Allina study shows patients with very small breast tumors may forgo lymph node biopsies

Explanation: The news release highlights a study — that joins about a dozen similar such studies over the past decade — trying to determine if looking for cancer spread in axillary (armpit) lymph nodes is worthwhile in a specific subtype of breast cancer called “microinvasive,” or “Tmic” (which refers to a tumor 1 millimeter or smaller). It remains a controversial surgical dilemma, in part, because some studies have found evidence of microinvasive cancer spreading to the lymph nodes 12.5% of the time, while this study, in particular, found the lowest incidence — just 1.5%. The authors conclude that, based on their findings, they believe microinvasive cancer is akin to ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) in that spread to the lymph nodes is rare. The researchers conclude from the study that routine node sampling in microinvasive cancer is of questionable benefit. The news release is very succinct in describing the findings of this small (under 300 patients) single-center study. Readers need more information before they can fairly weigh the researchers’ recommendation. For example, the release only notes that spread to the lymph nodes was found in patients with “relatively large” examples of DCIS, without clarifying what “fairly large” means; doesn’t note the average followup period for study participants, or what the outcomes were at the end of the study such as breast cancer recurrence, distant metastatic disease, or death from breast cancer. The release also does not mention if other tumor factors, such as hormone receptor status, were associated with spread to the lymph nodes. Recent advances in mammography and an increase in screening mean more breast abnormalities are detected; however, whether they should be labeled or treated as cancer is not always clear. Removal of some of the underarm lymph nodes (sentinel node biopsy) is generally performed at the time of surgery for early stage breast cancer in order to confirm whether or not there has been spread, and to inform treatment decisions. It is often not performed at the time of breast conserving lumpectomy in cases of DCIS; however, the decision whether to not to perform sentinel node biopsy in cases of microinvasive breast cancer is controversial. Breast cancer is staged according to tumor size (denoted as “T”) and lymph node spread (denoted as “N”). The “T” category ranges from 0-4 based on the size of the tumor in the breast. Tis represents ductal carcinoma in-situ, and T1 tumors are invasive breast cancers smaller than 2cm. Tmic is the designation used for microinvasive cancers — where the invasive component is less than 1mm. Future research in this area will help clarify whether Tmic should be approached more like DCIS or like an invasive cancer. Less treatment would have huge implications for surgeons, health care costs, and especially the quality of life for many patients.

Allina Health,lymph node biopsy,microinvasive breast cancer

The cost of sentinel lymph node biopsy is not included in the release. Depending on the type of biopsy performed, costs can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. The lead author states: “These findings allow surgeons to select which patients with microinvasive  tumors may actually benefit from lymph node sampling, while sparing other patients from this procedure.” But the release was too vague to give readers a clear understanding of the benefits. It does not define “relatively large” in relation to the DCIS cases that were observed in the study and it and does not mention if the researchers found other factors associated with lymph node involvement. Most importantly, health outcomes such as recurrence, the presence of metastases or death from breast cancer at the conclusion of the study were not mentioned in the release. It would also have been useful to state how long patient volunteers were followed as part of the study. According to the published research, patients were followed a mean of 4.6 years. The results of this study support forgoing routine axillary (armpit) sentinel lymph node biopsy to evaluate for cancer spread in cases where the invasive breast cancer is less than 1mm in size. A potential harm of this approach is missing metastatic cancer. This is not mentioned in the release. Apropos of this, how long the patients were followed (the mean follow-up was 4.6 years, according to the published study) is a key piece of information and was also not included in the release. The release would have been much stronger had it lifted more study details from the published report and added them to the release. Readers aren’t told how patients fared during follow-up assessments and how long after initial screening these assessments occurred. Nor are we provided with any health outcomes (recurrence, presence of metastases, death) at the study conclusion. (According to the published study, no cases of recurrence, metastases or death occurred among any patients at 4.6 years. This is key information that should have been included in the release, along with some study limitations that were mentioned.) All the release tells us is  that among study volunteers with microinvasive breast cancer, just 1.5% had positive lymph nodes. No disease mongering. The management of microinvasive breast cancer — which includes assessing how it spreads — remains a common surgical dilemma. The funding sources are listed in the release. No conflicts of interest are mentioned in the published study. There are no radiologic or other non-surgical diagnostic alternatives for evaluating the spread of microinvasive breast cancer to the axillary lymph nodes. The news release does not address availability specifically but readers can glean from the release that lymph node biopsy is a common surgical procedure. The release summarizes the study’s research question: Should lymph node biopsies in tumors that are 1mm or less in size remain common practice? The release makes it clear that the treatment of Tmic remains controversial. It may have been worthwhile to include that the authors claim this study is the “3rd largest published series” on this topic. But that’s not a major point; hence the N/A rating. If there is anything “novel” about this study it’s that the primary result of finding just 1.5% positive lymph nodes is the lowest rate recorded of about a dozen similar studies. That may have been something worth bringing up in the news release. No unjustifiable language employed in this release.


“President Trump just announced that the ‘biological’ lab in Wuhan where the COVID-19 virus was created was ‘funded’ by President Barak (sp) Hussein Obama in 2015 to the tune of $3,800,000 American dollars!”

Explanation: A virology lab in Wuhan received about $600,000 over five years from the U.S. government. Some of the money came while Trump was president. The grant was part of an effort to spot viruses in wildlife that might jump and infect humans. The best genetic analysis to date says the virus that causes COVID-19 was not created in a lab.

National, China, Public Health, Science, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Bloggers,

A Facebook post alerted readers to this "breaking news": "President Trump just announced that the ‘biological’ lab in Wuhan where the COVID-19 virus was created was ‘funded’ by President Barak (sp) Hussein Obama in 2015 to the tune of $3,800,000 American dollars! This fact directly links Obama to all 150,000 deaths around the world!" A different post makes a similar point: "Well well well, in 2015 Obama gave the Chinese lab in Wuhan 3.7M grant to study the corona virus what a coincidence." The first post builds on the conspiracy theory that the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China created the virus. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat  news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There’s nothing correct in this post, although President Donald Trump does play a supporting role in spreading some of the inaccurate information at the heart of the claim. Here’s where the post either misleads or flat out gets things wrong. Early on in the crisis, the idea took hold that the virology lab in Wuhan engineered the virus. We looked at that claim in detail before and found that the genetic sequence of the virus shows no signs of genetic engineering. A research team at Scripps Research compared the virus to viruses that had hit humans, such as the one behind the SARS outbreak, and viruses that are found in animals. All the evidence pointed to a natural source. "We do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible," the researchers wrote. There are unresolved concerns that protective lapses at the lab may have allowed a virus collected from nature to escape, and to be clear, that is an unproven allegation, and Chinese officials deny it. But that is different from the virus being intentionally manufactured by human hands. The correct amount sent to the Wuhan virology lab is $598,500, and that was spread over five years, according to the American research group running the project. Here’s what we know about the lab, that work and the U.S. funding. In 2014, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease backed a project by the EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to protect the people, land and animals in areas where viruses can jump from one species to another, as coronaviruses are known to do. The alliance has projects across 30 countries, including many in Asia, such as Thailand, Vietnam and China. The 2014 project focused on bats in Yunnan province, about 800 miles southwest from Wuhan, on the border with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar. In 2018, alliance researchers reported they had found a virus in bats very similar to SARS. "If we know what viruses are out there in wildlife, and which people are getting infected, we have a chance to stop pandemics dead in their tracks," the group’s president Peter Daszak said in a press release at the time. The group contracted the virology lab in Wuhan to conduct the genetic analyses of the viruses that were being collected in the field. The lab was selected after it was approved by the U.S. State Department and NIH. The National Institutes of Health website shows a total award of about $3.4 million over six years to EcoHealth Alliance. The group’s spokesman Robert Kessler told us that, of that, the Wuhan lab received just under $600,000. That’s about 85% less than the Facebook post asserted. That NIH spending included about $265,000 for the lab under the Trump administration. In 2019, NIH renewed the grant to EcoHealth Alliance for another five years. That decision came on Trump’s watch and he said "we will end that grant very quickly." There is a virology lab in Wuhan, and it did get money from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. But the post exaggerates what Trump said about that. In an April 17 White House coronavirus briefing, a reporter from the conservative website Newsmax asked Trump about the grant. Here’s the exchange: Reporter: "(There’s a) report that the NIH, under the Obama administration, in 2015 gave that lab $3.7 million in a grant. Why would the U.S. give a grant like that to China?" Trump: "The Obama administration gave them a grant of $3.7 million? I’ve been hearing about that. And we’ve instructed that if any grants are going to that area — we’re looking at it, literally, about an hour ago, and also early in the morning. We will end that grant very quickly. "But it was granted quite a while ago. They were granted a substantial amount of money. We’re going to look at it and take a look. But I understand it was a number of years ago, right? "When did you hear — when did you hear it was — the grant was made?" Reporter: "2015." Trump: "2015? Who was president then? I wonder." Trump didn’t announce anything. He responded to the reporter’s question about the grant and said he’d heard about certain reports and was looking into it. A Facebook post said Trump announced that a lab in Wuhan where the COVID-19 virus "was created" received $3.8 million under the Obama administration. A reader would see this claim and assume millions of U.S. tax dollars were used to create the virus that leads to COVID-19. That isn’t the case. Trump didn’t make this announcement. He was responding to a reporter’s question. The best evidence so far says the virus was not created in a lab. The money that went to the lab was about 85% less than what the post said. We rate this claim .


