During the 2005 fight over Social Security, "there were noisy demonstrations — but they were outside the events," and opponents were "not disruptive — crowds booed lines they didn’t like, but that was about it.

Explanation: Paul Krugman claims protests in 2005 weren't as raucous as health care protests

National, Health Care, Pundits, Paul Krugman,

As congressional town halls across the country increasingly draw loud protests from critics of Democratic health care legislation, a debate is brewing about whether the protests are more raucous than those four years ago against President George W. Bush’s effort to create private accounts for Social Security. In an Aug. 5 blog posting, liberal  New York Times  columnist Paul Krugman wrote:   "Indeed, activists made trouble in 2005 by asking congressmen tough questions about policy. Activists are making trouble now by shouting congressmen down so they can’t be heard. It’s exactly the same thing, right?" He continued, "Seriously, I’ve been searching through news reports on the Social Security town halls, and I can’t find any examples of the kind of behavior we’re seeing now. Yes, there were noisy demonstrations — but they were outside the events. That was even true during the first month or two, when Republicans actually tried having open town halls. Congressmen were very upset by the reception they received, but not, at least according to any of the reports I can find, because opponents were disruptive — crowds booed lines they didn’t like, but that was about it. "After that, the events were open only to demonstrated loyalists; you may recall the people arrested at a Bush Social Security event in Denver for the crime of … not being Bush supporters. "So please, no  equivalences. The campaign against Social Security privatization was energetic and no doubt rude, but did not involve intimidation and disruption." We decided to join Krugman in looking back to the news clippings. We conclude that while some of the recent conservative protests — such as ones at town halls in Tampa, Little Rock, Ark., Houston, Philadelphia, and Green Bay, Wis.— may have been angrier and more widespread than the ones in 2005, it would be incorrect to suggest, as Krugman does, that the noisy demonstrations against Bush's policies were only taking place outside the events or that disruptions were limited to the occasional boo. We used the Lexis-Nexis news database to find newspaper and wire service stories in calendar year 2005 that included the words "town hall," "Social Security," and a variant of either "protest," "heckler" or "shout." The search returned just under 250 articles. Not all were relevant, and a majority of ones that were relevant addressed town halls hosted by President Bush rather than Members of Congress. Generally speaking, the Bush events were, as Krugman correctly notes, held in front of largely handpicked crowds, which meant that little disruption went on inside the hall. Most of them, as he also notes, inspired protests outside, some of them loud and unruly, and all of them kept at a distance by the Secret Service. (At one event in Westfield, N.J., for instance, a protest that included "hundreds" of people led to the arrest of nine people on disorderly conduct charges.) But for this comparison, we need to look at town halls sponsored by members of Congress. News coverage was more spotty, but here is a sampling of examples we found in which journalists reported conflict inside an event:   — "At two stops, morning at Drexel University, afternoon at Widener University, [Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.] encountered skepticism and hostility as he voiced his support for the White House plan to allow creation of personal accounts using payroll taxes. He was heckled by protesters, called a liar, and told that his views were unconscionable. Those sentiments ranged across the age spectrum. …   "Santorum asked the audience what would happen in 2008. The response he wanted was that the oldest baby boomers would turn 62 and be eligible for early retirement. "What he got instead, shouted out by an unfriendly voice, was: ‘George Bush will leave office!’   "Actually, that's scheduled for 2009. But many in the crowd cheered anyway." (Feb. 23, 2005,  Philadelphia Inquirer  )   — "Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., delivered a PowerPoint presentation Thursday night to a packed auditorium in Phoenix. As he laid out the long-term demographic problems for Social Security and expressed his support for private accounts, Shadegg encountered scattered heckling, boos and hisses. (Feb. 26,  Chicago Tribune  )   — A session sponsored by Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Ind., in South Bend, at the downtown branch of the St. Joseph County Public Library "was a raucous affair, with many of the 100 or so people who attended shouting questions and insults, talking over each other and still bubbling with questions when it was all over. "One gentleman was so angry when Chocola indicated the hour-long session was coming to an end and wouldn't be extended that he walked out." (  South Bend Tribune  , Feb. 27, 2005)   — John Busch, a letter-writer to a newspaper in Chico, Calif., said, "I attended Congressman Wally Herger's recent town hall meeting in Chico regarding Social Security. I must have witnessed more rude, disrespectful behavior from an audience somewhere along the line, I just can't remember where. The congressman's efforts to provide and gather information were continually thwarted by hecklers who seemed not to care what the congressman had to say, but whose sole reason for attending the meeting was to be rude and disruptive. They certainly accomplished that." (May 8, 2005,  Enterprise-Record  of Chico, Calif.)   Republican officials at the time said that about 95 House lawmakers took part in 287 Social Security-related events in February, with more held in March, so in all likelihood, there were many, many events that did not result in news coverage we could find. So we can't say whether there were protests or shouting matches. And some stories noted the meetings were civil. For example, a Feb. 26, 2005,  Chicago Tribune  report found that a meeting held by Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., had "no booing or shouting or threatening tirades. A volunteer from AARP took notes and politely reminded Renzi that ‘Social Security is a retirement plan and a family protection plan. It is not an investment plan.’" And a different Chocola event, according to the news account, "was quiet, orderly and polite, with the 60 or so persons on hand taking turns asking questions and listening to Chocola's response." Still, the protests inside and outside town halls, even if they were not universal, clearly rattled Republican leaders. On March 17, 2005,  USA Today  reported:   "Shaken by raucous protests at open ‘town hall’-style meetings last month, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio and other GOP leaders are urging lawmakers to hold lower-profile events this time. … This month, Republican leaders say they are chucking the open town-hall format. They plan to visit newspaper editorial boards and talk to constituents at Rotary Club lunches, senior citizen centers, chambers of commerce meetings and local businesses. In those settings, ‘there isn't an opportunity for it to disintegrate into something that's less desirable,’ says Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference." And leaders of the movement against changing Social Security made no bones about being aggressive. Brad Woodhouse, then a spokesman for Americans United to Protect Social Security, the labor-backed group that was a key player in the fight against Bush’s proposal, told the  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  on March 20, 2005 that "we are going to be getting in the faces of people who are for privatization; they're going to feel the heat. ... It's vociferous, it's rough, it's tough." It’s worth noting that today, Woodhouse is on the other side, so to speak — criticizing the people who are disrupting town halls. He is the communications director for the Democratic National Committee and issued a statement on Aug. 4, 2009, blasting "the Republican Party and Allied Groups’ Mob Rule," saying it was "inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country." He continued, "The right wing extremists’ use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the president's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 — and it is bound to backfire again." It is true that there’s nothing in the clips from 2005 about burning members of Congress in effigy or the use of devils’ horns. But Woodhouse’s group employed 28-foot gorillas, duck suits, plates of hot waffles and sheet cakes as props, according to an Aug. 13, 2005, report in the  Albuquerque Tribune  . So while the protests may be more intense this time (devils' horns instead of duck suits), it's clear that there was plenty of disruption inside town hall meetings in 2005, contrary to Krugman's assertions. We find his claim .


Erdogan says Turkey will overcome coronavirus in two-three weeks; school closures extended.

Explanation: Turkey will overcome the coronavirus outbreak in two to three weeks through good measures, with as little damage as possible, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday, as Ankara extended the closure of all schools until April 30.

Turkey’s death toll from the coronavirus jumped by 15 to 59 on Wednesday, and the number of confirmed cases increased by 561 to 2,433. Around 33,000 tests have been conducted in Turkey in the two weeks since the beginning of the outbreak. In a televised address to the nation, Erdogan said Turkey was prepared for every scenario on the outbreak and urged Turks to show patience, understanding and support. “By breaking the speed of the virus’ spread in two to three weeks, we will get through this period as soon as possible with as little damage as possible,” Erdogan said. “Bright days await us, so long as we adhere by the warnings, remain cautious and careful,” he added. “Every citizen’s life is equally valuable for us. That is why we say ‘Stay Home Turkey’.”  Turkey has taken a series of measures to contain the virus, including limiting the use of public spaces, imposing a partial curfew on the elderly, as well as closing schools, cafes and bars, banning mass prayers, and suspending sports matches and flights. Earlier on Wednesday, Education Minister Ziya Selcuk said the closure of all schools would be extended until April 30, and said home schooling would continue during this period. “We will enrich efforts and make sure to meet all needs,” Selcuk told reporters in Ankara. “We can make up for the lost education, but we can’t make up for a disease. What is key is our students’ health.”  Health Minister Fahrettin Koca, speaking alongside Selcuk, said the move was not a break but rather a preventive measure to protect families. On Monday, Koca said Turkey had imported medicine from China that he said was believed to help with the treatment of coronavirus patients, saying the medication was already being administered to patients in intensive care. “As of today, 136 patients in intensive care have received the medicine,” Koca said Wednesday. He said experts and officials would examine the medicine’s impact in coming days. Koca also said 26 patients had recovered as of Tuesday, the first figures for recovery announced in Turkey, including two senior citizens.


A woman sought medical help to remove a deer tongue she had used for self-pleasuring purposes.

