months. In addition, advocacy groups routinely advise victims to avoid the following before collecting evidence: The meme went on to claim that testing for incapacitating drugs could occur between 24 and 72 hours after an assault, which is complicated by the breadth of substances that fall into that particular category. Although rohypnol (roofies) and gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) are commonly recognized as agents used to incapacitate victims, alcohol and benzodiazepines also are classed as drugs associated with date rape. GHB has a short half-life, but rohypnol can appear in tests for approximately 28 days. The range of drugs used to facilitate non-consensual sexual encounters is broad enough that a specific window of 24 to 72 hours does not fit that wide spectrum. Next, the flyer says that medications to prevent sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy must be started within 72 hours.” The World Health Organization’s guidance on post-assault care recommends something different: The decision to offer STI prophylaxis should be made on a case-by-case basis. Routine prophylactic treatment of all patients is not generally recommended. When agencies and organizations do recommend prophylactic antibiotics, we found no time limit included. With respect to emergency contraceptives, intra-uterine devices (IUDs) were considered effective for five days after a rape or unprotected sexual encounter. Oral emergency contraceptives (the “morning after pill”) are not typically recommended after 72 hours, and work best when used as soon as possible after exposure to pregnancy risk. The final bullet point appears specific to whatever entity originally published the list. The claim that victims can obtain an escort without a number to call or other resource provided is open-ended, and clearly not applicable in all situations. According to RAINN, there is a possibility (but no guarantee) victims can connect with the support described on the sheet: If you call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or contact a local sexual assault service provider, you may be connected with an advocate who can talk to you about the examination and offer support. The advocate may also be able to accompany you during the actual exam. Be aware that if you invite someone other than an advocate into the exam room, they could be called as a witness if you decide to report the crime.

1mixture

Crime, rainn, rape, rape awareness

2295

Hangover cure is elusive but symptom relief fizzles and flows.

December 30, 2014

Revelers are preparing to ring in the New Year with parties and celebrations, and those whose heads are still ringing will spend their first waking hours of 2015 searching for hangover relief.

Leslie Gevirtz

Although there are drinks, tablets and home-made remedies, a cure for the throbbing headache, nausea, fatigue and thirst that can follow a night of drinking has remained elusive. “There are no hangover cures,” said Dr. George Koob, director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health. Koob said there is evidence that low to moderate drinking can have beneficial health effects, but hangovers are a symptom of a bigger problem: excessive drinking. “There are no medications that you can take for a hangover,” he added in an interview, “and we’re not putting any money into it.” Along with increased thirst and dizziness, excessive drinking can irritate the stomach, cause blood vessels to dilate and lead to a drop in blood sugar causing general weakness and tiredness. There is no cure for excessive drinking but there are products ranging from tablets and drinks to IV infusions to relieve hangover symptoms. The makers of Blowfish offer a money-back guarantee if the effervescent tablets containing aspirin and caffeine sold over the counter do not work. “In terms of the guarantee, we do occasionally have people take us up on it,” said Blowfish founder Brenna Haysom, adding so far it has only been a few customers. Aspirin and Alka-Seltzer are other popular remedies. In Australia, high-dose, B-vitamin tablets have been used for decades. Researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, found that lemon-lime soda was effective in cutting the length of a hangover. They examined 57 beverages ranging from teas, herbal drinks and sodas. Kevin Zraly, author of “Windows on the World Complete Wine Course” said dehydration plays a part in hangovers, so he drinks plenty of water. “That’s why for every glass of wine I consume, I will have two glasses of water,” he explained. For a more expensive option than a water bottle, hydration clinics have sprung up in London, Chicago, Miami and other cities to provide intravenous (IV) fluids. For a fee ranging from $150 to $250, a doctor will attach clients to an IV containing saline solution with electrolytes, Vitamin B supplements and other formulations to help them recover from hangovers and jet lag.

2true

Health News

5551

Justice Ginsburg reports she’s on way to ‘well’ after cancer.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Saturday she’s “alive” and on her way to being “very well” following radiation treatment for cancer.