The GOP’s health bill will protect people with pre-existing conditions "every bit as well as Obamacare did.

Health Care, Government Regulation, Public Health, Wisconsin, Ron Johnson,

How the latest GOP alternative to Obamacare would treat pre-existing conditions is a question repeatedly put to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who is one of the lead co-sponsors of the bill. On Sept. 20, 2017 -- 10 days before a deadline to pass the measure with a simple majority -- there was this exchange between Johnson and Chuck Todd, host of MSNBC’s "MTP Daily" talk show: Todd: "So, you contend that this bill will protect those folks with pre-existing conditions -- period." Johnson: "Every bit as well as Obamacare did. And it’s also going to protect the individuals that can’t afford Obamacare right now." The protections are a major point of contention. The Affordable Care Act makes it illegal for insurers to deny coverage to people who have pre-existing health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes or cancer, or charge them higher rates. But under the Johnson-sponsored plan, waivers that would give states new flexibility erode protections for pre-existing conditions. "The only way people (with pre-existing conditions) are protected is if every state in the nation looks at this and says, ‘We’re not going to do that,’" said Karen Pollitz, a health reform and private insurance expert at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. "This lets states take away your protections." The bill The bill, introduced a week before Johnson’s interview, is known as the Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson bill (or its shorter moniker, Graham-Cassidy). That’s for the GOP senators co-sponsoring the measure: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Dean Heller of Nevada and Johnson. Under Senate rules, the bill could be approved with 51 votes (50 senators plus a tie-breaking vote by Vice President Mike Pence) if it is adopted by Sept. 30, 2017. After that, Republicans, who hold 52 seats, would need 60 votes, which seems an impossibility. (On Sept. 22, 2017, with eight days left before the deadline, Arizona’s John McCain said he would join two other Senate Republicans who have indicated they would not vote for the bill, potentially dooming its chances.) The bill and pre-existing conditions got heavy attention after late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, whose infant son was born with a congenital heart disease, attacked it on his show the night before Johnson’s interview. (Johnson has also noted in defending the bill that his adult daughter was born with a pre-existing condition.) How it treats pre-existing conditions The bill keeps the Affordable Care Act prohibition on insurers denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. But states could obtain waivers that would enable them to opt out of other ACA provisions that protect those people. The upshot: States could allow insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions more than they charge healthy people; and the insurers could offer policies that offer less than the "essential benefits" that are now mandated. PolitiFact National rated Mostly  a claim by President Donald Trump that the bill includes "coverage of pre-existing conditions," finding that: If a state merely says it "intends to maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions," then it can allow insurance companies to charge sick people more than healthy ones. The federal government could withhold money granted to a state under a waiver if the state doesn’t do as it promised, but the words "adequate" and "affordable" are open to interpretation. Policies would not have to provide the same level of coverage now mandated under Obamacare. Estimates say about 34 states would see net funding cuts under the bill. It costs money to cover people with known health conditions, and most states would have less of it. Johnson's claim goes further than Trump’s, saying the bill’s pre-existing protections are as good as Obamacare’s. But in reviewing the GOP bill, the political news website Axios arrived at similar findings: The funding cuts "could pressure states to waive protections for sick people as a way to keep premium increases in check. Older, sicker people in every state could end up paying more as states try to make up for a funding shortfall." States could get a waiver to let insurers charge sick people more than healthy people. A waiver would exempt insurers from the current requirement to provide "essential health benefits," including prescription drugs -- so, people who need expensive drugs might have to pay out of pocket. And Pollitz told us that states could also allow insurance companies to: Charge lower premiums to people while they’re healthy, but then raise the rates at renewal time if, for example, they get cancer. Charge higher premiums based on a person’s location or occupation, practices that are outlawed under Obamacare. Information from the bill’s sponsors say it would protect people with pre-existing conditions, but doesn’t provide details. Patrick McIlheran, a Johnson spokesman, told us the bill gives states the flexibility to try "new approaches to keeping insurance for those with pre-existing conditions affordable." Before we close, it’s worth noting: Writing about the bill in the conservative National Review, Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, made one reference to pre-existing conditions, saying: On the positive side, supporters of the legislation correctly point out that it would give the states far more flexibility with the funds they receive, and would allow them to waive many of Obamacare’s more onerous regulations, including the mandate to buy coverage, mandated benefits and pre-existing-condition coverage requirements. Those are the regulations most responsible for driving up premiums and destabilizing insurance markets. Our rating Johnson said the GOP health bill he is co-sponsoring will protect people with pre-existing conditions "every bit as well as Obamacare did." The bill would keep the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions. But states could obtain waivers that would allow insurers -- unlike under Obamacare -- to charge people with pre-existing conditions premiums and provide them lesser benefits. We rate Johnson’s statement .


IVF: Newer ‘eSET’ procedure reduces risk of multiple births

Explanation: In-vitro fertilization (IVF) is a delicate balance between guaranteeing success that at least one of the embryos will develop and minimizing the risk of multiple birth. The recent birth of octoplets in the US has very dramatically raised awareness of the risk associated with multiple births and the variability in how IVF is performed, even with the existence of guidelines. This story reports on a newer procedure, elective single-embryo transfer (eSET), in which only one embryo is implanted at a time. This procedure eliminates the risk of multiple births while appearing to have favorable pregnancy rates. The story did a good job describing the costs, and alternatives. It adequately quantifies the pregnancy rate and multiple birth rate in women who get eSET and standard IVF. It quotes multiple sources who provide valuable perspective. The story could have been improved by describing the availability of eSET. Clearly IVF is available, but it is not clear if elective single-embryo transfer (eSET) is widely available. Furthermore, the story could have provided more information on the evidence to support eSET. Although the story mentions a recent study, it does not describe whether this study provides strong evidence to support the procedure or not. Finally, the story should have clarified that eSET is not a new method but rather a name for the active choice to transfer a single embryo in a women who could have been eligible for transfer of more than one. Elective single-embryo transfer is theoretically available to all women at facilities that provide embryo transfer at the stage of development known as the blastocyst stage. Readers may have benefitted from knowing the option can be discussed with any infertility care team.

The story describes the cost of treatment and conveys that insurance coverage is highly variable. The story describes the pregnancy rate and percentage of pregnancies with multiples in women who received eSET and those who transferred two embryos. Multiple gestation, prematurity, and bedrest are noted. The story does not adequately describe the strength of the available evidence to support eSET. Although the story mentions a recent study, it does not describe whether this study provides strong evidence to support the procedure or not. The current study is not a randomized trial and therefore does not provide definitive proof that outcomes are comparable. The story is clear on who would be a good candidate for eSET. The story quotes the ASRM guidelines, based on the woman’s age and quality of her embryos. The story also does not overplay the emotional or "tragic" aspects of infertility as news coverage of this topic often does. The story quotes multiple sources. The story mentions implantation of multiple embryos as the alternative to eSET and does a good job introducing cost trade-offs associated with those options. The story is not clear on the fact that transferring a single embryo is always available. By labeling the procedure elective single-embryo transfer (eSET), the story creates the illusion that this is something special being offered by certain institutions. The story is misleading in describing eSET as novel. Single embryo transfer has always been an option (thought in the past perhaps advised against because of cost implications). Families have been asking for religious/moral reasons for some time to transfer single embryos. It has always been an option (though at times advised against because of cost and before techniques of embryo preservation because of embryo sacrifice). But in the last 5 to 10 years the option is available to anyone though perhaps not systematically introduced because of the pressures the article notes to have good pregnancy and live birth rates in the national registry for one’s program. In this case their experts may have mislead them. Because the story quotes multiple experts, the reader can assume the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.


