The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is using a device called an "ERAD" to seize money from people's bank accounts.

Explanation: What's true: The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased Electronic Recovery and Access Devices (ERADs), allowing them to seize money on gift cards and prepaid debit cards. What's false: ERADs do not give the Oklahoma Highway Patrol access to people's bank accounts.

On 8 June 2016, the web site Oklahoma Watch published a report concerning the purchase of Electronic Recovery and Access to Data machines (ERADs) by the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, which gives the state a new tool to conduct civil forfeitures: The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has purchased several devices capable of seizing funds loaded on to prepaid debit cards to aid troopers in roadside seizures of suspected drug-trafficking proceeds. The portable card scanners are designed to be carried in law enforcement vehicles, allow troopers to freeze and seize money loaded onto a prepaid debit card, and to return money to an account whose funds were seized or frozen. The vehicle-mounted scanners are also capable of retrieving and storing limited account information from other cards as well, such as banking debit cards, credit cards and “payment account information from virtually any magnetic stripe card,” according to the website and patent documents of the device manufacturer, Texas-based ERAD Group Inc. ERAD stands for Electronic Recovery and Access to Data. Shortly after the Oklahoma Watch article was published, a petition was started on ActionSprout.io, which claimed that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol now had a device that could take money out of your bank account: Oklahoma Highway Patrol have begun using a new device called ERAD. This device allows cops to scan any credit or ATM cards and seize any money connected with that card. How is this legal? A REPUBLICAN state senator has already sounded off on this civil liberties nightmare. “We’ve seen single mom’s stuff be taken,” he said, “a cancer survivor his drugs taken… We’ve seen innocent people’s stuff being taken. We’ve seen where the money goes and how it’s been misspent.” The petition is, whether intentionally or not, misleading. While the state of Oklahoma has purchased ERADs, the devices are not capable of taking money directly out of bank accounts; according to a FAQ section on the Texas-based ERAD group’s web site, the devices only work with prepaid cards: Fin Cen defines prepaid access as “access to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrieved or transferred at some point in the future through an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, code, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, or personal identification number.” Open Loop prepaid cash cards, closed loop retailer gift cards and stored-value cards are example of prepaid access devices. The ERAD group writes that these devices after customs officials noticed a “significant number of prepaid cash cards moving across the border”: Even with probable cause, they had no way of identifying the card value, freezing the funds or seizing the money at the point of arrest. ERAD-Prepaid solved that problem by condensing a process that takes many days, weeks or months into one that takes a few seconds. Civil forfeiture is a major issue in Oklahoma. While law enforcement officials argue that it is a necessary measure to curb drug trafficking, critics claim that these seizures often affect innocent people: Law enforcement officials in Oklahoma and elsewhere describe civil asset forfeiture as an important weapon against the drug trade, allowing them to target illicit proceeds that may not be in proximity to contraband. They say ERAD technology is a necessary tool to keep up with criminals who have begun putting money on prepaid cards in order to avoid having cash seized by police. “If someone has 300 cards taped up and hidden inside the dash of a vehicle, we’re going to check that,” Lt. John Vincent, public information officer for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, told Oklahoma Watch. […] A hidden stack of hundreds of cash cards may seem inherently suspicious, but critics of civil asset forfeiture say hypotheticals like this obscure concerns that the practice is overused, often in ways that violate people’s due process and property rights. “Whether someone has 100 debit cards or one, that in and of itself is not illegal,” state Sen. Kyle Loveless (R), who has spearheaded an unsuccessful push to overhaul Oklahoma’s civil forfeiture laws, told The Huffington Post. Officers in Oklahoma can’t wipe out anyone’s bank account with an ERAD, but they can use these devices, along with current civil forfeiture laws in the state, to check, freeze, and seize funds on prepaid cards.


As a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, "there were days where folks couldn't go outside. … because of all the pollution in the air.

Environment, National, History, Public Health, Barack Obama,

When President Barack Obama gave a major address on climate change on June 25, 2013, he reached back more than three decades for a personal anecdote to support his argument. "Now, what you'll hear from the special interests and their allies in Congress is that (my climate change plan) will kill jobs and crush the economy and basically end American free-enterprise as we know it," Obama said. "And the reason I know you'll hear those things is because that's what they said every time America sets clear rules and better standards for our air and our water and our children's health. "And every time they've been wrong," Obama continued. "when I was going to school in 1979, 1980 in Los Angeles, there were days where folks couldn't go outside -- and the sunsets were spectacular -- because of all the pollution in the air. "At the time when we passed the Clean Air Act, to try to get rid of some of this smog, some of the same doomsayers were saying, ‘New pollution standards will decimate the auto industry.’ Guess what? It didn't happen. Our air got cleaner." Many Twitter users asked us whether it was really true that during Obama’s days in Los Angeles "there were days where folks couldn't go outside. … because of all the pollution in the air." We’ll start with some background on smog. The smog predominant in Los Angeles -- formally known as "photochemical smog" -- is created when light reacts with motor vehicle and industrial emissions to form ground-level ozone. This ozone can make it difficult to breathe, causing asthma attacks and lung inflammation, as well as making eyes itchy and watery. In the United States, at least, Los Angeles has been ground zero for smog for decades, due to its heavy automobile usage, its industrial base and the presence of mountains and valleys, which prevent polluted air from floating elsewhere. Los Angeles smog emerged in the 1940s and worsened from the 1950s to the 1970s. It got so bad in October 1954 that the city virtually shut down for the entire month (and gas masks were common, as the photograph below illustrates). Smog became so closely identified with Los Angeles that "smog in a can" became a popular gag gift. Today, Los Angeles still has smog -- in April 2013, the American Lung Association ranked L.A. first in the nation for ozone pollution, as well as fourth for particulate pollution such as dust and soot. But concerted environmental efforts have reduced the extent of the problem significantly. In rising order of seriousness, smog alerts for southern California start with health advisories and move upwards to stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3. The last stage 3 smog alert came in 1974 -- so long ago that Ronald Reagan was still governor. The last stage 2 alert came in 1988, and there has been only one stage 1 alert since 1998 (it came in 2003). "Peak ozone levels in southern California today are roughly one-third of what they were in the late 1970s, due to aggressive and innovative air pollution controls here," said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the air-pollution control agency for Los Angeles, Orange County and portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. So what would Obama have experienced when he was a student at Occidental, the college he attended before transferring to Columbia University for his junior and senior year? We can approximate the impact based on statistical and anecdotal evidence. Occidental, located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood northeast of downtown L.A., would have been subject to many of the smog risks typical of the region from 1979 to 1981. According to South Coast Air Quality Management District data, a health advisory -- a comparatively low-level alert -- was issued somewhere in the agency’s region of jurisdiction 169 times in 1979, 152 times in 1980 and 159 times in 1981. The stage 1 threshold was met 120, 101, and 99 times during those three years. Even allowing that Occidental itself may have experienced just a fraction of these episodes, the university still would have faced a significant number. So what did these advisories mean in a practical sense? For a health advisory, the lowest of these levels, all children are supposed to "discontinue prolonged, vigorous outdoor exercise lasting longer than one hour," and "susceptible persons, such as those with heart or lung disease" should "avoid outdoor activity," including "calisthenics, basketball, running, soccer, football, tennis, swimming laps, and water polo." For the more severe stage 1 episodes, all children are supposed to "discontinue all vigorous outdoor activities regardless of duration," including "physical education classes, sports practices, and athletic competitions." Finally, for stage 2 or stage 3, all children are supposed to "discontinue all outdoor activities." This suggests that Obama’s claim is slightly exaggerated. He said that "there were days where folks couldn't go outside," but nothing in the rules addressed what healthy adults could do, including healthy college-age kids. Rather, the rules addressed adults with compromised health as well as children. Still, the reality of smog alerts was not pretty, and by all accounts, staying inside, if feasible, was certainly preferable. The White House pointed us to a Newsweek article from Sept. 24, 1979, when Obama was just settling in at Occidental, that documents what it called the worst L.A. smog in 24 years. "Tennis courts stood empty," the article said. "Golf courses lay nearly deserted. Schools canceled recess, and the usual parade of joggers around Pasadena's Rose Bowl dwindled to just a handful." We found other first-hand testimony. Char Miller, a professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College in the Los Angeles suburb of Claremont, recalls enduring smog alerts when he was a student at neighboring Pitzer College in the mid 1970s. "There were way too many days when you could not see the mountain that today frames my office window," he said. "It was possible to not know it was there for months at a time." And William Kelly, the co-author of Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles, recalls attending Occidental a few years before Obama. "When I got there in 1973, I played a vigorous game of basketball in an un-air-conditioned gym," Kelly said. "I don't remember the end of the game, just waking up in the early evening with a pounding headache and watering eyes and wheezing in my dorm room. Turns out there was a stage 2 smog alert going on that afternoon, and I didn't have a clue." Our ruling Obama said that as a student at Occidental College in Los Angeles from 1979 to 1981, "there were days where folks couldn't go outside. … because of all the pollution in the air." The idea that "folks couldn’t go outside" is an oversimplification. The advisories -- and they were only advisories -- were aimed at children and people who had existing health concerns. But Obama is right that smog was a severe problem at the time in the Los Angeles region.