Jessica Gresko

Ginsburg, 86, made the comments at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington. The event came a little over a week after Ginsburg disclosed that she had completed three weeks of outpatient radiation therapy for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas and is now disease-free. It is the fourth time over the past two decades that Ginsburg, the leader of the court’s liberal wing, has been treated for cancer. She had colorectal cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer in 2009 and lung cancer surgery in December. Both liberals and conservatives watch the health of the court’s oldest justice closely because it’s understood the Supreme Court would shift right for decades if Republican President Donald Trump were to get the ability to nominate someone to replace her. On Saturday, Ginsburg, who came out with the book “My Own Words” in 2016, spoke to an audience of more than 4,000 at Washington’s convention center. Near the beginning of an hour-long talk, her interviewer, NPR reporter Nina Totenberg, said: “Let me ask you a question that everyone here wants to ask, which is: How are you feeling? Why are you here instead of resting up for the term? And are you planning on staying in your current job?” “How am I feeling? Well, first, this audience can see that I am alive,” Ginsburg said to applause and cheers. The comment was a seeming reference to the fact that when she was recuperating from lung cancer surgery earlier this year, some doubters demanded photographic proof that she was still living. Ginsburg went on to say that she was “on my way” to being “very well.” As for her work on the Supreme Court, which is on its summer break and begins hearing arguments again Oct. 7, Ginsburg said she will “be prepared when the time comes.” Ginsburg, who was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1993, did not directly answer how long she plans to stay on the court. Earlier this summer, however, she reported a conversation she had with former Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired from the court in 2010 at age 90. Ginsburg said she told Stevens: “My dream is to remain on the court as long as you did.” Stevens responded: “Stay longer.” He died in July at age 99. Ginsburg said Saturday that she loves her job. “It’s the best and the hardest job I’ve ever had,” she said. “It has kept me going through four cancer bouts. Instead of concentrating on my aches and pains, I just know that I have to read this set of briefs, go over the draft opinion. So I have to somehow surmount whatever is going on in my body and concentrate on the court’s work.” Ginsburg’s appearance Saturday was not her first following her most recent cancer announcement. Earlier this week she spoke at an event at the University at Buffalo, where she also accepted an honorary degree. At the time she talked only briefly about her most recent cancer scare, saying she wanted to keep her promise to attend the event despite “three weeks of daily radiation.” ___ Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at twitter.com/jessicagresko.

/1f2b70cd9f1649778db9685585aeef06,https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/press/pressreleases/pr_08-23-19,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDNPM6gj12Y

2true

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme courts, Cancer, Pancreatic cancer, General News, Politics, U.S. Supreme Court, Radiation therapy, AP Top News, Courts, Health

29068

Letter from Indiana state representative accuses the Girl Scouts of being a radicalized organization that promotes abortions and homosexuality.

February 23, 2012

Letter from Indiana state representative accuses the Girl Scouts of being a radicalized organization that promotes abortions and homosexuality.