Explanation: The medical literature reveals only seven references to bestiality. None of them deals with the issue of using nonviable animal tissue for autoerotic purposes. This report is presented so that xenoerotic objects may be placed on the list of possible masturbatory tools that may come to the attention of medical personnel.

Risqué Business, bestiality, deer, masturbation

Although we can’t confirm all the details of the following item (it may have become embellished through multiple retellings, or it may derive from a source other than the one we located), we can verify that the basics of the incident related are true: Every month in “The Journal of Human Sexuality,” they publish a “case of the month.” One of my favorites involved a married woman who went to the gynecologist complaining of a malodorous discharge. The doctor performed an exam, but the discharge wasn’t characteristic of any of the usual maladies that sometimes plague women. He wasn’t all that alarmed, though, until the results of the pap smear came back. The report indicated that the cells “weren’t human.” It didn’t venture a guess as to the origin of the cells — it just indicated they weren’t a type of cell that you’d see in a human being. The doctor asked the woman to come back for a repeat exam. He put her in the stirrups, inserted his speculum into the woman’s vagina, and scooped out a large piece of loose, decaying flesh. Remarkably, it looked like a long tongue, but certainly not a human tongue. The woman, upon questioning, finally confessed that her husband was a hunter. He had recently brought home a deer and gutted and dressed it in their garage. She saw the tongue, admired its length, and had snuck off with it to use as a masturbatory aid. She didn’t remember leaving it up there. A 1990 article published in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology described a case in which a 29-year-old woman visited a clinic “complaining of missed periods and seeking termination of a possible pregnancy.” The examining physician found and removed a “cylindrical mass of pale-gray tissue” (7 cm long and 3 cm in diameter) from her vagina. The elicitation of “further historical information” from the patient confirmed “the object was a deer tongue used for masturbation.” The journal article provided no details about how the woman had obtained the deer tongue, how long it had been lodged in her vagina, or whether she had truly forgotten about it until she started missing periods. (It’s quite possible the patient inserted the tongue only a day or two earlier, been unable to retrieve it herself, and then made up a story about being concerned over missed periods and a possible pregnancy as a means of prompting a doctor’s examination because she was too embarrassed to disclose to medical personnel the true nature of her complaint.) The authors of the article did, however, explain their motivations for presenting this case history via a medical journal: The topic of autoeroticism usually enters the medical literature through reviews or case reports detailing death or injury. Our review of the Index Medicus found 42 citations under the heading of autoeroticism: 14 of these detailed various psychological aspects of such practices, and 27 were directly related to deaths arising from autoerotic practices. Only one reference reviewed various nonlethal autoerotic practices. Over a 42-year period, Aliabadi et al. recorded 18 patients, only three of whom were women, who presented with foreign-body insertion for erotic purposes. All three women had inserted foreign bodies into the urinary tract. Acts of autoeroticism involving vaginal masturbation with foreign objects are perhaps more common. None to our knowledge have been reported because these do not result in death or injury, and typically would not come to medical attention. The literature discloses examples of foreign bodies extracted from the male and female lower urinary tract because objects of small diameter may be retracted by natural muscular impulses into the proximal urethra and/or bladder. Indeed, according to Kinsey and others >90% of foreign bodies found in the female bladder or urethra are there as a result of masturbation. Also, large objects retrieved from the vagina are found mostly in married women aged 17-30. However, these objects, most commonly bananas, cucumbers, and other large vegetables, rarely come to surgical attention.


Trump backs Fla. plan to import lower-cost meds from abroad.

Explanation: In a move sure to get attention in a 2020 battleground state, President Donald Trump indicated Thursday that his administration may approve a Florida plan to import lower-cost prescription drugs from abroad for use by residents.

Global trade, Health, Florida, Politics, North America, Prescription drug costs, Business, Prescription drugs, Donald Trump

It’s the latest flashpoint in a confrontation between the Trump administration and the pharmaceutical industry, which for years successfully has fought off importation proposals. Drugs in other economically advanced countries are often much cheaper because governments set prices. Speaking at a White House event where he pledged to end “surprise medical bills” for patients with health insurance coverage, Trump segued to the subject of prescription drug costs. “We may allow states to buy drugs in other countries if we can buy them for a lesser price, substantially less price, and that is going to be very unique,” he declared. “But we will allow them to go to other countries because the drug companies have treated us very, very unfairly, and the rules and restrictions within our country have been absolutely atrocious.” He added that with “certain permissions” states will be able to import prescription drugs from abroad “if they can buy them for 40%, 50%, 60% less.” Trump’s comments were an obvious reference to an importation plan recently passed by the Florida legislature and expected to be signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally who made it one of his priorities. DeSantis told reporters in Florida on Thursday that he had talked with Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar this week about the plan and that the president told Azar, “You work with this governor to get it done.” Florida’s program would have to be approved by Azar’s department before it could be implemented. Under the plan, Floridians could eventually gain access to cheaper Canadian prescription drugs. Supporters say imported drugs would have to meet federal Food and Drug Administration standards and that 80 percent of drug ingredients used in the U.S. are foreign-made now. The bill overcame stiff opposition from major pharmaceutical companies and medical organizations who claimed importing drugs would lead to risks of counterfeit or ineffective substances and would be difficult for the U.S. or Florida to regulate. Some experts have been skeptical of allowing imports from Canada, partly from concerns about whether Canadian drugmakers have the capacity to supply the much larger U.S. market. But consumer groups have strongly backed the idea, arguing that it will pressure drugmakers to reduce their prices here, where government traditionally has not set such limits. AARP pushed hard for the Florida plan, saying it’s possible to safely import lower-priced, equally effective drugs and it would promote worldwide price competition. CEO Jo Ann Jenkins praised Trump for supporting the Florida legislation, calling it a “sensible drug importation plan to help reduce prescription drug costs.” The drug industry lobby, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the plan will put Floridians at risk, potentially allowing counterfeit or adulterated medications. “These proposals cannot guarantee that patients wouldn’t be put in harm’s way nor is there evidence they will save patients money,” the group said in a statement. ___ Anderson reported from Miami.


Explanation: Per Patrick, King said our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter. Patrick didn’t show nor did we confirm that King made this direct statement. Then again, Patrick didn’t specify he was quote-unquote directly quoting King while King in 1965 made a longer proclamation that might later have been paraphrased in the 14 words that Patrick and others including President Clinton ultimately attributed to the civil rights icon. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. https://www

Civil Rights, History, Texas, Dan Patrick,

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick opened his full-throated endorsement of Texas legislation targeting transgender access to bathrooms by quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Patrick, joined by the proposal’s author, state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, told reporters at the Texas Capitol on Jan. 5, 2017: "Martin Luther King said our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter. "This legislation, the Texas Privacy Act, that Sen. Kolkhorst is filing today, is unquestionably one of the things that matters," Patrick said. "It’s the right thing to do. I know it, Texans know it and Sen. Kolkhorst knows it." Debate over the measure--banning transgender people from using the Texas bathroom of their choice--will play out in the 2017 legislative session. We focused on the origin of Patrick’s King quotation. Patrick offers no backup We didn’t hear back from Patrick about when and where the slain civil rights leader made the singled-out statement, which went noted in the Associated Press’s account of Patrick’s remarks and quoted by the Dallas Morning News. For our part, a web search for the quotation and "King" suggested by a professor yielded 2,980 results including books of poetry and documentation that President Clinton similarly quoted King in an April 2000 speech and Sen. Joe Lieberman did so in the Senate in June 2003. So, Patrick was in bipartisan company in crediting the words to King. On the other hand, we were unable to confirm that King made that exact declaration. Also, it’s worth noting, King probably didn’t expound on bathrooms except toward widening access to public facilities. A photo caption We started our look into this topic by trying to gauge if King said the words aired by Patrick. Right off, a web search yielded an undated New York Daily News photo of King giving a speech. The photo caption said: "King was engaged in a battle with Sheriff Jim Clark over voting rights and voter registration in Selma. On March 8, 1965, King spoke from the pulpit on courage: ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’" Stanford researchers can’t confirm Separately, though, King experts either said he likely didn’t make the quoted remark or if he did, it’s hard to confirm so with ease. "That would be a research project," said Clayborne Carson, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial professor of history at Stanford University and director of a research institute in King’s name. By phone, Carson told us that’s because the institute’s resources aren’t yet easily searched for a particular quotation. Put another way, he said by email, it’s "easier to prove what King said on a particular occasion than to prove that he never said the quote in question on any occasion." An institute research assistant, Ellen Ingebritsen, later responded that her search of the project’s internal database and documents culled from the institute's King papers didn’t turn up King making the statement. Then again, she said, the institute has yet to catalogue the majority of King’s work from 1965. Otherwise, she said, King letters and telegrams from that year don’t contain the words attributed to King by Patrick. A similar confirmed King statement Story over? Not quite. Other experts helped us find that King made a similar yet less direct statement in the Brown Chapel in Selma, Ala., on Monday, March 8, 1965--the same date noted in the News’s photo caption and also the day after protesters met police violence after attempting to cross a bridge on the way to Montgomery, the state capital. King, who would shortly lead a crossing of the bridge before turning around, said in part: "A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true." Here’s King’s remark in context as we found it on an East Tennessee State University web page: "Deep down in our non-violent creed is the conviction there are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they're worth dying for. And if a man happens to be 36-years-old, as I happen to be, some great truth stands before the door of his life--some great opportunity to stand up for that which is right. "A man might be afraid his home will get bombed, or he's afraid that he will lose his job, or he's afraid that he will get shot, or beat down by state troopers, and he may go on and live until he's 80. He's just as dead at 36 as he would be at 80. The cessation of breathing in his life is merely the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit. He died... "A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true. "So we're going to stand up amid horses. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama, amid the billy-clubs. We're going to stand up right here in Alabama amid police dogs, if they have them. We're going to stand up amid tear gas! "We're going to stand up amid anything they can muster up, letting the world know that we are determined to be free!" To our inquiry, Doug Burgess, chairman of the university’s history department, said by phone that he posted the excerpt some 15 years ago. Burgess also helped us track down a YouTube video in which we saw King making the remarks, which the video attributes to a Nostalgia Company recording, "The Greatest Speeches of All Time, Volume II." Separately, Carson told us his research took note of a similar King statement made Nov. 5, 1967, at his home church in Atlanta. King, exhorting parishioners to fight for what’s right, said a person’s failure to do so would amount to dying before death. "You died when you refused to stand up for right, you died when you refused to stand up for truth, you died when you refused to stand up for justice," Carson quoted King saying. We also heard back from a King biographer, David Garrow, who said by email that his sense is that King didn’t make the statement aired by Patrick. That "language does *NOT* in any way sound familiar to me as an exact quote," Garrow wrote. "I believe it is INVALID." Garrow summed up: "Your verdict on this ought to be something like 'Unproven, undocumented, & highly doubtful.’" Texas professors: Quotation out of context Asked to assess Patrick’s quotation, University of Texas historians Don Carleton and Paul Stekler each opined that Patrick presented King’s sentiment out of historical context. Stekler, who helped produce, direct and write a documentary on the civil rights movement in 1967-68, said by email that King "was in Selma to try and force federal action to ensure voting rights, a campaign that was successful with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the aftermath of the police riot on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He was advocating the expansion of rights for African-Americans in the South where they had been and were largely disenfranchised." Patrick, Stekler wrote, employed King’s purported words in support of restricting the rights of transgender people. "One use of the quote uses it in support of the expansion of rights, the other in restricting rights," Stekler said. Our ruling Per Patrick, King said our lives begin to end the day we become silent on things that matter. Patrick didn’t show nor did we confirm that King made this direct statement. Then again, Patrick didn’t specify he was quote-unquote directly quoting King while King in 1965 made a longer proclamation that might later have been paraphrased in the 14 words that Patrick and others including President Clinton ultimately attributed to the civil rights icon. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.


