U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said or argued to the effect that "taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgery.

Explanation: What's true: Warren has repeatedly expressed support for sex-reassignment therapy being covered under taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Tricare, as well as state Medicaid programs. What's false: However, a controversial article's headline on the subject was misleading in that it gave rise to the impression Warren had said, word-for-word, "taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgery," and that she had proposed taxpayers must fund any and all sex-reassignment surgeries, as opposed to simply adding that procedure to the list of services taxpayers already fund under Medicaid and similar programs.

In September and October 2019, we received multiple inquiries from readers about the veracity of reports that claimed U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren had said or argued to the effect that “taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgery.” On Aug. 14, the right-leaning website OneNewsNow published an article with the headline, “Warren: Taxpayers Must Fund Sex Reassignment Surgery,” which reported that: “Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) launched her fight via social media to have taxpayer dollars fund ‘gender-affirming healthcare’ so that transgender Americans can have ‘free’ sex-changing surgery. “‘Everyone should be able to access high-quality, affordable, gender-affirming health care, but the Trump administration is trying to roll back important protections for trans Americans,’ Warren tweeted Tuesday. ‘Help fight back by leaving a comment for HHS in protest. '” Everyone should be able to access high-quality, affordable, gender-affirming health care. But the Trump administration is trying to roll back important protections for trans Americans. Help fight back by leaving a comment for HHS in protest: https://t.co/pKDcOqbsc7 — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) August 13, 2019   Warren’s tweet included a link to the website Protect Trans Health, a campaign run by the Transgender Law Center and the National Center for Transgender Equality. The purpose of that campaign was to solicit and convey criticism to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about its controversial move to repeal an Obama-era rule that prohibits healthcare and insurance providers from discriminating against trans individuals. So the source cited by OneNewsNow did not involve Warren saying, “Taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgery.” The phrasing of the website’s headline may have given some readers the impression it was a direct quote, even though OneNewsNow did not actually use quotation marks. It might also have led some to believe Warren had proposed that all sex-reassignment surgeries must be taxpayer-funded, which is not the case. Nonetheless, an examination of the record, and confirmation from Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, make it clear that she does indeed support covering sex-reassignment surgery under taxpayer-funded programs like Medicaid, as well as full legal access to the surgery, under private health insurance and Obamacare. We asked the Warren campaign whether she supports gender-reassignment surgery, and other transition-related services such as medication, being made available at low cost or no cost, under taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare (for military service members and veterans), as well as through Obamacare and private health insurance policies. A campaign spokesperson was unequivocal in response: “Yes.”  The campaign also directed us to a September 2019 interview Warren conducted with “HIV Plus” magazine, in which she gave further details about her stance on the issue. The interview refers to Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), so a brief explanation is warranted. Section 1557 incorporated existing anti-discrimination law into the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It prohibited healthcare or insurance providers that receive federal funding (include state-by-state Medicaid programs) from discriminating against patients on the basis of their sex, race, religion, national origin, and so on. In 2016, HHS under President Barack Obama implemented a new rule that expanded those protections from discrimination and, most notably, defined sex discrimination as including discrimination on the basis of a patient’s gender identity, as well as their having previously terminated a pregnancy, among other changes. Federally funded healthcare and insurance providers (including state Medicaid programs) could not deny services or treatment access to individuals on the basis of their gender identity, and could not categorically refuse to cover treatments related to gender transition, such as sex-reassignment surgery. In May 2019, HHS under President Donald Trump proposed another new rule that would largely reverse the Section 1557 expansions brought by the Obama administration, removing gender identity and pregnancy termination from the definition of sex discrimination. It would also add an explicit religious freedom exemption from the requirements of Section 1557. The department wrote in a press release: “In 2016, HHS issued a new rule that redefined discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ to include termination of pregnancy and gender identity which it defined as one’s internal sense of being ‘male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.’ In response to a subsequent lawsuit by several states and healthcare entities, on December 31, 2016, a federal court preliminarily enjoined the rule’s gender identity and termination of pregnancy provisions on a nationwide basis, finding them contrary to the applicable civil rights law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. “A second federal court agreed. Because the preliminary injunction continues to be in effect, HHS cannot, and has not since the date of the injunction, enforced the rule’s provisions the court said are likely unlawful. The proposed rule would revise the provisions subject to those injunctions to conform with the plain understanding recognized by the court.” With that context and background in mind, the following is the most relevant exchange from Warren’s September 2019 interview with “HIV Plus” magazine: Interviewer:…If elected, would you support a reinterpretation of Section 1557 of the ACA as covering transgender people and champion the passage of the Equality Act? How would you protect the rights, well-being, and lives of transgender people living in this country, while ensuring that they receive the healthcare and housing necessary to be virally suppressed?” Warren: Discrimination against transgender Americans is unconstitutional and we need to fight back. HHS’s proposed reinterpretation of Section 1557 rolls back critical nondiscrimination protections, allowing health insurance companies to refuse to cover and health care providers to deny health services to transgender people, particularly those with HIV/AIDS, and to those who have had or are seeking an abortion. It also removes requirements to make information language-accessible, which will harm transgender immigrants. As President, I will direct HHS to interpret Section 1557 under its 2016 guidance, to fully uphold civil rights and nondiscrimination protections. I will also direct the CDC to collect accurate data on the health of transgender people and am a co-sponsor of the Equality Act, which bans discrimination against transgender individuals in health care and housing. Warren’s declaration that she would as president “direct HHS to interpret Section 1557 under its 2016 guidance” means she would enforce, once again, a set of rules that mean sex-reassignment surgery would be covered under federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare, including state-by-state Medicaid programs. As such, it is accurate to claim that Warren does propose and has proposed that taxpayers should cover the cost of some sex-reassignment surgeries, as they do other treatments and services, under those programs. Warren was also one of 31 U.S. Senators who signed on to a June 2019 letter to Trump’s HHS, which opposed and criticized the proposed reversal of the 2016 anti-discrimination enhancements. Warren was joined in signing that latter by fellow presidential candidates and U.S. Senators Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker. Warren has therefore put on the record, several times in 2019, her support for sex-reassignment surgery being included among the treatments and services covered under taxpayer-funded programs, as well as under Obamacare and private health insurance policies. However, the OneNewsNetwork headline had a tendency to mislead some readers who may have interpreted its phrasing to mean that Warren had said, word-for-word, “taxpayers must fund sex reassignment surgery,” or that she had advocated taxpayers must fund any and all sex reassignment surgery, rather than simply adding one more procedure to the list of procedures taxpayers already fund under Medicaid and similar federal programs.


Too many" tattoos "on visible body parts" keep some applicants out of the military.

Failing test scores aren't the only problem that has caused the military to reject applicants, says former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Another problem is, well, more colorful: tattoos. While talking about his push to improve public education at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council event Dec. 1, Bush pointed to problems the military has finding qualified applicants. Bush mentioned a video in which a military official talked about the challenge: "In the video beforehand, Gen. Dempsey talked about a 25 percent pass rate. Now that’s not just because of the test, that’s also because of obesity, and too many tattoos, to be honest with you, on visible body parts for people that are trying to get into the military. But the pass rate for a high-school-level test to join the military is about 35 percent, I think, or 40 percent at best. These are abysmal numbers." PolitiFact has previously fact-checked claims about whether obesity and physical fitness have kept applicants out of the military (both ). But we hadn’t explored the role of tattoos in filling the military ranks. We couldn’t resist taking a look. Tattoo policies Each branch of the service sets their own rules about tattoos, but it was the Army’s policy that has drawn the most ink recently from the media. In March 2014, the Army overhauled its appearance policy, which includes more than two pages of detailed rules about "tattoo, branding and body mutilation." This led to a rush to get tatted so soldiers could be grandfathered in under the new rules. The Army has a detailed procedure for grandfathering that directs unit commanders to document each tattoo in an official memorandum. The Army’s policy states that tattoos, regardless of subject matter, are prohibited on certain areas of the body, including the wrists, hands and fingers, as well as the head, face, and neck, defined as "anything above the t-shirt neck line to include on/inside the eyelids, mouth, and ears." "Soldiers may have no more than four visible tattoos below the elbow (to the wrist bone) or below the knee," the policy says. So far under the new policy, 2,919 applicants could not process due to tattoos, said Brian Lepley, an Army recruiting spokesman. "Those 2,919 are the ones whose tattoos were so egregious it was highly unlikely a waiver could get through, or the applicant chose not to try a waiver," he said. In the Army, 193 tattoo waivers for applicants have been granted, while one was rejected and four are pending. Lepley told us that tattoos are not the No. 1 disqualifier. Medical conditions, drug use, misconduct or some combination of those issues disqualify more applicants. News reports around the country indicate the tattoo policy is limiting applicants, though. "Right now, with the new tattoo policy in effect, we currently turn away one in every five applicants that come through our door," U.S. Army Captain Joshua Jacquez told CNN in a report from El Paso. Maj. Gen. Allen W. Batschelet, head of Army recruiting at Fort Knox, told the Kansas City Star in August that the policy is, "rather arbitrary, in some sense." However he said that "you have to draw the line somewhere" for the Army to present a professional image. As for waivers, Batschelet said, "To be blunt, the higher quality of applicant you are, the more tolerance we'd probably have for seeking a waiver. If you came in to sign up today and were a neurosurgeon, I got to tell you I'd go a long way toward trying to get an exception if all you had was a disqualifying tattoo." The Air Force, Marines and Navy also have their own tattoo policies. All of them generally ban tattoos that are obscene, advocate discrimination or express offensive views. The Air Force policy has a seven-step measurement guide that contains math formulas in an attempt to prevent tattoos from covering more than 25 percent of an exposed body part. (Partial inches should be rounded up to the nearest inch, it says.) The Marines policy states that applicants with more than four tattoos must be administratively reviewed. The Navy’s policy is the least detailed -- only 277 words -- though like the other services, it bans head tattoos. Our ruling Bush said that among the reasons applicants are rejected by the military -- in addition to being obese or not passing the test -- is that some have "too many tattoos" on visible body parts. Since the Army updated its tattoo policy earlier this year, 2,919 applicants could not proceed due to tattoos. Other branches of the service also have restrictions on types and locations of tattoos that keep some applicants out of the military.