David Mikkelson

In February 2012, Indiana state representative Bob Morris sent the above-quoted letter to House Republicans to explain why he refused to add his name to a resolution celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts (a resolution which was passed unanimously by the rest of the Indiana House), maintaining that the Girl Scouts are a “radicalized organization” that promotes abortions and homosexuality and serves as a “tactical arm” of Planned Parenthood. In response, Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) President and CEO Betty Cockrum issued the following statement: It was disappointing to read Rep. Morris’ inflammatory, misleading, woefully inaccurate and harmful words about Planned Parenthood, the Girl Scouts of America, and the President and First Lady.PPIN does not produce nor distribute the materials Rep. Morris referenced. Planned Parenthood of Indiana is first and foremost a provider of affordable, high-quality health care, serving more than 100,000 Hoosiers across the state. Our nonprofit provides preventive services such as life-saving cancer screenings, Pap tests, birth control, testing and treatment for STDs, as well as sexual health education and health counseling. As part of our sexual education services, we offer a variety of age-appropriate education services developed by trained professionals. On the national level, inflammatory and generally inaccurate claims about a partnership between the Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood have been promoted primarily by anti-choice lawmakers seeking to place pressure on organizations to disassociate or distance themselves from Planned Parenthood. As part of their campaign against the Girl Scouts, these groups are also attacking the Girl Scouts’ policies on sexual orientation and gender identity. Planned Parenthood currently has no formal partnership with the Girl Scouts, but supports their mission and recognizes their century of contributions to our society. According to the Associated Press, Morris’ comments were dismissed by his fellow lawmakers: The scouts and Planned Parenthood have dismissed Rep. Bob Morris’ comments as absurd, as did Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma.Morris’ comments were the butt of jokes inside the House, with Bosma spending much of the day handing out Thin Mints to lawmakers. He joked that Morris’ comments led him to buy hundreds of cases of the famous Girl Scout cookies. “I purchased 278 cases of Girl Scout cookies in the last four hours,” said a clearly sarcastic Bosma, who closed the session by asking the former Girl Scouts in the chamber to stand up. At the end of the session, he brushed off the controversy, saying “I’ve been to the carnival before, and you don’t walk into every sideshow tent.” No other Republican representative expressed support for the letter. Morris’ comments about the Girl Scouts came in a letter he sent to House Republicans that said he had conducted some research on the Internet and discovered that the scouts are a “tactical arm” of Planned Parenthood. The Girl Scouts flatly denied Morris’ accusations, and Planned Parenthood of Indiana issued a separate statement calling Morris’ charges “woefully inaccurate.” Morris, in his letter to lawmakers, said some Christian conservatives who share his concerns have pulled their children out of Girl Scouts. He also pointed to a Colorado Girl Scout troop’s acceptance of a transgender child last month as another reason to leave the group. The Girl Scouts of America issued their own statement on the matter, saying: Regarding Representative Morris, if the freshman representative wishes to discredit the contributions that hundreds of thousands of Indiana women and girls have made through the Girl Scouts program over the last 100 years, then he’s entitled to his opinion. Not only is Rep. Morris off the mark on his claims, it’s also unfortunate in his limited research that he failed to discover that since 1917, every First Lady has served as the honorary leader of Girl Scouts including Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush.We believe that leadership is about hearing from all sides of an issue before making up one’s mind. We only wish we had the chance to speak with Freshman Representative Morris before he distributed his letter Victor Inzunza, Director of Corporate Communications for Girl Scouts of the USA, also said that: As for the specific issues mentioned in Rep. Morris letter, in 2011 a Colorado chapter of the Girl Scouts initially refused, then allowed, a 7-year-old transgender girl to join their organization: The leader of a Girl Scouts troop in Denver initially told 7-year-old Bobby Montoya that he couldn’t join because, “he has boy parts.”But the organization had a change of heart, saying, “Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members. “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.” Bobby Montoya was born with male genitalia but has been convinced since the age of 2 that he is a girl. His biggest worry, said his mother, is that he will have to change his name. “I believe he was born in the wrong body,” said Felisha Archuleta, who admitted that even she has difficulty switching from male to female pronouns when talking about her son. “I thought Bobby would grow out of it,” she said. “For birthdays, he asked for ponies. He had a princess birthday, and last year when he turned 7, he had a Rapunzel birthday. I have just basically supported him.” Bobby has told his mother he believed he was a girl ever since he was very young, said Archuleta. “He just liked girl stuff. When he was 4 or 5, he asked me, ‘Why didn’t you make me a girl? '” The issue of the Girl Scouts’ using a Planned Parenthood sex education pamphlet entitled “Happy, Healthy, and Hot” was touched on in a Daily Beast article about sisters Tess and Sydney Volanski, who left the Girl Scouts because they felt the Girl Scouts had a “pro-abortion mind-set” and a “radical feminist agenda”: The Volanskis’ gripe with the Girl Scouts began in earnest when the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) attended the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women. At the conference, 30 to 35 teenagers from around the world participated in the Girls Only Workshop, a panel discussion about global issues affecting girls.The Volanskis and their supporters say that during the workshop, a brochure about HIV health, family planning, and reproductive rights entitled “Happy, Healthy, and Hot” was distributed to the teen girls. According to the GSUSA, the brochure in question was not distributed at the WAGGGS workshop, but was from a different event at the conference. There was also a march for women’s reproductive rights at the conference — rights that include “accessible, affordable, and safe abortions,” according to the WAGGGS website. The events that transpired at the conference, as stated on the Volanskis’ blog, were perceived as part of GSUSA’s “corrupt” plan to promote “Planned Parenthood, promiscuity, and abortion to their members, as well as a political agenda.” The Girl Scouts have asserted that the national organization “maintains a neutral position on abortion and birth control,” but local chapters may partner with outside groups in covering those issues: The GSUSA officially maintains a neutral position on abortion and birth control. Because the organization has a two-tiered leadership structure, however, local or regional chapters have the autonomy to partner with organizations of their choice, which may include, say, Planned Parenthood affiliates (or, for that matter, conservative organizations).”In some areas of the country, Girl Scout troops or groups may choose to hold discussions about human sexuality and may choose to collaborate with a local organization that specializes in these areas,” said the GSUSA in a statement. “The topic is discussed from a factual, informative point of view and does not include advocacy or promotion of any social or religious perspective.” Last updated:   23 February 2012

1mixture

Politics Sexuality, abortion, ASP Article, girl scouts

12958

Miami-Dade is "the first community in the world to break the cycle of local transmission of the Zika virus.

January 24, 2017

"Gimenez said Miami-Dade is ""the first community in the world to break the cycle of local transmission of the Zika virus."" The CDC says that Wynwood, an area in Miami, was the first to break local transmission in September. The last of four local transmission zones was lifted Dec. 9. There are some caveats about Gimenez’s claim, including that only one other county in the United States had local cases, and a far smaller number. Some other places took a far greater hit from Zika than Florida did. Experts caution that Zika cases could return to South Florida, a point Gimenez also acknowledged in his speech."