Environment, Rhode Island, Climate Change, Energy, History, Government Regulation, Science, Weather, Steve Goreham,

Sometimes it's the contradictions that drive PolitiFact to check a statement. In a commentary published Aug. 5, 2013, in The Providence Journal, Steve Goreham, executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America, was critical of the science behind the warnings that Earth is getting hotter due to pollution. His first paragraph made this assertion: "Global surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years." Yet three days earlier, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2012 was one of the 10 warmest years on record. All 10 have occurred since 1998. Who's right here? We decided to check Goreham's factoid. We contacted him to ask where he got his numbers and how his claim stacked up with NOAA's. "The short answer is that both are correct," he said in an email. "Temperatures have been flat for the last 16 years and 2012 was one of the 10 warmest years on record." We weren't sure how they could both be correct, so we again asked Goreham what he was using for data. We didn't hear back immediately, so we started looking on our own. Our first stop was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration database. Those data show that over the past 16 years -- 1997 through 2012 -- 15 have been the warmest on record. The readings go back to 1880. But how did the temperatures change during that period? In 2012, the global temperature was 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit higher over land than it was in 1997. Over land and water, the difference was 0.11 degrees. That's not flat. But temperatures naturally fluctuate so much from year to year, It's misleading to just compare two points in time. Goreham is talking about the overall trend, which climate experts use to see long-term changes over time. To find a trend, you have to do a more sophisticated calculation, preferably over a much longer period than 16 years. But 16 years is the period Goreham chose -- and what many other global warming skeptics have focused on -- so we'll stick with that for now. The trend line shows that the annual global temperatures listed by NOAA rose by 0.141 degrees during that stretch. To put this in perspective, when you're only dealing with a 16-year period, a lot depends on when you want to start looking. If you shift the timeframe back by just one year, beginning with 1996, the increase more than doubles, to 0.351 degrees. When we heard back from Goreham after asking about the NOAA database, he said we would "probably" see flat temperatures beginning in 1997. He also suggested we look beginning in 2001 to 2012 and said the temperature trend in that period would be flat. In fact, it was a bit negative. But that's not the 16 years he cited in his claim. Why start 16 years ago? It includes 1998, when an El Nino made surface temperatures exceptionally warm. When you start near an unusually hot year, there's a good chance that subsequent years will be cooler. There's another problem: When you get into temperature changes that small and time frames that short, the natural variability of climate can be so large that any "trend" might be the result of chance. "Generally, for these short periods, if you're within 0.05 [of a degree Celsius] per decade you're not significantly different from zero," said John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, one of the country's best-known skeptics of global warming. (Over a 16-year period, that means the change would have to be higher or lower than 0.144 degrees Fahrenheit to be significant.) "None of the data sets show anything much different from zero since the last 16, 17 years," he said. Since the 1998 El Nino, "it's been pretty flat. There's been a slowdown in the trend." So by Christy's gauge of what would be significant, the 0.141 degree increase from 1997 through 2012 seen in the NOAA database is essentially no increase, as Goreham said. In addition to the NOAA database, we looked at the two other major climate databases, one from NASA and the other from the Hadley Centre of the Met Office, which is the United Kingdom's National Weather Service. We used a tool available at SkepticalScience.com, which supports the global warming theory as do the vast majority of climate scientists. Its Temperature Trend Calculator page allows users to pick from among several sets of temperature data and pick various timeframes. Hadley showed a .170 degree increase over those 16 years and NASA's numbers showed a .251 rise. Although they would indicate a significant rise by Christy's off-the-cuff definition, a more precise calculation done by the Temperature Trend Calculator showed that none of the increases exceeded chance. Thus, the global temperatures that were rising so rapidly in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s have stalled. The Met Office has begun referring to the last 16 years as "the recent pause in warming." Officials there have issued three reports to try to explain the plateau. They stressed that the last decade was still the warmest on record and asserted that temperatures will likely resume their rapid rise soon, although the agency is not offering a timetable. Said physicist Robert Brecha, of the University of Dayton: "There is increasing evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that over the past decade or so more thermal energy is going into the deep ocean, rather than into the atmosphere. This is almost certainly just a temporary, cyclical process. "The key point is that additional greenhouse gases trap heat in the earth system, keeping that energy from flowing back out to space," Brecha said. "So if the atmosphere doesn't receive that heat [thereby increasing its temperature] that trapped energy is nevertheless building up." One last note. Goreham, in his commentary, was citing the 16-year trend in a broader context. He and other warming skeptics argue, with some justification, that the newest global readings are so far afield from the alarming temperature increases that were once predicted by climate computer models, it raises serious questions about whether scientists understand Earth's changing climate as well as they think they do, and whether it's worth spending trillions of dollars to try to influence it. But we'll save that controversy for another fact-check. Our ruling Steve Goreham said "Global surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years." The databases we checked generally show small increases during that period, but not enough to be statistically significant, thanks to a short timeframe and a starting point that included an unusually warm year in 1998. That's why, at the same time, NOAA data clearly show that global temperatures in 15 of the last 16 years have been the hottest recorded. So Goreham is correct that the temperature trend has been flat, but it's flat at record highs. Because his statement reflects cherry-picked numbers and leaves out important details that would give a very different impression. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)


Scott Brown Says Jeanne Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax.

New Hampshire, Energy, Voting Record, Scott Brown,

In an Oct. 21, 2014, debate in Concord, N.H., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and her Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, tangled over energy policy. At one point, Brown said Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax." We thought we’d take a closer look. This claim echoed, but did not precisely match, one made in a June press release by Brown’s campaign manager, Colin Reed -- that "one year ago, Sen. Shaheen voted for a measure that would have amounted to a new national energy tax." This referred to the debate surrounding a "carbon tax" -- another term for taxes on oil, gas and coal usage. The logic behind the tax is that by making natural resources costlier for individuals and businesses to use, a carbon tax would encourage the use of alternative energy sources that have a smaller environmental impact. Most economists agree that a carbon tax would be effective, but the issue hasn’t gained much political traction. Brown campaign staffer Elizabeth Guyton pointed us to Shaheen’s vote on an amendment to a 2013 budget resolution put forth by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who has expressed support for implementing a carbon tax. The amendment stipulated that revenue generated by any future carbon tax must be given back to the public in some form. Shaheen voted in favor of the amendment. However, nothing in that amendment would have actually enacted a carbon tax. Rather, the amendment offered a rough framework for how money generated from such a tax, if one were ever enacted, would be put to use. "I think that ultimately a fee on carbon pollution is inevitable, and the purpose of that amendment was to begin a discussion on that and begin the discussion about when that happens, what the best way to use the proceeds of the fee are," Whitehouse told reporters in 2013. "So from that point of view, I didn’t view it as binding anybody on a carbon fee, but I did view it as an assessment of the best way of using carbon fee proceeds." Although Shaheen was one of 41 "yea" votes (all of them coming from Democrats or Democratic-caucusing Independents), the vote wasn’t directly in support of a carbon tax. It would have been accurate to say Shaheen voted to "pave the way" for a carbon tax if she had cast a vote to -- for instance -- begin Senate debate on an actual carbon tax. But no carbon tax was waiting for a vote. The amendment she voted for wouldn’t have brought a carbon tax any closer to fruition. (And don’t forget that the measure didn’t even pass, so it’s not as if it paved the way for a tax that’s now in place.) A second piece of evidence offered by Brown’s campaign concerns an amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. Blunt has emerged as a persistent carbon tax opponent in the Senate. In 2013, Blunt proposed an amendment that would have increased the threshold for passing a carbon tax framework within a budget resolution to 60 votes. Shaheen voted against this amendment, even as some of her Democratic colleagues from energy producing states voted for it. Still, it’s an exaggeration to say that Shaheen "paved the way" for a carbon tax when no proposal was going anywhere in the Senate. Shripal Shah, a spokesman from Shaheen’s Senate office, told us in June that Shaheen has never supported a carbon tax. Shah said Shaheen supports "market-driven solutions" to address pollution, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This statement seems to fall in line with the position Shaheen took when she first campaigned for the Senate in 2008. During a roundtable discussion at Seacoast Energy Alternatives in Somersworth, New Hampshire, Shaheen said she would prefer a cap-and-trade program over a carbon tax because it’s "easier to sell to the population" and "puts the onus" on the polluters. When it comes to the legislative record, Shaheen’s efforts to influence energy policy since taking office have been focused largely on boosting energy efficiency. Shaheen partnered with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to craft an energy efficiency bill that would launch a federal training program for energy-efficient building design and operation and establish a loan program for energy improvements to homes and small businesses, among other initiatives. The bill has twice died in the Senate. The most recent effort failed on May 12, 2014, when supporters failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to close debate on the bill and proceed to a final vote. Our ruling Brown said Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax." That’s misleading. The two votes she took did mirror those of some lawmakers who favor a carbon tax, but that’s not the same thing as saying she voted to "pave the way for a new national energy tax." These weren’t procedural votes to commence a debate on, or tee up a final vote on, an actual carbon-tax bill. We don't see how either vote would have brought a carbon tax any closer to fruition. We rate the claim .


Explanation: The story describes a procedure to turn brain waves into music, which reportedly can help various medical conditions, although the evidence for this is lacking. Importantly, there seems to be little, if any, evidence that this treatment is helpful for the conditions mentioned, e.g. depression, anxiety, pain syndromes. Yet the story treats the "treatment" as if it has a proven benefit. It's also unclear what the benefit might be or for how long. Unfortunately, NBC's physician-reporter, who was apparently supposed to objectively comment on this "therapy," only gushes at what the treatment might do, despite a lack of compelling evidence that it does anything. While this provides for good TV banter, it doesn't provide an objective source for the story. Despite all the airtime given this, NBC relied on only one source –  "a neuropsychiatrist (who) brought brain music therapy to the U.S. from Moscow, and claims it cures all kinds of ills." The story also doesn't describe any harms from this procedure, its availability, or what other treatment options–proven treatment options–might exist for any of the conditions discussed. It seems to represent this procedure as a "treatment" for all psychiatric illness, fatigue, or stress, which is a disservice to the public. In an era in which many are pushing for evidence-based medical reporting, this story goes in the opposite direction.