Explanation: This story is about bevirimat, a new drug for late stage HIV. While there is interesting background on the current stage of HIV/AIDS drug development in the story, it has several important flaws. The story provides no evidence on the safety or efficacy of this drug, despite the drug company president’s comments that bevirimat “. . .looks potent and has a great safety profile”. What is the evidence? The story does not discuss the potential side effects of this new drug, and it does not provide a caveat that the drug may not live up to its predicted effect in humans. The story mentions that this new drug would be taken in combination with current antiretroviral therapies. But there is no discussion of any possible negative interaction(s) with other HIV drugs, or with drugs for co-existing medical conditions. Researchers and physicians who work with HIV/AIDS therapies are cited to provide perspective on this potential new treatment in the context of current therapies. Sources who are also paid consultants for Panacos Pharmaceuticals are appropriately noted. Some appropriate attempt at balance is provided by the concluding quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health. There is one error in the article: “People who started AIDS therapy in 2003 lived an estimated 13 years longer than people diagnosed with AIDS in 1988.” Presumably they meant that people starting treatment in 2003 are EXPECTED to live 13 yrs longer. The story provides appropriate prevalence and incidence data on Americans living with HIV. If anything, the story under-reports HIV prevalence worldwide. The story might have aked the question: If this therapy is approved, would it be made available to the millions infected with HIV in developing countries? Finally, the story does not provide any projections of what the drug might cost. But the story was able to estimate annual sales of the drug for Panacos Pharmaceuticals. If you can give the latter, you should be able to provide the former.

The story does not provide any projections of what the drug might cost. But the story was able to estimate annual sales of the drug for Panacos Pharmaceuticals. If you can give the latter, you should be able to provide the former. If the story is even going to report on a drug that is three or more years away from FDA approval and still undergoing initial safety testing in humans, it should at least temper enthusiasm. The story did point out that the drug is at least three years away from being on the market and still being tested. And the story did end with a “proof of the pudding” comment from NIH’s Dr. Fauci. However what is missing is a comment that we do not know how much impact the drug would have on survival or quality of life, for example. And the story is laden with comments such as “generating excitement…researchers are excited…the therapy is exciting…so far it looks potent and it has a great safety profile” — all without any hard data provided. The story does not discuss the potential side effects of this new drug, nor does the story provide a caveat that the drug may not live up to its predicted effect in humans. The possibility of a negative interaction with other HIV drugs, or with drugs for co-existing medical conditions is also not mentioned. But this is one of the hazards of reporting on data that have not yet been peer-reviewed (Or have they? The story doesn’t make it clear.) The company and the investigators certainly know what side effects have been experienced so far. Having the company president say that the drug has “a great safety profile” is inadequate. Bevirimat is currently being tested in an initial clinical trial. No evidence is available on the safety or efficacy of this drug yet, despite the drug company president’s comments that bevirimat “. . .looks potent and has a great safety profile”. What is the evidence? The story provides appropriate prevalence and incidence data on Americans living with HIV. If anything, the story under-reports HIV prevalence worldwide. The story could have questioned: if the therapy is approved, would it be made available to the millions infected with HIV in developing countries? Researchers and physicians who work with HIV/AIDS therapies are cited to provide perspective on this potential new drug treatment. Sources who are paid consultants for Panacos Pharmaceuticals are appropriately noted. Some appropriate attempt at balance is provided by the concluding quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health. The story mentions that this drug would be taken in combination with current antiretroviral therapies. The story places this new drug in the context of a discussion of new drugs that interrupt the replication of HIV; however, bevirimat is still in the midst of clinical trials. The drug, bevirimat, is derived in part from the herb syzigium claviforum. This herb is currently used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat diarrhea and stop bleeding. Bevirimat is a manufactured drug, using certain components of this herb to potentially inhibit HIV replication. The story does mention that the drug is at least 3 years from market and still in early clinical trials. The story reports that bevirimat is a novel treatment and discusses how it may work to improve current treatment regimens. The story states this drug is made from an herb that’s been used for other indications, but is quite clear that the pharma product is novel. The story does not appear to rely on a press release as the only source of information.


Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was hospitalized in New York after being beaten by a group of "liberals.

Explanation: This report originated with America’s Last Line of Defense, a clickbait fake news site whose disclaimer notes that “all articles should be considered satirical and any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney.”

Junk News, america's last line of defense, bill o'reilly

On 4 May 2017, the America’s Last Line of Defense web site (and numerous related shill sites) published an article positing that former Fox News Channel host Bill O’Reilly, who had recently parted ways with Fox in the wake of accusations of sexual harassment, had been hospitalized in New York after being beaten by a group of cowardly “liberals” who accosted him at a bagel shop: Bill O’Reilly was reportedly at a bagel shop in New York City this morning when he was approached by two women and three men who said they were “disgusted” by his behavior towards women at Fox News. O’Reilly, who has never been afraid of anyone, turned and told the group to grow up and leave him alone. That’s when the “tolerant” liberals got violent. One of the men grabbed O’Reilly and dragged him out into the street, according to witnesses, where the other two men proceeded to kick him until he was unconscious and bleeding. The 5 perpetrators, who are still at large, ran off like the cowards they are. The police arrived within minutes and called for medical help. O’Reilly was taken to St. Vincent’s where he is in critical condition with 4 broken ribs and a punctured lung. Doctors also fear that he had a cardiac event and have him on a monitor. The doctors are hopeful. None of this was true: No legitimate news outlet reported that Bill O’Reilly was beaten or hospitalized, and he continues hosting his “No Spin” material via his new podcasting venture.


Explanation: We wished for more on benefits, harms, and on context about the dose used in the study. See our comments on those criteria below. Most women experience some sort of menstrual cramps and only rarely are the instances of these cramps debilitating. This study, done in a sample of women with already low levels of Vitamin D and with a dosage beyond that recommended or available to most women, provides at best preliminary evidence that Vitamin D at 300,000 IU was the main reason for the decrease in pain.

The story did explain that “The cost of vitamin D supplements would be roughly comparable with (NSAIDS or birth control pills).”  It didn’t give a ballpark cost, but we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for nodding in the direction of addressing cost. The article states that pain was reduced in the experimental group by 41% (where the control group experienced no pain reductions), but 41% of what? And in reality, was this reduction significant enough that women were able to resume their normal level of activity? The article did not talk about any harms related to high doses of Vitamin D.  They did point out that the women in the study already had low levels of Vitamin D so it is unclear if receiving Vitamin D in lower doses would have been just as beneficial. The study ended follow up at two months and did not have information regarding possible long-term follow-up. They also pointed out that larger clinical trials were needed. The lead in to the story hinges on disease-mongering with its “bane of many women” description, but we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt. The story included interviews with other doctors not associated with the study and reported their viewpoints regarding the study findings. The article did talk about NSAIDs and birth control pills as other alternatives to help alleviate menstrual cramps. The story could have done a better job on this point. Although Vitamin D is available over the counter, it is available in the high dose used in the study only by prescription. Just to put this dose issue in context, when people are Vitamin D deficient, a typical replacement dose is 50,000 units weekly for 8 weeks (a total of 400,000 units). So the 300,000 one-time doses are not as outlandish as they seem when compared with a typical maintenance dose of 600-800 IU/day. The story actually didn’t make any claims about the novelty of this area of research. Vitamin D at this dosage and for this condition are novel approaches. The article does not appear to be based solely on a press release.


