A treatment for a serious disease that costs $900 in India is sold for $84,000 in the United States because of corporate greed.

Explanation: A French court has ruled that Monsanto was liable for the sickness of a farmer who inhaled one of its weedkillers, in another legal setback for the Bayer-owned business over health claims.

Medical, american health care system, big pharma, corporate greed

In the latest stage of a decade-long legal tussle, the appeals court in Lyon on Thursday found in favor of farmer Paul Francois’ claim that Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller had made him sick and that the product’s labeling had been inadequate. Francois, 55, says he suffered neurological problems, including memory loss, fainting and headaches, after accidentally inhaling Lasso in 2004 while working on his farm. “Mr Francois justifiably concludes that the product, due to its inadequate labeling that did not respect applicable regulations, did not offer the level of safety he could legitimately expect,” the court said in its ruling. The latest verdict, however, did not determine compensation for the farmer, which will now be considered by another court in Lyon. Francois is seeking about 1 million euros ($1.1 million) in damages. Bayer, which acquired Monsanto in a $63 billion deal last year, said it was considering its legal options, including an appeal before France’s highest court. The German chemicals group added that crop-protection products “do not pose a risk for human health if they are used according to the terms of use set out in their regulatory approval”. Mr Francois had won rulings against Monsanto in 2012 and 2015 before France’s top court overturned the decisions and ordered the new hearing in Lyon. “We are all happy to have won but it came at a heavy price,” Francois told reporters in Paris. “It’s a big sigh of relief. It’s been 12 years of fighting, 12 years during which I had to put my whole life on hold.”  Lasso was banned in France in 2007 after the product had been withdrawn in some other countries. It used a different active substance to glyphosate, the chemical contained in Monsanto’s best-selling weedkiller Roundup and the target of lawsuits in the United States over alleged cancer links. The company has been found liable in two trials in California brought by cancer sufferers who have been awarded tens of millions of dollars in damages. Bayer is appealing against those rulings. The legal troubles surrounding glyphosate have contributed to Bayer losing about 30 billion euros in market value since last August. The group’s chief executive on Thursday said it was “massively affected” by the litigation. After the announcement of the decision, Bayer’s shares extended a fall to trade about 1.5 percent down before recovering some of the losses. ($1 = 0.8874 euros)


U.S. woman's altruism starts chain of five kidney swaps, extending lives.

Explanation: A soon-to-be wed gay couple, a retired teacher and his wife, and two pairs of fathers and sons were among those whose lives were changed one extraordinary day this week when a 35-year-old single mother of four from North Carolina donated a kidney to a stranger in New York.

Honica Brittman waits to take part in a five-way organ transplant swap in New York, August 1, 2012. REUTERS/Keith Bedford “I’m not losing nothing,” Honica Brittman said this week, sitting in a blue and white hospital gown before surgery in which she would give, for free, the initial kidney in a chain of five kidney transplants at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. “To actually help somebody live a little bit, a lot longer, that’s an awesome thing,” she said. Brittman, who decided to be part of the swap after learning she could not donate to a family friend because of incompatibility, represents what experts say is a critical and growing number of “altruistic” or “non-directed” donors, people willing to donate to anyone in need as long as their blood type, antigens and other factors are compatible. The health dangers for kidney donors is believed to be low. The risk of death from the surgery is 1 in 1,700, according to the National Kidney Foundation, and life expectancy is said to be unchanged with one kidney. High blood pressure is a possible side effect, and critics point out there is no systemic collection of national data on the risks associated with living kidney donations. Experts say donors such as Brittman are key to helping the over 90,000 people awaiting a kidney transplant in the United States, according to the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. As in Brittman’s case, donors can enable a chain of kidney exchanges that increases the number of people who can benefit from live kidney transplants, which typically last longer than cadaver kidneys. The series of operation on Wednesday and Thursday, which required 10 separate surgical teams and weeks of coordination, was made up of a series of swaps within a group of men and women between the ages of 23 and 68 and with compatible blood types, all motivated by a mix of compassion and commitment to their loved ones. The chain started with Brittman, who donated a kidney to a 39-year-old television producer whose fiancée and partner of more than 10 years donated to a businessman from upstate New York. In turn, the businessman’s son, a college-age student who felt that for being healthy and the youngest of four sons, he should step up on behalf of his father and donate one of his kidneys to another young man, a 23-year-old originally from Haiti. His father then donated to a retired teacher from New Jersey. The operations took place in neighboring rooms with doctors simply walking from one room to another to deliver the small, plump vital organ from the donor to the recipient. The chain that Brittman made possible ended on Thursday when a woman, the wife of the retired teacher, donated her kidney to another woman who had been waiting four years for a transplant. “All this stems from the fact that this young woman ... wanted to donate a kidney purely altruistically without knowing any of the recipients,” said Lloyd Ratner, a surgeon and director of renal and pancreatic transplantation at the hospital. Brittman, by giving the first kidney, prevented any pair in the chain from having to donate a kidney before receiving one. While there is no conclusive national data on the number of donors like Brittman, experts estimate they have increased to between 100 and 200 a year, up from just dozens a few years ago. “After every chain that gets some publicity, there’s a flood of potential donors contacting kidney exchange networks and individual transplant centers,” Alvin Roth, an economics professor at the Harvard Business School said. The chain was also made possible by the decision of another pair in the group to be part of it. Adam Abernathy, the television producer, and his fiancée Dave Ferguson, 43, could have done a simple transplant between them because Ferguson’s blood type made him a universal donor. But they decided to be part of a chain when it was proposed by the hospital that Ferguson donate his kidney to a man whose blood type had made him a harder match for a donor, A. Jamal, the businessman and father of four. “We realized if we were in somebody else’s shoes, we’d want someone to do the same,” Ferguson said. Most of the group said they plan to meet their donors after recovering from the operation. “I can’t wait to meet them,” Brittman said.


Ebola patient dies in Congo, first case in 50 days.

Explanation: The first person to contract Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo in more than 50 days has died, the government said on Friday, ending hopes that the second worst outbreak of the disease in history might be over.

The Central African country planned to declare an end to the epidemic on Sunday, which would have allowed its overstretched health service to concentrate on containing the coronavirus, which has infected 215 and killed 20 there. The new Ebola case, the first since Feb. 17, was a 26-year-old man in the area of Beni, a town in eastern Congo. He developed symptoms on March 27 and died in hospital on Thursday morning, regional health authorities said in a statement. Ebola has killed more than 2,200 since August 2018 in a volatile area of the country where rebel attacks hobbled efforts to contain it. The country is also trying to bat back a measles epidemic. “This is now a triple emergency: vulnerable populations facing ongoing humanitarian crises, the spread of COVID-19, and now again potentially a re-emerging Ebola crisis,” said Kate Moger, International Rescue Committee’s Regional Vice President of the Great Lakes region. Ebola causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea and spreads among humans through bodily fluids. The current outbreak has killed about two thirds of those it infected. The World Health Organization (WHO) had been expecting more cases to emerge in Congo, and was primed to respond, its head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. The agency’s top emergencies expert, Mike Ryan, said health teams on the ground were continuing to investigate 2,600 Ebola alerts across the country’s two affected provinces. “We take thousands of samples every single week, and we will continue that active surveillance right the way through,” he told a news conference. Flare-ups or one-off transmissions are common towards the end of Ebola outbreaks, and a new case does not necessarily mean that the virus will spread out of control again. But it can stay in semen for over 550 days, researchers have said, and can be transmitted through sex long after a patient recovers. A ‘LESSON’ FOR COVID-19? Congo has suffered 10 outbreaks of the virus since it was first detected in humans near the Ebola River in 1976. The biggest was in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 and killed over 11,000 people. Two new vaccines have had a major impact on containing the virus this time, though Islamist rebels stopped health workers from reaching some areas where the virus spread. Late last year deadly attacks on health centres in and around the city of Beni forced aid groups to suspend operations and withdraw staff from the epidemic’s last strongholds. For those on the frontline, like Babah Mutuza lusungu, a doctor at a health research clinic in Beni, Friday’s news was a bitter blow. “It’s really a step backwards, you see today if we’re going to start managing a pandemic and an epidemic at the same time, it’s going to be impossible, it’s going to be very difficult to manage,” he said. The WHO’s Ryan said it and the Congo government were ready to respond should the Ebola situation deteriorate. “And in that sense, maybe that’s our lesson for COVID-19,” he said. “There is no exit strategy until you are in control of the situation, and you must always be ready to go back again and start again.”


Facebook user Heather Hanford described her son, Isaac’s, reaction to Tamiflu. Also, Facebook user Melissa Rodriguez said her daughter tried to kill her after taking Tamiflu.

