A photograph shows the heart of a child who contracted a fatal case of heartworm from kissing and sleeping with a dog.

Explanation: In short, you can feel secure that your children’s cuddling the family dog will not result in any of them contracting a fatal case of heartworm.

A Facebook post circulated in March 2019 that purported to offer a photograph of the heart of a child who died after contracting parasites from sleeping with and kissing a domesticated dog. “A bad practice is to humanize pets. I’m sending you a kid’s heart that, due to sleeping and kissing his dog, it transmitted its parasites,” the post warned. “Those parasites blocked his heart and he died here at the Children’s Hospital. Please forward this to family and friends”:  In fact, this photograph was taken from a 2012 paper published in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews, where it was captioned as picturing “Male and female adult worms of D. immitis in the heart of a dog,” not in the heart of a human child. D. immitis (or Dirofilaria immitis), commonly known as “heartworm” or “dog heartworm,” is a parasitic, thread-like roundworm that is spread via mosquito bites. D. immitis infections cause dirofilariasis (also known as “heartworm disease”), which can be fatal to dogs if left untreated: “D. immitis adult worms can cause pulmonary artery blockage in dogs, leading to an illness that can include cough, exhaustion upon exercise, fainting, coughing up blood, and severe weight loss.” However, as the Clinical Microbiology Reviews paper noted, “humans are not suitable hosts for Dirofilaria species,” and one of that paper’s illustrations shows that Dirofilaria infections in humans do not spread to the heart:  As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated in an article about dirofilariasis, humans become infected with Dirofilaria through mosquito bites (not from physical contact with infected canines); reported cases of infections in humans are quite uncommon; and D. immitis worms are rarely found outside the lungs in humans: Like dogs, humans become infected with Dirofilaria through mosquito bites. In persons infected with D. immitis, dying worms in pulmonary artery branches can produce granulomas (small nodules formed by an inflammatory reaction), a condition called “pulmonary dirofilariasis” … Rarely, D. immitis worms have been found in humans outside the lungs, including in the brain, eye, and testicle. A review of cases of human dirofilariasis in the United States published in 2005 lists a total of 81 cases reported in the literature since 1941, the year of the first reported case. A Healthline article that specifically addresses the issue of “Can Humans Get Heartworms from Dogs?” reiterates these same points — heartworm infections in humans are rare, aren’t transmitted by contact with dogs, don’t occur in the heart, and aren’t fatal: Heartworms are rarely transmitted from dogs to humans. In fact, only 81 cases of heartworm in humans were reported from 1941 to 2005. Both dogs and humans can get heartworm infections. But your dog can’t give it to you through their bodily fluids. Heartworms get into the bloodstream of both humans and dogs through mosquito bites. The symptoms of heartworm infections in animals and humans differ because of how they develop in the bloodstream. You may not always experience any symptoms because the heartworms will die before maturity in a human host. In humans, heartworm larvae never fully mature. As young heartworms die, your body reacts to their tissue with inflammation as it tries to destroy the heartworms. This condition is known as pulmonary dirofilariasis. Heartworms don’t live long in human blood, so you won’t need to have heartworms removed through either medication or surgery. Treatment for heartworms addresses any granulomas that appear on an imaging test that may have resulted from dead heartworm tissue buildup in your arteries. If a granuloma isn’t causing any symptoms or blockage in your arteries, you probably won’t need any further treatment.


Death industry reaps grim profit as Japan dies.

Explanation: Across from a noodle shop in a Yokohama suburb, Hisayoshi Teramura’s inn looks much like any other small lodging that dots the port city. Occasionally, it’s even mistaken for a love hotel by couples hankering for some time beneath the sheets.

Morticians prepare a body at the Lastel corpse hotel in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, September 10, 2011. Death is a rare booming market in stagnant Japan and the Lastel corpse hotel, where bereaved families can check in their dead while they wait their turn in the queue for one of the city's overworked crematoriums, is just one example of how businessmen are trying to tap it. REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao But Teramura’s place is neither a love nest nor a pit stop for tired travelers. The white and grey tiled building is a corpse hotel, its 18 deceased guests tucked up in refrigerated coffins. “We tell them we only have cold rooms,” Teramura quips when asked how his staff respond to unwary lovers looking for a room. The daily rate at Lastel, as it is known, is 12,000 yen ($157). For that fee, bereaved families can check in their dead while they wait their turn in the queue for one of the city’s overworked crematoriums. Death is a rare booming market in stagnant Japan and Teramura’s new venture is just one example of how businessmen are trying to tap it. In 2010, according to government records, 1.2 million people passed away, giving the country and annual death rate of 0.95 percent versus 0.84 percent in the United States, which is also the global average. The rate of deaths is on the increase. Last year, there were an extra 55,000 dead and over the past decade, an average of 23,000 more people have died each year in Japan. Annual deaths are expected to peak at 1.66 million in 2040 as the bulk of the nation’s baby boomer generation expires. By then, Japan’s population will have shrunk by around 20 million people, an unprecedented die off for a nation neither at war or blighted by famine. Although two decades of economic malaise has weighed on incomes, a tradition on splashing out on ceremonies means the Japanese still pay an average of 1.2 million yen on flowers, urns, coffins and other funeral expenses. It adds up to a market worth a whopping $21 billion a year, or twice what Americans spend annually on funerals. “There’s been a rush into the market,” says Teramura, who founded cemetery developer company Nichiryoku 45 years ago. Even Japan’s second biggest retail chain, Aeon, rail companies and the nation’s biggest farmers association, Japan Agriculture are getting into the business, he notes. Teramura, 71, decided a decade ago to widen his business beyond graves to funerals and he opened Lastel last year. Behind its flower box framed windows, hidden away from mourners, is an automated storage system. It stores and chills encoffined corpses, delivering them through hatches and into a viewing room, day or night, whenever friends and family come to pay their respects. Building new urban crematoriums to deal with the surge in bodies is near to impossible because nobody wants the furnaces in their back yard, explains Teramura. That not-in-my-backyard crowd is forcing cities to make do with the facilities they have, even as the body count mounts. In Yokohama, the average wait for an oven is more than four days, driving up demand for half-way morgues such as Lastel. “Otherwise people have to keep the bodies at home where there isn’t much space,” says Teramura. It also provides a captive audience to which he can market his other funeral services and wares. Joining Teramura in the funeral rush are a slew of new entrants, some of them refugees from a shrinking wedding industry. Entry to the industry is easy. There are no licenses or mandatory qualifications. All any wannabe funeral director needs is an office and a telephone. Flowers or coffins are easy to order and ceremonial halls, hearses and monks are all for hire. In the United States, by comparison, most funeral entrepreneurs need to study for three years, including a stint as an apprentice before regulators consider handing out a license. In a recent poll of 2,796 funeral industry related firms, Japan’s Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry (METI) found that a third have been in business for a decade or less. It’s becoming a wild west market in some ways, attracting the honest operators and the not so reputable too. “People tend to leave things to the funeral director and some people take advantage of that. So instead of a 100,000 yen coffin you may end up with a 1 million yen cask,” Teramura says. A lack of official oversight and a wealth of cash transactions also makes it a magnet for full fledged mobsters, or yakuza, say some industry players. A niche that the yakuza have slipped into is as brokers who introduce funeral homes to hospitals, said one funeral director, who declined to be identified. That role alone can pull in millions of dollars in commissions. Just how fast the industry is growing is hard to ascertain. METI in 2005 said there were 4,107 companies employing 49,079 people. Across the street at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, officials say there were 6,606 firms in 2006, supporting a workforce of 72,046. Yoshiatsu Mitsuhashi, who is in charge of compiling the METI survey, said that growth may even understate the pace, because the ministry changed the way it gathered data. “It probably does indicate that the number of operators is rising, but we don’t really know,” he admits. Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute said companies positioned to succeed may be former wedding organizers able to respond to growing demand for personalized services on a tighter budget — changes that have roiled the bridal industry already. Yano predicts the funeral market will be worth 1.96 trillion yen by 2015. One former wedding organizer trying his hand at the death industry is Takayuki Nakagawa. In 2002, he founded Urban Funes, which offers customized theme funerals from a converted wedding chapel in a Tokyo suburb. For recent events, Nakagawa has asked his staff to collect discarded fruit and vegetable boxes for the funeral of a greengrocer. For another, he asked them to come up with a fitting send off for father and husband who for four decades had blown half his salary on booze and gambling. “People are less bothered about following customs,” says Nakagawa in his offices above the hall where workers were arranging flutes and other memorabilia as part of a final farewell for a middle-aged woman. To make money Nakagawa, who has no qualifications as a funeral director, says he keeps his operation lean, outsourcing whatever he can. Within five years he wants to do 3,000 funerals a year, compared with 900 in the last 12 months. “The places that are struggling are those with a lot of facilities,” says Nakagawa. Those include mutual associations known as gojokai, set up to collect monthly fees from members, meant to pay a chunk of funeral expenses when they pass on. Those funds combined amount to more than 1.7 trillion yen, according to the industry association that most are members of. Over-exuberance during Japan’s Shangri-La bubble years meant they invested much of that money poorly in golf memberships, event halls and real estate, leaving many teetering on the brink of failure two decades on. The Japanese government is pushing for the industry to consolidate, cajoling stronger operators to absorb weaker ones. A round of funeral fund failures will allow investors to make at least some money for their distressed assets, Nakagawa reckons. “We aren’t ordering them to combine, but encouraging them to act in order to avoid problems for consumers,” explains an METI official in charge of overseeing the associations. “It’s difficult to give a timeline for when this issue will be resolved,” he adds. As for Lastel’s Teramura, he’s pushing ahead with expansion plans. He pulls out his mobile phone and shows a picture of an office building he just bought in another Yokohama neighborhood. When he has finished renovating it will be his second Lastel, with room for 40 bodies, more than double the first. He refuses to divulge, however, exactly where it is in case any NIMBY neighbors get wind of what he is up to and try to kill his latest corpse hotel.