Ebola Vaccines Show Promise in New Study

Explanation: This Wall Street Journal story reports on a New England Journal of Medicine-published study of the trial of two potential vaccines against Ebola disease. Overall, it’s a brief but well-constructed article on a much anticipated study of two Ebola candidate vaccines. Independent sourcing helps bolster the piece, and so does the detailed explanation of the current study. Readers are told how these findings fit in with the larger body of work developing a vaccine. That said, we think the story would have been stronger had it been more clear on the industry connections behind the study, and if it had discussed availability of the vaccine–especially if a new outbreak occurs. Vaccine development for Ebola would be a big step forward in combatting a deadly infection. And it can be tempting for journalists to get caught up in the exciting research developments, but as we’ve discussed, journalists and consumers need to immunize themselves against hype about unproven vaccines. This story takes a balanced approach by pointing out limitations of the current research.

Vaccine pricing is complicated and prices are unknown at this point in development (pre-clinical). The story could have addressed cost as a potential limitation even if price is unknown at this time. The story is very clear in giving data on the increased antibody levels among study participants getting either of the two vaccines, or the placebo. However, readers of stories about potential vaccines basically want to know if the vaccines will actually prevent the disease, and this trial was only able to show that the vaccines increased a person’s antibody response. The story does, to its credit, include a statement from one expert stating that it isn’t known what level of antibody response is needed to protect against the disease. The story includes potential harms from the vaccines: “The level of serious adverse events was higher in the placebo group than either vaccine group, and ‘most of the serious adverse events were attributed to malaria. '” The story appropriately states that this was the “first placebo-controlled study of two vaccines against the Ebola virus.” It is also clear in pointing to the study’s shortcomings, offering several different limitations, such as “Ebola cases in Liberia began to dwindle early in 2015, and the outbreak there was declared over on May 9 of that year. By the time this work was fully under way, it was too late to see if vaccines actually prevented Ebola sickness and death.” To the reporter’s credit, no disease mongering. The story included information from an unaffiliated expert, and it alerts readers that pharmaceutical companies developed the two vaccines. That’s good reporting and useful context. However, the story also says that the latest study was conducted by the “U.S. and Liberian governments and elsewhere,” while neglecting to mention that “elsewhere” includes GlaxoSmithKline and Merck (which employs several of the researchers). The story also doesn’t mention that several of the researchers have other economic ties to the companies. This one’s a close call, but there’s not quite enough information to clear our bar. We’ll give story a not applicable in this category since there currently is no proven successful treatment against Ebola. The availability of an Ebola vaccine would be reasonable to address. For example, it a new epidemic developed today, would one of these vaccines be used? This is an important clinical point that researchers might have been able to provide information about. Since hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola are so deadly, the possibility of new vaccines that might be successful against them is certainly novel enough for a story. In this case, it reports a strong antibody response against the virus suggesting a possible protection against an often-fatal disease. The story does a good job of putting the new studies in context. This story does not appear to rely on a news release.


EPA watchdog: Health monitoring after Harvey was lacking.

Explanation: A federal watchdog released a report Monday that cast doubt on the public health assurances made after Hurricane Harvey unleashed an environmental assault on the country’s largest petrochemical corridor, saying officials relied on limited data to offer residents peace of mind and that Houston’s air quality monitors had been offline to prevent storm damage.

Houston, Hurricane Harvey, General News, Storms, Public health, Environment, Hurricanes, U.S. News, Air quality, Texas

The report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General paints a picture of state and federal regulators telling those who live in and around the nation’s fourth-largest city — which was inundated with more than 50 inches of rainfall — that there were no public health risks even though it lacked a full range of data to make such a determination. And while the report says no instances were found of the EPA relaying inaccurate information during Harvey about air quality, it also determined that none of the air-quality sampling done by the federal agency — with a mobile laboratory and with a sensor-equipped plane — proved useful to assessing health risks. Federal officials also said officials from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is the state’s environmental regulator, declined repeated requests to discuss their decision-making during Harvey or to share data. “Despite several conversations to arrange for written answers to our initial list of questions, we never received a response from the TCEQ,” the report states. Responding to the findings, TCEQ Chairman Jon Niermann said the report reflected “numerous misunderstandings about the Hurricane Harvey response” in a letter sent to the inspector general Monday. He said the state had acted in good faith to set up meetings and that his agency regretted any miscommunication. In one example, the report says the EPA collected inadequate data after Harvey while screening for elevated air contamination using a mobile laboratory known as a trace atmospheric gas analyzer. “Although the EPA, the TCEQ and the city of Houston assessed that the data indicated there was no concern — and subsequently issued a press release communicating this assessment to the public — we found that the TAGA’s sampling time frame was too short to generate data that could accurately assess airborne toxin concentrations for making health-based assessments,” the report states. The report supports findings by The Associated Press and Houston Chronicle last year that revealed a far more widespread toxic impact than authorities publicly reported after the storm, which slammed into the Texas coast and then hovered over the Houston area for days. Roughly 500 chemical plants, 10 refineries and more than 6,670 miles (10,734 kilometers) of intertwined oil, gas and chemical pipelines line the nation’s largest energy corridor. Nearly half-a-billion gallons (1,893 million liters) of industrial wastewater mixed with storm water surged out of just one chemical plant — a facility in Baytown, east of Houston on the upper shores of Galveston Bay. Benzene, vinyl chloride, butadiene and other known human carcinogens were among the industrial toxic substances released into surrounding neighborhoods and waterways following Harvey’s torrential rains. Most toxic emissions after Harvey were due to tank failures at industrial plants and facilities shutting down and restarting, the report states. But once restarted, the “monitoring efforts did not always generate data considered suitable for making health-based assessments.” In response to what it considered an inadequate state and EPA response at the time, the Environmental Defense Fund paid for independent air-quality testing to measure post-hurricane pollution in east Houston, which has a heavy petrochemical industry footprint. People living in that part of town were complaining of nausea due to a spike in emissions and tank spills. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that NASA scientists were ready to fly a plane over the hurricane zone to monitor pollution levels but were turned away by the EPA and TCEQ. Emails obtained by the newspaper showed that environmental officials expressed worry about confusion and overlap with their own analysis. The report released Monday comes at the end a year of high-profile explosions and fires at refineries up and down the Texas coast. The latest was a chemical fire in November at the TPC Group plant that led authorities to issue mandatory evacuation orders for more than 50,000 people. That was followed by a smaller voluntary evacuation order after officials detected elevated levels of butadiene, a chemical used to make synthetic rubber and other products. Local officials said the elevated levels did not pose a serious health risk. ___ Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report. ___ Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pauljweber


West Virginia women have chance for sweep in US House races.

Explanation: Female candidates have a chance to sweep all three of West Virginia’s U.S. House races this fall as part of a national wave that saw a record number of women from the two major parties file for the midterm elections.

Evan Jenkins, Health care reform, Elections, David McKinley, West Virginia, Alex Mooney

Such an outcome would leave West Virginia with a divided congressional delegation not just by party affiliation but by gender. That would be unprecedented in a state that’s elected just two women to Congress in its 155-year history. One of them, Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, is the state’s only current female representative. Democrat Kendra Fershee defeated two others in the May primary and will face incumbent Republican David McKinley in the 1st District in November, while Democrat Talley Sergent will meet 2nd District GOP Rep. Alex Mooney. In the 3rd District, where GOP Rep. Evan Jenkins made a failed run for U.S. Senate, Republican Carol Miller will take on Democrat Richard Ojeda this fall. The national surge in female candidates, most of them Democrats, had been expected since the Women’s March demonstrations just after President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. “I think women are motivated right now,” Fershee said. “I think women are a driving force behind our success, but I also think men are liking what we’re saying.” This year five women ran in the three U.S. House primary races in West Virginia, compared with none in 2016. “Historically, West Virginia’s congressional delegation has never been friendly toward women,” said Robert Rupp, a West Virginia Wesleyan College political history professor. “In a sense, West Virginia is playing catch-up. The only interesting news is that it took them this long.” Maude Kee was the first woman from West Virginia elected to Congress after the death of her husband, Rep. John Kee. She served in the U.S. House from 1951 to 1964 and was succeeded by her son, James. The only other congresswoman from the state was Capito, who was elected to the House in 2000 and served seven terms before being elected as a U.S. senator in 2014. In between Kee and Capito, female candidates infrequently sought a seat in Congress. From 1964 to 1998, no more than two women in any year ran for either the U.S. Senate or U.S. House races in West Virginia. Four times during that span there were no female candidates, and 10 other times there was one. Records for the 1974 primary were unavailable on the secretary of state’s website. Miller is the only one among the three current female candidates with experience in political office. She has served 12 years in the state House of Delegates and is the daughter of the late Ohio Congressman Samuel Devine. Miller declined an interview request. Her campaign said in a statement that she will lean on her experiences, including as a wife, mother and grandmother, “to bring West Virginia values to Washington DC.” Sergent, the state presidential campaign director for Hillary Clinton in 2016, said she was miffed at the Republican-controlled Congress for its work on the health care overhaul last year. But what drove her into candidate mode for the first time was the state’s opioid epidemic. West Virginia leads the nation by far in the rate of drug overdose deaths. Sergent said addiction is a personal issue. Her sister is an addict and Sergent’s mother has adopted her sister’s 11-year-old daughter. “I’m running for her and for kids all over this state and for grandparents and for people who are fighting this drug epidemic every single day,” Sergent said. “Congress is not helping us, and we need a friend and a fighter in Congress that will.” Like Sergent, Fershee also is a first-time candidate. A West Virginia University law professor and an associate dean of academic affairs, Fershee said she was turned off by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign as well as the voting record of McKinley, a four-term incumbent. The day after Trump’s election, Fershee made a post on social media asking other women to run for office, “and they all said, ‘We agree, you should run,’” Fershee said. “And I was like, ‘That’s not what I meant when I tagged you.’” One day while mowing her lawn, Fershee said, “it hit me that I could do this, actually.”