Explanation: Facebook Users Warn About Tamiflu Side Effects in Children, Including Homicidal Tendencies

Personal accounts of parents who gave Tamiflu to their children are impossible to verify, but Tamiflu has been linked to “neurologic and behavioral symptoms” like hallucinations, delirium and abnormal behavior in children over the years. Viral Facebook posts in January 2018 warned about Tamiflu side effects in children. Users named Heather Hanford and Melissa Rodriguez described dream-like states their children were unable to awake from after taking Tamiflu. Rodriguez said her daughter told her she was going to kill her, and Rodriguez had to wrestle the girl for 10 minutes. Hanford said her son had dream-like delusions that he was being chased by monsters. Again, we can’t independently verify Hanford and Rodriguez’s accounts, but they would appear to align with Tamiflu’s general disclosures about “neurologic and behavioral symptoms” in children. Roche states in a product information sheet that it’s not clear how often those side effects occur. They’ve all been reported after-market, and most are from Japan. Why Are Tamiflu Side Effects Hard to Judge in Children? Tamiflu is the brand name of the anti-viral drug oseltamivir phosphate. The FDA approves the drug for use in children two weeks and older who have influenza A or B viruses. However, an FDA FAQ on Tamiflu describes potential for “series side effects” of the medication:  Children and teenagers with the flu may be at a higher risk for seizures, confusion, or abnormal behavior early during their illness. These serious side effects may happen shortly after beginning Tamiflu or may happen in people when the flu is not treated. These serious side effects are not common but may result in accidental injury to the patient. People who take Tamiflu should be watched for signs of unusual behavior and a healthcare provider should be contacted right away if the patient shows any unusual behavior while taking Tamiflu. When it comes to neuralgic and behavior disruptions in children, it can be hard to determine which are caused by the flu and which are caused by the medication. For example, seizures can be a side effect of high givers in children. Also, high temperatures impact how our brains function, giving rise to the age-old expression “fever dreams.” It works like this: the body’s temperature control is poor during the REM phase of sleep (when dreams occur). And research indicates that the amygdala — the area of the brain that processes intense emotions and, researchers believe, causes nightmares — goes into overdrive when people fever. The result is fever dreams. So it’s not clear whether dreamlike delusions are caused by flu or Tamiflu. Is Tamiflu Banned in Japan? Disturbing reports that two people fell to their deaths after taking Tamiflu surfaced in Japan in March 2005. In the aftermath, Reuters reported that the drug was tied to the deaths of 12 children in 2005, and to 32 reports of abnormal behavior in children that same year. But Roche said that there was no clear link between Tamiflu and the deaths: Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG, which produces Tamiflu, also known generically as oseltamivir, has denied a link between the medication and the deaths, adding that influenza itself could cause psychiatric problems. “These events are extremely rare in relation to the number of patients treated,” Roche spokeswoman Martina Rupp said last week. “It’s very important to state that none of these events were linked to Tamiflu.” The company also noted that the drug had been used to treat more than 50 million people suffering from the flu, and there were only 103 reports of neuropsychiatric problems. Still, Japan’s heath ministry required the drug’s importers to warn doctors about the psychiatric symptoms in teenagers in 2007. But rumors that Tamiful is outright banned in Japan are false. Comments


If you ask Amazon’s Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says “the government planned” it.

Explanation: The Alexa answer in the post refers to a real project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic. However, it was a planning exercise and did not predict the COVID-19 pandemic. We were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different.

Technology, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,

A Facebook video that racked up thousands of shares claims the coronavirus now spreading across the world was planned and released by the United States government — and it says that this claim is backed up by "Alexa," the voice of the Amazon Echo. Echo is a voice-activated home speaker that can provide the user with answers to questions and other content by searching the internet for information. Echo users connect with the device by conversing with "Alexa," the system’s "virtual assistant." The March 31 video is a recording of a TikTok video playing on another smartphone. The man recording the Facebook video warns viewers of his fears that the TikTok video will be deleted from the platform. In the TikTok, a man asks his Amazon Echo, "Alexa, did the government release the coronavirus?" In the video, Alexa’s computer-generated voice responds: "According to Event 201, the government planned this event, created the virus and had a simulation of how the countries would react. This simulation occurred October 18, 2019. The government released the virus among the population and has lost control of the outbreak." The spread of misinformation about the coronavirus on TikTok and through Amazon Alexa have recently been reported by outlets such as WUSA9’s VERIFY team and Vox. Let’s take a closer look. There was an Event 201, involving a simulated viral pandemic. And it did take place on Oct. 18, 2019, at a hotel in New York. But no actual virus was created or released. During the event, officials from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and 15 global business, government and public health leaders held a 3.5 hour simulation to view the potential effects of an infectious pandemic. The exercise consisted of pre-recorded news broadcasts, live "staff" briefings, and moderated discussions on specific topics, the organizers said. The purpose of the simulation was to examine how industries, governments and public health leaders might have to join forces to combat a global health crisis. It was inspired by research published by the World Economic Forum, an international foundation that studies the intersection of business, politics and academics and their impacts on policy. The pandemic in the fictionalized scenario was caused by a coronavirus, of which there are many types. The study found that a pandemic could cause an average annual economic loss of 0.7% of global gross domestic product, or about $570 billion. The businesses and political leaders involved in the simulation were tasked with working together to create viable solutions to the theoretical pandemic. The participants’ conclusion was that "the next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering." Now that the world is grappling with an actual coronavirus pandemic, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has released a statement reaffirming that the simulation did not predict the current outbreak, but rather was an exercise to examine what would need to happen if one did occur. "For the scenario, we modeled a fictional coronavirus pandemic, but we explicitly stated that it was not a prediction," the center said. "Instead, the exercise served to highlight preparedness and response challenges that would likely arise in a very severe pandemic." Why did the question posed to Alexa bring up Event 201? That only happens in the TikTok video. We asked Alexa directly, and it brought up a different response. Alexa said, "According to the World Health Organization, the exact cause of the current outbreak of COVID-19 is still under investigation. On December 31, 2019, it was reported to the WHO country office in China that a new coronavirus strain later, named COVID-19, was identified by Chinese researchers in connection with a pneumonia-like illness based in Wuhan city, China." A spokesperson at Amazon told PolitiFact that the one appearing in the video "is not Alexa's response to customers, and we have not been able to replicate this example." The company said that any news Alexa is providing to customers about COVID-19 is from official government sources. The company suggested a couple of explanations why Alexa might have responded the way it did in the video. One possibility is that a customer set a specific response for Alexa. Responses can be recorded and scheduled, like a daily reminder service. This response would play only on that customer’s device, not the system at large. Another possibility involves Alexa Skill Blueprints, which offer templates for trivia games, birthday cards, and flashcards. With this feature, users can create their own automated questions and responses. Facebook posts say that if you ask Amazon’s Alexa about the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, it says "the government planned" it and refers to something called "Event 201." There was a project called Event 201 that simulated possible outcomes of a coronavirus pandemic, but it was a planning exercise and did not predict this specific COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, we were unable to elicit the same answer from Alexa, and Amazon told us that the answer to that question would be different. We rate the statement .


Nonsurgical treatment can correct congenital ear malformations in infants

Explanation: Infant ear, before and after. Image: Becon Medical website The news release focuses on a recent journal article that evaluates the use of a nonsurgical treatment called the “EarWell system” to treat malformations of the ear in newborn infants. The news release reports that results were judged “good to excellent” for most patients in the retrospective study. However, the release poses some significant problems for readers. For example, the release doesn’t discuss cost and does not tell readers that the study co-author quoted extensively is the inventor of the EarWell system. The release also treats ear deformation and ear malformation interchangeably — a distinction made clearly in the relevant journal article. This is particularly important because the numbers discussed in the news release sometimes refer to patients with deformities and sometimes to patients with malformation. Ear malformations and ear deformations are not the same thing. As the journal article itself makes clear, “deformations are characterized by a misshapen but fully developed pinna [or external portion of the ear] with no missing skin or cartilage,” whereas “malformations demonstrate a partial absence of skin and/or cartilage resulting in an underdeveloped pinna from an error in embryologic development.” The headline, section headline and first three paragraphs all refer solely to malformations. Deformity is mentioned for the first time in paragraph four, and in such a way as to make many (if not most) readers assume the terms deformity and malformation are interchangeable. But they’re not interchangeable. Here’s one reason that matters: the release later tells readers that “results were judged good to excellent in 97 percent of ears with one simple deformity.” And, based on the journal article, that’s true. But it wasn’t true for ear malformations — which is what the headline and opening paragraphs would lead readers to expect. Parents of newborn infants want to do what’s best for their children, and having to make medical decisions for their infants is a stressful and emotional ordeal. Those decisions can be particularly tricky when the medical decision to be treated is not life threatening. Confusing news releases do not help people make informed decisions under any circumstances, but that is particularly true in circumstances as fraught as those facing parents of a newborn.