Explanation: This is an evening network newscast story on the recent FDA approval of the drug varenicline (trade name Chantix) for smoking cessation. Given the time constraints of this news story, the reporters do an excellent job of even-handedly presenting the new drug in the context of other therapies for smoking cessation. Varenicline may be an option for those who have not been able to quit smoking using other drug treatments, such as the anti-depressant bupropion (trade name Zyban) or nicotine replacement therapy. Varenicline was given priority status and fast-tracked for approval due to the “significant improvement” over existing therapies for smoking cessation; however, the long-term benefit of varenicline over exiting therapies is not very significant. Approval of varenicline was largely based on two double-blind, randomized studies of 2000 smokers in which the drug was compared with bupropion (trade name Zyban) and a placebo. The studies were both funded by Pfizer, maker of varenicline. The news story presents longer-term (1 year) abstinence rates, which are important for evaluating smoking cessation therapies. Unfortunately, there is no discussion of side effects. Nausea, headaches, insomnia and other stomach problems were more common in the varenicline group, but none of these are mentioned in the broadcast. The cost of a 12-week course of varenicline is provided in context with a message that smoking is a strong addiction and that reliance on a pill alone may not be enough. There is a behavioral component to smoking cessation that is recognized even by Pfizer, which, in the press release announcing approval of varenicline for smoking cessation, also announces plans to offer varenicline users an interactive on-line support program. (Publisher’s Note: Although this review points out some flaws, this NBC story is to be applauded for what it achieved in the usual limited time afforded TV news stories. That same night, the ABC and CBS network newscasts ran stories on the same topic, but their stories each ran only about 15 seconds and contained little information.)

The story mentions 12-week cost of varenicline (which must be taken twice daily), but the story would have been better if it gave cost comparison with existing treatments. The story is even handed and this new therapy is not embraced as a magic bullet. Numbers are framed appropriately, however there is no quantiative comparison of one-year abstinence rates with existing drug and non-drug therapies. There is no discussion of any side effects of the drug. Nausea, headaches insomnia and other stomach problems were the most common in the vanenicline group, but none of these are mentioned in the broadcast. There is brief discussion of abstinence rates, but no mention of the design of the varenicline trials. Without describing the trials as controlled, blinded, randomized, or not, it is impossible to assess the strength of the information.The numbers were from two fairly well-designed randomized, double-blind trials (N=2000 total). Abstinence was evaluated between varenicline, bupropion (Zyban) and placebo groups at 12 weeks, then continuous abstinence for another 40 weeks. There does not seem to be evidence of disease mongering, though there is the question of whether 32 million trying to quit would need drug treatment. Prevalence rates of addicted smokers are from the Center for Disease Control. Data is presented on screen as provided by Pfizer, the funder of the two varenicline trials. Dr. Riggotti, who is cited, is not affliated with the varenicline study. She is an anti-smoking advocate and the Director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. If time allowed, another outside expert opinion would be appropriate. Mentions other drug treatments such as nicotine replacement therapies with similar one-year abstinence rates. No mention of behavioral component of treatment or that varenicline was compared with bupropion, which has also had similar abstinence rates when compared against placebo in randomized controlled studies. There is acknowledgment in the story that the long-term smoking cessation might be accomplished by a number of available therapies, and varenicline is only one option. The story mentions recent FDA approval of the drug to aid in smoking cessation, however, there is no discussion of when it will be available. The drug was given priority status and fast-tracked for approval due to the “significant improvement” over existing therapies for smoking cessation. The story does a good job of listing this as just one more measure in the arsenal of smoking cessation aids. But there is not much discussion of how this is different from nicotine itself as varenicline is described as binding to the same receptor. The critical difference (and the reason this is truly novel) is that it is a partially active drug (that is it does not create the same intensity of effect as nicotine) and that it does not bind to all the subtypes of nicotine receptors. No evidence the story relies solely on a press release. There are sources cited not affiliated with the studies or Pfizer.


Explanation: The photo that ran with this story appeared straight out of a dystopian fantasy: a mother holding her infant, her shoulder draped in a loose, shawl-like lattice of wires connected to a swarm of electrodes attached to her baby’s head. Is this the future? Fortunately for readers, this story  did a better job than HealthDay in making better use of independent experts and didn’t allowing the lead author to get away with one of the more over-the-top statements that was quoted in the HealthDay story. But it did fail to explain the harms that may be associated with widespread use of scans or with false positives, the costs, and the alternatives to this type of screening. . Autism spectrum disorders are increasingly being diagnosed, yet the causes remain elusive and the treatments are far from a cure for most kids. Parents are hungry for solutions, as can be seen in the passionate comments below this article. What we do know is that early detection appears to be important because early intervention has shown promising results in mitigating the effects of the disorder. That’s why it is crucial for stories to carefully sort through the evidence to weed out the blips along the way from the true breakthroughs.

The story did not address costs. To see why this is such a serious omission, look no further than this comment that was posted below the story online on the CNN website: “This is great, but if your insurance won’t cover any Autism treatments, what’s the point? I have a 3.5 yr old and two year old boys, both on the Autism spectrum. Our insurance covers nothing for them with regard to any treatment. It’s left to us to absorb. Both require intensive speech and behavioral therapy at a cost of roughly $5,000 per month. I barely make $5,000 a month for a family of 4. …I wholeheartedly approve of the advances they are making, but if insurance won’t cover anything, why bother?” Nowhere does the story address the significance of this:  that the main benefit of this test appears to be that it detected with 80% accuracy during a very small timeframe that a child had an older sibling with autism. This means that the study correctly identified most of the time a risk factor that was already known to the parents of the chlid and to the researchers. So, in effect, the study had no actual benefit for the kids or the parents. At least the HealthDay story paraphrased one independent expert who noted that  “the study predicted who was at high risk of autism, but it’s unknown if those babies actually went on to develop autism”. This seems like a giant hole that should have been explored. Neither story quantified the harms. The obvious harm is parental anxiety and labeling an infant as having autism when there must be at least some risk of false positives. This was framed as a potential screening test. All screening tests carry potential harms. Journalists often report only on screening tests’ potential benefits. This story did a better job than the HealthDay story of explaining the study’s design, and it did probe some of the evidence through the use of independent experts. It also included this important statement: “Doctors and scientists not connected to the study are intrigued by the results but caution that this is very early research and not something concerned parents can be looking for as a screening tool for their babies any time soon.” There were multiple, cautionary notes in the article that were missing from the HealthDay piece. While the story could have been more critical and done much more to help readers understand the limitations of the study, we felt that it did an adequate job. This story did a better job than the HealthDay story to avoid disease-mongering. It accurately stated the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders and the much higher risk seen in siblings. We felt the overall tone of the story was still too anxiety-provoking, though, and it ended on a curious note with a fundraising plea from a researcher. The story made good use of outside experts, although we were dismayed to see the cliched “holy grail” reference, so beloved by researchers and journalists. The story failed to compare this diagnostic approach to existing approaches, saying only that “Bosl says the first children enrolled in his study are now at 2 and 3 years old, which is the age when  autism usually is diagnosed. This will now allow the researchers to evaluate them for autism and then look back at the brain activity patterns of the children who do fit the clinical criteria for autism.” How they are going to be evaluated for autism remains a big question. One presumes that they will be given a battery of behavioral tests, which, for now, are the gold standard. This should have been explained and the reasons why children younger than 2 cannot be accurately screened should have been explored. The story made it clear that this was an experimental diagnostic tool and not ready for the pediatrician’s office. The story is quite clear that EEG is not new but that the analysis method is new. The study was a novel contribution to the literature in that the study screens earlier, during infancy, in siblings of affected children. At the same time, we wish the story had placed this finding into a broader context. In December, CNN ran a story that sounded so similar we had to check the dates on this story to make sure it was not the same one. That story said, “Scientists are finding more pieces of the autism puzzle of with the help of MRI scans of brain circuitry, according to a study published Thursday online in the journal Autism Research.” Why not offer more context on other research that you’ve already reported on? The story didn’t rely on a news release.


Migraine drug could halve the length of attacks, study shows

Explanation: The Guardian covers a new phase III clinical trial of erenumab, a drug injected monthly, designed to reduce the frequency of painful migraines. The piece does a good job putting the results into context and even compares those findings to the placebo group, giving them a more transparent and helpful context. However, readers would have appreciated being told more of the basics. What are the possible side effects? How much might the drug cost? How is this different from other migraine treatments? Many news organizations used more sensational “breakthrough” language than The Guardian did in this story. But this was still only half a loaf, inexplicably reporting on one migraine study in the New England Journal of Medicine without even mentioning or linking to another migraine study in the same journal with a somewhat similar antibody agent. Why? About one in four US homes and perhaps 12% of the US population (much of it female) experiences migraines, according to the Migraine Research Foundation, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions of people each year. There’s no cure-all for the severe headaches, and current treatments and preventative drugs can cause unwanted side effects like tiredness, dizziness, nausea, weakness, heart rate issues, and more. So any alternative that is both effective and safe would be good news. But, as Dr. Richard Lehman wrote on his terrific BMJ blog, “the real worry is that antibodies beget antibodies, and we don’t know how long these (drugs) will remain effective or what long-term harms they might have.” And The Guardian story didn’t adequately address either concern.