Italy “went against the WHO's ‘law’” against COVID-19 autopsies and “discovered covid is not a virus, but a bacterium” that “clots the blood and reduces the oxygen saturation.”

Explanation: Studies show COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, not bacteria. The Italian Ministry of Health still identifies the disease as caused by a virus   WHO never “outlawed” autopsies of patients with COVID-19

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

In late May, Italy began reporting its lowest number of new COVID-19 cases since February. This could be the outcome of a nationwide lockdown that lasted months, but one Facebook post is attributing it to a larger medical conspiracy. A Facebook post from May 26, 2020, claims that "Italy has allegedly discovered covid is not a virus, but a bacterium. It clots the blood and reduces the oxygen saturation from dispersing throughout the body." It goes on to explain that the Italian Ministry of Health "went against the World Health Organization's ‘law’ that no bodies receive autopsies," leading to its discovery of the bacterium. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat  news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Let’s break down the three main claims: "Italy has allegedly discovered covid is not a virus, but a bacterium. " This is wrong. COVID-19 is a disease caused by the virus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Bacteria and viruses can create similar symptoms and spread through human-to-human contact, but they are different biologically. Bacteria can replicate without a host cell, but viruses require some kind of host to replicate, explained Emily Bruce, a faculty scientist at the University of Vermont’s Larner College of Medicine. Bacteria can replicate themselves because they have developed DNA and are considered a living organism, while viruses usually contain RNA. A late February study analyzing samples from nine new COVID-19 patients found that the disease possessed a "single strand, positive-sense RNA genome," which is a characteristic of coronaviruses and not bacteria. Its genetic makeup was similar to two bat-derived severe acute respiratory syndromes. It was distantly related to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, which are both coronaviruses that have caused large outbreaks before. This established the cause of COVID-19 as a virus, as a bacterium would not genetically match with these other coronaviruses. Italy’s Ministry of Health still identifies the cause of COVID-19 as a coronavirus on its FAQ page. "It clots the blood and reduces the oxygen saturation from dispersing throughout the body." There is some evidence of blood-clotting problems from COVID-19, but they’re most likely caused by lung complications. Studies from the Netherlands and France have found a connection between severe COVID-19 and blood clots. The French study found that 23 out of 100 patients with a severe case of COVID-19 had blood clots in their pulmonary artery, which carries blood from the heart to the lungs to be oxygenated. Richard Watanabe, professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine at, agreed that there is new evidence that COVID-19 can cause blood clots and other blood complications. This could be attributed to how "people infected with COVID-19 develop pneumonia, which impedes breathing and oxygen saturation." Watanabe said that there needs to be more research on COVID-19 and clots and embolisms, especially with an increase in Kawasaki disease-like symptoms in young COVID-19 patients. This is inaccurate. There is no recorded announcement from the World Health Organization that autopsies should not be conducted on deceased COVID-19 patients. In fact, the organization released guidance this month on how to perform such an autopsy safely. The first English-language autopsy report on COVID-19 patients was done in Oklahoma, and the findings were published on April 10. Our ruling A social media post claimed that Italy found that COVID-19 is an easily treatable bacteria when it went against WHO’s guidelines and performed an "illegal" autopsy. COVID-19’s cause has been extensively studied and identified as a virus, and the WHO never discouraged autopsies of patients who died from COVID-19. We rate this .


In 2008, US children got 36 vaccines and the autism rate was 1 in 150. US children were recommended to get around 13 vaccines, which involved about 39 doses, in 2008. It was estimated that about 1 in 88 children has autism disorders. In 2013, US children got 46 vaccines and the autism rate was 1 in 88. US children were recommended to get around 13 vaccines, which involved about 53 doses, in 2013. In 2012, 1 in 69 were estimated to have autism disorders and in 2014, it was 1 in 59 (we found no figures for 2013). Increasing numbers of vaccines are associated with increasing rates of autism. Dozens of scientific studies have shown there is no link between autism or autism spectrum disorders and vaccines. Claim 1 of 4


Nancy Mace Says Kamala Harris “advocated for restoring voting rights for the Boston bomber.”

Explanation: Harris has not said that she would advocate for giving the surviving Boston Marathon bomber the right to vote, only that she is open to it. Asked if convicted felons in prison such as the Boston Marathon bomber should be allowed to vote, Harris said: “I think we should have that conversation.”     Asked the next day to elaborate, Harris said, “I’m going to think about” whether felons such as the bomber should vote.

Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Elections, California, Nancy Mace,

Joe Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as his vice presidential running mate drew an attack the same day from Republican Nancy Mace, who is running for a congressional seat in South Carolina. Mace’s Aug. 11 tweet made a half dozen claims about Harris, a Democratic senator from California. One referred to the surviving bomber in the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon, who killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. Harris "advocated for restoring voting rights for the Boston bomber," Mace claimed. During her own campaign for the presidential nomination, she said she is open to the idea, but she didn’t advocate for it. Mace, a state representative since 2018, describes herself as a single mom, businesswoman and former Waffle House waitress. The first woman to graduate from The Citadel military college in South Carolina, she is challenging first-term Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham in the Nov. 3 election. As of Aug. 7, the Cook Political Report rated the race a tossup. On July 31, a federal appeals court threw out the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who had been convicted for his role in the marathon bombing, leaving in place a life sentence. His lawyers argued that the mastermind of the attack was his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a gunfight with police a few days after the April 15, 2013 bombing. Harris worked as a prosecutor in Alameda County (Oakland) and in San Francisco, then was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003 and 2007. In 2010, she was elected California attorney general, then was re-elected in 2014. A series of CNN town halls on April 22, 2019, with candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination for president included sessions with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Harris. Sanders said that he believes all prisoners — including "terrible people" like the Boston Marathon bomber — should be allowed to vote. That prompted an exchange between Harris and host Don Lemon, who asked Harris what she thought of the idea. Harris: "I agree that the right to vote is one of the very important components of citizenship and it is something that people should not be stripped of needlessly, which is why I have been long an advocate of making sure that the formerly incarcerated are not denied a right to vote, which is the case in so many states in our country, in some states permanently deprived of the right to vote. "And these are policies that go back to Jim Crow. These are policies that go back to the heart of policies that have been about disenfranchisement, policies that continue until today, and we need to take it seriously." Lemon: "But people who are convicted, in prison, like the Boston Marathon bomber, on death row, people who are convicted of sexual assault — they should be able to vote?" Harris: "I think we should have that conversation." On the campaign trail the next day, a reporter asked Harris to expand on her remarks about the Boston bomber, saying: "What is your view on felons voting from prison?" In comments that her then-press secretary highlighted on Twitter, Harris replied by saying she would make a decision after giving the issue more thought: "Listen, it’s a complex issue, and I take it very seriously. Look, I’m running for president of the United States; I'm going to be very thoughtful and serious about the issues I weigh in on. And so I'm going to think about it, and I'm going to talk to experts, and I'm going to make a decision, and I'll let you know. I will tell you this: One, it's a complex issue, I'm fully aware of that. Two, we right now have got a lot of work to do with the people in our country who have served their time and have been prohibited from voting. "Currently in our country there are 6 million people who have served their time and are still prohibited from voting, and that has been an area of focus for me for quite some time, and we have got to address that immediately. And so that is one of my first areas of focusing concern. "But, do I think people who commit murder, or people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights? Yeah, I do. I'm a prosecutor, I believe there have to be serious consequences for the most extreme types of crimes." Mace claimed that Harris "advocated for restoring voting rights for the Boston bomber." Harris has not said that she would advocate for giving the surviving Boston marathon bomber the right to vote, only that she is open to a conversation about it. She emphasized that people who had served their sentences and been released should be able to vote. Mace’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.


An account accurately describes the rapes and murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian and the reporting thereof.