congenital ear malformations,Wolters Kluwer Health

The news release does not address cost at all, which is particularly unusual given that the release focuses on the use of a product that is already on the market. Given that online cost estimates for the EarWell system range from $2,500 to $4,500 per ear, this is a significant oversight. This is not satisfactory for several reasons. First, as noted above, the release does not tell readers that there is a difference between an ear deformity and malformation of the ear. As a result, it would be very easy for readers to assume that the benefits for patients with ear deformities would apply to patients with ear malformation. There are some other problems as well. Here’s some of the language from the release: “Results were judged good to excellent in 97 percent of ears with one simple deformity and 88 percent with more complex ‘mixed’ deformities. About 70 percent of ears with constricted malformations were graded as having no deformity after treatment.” Here are the problems: What does it mean that results were “good to excellent”? What is the difference between “simple” and “mixed” deformities? How are those different from “constricted malformations”? And how many patients were in each group? Percentages can be misleading if any of the listed subgroups were particularly large or small. Benefits should be clearly explained and quantified, and that wasn’t the case here. We aren’t told what proportion of the less severe deformations would have spontaneously improved. The study and news release claim a high rate of success but it’s not clear what this should be compared to. It’s possible that some reasonable proportion of such ears do OK without intervention. The release clearly addresses the vast majority of the complications discussed in the journal article, which is enough to earn it a satisfactory rating. However, the release does not mention the possibility of infection. There was only one case identified in the article, but it is also the most significant of the complications that cropped up over the course of the (retrospective) study. The release does not explicitly state this was a retrospective study, rather than a clinical trial, but it implies as much when it says “The researchers review their experience with nonsurgical correction of congenital ear malformations in 175 infants.” However, there’s a problem with that sentence: the researchers didn’t treat ear malformations in 175 infants. The researchers also didn’t treat a total of 303 ears, as the release states. According to the article itself, the researchers treated 478 ears in 201 patients. Specifically, the researchers treated 303 newborn ear deformities in 111 patients, and 175 infant ear malformations in 90 patients. In short, while we give the news release a pass for suggesting (rather than clearly stating) that this was a retrospective study, the description of the study in the release is fundamentally wrong. This is a close one. The release begins by stating that EarWell can help infants “avoid the pain and cost of later surgery.” That’s problematic, given that people aren’t required to undergo a later surgery — it’s purely elective. However, the release later makes clear that these treatment options are designed to address issues related to “teasing, bullying and loss of self-esteem” that could stem from ear deformity or malformation. And those are very real concerns that parents do take into consideration. That makes it a bit of a toss-up. What tipped it into the disease mongering camp was the section heading that states “Nonsurgical Treatment Avoids Later Consequences of Infant Ear Malformations.” What could this mean? Hearing loss? Higher rates of ear infections? Something worse? Eight paragraphs later, the release mentions the “teasing, bullying and loss of self-esteem” as noted above. Those are important things for parents to consider, but they are certainly not a foregone conclusion. And scaremongering language in the section heading, and the huge gap between the section heading and the description of the “consequences” go too far. The release refers to study co-author H. Steve Byrd four times, but never mentions that he has a financial interest in EarWell systems. In fact, as the journal article states: “Dr. Byrd has a royalty agreement with Becon Medical [which markets EarWell] for his work designing the EarWell device.” And Byrd isn’t the only one. Another of the co-authors is also listed in the journal article as having an investment in Becon Medical. This sort of conflict-of-interest information needs to be disclosed in a news release. The release cites an independent source, stating “While we can operate on ears later in the patient’s life, waiting not only increases the surgery’s difficulty and expense, but may expose the child to teasing, bullying, and loss of self-esteem.” We’re giving the benefit of the doubt here since the release suggests delayed surgery as an alternative treatment. It would have been better if the release had mentioned no treatment — or watch and wait to see if less severe ear deformities resolved on their own — as an option as well. The release makes clear that the EarWell system is not new and is already in clinical use. The release notes that: “While the EarWell system is not new, the report is the largest study of congenital ear malformations treated with this approach–including a standardized approach to treatment and assessment of the results.” That earns it a satisfactory rating here. However, the release would have been much stronger if it had offered some information as to how these study findings related to previous evaluations of the EarWell system. Are they consistent with previous results? And if they diverge from those results, how so? We’ve already dinged the release for problems with language under the section on disease mongering. We don’t want to penalize them twice for the same thing, so it earns a satisfactory rating here.


Oklahoma top court clears way for Purdue, J&J, Teva to face opioid trial.

Explanation: Oklahoma’s top court on Monday declined to delay a landmark trial set for May in a multibillion-dollar lawsuit accusing OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP and two other drugmakers of helping fuel an opioid abuse and overdose epidemic in the state.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision was a win for the state’s attorney general, whose case is set to be the first to face trial of roughly 2,000 lawsuits nationally seeking to hold opioid manufacturers responsible for contributing to the epidemic. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter’s 2017 lawsuit accuses Purdue, Johnson & Johnson & Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd of engaging in deceptive marketing that downplayed the risks of addiction associated with opioid pain drugs while overstating their benefits. The companies deny wrongdoing. They had sought to delay the May 28 trial to Sept. 16, citing the need to review records the state belatedly turned over that could be critical to their defense. The state is seeking over $20 billion in damages. The trial delay bid came as Purdue, owned by members of the wealthy Sackler family, was exploring filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to address potential liabilities stemming from the lawsuits, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. Purdue did not respond to a request for comment on Monday. After the trial judge declined on March 8 to delay the trial, Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue denied that his ruling would have any affect on whether it files for bankruptcy. “We appreciate the quick action taken by the court and for not rewarding the defendants with more time for a problem of their own making,” Hunter said in a statement. J&J and Teva did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin and fentanyl, were involved in a record 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The epidemic has prompted lawsuits by state and local governments accusing Purdue and other drugmakers of contributing to the crisis. More than 1,600 lawsuits have been consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio, who has pushed for a settlement ahead of the trial before him in October. Other cases, including Oklahoma’s, are pending in state courts.


Task force offers guidelines to treat rat lungworm disease.

Explanation: A task force of Hawaii Governor David Ige’s announced new preliminary guidelines to help physicians diagnose, treat and manage rat lungworm disease.

The task force’s clinical subcommittee spent the last year crafting the guidelines, which were announced Thursday and will be presented in November during the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, according to the Hawaii State Department of Health. Before the group’s work, there were no clear or reliable diagnosis or treatment protocols available for Hawaii physicians, subcommittee chairman Vernon Ansdell said. “These preliminary guidelines provide critical guidance to physicians to help them make timely and accurate diagnoses and give their patients the best possible treatment available,” he said. Rat lungworm disease, also known as angiostrongyliasis, is caused by a parasitic roundworm and can affect a person’s brain and spinal cord, according to the Health Department. The worm larvae are passed to humans who ingest raw or undercooked freshwater shrimp, land crabs and snails or raw produce that contains infected slugs or snails and their slime. The adult parasite is found only in rodents, but its larvae can be passed through feces. In turn, creatures like snails and slugs can become infected by ingesting the larvae. Humans get rat lungworm by accidentally eating infected snails or slugs. The parasite causes a rare type of meningitis. Its symptoms include severe headaches and neck stiffness, tingling or painful feelings in the skin or extremities, low-grade fever, nausea and vomiting. Some effects can be permanent and create lifestyles changes, such as the inability to walk or drive. For treatment, “the most important drug is a steroid that suppresses inflammation,” Ansdell said. The preliminary guidelines also call for a complete neurologic examination, a carefully sought exposure history, and stress the importance of a lumbar puncture, or spinal tap, in diagnosing the disease. It “sounds very dramatic, a spinal tap,” Ansdell said, but it’s a “standard procedure” and is “invaluable when it comes to making the diagnosis.” It also helps with treatment by relieving pressure in the brain, he said. The development of the new guidelines is a “crucial and imperative step forward,” said Anna Koethe, public health information coordinator for the Department of Health.


Melania Trump listens as teens share experiences with vaping.

Explanation: Melania Trump said Wednesday she’s glad some stores are pulling electronic cigarettes off the shelves amid an explosion in vaping among young people, calling it a necessary step to protect the next generation.

Health, Vaping, General News, Melania Trump, Tobacco industry regulation

“We need to be proactive before it gets out of control,” she said at a White House “listening session” where a small group of teenagers from around the country told her about their experiences using e-cigarettes. Luka Kinard, 16, of High Point, North Carolina, said he quit vaping only after spending 39 days in rehab in California in October 2018. He said he had been using e-cigarettes for about a year when he began experiencing intense chest pain, insomnia and cold sweats and thought he was having a heart attack at 15. He said his parents thought a seizure he suffered in September 2018 was tied to vaping, and they sent him away for treatment. “It wasn’t until then that my parents recognized, ‘Hey, this is really an issue,’” he told the first lady. Ally Harrison, 18, said she suffered from physical and mental ailments, including heart palpitations and panic attacks. Friends in her hometown of Baytown, Texas, encouraged her to vape, assuring her it would “calm you down.” But it had the opposite effect. “I had worse panic attacks. The fear was always there,” Ally said. Asked by Mrs. Trump how he obtained e-cigarettes, Luka said he got them from friends or by hanging around outside smoke shops or gas stations and enlisting strangers to get the products for him. Amid an increased focus on vaping by young people, a few big-name retailers have said they will no longer sell those products. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, said last month that it will stop selling electronic cigarettes at its namesake stores and Sam’s Clubs in the U.S. when it sells out its current inventory. Supermarket chain Kroger and drugstore chain Walgreens announced Monday they will follow Walmart’s lead. Juul Labs Inc., the nation’s largest maker of electronic cigarettes, is ending advertising in the U.S. In response to a surge in vaping by young people, President Donald Trump recently announced that the federal government will act to ban thousands of flavors used in e-cigarettes, mostly the fruity flavors that are believed to entice young people to start vaping. The first lady, who has a 13-year-old son, Barron, went public with her concerns about youth vaping in a tweet last month. She sat with Trump when he announced the proposed ban, and Wednesday’s roundtable was the second time she highlighted youth vaping this week. Federal statistics show a significant increase in vaping among teens between 2017 and 2018. More than 1 in 4 high school students reported vaping in the past month, up from 1 in 5 students in 2018, according to the latest statistics. Health authorities are also investigating hundreds of vaping-related lung illnesses. The Truth Initiative , a nonprofit, anti-tobacco organization that brought the group of nine students to meet with the first lady in the ornate White House Blue Room, wants the federal government to ban all flavors used in vaping, including mint and menthol, among other steps. Industry groups, such as the American Vaping Association, which represents makers and retailers of e-cigarettes and vaping solutions, oppose a ban. They argue that it could create a “black market” for vaping products and push adults who vape — as an alternative to traditional cigarettes — to resume smoking. E-cigarettes work by heating a liquid to produce an aerosol that users inhale. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap


Under those eight years before (Barack) Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States" since Sept. 11, 2001.

