An 1875 report by the Horseless Carriage Committee warned about the dangers of gasoline-fueled vehicles.

Explanation: “This discovery begins a new era in the history of civilization. It may some day prove to be more revolutionary in the development of human society than the invention of the wheel, the use of metals, or the steam engine. Never in history has society been confronted with a power so full of potential danger and at the same time so full of promise for the future of man and for the peace of the world.

Many of us take especial delight in items that document how people of earlier times severely misjudged their futures, either holding expectations of a vastly improved world that proved to be ridiculously grandiose, or expressing woefully misplaced fears and concerns about dangers that never came to pass. The same principle can be applied in reverse, however — one common form of  satire is to lampoon a particular position on a modern political or social issue by projecting it into the past to highlight its ridiculousness. Into which category does the following purported 1875 report by the “Horseless Carriage Committee” warning about the dangers of gasoline and gasoline-powered vehicles fall: an example of 19th century citizens expressing exaggerated fears about a then-new technology, or a modern  piece of satire intended to make a point about a 20th century issue? “A new source of power called gasoline has been produced by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside the cylinder of an engine. The dangers are obvious. Stores of gasoline in the hands of people interested primarily in profit would constitute a fire and explosive hazard of the first rank. “Horseless carriages propelled by gasoline might attain speeds of 14 or even 20 miles per hour. The menace to our people of vehicles of this type hurtling through our streets and along our roads and poisoning the atmosphere would call for prompt legislative action even if the military and economic implications were not so overwhelming. The cost of producing gasoline is far beyond the financial capacity of private industry. In addition, the development of this new power may displace the use of horses, which would wreck our agriculture.” Horseless Carriage Committee, U. S. Congressional Record, c. 1875. The first clue is that the dating of the report appears to be anachronistic. The year 1875 was the dawn of experiments in building gasoline-fueled, internal combustion engines and using them to power wheeled vehicles, and the term “horseless carriage” to refer to such vehicles didn’t come into use until the 1890s, when the public was much more familiar with the concept of the automobile. Researchers at the Library of Congress expressed similar thinking in responding to a query about this item:    This is in response to your inquiry about trying to verify a quote before the congressional “Horseless Carriage Committee.” This in fact an urban legend. We checked “Committees in the U.S. Congress,” published by CQ Press and verified that there never was a “Horseless Carriage Committee.” We also checked the Congressional Record Index (indexing debate in Congress), the Congressional Hearings Index and the U.S. Serial Set which indexes congressional reports and documents and found no references. Indeed the terms “gasoline” or “horseless carriage” do not even appear in these sources for this time period. We also checked these sources using the terms “automobile” and “petroleum” and again found no references for this time period. We also believe this statement is anachronistic. In 1876 Nicholas Otto of Germany invented and built the first gas motor engine and then built it into a motorcycle. Subsequently in 1885 Karl Benz designed and built the first practical automobile to be powered by an internal combustion engine. The first gasoline powered automobile built in the United States was in 1891 by John Lampert and was a three wheeled motor vehicle. The first U.S. patent for a gasoline powered automobile was issued in 1895 and the first U.S. company to manufacture automobiles was founded in 1896 by the Duryea brothers. Another clue is that all the concerns stated in the putative report about gasoline and gasoline-powered vehicles — potential for dangerous explosions, poisoning of the atmosphere, military and economic implications, development costs exceeding the financial resources of the private business sector, potential for displacement of existing industries — sound very much like the apprehensions that were expressed about atomic power in the years after the end of World War II. In fact, both lines of thinking are correct: The “Horseless Carriage Committee” report dates not from 1875 but from the late 1950s, and it is a bit of fiction created for (and excerpted from) a much longer editorial intended to point out the dangers of the U.S. government’s capitalizing on all those fears to justify controlling the development and application of atomic power:  Individually, we tend to learn from experience. Collectively, if mankind can be viewed as a collective, we tend to repeat the same old mistakes. The differences between the government of Julius Caesar and of Dwight Eisenhower are minor and of academic interest. The parallels are startling and numerous. Today, in this world of scientific advancement, we live under the shadow of political reaction. Let something new come to the attention of the politicians and steps are immediately taken to control it, to limit it, or to repeal it. If none of these things is feasible, the politicians then devise a program whereby they can own it outright. It is said that Tiberius Caesar cut off the head of a Phoenecian glass blower who had developed a formula for flexible glass. Such a glass, according to Caesar, would have upset the economy and might have become more valuable than gold. Currently, our Washington officials have blanketed pay television, put a crimp in railroad operations, tied the hands of business men by means of taxes and laws which compel union deals and various types of controls, arrested farmers who produce in excess quotas and so forth. The list is nearly endless. To illustrate just how the same old fallacies repeat year after year, we reproduce here a special report by a Joint Congressional Committee on the subject of the horseless carriage. This report was made as a result of the “emergency” occasioned by the development of the internal combustion engine, in the year 1875. “A new source of power, which burns a distillate of kerosene, has been produced by a Boston engineer. Instead of burning the fuel under a boiler, it is exploded inside the cylinder of the engine. This so-called internal combustion engine may be used under certain conditions to supplement steam engines. Experiments are under way to use such an engine to propel a vehicle.


Explanation: Brittany passed along as fact that a government supplier knew that emergency responders had been told well in advance to get ready for Ebola. The rumor was based on tweets from a private California medical and safety services company, which now says the tweets were based on nothing. The reckless use of implausible assertions earns this claim.

Ebola, Public Safety, PunditFact, Morgan Brittany,

As if Ebola were not frightening enough in its own right, it is a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. One of the latest comes from Morgan Brittany, a former actress from the original television soap opera Dallas who is now a commentator with the conspiracy-minded blog WND. Brittany suggests that Ebola is part of a larger White House plan to control the nation. Brittany’s column describes a Los Angeles dinner party where the conversation turned grim. "One of the men brought up the fact that Washington has known for months if not years that we were at risk for some sort of global pandemic," Brittany wrote. "According to a government supplier of emergency products, the Disaster Assistance Response Team was told to be prepared to be activated in the month of October for an outbreak of Ebola. Hmm, that’s just like the fact that they knew 60,000 illegal children were going to be coming across our southern border eight months before it happened." A few months ago, we debunked that last eyebrow-raising bit about the government being behind the surge of undocumented children at the border. Now, we examine whether something called "the Disaster Assistance Response Team" was told to get ready for an outbreak of Ebola. Brittany’s column provided a link to Global Research, another conspiracy website. Global Research had its own alarming article. "A large government supplier of emergency response products specializing in ‘high risk events’ says that Disaster Assistance Response Teams were told to prepare to be activated in the month of October. The shocking revelation, made on the Golden State FIRE EMS Twitter page, suggests that not only did someone know that the Ebola virus would be reaching America, but that they knew exactly when it would happen." Global Research even had a screenshot of the Twitter exchange from Sept. 30, and indeed, there we found, "DART teams were notified months ago they would be activated in October. Timing seems weird. Source: current DART member." The tweets are authentic. What’s lacking is anything of substance behind them. We spoke to Ed Castillo, president of Golden State FIRE EMS. Castillo was regretful. "A couple of EMS guys were talking about conspiracy theories," Castillo said. "There are no facts to support it. It can be written off as a couple of guys shooting the breeze." Golden State is based in Woodland Hills, Calif. Among other services, it contracts with Hollywood film companies to have a medical team on hand when they shoot stunt sequences. Castillo said the company’s only goal now is to "extinguish the flames" and stop hearing from conspiracy theorists. "These guys came out of the woodwork left and right," Castillo said. "We had to tear down our Twitter account. Now we’re just sticking to Facebook and our Web page. We just want to get back to work." The Golden State tweets might have been vacuous blather taken as reality, but the Global Research and Brittany posts went beyond even what the tweets said. Their reference to a "large government supplier of emergency response products" seems to have greatly reimagined Golden State’s line of work. To write about "the Disaster Assistance Response Team" as a singular entity also seems odd. Such a name applies generically to any group that jumps in to help in a disaster. Brittany doesn’t write definitively that these theories are accurate but closed her article on a note of fear. "Maybe the current administration needs this to happen so martial law can be declared, guns can be seized and the populace can be controlled. Once that happens … game over." Our ruling Brittany passed along as fact that a government supplier knew that emergency responders had been told well in advance to get ready for Ebola. The rumor was based on tweets from a private California medical and safety services company, which now says the tweets were based on nothing. The reckless use of implausible assertions earns this claim .


Protesters vent their anger as UN climate talks stutter.

Explanation: With less than 72 hours left to reach a deal on key measures in the fight against global warming, major countries at a U.N. meeting on climate change took the floor to stake out their positions — showing that deep differences remain to be breached.

