A stranger who stopped to change a tire on a disabled limo was rewarded for his efforts when the vehicle's passenger, Donald Trump, paid off his mortgage.

Explanation: Even with a straight news story like this, a bit of manufactured memory has changed many people’s recall of the event. There are those who now swear they saw Donald Trump hand over an oversized, Ed McMahon-type check on TV. Likely this “Publisher’s Clearing House” mental image fits in better with our notion of how a celebrity would reward an ordinary fellow, hence the substituted memory.

Reputed to have come from Donald Trump’s publicity people, the following tale found its way into the news media via the magazine Forbes in February 1996: This may well be the public relations gesture of the year. During the 1995 Christmas holidays, Donald Trump and Marla Maples find themselves marooned in their stretch limo with a flat tire on a busy stretch of New Jersey highway. Finally, a passing motorist spots the limo in distress and offers to help the chauffeur change the tire. Driver says, sure. Before the re-tired limo rolls off, the darkened window rolls down and an effusive Trump asks what he and his wife can do to repay the favor. Just send my wife a big bouquet of flowers, says the guy, handing Trump a card with his wife’s name and their address. Two weeks later a gargantuan bouquet of orchids arrives with a card reading, “We paid off your home mortgage, Marla and Donald.” The Trumps flackery won’t reveal the lucky chap’s name, but Informer hears Trump forked over more than $100,000 for the gesture. Eyebrows should have been raised by this tale, as even back in the mid-1990s it was already a recognized urban legend that had been told about many other celebrities. Casting doubt on the notion that it subsequently became a true legend was the lack of checkable details provided by Trump’s people, as exemplified by 1996 news reports that noted “The Trumps flackery won’t reveal the lucky chap’s name, but Informer hears Trump forked over more than $100,000 for the gesture.” Speaking plainly, we have an unsubstantiated rumor of celebrity good-deeding being spread by those who work for a man who courts the limelight at every opportunity. The tale’s details are fuzzy, too: one version has the event occurring while Donald Trump was married to Ivana and driving in Michigan, yet other versions place it during his marriage to Marla and had him driving in New Jersey or in Canada near Casino Niagara. In every case what’s lacking is confirmation from the lad whose mortgage was paid, the limousine driver, or anyone who worked at the tire-changer’s bank (and would thus have been in on the mortgage’s retirement). Is it reasonable to assume someone so rewarded would fail to tell his family, friends, and co-workers about his encounter with a famous millionaire, especially the part about the wealthy one’s repaying a small kindness in so overwhelming a fashion? Is it reasonable that his wife would similarly remain silent? If you think not, you should be asking why the tire-changer’s name is still unknown, why his story didn’t escape into the community where he lives and from there make its way to the media, why you’ve yet to see so much as one televised interview with him. In fact, back in 1997, when the Donald Trump version of the tale was still relatively new, Trump’s office was actively denying its truthfulness: The implausible story making the rounds at Toronto doughnut shops is that somebody’s newphew’s friend’s cousin, Joe, was driving down Highway 401 in his pickup truck when he spotted a white stretch limousine, with its hood up, on the shoulder. Joe, being a good samaritan, stopped to help. Within minutes, he got the limo running and a grateful driver asked for Joe’s card so he could send him a little something. “Nah,” Joe said. “It was nothing. I was just trying to be helpful.” The driver insisted, so Joe gave him a card and forgot about it. A week later, he got a call from his bank informing him that his $160,000 mortgage had been paid off by Donald Trump, who was a passenger in the limo. “We’ve heard the story,” said an irritated-sounding assistant of Mr. Trump’s at his New York office. “No, it isn’t true.” The story also fails the plausibility check: wouldn’t the driver of the limousine be able to change a tire on his own, or at least be able to make a cell phone call to AAA for assistance with a minor mechanical problem? Trump’s first wife, Ivana, could — and indeed did — change a tire when sidelined with a flat, making it all the more surprising Trump’s chauffeur lacked this skill yet apparently kept his job (especially in light of his employer’s notorious impatience with those who fail to perform). Gulling a number of people was The Donald’s own confirmation of the tale during a January 2005 episode of his television series, The Apprentice. When asked about the veracity of this legend by one of those vying for the show’s ultimate prize, Trump simply responded, “That’s true.” For many, his saying so was all the proof that mattered. Yet he is far from the first celebrity to claim an item of contemporary lore as an anecdote from his own life (see our page about the Hare Dryer legend for a number of such examples). Moreover, news accounts from 2016 revealed that Trump had long been posing as a publicist to brag about himself, and he has a decades-old reputation for being less than truthful about himself, as illustrated by this excerpt from a 1997 New Yorker article: Alair Townsend, a former deputy mayor in the Koch administration, once quipped, “I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized.” In time, this bon mot became misattributed to Leona Helmsley, who was only too happy to claim authorship. Last fall [1996] after Evander Holyfield upset Mike Tyson in a heavyweight title fight, Trump snookered the News into reporting that he’d collected twenty million bucks by betting a million on the underdog. This prompted the Post to make calls to some Las Vegas bookies who confirmed — shockingly! — that nobody had been handling that kind of action or laying odds close to 20-1. Trump never blinked, just moved on to the next bright idea. The legend of the good Samaritan, the disabled car, and the celebrity’s generosity has been told of others over the years. It’s a classic windfall legend. Each of us would like to believe an ordinary kindness on our part would result in manna from heaven falling our way, which is why this legend speaks directly to us. We can see ourselves on the receiving end of all those golden goodies, and it reaffirms our faith in the world in that we want to believe good deeds don’t go unrewarded. Oscar Wilde used a similar plot for his 1891 short story “A Model Millionaire.” In it, Hughie is a lad who has stopped to visit an artist friend. He is momentarily left alone in the company of the wretch the painter is using as his model and is touched by the old man’s tattered appearance. He slips the beggar a gold sovereign, realizing it’s all the mad money he has for the month but that the elderly fellow needs it so much more than he does. The beggar smiles, pockets the coin, and thanks Hughie. We later discover the beggar is in reality Baron Hausberg, a millionaire who for no clearly stated reason enjoys posing for this particular artist. The Baron sends a wedding gift of £10,000 to Hughie as his way of thanking the young man who was moved to help an unfortunate. We also found a Henry Ford version of this legend in a 1954 collection of inspirational tales: Honk-honk, honk-honk, honk-honk-honk. The old-fashioned horn was bellowing as the mechanical contraption came around the bend and rushed along the dusty road. The engine was roaring and the radiator hissing as the long-suffering warrior did twenty-five miles per hour. It was one of the earliest Ford cars; the Methuselah of engineering. Men said it would never die a natural death: it would either commit suicide or be smashed by modern unpredictables. Honk-honk, chug-chug-chug; and the wizened old farmer, with a thick growth of beard darkening his chin, steered his car homeward. Suddenly, ahead of him he saw a beautiful car drawn up by the roadside. It was an immaculate product of modern engineering. Long and low, its lines were fascinating; but it was at a standstill! As the farmer drew nearer he recognized that some kind of engine trouble had interrupted the progress of the other travellers. The shining bonnet of the beautiful car had been lifted, and the chauffeur, with cap pushed well back on his head, was perplexedly staring at the unresponsive engine. With a sound of squealing brakes the old car was brought to a halt, and as a rusty door swung open, the farmer came out to ask, “What’s wrong?” The stranger responded, “I don’t know. The engine has stopped.” The newcomer looked inside the bonnet, and then announced his readiness to tow the car to the garage seven miles away. The stranded driver casually lifted his eyebrows and answered, “You’ll tow me to the garage!” What with? That!” And his finger indicated the noisy model T. The farmer’s chest expanded, and he seemed about to explode; but the eruption died, and he answered, “Yes, with that. You’ll see.” He lifted a rope from the back of his car, placed it in position, and said, “Now get in, and I’ll show you.” Slowly the great car was taken along the roads, and finally, as the garage came into view, the farmer smiled and prepared to stop. “Well! She did it, didn’t she?” The two drivers were then joined by a third man, who all the while had been sitting in the back of the broken-down limousine. Quietly he asked, “What do I owe you, sir?” The farmer’s eyes narrowed as he repeated, “What do you owe? Nothing. It’s a ____ of a do if we can’t help each other without being paid for it. No. Nothing. Pleased to help you. Good day.” He coiled his rope, climbed into the driving seat, and soon disappeared in a cloud of dust. The silent passenger calmly watched his departure, and then smiled. He nodded and quietly repeated to himself, “It’s a ____ of a do if we can’t help each other without being paid for it.” In due course the wheezy, asthmatical model T reached the end of its career. It has not been placed on record whether the end came suddenly, or whether the closing months were marred by internal disorders. The fact is that the old car succumbed to the ravages of time, and was given a respectable funeral in the junk yard. The day after the ceremony, the bereaved farmer was somewhat astounded to find a new Ford car standing a few yards from his door. The old man paused. Had someone called? No! He rubbed his eyes; the car was so new, so glossy, so desirable. He walked around it, and then opened the door to inspect the interior. He saw a message written on a label tied to the steering wheel. “It’s a ____ of a do if we can’t help each other without being paid for it.” The passenger who had offered in vain to pay for the towing of his car had been the great manufacturer — Henry Ford. Probably he had been fascinated by the achievement of one of his earlier models, and when its proud owner refused remuneration, he thought of another way to pay his debt. Probably he commissioned the garage owner to keep watch, and when the old model T ceased to function, to present, with Henry Ford’s compliments, a new car to the kind-hearted farmer. In 1989 the variation of the moment of the unrecognized celebrity rescued by a Samaritan starred Mrs. Nat King Cole. Car troubles supposedly stranded her on the shoulder of a Los Angeles freeway, and she was said to have rewarded the kind man who stopped to render assistance with a new car (variously reported as a Cadillac, Lincoln, or Rolls-Royce.) In 1997 a version of the Mrs. Nat King Cole legend tied to the death of her husband was circulating on the Internet. It appears to have been lifted word for word from the 1997 book Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul: One night, at 11:30 PM, an older African-American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rain storm. Her car had broken down, and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her — generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxi cab. She seemed to be in a big hurry! However, she wrote down his address, thanked him, and drove away. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man’s door. To his surprise, a giant combination console color TV and stereo record player were delivered to his home. A special note was attached. The note read:  Dear Mr. James: Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes but my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others. Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole.” Though it’s a lovely story, it too didn’t happen. Nat King Cole died of lung cancer at dawn on 15 February 1965 in Santa Monica, California. He was hospitalized in December 1964, and on 25 January 1965 his left lung was removed. At least from the date of his operation until his death, Maria Cole was with him every day. There was no opportunity for her to have been stranded in the rain beside an Alabama highway in the weeks leading up to her husband’s death. She was sitting with him when he passed away, and none of the newspapers that commented on her vigil made mention of a last-minute dash to the hospital, an automotive breakdown, or a helpful Samaritan who got her there in time. Another version of the car breakdown legend gives the famous person as Perry Como and has him mailing his rescuer a set of keys to a new car. This tale is told as happening all over the place, so I wonder at Perry’s ability to buy all these people cars but not provide himself with reliable transportation. Yet another twist has the disabled car story happening to Como’s wife, and the payoff she provides is either a color TV or tickets to her husband’s upcoming concert. It’s also told of Mrs. Leon Spinks, and the reward she grants are tickets to her hubby’s upcoming fight in New Orleans. (Moral of the story: if you want the big ticket items, don’t settle for rescuing the wife of a celebrity; hold out for the man himself.) In February 2000, a version starring Bill Gates began circulating on the Internet: Apparently a couple returning home from a skiing trip in British Columbia spots a disabled car at the side of the road and a man in distress. Being good citizens they stop to help. The car has either a flat tire and the Good Samaritan fixes it quickly. The man was very grateful, but had no cash with him to reward them, so asked for their name and address so he could send them a little something. A week later the couple receives a call from their banker stating that their mortgage had been paid and $10,000 had been deposited in their account by a very grateful Bill Gates. Getting back to Donald Trump, we find that on at least one verifiable occasion he’s known to have bestowed largesse on a helpful stranger. Trump’s 79-year-old mother was mugged in 1991, suffering broken bones and severe facial bruises. A passing truck driver who witnessed the assault brought down the mugger and handed him over to justice. (The robber was later sentenced to 3 to 9 years in prison). The Donald had dinner with the rescuer, his sister, and his son; offered the Samaritan a better job; and gave him a check for an undisclosed amount.