The story mentions the cost of a session ($500) and tells viewers that more than one session may be needed. The story does mention this is not covered by insurance. It does not explain how many sessions might be needed to get an effect. The story states that treatment worked in 80-85% of people who tried it, but it's not clear what "worked" really means, what the response was in the control group, or the duration of the response. The story does not mention any potential harms of turning brain waves into music. If the research has shown no harms, the story should have said that. The story tells viewers that the evidence is based on one double-blind study, but it doesn't say whether that study was randomized, or provide response rates for the control arm or even provide any other details to evaluate the strength of the study for which all claims are based. Based on only one study with such seemingly high effect rates, the strength of the evidence seems rather weak. It's not clear what the disease in this story would be. Is it depression, anxiety, pain syndromes? This is presented as a potential cure for all psychiatric illness and for fatigue or common stress. A description of one man's experience with depression and the fact that he could get off his paxil and xanax (which is not used for depression) and "be himself" is misleading and potentially biasing. The story implies taking medications for depression is a weakness, which only serves to further stigmatize such a debilitating and serious condition. The story discusses little to no scientific evidence that this works, yet NBC's reporter-physician supports the treatment because she "thinks" it should work (vs. commenting on what the evidence actually tells us). Despite all the airtime given this, NBC relied on only one source –  "a neuropsychiatrist (who) brought brain music therapy to the U.S. from Moscow, and claims it cures all kinds of ills." Medications are mentioned as an alternative for treatment of depression (and medications are mentioned for treatment of anxiety, although they are incorrectly ascribed to the treatment of one man's depression). However, medications are mentioned only in a negative way without mentioning their benefits. Other effective treatment options for depression, such as counseling, are not mentioned, nor are other treatment options for the other conditions this experimental approach is purported to help. It is not clear whether this is available to the public. The story states it is somewhat experimental, so viewers are left wondering if this is only available in research settings. There is no information on the stage of research or where to seek "treatment." The story states the "treatment" has been used by 10,000 people, but doesn't explicitly state when this first started being used or how new this is. However, music therapy in general remains fairly novel and most people understand taking someone's EEG and reformulating it into music sounds very new. We can't be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release, although it did rely on only one source – "a neuropsychiatrist (who) brought brain music therapy to the U.S. from Moscow, and claims it cures all kinds of ills."


Pat Toomey "still supports privatizing Social Security.

Explanation: Joe Sestak says Pat Toomey "still supports privatizing Social Security"

National, Message Machine 2010, Regulation, Social Security, Joe Sestak,

In what's becoming a close Pennsylvania Senate race, Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak is hammering former Republican Rep. Pat Toomey over Social Security. Here's an ad unveiled Oct. 11, 2010. "The stock market crash," a narrator somberly intones, as video and audio clips of the 2008 Wall Street tumble stream by. "If Social Security had been privatized, seniors would have seen their retirement wiped out." (Video shows four images of seniors.) "Congressman Pat Toomey still supports privatizing Social Security. See, Toomey has represented Wall Street his entire life, so Toomey puts Wall Street profits ahead of protecting Pennsylvania seniors." (Video shows images of Toomey and newspaper clips referring to his stance on privatizing Social Security.) We wondered how accurate Sestak's ad was, since it echoed other Democratic ads on Social Security that we've rated either Barely True or . First, a little background on the idea of privatizing Social Security. Conservatives have long embraced the idea of turning Social Security as we know it -- in which younger workers' payroll taxes fund retired Americans' monthly payments -- into a system where workers may invest at least a portion of their money to provide for retirement. The upside, supporters argue, is that retirement nest eggs could be much higher, given the historical rates of return from private investments. Of course, critics note a major downside -- the possibility of loss. Social Security may be invested more conservatively than some private investments, but that protects retirees from market losses. And, because it's a legal entitlement, retirees can count on Social Security, unless the law is changed. While Republicans have emphasized possible gains from personal investing, many Democrats have focused on potential losses, leading many Republicans to distance themselves from the word they once used to describe the idea -- "privatization." Understanding that many seniors have deep concerns about changing the way Social Security works -- and knowing that seniors turn out to vote in comparatively high numbers -- few Republican politicians today advocate a full-blown privatization of Social Security. Rather, those who take up the issue at all propose a gradual transition in which current Social Security beneficiaries and those within a decade or so of entering the program will undergo no changes. Instead, the changes made would only affect those a decade or more away from retirement, and in most proposals, these younger workers would only divert a portion of their payroll taxes to private accounts (rather than 100 percent in the purest version) and would do so on a voluntary basis (instead of the shift being mandatory). This model is pretty close to what Toomey said represents his current view during a recent meeting with the editorial board of the Scranton Times-Tribune. "Under Mr. Toomey's proposal, the government would guarantee the Social Security benefits of people currently at or approaching retirement age," wrote staff writer Borys Krawczeniuk in his Oct. 8 report on the meeting. "'Any change for those folks would be outrageous and unreasonable. Those people who have worked a lifetime paying into a system with a promised set of benefits need to get what they were promised,' Mr. Toomey said. 'But if we're going to be honest about it, we know the program can't continue in its current form.'" The article added that Toomey's plan would allow "younger workers to voluntarily divert a portion of their Social Security payroll tax into private savings accounts they would control and invest any way they want. A young worker who did not want to do that could stay with the current system of a guaranteed benefit." So, back to the ad. We see two areas worth a closer look. • Is it "privatization" if it's partial, voluntary privatization? In our previous analyses, we have been critical of ads that fudge the difference. This one doesn't explicitly say that Toomey wants to privatize the whole program, but it doesn't disabuse viewers of that notion either. • Does the ad go too far in directing its message toward seniors, even though Toomey's plan specifically exempts them from any changes? As we've noted in an earlier fact-check of the Sestak-Toomey race, focusing on seniors makes good sense in Pennsylvania: It's the fourth oldest state in the union, with 15.5 percent of its residents over 65, trailing only Florida, West Virginia and Maine. Sestak's ad uses four images of senior citizens, and it specifically cites older Americans in its closing line by saying that "Toomey puts Wall Street profits ahead of protecting Pennsylvania seniors." Yet Toomey makes a point of saying that his plan won't affect those currently in Social Security or those entering the program in the next few years. He even said that any effort to change the rules for older Americans would be "outrageous" and "unreasonable." So wouldn't that qualify as misleading? Not so fast, says the Sestak camp. They argue that even though the seniors are nominally protected by Toomey's pledge, they wouldn't be kept safe in reality. When you drain Social Security revenue by allowing younger workers to invest a portion of their payroll taxes privately, you increase the fiscal pressure on Social Security in its role delivering benefits to current retirees. Since retirees are still promised full benefits under the Toomey plan, the revenue shortfall will eventually have to be made up somehow, whether it's through new taxes or increased borrowing -- or reduced benefits. If benefits are to be reduced, then even retirees supposedly protected under Toomey's plan could suffer. We ran this line of thinking by a variety of policy experts. They agreed that there's a legitimate policy concern with the transition to a partially privatized system, but they added that it may not provide full justification for the ad's focus on today's seniors. For one thing, you could just as easily make the argument that current benefit levels are under fiscal threat due to demographic trends, yet the ad doesn't acknowledge that risk. In addition, the amount of immediate fiscal pressure will ultimately depend on how big a portion of their payroll taxes participants are allowed to invest privately, and whether the option proves widely popular or not. Finally, Social Security has a trust fund that is predicted to remain solvent through 2037, meaning that revenue replenishment might not have to take place immediately. This latter fact is relevant in judging the ad's atmospherics, because if the replenishment is delayed long enough, no one who's a senior today -- or who's going to be one any time soon -- would face the possibility of a cut in retirement benefits. And that would undercut the ad's focus on seniors. Paul Van de Water of the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities does note that seniors may oppose even a partial privatization because they want their grandchildren to have a solid Social Security benefit when they reach retirement. "Since we don’t have pictures of what (their grandchildren) will look like 30 or 40 years from now, I don’t think that it’s misleading to use pictures of today’s elderly to illustrate the point," he said. We see his argument, but we still think the ad overplays its hand. The ad is correct that Toomey supports a type of privatization -- in fact, he's been quite open about it -- but that privatization proposal is limited and optional. The Toomey plan also wouldn't directly affect today's seniors, and it may or may not affect any of today's seniors who are still alive years down the road. This clashes with the ad's visuals, which seem directly targeted at older voters, not younger ones.


Facebook post Says the Asian, Hong Kong, swine and bird flus each “killed more people than coronavirus.”

Explanation: Most of the numbers listed in the post are wrong. Regardless, it’s too soon to compare the number of COVID-19 deaths to deaths from longer-running pandemics.