No cost estimates are provided. But cost is a big deal with this drug. According to a November 2016 story by The Verge, erenumab could cost $8,000-$20,000 a year — or about $667-$1,667 per monthly injection. We understand that this story originated in the UK, where perhaps there’s a different journalistic attitude about the importance of citing costs because the UK has a National Health Service, unlike the US. But this story appeared in the US edition of the Guardian, so big deal cost estimates matter. This story does a decent job summing up the study design and presenting key results from the study, down to the differences between dosage and even placebo groups. While we give the story a satisfactory score on this criterion, we also suggest that the numbers could have been explained far more clearly. Our heads are still spinning a bit from this paragraph in the story: The research revealed that by months four to six, at least a 50% reduction in mean migraine days per month was achieved for just over 43% of patients injected under the skin with 70-mg of erenumab each month, while half of patients injected with the higher dose of 140-mg had such results. However, those given a placebo also saw benefits, with 26.6% of participants in this group experiencing such a reduction. A sidebar infographic would have helped, breaking down precisely how many days, how many people, and on what dose. Yes, the results were quantified, but in a less than optimal way. The story teases us with the tidbit that erenumab may come with fewer side effects, yet not one of them or their potential frequency is established. The reported adverse event numbers are important: About 63% of the placebo group experienced at least one, compared to 55.5%-57.3% of the drug groups. Some key numbers from the study are recapped, including how roughly half of patients in the erenumab groups saw an approximately 50% decline in migraine-days-per-month. But the article also compared this result to the placebo group’s result of 26.6%, which suggests perhaps half of the effect might not be attributable to the drug — and added a source’s brief explanation as to why that number may have been so high. (Injections, the source says, tend to trigger strong placebo effects.) A quote by an outside expert highlights the debilitating pain that many migraine sufferers experience, plus the real-world ramifications of that pain. Statistics are provided to give an estimate of how common migraines are, but we think it’s always best practice to provide a source for such statistics, and none was provided by The Guardian. Many news stories fail this test, but this one shines: Not only does the article cite an expert who wasn’t involved in the study, but it also discloses that the drugmakers of erenumab — Amgen and Novartis — funded the study, supplied the drug, and did the data analyses. (One thing the story missed, though: The first draft of the study was put together by a company-funded writer.) The quotes from the principal investigator demand further explanation and context. He calls his study: “an incredibly important step forward for migraine understanding and migraine treatment….“The results…represent a real transition for migraine patients from poorly understood, re-purposed treatments, to a specific migraine-designed therapy.”  But readers weren’t told anything about other treatments. Imagine taking one of the commonly-used drugs for migraine and now hearing – perhaps for the first time – that it is a poorly understood drug. The story should have explained what treatments the researcher was talking about, and, in an ideal story, would have compared results from this study with what is known about effectiveness of other treatments. More puzzling is why The Guardian didn’t mention in this story that another migraine study was reported in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. And Dr. Peter Goadsby, lead investigator of the study that The Guardian reported on, was also involved in the other study as well. So why mention only one? Is it possible that it’s because the King’s College PR news release only mentioned one? The availability of erenumab was never clear established. Yes, one could deduce that a Phase III trial was just reported, so it probably isn’t on the market yet. But the story never said that. In addition, there can still be a troubled road between completion of a Phase III trial and approval. For a story that trumpeted “incredibly important step forward….start of a real change (in treatment)…first drug in 20 years proven to prevent migraine attacks” and other superlatives, the story could have helped readers see through one trial’s optimism to explain what pitfalls might lie ahead. The story did describe the novelty of laboratory-made antibodies to prevent migraines. But, as already noted in the “Alternatives” criterion above, The Guardian didn’t even mention in this story that another migraine study was reported in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine  involving another antibody drug – fremanezumab. So erenumab – the subject of this story – isn’t the only game in town. It’s not even the only game in this class. What were the results from the fremanezumab study? And how are the two agents different? We got nowhere near those questions – much less answers – from The Guardian in this story. The story quotes the principal investigator, Peter Goadsby, but doesn’t note the source of those quotes: A press release by King’s College London, where Goadsby is a professor. So when The Guardian reports that Goadsby “said” such and such, it implies that he said it directly to someone at The Guardian. But he did not. In fact, we don’t even know if Goadsby “said” those things or wrote them, in a note to the PR people. It’s not a best practice to grab quotes from a PR news release while failing to attribute the source.


Explanation: Grothman told constituents that "Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the country." The agency’s national network of clinics stands apart from other providers as the undisputed leader when it comes to providing abortion services. This is one of those truisms that is basically, well, True. (Editor's note, June 7, 2017: An earlier version of this item quoted Grothman as saying that Planned Parenthood is an outspoken advocate for "controversial" services such as birth control. A spokesperson for his office said on June 7, 2017 that the video, in which Grothman's voice is hard to hear at times, may have led people to that conclusion, but that Grothman does not believe birth control is a controversial service. The birth control quote had no bearing on the congressman’s statement about Planned Parenthood and its role in abortions, so the rating of True is unchanged.)

Abortion, Corrections and Updates, Health Care, Public Health, Women, Wisconsin, Glenn Grothman,

On April 30, 2017, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) provoked an outcry at a town hall meeting in Neenah when pressed to explain his support for defunding the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. A woman doing the questioning warned Grothman that he shouldn’t use Planned Parenthood’s abortion services as an excuse to pull funding, because the agency is already prohibited from using federal funds to support abortion procedures. Grothman’s quick response: "Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the country." He added that the group is an outspoken advocate for what he termed "controversial" services. To be sure, Planned Parenthood does more than abortions. Services include screening for sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, sex education and general health care. Indeed, in a one-year period from  2014 to 2015, 87 percent of patients visited Planned Parenthood clinics for services other than abortion, PolitiFact Wisconsin found in February 2017. Grothman’s statement about the "biggest abortion provider" was one we’ve seen in various forms from House Speaker Paul Ryan, Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley of Boston and National Public Radio. Does it hold up? Running the numbers There’s no complete, centralized database that tallies abortions, much less breaks that number down by providers. But there is strong indirect evidence backing Grothman’s claim. Planned Parenthood self-reports that 323,999 abortions were performed at its facilities nationwide for the year ending September 30, 2015. That represents 35 percent of the 926,200 U.S. abortions estimated for calendar year 2014, the latest year studied by the Guttmacher Institute, a research and advocacy organization whose survey-based data on abortions is widely quoted by both sides in the abortion debate. Grothman maintains 49 percent of abortions are performed by Planned Parenthood. That’s because he uses the smaller base of 664,000 abortions -- the figure reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is based on voluntary reporting. Here’s what we heard from two groups deeply involved in the abortion issue: -- Planned Parenthood is the largest single provider of abortion care in the United States, according to the Abortion Care Network, a national association for independent abortion providers. It’s worth noting that local providers unaffiliated with a national organization -- including freestanding clinics and private practice hospitals -- collectively do the majority of the procedures. -- The 35 percent "easily" makes Planned Parenthood "the nation's largest abortion chain," and there’s no evidence any other provider is close, according to the National Right to Life Committee. More about Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood’s abortion services grew rapidly between 2000 and 2015, rising by 127,000 procedures at a time when the total number of abortions nationwide was falling significantly. The agency operates some 660 centers across the country. About half offer abortions, according to  agency spokeswoman Beth Lynk. Its facilities see patients from all 50 states, though one state, North Dakota, has no Planned Parenthood health center. The Moorhead, Minn., health center is two blocks from the state border and serves predominately North Dakota patients. A Planned Parenthood spokesperson said the agency doesn’t track the numbers on other providers and wouldn’t venture an opinion on Grothman’s claim. But Jennifer Thibodeau, a spokesperson for the Abortion Care Network summed up the general feeling among informed observers this way: "There is no other national organization that operate on the scale they do." Our rating Grothman told constituents that "Planned Parenthood is the biggest abortion provider in the country." The agency’s national network of clinics stands apart from other providers as the undisputed leader when it comes to providing abortion services. This is one of those truisms that is basically, well, . (Editor's note, June 7, 2017: An earlier version of this item quoted Grothman as saying that Planned Parenthood is an outspoken advocate for "controversial" services such as birth control. A spokesperson for his office said on June 7, 2017 that the video, in which Grothman's voice is hard to hear at times, may have led people to that conclusion, but that Grothman does not believe birth control is a controversial service. The birth control quote had no bearing on the congressman’s statement about Planned Parenthood and its role in abortions, so the rating of  is unchanged.)


Too Much Fat? Try a Whole-Body Scan Procedure gives far more data than a body-mass index

Explanation: A DXA body composition scan featured in the Wall Street Journal. The format of this story — with its hepful “Ache, Claim, Verdict” structure — suggests we are going to be treated to a no-nonsense examination of the evidence supporting dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, or DXA, for whole body scans to determine an individual’s body composition in terms of fat, bone and muscle. However, the story doesn’t deliver much more than a superficial look at the technology and is lacking in critical perspective. The story concludes that DXA is much more accurate than body mass index (BMI) at calculating someone’s body composition, but doesn’t give readers much information on why this may be important to their health. It focuses on the question of how often one should get scanned, and never challenges the assumption that one needs to get scanned at all. It doesn’t mention that there appears to be no data to show that those who use these scans have any better outcomes than those who do not. We live in a body-conscious society. It’s not clear precisely how much money people in the United States spend on weight loss. U.S. News, for example, reported in 2013 that we spend more than $60 billion a year on weight loss. A year earlier, ABC News pegged it at $20 billion. Regardless of which figure is closer to the mark, the weight loss industry is a juggernaut. And that doesn’t even get into the fitness industry focused on helping us have bigger muscles or more toned bodies. In short, people are extremely interested in losing fat and gaining muscle — and DXA appears to be a tool aimed at, to paraphrase this story, taking the guesswork out of figuring out how well you’re doing. It is, perhaps, inevitable that news outlets will cover this tool and its effectiveness. But these stories should also highlight how and whether they can give people insight into any potential medical problems — or whether it’s primarily a pricey tool for indulging our interest in our own bodies.