Explanation: Conspiracies linking the Clintons to various deaths are longstanding and unsubstantiated. We’ve debunked a number of them. The novel coronavirus has killed thousands globally and a growing number of people in the United States.

Fake news, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,

In some corners of the internet, every crisis traces back to Bill and Hillary Clinton. No matter how many times fact-checkers swat down hoaxes faulting them for murders and other mischief, there’s always another conspiracy floating around, or so it seems. This time, a Facebook post suggests that the political family is responsible for more deaths than the novel coronavirus that’s infected more than 153,000 people worldwide. "Coronavirus — 22. Clintons — 39," said an image posted to Facebook on March 9, 2020. The post doesn’t specify that the numbers are in reference to alleged death tolls, but comments from the original poster and other social media users make the connection clear. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) In reality, there’s no proof that the Clintons have a "body count" or have killed people who have damaging information on them, as hoaxes about the Clintons routinely allege. These conspiracies are not new. In a 1998 fact-check of a bogus hit list that purported to name dozens of people the Clintons had killed, Snopes wrote that similar rumors had been spreading for decades. Since our start in 2007, we’ve also seen numerous Clinton-related conspiracies. We’ve debunked claims alleging the Clintons were behind the celebrity deaths of everyone from Kate Spade to Anthony Bourdain to Kobe Bryant to Paul Walker. We’ve also quashed numerous baseless rumors about the Clintons orchestrating the murders of political leaders and enemies. Recently, we debunked a Wisconsin state lawmaker’s false claim that "more people have died from knowing Hillary" than the novel coronavirus. As of March 15, COVID-19 had killed 5,735 people globally and 41 people in the United States, according to the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Protection. More recent news reports have the U.S. death toll topping 70 people as of March 16. As of March 9 — the date the Facebook post went up — COVID-19 had killed 3,809 people globally and 11 people in the U.S., according to the WHO and the CDC. But those numbers were lagging, as some news reports from March 8 had the U.S. number up to 22 people. Regardless of where the coronavirus death toll sits, there’s no credible evidence to substantiate the claim that the Clintons are behind the deaths of 39 people. We rate this post !


Parents in Texas found a codeine tablet in a sealed canister of Gerber Puffs.

Explanation: Holt Davis further asserted that the object was retrieved by a representative for Gerber on 22 February 2017; Gerber did not mention their retrieval of the object in either exchange. Neither Holt Davis nor Gerber had further information on the results of the company’s testing, which was pending as of 24 February 2017.

