Chinese people are selling each other bags of fresh air because of air pollution.

Explanation: What's true: Some customers in China are buying bottles and cans of fresh air. What's false: The companies selling the air are not Chinese firms, the air is sold in compressed form in cans or in bottles (not in plastic bags), and the product is not necessarily being  bought as a practical source of clean air.

Business, china, environmental hazards, pollution

It may have started as a joke in the Mel Brooks satire “Spaceballs,” but in February 2016 various publications began reporting that bottles of fresh air were being sold to Chinese customers seeking relief from persistent air pollution in major cities such as Beijing. As countries such as China and India have developed industrially, they have also developed major smog problems. In December 2016, the New York Times reported that Beijing officials sparked controversy when they listed smog as a natural disaster: Beijing is still reeling from a grimy November, and public anger over smog is running high. Some are concerned that classifying the murky air as a natural disaster will reduce pressure on officials to fix the problem, The Beijing News said. Levels of fine particulate air pollution, known as PM2.5, soared to a monthly average of 100 micrograms per cubic meter in November, according to Luo Yi, head of the Ministry of Environmental Protection’s environmental monitoring bureau, a ministry statement said. PM2.5 particles are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and they can enter deep into the lungs and even into the bloodstream. Across the so-called Jingjinji region — which is home to 130 million people and includes Beijing, the surrounding province of Hebei and the port city of Tianjin — the average PM2.5 level in November was 102 micrograms per cubic meter, Mr. Luo said. According to the World Health Organization, which has stricter guidelines than most countries, yearly averages of PM2.5 levels should not exceed 10 micrograms per cubic meter. Moses Lam, a Canadian entrepreneur, saw an unlikely product opportunity in this phenomenon: pristine Canadian Rockies air. Lam said his canned air business is booming: We’re selling fresh air in China, but we sell in a can, not in a bag. We started our company first selling two Ziploc bags full of air. After we sold them on eBay, we figured there might be a bit of a market there, and we wanted to improve our product. So we started compressing air in cans. Now Lam’s company, Vitality Air, sells thousands of cans of fresh air collected from Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. He has customers in China, India and South Korea, with a developing market in Vietnam. On 3 January 2017, the Chinese government announced that 24 cities were on “red alert” for smog, with “red” being the most serious level for alerts in China’s four-tiered public warning system. Lam said that during the winter months, pollution gets worse because Chinese citizens are heating their homes and burning coal, which adds to pollution produced by coal-burning factories: The pollution and our sales for product goes hand in hand for sure. We see a spike in sales, we also see a spike in people asking for distributorship of our products. Every time this year we move thousands and thousands of bottles. Lam said he’s seen photographs of Chinese people selling each other inflated bags of air, but that’s not where he got the idea. Vitality, which incorporated in 2015, has a 24-foot trailer and 14,000 pounds of equipment (including a giant vacuum device) which Lam uses when he drives from Edmonton to Banff and collects 200,000 liters of air over about a 40-hour period. The air is compressed into containers that double as face masks, allowing customers to experience the smell and quality of Rocky Mountain air for about 160 breaths: Lovin’ that Rocky Mtn air! Puffing away all morning. On a natural high. @vitalityair #payingforair pic.twitter.com/5cIQdx1YaZ — Dave Mitchell (@mitchee69) June 10, 2016  Lam’s idea has caught on. Leo De Watts and his company, AethAer, sell empty-looking jars for £80 (nearly $100 U.S.) … but the emptiness is in the eye of the beholder. According to the company’s web site, the jars contain air from pristine parts of Great Britain, including Dorset, Yorkshire and Somerset: A businessman is raking in thousands of pounds selling jars of ‘fresh air’ to people in China for £80 each. Leo De Watts, 27, sells air collected in the British countryside and ships it over to polluted cities Shanghai and Beijing, where the wealthy elite pay a hefty sum for a few seconds of inhalation. A video shows De Watts standing in a gusty English meadow with a woman appearing to “catch” air in a large bag behind him:  The British newspaper The Independent notes that such products may be bought by consumers more as novelty or collector’s items than as practical sources of clean air: As well as those buying the product to inhale, it is reportedly also being purchased by people who will never open it, but instead keep the jar for its novelty value. The air is collected using jars held in makeshift nets, which are held into the air and walked around in areas far removed from anywhere polluted — a process Watts describes as ‘air farming’. Reuters reported that a millionaire  Chinese philanthropist handed out cans of fresh air as a stunt to make a political point abut the environment: Chen Guangbiao, who made his fortune in the recycling business and is a high-profile philanthropist, on Wednesday handed out soda pop-sized cans of air, purportedly from far-flung, pristine regions of China such as Xinjiang in the northwest to Taiwan, the southeast coast. “I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: don’t just chase GDP growth, don’t chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment”, Chen said. Vitality Air’s head said the pollution problem in China is so pervasive he doesn’t believe will be corrected any time soon, and he acknowledged how serious it is — after a trip to China, he reported, he coughed for three weeks upon returning home to Edmonton.


US-built capsule with a dummy aboard docks at space station.

Explanation: A sleek new American-built capsule with just a test dummy aboard docked smoothly with the International Space Station on Sunday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to getting back in the business of launching astronauts.

AP Top News, Technology, North America, Elon Musk, Business, Science, SpaceX, U.S. News

The white, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule, developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company under contract to NASA, closed in on the orbiting station nearly 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean and, flying autonomously, linked up on its own, without the help of the robotic arm normally used to guide spacecraft into position. Dragon’s arrival marked the first time in eight years that an American-made spacecraft capable of carrying humans has flown to the space station. If this six-day test flight goes well, a Dragon capsule could take two NASA astronauts to the orbiting outpost this summer. “A new generation of space flight starts now with the arrival of @SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to the @Space_Station,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted. “Congratulations to all for this historic achievement getting us closer to flying American Astronauts on American rockets.” Ever since NASA retired the space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. has been hitching rides to and from the space station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In the meantime, NASA is paying two companies — SpaceX and Boeing — to build and operate America’s next generation of rocket ships. SpaceX’s 27-foot-long (8-meter-long) capsule rocketed into orbit early Saturday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with a mannequin strapped into one of its four seats in a dashing, white-and-black, form-fitting SpaceX spacesuit. The test dummy was nicknamed Ripley after the main character in the “Alien” movies. Ripley and the capsule are rigged with sensors to measure noise, vibration and stresses and monitor the life-support, propulsion and other critical systems. As the capsule closed in on the space station, its nose cap was wide open like a dragon’s mouth to expose the docking mechanism. In a docking with a crew aboard, the capsule would likewise operate autonomously, though the astronauts might push a button or two and would be able to intervene if necessary. The three U.S., Canadian and Russian crew members aboard the space station watched the rendezvous via TV cameras. Within hours, the capsule’s hatch swung open and the three astronauts floated inside to remove supplies and take air samples, wearing oxygen masks and hoods until they got the all-clear. Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques pronounced the docking flawless and called it “a beautiful thing to see.” “Welcome to the new era in spaceflight,” he said. Dragon will remain at the space station until Friday, when it will undock for an old-school, “Right Stuff”-style splashdown in the Atlantic, a few hundred miles off Florida. As part of Sunday’s shakedown, the space station astronauts sent commands for Dragon to retreat and then move forward again, before the capsule closed in for good. SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered the docking, then burst into applause again when the Dragon’s latches were secured. The two astronauts set to fly aboard Dragon as early as July, Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, witnessed the Florida liftoff, then rushed to Southern California to watch Sunday’s maneuver. “Just super excited to see it,” Behnken said minutes after the linkup. “Just one more milestone that gets us ready for our flight coming up here.” Next up, though, is Boeing, which is looking to launch its Starliner capsule without a crew as early as April and with a crew possibly in August. SpaceX already has made 16 trips to the space station using cargo Dragons. The version designed for humans is slightly bigger and safer. It can carry as many as seven people and has three windows, emergency-abort engines that can pull the capsule to safety, and streamlined controls, with just 30 buttons and touch screens, compared with the space shuttle cockpit’s 2,000 switches and circuit breakers. ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


Study: Air pollution greatly affects St. Louis’ poorer areas.

Explanation: St. Louis residents living in poor, segregated neighborhoods are at a greater risk of cancer from air contaminants, and proximity to congested traffic make up a significant share of that vulnerability, according to a study from Washington University.

Cancer, St. Louis, General News, Air pollution, Science, Public health, Pollution

Christine Ekenga, an assistant professor of public health at the university and the study’s lead author, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the pollutants that conferred the greatest dangers were traffic-related. “The closer a neighborhood was to a major interstate highway, the more elevated their risk was,” she added. “African American neighborhoods were more likely to be in these hotspot areas.” The findings support the university’s other recent research that details how St. Louis is plagued by inequalities. The city’s stark racial divide makes it one of the most segregated in the U.S. and contributes to differing outcomes across a wide range of environmental health concerns, from asthma rates to lead exposure and inadequate access to healthy food. Elevated cancer risk from air contaminants could be included on that list, according to the new study. Published in late October in the journal Environmental Research, the findings are based on modeled estimates of concentrations for 180 chemicals that the Environmental Protection Agency said are known to cause cancer, or suspected to cause cancer. The model factors in such things as industrial emissions and traffic, and also measures lifetime cancer risk if someone were to live in the same neighborhood — or specifically, census tract — for 70 years. The regional study suggests that 14% of St. Louis-area census tracts have heightened cancer risk linked to air pollutants. Dangers are especially great in areas with high levels of both racial and economic isolation — where people are less likely to interact with someone of a different race or economic status. Ekenga said the findings also underscore that broader changes must occur, and those in positions of power must do more to account for the interests of underprivileged communities. “These are communities that are economically disenfranchised and environmentally disenfranchised, and what this means is they’re not involved in conversations about land use,” Ekenga said. “We need to seek their input, and when they provide their input, we need to listen to them.”