The story notes that a whole-body DXA scan costs “$45 to $350 or more” and is generally not covered by insurance. While readers can do the math, it would have been very useful for the story to point out what the costs of scanning at the intervals suggested (up to every 3 months) would amount to over time. The story notes that some DXA scanners “estimate how much visceral fat you have, a measure that can help predict risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.” It also states that scans show “the amount of fat and lean tissue in each body part, such as the right arm or left leg—information that can be helpful for athletes to see if an injured limb is regaining muscle.” However, these claims are not quantified. How much different might one’s risk for diabetes or cardiovasular disease be on a DXA scan vs. traditional body composition measures? How much faster might one recover from an injury using DXA monitoring? To its credit, the story does note that one study found that 18.5% of women with a normal BMI had excess fat when measured using a DXA scan — “making them ‘skinny fat. '” But readers aren’t told what “skinny fat” means — does it have health implications? Does it increase risk and by how much? More quantification here would have helped readers judge the value of this tool. The story gets credit for noting that DXA scans involve radiation, and for explaining exactly how much radiation one may be exposed to during a scan. However, that information could have been placed in a more health-relevant context. The DXA scan, the story says, exposes someone to “about the same as one day of background radiation” and compares the dose to chest x-rays and mammograms. The story would have have stronger if it had explained whether that means low risk or high. A few more details would have been helpful here. This is Not Satisfactory for a simple reason: there is nothing presented to show that measuring body composition with a scan vs. other ways leads to any improved outcomes, whether intermediate or long term or whether we’re talking about weight loss, building muscle mass, increasing athletic performance, or preventing heart disease. This is a really important issue that was neglected by the coverage. If readers are going to be tempted to get an expensive scan over using a bathroom scale and a mirror, they should have some assurance that it will actually lead to better results — or at least be warned if we don’t have enough evidence to judge. [Editor’s note: On Twitter, well-known cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol, editor of Medscape, greeted the story with this comment: “Just what we don’t need: a high tech, whole body scan to show loss of fat.”] It’s arguable that this story contributes to concentrating on appearance rather than health, and may get people with a normal BMI worrying about whether they are “skinny fat” — without offering any evidence that this is a real problem. However, since we didn’t see any egregious exaggerations of the obesity problem, we’ll give the benefit of the doubt. There are multiple sources here with conflicts of interest, but they are all clearly identified — and the story includes at least two sources who appear to have no conflict of interest. However, it would not have been difficult to find someone with a much more skeptical take on this technology, and we wish that perspective had been included. The story addresses four other techniques used for assessing body fat: BMI, water weighing, bioimpedance and pinching folded skin with calipers. The story would’ve been more useful had it mentioned that there appear to be no comparative effectiveness studies on long term outcomes using these different methods. Tough call here. The story says that DXA scans are “available at a growing number of spas, hospitals and doctor’s offices.” But the statement comes from a company representative. What does “growing number” mean? Are you likely to be able to find this outside of posh resorts and major cities? DXA scans are clearly distinct from other techniques for assessing body composition, but it’s not new. Researchers have been writing about using DXA scans to assess body composition since the early 1990s. The story gives a sense of why this is newsworthy now when it says, “A DXA scan (pronounced dexa) is commonly used to measure bone density, but recently has been increasingly used to measure body composition.” We’ll call that good enough for a Satisfactory rating. There is enough original reporting here that we can be sure the story wasn’t based entirely on a news release.


Donald Trump divorced Ivana Trump because her breast implants were imperfect, and he leaked that information to New York tabloids while they were married.

Explanation: It’s certainly possible that some version of the rumor may be true, but we haven’t unearthed any proof that Donald Trump ever directly, indirectly, or privately made the comments attributed to him about Ivana Trump’s breast implants, nor that he divorced her because of aesthetic differences about their suitability.

Politics Ballot Box, breast implants, donald trump, ivana trump

An early October 2016 audio leak of Donald Trump’s making lewd comments about women became a huge political controversy, and several subsequent articles suggested a callous Trump divorced his first wife, Ivana, wholly or in part because he didn’t like her breast implants. A 1 October 2016 piece published in the Economist (its claim reiterated by the Washington Post) held that: Until this year, a conservative record on questions of faith and personal morality was a prerequisite for winning the Republican nomination. During the 2012 primaries there was speculation about whether Mr Romney’s quiet Mormon faith would put off such values voters. In 2016 this has all been erased. When Mr Trump divorced the first of his three wives, Ivana, he let the New York tabloids know that one reason for the separation was that her breast implants felt all wrong. The claim was not new in October 2016. In September and March 2016 respectively, the Atlantic and the National Review had referenced details of Trump’s purported leaking lewd criticism of his then-wife’s enhancements to “New York tabloids”: The people closest to Trump have painful experience with this same quality. In September 1990, Marie Brenner wrote at length in Vanity Fair about how the billionaire humiliated Ivana Trump. Conservative writer Mona Charen reflected on the same era in National Review: I first became aware of Donald Trump when he chose to make cheating on his first wife front-page news. Donald and Ivana Trump broke up over the course of months. Not that divorce is shocking, mind you. Among the glitterati marriage seems more unusual. Nor is infidelity exactly novel. But it requires a particular breed of lowlife to advertise the sexual superiority of one’s mistress over the mother of one’s children. That was Trump’s style. He leaked stories to the New York tabloids about Ivana’s breast implants — they didn’t feel right. Marla Maples, by contrast, suited him better. She, proving her suitability for the man she was eager to steal from his family, told the papers that her encounters with the mogul were “the best sex I’ve ever had.” It wasn’t just Donald Trump’s betrayal that caught my eye, nor just the tawdriness — it was the cruelty. The rumor has taken several forms. For example, a profile of Ivana Trump published in March 2016 maintained that her former husband had insulted her breasts while he was speaking to a reporter: But life with The Donald did not improve, and it is agonizing to imagine that final, grim year when he was otherwise engaged and she was alone with the perfect new breasts he paid for but told a reporter he would never touch. What did she do in the small hours? Did she pace her triplex’s onyx floors or sit rigid in a Queen Anne chair, staring blankly at the handpainted, gold-leafed ceiling? And back in 1990, Vanity Fair‘s coverage of the then-recent Trump split told a story not dissimilar from the one circulating more than a quarter-century later: Trump seemed extraordinarily concerned that [Ivana] sign the [nuptial agreement] papers, perhaps because an Atlantic City photographer was threatening to blackmail him with photos he had taken of him and Marla Maples … The tactics he used in business he now brought home. “Donald began calling Ivana and screaming all the time: ‘You don’t know what you are doing!’ ” one of Ivana’s top assistants told me. “When Ivana would hang up the phone, I would say, ‘How can you put up with this?’ and Ivana would say, ‘Because Donald is right.’ ” He began belittling her: “That dress is terrible.” “You’re showing too much cleavage.” “You never spend enough time with the children.” “Who would touch those plastic breasts?” Ivana told her friends that Donald had stopped sleeping with her. She blamed herself. “I think it was Donald’s master plan to get rid of Ivana in Atlantic City,” one of her assistants told me. “By then, Marla Maples was in a suite at the Trump Regency. Atlantic City was to be their playground.” Ultimately, the oft-repeated claim was two-fold: in part, it maintained that Trump was anywhere between recoiling from and publicly leaking disparaging comments about his own wife’s augmented breasts to “the New York tabloids.” The second layer of the rumor held Trump separated from Ivana because her breasts were “all wrong.” In some versions, Trump is merely quoted as making the off-color remarks with no mention of how that information was obtained. In others, Trump is said to have openly made the comments in an “interview” with a tabloid. And in 2016, Trump’s hostility at Ivana was escalated in the retelling to suggest he “leaked” the claim to the media, and split with her in part because of her breast implants. Seemingly missing from all iterations of this rumor about Ivana Trump’s breast implants (and her ex-husband’s opinion of them) are the basic who, what, when, where, and why aspects. The 1990 Vanity Fair did not allude to any source for the claim Trump had criticized “those plastic breasts,” merely including the line among several others describing the alleged mistreatment Mrs. Trump endured. Had the comments been contemporaneously published by any news outlets, that information likely would have been included in the Vanity Fair piece to bolster the impact and credibility of the sourceless anecdote. The claim has since skittered about like tumbleweeds, eventually attracting the details that Trump referenced Ivana’s “plastic breasts” in an interview, then that he leaked the criticism to the media (for unknown reasons), then that he divorced Ivana over breast implants of which he did not approve. Although the rumor has circulated in various forms since 1990, we have been unable to locate any published interview in which Trump made any such comments, nor any tabloid material from around 1990 featuring criticism (by anyone) of Ivana Trump’s implants.


Ed Garvey Says he has exposed plans by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to push legislation that would allow the state to declare financial martial law and take over municipal governments.