Swimmers have been warned about flesh-eating bacteria at Florida beaches along the Gulf of Mexico.

Explanation: Flesh Eating Bacteria Plagues Florida Beaches

It’s true that public warnings have been issued about potentially deadly bacteria at Florida beaches on the Gulf of Mexico, but it’s technically not a “flesh-eating” bacteria. Health officials in Florida issued a public warning in June 2015 after bacteria called Vibro vulnificus infected seven people and killed two: “People can get infected with Vibrio vulnificus when they eat raw shellfish,” Florida Health Department spokeswoman Mara Burger said. “Since it is naturally found in warm marine waters, people with open wounds can be exposed to Vibrio vulnificus through direct contact with seawater.”  People with healthy immune systems who eat the bacteria with raw shellfish usually have mild symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain. But when Vibro vulnificus enters the body through an open wound, it can be much, much worse, the CDC reports: “Infection with V. vulnificus is a serious health threat that predominantly affects persons with an underlying illness or a compromised immune system, and especially affects persons with liver disease. The organism is a natural inhabitant of warm coastal waters.” The bacteria can cause blood infections (which are fatal 50% of the time) and blistering skin lesions, which is why it’s called a flesh-eating bacteria. In extreme cases, the patient’s limbs have to be amputated to stop the spread of infection, according to the CDC. Public health warnings about the bacteria along Florida’s Gulf Coast aren’t uncommon, either. Warnings were issued in 2013 and 2014, and there were a combined 73 cases reported in those two years. However, public health officials note that Florida beaches receive millions of visitors each summer, so infections are very rare. Health experts have also taken issue with the term “flesh-eating bacteria.” A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Health said, via Clearwater Patch, “There is no such medical term (as flesh-eating bacteria) and the organism is not a Pac-man consuming pac-dots.” However, the U.S. National Library of Medicine says that necrotizing soft tissue infections are sometimes (informally) called flesh eating bacteria because that’s how they appear:  “Necrotizing soft tissue infection is a rare but very severe type of bacterial infection. It can destroy the muscles, skin, and underlying tissue. The word ‘necrotizing’ refers to something that causes body tissue to die …The bacteria begins to grow and release harmful substances (toxins) that kill tissue and affect blood flow to the area. As the tissue dies, the bacteria enters the blood and rapidly spreads throughout the body.” So, aside from debate over the definition of flesh-eating bacteria, this eRumor is true. Comments


Debbie Wasserman Schultz Says Gov. Rick Scott "cut nearly $1 million from mosquito control and closed down the state’s mosquito research lab a few years ago.

State Budget, Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz,

U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz pointed blame at Republicans -- namely Gov. Rick Scott -- for not doing more to dish out dollars to prevent the spread of the Zika virus. "While he seems to be saying out loud that he wants Congress and the president to provide more funding, he conveniently leaves out that he cut nearly $1 million dollars from mosquito control and closed down the state’s mosquito research lab a few years ago," Wasserman Schultz said at a town hall in Broward County on Aug. 8. Wasserman Schultz is running for re-election in the Aug. 30 Democratic primary against first-time candidate Tim Canova. Did Scott cut funding and close the state’s mosquito research lab? There’s a lot more nuance to this story than Wasserman Schultz lets on. Mosquito control budget The current Zika pandemic took off in May 2015, when Brazil reported cases in connection with more babies being born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly. When Wasserman Schultz spoke, there had been a total of 422 Zika cases in South Florida, the majority acquired while traveling and 16 locally acquired. Wasserman Schultz told reporters that she was referring to Scott’s budget decisions in 2011. Her spokesman pointed to an article in Politico that explained cuts to state aid to local mosquito control programs. That was Scott’s first budget year after he ran on a platform to slash spending amid the recession. State budget records show that while Florida under Scott cut money to mosquito control his first two years, the state later raised it substantially: 2010-11: $2.2 million (Gov. Charlie Crist's last budget) 2011-12: $1.3 million (Scott’s first budget) 2012-13: $1 million 2013-14: $2.7 million 2014-15: $2.8 million 2015-16: $2.7 million 2016-17: $2.8 million Jackie Schutz, a spokeswoman for Scott, said that he has invested more than $13.2 million in funding for mosquito prevention and control. Separately, "Gov. Scott has allocated more than $26 million to combat Zika and will continue to allocate more if necessary," she said. Mosquito lab Wasserman Schultz’s claim about the closed lab relates to the Florida A&M University Public Health Entomology Research and Education Center in Panama City Beach. In 2011, Scott vetoed a one-time $500,000 appropriation for the center intended to keep it open after it had faced threats of closure. The center, first opened in 1964, was referred to as the "mosquito lab" or PHEREC, and came up with ways to combat mosquitoes. It was once a part of a state department, but in the 1990s it became part of Florida A&M while still receiving state health department dollars and other grants. In 2010 as Florida A&M was cutting millions of dollars from the university amid state cuts, it announced that PHEREC was on the chopping block. Provost Cynthia Hughes Harris said at the time that the university decided to eliminate non-teaching units such as the mosquito lab. In a last-ditch attempt to save the lab, researchers sought a one-time appropriation from the 2011 Legislature for $500,000 late in the budget process. Florida TaxWatch labeled it a "turkey," and Scott vetoed it as part of his $615 million in vetoes as the state was climbing out of the recession. The lab still had $1.4 million -- enough to keep it open -- but the university chose to shutter it anyway, wrote Dr. John Smith, the center’s former director, in a Florida Mosquito Control Association newsletter. "In fact, there were sufficient reserve funds to continue PHEREC for as much as two or three years without the legislative appropriation," Smith wrote. "Why FAMU did not allow this remains unclear." Walter J. Tabachnick, at the time director of the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory at the University of Florida’s site near Vero Beach, warned about the loss of dollars in a blog after the cuts. "How can one quantify the loss of future opportunities to make progress and improvements in Florida mosquito control?" he wrote. "There will be future problems for which we will not have solutions, there will be lost opportunities to make mosquito control more effective, efficient, and environmentally proper." However, Tabachnick who remains a professor at UF, told PolitiFact Florida that the decision to close the lab wasn’t by Scott. "The decision to close PHEREC, to withdraw all funding, was made by Florida A&M, not the governor," he said. Meanwhile, the state has funded research at a different university center. The Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory at UF has received $500,000 annually from the state since 2013-14. That money is for research to develop and test formulations, application techniques, and procedures of pesticides and biological control agents to control mosquitoes that can cause public health or a nuisance. Speaking to reporters after her town hall, Wasserman Schultz pointed the finger at Scott for the spread of Zika. "He bears some responsibility in this problem that we are facing now since we are not as fully prepared as we could be if those cuts had not come down," she said. But Tabachnick says it’s not so simple. "There are no promises in investment in research," he said. "I don’t know what information we may have had or not. It’s like saying if we had more money in cancer, we would find a cure. I can’t say that." Our ruling Wasserman Schultz said that Scott "cut nearly $1 million dollars from mosquito control and closed down the state’s mosquito research lab a few years ago." In 2011, the Legislature under Scott did cut about $1 million for mosquito control dropping the total to about $1.3 million and cut it again by about $300,000 the following year. But the state then increased the budget to about $2.7 million the next year and it has remained in that ballpark for four years. Scott also vetoed a one-time appropriation of $500,000 in 2011 for a mosquito lab at FAMU, and the university then shut it down. But the center was already on the university’s chopping block, and the state has since funded another university’s lab.