Eating farm-raised tilapia and other fish from China is dangerous.

Explanation: Making generalizations about China’s food industry is difficult. Several thousand modern, large-scale, multinational and joint venture companies and farms that use best practices and sophisticated equipment operate alongside millions of small independent farms, workshops, and merchants that use crude equipment and techniques. China has some 200 million farming households with average land holdings of 1-2 acres per farm and at least 400,000 food processing enterprises, most with 10 or fewer employees. Millions of people and businesses are involved in the handling and transportation of food beyond the farm gate. The vast number of food suppliers increases the challenge of disseminating standards, monitoring production, and tracing problems to their source.

ALWAYS buy wild caught fish NEVER farm raised! I read several articles on Google about this, and even one that was defending the eating of tilapia said to avoid the fish that came from China. Also, I had just returned home from buying Albertson’s 4-day special of 4 bags of frozen tilapia for the price of one. Sure enough, on the top of the bags, it read “farm raised”, and on the bottom in small print it said, “China”. I recently saw a Food inspector on TV…. He said he had lived overseas and he had seen the filthy conditions their foods are raised and processed in. It is enough to make you throw up. Some foreign workers have to wear masks as they work in these places, because the food is so rotten and filthy, it makes them want to throw up. Many of their Fish on Fish Farms are fed Raw sewage daily. He said he has seen so much filth throughout their food growing and processing that he would “never” eat any of it. They raise this filth, put some food coloring and some flavorings on it, then they ship it to the USA for YOU to consume and feed to YOUR families. They have no Food & Safety Inspectors. They ship it to you to buy and poison your families and frien The tilapia referenced in the online warning reproduced above are a fast-growing tropical species of fish native to Africa whose popularity in the commercial food industry has surged in recent years. (Technically, tilapia is not the name of one specific species of fish but rather a common name for dozens of different species of cichlid fish.) Tilapia is now the fourth most-consumed seafood in the United States, after shrimp, tuna and salmon, and due to increased demand, much of the tilapia consumed by the public is now farm-raised rather than wild-caught. A June 2013 report from the Earth Policy Institute noted that worldwide production of farmed fish now not only exceeds the production of beef, but that consumption of farmed fish is soon expected to exceed consumption of wild-caught fish: The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming — also called aquaculture — reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. And 2013 may well be the first year that people eat more fish raised on farms than caught in the wild. One of the reasons for the popularity of tilapia is that they are short-lived and primarily vegetarian and therefore do not accumulate substantial amounts of mercury by consuming other fish, as other common predatory food fish (such as tuna) do. This factor also means, as reported in a June 2013 National Geographic article, that tilapia are more efficient to farm because they eat lower on the food chain: Andy Sharpless, the CEO of Oceana [an ocean conservation organization] explained that many popular food species like salmon are carnivorous, often devouring other fish. So when farmed, they eat upwards of five pounds of small fish to produce just one pound of salmon, a net loss of protein. “We’re actually taxing the oceans every time we eat farmed salmon instead of relieving it,” said Sharpless. “Aquaculture should add edible protein to the world, not reduce it.” Carl Safina, author, conservationist, and Ocean Views contributor, said he isn’t surprised that farmed fish have overtaken beef, because the process is more efficient. “It’s probably more like Step One in a long-term downsizing,” said Safina. He explained that people will soon start eating more farmed carp and tilapia, because they are lower on the food chain, and therefore more efficient — a driving force in an increasingly overpopulated world. “We’re down mainly to two mammals (cows and pigs) and two birds (chickens and turkeys), and seafood is probably headed in that same direction as the spectacular variety of our overfished ocean yields to a few easily farmed, efficiently fed fish,” said Safina. “A crowded world has less room for choices; that’s the bull lurking in this china shop.” Farmed fish aren’t necessarily inferior to their wild-caught brethren, any more than farmed beef or grain is inferior to wild varieties of those foods. And there’s no guarantee that wild-caught fish are a safer food source than farmed fish, as the former often ingest a variety of toxins and other pollutants that flow into the world’s waterways. However, farmed tilapia can vary considerably in quality based on where they are produced. Tilapia are typically farmed in the U.S. and Canada using tanks with closed recirculating systems, but much of the tilapia consumed by Americans is imported from Latin America and Asia (particularly Ecuador, China, and Taiwan), where the fish are usually raised in outdoor freshwater ponds. (China is the world’s largest producer of farmed tilapia, supplying approximately 40% of global production; nearly 40% of that output is exported to the U.S., primarily in the form of frozen fillets.) As reported by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), in Ecuador tilapia are grown at low densities alongside shrimp to reduce water pollution, resulting in less disease and chemical use. But in China and Taiwan, water pollution and the use of chemicals in tilapia farming is a concern. One of the issues with tilapia farmed in China is that smaller, independent farmers face economic pressures to use animal manure rather than more expensive commercial feed for farmed fish, a practice which contaminates water and makes the fish more susceptible to spreading foodborne diseases. A July 2009 report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety of food imports from China noted that in that country “Fish are often raised in ponds where they feed on waste from poultry and livestock” and cited an increased rate of FDA rejection of fish imports from China between 2000 and 2008: Fish and shellfish products were the industry group with the most refusals from China, followed by vegetables and fruit products. Fish/shellfish share of refusals from China doubled from about 20 percent in 2000-04 to nearly 40 percent in 2007-08. Food and Water Watch also drew attention to the high incidence of safety problems with fish and shellfish imports from China. Eels (frozen and/or roasted), catfish fillets, and shrimp accounted for most of the refused fish/shellfish shipments, but a wide variety of other products were also refused, including tilapia, tuna, monkfish, squid, jellyfish, crawfish, crab, cod, mackerel, and other fish species. The large number of fish and shellfish refusals may reflect increased monitoring of these products that began in 2006 due to chronic problems. Similarly, an October 2012 Bloomberg article observed that the FDA had rejected 820 Chinese seafood shipments since 2007, including 187 that contained tilapia, and furnished examples of the practice of using manure as feed for farmed fish in China: At Chen Qiang’s tilapia farm in Yangjiang city in China’s Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong, Chen feeds fish partly with feces from hundreds of pigs and geese. That practice is dangerous for American consumers, says Michael Doyle, director of the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. “The manure the Chinese use to feed fish is frequently contaminated with microbes like salmonella,” says Doyle, who has studied foodborne diseases in China. On a sweltering, overcast day in August, the smell of excrement is overpowering. After seeing dead fish on the surface, Chen, 45, wades barefoot into his murky pond to open a pipe that adds fresh water from a nearby canal. Exporters buy his fish to sell to U.S. companies. Yang Shuiquan, chairman of a government-sponsored tilapia aquaculture association in Lianjiang, 200 kilometers from Yangjiang, says he discourages using feces as food because it contaminates water and makes fish more susceptible to diseases. He says a growing number of Guangdong farmers adopt that practice anyway because of fierce competition. “Many farmers have switched to feces and have stopped using commercial feed,” he says. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program issued a report on pond-farmed tilapia from China in June 2012 which upgraded its previous “Avoid” recommendation to a “Good Alternative,” although that organization’s ratings primarily focus on environmental sustainability and ecological impact rather than food safety issues. China’s increased recommendation status was due mostly to a reduction in water use and the discharge of effluent by tilapia farmers — factors which are local environmental concerns — rather than enhanced food safety measures. The report noted that use of banned chemicals by Chinese tilapia farmers is an ongoing concern: Most Chinese tilapia is farmed in ponds. Recent reductions in water use, achieved by only emptying the ponds at the time of each harvest, has also reduced discharge of effluent to the environment. Both of these factors were sufficient to raise this recommendation from its previous “Avoid” to a “Good Alternative.” Chinese farms do discharge the water without relevant treatment, however, and there is evidence that some banned chemicals — including antibiotics and fungal treatments (nitrofurans and malachite green) — are still used in Chinese tilapia production. Overall, Chinese tilapia gets a moderate overall score of 5.34 out of ten. Tilapia as a species has the potential to be raised in sustainable ways, but the increasing intensification and industrialization has resulted in one “Red” score for the Chemical Use criterion. This means that the overall ranking is “Yellow,” and therefore the recommendation is “Good Alternative.” Issuing a blanket declaration about whether American consumers should shun all food (or all of a particular type of food) imported from China is problematic because, as the FDA noted, the Chinese food industry is so broad and diverse:


North Korea is now allowing the open practice of Christianity.

Explanation: YourNewsWire frequently generates clicks by latching on to the news cycle and adding their own outlandish, conspiratorial, or outright false narratives to actual news stories. For example, the site in 2017 lumped the suicide deaths of rock singers Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington in with the notorious (and utterly ridiculous) Pizzagate conspiracy theory, falsely reporting they were murdered because they were about to expose a ring of “entertainment industry pedophiles.”