Explanation: Democrat and activist Ed Garvey says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker plans to push for legislation allowing the state to take over municipal governments

City Government, Labor, State Budget, Wisconsin, Ed Garvey,

Wisconsin isn’t the only state stirring national political headlines. In Michigan, a new law allows the governor to take over local governments deemed to be in financial trouble. Benton Harbor is one of several Michigan municipalities that failed a financial "stress test" and is now under the control of a state-appointed manager who, among other things, has the power to scrap contracts with public employee unions. Local elected officials are no longer in control. Protests are mounting over what critics have called a "dictatorship" and at least once lawsuit claims the measure gives the state "czar-like" powers. Could financial "martial law" declarations be coming to Wisconsin? According to long-time Democratic activist Ed Garvey, such steps are next on the agenda of Republican Gov. Scott Walker. He first raised the issue April 14, 2011 on his  Fightingbob.com blog, then repeated it in subsequent postings, on Wisconsin Public Radio and in an interview with PolitiFact Wisconsin. Rick Ungar, a blogger on Forbes.com, picked up Garvey’s assertions April 16 with a posting entitled "Gov. Scott Walker Reportedly Planning Financial Martial Law in Wisconsin." Two days later, during an April 18 radio interview, Walker vehemently denied being involved with any such plan. So has Garvey exposed Team Walker’s next controversial political push? Now, we can’t rule on prospective claims -- what will happen in the future. But we can look at what Garvey says he has already done -- expose plans that are under way -- and whether his evidence supports his own claim. Let’s go to Garvey’s original blog post. "We have discovered that Wisconsin's governor has the same twisted idea for Wisconsin as Michigan's governor does of his state," Garvey wrote April 14, 2011 on his blog. "The state would be allowed to take over local governments if financial management standards are not met. Who decides? The governor or a newly elected uber comptroller. (I am not making this up.)" He adds: "The secret plan is being prepared by the state's largest law firm, Foley & Lardner, for the Greater Milwaukee Committee, the Bradley Foundation, the governor, and key legislators." A closer look at the evidence shows it’s not as Machiavellian as Garvey claims. Garvey discovered a recently launched website, Makeityourmilwaukeecounty.com That spells out a legislative initiative. However, it’s hardly a secret. The site is the online version of a project launched by a Greater Milwaukee Committee task force. It’s an outgrowth of a years-long effort by the private business group to study and recommend reforms to Milwaukee County government. The task force’s recommendations drew attention in an Oct. 9, 2010 column by the Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice, who wrote the recommendations were back-burnered so as not to come out before the November election for governor. In November, PolitiFact Wisconsin looked at a claim by the state Democratic Party that GMC chairman and Walker campaign chairman Michael Grebe killed release of the report before the election. We said the claim was Barely True. In February, the GMC task force made its recommendations public and the website launched about the same time. The report calls for several initiatives, including: "Develop a statewide fiscal stress test through the State Department of Revenue to help local governments maintain fiscal health." So, the site does talk about a "stress test," but that’s not the same as the "martial law" style approach in Michigan. In fact, the website explicitly says the group is opposed to that approach: "The Initiative does not support this type of legislation in Wisconsin." What’s more, according to GMC president Julia Taylor, about half the states have a "fiscal scorecard." The thinking, she said, is that the more the public knows about how their local government is faring, the sooner problems can be headed off. Taylor said she wasn’t sure when a bill including the GMC’s plan would be introduced or by whom. "It’s very, very early in the process," she said. "At this point we don’t have draft language." To be sure, some heavy-hitters are working with the GMC to build support for the recommendations and hammer them into legislation -- including lobbyists with Foley & Lardner, former state legislator Mary Panzer and public relations firm Mueller Communications. And the GMC is chaired by Grebe, who was Walker’s campaign chairman and led the governor’s transition team. Grebe also heads the conservative Bradley Foundation. So, it may be easy to see why Garvey tries to connect some of the dots. What about the essence of Garvey’s claim, that he discovered Walker’s involvement with the plan being discussed -- and, therefore, his support of it? As Milwaukee County executive, Walker expressed support for the GMC efforts. But in the wake of Garvey’s first blog post, he issued a sharp denial about involvement now. "No truth to it whatsoever. Absolutely a bogus story," Walker said April 18, 2011 in an interview with WTMJ-AM (620)  talk show host Charlie Sykes. "There's nobody on my staff, nobody in my administration, I'm certainly not working anything remotely close to that." Nevertheless, Garvey said in an interview that he still believes that Walker is involved. "I think that’s true," he said. "It all sort of fits in with a pattern." But thinking something is true and showing it to be true are two different things. Garvey says he discovered a secret plot by Walker to push Michigan-style legislation that would allow the state to test the finances of local governments and then take over the bad apples. The Greater Milwaukee Committee is proposing a "good-government" style website that would allow citizens to compare and contrast the health of local government finances. But it explicitly stops short of a Michigan-style approach. What’s more, Garvey did not uncover it (it was previously announced by the group) and he’s provided no direct evidence of involvement from Walker, who vehemently denies it. The measure could change through the legislative process, but that’s the future. Garvey had a "scoop." But it was more of the gardening -- and not journalistic -- variety.


Ebola, Public Health, PunditFact, Glenn Beck,

The prospect of wholesale economic and social collapse exerts a peculiar magnetism on some people. The fight against the Ebola virus is custom-made for such speculations and conservative radio host Glenn Beck raised them in full during the Oct. 15 broadcast of his radio show. Beck envisioned fearful Americans avoiding trips to the mall, leading to a downward spiral in consumer spending. Although to date, the virus has only been known to be transmitted by contact with the bodily fluids of one infected person, Beck said that would change. "Think of this America, please think of this," Beck said. "Every time somebody new gets the Ebola virus, it mutates. It's going to go aerosol." To go "aerosol" would mean water droplets from a sneeze or a cough could transmit the disease. There is no recorded case of this occurring with Ebola; one study positively asserts that the virus does not spread this way. Still, Beck argued that the 8,000 victims of Ebola in West Africa represent 8,000 "different combinations" of Ebola. Around PunditFact, we say there’s no way to check a prediction, but what we can do is dig deeper into Beck’s claim that the Ebola virus mutates with each new person it infects. We contacted Beck’s producers and they added some nuance that Beck left out. "Many of those mutations mean nothing, but some of them might be able to change the way the virus behaves inside the human body," the producers said in an email. According to two top infectious disease researchers, Beck is correct that the virus mutates, but left out what his producers later noted -- namely that not every mutation does anything to make Ebola more deadly or more difficult to treat. The explanation why can get technical, but you can break down what happens as a series of steps that reduce the impact of these genetic changes. By the way, both researchers also said that the virus doesn’t need a new victim to mutate. It mutates inside its host, even if it is never passed on. Most mutations hurt the virus You need to understand a basic fact about Ebola. As of now, there is no "cure," as in there are no drugs that kill Ebola. Doctors treat the symptoms of Ebola while the body fights the virus. In that respect, it’s like the flu. Adam Lauring is an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Michigan Medical School. Lauring explained that because Ebola is an RNA virus, each time it replicates in a person’s body, there’s a good chance that small changes will take place. But Lauring emphasized that most changes do not strengthen the virus or make it more resistant to human defenses. In fact, the typical mutation has the opposite effect. "The available data consistently show that most newly generated mutations in RNA viruses reduce fitness," Lauring said. "That is, most mutations are made and then lost from the population. They do not take hold." Put simply, the virus might mutate but it doesn’t really matter. Lauring said we should keep in mind that the Ebola virus largely works through the proteins it produces. The virus’ genes make the proteins and then the proteins help the virus infect more parts of the body. Lauring’s point is that with most mutations, the genes produce a protein that doesn’t do what the virus needs and that copy of the virus dies. Most mutations don’t change anything With the virus replicating itself billions of times in a single victim, some genetic drift will take hold. But in this group, there are two basic types: synonymous and non-synonymous. The difference is in how they affect proteins. "Synonymous mutations don’t change the protein sequence," Lauring said. Remember, the proteins determine how the virus works. If the proteins remain the same, so does the virus, for all practical purposes. (This is cellular biology so things are more complicated.) Since non-synonymous mutations change proteins, we’d want to know how often they happen in Ebola. Fortunately, a large team of researchers published a paper that goes directly to that point. Stephen Gire, a researcher at the Sabeti Lab at Harvard University, was one of the authors. Gire and his colleagues recently took samples from 78 patients in Sierra Leone over a three-week period. When they drilled down into the virus’ genome, they found 40 mutations that had taken place in "protein coding regions." About a third were non-synonymous. Put another way, 14 were able to change the proteins in the virus. The other 26 left the virus functionally as it had been before. Of that group of 14, eight occurred in regions that Gire called functionally interesting. But Gire emphasized, "that doesn’t necessarily mean that these mutations changed or helped the virus." Without more research, Gire said it’s impossible to know if these mutations actually made the virus more successful as an organism, and more able to move from one person to the next. Mutations might not be passed on Gire and his colleagues found that even those mutations that propagated in a victim’s bloodstream might go nowhere. "We have many instances where we see a mutation pop up, but then there are no transmissions from that patient and so that mutation potentially dies off," Gire said. This gets back to the central topic in Beck’s statement. It isn’t a question of whether the virus mutates, but whether it adapts to new environments and spreads out in a new form. "Mutation is not evolution," said Lauring. A solemn reminder This isn’t to say Ebola is not a serious threat. Gire and his co-authors wrote that "continued progression of this epidemic could afford an opportunity for viral adaptation, underscoring the need for rapid containment." At the very end of the article, there is this dedication: "Tragically, five co-authors, who contributed greatly to public health and research efforts in Sierra Leone, contracted EVD (Ebola) and lost their battle with the disease before this manuscript could be published: Mohamed Fullah, Mbalu Fonnie, Alex Moigboi, Alice Kovoma, and S. Humarr Khan. We wish to honor their memory." Our ruling Beck warned that every time someone new gets the Ebola virus, it mutates. First, mutation and replication go hand in hand and infecting a new person doesn’t change that. But the much larger point is that Beck is painting mutations with a broad brush. Most of them hurt the virus and are automatic dead-ends. Of those that don’t actually hurt it, about two-thirds don’t change how Ebola functions. Of those that change how the virus functions, there’s no data to say whether the functional changes matter. However, the most recent study in West Africa found that many new varieties are not passed on to new victims. Beck’s statement about Ebola mutations is partially accurate but leaves out important details.