Uncategorized, food warnings, gerber, viral facebook posts

On 15 February 2017, Facebook user Meghan Holt Davis published a Facebook post (subsequently edited in a timeline fashion), claiming that she found a foreign object in her child’s Gerber Puffs canister: PARENTS: Please carefully inspect whatever it is you give your little ones! I put B into his high chair and dumped some Puffs onto his tray & a little piece of what looks like a white pill came out with them. After removing him, I dumped the rest of the container and found another little piece. I’m not sure what it is, but the thought that sometimes we all as parents don’t always pay attention terrifies me that he or some other child could have eaten it. Always always always inspect their food/snacks! ?? Update 2/17/17: After taking the “foreign object” to be tested in 2 different cities, 3 different pharmacist have concluded that it was a Tylenol 3/Codeine 300mg. That’s all I can currently say. Thank you all for helping spread the awareness! Update # 2, 2/19/17: Other families with similar experiences are starting to contact us with information, pictures, case numbers & complaint file numbers where Gerber has swept this recklessness under the rug. This Momma & Daddy WILL get something done about this! And as I always say, continue to be vigilant when giving your child pre-packaged snacks! ? Also- when posting this originally I did it as a scared mother, in a complete state of shock and disappointment. My goal was to reach my immediate friends and family whom we personally know. In posting and being terrified of what I had just found, I failed to mention that the container of Puffs was sealed twice. Once under the lid and one on top surrounding the lid- both seals were 110% in tact with no holes, cuts or damage. The container its self was in perfect condition. When I notified Gerber within minutes of my finding I did inform them of that from the start. Thank you to those of you whom brought it to my attention that the information regarding the seals was lacking from my post. I had stated it numerous times in comments throughout but had failed to update on the main post! Update 2/23/17: Update: not too long ago in Illinois some parents found a white tablet of medication in their child’s Gerber oatmeal and filed a police report. I just got off of the phone with that police department and they informed me that they had sent the evidence to Gerber and that Gerber said it was an isolated incident and never reported back their findings. Just a quick update for those who seem to believe this is not real or it is not worth raising concern over. Holt Davis wrote that she located the object while pouring Gerber Puffs onto her child’s high chair tray, and that she traveled to “two cities” where three separate pharmacists concluded the item was a tablet of Tylenol containing codeine, a Schedule III controlled medication. Holt Davis said that a different family also found an unidentified tablet in their child’s Gerber oatmeal, and that still more families had contacted her to share their own experiences. On 23 February 2017, we asked Gerber about the claim; a representative told us that a family in Texas reported finding a tablet in a can of Gerber Puffs, but it was not known whether anything had been sent to the company for testing. Gerber, contracting the Facebook post, told us that no additional reports of tablets in their products had been filed. A June 2016 complaint about a pill purportedly found in a Gerber oatmeal product was initially reported in the news, but information about the outcome of an ensuing investigation was not available: The Waterloo Police Department is warning the public about a possible case of food tampering. A resident reported finding a pill in their baby’s food Wednesday night. The pill was found in a Gerber oatmeal and banana cereal container purchased at a Waterloo Walmart. On 24 February 2017, we received a response from Gerber about the complaint: Gerber was contacted by a consumer in Texas who reported finding an unexpected object – that appeared like a white pill – in one canister of GERBER Graduates Banana Flavored Puffs. The mother informed us that the object was not consumed by the child and the child was not harmed. While we are still conducting a complete investigation, based upon the facts we have and call records we log from parents, this is an isolated incident and a highly unusual circumstance for our foods. Baby’s safety and nutrition is our number one priority. To ensure our foods are as safe as they are wholesome, we have extremely strict safety protocols and hygienic practices followed by our staff. When it comes to GERBER Graduates Banana Flavored Puffs, the safety of our snacks is achieved in ensuring that: · Puffs are made in a hygienic facility on a dedicated baby food line. · Workers put on special uniforms with no pockets above their waist. Any food or medicines are forbidden on the factory floor. · Before being filled with puffs, the canister packaging is inverted and rinsed with pressurized air so each package is hygienic and clean before the puffs are placed in the package. · We then check 100% of packages using detectors and sensors to identify any materials or large particles, including hard objects like metal, plastic and glass. When a container is rejected, we identify the particles and take immediate action to protect our products. · Finally, canisters are triple sealed for freshness and safety before heading out to stores and homes. Our seals include foil, a plastic cap and then a full package seal wrap. We take great care of every food and every package for baby. If parents or caregivers have any questions or concerns, we encourage them to contact us immediately at 1-800-4-GERBER. We treat every consumer call seriously and investigate product concerns thoroughly. We also received a detailed and forthcoming response from Holt Davis, who stated she originally intended for her post to be viewable only to friends and family and was surprised by the groundswell of interest: When I originally found the “foreign object” and made the initial Facebook post it was simply to make our family and friends aware to check their children’s snacks. Prior to having my youngest son I worked in an Elementary so I know numerous teachers and parents whom I wanted to make aware … Our children have used Gerber products for almost 12 years. Not once (prior to this happening to us recently) have we ever researched their products or looked for reviews online. Gerber promises to provide safe and healthy products for children, so we as parents trusted that. Finding the pill in our Puffs container upset us in every level possible. The container was sealed under the lid and on top of/around the lid, both 100% intact. Had I of seen any type of damage I would have thrown it away before even opening it in its entirety as I would have assumed it happened in shipping and would have thought “no big deal, it happens.” After finding the pieces of pill I immediately contacted Gerber where I was told “I can only say sorry so many times” and was offered coupons. They told me they had never heard of [similar contamination] and to [submit it to the company for testing]. Holt Davis said that while she waited for a Gerber representative to retrieve the object, her family had it independently examined: While waiting on their representative to come to our home (almost a week later) we chose to have the “pill pieces” tested to find out exactly what it was before we sent it away … After having it tested in 2 different locations and by 3 pharmacist it was determined and documented to be Tylenol 3/Codeine 300mg. The entire product including the pill pieces were taken to the store they were purchased at so they could document it with their corporate office in hopes of having the product pulled from their shelves. She added that in the interim she was contacted by families reporting similar contaminants (including a penny), and maintained others shared documented complaints of a similar nature with her: I was able to contact [a] family where they showed me pictures of the product, the penny inside, as well as the case number Gerber gave them. Gerber did nothing except offer them coupons and say it didn’t happen in their facility. This really baffled me and made me wonder how often has this type of thing happened? So, I decided to research it. I have found so many awful consumer complaints of people finding wood, sharp shards of plastic, finger tips of rubber gloves and steel wool in their children’s Gerber products. Everyone stating that Gerber said they were not responsible for it and only offered them coupons or cut off communication. I have been messaged on Facebook by 2 other families whom have found “medicine” in their Gerber Puffs. Both families have contacted Gerber (at the time of their findings) and have case numbers, pictures and evidence of it. I have been contacted by a family who found a pill in the Sweet Potato Puffs that their pharmacist determined was also Tylenol 3/Codeine and they were offered free product is all. Also, as you read on my post the situation in Illinois was brought to my attention. I did contact the police station, they told me it was in fact a true “report” and that they sent everything to Gerber, were told it was an isolated incident and never contacted the police department back on their findings. The investigator we are working with was sent a copy of the case from the police department. We have had families contact us with finding wood pieces in their products, also with case numbers from Gerber. One parent was told that Gerber still uses wood pallets to dump ingredients on … for Gerber to make a public statement stating “we check 100% of packages using detectors and sensors to identify any materials or large particles, including hard objects like metal, plastic and glass. When a container is rejected, we identify the particles and take immediate action to protect our products” is absurd to me. If that was the case, why are all of these documented “foreign objects” ending up in children’s food/snacks? Holt Davis subsequently stated that a representative for Gerber retracted the comment about pallets made to the family complaining of wood shards in a product, asserting that the wooden crates could not be a factor in that purported instance of contamination. Stating that she did not wish to be compensated and solely wanted to make others aware of her experience, she concluded: All we wanted was for Gerber to make the changes necessary to ensure this doesn’t keep happening to children and their families. It absolutely should not take a child dying from ingesting medication in their products or choking to death on a foreign object for the changes to occur.


New Stroke Treatment Saves Lives, Improves Recovery

Explanation: This is a story about an invasive procedure to treat stroke patients, known as stent retriever therapy. Unfortunately, the story presents a misleading picture to readers by relying on one successful patient anecdote, and by making unqualified statements, such as “experts call the [procedure] the most major advance in stroke treatment in two decades.” Scant attention is paid to the actual benefits quantified in the study that is the meat of the story. No attention is paid to the possible harms of the procedure. Costs are never mentioned, and there is no real discussion of the quality of the evidence. Instead the audience is left with a very powerful image of an otherwise healthy 43-year-old man suffering a stroke while driving, nearly killing himself in a subsequent car crash, being treated by surgery, and being fully restored to a normal life. His experience is certainly remarkable, but the audience is given the false impression that it is representative of everyone who has undergone the procedure or might in the future. Patient stories are powerful, which is why news outlets should choose them carefully when reporting on medical treatments. The impression left with readers is that miracle-like recoveries are commonplace with this procedure. But as we discuss in more detail below, this procedure is indicated for only a very small number of patients. Since the story chose to focus on one of these relatively rare patients, we think it was crucial to provide some broader context. How many patients are eligible for such treatment? How often are they treated within the 2.5-hour window associated with the best odds of a full recovery?

anecdotes over evidence,medical devices,stent retriever therapy,stroke

We found multiple studies that discuss the cost of these types of clot retrieval procedures, including this one. It would have been helpful for the reporter to have asked how much the procedures cost, on average, in the cases studied for the journal article. The story mainly discusses the benefits as they pertain to one patient. We had to read the story multiple times to realize that the study in question went beyond this one patient. A review of the study itself shows that 196 patients were part of the study, and less than half — 96 — underwent the treatment described in the story. The study says that, “In the stent retriever arm of the study, symptom onset to reperfusion time of 150 minutes led to 91% estimated probability of functional independence, which decreased by 10% over the next hour and by 20% with every subsequent hour of delay.” The story accurately reports this finding, saying, “restoration of blood flow within 2.5 hours of stroke onset was associated with minimal or no disability in 91 percent of patients.” Despite this attempt at quantification, we think the story relies excessively on an individual patient’s story that is likely not representative of the broader experience. Since the optimal time window to perform this procedure is so small, many stroke patients may not be eligible for the therapy. In addition, the story does not explain that the study was done in 39 centers and only managed to randomize 196 patients over a 2-year period. This comes out to 5 patients per center or an average of one patient every 4 months, hardly a large number (or even percentage) of stroke patients who would benefit from (or be eligible for) this technology. There are no mentions of potential harms from any aspect of the treatment studied. This is a major oversight in any story, but especially one dealing with a surgical procedure. The study itself provides an easy-to-understand explanation of how the study was conducted and under what circumstances. Details like this are missing from the news story, even basic details like how many people were studied. A closer look at the study itself would have revealed, for example, that the paper is looking mainly at the time intervals for each step in the process rather than the actual outcome of the patients, which is not directly reported, but only indirectly reported as an adjusted analysis. There is no overt disease mongering in the story. However, we’d note that with a procedure such as this, there will be a temptation to use this device more often and this could lead to “indication creep” where more patients who don’t quite meet the very strict standards of the study are offered the therapy. This could lead to poorer results than are obtained here. The story could have commented on this. Independent sources were included, but the story missed an important detail about conflicts of interest: The study was funded by Medtronic, the maker of the device used in the study. This detail was easy to find in the published paper about the study, which also provided a list of all the conflicts of interest declared by all the authors. The story hints at the procedure being better than drug therapy alone, but it does not provide an actual comparison. The story makes it clear that this procedure is not going to be widely available in the U.S. It says, “Centers accredited by the American Heart Association.currently, stent retriever therapy is offered in just a few hundred hospitals across the country, including all 96 Comprehensive Stroke Centers.” It also provides a map showing how few centers there are in the West. Novelty is not established, and it’s not even made clear how frequently this procedure is performed or how long it has been around. We’re always happy to see a story go beyond a news release — which this story clearly does with its inclusion of several independent expert sources. We have to note, however, that the release in this case actually provided more and better information than the story.