On 2 May 2018, Charisma Magazine, a monthly publication aimed at devout Christian readers, posted a story written by minister J. Lee Grady with the hopeful headline, “North Korea Will Open Its Doors to Christianity.” The article was written amid news of historic thawing of relations between North and South Korea and talk of the North dismantling its nuclear program. One day later, the notoriously disreputable blog YourNewsWire.com reappropriated the piece, for the most part republishing it word-for-word — but attaching their own writer’s name to it. YourNewsWire also rewrote the headline to misleadingly report that North Korea’s acceptance of Christianity was a done deal: “North Korea Agrees To Open Its Doors To Christianity.” But because the original story doesn’t claim that North Korea is already welcoming the free practice of Christianity, the article doesn’t support YourNewsWire’s headline. Instead, it expresses religious views about ongoing developments on the Korean peninsula and hopes that Christians will make inroads soon: When I heard the news last week about the Korean miracle—after I pinched myself to see it was a dream—I turned to Psalm 46. It says: “Come, see the works of the Lord … He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts off the spear; He burns the chariot in the fire” (vv. 8-9). God has worked this miracle. It is not the work of any politician. He has heard the prayers of his people on both sides of this conflict—and the prayers of the faithful around the world who felt North Korea’s pain. He will engineer a lasting peace in this part of the world, and open the doors wide for the gospel to flourish in a thirsty land. Before long, the churches of South Korea will freely send teams into the North with food, medicine and the message of Christ. Like a patient who has been in a coma, North Korea will awaken. The world will watch a national transformation. We are witnessing the greatest display of God’s sovereign power over nations since the Berlin Wall fell. Although the repressive state of North Korea may well some day welcome religion, it is currently de facto prohibited. Ji-Min Kang, a columnist for NK News who lived in Pyongyang until 2005, explained the dynamic in a 2014 column: North Korea’s ruling principles are based on Juche ideology, which is itself based on Marxist materialism. Karl Marx was a sharp critic of organised religion, saying it was “the opium of the people”. In essence then, the basic principles of North Korean socialism are strongly opposed to and incompatible with religious beliefs. Even though the North Korean constitution officially states that it allows the freedom of religion, this freedom simply does not exist in the North. As such, I had to learn continuously about the negative effects and harms of a religion while growing up in North Korea. This environment therefore makes many North Koreans agnostic, but some of course conduct religious activities behind closed doors, often however with serious consequences.


This is a prayer request for   Nick Doize of Katy, Texas who is suffering from acute lymphoblastic   leukemia.  The email also requests readers add their names to a   list at the bottom and forward it to friends.  It also instructs   that when the list reaches 1000 names to email it to the originator.

Explanation: A Prayer Request and Email Chain For a Cancer Patient named Nick Doized

Nick Doize is a cancer patient and has been   fighting acute   lymphoblastic leukemia since February 2006. Doize was fourteen at   the time of his diagnosis. As of September 28, 2009 Doize is still   battling the disease, according to the Dallas Texans soccer team. The team has been sponsoring events and auctions to help raise funds for   his treatment. Doctors at  M.D. Anderson Cancer hospital in the Houston area are exploring the   possibility of a second bone marrow transplant for Doize. The Athletes for Hope   organization, hosted a special “Nick Doize 6 v 6 Invitational Soccer   Tournament” which was held on Saturday June 16th 2007 in Houston that   raised nearly $18,000 for the young cancer patient. Click for Athletes for Hope site. The email chain   request is a grass roots campaign. Updated 10/21/09 Comments


Possible closure of Ohio clinic shows new tactic in U.S. abortion clash.

Explanation: When open for business, the single-story, L-shaped brick building in a run-down west Toledo neighborhood is usually targeted by sign-toting protesters pacing the sidewalk across the street while off-duty police patrol the parking lot.

A sign in a neighbor’s window reads: “You Shall Not Murder.”  Toledo’s Capital Care abortion clinic, the only one in this rust belt city of 285,000, has become the latest front in the national battle over abortion rights, this one centering on a new state law that bars agreements to move women needing emergency care to public hospitals. Toledo’s clinic may have to close because its transfer agreement with a public hospital expired last month and under the new law it cannot renew it. Abortion clinics in Ohio are required to have so-called transfer agreements with hospitals under which a patient can be admitted in case of complications. In 2011, the latest year for which data is available from the health department, complications arose in 91 of 24,764 abortions performed in Ohio. The new law passed by Ohio’s Republican-dominated legislature in June blocks public hospitals from entering into transfer agreements with abortion clinics. The result is that clinics either must have arrangements with private hospitals, since those with public hospitals are barred, or be forced to close since they would be operating without the required transfer agreement in place. Eight other states require abortion clinics to have transfer agreements, including Nebraska and Wisconsin, and abortion rights groups fear Ohio’s crack down could be replicated elsewhere. “This is a brand new idea,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “It wouldn’t be surprising if next year we saw this restriction appear in other states.”  A renewed push by conservative Republicans to put fresh restrictions on abortion at the state level has resulted in a rash of new legislation over the past two years. New laws have ranged from limits on insurance coverage for abortions to requirements that women considering an abortion undergo an ultrasound test, during which technicians typically are required to point out a fetus’ visible organs. Some states have extended waiting periods for those who seek an abortion, while others have zeroed in on later term abortions. Ohio’s law marks yet another approach. Backers of the legislation say a transfer agreement with a public hospital amounts to indirect support for abortion, paid by many who disagree with it. “We think it’s going to protect taxpayers who oppose abortions,” Ohio Right to Life President Michael Gonidakis said. State Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, a Republican who chairs the House health committee, helped prepare the language for the transfer agreement law, which was included as a provision in the budget bill. “The real issue with any agreement with a public hospital is the vast majority of the people in Ohio feel that no public funds or public entities should be supportive of the babykilling industry,” said Wachtmann. Opponents of the law say it will put women’s health at risk, and decry it as a maneuver to undermine the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing the right to abortion. The court has left the states free to place various restrictions on abortion. Nearly one in ten abortions performed in Ohio in 2011 was in Lucas County, which includes Toledo, according to the health department. A second abortion clinic in Toledo closed earlier this year. Capital Care Network of Toledo’s agreement with the University of Toledo Medical Center, a public hospital, to transfer patients in case of complications expired on July 31. It cannot renew that agreement under the new law. Ohio’s health director, Theodore Wymyslo, told Capital Care he is proposing revoking the facility’s license, and that it has 30 days to request a hearing. His letter was received August 6, and the clinic had not yet requested a hearing as of Friday, according to the department. “We are seeking a way to stay open,” said Dr. Thomas Michaelis, who works at the clinic. “We have lawyers who are working on this out of our main office in Columbus.”  Michaelis said if the clinic closes, women in the area will have to travel to Detroit, Cleveland or Columbus for abortions. Terrie Hubbard, identified by the health department as the owner of Capital Care Network in Columbus, did not respond to requests for comment. It was not clear if the new Ohio law would affect the state’s 11 other abortion clinics, since the measure only directly affects those with transfer agreements with public hospitals rather than private. Ohio Right to Life’s Gonidakis said he does not know of any other abortion clinic tied to one of the state’s 18 public hospitals. The health department said it was still reviewing the measure and its impact on the state’s clinics. Abortion rights groups, however, say the impact of the Ohio law could be felt beyond the Capital Care clinic. “It’s just a very shrewd way to close abortion clinics,” said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio. “This isn’t about patient safety - this is about putting barriers between women and a safe, legal medical procedure.”  A woman waiting at a bus-stop with her infant son near the Capital Care clinic said she had considered making an appointment there when she found out she was pregnant again two months ago. But then she heard the clinic was closing. “I’m not happy,” said the 21-year-old woman, who gave her name only as “Faye.” “They made the decision for me.”


Idaho bighorns killed after contact with domestic sheep herd.

Explanation: State officials on Thursday killed two bighorn sheep rams in central Idaho that came in contact with domestic sheep and might have carried deadly diseases back to the wild bighorn herd.

Sheep, Wildlife, Wildlife health, Health, Games, Darts, Idaho

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game in a news release says attempts to dart and put radio collars on the 5- and 6-year-old rams near Challis failed Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. Samples taken from the sheep and their carcasses have been sent to a wildlife health lab for analysis. Domestic sheep and goats carry diseases that can infect bighorn herds and cause die-offs. Fish and Game’s 2010 Bighorn Sheep Management Plan directs the agency to remove bighorns that come in contact with domestic sheep to prevent diseases from reaching bighorn herds.