Climate, North America, Climate change, International News, Madrid, General News, Business, Science, United Nations, Europe, Greta Thunberg

In a sign of growing frustration over the pace of the talks in Madrid — the logo of which is a stylized ticking clock — more than 100 activists led by representatives of indigenous peoples from Latin and North America staged an impromptu protest, blocking the gates of the main plenary hall for a few tense minutes. Activist Greta Thunberg, who on Wednesday was announced as Time magazine’s Person of the Year shortly after addressing the talks’ plenary, also accused governments and businesses of misleading the public by not achieving real action and instead fostering “clever accounting and creative PR.”   Climate negotiators in Madrid also had one eye on Brussels, where the European Union announced a 100-billion euro ($130-billion) plan to help wean EU nations off fossil fuels. But some observers predicted the talks could head into overtime, with ministers struggling to agree on rules for a global carbon market and ways to compensate vulnerable countries for disasters caused by global warming. World leaders agreed in Paris four years ago to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) — ideally no more than 1.5 C (2.7 F) — by the end of the century. Scientists say both of those goals will be missed by a wide margin unless drastic steps are taken to begin cutting greenhouse gas emissions next year. The World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, said the 80 countries that have so far announced plans to step up their emissions-reduction targets only represent a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions — while most major emitters have yet to commit. Friction was palpable when heads of delegations took the floor Wednesday for their national statements, which every one of the nearly 200 U.N. members delivers toward the end of the annual summit. Among them was China’s vice minister of ecology and environment, Zhao Yingmin, newly sworn in as the top climate official in the world’s largest carbon emitter, who used the opportunity to deliver a rebuke of the European Union’s threat to impose carbon tariffs on products imported from countries without sufficient climate protection measures. “All parties need to join hands in opposing all forms of unilateralism, including trade protectionism and stay the course in our collective efforts to tackle climate change,” said Zhao in his speech. Meanwhile, Japan’s environment minister said his country was aware of criticism it faces for continuing to fund coal-fired power plants both at home and abroad, despite the greenhouse gas emissions they produce. Shinjiro Koizumi also acknowledged U.N. chief António Guterres’ call for the world to end its “addiction to coal.” Koizumi, 38, said he had consulted with his Cabinet colleagues ahead of the talks on how to respond to the issue but that further discussion was needed to reach a conclusion. “Please watch for that,” he added. The United States also made its first major public intervention on the 10th day of the talks after keeping a low profile. President Donald Trump’s administration began proceedings last month to abandon the 2015 Paris agreement, a yearlong process that will culminate on Nov. 4, 2020 — a day after the next presidential elections. Until then, the U.S. “will remain focused on a realistic and pragmatic model, backed by a record of real world results,” said Marcia Bernicat, a career ambassador who heads the U.S. negotiating team. “The United States continues to lead on clean, affordable and secure energy, while reducing all type of emissions, including greenhouse gases over the last 15 years,” she said. Some experts echoed the activists’ concerns about a lack of progress. “In my almost 30 years in this process, never have I seen the almost total disconnect that we’re seeing here in Madrid, between what the science requires and the people of the world are demanding on the one hand and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientist, a U.S.-based nonprofit group. Guterres, the U.N. chief, suggested that negotiators in Madrid should stop listening to those who oppose more ambitious measures for reducing emissions. “I call on anyone who is still lobbying their governments for a slow transition – or even in some cases no transition – to end those activities now,” he said. He also said governments were slowing down businesses action on the climate front by keeping “bureaucratic and regulatory obstacles, including perverse fossil fuel subsidies.” But Guterres expressed confidence that the 1.5 C limit was “still within reach” if countries, starting with the main emitters, step up emission cuts over the next 12 months. As he spoke, activists demanding greater action and for richer countries to step up compensation for environmental degradation in poorer regions blocked the entrance until U.N. security personnel escorted them outdoors. In a statement, more than a dozen NGOs accused the global body of silencing their voices instead of kicking out the “rich industrialized countries who refuse to meet their commitments” and “corporate polluters.” U.N. climate officials didn’t offer an immediate comment. Amid a lack of tangible progress in Madrid, the European Union gave environmentalists some hope. The European Commission says the 100-billion-euro fund announced in Brussels will help those regions that will be hit the hardest financially by the transition to cleaner industries — namely Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, which rely heavily on coal-fired power plants. The three countries have yet to commit to the EU’s goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. Richard Klein, an expert with the Stockholm Environment Institute, called the EU’s proposal “ambitious.” “I think it will have a real impact on these negotiations here at the COP,” Klein said. “Of course, it still needs to be implemented, there’s a lot of work to be done until March, and then after that by the various member states, but I think this is very good.” ___ AP journalists Bernat Armangue and Helena Alves contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://www.apnews.com/Climate ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


“Kids are less likely to get it (COVID-19). You know, they’re less likely to spread. So I think there’s some pretty good data out there that will help alleviate some of the concerns.”

Explanation: Children do contract the coronavirus but current research shows it is happening at a much lower rate than for adults. Children in available studies also have been less likely than adults to spread the coronavirus. Iowa’s governor cited these factors, plus general acceptance from educators and pediatricians that in-person learning is better for children, in her call to re-open K-12 schools for the 2020-21 school year.

Children, Education, Public Health, Iowa, Coronavirus, Kim Reynolds,

Iowa, like many other states, faces a calendar-driven fact: the beginning of another school year. The state’s governor, Kim Reynolds, says schools should re-open for students who do not have health conditions that would put them at risk if exposed to the novel coronavirus. "Kids are less likely to get it," Reynolds said at a July 14, 2020, news conference about children’s susceptibility to the virus, COVID-19. "They’re less likely to spread. So I think there’s some pretty good data out there that will help alleviate some of the concerns." PolitiFact has visited this topic previously, stating that children can catch the virus but that their symptoms aren’t as potent as those in older people. And, President Trump has called forcefully for schools to re-open for the next school year. Deciding to re-open schools that have been closed since mid-March in Iowa while the coronavirus pandemic continues has been a balancing act. Parents and teachers are dealing with the virus’s health threat on students, teachers and staff but also fear negative effects on children isolated at home instead of learning face-to-face with teachers and interacting with other children. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the School Superintendents Association are on record saying interaction is necessary but also caution against moving unsafely when reopening schools. While there’s no mistaking that a child ill with the virus would deal with discomfort, or in a worse scenario serious health risks, existing research backs up Reynold’s statement about the virus’ incidence rate and spread rate for children and research backing that up. In Iowa, 5% of people testing positive for COVID-19 as of July 15 were 17 or younger, state data showed on July 16, 2020. That’s lower than the national rate, which shows 10% of Americans testing positive for COVID-19 were age 17 or younger, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data showed July 16. Almost one-half of Iowa’s COVID-19 cases were detected in people ages 18 to 40. Researchers concluding, to date, that young children are at less risk than older adults of catching or spreading the virus include: An international research team conducting studies in China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Canada and South Korea. They concluded that the risk of transmitting the virus under the age of 20 could be as much as one-half the risk for those over the age of 20. They published their findings June 16, 2020, with Nature Medicine. Doctors and researchers at Mayo Clinic, of Rochester, Minnesota. "While all children are capable of getting the virus that causes COVID-19, they don't become sick as often as adults," the clinic’s COVID-19 section on its website states. "Children also rarely experience severe illness with COVID-19. Despite many large outbreaks around the world, very few children have died." Chinese researchers whose work was published in July 2020 in Pediatrics, the American Academy of Pediatrics journal. University of Vermont researchers writing in Pediatrics’ July 2020 issue, which also published American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines for returning to school classrooms. A research team in Dresden, Germany. (more on that later) A World Health Organization-China joint report from February 2020. Skepticism has existed about the WHO-China report, especially when testing only was done in hospitals. Also, some researchers caution that infection and transmission rates among young people aren’t as high as they are for adults because the youths have not been exposed as much as adults to the virus. And that CDC data? It shows a higher percentage of people age 17 and younger who are tested for the virus showing up positive. Part of the reason for those CDC numbers is that fewer children than adults have been tested, and that what testing has been done has been with children suspected to be at risk. "Our data is skewed originally to people with symptoms, and then skewed to adults over 18," Dr. Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said at a July 8, 2020, White House news briefing. More in-depth study of COVID-19’s affect on children is needed, she said. Five days later, German researchers released a study of students in their country who were exposed to each other in school that, the researchers said, could indicate that COVID-19 might not spread as much among the youths as feared. Pediatricians at Dresden University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus said they reached their conclusions after studying blood samples taken in May and June from 1,541 youths mostly in eighth through 11th grade. The samples were from 13 secondary schools and part of a 2,045-sample test that also included teachers, the researchers said. Reynolds said, "Kids are less likely to get it (COVID-19). You know, they’re less likely to spread. So I think there’s some pretty good data out there that will help alleviate some of the concerns." Reynolds’ assertion is supported by the bulk of the existing research, which shows that scientists have seen lower COVID-19 infection rates among young people and have not seen the virus spread among children at the rate as high as the ones for adults. However, researchers have only been able to study the virus since late January 2020, and they are learning more about it by the day. There may also be statistical quirks affecting the data, such as the limited extent to which children are being tested for the virus. Reynolds’ statement is largely supported by the research published so far, but with a big caveat that the science is preliminary and evolving. We rate the statement .


Tim Kaine Says "Donald Trump is a guy who has called for privatization" of the Veterans Administration.

