House Republicans are ramming through legislation ... to classify pizza as a 'vegetable' for the purpose of school lunches.

Explanation: Republican lawmakers classified pizza as a vegetable for school lunches, Democrats say

National, Education, Public Health, Democratic National Committee,

You may have heard the uproar by now: "Pizza is not a vegetable!" Democrats used the rallying cry in a mass e-mail Nov. 17, 2011, alerting partisans that, "House Republicans are ramming through legislation this week to classify pizza as a 'vegetable' for the purpose of school lunches." We wondered: Pizza as a vegetable? We had heard rumblings on social networks about magical pizza seeds and pizza gardens — all in response to Congress' action — and we had to know. Was it true? Here's more from Democrats' message: Then it linked to a message for folks to send from MyDemocrats.org/Pizza. (The message: "Dear House Republicans, Pizza is not a vegetable. Sincerely, America.") We could have a lot of fun with this. We asked the source of the e-mail, Brad Woodhouse at the Democratic National Committee, to back up his statement. He sent us a CBS News/Associated Press article from Nov. 15, 2011, "Congress pushes back on healthier school lunches." The topic? A spending bill that forces the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ignore a proposed change from the Obama administration about how to credit tomato paste. (Congress simply won't fund implementation of the new rule.) The House and Senate both approved the bill Nov. 17, and the president signed it the next day. The new law doesn't mention pizza. What it does is allow just two tablespoons of tomato paste to continue to count as a serving of vegetables. The USDA had proposed requiring a full half-cup of the concentrated tomato spread before it would count as a fruit or veggie — a standard "serving" by volume — far more than you'd find slathered on a slice o' school cafeteria pizza. (And, yes, we're aware the tomato is technically a fruit. The federal regulations cover both fruits and vegetables, but most folks in this debate are referring to tomatoes as vegetables. Just roll with it.) How crazy is considering tomato paste on a pizza as a vegetable? One Washington Post Wonkblog reporter said that it's not as nuts as you might think. Sarah Kliff pointed out that two tablespoons of tomato paste offer up a nutritional profile comparable to a half-cup of apples or other fresh fruit. It offers more than a gram each of fiber and protein and more calcium and potassium than the apples. It also packs beta carotene and the antioxidant lycopene, according the the USDA. We should also note that the slices kids get at school aren't exactly the greasy, meat-laden marvels they might pick up at a pizza parlor. Federal nutrition standards require that school meals get no more than 30 percent of their calories from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat. Schwan Food Co., which makes 70 percent of school-lunch pizza, started adding protein and whole grains to crusts and pushing down fat and salt to meet school standards. Not to mention, if that slice doesn't have at least two tablespoons of tomato paste on it, it's not going to fly. No creamy white or pesto pizza gets automatic credit. (Well, unless that pesto's made from enough basil or spinach ... but we digress.) Still, Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for Center for Science in the Public Interest said in a Nov. 15 press release that, "if finalized, this legislation may go down in nutritional history as a bigger blunder than when the Reagan Administration tried (but failed) to credit ketchup as a vegetable in the school lunch program. Pizza should be served with a vegetable, not count as one." She's right that if the tomato paste didn't count as a serving of vegetables, kids would benefit from tomato-paste-covered pizza plus an additional serving of a vegetable. But is this the great Reagan ketchup debacle? The same amount of ketchup, according to the USDA, sneaks in about 10 times the sodium, contains just a third of the protein, less than a tenth of the fiber and more carbs and sugar. It offers smaller traces of vitamins, and half the beta carotene and lycopene. Tomato paste is not ketchup. Still, frozen pizza manufacturers and the frozen food industry did push hard to keep the vegetable designation for the tomato paste on the pizza. When it does, that's one less vegetable the school has to buy and a cheaper deal for school districts. Fewer vegetables for kids may not be exactly a win for America. But did House Republicans try "to classify pizza as a 'vegetable' for the purpose of school lunches"? They did fight for the classification for the sauce on the pizza and blocked a move by the Obama administration to boost the amount of tomato paste needed to count as a serving of vegetables. But they didn't try to classify "pizza" as a vegetable. And even the amount of tomato paste required, just two tablespoons, packs nearly the nutritional punch of a half-cup of other foods we consider healthy. That's a pretty important detail to omit. We call the Democrats' claim .


Senator McCain would pay for part of his (health care) plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare — $882-billion worth.

Explanation: Obama knows McCain's intentions better than McCain?

(Published Oct. 20, 2008) Though both presidential candidates have spoken at length about how they would change the American health system, they’ve carefully avoided offering many specifics about Medicare, the government’s huge health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. For good reason: Medicare is financially unprepared for the surge of retiring baby boomers, meaning future administrations and Congresses will have to consider making tough tradoffs, like cutting benefits or raising taxes. That’s hardly the kind of stuff a politician would willingly highlight in stump speeches or on a campaign Web site. It is the sort of thing you just might accuse your opponent of favoring. And Barack Obama in recent days has tried to do just that, portraying John McCain’s health plan as filled with looming spending cuts for Medicare’s nearly 45-million beneficiaries. "It turns out, Senator McCain would pay for part of his plan by making drastic cuts in Medicare — $882-billion worth. $882-billion in Medicare cuts to pay for an ill-conceived health care plan, even as Medicare already faces a looming shortfall," Obama said in an Oct. 17, 2008, speech in Roanoke, Va. He repeated the charge the next day, in St. Louis, declaring that under McCain’s plan, “you would have fewer places to get care, and less freedom to choose your doctors. You’ll pay more for your drugs, receive fewer services, and get lower quality care.”     The Obama campaign also has turned the charge into a TV ad. Obama might be hitting hard on a sensitive topic, but in the process, he’s offering more specifics about McCain’s plan than McCain has. The $882-billion in cuts Obama cites comes from an analysis of McCain’s plan by the Center for American Progress Fund, a left-leaning think tank headed by John D. Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Clinton. The analysis, in turn, is based on an estimate by the independent Tax Policy Center that finds McCain’s overall health plan would cost the government $1.3-trillion over 10 years — a figure the McCain campaign doesn’t dispute. Because McCain’s campaign says the health plan would be “budget neutral” — meaning it would be paid for by savings from Medicare and Medicaid — the Center for American Progress automatically assumes the savings would come from cuts to the big health programs. The center performed a series of calculations to determine how much McCain would have to reduce both programs’ projected spending growth, and concluded McCain would have to pare the program by roughly 13 percent over a decade, or $882-billion. All fine, except that McCain has never talked about Medicare benefit and service cuts to pay for his health care plan. Instead, his campaign says it would achieve the necessary cost savings by overhauling Medicare reimbursement policies, streamlining treatments for certain chronic diseases, cracking down on fraud and waste, expanding the use of lower-cost generic drugs and assorted other steps. McCain’s senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin has talked about further policy changes, including extending tax credits so some low-income Americans wouldn’t have to enroll in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor. But he has stressed that the cost of these changes could be covered without cutting benefits or services. McCain’s campaign responded to Obama's Roanoke remarks, saying the Democratic front-runner was committing “Medicare malpractice” and spreading lies by perpetuating the Center for American Progress Fund analysis. It’s unclear whether McCain could extract sufficient savings using the methods he’s outlined to achieve his "budget neutral" goal. Still, the Center for American Progress Fund analysis flatly assumes McCain will cut Medicare benefits and services when McCain has not even broached the idea in speeches or statements. Obama is overstepping by repeating the analysis’ conclusion and portraying the dollar amount of the cuts as part and parcel of McCain’s plan. We rule his claim .


Disney arranged to have himself frozen in cryonic chamber full of liquid nitrogen upon his death,

Explanation: Half a century onwards, the rumor that Walt Disney's body was put in cryonic storage remains one of the most enduring legends about the entertainment giant.