Children should avoid school bus stops due to a credible threat of human trafficking.

Explanation: Are School Bus Stops Now More Dangerous Because of an All-Time High in Human Trafficking?

A back-to-school themed Facebook warning shared on September 5 2019 (archived here) declared that all school-age children must avoid all school bus stops because of an increased threat of human trafficking:Against a pastel background, black text decreed:Let NO Child walk to or Stand at a Bus Stop Alone for the rest of the school year human trafficking is at an all-time highAs we frequently note in the many fact checks we’ve done on this genre of viral text-generated image-based Facebook post, content spreading in this fashion is both easy to spread and a fantastic vector for falsehoods, scaremongering, and misinformation or disinformation — all of which Facebook excels in spreading. In this format, posts lack any supporting citations or news articles, but their easily shareable form means they are shared nevertheless.Readers here are faced with a seemingly serious warning ripped directly from the news — that “human trafficking” is a serious problem and, given the prominence and prevalence of such stories, that they are “at an all-time high” does not seem particularly difficult to believe. If you are already concerned, standing at school bus stops alone seems to definitively posed a risk for young children.Although the post lacked any meaningful proof, it still generated engagement and attracted friend tags with comments suggesting that it might be true:Still think I’m paranoid? !😩😢We checked news and law enforcement bulletins for any sweeping advisements that school bus stops had been identified as hotbeds of abduction or any indication that human trafficking is at an all-time high, but came up empty handed. Abduction is an exhaustive topic in the realm of baseless rumors and urban legends, routinely inspiring social media moral panics about malls, schools, and other purported strategies undertaken by kidnappers.And if you didn’t look closely, it might seem that legitimate connections between school bus stops and human trafficking existed. A January 2019 article in trade site School Transportation News, which was predicated on the abduction of 13-year-old Wisconsin girl Jayme Closs, began:A child abduction case in Wisconsin that recently made international headlines has refocused attention on school bus stop safety. The role that bus drivers may be able to play in better keeping their students proactively safer, is a core part of the incident and aspects to evaluate.That lead-in indicated that a link between school bus stops and the kidnapping case be made at some point. A subsequent section titled “What does this have to do with student transportation?” made mention of a passing connection to bus stops, before consulting an expert who disagreed with any potential link:As has been widely reported, court documents stated that [the abductor] said he was driving to work one morning and stopped behind a school bus on Highway 8. It was then that he said he first saw [the victim] as she boarded her school bus.“The defendant stated he had no idea who she was nor did he know who lived at the house or how many people lived at the house. The defendant stated, when he saw [Closs], he knew that was the girl he was going to take,” according to the criminal complaint. […]An expert in the field of child sexual predators told School Transportation News that Patterson’s act was not, in fact, a random bus stop incident, but instead something that Patterson could have done before.In that passage, the site draws a line between Jayme Closs being spotted at a bus stop and the kidnapping, but an expert in child exploitation disputed the suggestion and no aspect of that alleged sighting in any way differentiated bus stops from any other public location. More to the point, no safety measures involving buses could have prevented the kidnapping, and being at a bus stop made Jayme no less safe than being in any other public area.A January 2019 Reuters piece titled “Kidnapped children make headlines, but abduction is rare in U.S.” was also premised on Jayme Closs’s October 2018 abduction in which her parents were murdered and she was taken from her home. (She was later found alive.) The article delved into the relative rarity of abduction by a stranger:On average, fewer than 350 people under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers in the United States per year since 2010, the FBI says. From 2010 through 2017, the most recent data available, the number has ranged from a low of 303 in 2016 to a high of 384 in 2011 with no clear directional trend.Hundreds of thousands of juveniles are reported missing to the Federal Bureau of Investigation each year. The circumstances of the disappearance is only recorded about half the time, but in cases where they are, only 0.1 percent are reported as having been abducted by a stranger. The vast majority, typically more than 95 percent, ran away.The FBI data does not record how many reported abductions are confirmed as actual kidnappings.“It doesn’t happen very often, but they’re certainly the cases that capture our attention because they strike at our worst fears,” Robert Lowery, a vice president at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), said in a telephone interview.In noting that there was “no clear directional thread,” we may reasonably infer that abduction is not actually “at an all-time high.” But a more striking statistic mentioned is that only 0.1 percent of cases involve stranger abduction. In 95 percent of cases, minors reported missing “ran away.” According to earlier statistics cited by Reuters, 99.8 percent of children reported missing are recovered alive.So what of the remaining 4.9 percent of abductions? The article states that a non-custodial parent is the most common kidnapper:In cases where children are abducted, it is far more common for a non-custodial parent to be the kidnapper: This was reported 2,359 times in 2017, the FBI data showed.As to whether that 0.1 percent of kidnappings classed as stranger abduction, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) data didn’t specify bus stops as a particular threat. Further, many kidnappings do not look in real life as they might in movies or television shows:About 32 percent of those abducted were taken from a place where they were living or staying (their home, a relative’s home, a homeless shelter, etc.). Another 32 percent were abducted at the kidnapper’s home. The final 36 percent of victims were taken from a public place of some sort. Most cases featured only one victim (81 percent) and only 18 percent of cases involved a child taken from a group of two or more children. In nearly two-thirds of the abductions, the victims voluntarily went with kidnappers at first.One factor in the popularity of kidnapping panics involves the typical trajectory of investigations in a time when most people get news almost immediately after events occur, forming their opinions long before the facts of the cases are clear. After media reports of a possible kidnapping spread in March 2019 in Ontario, Canada, police later determined the child was in the custody of her father; law enforcement later learned that the father was simply picking up his daughter from school, as he was permitted to do so.An August 2019 news article in Oklahoma provided an excellent object lesson in how initial reports are spread and updates rarely seen. Both the original and amended versions of that article appeared on a single page, and authorities later determined an alleged rash of attempted kidnappings were the result of mistaken identity and courteous behavior.Human trafficking is a hot-button topic on social media, due in part to widespread ignorance about what is a legitimate and misunderstood problem. Posts heavily relying on emojis and exclamation points appear with regularity on Facebook, as do panics about Uber-related sex trafficking and a Snapchat trafficking ring (both of which have always been false.) In an earlier fact check, we noted:[E]xperts in trafficking routinely decry such claims about the issue. Experts regularly underscore the fact that sex trafficking is rarely (if ever) a “random” crime of sudden abduction; instead, traffickers tend to lure vulnerable teens over time[. ]Rationality advocate and author of Free Range Kids Lenore Skenazy has long been addressing the popularity of such claims on social media. In March 2017, Skenazy addressed a flurry of sex-trafficking Facebook panics:What the heck is going on, America? This “My kids were about to be trafficked, I just KNOW it” post is so shockingly similar to last week’s, “My kids were about to be trafficked, I just KNOW it” post that it feels…creepy. A lot creepier than being at Ikea where a couple of men glance at my kids.The reader who sent me this link asked if I thought there might be some “validity” to it, to which I must respond: No. In fact, I think it’s crazy. What, two men are going to grab two or three kids, all under age 7, IN PUBLIC, in a camera-filled IKEA, with the MOM and the GRANDMA right there, not to mention a zillion other fans of Swedish furnishings?Can we please PLEASE take a deep breath and realize how insanely unlikely that is? How we don’t need to be “warned” about this? How NOTHING HAPPENED!You can TELL nothing happened, because the whole thing was described as an “incident.” And Lenore’s #1 Rule of Reporting is: When something is called an “incident,” it’s because nothing happened. In fact, my alternate headline for this post was:POINTLESSLY TERRIFIED MOM URGES OTHER MOMS TO BE POINTLESSLY TERRIFIEDIn June 2018, Skenazy revisited the topic of phony human trafficking scares and the media’s endless tolerance for them. In that commentary, she highlighted the darker side of moral panics and the irony that they themselves can be riskier to communities than the supposed dangers themselves. After noting that “security expert Bruce Schneier has dubbed [such rumors a] ‘movie-plot threat’ — a narrative that looks suspiciously like what you’d see at the Cineplex,” she explained just how old and corrosive safety panics actually are:[David Finkelhor, head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center] has not heard of a single case in which a child was taken from a parent in public and forced into the sex trade. Zero. That’s because actual traffickers build relationships with the young people they go on to exploit, usually troubled or runaway teens. No one is spiriting away 2-year-olds from Target.These Facebook posts about fiends snatching innocent children are eerily reminiscent of a much older scare: a corrosive lie called blood libel, in which Jews during medieval times were said to be killing Christian children and using their blood to make matzo. The most famous blood libel of all, says medieval scholar Emily Rose, was the 1475 abduction and murder of a young Italian boy, Simon of Trent.Simon was not the first such story, but his went viral thanks to a brand-new social medium: print. Posters and poems disseminated the allegations. Trent became a pilgrimage destination.That’s all it took. Suddenly, people across the continent started claiming that a Christian child had been murdered by a Jew in their town, too. “Most of these kids didn’t even exist,” Rose says, “and if they did exist, they weren’t killed.” But that didn’t stop the stories from catching on. And the people repeating them were excited, because suddenly they were part of something big. A drama!Today’s panicked moms probably don’t see themselves playing a role that goes back centuries. But the only thing new is the media they’re using to spread fear.A quick browse of our pages on sex trafficking, human trafficking, Facebook warning, and parental panic tags illustrates the ubiquity and illegitimacy of warnings like the post above. No credible information indicates that school bus stops expose children to an “all-time high” risk of human trafficking, nor does anything substantiate the claim that crimes of that nature have increased in frequency. While “better safe than sorry” is the excuse routinely used to spread safety panics, as is often the case, spreading bad information inhibits the circulation of actual, legitimate, and helpful safety advice.