Kirk Watson Says carbon monoxide is still employed to euthanize dogs and cats in 29 Texas animal shelters.

A lawmaker seeking to ban the killing of dogs and cats by carbon monoxide says the method is used in 29 animal shelters around Texas, according to a March 19, 2013, Austin American-Statesman news article. We wondered. The claim by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, was aired as a Senate committee sent Watson’s proposal, Senate Bill 360, to the Senate, which advanced the measure to the House about a week later. The proposal, like companion legislation by Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, would remove a provision from state law permitting a person to euthanize a dog or cat in an animal shelter using compressed carbon monoxide. Other animals, including birds and reptiles, could still be killed by the method, but dogs and cats in shelters could only be killed by injection with sodium pentobarbital, which is considered more humane and less costly. The story said the list of shelters using carbon monoxide--none of them in Central Texas--was compiled by the Texas Humane Legislative Network, a nonprofit that lobbies on behalf of animal welfare, which Watson spokesman Steve Scheibal described as Watson’s source for statistics related to the proposal. In a "fact sheet" posted online, the network says it contacted the state’s 1,200-plus cities and found that 32 Texas animal shelters, including one in Greenville, "continue to utilize the outdated and inhumane carbon monoxide method of euthanasia." Separately, in a February 2013 blog post, the network’s vice president, Shelby Bobosky, said more than 30 Texas cities, including Sherman and Terrell, stopped using carbon monoxide euthanasia within the last five years. By email, one of the network’s lobbyists, Jack Erskine, sent us a chart, dated March 18, 2013, listing 31 cities as using carbon monoxide to euthanize animals: Beeville; Bovina; Bracketville; Cuero; Devine; Eagle Pass; El Campo; Freer; Ganado; George West; Grand Saline; Greenville; Hondo; Kenedy; Kermit; Kingsville; Lyford; Mathis; Odessa; Plainview; Portland; Raymondville; Refugio; Sabinal; Seminole; Sinton; Stinnett; Taft; Van Horn; Victoria; and Yoakum. The chart says that all but two of these results were confirmed by the group from Dec. 17, 2012, through March 4, 2013. Practices vary, according to footnotes to the chart quoting email responses from cities. Cuero responded that in 2011, 12 juvenile animals were euthanized by injection while 513 others were subjected to carbon monoxide. Bobosky pointed out that a state rule already bars carbon monoxide from being used to euthanize any animal "reasonably presumed to be less than 16 weeks of age" or for "any animal that could be anticipated to have decreased respiratory function, such as the elderly, sick, injured or pregnant." The rule continues: "Such animals may be resistant to the effects of carbon monoxide and the time required to achieve death in these animals may be significantly increased. In animals with decreased respiratory function, carbon monoxide levels rise slowly, making it more likely that these animals will experience elevated levels of stress." According to another footnote to the network’s chart, El Campo said it would start using injection on a trial basis in 2013. Meantime, Freer reported that its shelter had been demolished and no one was currently trained to euthanize animals, while Ganado said its shelter had been shut down and gave no indication if gas would be used in a shelter under construction, according to a footnote. Bobosky said by email that the number of shelters using carbon monoxide has dropped to 29 because Ganado and Freer no longer do so. More broadly, Bobosky said by phone, she and other network volunteers established the list by making public information requests of more than 1,100 Texas cities and towns, starting in November 2011, and asking if jurisdictions had animal shelters using gas to kill dogs and cats. If so, she said, they asked how many animals had been killed by the method in 2011. Bobosky said around 150 cities failed to respond; follow-up interviews indicated none of these cities had shelters. Bobosky said the number of shelters saying they use gas to euthanize has gone down since the network initially inquired in 2011, when the tally was 38 to 40. (She emailed us a network list of cities that do not use gas, among them San Marcos, Seguin and Taylor.) For instance, she said, Sherman ordered its last gas cylinder, which ultimately went unused, in March 2012. "There is a trend in the last two years to simply stop using gas," she said. "It’s outdated." Finally, we spot-checked whether three bigger cities on the list referenced by Watson use carbon monoxide to euthanize dogs and cats. By phone, Sgt. Sherrie Carruth of the Odessa Police Department and Hector Chavez, an Eagle Pass official, separately said their local animal shelters use "compressed carbon monoxide." Joe Lopez, Victoria’s chief animal control officer, told us its shelter uses carbon monoxide to euthanize some dogs and cats, but depends on injections of a sodium pentobarbital solution for puppies, kittens and especially old or sickly cats and dogs. A twist: While not on the network’s list of carbon monoxide users, Maverick County offered a departure from the common practices. Apolonio Rodriguez, the county's road and bridges supervisor, said that about a year ago, the county stopped taking county-collected dogs and cats to the Eagle Pass city shelter to be euthanized, instead "using the rifle" to kill such animals. Bobosky, informed of our spot-checks, said the law that Watson seeks to amend already limits residents from euthanizing cats or dogs except by using commercially compressed carbon monoxide or sodium pentobarbital, meaning rifles should not be used. Our ruling Watson said 29 cities use carbon monoxide to euthanize dogs and cats. That’s supported by an advocacy group’s survey research, it appears, though the total also has gone down by more than 10 cities since 2011, according to the group. We rate this claim as .


Airlines rush to boost demand as coronavirus shreds playbook for crisis management.

Explanation: The rapid spread of coronavirus cases worldwide is complicating a standard strategy used by airlines when disease, disaster or conflict hit travel destinations: lower fares and redirect flights to trouble-free areas.

For now, some airlines have resorted to suspending change fees for new ticket reservations in the hope of winning over hesitant travelers until it becomes clearer where coronavirus outbreaks are localized and which routes could benefit from price drops. While lower fares have proven effective in the past in reviving demand, aviation consultant Samuel Engel said, “The pocketbook only works so far against emotion.”   The coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has spread around the world, with more new cases now appearing outside China than inside. JetBlue Airways Corp (JBLU.O), which does not fly to Asia, was the first airline to launch free rebooking options last week, as it became clear that cases were not isolated to China. JetBlue pulled together and announced its plan in a matter of hours, President Joanna Geraghty told Reuters. “We tried to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers and think about what we would want if we were, for example, booking a spring-break trip right now,” Geraghty said. U.S. majors have since followed suit with varying waivers on change fees for new reservations to many destinations, a switch from a previous policy that covered only pre-booked flights to areas hardest-hit by the coronavirus. In Latin America, Peruvian low-cost carrier Viva Air was holding a board meeting on Wednesday to discuss measures, Declan Ryan, executive chairman of the board of directors, told Reuters. But with none of the offers so far guaranteeing money-back refunds, travelers say the policies are not enough. “I understand that there are a lot of question marks right now for the industry on how this will unfold, but I don’t feel like there’s a truly customer-friendly policy out here,” said Amanda Elman-Kolb of Chicago, who has put on hold plans for a family trip to Europe in August. Declining demand to fly abroad is not limited to U.S. travelers. International travel to the United States will fall 6% over the next three months amid coronavirus concerns, the largest decline since the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Travel Association forecast on Tuesday. With extra widebody jets on hand after suspending flights to China, South Korea, Japan and northern Italy, major U.S. airlines are deploying them on domestic routes, a process known as upgauging. American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O), for example, is flying passengers from Chicago to San Francisco on a 787 Dreamliner, rather than just the usual narrowbody like a 737 or an A321. Europe’s biggest carriers warned on Tuesday that the epidemic was upsetting growth, with Ryanair (RYA.I) Chief Executive Michael O’Leary forecasting a “very deflated booking environment” for the next two to three weeks before recovering. “After Easter if things have settled down, temperatures in Europe are rising, I think there will be a significant decline in the spread of the virus. Airlines will then respond with seat promotions, seat sales that will get people back traveling very quickly,” he told Reuters. In the Asia-Pacific region, offers are under way. Malaysian budget airline AirAsia X (AIRX.KL), which was struggling financially even before coronavirus, launched a 499 ringgit ($119.09) one-year pass for unlimited trips to Australia, Japan, Korea, China and India, excluding taxes and fees on each trip - a move that CEO Benyamin Ismail called “unprecedented.”      Fares are softening too on routes not directly affected by travel bans, with Australia to Los Angeles 25% lower in the three weeks ended Feb. 26 compared with the same period last year, data provided to Reuters by Skyscanner showed. In perhaps the most vivid example, Vietnam Airlines JSC HVN.HM last week said it would offer $0 round-trip fares from Ho Chi Minh City to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, excluding taxes and fees, to help stimulate tourism through the end of May. “Airlines have historically shown little hesitance to reduce prices to get volume,” said Wolfe Research analyst Hunter Keay. “One thing we know about leisure air travel demand, it can be very easily stimulated.”