Back Pain: Revolution: Replacement Disc Surgery

Explanation: This story is about a new treatment option for low back pain – artificial disk replacement. For viewers suffering from low back pain, trying to make a treatment decision, there is too much crucial information missing in this story. Most people with low back pain will not be eligible for the device. Viewers need to understand how little is known about the risks of the device and how it compares to other treatment options. Even if the short-term risks/benefits look good, there will be major unanswered questions abouts the durability and long-term safety of the device. The 25 year old woman in this story may require additional spine surgery in the future as this device wears out. This is not intended to be a one-time cure. In the story, the viewer learns that “More than 75% of Americans suffer back pain at some time.” While this may be technically correct, it’s not clear that all find it “significant.” The kind of back pain that would make an individual eligible for disc replacement surgery represents a very small percentage of all cases of back pain. Most people suffer acute episodes of back pain that resolves on its own. More importantly, the story implies that “injured discs are often to blame.” In fact, only a small percentage of low back pain is attributable to an acute disc herniation. Finally, the statement that “doctors have treated problems by fusing spinal bones together” is unclear and also misleading. Most patients with low back pain are not going to need surgery of any type. For patients with an acute disc herniation, the accepted procedure is a discectomy, not fusion. The story does quantify the benefits of treatment. Although the story quotes the surgeon saying he has had good results, this is not sufficient. The audience deserves more than just a single surgeon’s experience and a couple of days experience in one patient. Although the story mentions that the patient tried accupuncture and electrical stimulation, the story neglects other alternatives and does not discuss the pros and cons of the alternatives. The story does not mention harms. The story does not mention either short-term risks of surgery, or the short to long-term risks of the device itself. Given that the ideal candidate is a young, otherwise healthy person, the device would need to work for many decades. Some early results demonstrate failure rates of 30% after a few years. Furthermore, the story fails to indicate whether disc replacement is available or not, does not describe the quality of the available evidence, and does not mention costs (which could be substantial). Even with the time constraints of TV news, much more could have been done with this story if the topic was to be covered at all.

The story does not mention the cost of the procedure, how it compares to other treatments, or whether it is covered by insurers. Medicare has just approved one device for its population. Most commercial insurers haven’t covered this procedure yet, but will probably start covering it as a result of Medicare’s policy. The story does not attempt to quantify the benefits of treatment. Although the story quotes the surgeon saying he has had good results, this is not sufficient. The audience deserves more than just a single surgeon’s experience and a couple of days experience in one patient. The story does not mention harms. The story does not mention either short-term risks of surgery, or the short to long-term risks of the device itself. Given that the ideal candidate is a young, otherwise healthy person, the device would need to work for many decades. Some early results demonstrate failure rates of 30% after a few years. The story does not describe the strength of the available evidence. Although the story cites the surgeon as aying that he has had good results in his patients, this is not sufficient. No evidence other than the one surgeon who describes his case series is provided. In the story, the viewer learns that “more than 75% of Americans suffer back pain at some time.” While this may be technically correct, it’s not clear that all find it “significant.” The kind of back pain that would make an individual eligible for disc replacement surgery represents a very small percentage of all cases of back pain. Most people suffer acute episodes of back pain that resolves on its own. More importantly, the story implies that “injured discs are often to blame.” This is not true at all. In fact, only a low percentage of low back pain is attributable to an acute disc herniation. Finally, the statement that “doctors have treated problems by fusing spinal bones together” is unclear and also misleading. Most patients with low back pain are not going to need surgery of any type. For patients with an acute disc herniation, the accepted procedure is a discectomy, not fusion. The story only quotes one surgeon and provides no additional perspectives. Although the story mentions that the patient tried acupuncture and electrical stimulation, the story neglects other alternatives and does not discuss the pros and cons of the alternatives. Many treatments are available and thus describing options is critical. The story does not indicate whether disc replacement is available or not. As a new device, it is unclear how widely available it is throughout the U.S. If the pattern of past ideas is followed, it will likely be widely disseminated before we actually know the true benefits and risks of the device, as well as who it should and shouldn’t be used in. The story clearly states that this is a new treatment. But even then, the story provides almost no information about just how novel this is conceptually and practically. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release.


Bubble cars to provide jolt to Paris motoring.

Explanation: Bubble-shaped vehicles will appear on Paris streets next week which billionaire entrepreneur Vincent Bollore hopes will help clear the traffic-clogged arteries of the French capital as well as providing a charge to his nascent battery business.

Former French Formula One champion Alain Prost drives a BlueCar Electric Concept Car during a news conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, February 3, 2006. REUTERS/Franck Prevel The electrically powered Autolib cars will be available for hire in a two-month trial starting October 2 at 4 to 8 euros per half hour to motorists prepared to pay a membership fee starting at 10 euros for a day of driving. The 235 million euro ($321 million) project is the brainchild of Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, who hopes to duplicate the success of Velib, the bicycle-sharing scheme he launched in 2007 and which has been copied by several cities in France and abroad. It’s also a potential showcase for Bollore’s eponymous industrial conglomerate, which is making the BlueCar vehicles involved in the scheme and which are based on a lithium-metal-polymer battery, a different technology from the lithium-ion batteries other car makers are using. Bollore told journalists on Friday he expected the project to make a profit in a number of years. “We estimate that it will be profitable from the seventh year, and an industrial group like ours is used to (its investments) turning a profit from the sixth or seventh year,” he said. The scheme echoes increasingly popular car clubs such as City Car which allow members to hire a local car for as little as an hour at a time. “We want to persuade people to shift from the concept of owning a car to that of using a car,” Autolib General Manager Morald Chibout told Reuters. The city of Paris has spent 35 million euros ($47.8 million) in building the car rental stations, while neighboring communes have contributed 50,000 for each station. The Bollore group, which has invested 200 million euros in the project, will pay a 750 euros annual fee for each car space. Taking a cue from the success of Velib, the project is aimed at reducing the need for the private cars that hog Parisian boulevards as well as offering locals and visitors a chance to discover electric cars. The service will debut next week with 66 cars and 33 stations throughout Paris, but will expand to 3000 vehicles and more than 1000 stations by the end of 2012. The project gets underway as top automakers test the market’s enthusiasm for electric cars on a large scale in Europe. Renault SA and its Japanese sister company Nissan Motor Co, which have invested 4 billion euros in electric vehicles, have begun selling a few such cars ahead of volume production and sales set to kick off in 2012. Bollore’s cars are being manufactured exclusively for the car-sharing service. First unveiled at the 2005 Geneva motor show, the bubble-shaped four seater has been designed and manufactured exclusively for Bollore by Italian designer Pininfarina, famous for sculpting Ferraris and Maseratis. Unlike Pininfarina’s more upmarket designs, the BlueCar has been kept simple, with basic controls that are meant to be intuitive and easy to understand. The car is powered by batteries manufactured by Bollore and can travel up to 250 km between charges which will take about four hours. Bollore says the batteries are safer than the lithium-ion batteries used by most of the car industry because they are less prone to overheating. They are also more stable when being charged and discharged. With estimates for the electric vehicle market of between 20 billion and 50 billion in 2020, Bollore’s bet may pay off if Autolib becomes a success. Soaring insurance and parking costs in French cities have already persuaded 25 percent of its citizens to reduce or give up using their cars, according to a study published last year by Chronos TNS Sofres. Valentine de la Celle, a 30-year-old Parisian mother of two, would seem to be the typical target for the service. She doesn’t own a car, but expects to start using the station on Boulevard Haussmann for short trips, as she lives nearby. “We’re doing building work at home at the moment and to take things to the tip I’d have to hire a car, which is difficult,” she said. “But the scheme needs to be quick and simple, otherwise people will not use it.”   Bollore says picking up an Autolib vehicle from a station and returning it to another will only take a few minutes. Before hiring a car, drivers will have to register at Autolib’s flagship office in central Paris or at kiosks located near some stations. A driving license, ID card and a credit card will be required to sign up, along with an uncashed deposit. Users will be able to sign up for daily, weekly or annual memberships ranging from 10 euros to 144 euros for a year, with users paying more depending on the length of time the car is used. The tiered pricing system is designed to encourage hiring the cars only for short trips, said Annick Lepetit, Paris’ deputy mayor in charge of transportation. “We are not here to compete against traditional car rental businesses,” she said. Unlike traditional rental cars, Autolib vehicles will be tracked by an operational center which will be staffed 24 hours a day to help drivers who run into difficulties. “We hope other cities will contact us to adopt our system,” said Chibout. “Three cities have already called us.”   ($1 = 0.733 Euros)


Explanation: This story explains why, for many people, treadmill stress testing is a poor tool for detecting heart disease and predicting mortality. The article was whittled down by half from a longer version written by the New York Times’ Jane E Brody six days earlier. (Is it a coincidence that the Charlotte paper hacked the original story exactly in half – from the original 1,166 words to 583? Did an editor just say, "Cut it in half."?) Regardless of length, the story lacks important information on several fronts:    It does not describe the quality of the scientific evidence on stress tests It fails to mention potential harms of a positive test  It does not adequately quantify the potential benefits of a stress test It lacks information about other options for diagnosing heart disease

The story explains that the charge to Medicare is about $150 per recipient, but three or four times higher to younger patients. The story fails to state exactly how much a person might benefit from a treadmill test. This is admittedly difficult to do, and an area of significant controversy in medicine. Who does it help—and how much? The story does provide the test’s prognostic accuracy: three in a thousand people with heart disease will die from heart disease within a year if they have a low-risk test, and about ten-fold more will die of heart disease if “they are deemed at high risk.” This is a story about the pros and cons of testing for heart disease with a treadmill stress test—a method that is fast and cheap but often difficult to accurately interpret. Though the story does not explicitly say so, a reader could infer that such an unreliable test might easily lead to an unreliable diagnosis or prognosis. Still, the story fails to explain just how significant that can be: tests for heart disease quickly lead to additional tests as well as expensive and potentially unnecessary and harmful interventions. The story points out that there is a difference between heart disease and a test for detecting heart disease that does a poor job of predicting true problems in a lot of the people who receive it. This is essentially an anti-disease-mongering message. The story wrongly says that its single source was the physician of the late journalist Tim Russert. This error was introduced during editing at the Charlotte Observer. In the original article by the New York Times‘ Jane E. Brody, published six days earlier on 7/29, Brody states that the source “was not one of [Russert’s] physicians.” Had the Observer gotten this right, then the story would have received a “satisfactory” grade for this criterion. The story says nothing about the pros and cons of other methods used to diagnose heart disease. The story states that hundreds of thousands of Americans get a treadmill stress test annually. It’s clear from the story that treadmill testing has been around a while. The story does not appear to rely solely or largely on a news release.