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

A Facebook user suspecting a conspiracy suggests that despite global shutdowns to stem COVID-19 spread , this virus isn’t as deadly as four other historic outbreaks. "In 1957, Asian flu killed 1 million people. In 1968, Hong Kong flu killed 1 to 4 million people. Swine flu caused 18,000 deaths, bird flu caused 75,000 deaths," the April 6, 2020, post says. "All these viruses killed more people than coronavirus and yet they've never, ever shut anything down. So, what are the government not telling the public? Or, am I the only one confused by this?" 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.) As for the number of deaths, the numbers in the Facebook post are correct with respect to one outbreak. All of the other numbers are largely inaccurate. More importantly, it is too early to say what the final death toll will be for COVID-19. The pandemic is still raging and hasn’t run nearly as long as the other four outbreaks. "The coronavirus pandemic has just begun," Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security. "The numbers for the influenza pandemics are their complete impact over a full season and therefore not comparable to the numbers that have accrued thus far for the coronavirus pandemic." We’ll cite the outbreaks as they are referred to by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This new influenza A, known as the Asian flu, was first reported in Singapore in February 1957, Hong Kong in April 1957 and in coastal cities in the United States in summer 1957, according to the CDC. Total estimated deaths: 1.1 million, roughly what the Facebook post claims, including 116,000 in the United States. What the post calls the "Hong Kong flu" was an influenza A that is believed to have originated in Hong Kong and was first noted in the United States in September 1968, according to the CDC. Total estimated deaths, according to the CDC: 1 million, including 100,000 in the United States. The post claimed the figure was 1 million to 4 million, a range Britannica.com also uses. The encyclopedia doesn’t cite a source for that range. Other sources, including GlobalSecurity.org, refer to 1 million deaths or in the range of 750,000 to 1 million deaths (Medscape medical website, Nieman Foundation for Journalism). The H1N1 influenza virus was discovered in the United States in the spring of 2009 and spread around the world. The World Health Organization declared an end to the pandemic in August 2010, according to the CDC. It was originally referred to as "swine flu" because many genes in the virus were similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. Total estimated deaths: 151,700 to 575,400, far more than the 18,000 claimed in the post. An estimated 12,469 deaths occurred from April 2009 to April 2010 in the United States. What the post refers to as "bird flu" was not a pandemic and is an outlier in this context. Says the CDC: Avian influenza A outbreaks occur in poultry from time to time, and some of those outbreaks have been associated with illness and death in people in Asia, Africa, Europe, the Pacific, and the Near East. "While very rare, some avian influenza A viruses have also caused illness in people in North America." The post claims 75,000 deaths from bird flu. But only 455 human deaths from avian influenza A (H5N1) were reported to the World Health Organization from 2003 to Jan. 20, 2020. None of the deaths were in the United States. The coronavirus surfaced in China in late December. According to the World Health Organization, there were 67,594 deaths, including 8,358 in the United States, as of April 6, 2020, the date of the Facebook post. There were 1,210,956 confirmed cases globally as of that date, which creates a case fatality rate of 5.6%. That’s up from a 3.4% rate cited by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization’s director-general, at a news conference on the coronavirus on March 3, 2020. So far, it’s dramatically higher than the case fatality rates for the three pandemics listed in the Facebook post, all of which were in a range of 0.5% or less, according to the New England Journal of Medicine and Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University. But the rate can vary considerably during an outbreak, the World Health Organization told us. At this relatively early stage, estimating the case fatality rate is difficult for several reasons, according to an article The Lancet, a British medical journal: The virus and its clinical course are new, and we still have little information about them. Health care capacity and capability factors, including the availability of health-care workers, resources, facilities, and preparedness, affect outcomes. An unknown number of COVID-19 cases are uncounted, including people with the virus who don’t have symptoms, or people who are misdiagnosed. A Facebook post that questions the lethality of COVID-19 cites specific figures in claiming that the Asian, Hong Kong, swine and bird flus each "killed more people than coronavirus." The post is correct on the number of people killed only for the Asian flu. What the post calls the Asian, Hong Kong and swine flus each killed more people worldwide than COVID-19 has so far. But raw-number comparisons are meaningless, given that those pandemics each ran well over a year, and the COVID-19 outbreak is only four months old. We rate the statement .


As China builds biotech sector, cash floods U.S. startups.

Explanation: For three whirlwind days in June, U.S. scientist Zhi Hong went shopping at the Boston Bio Conference to find drugs to fill the pipeline of his two-week-old drug company.

Crammed in tight, four-person booths executives use for private conversations, the former GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK.L) executive pitched dozens of U.S. biotech companies to partner with his start-up, Brii Biosciences. Months earlier, Hong had raised $260 million - much of it from Chinese and Asian investors - with a strategy to bring U.S. biotechnology drugs to China, the world’s second-largest prescription drug market and home to a rapidly growing biotech sector. Brii is now discussing partnerships with about a dozen drugmakers, which it aims to help by conducting clinical trials in China, applying for governmental approval and eventually negotiating reimbursement in a bid to capitalize on China’s stated plan to become the next global player in biopharma. “I didn’t see this coming,” Hong told Reuters. “They said, ‘If you start a company, you won’t have any problem raising money.’ I didn’t quite believe that at the beginning. But as we went through the process, it was incredible.”  Brii is one of many biotech startups riding a wave of money from Asia that so far this year has poured $4.2 billion into private U.S.-based biotech companies. That is over 43 percent of the total amount of venture funding invested in the biotech sector, according to PitchBook, up from just 11 percent in 2016. These investors range from China’s 6 Dimensions Capital and Hillhouse Capital Group to Hong Kong-based Blue Pool Capital, the investment arm of Alibaba’s executives. They are in search of better returns across the Pacific after China’s recent homegrown biotech push has driven sky-high valuations. “There are companies in China that haven’t even started clinical trials, and they have received term sheets for $400 million,” said Nisa Leung, managing partner and leader of healthcare sector at China-based Qiming Venture Partners, referring to the agreements that describe the terms of an investment. “I think that’s crazy.”  China’s biotech craze stems in part from a government plan launched a few years ago as part of the Made In China 2025 campaign. The goal is to promote biotech as a strategic emerging industry, spawning rapid development and investment into the burgeoning sector. A rule change at the Hong Kong stock exchange this spring is also providing an added incentive for investors. Biotechs without revenue or profit from around the world are now able to list on the exchange  – which provides a faster way for investors to cash out. Among the winners are Menlo Park, California’s GRAIL Inc, an early-stage cancer detection company that in May raised $300 million in a Series C round led by Chinese healthcare fund Ally Bridge Group. Immuno-oncology company TCR2 Therapeutics of Cambridge, Massachusetts, received $125 million in March in a Series B round co-led by Pacific-focused investor 6 Dimensions. In the United States, the influx of cash from China has inflated the size of biotech funding rounds and quickening the pace that companies can raise money. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2CG36Gb)  Companies that rely on licensing deals to develop innovative drugs in China - like Brii or Shanghai-based Zai Lab - are more often paying a premium. The interest from China has driven the upfront payments for licensing agreements for U.S. drugmakers to over $30 million currently from $1 million or $5 million three years ago, according to Leung. Other headwinds for Chinese biotech investment persist - ranging from the nagging threat of the Trump administration broadening restrictions on Chinese investment to the lackluster stock performance to date of the first Hong Kong biotech IPO under the new listing regime, Ascletis Pharma (1672.HK). Still many investors interviewed by Reuters do not expect China’s biotech hunger to end overnight. “It makes a lot of sense (for Chinese funds) to look at U.S. biotech firms especially as many Chinese biotechs still lag behind their U.S. peers in terms of the quality and the pipeline of products,” said Jonathan Wang, senior managing director and co-founder of the Asia fund at OrbiMed Advisors, a healthcare investment firm that continues to invest in young biotechs in both China and the United States. For some biotech companies, money from China has breathed new life into experimental drugs or devices that lost priority inside company pipelines for various reasons. That was the thinking behind scientist Bing Yao’s move to strike out on his own, just as Asia investor interest in biotech was taking off. Yao first had the idea to leave his position as the head of the respiratory, inflammation and autoimmunity disease unit at AstraZeneca MedImmune in March 2017. The pharmaceutical company was pruning its drug development to focus on priority areas like cancer, so he proposed spinning off some programs to a new start-up that he would create to develop the drugs. One year later, Yao launched Viela Bio with AstraZeneca’s blessing and six of the pharmaceutical company’s experimental drugs. The furthest along is a medicine for neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, a rare disease affecting the optic nerve and spinal cord of around five in 100,000 people. Yao raised $250 million from a consortium of investors led by China-focused funds, including Boyu Capital, 6 Dimensions and Hillhouse. AstraZeneca remains the largest minority shareholder. Yao said he received interest from more investors than he wanted to manage, so he selected the firms that “came earlier and faster.”  “A few years ago, it would have been harder to raise large sums like this,” said Yao, who spent over 20 years focusing on immunology at companies like Amgen and Genentech before AstraZeneca. But it may not be as easy for companies going forward. Changes in Washington and the challenges of breaking into the Chinese healthcare sector are emerging on investor radars. A new law passed in August expanded the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investments for potential national security concerns. The broader scope prioritizes the protection of emerging technologies, including genetic information. Even those with funding could find the China market difficult to navigate. Launching new medicines in China is still relatively untested, and conducting clinical trials, getting government approval and selling medicines in China’s segregated healthcare marketplace present formidable hurdles. “It’s a significant job,” said Moncef Slaoui, former head of global research and development and vaccines chairman at GSK and a Brii strategic advisor. “But this is a moment where there is an opportunity,” he said, because moves by the Chinese government, such as modernizing its version of the FDA, will have long-lasting impacts. At Brii, the strategy calls for working with AliHealth, the healthcare arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (BABA.N), to find potential patients for its drugs. Another deal with WuXi AppTec Co Ltd (603259.SS) gives Brii access to WuXi’s extensive research and development capabilities in China. Brii’s first U.S. biotech partnership is with San Francisco-based Vir Biotechnology, an infectious disease-focused startup headed by former Biogen CEO George Scangos. The deal grants Brii the rights to develop some of Vir’s future drugs in China. ARCH Venture Partners’ Robert Nelsen backed both companies. “Other companies try to become global,” said Hong. “We’re doing the reverse. We are dedicated 100 percent to the Chinese market.”