Walt Disney’s health had been deteriorating for many months before he finally agreed to enter St. Joseph hospital in California on 2 November 1966, for tests concerning the pain in his leg and neck. Doctors discovered a walnut-sized spot on the x-ray of his left lung and advised immediate surgery. Disney left the hospital to attend to studio business for a few days, then re-entered St. Joseph on Sunday, November 6, for surgery the next day. During Monday morning’s operation, doctors found his left lung to be cancerous and removed it. His oversized lymph nodes were an indication that Disney hadn’t much longer to live. After two weeks of post-operative care, Disney was released from the hospital. He crossed the street to his studios and spent another ten days tending to studio business and visiting relatives before he grew too weak and had to return to St. Joseph on November 30. His health started to fail even more rapidly than expected, and drugs and cobalt treatments sapped what little strength he had left. Walt Disney died two weeks later when his circulatory system collapsed on the morning of December 15, 1966. In the decades since Walt Disney’s death, the claim that he arranged for his body to be frozen has become ubiquitous. Nearly everyone familiar with the name ‘Walt Disney’ has heard the story that Disney’s corpse is stored in a deep-freeze chamber somewhere — directly under Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” attraction is the most frequently mentioned site — awaiting the day when science could repair the damage to his body and bring ‘Uncle Walt’ back to life. Was Walt Disney aware of the possibilities of life extension through cryogenics? He certainly could have been aware of the progress being made in cryogenics research. Numerous articles and books on hypothermia and the preservation of animal tissue through freezing appeared in both the scientific/medical and general press in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Anyone with an interest in the subject could easily have located this reading material, and even someone without a particular interest in the subject may have run across one or more articles on the topic in the general press. The subject of cryonics was further brought to the public’s attention with the publication in 1964 of Robert C.W. Ettinger’s book, The Prospect of Immortality. Ettinger’s book, drawing on much of the available literature about cryonics, covered the practical, legal, ethical, and moral impact of freezing and reviving human beings. Ettinger, while admitting that science had as yet no way of reviving frozen human beings, was unflaggingly optimistic that a viable means of reanimation would eventually be found, telling his readers: The fact: At very low temperatures it is possible, right now, to preserve dead people with essentially no deterioration, indefinitely. The assumption: If civilization endures, medical science should eventually be able to repair almost any damage to the human body, including freezing damage and senile debility or other cause of death. Hence we need only arrange to have our bodies, after we die, stored in suitable freezers against the time when science may be able to help us. No matter what kills us, whether old age or disease, and even if freezing techniques are still crude when we die, sooner or later our friends of the future should be equal to the task of reviving and curing us. Given the prevalence of articles published about cryonics in the mid-1960’s, and the relative popularity of Ettinger’s book among science buffs (even if few of them had actually read it), it is certainly possible that Walt Disney was aware of the potentiality of cryonic storage of humans. Whatever the possibilities, however, there is no documentary evidence to suggest that Walt Disney was interested in, or had even heard of, cryonics. Documentation of Disney’s alleged fascination with preserving or extending his life through cryonics did not appear until decades after his death, and what little information is available has predominantly been provided by some extremely questionable sources. Claims about Disney’s interest come primarily from two of the more recent Disney biographies: Robert Mosley’s 1986 effort,Disney’s World, and Marc Eliot’s 1993 entry, Walt Disney — Hollywood’s Dark Prince. Both books have been largely discredited for containing numerous factual errors and undocumented assertions, rendering them rather untrustworthy as sources of reliable background material. Eliot’s biography, which dwells unrelentingly on every salacious incident and rumor connected with Walt Disney’s name, is fairly easy to dismiss. Charitably described as “speculative,” it contains a single passage concerning Walt Disney’s alleged interest in cryonics: Disney’s growing preoccupation with his own mortality also led him to explore the science of cryogenics, the freezing of an aging or ill person until such time as the human body can be revived and restored to health. Disney often mused to Roy about the notion of perhaps having himself frozen, an idea which received … indulgent nods from his brother … Not surprisingly, the source behind this piece of information is nowhere to be found in Eliot’s notes. And as there is no record of Roy ever having spoken of his brother’s alleged interest in cryonics, Eliot’s “source” was likely nothing more than repetition of rumor. Mosley’s Disney’s World is also rather long on rumor and short on facts. The book has been described as “poorly researched and filled with inaccuracies”, a biography that seemed “to promote certain preset points of view, regardless of evidence”. The same critique goes on to say, “One of its central themes, for example, is Disney’s fascination with cryogenesis and the strong suggestion that his body was frozen following his death. It makes for titillating reading; however, few facts support Mosley’s claims”. Disney’s World paints a picture of an anxious Walt Disney desperately searching for a way to spring back to life in order to prevent or correct the horrible mistakes his followers were bound to make in turning his EPCOT dream into reality: [T]he chief problem that troubled Walt was the length of time it might take the doctors to perfect the process. How long would it be before the surgical experts could bring a treated cadaver back to working life? To be brutally practical, could it be guaranteed, in fact, that he could be brought back in time to rectify the mistakes his successors would almost certainly start making at EPCOT the moment he was dead? Mosley’s book is filled with repetitions of the claim that Walt Disney grew increasingly interested in cryonics as his health waned in late 1966, such as this paragraph: It was about this time that Walt Disney became acquainted with the experiments into the process known as cryogenesis, or what one newspaper termed “the freeze-drying of the human cadaver after death, for eventual resuscitation.” Mosley’s statements regarding Disney’s belief in the feasibility of cryonics are somewhat difficult to take seriously, given that his book includes such ludicrously erroneous (or fabricated) statements as: The surgeons had taken away his diseased lung to examine it, and then were going to preserve it. Walt was pleased when he heard that. He knew enough about cryogenesis by now to be aware that it was important to hold onto all the organs — just in case the surgeons needed to treat them before putting them back where they belonged. (Samples of tissue removed during cancer surgery are preserved in formaldehyde, a method of “preservation” which, while useful for microscopy studies, damages the tissue biologically. Organs removed from Disney by his surgeons could never be “put back where they belonged”, no matter what the treatment.) Mosley provides no source for his statements, other than to assert that Disney’s “closest colleagues and advisers” were “confident” that Walt Disney “eventually became convinced of cryogenesis as a viable medical process and was persuaded that, even in 1966, it was possible for a human being to have himself brought back to life after death”. In fact, these “close colleagues” of Disney’s turned out to be a few employees on the periphery of the Disney organization who had never spoken to Walt about cryonics, and were merely repeating the same decades-old rumor for Mosley’s benefit. On the other hand, someone much closer to Walt Disney, his daughter, Diane wrote in 1972: “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt that my father had ever heard of cryonics.” Despite the persistent rumors, available documentation indicates that Walt Disney was in fact cremated. Although Disney’s preferences regarding the disposal of his body are not public record (instructions or provisions for his funeral and burial were not included in his will), other publicly-available material is entirely consistent with the claim that he was cremated: o Walt Disney publicly stated — ten years before his death — that he wished not to have a funeral. o Disney family members have confirmed that cremation was Walt’s wish. o Disney’s death certificate shows that he was cremated two days after his death. The name, license number, and signature of the enbalmer appearing on the death certificate are those of a real enbalmer who was employed at the Forest Lawn mortuary at the time. o A marked burial plot for Walt Disney (and other family members) can be found at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale (the logical resting grounds for someone whose cremation was handled by Forest Lawn’s mortuary), and court papers indicate that the Disney estate paid $40,000 to Forest Lawn for interment property. Since Disney’s demise, several unmremarkable events and circumstances surrounding his life and death have been combined to try to establish a pattern of mystery and secrecy concerning the disposal of his body. All of these events, however, have straightforward, non-mysterious explanations: o “Disney had a long preoccupation with death” o “Disney had a neurotic fear of death” Statements concerning Disney’s alleged preoccupation with death are generally attempts to sensationalize the topic by distorting the facts. Although he did worry about dying prematurely, Disney was not “obsessed with death”. Supposedly having been told by a fortune-teller that he would die when he was thirty-five, Disney reportedly brooded about his inevitable demise during occasional bouts of depression, even after he had long passed the allegedly fatal age. Contemplating one’s mortality is not an unusual behavior, and there is no evidence that Walt Disney did so to an excessive degree. William Poundstone quotes some ridiculous passages from Anthony Haden-Guest’s The Paradise Program to try to establish Disney’s preoccupation with death, detailing a “gruesome seven minute Mickey Mouse cartoon” made in 1933 in which “a mad scientist tries to cut off Pluto’s head and put in on a chicken. The cartoon in question is The Mad Doctor, which was nothing more than humorous spoof of 1930’s horror films. Even in the cartoon itself the “horrific” events are not portrayed as real: the whole episode turns out to be nothing more than a nightmare of Mickey’s. Although Poundstone wrote that the film was pulled from the Rank film library in 1970, it has been readily available on home video releases since then. o “The news of Disney’s death was deliberately delayed.” This claim that the announcement of Walt Disney’s death was deliberately withheld from the press for several hours has been made most persistently, presumably because Disney’s aides would have needed time to furtively whisk his body away from the hospital to the secret cryogenic chamber before the presence of reporters made the task impossible to accomplish in privacy. Leonard Mosley’s description of the event features some of more absurd stretches of truth made in this regard: And this is where the mystery begins. It was Walt himself who had asked Roy Disney to keep his illness secret, but the manner in which the world was apprised of his death remains surprising. In fact, it was not until hours after he was declared dead that an announcement was made. First came radio announcements, then a curt official notice informed the press and public that Walt Disney was no more. It added that there would be no funeral. He had already been cremated, the announcement said, and his ashes interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Only immediate family members had been present. It is true that Disney’s death was not officially announced to the press until several hours after it occurred at 9:30 AM on Thursday, December 15, 1966, but the reasons behind the delay were perfectly ordinary ones. First of all, Disney’s death would not have been announced immediately under any circumstances: Several family members had to be notified before a public announcement could be made, and Disney studio executives had to be located and informed that the head of their organization had passed away before the information would be released to the press. Additionally, the gravity of Disney’s illness had largely been kept a secret from the press, so there were no hordes of reporters crowding the hallways of St. Joseph Hospital, waiting for the inevitable announcement of his death. The reason for Disney’s original hospitalization had been announced to the press as “treatment of an old neck injury received while playing polo,” and when Disney re-entered the hospital for the final time two weeks before his death, the statement made to the press was that Disney was undergoing “a routine post-operative” checkup. Although it was certainly no secret that Disney was quite ill, the seriousness of his condition was not generally known. The extent to which the details of Walt Disney’s illness were kept from the press are evidenced by the newspapers reports of his death, which stated that his left lung had been removed during an operation on November 21 (an error which Poundstone repeats in Big Secrets). That operation had actually taken place two weeks earlier; November 21 was the date of his original post-surgery release from the hospital. So, given that relatives and studio heads had to be notified before any statements about Disney’s death were made to the press; that the media were not on a “Disney death watch,” busily preparing obituaries and tributes; and that communications in 1966 were certainly slower than they are today, it is not at all surprising that official news of Disney’s death did not reach the public until a few hours later. Mosley’s other statements, about Disney’s funeral and cremation, are just further examples of sloppy research on his part. Disney was not cremated until two days after his death; no press announcement made “hours after he was declared dead” claimed that he had already been cremated. o “The cause of Disney’s demise was never formally announced.” This statement is both inaccurate and irrelevant. The cause of Disney’s death was initially announced as being “acute circulatory collapse,” which meant simply that his heart had stopped beating. As facile as the official announcement may seem to those who know he “really” died of lung cancer, it does reflect the proximate cause of his death. This notion is borne out by the official death certificate, which lists “cardiac arrest” as the primary cause of death. The fact that cancer was what caused Disney’s heart to give out was, medically, of secondary importance. Official statements released to the press after Disney’s surgery (and before his death) had already revealed that a tumor had been found, necessitating the removal of a lung. Whether stated “officially” or not, it was quite clear to the public that Disney had died of lung cancer. In any case, what possible difference could it have made what Walt Disney died of? How could dissembling about the “real” cause of his death possibly have facilitated the goal of secretly storing his body in a cryonic chamber? o “Disney’s funeral services were held in secret.” Disney’s funeral was not “secret”; rather, it was private, conducted quickly and quietly at the Little Church of the Flowers in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale at 5:00 PM on Friday, December 16 (the day after his death). No announcement of the funeral was made until after it had taken place, no associates or executives from Disney Studios were invited, and only immediate family members were in attendance. Forest Lawn officials refused to disclose any details of the funeral or disposition of the body, stating only that “Mr. Disney’s wishes were very specific and had been spelled out in great detail.”. None of this secrecy surrounding Disney’s funeral should be the least bit surprising to anyone, however. The biography The Story of Walt Disney (essentially an autobiography in which Disney’s own words and thoughts were attributed to his daughter Diane), written a decade before Disney’s death, noted that: [Walt] never goes to a funeral if he can help it. If he had to go to one it plunges him into a reverie which lasts for hours after he’s home. At such times he says, ‘When I’m dead I don’t want a funeral. I want people to remember me alive. '” Is it so remarkable that a man who had an aversion to funerals — and who had stated a ten years earlier that he didn’t want a public funeral — was sent off with a very quick and very private ceremony? If the clandestineness of the funeral had been intended to cover up the fact that Disney’s body had already been deposited in liquid nitrogen at a secret facility, there were certainly better, less obvious ways of accomplishing the deception: Disney could have been given a simple closed-casket ceremony, with nobody the wiser. o “Disney specified the public was never to be told the location of his grave.” Again, this claim is unsupported by any factual information and is not the least bit extraordinary. It is true that officials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park will not divulge the location of the Disney family plot. Many celebrities do request that the locations of their burial plots not be given out to visitors as a simple matter of privacy. The burial sites are not intended to be “secret,” however; if they were, they wouldn’t be marked and located on publicly-accessible grounds. Disney’s plot was not, as Mosley claimed, “already filled with family ashes from which the public would always be barred.” Disney’s plot is far from obtrusive, but it is located in an unrestricted part of the park and marked with a plaque identifying its occupants; anyone who so desires is perfectly free to visit, leave flowers, take photographs, etc. The plot was certainly not “already filled with family ashes” at the time of Disney’s interment, as for many it held the remains of only one other person: Ron Brown, a son-in-law who died the year after Disney did. In fact, according to the book Wills of the Rich and Famous, the interment property was not even chosen until September 19, 1967, making it rather difficult to believe that it could have been “already filled with family ashes.”  If Disney was not really frozen, then how and when did this rumor originate? The exact origins of the rumor are unknown, but at least one Disney publicist has suggested that the story was started by a group of Disney Studio animators who “had a bizarre sense of humor.” The earliest known printed version of the rumor appeared in the magazine Ici Paris in 1969. Even if the origins of the story are unknown, it is certainly easy to see why the rumor is so believable. In the years immediately preceding his death, Disney was involved in a number of projects which cemented his image as a technical innovator in the public’s mind. Disneyland attractions such as the monorail, the House of the Future, the Voyage to the Moon; the introduction of audio-animatronic figures at the 1964 World’s Fair, and Disney’s plans for his “community of tomorrow” (EPCOT) in Florida made it easy to believe Walt Disney was ahead of everyone else in his planning, even when it came to his death. When you consider that the first cryonic suspension took place just a month after Disney’s death (Dr. James Bedford, a 73-year-old psychologist from Glendale, was suspended on January 12, 1967), it’s not so far-fetched to imagine that Disney might have made similar arrangements.