Health Care, Medicaid, Poverty, Florida, Charlie Crist,

The White House has new ammunition for those fighting for Medicaid expansion: It would create jobs. The study by the White House Council of Economic Advisers — titled "Missed Opportunities" — provides a state-by-state analysis of how many jobs would be created by expanding Medicaid. The number for Florida: 63,800 jobs between 2014 and 2017. The study is part of the Obama administration’s promotion of the Affordable Care Act, which includes the federal government picking up the initial tab for Medicaid expansion. Democrats including former Gov. Charlie Crist are using the study to attack Scott for Florida’s decision not to expand Medicaid. Crist is expected to win his primary and face Scott in November. "Expanding Medicaid would create 63k jobs -- but Rick Scott still won’t do it," Crist said on Twitter July 2. Florida’s Republican-led Legislature opposes expanding Medicaid. Scott once opposed it, too, but switched positions in 2013 and now supports it. Supporters of the expansion say Scott hasn’t done enough to turn the Legislature around. Here, though, we wanted to focus on jobs. Would expanding Medicaid create 63,000 jobs? White House study Medicaid is a joint state and federal program aimed at providing health insurance to the very poor. The 2010 Affordable Care Act encourages states to expand eligibility and agreed to pay 100 percent of the expansion for the first three years, declining to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond. The expansion would have covered an additional 848,000 Floridians. Studies predicting job growth are based on the idea that as states expand Medicaid, new patients will access medical services they haven’t in the past. Extra revenue will allow health care facilities to hire new workers. The new study relies on previous studies, including one about the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, in which some residents got Medicaid through a lottery. Research showed people in Medicaid got preventative tests such as mammograms, cholesterol screening and pap smears compared to the control group. The White House predicts that Medicaid expansion would allow tens of thousands of Floridians to get those preventative tests. If Florida expanded Medicaid, it would get $15 billion from the federal government between 2014 and 2016. That would lead to 63,800 cumulative "job years" between 2014-17. It defines a "job year" as one person employed for one year. The study focuses on short-term job growth -- not what would happen to jobs over the long-term. The report briefly touches on the possibility that access to Medicaid could cause some people to work less or not at all -- while healthier, less financially stressed people might work more. It cites one study that found Medicaid enrollment had a statistically insignificant impact on labor supply, while other research found reductions in labor supply. Other studies on expanding Medicaid in Florida have arrived at different numbers. The Florida Hospital Association’s most recent analysis in 2013 predicts 120,000 jobs each year over about a decade -- the association supports expansion. Moody’s, a financial analysis firm that doesn’t have a position on the health care law, last year predicted Medicaid expansion would create 10,000 to 30,000 jobs in Florida. Kaiser Family Foundation summarized 32 studies Medicaid expansion in various states including Florida and predicted that it will have a positive effect on jobs over the next decade. Experts offer caveats or criticisms of report Many experts we interviewed generally agreed that the federal government pumping more money into the state to expand Medicaid would lead to new jobs, though they cautioned it’s difficult to pinpoint a number. "It is next to impossible to know exactly how many jobs (or which jobs) are created by a policy like this, given the many other changes in the landscape," said Harvard professor of health economics Katherine Baicker. While the federal government picks up the initial expansion costs, in later years the states will have to contribute. That will "wreak havoc" on long-term state budgets because state spending on Medicaid is forecasted to outpace state tax revenues, said Dan White, who authored the Moody’s report. Ultimately it’s a judgment call by elected officials if the cost of expansion 10 years down the line is worth the number of jobs it will provide, he said. Michael Tanner, a health care expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, says the report ignores one side of the equation. "What about tax money Floridians have to pay into the system because we are spending more money on Medicaid? What about jobs lost because of that?" We asked Scott’s campaign for his opinion about the jobs’ report and got back a statement that didn’t address our question. Our ruling Crist said, "Expanding Medicaid would create 63k jobs." A study released by the White House said federal dollars that Florida would have gotten to expand Medicaid would create 63,800 jobs between 2014 and 2017. Most of the health care experts we interviewed agreed that injecting billions of federal dollars into Florida for Medicaid would spark some job growth, but it’s difficult to pinpoint a number, particularly as there are other changes in the health care landscape. Other studies have found numbers as high as 120,000 and as low as 10,000.


Cancer risk seen with J&J foot gel: FDA.

Explanation: A Johnson & Johnson foot gel used by  diabetics may increase the risk of cancer and death, U.S.  health officials said on Thursday in announcing an  investigation into the issue.

The Food and Drug Administration said a study of the gel,  called Regranex, found an increase in the number of cancer  deaths among patients who had been prescribed the gel three or  more times. Regranex, approved for U.S. patients in 1997, is a  prescription gel used to treat diabetic leg and foot wounds. “At this time, FDA believes that there may be some evidence  for an increased risk of death from cancer in patients who had  repeated treatments with Regranex,” the FDA said in a  statement. “Because there are known risks associated with  diabetic foot and leg ulcers that do not heal, the potential  risk of using Regranex should be weighed against the benefit  for each individual patient.”    Barbara Montresor, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson’s  Ethicon Inc unit that makes the gel, said the company was  working with the agency and that Regranex is safe when used as  directed. Patients with diabetes — a disease in which blood levels  of sugar are too high — are more susceptible to developing leg  and foot wounds because they are less able to feel their feet. Concern arose following a study of adult diabetes patients  through an insurance plan database that found an increase in  cancer deaths from January 1998 through June 2003. No single  type of cancer was identified, the FDA said. The agency did not say who conducted the study or how many  patients were included, and an FDA spokeswoman declined to  comment. In an earlier study completed in 2001, more cancers were  found in Regranex patients than in those who did not use the  gel, the agency added. Ethicon’s Montresor did not immediately respond to a  request seeking more details on the studies. Shares of Johnson & Johnson closed down 8 cents at $64.62  on the New York Stock Exchange.


The New England Journal of Medicine released a survey the week that President Obama signed Obamacare stating that over 30 percent of American physicians would leave the profession if the government took over health care.

Explanation: Bachmann claims New England Journal of Medicine survey found 30 percent of doctors would quit if health reform bill passed