Santa Barbara Zoo’s elderly elephant Little Mac euthanized.

Explanation: Little Mac, a 48-year-old Asian elephant that was a fixture at the Santa Barbara Zoo for nearly all her life, was euthanized this week after a sharp decline in health, officials said.

Animals, Elephants, Health, General News, Travel, Santa Barbara, Travel, Asia Pacific, U.S. News

The zoo said Little Mac was euthanized around 7 p.m. Wednesday in her exhibit yard, surrounded by keepers and staff who cared for her over the years. She had been in what the zoo called hospice care after chronic problems with her teeth and arthritis in her legs were compounded by the onset of other medical problems in June, said Julie Barnes, the zoo’s vice president of animal care and health. “She continued to decline in spite of our best efforts, especially in the past two weeks,” Barnes said in a statement. “We had exhausted the medical options available that would allow her to have a good quality of life. It was time to let her go.” Little Mac came to the zoo from Mysore, India, in 1972 with another female Asian elephant in exchange for six California sea lions. At the time she was a 1½-year-old, 4-foot-tall (1.2-meter) apparent orphan found in a forest. She was named by Herb Peterson, the owner of several Santa Barbara-area McDonald’s restaurants who paid for the airline flight. Her companion, Sujatha, had been born to an elephant that worked in a logging camp. Sujatha was 47 when she was euthanized on Oct. 16, 2018, due to problems related to old age. Barnes said that Little Mac hadn’t shown any signs of depression or concerning behaviors after Sujatha’s death and if she hadn’t suddenly declined she likely would have been considered for transfer to a sanctuary or other facility where she could have been introduced to other elephants. Her death marks the end of the Santa Barbara Zoo’s elephant program. The zoo noted that it is offering staff and visitors resources for dealing with grief.


The Trump Administration’s policies have halted a research effort seeking a cure for HIV.

Explanation: Greene told us that after much internal debate, he and Hasenkrug plan on running that initial experiment anyway, with the hopes that the political climate will change in their favor come January 2019.

In September 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that they would be canceling a contract with a company called Advanced Bioscience Resources Inc. (ABR) to procure fetal tissue for federal medical research projects. The department alleged that they were not “sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements.” Using this development as pretext, HHS announced that they would additionally be conducting “a comprehensive review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure consistency with statutes and regulations governing such research, and to ensure the adequacy of procedures and oversight of this research in light of the serious regulatory, moral, and ethical considerations involved” — in effect putting a “pause” on all research that relied on fetal tissue. ABR supplied fetal tissue to two National Institutes of Health [NIH] laboratories, one of which uses the material to create what are known as humanized mice. In a broad sense, these mice have been bred, with the help of fetal human tissue, to express a human immune response, making them a cost-effective way to test the efficacy of immunotherapeutic drugs:  Such mice are particularly valuable for HIV drug testing in part because tissue from a single human fetus can readily generate a group of 40 to 50 genetically identical mice, and because the animals can, unlike monkeys, be infected with the human virus, HIV. Potential drugs can then be tested in such a group, with ample mice as controls, giving the studies robust statistical power. ABR had been the supplier of fetal tissue to NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Montana, which had been using humanized mice to test potential HIV therapies. In a grant report on that laboratory’s efforts to study HIV using humanized-mouse models during the 2016 fiscal year, NIH scientist Kim Hasenkrug indicated strong potential for their research methods to aid in the search for new treatments for HIV:  Experiments in FY2016 revealed that our … humanized mouse model can be used in long-term studies (up to one year) with [Antiretroviral Therapy, ART] administered by injections or via an oral route (drugs incorporated into mouse chow). Such mice develop chronic and latent HIV infections. We have demonstrated that HIV viral loads in these mice can be suppressed to levels undetectable by highly sensitive PCR tests for viremia and provirus. Warner Greene, the director of the Gladstone Center for HIV Cure Research in San Francisco, had been collaborating with RML to test potential antibody therapies on humanized mice, and he first told Science that the HHS “pause” on fetal tissue procurement meant that the researchers could not guarantee enough mice to complete a statistically robust study. In a phone call, he explained to us that:  What happened in September was that my NIH collaborator at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories [Kim Hasenkrug] was informed that he could no longer order fetal tissue from the sole source supplier, ABR, and so we [were told that we] could complete the [initial] experiment that [had already been set up], but in science you need to do multiple experiments. You can’t depend upon one experiment to see whether it’s repeatable, etc. So essentially this ban on fetal tissue stopped the line of investigation. Speaking to Science, Greene said that “Hasenkrug had not yet launched the experiment, and [RML’s] supplies of existing mice were too small to conduct the repeated experiments required to reach convincing scientific conclusions.” In a 9 December 2018 statement provided to Science after the publication’s original 7 December 2018 reporting, HHS acknowledged that they had (at least temporarily) blocked staff scientists from procuring fetal tissue, but that they did not think — or realize — such a move would have affected the study in question:  [In their statement, the NIH] said the agency in September “put a pause in place” for staff scientists procuring new human fetal tissue, “an action NIH thought was prudent given the examination of these procurements. Research with tissue already on hand could proceed, and NIH leaders asked to be notified by intramural investigators if new procurement would be necessary. NIH leadership was not informed that new procurement was necessary for the study you reference in your [7 December 2018 Science story]. We are looking into why this did not occur.”  In his interview with us, Greene stated that this explanation made no sense. “To my knowledge … we were never made aware that we should approach the NIH to inform them of our need for more fetal tissue to complete this investigation.” If such a request were required, Greene said, he and his team would have “acted upon it in a millisecond.” We also reached out to the director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (which oversees the Rocky Mountain Laboratory) for an update on the current status of the project and for clarification on the fetal tissue review’s impact on the study but have not received a response. However, as HHS has acknowledged both that they “put a pause in place” on fetal tissue procurement, and that this pause resulted in the inability of a trial seeking an HIV cure to move forward, it is factual to state that the Trump administration’s policies shut down (at least temporarily) scientists’ efforts to find a cure for HIV. Greene told us that NIH has been extremely supportive of their work, and that he feels that this change is “clearly a policy that’s … reflective of a new political situation in Washington, D.C., that’s now impacting our science.” Greene is one of many who viewed the 24 September announcement regarding fetal tissue research as a proxy debate over abortion. Chronologically, the announcement that the federal government would cut ties with ABR followed a campaign by several anti-abortion groups who explicitly sought to have the government cancel its contract with ABR, as reported in Science:  On 11 September, 45 anti-abortion groups wrote to HHS Secretary Alex Azar that they were “shocked and dismayed” by the FDA contract [with ABR]. On 17 September, 85 members of Congress wrote a similar letter to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb asking him to cancel the contract. Reacting to HHS’s actions [on 24 September], Alta Charo, a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said: “My instinct is that this is driven by politics, and is part of the overall effort to stigmatize and eventually criminalize abortion, as well as part of a larger campaign to roll back the clock on sexual and reproductive rights.”