Ultrasound jiggles open brain barrier, a step to better care.

Explanation: A handful of Alzheimer’s patients signed up for a bold experiment: They let scientists beam sound waves into the brain to temporarily jiggle an opening in its protective shield.

Health, Tumors, North America, Ultrasound, Science, U.S. News

The so-called blood-brain barrier prevents germs and other damaging substances from leaching in through the bloodstream — but it can block drugs for Alzheimer’s, brain tumors and other neurologic diseases, too. Canadian researchers on Wednesday reported early hints that technology called focused ultrasound can safely poke holes in that barrier — holes that quickly sealed back up — a step toward one day using the non-invasive device to push brain treatments through. “It’s been a major goal of neuroscience for decades, this idea of a safe and reversible and precise way of breaching the blood-brain barrier,” said Dr. Nir Lipsman, a neurosurgeon at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre who led the study. “It’s exciting.” The findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Chicago and published in Nature Communications. This first-step research, conducted in just six people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, checked if patients’ fragile blood vessels could withstand the breach without bleeding or other side effects — it didn’t test potential therapies. More safety testing is needed but “it’s definitely promising,” said Dr. Eliezer Masliah of the National Institute on Aging, who wasn’t involved with the study. “What is remarkable is that they could do it in a very focused way, they can target a very specific brain region.” Alzheimer’s isn’t the only target. A similar safety study is underway in Lou Gehrig’s disease. And researchers are testing if the tool helps more chemotherapy reach the right spot in people with a deadly brain tumor called glioblastoma. “We don’t want to broadly open the blood-brain barrier everywhere. We want to open the blood-brain barrier where we want the treatment to be delivered,” explained Dr. Graeme Woodworth of the University of Maryland Medical Center, who will lead a soon-to-begin brain tumor study. Scientists have long tried different strategies to overcome the blood-brain barrier with little success. The brain’s blood vessels are lined with cells that form tight junctions, almost like a zipper. The barrier lets in select small molecules. Often, treatments for brain diseases are too big to easily pass. The new approach: Scientists inject microscopic bubbles into the bloodstream. Through an MRI scanner, they aim at a precise brain area. Then they beam ultrasound waves through a helmet-like device to that spot. The pulses of energy make the microbubbles vibrate, loosening those zipper-like junctions in hopes that medications could slip inside. Within minutes, Lipsman’s team saw a medical dye appear on the Alzheimer’s patients’ brain scans — proof the barrier opened. A repeat scan the next day showed it was closed again. Patients repeated the procedure a month later. Researchers reported no serious side effects, and no worsening of cognitive function. The study was funded by the non-profit Focused Ultrasound Foundation. “It’s not painful or anything,” said Rick Karr of Everett, Ontario, the study’s first participant. A retired truck driver and amateur musician, Karr was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2011. Doctors made clear the study wouldn’t treat his memory problems, but “I feel privileged,” Karr said in an interview. “I could help somebody else down the road.” A French company, CarThera, is testing a different ultrasound technique for brain tumors, using an implant attached to the skull during surgery. For the non-invasive ultrasound, device maker InSightec has Food and Drug Administration permission to begin the Maryland tumor trial and a small U.S. Alzheimer’s study. This time, scientists will aim deeper into Alzheimer’s-affected brains to a key memory region, said lead researcher Dr. Ali Rezai of West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. And they’ll measure if simply opening the barrier could help the body clear away sticky plaques that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s, after mouse studies suggested that’s a possibility. But by far the bigger interest is in using ultrasound to deliver drugs — if the next-step studies conclude it’s safe to try. “The blood-brain barrier’s no longer off-limits,” Rezai said. ___ 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.