'What choice do I have?' Lock-down strands millions in China's Wuhan.

Explanation: A trickle of passengers at the train station in the Chinese city of Wuhan put on a brave face on Friday as they arrived in the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak that has killed 26 people, infected hundreds and raised fears of a pandemic.

Authorities have all but shut down Wuhan, a city of 11 million and a major transport hub, at what is normally the busiest time of year - the Lunar New Year holiday - when millions of people travel home to visit their families. Millions of people in surrounding cities are virtually stranded after public transport networks were shut to stop the spread of the virus, believed to have originated at a Wuhan market illegally selling wildlife. On one high-speed train carrying a Reuters journalist that stopped in Wuhan station on Friday afternoon, about 10 passengers got off and nobody got on before the train resumed its journey to Changsha. Although it stopped there, Wuhan had been removed from the train’s schedule. “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. Wuhan’s airport is not closed, but nearly all flights have been canceled. Three international flights arriving on Friday would leave with no passengers, an airport official said. China’s biggest ride-hailing company, Didi Chuxing, shut down all services in Wuhan from midday on Friday, adding that service resumption depended on government orders. “Please reduce going out as much as possible, and look after yourselves and your families,” the company told its drivers in a statement. A traffic control map on Baidu maps - China’s equivalent of Google maps - showed a swathe of highways into and around the city closed. Police at one highway checkpoint said special permission would be needed to leave the city. Police also checked incoming vehicles for wild animals. Lying on the banks of the mighty Yangtze River and historically prone to devastating floods, Wuhan stretches across 8,500 square kilometers (3,300 square miles) - five times the size of Greater London - and includes rural areas as well as the sprawling urban conurbation. Some images circulated on social media showed packed hospital corridors, as people - all wearing face masks - waited for consultations. Hospitals made public appeals for supplies. The government has pledged to ensure the city is properly equipped, and on Friday flew in two planes with 32 tonnes of supplies, mostly medical gear and masks. China’s second-largest e-commerce firm, JD.com Inc, said it was donating one million medical masks and other supplies like disinfectant. “My family has hoarded much food, and when we need something, we go downstairs to a supermarket nearby with masks on,” a 30-year-old city resident who works in financial services told Reuters via social media, declining to provide her name. Authorities have warned against price-gouging. Zou Tianjing, 30, an alcoholic drinks distributor, said she was resigned to spending the Lunar New Year at home, reading and watching movies. “A lot of people did not realize how serious the situation was. Just the day before, people were wearing masks but would still go to bars,” she said, speaking on Thursday. Hugo Guo, a 22-year-old university student who had returned home to Wuhan for the holiday, said the restrictions were not having much of an impact on him, although all his dinner plans with friends and family had been canceled. “I’m most worried about whether I will be able to return to school at the right time,” he said, referring to the start of term next month at his university in Shanghai. One foreign resident, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the transport lockdown was causing problems though he was able to get around, albeit slowly. “I can go anywhere I want to go. I just can’t leave Wuhan.”


Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg appeared on a CNN "expert panel" in a program about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Explanation: What's true: Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was interviewed on a CNN town hall program about the coronavirus pandemic. What's false: She did not appear on the show to offer expertise on the virus. Rather, she discussed her work as an activist on such issues as children's welfare and climate change during a pandemic.

Internet outrage ensued over a CNN advertisement for a town hall program about the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic, which aired on May 14, 2020. The outrage was focused on CNN’s booking of 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, with criticism falsely characterizing her appearance as being that of an “expert panelist.”  Adding to the confusion, a number of news publications ran with the same false narrative. “Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel, Twitter erupts,” read a New York Post headline. “Greta Thunberg Isn’t a Coronavirus Expert,” Reason.com reasoned.


A photo shows a weasel riding on the back of a woodpecker in flight.

Explanation: Photo Shows Weasel Riding on Woodpecker

The photo of a weasel riding on the back of a flying woodpecker appears to be real. Amateur photographer Martin Le-May said he was bird watching at a park in Essex, England, when he heard the screech of a bird in distress, Reuters  reports: “I picked my camera up, the bird flew off, and flew toward us. I snapped and took a couple photographs and realized, as I was doing that, there was something on the back of the woodpecker,” Martin le-May said. The photo went viral on Twitter just hours after Martin Le-May posted it. Thousands of users commented on the photo with the hashtag  #weaselpecker. The bird in question is a  European green woodpecker. The species can weigh up to 8 ounces, and its wingspan can measure up to 16 inches, so it’s a pretty large bird. The green woodpecker feeds on insects like ants, beetles and caterpillars — which is probably what the bird in the photo was doing when he was attacked by a  least weasel that latched onto its back. Known as a small but fierce carnivore, the least weasel preys on birds, rabbits and frogs. It eats 40-60% of its bodyweight each day. The photo doesn’t appear to be doctored, either. Henry Farid, a professor of computer science at Dartmouth College, said he saw no evidence that the photo was not real, National Geographic  reports: “’’This would have required a nearly perfect and coincidental alignment of the two animals in their original photos so that they could be composited together,” said Farid. “This type of forgery is therefore more difficult to create than, for example, two animals simply standing side-by-side.’ There were also multiple photos of the scene, which would be nearly impossible to replicate, Farid said, There also weren’t any lighting, color, focus or quality differences between the weasel and the bird. And there’s good news: the green woodpecker successfully evaded the weasel’s attack and lived to see another day, Le-May  said: “’The woodpecker landed in front of us and I feared the worst. I guess our presence; maybe 25 meters away, momentarily distracted the weasel. The woodpecker seized the opportunity and flew up and away into some bushes away to our left. Quickly the bird gathered its self respect and flew up into the trees and away from our sight. The woodpecker left with its life, the weasel just disappeared into the long grass, hungry.’”  Comments


During wartime, the Seal of the President of the United States is modified so that the eagle's head faces the opposite direction.

Explanation: History buffs love to pass around this rumor.

One of the many bits of “secret” information that history buffs love to pass around is the rumor that the Seal of the President of the United States undergoes a surreptitious change in wartime, with the regular seal being swapped for slightly a different version in which the eagle’s head is turned to face the talon clutching a group of arrows (rather than facing the talon holding an olive branch, the symbol of peace) as a subtle visual reminder that the nation is at war. This rumor has been made familiar to modern audiences through its mention in the political television drama The West Wing, as well as its inclusion in author Dan Brown’s 2002 political thriller Deception Point:  Herney had always believed the most dominating aspect of the Oval Office was the colorful American eagle emblazoned on the room’s oval carpet. The eagle’s left talon clutched an olive branch and his right a bundle of arrows. Few outsiders knew that during times of peace, the eagle faced left — toward the olive branch. But in times of war, the eagle mysteriously faced right — toward the arrows. The mechanism behind this little parlor trick was the source of quiet speculation among White House staff because it was traditionally known only by the President and the head of housekeeping. The truth behind the enigmatic eagle, Herney had found to be disappointingly mundane. A storage room in the basement contained the second oval carpet, and housekeeping simply swapped the carpets in the dead of night. Although the Seal of the President of the United States has undergone various changes over the years, its design is fixed by executive order and is not altered during wartime, as White House curator Bill Allman explained in response to a July 2004 query:  Q: I got into a debate with a friend after reading the book ‘Deception Point’ by Dan Brown. Is there any truth to the section about switching the carpet in the Oval Office when the country is at war or peace? Specifically, the American Eagle’s talons facing left toward the olive branch in peace and right toward the arrows at times of war. I personally think it’s fiction but my friend is insistent that it is a fact. A: There is just one Seal of the President at any given time, and it does not change according to whether or not the United States is at war. However, the Seal has undergone modifications over the years. President Truman modified the Seal in 1945, and the changes included turning the eagle’s head to face its right as opposed to its left. A press release issued after the new design was approved said, “In the new Coat of Arms, Seal and Flag, the Eagle not only faces to its right — the direction of honor — but also toward the olive branches of peace which it holds in its right talon. Formerly the eagle faced toward the arrows in its left talon — arrows, symbolic of war.”  Although the eagle featured in the Presidential Seal has faced its right ever since, there are items in the White House collection that were made before 1945 that display the eagle facing its left (such as state services, furnishings, architectural elements, etc.) A video posted to the Obama White House YouTube Channel provides further evidence:  The last paragraph of the above-quoted response might provide a clue as to how this rumor began. The Great Seal of the United States includes a coat of arms featuring an eagle clutching thirteen arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other, its head facing to the viewer’s left, towards the talon with the olive branch. Presidential flags had historically featured a similar coat of arms, but in 1916 President Woodrow Wilson issued an executive order that changed the design slightly, such that the eagle’s head was modified face to the viewer’s right, towards the talon holding the arrows:  The coat of arms on the presidential flag changed again in 1945 when President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9646, which made several alterations to the presidential flag and seal, among which was the reversal of the eagle’s head so that it once more faced in the same direction as the one on the Great Seal of the United States:  As biographer David McCullough noted of Truman’s motivation for making the change:  One morning, standing at his desk, [Truman] presented to the press a new presidential flag … “This new flag faces the eagle toward the staff,” Truman explained, “which is looking to the front all the time when you are on the march, and also has him looking at the olive branch for peace, instead of the arrows for war …” Both the flag and presidential seal had been redesigned for the first time since the Wilson years, and Truman meant the shift in the eagle’s gaze to be seen as symbolic of a nation both on the march and dedicated to peace. Possibly, in retrospect, some people recalled that the eagle on the presidential flag or seal had changed around the time of World War I (President Wilson’s executive order was issued eleven months before the U.S. entered that conflict) then changed again just after World War II (President Truman’s executive order was issued less than two months after the formal surrender of Japan), and they mistakenly assumed the events were connected rather than coincidental: A casual observer, unaware that the presidential flag had not been altered at the end of World War I or the beginning of World War II, might have surmised that the eagle’s head had always faced towards the olive branch, and its occasional reversal was a wartime aberration. The notion of a presidential seal that featured as its centerpiece an eagle whose gaze changed direction based upon the state of belligerency in the world was the subject of a wry comment made by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as he was visiting with President Truman in 1946:  Pointing to the President’s seal on the wall of the [train] car, Truman explained that he had had the eagle’s head turned to face the olive branch. Churchill said he thought the eagle’s head should be on a swivel.