Explanation: However, the fact is that only a tiny handful of the approximately 15,000 homicides that occur in the United States every year makes national news, and the cases that do tend to attract prolonged, nationwide coverage are ones exhibiting a combination of factors absent from the Newsom/Christian case (e.g., scandal, mystery, sexual elements, celebrity involvement, shockingly large numbers of deaths, murders of children and other victims who elicit especial sympathy) that makes them particularly fascinating and compelling to the public at large, such as the still-unsolved murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, the mysterious disappearance (and death) of pregnant Laci Peterson, the massacre of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech, the sexually salacious trial of Jodi Arias for stabbing her boyfriend to death, and the celebrity trial to determine whether actress Lana Clarkson committed suicide or was killed by reclusive record producer Phil Spector.

On 6 January 2007, Knoxville, Tennessee, residents Christopher Newsom, Jr.,  23, and Channon Christian, 21, went out for a dinner date at a local restaurant, then headed to a friend’s house to watch a movie. They never came back. When the couple had failed to return by the following morning, their parents notified police. Christopher Newsom’s body was found near some railroad tracks in East Knoxville that afternoon, but Channon Christian remained missing. A trace run on Christian’s cell phone helped authorities locate her abandoned vehicle the next day, and fingerprints raised from an envelope inside the automobile led police to the residence of 25-year-old Lemaricus Devall “Slim” Davidson, where they discovered Christian’s body stashed inside a trash disposal bin and covered with sheets. An internet-circulated version of those events maintained they weren’t reported on by the national news media because the victims were white:  OK, so let’s create a level playing field here. I have not even heard of this on CBS, ABC, NBC or any of the cable news services, even FOX NEWS. OR in any of the Newsrags or other publications. Read this and weep. Bet you $20 you did not hear this on the national news. The animals pictured below car-jacked, then raped Christopher Newsom, cut off his penis, then set him on fire and fatally shot him several times while they forced his girlfriend, Channon Christian, to watch. An even more cruel fate awaited her! Channon Christian, was beaten and gang-raped in many ways for four days by all of them, while they took turns urinating on her. Then they cut off her breast and put chemicals in her mouth … and then murdered her. Where be the Revs Al and Jesse? Are they providing counsel and help to the families of the victims? Of course not – the victims were white Why hasn’t this received National coverage by the news media like the Duke “rape” case? Oh, that’s right – the victims were white Why hasn’t the NAACP, ACLU, New York Times etc, called for an investigation? Must be cause the victims were white Why hasn’t the FBI been called in to investigate this as a hate crime? Oh, that’s right – the victims were white. The details of the crime as later revealed by court testimony were horrific: Christopher Newsom was repeatedly sodomized with a foreign object; he was bound, gagged and blindfolded; he was dragged outside and shot in the back of his head, neck and back; and his body was set on fire. Channon Christian was tortured for several hours, beaten about the head, and raped; afterwards, bleach was poured over her body and down her throat, then she was covered with several plastic garbage bags, dumped in a disposal bin, and left to suffocate. (Some of the details presented in initial press accounts of the crime later proved to be inaccurate: The perpetrators did not cut off Christopher Newsom’s penis or Channon Christian’s breast,  they murdered Christian within a day of the kidnapping rather than holding her captive for several days, they poured cleaning solution into Christian’s mouth to eliminate DNA evidence rather than as a form of torture, and they did not shoot Christian or set her body on fire as they did with Newsom.) Five suspects  were arrested and charged with the murders of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian (and related crimes). LeMaricus Davidson, along with his brother,  Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins (24), and George Geovonni “Detroit” Thomas (27), were all indicted on a total of 46 counts each: 16 counts of felony murder, 2 counts of premeditated murder, 2 counts of especially aggravated robbery, 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft. Vanessa Coleman (18), was indicted on a total of 40 counts: 12 counts of felony murder, 1 count of premeditated murder, 1 count of especially aggravated robbery, 4 counts of especially aggravated kidnapping, 20 counts of aggravated rape, and 2 counts of theft. Eric DeWayne “E” Boyd (34) was not indicted and faced federal charges only as an accessory after the fact. Boyd was convicted in federal court of being an accessory to the carjacking and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. On 25 August 2009, Letalvis “Rome” Cobbins was found guilty of multiple counts of first-degree and felony murder in the death of Christian but opted for lesser charges of facilitating murder in the slaying of Newsom. He was additionally convicted of multiple charges of rape and kidnapping and robbery and received a life sentence, as did George Thomas. Vanessa Coleman was sentenced to 53 years in prison. On October 2009, Lemaricus Davidson, convicted on kidnapping, rape and murder charges, was sentenced to death. In October 2011, the presiding judge at the original trial, Richard Baumgartner, was disbarred by the Tennessee Supreme Court after an investigation revealed he had illegally purchased prescription pain pills from a convicted felon under his supervision, and in December 2011 a special judge ruled that Baumgartner was impaired at the time of the first trial and granted new trials to Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, and Vanessa Coleman. In May 2012 the Tennessee Supreme Court vacated that ruling and allowed the original convictions to stand: further legal maneuvering eventually resulted in retrials for Thomas and Coleman but not for Cobbins and Davidson. In November 2012, Coleman was convicted a second time (on lesser charges than her initial convictions) and re-sentenced to 35 years in prison. In May 2013, George Thomas was convicted a second time on all counts and given consecutive life sentences with an additional 25 years. (Coleman was eligible for parole on 25 October 2014, but her parole was denied.) As for the question of why the murders weren’t prosecuted as a hate crime, the answer is that no evidence demonstrated the race of the victims was a motivation in their killing. Police, prosecutors, and the families of the victims all stated that they believed Newsom and Christian were not victims of a hate crime. It is true that the bulk of the initial news reportage about the Newsom/Christian murders was local (predominantly in Tennessee, where the crimes took place, and in neighboring Kentucky) while the case received little or no national coverage by major news outlets, a phenomenon some attributed to racial bias on the part of the national news media.


Injected Drug Reduces Risk of Fracture among Women with Osteoporosis

Explanation: There’s so much to like about this news release. In particular, it does a wonderful and economical job summarizing the benefits of the drugs being studied. It provides the numbers in both absolute and relative terms, for example. But it skimps on some of the details, chiefly the costs of the drugs, that the funder of the study makes one of the drugs in question, and whether the drugs are experimental or on the market. Osteoporosis is a well-known risk factor for fracture, especially among older women. It can also be screened for with x-rays that measure bone density. A number of different treatments exist for individuals with osteoporosis and this news release presents data from a published study in JAMA. For most individuals with osteoporosis, calcium and vitamin D supplements are recommended if dietary consumption isn’t adequate. First-line medications to decrease fracture risk is a group called the bisphosphonates. These medicines have been around for several decades and are usually taken by mouth on a weekly basis or by injection once a year. For individuals who are at particularly high risk, including those who have had a fracture while taking a bisphosphonate, second-line therapy is considered. These medicines include teriparatides that are given as a daily injection under the skin. The current study compares a new version of this class of drug, abaloparatide, to placebo and teriparatide. As a related editorial highlights, there are a number of effective medicines to prevent fractures in those with osteoporosis and they are probably under-used. For most individuals, use of existing oral medicines should be the focus of initial treatment. The current study focuses on giving patients who didn’t respond to the initial therapy or other high risk individuals another option.

There is no discussion of costs in the release. At a minimum it could have mentioned the cost of the existing FDA-approved comparator drug. High in the release, the benefits of the drugs being studied and the placebo being compared are quantified clearly in both relative and absolute terms. Readers can see clearly that we are talking about quite a small group of people who saw benefits from either drug compared to the rather large group of women who were studied. Most of the data presented was absolute risk which was excellent. This shows the benefit as well as the fact that most patients didn’t have a fracture regardless of which treatment was given. The release says that there were no significant differences in harms seen between the drugs and the placebo without describing all the side effects. But it also mentions that hypercalcemia (elevated calcium level) was lower with the new agent compared to the existing comparator drug. While this was not explained in depth, we’ll give the release the benefit of the doubt for this brief mention of harms. The story does a nice, succinct job explaining how the study was constructed, how many people participated, and other important details. There is no disease mongering in the release. To its credit the release quotes two people not associated with the study from an accompanying editorial and explains that the study was funded by Radius Health. But it does not make it clear whether Radius Health is involved in making an osteoporosis drug. Instead, the release directs readers to the full study (which is behind a firewall and available only to journal subscribers) for information on financial disclosures. The disclosure shows that several of the researchers, notably Paul Miller, MD, the corresponding author noted in the release, is a member of the scientific advisory board for Radius Health and several other pharmaceutical companies, and received research grants from Radius Health and a dozen other pharmaceutical sponsors. We think this information was important enough to include in the release itself. The study itself was a comparison of two drugs and a placebo. The release explains that. The only thing that would have been better than this would have been an explanation of other ways the condition is treated. This treatment is often viewed as a second-line one because it involves the inconvenience of injections under the skin. For most individuals, there are simpler oral treatments that are effective and have a long track record. The treatments studied here are for those with higher risks, especially those who did not respond to or did not tolerate the existing therapy. The release does not make it clear whether the drugs being studied are on the market. The release does not make the novelty of the findings clear. In the second paragraph, the piece discusses how this medicine works and that the study is comparing a new medicine with one already available. But what isn’t stated is why we need a new medicine. Isn’t the existing one good enough? There is no unjustifiable language in the release.