Lake worshipped by Incans now littered with trash.

Explanation: Tucked between snow-capped mountains, Lake Titicaca was once worshipped by the Incas, who proclaimed its deep blue waters the birthplace of the sun.

AP Top News, International News, South America, Lake Titicaca, Latin America, Lakes, Environment, Health, Science, Peru, Bolivia, Frogs

These days the shores of South America’s largest lake are littered with dead frogs, discarded paint buckets and bags of soggy trash. Less visible threats lurk in the water itself: toxic levels of lead and mercury. The steady deterioration of the prized tourist destination has caused a rash of health problems among the 1.3 million people in Peru and Bolivia living near Lake Titicaca’s polluted banks. Untreated sewage water drains from two dozen nearby cities and illegal gold mines high in the Andes dump up to 15 tons of mercury a year into a river leading to the lake. “If the frogs could talk they would say, ‘This is killing me,’” said Maruja Inquilla, a local environmental activist who recently showed up at the Puno governor’s house carrying plastic bags filled with hundreds of dead frogs in protest. Increasing concern about pollution has prompted a series of scientific studies and promises of official action. The governments of Peru and Bolivia signed a pact in January 2016 to spend more than $500 million to attack the problem, though the details were vague. A year later, Peru’s new president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, pledged to construct 10 treatment plants around the lake, putting the cost at $437 million, “so that the most beautiful lake in the world is the cleanest lake in the world.” But details of how the plants would be funded remain unclear and promises by politicians dating back two decades have so far gone unfulfilled. Many of the more than 400,000 tourists who visit Lake Titicaca from Peru each year stop first in Juliaca, a town that produces 200 tons of trash daily, much of it winding up in a river that has turned into a conveyor belt of waste heading into the lake. Hypodermic needles, tires, old shoes and used diapers are scattered among the potato fields that line the giant lake’s shores. An additional 350,000 tourists visit the lake from Bolivia. A Peruvian government-sponsored study in 2014 found mercury, cadmium, zinc and copper in four types of fish that form part of the local population’s diet at levels higher than those advised for human consumption. Cellular malformations were detected in the fishes’ blood, said Mario Monroy, lead author of the study and professor at Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota, Colombia. Monroy likened the state of the fishes’ blood to a thermometer for measuring the health of Lake Titicaca’s waters. The blue waves that lure travelers also contain lead at levels above international standards, the study found. Dr. Jane M. Hightower, who specializes in internal medicine at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco and is author of the book “Diagnosis: Mercury: Money, Politics & Poison,” reviewed the study and told The Associated Press that the numbers indicate the amount of mercury consumed by Titicaca residents would be “unacceptable.” The study suggested officials limit some fish consumption, but inhabitants of the lake area said they weren’t informed about the study or told they could be consuming fish harmful to their health. Environment Minister Elsa Galarza said her agency plans to make recommendations to residents based on the findings, though Peru’s Production Ministry, which co-financed the study, told The Associated Press in an email that more investigation is required. Inquilla, the local activist, hasn’t been waiting for more. Donning a wide-brimmed, rainbow-hued hat typical of the indigenous communities that surround the lake, she has been visiting villagers to alert them of the dangers lurking in their food and water. The green totora reeds and camouflage-colored Titicaca water frogs she once spotted in abundance have thinned in numbers. The frogs have been placed on a “critically endangered” list by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and just 10,000 remain. In the coastal hamlet of Coata, 23-year-old Maria Avila grew angry as she talked about the lake’s contamination. The mother of a 4-year-old living in an adobe house says she cannot bathe or drink the water without getting severe diarrhea or red spots on her skin. If she washes a blouse with the lake’s water it turns a green color and if she heats the water to make mate, a tea-like drink with a normally grassy taste, it becomes salty and bitter. Avila collects rainwater for household use, but when there isn’t rain, she rows a boat 10 kilometers (6 miles) out from the shore and gathers water in barrels. The water deeper in Lake Titicaca is cleaner than that collected from the banks and can be used to cook, bathe and drink after being boiled. “My ancestors have lived here more than 500 years. They have never gone through these things,” Avila said. Like many living on the 4,000-meter (13,100-feet) high plain surrounding the lake, Avila feels government leaders have neglected them. In 2011, then-presidential candidate Ollanta Humala promised to solve the contamination and construct water sewage processing plants. He won 79 percent of votes in the Lake Titicaca region but didn’t follow through. Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker who lived just 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the lake as a youth, has made access to clean water one of the priorities of his presidency. In a visit to the lake earlier his year, he characterized the polluted waters “a pigsty.” Avila said Lake Titicaca’s people refuse to live “like pigs and streets dogs.” “That’s not who we are,” she said.


U.S. says science should settle farm debates in trade deal with EU.

Explanation: A planned EU/U.S. trade deal needs to sweep away “non-scientific barriers” that prevent U.S. farmers from selling many  genetically modified crops and some chemically treated meats in Europe, the U.S. agriculture secretary said on Tuesday.

The two sides aim to create the world’s largest free-trade pact, whose advocates say it could boost their economies by $100 billion a year each. But after a year of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), agriculture is emerging as one of the most difficult areas. The European Union has ruled out importing meat from animals injected with hormones and said that it will not simply open the door to GM crops. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said difficult issues needed to be addressed, with the common goal of opening markets and eliminating “non-scientific barriers”. “Science is a common language ... We will be working towards making sure that whatever agreements are reached, they are consistent with sound science,” he told a media briefing during a visit to Brussels. In the case of GM crops, the EU has cleared for import some 50 of about 450 commercial strains. The bloc takes in about 30 million tonnes a year for its cattle, pigs and poultry, but EU retailers hardly stock any GM food because of widespread consumer resistance. Vilsack said it was not acceptable that it took four years or more for GM strains to gain access to European markets after winning clearance from the European Food Safety Authority. That compared with a U.S. norm of about 18 months. The United States is demanding the regulatory process be harmonized. Ecological group Greenpeace says GM crops are part of large-scale intensive farming which degrades soils and pollutes water. It says they create herbicide-resistant superweeds that require more pesticides and are not proven to be safe to eat, with much of the research funding coming from industry. Vilsack said the U.S. government was very concerned about suggestions that GM products posed a safety risk, which he said was not borne out by science. Labelling, suggested by some in Europe, would not be a solution, he said. U.S. labels, he said, typically concerned nutritional information or carried a specific warning, for example to alert those with a peanut allergy. Insisting on a label indicating a foodstuff contained a GM product risked sending a wrong impression that this was a safety issue, he said. Vilsack said smartphones might offer an eventual solution by allowing consumers who wanted extensive information, such as on GM content, to gain access to it by scanning a barcode in a supermarket. Vilsack said the European Union should also rethink its current bans on chlorine-washed chicken and beef from cattle raised with growth hormones. Only last month German Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out imports of the former. But Vilsack said the chlorine treatment was a safe way of reducing pathogens. He added that a deal struck with the EU to allow in a quota of hormone-free U.S. beef to settle a dispute at the World Trade Organization was not a permanent solution. “We are still going to have to have some conversation about the beef question,” he said.


US surgeon general urges caution, not panic, on new virus.

Explanation: Surgeon General Jerome Adams called for caution but “not panic” over the spread of the new coronavirus during a stop Monday in Connecticut, where state officials urged the federal government to increase spending on health agencies and preparedness.