New antibody drug helps cells kill blood cancer.

Explanation: A new kind of antibody drug that makes the body’s own “killer” cells fight tumors has produced promising early-stage results in patients with a deadly form of blood cancer, researchers said on Thursday.

All seven patients with previously incurable non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) who were given the highest dose of Micromet Inc’s experimental drug blinatumomab showed either complete or partial responses. The results, which were published in the journal Science, are a boost for the concept of harnessing the power of the body’s cytotoxic, or cell-destroying, T-cells against tumors. Until now, scientists have struggled to find a way of triggering a T-cell attack. But blinatumomab works by binding them to cancer cells, allowing the T-cells to more effectively kill the tumor. Importantly, it does so without setting off uncontrolled T-cell activity. Two years ago six men were left seriously ill when a clinical trial of another experimental drug made by TeGenero went badly wrong. “It’s a very different kind of response,” Patrick Baeuerle, Micromet’s chief scientific officer, told Reuters. “It does activate the T-cells but it only activates those in contact with a tumor cell, so it is very conditional.”   If all goes well, German-U.S. firm Micromet hopes next year to conduct a pivotal clinical trial necessary to win regulatory approval. The drug, for which AstraZeneca has marketing rights in North America, is also in mid-stage Phase II clinical tests against acute lymphocytic leukemia. In the Phase I trial reported for NHL, 38 patients were given varying doses of the drug, with 11 of those receiving higher dosages showing major responses and tumor regression, despite being given no other supporting chemotherapy. There were a number of side effects with the product, which targets a protein called CD19, but most occurred in the first week of treatment and usually normalized. Significantly, the amount of drug needed was much lower than for existing antibody treatments such as Roche and Genentech’s Rituxan/MabThera. “With these low doses, cost of goods should not be much of an issue,” said Baeuerle.


Facebook post Says Goodwill used the pandemic “to fire all of their employees instead of laying them off.”

Explanation: More than 96% of Goodwill stores have closed because of state regulations in response to the spread of COVID-19 Goodwill employees have been laid off and furloughed across the country. In Northern and Central Arizona, a majority of employees at Goodwill stores were laid off. Other Goodwill operations are ongoing.

Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,

Scores of Americans have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has pushed the jobless rate to its highest point since the Great Depression. As of April 2, nearly 10 million people had filed for unemployment insurance. But getting fired for cause — as opposed to being laid off or furloughed — can jeopardize workers’ ability to collect benefits. And a recent Facebook post suggests that Goodwill exploited shelter-in-place orders to fire its employees instead of merely laying them off. "I just want to share what Goodwill Industries just did to all their employees," begins the April 2 Facebook post. "They use this pandemic to fire all their employees instead of laying them off. They did say they would hire them all back as a brand new employee with no built up benefits or vacation time. I will not be donating or shopping there again. They definitely do not care about our community only how much money they can make off of us." This 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.) Lauren Lawson-Zilai, a spokesperson for Goodwill Industries International, told PolitiFact that each of the 157 Goodwill organizations in the United States and Canada is a locally operated nonprofit with its own president and CEO. More than 96% of Goodwill’s thrift stores have closed because of state regulations in response to the spread of COVID-19, she said. But she said the Facebook post doesn’t appear to be accurate. "Some Goodwill organizations have had to furlough their employees," she said. "These employees are receiving benefits" that vary state by state. Other Goodwill operations are ongoing in some capacity, she said. For example, 90% of Goodwills are operating business services. Local Goodwill organizations contract with commercial and government organizations, among others, "to provide a wide range of business services, including janitorial and grounds maintenance, flexible staffing, food service ... and laundry services." Lawson-Zilai said many are also providing job preparation skills and they’re offering online learning through Google Classroom. One Goodwill partnered with a local dry cleaner to dry clean previously donated clothes that physicians can use as smocks. At Goodwill stores in parts of Arizona, however, a majority of employees lost their jobs. In a statement, Goodwill of Northern and Central Arizona said that mandatory state stay-at-home orders led Goodwill there to "make the very difficult decision to close our stores in order to protect the health and safety of our employees and shoppers." The statement says ensuring the organization’s financial stability "included the very difficult decision to part ways with the majority of employees at each store." "We are providing a severance package, which includes two-weeks pay, to help these team members in their transition to new employment," it says. "We truly hope when this situation passes, we will be able to rehire the majority of these employees." Lawson-Zilai said those employees were laid off because of economic constraints, not fired. The Facebook post, which was shared more than 19,000 times, drew hundreds of comments, too. Among them were comments from people who claimed to be Goodwill employees. "As an employee of a local Goodwill retail location, I can tell you this isn’t true at my location," one commenter wrote. "I’m a full-time, hourly shift manager of five years who was given the choice of working or being furloughed; I chose furlough and I will keep my health insurance, my benefits and will retain my years of employment when I return, all while being eligible for full unemployment insurance benefits." "As a furloughed employee I can confirm that this is a completely untrue statement," another commenter said. "Health insurance is being paid in full by the company for full time employees while furloughed and accrued (personal time off) isn’t going anywhere." Yet another commenter wrote that she was "‘let go’ because of the virus." "All I was told was that I’m eligible for rehire when they allow managers to hire again," she said. Our ruling The Facebook post says that Goodwill fired all employees instead of laying them off. That’s not accurate. Across the country, employees at local Goodwill organizations have been laid off or furloughed, but some operations have not shuttered, according to a Goodwill spokesperson. In parts of Arizona, a majority of employees were laid off. But they weren’t fired as the Facebook post claims. We rate this post .


Medtronic atrial fibrillation system shines in study

Explanation: This story reports on results from a preliminary study for a device in development to treat atrial fibrillation. Although it appears to be intended as a business story, we think shareholders would care about cost and comparisons with existing alternatives as much as patients and consumers should care about these. Since the story acknowledged that a competing device was already on the market, it wouldn’t have required much more work to do some comparative analysis – especially if our call for an independent expert’s perspective was heeded.

There was no discussion of costs. The story did provide insight about the difference in heart attack, stroke and death in the groups taking medication alone or those who had received treatment with this device. However, since the story did note that there is currently a device on the market, it would have been helpful to readers to provide information about treatment with the other device affects the rate at which these things occur. A comparison of effectiveness would provide insight as to the relative merit for this new device. The story did mention several of the harms associated with the use of this device along with the incidence with which they were observed. There was adequate discussion of the evidence and that the main limitation of this study was its small size. There was no overt disease-mongering of atrial fibrillation. There were no independent sources interviewed to discuss the potential of this device to affect outcomes and patient care. This is a problem. While mentioning that Johnson and Johnson had an ablation device approved for use in the treatment of atrial fibrillation, there was no discussion about how the results obtained with the Medtronic device compared. Towards the end, the story mentions that the treatment device discussed is not yet approved for use, though a device made by a different company (Johnson and Johnson) has been used to treat AF for years. Towards the end of the story, there was a clear statement that there is another device on the market that has been used for a long time in the treatment of atrial fibrillation. We can’t be sure of the extent to which this story was influenced by a new release, so we judge this criterion Not Applicable.


Pakistan court frees ex-PM Sharif for medical treatment.

Explanation: A top Pakistani court on Friday ordered convicted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif released on bail so he can seek medical treatment at home or abroad, his family and a defense lawyer said.

Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, Health, General News, Lahore, Asia Pacific

The decision was announced by the Lahore High Court after hearing a petition from Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who heads the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League party. But it doesn’t mean that the former premier will automatically be freed as he faces another appeal hearing for bail next week. Nawaz Sharif was rushed from prison to the government hospital in Lahore on Monday, after his health condition was said to have deteriorated. He has remained there under supervision of prison authorities. The 69-year-old Sharif, who served three times as prime minister, has had a history of health problems, including heart disease. His lawyer Ashtar Ausaf said court authorities cannot release Sharif immediately until they hear a separate appeal set for next Tuesday. That hearing pertains to the second corruption conviction against Sharif, he added. “We are grateful to God. We are grateful to the judiciary which has granted bail to Nawaz Sharif who is facing a complicated disease,” Sharif’s brother told reporters outside the court in Lahore. “I request the nation to pray for speedy recovery of its leader,” Sharif. Maryam Aurangzeb, a spokeswoman for Sharif, said she hopes he will be granted bail in the second case as well so that he can receive medical treatment at a hospital of his choice. So far, it was unclear whether Sharif would wish to travel for treatment outside Pakistan. When Sharif was taken to hospital on Monday, his doctors initially believed he had contracted dengue fever, which is rampant across Pakistan. But later medical tests concluded that his immune system malfunctioned, which was the reason for a concerningly low platelet count. Panicked over his deteriorating health, Sharif’s family petitioned the court in Lahore, requesting his release. During his political carrier, Sharif faced many upheavals but could never overcome the death of his wife at a London hospital in 2018. While he was in London visiting his wife Kulsoom Nawaz in hospital, a Pakistan court convicted and sentenced him and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on corruption charges. They were arrested on their return home and taken to prison to serve their sentences. Sharif’s 12-year conviction in one case was suspended but he was serving a seven-year jail term when the country’s anti-graft body in the past weeks began questioning him in another case, related to his family’s sugar mills. ___ Ahmed reported from Islamabad.