Rudy Giuliani, warming up the crowd for Donald Trump’s counter-terrorism speech, appeared to forget one of the defining moments of modern U.S. history and his own political career: the Sept. 11 attacks. The former mayor of New York City during 9/11 was widely lampooned for suggesting that terrorist attacks on U.S. soil were unique to Barack Obama’s presidency. But many media reports left out the beginning of his speech, when he talked at length about 9/11. He recounted how it was the "worst foreign attack in our history since the War of 1812" and how Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, visited "Ground Zero when we were in desperate need of help." Still, Giuliani seemed to throw everything he had just said out the window: "By the way, under those eight years before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States. They all started when Clinton and Obama got into office." Back in 2010, Giuliani made a similar gaffe when he claimed, "We had no domestic attacks under (President George W.) Bush." He later apologized for misspeaking and not adding the words, "since Sept. 11." Giuliani apparently made the same mistake again, telling the New York Daily News that he was just using "abbreviated language." But even barring 9/11, Giuliani is omitting several successful attacks on U.S. soil. Some are undoubtedly jihad-linked while the connection to "radical Islamic extremism" is murkier in others. The New America Foundation, for example, compiles a comprehensive list of terrorist plots, but its definition of "violent jihadist attacks" does not necessarily match up with law enforcement classification. That’s because strict definitions like "hate crime" or "terrorist attack" may be useful for prosecuting cases, but they may cloud the public’s understanding of what the attack was and what motivated the crimes — "questions to which answers are rarely linear or packaged into a neat explanation," said Albert Ford, a research assistant at New America. That being said, let’s go through successful attacks on U.S. soil in which ideology played some role. 2002 Los Angeles Airport shooting On July 4, 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet opened fire at Los Angeles International Airport, killing two and injuring four. Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national, died after being shot by an airport security guard. Prior to his immigration to the United States, Egyptian authorities accused him of belonging to the terrorist organization, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (though he denied this charge). The FBI concluded that Hadayet’s killing spree was a terrorist act, but he acted alone and hoped to influence U.S. government policy toward Palestine. 2002 Beltway snipers In October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and his accomplice, 17-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, randomly gunned down 10 people in Washington. They were arrested by police and SWAT officers on Oct. 24. The snipers’ motives were myriad. Malvo drew sketches depicting his acts as jihad and testified that Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam, lectured him on the religion. He also said Muhammad wanted to start a revolution over "the continued oppression of black people." A Virginia court found Muhammad guilty of engaging in an act of terrorism, and the incident is listed as a major terrorism case on the FBI’s website. Muhammad was executed in 2009 and Malvo is currently serving a life sentence. 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting On July 28, 2006, Naveed Afzal Haq killed one woman and injured five others at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. A witness told the Associated Press that Haq declared himself "a Muslim American, angry at Israel" before opening fire. FBI officials said he was not acting part of a terrorist group, but "acting out some kind of antagonism toward this particular organization." The attack was ultimately classified as a hate crime by the county prosecutor. In 2014, however, the City of Seattle included the shooting as an example of an incident that fits "into the terrorist mold" while the New America Foundation lists it as a "violent jihadist attack," because Haq claimed to be motivated by opposition to U.S. actions. 2006 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill attack In March 2006, UNC graduate Mohammad Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto campus, injuring nine pedestrians. He turned himself in following the attack and sent several letters to UNC’s student newspaper from jail declaring his intentions to exact revenge for Muslims. "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammad Atta, one of the 9/11/01 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree," he wrote in one letter. UNC students were divided over whether Taheri-azar’s actions constituted an act of terror. The FBI declined to comment on whether it was investigating links to terrorism, the New York Times reported in 2006. Terrorist attacks that were unsuccessful or with unknown motives Two other infamous attacks don’t exactly fit Giuliani’s criteria, but are worth noting. The 2001 anthrax scare, which occurred shortly after 9/11, is the worst biological attack in U.S. history and a major terrorism case, according to the FBI. Five Americans were killed and another 17 were injured during the attacks. In 2008, the FBI was about to bring charges against Dr. Bruce Ivins, but the microbiologist committed suicide before they were filed. The 2001 shoe bomber, admitted al-Qaida member Richard Reid, attempted to light explosives on an American Airlines flight before he was subdued. In addition to these attacks, the New America Foundation has documented a handful of thwarted terrorist plots before Obama’s presidency. Our ruling Moments after mentioning 9/11, Giuliani said, "Under those eight years before Obama came along, we didn’t have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the United States." Since then, there have been four successful plots on U.S. soil that were declared by the FBI to be terrorist attacks or whose perpetrators claimed to be motivated by ideology or anti-U.S. sentiments. Reasonable people can disagree over the definition of jihad-inspired terrorism, but Giuliani is taking things too far by omitting all of them. We rate his claim .


Study finds immune system can cause reaction to cancer drug.

Explanation: People who live in parts of the U.S.  south may have pre-existing immunities that cause a severe  allergic reaction to the cancer drug Erbitux, U.S. researchers  reported on Thursday.

They found that patients who had sometimes life-threatening  reactions had a pre-existing immunity to a sugar compound found  in the drug made by ImClone Systems Inc.. The discovery, reported in the New England Journal of  Medicine, might help explain why people living in certain  regions of the United States are more likely to have the  reaction, the researchers said. And because the drug is so widely used — it had global  sales of $1.1 billion in 2006 for use in treating colon, head  and neck cancers — potential patients should be tested first,  the researchers said. Erbitux, known generically as cetuximab, is a monoclonal  antibody, a genetically engineered immune system compound  designed to home in specifically on cancer cells. But some patients have a severe allergic reaction to the  drug. Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills of the University of Virginia and  colleagues looked at reports of these cases, which suggest that  as many as 22 percent of patients treated with Erbitux in  Tennessee and North Carolina reported some kind of reaction,  including anaphylaxis, which can rapidly lead to difficulty  breathing, shock or fainting. “It’s stunning,” Platts-Mills said in a telephone  interview. Even higher rates were reported from parts of Arkansas,  Missouri and Virginia. But fewer than 1 percent of patients  treated in the Northeast reported any reactions. Tests showed a significant number of these patients were  having immunoglobulin E or IgE responses — the classic immune  response that causes anaphylactic seizures. Many had them  almost instantly after getting the drug, which suggests they  had a pre-existing immunity, Platts-Mills said. His team tested 538 people, including 76 cancer patients  who got Erbitux in Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina and  healthy volunteers from Tennessee, California and Boston. Of the 76 cancer patients, 25 developed hypersensitivity  reactions and 18 had IgE antibodies to the drug. Of the noncancer patients, antibodies against Erbitux were  found in 21 percent of the samples from Nashville, 6 percent of  the samples from California and fewer than 1 percent of the  samples from Boston. “We all said why? Why on Earth would they have them?”  Platts-Mills said. Possible culprits included ticks, roundworms  and certain microbes. Then Platts-Mills went on a mountain hike. “My feet started  itching and I took off my shoes and there were all these baby  ticks — little ones,” he said. He realized these small ticks. known locally as seed ticks,  are found only in the south — the same states where patients  were reacting to Erbitux. “We are making extracts of ticks to test people for IgE  antibodies,” Platt-Mills said. “We need to know much more about  the immune response to ticks in these people.”    “These intriguing research findings not only are  potentially important to physicians treating certain cancer  patients, but also may have broader implications for the use of  immunotherapies for other diseases,” added Dr. Anthony    Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and  Infectious Diseases, which helped pay for the study.


World Superbike star Nicky Hayden passed away on 19 May 2017.

Explanation: He is still in the intensive care unit of Cesena’s Maurizio Bufalini Hospital and the prognosis stays reserved.”