Judge blocks graphic cigarette warnings.

Explanation: A federal judge blocked a rule requiring tobacco companies to display graphic images on cigarette packs, such as a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a hole in his throat.

Combination picture of new graphic cigarette packages, released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration June 21, 2011, shows a varied collection of a man on a ventilator, diseased lungs and dead bodies were among the graphic images for revamped U.S. tobacco labels, unveiled by health officials who hope the warnings will help smokers quit. REUTERS/U.S. Food and Drug Administration/Handout District Judge Richard Leon sided on Monday with tobacco companies and granted a temporary injunction, saying they would likely prevail in their lawsuit challenging the requirement as unconstitutional because it compels speech in violation of the First Amendment. The Food and Drug Administration in June released nine new warnings to go into effect in September of 2012, the first change in U.S. cigarette warning labels in 25 years. Cigarette packs already carry text warnings from the U.S. Surgeon General. The new warnings must cover the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs and 20 percent of printed advertisements and must contain color graphics depicting the health consequences of smoking, including diseased lungs, dead bodies and rotting teeth. Congress instructed FDA to impose the new labels as part of 2009 legislation making the agency responsible for regulating tobacco products. “The sheer size and display requirements for the graphic images are anything but narrowly tailored,” Leon wrote in a 29-page opinion. Just because Congress ordered the size and placement of the new warnings before charging the FDA with carrying out the mandate, “doing so does not enable this requirement to somehow automatically pass constitutional muster,” he said. The content of the images would also not likely survive constitutional muster because the FDA did not attempt to narrowly tailor those either, the judge said. The tobacco lawsuit is the latest effort by corporations to assert a right to free speech, a high-profile legal battle that could end up before the Supreme Court. Reynolds American Inc’s R.J. Reynolds unit, Lorillard Inc, Liggett Group LLC and Commonwealth Brands Inc, owned by Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, sued the FDA in August. They argued the new graphic warnings force them to “engage in anti-smoking advocacy” on the government’s behalf, breaching their right to free speech. The Obama administration’s options include appealing Leon’s ruling or the FDA could try to rewrite the rules. FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Yao said the agency did not comment on proposed, pending or ongoing litigation. Justice Department spokesman Charles Miller said the department was aware of the decision and was reviewing it. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable deaths in the United States, accounting for one in every five deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 21 percent of U.S. adults smoke cigarettes, a number little changed since 2004. Worldwide, tobacco kills nearly 6 million people every year, including more than 600,000 nonsmokers, according to the World Health Organization, which has repeatedly called for graphic images to appear on tobacco packs, saying the pictorial warnings actually work. The tobacco industry had asked Leon to block the FDA’s new requirements, pending a final decision on their constitutionality. They argued they needed a quick ruling because they would have to start in November or December and spend millions of dollars to comply with the requirements. Justice Department attorneys had argued that the money was a small fraction of the companies’ net sales, so they would not suffer irreparable harm without the temporary injunction. Government attorneys said the labels conveyed the dangers of smoking more effectively than words alone, and were needed to stop more people from smoking, especially teenagers. Judge Leon said the images provoked an emotional response rather than just providing factual and noncontroversial information, crossing the line into using company advertising for government advocacy. Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer representing Lorillard, called Leon’s ruling a “vindication for the well-established First Amendment principle that the government may not compel speech in the commercial area.”   He said the case was in its early stages and there was a “good chance” it will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The Dow Jones tobacco index, whose components include Altria, Lorillard and Reynolds American, was just 0.05 percent higher in afternoon trading amid mixed trading for broader U.S. stock indexes as investors kept a worried eye on European debt problems. Altria Group is not part of the lawsuit. The case is R.J Reynolds Tobacco Co et al v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration et al, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 11-cv-1482.


Over 37 million bees were killed by a large GMO cornfield planted in Ontario, Canada.

Explanation: Millions of bees died off in Canada, but the cause of those deaths was not linked to a GMO cornfield.

In October 2014, a rumor started circulating online that a GMO corn field in Ontario, Canada, was the cause of more than 37 million bee deaths. While it is true millions of bees were found to have died around that time in Canada, the cause of those deaths has not been definitively linked to GMO corn. The rumor started after OrganicHealth.com published an article titled 37 Million Bees Found Dead in Ontario, Canada After Planting Large GMO Corn Field:  Millions of bees dropped dead after GMO corn was planted few weeks ago in Ontario, Canada. The local bee keeper, Dave Schuit who produces honey in Elmwood lost about 37 million bees which are about 600 hives. “Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. The Organic Health article was basically a repurposed version of two articles published by The Post in June 2013 and CBC News in August 2013. Neither of those articles mentioned GMO corn. In fact, the Organic Health article never truly blamed GMO corn for killing millions of bees. Other than the title and the first sentence, Organic Health steered away from the idea that a GMO corn field caused 37 million bees to die in Canada and instead aligned with the conclusions drawn by the Post and CBC News: The culprit behind the devastating bee deaths in Canada is believed to be neonicotinoid pesticides: “What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted.” While the idea that GMO corn is causing millions of bees to perish around the world is intriguing, it is also unproven. The same could be said for neonicotinoid pesticides, of course, but the evidence is starting to tip towards the latter. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), an arm of Health Canada that regulates pesticides, investigated the bee death incident in Ontario and found that neonicotinoids were likely to blame:  In the spring and summer of 2012, Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) received a significant number of honey bee mortality reports from the provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario. A portion of these mortalities were determined to be associated with spray drift, however, an unusually high number of reports of honey bee mortalities were received from beekeepers in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec. The majority of reports were from southern Ontario, involving over 40 beekeepers and 240 different bee yard locations. Additionally, one report was received from Quebec involving eight bee yards. Timing and location of these honey bee mortalities appeared to coincide with planting corn seed treated with insecticides. The information evaluated suggests that planting of corn seeds treated with the nitro guanidine insecticides clothianidin and/or thiamethoxam contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities that occurred in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec in Spring 2012. The likely route of exposure was insecticide contaminated dust generated during the planting of treated corn seed. The unusual weather conditions in the spring of 2012 were likely also a contributing factor. The Ontario Beekeeper’s Association, which claims that Ontario has seen a 35% decrease in honey bees over the last two years, recently started a petition calling for a provincial ban on neonicotinoids:  Ontario’s bees are dying in massive numbers due to the pervasive use of neonicotinoid pesticides on our agricultural field crops. Fully a third of our food relies on pollinators: without bees, Ontario’s food supply could be in serious trouble. Further, these chemicals leach into soils, groundwater and waterways, and can persist for years, killing not only bees, but other pollinators, aquatic insects, amphibians and birds. We already have sufficient evidence to prove that neonicotinoid pesticides are killing our bees. Canada’s Pesticide Management Regulatory Agency has confirmed that last year’s widespread bee deaths in Ontario were caused by neonicotinoid pesticides. As well, dozens of independent, peer reviewed scientific research studies have concluded that these pesticides pose a significant threat to bees and other wildlife. Furthermore, science and experience has shown that neonicotinoids don’t really increase agricultural yield in the long run.


Selenium Supplements Might Give Modest Benefit Against Cholesterol

Explanation: This story about selenium’s effects on cholesterol points out some key limitations in a new study. It explains that the trial was conducted in Britain, where people generally have lower selenium intakes than in the U.S. — so the results may not apply here. And it was careful not to suggest that selenium might be an alternate to statin drugs or other remedies for high cholesterol. The story did not provide as many details as the competing Reuters report on this study, however. The effects of selenium on cholesterol levels were not quantified, and there was no information on costs. Selenium is a component of multivitamins taken by millions of Americans on a daily basis. Selenium supplements are also taken individually in the hope that they will ward off chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease. While there isn’t much evidence that supplementation reduces the risk of these diseases in healthy individuals (and might increase the risk of diabetes), the results of this new research at least provide some reassurance that selenium won’t raise your cholesterol, which might increase your cardiovascular risk.