People who confronted an elderly woman as she attempted to cross a street using a walker were allied with anti-fascist (or "antifa") movements.

Explanation: Does a Video Show ‘Antifa Protesters’ Screaming at an Elderly Woman Crossing the Street?

In late September 2019, a video clip of masked people shouting at and blocking an elderly woman while she was using a walker to cross a street began to circulate on Twitter:Antifa protesters scream at & block elderly couple outside an event featuring conservative politician @MaximeBernier & @RubinReport. Further violence broke out, leading to two arrests. Mohawk College had faced massive campaign to cancel the event. pic.twitter.com/D49dTcMi4X— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) September 30, 2019The clip quickly gained traction and generated significant outrage, due to the fact it purportedly featured anti-fascist protesters engaging in aggressive behavior. Often, the clip spread without any indication of when, where, or why protesters had gathered:The Tolerant Left Folks.What kind of monster refuses to let an elderly couple cross the street…Antifa. pic.twitter.com/wT0areI1al— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) September 30, 2019Imagine being a member of Antifa blocking and harassing an elderly woman using a walker & actually thinking YOU are the one fighting "fascism. "pic.twitter.com/jpbiV34RuI— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) September 30, 2019Antifa chanting “Nazi scum off our streets” at an elderly couple.Next level 🤡 🌎! https://t.co/qmQ7VR5wZr— Austen Fletcher (@fleccas) September 30, 2019In one widely-shared tweet, a commenter lamented that “this isn’t America,” presumably decrying the actions in the clip as un-American and inviting others to do the same:Antifa blocks, harasses, and shouts in the faces of elderly couple crossing the street..This isn’t America..RT if you agree and want to unmask these cowards..pic.twitter.com/ZdJiHv3WOA— Chuck Callesto (@ChuckCallesto) September 30, 2019Typically, the angry tweets linked only to a context-free video, not to any news articles about the events in the video.Readers might recognize Andy Ngo (quoted above) as one of the initial sources for the claim. Ngo was largely responsible for similar claims about anti-fascist protesters in July 2019, involving nonsensical allegations about “concrete milkshakes,” and in September 2019 Rolling Stone reported on Ngo’s questionable standing as a source of credible information. In particular, the magazine’s investigation centered on a video showing that Ngo — despite his claims of being an objective, independent journalist — was not acting in an any sort of journalistic capacity:Nowhere was [Occam’s Razor] demonstrated more quickly than in the case of the meteoric rise and equally rapid fall of Andy Ngo, the provocateur and social media personality who garnered nationwide sympathy last June [2019], when he tweeted that he was attacked by antifascist protesters at a Proud Boys rally. [In August 2019], the local newspaper the Portland Mercury reported that a left-wing activist going undercover as a member of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group known for promoting and engaging in violent clashes with leftist activists, had given the publication an 18-minute video that included footage of Ngo with a group of Patriot Prayer members as the members discuss an upcoming brawl, including weaponry to be used in altercations with antifa. Ngo, who describes himself as a journalist, did not record the conversation, and does not appear to have his camera or notebook out. For part of the footage, he is seen on his phone.…[the release of that] footage was highly embarrassing for Ngo, who has long claimed to be an independent and objective journalist, despite many left-wing activists in Portland accusing him of antagonizing them at rallies and selectively editing his footage to malign the left. Shortly after the footage was released, Quillette, a “free thought” publication with a libertarian bent, deleted Ngo’s byline from its masthead, though founder Claire Lehmann denied to the Daily Beast that it had anything to do with the recently surfaced Patriot Prayer footage.Although Ngo’s byline was removed by Quillette, his claims about “antifa” in the tweet quoted above still gained traction. To his credit, Ngo provided the name of a politician involved with the events, but it seemed many angrily spreading it on did not look further — causing at least one to reference “America” in their disapproving tweet.Ngo referenced Maxime Bernier, a far-right political figure in Canada perhaps best known for ousting candidates from his own party for speaking out against racism while having former leaders of neo-Nazi groups as official signatories:The former leader of a U.S. neo-Nazi group, a former Soldiers of Odin member and a Pegida Canada official were among those whose signatures were submitted to Elections Canada last year to officially register the People’s Party of Canada, records show.All three of their names appear on Elections Canada documents, obtained by Global News, that confirmed a minimum of 250 party members had signed membership declarations. The forms were required to obtain party status for the PPC and its leader, Maxime Bernier.Bernier attended an event on September 29 2019 in Hamilton, Ontario, and the National Post reported on clashes outside the venue site — including one involving an “elderly woman”:Demonstrators, some covering part of their faces with bandannas or balaclavas, hoisted signs that read “White supremacy is terrorism” and “Refugees welcome here” as they yelled chants of “Nazi scum, off our streets” at those going inside.Some attempted to prevent people from entering the building and at one point blocked the path of an elderly woman who was using a walker, yelling at her and her companion.Bernier was hosted by American YouTube personality Dave Rubin in an event that drew both attendees and protesters; a Facebook event titled “All Out Against Maxime Bernier” invited Hamilton-area users to demonstrate outside the event on September 29 2019. CBC’s coverage of the event and demonstrations described the circumstances of the video:Some protesters attempted to prevent people from entering the building and one video, which is being widely shared among Bernier supporters, shows several protesters, one masked, blocking the path of an elderly woman who was using a walker, yelling at her and her companion.Aall three of the local articles linked above mentioned anti-fascist protesters, but not in the context of the viral video. The only mention of “antifa” in any of the articles involved statements made by Rubin about the event’s cancellation due to “threats from Antifa.”However, Rubin later admitted the event had not actually been canceled:Rubin tweeted earlier [that] week that the event had been cancelled due to ‘threats from Antifa,’ or left-wing anti-fascist protesters, but later clarified the event was still going ahead as planned.”“Rubin, meanwhile, tweeted earlier [that] week that the event had been cancelled due to ‘threats from Antifa,’ stirring allegations of censorship. He later clarified the talk was still taking place.In all three articles, protesters present at the Bernier-Rubin talk were not described as being involved with or representing antifa, and no other mention appeared in any reporting on the event. How Ngo concluded the individuals seen in the video were anti-fascist demonstrators were unclear. Four people in total were arrested at the event.On September 30 2019, a separate CBC article referenced the viral video and backlash, but did not report that “antifa” was involved. One representative for the groups organizing the demonstration indicated that the masked individuals were unknown to organizers:Police have now said they are aware of the [elderly woman video] incident and that while officers did not witness the initial confrontation, they said once officers saw what was happening, some intervened and escorted the woman and her companion into the building.Alice Smith, one of the organizers of the event, told CBC Hamilton that the actions by those in the video toward the elderly couple do not reflect the views held by the majority of protesters.“I have never seen [the people blocking the woman] before last night,” she said. “If I had been there at that spot, at that moment … I would have stepped in to stop it, because that wasn’t what we were there for.”Political science professor Peter Graefe acknowledge the video’s spread, adding that “[far-right activism has] come to Hamilton in a way it hasn’t come to other places” in Canada:Peter Graefe, a political science professor at McMaster University, said the photo and video of the moment was one of vulnerability and could be used to frame the situation.“That’s a powerful image if you want to tell the story of this being some all-powerful antifa preventing the free expression of ideas and being so afraid of ideas that they wouldn’t even let an elderly woman come and hear them,” he said.“It frames it as one of free speech and ‘who’s the problem standing in the way? These people that came to protest it. '”Ultimately, video of clashes outside the Bernier-Rubin event included a clip wherein masked individuals appeared to shout at an elderly woman and block a crosswalk. The video spread quickly and without context on Twitter, advanced by at least one person who had previously been involved in spreading disinformation about anti-fascist demonstrators. The video does appear to be authentic and undoctored, but no information was available about the identity or affiliation of the masked protesters or the circumstances of the incident being filmed.As the clip spread, many commenters mistook the location of the demonstration, which actually took place in Canada, not the United States. And prior to the event, Rubin falsely claimed it had been canceled due to “Antifa threats,” later admitting it was not in fact canceled or censored.