Winston Churchill said "Socialism is the philosophy of failure" and the "gospel of envy.

Explanation: Did Winston Churchill Say Socialism is the Philosophy of Failure?

On February 8 2019, a Facebook user shared the following meme, featuring images of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez above a purported quote from British wartime leader Winston Churchill:Underneath two identical images of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it featured a photograph of Churchill and a quote:CHURCHILL ON SOCIALISM:“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”The Equal Sharing Of MiseryAlthough the meme appeared to be a simple quote-based assertion, it actually involved implicit statements as well, presupposing that Ocasio-Cortez espoused “the equal sharing of misery” as well as suggesting that Churchill’s positions lay in stark contrast to the freshman congresswoman from New York.As it turned out, the quote has circulated before. A July 2015 page published by The Churchill Project at the conservative-leaning Hillsdale College commented on an iteration of the quote circulating at the time (“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery”). They noted that the quote was cobbled together from two separate purported comments:It is more or less correct, but it’s a run-together, truncated version of two separate comments:“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.” —Perth, Scotland, 28 May 1948, in Churchill, Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 & 1948 (London: Cassell, 1950), 347.AND“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” —House of Commons, 22 October 1945.As noted, the quotation appeared in Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948. But the larger context of the quote from a speech given by Churchill in May 1948 was British dependence on American aid in the post-war period. What Churchill actually said was:It may be necessary for us to seek and accept American aid in the plight into which we have fallen, but it should be the first aim of every Briton to free ourselves from that condition at the earliest moment, not only by hard work but by laying aside every impediment and above all by not allowing party doctrines and party fads to impede the national effort and rob the people of the fruits of their exertions and sacrifices.How Socialist ministers can go about bragging of their social programme and of the nationalisation of industry on Party grounds, how they can deride the system of free enterprise and capitalism which makes America so great and wealthy, and then at the same time eagerly seek the aid which has hitherto been so generously granted from across the Atlantic, is a position which baffles the limitations of [our] language to explain.We are oppressed by a deadly fallacy. Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy. Unless we free our country while time remains from the perverse doctrines of Socialism, there can be no hope for recovery. This island cannot maintain its population as a great power. The most energetic and the nimblest ‘will emigrate, and we shall be left here with a board of safe officials brooding over a vast mass of worried, hungry and broken human beings. Our place in the world will be lost forever, and not only our individual self-respect but our national independence will be gone. These hard-won privileges have been dear to us in the past. But all this structure of obstinacy and unwisdom erected for Party and not national aims must be viewed in the light of the supreme and dominating fact of our present position. The Socialist Government in London has become dependent upon the generosity of the capitalist system of the United States.We are not earning our own living or paying our way, nor do the Government hold out any prospect of our doing so in the immediate future. It is this terrible fact which glares upon us all.I had hoped that the thousand million loan we borrowed from the United States in 1945 would be used to tide us over the transition from war to peace and that it would give us at least 4 years’ breathing-space to adjust our affairs after the exhaustions of the war. It was spent and largely squandered in 2 years and we are now dependent upon further American generosity and also eating up from hand to mouth the remaining overseas investments and assets accumulated under the capitalist system of former years.As my friend in the corner so naively said in the House of Commons the other day, “We are eating the Argentine Railways this year, what are we going to eat next year?The quotation was authentic, but still deeply divorced from the context in which Churchill was speaking, and more to the point, the context in which it was later placed — the specific policies espoused by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Churchill railed against growing dependency in Britain on the United States in the post-war period, a condition which hinged on differences between the two world superpowers in the wake of the second world war:In that same year, the American Secretary of State, George Marshall, proposed his European Recovery Programme to rebuild a war-shattered Europe. For Britain herself, the offer of the Marshall Aid dollars presented a last chance to modernise herself as an industrial power before her old trade rivals could recover from defeat and occupation. Instead, all the illusions and follies of post-war British policy now reached their climax in the wasting of Britain’s Marshall Aid. […]In fact, far from Marshall Aid boosting British investment, planned programmes were heavily cut after the debacle of a Sterling devaluation in 1949, caused by a balance-of-payments crisis. In what had been intended as the ‘decisive’ Marshall Aid years of 1949 and 1950, investment was only a little higher than in 1948 – barely ahead of inflation.The second portion of the amalgamated quote was also derived from a lengthier set of remarks given in the House of Commons in October 1945. Once again, Churchill was speaking in the larger context of a broader aim of retaining Britain’s position as a world superpower. In that earlier statement, Churchill was debating other Parliament members on the topic of drawing down troops and returning to civilian life. In initial remarks in the same session, he said:We have asked for this Debate upon demobilisation, because demobilisation is the foundation upon which, at this moment, everything else stands, and also, because tardy, inadequate demobilisation is the fountain-head of all our domestic difficulties. Whatever view may be taken of Socialism or free enterprise, surely it is common ground between us all, that we should get all the great wheels and the little wheels of life and industry in this country turning as soon as possible. For this we need the men. Without the men, and also the women, now held in the Services, there can be no speedy revival. The woeful shortage of consumer goods will continue. The Government will be afraid to allow people to spend their savings, for fear of undue rise in prices. Scarcity will be used as justification for controls, and controls will become the fatal means of prolonging scarcity. Get all the great wheels turning, and all the little cog wheels too. Let them rotate and revolve, spin and hum, and we shall have taken a long step forward towards our deliverance. In order to get them turning, we must bring the men home, and set the men free. […]Here I will make a digression. It seems most urgent, and, indeed, vital, that the Government should put forward their proposals, in outline at any rate, for the permanent scale at which all three of our Armed Services are to be maintained, let us say, in the next 10 years. Men and women in all the three Forces ought to know, now, the conditions under which they can continue in the Services, or can transfer from “hostilities only” to longer or full-time engagements. I am inclined to agree with a remark which I saw attributed to the Minister of Labour and National Service the other day, to the effect that there is not the same universal general desire to leave the Services now, which was encountered after the first great war.Churchill’s remarks were made once again in the context of Britain’s post-war economy, not on the subject of “socialism” or “capitalism” absent any context. He went on to assert “in a philosophic vein” that freeing citizens up to find “useful work” ought to be a priority:With considerable responsibility and after much heart searching, I am making a positive contribution to this Debate. It can be knocked about from all quarters, but I hope to see at any rate a foundation for thought and discussion on a matter in which we cannot afford to rest in a half paralysed deadlock. Supposing every man were given double pay for every day he was kept beyond his proper priority, that would be a small burden on the State compared with the enormous waste such as is going on now. Certainly a great effort should be made to solve this problem. If it makes possible a far larger rate of releases, the general rejoicing will sweep away many invidious reflections. […]I understand — perhaps I am wrongly informed — that it was thought necessary to hold their opposite numbers here at home, who are a much greater number, beyond their time. After all, the officers who are kept are kept because there is vital work for them to do while similar officers, whose release is retarded at home, are kept without useful work. There is a great difference between being kept to do something, and being kept to do nothing. As for the women, many of them want to stay, but surely those who have nothing to do, and are not wanted for any purpose under the sun, should be set free now.I earnestly hope that the Government will give unprejudiced attention to the suggestions I have ventured to make. They are put forward in no spirit of controversy but in the general interest. If we do not get this country going again pretty soon, if we do not get the great wheels turning, we may lose for ever our rightful place in the post-war economic world and we may involve our finances in dire and irretrievable confusion. It is no party matter, but one in which the House as a whole should make its opinion felt in a way that will override all hesitations and obstacles which are found in the path. In order to bring us all together, I will end this practical discourse in a philosophic vein. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. In the present case, where an overwhelming majority of Service men and women would gain the blessings, can we not unite on the broad democratic principle of “the greatest good of the greatest number”?Recontextualizing Churchill’s positions on “socialism” in 2019 almost always occurred without mention of the statesman’s actual legacy. A quotation from Churchill from May 1908 illustrated dissonance between his anti-socialist rhetoric as contrasted with “liberalism”:Liberalism is not Socialism, and never will be. There is a great gulf fixed. It is not a gulf of method, it is a gulf of principle … Socialism seeks to pull down wealth; Liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests; Liberalism would preserve private interests in the only way in which they can be safely and justly preserved, namely by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference … Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capital; Liberalism attacks monopoly.The meme set up an inherent disagreement between Churchill and Ocasio-Cortez, the latter of whom champions such social safety net features as a public health care system. The process of administrating health care remained a cornerstone of debates related to “socialism” in 2019, which made the comparison curious given Churchill’s role as Prime Minister at the advent of England’s National Health Service:By the end of the Second World War, there was overwhelming support from all political parties for some sort of health service. The ordeal of war had had a levelling effect. The Beveridge Report, which proposed widespread reforms to the system of social welfare to address what William Beveridge identified as five “giant evils” in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness, and disease. Published in the midst of World War II, the report promised rewards for everyone’s sacrifices. It was overwhelmingly popular with the public.Finally, Sir Winston Churchill, speaking as prime minister in the spring of 1944, affirmed that it was the policy of the government to establish a national health service that would make accessible to all, irrespective of social class or means, adequate and modern social care. The high and rising cost of medical care was the key consideration. Healthcare shouldn’t be rationed by price.A 2009 political analysis of the NHS’s introduction credited three parties of the time with its establishment, noting that British conservatives of the era vociferously supported the initiative:The NHS owes its existence to the climate of wartime British politics, not least the vastly expanded access to basic healthcare which came with conscription, and the subsequent rise in expectations. As Paul Addison outlined over 30 years ago in his landmark The Road to 1945, the wartime coalition of 1940-5 fostered a remarkable degree of consensus. In social policy, this resulted in the seminal 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services, chaired by the Liberal economist William Beveridge – better known as the Beveridge Report. In this, Beveridge set out a comprehensive state plan of social care. Section 19 of the report is the first public mention of a “National Health Service.”The report was enormously influential, and what cannot be stressed enough is that in the subsequent 1945 general election, all three parties endorsed the Beveridge Report.Revealingly, all three parties had NHS proposals in their 1945 manifestoes. The Conservatives actually had the longest section in their manifesto, pledging:The health services of the country will be made available to all citizens. Everyone will contribute to the cost, and no one will be denied the attention, the treatment or the appliances he requires because he cannot afford them. We propose to create a comprehensive health service covering the whole range of medical treatment from the general practitioner to the specialist, and from the hospital to convalescence and rehabilitation. […]The point is that a Conservative post-war government under Churchill was fully signed up to introducing the NHS. A Liberal post-war government under Sinclair was fully signed up to introducing the NHS. The NHS was not Labour’s great achievement, it was an inescapable conclusion. And it was only the colossal Labour majority of 1945 which made it possible for Clement Attlee’s government to confidently embark on an NHS scheme that was deeply controversial among its own members.Another position of Ocasio-Cortez’s that had an analogue in positions held by Churchill during his career was taxation — the congresswoman has expressed support for a 70 percent tax on incomes over $10 million. In 1920, Churchill espoused an unpopular approach to a tax on “war-time increases in wealth” and taxation of “unearned” gains.The statement in the meme was correctly identified as an amalgam of Winston Churchill’s words in 2015, prior to the 2019 juxtaposition with the positions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Although the words were words said by Churchill during broader remarks in 1945 and 1948, they were presented far enough out of their context and the context of history as to be meaningless. Although Churchill regularly railed against “socialism” as he viewed in throughout his career, many of the positions and initiatives he espoused were quite similar to those of Ocasio-Cortez — most prominently, perhaps, in support for a national healthcare system. But the quoted remarks attributed to Churchill were almost exclusively about and regarding his commentary on the acceptance and use of United States aid in postwar Britain.