National, Health Care, Veterans, Tim Kaine,

For all of Donald Trump’s talk about veterans, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said he doesn’t have their backs. Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick, blasted Trump on MSNBC for his "not a war hero" comments about John McCain, his delay in donating to veterans charities, and his ideas for fixing the Veterans Administration. "Donald Trump is a guy who has called for privatization of the V.A.," Kaine said July 11. "That is something that is overwhelmingly rejected by America's veterans. They do not want to go down that path. Do they want improvement? Sure they do. But they don't want risky or radical." To back up his claim, the Kaine camp pointed to Trump’s campaign page on V.A. reforms and articles suggesting privatization is among them. But the Trump campaign told us Trump’s plan simply gives veterans a choice, and that’s not the same thing as privatization. While Trump wants to give veterans access to health providers outside the V.A. system, Kaine is being overly simplistic by suggesting Trump wants to turn over the whole thing to the private sector. What Trump proposed Trump’s VA plans include some elements of privatization, but it isn’t an outright overhaul of the existing system. At an October 2015 rally in Virginia, Trump said even though some candidates want to get rid of the V.A. (possibly referring to Ben Carson’s proposals to give veterans health savings accounts) he wants to "supplement" the existing V.A. system for veterans. "No, it doesn’t have to be privatization," Trump said at a May 2016 press conference. "What it has to be is when somebody is online and they say it’s a seven-day wait, that person’s going to walk across the street to a private doctor, be taken care of, we’re gonna pay the bill." Nowhere on his position page or in his July 2016 Virginia Beach speech on veterans issues does Trump propose privatizing the V.A. Instead, he seeks to modernize it, crack down on inefficiency and abuse, and provide more care for female vets and those in in rural areas. He does, however, propose a veterans ID card for use outside of the V.A. system on his campaign website: "Under a Trump Administration, all veterans eligible for VA health care can bring their veteran’s ID card to any doctor or care facility that accepts Medicare to get the care they need immediately. ...The power to choose will stop the wait time backlogs and force the VA to improve and compete if the department wants to keep receiving veterans’ health care dollars." Similarly, Trump floated the idea in his speech in Virginia: "We are going to ensure every veteran in America has the choice to seek care at the V.A., or to seek private medical care paid for by our government." According to the Trump campaign, this is essentially the recommendation of the bipartisan federal Commission on Care, but with more choice in doctors. But veterans groups (many of which support the commission’s recommendations) told us that’s not an entirely accurate comparison. In short, the commission plan folds private health care providers into the V.A. system, while the Trump plan allows veterans to opt out of it. In its 300-page report, the commission emphasized that the V.A. should have oversight over an integrated health care network by vetting, training and coordinating with private sector doctors and clinics that qualify for participation. Trump’s plan, again, gives veterans access to all Medicare providers, but it doesn’t specify that these non-V.A. doctors would have to coordinate or meet the standards of the V.A. The I.D. card proposal also bears some resemblance to the Veterans Choice program, a law sponsored by John McCain that gives veterans access to community providers if they’ve been waiting for more than 30 days for V.A. care or if they live more than 40 miles away from a V.A. facility. Trump’s plan would essentially get rid of these eligibility requirements. Trump advisor Sam Clovis did tell the Wall Street Journal the candidate might model V.A. care after Medicare (like an insurance provider), as the Kaine campaign pointed out, but Clovis also said Trump "doesn’t want to take away the veterans hospitals and the things that are working out." Not exactly privatization Veterans group agreed that Trump’s I.D. card plan would lead to more privatized care, but were divided on whether Kaine’s characterization of Trump’s plan was accurate. Paralyzed Veterans of America’s executive director Sherman Gillums Jr. criticized Trump’s proposal for "completely privatizing" the V.A. in a press release, but praised Trump’s attention to veterans issues. AMVETS spokesman John Hoellwarth called the proposal "well-intentioned," but agreed that it was privatization and would be disastrous. "Encouraging all veterans to seek care in the private sector, which lacks the expertise to treat military and combat injuries and illnesses, and which does not typically provide integrated or coordinated care, would lead to worse health outcomes for many veterans," Hoellwarth said. Veterans of Foreign Wars, meanwhile, considers the Trump’s idea partial privatization. "Our concern is that a ‘go anywhere card’ leads to veterans receiving fragmented, uncoordinated, and lower-quality care, which is not what veterans have earned and deserve," said Joe Davis, the group’s director of public affairs. "Private sector health care must complement, not compete with or supplant the VA health care system." On the other end, Dan Caldwell, vice president for political and legislative action at Concerned Veterans for America (which is backed by the anti-Trump Koch brothers) said the group supports both choice and integration and disagreed vehemently with Kaine’s characterization. "Giving veterans the choice of where to use their VA benefits does not necessitate the sale of VA hospitals to corporations nor does it eliminate government control of veterans’ health care," Caldwell said. "Calling expanded health care choice for veterans ‘privatization’ is simply a poll-tested scare tactic." Our ruling Kaine said, "Donald Trump is a guy who has called for privatization of the V.A." Actually, Trump is a guy who has called for giving veterans access to private providers. That may lead some veterans to seek care outside the V.A., but it’s not the same thing as completely privatizing the system. We rate Kaine’s claim .


Number of Americans killed by terrorism in the last decade: 24. Number of Americans killed by guns in the last decade: 280,024.

In the wake of the Oct. 1 shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, President Barack Obama tasked the media to put the number of gun violence-related deaths into perspective. "Have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who've been killed through terrorist attacks in the last decade and the number of Americans who've been killed by gun violence, and post those side by side on your news reports," he said in his address on the shooting. "We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so. And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths. How can that be?" Obama's underlying point was to highlight the lack of resources and legislative action taken on gun violence. Some have questioned the merit of such a comparison -- for example, critics have pointed out that cigarettes kill more people than guns. We're not weighing in on that debate. Rather, we're looking just at the data. Multiple outlets obliged (though each came up with slightly different numbers). Several readers asked us to check out one specific comparison widely shared on Facebook and Twitter. It was created by NowThis, a New York-based news company that produces content specifically for social media. The image says that 24 Americans have been killed by terrorism in the last decade, while 280,024 Americans were killed by guns. While NowThis’ numbers aren’t perfect, the overarching point is accurate. There have been far more deaths from gun violence than from terrorist attacks. Walking through the math Let’s start with the tally for terrorist-related deaths. NowThis senior editorial producer Versha Sharma told PolitiFact that the 24 figure refers to the number of U.S. citizens killed by terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and does not include deaths abroad. Sharma acknowledged that this could have been made clear in the graphic. But she maintained that it’s more apt to compare domestic gun deaths to domestic terrorism deaths. Counting terrorist attacks abroad, she said, would make it an apples to oranges comparison. The number comes from the nonpartisan think tank the New America Foundation’s count of lethal jihadist attacks on U.S. soil from 2005 to 2015. It includes for example the four people killed during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and the 13 deaths from the Fort Hood shooting in 2009. To get to 280,024 gun deaths, NowThis compiled data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System and the Mass Shooting Tracker, a crowd-sourced project that tallies deaths and injuries in mass shootings. According to the CDC, the number of violent gun deaths between 2005 and 2013 (the latest year on record) was 279,976. That includes suicides, homicides, and police-related shootings. Mass Shooting Tracker counts 389 mass shooting gun deaths in 2014 and 375 so far in 2015. There are, however, a few issues with these numbers. For starters, a spokesperson for New America told us it would have been more accurate to include lives lost to both jihadist and non-jihadist extreme violence (47 deaths from 2005 to 2015) for a total count of 71 deaths from terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Secondly, Mass Shooting Tracker, as the name implies, only tracks deaths from mass shootings, defined by the group as when four more people are shot in an event. If we look at all gun-related deaths as the CDC does from the past two years, the numbers are much higher. According the nonprofit project the Gun Violence Archive, there were 12,562 gun deaths in 2014 and 9,959 in 2015 thus far. That’s a grand total of 301,797 firearm-related deaths in the past decade, compared to 71 deaths from domestic acts of terrorism. If we factor in terrorist attacks overseas, the comparison is still stark. From 2004 to 2014, 303 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide, according to State Department reports. During that same time frame, 320,523 Americans were killed because of gun violence. Here’s a breakdown:  Our ruling A viral image says the number of Americans killed by terrorism in the last decade is 24, while the number of Americans killed by guns in the last decade is 280,024. NowThis, the creators of the image, told us they only counted lives lost to domestic jihadist attacks, though the image doesn’t specify that. If we look at deaths due to all extremist attacks on U.S. soil, the number goes up to 71. A more accurate count for gun deaths between 2005 and 2015 is 301,797. Though the image’s numbers are slightly off, that doesn’t undercut the point: guns have claimed many more lives than terrorist attacks. We rate the claim .


By the end of 2015, more than 1,300 people will have died on Georgia roads. One of out evey four fatalities resulted from drunken driving.