General News, Flu, Connecticut, Virus Outbreak, Michael Pence, Public health

Adams and state Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman-Mitchell called on the public to take precautions such as washing hands, elbow “bumping” instead of hand shaking, and getting flu shots. Flu shots, they said, would decrease the number of people hospitalized because of flu and free up space, if needed, to treat patients sickened by the new virus. “Caution, preparedness, but not panic,” Adams said. “That’s how we’re going to successfully navigate this coronavirus situation.” Adams, who was in Connecticut for events unrelated to the virus, spoke while touring the state public health laboratory in Rocky Hill, which recently received federal approval to run diagnostic testing for coronavirus. “The risk to individuals from the novel coronavirus right now is low. Due to the administration’s aggressive containment strategies, we have done a good job of limiting coronavirus entry into the United States,” Adams said. Coleman-Mitchell said the state lab did its first two tests for coronavirus over the weekend and both were negative. Adams and Coleman-Mitchell also cautioned the public against buying surgical masks, saying it could lead to a shortage that could affect medical staff and patients who need them. There have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus, in Connecticut. The number of cases in the U.S. has climbed to at least 91, including six deaths, all in Washington state. Worldwide, more than 89,000 people have been infected and more than 3,000 have died. Adams noted the current flu season in the U.S. is severe and has killed an estimated 18,000 people. “I would be shocked, I would be absolutely shocked, if we get anywhere near the hospitalizations or deaths from coronavirus that we’ve had for the flu in this country,” he said. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, toured the lab with Adams on Monday. He said there is bipartisan support for increasing federal government spending to fight and treat the virus. Blumenthal said he and other members of Congress want to spend much more than the Trump administration’s proposed $2.5 billion in extra appropriations to combat the virus. He said that there is bipartisan support for at least $8.5 billion in additional spending that he hopes Congress will pass within the next 10 days. “We are going to fight for the money that is necessary to be effective and stop this disease from becoming a pandemic,” Blumenthal said. The measure would finance both federal and state response efforts, fund the federal government’s drive to develop and produce a vaccine, and offer Small Business Administration disaster loans to help businesses directly affected by the growing outbreak. Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, took part in a conference call later Monday with other governors and Vice President Mike Pence, whom President Donald Trump has tapped to lead U.S. efforts to fight the virus. The governors expressed their state’s needs for federal reimbursements for state public health expenses related to the virus, Lamont said. Pence, he said, appeared to support the congressional spending plan and talked about how the virus is beginning to diminish in China while spreading in other areas. “We’re just trying to figure out what the half-life of this virus is going to be,” Lamont said. “But right now I feel like Connecticut is in good shape. We’re prepared, prepared for the worst, hoping for the best.”


GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli says the state has made strides in keeping guns away from the mentally ill since the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech. "What we’ve done in Virginia is we have become the number one state per capita in screening out people with mental illness from gun purchases," Cuccinelli said during a Sept. 25 debate with Democrat Terry McAuliffe. We wondered if Virginia really is No. 1. To support his statement, Cuccinelli campaign spokeswoman Anna Nix pointed to a chart in the Seattle Times that ranked states on that measure.The chart was based on figures compiled by Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- a gun control group started by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Those figures show Virginia had submitted 2,254 mental health records to the national background check system for every 100,000 residents in the state. That was the highest ratio among all states in late 2011. The gun control group said in a November 2011 version of its Fatal Gaps report that Virginia had been sharing records with the national background check database for a decade, but the volume of records shared increased after the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedy. In that case, Seung-Hui Cho, was able to purchase two handguns he used to kill 32 people despite going through federal and state background checks at licensed gun dealers, according to a 2009 panel report on the shooting to then Gov. Tim Kaine. Cho had been deemed a danger to himself by a Virginia court, and that normally would have made him ineligible to buy the weapons. But his information was not shared with the federal National Instant Background Check System, the panel said, because of ambiguities in Virginia’s guns laws. The Virginia Tech shootings sparked a nationwide examination of the national background check system. Congress passed a 2008 law providing incentives for states to submit mental health records to the national background check system, but they are under no requirement comply. Virginia also passed legislation expanding the mental health records that have to be sent to the federal and state background check databases. Mayors Against Illegal Guns notes on its interactive chart that in the wake of the massacre, Virginia became the national leader in submitting mental health records to the national background check system. It remained at the top of the group’s list until October 2012, Erika Soto Lamb, a spokeswoman for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said in an e-mail. Since, then, however, Pennsylvania has vaulted from the bottom of the pack to the top. That month, according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, the Pennsylvania State Police resolved lengthy legal and technical problems and transmitted 643,167 mental health records to the NICS. The submission means that Pennsylvania has submitted about 5,003 mental health records to the national background check system per 100,000 residents. Virginia was a distant No. 2 in the latest report by the mayors’ group, which counts all submissions through Oct. 31, 2012. Virginia had sent 180,338 mental health records to NICS. That breaks down to about 2,220 records per 100,000 residents. Rounding out the Top 5 were Delaware, California and Washington. The Bottom 5, in descending order, were Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Dakota, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The gun control group plans to issue an updated report in the coming weeks. Our ruling Cuccinelli said Virginia is "the number one state per capita in screening out people with mental illness from gun purchases." His claim is based on outdated numbers. Virginia used to be No.1, but was surpassed by Pennsylvania last year. Now, we’re a distant No. 2. That’s still impressive. So Cuccinelli’s statement is largely accurate but needs the clarification. We rate it .


Climate is changing. Investing needs to, too, says BlackRock.

Explanation: A changing climate means dramatic risks for the world — and for investments too, the chief of the world’s largest investment manager said Tuesday.

Climate, AP Top News, Climate change, General News, Environment, Business

To prepare for and protect against those risks, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink said in his influential annual letter to CEOs that his firm, which manages roughly $7 trillion for investors, will make a series of moves putting climate change and sustainability at the center of its investing approach. Among them, BlackRock will cut out investments in some coal producers from some of its portfolios, sharply increase the number of sustainability-focused funds that it offers, and vote against companies at shareholder meetings when they’re too slow in disclosing and mitigating their impact on the environment. “Climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” Fink wrote in his letter, adding that he believes “we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance” because of it. Fink predicted  that the changes in how capital is deployed will come “more quickly than we see changes to the climate itself,” and “sooner than most anticipate.” In fact, the shift is already underway. Investors poured a net $20.6 billion into sustainable funds across the industry last year, nearly quadruple the record set a year earlier, according to Morningstar. Investors, particularly younger ones, increasingly say they want their money invested with an eye toward sustainability. The total dollars are still small relative to the entire industry — investors plugged a total of $413.9 billion into all taxable bond funds last year, while yanking $41.3 billion out of all U.S. stock funds — but the trend is clear and accelerating. Fearful of losing out on those dollars — and the fees that they produce — investment companies are rushing to meet the surging demand. BlackRock and other huge asset managers are generally behind smaller competitors when it comes to sustainability, said Danielle Fugere, president of shareholder-advocacy group As You Sow. BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and others have been criticized for not doing more about the environment. Besides protests outside its Manhattan headquarters, BlackRock has also heard criticism from members of Congress who believe it could better address climate change. Because of its size and reach, any shift in focus by BlackRock could alter the industry. It is a major shareholder in thousands of companies through its popular exchange-traded funds that track various indexes, as well as its funds run by stock-picking managers. But Fugere said Tuesday’s announcement is only a first step. “The words are significant, and the words show leadership,” Fugere said. “But that’s not enough. We have to see on the ground action, and we need to see it quickly. There is no time. Australia is burning up. California is burning up.”  The wildfires in parts of Australia and California and other recent disasters have shown big institutional investors that climate change is just as much a threat to their returns in the near term as over the coming decades. “The physical risks have become so immediately clear and stark,” said Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council for Institutional Investors, whose members include pension funds, endowments and other U.S.-based asset owners investing more than $4 trillion. “Many institutional investors will welcome these steps by BlackRock,” she said. “More and more public funds are coming around to the view that sound environmental, social and governance practices are not just about making the world better but about fundamentally creating and preserving shareholder value.”  This approach to investing comes after a yearslong evolution for the industry, which began with simple funds that bluntly excluded stocks deemed as harmful, such as gun makers or tobacco stocks. Now, fund managers say they they look at environmental, social and governance issues broadly as part of their analysis of any investment. It’s known as “ESG” investing, and proponents say it aids investors’ returns, not just their consciences, because it helps them avoid risky stocks and big potential losses. Companies with poor records on environmental issues are more likely to face big fines, for example. For all the noise made by Fink’s announcement, the reaction in the stock market was muted on Tuesday. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 were down, but not as much as some other corners of the market. Coal stocks were mixed. In his letter, Fink said companies and investors have a role to play in the transition to a low-carbon world, but governments will ultimately need to lead the way. Some movement has begun. The European Union on Tuesday unveiled a plan to dedicate a quarter of its budget to tackling climate change and to help shift 1 trillion euros ($1.1 trillion) in investment towards making the economy more environmentally friendly over the next 10 years. The Europe Investment Plan will be funded by the EU budget and the private sector. It aims to deliver on European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal to make the bloc the world’s first carbon-neutral continent by 2050. “It will be interesting to see whether BlackRock’s high profile move will have any impact on policy,” Borrus said. “Government can do much more in the long run on climate change than investment flows.”  ____ AP Reporter Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report from Brussels.


Explanation: This report fairly describes a promising but not imminent blood test that may be able to identify people with Alzheimer’s disease. It does a good job, particularly in a broadcast piece, of describing how the study was conducted and its potential implications. The story could have been significantly stronger, however. The report should have indicated how small the groups were, so people could appreciate the potential fragility of these findings. The report failed to disclose vital information about conflicts of interest that was easily available. The person-on-the-street interviews contribute nothing of value, but they consume valuable seconds which could have been devoted to the two areas mentioned above–or to providing insight from a clinician. The ABC News website has a much more complete report on the study. The broadcast segment should have referred viewers to it.