New test can detect autism in children, scientists say

Explanation: A small European study found increased biomarkers in the blood of 38 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) when compared to 31 healthy children in the control group. This story jumps the gun by implying the results suggest these biomarkers cannot only “detect autism in children” but also “could lead to earlier diagnosis.” This speculative language appears to come directly from the lead author of the study who’s also quoted as saying “we hope the tests will also reveal new causative factors.” What would have helped this story considerably would be interviewing sources not affiliated with the study to clarify the limitations of these biomarkers, explain how ASD is currently diagnosed, and provide some much-needed context about the novelty, availability, and clinical relevance of the biomarkers studied. Autism spectrum disorder includes a wide range of problems with social communication and interaction, as well as behavioral issues that can be repetitive, compulsive, and/or disruptive in many social settings. The condition cannot be predicted or cured, so any news coverage about a potential screening method needs to be extremely cautious and pay special attention to the limitations of the study at hand, as well as include critique from independent sources. According to 2016 statistics published by the CDC, around 1.1 million American children under the age of 21 have been diagnosed with autism, with a prevalence of roughly 1 in 68 kids.

The costs for the blood and urine tests mentioned in the story are not included. A cost estimate might be speculative at this point, but it seems reasonable to expect some discussion of what specialized tests like this might cost. The story says the study found “a link between ASD and damage to proteins in blood plasma … the most reliable of the tests they developed was examining protein in blood plasma, which found children with ASD had higher levels of the oxidation marker ‘dityrosine’ (DT) and certain sugar-modified components called ‘advanced glycation end-products (AGEs).” However, the story doesn’t include actual data, so the reader has no way of knowing how reliable these tests might be. According to the study, a computer was used to analyze several combinations of various biomarkers, and the best diagnostic association was found in children with ASD who had higher levels of DT and AGEs. The sensitivity of this model (ie. how many children with ASD were correctly identified) was 92 percent. The specificity of the model (ie. how many people without ASD were correctly identified) was 84 percent. It means that 8 percent of the children with ASD were missed by the model, and 16 percent of the children that were diagnosed with ASD didn’t actually have the condition. Although potential harms from blood or urine tests are quite minimal, the story suggests the research findings could lead to routine screening for autism. Screening tests are never completely benign; in particular — in this case — if a ‘false positive’ result led parents to believe their child had ASD when they did not … or … if a ‘false negative’ result offered false assurance that there was no ASD present. This is quite a small study which relies upon biomarkers in the blood. It can only show an association between those biomarkers and the 38 children already diagnosed with ASD. It can not prove those biomarkers cause autism. Nor can it prove — as suggested in the story — that these biomarkers can actually predict a child developing autism, or reliably diagnose a child with the condition. These limitations are not mentioned in the Guardian story. This sentence also caught our eye: “The outcome was a diagnostic test better than any existing method.” This is incorrect on two counts. First, as just noted, the study results do not support these blood and/or urine tests as diagnostic. Second, there is no existing diagnostic ‘test’ to compare to. There is no single diagnostic test, just as there is no cure, for autism. The story does not disease monger and does well to provide this context: “It is estimated that about one in every 100 people in the UK has ASD, with more boys diagnosed with the condition than girls.” There are no independent sources. Including independent experts could have given the story much-needed context, including whether there are other studies looking for potential biomarkers for ASD. Conflicts of interest are not mentioned, and we could find none. It’s never mentioned that there is no known blood, urine, or imaging test for predicting or diagnosing autism. Diagnosis, as stated in this Mayo Clinic summary, is based solely on behavioral observations and assessments. The story mentions two damaged proteins, in particular, which researchers found in higher concentrations of the blood of children with ASD, than in blood of children in the control group. We’re not told if the tests for these proteins are routine or highly specialized. Exactly what was found in the urine isn’t mentioned. Therefore, the availability of both the blood and urine tests is unclear. We’re told the study identifies blood and urine tests “that can detect autism in children” and the tests are believed to be “the first of its [sic] kind.” However, as mentioned above, the study does not prove these blood and urine tests can predict or diagnose autism. So suggesting novelty in this way is, at the very least, premature if not sensationalistic. The story lifts quotes and almost entire sentences from a news release with no apparent original reporting.


Trump scrambles to broaden coronavirus testing options.

Explanation: The Trump administration scrambled Friday to broaden testing for the coronavirus with a flurry of new measures, and public confusion persisted over who should be tested and how to get checked for the disease.

AP Top News, Health, General News, Flu, Politics, Utah Jazz, NBA, Virus Outbreak, Michael Pence, Donald Trump

Declaring a national emergency, President Donald Trump and senior staffers laid out a new testing strategy designed to screen hundreds of thousands of Americans at drive-thru centers based around major retail chains. Countries including South Korea and Germany have been using that approach for weeks, allowing people to quickly provide a throat or nasal swab for testing without leaving their cars. “We want to make sure that those who need a test can get a test very safely, quickly and conveniently,” Trump said at a news conference in the Rose Garden. But he added that the test is not intended for everyone, such as those without symptoms. The moves come a day after one of the government’s top health officials called the initial testing effort “a failing” and health care professionals, politicians and patients across the country complained about lack of access to testing. Vice President Mike Pence, who is the leading the coronavirus task force, said the U.S. can currently test 15,000 to 20,000 patients per day, but added that the number would increase “very soon.” Health officials said Friday that a new website “facilitated” by Google would guide users through a series of questions to determine whether they should be screened. If testing is recommended, users would be directed to a local testing location, which could include parking lots at Walmart, Target, Walgreen’s and other major chains. People will be able to log on to the screening website later to view test results, according to the administration. Verily, a health care company under Google, confirmed that it is working to “help triage” people for screening and said the effort will first launch in the San Francisco Bay area. The company offered no details about what the tool would look like or when it would launch. The administration’s coordinator for the virus response acknowledged growing scrutiny of the government’s testing effort. “I understand a lot of this behind-the-scenes action over the last couple of weeks was invisible to the press and the American people,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, a government researcher and health official. For weeks, public health experts have warned that the U.S. testing effort is being stymied by the limited number of labs running the COVID-19 tests and confusion among health care workers over who can be tested. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells people to seek testing if they have certain symptoms of the flu-like illness caused by the coronavirus – fever, cough and trouble breathing – and if they have traveled recently to a coronavirus outbreak area or have been in close contact with someone who’s been infected. Ultimately, it’s up to the doctor to decide who should get tested. In many states, health officials have parroted the CDC guidance when telling doctors who to test. But in some states, officials have varied a bit, depending on a range of factors, including availability of tests and whether the virus is known to be spreading there. A New York man said he ran into hurdles trying to get tested after the death of a business associate who was infected with the coronavirus. Joseph Faraldo said he began feeling ill earlier this month and tested negative for the flu. He said he called the state health department and “they were useless,” and then the city health department failed to call him back as promised. His doctor sent him to a clinic where he was tested Wednesday. He expects results Friday. “I think I was pretty lucky, they told me come on in,” Faraldo said. Oklahoma used more than half of the state’s testing capacity Wednesday to test 58 members of the Utah Jazz basketball organization after player Rudy Gobert tested positive. Those tests results showed one other player, Donovan Mitchell, also tested positive. Oklahoma state epidemiologist Laurence Burnsed said it would have been too risky to transport the team back to Utah for testing without knowing who might be positive. The CDC also tells doctors to give priority to the elderly or those who have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19, which can cause pneumonia. Doctors are supposed to prioritize medical workers or others who have been in contact with a confirmed case. The agency recommends people be tested for flu, to rule that out, because many of the symptoms are similar and it is flu season. Meanwhile, some researchers are trying to estimate how many Americans are actually infected. Earlier research suggests that for every documented, confirmed case, seven or more people are infected but not diagnosed, said Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University scientist noted for his work on flu predictions. That suggests there could be 14,000 or more infected people in the United States right now, he said. For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. The vast majority of people recover from COVID-19 in a couple of weeks. The U.S. testing effort has been hobbled by a series of delays, including flaws with the testing kits first distributed by the federal government and bureaucratic hurdles that held up testing by private labs at hospitals, universities and testing chains. Public health labs across the country are now running the tests, and large commercial labs like LabCorp and Quest are ramping up too. Broad-scale testing is a critical part of tracking and containing viral outbreaks. Responding to complaints, the Trump administration named a testing “czar” at the Department of Health and Human Services. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, will be responsible for coordinating between the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, as well as private labs and state and local government. Medicare also announced it will pay about $36 for the CDC coronavirus test and around $51 for tests from other providers. Private insurers have said they would cover the tests. Swiss medical company Roche received emergency approval from the FDA to run coronavirus tests on its automated, high-volume testing system. The approval is expected to help U.S. labs dramatically increase their testing capacity, although Roche’s system is mainly available at large health facilities. Roche said the test takes about 3 1/2 hours to run and can deliver as many as 4,000 results per day. Currently most U.S. labs are testing using a manual method that involves mixing chemicals and processing small batches. Testing times vary by lab and can range from four to eight hours. Separately, the FDA posted on Twitter that labs having problems getting supplies for collecting patient samples for testing should call the agency’s toll-free information hotline. “The demand is very high,” said Dr. Bobbi Pritt, a pathologist and lab director at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. “There are going to be shortages at first before we can really ramp this up.” Hospitals and other health systems will have to prioritize testing for patients who truly need it, versus those who may be worried but don’t have symptoms, Pritt said. ___ Associated Press writers Mike Stobbe in New York and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report. ___ The Associated Press receives support for health and science coverage from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


Scientists angry at UK visa denials for African, Asian researchers.