A photograph shows an anti-rape device known as RapeX, a female condom with teeth lining the inside.

Explanation: What's true: The image shown here pictures a design for an anti-rape female condom. What's false: The pictured device has never been marketed or made available for purchase.

Sonette Ehlers, of South Africa (the rape capital of the world), has invented an anti-rape device that goes by the name, Rapex. The device is basically a female condom with teeth lining the inside that work just like the protective spikes in a parking garage… You can go in, but whatever you do, don’t back out. The teeth are angled so they allow penetration, but bite like a shark as the penis is removed; supposedly causing so much pain that it will give the woman a chance to escape. Further, according to Ms. Ehlers, “the device will need to be surgically removed at a hospital, which will lead to the capture of the rapist.”   The device shown above is a prototype for an anti-rape female condom which was unveiled in 2005, as designed by Sonnet Ehlers, a former medical technician in South Africa. Originally branded RapeX, the device’s identification was changed to Rape-aXe due to a conflict with the European Union’s warning system of similar name. Various news article reported of the device’s introduction that:  “Nothing has ever been done to help a woman so that she does not get raped and I thought it was high time,” Sonette Ehlers, 57, said of the “rapex”, a device worn like a tampon that has sparked controversy in a country used to daily reports of violent crime. Ehlers said the “rapex” hooks onto the rapist’s skin, allowing the victim time to escape and helping to identify perpetrators. “He will obviously be too preoccupied at this stage,” she told reporters. “I promise you he is going to be too sore. He will go straight to hospital.” The device, made of latex and held firm by shafts of sharp barbs, can only be removed from the man through surgery which will alert hospital staff, and ultimately, the police, she said. Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it — a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest. “It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it’s on,” she said. “If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter … however, it doesn’t break the skin, and there’s no danger of fluid exposure.” It also reduces the chances of a woman falling pregnant or contracting AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases from the attacker by acting in the same way as a female condom. “The ideal situation would be for a woman to wear this when she’s going out on some kind of blind date … or to an area she’s not comfortable with,” she said. Ehlers, who showed off a prototype, said women had tried it for comfort and it had been tested on a plastic male model but not yet on a live man. Production was planned to start [in 2006]. However, even though the the Rape-aXe anti-rape condom was promoted online and announced as about to go into production eleven years ago, we’ve found no indication that it has ever been marketed to the public nor any announcement confirming if or when it will be made available for purchase. CNN reported in 2010 that Ehlers planned to distribute 30,000 of the devices in South Africa during the upcoming World Cup football matches and hoped to make them available for sale after a “trial period,” but we have found no report suggesting that the product has ever been released to vendors.


The "federal government is going after school districts, trying to force them to let boys shower with little girls.

Education, Sexuality, Sports, Texas, Ted Cruz,

Sen. Ted Cruz recently veered from discussing Syria to suggesting our government wants schoolboys to shower with girls. The Republican presidential candidate commented after interviewer Steven Crowder mentioned "genetically proper pronouns." "Look," Cruz said, "these guys are so nutty that the federal government is going after school districts, trying to force them to let boys shower with little girls." The Texan went on: "Now listen: I’m the father of two daughters, and the idea that the federal government is coming in saying that boys, with all the god-given equipment of boys, can be in the shower room with junior high girls – this is lunacy. And I bet you there are a whole lot of parents – particularly parents of daughters – that are not eager to have the federal government saying, ‘Guess what? Your daughter has to shower with a boy, if he wants to be in there,’ " Cruz said. A video of the conversation was posted online Nov. 19, 2015. We hadn’t heard about a push for coed showers by the government under President Barack Obama and also didn’t hear back from Cruz’s campaign about how he concluded the government is trying to let boys shower with girls. But a Nov. 22, 2015, news story in The Advocate said Cruz "appeared to be alluding to the administration’s recent support of two separate transgender students who have sued their school districts after administrators refused to let the students use the restrooms and locker rooms that correspond with their gender identity." Our read: Just one of the mentioned situations involves a student seeking access to locker rooms, though news stories indicate there have been other recent instances of transgender individuals seeking unfettered access to high school locker rooms. What’s a transgender person? For starters, it’s not factually accurate to say that letting transgender students into locker rooms amounts to boys being permitted to shower with girls. A transgender individual is a person whose gender identity, expression or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. Broadly, this can mean a person born a boy identifies as a girl or vice versa. A transgender also may receive hormone treatments and undertake sex reassignment surgery. Pat Griffin, a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, advocates for including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in college and interscholastic athletics. Griffin wrote in September 2015: "It is important for policy-makers to understand that transgender girls (who were assigned a male gender at birth) are not boys. Their consistent and affirmed gender identity as girls is as deep-seated as the gender identity of non-transgender girls." After we posted this fact check, readers suggested we'd failed to capture the ongoing debate over transgender rights; we followed up by writing this story. "Student A" in Illinois The Advocate story led us to check into the case of an Illinois transgender girl barred by her school district from changing clothes for gym class and other activities with girls. The girl, represented by the ACLU of Illinois, filed a complaint in 2013 charging sex discrimination in violation of federal law. On Nov. 2, 2015, the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education wrote the superintendent of the school district in Palatine, Ill., northwest of Chicago, saying the district’s restriction violates Title IX, the federal bar on sex discrimination in any education program or activity. The ACLU of Illinois declared the federal holding had national significance. "The decision places school districts all across the nation on notice that Title IX requires making such facilities available for students who are transgender," the group said. "It is the first such decision issued by the department, building on legal briefs and policy statements of the federal government interpreting federal laws prohibiting discrimination." The office’s letter, signed by regional director Adele Rapport of Chicago, says "Student A" was born male and from a young age identified as female, transitioning in middle school "to living full-time as a young woman" and, among steps evidently not including sex reassignment surgery, taking "an ongoing course of hormone therapy." Also, the letter says, the district has given the student "unlimited access to all girls’ restrooms in the school" and "allows her to participate in girls’ athletics." According to the letter, the student, required to take a daily gym class, sought "an opportunity to change clothes privately within the girls’ locker rooms, in an area such as a restroom stall." The district answered that it would not be "practicable" to do so in the school’s six girls locker rooms "because there were too few stalls and too many students," the office wrote. The letter further says the student told the office in October 2015 she’d use privacy curtains in the locker rooms if the school made them available. Talks involving the district and office did not lead to a resolution, the letter says. School district stresses private changing rooms The Palatine-based Township High School District 211 said in a Nov. 2, 2015, press release it disagreed with the department’s ruling and beyond continuing settlement negotiations, it was prepared to "engage in all avenues of due process to determine whether our position of  honoring the rights of all the students is within the law." The district’s release also said: "The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms – where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities – for a reason." A Nov. 3, 2015, Chicago Tribune news story said the district had 30 days to reach an agreement with authorities or risk having its federal educational funding suspended or terminated and the matter also could be referred to the Department of Justice. And on Dec. 3, 2015, after Cruz made his claim, the government announced a settlement with the district agreeing to give the student access to school locker rooms "based on the student's request to change in private changing stations" in the rooms. Other conflicts A Nov. 2, 2015, New York Times news story on the Illinois dispute said: "The rights of transgender students have become the focus of disputes in school districts in many states, leading to divergent approaches regarding which sports teams they can play on, bathrooms they can use and pronouns they are addressed by. In separate cases, two California school districts agreed to lift restrictions on transgender locker room and restroom access after federal officials intervened. Students at one Missouri high school protested a decision by the district to let a transgender girl use female locker rooms and restrooms." In the Missouri instance, the Times reported Sept. 2, 2015, transgender Lila Perry, 17, used girls’ restrooms and locker rooms until a local protest led her to drop her physical education class. Professor’s take We called Griffin, the professor emeritus, who told us it’s her view that boys showering with girls is an inaccurate characterization of the government saying transgender students should, by law, have full access to school facilities including locker rooms. Griffin also called the education department’s ruling in Illinois "the developing precedent" nationally. Cruz’s statement, Griffin said, amounts to "fearmongering" and "reflects a complete ignorance" of transgender students, especially overlooking the fact that a transgender girl is not a boy so "it’s not a boy in the girls’ locker room." In contrast, Griffin said, the focus of most U.S. school officials has been on ensuring every student has a right to privacy in a locker room or restroom. Griffin, asked about state policies on transgender student-athletes, pointed us to a breakdown on Transathlete.com, which compiles policies and research regarding transgender inclusion in sports. According to the website, Texas ranks among about a dozen states with no policy ensuring transgender participation. The site touts Massachusetts’ policy, which says, in part: "Where there are sex-segregated classes or athletic activities, including intramural and interscholastic athletics, all students must be allowed to participate in a manner consistent with their gender identity." We also reached out to the federal education department, which did not comment on Cruz’s claim but pointed us to a Nov. 2, 2015, statement by Catherine Lhamon, an assistant secretary in the agency’s Office for Civil Rights, saying: "All students deserve the opportunity to participate equally in school programs and activities – this is a basic civil right. Unfortunately, Township High School District 211 is not following the law because the district continues to deny a female student the right to use the girls’ locker room. The district can provide access to this student while also respecting all students’ privacy." Our ruling Cruz said the "federal government is going after school districts, trying to force them to let boys shower with little girls." Cruz’s vision of schoolboys everywhere showering with girls grossly distorts the issue. The fact is the Obama administration has sided with transgender students seeking access to school facilities including locker rooms, holding that anything less would violate federal anti-discrimination requirements. Such conflicts — few and far between — haven’t had to do with the government wanting boys to shower with girls. We rate the claim . – The statement is not accurate.