A video shows a bolt of lightning striking a river, sparking a large explosion.

Explanation: While we do not advise hopping into an outdoor pool during a raging thunderstorm, we can assure you that should you disregard that advice and lightning strikes during your swim, it may be exceedingly unpleasant — but it won’t look like these videos.

In July 2017, a video purportedly showing “a bolt of lightning striking a river” went viral on social media:   Meteorologist Dan Skoff lent credence to the claim when he reposted the video on Facebook, along with the following message: This is crazy! One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen with lightning. Almost doesn’t look real! If you aren’t terrified of lightning in a swimming pool, you will be now! This video, however, does not actually show a bolt of lightning striking a river. When the video is slowed down, it is easy to tell that the “lightning” strike doesn’t come from the sky, but from a wire on the hill. Here’s a screenshot showing the moment of impact (which can be glimpsed at the 7-second mark in the video above):  This video was uploaded to YouTube by Finnish water engineering company Rannikon Merityö in 2012, under the title “Porapaalutusta, osa 3: Räjäytys” (Drilling rig, part 3: Blasting). Although this clip was not accompanied by any additional information, the video was included on the company’s web site on a page about underwater mining and blasting: KÄÄNNY VEDENALAISESSA LOUHINTA JA RÄJÄYTYSTYÖSSÄ AINA ASIANTUNTIJAN PUOLEEN Rantojen ja vedenalaisen kallion louhinta- ja rakennustyö Turun saaristossa ja ympäristössä. Vedenalaisessa louhinnassa madalletaan kallionpinnan korkeutta järvessä, meressä tai muussa vesistössä. Ennen louhintatyön aloittamista tehdään louhinta- ja räjäytystöiden suunnitelma, jotta kaikki toteutuu turvallisesti. Vesistössä tapahtuva kallion louhinta on luvanvaraista toimintaa ja saattaa vaatia aluehallintoviraston (AVI) luvan. MIHIN VEDENALAINEN LOUHINTA SOVELTUU? Vedenalaista louhintaa käytetään rantojen ja vesistöjen kunnostukseen sekä merimerkkien perustamiseen. Lisäksi vesiväylien syventäminen, rakentaminen ja ylläpito tehdään louhinta- ja räjäytystöillä. Louhinta suoritetaan laittamalla porausreikiin vedenalaista erikoisräjähdettä, joka upotetaan kallioon porattuihin reikiin. Asiakkaita voi olla yksityiset asiakkaat, satamat, ja venesatamat. TAKE SUBMERGED MINING AND BLASTING WORK TO AN EXPERT Mining and construction of beaches and underwater rock in Turku archipelago and surroundings. Underwater quarrying lowers the rock surface level in the lake, ocean or other waters. Before the excavation work is started, a mining and blasting plan is planned to ensure that everything is safely accomplished. The rock mining in water is licensed and may require the permission of the regional government agency (AVI). WHERE IS UNDERWATER MINING SUITABLE? Underwater quarrying is used for the refurbishment of beaches and waterways and the creation of sea symbols. In addition, the deepening, construction and maintenance of waterways are carried out in mining and blasting operations. Extraction is carried out by inserting underwater special explosives into the drilling holes, which are immersed in drilled holes in the rock. Customers can be private customers, ports, and marinas. As several pieces of debris can be seen floating in the river shortly after the explosion, it seems most likely that Rannikon Merityö used a detonation cord to dislodge a stump or a tree from the river. Regardless of the exact reason for this explosion, it’s clear that this video shows the work of a dredging company, not a bolt of lightning. Meteorologist Skoff later updated his Facebook post to note that the video did not actually show a bolt of lightning striking a river: This is crazy! It’s not lightning, BUT instead a detonation cord! There is no flash from the clouds & the bolt just seems to come from the top of the hill. They probably had some explosives detonate under water. Still cool though. A similar explosion can be seen in the following video showing the removal of the City Mill Dam in the U.S. state of Georgia’s Chattahoochee River. An almost identical “lightning bolt” can be seen flashing across the water at the 1:30 mark:


California bill would create health care price controls.

Explanation: California’s government would set prices for hospital stays, doctor visits and other health care services under legislation introduced Monday, vastly remaking the industry in a bid to lower health care costs.

Health care costs, Health care industry, Health, Sacramento, Legislation, Politics, North America, Health care reform, California, Health care services

The proposal, which drew swift opposition from the health care industry, comes amid a fierce debate in California as activists on the left push aggressively for a system that would provide government-funded insurance for everyone in the state. Across the country, rising health care costs have put the industry, lawmaker and employers and consumers at odds. The proposal in California would affect private health plans, including those offered by employers and purchased by individuals. A nine-member commission appointed by the governor and legislative leaders would set prices for everything from a physical exam to an allergy test to heart bypass surgery. No other state has such a requirement. “If we do not act now, I’m concerned that health care prices will become unsustainable,” Assemblyman Ash Kalra, a freshman Democrat from San Jose who wrote the legislation, said in a news conference in Sacramento. The measure faces an uphill battle in the Legislature, where lawmakers are generally cautious about making drastic changes to the health care system and are already juggling a wide range of ambitious proposals. The proposal is backed by influential unions including the Service Employees International Union, Unite Here and the Teamsters. The unions are frustrated that health care costs are gobbling an increasing share of employee compensation. “Every dollar that we spend on rising health care prices is a dollar that comes out of a worker’s pocket,” said Sara Flocks, policy coordinator for the California Labor Federation, a union coalition. “This is something that is eating up our wages and it is increasing income inequality. This is a fundamental question of fairness.” Health care providers say price controls would encourage doctors to move out of state or retire, making it harder for people to see a physician when they’re sick, and force hospitals to lay off staff or, in some cases, close their doors. The California Medical Association, which represents physicians, called the proposal “radical” and warned that it would reduce choices for consumers. “No state in America has ever attempted such an unproven policy of inflexible, government-managed price caps across every health care service,” Dr. Theodore Mazer, the CMA president, said in a statement. Under Kalra’s bill, prices would be tied to Medicare’s rate for a particular service or procedure, with that price as a floor. There would be a process for doctors or hospitals to argue that their unique circumstances warrant payments higher than the state’s standard rate. Paying hospitals 125 percent of Medicare’s rate would cut $18 billion in revenue and force them to trim nurses and other support staff, said Dietmar Grellman, senior vice president of the California Hospital Association. Private insurers make up for the low payments from government-funded health care, which doesn’t cover the full cost of care, he said. “That’s why their bill is such an empty promise,” Grellman said. “They take money out of the system with rate regulation, but then they don’t address the huge gaping hole that’s created by Medicare and Medicaid.” In recent decades health care spending has risen faster than inflation and wages while employers and health plans have shifted more of the costs onto consumers through higher premiums, deductibles and copays. Americans spend more per capita on health care than other developed countries. Meanwhile, a wave of consolidation by hospitals, physician groups and insurance companies has given industry players more power to demand higher rates.