Junk News, death hoax, nicky hayden, nicky hayden dead

UPDATE: Former MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden passed away on 22 May 2017. A genuine news report about his death can be read here. The following report concerns a death hoax that circulated shortly after Hayden was hospitalized but well before he actually passed way. On 19 May 2017, the web site Reports-TV.com published a tasteless fake news article that included the claim that motorcycle race champion Nicky Hayden had passed away after a cycling incident in Italy: Former MotoGP [a motorcycle race] champion Nicky Hayden who was in an “extremely critical” condition has died, family announces in a statement. According to the statement the family was by his side after suffering “serious cerebral damage” in a cycling accident on Wednesday until his death this morning. Nicky Hayden did in fact suffer serious injuries while cycling in Italy. However, his family did not release a statement on 19 May 2017 informing the public that the motorcycle racer had passed away. In fact, Earl Hayden, Nicky’s father, told Roadracing World that rumor was not true and this article was fake news: I spoke to Earl this morning, and adding to the family’s pain has been a cascade of FAKE NEWS posted all over the internet, including by alleged professional news organizations that should know better. Earl told me the following: The family HAS NOT issued a statement that Nicky is dead. Nicky IS NOT dead, although he is on life support. Nicky was riding his bicycle alone, NOT in a group of 14 riders. Doctors DID NOT perform surgery on Nicky. Nicky WAS NEVER in an induced coma. The Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team, of which Hayden is a member, released a statement on 18 May 2017 reporting that Hayden had been involved in a serious accident while cycling near Rimini, Italy. Red Bull Honda World Superbike Team rider Nicky Hayden was involved in an incident while cycling near Rimini, Italy yesterday afternoon (Wednesday, 17th May) Following the incident, Nicky was treated on site by medical staff and then taken by ambulance to a hospital near Rimini for immediate treatment. Once Nicky’s condition was stabilised, he was transferred to Maurizio Bufalini Hospital in Cesena and remains in the hospital’s intensive care unit. The team issued another statement the following day reporting that Hayden’s condition had not changed: The following statement regarding Nicky Hayden’s current condition has been released today, 19 May 2017, at 19:45 local time (GMT +2), by the Maurizio Bufalini Hospital in Cesena (Italy). “The clinical picture of Nicky Hayden remains unchanged. His condition is still extremely critical.


As governor of Florida, I used a combination of strategies to help reduce heroin use among youth in Florida by approximately 50 percent.

National, Drugs, Health Care, Public Health, Jeb Bush,

Addiction is a deeply personal issue for Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, whose daughter Noelle suffered from addiction and a string of related criminal charges while he was serving as governor of Florida. In a Medium post on Jan. 5, 2016, Bush offered a glimpse into "the heartbreak of drug abuse" that his family had experienced, along with policy proposals to better address addiction. In the column, Bush discussed his record on drug policy during his gubernatorial tenure. "As governor of Florida, I used a combination of strategies to help reduce heroin use among youth in Florida by approximately 50 percent," Bush wrote. Bush took office in January 1999 and left in January 2007. We took a closer look into that statistic. (A few days later, Bush turned Noelle's story into a television ad.) The Bush campaign pointed us to the 2006 Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey conducted by the Florida Department of Children and Families. (Although several surveys of drug use are released on an annual basis, experts told us that this is the only survey that would speak to the specific numerical claim Bush made.) For heroin use, the survey offers two measurements -- heroin use at any time of one’s life, and heroin use during the past 30 days. For the first category -- use of heroin in one’s lifetime -- 2.2 percent of respondents between the ages of 11 and 18 had used it in 2000, compared to 1.1 percent in 2006. That’s a 50 percent decrease. And for the second category -- heroin use in the past 30 days -- 0.8 percent reported using it in 2000, compared to 0.4 percent in 2006. That’s also down by 50 percent. So numerically, Bush has a point. Still, experts said it’s worth taking those numbers with a grain of salt. Testing the numbers One concern is that the percentage of youth using heroin is small, meaning the differences from year to year are small -- and this makes them potentially unreliable. Indeed, the report itself cautions, "Heroin use in a school population is extremely rare. Nationally, no lifetime prevalence rate for heroin has exceeded 2.4 percent in the 8th, 10th or 12th grades in the past decade. … Given the extremely low prevalence rates associated with heroin use by Florida students, analyses that attempt to precisely specify or quantify changes over time are subject to error." In addition, for both measurements, the biggest drop came between 2000 and 2001, with minimal changes between 2002 and 2006. That seemed curious to Lloyd Johnston, a senior research scientist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and principal investigator of the Monitoring the Future study, which tracks drug use in the United States. "While that is possible, I don't think it very plausible," Johnston said. "Rates almost always change more gradually." One possible explanation for that pattern, he said, is that the 2000 survey collected its data in December and January, whereas the 2001 to 2005 surveys conducted their data in April and May of those years. A further curiosity, Johnston said, is that one would not expect a one-year decline that steep for lifetime heroin use. From year to year, the pool of respondents is mostly the same. In the first year, the survey includes youth who are 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 years of age. The following year, the 18-year-olds drop out and a new group of 11-year-olds joins, but all the other groups are included again. With such modest changes from year to year in the makeup of the age groups, one would not expect a large change in heroin use over a lifetime from one year to the next, Johnston said. "That makes the lifetime improvement in 2001 highly implausible," Johnston said, adding that a sizable change in the 30-day-rates would be more plausible. What was Bush’s role? There’s also a separate issue: Did Bush’s policies help engineer this decline? That’s hard to say, though drug-policy experts in Florida do praise Bush for his work on the issue. James Hall, a drug abuse epidemiologist at Nova Southeastern University, said that Bush gave the issue high priority, including the creation of a drug policy office out of his own office to coordinate law enforcement, treatment, education and prevention. The office -- which was later eliminated by Gov. Rick Scott -- made a "very significant contribution" to drug policy in the state, Hall said. In addition, Bush championed community-based anti-drug coalitions that helped consolidate prevention efforts, Hall said. And his wife Columba was also active in drug- and alcohol-abuse issues, he added. Still, such efforts likely had a "marginal influence" on heroin-use rates, Hall said. Often, broader issues such as demographic and social trends have a bigger impact. Indeed, it’s worth noting that heroin use among youth was declining nationally during roughly the same period. Johnston’s own study found that heroin use among youth was declining nationally between 1999 and 2007, the full extent of Bush's term in office. "For the three grades we study (eighth, 10th, and 12th), the combined prevalence of heroin use during the prior 12 months declined from 1.3 percent in 1999 to 0.8 percent in 2007," he said. That’s a drop of about 40 percent -- not far from what the Florida-only survey found. Our ruling Bush said that "as governor of Florida, I used a combination of strategies to help reduce heroin use among youth in Florida by approximately 50 percent." The only statistics that directly address his statement offer numeric support. However, the report in question cautions against drawing broad conclusions for such low-frequency events as youth heroin addiction, and experts thought it curious that the drop essentially happened in the first year, with little change after that. Experts praise Bush for his drug policies, but it’s important to note that broader demographic and social factors -- reflected in falling youth heroin use nationally during that period -- likely made a difference as well. We rate the claim .


During pregnancy, a woman’s brain shrinks and takes up to six months to regain its previous size.

Explanation: What's true: A single study published in 2002 observed a reduction in women's brain volume during  pregnancy. What's false: One study is not necessarily representative of a real pattern, the sample size of the study was small, the study was designed, for a different purpose,  and there have been no efforts to replicate its results.

In January 2002, the American Journal of Neuroradiology published a study titled “Change in Brain Size during and After Pregnancy: Study in Healthy Women and Women with Preeclampsia,” which, based on before-during-after-pregnancy MRI scans of 14 women’s brains, concluded that “The brain decreases in size during pregnancy and increases in size after delivery. The changes follow a consistent time course in each woman.” A six-month time period for a postpartum brain’s return to its pre-pregnancy size is also referenced in this study, so it is therefore likely that this paper was the primary source of information for the image reproduced above. What is less clear is how relevant this limited study is to a broader population of pregnant women. The study was originally set up to test differences in brain volume through pregnancy between nine healthy women and five women with a condition known as preeclampsia (a pregnancy disorder whose primary symptoms are high blood pressure and large amounts of protein in the urine). Lead researcher Dr. Anita Holdcroft discussed this in a 1997 New Scientist article that shared her group’s preliminary results:  The research into brain size and pregnancy started with women who developed pre-eclampsia, a syndrome involving high blood pressure and fluid build-up that affects some pregnant women, causing their faces, legs and arms to swell. If untreated, it can lead to fatal seizures. “We assumed that their brains would also swell, but last year we found that they shrink,” says Holdcroft. The new research suggests that this is not a symptom of pre-eclampsia, but a normal feature of pregnancy. This research focus, however, demonstrated that the  limited sample size was not intended to be representative of the population at large. Furthermore, a 2016 review paper that (in part) searched for any study relating to changes in the shape or structure of the brain during pregnancy did not mention a single subsequent study that replicated — or attempted to replicate — the 2002 study. One of the main reasons the finding of pregnant brain shrinkage seems to have resonated so well on the Internet (in spite of the sparse amount of research on the topic) is that it serves, incorrectly, as a simple and tidy explanation for the mental cloudiness or forgetfulness women sometimes report during pregnancy. Dr. Holdcroft hinted at this connection in the New Scientist article, but the final 2002 paper published by her team five years later conceded that “the mechanism and physiologic importance of these findings are speculative at the present time.” She also mentioned in that article that the culprit for reduced brain volume was likely not caused by a reduction in the number of brain cells, but by decreases in each cell’s individual volume. While research has documented impairment to some cognitive functions in pregnant women, it is important to note this body of research has not demonstrated an actual decline in mental capacity. It is equally important to note that these studies do not suggest that a shrunken brain is the culprit for this effect, either. This subject remains one of those many gray areas (pun retroactively intended) in science — far too gray for the certainty implied by a two-sentence social media image.