National, Health Care, Michele Bachmann,

On CBS's Face the Nation on March 28, 2010, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said she will now work to repeal the health care reform bill recently signed by President Barack Obama. "That's what I believe the American people want us to do," Bachmann said. "Again the New England Journal of Medicine released a survey the week that President Obama signed Obamacare stating that over 30 percent of American physicians would leave the profession if the government took over health care. That's very serious going forward." First things first, the survey Bachmann is referring to was not a survey by the NEJM, nor was it published in the highly respected, peer-reviewed medical journal. It was a survey conducted by the Medicus Firm, a physicians recruiting service, and initially reported in January 2010. The firm wrote an article about the survey results, which was first published on the firm's Web site. The article was later reprinted in Recruiting Physicians Today, an advertising newsletter put out on the NEJM's Career Center Web site. The Medicus Firm neither paid to have the article published, nor was it paid for the article. It was never published in the actual New England Journal of Medicine. But it's easy to see how someone might have been confused. Although the small print explains that the survey was done by the Medicus Firm, the article prominently states at the top, "From the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine" and carries the NEJM seal. In mid March, people at the NEJM began to see Twitter messages citing the survey, and calling it an NEJM survey. Jennifer Zeis, a spokeswoman for the New England Journal of Medicine, said NEJM sent out several Tweets explaining that it was not an NEJM survey. And on March 17, 2010, they put up a disclaimer on the NEJM Career Center Web site: "Recruiting Physicians Today is a free advertiser newsletter published by the Worldwide Advertising Sales and Marketing Department in the publishing division of the Massachusetts Medical Society. Each issue of the newsletter features research and content produced by physician recruiting firms and other independent groups involved in physician employment. "On December 17, 2009 The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, published the results of a survey they conducted with 1,000 physicians regarding their attitudes toward health reform. "The opinions expressed in the article linked to above represent those of The Medicus Firm only. That article does not represent the opinions of the New England Journal of Medicine or the Massachusetts Medical Society." Said Zeis: "It seems that along the way, people thought this was NEJM content and it wasn't. It had nothing to do with the NEJM editorial side at all." Dave Dziok, a spokesman for Bachmann, said any confusion is the fault of the New England Journal of Medicine, not Bachmann. "I know they’re doing what they can to distance themselves from the survey done by Medicus, but the fact of the matter is the New England Journal of Medicine has leant both its name and crest to the newsletter in which it was published," Dziok said. "Nowhere in their newsletter do they make the disclaimer that what’s contained within it has nothing to do with the New England Journal of Medicine," he said. "In fact, quite the contrary seeing as how their name is all over it. The NEJM may not have conducted the research itself as they’re stating now after the fact, but it’s certainly misleading on their end to have their name all over a publication like the one that was released with the results and then distance themselves from everything contained within it afterwards. They can’t have it both ways." We note that the NEJM disclaimer went up on the Web site 10 days before Bachmann made her statement on Face the Nation. And the same day the disclaimer was posted, the left-leaning Media Matters Web site explained the error, after it was reported on Fox News. Okay, so the survey was not conducted by or published in the New England Journal of Medicine. But Medicus spokeswoman Andrea Santiago said that while it was not a scientific survey, the results should not be dismissed either. The firm randomly e-mailed surveys to 2,250 physicians from their database of tens of thousands, and stopped sending them out when they had reached 1,195 responses. And contrary to the allegations of some critics, it is not a database entirely made up of doctors looking for work, Santiago said. It's a continuously updated database that originated eight years ago, she said, and includes lists of physicians purchased by the firm. The relevant question here was, "How do you think the passage of health reform WITHOUT a public option would affect your professional/practice plans, if at all?" A majority of physicians, 70 percent, responded, "no change"; while 22 percent said they "would try to retire early"; 8 percent said they "would try to leave medical practice even if not near retirement age"; and 1 percent said they would go back into practicing medicine. "We feel like it was in line with what we were hearing from physicians on the phone," Santiago said. Many doctors already feel like they are being pushed out of business by declining reimbursement rates and rising malpractice insurance premiums, she said, and "the health care reform bill exacerbates the issue." And it comes at a crucial time, she said, when the legislation will create a demand for many more doctors. However, she said, the results of the survey have been "over-sensationalized" by some as a warning that 30 percent of doctors will be leaving the profession immediately. "Obviously that's not going to happen," she said, noting that the survey didn't ask point-blank if physicians were going to leave, but rather if they would "try" to leave. "But I do think it's going to impact the workforce in a significant way. We thought the results were thought-provoking." We haven't found a reliable, independent poll of physicians asking how many would leave the profession if the health care bill passed that we could compare to the Medicus survey. The findings are consistent with a survey conducted by Investor's Business Daily back in September 2009, but we looked at that survey in October after it was cited by Glenn Beck, and concluded the results were suspect due to a number of possible influences on results. We note that the New England Journal of Medicine's Health Reform Center did publish the results of a physician survey conducted by Salomeh Keyhani and Alex Federman, internists and researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. They did not ask doctors if they would consider quitting as the Medicus poll did, but it did find that 63 percent of doctors surveyed favored giving patients a choice between public and private insurance, which is in sharp contrast to the findings of the Medicus survey. In our previous story, we noted several factors with that survey that gave us pause about that study, such as the fact that the poll received financial support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which favors health care reform, that the authors belong to a physicians organization that supports a public option, and that they donated to the Obama campaign. Still, according to an NEJM spokeswoman, the survey underwent a rigorous editorial review process that included review by staff and associate editors. In other words, it got the NEJM stamp of approval, whereas the Medicus survey did not. In conclusion, surveys performed by or published in the New England Journal of Medicine carry the weight of the journal's reputation and rigorous editorial review. Citing them as the source of a survey, as Bachmann did, lends credibility. But it was not an NEJM survey. Nor was it published in the NEJM. It was published in a free advertising newsletter geared toward the physician recruitment industry. It was conducted by a physician recruiting service that has a horse in this race. And it was not a scientific survey. We can understand how Bachmann and others may have been confused about the source of the survey. The labeling of the article as "From the publishers of the New England Journal of Medicine" is easy to misconstrue. An NEJM spokesman said they are reviewing their policies to make sure this kind of confusion doesn't happen again. But on top of getting the source wrong, we think Bachmann sensationalizes the Medicus results, saying that "30 percent of American physicians would leave the profession" if the health care bill passed. The survey language was that they would "try to leave" or "try to retire early" if it passed. There's a difference.


Nestle recalls batch of Alfamino infant formula in Germany.

Explanation: Nestle has recalled a batch of its Alfamino amino acid specialist infant formula in Germany, saying a number of the products have a substantially increased dose of minerals that could make children sick.

“A baby that consumes a product from amongst these few (faulty) tins, can become sick with symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and headaches,” Nestle Germany said on its website late on Wednesday. “We urge you to immediately seek out a doctor in such cases.”  The faulty products were amongst Alfamino 400-gram tins produced under the batch number 80250346GA. Nestle warned parents not to give the formula produced under this batch to their children, adding faulty products could be recognized by their grey or green color after preparation.


US OKs Medicaid funds for large mental health facilities.

Explanation: A federal agency approved Indiana’s request to use Medicaid funding to provide expanded services to residents diagnosed with serious mental illnesses.

Mental health, Health, General News, Social services, Medicare, Indiana, Medicaid

U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services authorized the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration to use those funds to pay for short term care for patients admitted at large institutions for mental disease, rather than continuing to limit treatment to facilities with fewer than 16 beds. The state sought to extend the expanded substance abuse and serious mental illness components of the Healthy Indiana Plan through 2025. The Medicaid waiver took effect Wednesday, The Times of Northwest Indiana  reported. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services previously had authorized Medicaid funds to be used in the state for inpatient treatment at institutions for mental disease when a person is diagnosed with substance use disorder. The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration says that because about one in four people with mental illness also has a substance abuse problem, the new waiver will ensure consistency in their treatment. “This waiver allows Indiana to, for the first time, offer the full continuum of treatment for Hoosiers with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders,” said FSSA Secretary Dr. Jennifer Sullivan. State records show only about half of Indiana Medicaid members receiving inpatient psychiatric services between July 1, 2018, and June 30, 2019, obtained them at an institution for mental diseases. The waiver is expected to allow for longer inpatient stays, improved stabilization and more successful transitions back into homes and communities, while also driving down costs associated with overuse of hospital emergency rooms for mental health problems and psychiatric crises. “My 2020 ‘Next Level’ Agenda is focused on improving the lives of Hoosiers, and a key part centers around increasing the capacity of mental health services throughout the state,” said Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. “With this waiver in hand, we will begin to accomplish this on day one of the new year,” Holcomb said.


“The NFL agreed to give the domestic terror group, BLM, 250 million dollars.”

Explanation: Johnson & Johnson’s greed led the drugmaker to use deceptive marketing to create an oversupply of painkillers that fueled the U.S. opioid epidemic, the state of Oklahoma alleged at the start of the first trial to result from lawsuits over the drug crisis.

Race and Ethnicity, Sports, Facebook Fact-checks, Facebook posts,

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter, who filed the multibillion-dollar case, argued in a state court in the city of Norman that J&J should be forced to pay for helping cause the “worst manmade public health crisis in our state’s history.”  His case is the first to reach trial from around 2,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments seeking to hold pharmaceutical companies responsible for a drug epidemic the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says led to a record 47,600 opioid-related overdose deaths in 2017. The non-jury trial came after Oklahoma resolved claims against OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP in March for $270 million and against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd on Sunday for $85 million, leaving only J&J as a defendant. Brad Beckworth, a lawyer for the state, told Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman that New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J, along with Purdue and Teva, used misleading marketing beginning in the 1990s to push doctors to prescribe more opioids. Beckworth said J&J, which sold the painkillers Duragesic and Nucynta, marketed the opioids as “safe and effective for everyday pain” while downplaying their addictive qualities, helping create a drug oversupply. He said J&J was motivated to boost prescriptions not only because it sold opioid painkillers, but because it also grew and imported raw materials opioid manufacturers like Purdue used. “If you have an oversupply, people will die,” Beckworth said. J&J lawyer Larry Ottway countered that its products made up a small share of opioids prescribed in Oklahoma and carried U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved labels that warned of the  addictive risks. “You have to examine the details because facts are stubborn things,” he said. He also argued Oklahoma was seeking to “stretch” the bounds of a public nuisance statute in order to force it to pay up to $17.5 billion to help the state address the epidemic for the next 30 years. The case is being closely watched by plaintiffs in other opioid lawsuits, particularly the 1,850 cases consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio, who has been pushing for a settlement ahead of an October trial. Some plaintiffs’ lawyers have compared the cases to litigation by states against the tobacco industry that led to a $246 billion settlement in 1998. (The story fixes spelling of J&J lawyer in paragraph nine.)


China heads into Lunar New Year on shutdown as virus spreads to Europe.

Explanation: A new coronavirus that has killed 26 people in China was confirmed in Europe for the first time on Friday as it spreads despite Chinese attempts to quarantine the city at the heart of the outbreak.