DEW brand bottled water sold in Nigeria and other parts of Africa has caused at least 180 deaths and has been known to infect those who drink it with the Ebola virus.

Explanation: DEW Bottled Water Has Caused 180 Deaths in Nigeria

Claims that DEW bottled water causes death or has been contaminated with the Ebola virus are false. Those rumors have been repeated in chain emails and social media posts since at least 2011. One such message reads: URGENT!!!! Please, don’t buy or drink any bottled water called “DEW”. Customs says it was shipped into Nigeria from Tanzania where it has killed 180 people and now finding its way into south africa. It is said to contain ebola. Please pass this on and save millions. If u don’t believe check google for “DEW bottled water. (SFTBC)… Plz broadcast Reports of toxic DEW bottled water can be traced back to 2011. At that time, it was rumored that Dew, an unregistered bottled water that contained a poison, had made its way into marketplaces in Nigeria by way of Tanzania and had killed 180 people. The National Agency for Food Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria said it had investigated those claims and found that they were “false and mischievous.” Still, Nigeria doesn’t allow bottled water to be imported into the country, and DEW is not among the country’s registered bottled waters, so consumers were urged to alert authorities if they saw DEW bottled water being sold in marketplaces, Modern Ghana reports: The Food and Drugs Board (FDB) has therefore advised the public to report any person who offered DEW bottled water for sale. According to a statement issued by the FDB in Accra and copied to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the board had not registered any brand of bottled water with the name DEW. The statement, signed by the Chief Executive of the FDB, Dr Stephen K. Opuni, said rumours had suggested that the DEW bottled water had been imported from Tanzania into Nigeria and was alleged to contain a chemical that had caused the death of 180 people in that country. It said the FDB established that the rumour was false, after investigations it conducted, including post-market surveillance activities and contacts with the NAFDAC of Nigeria and the Tanzanian Bureau of Standards. So, it’s not true that DEW bottled water is poisonous and has killed 180 people. It is true, however, that DEW bottled water cannot be sold in Nigeria because it isn’t registered with health agencies there. Comments


99-year-old billionaire David Rockefeller has successfully undergone his sixth heart transplant surgery in the last 38 years.

Explanation: 99-year-old David Rockefeller Undergoes Sixth Heart Transplant

A fake news website started the false report that David Rockefeller has had six heart transplant surgeries. An article that appeared on the website World News Daily Report claimed that David Rockefeller, an heir to the billion-dollar Rockefeller estate, has had six heart transplants and two kidney transplants over the years: “His first heart transplant occurred in 1976 after a dramatic car accident led him to suffer a heart attack. He was operated 24 hours later and up and jogging a week later.” Within days, the fake news report was shared more than 130,000 times on social media. Many people believed that David Rockefeller had actually undergone his sixth heart transplant and argued about whether or not it was right for a rich, 100-year-old man to take a heart from a younger person in need. But those people missed World News Day Report’s disclaimer. It says that the website is not “responsible for inaccurate information” and assumes “all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles. This isn’t the first time that David Rockefeller’s health has been at the center of an online hoax, either. Just weeks earlier, a separate false report spread across social media that David Rockefeller had died: “At about 11 a.m. ET on Tuesday (April 28, 2015), our beloved business man David Rockefeller passed away. David Rockefeller was born on June 12, 1915 in New York. He will be missed but not forgotten. Please show your sympathy and condolences by commenting on and liking this page.” The debate about wealthy people “cutting in line” to receive an organ transplant isn’t a new one. In 2009, Steve Jobs was criticized after he traveled to Tennessee for a liver transplant on short notice, ABC News reports: “Jobs couldn’t pay for an organ. Nor could he pay to cut the queue. But what someone with Jobs’ resources could do, according to liver transplant surgeons and ethicists, is to use money and mobility to improve the odds either by going to an area of the country where there are more organ donors, or by signing up at multiple transplant centers.” Dick Cheney drew similar criticism when he underwent a heart transplant in 2013. Cheney had waited on a transplant list for 20 months before the surgery, but some argued that he was too old (71 at the time) to receive a donor’s heart. The United Network for Organ Sharing, the non-profit that maintains the nationwide patient waiting list, often considers a patient’s ability to pay for a transplant when deciding where to place an available organ. Comments


Senators draw on own experiences to chastise drug companies.