Georgia, Alcohol, Crime, Public Safety, States, Transportation, State Public Service Announcement,

More than 1,300 people have died on Georgia roads this year, and 25 percent of the deaths are the result of drunken driving. Those claims headline a public service announcement airing statewide on television and radio in this season of merriment and cheer. "Watch your speed. Put down the phone, and don’t get behind the wheel if you’ve been drinking," Gov. Nathan Deal warns listeners. For months, state officials have been alert to an unwelcome change: After falling annually for nine straight years, Georgia’s traffic deaths were up this year. But have more than 1,300 people really died this year on Georgia roads? And have 25 percent — or one out of four of those deaths — been caused by drunken driving, as the public service announcement says? PolitiFact Georgia decided to rev up the Truth-O-Meter. Figures compiled by the state Department of Transportation and released through the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety show traffic deaths in Georgia fell each year from 2005 to 2014, going from 1,729 to 1,170, even as U.S. census estimates show the state added about 1 million residents. Georgia roadway deaths for 2015 hit 1,345 as of Monday of this week. That's up 186, or 16 percent, from 2014, and it’s still a few days until we turn the calendar to 2016. According to state data, the 1,345 included six people killed in car-train collisions, 192 pedestrians, 138 motorcyclists and 21 bicyclists. The largest number of traffic deaths occurred on state and local roads, 675 and 485, respectively. But deaths on interstates — often the most visible because of the gridlock that follows — are up 21 percent, from 153 in 2014 to 185 so far this year. But were 25 percent of this year's fatalities alcohol-related? The answer: That could well be the case, but officials don’t know that with absolute certainty. Harris Blackwood, the director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, said his agency has certified data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showing that 297 of Georgia’s 1,179 fatalities two years ago, or 25 percent, involved alcohol blood content of 0.08, the legal limit. Smaller amounts of alcohol — 0.01 percent or higher — were found in 30 percent, or 349, of those fatalities in 2013, Blackwood said. Part of the reason they don’t know for certain about the role of alcohol in 2015 traffic deaths is it can take months to obtain blood test results from the GBI crime lab, he said. "However, there are indicators, such as open containers, information provided by other passengers, and so on," Blackwood said. "The percentage of alcohol as a factor has been consistent on a percentage basis over a 10-year period, even as fatalities were going down prior to this year," he said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website gives an extensive five-year view of fatal crashes in Georgia and the nation — including the role alcohol plays. Between 2010 and 2014, alcohol-impaired driving was a factor in 24 percent to 25 percent of all fatal accidents each year. The one exception was 2011, when the percentage dropped to 22 percent. Nationally, 30 percent to 31 percent of all fatalities in those same five years involved alcohol-impaired drivers (those with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 or above), according to the NHTSA data. Blackwood said the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety also did a preliminary analysis early this year and found no evidence that "the alcohol percentage is going down" from prior years. In the first nine months of 2015, there were 483 instances where an officer requested an alcohol test or a driver refused an alcohol test, he said. (We should note that some law enforcement agencies consider it standard protocol to request a blood alcohol test in fatal traffic accidents.) Our ruling A public service announcement says more than 1,300 people will die on Georgia roads before the end of the year. By Monday of this week, the number was 1,345, according to a tally kept by the Georgia Department of Transportation and released by the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety. The PSA also makes the claim that one in four of those people died in alcohol-impaired fatalities. The truth is that state officials don’t know for certain what’s happened in these traffic deaths. It takes time to investigate. They’re basing the claim on a trend they’ve seen and one that doesn’t seem to be changing in Georgia or the nation. That’s probably context the reader deserves to know. We rate the statement .


In Liberia, "a girl is more likely to be married by 18 than to know how to read.

Global News Service, Children, Education, Women, Tina Rosenberg,

Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author Tina Rosenberg recently drew attention to a shocking statistic about women’s education in the African country of Liberia. "This is education in Liberia," Rosenberg wrote in the New York Times on June 14. "A girl is more likely to be married by 18 than to know how to read." Liberia was devastated by civil war between 1989 and 2003. More recently, its schools were closed for six months following the outbreak of the Ebola virus in 2014. Our partners at Africa Check looked at the available survey data to determine the accuracy of Rosenberg’s claim. Recent data doesn’t support claim Rosenberg, who won the Pulitzer for non-fiction The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism, told Africa Check that her claim was based on a Liberian database of statistics collected from the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The database reported that 37.9 percent of children are married in Liberia by 18. That is fractionally higher than the female youth literacy rate of 37.2 percent, according to the UNICEF database. The problem is those figures come from 2007 reports and are out of date. The 37.9 percent figure for child marriage appears to track back to Liberia’s Demographic and Health Survey from 2007. The youth literacy figure is likely from a 2007 UNESCO Institute for Statistics’ estimate. The estimate covers women between the ages of 15-24, not just girls 18 and under. The most recent data comes from the country’s 2013 Demographic and Health Survey. Teen marriage rates in Liberia The Demographic and Health Survey presents data in five year increments for people aged 15 to 49. Women who are 18 fall into the youngest age group of 15 to 19. However, the survey is missing data for marriage rates for this age group. Instead, a United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund note on interpreting child marriage data recommends using the next age group: "Looking at the group of women 20 to 24 years old is simpler and allows for the inclusion of all girls who were married or in union by age 18 within the closest time period for which complete data are available." Following this standard, the 2013 Demographic and Health Survey shows that 35.9 percent of Liberian women aged 20 to 24 reported being married by the time they were 18. This method is imperfect because it doesn’t tell us about the chances that a girl under 20 today will have been married by 18. However, it gives us the best estimate for youth marriage rates for a group of young women who could reasonably be called girls. Literacy rates in Liberia The 2013 survey reported a literacy rate of 64.2 percent for women between 15 and 24 years of age. Someone is considered literate if they went to high school or if they can read a whole sentence or part of that sentence. The literacy rate decreases slightly to 58.9 percent when you look at women ages 20 to 24. Other organizations define literacy more strictly. For example, UNESCO doesn’t include people who can only read part of a sentence in the literate population. If we apply UNESCO’s literacy definition to Liberian women aged aged 20 to 24, literacy drops to 51.2 percent – still much higher than the marriage figure of 35.9 percent. Our Ruling Rosenberg made the claim that a Liberian woman is "more likely to be married by 18 than to know how to read." This claim relies on data from an old 2007 survey. Using a more recent survey and the closest age group for which data are available, the comparison doesn’t hold. Young Liberian women are more likely to know how to read than be married. We rate this claim . This fact-check originally was published by Africa Check. Read their version of this story here.


Senate OKs Coast Guard bill with ballast water compromise.

Explanation: The U.S. Senate approved a compromise policy Wednesday on dumping ship ballast water in coastal ports and the Great Lakes, a practice blamed for spreading invasive species that damage the environment and the economy.

Coast guard, Lakes, Shipping, Environment, U.S. News, Invasive species, Bills, Economy, Traverse City

The plan, part of a $10.6 billion Coast Guard budget authorization bill, includes provisions sought by environmentalists as well as the cargo shipping industry. They have battled for years over how to regulate disposal of water stored in tanks that is essential for steadying vessels in rough seas but has brought unwanted mussels, fish and even viruses to U.S. waters. Under the bill, approved 94-6 and sent to the House for consideration, the Environmental Protection Agency would set national rules for ballast and other water discharges while the Coast Guard would enforce them. An earlier version backed by industry would have put the Coast Guard in charge of regulation and exempted ballast from the Clean Water Act, which environmentalists feared would result in weaker requirements for treating the water before it’s released. But in a victory for shippers, states would be prohibited from imposing tougher treatment rules than EPA’s. Presently, 26 states have rules in addition to those on federal level, creating what the industry describes as a confusing regulatory patchwork. Environmentalists contend states should be able to exceed federal standards to safeguard their waterways. The bill creates an exception for the Great Lakes, where damages and control costs from quagga mussels and other exotic organisms reach $200 million annually. Regional requirements could be imposed there if enough of the eight states that border the lakes want them. Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, co-chairs of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, said EPA policy required under the bill “will help prevent pollution and ensure that that ballast water does not transport invasive species from one body of water to another along a vessel’s shipping route, while providing greater regulatory certainty for the shipping industry.” Debate will persist even if the measure is enacted. Federal policy currently limits numbers of live organisms in ballast water before it’s discharged, based on international standards that environmentalists contend are too weak. A federal court has ordered EPA to strengthen the standards, noting the availability of treatment tools such as chlorine, ultraviolet light and filtration. Shippers contend available technology can’t hit the cleanliness targets environmentalists want. EPA will grapple with such issues as it develops national rules. Still, both sides praised the bill. The Lake Carriers’ Association, representing Great Lakes cargo shippers, said it strikes a “good balance,” while an environmentalist coalition said it “upholds many core protections to prevent future invasions.” The bill authorizes $10.6 billion for the Coast Guard in fiscal year 2019, a roughly 16 percent increase from 2017 that would help modernize its aging fleet of cutters and aircraft. The Coast Guard is the primary federal authority for maritime safety and security on the U.S. coast and in ports and inland waterways. “Passing it will ensure the Coast Guard has the tools it needs to continue to carry out its many important missions,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat. The measure also contains provisions to help the agency crack down on drug smuggling and enforce borders through use of informants and greater cooperation with other agencies. It also boost efforts to place and maintain navigational aids and enter less expensive contracts for acquiring the largest and most technologically advanced cutters. Other provisions would create a Coast Guard center to develop responses to oil spills in the Great Lakes and other freshwater environments and authorize funding to design and build a National Coast Guard Museum in New London, Connecticut. ___ AP reporter Kevin Freking in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.


New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis was fined by the NFL for wearing a "Man of God" headband.

Explanation: What's true: New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis was fined by the NFL for violating the "personal message" provision of the league's dress code policy by sporting a "Man of God" headband. The fine was later overturned. What's false: Davis was not fined due to the religious nature of the message on his headband.