Bill would OK land swap for Arizona veterinary program.

Explanation: The University of Arizona would get ownership of a ranch that’s now federal property under a proposed land swap intended to support the university’s planned new veterinary program.

Martha McSally, Veterinary medicine, Arizona, Kyrsten Sinema

Legislation proposed by Sens. Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema would have the university obtain title to the 13-acre V-V Ranch near Camp Verde while the U.S. Forest Service would get equally-valued ranch land that the university owns near Happy Jack. A statement released Tuesday by McSally’s office says the UA already operates the V-V Ranch but that acquiring ownership outright would enable the university to add buildings and other facilities for its planned College of Veterinary Medicine program. Happy Jack is in a forested area north of Payson and south of Flagstaff. Camp Verde is in the Verde Valley.


California wine contains dangerous levels of arsenic.

Explanation: [A wine company] spokesman said he had not heard of any named winery contacted by Hicks before the lawsuit was filed. The same day the suit was filed, BeverageGrades sent a press release to certain retailers offering its services for a “screening and certification model that allows them to assure their customers of the purity of all the alcoholic beverages they sell.”

On 19 March 2015, several articles about a class-action lawsuit filed in California Superior Court claiming that dozens of brands of (primarily inexpensive) wines produced in that state contain “dangerously high levels of poisonous inorganic arsenic” were published on the Internet. This claim spread quickly online, although some of its details were somewhat obscured in its rapid transmission via social media. CBS in San Francisco published an article on the topic that provided some additional details behind the story. According to that article and others, the class action lawsuit was initiated by Kevin Hicks of BeverageGrades, “a private company offering lab testing, quality assurance and certification of alcoholic beverages for suppliers, restaurants, retailers and ultimately, the end consumer.” The CBS article summarized Hicks’ claims, nothing an inverse relationship between the cost of wines and the levels of arsenic they contained and the lack of an explanation to account for that phenomenon: [Hicks] tested more than 1,300 bottles of wine and found almost a quarter contained levels of arsenic higher than the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum limit for drinking water of 10 parts per billion. In some cases he says the wines contained up to four and five times that amount. So far there is no theory on why this might be happening, but Hicks’ tests showed an interesting pattern. The lower the price of wine on a per-liter basis, the higher the amount of arsenic,” he said. Hicks’ list of low-priced, high-arsenic wines includes Trader Joe’s famous Two-Buck Chuck White Zinfandel, which tested at three times the limit. A bottle of Menage a Trois Moscato was four times the limit and a Franzia Blush had five time the EPA limit for drinking water. Immediately some skeptics (including winemakers affected by the news) pointed out that whether or not Hicks’ claims had merit, his company stood to gain financially should consumers develop an interest in lab testing of alcohol. And, in fact, BeverageGrades sent out a press release timed to the announcement of the lawsuit that offered services to provide “retailers reassurance from arsenic in wine.” Critics also dismissed as mere scare-mongering that Hicks used safety standards established for drinking water and applied them to wine, noting that consumers imbibe far more water than they do wine: The EPA threshold for acceptable amounts of arsenic in drinking water is 10 parts per billion. Which, as you probably can figure out, is not very much at all. Now it’s quite logical on one level to be worried about a wine that exceeds that level. But on the other hand think about how much water you drink relative to how much wine you drink.The average adult generally consumes somewhere around two liters of water per day. If they’re seriously lucky, or seriously happy, an adult might consume a full liter (almost 1.5 bottles) of wine on one particular day. But seven days per week? Then we’re into serious alcoholism territory. And that’s what you’d have to do in order to get yourself a dose of arsenic that approached the amount that the EPA says you should be able to consume safely in your drinking water. Here’s another data point for you. Apple juice and pear juice contain up to two or three times as much arsenic as drinking water as a matter of course. The Food and Drug Administration has known this for years. In fact the acceptable threshold for traces of arsenic in juice is much higher than it is for water, a fact that the FDA explains by simply saying that people don’t drink as much juice as they do water. In short, the FDA is not worried about arsenic levels in juice that are up to five times higher in juice than in water. And what were the most egregious results that BeverageGrades found in their testing of these mass-market wines? Their worst offender was a bottle of Franzia’s White Grenache which had five times the amount [of arsenic] allowed in drinking water. This is basically a bullshit, scaremongering story that BeverageGrades is very cunningly using to drum up business. CBS This Morning cast additional doubt on the urgency of the “arsenic in wine” scare by testing four of the wines named in the lawsuit. In those tests, the levels of arsenic in wine found did not match those reported in BeverageGrades’ testing: CBS News also spot-checked and tested the four wines listed in the lawsuit. They were not the same vintages, but the arsenic levels were all considerably lower than BeverageGrades’ results. One of them, the Wine Group’s Flip Flop Pinot Grigio, came in within the acceptable federal arsenic levels for water.The others were at or above that limit, including Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck White Zinfandel, which tested at more than twice that standard. In response to news of the lawsuit, California wines trade group The Wine Institute released a statement noting that while the United States indeed had no established acceptable levels of arsenic in wine, California wines were routinely tested by other countries (including the EU) and deemed to be below those countries’ established limits: We have learned of possible litigation alleging that certain wines pose a risk to consumers because they contain trace amounts of arsenic. Although we are not privy to the contents of the litigation, we believe this allegation is false and misleading and that all wines being sold in the U.S marketplace are safe.Arsenic is prevalent in the natural environment in air, soil and water, and in food. As an agricultural product, wines from throughout the world contain trace amounts of arsenic as do juices, vegetables, grains and other alcohol beverages. There is no research that shows that the amounts found in wine pose a health risk to consumers. The U.S. Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), the agency that regulates wine, beer and spirits, monitors wines for compounds, including arsenic, as part of its testing program. While there are no established limits in the U.S., several countries, including the European Union, have established limits of 100 parts per billion or higher for wine. California wine exports are tested by these governments and are below the established limits. Wine Spectator contacted some of the wine brands named in the lawsuit, many of whom stated that Hicks had made no effort to contact them before filing the class action, although he did send out a press release to some wine vendors offering his company’s testing services to them:


New Stomach Stapling Procedure: No Surgery, Less Recovery Time

Explanation: This extremely brief television news segment about a non-surgical treatment for morbid obesity manages to describe the procedure, contrast it with conventional treatment, and indicate that it is being studied and not yet available. Yet as the ratings here show, both the brevity of the story and the way the time is used leave the story short of journalistic best practices. At the very least, the report should have:   included an interview with a dispassionate observer mentioned the possible harms and shortcomings of the procedure  stated more plainly that the procedure may never be approved in the U.S., and  disclosed that the owner of the procedure’s patent is funding the research   Ideally it also would have explained a bit more about the findings so far–which patients have been helped the most, what the side effects have been, whether there have been any surgical complications and so on. These findings should have been compared to what is known about conventional gastric bypass surgery.

The segment failed to disclose the cost (or expected cost) of the procedure. The segment does nothing to report results, other than to say that on average patients in the trials lost nearly 40 percent of their body weight. The story fails to report possible harms of the treatment. While it enumerates the ways in which harms are less likely to occur with the non-surgical method, it says nothing about the harms that pertain to both. These include weight regain as patients find ways to consume high amounts of calories anyway, and nutritional deficiencies. The segment fails to report any evidence from the ongoing trials. The only figure cited is that patients can lose up to 40 percent of their body weight. The segment fails to say, as the press release does, that weight loss in this group has been less than in those who have conventional bypass surgery. The story does nothing to exaggerate the dangers of morbid obesity. The segment quotes the one patient who has had the procedure, and one of the physicians treating her. The reporter should have talked to an independent source. The fact that the patent-holder on the procedure funded the trials should have been disclosed. The segment correctly says the main option for obesity of over 100 excess pounds is conventional bypass surgery. Other interventions for weight loss that are sometimes successful for other populations, such as diet and exercisse, have not been shown effective for the morbidly obese. The story is very clear that this procedure has been performed only twice in the U.S., and has been tested on over 40 people overseas. It says the procedure is not approved for use in the U.S. The segment properly reports that the procedure has been done on only two people in the U.S. and around 40 people abroad. We can’t be sure about the extent to which the story relied on the press release. We do know that the story uses the same patient that is named in the news release. We also know that no independent expert source was interviewed.


A study proved that humans ingest five grams of plastic a week, similar to eating one credit card per person per week.

Explanation: Do People Ingest Five Grams of Plastic Per Week?