Explanation: Channeling the ire of constituents and drawing from personal experience, senators chastised drug company executives Tuesday over the high cost of prescription medications, while the CEOs warned that government price controls could stifle breakthroughs on diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Johnny Isakson, AP Top News, Health, Legislation, Politics, North America, Business, Medication, Medicare, Medicaid

The Senate Finance Committee hearing marked the first time lawmakers have called the industry’s top executives to account for rising prices, which are a drain on Medicare and Medicaid and a burden to millions of Americans. The extraordinary public accounting was a sign that Congress and the White House are moving toward legislation this year to curb costs. Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who has Parkinson’s, said the cost of one of his longtime medications had jumped by $90 when he went to refill it recently. “I can’t explain it,” said Isakson, who credits prescription drugs for allowing him to keep working. He started making calls and found a whole range of prices for the medication. The second-ranking Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, expressed disbelief that Humira, a blockbuster drug for immune system conditions from AbbVie, is protected by more than 130 patents that cumulatively translate to decades of roadblocks for generic competitors. AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez responded that each new FDA-approved use of the drug represents an investment by the company in research, even if the medication is the same. “At some point that patent has to end so that the patient can get access to that drug at much cheaper cost,” Cronyn said. Drug costs are squeezing Americans in a number of ways: New medicines for cancer and other diseases often launch with prices exceeding $100,000 per year even as employers are shifting more pharmacy costs onto workers. Less expensive drugs for common ailments like diabetes and asthma often see price hikes of around 10 percent annually. Meanwhile some drugmakers have been buying up once-cheap medicines and hiking prices by 1,000 percent or more. The pharmaceutical executives expressed a general desire to lower costs for patients, but made no firm commitments. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier warned that “outrageous solutions” could sacrifice industry innovation. He said lung cancer patients in the United Kingdom are still waiting for a drug available here that can cut deaths in half among those newly diagnosed. Sanofi CEO Olivier Brandicourt said using government “price controls” would not be enough to make medicines affordable. Senators seemed to be looking for a balance between protecting innovation and closing off legal and policy loopholes that have enabled savvy companies to game the markets. New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez, considered an ally of the industry, delivered what he called a friendly warning: “If you don’t undertake meaningful action to reduce pharmaceutical costs, policymakers are going to do it for you.” Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Congress intends to respond to the drug price problem in a “measured and effective way” and he is planning to question other industry actors including health insurance companies and middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers. The CEOs said drug development is a risky and costly undertaking and that prices reflect investment in research and development. But under questioning from Grassley they also acknowledged other factors affecting how they set prices, including public perception and what Medicare and Medicaid pay. In addition to Merck, Sanofi and AbbVie, other companies represented at the hearing included AstraZeneca, which makes the cholesterol drug Crestor, Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of the blood thinner Eliquis; Johnson & Johnson, maker of Xarelto to prevent blood clots; and Pfizer, maker of Lyrica for nerve pain. “All you who are here are here because the way you’ve been doing business is unacceptable and unsustainable,” ranking Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon told the CEOs. Democrats say it’s time for Medicare to leverage its purchasing power and directly negotiate prices with the industry, a step most Republicans oppose. The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Drugmakers’ top lobbying arm, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, spent a record $27.9 million last year to sway federal decision-makers, according to records tallied by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. But Tuesday’s hearing seemed to mark a change in direction. President Donald Trump’s recurring blasts at drugmakers appear to be closer to finding a pathway to legislation. Drugmakers pointed a finger at other industry players. Rebates paid to pharmacy benefit managers help assure favorable treatment for a medication on an insurer’s list of covered drugs and help keep premiums lower. But the rebates are not passed on to consumers who use the particular medication, and they can face high copays based on the drug’s list price, not the discounted one. The companies offered solutions of their own, some of which echo proposals from the administration or awmakers. Among them: — Allow patients to share in rebates when they buy their medication, proposed by the Trump administration. — Place a hard limit on cost-sharing and copays for Medicare beneficiaries in the popular Part D prescription program, supported by Wyden. — Make greater use of value-based contracts that tie payments to how well a medication works. — Promote the introduction of lower-cost generics and biosimilars, competition that brand manufacturers are often accused of impeding.


Boiling the same water twice will make your water dangerous to drink.

Explanation: The risks posed by reboiling water are minimal, due to the scale of concentration needed to bring any dissolved component of water to a relevant or harmful concentration. If the change of concentration caused by boiling off some water a couple of times results in dangerous water, that water was almost certainly dangerous to begin with.