On Sept. 22, 2019, New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis wore a headband bearing the words “Man of God” during a game against the Seattle Seahawks. The National Football League (NFL) ended up fining Davis $7,017 because his wearing of the headband violated the league’s dress code policy, as reported by The Washington Post: During a Sept. 22 game against the Seattle Seahawks, the New Orleans Saints linebacker wore a headband matching the team’s colors bearing the words, “Man of God.” He said he was fined $7,017 for a first-offense uniform violation even though the headband wasn’t visible beneath his helmet. NFL rules are strict when it comes to game-day apparel, and personal messages are prohibited. It’s undeniable that Davis’ was fined after he wore a “Man of God” headband during an NFL game, but some people spread news of Davis’ fine as if it documented that the league held an anti-Christian bias and/or that the penalty was predicated purely upon the “Man of God” message. Conservative commentator Todd Starnes, for example, suggested that the phrase “Man of God” (or religious expression in general) was a “big no-no” in the NFL: Demario Davis, a starting linebacker for the New Orleans Saints, was fined more than $7,000 for wearing a headband with a Christian message. The headband was emblazoned with the words “Man of God” — a big no-no in the National Football League these days. The NFL has a famously strict dress code policy that has led to the levying of some unpopular fines over the years. In 2015, two players were fined for honoring their late mothers by wearing pink and purple items (to represent causes related to domestic abuse and breast cancer) with their uniforms. In 2013, a Detroit Lions player was fined for wearing blue and black socks instead of the league-approved blue and white socks. And a few weeks after Demario Davis was fined in September 2019, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was similarly fined for wearing an Apple Watch on the sidelines. The aforementioned fines were not levied by the NFL because the league has something against charity, blue and black socks, or smartwatches. These fines were handed out because the players violated a provision of the league’s five-page-long dress code policy. Here’s the “personal message” portion of the NFL’s dress code policy that relates to Davis’ fine (emphasis ours): Throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field), players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration, unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office. Items to celebrate anniversaries or memorable events, or to honor or commemorate individuals, such as helmet decals, and arm bands and jersey patches on players’ uniforms, are prohibited unless approved in advance by the League office. All such items must relate to team or League events or personages. The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages, through helmet decals, arm bands, jersey patches, or other items affixed to game uniforms or equipment, which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns. Further, such armbands and jersey patches must be modest in size, tasteful, noncommercial, and non-controversial; must not be worn for more than one football season; and if approved for use by a specific team, must not be worn by players on other teams in the League. Davis was fined for displaying an unapproved personal message, regardless of its content. A player’s wearing a headband bearing the words “Hail Satan,” “Avengers Endgame Was a Bad Movie,” or “Trump 2020” would have, theoretically, resulted in the same penalty. It should also be noted that fines collected for dress code violations don’t go to the NFL, but to two charities that support former players. The NFL also started the “My Cause, My Cleats” campaign in 2017, which allowed players to wear personalized cleats in support of a charity during one week of the NFL season. Demario Davis is selling “Man of God” and “Woman of God” headbands to raise money for St. Dominic’s Hospital: I accept the fine but the mission continues! Obstacles are made to be conquered and I’m here to serve!!! We all can. Me, my family, and my headband are partnering with @stdomhospital so that 100% of proceeds can help save lives. You in?! #ManOfGod You can get your headband and help me support St. Dominic’s by going to: bit.ly/56manofgod (link in bio) A post shared by  Demario Davis #56 (@d56davis) on Oct 5, 2019 at 6:06pm PDT  Davis appealed the fine and on October 9, 2019 he announced that the NFL had reversed their decision: The New Orleans Saints’ starting weak-side linebacker fielded a message from his agent, telling him that he wouldn’t have to pay the $7,014 fine stemming from the “Man of God” headband he wore during the Seattle Seahawks game. “It’s a huge win,” Davis said Wednesday. Davis and his team cited several reasons for their appeal. Davis said he didn’t know the headband was a fine-worthy offense. He also argued that the headband wasn’t offensive and that he wouldn’t wear the headband during a game again.


John McCain Says Obama called Sarah Palin a pig.

Explanation: If there's lipstick on a pig, it's this McCain ad

National, Candidate Biography, John McCain,

(Published Sept. 10, 2008) The story begins, like so many these days, with Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention last week. Having stirred the crowd to its feet more than once, Palin delivered a knockout line when she deadpanned: “I love those hockey moms. You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.” The line drew cheerful applause and has echoed ever since, which seems to explain how Sen. Barack Obama found himself in the middle of an uproar when he uttered a time-worn phrase to denigrate Sen. John McCain’s proclaimed agenda for “change” in Washington. "John McCain says he's about change, too," Obama said. "And so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out, George Bush! Except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics, we're really going to shake things up in Washington.'" "That's not change," Obama said. "That's just calling something the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing." Gasp! He just said lipstick! Did he just call Sarah Palin a pig??!!! That’s the charge. Later that day, the McCain campaign arranged a conference call for reporters with Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts. She said that when you add up Obama’s comments and Palin’s comments, you get Obama calling Palin a pig. Swift said Obama should apologize. “Calling a very prominent female governor of one of our states a ‘pig’ is not exactly what we want to see,” Swift said. The issue has dominated the presidential campaign for two days, with the McCain campaign stirring a controversy by having local lawmakers call for Obama to apologize, and the Obama campaign responding with examples of how often he and others have used the phrase. The next day, Obama called the McCain’s campaign tactics “lies and phony outrage and Swift-boat politics.” On Wednesday, the McCain campaign released a Web ad called “Lipstick.” It begins with a clip of Palin delivering her lipstick line, then text flashes on the screen saying “Barack Obama on: Sarah Palin.” A moment later, the ad plays a small portion of Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark, but not enough of his quotation to make clear what he was talking about. The ad concludes with a clip of CBS anchor Katie Couric soberly remarking on sexism on the campaign trail. The ad has two big problems, as does the complaint of former Gov. Swift. First, in the full text of the remarks it’s clear that Obama isn’t talking about Sarah Palin. He’s talking about McCain’s argument that he represents change. Second, “putting lipstick on a pig” is a popular put-down, especially among politicians. It generally means taking a bad or unattractive idea and trying to dress it up. We weren’t able to pin down the origins of this folksy expression, but we found tons of instances of people using it. The political newspaper  The Hill  labeled the phrase “Congress Speak” back in June, and gave it an official definition: “an expression used to illustrate that something unattractive cannot be beautified or otherwise positively changed by any amount of makeup or other exterior alterations.” In 1986, Texas Agricultural Commissioner Jim Hightower used the phrase to criticize Ronald Reagan’s farm policy. During the 2004 presidential campaign, both Dick Cheney and John Edwards used it to attack the other guy’s running mate. Earlier this year, Democratic Congresswoman Linda Sanchez of California gave a speech on trade policy. “You know the old saying about putting lipstick on a pig? Well, I smell bacon,” she groused. Obama and McCain both have used the expression. In September 2007,  Washington Post  columnist Eugene Robinson quoted Obama using the phrase to discuss Iraq policy: “I think that both Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker are capable people who have been given an impossible assignment,” Obama said. “George Bush has given a mission to Gen. Petraeus, and he has done his best to try to figure out how to put lipstick on a pig.” In Iowa on Oct. 11, 2007, McCain panned Sen. Hillary Clinton’s health care plan, calling it “eerily reminiscent” of the plan that failed during Bill Clinton’s administration, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. “I think they put some lipstick on a pig,” McCain said, “but it’s still a pig.” On Feb. 1, 2007, McCain blasted a Senate resolution that would have criticized President Bush’s strategy in Iraq. Some had praised the resolution as a compromise measure, but McCain disagreed. “It gets down to whether you support what is being done in this new strategy or you don’t,” McCain said. “You can put lipstick on a pig, [but] it’s still a pig, in my view.” It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin. Her name never is used in the preceding sentence. In fact, it’s hard to see how one could interpret Obama’s lipstick-on-a-pig remark as referring directly to McCain, either. We think it’s very clear that Obama was saying McCain’s effort to call himself the “candidate of change” is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama’s point, but his remark wasn’t the smear that McCain’s people have tried to make it. If anyone’s doing any smearing, it’s the McCain campaign and its outrageous attempt to distort the facts. Did Obama call Palin a pig? No, and saying so is  wrong.


Louisiana, Mississippi top nation in worst West Nile illness.

Explanation: Louisiana and Mississippi are leading the nation in the number of people who have become the most seriously ill from West Nile virus this year. State health departments are warning residents to take precautions against mosquitoes, which spread the virus.