The cost of selenium supplements probably isn’t a big issue for most individual consumers, but across our society the costs are substantial. Some discussion of this would have been appropriate. Although the story correctly explains that selenium supplements are not an effective means to reduce cholesterol levels, the coverage is too vague when it says that individuals taking selenium “experienced a slight drop in both bad cholesterol (LDL) and overall cholesterol levels” and that “Good cholesterol (HDL) levels rose a bit solely among those assigned to the highest selenium dosage.” Instead of relying on imprecise descriptions such as “slight” and “a bit,” the story should have provided the actual numbers, as the competing Reuters story did. The Reuters story also described the ranges for normal and elevated cholesterol levels, which helps puts the changes observed into context. The story was a little confusing on this point. It initially says that selenium’s safety “has not been studied,” but later quotes a researcher who says there is an increased risk for type 2 diabetes with selenium supplements in individuals whose blood levels are already high. The story does note that there were no serious side effects in the selenium supplement users participating in this study, but it could have qualified this by mentioning the relatively short duration of the study (6 months) and the potential for problems with longer-term use. Too much selenium can also, in rare cases, result in condition called selenosis, which includes symptoms such as gastrointestinal upsets, hair loss, white blotchy nails, garlic breath odor, fatigue, irritability, and mild nerve damage. A toss-up here, but since the story indicated that this was not a risk-free intervention and reported on the study findings as appropriate, we’ll rule it satisfactory. The story discusses some limitations of the study, including the fact that participants were all from the UK, where selenium intake is lower than in the U.S; Americans won’t necessarily experience the same cholesterol reductions seen in the study. The story is also careful to explain that selenium had a “minor impact” on cholesterol and is “not advisable as an effective means to combat high cholesterol.” We wish that the story had included more information about the design of the study, particularly the dosage of selenium taken in each of the 3 supplementation groups. The story describes the dosages as “low” “intermediate” or “high,” but it should have quantified them. Overall, though, we’ll call it good enough for a satisfactory. The story doesn’t exaggerate the prevalence of selenium deficiency or otherwise try to scare people into taking supplements. An independent expert source was quoted and there were no obvious conflicts of interest that weren’t disclosed. The story notes that bread in the U.S. is a good source of selenium, and that U.S. consumers generally have no need to take a supplement. So, there’s really no need to talk about alternatives. We’ll rule it not applicable. The story doesn’t really explain what selenium is, why someone would want to take a selenium supplement, or where one can find them. While many readers will know the answers to these questions, selenium is obscure enough, in our view, to warrant at least some background context on these issues. The story states that many other studies have looked at the cholesterol impact of selenium supplements, with differing results. We couldn’t find a news release that was issued for this particular study. But by including an independent expert source, the story assures us that it didn’t rely exclusively on PR materials.


“President Trump has come into contact with a potential coronavirus sufferer!”

Explanation: There is no evidence President Donald Trump came into direct contact with a coronavirus sufferer. Trump shook hands at a conference with Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and Conservative Political Action Conference. Schlapp days earlier had had contact with a man who has been confirmed to have the coronavirus. Schlapp reportedly has no symptoms.

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

A Facebook post on March 9, 2020, the day stock markets were rattled by news about the coronavirus, carried this headline about President Donald Trump and the Conservative Political Action Conference: "Trump shakes hands with CPAC Chairman — President Trump has come into contact with a potential coronavirus sufferer!" The post, shared by United Kingdom-based Daily Mail, was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The headline exaggerates what happened and raises alarm over the possibility that Trump has been exposed to coronavirus. Based on current reporting, that’s not what we know. A Daily Mail spokesman told us the post would be edited to make it clearer. Indeed, before we published this check, they changed it to read, "The chairman of the American Conservative Union has revealed that he interacted with a 55-year-old man infected with coronavirus before shaking hands with Donald Trump." Let’s take a look. The Daily Mail post includes a looping video clip of Trump on stage at CPAC and shaking hands with a white-haired man before taking the lectern for his speech. Trump spoke on the final day of that conference, which was sponsored by the American Conservative Union and held in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 26-29, 2020. The words that appear as the Daily Mail video plays state that the man, identified as the CPAC chairman, said he had "interacted with an infected man recovering in New Jersey" before greeting Trump. On March 7, 2020, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced that someone who’d traveled to the state Feb. 27-March 1 for the conference was confirmed to have COVID-19. "Those who attended or worked at the conference may be at some risk for acquiring COVID-19," Hogan’s statement read. The next day, March 8, 2020, the Washington Post reported the following: The man Trump shook hands with is Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and CPAC. Schlapp said he briefly interacted personally early in the four-day conference with a man infected with the coronavirus. The man has not been identified. Schlapp said he used hand sanitizer regularly during the conference and had not had any symptoms before or after shaking hands with Trump. He said he has been in touch with his own doctor and with the infected patient, who is being quarantined in New Jersey. The White House has maintained that Trump was never in direct contact with the infected person and does not have any symptoms. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., said in a statement on March 8, 2020, that he "briefly interacted" with the infected person while at CPAC and would self-quarantine at his Texas home "out of an abundance of caution." Rep. Paul A. Gosar, R-Ariz., tweeted that same day that he and three of his staff members are under self-quarantine "after sustained contact at CPAC" with the person who has the virus. Schlapp told the New York Times he had had incidental contact with the infected person. The Times reported March 9, 2020, that the man, a 55-year-old New Jersey resident, was in stable condition in a hospital. As for the spread of coronavirus, we’ve reported that: Older people and those with preexisting health conditions are more at risk of developing complications from the coronavirus. For the American public, the immediate risk of coronavirus remains relatively low. The best ways to prevent the spread of the virus are to wash your hands, avoid touching your face, cover your sneezes and coughs, and disinfect your home. A headline on a Daily Mail video shared on Facebook claimed Trump has come into contact with a "potential coronavirus sufferer." Trump shook hands with Matt Schlapp, a man who says he had been in contact days earlier with someone who is reportedly being treated for the virus. Schlapp says he has had no symptoms of the illness. Some may argue third-hand contact indicates possible exposure for Trump, but such a conclusion ignores available evidence. While the Daily Mail did qualify its assertion by using the word "potential" in "potential coronavirus sufferer," the headline (which ended in an exclamation point) nevertheless led readers to believe that Trump’s exposure is worthy of alarm. Indeed, anyone in a population could be a "potential" coronavirus sufferer. Based on what is verifiable.


The Democrat-backed health care reform plan "will require (Americans) to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars.