Obamacare medical device tax "has led to the loss of thousands of jobs" in U.S.

A reader asked us to check whether a medical tax in the Obamacare law killed thousands of jobs, as her Texas congressman recently told her via email. U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, whose district covers parts of Harris County, wrote Oct. 24, 2013, just after a partial government shutdown had ended, describing measures fellow Republicans proposed to avert the shutdown while altering or defunding President Barack Obama’s health care law. One amendment, Poe said, would have repealed "the costly medical device tax, which has led to the loss of thousands of jobs across the nation." PolitiFact has written about the tax before -- particularly to quash a persistent myth that the outdoor sporting goods chain Cabela’s once charged customers for a medical tax "hidden in Obamacare." It’s a 2.3 percent levy on the sale of most medical devices; exceptions include items normally sold directly to the public such as eyeglasses, bandages and hearing aids. The tax, which took effect Jan. 1, 2013, is one of the provisions in the Obamacare law meant to offset costs of expanding health coverage to the uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Poe spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes told us by email, "Congressman Poe has met with several people in the health care industry who have told him the medical device tax included in the Affordable Care Act has led to thousands of layoffs. We have also read examples of this in the news." Hynes cited news stories from 2012 and 2013 describing more than 2,000 completed or planned U.S. job cuts that medical device makers attributed in part to the tax. The Republican National Committee rounded up those examples and others in a Sept. 30, 2013, web post. Among them: Citing the tax specifically, Smith & Nephew cut "nearly 100 jobs" in Memphis and Andover, Mass., according to a Jan. 31, 2013, news story in the Memphis Daily News. Kalamazoo, Mich.-based medical technology corporation Stryker expected to complete laying off about 1,000 employees worldwide by the end of 2012, according to a Nov. 19, 2012, Kalamazoo Gazette news story. Stryker named the tax as one reason for the cuts in an earlier press release, the story said. The company didn’t give locations for the job cuts, but an earlier warning identified at least 107 in the U.S., the Gazette said. Citing the tax as one reason, Welch Allyn announced 120 buyouts and layoffs in Central New York as part of global cuts, according to a Sept. 10, 2012, Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard news story. Boston Scientific increased planned job cuts worldwide by 900 to 1,000 positions, according to a Jan. 29, 2013, Associated Press news story. Company president Michael Mahoney said the tax played a role, according to a Jan. 30, 2013, Minneapolis Star Tribune news story. A July 27, 2012, Indiana Business Journal news story said Cook Medical Inc. halted plans to build five plants similar to one employing 300 people; an executive told the Journal the medical tax left the company with "fewer resources to be able to spend on those kinds of projects." Medtronic’s CEO predicted in a March 22, 2010, Wall Street Journal news story that the tax would cost his company 1,000 jobs. A May 22, 2013, Star Tribune news story said Medtronic announced 1,000 cuts worldwide in 2012 and 2,000 cuts worldwide in 2013, with about half of the latter in the U.S. The story cited "pricing pressures and sluggish sales" for the May 2013 cuts, but didn’t mention the tax. That story said Medtronic competitor St. Jude Medical, another global company, had announced 800 job cuts in 2012. An earlier Star Tribune news story had reported that executives said the tax was one factor. In total, the news stories pinned at least 1,300 job losses inside the U.S., though most companies did not specify where the cuts would fall. The U.S. medical devices industry, said a July 24, 2013, Forbes news story, "employs 400,000 Americans directly and is indirectly responsible for almost 2 million more that supply and support the highly-skilled workforce." The GOP web post pointed to a 2011 study financed by the Advanced Medical Technology Association, or AdvaMed. It said that the excise tax would cause 10 percent of device manufacturing to move offshore, leading to the loss of 43,000 U.S. jobs. PolitiFact Ohio wrote in a 2012 fact-check that analysis by the research service Bloomberg Government found the AdvaMed study was "not credible." The publisher of an online journal covering the medical device industry, Brian Johnson of MassDevice.com, told Boston public radio station WBUR in a Sept. 30, 2013, interview, that "the tax is costing the industry thousands of jobs." "In 2012, publicly traded medical device companies cut 10,000 jobs, in part, to brace for the impact of the tax, although it’s impossible to determine how much the tax actually added to those job loss numbers." By phone, Johnson told us, "The long and the short of it is that it's nearly impossible to determine if the tax alone was the cause of layoffs, or if the company used the tax as a good cover for layoffs that were going to happen to begin with. The medical device industry is facing some pretty substantial headwinds that have nothing to do with the excise tax," such as the high costs associated with negotiating and completing sales of such devices. Cutting to the bottom line, the Boston radio station asked Johnson, "So, is this really worth shutting the federal government down over? Don’t these guys make billions of dollars a year? Why can’t they just pass that 2.3 percent on to their customers?" Johnson said hospital purchasing groups have united in a campaign that "has been effective in keeping most medical device companies from trying to pass the buck," and said that because the tax is on all sales, "even companies that are losing money have to pay it. This means the tax disproportionately harms young, innovative start-up companies." Also, he said, the industry is skeptical of predictions that business will boom as more people join the health-care system. "Medical device makers argue that the new enrollees in health insurance plans will be young and not in need of the technology they create, such as cardiac stents, hip and knee implants and surgical devices," he said. Our ruling Poe said "the costly medical device tax" in the Obamacare law "has led to the loss of thousands of jobs across the nation." News stories indicate more than 2,000 such cuts were planned or made partly because of the tax. An industry analyst has said that "the tax is costing the industry thousands of jobs," but also told us that "it's nearly impossible to determine if the tax alone was the cause of layoffs." Poe’s claim is partly accurate but leaves out this important context. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.


New study: The flu vaccine is 'significantly associated' with an increased risk of coronavirus

Explanation: The study featured in the article is from 2019 and the data for it was collected in 2017-18, so it doesn’t include COVID-19 information. In past fact-checks, experts said this connection between the flu vaccine and other viruses is still speculative.

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

We have debunked plenty of misinformation about vaccines for COVID-19 that are in development. Next up: more  information tying COVID-19 to the seasonal flu vaccine. An April 16 article shared on social media carries the headline "New study: The flu vaccine Is ‘significantly associated’ with an increased risk of coronavirus." Facebook flagged this story as part of its efforts to combat  news and misinformation on Facebook's News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The article, from a self-described "conscious media" website, mainly cites a 2019 study from the U.S. Armed Forces Health Surveillance Branch that was published in the journal Vaccine in 2020. The study focused on Department of Defense personnel, who have high rates of flu vaccination, and examined whether being vaccinated for a seasonal flu could make someone more or less likely to catch other respiratory viruses. But the study found no connection between the flu shot and an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. That’s because the U.S. Armed Forces study’s data was referring to seasonal common coronaviruses in 2017-18, not the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. (There are seven types of coronaviruses that can infect humans, of which the COVID-19-causing SARS-CoV-2 is one.) This was clarified in the full article, but is ambiguous in the headline. What’s more, Richard Watanabe, a preventative medicine professor at USC, told PolitiFact that the article doesn’t really provide "strong support for anything they are claiming" since the study found little correlation between the flu vaccine and such viruses. Even with regard to coronaviruses that predated SARS-CoV-2, the U.S. Armed Forces study concluded that further research is needed, as "the overall results of the study showed little to no evidence supporting the association of virus interference and influenza vaccination." The study’s data had mixed results for individual respiratory viruses and found that vaccinated individuals were "more likely to have no pathogen detected and reduced risk of influenza when compared to unvaccinated individuals." The article also leaves out parts of the study that question the data linking coronavirus cases to the influenza vaccine. For instance, the U.S. Armed Forces study referenced a study from 2013 that had similar results except there was "no association between influenza vaccination and RSV, adenovirus, human metapneumovirus, rhinovirus or coronavirus." Edward Belongia, an infectious disease epidemiologist who worked on the 2013 study, explained to FactCheck.org that there is little scientific data to support the speculative theory of the flu vaccine increasing the risk of other respiratory viruses. While this article did specify that the U.S. Armed Forces study was testing common coronaviruses and not COVID-19, the headline was ambiguous and misleading. We rate this headline .