Claims that boiling water multiple times comes with health risks have been around in various forms for years. A spate of posts on a variety of alternative health websites in 2015 added to the hysteria, with claims of all sorts of damaging health effects from reboiled water. A post from “Healthy Holistic Living” is representative of the claims made in many locations:  It’s something they never taught us in chemistry class, but really should have. When we boil water, the chemistry of it changes, which is usually a good thing as it boils out volatile compounds and dissolves [sic] gases. This is why boiling water mostly ensures that it’s safe to drink. If water is left boiled too long or is reboiled, the chemical compounds change for the worse. By leaving your water to boil down, you’re actually concentrating many harmful chemicals instead of getting rid of them … The same thing happens when you reboil water, as the compounds concentrate and increase the risk of ingesting certain chemicals.’ These chemicals could include arsenic, nitrates, and fluoride. Even the minerals that are healthy for us can become dangerous when concentrated, such as calcium salt which can lead to kidney stones and gallstones when taken excessively. The only scientific principles at play here are the concepts of evaporation and concentration, which more than likely are a component of any chemistry class. Boiling water causes it to evaporate but leave behind heavier impurities that are likely dissolved in the water, increasing their concentration. Aside from portraying middle-school science as some sort of secret health scare, these posts also, as is so often the case, ignore any discussion of scale. The implication that the water itself somehow changes into new toxic chemicals in the absence of any other factor, merely through the process of boiling, is not factual. Discussion of increasing concentrations of “arsenic, nitrates, and fluorides”, therefore, requires the presence of some amount of them in your water to begin with. Arsenic Arsenic is an undeniably toxic chemical that can, indeed, be found in both public water supplies and in groundwater. Arsenic poisoning is a major health problem in places like Bangladesh, where high levels of naturally occurring arsenic occur due to the local geology. Studying areas like these, the World Health Organization has concluded that chronic health problems may occur when concentrations reach around 50 ug/L:  In 2010, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) re-evaluated the effects of arsenic on human health, taking new data into account. JECFA concluded that for certain regions of the world where concentrations of inorganic arsenic in drinking-water exceed 50–100 μg/litre, there is some evidence of adverse effects. Assuming the water you are boiling contains the maximum allowable level considered by the EPA of 10 ug/L (which is the same as the limit recommended by the WHO), you would need to boil 80% of your water away to reach this concentration. While it is not inconceivable, especially if you are a somewhat scatterbrained individual, to boil away this amount of water from time to time, these numbers apply to chronic exposure, and as such would require all of the water you consume for every use to be boiled down by 80% — even your regular drinking water. This requirement is made even more unlikely by the fact that boiling 80% of water away in a teakettle may not leave enough for even a single cup of coffee or tea. The numbers get even more absurd when scaled up to the amount that would cause acute arsenic toxicity (i.e the amount you would have to consume all at once to see fairly immediate and serious negative health consequences). Scientists have estimated that acute toxicity occurs when an individual consumes 0.6 mg of arsenic per kg of bodyweight per day day. Using the average American female body weight of 166 lbs (75 kg), one would have to boil over 2600 gallons (nearly 10,000 L) of water down an amount that could fit in a regular coffee cup. Nitrates Nitrates, a broad group of naturally occurring chemicals containing a nitrate ion (NO3-), can indeed be found in water (and pretty much everything else one runs into on a daily basis) The concern raised in viral anti water reboiling posts is the conversion of organic nitrates to a group of carcinogens called nitrosamines:  When nitrates are exposed to high temperatures, they convert to nitrosamines, which are carcinogenic. Nitrates have been linked to many diseases such as leukemia, non-Hodkin [sic] lymphoma, and different cancers, including colon, bladder, ovarian, stomach, pancreatic, and esophageal cancer. While the risks posed by nitrosamines, a broad group of chemicals, are factual, the claim that nitrates (in general) in water will be converted to nitrosamines solely through the action of boiling is false, as their formation in drinking water requires specific precursor molecules and environmental conditions to form. The most important source of these chemicals, of which a compound named NDMA is most common, is wastewater (which generally contains high levels of organic nitrogen) that has been disinfected with chloramine, a process called chloraminiation:  Mechanistic studies and results from occurrence studies suggest that the most important mechanism for nitrosamine formation during disinfection is the chloramination of amine precursors. This means that the formation of these dangerous chemicals has everything to do with what is in the water and, outside of increasing concentration through water loss, nothing to do with boiling it. A 2011 study investigated the effect of boiling water with two different nitrosamines showed that the amount was either unchanged after 20 minutes of boiling, or reduced:  The total amount of NMOR [a nitrosamine] in boiled water did not change significantly in 5-min samples, but apparently decreased with boiling time in 10- and 20-min samples, corresponding to 18.7 and 31.8% decreases, respectively, compared to the initial amount. However, the total amount of NDMA [the most important nitrosamine] did not vary with time. This suggests that NMOR is thermally labile whereas NDMA is thermally stable. An additional study needs to be conducted on the by-products of the thermal breakdown. Now that we have cleared up the fact that the only way boiling affects nitrosamine in water is that it removes water (thereby mathematically increasing its concentration), we are returned once more to similar scale issues found in the above discussion of arsenic. Nitrosamines in water are a relatively new concern, and as such there is not much information about their variability from different water sources. A 2009 survey of drinking water in Japan found that:  NDMA was detected in 15 of 31 raw water samples collected in the summer at concentrations up to 2.6 ng/L, and in 9 of 28 raw water samples collected in winter at concentrations up to 4.3 ng/L. The NDMA concentrations were higher in raw water samples collected from treatment plants with catchment areas that have high population densities. A 2011 study of water collected from treatment plants and taps in Korea found a range of NDMA concentrations ranged between 26.1 and 112.0 ng/L. In terms of the United States, multiple wells in California in 2000 were shut down when concentrations ranging from 32 to 91 ng/L were found in water sourced near treatment plants. The takeaway point here is that there is considerable variability of nitrosamines in drinking water caused by local land use factors and water treatment methods. The effect of that original variability is far more significant than any changes that could arise from increasing the concentration of those chemicals by boiling away a fraction of the amount of water contained in a tea kettle. Fluoride As the “Healthy Holistic Living” page states, Fluoride is indeed added to water in many municipalities around the world in an effort to reduce cavities — a source of wild conspiracy theories for some and of health claims of varying merits from others:  Many studies have been done over the controversial chemical fluoride and its presence in drinking water. The fact is, it’s there and it could pose a threat to your health. Despite the proof of the dangerous effects of fluoride, the government insists to keep it in our water. Harvard University took data from over 27 studies that were carried out for 22 years and linked fluoride exposure to neurological and cognitive function in children. A more recent study completed in 2013 links fluoride to lower infertility rates [presumably the author meant higher infertility] in male mice. Oddly enough, the post makes two faulty claims of health problems while ignoring the more legitimate concern. The science linking IQ and water fluoridation, based on the study mentioned above, is deeply flawed and relies on research that was inadequate to test such a link, as we discussed in a post in which we rated that connection as false. The laboratory study with mice mentioned above, in addition to the usual problems of scaling animal studies up to human studies, found problems with fertility only at extremely high concentrations, per the study:  Our study showed that fluoride reduced the ratio of chemotactic sperm [sperm capable of following a chemical gradient to the egg] in mice by administrating with 100 and 150 mg [of sodium fluoride per liter] in drinking water for 8 weeks. Currently, the EPA’s maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L — both multiple orders of magnitude less what was used in the mouse study, without even taking into account the relative size difference between humans and mice. The most significant and demonstrable health effects from fluoride in drinking water is a condition called dental fluorosis, a staining or pitting of teeth caused by too much fluoride intake. The risk of this condition is greater for children, and could occur at levels found in drinking water, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:  In some regions of the United States, public water systems and private wells contain a natural fluoride concentration of more than 2 mg/L, and at this concentration, children 8 years and younger have a greater chance for developing dental fluorosis, including the moderate and severe forms. These children should have an alternative source of drinking water that contains fluoride at the recommended level. In this case, fluoridated water could pose a risk to children regardless of its being boiled with a resulting minor increase fluoride concentration, making the argument that boiling water poses a fluoridation risk somewhat moot. Even if it weren’t, the issue of scale as it applied to the other chemicals of concern, still needs to be considered here. The most aggressive estimate for the concentration at which acute fluoride toxicity may occur (promoted in an expressly anti-fluoridation journal of questionable scientific merits) is 0.8 mg of fluoride per kg of body weight. While this number is an order of magnitude less than almost every governmental health organization on the planet, we can still run the same experiment we did with arsenic using the questionable figure. Assuming the water you are boiling contains the maximum allowable level of flouride considered by the EPA (4 mg/L) and you have an average American female body weight of 166 lbs (75 kg), you would need to concentrate 15 liters of water into a 12 oz cup of tea of coffee. Bottom Line


Despite keeping distance from national media interviewers, "I did local press all along, the last three months.

Explanation: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L) on Tuesday said it is recalling the popular heartburn medicine Zantac in all markets as a “precaution”, days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found “unacceptable” levels of probable cancer-causing impurity in the drug.

Zantac, also sold generically as ranitidine, is the latest drug in which cancer-causing impurities have been found. Regulators have been recalling some blood pressure and heart failure medicines since last year. Britain's medicines watchdog said GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was recalling four prescription-only Zantac medicines: a syrup, an injection and tablets of 150 and 300 milligram (mg) dosages. (bit.ly/2IATooO)  Over-the-counter 75 mg dosage Zantac products are produced by a different company and are not affected by the recall, it added. “GSK informed the MHRA of our decision to suspend the release, distribution and supply of all dose forms of Zantac products,” a company spokesman confirmed to Reuters. “GSK is continuing with investigations into the potential source of the NDMA,” he said, adding that the investigations include continued engagement with its suppliers and with external laboratories to conduct tests on finished product batches of Zantac. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said healthcare professionals were told on Monday to “stop supplying the products immediately, quarantine all remaining stock and return it to their supplier”. “We are advising that patients should not to stop taking their medication, and do not need to see their doctor until their next routine appointment but should seek their doctor’s advice if they have any concerns,” the MHRA said. U.S. and European health regulators said last month they were reviewing the safety of ranitidine, after online pharmacy Valisure flagged the impurities. The FDA said Valisure’s higher-temperature testing method generated very high levels of NDMA from the ranitidine drugs. NDMA had previously been found in some blood pressure medicines from a class of drugs known as angiotensin II receptor blockers, or ARBs. After checking the over-the-counter drugs using a low-heat method of testing, the FDA said it found much lower levels of  NDMA than was discovered with a higher temperature test employed by Valisure. The U.S. regulator has asked ranitidine makers to conduct their own testing to assess levels of the impurity and to send samples of their products for testing by the agency. Swiss drugmaker Novartis (NOVN.S) halted global distribution of its ranitidine drugs last month. Last week, Walmart Inc (WMT.N) joined pharmacy chains CVS Health Corp (CVS.N), Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) and Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N) in suspending the sale of over-the-counter heartburn drugs containing ranitidine. Canada’s health authorities have asked makers of the drugs to halt distribution as they gather more information. Last month, regulators in Hong Kong pulled four products, while in Ireland 13 products containing ranitidine were recalled. The impurity was believed to have been introduced by changes in the manufacturing process.


Some Alabama residents likely exposed to measles.

Explanation: Health officials are warning that a traveler passing through Alabama may have exposed people to measles .

A statement released Wednesday by the Alabama Department of Public Health says a Tennessee measles patient stopped twice in Alabama on April 11. A news release says the person stopped around mid-afternoon at the D&J Travel Plaza in Livingston for food and gasoline. The same person later stopped for food at a Chick-fil-A restaurant in Fort Payne. Both businesses are along Interstate 59. The head of the state health agency, Dr. Scott Harris, says anyone who suspects they were exposed should call their health provider before showing up at a medical office. Measles is a highly infectious respiratory illness. Anyone who isn’t vaccinated stands a high chance of being infected.