Mississippi, Meningitis, Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Nile virus, Louisiana

“Not in my house, not on my skin, not in my yard,” said Dr. Raoult Ratard, Louisiana’s state epidemiologist, as he repeated the state slogan for fighting the disease Wednesday. Precautions include making sure door and window screens don’t have holes; wearing long clothes and using mosquito repellent; and making sure the yard doesn’t hold any standing water where mosquitoes might breed — even a bottle cap. As of Aug. 21, Louisiana had 18 cases of West Nile encephalitis or meningitis out of a national total of 133, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday on its website. Mississippi had 15 such “neuroinvasive” cases, Texas 14 and California 12. South Dakota had nine, Iowa seven, Nebraska six and Alabama and Pennsylvania five each. Dr. Paul Byers, Mississippi’s state epidemiologist, said Mississippi is “always” among the states with the highest rates for West Nile virus. “Regardless of whether we report the disease in your county ... we want everybody to take those appropriate precautions,” Byers said. Reports of infections of the brain and nervous system are more reliable indicators of West Nile’s seriousness than statistics for flu-like West Nile fever or symptomless infections found most often when people donate blood, he and Ratard both said. That’s because most patients will be hospitalized, Ratard said. “And it’s the major problem with West Nile,” he added. “One out of 10 (with neuroinvasive West Nile virus) will die; one out of 10 will have permanent disabilities.” The CDC reported eight deaths so far this year: two in South Dakota and one each in Louisiana, Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Overall, the CDC said, 45 states and the District of Columbia have reported the virus in people, birds or mosquitoes this year. About one in five infected people becomes ill, and the virus spreads to the nervous system in about one in 150, according to the CDC. West Nile fever diagnoses depend on whether a patient even goes to the doctor, and then on whether the doctor tests for it. And most people bitten by an infected mosquito never show any symptoms. They’re diagnosed only if their blood is tested. The CDC reported 98 cases of fever and 89 positive blood tests. Six states — Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New York, Oregon and Utah — have diagnosed only one or two fever cases and none in the nervous system. The only reports in New Mexico and Montana were from a single blood test in each. Ratard said 1,054 people in Louisiana have come down with the most serious form of the disease over the past 16 years. “So we probably have 100,000 to 200,000 people that were infected in Louisiana, and that are immune,” Ratard said. CDC figures often lag behind state reports. Louisiana reports there have been 31 residents with dangerous nervous system infections, including two deaths, and 13 cases of West Nile fever. Mississippi has reported 10 fever cases in addition to the 15 nervous system infections, Byers said. Variations from state to state and year to year depend on various local factors, Ratard said. He noted that although Louisiana is seeing more cases this year than last, numbers are still down considerably from the worst years, such as 2002 and 2012. Louisiana had 142 nervous system infections by this week in 2002, out of a total of 204 for the year. There were 95 such cases by now in 2012, out of 160 for the year. There were nearly 3,000 cases of encephalitis and meningitis caused by the virus in both 2002 and 2012.


State high court rules NYC ban on large sodas is illegal.

Explanation: New Yorkers can now sip their super-sized sodas without worry.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to limit the sale of large sugary drinks was rejected on Thursday by the state’s highest court, which ruled the local health board overstepped its authority in approving the regulation. The 4-2 ruling from the state Court of Appeals upheld two lower court decisions from last year, siding with the soft drink, restaurant and movie theater industries, which had challenged the law. “By choosing among competing policy goals, without any legislative delegation or guidance, the Board engaged in law-making and thus infringed upon the legislative jurisdiction of the City Council,” wrote Judge Eugene Pigott for the majority. The law, which was struck down by a state judge in March 2013 one day before it was to take effect, would have barred restaurants, movie theaters and other businesses from selling sugary beverages larger than 16 ounces (473 ml). The decision Thursday ended the city’s final appeal, which was taken up by Bloomberg’s successor, Bill de Blasio. But the so-called “soda ban” remained closely associated with Bloomberg, who had previously banned cigarettes from parks and bars and trans fats from restaurants in a broad effort to combat public health problems through regulation. The soda ban, the first of its kind in the United States, drew national attention, with critics blasting Bloomberg’s “nanny state” and public health advocates praising the attempt to fight obesity. In a statement, de Blasio said he was disappointed but that officials have a “responsibility to address the causes of this epidemic.”  A spokesman for the American Beverage Association, which led the legal challenge and includes members like PepsiCo Inc, The Coca-Cola Co and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc, said the law “would have created an uneven playing field for thousands of small businesses in the city and limited New Yorkers’ freedom of choice.”  Steve Anastos, the manager of City Diner on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said he supported the decision because “people can drink whatever they want.”  The court focused on the law’s loopholes, which exempted businesses not subject to the health board’s authority and left untouched certain drinks, such as milk-based beverages. As a result convenience stores such as 7-Eleven, which sells a 64-ounce Big Gulp drink, were unaffected. Likewise, high-calorie coffee drinks like Starbucks’ Frappuccinos remained exempt from the ban. The decision could also curtail the board’s power in the future to enact sweeping health initiatives. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Susan Read said the health board acted properly and any challenge belonged in the political arena, not the courts. “What petitioners have truly asked the courts to do is to strike down an unpopular regulation, not an illegal one,” she wrote. “But if that is so, eliminating, limiting, or preventing it via political means should present little obstacle.”


Under Obamacare, people who "have a doctor they’ve been seeing for the last 15 or 20 years, they won’t be able to keep going to that doctor.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., calls Obamacare a "broken and failed experiment." In an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity on July 31, Rubio railed against the health care law, saying it would hurt regular folks. "Just think about the people that have health insurance now, and they’re happy with it. They’re going to lose that health insurance. They have a doctor they’ve been seeing for the last 15 or 20 years, they won’t be able to keep going to that doctor," he said. Rubio’s claim that insured patients will have to stop seeing their long-time doctors caught our attention, so we decided to check it out. We asked a Rubio spokesman for an explanation and did not get a response. Even without Obamacare patients sometimes have to switch doctors If we set aside the health care law, there are already ways that people can end up losing access to their doctor now. Companies can switch health care plans, and some employees’ doctors may not be in the new network. Employees can lose their job -- or switch jobs -- and end up with a different plan that doesn’t include the same doctor. Switching jobs -- and therefore, potentially health insurance -- can happen often. In 2012, the median job tenure was 5.4 years, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "It's hard to imagine many people on the same health plan for 15-20 years given natural job turnover," said Paul Fronstin, senior research associate at Employee Benefit Research Institute. The health care law leaves in place the current health insurance system, so switching plans and possibly doctors will still happen. The law also puts more requirements on insurance companies, so that they have to offer more comprehensive coverage. For people who are uninsured or have to buy insurance on their own, the law creates state-by-state health insurance exchanges where people can buy their own insurance. These new options mean people may end up switching health plans, and that could mean switching doctors. But experts on the health care law told us it’s difficult to predict how many will fall into that category. There are many factors at play, including the particular insurance plan, geography and if the patient shops for a plan on the exchange. "Most people are not going to be affected, at least in the short term," said Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. "Will it be huge numbers? Probably not. Will some people find they can’t keep their current doctor? Yes." If Rubio wants to protect people from involuntary changes in their doctors, "the best remedy is to abandon the current employer-based insurance system and to provide insurance on some other basis -- e.g., a single-insurer system of the kind they have in Canada," said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution. Now let’s examine the possibilities as it relates to Obamacare: • Employers that offer health insurance: It’s possible that employers will switch their health care plans and that a new plan won’t include some employees’ current doctors in network. But that was already the case before Obamacare. "If the ACA results in more employers switching plans, it is possible that more people will be in a situation where their new plan isn't in the network, but I've seen nothing that quantifies this," Fronstin said. It’s also possible that some large employers could decide to drop their plan and pay the penalty, forcing employees to buy insurance from the exchanges. Also, a small employer who won’t face a penalty could drop their plan, sending workers to the exchanges. But industry experts are not expecting the changes to be particularly widespread. Barry Schilmeister, a health care actuary and senior consultant at Mercer, said that "it's not likely that employers will be making a lot more carrier changes than in the past, if they're keeping their traditional programs (which most are, for now)." • Exchanges: A patient’s current doctor may not be available through some -- or potentially any -- of the plans offered on the exchanges. There are lots of different scenarios here. A patient’s doctor might be on an exchange plan, but the consumer might choose a cheaper alternative instead that doesn’t cover that doctor. If that consumer truly couldn’t afford the plan covering their doctor, we might call that being "forced" to switch doctors, but if someone simply chooses to save money, then they are making a choice. Gail Wilensky, former head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush, said that there is some truth to Rubio’s claim, because there is the potential for some patients to lose access to their doctor. But she said at this point, it’s not possible to predict how many people that will happen to in the first year of the exchange -- or beyond. "Just like private plans now don’t include all the doctors, many doctors may not choose to be in the plans offered in the exchanges," she told PolitiFact. That "will depend on which companies participate in the exchanges, whether they have a relationship with those plans, and the payment rates that the plan will use for the exchange. Many states have pushed plan premiums way below what the companies thought it would take and may come in with narrow networks to live within those rates." News reports indicate that some health care insurance companies are forgoing some state exchanges, at least for now. Aetna announced Aug. 2 that it was pulling out of Maryland’s individual exchange. We interviewed spokespersons at a few health care companies and learned that United Health plans to participate in about a dozen exchanges, while Aetna plans to join about 14. Cigna currently offers individual plans in 10 states and has chosen half for initial participation in exchanges. This means for consumers who now have a particular insurance company and have to buy a plan on the exchange, "whether your doctor might be on other plans is a crapshoot -- maybe yes, maybe no," Wilensky said. • Medicare: Jeff Johnson, state director of Florida AARP, said that nothing in the Affordable Care Act would force patients on Medicare to switch doctors. Future changes to Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors "could affect doctors getting out of Medicare." However, that has been an issue years before Obamacare. The "sustainable growth rate" passed into law under President Bill Clinton is supposed to set Medicare reimbursement costs but is routinely bypassed by Congress. "The Affordable Care Act did not include a permanent fix to that," he said. Judith Stein, executive director of Center for Medicare Advocacy, said every year doctors decide whether to continue serving patients on Medicare or Medicare Advantage -- and that’s unrelated to Obamacare. With Medicare Advantage, doctors consider how many of their patients are on the plan, reimbursement rates and administrative hassles "It may be your Medicare Advantage plan may not include your doctor next year, but not because of Obamacare. ... That has always been the case and continues to be the case." Our ruling Rubio said that for people who currently have health insurance, "They have a doctor they’ve been seeing for the last 15 or 20 years, they won’t be able to keep going to that doctor," due to Obamacare. Rubio ignores the fact that without Obamacare, patients can lose access to their doctor when their employer switches plans or they switch (or lose) jobs. Some patients who buy health insurance through the exchange could lose access to their current doctor, but it’s difficult to predict how many. We rate this claim .