Explanation: Scientists in Britain expressed concern on Thursday after at least 17 delegates from Africa and Asia wanting to attend a health conference in London were denied visas.

Peter Piot, a Belgian-born microbiologist who was part of a team that discovered the Ebola virus in the 1970s and is now director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, was among those protesting against restrictive criteria for granting short-term business visas. In a letter to the interior minister, Sajid Javid, Piot said the restrictions “represent a significant threat” to the United Kingdom establishing itself as a global health and science hub when it should be showing it is “open for business”. The 17 African and Asian delegates had wanted to attend a two-day Women Leaders in Global Health conference, exploring gender balance in global public health. “This conference is a forum to promote international debate and to nurture new talent,” Piot said in the letter, a copy of which was posted on his institution’s website. “The denial of these visas not only excludes experts and emerging experts from low- and middle-income countries from participating in these global dialogues around health and health equity but it also precludes the UK from benefiting from this important knowledge exchange.”  The conference has attracted around 900 people from 70 or more countries. Among delegates due to attend are Britain’s chief medical officer Sally Davies and Soumya Swaminathan, a World Health Organization deputy director general. “All UK visa applications are considered on their individual merits and in line with UK immigration rules and guidance,” an interior ministry spokesman said in a statement. “The onus is on the applicant to demonstrate that they satisfy the immigration rules.”  He said the ministry would respond to Piot once it had received his letter. Piot said the restrictive visa rules “can only deter organizations from holding future conferences in the UK”. He said his own school, a world-renowned scientific and global health institution, “is considering moving the locations of many of our large international meetings to outside of the UK so that valued global experts can participate more easily.”  Other leading scientists echoed Piot’s concerns. “If we want to continue producing the best science, producing discoveries that will improve all our lives, we need to make it easier, not harder, for researchers to travel and collaborate across borders,” said Beth Thompson, head of UK and European Union policy at the Wellcome Trust health charity. Research conducted by the Wellcome and published in September found that a third of African and Asian researchers seeking visas for short term visits to Britain had encountered problems.


Home for the Holidays? Hold the sugar, please.

Explanation: Bagged or boxed, brown or powdered, Americans are buying markedly less sugar this year, a trend nowhere more noticeable than during the holidays when home-baking picks up.

In the biggest decline in sugar sales in at least four years, purchases have fallen 4.4 percent in the year through October, according to Nielsen data, a drop grocers attribute to growing consumer consciousness over the negative health effects of sugar such as a higher risk of diabetes and obesity. And they are seeing that trend through the holiday season, when sugar sales traditionally peak. In the month of December, retail sales of sugar typically account for almost double most other months of the year. That could pose a challenge to the politically-connected sugar industry, dominated by the Fanjul family which owns Domino Sugar, C&H, and Florida Crystals, and Louis Dreyfus, which operates the second-biggest U.S. refiner Imperial Sugar. Stew Leonard, Jr., chief executive of the Stew Leonard’s chain of four supermarkets in New York and Connecticut, has begun paring back shelf space devoted to sugar as he braces for another year-over-year decline in December sugar sales. “Sugar is a number one enemy,” Leonard said of public concern. “You can see that people are trying to cut back on it and not eating as much sugar as they used to.”  The decline in bagged and packaged sugar purchases may reflect a trend toward less baking and more consumption of store-bought desserts, which contain as much, if not more, sugar. The steady years-long shift away from bagged and packaged sugar comes as the so-called ‘war on sugar’ intensifies in the United States, with bitter debates in the past two years between government, food companies, and advocates over proposals to add labels to products containing added sweeteners. Public officials including First Lady Michelle Obama have argued that rising sugar consumption is a leading cause of rising levels of diabetes and obesity. “Sugar has become one of the new trendy enemies,” said Sean Lucan, a professor of family and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York. “It’s almost become what dietary fat was in the 1980s and 1990s.”  The majority of U.S. sugar consumption is still in food and beverage products, according to the U.S. Sugar Association, which represents sugar growers, refiners and traders, which declined to comment on the drop in bagged sugar sales. Alternative products are nowhere close to trumping traditional sugar in sales. But while sales of granulated sugar, brown sugar, confectioners sugar and sugar substitutes all slumped, sales of “all other types” of sugar - a category including unrefined sugars like jaggery and panela - grew by nearly 200 percent between 2011 and 2015 to 1.1 million units in the first 10 months of each year. In an informal survey of five U.S. grocery store chains by Reuters over the past week, participants reported a change in customer buying habits that suggests a long-term shift in tastes and supports data that shows waning appetite for sugar. Camilo Curiel, manager of a C-Town supermarket serving mainly low-income, Hispanic shoppers in Reading, Pennsylvania, said he has cut back on wholesale sugar orders after customers curbed their purchases over the past 2-3 years, though he has not yet begun devoting less shelf space to the sweetener. That decline is part of a broader trend toward healthier foods among his customers, who he said are buying less soda, boxed juice and cereal. But December, the peak sugar-buying season by far at the store, remains an exception. Retail sales of bagged and boxed sugar during the November and December months fell 2.3 percent to 203 million units between 2011 and 2014, Nielsen data show. That two-month period typically accounts for nearly one quarter of annual purchases. Purchases during the December month alone fell 3 percent over that period to 104 million units, measured in bags and boxes, the data show. Data is not yet available for the current holiday season. But market research firm Euromonitor sees sales of sugars and bulk sweeteners falling to 14.2 million tonnes in 2015, the lowest level on records dating back to 2001. Overall U.S. sugar consumption grew steadily in the past 10 years to levels not seen since before rise of corn-based sweeteners in the 1970s, but it is expected to fall off that peak in the season that ends in September 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Domino and Imperial Sugar did not respond to requests for comment on the trend. Some grocers including C-Town and specialty organic food store chain Whole Foods Market Inc have seen a surge in popularity of alternatives to traditional sugar like honey, agave, palm sugar and coconut sugar. “Customers are migrating toward less processed sugar, alternatively-sweetened products,” said Errol Schweizer, global grocery coordinator at Whole Foods. Ahold USA, which owns supermarkets including Stop & Shop and Giant Food, has not seen a decline in sugar sales, though its stores have begun reducing added sugar in private label products like yogurt and cereal, a spokesman said. “You’re never going to eliminate it, but you can see that people are trying to cut back on it,” Leonard said.


Iowa research lab identifies new strain of deadly pig virus.

Explanation: A new strain of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus, or PEDv, has been identified in samples taken from Illinois and Missouri, a top veterinarian at Iowa State University said on Monday.

“We found that there is a variant out there that appears to be quite different than the original,” Rodger Main, the head veterinarian of Iowa State University’s veterinary diagnostic lab, told Reuters on Monday. More research needs to be completed, however, to determine if the new variant is a mutation or a different introduction of the original virus. “There hasn’t been a tremendous amount of sequencing completed and there will be additional work to determine if we can truly understand where it came from,” he said. PEDv, a highly contagious and potentially fatal pig virus, causes diarrhea, vomiting and severe dehydration. It is transmitted orally and through pig feces. The virus does not affect humans, however, and U.S. federal officials have determined meat from pigs that survive the virus is safe to eat. While older pigs have a small chance of survival, the virus kills 80 percent to 100 percent of piglets that contract it. There are no official figures for pigs lost to the PEDv in the United States, but up to 4 million pigs may have died from the virus, according to industry analysts’ estimates. Some U.S. meat processing companies have said the virus, first discovered in the United States in April 2013, is beginning to impact their bottom lines as it contributes to higher priced pork and is trimming U.S. hog supplies. The Unites States is the world’s largest pork exporter. PEDv has been confirmed in 23 of the 50 U.S. states and was confirmed in Canada two weeks ago. Confirmed cases of PEDv across the U.S. Hog Belt recently jumped by its highest weekly total since it was discovered, according to USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network.


Too fat? Study fingers one "thrifty gene" suspect.

Explanation: Looking beyond obvious causes of obesity like overeating, scientists said on Wednesday they may have found a gene that also plays a role, one that helped our ancestors survive famines.