On October 15 2019, the Facebook page “Using Less Plastic” shared a meme which claimed that “a new study” had found that humans ingested an average of five grams of plastic per week, about the same amount contained in an average credit card:Text drawn onto an illustration of a person and a plate with two credit cards on it read:People ingest 5 grams of plastic per week … [on] average, it’s 2,000 microplastic particles every week! It is the equivalent of eating a credit card every week! [Easy Eco Tips]Text included in a status update reiterated:A new study by the University of Newcastle in Australia has found that in average, people ingest 5 grams of plastic every week, or 2,000 microplastic particles. That’s the equivalent of eating a credit card.Big if true, readers might think, but the “new study” was not linked in the original post or in any prominent comments. Commenters responded by saying “I believe it” and offering similar thoughts:Holy shit.. We are killing the planet and ourselves! So sad..Ocean plastic remained a major ecological interest in 2019, following massive global pro-environment protests, controversial bans on plastic straws, and arguments over whether such bans could really affect the amounts of microplastics in both oceans and the food supply. Although the problem itself is not new, accelerated interest in the issue was speculatively attributed to viral photographs of the effects of ocean plastic on sea life and habitats.Around the same time, a highly viral claim made the rounds in the UK that Christmas crackers posed a massive ecological threat — but that claim was a hodgepodge of statistics that were only semi-related to Christmas crackers, and they were not rooted in credible information about ocean plastic. Claims about ocean plastic in general generate massive engagement for people and pages, and are thus incentive to post claims whether or not they are legitimate.As for a purported “recent study,” USA Today reported in June 2019 that the average person was “eating about a credit card’s worth of plastic every week,” adding that drinking water was deemed a culprit:You’re eating, swallowing or breathing in about 2,000 tiny pieces of plastic each week, a new study suggests, an amount equal to the weight of one credit card.“Not only are plastics polluting our oceans and waterways and killing marine life – it’s in all of us and we can’t escape consuming plastics,” said Marco Lambertini of the World Wildlife Fund, which commissioned the study … According to the study, most of the pieces of plastic we ingest come from drinking water, but it’s also in other foods such as shellfish and salt. And also, sadly, beer.That same month, CNN indicated “you could” be ingesting five grams of plastic per week, and QZ.com endeavored to explain “how you eat a credit card’s worth of plastic each week.” National Geographic went with an arguably safer “You eat thousands of bits of plastic every year” in their coverage, but also introduced the specter of inhaled microplastics, as if we don’t have enough to worry about:Last October [2018], microplastics were found in fecal samples from eight people participating in a pilot study to research how much humans might be inadvertently consuming plastic. Now, a new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology says it’s possible that humans may be consuming anywhere from 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles a year. With added estimates of how much microplastic might be inhaled, that number is more than 74,000.Incidentally, a 2009 CreditCards.com item estimated the average credit card weighed 5.07 grams, calculated a decade before heftier plastic (and other material) charge cards became de rigueur. An August 2019 credit card blog post ranked the top “heaviest” credit cards, listing a total of 20 cards weighing between 10 and 27 grams apiece. The heaviest of the lot was the JP Morgan Reserve at 27 grams, followed by the Luxury Card MasterCard Gold Card at 22 grams.Nearly all cards on the list involved a yearly annual fee ranging from $99 to $2,500 for the card that likely kicked off the trend, the fabled American Express (AmEx) Centurion. Presumably, cardholders indeed forked out hundreds to thousands of dollars for the privilege of being charged interest on the (literally) weightier status symbol cards. That list also noted the average weight of plebeian plastic ia five grams.In articles about the “new study,” a lot of “might be,” “may be” and “could” qualifiers appeared in headlines. That also held true for the June 2019 press release about the actual research underlying the many articles (and now, Facebook memes). It explained “plastic ingestion by people could be equating to a credit card a week,” describing the research cited was a meta-analysis of more than fifty studies on human microplastic ingestion:A new study finds on average people could be ingesting approximately 5 grams of plastic every week, which is the equivalent weight of a credit card.“No Plastic in Nature: Assessing Plastic Ingestion from Nature to People” prepared by Dalberg, based on a study commissioned by WWF and carried out by University of Newcastle, Australia, suggests people are consuming about 2000 tiny pieces of plastic every week. That’s approximately 21 grams a month, just over 250 grams a year.The University of Newcastle is the first to combine data from over 50 studies on the ingestion of microplastic by people. The findings are an important step towards understanding the impact of plastic pollution on humans. It also further confirms the urgent need to address the plastic system so that it does not pollute ecosystems in the first place.On the original meme, the figures attributed to the research were either five grams, or its purported equivalent of 2,000 microplastic particles consumed by humans on average per week. A June 2019 study (“Human Consumption of Microplastics”) published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology also attempted to calculate a specific gram-value for average consumption of microplastics.Although the meme said five grams or 2,000 microplastic particles each week (or an average credit card), concurrent research arrived at a different number:Microplastics are ubiquitous across ecosystems, yet the exposure risk to humans is unresolved. Focusing on the American diet, we evaluated the number of microplastic particles in commonly consumed foods in relation to their recommended daily intake. The potential for microplastic inhalation and how the source of drinking water may affect microplastic consumption were also explored. Our analysis used 402 data points from 26 studies, which represents over 3600 processed samples. Evaluating approximately 15% of Americans’ caloric intake, we estimate that annual microplastics consumption ranges from 39000 to 52000 particles depending on age and sex. These estimates increase to 74000 and 121000 when inhalation is considered. Additionally, individuals who meet their recommended water intake through only bottled sources may be ingesting an additional 90000 microplastics annually, compared to 4000 microplastics for those who consume only tap water. These estimates are subject to large amounts of variation; however, given methodological and data limitations, these values are likely underestimates.In that abstract, several figures were provided: a range of 39,000 to 52,000, and a range of 74,000 to 121,000 alongside a floating additional 90,000 microplastics annually for bottled water enthusiasts (versus 4,000 for tap water drinkers). Noting the estimates inherently involved “large amounts of variation,” researchers indicated the values were likely underestimated.In that range, the lower estimate of 39,000 particles annually worked out to 750 particles versus the 2000 in the meme; the second figure of 52,000 worked out to 1,000 per week. The higher value of 121,000 worked out to just over 2,300 particles, higher than the 2,000 referenced in the meme. A major takeaway of that study was that the range was massive as an estimate, and that researchers leaned toward understanding real values were probably higher.The research referenced in the meme [PDF] was “under consideration” for academic publication, but it was released early — in June 2019 — in order to to coincide with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) campaign for action on plastic pollution, and its overall status remained unclear. On its release, Alastair Grant, a professor of ecology at the University of East Anglia, opined that the report “does not present evidence that consuming even the highest figure (which represents approximately 250 particles a day) presents a risk to human health,” and that due to improper recycling practices, “[burned] plastic in developing countries is likely to have much more serious health effects than those from rather small numbers of plastic particles in food and water.”In that overall opinion, Grant suggested that the broader problems around microplastics ought not be ignored in an induced panic over plastic ingestion. Furthermore, the meme referenced 2,000 microplastics as the basis of the five gram/credit card figure. The actual underlying research stated that an average person “potentially consumes as much as 1769 particles of plastic every week just from water,” going on to estimate that the individual could consume up to 182 microplastics in shellfish, ten in beer, and eleven in salt.Assuming this person does consume all four things in a given week (including beer and shellfish), the maximum calculated figure was around 1,972 total plastic particles — close to the 2,000 figure. But the context of sources was not included, and the numbers in the meme were presented as definitive, not “potential.”WWF researchers also maintained their that estimates on inhalation suggested that “a negligible proportion of microplastics entering the human body [were inhaled] but may vary heavily depending on the environment.” In contrast, the Environmental Science & Technology study published the same month the WWF research was released seemed to weight inhalation estimates far less conservatively, indicating that figures of 39,000 to 52,000 particles per year (or 750 to 1,000 particles per week) increased “to 74,000 and 121,000 when inhalation [was] considered”:The study reveals that consumption of common food and beverages may result in a weekly ingestion of approximately 5 grams of plastic, depending on consumption habits. Out of a total of 52 studies that the University of Newcastle included within its calculations, 33 studies looked at plastic consumption through food and beverage. These studies highlighted a list of common food and beverages containing microplastics, such as drinking water* , beer, shellfish, and salt.With respect to the accuracy of the figures, researchers noted:The [underlying research] builds on a comprehensive review of existing studies to estimate plastic ingestion through inhalation, food, and beverages. The approach was to focus on available data and to use conservative extrapolations and assumptions when data was not available.While this study represents a synthesis of the best available data, it builds on a limited set of evidence, and comes with limitations. The consensus among specialists is thus that while these numbers are in a realistic range, further studies are needed to get a precise estimate.A key limitation is the lack of data available on crucial metrics, such as weight and size distribution of microplastics in natural environments, and the varying quality of data collected. A widespread issue in data collection for instance is variations in sample collection methodologies leading to risks of contamination … The Newcastle study team used assumptions and extrapolations to bridge data gaps and adjust for data quality. It is acknowledged that with every assumption and extrapolation, the level of uncertainty increases, and further research and data collection is needed to ascertain these results.Variations within the data set studied were also noted, with shellfish consumption a particularly variable condition. Shellfish consumption could account for .5 grams per week (ten percent of the five gram total) if a person consumes shellfish:Another key source [of consumed plastic] is shellfish, accounting for as much as 0.5 grams a week. This comes from the fact that shellfish are eaten whole, including their digestive system, after a life in plastic-polluted seas.As is common in generalized reporting on research, a very shareable soundbite moved from findings to articles to memes, losing details at every stage in its evolution. One October 2019 meme in particular resulted from a spate of June 2019 reports on research released that month by the WWF in conjunction with a university in Australia, which was as of that point pending academic review. Where the research itself pointed to high-range estimates and was based on dozens of earlier studies, reporting slowly began to strip away the “maybes” and “possiblys” before the findings were condensed into an out-of-context meme.The meme claimed that the average person ingests 2,000 ocean plastic particles per week, thus essentially “eating one credit card” per person per week. But even shallow reporting on the research indicated that those estimates were at the high end, and the WWF’s report noted variables such as drinking water quality and habits as well as shellfish consumption affected even those estimated figures. A study published in an environmental journal’s range of figures differed slightly from the WWF numbers, which were — again — still under review when the reporting first started. All reports noted that the actual effects of microplastic consumption on human health is still unknown. Nevertheless, the World Wide Fund for Nature never suggested that every human or even most humans on Earth ate “a credit card a week,” despite using the comparison as a benchmark.