Amy Sherman

"Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that in 2016 the county became a global leader in fighting the mosquito-borne Zika virus. ""We were the first community in the world -- let me repeat that -- the first community and I believe the only community in the world to break the cycle of local transmission of the Zika virus,"" Gimenez said during his State of the County speech Jan. 18. However, Gimenez didn’t declare Zika dead forever -- he warned that the county must remain vigilant: ""We may be in the off season, but that does not mean that our work is over."" Gimenez, a Republican re-elected to his last term in November, has a point about local transmission. The last of the four local transmission zones were cleared in Miami-Dade by mid December 2016. However, he omitted some caveats about Zika transmission and Miami-Dade’s special circumstances compared with the rest of the world. Zika in Miami-Dade Zika has been around for decades. But the current outbreak started in 2015, when Brazil reported cases of more babies being born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly. That condition was connected to mothers infected with Zika. The Centers for Disease Control defines areas of active Zika virus transmission as having two or more locally acquired cases of Zika virus infection, within two weeks, within 1 square mile. Those cases must be in separate households, with travel and sex ruled out as potential causes. Using those guidelines, the Florida Department of Health declared active Zika transmission zones and then lifted them when 45 days passed without any new local cases in those zones. In July, the first local Zika cases were reported in Miami-Dade County. Over the next few months, the state declared four local Zika transmission zones. The state lifted the first zone, in Wynwood -- a trendy area near downtown Miami -- Sept. 19. That was the first community in the world to break local transmission, CDC spokesman Benjamin Haynes said. The state lifted the last of the four zones, in part of South Beach, on Dec. 9. But officials didn’t declare Zika entirely kicked to the curb forever; Miami-Dade remained a ""cautionary area"" according to the CDC. Officials warned that isolated cases could continue to appear --  the most recent one was Dec. 15. Let’s look at how Miami-Dade compared with some other areas in curbing Zika. In addition to Miami-Dade, only one other area in the United States had local Zika cases: Brownsville, Texas. Miami-Dade reported 257 cases of local transmission, while Brownsville reported six. The Texas Department of Health never declared a local transmission zone in Brownsville, but the CDC called it a ""cautionary area."" It’s difficult to compare Miami-Dade to other places where the Zika virus has been far more widespread. Brazil has had more than 128,000 cases and continues to battle Zika. Local transmission continues in Puerto Rico, which had more than 100 new cases this month and more than 37,000 since 2015. In Singapore, the government designated ""Zika clusters"" and announced that it had no more Dec. 15 after its last new case was reported Dec. 10. However, the ""only place it really stopped is in Florida,"" said Daniel Epstein, a spokesman for the Pan American Health Organization. There were other areas in the world where Zika dropped off before it hit Miami-Dade. For example, the outbreak in French Polynesia affected an estimated 28,000 people and lasted until 2014, said Monika Gehner, a WHO spokeswoman. Some caveats While Miami-Dade got kudos from the CDC for efforts to curb Zika, experts caution that it can return, particularly when the temperature rises. It’s too early to claim elimination, said Duane J. Gubler, an emerging infectious disease expert at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. ""The absence of reported cases for a few months does not confirm the transmission cycle is broken,"" she said. ""After a year with active surveillance, I would probably accept it."" Florida also has certain advantages compared with other places of the world that have been struck by Zika, including better access to testing patients to verify that the virus is actually Zika. Also, in South Florida, with air conditioning and screens and modest mosquito density levels, transmission is less likely than countries that have less of that protection, University of Florida biostatistics professor Ira Longini said. ""There is no cycle to break,"" he said. ""Sustained transmission is impossible, but you do get small outbreaks when introductions occur."" Our ruling Gimenez said Miami-Dade is ""the first community in the world to break the cycle of local transmission of the Zika virus."" The CDC says that Wynwood, an area in Miami, was the first to break local transmission in September. The last of four local transmission zones was lifted Dec. 9. There are some caveats about Gimenez’s claim, including that only one other county in the United States had local cases, and a far smaller number. Some other places took a far greater hit from Zika than Florida did. Experts caution that Zika cases could return to South Florida, a point Gimenez also acknowledged in his speech."

http://miamidade.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=662dcc03-ddbe-11e6-8893-00219ba2f017, http://www.miamidade.gov/mayor/library/remarks/2017/01/01.18.17-State-of-the-County-Address.pdf, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article119893258.html, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article103820791.html, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/, http://www.floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-conditions/zika-virus/, http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/health/no-more-zika-clusters-in-singapore-nea, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/16/health/zika-virus-response.html, https://www.cdc.gov/zika/geo/index.html, http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=35231&Itemid=270&lang=en, http://www.nea.gov.sg/public-health/vector-control/overview/zika-cases-clusters, https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2016/t0923-zika-briefing-update.html, https://www.cdc.gov/zika/intheus/texas-update.html, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6538e1.htm?s_cid=mm6538e1_w, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/us/zika-florida-governor-rick-scott.html?_r=0

2true

Public Health, Florida, Carlos Gimenez,

9823

Red wine prevents breast cancer? I’ll drink to that!