Explanation: Boehner says Democrats' health care plan would subsidize abortions

Abortion, National, Health Care, Taxes, John Boehner,

In an already contentious health care debate, the last thing the Obama administration wants is a fight over abortion. The word "abortion" was never mentioned in the initial health care plans released by the House and Senate. The decision of whether to offer abortion coverage in the proposed public plan, then, would be left up to the health and human services secretary. Abortion opponents said that would allow Democrats to slip abortion into the plan as part of the standard coverage. In an op-ed piece on July 23, House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio repeated the concerns of many who oppose abortion that the Democratic-backed health care reform plan "will require (Americans) to subsidize abortion with their hard-earned tax dollars." Although there are several versions of the health care bill kicking around in Congress, one thing has now become clear: Most envision a government-run health plan option that could include abortion coverage, as well as a health care exchange in which participating private insurance companies would be permitted to offer such coverage. But does that mean that federal tax dollars would be used to subsidize abortions? That's a more difficult question. Let's back up a minute and explain some background: Currently, the 1976 Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions through Medicaid except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's health is in peril. So states that want to offer abortion coverage have to pay for it themselves. Similar restrictions on public funding for abortions applies to federal health care coverage extended to active and retired military and federal employees. President Barack Obama gave a nod to that precedent when asked in a July 21 CBS interview with Katie Couric whether he favored a government option that would cover abortions. Obama said, "As you know, I'm prochoice. But I think we also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care. Rather than wade into that issue at this point, I think that it's appropriate for us to figure out how to just deliver on the cost savings, and not get distracted by the abortion debate at this station." Abortion opponents had hoped similar restrictions to those in the Hyde Amendment would be placed on any government-run health care option, and also be extended to any private insurance companies that participate in the government-sponsored health care exchange, which will provide health insurance for people who don't get it through their employer. To that end, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., offered an amendment to the House health care proposal that would prohibit the use of public money "to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion." The amendment was narrowly defeated. Donna Crane, policy director for NARAL Pro-Choice America, called Stupak's proposal a "radical departure from the status quo," because millions of women who currently have private insurance plans that cover abortions would be stripped of that coverage if their plan ultimately became part of the exchange — which seems likely. According to a 2002 Guttmacher Institute study, 87 percent of employment-based insured health plans offered coverage for abortions (though not all companies select it for their employees). A 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 46 percent of covered workers had coverage for abortions. The two surveys asked different questions, but the bottom line is that a significant percentage of women currently have health insurance that covers abortions. And so began the debate over how to make the health care reform bill "abortion neutral." A compromise plan offered by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., which passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, seeks to alleviate many of the concerns expressed by abortion opponents — particularly the issue of tax dollars being used to subsidize abortions — while specifically making abortion coverage available in both the public plan and in private plans participating in the exchange. Under the Capps amendment: • Abortion coverage would not be part of the required minimum benefits package. In other words, insurers would not be required to offer, or be prohibited from offering, abortion services in order to participate in the exchange. • The public plan could include abortion coverage, but the cost of the additional coverage could not be paid through public subsidies (tax dollars), only through the premiums paid by the insured. And with private plans in the exchange, again, federal subsidies could not be used for abortion coverage. • Public funding would only be permitted for abortions allowed under the Hyde Amendment — in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in danger. • At least one plan in every region must offer full abortion coverage; and one must not. • Any insurance plan participating in the exchange cannot discriminate against hospitals or other health care facilities (such as Catholic hospitals) that are unwilling to provide abortions. • The plan will not pre-empt any state laws regarding abortion, such as parental notification laws. Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, said the amendment is hardly a compromise, and the pledge not to prohibit the use of public funds amounts to little more than symbolic bookkeeping. The Capps amendment may claim to segregate funds used for abortions, he said, but the bottom line is you have the government paying subsidies to people who are then able to obtain abortion coverage. And, he said, "It's still the government running the whole plan." "The government would be participating in the killing of unborn children under the guise of a health care plan," Johnson said. But that's not the opinion of all antiabortion groups. Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, which opposes abortion, said his group doesn't want to see an important health care plan derailed by a "misleading campaign" that claims the health care plan would mean taxpayer-subsidized abortions. "The goal should be to maintain the current policies," Korzen said. "That Capps amendment accomplishes just that. It specifically prohibits taxpayers' funding of abortions. It disappoints me that there are people who are still making that claim." And, he said, "there's a lot to be happy about,"  including the fact that abortion coverage was not included as part of the required minimum benefits package. Crane said NARAL believes abortion should be treated like any other health service. But they think the Capps amendment at least maintains the status quo, and that it helped to alleviate many of the concerns expressed by abortion opponents. "We thought they got everything they wanted," Crane said. "We are confused why they continue to push." Obviously, there's a lot at stake in the health care bill for both sides in the abortion debate. The fact that several versions of the health care reform bill are floating around Congress makes it difficult to say with certainty what the final plan will or will not include. But while it appears likely the plan would allow for the coverage of abortions, we don't see anything in the plans that would require taxpayers to foot the bill for that. In fact, in a key version of the bill — the one passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee — members went to great pains to include an amendment to ensure that federal money is not used for abortion coverage. Again, things could change as the health reform package works its way through Congress, but for now, we don't see anything to support Boehner's claim that taxpayers would subsidize abortions. And so we rule his statement .


Explanation: Regardless of your opinion on the larger point, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sought to make it with an incorrect comparison. It claimed "Rhode Island’s teen binge drinking rate is double the national average," deriving that claim by comparing numbers from two different surveys. But the most recent report that includes both national and state-by-state figures show that Rhode Island’s rate was actually less than the national average. We rule the claim False. (To check our sources and find additional information, go to the extended version of this article at PolitiFactRI.com.)

Alcohol, Rhode Island, Children, Crime, Public Health, Public Safety, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,

Rhode Island was treated to an interesting do-the-ends-justify-the-means debate last week when the Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine criticized a research study by Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University that uses young pigs to study the effects of alcohol consumption on the heart. Besides objecting to the treatment of the animals involved, the committee argued that the money spent on such research could be better used elsewhere in the Ocean State. To drive that point home, the committee has begun an advertising campaign with posters on five Providence bus shelters, claiming "Rhode Island’s teen binge drinking rate is double the national average. But Brown researchers are not helping teens. Instead, they are wasting federal funds on experiments giving alcohol to piglets." We’ll pass on whether getting pigs drunk is a waste of federal money. But we wondered whether Rhode Island’s rate of teen binge drinking is that high. Two federal agencies that track teenage alcohol use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, define binge drinking as having five or more drinks at the same occasion, at the same time or within a couple of hours. Physicians Committee spokeswoman Jeanne S. McVey said the group came up with its statistic by using data from two federal agencies that track, among other things, alcohol use by the nation’s teenagers. She cited a 2012 survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that found that 7.2 percent of respondents aged 12 to 17 nationwide reported at least one instance of binge drinking over the previous 30 days. But that study didn’t break down its findings by state. For a Rhode Island number, McVey said, the committee turned to a 2013 survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Study, a survey of a cross section of the nation’s high school students, done every two years. According to documents posted on the state Health Department website, that survey found that in Rhode Island, 15.1 percent of responding students in grades 9 through 12 said they had at least one binge-drinking experience in the previous 30 days. Rhode Island’s 15.1 percent, as reported in the CDC study, is more than twice the national average of 7.2 percent, as reported in the SAMHSA study, McVey said. But those are numbers from two different studies. Is it legitimate to compare them in that way? No, said statistician Jeffrey E. Jarrett, a professor of finance decision science at the University of Rhode Island. To be valid, Jarrett said, comparisons must be drawn from the same data -- in other words, surveys that ask the same questions to the same people. Even a slight difference in wording between questionnaires can make a difference. "The only way to compare is to compare things within the same study," he said. To get an apples-to-apples comparison, we returned to the CDC study. The agency has not yet compiled national averages for its 2013 study. But in its 2011 survey, the Rhode Island teen binge-drinking rate was 18.3 percent, compared with 21.9 percent for the nation as a whole. So the Rhode Island rate was actually less than the national one, not double. When we pointed out the flaws in the committee’s methodology, McVey acknowledged that the organization could have been more careful. "We now see that we should have had an expert in statistics double check, because we were comparing one set of national statistics to one set of local statistics," McVey said. " … If we were to do it over again, we would certainly word it differently." "Our larger point is true," she added. "Federal funds should go to helping people rather than to animal experiments that often do not result in treatment for human patients." Our ruling Regardless of your opinion on the larger point, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sought to make it with an incorrect comparison. It claimed "Rhode Island’s teen binge drinking rate is double the national average," deriving that claim by comparing numbers from two different surveys. But the most recent report that includes both national and state-by-state figures show that Rhode Island’s rate was actually less than the national average. We rule the claim . (To check our sources and find additional information, go to the extended version of this article at PolitiFactRI.com.)


New Delhi declares public emergency as pollution at year's worst.

Explanation: Authorities in New Delhi declared a public health emergency on Friday and closed schools and all construction activity until next week as air pollution in the city hit its worst level this year.

A thick haze has hung over the Indian capital this week caused by plumes of toxic smoke from farm fires raging in neighbouring states. An index measuring the level of a deadly air pollutant hit 484 on a scale of 500 on Friday, the government’s Central Pollution Control Board, the worst this year. The index measures the level of PM 2.5, tiny particulate matter that goes deep into the lungs. Anything above 400 poses a risk for people with respiratory illnesses and can also affect even those with healthy lungs. Some companies advised employees to avoid exposure to toxic air and work from home. “We have been advised to stay at home on Monday,” said Anuj Rawat, an account director at Kantar, the market research arm of British advertising major WPP. Kantar employs around 400 people at its office in New Delhi, Rawat said. The Environment Pollution Control Authority, which is leading the effort to tackle Delhi’s pollution, said: “We have to take this as a public health emergency as air pollution is now hazardous and will have adverse health impacts on all, but particularly our children.”  It banned all construction work in the sprawling metropolis of 20 million people and its neighbouring cities until Nov. 5. Each year, farmers in the states of Punjab and Haryana burn crop residue to prepare for the sowing season, ignoring  government warnings. According to government-run monitor SAFAR, satellite pictures had captured nearly 3,200 incidents of stubble burning on Thursday in Haryana and Punjab that contributed to 44% percent of Delhi’s pollution. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal offered free masks on Friday and ordered schools shut till Nov. 5 to protect children. The toxic air has left several Bangladeshi cricket players with sore throats and itchy eyes ahead of their Twenty20 match against India on Sunday. “Government knew an emergency situation was approaching and did not take substantive steps on stubble burning or big industrial polluting sources,” said Sunil Dahiya, an energy and air pollution analyst at Greenpeace. “A public health emergency situation began at least 10 days ago.”


Sun, sand and root canal: Medical tourism booms in Costa Rica.

Explanation: When Canadian house cleaner Marlene Trithardt needed a tooth replaced, she drove past her local dentist’s office in Alberta and flew to the beach paradise of Costa Rica - to save money.