UK Supreme Court hears attempt to change Northern Ireland abortion law.

Explanation: An attempt to change the law in Northern Ireland to allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious malformation of the fetus started in the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday with harrowing accounts of women’s experiences.

A socially conservative province where the Catholic and Protestant faiths exert strong influence, Northern Ireland allows abortion only when a mother’s life is in danger. The penalty for undergoing or performing an unlawful abortion is life imprisonment. As a result, women facing tragic circumstances such as a pregnancy resulting from rape or a diagnosis of fatal fetal abnormality, meaning that a baby will not survive outside the womb, have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term. “The impact of the criminal law in Northern Ireland does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment by the state,” said Nathalie Lieven, lead counsel for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which is spearheading the legal action. The commission, an independent body, launched legal action against Northern Ireland’s government in 2014, arguing that the law violates the human rights of women and girls. The case has been working its way through the courts ever since. A panel of seven Supreme Court judges in London will hear arguments for and against the proposed changes during a three-day hearing. They will give their judgment at a later date. Lieven began by giving the judges an overview of detailed evidence provided by several women and girls. One of them, Ashleigh Topley, was told when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant in 2013 that her baby’s limbs were not growing and she was going to die. Topley was told there was nothing to be done and she had to carry on with the pregnancy until her baby died inside the womb, or until she went into labor which would cause the baby to die. Topley had to endure 15 weeks of anguish as the pregnancy progressed. She has described how people would ask her if it was her first child, if she wanted a boy or a girl, and other well-meaning questions which exacerbated her suffering. In the end, Topley went into labor at 35 weeks and the baby girl’s heart stopped. Other cases described to the judges included that of a girl under 13 years old who was pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a relative. After police and social services got involved, the distraught girl had to be taken outside of Northern Ireland for the first time in her life to have an abortion. Northern Ireland’s elected assembly voted against changing abortion laws in February 2016. The law is far less restrictive in the rest of the United Kingdom, and hundreds of Northern Irish women travel to England every year to have unwanted pregnancies terminated. As well as the parties in the case, the court will hear from organizations that support changing the law, such as Humanists UK, Amnesty International and a United Nations working group on discrimination against women. It will also hear from groups who oppose any reform, such as Catholic bishops from the province and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which describes the legal action as a “crusade against disabled babies”. (This version of the story includes updates with details from the hearing)


Explanation: This article provides a good overview of arguments for and against use of a brain-oxygen monitoring system for heart surgery. It also provides an excellent explanation of how the device works, and how it may reduce risk of cognitive damage following surgery. The biggest problem with the story is the lack of evidence and quantitative data about cognitive harm both with and without the device. While the story implies that conclusive data are not available, it should have cited the most relevant research and provided the necessary caveats. Finally, a failure to mention the option of beating-heart surgery for some patients–a technique shown to reduce risk for cognitive damage–is a significant oversight.

The story indicates both the price of the machine ($30,000) and the cost per use ($200) — a valuable bit of reporting. Due to the lack of evidence reported (see Evidence criterion above), there is no quantification of the risks and benefits of using the device. The story makes clear, with brief references, that the cognitive risks range from minor to major, and that they could impair patients’ subsequent ability to work. However, since the story is about the use of the oxygen monitor device, the story falls short since it does not indicate whether there are any potential harms associated with the device itself. The story does not report the best scientific evidence available about the controversy. Any data likely come from studies supported by the manufacturer, but it still may be worth citing. The absence of data about the story’s key disagreement–or even a clear statement that data is unavailable or inconclusive–is a major shortcoming of the story. The report does not exaggerate the cognitive risks following heart surgery–it uses an estimate of side effects from a New England Journal study. It also permits those who question the validity of those statistics–given the fact that perhaps one third of surgery patients have cognitive issues before surgery–to make their case. The reporter interviews two advocates of the device (one independent, one with industry ties) and one surgeon who is unconvinced of its value. It briefly cites two key studies about cognitive impairment after heart surgery. This sourcing elevates this report into the "satisfactory" rating, but barely. The article implicitly compares surgery with and without the oxygen monitoring device, and provides a thorough description of how the device functions in surgery. However, the piece does not write about beating-heart surgery, a method designed partly to make the heart-lung machine, which appears to be responsible for cognitive side effects, unnecessary. This is a significant omission. The story fails to report whether the brain oxygen monitoring device is available at only a few surgical centers or all of them. It also fails to report how difficult it would be for patients to request the device for their own surgery. The article makes clear that the device in question is 10 years old and sometimes used. There is no evidence the article relied solely or largely on a news release.


An employee at a women's health center in Bronx, New York, told an undercover pro-life activist she should dispose of a baby born alive after a failed abortion.

Explanation: What's undetermined: The exact meaning and intended meaning of the employee's remarks are open to interpretation and require further clarification.