January 7, 2012

It’s ironic that we just published two blog pieces last week that mentioned surrogate markers (both links appear in our comments below), and along comes this story trumpeting a finding that involved only surrogate markers – without any of the expected caveats. The LA Times publishes an excellent Healthy Skeptic column. The principles of that column needed to be employed in this story. How would you expect women who want to prevent breast cancer to react when they see a headline and a first sentence like the one this story had? But the story did not include the wisdom that appeared in the news release promoting the study: “Until larger studies are done, (one of the study co-authors) would not recommend that a non-drinker begin to drink red wine.”

Gary Schwitzer,Kevin Lomangino

Not applicable. The cost of red wine is not in question. The story suggests benefits throughout: But the study it reported only pointed to surrogate markers – hormone levels – not to any outcomes that are immediately meaningful in women’s lives. The limitations of this finding simply weren’t discussed. Readers would be well advised to read last Friday’s blog post about The Ten Commandments of the New Therapeutics. Two of them came into play in this story: The story included past warnings about alcohol consumption for “women intent on warding off breast cancer.” As already noted, the story didn’t discuss the limitations of surrogate markers. Readers would also be well advised to see our blog post about a recent BMJ editorial, “The idolatry of the surrogate.” And, while it mentioned that this was a small study, it didn’t offer any comment about the limitations in trying to draw conclusions from such a tiny sample. Instead, it emphasized the researcher’s self-description of this as a “rigorous study.” Finally, the story does not mention that the findings are at odds with a systematic review of available evidence, which concluded, based on dozens of studies, that “alcoholic drinks are or may be a cause of various cancers, irrespective of the type of alcoholic drink. The causal factor is evidently alcohol (ethanol) itself. There is no significant evidence that alcohol protects against any cancer. The extent to which alcoholic drinks are a cause of various cancers depends on the amount of alcohol drunk.” There was no disease mongering of breast cancer. There was no second source, no independent source. That would have helped. The story compares red wine with the class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors. But that class of drugs has a long track record. This was a tiny, very short-term study of red wine. Yet the story allowed the researchers to assert that “this this was the first rigorous study to find that red wine is a ‘nutritional aromatase inhibitor in healthy premenopausal women.’  ” That’s a pretty bold comparison after such a preliminary finding. An independent expert probably would have challenged that, but the story didn’t provide any such challenge. Not applicable. The availability of red wine is not in question. The story offered some context about other wine-breast cancer research and pointed out how and why this result was different. The story didn’t rely solely or largely on a news release. Even the Cedars-Sinai news release, though, included more caveats than the story did. The news release stated: “that large-scale studies still are needed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of red wine to see if it specifically alters breast cancer risk. He cautioned that recent epidemiological data indicated that even moderate amounts of alcohol intake may generally increase the risk of breast cancer in women. Until larger studies are done, he said, he would not recommend that a non-drinker begin to drink red wine.” A bit different than the story putting “I’ll drink to that” in the headline, “might be the next big thing in breast cancer prevention” in the first sentence, and signing off with with “L’chaim!”

1mixture

breast cancer,red wine

8197

Venezuela expands quarantine as number of coronavirus cases climbs to 33.

March 16, 2020

Venezuela will implement a nationwide quarantine after detecting 16 new cases of the novel coronavirus on Monday, President Nicolas Maduro said, adding that the total number of cases in the South American country had risen to 33.