Targeting this thrifty gene and others with diagnostic tests and drugs offers another way to fight the global epidemic of obesity, the researchers said. Mice bred to lack this gene, known as CRTC3, can eat a high-fat diet without gaining weight, while normal mice on the same diet grow plump, the researchers found. And Mexican Americans who have an especially potent version of this gene are more likely to be obese than others, Dr. Marc Montminy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California and colleagues reported in the journal Nature. The gene did not appear to have the same effect in whites, which supports what scientists know — that obesity is very complex. But CRTC3 is clearly important. “It slows down the rate at which the fat cells burn fat,” Montminy said of the gene in a telephone interview. The findings lend more evidence to the theory of obesity made popular in the 1960s, which held that certain people have genes that slow metabolism, making it harder to lose weight. These “thrifty genes would slow the rate of fat burning and increase your chances of surviving famine,” Montminy said. Researchers are looking for ways to prevent and treat obesity, which affects 72 million U.S. adults, or 27 percent of the population. Being obese raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers and arthritis. Finding and countering the effects of a thrifty gene would be an obvious target,   Montminy’s team had a look at CRTC3 because it is very active in fat cells and is known to respond to signals that regulate fat burning. “When we make animals that don’t have the CRTC3 gene, these animals become lean,” he said. “If you feed them a diet that has up to 60 percent of calories from fat, their normal brothers and sisters that have the CRTC3 gene gain weight and become obese, insulin resistant and some go on to develop diabetes, but those who don’t have the CRTC3 gene remain lean and insulin sensitive.”   One effect of obesity is the body loses its ability to use insulin effectively, eventually leading to diabetes. The researchers looked for evidence of this same effect in people, and found it in a group of Mexican Americans being studied by a team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who had a genetic mutation of the CRTC3 gene that makes it more potent than the normal form of the gene. “Individuals with this variant had higher rates of obesity by several different measures,” Montminy said. Interestingly, non-Hispanic whites who have this same genetic variant do not have higher rates of obesity. “It means the therapies we come up with for diabetes or obesity will need to be a little bit more tailor-made, depending on the individual’s genetic makeup,” Montminy said. He said it may be possible to test people for the gene to predict who is likely to become obese, and it may even help predict who is at risk for obesity-related diseases like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. Drug companies looking for treatments for obesity might search for ways to turn down the effects of CRTC3, Montminy said.


Explanation: The story reports on a study of shorter course of radiation therapy for women with early stage breast cancer . Results of this study were presented at the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting and have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. (The limitations of interpreting such findings could have been emphasized.) The story notes that more long-term data may be needed to determine the safety and effectiveness of the shorter course of radiation treatment. The story notes that this shorter course treatment is for women who have cancer confined to the breast. The story lists some options for radiation treatment following breast cancer surgery; however, it does not mention partial breast radiation and other alternatives to traditional radiation currently being tested. The story describes the study and provides recurrence rates at 5 years – from 2-5% in all groups. We are told that doctors "believe the treatments are equivalent", but "cannot say so with certainty", meaning in lay terms the difference was not statistically significant. It is important to note that this is a large study, which is good, but we do not know well it translates (e.g. what size tumors did these women have, what was the margin status, what type of systemic therapy). It would be good to note that results controlled for all these other factors. More data on side effects in the groups would also be useful. The story does list some of the side effects of radiation, namely skin and breast tissue changes, and notes these were less common in women who had a shorter course of radiation. Fatigue is also a common side effect of radiation, but this is not mentioned. Time, energy and the expense of travelling to more radiation treatments may influence a women’s decision for breast cancer surgery. The story does not list the cost of radiation treatments; however, what is really at stake here is time lost from work or other activities. All of these may play into a woman’s decision to forego radiation or to have a mastectomy vs. lumpectomy with radiation.

The story does not list the cost of radiation treatments; however, what is really at stake here is time lost from work or other activities which may play into a woman’s decision to forego radiation or to have a mastectomy vs. lumpectomy with radiation. The story lists the current options for radiation treatment following breast cancer surgery and provides the recurrence rates at 5 years – from 2-5% in all groups. We are told that doctors "believe the treatments are equivalent", but "cannot say so with certainty", meaning in lay terms the difference was not statistically significant. More data on side effects in the groups would be useful. The story does note some of the side effects of radiation, namely skin and breast tissue changes, and notes these were less common in women in this study who had a shorter course of radiation. Fatigue is a common side effect of radiation, but this is not mentioned. The story notes that longer follow up is still needed to assess the long-term safety and efficacy of the shorter course of radiation. The story describes the study and provides the 5-year recurrence data. The story notes that results of this study were presented at a conference. This means the results  have not been published in a peer-reviewed journal – a point not emphasized in the story. The story notes that more long-term data may be needed to determine the safety and effectiveness of the shorter course of radiation treatment and cites a researcher not affiliated with the study who notes that treatments seem to be roughly the same, "but we cannot say so with certainty". It is important to note that this is a large study, which is good but we do not know well it translates (e.g. what size tumors did these women have, what was the margin status, what type of systemic therapy). It would be good to note that results controlled for all these other factors. The story does not engage in disease mongering, but lists the annual rates of diagnosis of early stage breast cancer in the U.S. The story provides balance by citing the study author, other clinician researchers not affiliated with the study and a patient who took part in the study and had the shorter course of radiation. The story notes that this shorter course treatment is for women who have cancer confined to the breast. The story lists some options for radiation treatment following breast cancer surgery, it does not mention partial breast radiation and other alternatives to traditional radiation currently being tested. The story also does not mention that shorter radiation may provide some women with the option of lumpectomy and radiation. Time, energy and possibly expense of more radiation treatments and travel is reduced with a shorter course and more women may consider lumpectomy vs. mastectomy. The story mentions that the shorter course of radiation is being used in clinical trials (such as the one described). The same machines used for traditional radiation are used for a shorter course of radiation, just different doses. The story reports on  a study looking at a shorter course of radiation therapy for women who have had breast cancer surgery. This option for treatment is newer and still being studied. The information presented in this story does not appear to be taken from a press release. There is independent reporting and several sources cited.


Central Park hospital tents housed thousands of abused children released from underground captivity.

Explanation: The field hospitals set up in tents in New York’s Central Park were treating coronavirus patients from the Mount Sinai Health System. There is no evidence that children are being held in, or released from, underground captivity in New York. This conspiracy has been researched and debunked by other news outlets.

As the early epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, New York City scrambled to expand its hospital capacity. The Navy hospital ship traveled to New York to relieve the pressure on hospitals; the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center was converted into a 4,000-bed medical center; and a field hospital was set up in Central Park. The Central Park tent hospital, operated by Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian group run by the son of late televangelist Billy Graham, has since become the focus of online conspiracy theories. "Thousands of babies and children are being brought up out of underground tunnels in New York's Central Park by military personal (sic), during the night and placed in tents brought in by Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse," one Facebook post says, in all capital letters. The children, it adds, have been captive underground since birth, subjected to torture and "kept as sex slaves." There is absolutely no evidence of this. A 68-bed field hospital was set up in Central Park in April to help overwhelmed hospitals treat patients with COVID-19. The hospital was made up of 14 tents used primarily for diagnosis, treatment and storage. When it first began operating, it had 10 ventilators and treated patients from Mount Sinai Health System hospitals in New York’s Queens and Brooklyn boroughs. Beginning April 1, an organization known as Samaritan’s Purse, working with Mount Sinai, treated nearly 200 coronavirus patients in the Central Park field hospital. The facility operated until May 5, and "all patients under Samaritan’s Purse care" have since been discharged, according to its website. Samaritan’s Purse said there is no truth to the claims about abused children being treated there. "These are totally false rumors," Kaitlyn Lahm, a Samaritan’s Purse spokesperson, said in a statement to PolitiFact. "We worked hand-in-hand with Mount Sinai Hospital to bring desperately needed surge capacity," she said. "All patients treated at the Emergency Field Hospital were transferred from Mount Sinai to Samaritan’s Purse." News outlets including VICE and the Associated Press have investigated the origin of the claims and linked the conspiracies to the group QAnon and its followers. QAnon "centers on the baseless belief that (President Donald) Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the ‘deep state’ and a child sex trafficking ring run by satanic pedophiles and cannibals," according to AP reports. A post claims, "Thousands of babies and children are being brought up out of underground tunnels in New York's Central Park by military personal (sic), during the night and placed in tents brought in by Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse." The Central Park hospital treated coronavirus patients. There is no evidence to support the claim that it housed abused children released from captivity. It appears the claim originated with the QAnon conspiracy group. Samaritan’s Purse said the claims are false. We rate this claim .


Vermont governor plans incremental health insurance reform.

Explanation: Republican Gov. Phil Scott wants to make health insurance more affordable for young people, but he’s not planning a major overhaul after the state’s failed attempt to create a single-payer system.

Health care reform, Vermont, Health, Access to health care

Elsewhere in the country, the first full week of state legislative sessions and swearings-in for governors saw a flurry of Democratic proposals to expand access to health care and make it more affordable. Those proposals fall short, however, of providing universal health care. Scott said this week he will propose reforms as part of a broader effort to attract more people to the state. His spokeswoman says the focus will be in incremental change. Senate President Pro Tem Tim Ashe, a Democrat and Progressive, said carving out  low-cost programs for young people usually leads to higher premiums for others.