Because the test is not available and will not be for sometime, estimating a cost of testing is not possible at the present time. But a story like this also could have touched on the issue of the downstream costs associated with testing everyone with signs of memory loss – which could be enormous – and the costs of providing what are now relatively ineffective current drug treaments. The report says that the test is 90 percent accurate in identifying or predicting Alzheimer’s. But it fails to put  what sounds like an extraordinarily powerful result in context. The groups studied were very small: In one result (according to other press reports), 38 out of 42 patients were correctly identified via the 18 proteins. Another result showed accuracy in 20 out of 22 patients. The segment opens and closes with the hosts discussing whether there are harms (or even value) of knowing one will develop, or already has, Alzheimer’s disease, because there is no treatment available. The four people interviewed on the street emphasize the question of the test’s ultimate value. (See note below under "Sources of Information" for more on this tactic, however.) Mixed review. The segment does a good job, particularly in a broadcast setting, of describing how the research was conducted (studying blood samples of the diagnosed and the impaired to find the related cluster of 18 "communication" proteins). However, the story didn’t discuss a key limitation: the size of the study group. (See note under "Quantification of Benefits," below). And it didn’t discuss another specific limitation of this study: this case-control type of patient selection almost always overestimates test accuracy. So it’s likely to perform worse in real world populations. The story also didn’t comment on the fact that the publication in the journal Nature Medicine was actually a letter – which is curious and almost demands comment. Although methods are published, why was it not published as an original article about original research? As a letter, was it peer-reviewed? The same as original articles? What’s missing is just as important as what was included, and for that reason. The segment does nothing to exaggerate the effects or risk of Alzheimer’s, and does not raise false hopes about the ultimate value of the test. The report also does an excellent job of refusing to oversell the potential benefits of existing Alzheimer’s drugs and other current treatments for the condition. The segment falls short in this category in three ways: It fails to report where the study was published (the British journal Nature Medicine). The report fails to disclose some obvious conflicts of interest. Four of the authors have commercial ties to the company that developed the test. The main investigator did early work on the test when he was with the company, Satoris Inc., of which he is co-founder with another author of the paper. The lead author is a paid consultant to the company; so was another author of the paper. This information is available in the press release. The person-on-the-street interviews do not provide valuable sources. Whether one wants to know about an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is a complicated question that requires a lot of information: the impact on estate planning and long-term care, the benefits (if any) of drugs in early stage treatment, how progress might be slowed or stalled by lifestyle changes, and more. It’s clear none of these people was well informed enough to have a meaningful opinion. An interview with an Alzheimer’s clinician, or a caretaker, would have been more valuable. This would have helped viewers understand what role this screen could someday play in the context of typical treatment and care. The segment states that no other blood tests are currently available. While this is true, spinal taps and imaging devices are being studied and used for diagnosis currently. It would have been helpful to have some detail on what the host calls the "long and difficult process" of clinical diagnosis currently in use. Many viewers are likely to have a relative they are concerned about and would benefit from a clinician’s perspective. The segment makes clear that the test is not currently available, is uncertain to be approved for use, and that such use would be several years away. The intro briefly implies something more imminent, however. The broadcast implies novelty early on in the set-up. But in his first statement the reporter indicates that this is "another in a series of blood tests proposed to diagnose Alzheimer’s." He then explains how this one is different, by studying 18 "communication" proteins. Generally the piece does a good job of indicating that if this test is validated and comes to market first, it would be novel. There is no evidence the report draws excessively on the press release. In fact (see next item) this is a case where the press release included vital information the story left out.


Regulator grants license for Britain's first three-parent IVF babies.

Explanation: - Britain’s fertility regulator on Thursday granted doctors the first UK license to create babies using a three-parent IVF technique designed to prevent inherited genetic diseases.

The license, granted to a team of doctors in Newcastle, northern England, means the first child created in Britain using the mitochondrial pronuclear transfer technique could be born before the end of this year. Critics of the treatment say it is a dangerous step that will lead to the creation of genetically modified “designer babies”. But the medical team at the Newcastle Fertility Centre said they were delighted with the decision “to help families affected by these devastating diseases”. “Many years of research have led to the development of pronuclear transfer as a treatment to reduce the risk of mothers transmitting disease to their children,” said Mary Herbert, a professor of Reproductive Biology at the Centre. “It’s a great testament to the regulatory system here in the UK that research innovation can be applied in treatment.”  The technique involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove mitochondria, which act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and which - if faulty - can cause fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. The treatment is known as “three-parent” IVF because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor. It is designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Britain’s parliament voted last year to change the law to allow the treatments if and when they were ready for licensing. But the regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), still had to approve each clinic and each patient on an individual basis before the treatment can be carried out. Fertility specialists welcomed Thursday’s decision. Simon Fishel, managing director of CARE Fertility, said it was “excellent news” and “a milestone that all who care about medical health will welcome”. Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at Sheffield University, said it was “a great day for science”. While Britain has been at the forefront of scientific advances and ethical debate about pro-nuclear transfer techniques, it will not be the first country in the world to have children born using 3-parent IVF treatment. The world’s first and so-far only known mitochondrial transfer baby was born in 2016 after U.S. doctors working at a clinic in Mexico helped a Jordanian couple conceive using the treatment. (The story was refiled to say Allan Pacey is a professor at Sheffield University in paragraph 12)


Portable Device May Relieve Migraine Pain

Explanation: This story describes a study, which found that a portable single-pulse trancranial magnetic stimulation (sTMS) device decreases progression of a migraine attack in some people. It provides some appropriate caveats about interpreting study results. But it could have been even stronger had it discussed adverse effects and costs. This matters because this is a non-drug treatment for certain headaches that can be very disabling. It is important for the reader to understand whether this is a beneficial, safe, and cost-effective option because as a device, its regulation by the FDA is looser than that for medications. In the case of "new" devices therefore, reader beware!

No mention of cost was made in the report about this device. As medications exist for treatment of migraine during aura, the comparative cost is important. Speculation as to whether this device would be covered by insurance would have also been helpful. The article does not give the reader a sense of how significant the pain relief or avoidance was. There was a significant improvement in rate of freedom from pain at two hours for the first treated episode (39% in the treatment arm versus 22% in the sham treatment arm), but about half the subjects in both arms thought their pain relief was fair to poor. According to the study, 9 out of 99 (9%) of patients in the sham group reported at least one adverse event compared to 14 out of 102 (14%) in the sTMS group. Even though the authors suggest the adverse events were similar between the groups, the story should have reported this. Furthermore, we have no long-term information about problems associated with magnetic pulses in the brain, nor do we know about long-term effects on the primary endpoint, namely headache. Could they worsen over time? The story did an adequate job describing the study and highlighting the rigorous design methods, namely that it was a randomized, sham-controlled, multicenter trial. But the story didn’t reveal whether the benefit was sustained for multiple headaches and repeated use of the device. A discussion of why about 2/3 of the originals subjects were not randomized or why another third dropped out after randomization seems like an important omission. The story does point out that since this is an industry-sponsored trial, replicating the results with an independent trial is prudent. Overall,


EPA chemical safety nominee drops out amid strong opposition.

Explanation: President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee chemical safety at the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew his nomination Wednesday after bipartisan opposition made his Senate confirmation unlikely.

Richard Burr, Politics, North America, Environment, Business, Thom Tillis, Donald Trump, Pollution

Officials at the White House and the Senate told The Associated Press that Michael Dourson had sent a letter asking his name to be removed from consideration to serve as head of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. The two officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. North Carolina’s two Republican senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, said last month they would vote against Dourson’s nomination after The Associated Press and other media outlets detailed his past work as a toxicologist hired to defend major chemical companies. The Senate’s 48 Democrats were united in opposition, meaning only one more GOP defection would be needed to defeat Dourson’s nomination. In his letter asking the president to withdraw his name from consideration, which was obtained by the AP, Dourson said his stepping aside “avoids unnecessarily politicizing the important environmental protection goals of Administrator Pruitt.” “I sincerely and deeply appreciate all the love and support by my family, friends and colleagues during this ‘surprising’ confirmation process,” he went on to say. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said his staunch objections to Dourson’s nomination were never a matter of partisanship. “I sincerely believe he is the wrong person to hold this important position, and it’s become clear that, even with a Republican majority in the Senate, he could not be confirmed,” Carper said. “Dourson, an individual who has spent most of his career promoting less protective chemical safety standards, had no business overseeing our nation’s chemical safety laws.” The EPA’s press office did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening. Dourson has already been serving at the agency as a senior adviser to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt. It was not immediately clear whether he will continue in that role, which does not require Senate confirmation. The AP reported in September that Dourson has for years accepted payments for criticizing studies that raised concerns about the safety of his clients’ products, according to a review of financial records and his published work. Past corporate clients of Dourson and of a research group he ran include Dow Chemical Co., Koch Industries Inc. and Chevron Corp. His research has also been underwritten by industry trade and lobbying groups representing the makers of plastics, pesticides, processed foods and cigarettes. Burr and Tillis, both of whom are considered reliably pro-business conservatives, cited Dourson’s past work and worries among their home-state constituents about tainted drinking water in opposing his nomination. Marine veterans and their families have blamed decades-old contamination of wells at a North Carolina base with solvents and dry-cleaning chemicals for infant deaths and serious health problems, including cancer. More recently, concerns have been raised about undisclosed discharges of chemicals used to manufacture Teflon and GoreTex into the Cape Fear River, a source of municipal drinking water for Wilmington and other southeastern North Carolina communities. Dourson worked at the EPA for more than a decade, leaving in 1994 as the manager at a lab that assessed the health risks of exposure to chemicals. The following year, he founded Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a private, nonprofit organization that tests chemicals and produces reports on which chemicals are hazardous in what quantities. Dourson’s views toward industry are consistent with others Trump has selected as top federal regulators. Among them is Pruitt, who in March overruled the findings of his agency’s own scientists to reverse an effort to ban chlorpyrifos, one of the nation’s most widely used pesticides. Court records show Dourson and his work have also often been called on when his corporate clients are seeking to fend off lawsuits. Dourson’s withdrawal was first reported Wednesday by Bloomberg News. ___ Follow Associated Press environmental reporter Michael Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck


Explanation: In 2002, the publication of the results of Women's Health Initiative (WHI) fundamentally changed how hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was used in the U.S. The study was halted early because of the finding of increased risk of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer and clots from HRT use. The reaction was a dramatic decrease in the number of women using HRT. This story reports on a study published in this week's Circulation showing that using estrogen in the form of a skin patch may not cause the increased risk of blood clots that is associated with the use of hormones in the pill form. This story does an excellent job of explaining the current study, describing other studies that have shown similar results, and outlining some of the problems with drawing firm conclusions from an observational trial. Furthermore, the story does an adequate job of describing the availability, novelty and harms of hormone therapy. Because the story quotes multiple, independent experts, the reader can assume the story does not rely on a press release as the sole source of information. The story did an especially good job of noting possible conflicts of interest in researchers. However, the story should have quantified the risk of blood clots in absolute terms, not relative terms. The story states that "women who took hormone pills were 4 times as likely to suffer a serious blood clot." Four times higher than what? The story could have provided more context for the reader on these numbers by giving the actual risk of clotting from the pills compared to the patch.

The story does not mention costs of any of the types of hormone therapy, an important piece of information since they are often not covered well by insurance. Because this story reports on the risks of clots from hormone therapy, this criteria will be judged against how well the story quantified the risks, not the benefits, of the treatment. The story should have quantified the risk in absolute terms, not relative terms. The story states that "women who took hormone pills were 4 times as likely to suffer a serious blood clot." 4 times higher than what? The story could have provided more context for the reader on these numbers by giving the actual risk of clotting from the pills compared to the patch. The story mentions blood clots, stroke and breast cancer as potential harms of hormone therapy. The story does an excellent job of explaining the current study, describing other studies that have shown similar results, and outlining some of the problems with drawing firm conclusions from an observational trial. The story does not exaggerate the seriousness of blood clots. However, the story may mislead women into thinking they are more common than they are by describing them as "one of the most common health risks associated with hormones." No sense of absolute risk is given in the general population of women or among women taking hormone therapy. Blood clots are still very rare with hormones, occuring in fewer than 25 women per 10,000. Nonetheless, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story quotes several independent experts who have differing views on the value of the new information. It did an especially good job of noting conflicts of interest where they existed. The story mentions estrogen in the form of pills, patches, rings and gels. The story explains that the patches are popular in Europe but not used as widely in the U.S. The story mentions that millions of women use hormones to treat menopausal symptoms, so clearly they are not new. Because the story quotes multiple, independent experts, the reader can assume the story does not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.


Claims that President Trump is exhibiting signs of dementia in his speech and actions began circulating on social media in May 2017.

Explanation: President Trump is Showing Signs of Dementia

There’s no hard evidence that President Trump has exhibited signs of dementia or cognitive decline, and experts have warned that making such a diagnosis based on observations from afar is impossible to do. Those rumors gained legs after STAT, and online publication by Boston Globe Media, published an analysis on May 23, 2017, President Trump’s changing speech patterns over the last 20 or so years: Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump’s speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump’s brain. The article cited range of experts on how President Trump’s speech patterns changed in interview that he gave in the 1980s compared to those that he gave in the 2010s. While all experts agreed that there were noticeable changes in Trump’s speech and use of vocabulary, there wasn’t any agreement about why, or exactly what that could mean. One expert noted that the Trump could have changed his speech and vocabulary intentionally to appeal to a certain type of voter (although the author provides examples of Trump’s linguistic ticks showing up before he entered politics). Another expert noted that everyone’s brain experiences some form of deterioration by age 70, and Trump’s could be a normal result of aging rather than dementia or memory loss. One expert cited in the analysis sums up the findings: John Montgomery, a psychologist in New York City and adjunct professor at New York University, said “it’s hard to say definitively without rigorous testing” of Trump’s speaking patterns, “but I think it’s pretty safe to say that Trump has had significant cognitive decline over the years.” No one observing Trump from afar, though, can tell whether that’s “an indication of dementia, of normal cognitive decline that many people experience as they age, or whether it’s due to other factors” such as stress and emotional upheaval, said Montgomery, who is not a Trump supporter. Because of the challenge (or impossibility) of diagnosing someone’s mental health or cognitive ability from afar that Montgomery describes, the American Psychiatric Association handed down the “Goldwater Rule” in 1973, which bars its members from making public statements on the mental health or mental fitness of politicians or other public figures without first sitting for an in-person diagnosis. The rule was named for GOP presidential candidate and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who successfully sued Fact magazine for publishing a survey of mental health professionals that showed more than 1,100 found Goldwater unfit for the presidency. The American Psychiatry Association published a defense of the Goldwater Rule in August 2016 as the presidential race was ramping up, and new questions about the mental fitness of Trump and other candidates surfaced: We live in an age where information on a given individual is easier to access and more abundant than ever before, particularly if that person happens to be a public figure. With that in mind, I can understand the desire to get inside the mind of a Presidential candidate. I can also understand how a patient might feel if they saw their doctor offering an uninformed medical opinion on someone they have never examined. A patient who sees that might lose confidence in their doctor, and would likely feel stigmatized by language painting a candidate with a mental disorder (real or perceived) as “unfit” or “unworthy” to assume the Presidency. Simply put, breaking the Goldwater Rule is irresponsible, potentially stigmatizing, and definitely unethical. The Goldwater Rule, however, won’t stop speculation about President Trump’s mental fitness, or future presidents for that matter. In fact, in May 2017, an awkward encounter between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which Trump appeared disoriented and wandered away without shaking the prime minister’s hand:  WHAT IS GOING ON? pic.twitter.com/4RD5l09u6M — Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) May 26, 2017  Some have noted, however, that the above video cuts off the end of President Trump’s exchange with Netanyahu. After initially walking away, Trump returned, shook Netanyahu’s hand, and told the crowd that he never mentioned “Israel” while disclosing classified information to Russian officials in a White House meeting: Or Copy Code:  In the end, mental health professionals agree that there’s no way to gauge President Trump’s (or anyone else’s) mental health from afar. That’s why we’re calling this one “fiction.”


A California Senate bill gives the state the right to seize children from their families

Explanation: Pan reported getting threats via email and by phone after the bill was signed, enough so that he required additional security. A recall petition against him needing 35,926 signatures later failed after not getting a single signature.

Junk News, california, Richard Pan, SB-18

An “alternative health” website published a story on 9 December 2016, accusing a California lawmaker of facilitating government seizure of children through a new state Senate bill. The piece claims that state Sen. Richard Pan (D) placed families in danger when he introduced state Senate Bill 18 on 5 December 2016: This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to expand and codify the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California to establish a comprehensive framework that governs the rights of all children and youth in California, outlines the research-based essential needs of California’s children, and establishes standards relating to the health, safety, well-being, early childhood and educational opportunities, and familial supports necessary for all children to succeed. The bill would declare the intent of the Legislature, by January 1, 2022, to enact legislation for the purpose of ensuring that the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth of California, in its totality, is applied evenly, equitably, and appropriately to all children and youth across the state. While the story ran the proposal verbatim, it did not identify any specific language in the bill authorizing officials to remove children from their households. Instead it claimed — without sources — that “many across the state” are already ripping the bill. (It also heavily suggested that Pan was a “whipping boy” for the pharmaceutical industry.) The lawmaker, a pediatrician and faculty member at the University of California-Davis, has been targeted by opponents of mandatory school vaccination programs since co-authoring a different measure, Senate Bill 277, in February 2015. As his spokesperson, Shannan Martinez, said in a statement: This is a personal vendetta they have against Dr. Pan. They don’t want to understand the bill and instead choose to make up lies about the legislation and the Senator. The irony is that they oppose an effort to empower parents and ensure children and families get the support they need to succeed. The vaccination bill, which was filed in response to a measles outbreak at Disneyland in 2014, eliminated  “personal belief” exemptions for public and private school students across the state. It was enacted on 30 June 2015, meaning that students would be required to be vaccinated unless they were granted a medical exemption.