China closed Shanghai Disneyland and part of the Great Wall and suspended public transportation in 10 cities as it rushed to contain the virus, stranding millions of people at the start of the country’s Lunar New Year holiday. France reported two cases on Friday evening, the first ones discovered in Europe. More were likely, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said. Wuhan, a city of 11 million where the virus was first identified, is in virtual lockdown. Nearly all flights at Wuhan’s airport have been canceled and checkpoints block the main roads leading out of town. As the city slides into isolation, pharmacies have begun to run out of supplies and hospitals have been flooded with nervous residents. The city is rushing to build a 1,000-bed hospital by Monday, state media said. Despite the lockdown, the virus is already spreading further afield. The vast majority of the cases and all of the deaths have been in China, but it has also been detected in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Nepal and the United States. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the new virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Friday it had 63 patients under investigation, with two confirmed cases, both in people who had traveled to Wuhan. Following a congressional briefing by health officials, Republican U.S. Senator John Barrasso, a former physician, said people in the United States with the virus may have been infected up to 14 days ago in China. “We want to try to stop and prevent people from coming to the United States if they have it,” Barrasso told reporters, without providing details of how that might be accomplished. Airports around the world have stepped up screening of passengers from China. The newly identified coronavirus has created alarm because there are still many unknowns surrounding it such as how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads between people. It can cause pneumonia, which has been deadly in some cases. Symptoms include fever, difficulty breathing and coughing. Most of the fatalities have been in elderly patients, many with pre-existing medical conditions, the World Health Organization said. As of Thursday, China’s National Health Commission said there were 830 confirmed cases and 26 deaths. Most cases have been in Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a market that traded illegally in wildlife. As China scrambles to contain the outbreak, it has suspended transportation in 10 cities in the central province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located, the Hubei Daily reported. The country will take further, more targeted measures, state television reported, citing a State Council meeting on Friday. It did not give further details. “Local authorities should take more responsibility and have a stronger sense of urgency,” state broadcaster CCTV said. Week-long celebrations to welcome the Year of the Rat began on Friday, raising fears that the infection rate could accelerate as hundreds of millions of people travel to see family at home and abroad. In Wuhan, a handful of people got off a high-speed train that pulled into the city’s station on Friday but nobody boarded. “What choice do I have? It’s Chinese New Year. We have to see our family,” said a man getting off the train who gave his family name Hu. As part of the restrictions, some sections of the Great Wall near Beijing will be closed from Saturday, state media said. Beijing’s Lama Temple, where people traditionally make offerings for the new year, has closed, as have some other temples and the Forbidden City, the capital’s most famous tourist attraction. Shanghai Disneyland will close starting on Saturday. The theme park has a 100,000 daily capacity and sold out during last year’s new year holiday. Film premieres have been postponed and McDonald’s suspended business in five cities in Hubei province. “There’s so much news, so much data, every 10 minutes there’s an update, it’s frightening, especially for people like us in a severely hit area,” Lily Jin, 30, a resident of Wuhan, told Reuters by phone. The WHO said on Thursday it was a “bit too early” to designate the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, which would require countries to step up their response. That decision could well be reassessed in coming days as the situation evolves, said Anthony Fauci, the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s top infectious disease official, adding that it was “open to question” whether shutting down travel would have a major effect. “The mass involuntary quarantine in Wuhan and its neighboring cities is counterproductive,” added Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University Law School in Washington. “A lockdown of Wuhan will drive the epidemic underground, provoking fear and panic.”   Some experts believe the virus is not as dangerous as the one that caused the 2002-03 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which also began in China and killed nearly 800 people, or the one that caused Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), which has killed more than 700 people since 2012. Three international research teams - using different approaches - have begun work on vaccines, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said. Markets have been roiled this week on fears that the outbreak will curb travel and hurt economic demand. Shares in luxury goods companies have been particularly hard hit on fears of a drop in demand from China.


The story of a jazz             musician named Tommy who went through a personal tragedy that led to             his writing the song “Precious Lord Take My Hand.”             He was Tommy Dorsey, the great trombonist and band leader.

Explanation: The classic gospel song "Precious Lord" was written by band leader Tommy Dorsey

There have been many printed             references to this story and connected it to the great American band             leader, Tommy Dorsey. But the classic gospel song “Precious Lord Take My Hand”             was actually written by a different man with the same name. The trombonist and band leader named Tommy Dorsey was born in 1905             and died in 1956. Tommy Dorsey the composer of “Precious Lord Take My Hand”             was a jazz pianist and composer was born in 1899 and died in 1993. He is regarded by many as the father of gospel music. After a successful career as a blues musician, he switched to gospel             music. For more than 40 years, he was the choir director Chicago’s Pilgrim             Baptist Church. The actual story of the tragic death of his wife is a bit different             from the eRumor. In an account in his own words written for Guideposts Magazine,             Dorsey said he was actually scheduled to be in St. Louis to sing for             a revival. He had anxiety about going because his wife was in her 9th month of             pregnancy             When he left his home to head for St. Louis, he realized that he had             forgotten his music case, so he returned to get it and found his             wife sleeping. He stood next to her and felt that something was telling him to stay             home. He decided to leave and headed back to his car for the drive to the             meetings. The next night at the revival and after he had finished singing, a             telegram was handed to him that said his wife had just died. He returned home to learn that his wife had given birth to a baby             boy before she died. Before the night was over, the baby had died as well. Dorsey went through a difficult period after that. He said he wanted to give up serving the Lord and go back to jazz. One of the thoughts that haunted him was whether his reluctance to             leave his pregnant wife had been a leading from God and whether he             had been disobedient by ignoring it. He vowed that he would never be insensitive to such a leading again. It was during a subsequent visit to a friend that he sat down at a             piano and found himself at peace and a melody being played. That became the song “Precious Lord Take My Hand.”             Dorsey wrote, “As the Lord gave me             these words and melody, He also healed my spirit. I learned that             when we are in our deepest grief, when we feel farthest from God,             this is when He is closest, and when we are most open to His             restoring power. And so I go on living for God willingly and             joyfully, until that day comes when He will take me and gently lead             me home.”    Comments


A letter by Dr. Keith Albow said President Trump is “stone cold sane” and that “there’s a genius in the Oval Office” in response to critics who have questioned the president’s mental fitness.

Explanation: Psychiatrist Dr. Keith Albow on President Trump's Sanity-Authorship Confirmed!

Dr. Keith Albow wrote a column in February 2017 that concluded President Trump is “stone cold sane” and that, based on his business empire, Trump is a genius. Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, and in the opening months of Trump’s presidency, however, Dr. Keith Albow has not made his support for Trump — and his opposition to Hillary Clinton — a secret. It should also be noted that Albow has routinely disclosed that he’s never personally evaluated the president in an in-person examination. The commentary written by Dr. Keith Albow on President appeared at Fox News in February 2017 under the headline, “Relax, Trump is Stone Cold Sane.” After acknowledging that he has never personally examined Trump, Albow wrote: Donald Trump is stone cold sane. When a man acquires billions of dollars through complex real estate transactions, invests in many countries, goes on to phenomenal success in television and turns his name into a worldwide brand, it is very unlikely that he is mentally unstable. When the same man obviously enjoys the love and respect of his children and his wife, who seem to rely on him for support and guidance, it is extraordinarily unlikely that he is mentally unstable. When the same man walks into the political arena and deftly defeats 16 Republican opponents and then the Democratic heir-apparent to a two-term president’s administration, the odds of that man being mentally unstable become vanishingly thin. Dr. Keith Albow also pointed the stock market rally after President Trump’s inauguration as evidence that the president was sane because the market doesn’t like uncertainty and investors “can take the measure of a man pretty darn well.” Albow’s column was widely circulated via forwarded emails and in social media posts. Many times the commentary was described as a letter by Dr. Keith Albow on Trump, but it was actually an op-ed published by Fox News. Dr. Keith Albow also spoke about President Trump’s mental stability during the campaign. Albow said on Fox News, via a transcript and video posted at the left-wing media watchdog Media Matters for America website, that Trump had demonstrated great restraint when the size of his hands became a topic of discussion during a debate: “Well, sure, it’s something that every candidate probably does, probably should do. Psychology’s a very powerful tool to unearth what does get under people’s skin, if you will. But listen, with Donald Trump, kind of what you see is what you get. I have to say, when the small hands issue was raised during the debate, this supposedly got the Clinton campaign very excited. They thought, “Man, he’s off his game.” He wasn’t off his game at all. Freud would have been standing up, like applauding, standing ovation. To be able to address such an intensely personal issue and say, “Listen, there’s no problem in that department,” to me that showed an incredible degree of psychological strength. With Donald Trump, he may err, he may make errors in saying what he thinks, telling us the truth, saying things that are gritty, perhaps attacking with some unkind words, which he could scale back, but you know what, his demons are on his sleeve. There’s not a lot of psychoanalysis that hasn’t been presented already.” In addition to supporting Trump, Dr. Keith Albow also openly opposed Hillary Clinton’s candidacy during the 2016 election. In September 2016, Albow penned another column that appeared at Fox News under the headline, “Dr. Keith Ablow: Hillary Clinton — Inside the mind of a shameless liar.” In the column, Albow concludes: Hillary Clinton is the one whose psychological make up would seem to leave her vulnerable. Her penchant for lying is a problem, but the really big problem is that she seems unable to determine when her lies are registering with audiences as clearly untrue. At the core, people who lie transparently do so because they lack empathy—the ability to intuit and vicariously experience what others are thinking and feeling. Locked behind walls of narcissism or arrogance or imperiousness, consumed with the pursuit of power, they can’t tell convincing lies because they can’t truly resonate with how their words and mannerisms are being received. It’s important to note that in publicly rendering his opinion on both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton without an in-person examination, Albow defied the American Psychology Association’s so-called “Goldwater Rule,” which prohibits mental health professionals from rendering opinions on subjects without first examining them. Just as in the case of rumors that President Trump is suffering from dementia (a claim we found to unproven), any claims made by mental health professionals about politicians without first examining them should be considered their personal, not medical, opinion. Comments