In a First, Gene Therapy Halts a Fatal Brain Disease

Explanation: This story is one of two that we are reviewing (the other is from the Associated Press) that focuses on a recent paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine. At issue is a novel gene therapy used to limit or eliminate symptoms related to the disease adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). The New York Times story does a good job of describing everything that led up to the study, does a fair job of describing the study itself (and its results), and highlights the potential price tag of this treatment. However, the story doesn’t make clear how far this treatment is removed from widespread clinical use or the outstanding questions that remain about the treatment — such as the fact that we don’t know if the benefits are temporary. Left untreated, ALD often leads to death within 1-10 years of diagnosis. And there are precious few treatment options available. What’s more, the primary treatment, bone marrow transplantation, relies on the availability of a donor — and poses significant health risks of its own. All this makes new treatment options incredibly important for ALD patients and their loved ones. However, the fact that we are talking about the life and well-being of patients — usually children — also makes it incredibly important to place the work in context. Limitations, availability and unanswered questions are always key points worth making, and especially so when many parents are eager for information about something that may affect the health and well-being of their children.

The story tackles this issue head on, though what they report may not be comforting for those affected. Here’s how they address the issue: “The results of the new study also give rise to a concern that is becoming a regular feature of gene therapy work and other new biotech therapies: How much will this treatment cost? Bluebird Bio is not saying…[but one scientist involved in the study] expects the price to be similar to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs for a bone-marrow transplant.” The story describes the outcomes for all 17 patients who were enrolled in the study, 15 of whom did not have symptoms of ALD after two years. Potential adverse effects were not adequately addressed. The story did do a good job of highlighting concerns about gene therapies in general, pointing to problems that have cropped up in previous, unrelated gene therapy trials. And it mentioned that bone marrow transplants have risks. However, it didn’t address potential harms associated with this study in particular. According to a supplement of the journal article, side effects ranged from fever and seizures to gastroenteritis. The side effects listed in the supplement also included those for one patient (2018), whose ALD symptoms worsened significantly after treatment began. It’s not clear what effect, if any, the treatment had on the relevant patient. The story does an adequate job of describing the study, but it’s missing at least one key point: Namely, the story doesn’t make clear that the study can’t prove ALD is “cured” in these patients — a longer follow-up time is needed to determine what the long-term impact of the gene therapy treatment will be. We also don’t know whether there will be significant adverse effects from the therapy (even if it is curative) in the long run. No disease mongering here. The story includes input from multiple independent sources, which is good. The story also notes that the relevant study was funded (in part) by Bluebird Bio — a company that hopes to market the relevant gene therapy. However, the story does not note that the principal investigator for the study, David Williams, has a conflict of interest. According to an appendix of the journal article, Bluebird Bio also funds other projects by Williams. The company has also licensed one of Williams’ patents. That doesn’t necessarily mean that anything in the study is shady, but conflicts of interest should be acknowledged. The story did a good job of describing other treatment options — including bone marrow and cord blood transplants — as well as the associated risks. The story doesn’t make clear that this treatment is, at the very least, years away from clinical use. The story notes only that Bluebird Bio is “in hopes of marketing gene therapy for ALD.” This line, found more than halfway through a 1,300 word story, isn’t sufficient. This is an area where the Associated Press story fared better, noting that the FDA “requires gene therapy participants to be monitored for 15 years, so these patients will continue to be studied.” The AP story also notes that Bluebird Bio “plans to seek approval of the therapy in the U.S. and Europe.” The AP was stronger on this criterion. This is a strong point for the story, which provides a fairly detailed background on how this treatment technique developed over time, how the treatment works and what sets it apart from other treatment options. The story goes well beyond a news release.


Arkansas may revoke retailers’ inactive medical pot licenses.

Explanation: Arkansas may consider revoking medical marijuana licenses for dispensaries that aren’t open by June, officials said.

Medical marijuana, General News, Marijuana, Business, Arkansas

Arkansas Alcoholic Beverage Control officials, who regulate the state’s budding cannabis industry, said they could begin taking action against inoperable dispensaries at the end of January, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. But a necessary rule is still being drafted and won’t be ready by then. Officials have said licenses may not be reissued when they are up for renewal in June. Scott Hardin, an ABC spokesman, said in an email last week that the amendment legalizing medical marijuana did not include an operation date for dispensaries. “Due to this, the pace at which these dispensaries are developed and open for business is totally at the discretion of owners,” Hardin said. “ABC Enforcement agents continually check in with owners, requesting status updates while offering support and a reminder that the company was licensed to serve patients. ABC will send a letter to each dispensary in early January explaining the process of renewing the license while also requesting an updated time frame for opening.” Marijuana commissioners have expressed frustration at how long it is taking the 32 dispensaries in the state to open since being licensed this year. Only 11 are operating. Voters approved an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution in 2016 to legalize medical marijuana. David Couch, the attorney who drafted and sponsored the amendment, said more dispensaries should be open by now. “It’s totally unreasonable,” Couch added. “I think a lot of these unopened facilities are managed by out-of-state entities who believe that it’s not economically in their best interest to open a facility now, so they’re just going to wait. I think that’s wrong.” Attorney Alex Gray, who represents several dispensaries, said cannabis companies have been weighing patient count, product supply and locations of other dispensaries. “From the outside looking in, people don’t understand a lot of the facts that go into a business,” Gray said. “There may be frustration that not enough dispensaries are open. Given just the timeline and what’s required to be invested and the numerous business decisions that have to be made to start a multimillion-dollar industry, these are decisions that have to be made thoughtfully and deliberately.”


Scientists who took chemistry into cyberspace win Nobel Prize.

Explanation: Three U.S. scientists won the Nobel chemistry prize on Wednesday for pioneering work on computer programs that simulate complex chemical processes and have revolutionized research in areas from drugs to solar energy.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.25 million) to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, said their work had effectively taken chemistry into cyberspace. Long gone were the days of modeling reactions using plastic balls and sticks. “Today the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube,” the academy said in a statement. “Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today.”  Chemical reactions occur at lightning speed as electrons jump between atomic nuclei, making it virtually impossible to map every separate step in chemical processes involving large molecules like proteins. Powerful computer models, first developed by the three scientists in the 1970s, offer a new window onto such reactions and have become a mainstay for researchers in thousands of academic and industrial laboratories around the world. In drug design, for example, scientists can now use computers to calculate how an experimental medicine will react with a particular target protein in the body by working out the interplay of atoms. “The field of computational modeling has revolutionized how we design new medicines by allowing us to accurately predict the behavior of proteins,” said Dominic Tildesley, president-elect of Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry. Today, all pharmaceutical companies use computational chemistry to screen experimental compounds for potential as medicines before further testing them on animals or people. The ability to model chemical reactions has also grown as computers have become more powerful, while progress in biotechnology has produced ever more complex large molecules for use in treating diseases like cancer and rheumatoid arthritis. “It has revolutionized chemistry,” Kersti Hermansson, professor in organic chemistry at Uppsala University, said of the computer modeling. “When you solve equations on the computer, you obtain information that is at such detail it is almost impossible to get it from any other method.”  “You can really follow like a movie, in time and in space. This is fantastic detail...”  Karplus, a U.S. and Austrian citizen, carries out research at the University of Strasbourg and Harvard University. Levitt, a U.S. and British citizen, is at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Warshel, a U.S. and Israeli citizen, is a professor at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. The approach has applications in industrial processes, such as materials science, the design of solar cells or catalysts used in cars. For the former, programs can be used to mimic the process of photosynthesis by which green leaves absorb sunlight and produce oxygen. It was not an easy scientific journey, however. Warshel said he had been convinced of the case for using computers to simulate chemical reactions since 1975 but did not know if he would live to see it adopted. “I always knew it was the right direction, but I had infinite difficulties and setbacks in the research. None of my papers were ever published without being rejected first,” he told Reuters. Karplus said his early work using computers was initially met coldly by many of his scientific colleagues in the ‘70s. “My chemistry colleagues thought it was a waste of time,” he told reporters at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, adding that the next generation of scientists should be courageous and “not believe their colleagues necessarily if they say they can’t do something.”  Karplus’s family brought him to the United States in 1938 after the Nazi annexation of Austria. Austrian President Heinz Fischer said on Wednesday the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the prize to Karplus “is gratifying and at the same time an occasion to reflect on Austria’s responsibility.”  A unique insight of the trio’s work was to use computer simulations to combine quantum mechanics, which explains the making and breaking of chemical bonds, with classical Newtonian mechanics, which captures the movement of proteins. Ultimately, the ability to computerize such complex chemical processes might make it possible to simulate a complete living organism at the molecular level - something Levitt has described as one of his dreams. “I am a computer geek,” Levitt told Reuters. Back in the 1960s there were no personal computers, he said, so the only way for scientists to get their hands on a computer was to find ways to use it in their work. “That’s not to say that I became a computational chemist in order to play with computers, but a large part of any creative activity is to feel that you’re playing.”  “I think if everybody did everything with passion, the world would be a better place,” he said. Chemistry was the third of this year’s Nobel prizes. The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of businessman and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.