Trithardt is one of a growing number of North Americans who turn south for medical care lured by lower prices, contributing close to 0.8 percent of Costa Rica’s gross domestic product. “I chose to come here because I find in Alberta the prices are about 80 percent higher than in Costa Rica,” says Trithardt, 57, who makes $30,000 a year. Her treatment will cost $4,000. But even including airfare, hotels and meals for two weeks, the total amount is lower than the $10,000 she said she was expecting to pay for the dental care alone in Canada. In the bargain, Trithardt got to take a few days to visit Costa Rica’s national parks. Around 40,000 medical tourists visited Costa Rica last year, compared to 36,000 in 2010 and 30,000 in 2009. Most of them are American and Canadian, according to the country’s tourism institute, ICT. Of that number, almost 15,000 of them traveled for dental care, said Massimo Manzi, director at Promed, the council for international promotion of medicine in Costa Rica. Manzi estimates that medical tourism brought in $196 million to Costa Rica’s health industry in 2011, with patients spending an additional $84 million in hotels, meals, travel and shopping. That makes for a total of $280 million spent on medical tourism in 2011, compared to $252 million in 2010. Costa Rica competes for medical tourists with the likes of India, Brazil, Panama and Mexico, and its proximity to the United States gives it an advantage over Asian and South American destinations. And while some doctors in the United States discourage traveling abroad for cheaper treatment - saying the quality may not be vetted and that follow-up care is lacking - technology and care standards in the private sector are perceived by the medical community and patients alike to be high. The dental tourism niche is booming in Costa Rica, a country of 4.5 million people best known for its white sand beaches and lush rainforests. Now accounting for 36 percent of all medical tourism, that figure is seen rising to 50 percent over the next two years, said Promed’s Manzi. Trithardt’s doctor, 32-year-old Costa Rican Ignacio Vargas, says tourists represent 70 percent of his business. Virtually all medical tourists are uninsured and pay their own way, said Brad Cooke, head of Medical Tours Costa Rica, a travel agency that works exclusively with patients. As a result, healthcare reform passed in the United States that will require Americans to get basic insurance by 2014 could reduce demand. However that reform does not cover dental care. “We had a gentleman, for example, who was interested in coming in for a knee procedure about six months ago and then he decided not to come. He said he’d rather wait and see if Obamacare would cover it”, said Cooke. A few insurance companies in the U.S. like Cigna Corp, Satori and Blue Cross Blue Shield are already expanding their supplier network to include overseas clinics and facilities to help cut costs. “What we’re hoping, and it would be an important step, is that these insurance companies offer an incentive to those who choose the international option,” Manzi said. Costa Rican health officials are grappling with booming demand as it is. “We are learning how to handle this demand so that we don’t get to a point where we are facing waiting periods which would turn patients away from Costa Rica,” said Health Minister Daisy Corrales. To help ensure that demand can be met, Promed works as a guide for investors looking to build new clinics and hospitals that can welcome tourist-patients.


Raised for meat in South Korea, dogs head for new homes in U.S.

Explanation: “You’re OK, you’re OK,” Lola Webber, a campaign manager with the Humane Society International (HSI), whispers to a lab-mix puppy, cradling her in a jacket as dozens of dogs bark in nearby cages.

The puppy is moved from a rusty cage on a dog-meat farm in South Korea to a plastic crate, given the name Demi, and placed in a truck where she begins the long journey to a shelter in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to be put up for adoption. “As soon as they’re ready for adoption, we find that there are line-ups of people - literally people would line up at shelters - in the U.S. to adopt these dogs because people are so engaged by their sad and compelling stories,” said Andrew Plumbly, another campaign manager for the HSI. Demi was one of 10 dogs rescued on Tuesday from a farm in Wonju, 90 km (55 miles) from the South Korean capital, Seoul,  where 200 dogs were being raised for human consumption, to start new lives as pets under the HSI’s campaign. The farm is the sixth that the group has helped close down in South Korea since 2015, and follows six-months of negotiations, medical examinations and vaccinations. Because airline flights can only carry a limited number of dogs a day, it will take a couple of weeks for HSI to rescue all 200 of the dogs at the farm. Hygiene there is “non-existent”, Plumbly said, with waste collecting beneath cages where dogs are exposed to extremes of weather and fed once a day, according to HSI. The owner of the farm, who has been in the business for 30 years and declined to be identified, cited poor health as a reason for getting out of the business. Consumption of dog meat is on the decline in South Korea, where it is mainly eaten by older people and dogs are increasingly popular as pets. Still, HSI estimates there are 17,000 dog-meat farms in the country. Humane Society International hopes the government will ban the breeding of dogs for meat ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics to be held in South Korea. Recently, the mayor of the city of Seongnam, Lee Jae-myung, who is running for president, ordered the closure of a big dog-meat section of a city market. Seafood will be sold there instead.


Explanation: There are 429 words in this news release. Nearly half are contained in just two exuberant quotes from Stanford researchers. If the study itself backed up the claims made in these quotes, we would applaud the release for its economy of language. As it stands, the release needed much more information to help journalists and other readers understand that this is a very limited study that may or may not turn into a true alternative to other cancer diagnostics. The news release makes a huge claim with its headline: “New blood test may transform the way cancer is monitored and treated.” It then doesn’t provide any evidence to support this claim. It could just as well have declared “new blood test may not transform the way cancer is monitored and treated.”

We like that the cost issue is addressed. But the terms are vague. It says that the test is “relatively low cost.” Relative to what? To traditional “whole body imaging,” as the release notes above? Then provide some of those costs. It also says, “especially compared to next-generation DNA sequencing,” which costs how much? We were expecting a thorough explanation and some numbers that illustrate how this test could more regularly track the growth and spread of cancer cells. But there was no quantification in the release. There is no mention of harms. The assumption here is that more regular monitoring of patients via blood samples will lead to better outcomes, when we actually know from repeated studies that more monitoring for disorders leads to more unnecessary treatments and surgeries. What is the false positive rate? The false negative rate? What are the possible clinical harms that can result from either of these scenarios? The release does explain, after a very effusive quote about how broadly applicable this test may be, that the test was only examined in six patients who had only two types of cancers. Then it says, “the researchers were able to identify tumor-derived circulating DNA from three out of six patients.” So the study was extremely limited in scope. The release would have been better to call out this caveat explicitly instead of leaving it up to the reader to figure out. Other releases we have seen say things like, “This study was only conducted in six patients and would need to be repeated with a much larger group in order to make strong claims about its broad efficacy in cancer diagnosis and monitoring.” There is no disease mongering in the release. Funders are noted in the sidebar where this release is hosted on EurekAlert! but not in the release itself. We encourage news release writers to include funders in the body of the release. There is no mention of conflicts of interest in the release, nor in the study itself. The release makes a glancing reference to “other methods.” It says, “The single-color digital PCR test offers several advantages over other methods of circulating tumor DNA analysis, compared to next-generation targeted sequencing and fluorescent probe-based digital PCR assays. The main advantage is that the new technique does not rely on pre-amplification, which can introduce errors and biases.” This is not an adequate comparison. It would have been helpful to mention specific blood tests for the tumor types looked at even in this small sample size–this would have given context and why this work is important. It is clear from the release that the test is not widely available and is only just now being developed. The release establishes novelty here: The test, which is called single color digital PCR, requires only a fraction of a tube of blood and can detect as few as three mutation-bearing molecules in a single reaction. We think that given the extremely small number of patients who even had test results that could be monitored for cancer growth — three people! — making broad claims about this being a low-cost alternative for all cancers is over the top. This is what the release says: “For monitoring patient tumors, only a handful of blood tests are available which are limited to only several types of cancers. Nearly all cancer patients require monitoring by whole body imaging, which can be costly, complex, and time-consuming. In contrast, molecular tests like the one we have developed will enable patients to be monitored at every visit, and thus have the potential for quickly tracking cancer growth and spread.” Does that sound like a test that was only used on six patients, only three of whom had detectable cancer?


Explanation: Health officials recommend the use of hand sanitizer to kill the coronavirus. Although it is not effective against all viruses, hand sanitizers with high alcohol content have proven effective against human coronaviruses.

Health officials say one of the best ways Americans can prevent the spread of the 2019 coronavirus is to clean their hands. But should they use hand sanitizer? One popular image on Facebook says no. "Hand sanitizer is anti-bacterial. The coronavirus is a virus," reads the post, which is a screenshot of a March 1 tweet. "A bacteria and a virus is not (sic) the same. Wash your hands. Sanitizer will do nothing for the coronavirus." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat  news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) (Screenshot from Facebook) The post is wrong — health officials recommend the use of hand sanitizer to kill the coronavirus, known officially as COVID-19. The original Twitter user clarified that in a follow-up tweet, but the context was lost on Facebook. On its list of ways to prevent coronavirus infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says to "wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing." If soap and water are not accessible, the CDC recommends using hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Although hand sanitizers are not effective against all viruses, the ones with high alcohol content have proven effective against some. Several studies indicate that alcohol-based sanitizers are effective against "enveloped viruses," which include human coronaviruses. Since its outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December, the 2019 coronavirus has infected more than 88,000 people in 64 countries. In the United States, there have been 43 confirmed cases and six deaths, as of March 2, not including those repatriated to the country. So continue washing your hands, and using hand sanitizer with a high alcohol content when you aren’t near soap and water. The post telling you hand sanitizer will "do nothing" to stop the coronavirus is wrong. We rate it .