Angus Berwick, Luc Cohen, Mariela Nava

The country began a quarantine on Monday in a handful of regions, but many across the country went out anyway, saying they could not afford to stay indoors or skip work as the once-prosperous OPEC nation suffers an economic collapse marked by shortages of basic goods and a collapse in public services. In a state television address on Monday evening, Maduro said that the quarantine had been successful so far, but that more drastic measures were necessary. That came as governments across Latin America, which until recently had been less affected by the virus, took more drastic measures. “The real crisis... is just starting,” Maduro said, calling the nationwide quarantine “necessary” and “indispensable.” But earlier on Monday, Jose Luis Nieves, a 32-year-old foraging for food in a garbage dump by Caracas’ Plaza Venezuela, said he could not afford to stay indoors. He said he earns the equivalent of $2 a month recycling cardboard and plastic he finds in the street. “If we don’t work, we don’t eat,” he said, a dirty white mask hanging from his neck. “Otherwise my kids are going to die of hunger. We have to head out like always.” Maduro’s government is encouraging all Venezuelans to wear masks for protection, although the World Health Organization says healthy people should only wear one if they are caring for someone with the virus and that they are only effective if used in combination with frequent hand-cleaning. Venezuela has not yet confirmed any deaths from the virus, and Maduro said each of the patients who had tested positive had contracted it abroad. But the decay of the country’s public health system has raised alarm about whether Maduro’s government is in a position to control its spread. Opposition leader Juan Guaido said his team had obtained 3,500 protection kits for caregivers at five hospitals in the country. “If their daily work is already difficult because of a lack of water, electricity and basic items, with coronavirus the risk is exponential,” Guaido said in a video posted on social media Monday night. “The truth is that the Venezuelan state does not have the capacity to respond to this pandemic.” Maduro said Venezuela would receive shipments of medicine from Cuba, as well as protective gear and testing kits from China - two major allies who have stood by his socialist government as most Western countries have called on him to resign, arguing he rigged his re-election vote in 2018. Authorities on Monday set up military checkpoints on the main roads entering Caracas and were turning away some drivers, according to Reuters witnesses. Intelligence officials were also guarding entrances to some supermarkets in the city to ensure all customers were wearing masks. In the western city of Maracaibo, which was among the areas quarantined on Monday, some clothing stores, hardware stores, markets and other commercial establishments were functioning, while banks and gas stations were closed, according to a Reuters witness. “I put on my face mask and go out to work,” said Ivaldo Prieto, a 75-year-old street vendor. “Now we cannot even go to collect the pension because the banks are closed.” A collapse of oil prices in the past week threatened to further aggravate the six-year recession in Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy. Maduro said that at current oil prices, the value of a barrel of Venezuelan oil was below the cost of production. He said he had met with representatives of a leading private sector industry association on Monday, and said the government would provide a benefit to citizens to help them cope with the crisis, without providing details. “We need to guarantee the functioning of the economy during the quarantine,” Maduro said.

2true

Health News

35948

The Sturgis motorcycle rally in 2020 resulted in 250,000 COVID-19 coronavirus cases.

September 10, 2020

They want to know if mass-events (protests, conventions, rallies) spread covid. But we don’t have individual level data on attendees and comparable stay-homes. So they resort to a diff-in-diff, looking to see if a place has more, less, or the same number of confirmed cases soon after an event than they ‘should.’ The argument is that the trend line for an entire location after time T can tell us if what happened on T is safe or risky.

Dan Evon

In September 2020, social media was abuzz over a report from the IZA Institute of Labor Economics that linked 266,796 COVID-19 coronavirus cases (a figure that was reported as “more than 250,000” in various headlines) to the Sturgis motorcycle rally held in Sturgis, South Dakota: IZA Institute of Labor Economics, a nonprofit research institute supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation and affiliated with the University of Bonn, truly did publish a paper estimating that the rally was linked to a surge of approximately 250,000 COVID-19 cases (representing a cost of $12.2 billion). However, while the rally likely contributed to a rise in coronavirus cases, the figures stated here are estimates from a non-peer reviewed paper and have not been demonstrated definitively. Furthermore, various statisticians and epidemiologists have indicated the study had some flaws. Before we get to the expert opinions on this study, let’s dispel a few quick rumors on social media. This study did not claim, for instance, that 250,000 people tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after attending the rally. The research attempted to quantify how many cases of COVID-19 could potentially be linked to people who attended the rally, traveled to other locations, and then spread the disease among their communities. It should also be noted that this is an estimate based on a wide variety of factors, not an actual headcount of COVID-19 patients who attended, or knew someone who attended, the rally. As mentioned above, this study was not peer-reviewed and was prefaced with a piece of text noting that “IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion.” The IZA paper’s finding that 250,000 COVID-19 cases were linked to the Sturgis rally was based on three key factors: anonymized smartphone data that showed an influx of out-of-state visitors and a sharp increase in foot traffic at “restaurants and bars, hotels, entertainment venues, and retail establishments”; a decrease in stay-at-home activity in the surrounding area; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data that showed COVID-19 cases increased both in South Dakota where the rally was held, and in areas where Sturgis attendees traveled to in the days after the rally. While this study may provide a broad estimate on how Sturgis could have impacted the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of epidemiologists and statisticians have taken issue with models used in the study and the report’s findings. Joshua Clayton, South Dakota’s state epidemiologist, said that the study’s findings did “not align with what we know” and argued that IZA did not account for other contributing factors, such as the fact that schools reopened around the same time as the rally. Local news outlet KEVN reported: “From what we know the results do not align with what we know,” state epidemiologist Joshua Clayton said. He mentioned that a white paper isn’t peer-reviewed. And pointed out the paper doesn’t note schools in the state also reopened close after the Rally ended, which could have attributed to the surge of cases in South Dakota. Rex Douglas, the director of the Machine Learning for Social Science Lab (MSSL), Center for Peace and Security Studies, University of California San Diego, and Kevin Griffin, an assistant professor at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine, also took issue with the methodology used in this paper. Griffin, for instance, noted that cases were already on the rise when the rally took place, while Douglas noted that authorities simply don’t have the data to reach such a precise conclusion.