Jackson Laboratory gets funding boost for genetics research.

Explanation: The federal government has awarded about $2.8 million to a Maine science lab for projects that will focus on genetics.

Genomics, Genetics, Health, General News, Susan Collins, Genetics research, Science, Angus King, Education, Maine

The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health has awarded the money to The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. The biggest piece of the money is a more than $1.2 million award for a project designed to develop clinical tests for identifying patients with genetic mechanisms of infertility. That piece of the grant will also support educational activities that will create new evolutionary genomics education and research opportunities in Maine, said Republican Sen. Susan Collins and independent Sen. Angus King. More than $1.1 million of the grant will support the lab’s Mutant Mouse Resource and Research Center. About $400,000 will be applied to a project involving stem cells and breast cancer.


Steyer visiting North Carolina, including Barber’s church.

Explanation: Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer is spending the weekend campaigning in North Carolina in advance of participating in his party’s last televised debate before the Iowa caucuses.

Environment, Iowa, Goldsboro, General News, North Carolina, Tom Steyer, Campaigns, Election 2020, Durham, Pete Buttigieg

The campaign for the wealthy environmental activist says he’ll make stops in Durham and Raleigh on Saturday before going Sunday to the Goldsboro church of civil rights leader the Rev. William Barber. Steyer will speak at an anti-poverty forum at Barber’s Greenleaf Christian Church, similar to what candidate Pete Buttigieg did at the church last month. Steyer’s Saturday stops include the North Carolina Central University law school and a Durham public housing complex where concerns about carbon monoxide poisoning have been raised recently. Steyer also wants to talk about his proposals on immigration and fighting climate change at an evening meet-and-greet at a Raleigh hotel. Steyer qualified for Tuesday’s debate in Des Moines, Iowa, by hitting polling and donor thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee.


All of the patients in the intensive care unit of a Puerto Rican hospital were killed by Hurricane Maria.

Explanation: However, we have been so far unable to verify the specific story that Rosario first told.

Politics, hurricane maria, puerto rico, trump administration

In late September 2017, as accounts spread online about the scale of the devastation in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria, a Chicago attorney shared a story his father told him about the deaths of every person in one hospital’s intensive care wing there, which dovetails with reports that the official death toll on the island territory is likely to increase dramatically. On 30 September 2017, Nelson M. Rosario posted remarks on Twitter that he attributed to his father, who lives in the territory. According to Rosario, his father “is helping with rebuilding right now” and has friends who were both “elected and appointed” to the Puerto Rican government. Rosario said that he shared with his father U.S. President Donald Trump’s online rant against San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz that day: The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump. Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. In response, Rosario wrote in a series of tweets: After I told him what the President said he went quiet and said “Wow.” A second later he says “I’m gonna share one detail with you. One. “There’s a medical center down here, and everyone that was in the Intensive Care Unit, died. Everyone. That’s just one detail.” He said that’s what should be tweeted at the President @realDonaldTrump, so that’s what I’m doing. The post containing his father’s allegation has been retweeted more than 26,000 times:  We contacted Rosario seeking more details about his father’s anecdote. As of 30 October 2017, 51 deaths have been attributed to the hurricane. However, the local government reportedly allowed 911 bodies to be cremated and listed as deaths by “natural causes” without further investigation, prompting criticism from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts): These reports are extremely troubling — they provide even more reason to be concerned about the accuracy of the information we’re receiving. The Trump Administration needs to cooperate with Puerto Rican authorities and provide all the necessary resources to ensure the death toll is accurately counted. On 3 November 2017, Cruz called the amount of cremations in the Buzzfeed report “an outstanding number” during an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper. She also agreed with Tapper’s estimate that the death toll was “probably” closer to 500 people. Puerto Rico Public Safety Secretary Héctor Pesquera said in an interview published by the nonprofit Center for Investigative Journalism on 2 October 2017 (when the death toll was at 16) that the number of dead is likely higher: I believe there are more dead, but I don’t have reports telling me [for example] eight died in Mayagüez because they lacked oxygen, that four died in San Pablo because they did not receive dialysis. According to reporter Omaya Sosa Pascual: When Pesquera was asked why the government insists on keeping the death toll at 16 nearly two weeks after the hurricane, and following multiple reports of additional victims, he said they have not added additional victims to the list because death certificates from deaths that occurred during those days in Puerto Rico have yet to be released, nor has it been possible to analyze the information to determine which were natural deaths and which were deaths related to emergency-related circumstances. “I’m not saying it has not happened, I’m saying we can only certify what we know. When that information arrives, we will validate it. I’m not going to hide any numbers. I’m not going to hide any data,” he said. Pascual Sosa has also reported, citing local sources, that “bodies are piling up” inside area hospital morgues. Reporter David Begnaud, who is covering Maria’s aftermath from Puerto Rico, says that at least some of the deaths were “oxygen related” — in other words, people were unable to use breathing machines or oxygen tanks because they had no power after the storm: Confirmed: Oxygen related deaths following Hurricane Maria, as well as, suicide and heart attack Source: Gov @ricardorossello pic.twitter.com/A1W9oEalpY — David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) October 4, 2017  On 3 October 2017, Rosario again criticized Trump after the president told Puerto Rican officials they “can be very proud” that 16 people had died compared to the 1,833 deaths caused by Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in August 2005. Rosario wrote: The death toll is not 16 @realDonaldTrump, the death toll is much higher. This is so dishonest. #TruthForPuertoRico


Shot Might One Day Help Lower Cholesterol

Explanation: We liked that this story was cautious about predicting whether or how an experimental new cholesterol-lowering drug called AMG 145 might be useful for preventing heart disease. But there were a few missed opportunities to provide additional context, particularly regarding the cost of the new drug (which will likely be very high) should it ever make it to market and the fact that the outcome measured in this study (LDL cholesterol) is only a marker of heart disease risk that may not reflect a reduction in actual heart attacks. As this story points out, there are many factors which can make it difficult for patients to take cholesterol-lowering statin medication. Some patients are troubled by statin-related muscle pain, while others simply aren’t disciplined enough to take their daily dose of medicine as directed. Other patients may never achieve their target for LDL cholesterol reduction despite taking the highest available statin dose. An alternative drug that lowers cholesterol with less frequent dosing and with the potential for less risk of muscle pain might be useful for these patients.

The story did not mention costs. This is an important deficiency, since drugs like AMG 145, which are called monoclonal antibodies, are typically among the most expensive drugs in the world and are an important source of rising health care expenditures. The says that AMG 145 decreased LDL cholesterol by up to 64%. Although this description isn’t quite as useful as simply telling us what the cholesterol numbers were before and after treatment, the number does convey the point that this was an impressive amount of cholesterol lowering — which is accurate. The story also explains other features of the drug that might be attractive — e.g. the potential for less frequent dosing and fewer muscle-related adverse effects compared with statins. As already noted, the potential limitation of impacting a surrogate marker was worth mentioning. There was room for improvement here, but we’ll call it satisfactory. The story says that researchers reported no “serious” side effects with the drug. OK, but  we wish the story had mentioned that this study was really much too small to even estimate adverse effects. In the past, other monoclonal antibodies have produced rare but serious adverse effects- something that could have provided meaningful context for readers. The story earns high marks for emphasizing the preliminary nature of the findings and the need for longer studies in people with high cholesterol. Unfortunately, it failed to caution that the study’s main outcome — LDL cholesterol — is a surrogate measure of heart disease risk. Although the benefits of statin drugs are believed to be tied to their cholesterol lowering effects, it is not clear that all drugs which lower LDL cholesterol are effective for preventing heart attacks and strokes. Accordingly, we cannot assume that this drug will be beneficial just because it makes LDL cholesterol numbers move in the right direction. The story should have pointed this out. There was no overt disease-mongering in this story. However, several points deserve consideration: The story alerted readers to the fact that the study was funded and conducted by Amgen. However, at least one of the researchers who comments on the findings — Daniel Rader — consults for numerous pharmaceutical companies that produce or are developing new cholesterol-based therapies, including drugs that target the PCSK9 pathway discussed in the article. To avoid any appearance of a conflict, the story should have disclosed these relationships. The story mentions healthy lifestyle changes and statin drugs as established ways to lower cholesterol. It could have mentioned other approaches — such as nonstatin cholesterol-lowering drugs as well as special margarines fortified with plant sterols — that are sometimes used to lower cholesterol. It’s clear that this potential treatment is in an early phase of development and not yet available to the public. The story notes that this drug focuses on one of the “hottest targets” for new treatments to lower LDL cholesterol. So readers get the sense that there are other similar drugs in development. The story includes comments from experts not involved with the study, so we can be sure it wasn’t based on a news release.