France's 20th century radium craze still haunts Paris.

Explanation: The Belle Epoque, France’s golden era at the turn of the last century, bequeathed Paris elegant landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, but also a more sinister legacy of radioactive floors and backyards which the capital is only now addressing.

When the Franco-Polish Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element radium in 1898, she set off a craze for the luminescent metal among Parisians, who started using it for everything from alarm clock dials to lipsticks and even water fountains. The companies that manufactured these slightly radioactive objects have long gone out of business, but they left small doses of radium between the cracks of some Parisian parquet floors. These doses, after prolonged exposure, could prove toxic though, officials say, they do not pose serious health risks. “The history of radium started in Paris,” said Eric Lanes, head of radioactive decontamination at France’s national agency for radioactive waste, ANDRA. “Marie Curie never patented her discoveries so a lot of people rode the radium wave.”   After Curie showed that radium could be used to destroy cancerous cells, people assumed that the new element had miraculous healing properties and started putting it in everything from body lotions to cough syrups. “Cancerous cells are more sensitive to radiation than healthy ones. Curie understood that,” said Lanes. “But some people embarked on businesses more akin to charlatans’ tricks.”   Curie herself died at 66 from her prolonged, unprotected exposure to radium. ANDRA - in some case using addresses that were written on vintage advertising posters - has identified some 130 sites in France suspected of being at risk. Some 40 of them are set for decontamination, half of those in the Paris area. Lanes said the clean-up was being undertaken as a precautionary measure under a recent French law requiring that preventative steps be taken in a case of a suspected health risk even in the absence of conclusive scientific evidence. “We have never found any worrying situations,” Lanes said. “We’re talking about levels that are too small to create a health impact.”   In a two-storey detached house in the leafy suburb of Chaville, 12 km (7 miles) southwest of central Paris, masked men in white hazmat suits drilled holes in the wooden floors of what used to be an aircraft altimeter factory before World War Two. The factory workers used to color the dials with glow-in-the-dark paint made from radium powder and zinc sulphide. Their plight was reminiscent of the so-called Radium Girls in the United States who contracted radiation poisoning around 1917 from licking their paint-brushes to sharpen them. In Chaville, traces of paint are still present in the wooden floor, the house’s garden and basement. Though too small to present a risk, they still have to be collected in drums through air-locks and sent to ANDRA’s nuclear waste storage sites. The decontamination cost for a house like this is 260,000 euros ($318,200), Lanes said. The agency has a 4 million euro annual budget for decontamination on top of the government’s 12 million euro budget for its “radium plan”. The occupants, who declined to be interviewed because they feared the publicity could lower the property’s value, were temporarily rehoused at ANDRA’s expenses and will get the renovated house back after three months. Some sites deemed too contaminated to make a renovation cost-effective have been bought by ANDRA and razed. The Jersyk family’s former house in Gif-sur-Yvette, just south of Paris’ military airport of Villacoublay, is one of them. It was part of an estate built in the 1950s near a disused factory where radium needles for hospitals had been manufactured. “When the factory shut, the land was sold, the ground leveled, and they built houses on it, it was as simple as that. It’s monstrous,” said Eglet Jersyk, an 81-year-old pensioner. After spotting a news item in the local newspaper about the former factory’s radioactive legacy, she and her husband Christian joined a local group to demand government action. “No one told us anything when we bought it in 1966 but a lot of mystery surrounded that house. We were only told: ‘You shouldn’t grow vegetables in the garden’,” she said. Experts from France’s CEA atomic research agency came to visit the house in 1974 and found abnormal levels of radium and radon gas, she said, but it took some 30 years before the family could relocate to a nearby town. In the meantime, her husband, a do-it-yourself enthusiast who often worked in his basement, suffered from cough and heart problems which she said a doctor linked to radioactive fumes. Her complaint was dismissed by a court in the early 2000s, she said, and shortly after ANDRA offered to buy the house at market prices. ($1 = 0.8170 euros)


Researchers develop automated melanoma detector for skin cancer screening

Explanation: This news release reports on a study of a computerized technology that combines imaging with digital analysis to help improve the screening of melanoma skin lesions. The news release explains the specificity and sensitivity of the test. It also clearly discloses who funded the research. One downside is that it’s not until the final paragraph that we learn this is still experimental research that must be confirmed in larger studies. Earlier statements make it sound farther along, e.g., “researchers at The Rockefeller University have developed an automated technology that combines imaging with digital analysis and machine learning to help physicians detect melanoma at its early stages.” A larger concern is how the release downplayed the high-false positive rate of 64%, saying this “approaches” the false-positive rate of manual detection by expert dermatologist, which studies put at about 32%. Melanoma can be very difficult to diagnose so if doctors could use a tool that helped better screen suspicious-looking moles, they might be able to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and save lives. This new approach thus far has shown promise, but further research will be needed to validate it as an enhanced diagnostic tool–and that should be made upfront and clear to the journalists and consumers who read the news release.

This technology seems to still be in the experimental stage. The news release reports a 98% sensitivity and 36% specificity for melanoma detection, which is a level that approaches that of an expert lesion diagnosis. But the release could have noted that this still isn’t very accurate: A 36% specificity means that 64% of those without melanoma will test positive (i.e. false positive). That translates to a lot of unnecessary anxiety and follow-up testing to rule out suspicious growths. The release says the test’s ability to diagnose normal moles was 36 percent, “approaching the levels achieved by expert dermatologists performing visual examinations of suspect moles under the microscope.” But as noted above, that statement downplays the fact that the test will result in a very high number of false-positives. A 36% specificity means that nearly two thirds of non-malignant moles will test positive and require additional follow-up. A test that correctly identifies nearly all melanomas, but also flags more than half of normal growths as melanomas, isn’t all that useful. The investigators note that this research needs to be confirmed with larger studies–but not until the end of the release. More should have been included on this point, and higher up, so as to not mislead readers into thinking this product is coming to market soon. And less needed to be said on the potential applications, which is still in “hearsay” phase considering the state of research. For example, this quote: “I think this technology could help detect the disease earlier, which could save lives, and avoid unnecessary biopsies too,” is premature. No obvious disease mongering is evident here. We are told that “this work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health and in part by the Paul and Irma Milstein Family Foundation and the American Skin Association.” The release says “the ability of the test to correctly diagnose normal moles was 36 percent, approaching the levels achieved by expert dermatologists performing visual examinations of suspect moles under the microscope.” That differs from what’s in the study, which reports “the visual examination of pigmented lesions by expert dermatologists using dermoscopy and following criteria such as the Menzies (or CASH[3]) method has yielded diagnostic accuracy as high as 98% sensitivity and 68% specificity in some studies.” Sixty-eight percent specificity is much more accurate than 36%, so we’re not sure how that can be defined as “approaching the levels” of accuracy of visual exams by expert dermatologist. Some of the language used suggests the technology is mature, “Now, researchers at The Rockefeller University have developed an automated technology that combines imaging with digital analysis and machine learning to help physicians detect melanoma at its early stages.” It is not until the final paragraph that the need for further research is noted. The release establishes that this is a potential new way to augment melanoma detection. The release does not use sensational language. However, we did want to highlight this quote, which was problematic: “The success of the Q-score in predicting melanoma is a marked improvement over competing technologies,” says Daniel Gareau, first author of the report and instructor in clinical investigation in the Krueger laboratory.” We think that it is a bit premature to be this definitive. A recent review of competing technologies suggests that confocal scanning laser microscopy has a sensitivity of 88-98% and a specificity of 83-99%.


New DNA Tests Aimed at Reducing Colon Cancer

Explanation: Strengths:  Immediately, in the opening words, the story acknowledges that there is another DNA test in development that was reported on this week. It was the only one of the four stories we reviewed on this topic that made this clear. Weaknesses: It didn’t provide a meaningful comparison of the new approaches with existing colon cancer screening tests. It also has problems with how the underlying question is presented. Two examples:  “The new tests could help most people avoid colonoscopies, which are routinely prescribed for people over age 50.” – perhaps implying to the reader that evidence supports a recommendation of colonoscopy for everyone.That is not the case; there are several potential screening tests available, including other stool tests – something not mentioned in the story. “Compliance with colonoscopy is low, since people don’t want to have one, and the overall cost per detection is high because most people are healthy, and even colonoscopy misses many tumors in the upper part of the intestine.” This sentence has a lot of information, but is also somewhat misleading. Use of colonoscopy is actually pretty good, and most people who don’t have one have never been asked, calling into question that people “don’t want to have one.” The cost effectiveness of colonoscopy vs. other screening techniques is a complex question, but suffice it to say that the new technology being studied is not likely to be more cost-effective overall (previous stool DNA tests have performed much worse (higher costs, lower efficacy) than colonoscopy in modeling studies. This topic is really about when we should pay attention to evidence about a new diagnostic test and how we should evaluate diagnostic tests in comparison with one another- a topic that is often inadequately discussed in both medicine and journalism.