Walter Reed Medical Center guidelines prohibit the use or distribution of religious items during visits with patients.

Explanation: WRNMMC prides itself on embodying the principles of the “Patient and Family Care” philosophy, to include the spiritual and holistic health of our Wounded, Ill, Injured Warriors, and their families. The WRNMMC care paradigm finds the holistic and family elements of care to be important to the overall rehabilitation path of our patients. The Integrated Healthcare Delivery System, of which WRNMMC is an integral part, is bolstered by the combined holistic and spiritual capabilities of the integrated healthcare teams of the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, and Public Health medical establishments who remain dedicated to enhancing the holistic, mental, physical, and spiritual health needs of our Wounded, Ill, and Injured Warriors, their families and our beneficiaries.

Uncategorized, bible ban, todd starnes, walter reed

Example: [Collected via e-mail, December 2011] The soldiers who wake up in Walter Reed Medical Center are in Maryland — not communist China. But under the Navy’s new rules, they may not know the difference! Navy officials have announced that “no religious items (including Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit.” The new orders are buried in a four-page document about patient care, which an Army officer forwarded to us in disbelief. Effective immediately, families, friends, and even pastors will have to check their beliefs at the door to visit one of the largest military hospitals in the United States. Summary: A guideline memo issued by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in September 2011 stated that “religious items” (including Bibles) could not be used or given away during visits with patients at that facility. The rule was not enforced, however, and was rescinded four months later, hence the condition described in the above-quoted example no longer exists and is therefore outdated. Origins: On 14 September 2011, Col. C.W. Callahan, Chief of Staff of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, issued a memorandum headed “WOUNDED, ILL AND INJURED PARTNERS IN CARE GUIDELINES” with the expressed purpose of providing revised guidelines for the hospital’s patient visitation policies. Most of the memo dealt with routine matters such as setting visiting hours and maximum group sizes, but one item near the end of the memo caused a good deal of public outcry when it was made public: No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit. The intent of that stipulation was claimed to be the protection of patients from unwanted proselytizing, but the memo was worded so broadly that it read as an absolute ban on visitors’ using Bibles or other religious materials during visits to Walter Reed Medical Center, even those brought by family members to receptive patients. After the issue became public, Walter Reed officials quickly issued statements proclaiming the policy as worded in the memo was incorrect, had not been enforced, and had since been rescinded. As the Navy Times reported of the controversy in December 2011: A section of the guidelines designed to protect patients from proselytizers was rescinded after Rep. Steve King of Iowa discussed it on the House floor, asserting it violated the First Amendment protecting free exercise of religion.The intent was to respect patients’ religious practices and preserve their privacy, explained hospital spokeswoman Sandy Dean. She said patients often are visited by volunteers from benevolent organizations as well as strangers, ranging from celebrities, politicians and well-meaning VIPs, and the guidelines were developed to respect patients’ own beliefs. “If the family, if friends, wanted to bring things in, it was fine,” Dean said. “The way the policy was written was incorrect. We are rewriting the policy,” she said. Dean said the guidelines are necessary because the hospital needs to protect its patients, who declare their religious preferences when they arrive. “We want to make sure that visitors are respecting our patients’ religious practices and culture,” she said. Hospital leaders are revising the policy carefully but she could not say when it would be complete. “We are having a lot of eyes on it to ensure it’s articulated correctly,” she said. Another memorandum dated 24 January 2012 canceled the earlier controversial instructions, and an information paper from May 2012 explained the situation the previous policy had attempted to address: The policy in question was established after receiving complaints from Warriors and their families at both Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center who were approached by unsolicited faith-based groups visiting the inpatient wards. Patients and families reported that these groups were proselytizing and making disparaging remarks about Warrior’s service, sometimes using threatening and condemning language. According to the patients, some visits were persistent and repeated.The WRNMMC policy was not intended to nor did it ever have the effect of limiting religious expression of patients. The policy as written was incorrect and should have been more thoroughly reviewed before its release. It has been rescinded. Family members have been and will always be allowed to bring religious materials and texts. Subsequently, the new “Patient Visitation Policy” WRNATMILMEDCEN INSTRUCTION 5720.4D was reissued on 24 January 2012 with all incorrect verbiage and implications removed.


Virtual Colonoscopy Can Spot Cancers Outside Colon

Explanation: Based on a news release. No independent expert perspective. Numbers that inflated the supposed benefit and hid the possible harms. Awful. Add this story to the pile of hype that has accumulated to support newer virtual colonoscopy despite the hidden but even higher piles of evidence raising legitimate questions about its expanded use. This story did not serve the public good.

No discussion of cost of virtual colonoscopy. And, since a conventional colonoscopy must still be performed if abnormalities are found, the costs quickly mount in the face of anything suspicious. But remember: this story was about abnormal findings outside the colon – 76% of which were found to be insigificant. But we weren’t given any estimate of the significant costs expended to show that 76% of these findings were insignificant. How can you NOT discuss cost in the context of this story? The quantification that was given – the 78% increased odds of identifying high-risk lesions" – was not at all helpful, for reasons we described in the "evidence" criterion above. There wasn’t a word about a downside, a disadvantage, a harm of virtual colonoscopy. In the use in question, 76% of people might consider it a harm that a test that suggested a problem outside the colon were actually told this was an insignificant finding. Fun with numbers. The story says that 2,277 people had a virtual colonoscopy. Cancers and lesions outside the colon were identified in 1,037 patients – 787 insignificant and 240 significant. That means 76% were insignificant. But it also means that 10% of those who had the scan were found to have significant lesions. The story didn’t provide those percentages. But it did provide the unexplained stat that "virtual colonoscopy increased the odds of identifying high risk lesions by 78%." Where do those numbers come from? A story on MedPageToday explained where that number came from when it said, "CT colonography detected 16 high-risk lesions, whereas nine would have been identified by optical colonoscopy, resulting in a 78% increase in the yield of high-risk lesions." So, remember, you’re using this technology on 2,277 people in order to find 7 high-risk lesions that would not have been found by traditional colonoscopy. This story could not have failed much worse in explaining the evidence. The subhead – in what it says and in what it doesn’t say – is disease-mongering, in our view. It says that that the "less invasive procedure raises chances of finding high-risk lesions." But it raised the chances much higher of finding what were termed "insignificant" lesions. Why wasn’t THAT in the headline? The implication to readers is, "Run out and get a virtual colonoscopy – you need to find these high-risk lesions!" The fact that 3 out of 4 findings didn’t need to be found – and the fact that the subhead and the story don’t emphasize that – is disease-mongering.


The Titanic went to a watery grave carrying a cursed mummy in its hold.

Explanation: In case you’re curious (and have some vacation time to spare), the coffin lid of the Priestess of Amun is still on display at the British Museum, just as it was when Stead and Murray created their infamous “cursed mummy” tale a century ago. Look for exhibit BM No. 22542, in the Second Egyptian Room.