'Universal' blood test for earlier diagnosis of cancer moves closer to market

Explanation: Blood tests have become a popular study focus among scientists seeking mechanisms for early detection of cancer. Researchers have come up with a number of tests in recent years that examine a variety of components of blood, among them types of blood cells, proteins, and the presence of mutated DNA. Most of the tests are specific to particular cancers and vary in their levels of accuracy. In this release, a team at the University of Bradford heralds the increasing accuracy of a test that measures the response of white blood cells exposed to ultraviolet light. The test, called TumorScan, uses an automated cell reader designed by a Paris-based company, IMSTAR, to examine thousands of cells from any one sample, and the researchers say that they have found the process can detect the presence of any type of cancer with more than 90% success. IMSTAR has now licensed the university team’s technology and plans to bring the text to market some time in the future. The release touts the potential benefits without addressing some real concerns: Technology like this is enabling us to find more and more cancers at an earlier stage, but we are often unable to differentiate between the ones that need to be treated and those that can be monitored or ignored. While the news release didn’t need to go into great detail about this, it should at least acknowledge the downsides. Finding cancer at an early stage via a blood test may improve survival rates, and reduce the need for invasive biopsies. However, it’s important to keep in mind that all cancer screening tests carry the risks of false-positives, false-negatives and overdiagnosis and treatment of non-growing or slow-growing cancer.

Although the release’s lead emphasizes efforts to bring this blood test to market, there are no cost estimates in the text. A source affiliated with the company that licensed the test is quoted as valuing the maintenance of “affordable cost,” but we have no idea what that might mean. The release states that a modified version of the original test can identify individuals with cancer more than 93% of the time. It’s unclear what the 93% success rate means in this context. Is that the sensitivity? What is the false positive rate? Why these terms matter. The release needed to provide more information on the risks that arise with cancer screening tests–for example, of being told you have cancer when you do not; or the opposite, being told you’re cancer-free when you actually have cancer. There is also the risk of overdiagnosis — finding and treating non-growing or slow-growing cancer that doesn’t need to be treated. The release needed more about the limitations to this research. It appears the test has only been run on people where their cancer status is known, for example. A prospective trial needs to be conducted. Also, it’s not known whether earlier diagnosis will make any difference or cause more harm than good. Blood tests to detect cancer would provide a significant opportunity to find cancers at an early stage, when they can possibly (but not necessarily) be successfully treated. But, as we mentioned, the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment needs to be acknowledged. While it is not clear who is funding this latest study, the company, IMSTAR, which has licensed the test, identifies the University of Bradford as a “partner” on its website. Additionally, the PI quoted most extensively in the release appears to co-own a 2010 patent for a similar test. The news release did attempt to explain alternatives. More could have been said about this, but we found it sufficient for a satisfactory rating: Professor Anderson said: “This test is different from other universal cancer tests being developed, because it is not looking for a specific biomarker or mutation. This is a generic test for cancer in an individual, regardless of the underlying mechanism that’s causing their cancer.” The text offers only a general statement at its end indicating that work to develop the test will continue. Ideally the release would have explained that a prospective trial is still needed. The release establishes what makes this test unique. The text exercises appropriate caution, describing the blood test as a “potential” tool.


Oxford professor of Islamic studies Tariq Ramadan said "we are here to colonize the U.S. and Canada" with Sharia law.

Explanation: The context of this is interesting – there is such strong Islamophobia and racism not just in Europe, but in France in particular. We’re going to be seeing Islamophobia and racism pitted against misogyny. The courts are notorious for not prosecuting sexual assault, and for handing down light sentences when they do. They’re also notorious for over-punishing minorities — brown, black and Muslim men. All these things are at play at the same time in this story.

Politics, #metoo, bare naked islam, creeping sharia

In mid-February 2018, an inflammatory quote attributed to Tariq Ramadan, a prominent and controversial Islamic studies scholar recently arrested on rape charges in France, reappeared on social media:  The Swiss-born scholar has for years has been a controversial figure in part because of his lineage (he is the grandson of Hassan Al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement) and in part because of his views on the role of Islam in the Western world. We found no evidence that Ramadan ever made the statement attributed to him above. In 2004, the George W. Bush administration barred Ramadan from entering the U.S. over allegations he had donated to a charity that gives money to the Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist organization Hamas. The restriction on Ramadan’s entry was lifted in 2010. In February 2018, Ramadan made headlines for a completely different reason: he was arrested in France after two women came forward with rape allegations against him in late 2017, during what has become known as the #MeToo movement. It’s unclear whether the rape charges prompted the fake quote’s resurgence, but the latter has wended its way across the Internet by way of message boards and web sites with no links back to a source for it. The quote appears to have originated on the anti-Muslim site BareNakedIslam.com, where it appeared in a 2015 post alongside a video commentary by Marc Lebuis, the founder of a French-Canadian web site whose mission is to “explore and expose Islamist activities in our midst.” The quote is a mishmash of Ramadan’s words and Lebuis’s paraphrases. In the video, Lebuis said that “Tariq Ramadan is very controversial by the way. He called on — he specifically targeted Muslims not to use Sharia law, the term Sharia, but rather targeted Canada as being one of the easiest legal systems to penetrate in order to advance Sharia principles. And that was published in an Egyptian magazine in 2004.” LeBuis was referring to a 2004 interview with Ramadan in the Cario-based news magazine Egypt Today, in which Ramadan discussed the Islamic code of conduct enshrined in the law of some predominantly Muslim countries known as Sharia law. The idea of a sneaky takeover plot to implement Sharia law in Western countries such as Canada and the United States is popular among anti-Islamic conspiracy theorists, who have developed a veritable cottage industry around that fear. But Ramadan never said anything about “colonizing” the U.S. and Canada or using violent jihad to do so. Rather, he told Egypt Today that: The Muslims in Canada’s battle to set up shariah courts to settle domestic disputes is another example of lack of creativity. Within the normative law in Canada, they have huge latitude for Muslims to propose an Islamic contract. These courts are not necessary; all they do is stress the fact that Muslims have specific laws and for the time being this is not how we want to be perceived. We need to show that our way of thinking is universal, that we can live with the law and there is no contradiction. It’s more useful for Muslims to examine the legal framework they have in Canada, which is one of the most open in the world, and come up with something Islamic that at the same time fits the Canadian reality. The term shariah in itself is laden with negative connotations in the Western mind. There is no need to stress that. We can do more and better without creating this sort of fracture and misunderstanding. The very moment Muslims understand there are no contradictions between being Muslim and being European or American, they will enrich their societies. Although Lebuis interpreted Ramadan’s comments as pushing for a takeover of the Canadian legal system, the academic was in fact advocating for the opposite, saying that Canadian Muslims could use the existing court system rather than settling disputes in separate Sharia courts. But neither man’s comments were sensational enough for BareNakedIslam, which apparently made up a quote that fit their purposes. As the fake quote and stories about the allegations against Ramadan swept far-right sites such as GellerReport.com and “Creeping Sharia,” some observers have raised questions about what it means for Muslim women when misogyny and racism collide. Muslim women have been speaking out in their own version of the MeToo movement using the hashtag #MosqueMeToo, telling their stories of assault and abuse within the religious community. Author and activist Mona Eltahawy pointed out in a November 2017 op-ed that the eagerness of Islamophobes to paint Muslim men as predators puts Muslim women in a difficult position when they come forward with accusations of sexual assault. Ayesha Chaudhry, associate professor of Islamic studies and gender studies at the University of British Columbia, discussed that double bind in phone interview with us, saying “When people are violated and are victims of assault, they can’t be expected solve systemic inequality at the same time.” Chaudhry said the Ramadan case brought to mind a motif common in stories about crimes committed by Muslim men in the Western media, and noted that once the trial starts, various forms of rarely-discussed societal oppression will play out in public: [University of California, Los Angeles women’s studies professor] Sherene Razack makes the argument of this triangle we find ourselves caught in when we talk about Muslims. There’s the dangerous Muslim man, the imperiled woman and the civilizing European, and you just see this in the Tariq Ramadan case so clearly.