Magnetic brain stimulation causes weight loss by making gut bacteria healthier

Explanation: The focus of this news release from The Endocrine Society is on research examining the impact of deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) — a non-invasive treatment that can stimulate different regions of the brain — on weight loss, hormones and signaling molecules that can affect metabolism and appetite, and composition of the gut microbiome in 14 obese human subjects living in Italy. Microbiome refers to the community of microorganisms living in and on our bodies, most of which are within the gut, and their genetic makeup. The results indicated that volunteers who underwent dTMS lost more weight and fat mass than those who had a sham procedure and that changes were seen in the microbiome profile in individuals who’d had dTMS. The release didn’t discuss any changes in the sham group, and there was no discussion of where these results fit within the total body of evidence in this area of research. Most importantly, the release takes significant liberties by stating that dTMS can directly impact microbes living in the gut, without considering the impact that weight loss and lifestyle changes have on microbial composition. Employing a more cautious interpretation of the results, and including a discussion of costs, risks, and comparisons to other weight loss treatments would have significantly improved the release. Researchers and clinicians work relentlessly every day to find treatments for obesity and its chronic health consequences, and yet, new, safe and effective techniques are few and far between. It’s well known that obesity treatment and management are critical concerns in the United States and abroad. Any new technique that might influence weight loss, appetite, or the gut microbiome is exciting to consider, given that lifestyle changes and prescription weight loss drugs often have limited long-term impacts. However, this news release overstates and oversimplifies the results of the study without fully addressing the complex interplay between weight loss, metabolic hormones and neurotransmitters (the brain’s chemical messengers), and the microbes living in our gut. Change in one of these components typically doesn’t proceed without the others, and the mechanisms are extremely intricate and multifaceted. This release seems to leap from Point A to Point C in a conclusion that does not show appropriate and cautious interpretation of the results of this very small study.

magnetic brain stimulation,obesity,The Endocrine Society

Cost of dTMS is not mentioned in this release. After doing a bit of independent information gathering, it seems that even though dTMS may be more cost-effective than other more invasive neurostimulation techniques, each session can cost a patient roughly $400-$500, according to PyschologyToday. Individuals in this study underwent 15 sessions each, which amounts to $6000 to $7500 for five weeks of therapy. We don’t know the long-term effects of dTMS on weight loss, nor do we know if, or – more likely – how often these sessions would need to be repeated, but it’s easy to see the price for an individual mounting quickly. The release doesn’t mention insurance coverage but costs for this type of therapy are likely to be out-of-pocket. One of the least straightforward ways to present research results is by stating changes in percentages rather than absolute differences between groups — and this release does exactly that. The release states, “After five weeks of treatment, subjects receiving dTMS lost more than 3 percent of their body weight and more than 4 percent of their fat — significantly more than controls did.” And yet, the release doesn’t report actual body weight or body fat data, leaving readers out in the cold as to what a 3 or 4% change in weight or fat loss really means. This is unintentionally misleading for people trying to assess the value of the treatment. Current guidelines for treating obesity recommend a 5 to 10 percent weight loss within one year for benefits to be clinically meaningful, and it’s uncertain if participants would achieve this goal, given the short time frame of the study. Neither the release or the abstract it’s based on addressed whether volunteers in the sham group (those who didn’t receive dTMS therapy) also lose weight or fat mass. Without this comparison, it’s difficult to understand the impact of dTMS itself or if the placebo effect played a role in these results. Specific risks are not discussed, though it’s mentioned that dTMS is currently approved in the U.S. for treating major depression and is being studied in other countries for treating neuropsychiatric disorders. Unlike deep brain stimulation, this technique does not require an operation or implantation of electrodes, so we can deduce that the potential harms are lower than other neurostimulation procedures. Nevertheless, a brief mention of harms would give readers a sense of the risk-benefit balance should dTMS rise in popularity and availability in the coming years. The release tells us that this research builds upon previous findings demonstrating that dTMS reduced food cravings and induced weight loss in obese individuals. That conclusion is also supported by the results of the current study, though we can’t gloss over the fact that the study only had 14 participants total — just 7 of whom received dTMS. The release claims that dTMS “helps obese people lose weight, partly by changing the composition of their intestinal bacteria.” But based on the study design of this research, there simply isn’t a way to determine if the changes in gut microbes were due to changes in weight, food intake, physical activity, hormonal or metabolic shifts, or if they were directly due to dTMS. The release suggests that dTMS can influence pituitary hormones and neurotransmitters, which are known to affect appetite and certain microbiota, respectively, but very little is known in this area of research and it would be wise to tread with caution through this conclusion. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering. Obesity is an increasing problem on both the individual and population-level scales. The release provides some context about why new obesity treatments are needed, as well as the possible role gut microbes might play in weight management. No funding sources or conflicts of interest are described in the news release. While many strategies for weight loss are well known to the general public, none are mentioned in this release. It would be beneficial for readers to be able to compare the weight loss and metabolic changes in subjects who underwent dTMS to the results typically seen through changes in diet and physical activity, FDA-approved weight loss medications, or bariatric surgery, all of which are widely accepted treatments for obesity. The release does not discuss the availability of this treatment and the treatment does not appear to be available for obesity at this time. Since dTMS is only approved in the U.S. for treatment of depression, it’s unlikely that it would be available to people without a formal diagnosis of depression. The news release confirms that dTMS has been around for a while and is used to treat other conditions, but highlights that using the procedure to treat obesity is a new area of exploration. Though the release does take liberties in stating the conclusion of the study, it stays away from sensational language about the dTMS and its potential role in weight loss and microbial changes.


Before his death, physicist Stephen Hawking declared his Christian faith after a visit with Pope Francis.

Explanation: This Facebook post is just another in a litany of fabricated claims about famous non-believers. The source is a Facebook page associated with the disreputable web site FrancisMary.org, which appears to have no formal affiliation with the Catholic church and routinely posts clickbait articles touting videos of Jesus Christ appearing in the flesh during a church service, or as an “angel on a white horse fighting in Israel.”

The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking died in March 2018 at the age of 76, prompting a wave of tributes from the world of science, as well as reflections on his inspirational life story. On 14 March 2018, the “Catholics Online” Facebook page posted a photograph of Hawking meeting Pope Francis alongside a fabricated claim: Before he died, Stiph [sic] Hawkins [sic] who did not believe in God requested to visit the Vatican. “Now l believe” was the only statement he made after the Holy Father blessed him. Hawking was a longstanding and prominent atheist who often wrote and spoke about the origins of the universe and his views on the notion of a divine Creator (or rather, a lack thereof). As the Washington Post documented after his death, Hawking told the Guardian in 2011 that he did not believe in an afterlife or heaven: I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark. In 2010, he told ABC News: “One can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, but science makes God unnecessary.”  There is no evidence that Hawking deviated from those lifelong views before his death, and he did not make any declaration of faith after a meeting with Pope Francis.The photograph in the Facebook post shows Hawking and Francis together at the Vatican in November 2016, the last time the two men met. Contrary to the claim, Hawking did not request a private visit with the pontiff; rather, he travelled to Rome for a scheduled meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Hawking was a valued member of the academy, having been appointed to it by Pope Paul VI in 1968. The Pontifical Academy of Sciences listed has among its aims “fostering interaction between faith and reason and encouraging dialogue between science and spiritual, cultural, philosophical and religious values.” After his death, the academy honored Hawking, tweeting a series of photographs of the physicist meeting Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. il beato Paolo VI che si inginocchia per consegnare la medaglia di Pio XI e Hawking che ringrazia al Papa per la decorazione pic.twitter.com/zVICFDlkaE — Casina Pio IV (@CasinaPioIV) March 15, 2018  However, notwithstanding his decades-long commitment to fostering dialogue between science and faith, Hawking remained an unbeliever himself. Hawking’s phony deathbed conversion is one in a long series of similar hoaxes of opportunity. For example, after the 2011 death of the writer Christopher Hitchens — an outspoken atheist and critic of organized religion — American evangelical Christian writer Larry Alex Taunton published a controversial book in which he claimed Hitchens had reevaluated his religious faith while he was dying of esophageal cancer. The book was widely dismissed and fiercely criticized by friends of Hitchens. Before that, there were debunked eleventh-hour “conversions” to Christianity by Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution, and astronomer Carl Sagan.