The following tale sends chills down your spine, doesn’t it? Of all tales of the supernatural, this one is perhaps the best documented, the most disturbing and the most difficult to explain …  The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500 years before Christ. When she died, she was laid in an ornate wooden coffin and buried deep in a vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. In the late 1890s, 4 rich young Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an exquisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of Princess of Amen-Ra. They drew lots. The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining 3 men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely wounded it had to be amputated. The third man in the foursome found on his return home that the bank holding his entire savings had failed. The fourth guy suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street. Nevertheless, the coffin reached England (causing other misfortunes along the way), where it was bought by a London businessman. After 3 of his family members had been injured in a road accident and his house damaged by fire, the businessman donated it to the British Museum. As the coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passerby. Then as the casket was being lifted up the stairs by 2 workmen, 1 fell and broke his leg. The other, apparently in perfect health, died unaccountably two days later. Once the Princess was installed in the Egyptian Room, trouble really started. The Museum’s night watchmen frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the coffin. Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night. One watchman died on duty; making the other watchmen wanting to quit. Cleaners refused to go near the Princess too. When a visitor derisively flicked a dustcloth at the face painted on the coffin, his child died of measles soon afterwards. Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement figuring it could not do any harm down there. Within a wk, one of the helpers was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead on his desk. By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took a picture of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the coffin was of a horrifying, human face. The photographer was said to have gone home then, locked his bedroom door and shot himself. Soon afterwards, the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. After continual misfortune (and deaths), the owner banished it to the attic. A well known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, visited the premises. Upon entry, she was sized with a shivering fit and searched the house for the source of an evil influence of incredible intensity; She finally came to the attic and found the mummy case. Can you exorcise this evil spirit? Asked the owner. There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever. Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as soon as possible. But no British museum would take the mummy; the fact that almost 20 people had met with misfortune, disaster or death from handling the casket, in barely 10 years, was now well known. Eventually, a hardheaded American archaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of circumstance), paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for its removal to New York. In Apr 1912, the new owner escorted its treasure aboard a sparkling, new White Star liner about to make its maiden voyage to New York. On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic. The name of the ship was of course, the H.M.S. TITANIC [sic]. Ah, but it’s only a ghost story: no mummy (cursed or otherwise) was carried as cargo by the ill-fated RMS Titanic on its one and only voyage. First of all, the tale is logically inconsistent. One of the few names quoted in the piece is that of Helena Blavatsky, a well-known occultist of the period. And we’re told the dreaded Princess of Amen-Ra was purchased in Luxor, Egypt, by four foolish young Englishmen “in the late 1890s,” while later in the same piece we’re informed of Helena Blavatsky’s dire pronouncements to the private collector who supposedly had possession of the mummy right before it was shipped on the Titanic. These claims cannot both be true, because Helena Blavatsky died of influenza in 1891, but the Titanic‘s first and only voyage didn’t take place until 1912. As for the facts of the matter, in 1985, Charles Haas, president of the national Titanic Historical Society, gained access to the ship’s cargo manifest and cargo diagrams. Though the cargo included raw feathers, linen, straw, hatter’s fur, tissue, auto parts, leather, rabbit hair, elastics, hair nets and refrigerating apparatus, not so much as one mummy was listed. Speaking to the legend that a cursed mummy was on board, Haas said, “The cargo manifest throws those myths right out the window.”   Other experts have come to the same conclusion: no mummy — least of all one “of the vengeful Princess of Amen-Ra” — was shipped aboard the Titanic. (Of course, the fact that the ship’s manifest listed no gold and no insurance claims were filed for valuable gems hasn’t stopped people from believing that those objects went down with the Titanic as well.) Note that “Amen-Ra” isn’t the name of a place; it’s the name of an Egyptian god, one whose name means “the hidden one”. He was seen as the creator of all things and, with his consort Mut and their son the moon-god Khonshu, was worshipped in the great temples of Luxor and Karnak. In fact, the mummy to which this story refers (which was actually just the coffin lid, not the mummy, of the Priestess of Amun) never left the British Museum, and it is still there to this day. So how did this fanciful tale begin? This ghost story was concocted around the turn of the century by two Englishmen named William Stead and Douglas Murray. Stead was a well-known journalist and editor who crusaded on behalf of liberal causes and created a national scandal when he published an article entitled “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” describing how he was able to purchase the services of a thirteen-year-old prostitute for £5. Stead was also a believer  in mysticism and spiritualism who consulted mediums, investigated psychic phenomena,  and published a related periodical. We don’t know much about Murray — he’s been described as an “Egyptologist” and as the man who shipped the mummy in question to London in the first place, although he was probably neither. Stead and Murray crafted an elaborate horror story about a mummy that was brought to England and set up in the drawing room of an acquaintance of theirs. The morning after the mummy arrived, they claimed, everything breakable in the room was destroyed. The mummy was moved from room to room within the house, but each move resulted in the same destruction of all the breakable objects at hand. Wherever the mummy went, it brought sickness, death and destruction to its owner. Sometime after Stead and Murray invented their mummy tale, they were visiting the First Egyptian Room of the British Museum and noticed the coffin lid of the Priestess of Amun. They concocted yet another story that the look of terror and anguish in the face depicted on the coffin lid indicated that the coffin’s original occupant was a tormented soul, and her evil spirit was now loose in the world. Stead and Murray told their fanciful tale to eager newspaper reporters who — then as now — weren’t about to let the truth get in the way of a sensationally good story. The two stories were conflated into one and spread widely, and the Priestess of Amun came to be identified as the mummy whose mortal remains wreaked havoc wherever they were stored. This ghost story made the leap from London to the Titanic after William Stead went down with the ill-fated ship on 15 April 1912. Stead was traveling to America at President Taft’s request to address a peace conference, and he took delight in relating his “cursed mummy” tale to Titanic passengers. He reportedly defied superstition by starting his narrative at a dinner party on Friday, the 12th of April, and drew it out so that he concluded the tale just after midnight on the 13th. A few days after the Titanic‘s sinking, one of the survivors recounted Stead’s “cursed mummy” tale in an interview with the New York World, and eventually the ghost story Stead and Murray invented, Stead’s presence aboard the Titanic, and reports of Stead’s having related the mummy tale to Titanic passengers became jumbled together, producing a new legend about an actual mummy aboard the Titanic. The modified legend told of a cursed mummy the British Museum was so anxious to be rid of that they sold it to an American, who naturally sought to ship it back home via the Titanic. The presence of the cursed mummy (which had escalated the expressions of its wrath from breaking cups and saucers and making people ill to sinking passenger liners) in the Titanic‘s hold came to be whispered as the cause of the most famous maritime disaster in history. In an even more elaborate version of the legend, the mummy’s American owner paid a bribe to have the mummy placed in one of the Titanic‘s lifeboats; it was then smuggled aboard the Carpathia when that ship picked up the Titanic‘s survivors and secretly landed in New York. When the mummy continued to wreak havoc at its new home, its new owner had it taken to Canada in preparation for shipping it back to England. The mummy was placed aboard the liner Empress of Ireland, which, while on its way from Quebec City to Liverpool on 29 May 1914, was struck by a Norwegian coal ship. The Empress of Ireland sank so quickly that only 7 of her 40 lifeboats could be launched, and 840 passengers went down with her. As to how widespread this “curse of the mummy” stuff is, some of the crew members on a failed 1980 expedition to locate the sunken Titanic spoke darkly of the famous mummy that was allegedly on board her, saying it transferred the curse of all who disturbed its grave to the vessel’s maiden voyage and all subsequent search efforts. (Yeah. Like it couldn’t have been plain bad luck. And what was the mummy doing back on the Titanic after having sailed on the Empress of Ireland?) In looking to blame their bad luck on an outside force they couldn’t possibly have hoped to defeat, those crew members weren’t all that unusual. They merely brought into play a standard avoidance technique employed to keep us from having to confront what a scary, random world this place can be. In the wake of any disaster, there’s a strong urge to explain away the tragedy by ascribing it to some dark power beyond our control. As inconceivable as this might seem at first blush, it’s easier for many people to accept that a cursed mummy was the cause of great loss of life than it is to co-exist with the knowledge that sometimes even unthinkable accidents will happen. Being at the mercy of the God of Random Chance is far more frightening a reality to face than any vengeful mummy will ever be. Ghost stories like this one reaffirm our faith in the world being a predictable (and therefore safe) place. If a great tragedy such as the sinking of the Titanic can be explained away as the direct result of the evil forces of the supernatural’s being stirred up, we can again feel safe about placing our faith in the inherent safety of great ships, airplanes or even automobiles. Beyond the reassurance factor, such tales also make darned good storytelling. That too lies at the heart of their appeal.


Tourist may have brought measles to Southern California.

Explanation: A New Zealand teenager who visited Disneyland and other Southern California tourist spots last week brought along more than just her luggage. She brought measles.

Los Angeles, Health, Measles, General News, New Zealand, California, Santa Ana, Public health

Public health officials in Los Angeles and Orange counties issued a warning Friday that people may have been exposed to the disease if they were at Disneyland or the Disney California Adventure Park on Aug. 12. The girl had measles when she arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Aug. 11 and went to the Desert Palms Hotel in Anaheim, officials said. After Disneyland, she is believed to have gone to Universal Studios, the TCL Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds in Hollywood, and the Santa Monica beach and pier on Aug. 14-15, authorities said. The girl has since returned to New Zealand, said Dr. Nichole Quick, Orange County’s health care officer. The California Department of Public Health said it wasn’t aware of any measles cases resulting from exposure to the traveler but is continuing to investigate. However, local health agencies said it can take up to 21 days after exposure for symptoms, such as fever and rash, to appear. “Measles is spread by air and by direct contact even before you know have it,” said Dr. Muntu Davis, Los Angeles County’s health officer. Quick urged anyone who has symptoms to call a health care provider before going to the doctor to avoid additional exposures. People are also urged to check their records to determine if they have been vaccinated or previously had measles. Quick said she expects to see more measles cases, generally, among international travelers who visit California because of an increase in the illness overseas. “We’re in general concerned with the outbreaks going on in places in this country as well as internationally,” she said. Measles cases are rising around the world. The number of cases nearly tripled globally during the first seven months of the year compared with the same period in 2018, the World Health Organization reported this month. New Zealand — and the United States — are dealing with their worst outbreaks in decades. Disneyland officials on Friday said no employees at the theme park were reported to have contracted the illness. Dr. Pamela Hymel, Disneyland’s chief medical officer, said in a statement that health officials said the risk to employees and visitors “is likely low.” “We maintain rigorous sanitation standards to protect guests and cast, and earlier this year we strengthened our immunization program and educational resources for cast members,” the statement said. Disneyland and adjacent Disney California Adventure Park are major tourist destinations, drawing tens of thousands of visitors a day. In 2015, a measles outbreak involving Disneyland sickened 147 people and spread across the U.S. and into Canada. As of early this month, Los Angeles County health officials reported 16 measles cases among county residents this year and — in addition to the New Zealand girl — 10 others among non-residents who traveled through.