3unproven

Politics Medical, COVID-19

401

AstraZeneca's infant respiratory drug prioritised in Europe, U.S.

September 25, 1995

Britain’s AstraZeneca said a potential medicine to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in babies and infants had been granted special status by U.S. and European regulators, designed to speed up the development of novel and better drugs.

The “Breakthrough Therapy” and “Prime” designations in the United States and Europe respectively were based on early results from Phase IIb trials of MEDI8897, AstraZeneca said. The drug is being developed for use in a broader infant population than the standard of care for RSV prevention, Synagis, which needs monthly injections and is therefore only approved in Europe for high-risk infants. MEDI8897, which is being developed in partnership with Sanofi Pasteur, only requires one dose during a typical five month RSV season, AstraZeneca said. RSV is the most common cause of lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children worldwide, and 90 percent of children are infected with RSV in the first two years of life.

2true

Health News

2023

Testicular cancer deaths double with after 40 diagnosis.

February 10, 2011

Men diagnosed with testicular cancer at 40 years of age or older have twice the risk of dying from the disease as younger patients, according to a study of nearly 28,000 men.

This was true even when initial treatment and the extent of the disease were taken into account, according to findings published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “This study comprehensively documents, for the first time, to our knowledge, the effect of age on TC-specific mortality, while taking into account disease characteristics, treatment factors and socio-demographic variables,” wrote Lois Travis, of the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, along with colleagues from Oslo, Norway. The research is based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program, a source for U.S. cancer statistics at the U.S. National Cancer Institute. Travis and her team calculated hazard ratios for 10-year testicular cancer mortality. Mortality was doubled in patients diagnosed over the age of 40, the study found. But, those diagnosed after 1987 were less likely to die during follow-up than men diagnosed earlier, possibly due to the introduction of a certain kind of chemotherapy about 10 years earlier. “The question, however, remains whether association between socioeconomic variables and mortality reflect differences in the health care system’s ability to offer optimal treatment, the patient’s willingness to accept intensive treatment with a non-negligible risk of adverse effects, or the physician’s knowledge of optimal treatment approaches,” they wrote. Several factors may account for the age-related mortality difference, including the fact that many older patients are often not treated with the same intensity as younger patients, the researchers said. The researchers recommended giving more attention to the care of older patients as well as those of people of lower socioeconomic status for the best results. “In a cancer that is so highly curable, any influence that confers an increased risk of disease-specific mortality must be identified, and interventional strategies adopted,” they said. SOURCE: bit.ly/fGNEw9

http://bit.ly/fGNEw9

2true

Health News

38118

The FDA published “conclusive proof” that the DTaP vaccine causes autism in November 2017.

November 22, 2017

FDA Confirms DTaP Vaccine Causes Autism in November 2017

Rich Buhler & Staff

The FDA hasn’t confirmed a link between DTaP vaccines and autism. That rumors stems from an old (and false) report that was re-reported as “breaking” news in November 2017. First, we’ll take a step back. DTaP is given to children younger than seven to prevent diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has repeatedly stated that there’s no link between vaccines and autism. However, rumors like this one repeatedly surface. They often rely on information that’s outdated or taken out of context. And claims that the FDA confirmed DTaP vaccines cause autism in November 2017 are no exception. Latest False Claim: FDA Announces DTaP Vaccine Causes Autism November 2017 rumors appear to circle back to the website, InShapeToday.com. The site published a report under the headline “FDA announced that vaccines are causing autism,” that was widely shared on social media. A number of problems immediately emerge with that claim. First, it’s based on an information packet that was released by vaccine maker Sanfofi Pasteur in 2005. So, it’s not exactly a “new” development or admission. In fact, identical false claims circulated in April 2016. Events were included in this list because of the seriousness or frequency of reporting. Because these events are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequencies or to establish a causal relationship to components of Tripedia vaccine. So, it’s clear that the FDA hasn’t confirmed that DTaP causes autism. That rumor is based on a 2005 drug packet that goes on to state that no “causal relationship” between autism and the vaccine has been found.