Battle ropes become popular go-to fitness tools in U.S. gyms.

Explanation: Battle ropes, the thick and heavy ropes that look as if they could tether a ship to shore, have become go-to fitness tools in gyms for people seeking a tough workout that is also engaging and fun.

Whipping, slamming, dragging and drumming the long, anchored ropes have long been used in training for sports like football, but fitness experts said they have now gone mainstream in gyms as an efficient workout routine. “It’s a little like running with the upper body,” said Jonathan Ross, spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise. “It’s not just using different muscles but training muscles in different ways.”  The Washington, D.C. area-based trainer and author of the book “Abs Revealed,” said a ropes workout engages the mind as well as the body with what he calls the grace of the wave. “The ropes show you how you’re moving,” he explained. “You see the physical manifestation of the body movement as you watch the ropes. If you do them well, your body is moving well.”  Posture and coordination are inherent elements of the workout, Ross said. Battle rope workouts also pack a calorie-burning cardio punch. A study published in the April 2015 Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research showed that a 10-minute bout of rope training resulted in high heart rates and enough energy expenditure to increase cardio respiratory fitness. Crunch, the national chain of fitness centers, has built a group fitness class around battle ropes. “It’s great core training. The abs, back, and glutes (muscles of the buttocks) are all engaged,” said Donna Cyrus, senior vice president of programming at Crunch. “Obviously there’s toning to the upper body and it burns a lot of calories.”  Rope classes typically include a warm-up segment followed by teams competing to see who can keep the wave, or movement of the rope, going the longest time. Ross said battle ropes, which come in various diameters and lengths, require shoulder mobility and stability, so people dealing with shoulder issues should use them with caution. “The longer the rope, the more challenging because you have to generate more force,” he said. “You want to see that move travel all the way down to that anchor point.”  Another mistake, he added, is pulling the ropes too tight. “You can’t make a wave if the rope is tight,” he said.


So we know Gov. Rick Scott likes to portray himself as the jobs-promoter-in-chief but what about tree-hugger-in-chief? During his fourth State of the state speech March 4, Scott began by reeling off a list of recent accomplishments. "A lot has happened since I spoke to you last year. I can talk about how our unemployment rate is now down to 6.3 percent. How our crime rate is at a 42-year low. How we have invested record funding in protecting our environment....." Some of those numbers sounded familiar to us. But we hadn’t heard Scott’s claim that during his tenure we have invested record funding to protect the environment, so we decided to fact-check that claim. Funding to restore springs We asked Scott’s spokesman to provide us with documentation to support his claim that during his tenure Florida had invested record funding on environmental protection. Spokesman John Tupps told PolitiFact Florida in an email that Scott was referring to his proposed budget that includes a "record $55 million" to protect and restore springs -- "building upon last year’s investment of more than $37 million." Funding for springs is only a subset of funding for environmental protection, but we’ll look at the status of springs funding first. As of early March, the Legislature hadn’t voted on the amount for springs protection. It’s possible the Legislature will set an even higher amount: A coalition of Senate committee chairs drafted a bill to raise $400 million for springs from documentary stamp taxes on real estate transactions. The state has more than 1,000 freshwater springs, and many are suffering from nitrate pollution that fuels the growth of toxic algae blooms. Geologists have found an increase in saltiness in a few freshwater springs, which could signal future problems with the state's drinking supply, the Tampa Bay Times reported. In 2013, the state asked water management districts for a list of projects essential to springs restoration and received a list of about $122 million. The Legislature set aside $10 million, but the total climbed to $37 million, once other sources including local government money was included. "If the Legislature passes Gov. Scott’s $55 million springs recommendation it will be a record level of spending for Florida’s springs," Eric Draper, Executive Director Audubon Florida, told PolitiFact Florida. Annual DEP funding Though Scott’s spokesman said he was referring to money proposed for springs protection, his claim was more broadly about the environment, so we asked the Department of Environmental Protection, called DEP, for the bottom-line budget total for each year during Scott’s tenure. We found similar figures back to 2004, during the tenure of his predecessors, Govs. Charlie Crist Jeb Bush. Here is the bottom line total each year: 2004-05: $2.1 billion 2005-06: $2 billion 2006-07: $2.9 billion 2007-08: $2.4 billion 2008-09: $2 billion 2009-10: $1.3 billion 2010-11: $1.4 billion 2011-12: $1.8 billion 2012-13: $1.4 billion 2013-14: $1.3 billion These numbers come with some caveats: they are appropriation numbers, not actual expenditures, and they combine state and federal dollars. In several of those years, the numbers included debt service payments of more than $400 million. It’s no surprise that the dollar amounts were higher in flush financial times under Bush and part of Crist’s term and then plummeted along with the economy in the second half of Crist’s tenure and Scott’s tenure. We have seen the same pattern for other state spending priorities. Spokespersons for DEP and Scott also cited other environmental projects Scott has supported -- including an $880 million water quality plan to provide clean water to the Everglades. Facing the prospect of court-ordered cleanup, in 2012 the state reached a settlement with the federal government to end a long-standing dispute about Everglades cleanup. All of the $880 million won’t be spent this year; it is a 13-year agreement. For this year, Scott proposed $130 million for Everglades, which includes part of that $880 million, as well as other state and water management district sources. "Scott has skillfully negotiated the Everglades deal with EPA, which gives him a talking point of boosting environmental programs in Florida," said Jerry Phillips, a DEP attorney in the 1990s who is now an environmental watchdog. "But the reality is that Bush and Crist had been negotiating with EPA for years as well, on issues such as the Everglades." Environmental cuts The total DEP budget doesn’t tell the full story because other agencies also do work that relates to protecting the environment. We interviewed several environmentalists who pointed to Scott’s lack of investment in protecting the environment. We will cite some of their examples: • In 2011 Scott and the Legislature abolished the Department of Community Affairs, which for decades reviewed development plans in cities and counties. • In 2011, Scott and lawmakers forced state water management districts to slash property tax collections. The South Florida Water Management District’s total budget dropped from about $1 billion in 2011 to $622 million in 2014. Water management districts handle planning for water resources and wetlands protection, among other environmental issues. • In December 2012, DEP laid off 58 employees. • The number of enforcement cases handled by DEP has dropped dramatically, from 2,289 in 2010 (Crist’s final year) to 799 in 2012, the Tampa Bay Times reported. As of the end of May, only 145 new cases had been filed. • For many years the Legislature invested $300 million a year in Florida Forever, a program to buy land with money from a tax on real estate transactions. During the economic downturn, the Legislature pulled back. In 2010, Crist’s final year, the program received $15 million. In 2011, Scott proposed zeroing out Florida Forever (it ultimately got $744,000), and then in 2012 he signed a budget that included about $8 million. In 2013, lawmakers approved $20 million and directed the state to sell off $50 million worth of land to generate additional dollars. In March, DEP scrapped the program without selling an acre. Scott has proposed $70 million for next year -- that includes $40 million from the sale of non-conservation lands. Frank Jackalone, Sierra Club’s Senior Organizing Manager in Florida, said Scott’s claim is "disconcerting" because of the various cuts. "You have to take all that into account when you run budget numbers," he said. "It sounds to me like Scott’s people are coming up with their own selective set of budget figures. ... He doesn’t have environmental creds as far as I am concerned." Our ruling During his State of the State speech Scott said, "We have invested record funding in protecting our environment." After the speech, a Scott spokesman said he was referring to money directed toward springs restoration. Scott’s statement during the speech likely left  listeners with the impression that his investment in the environment in general is a record, and that would be misleading. Sorting out the total investment in environmental protection under Scott compared to predecessors is complicated because funding comes from state and federal sources and multiple state programs relate to the environment. However, under one way to compare funding - - the total for the Department of Environmental Protection -- Scott falls far short of Bush’s record. And Scott doesn’t beat Crist’s record, either. Scott tried to take his spending recommendation for one particular environmental project -- springs restoration -- and portray that as an overall record, and that’s not the case. We rate this claim .