The story says, “Both tests would be less expensive than colonoscopy, and potentially more effective.”  No specific cost estimate is given. The Philadelphia Inquirer said “Though the cost has not been set, it could be as low as $300 per test.” Reuters reported that the company said earlier that it would aim for $300-400 per test. The story also states that “Compliance with colonoscopy is low, since people don’t want to have one, and the overall cost per detection is high” – implying that the new test might be more cost-effective. But it’s unclear at this point if that would be true. For example, previous stool DNA tests have performed much worse (higher costs, lower efficacy) than colonoscopy in modeling studies. The story did a decent job comparing data presented on two new competing tests. It does not, however, compare the benefits to existing colon cancer screening tests. We will dock points for this in our final criterion on “comparing the new approach with existing alternatives” but will give it the benefit of the doubt on this one. The two tests the Times reported on were done on blood and on stool, which, in theory, should not harm anyone during the screening. But there is potential for harms as a result of screening. The story states that with the Exact Sciences DNA test “12 percent of the time the patient will be given a false alarm.”  And, regarding the Epigenomics blood test, the story states that “more false positives could be generated so you could end up doing more harm than good.” Mixed bag. The story did provide some important context about test. For example, it says, “Exact Sciences reported in July that its test was highly sensitive and specific when applied directly to cells taken from tumors. But in the real world, the tumor DNA must be detected in stool samples, even though almost all the DNA comes from the bacteria of the gut. Just 0.01 percent of the DNA is human, and most of this is normal DNA, not the altered DNA of tumors.” But only in passing does it mention that “in the real world, the tumor DNA must be detected in stool samples.”  It could/should have driven home the point more clearly that the methodology used in the study tends to overestimate performance compared with an evaluation done in a representative sample population (hence the need to do another study). WebMD, for example, did a better job on this point, with a quote from Dr. Durado Brooks of the American Cancer Society: “This was a very preliminary study that utilized samples from individuals who were known to have colon polyps or cancer. The performance may decrease considerably when the test is used in a large population of healthy individuals.” Health Day quoted Brooks: “Showing that in a small group of samples is very different from demonstrating that in a population where only a small number of individuals are going to have polyps of that size. Then we will know if this is a big step forward.” There was also no discussion of the limitations of drawing conclusions from an abstract presented at a scientific conference – something that has not yet undergone the kind of peer review that a journal would use. No disease mongering. This story relies too heavily on researchers who are connected to the companies developing the cancer screens. Where was the truly independent perspective? As noted in the “benefits” criterion above, this story did not even discuss other stool tests like fecal immunochemical testing or other fecal occult blood tests that are currently available and have been shown to perform well in appropriate samples. It did a decent job in comparing two new technologies, but got hung up on this comparison while forgetting existing tests. In so doing, the end of the story devolves a bit into a “my product is better than your product” tit for tat. Which is what can happen when your only quoted sources all have connections to the companies involved. Although the story doesn’t discuss existing stool tests like fecal immunochemical testing or other fecal occult blood testing, on the issue of relative novelty, the story scores points for being the only we reviewed that mentioned that the Exact Sciences DNA test is only one of two leading technologies being developed right now. This story did not rely on a news release.


President Barack Obama’s budget threatens national security by proposing "an Army of fewer personnel than we had before Pearl Harbor.

Federal Budget, Military, Wisconsin, Jim Sensenbrenner,

Near the end of an April 15, 2014 town hall meeting in his district, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner listened to a constituent cite something on the Internet about the resignation of U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "There’s no truth meter on the Internet," remarked Sensenbrenner, a Republican elected to Congress in southeastern Wisconsin since 1978. Respectfully, we beg to differ on that. A remark earlier in the town-hall session by Sensenbrenner about Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s plans to downsize the Army’s troop strength caught our attention. "With respect to the president’s budget proposal, there the recommendation was that we have an Army of fewer personnel than we had before Pearl Harbor," Sensenbrenner said when asked about survivor’s benefits. "That’s ridiculous and outrageous." Let’s put that one on our Truth-O-Meter. When we asked Sensenbrenner spokesman Ben Miller for backup on the historical comparison, he referred us to the U.S. Department of Defense’s budget request for fiscal year 2015. It quoted the Quadrennial Defense Review 2014. That five-year plan says the active Army will reduce its "end strength" to between 440,000 and 450,000 personnel. The current active-duty figure is about 520,000, Army spokesman Troy Rolan told us. Miller also pointed to stories in the New York Times, and a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story that included Associated Press reporting on Hagel’s budget. The Times piece said that "cuts proposed by the Obama administration would result in the smallest Army since just before the World War II buildup." The AP report said the active-duty Army would shrink to the "smallest number since 1940, when the nation was gearing up to enter World War II." But Sensenbrenner didn’t say Hagel’s plan would result in the smallest Army since before the war buildup. He said it would be smaller than the pre-war troop complement. Before the U.S. buildup got cranked up, the Army had 188,000 troops in mid-1939 and 264,000 in mid-1940, official Army figures show. So Hagel’s plan for 440,000 active troops would still be larger than that, contrary to what Sensenbrenner said. Sensenbrenner’s phrasing looks better if you limit the comparison just to the 1941 period right before Pearl Harbor. But the troop numbers from 1941 include the U.S. buildup that began in 1940 in the wake of Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland. By late August 1941, active-duty Army personnel totalled about 1.6 million. If Sensenbrenner was using 1.6 million as his comparison point, he couldn’t confine his outrage to the Obama/Hagel Army of 450,000, because every Army since 1952 has been smaller than 1.6 million. Troop levels ebb and flow, as you might expect, around major wars. After the World War II peak of 8.3 million, the Army’s numbers fell dramatically, then blipped up to 1.6 million during the Korean War. After another drop, the number ramped up to 1.475 million during the Vietnam War before levelling off at about 775,000 from the mid-1970s through the 1980s. The Army’s size fell significantly throughout the 1990s to 479,000 before slowly ticking up to 571,000 after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As America has drawn down troops in those nations, the Army’s strength has dropped to the current 520,000. So, with the proposed reduction, the Army would be just below where it was before the Sept. 11 attacks. Strained comparison There’s another angle to consider here: the difficulty in comparing a 1940 Army to today’s model. We asked military historian Lance Janda of Cameron University in Oklahoma to assess Sensenbrenner’s comments. Janda called the comments "terribly misleading, implying as they do a sort of similarity between the technology, force structure, threat environment, and federal budget reality in 2014 and the one in 1940 that simply does not exist." In terms of weapons systems, communications capabilities, speed of deployment, radius of action, and overall destructive potential, Janda said, the U.S. is light years beyond where it was prior to World War II. "In 1940 our Army and army Air Corps were relatively small and our Navy was one among several powerful navies around the world," Janda said. "Today, the United States Navy and Air Force have no peers." Travis Sharp, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a nonprofit think tank, wrote that size of the force often does matter, but "since the 2014 Army is not going to fight in the 1940 strategic environment, comparing them does not help us decide what to do today." "While interesting," Sharp wrote, "the comparison to 1940 is not particularly useful." "Today's Army is vastly more capable, even at a fraction of the headcount," John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, told us. Hagel, in announcing the budget reductions in February 2014, called them difficult and not without added risk. Hagel said the cuts assume the United States no longer becomes involved in large, prolonged stability operations overseas on the scale of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Defense Department reported. But he said the smaller force still would be capable of decisively defeating aggression in one major war "while also defending the homeland and supporting air and naval forces engaged in another theater against an adversary." Still, some analysts, including Sharp, have expressed concerns about repercussions on the battlefield and beyond if the active-duty complement falls to 440,000 without appropriate contingency planning. "Prioritizing technology over size has a strategic logic and conforms with historical practice," wrote Sharp. "Despite this logic, focusing on high-tech modernization without simultaneously implementing policies to regenerate ground forces quickly should a crisis erupt constitutes strategic negligence of the highest order." PolitiFact National checked a statement similar to Sensenbrenner’s in January 2012. The speaker was Mitt Romney. The Republican presidential candidate said that the U.S. military is at risk of losing its "military superiority" because "our Navy is smaller than it’s been since 1917. Our Air Force is smaller and older than any time since 1947." The claim earned a  rating. The numbers were close to accurate, but experts said it was wrong to assume a decline in the number of ships or aircraft automatically means a weaker military. And the comparison of today’s military to its predecessors in 1917 or 1947 was deemed ridiculous. Our rating Sensenbrenner said that President Obama’s budget proposed "an Army of fewer personnel than we had before Pearl Harbor." The congressman doesn’t read as much into the numbers as did Romney. But he flubbed the historical comparison pointed out by others, and experts say it’s a limited and potentially misleading comparison in any event. We rate the claim .