https://www.truthorfiction.com/marshall-kamena-donald-trump/, https://www.truthorfiction.com/category/medical/, http://www.getcancercure.com/fda-announce-that-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism/#Summary, https://api.whatsapp.com/send?text=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthorfiction.com%2Ffda-confirms-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism-2017%2F, https://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthorfiction.com%2Ffda-confirms-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism-2017%2F, https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-banned-nativity-scene-trump/, https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=FDA+Confirms+DTaP+Vaccine+Causes+Autism+in+November+2017-Fiction%21&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthorfiction.com%2Ffda-confirms-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism-2017%2F&via=erumors, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html, https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthorfiction.com%2Ffda-confirms-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism-2017%2F, https://donotlink.it/4blA, https://www.linkedin.com/cws/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.truthorfiction.com%2Ffda-confirms-dtap-vaccine-causes-autism-2017%2F, https://www.truthorfiction.com/author/truthorfiction/

0false

Medical

24750

On whether he wrote a provision that allowed AIG to dole out bonuses.

March 23, 2009

Dodd flip-flopped on whether he changed amendment on bonuses to AIG and banks

Alexander Lane

"Sen. Chris Dodd has been widely panned as the man responsible for allowing bailout recipient AIG to hand out huge bonuses, but it's really a half truth to say he's to blame. Dodd was actually the author of a provision that limited bonuses for AIG and other financial companies, though it's true that he later added a loophole that allowed some bonuses. Nevertheless, in the course of explaining his role in the matter, Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, committed one of this year’s most conspicuous flip-flops. As keepers of the Flip-O-Meter, we feel obligated to document it. Here’s what happened: As word of AIG’s bonuses filtered out, critics zeroed in on an amendment Congress passed in February that outlawed such bonuses but exempted contracts signed before Feb. 11, 2009. The amendment prohibited firms that had received federal bailout money from ""paying or accruing any bonus"" to the 25 most highly compensated employees as long as the company still owed the government money for the bailout. But somewhere in the legislative process, a line was added to say the amendment ""shall not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract executed on or before February 11, 2009."" The extra line allowed AIG to hand out $165 million in bonuses for 2008 to executives of a division that lost piles of money that year. Dodd had authored the original amendment. So CNN asked him on March 18 whether he was the one who added the Feb. 11 effective date. ""There is the suggestion today being made that you received more money from AIG than any other senator, and that you were responsible for the February 11th, 2009, date,"" CNN producer Ted Barrett said to Dodd on March 18. ""So, just — you know, again, I just want to get at ..."" ""No,"" Dodd said. ""You're saying you had nothing to do with that date?"" Barrett pressed. ""Absolutely not,"" Dodd said. That was pretty clear. And yet a day later, with other sources telling CNN that Dodd was in fact the one who made the change, Dodd admitted as much. ""I agreed to a modification in the legislation, reluctantly,"" he told CNN's Dana Bash. ""I wasn't negotiating with myself here. I wasn't changing my own amendment. I was changing the amendment because others were insisting upon it."" ""You were very adamant yesterday, very adamant that you didn't know how this change got in there,"" Bash said. ""And now you are saying that your staff did work with the administration?"" ""Going back and looking — obviously, I apologize,"" Dodd said. Treasury officials later confirmed they had asked Dodd to change the amendment because they were afraid executives would sue if it was retroactive. In a press conference , Dodd stressed that he was the one who authored the bonus restrictions in the first place, and that Treasury requested the change. ""I'm angry about it, and angry that in a sense I've been held up as sort of responsible for all this when in fact I responded to what I thought was a reasonable request at the time,"" Dodd said. ""I went through six weeks of a lot of criticism from the financial press, from Wall Street and others that my amendment was too restrictive, that it was unfair, that there would be a brain drain, that people would leave right and left."" Still, it was Dodd who chose to insert the loophole. For his 180-degree switch from steadfast denier to contrite confessor."

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/nyregion/20dodd.html?scp=1&sq=chris%20dodd%20a.i.g.&st=cse, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhTn3n0EuTM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fdodd.senate.gov%2F&feature=player_embedded, http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/dont_blame_chris_dodd_for_the_bonuses.php, https://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/mar/20/national-republican-senatorial-committee/Dodd-failed-to-halt-bailout-bonuses/, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/21/se.01.html, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0903/18/cnr.01.html

0false

National, Economy, Chris Dodd,