An undercover video shot at a Bronx women’s health clinic in 2013 by the pro-life group Live Action garnered renewed attention in February 2019 when it was recirculated in advance of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. On 20 February, Live Action’s founder and President Lila Rose posted a tweet containing the video clip and the following description: “Our investigators exposed this New York abortion facility, which says they will put a born-alive baby in a jar of ‘solution’ to drown her. They also say to ‘flush’ the baby down the toilet, or ‘put it in a bag’ if she’s born alive.” Our investigators exposed this New York abortion facility, which says they will put a born-alive baby in a jar of “solution” to drown her. They also say to “flush” the baby down the toilet, or “put it in a bag” if she’s born alive. pic.twitter.com/GYxdpyEbDK — Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) February 20, 2019   The following day, Live Action tweeted the same video clip along with the message: “Watch this New York abortion worker tell our investigator to ‘flush’ the baby down the toilet or ‘put it in a bag’ if she’s born alive.” Watch this New York abortion worker tell our investigator to “flush” the baby down the toilet or “put it in a bag” if she’s born alive. pic.twitter.com/iXaVTxWjiS — Live Action (@LiveAction) February 21, 2019  On 21 February, the pro-life web site LifeNews.com reported that “An undercover video resurfaced this week of a New York abortion worker telling a woman to drown her baby in a toilet if the baby is born alive before the abortion is complete.” In each of these three prominent examples, Live Action, its president, and the website LifeNews.com claimed that the worker had advised the woman posing as a would-be patient to dispose of a living baby born after a failed abortion either by “flushing” or “drowning” the baby, or putting it “in a bag.” Whatever one’s overall view of the remarks made by the employee of Dr. Emily Women’s Center, or the tone in which the employee made them, the specific claim that the employee told a woman she believed to be a prospective patient to end the life of a viable baby is highly questionable, and the issue hangs on subjective interpretation of inherently ambiguous statements. The employee was demonstrably misinformed or confused about certain clinical matters relating to abortion, and comments made by the clinic’s designated counsellor, shown later in the video, strongly indicate that — regardless of the first employee’s remarks — Dr. Emily Women’s Health Center has a clear policy of attempting to resuscitate and revive a fetus in the extremely unlikely event that it should survive an abortion. Live Action is a pro-life, non-profit organization best known for publishing undercover “sting” videos recorded at health centers run by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. In April 2013, the group published two such videos, one recorded at a clinic in Washington, D.C., and the other at the Health Center in Bronx, New York. According to the timestamp on the footage, the Bronx “sting” was filmed in January 2013. The videos were released during the height of media attention towards the crimes of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion provider who was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder in May 2013 after a jury concluded that he had severed the spines of fetuses when botched late-term abortions he had conducted resulted in live births. In a press release accompanying the Bronx video, Live Action’s president explicitly linked the video to Gosnell’s activities, saying “Dr. Kermit Gosnell is not alone. The gruesome and inhuman practices exposed in Gosnell’s ‘House of Horrors’ are business as usual for the abortion industry in America.” The two-hour version of the video in question shows a woman, 23 weeks pregnant, posing as an abortion-seeker at the Bronx center. According to the video’s timestamp, it was recorded on 11 January 2013, from about 9:50 A.M. until around noon. It can be watched in full here. The video, and the rest of this article, contain graphic details of abortion-related procedures, as well as hypothetical scenarios presented by the Live Action activist, which some viewers and readers might find disturbing. In the video, the woman fills out forms, sits in the waiting room, and speaks to several staff members. Around 87 minutes into the video, she sits in an office with a health center employee who says she is responsible for going over the medical history of would-be patients, but she is not the clinic’s counselor. Because the patient is relatively quite late in her pregnancy, the staff member says, a two-day procedure known as “dilation and evacuation” has been recommended. The woman asks the employee a series of questions about the procedure and associated issues. Since the purpose of the video is to “sting” the abortion provider, the questions are awkward and designed to provoke or facilitate answers that might reflect poorly on the clinic. In one instance, about 92 minutes in, the woman asks the employee what would happen if the fetus “came out in one piece” after being removed during the evacuation phase of the abortion. The employee explains that this does not happen with that kind of procedure, saying, “We’ve never had that.” However, when pushed further, the employee responds, “If it did come out in one piece, it’s very small, so they would still have to put it in a jar, like a container with solution, and send it to the lab … All our specimens have to go out to the lab. No matter what.” The following (lightly edited) exchange then ensued: Live Action (LA) activist: That’s just how you get rid of — Employee (E): We don’t throw it out in the garbage … The lab disposes [of] it… LA: So if you had to put it in that jar, what if it was like, twitching, or something like that? E: The solution will make it stop LA: Ok E: [Laughs] It’s not going to be moving around in the jar. LA: Ok, the solution would make it — E: Yeah. That’s the whole purpose of the solution. LA: So if it looked like it was like, breathing or something like that? E: It’ll automatically stop. It won’t be able to. A little later on, the conversation continued: LA: So what is the solution? It’s just, like, something toxic or something? E: Yeah LA: Ok. [Both laugh] E: We have to keep it clean … Because by the time it gets to the lab, it still needs to be freshly, you know — LA: Yeah. This is the exchange that gave rise to claims that the employee had said the clinic would “put a born-alive baby in a jar of ‘solution’ to drown her,” as Live Action described it, or that she would “drown a baby who survives abortion in a jar of ‘solution,'” as LifeNews.com put it. What the employee said could quite reasonably give rise to the understanding that she was indicating that if an intact fetus showed signs of being alive after evacuation, the clinic would place it in a jar of solution in order to end its life. However, this cannot be stated with certainty, for two reasons. First, it’s not clear that the employee understood the fetus to actually be alive and viable, in the scenario described by the undercover activist. It’s quite possible the employee was speaking, in her mind, about a fetus which was non-viable, and showing only involuntary movements, moments before its inevitable and definitive demise. Second, the employee gave two contradictory descriptions of the purpose of the “solution.” In one instance she said the “whole purpose” of the solution was to stop the hypothetical “twitching” described by the activist, but shortly afterwards she correctly said the solution was designed to keep the material removed during evacuation “fresh” for its transfer to a laboratory — that is, the solution was a preservative designed only to preserve evacuated fetal remains for examination at a laboratory. It’s also difficult to reconcile the fact that on the one hand, the employee insisted to the woman that with second-trimester dilation and evacuation, the fetus does not survive and does not remain intact, telling her “We’ve never had that,” but on the other hand she told the woman that the “whole purpose” of the liquid solution (which she later correctly said was designed to preserve specimens) was to stop signs of life in an intact fetus that survived such an abortion. It makes no sense that the “whole purpose” of the liquid solution would be to address an issue which, in the employee’s description, the clinic had never encountered. This contradiction is difficult to explain or account for and suggests the employee was speaking thoughtlessly or in a confused mindset when she indicated that the clinic would knowingly end the life of a fetus that survived an abortion. The director of Dr. Emily Women’s Center, Marjana Gelvez, told the Washington Post in 2013 that “she had not viewed the video but that any employee who would say such a thing was misinformed.” Regardless of the comments made by the employee in question, the clinic appears to have had a clear policy of attempting to revive and resuscitate a fetus in the extremely unlikely event that it survived an abortion. Later in the video (around 112 minutes in), the undercover activist speaks to the designated counselor at the clinic. The activist again asks questions about a hypothetical scenario in which an intact fetus survives the evacuation phase of the abortion. The counselor clearly explains the following policy: “If [the fetus] was to come out, for some reason or another, the pregnancy is still alive and it comes out, he [the doctor] has to resuscitate it. He cannot do a termination once it’s outside of the body. He has to resuscitate it and he has to send it to the hospital. That’s the law.” The activist continues to press the counselor, once again seeking to provoke a response that might reflect poorly on the clinic, asking, “What if it’s half-way out, alive?” The counsellor immediately responds, “He still has to resuscitate.” Later in her conversation with the first employee (around 99 minutes into the video), the Live Action activist asks a series of questions about the first phase of the two-day dilation and evacuation procedure. The clinic employee tells her that the doctor will insert laminaria sticks into her cervix — small sticks made from seaweed that absorb moisture and expand, thereby dilating the cervix and making the evacuation phase of the abortion easier. She is told to go home that evening, rest, avoid strenuous activity, and allow the laminaria sticks to take effect while she sleeps. The employee warns the woman that she must be certain in her decision to go through with the abortion, before starting the first phase, because there are risks in undergoing the dilation phase without following it up with the evacuation phase. (This is true, but it’s due to the higher risk of miscarriage and infection associated with laminaria dilation, as the clinic’s counselor later explained to the activist, not because the laminaria sticks are “toxic” and “kill the heartbeat” of the fetus, as the employee incorrectly stated.) The activist then asks questions about a hypothetical scenario in which she feels labor pains that evening, after the insertion of the laminaria sticks, and the following (lightly edited) exchange ensues: Live Action (LA) activist: So if I feel like I’m having, like, labor pains kind of thing — Employee (E):Call us. LA: Call you? E: Yeah we have an emergency line. The same number, it goes to our emergency contact … LA: Yeah ‘cos I don’t want to go into labor at home. E: Yeah I understand. LA: You know what I’m saying? Like, what if it pops out at home? E: If it comes out, then it comes out. Flush it. LA: Just, like, flush it? E: Yeah. But you still have to come in, ‘cos we have to make sure that everything came out. But we’ve never had a situation like that … LA: If it comes out, should we call you? Like, if we see it there — E: Call us. Give us a call and just follow whatever the girl on the phone will tell you. Ok? LA: Ok. ‘Cos what if it’s like, on the floor, you know what I’m saying? What would we do? E: You’re not going to be taking care of it. LA: Like you guys would come and — E: Yes, if anything, you know, we’ll tell you to put it in a bag or something, or somewhere, and bring it to us. LA: Ok E: You’re not taking care of it. A little later on, the conversation continues: LA: Ok so like you’ll bring a bag or something like that and I would just like have to put it in there? E: Yeah, don’t worry — it’s not going to come out. LA: I’m just thinking, if it did, ‘cos I’m always like, the worst-case scenario person. E: [Laughs] I can see. Yeah, it’s not going to come out. We’ve never had that situation and we have two-day procedures all the time. This is the exchange that gave rise to claims that the clinic employee had told the woman to “drown her baby in a toilet if the baby is born alive,” as LifeNews wrote, and “‘flush’ the baby down the toilet, or ‘put it in a bag’ if she’s born alive,” as Live Action described it. Whatever one’s view is of the clinic employee’s language and tone during the conversation, it’s not clear that she had in mind a live birth or a viable fetus that has survived laminaria dilation when she said “flush it.”  This is because, shortly before the remarks in question, the employee had been telling the woman that the insertion of the laminaria sticks “stops the heartbeat” of the fetus. This is not accurate, but the employee may have had in mind the fact that, in a dilation and evacuation procedure, the insertion of the laminaria sticks is sometimes accompanied by the injection of digoxin, a medication that induces cardiac arrest in the fetus. In part, this is done to ensure the demise of the fetus before its remains are removed in the evacuation phase, and it’s one of the reasons why there are so few live births after abortions, especially in the second trimester. Although the employee appeared to be confused or misinformed about the effects of laminaria dilation, it seems perfectly plausible that she had in mind a fetus whose heart had already been stopped when the activist asked her, “What if it pops out at home?” Ultimately, however, the employee’s remarks are not objectively clear in their meaning or intended meaning. We sent Director Gelvez a list of questions relating to the employee’s comments and their intended meaning, as well as asking whether the woman was still employed at the clinic or had undergone additional training or disciplinary proceedings. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response to those questions. Without being able to clarify either the meaning or intended meaning of the employee’s remarks, we issue a rating of “Unproven” in relation to the claims of LifeNews and Live Action that the clinic employee said she would “drown” a living, viable baby or instructed a would-be patient to herself “flush” a living, viable baby or “put it in a bag.” It should be noted that the employee’s remarks were confused, confusing, and misinformed in several places, and that she made comments that were self-contradictory in ways that are salient to the question of what she actually meant. It should also be noted that in the same video, and despite pressure and incitement by the undercover activist, the designated counselor at the clinic clearly and unequivocally outlined a policy whereby, in the extremely unlikely event that a fetus survived an abortion, the clinic would attempt to resuscitate and revive it. Staff writer David Emery contributed to this story.


A Texas girl required surgery after she swallowed part of a fidget spinner while cleaning it.

Explanation: Keep any toy with small parts away from young children. They can be a choking hazard.

Viral Phenomena, fidget spinner, fidget spinner warning, viral facebook posts

On 15 May, Facebook user Kelly Rose Joniec posted an account of her daughter’s hospitalization two days earlier, after accidentally swallowing part of a fidget spinner (an enormously popular children’s toy): We had a pretty eventful Saturday. On the way home from a fun swim meet, I heard Britton make an odd retching noise in the back seat as I was driving. Looking back in the mirror, I saw her face turning red and drool pouring from her mouth – she could utter noises but looked panicked so I immediately pulled over. She pointed to her throat saying she’d swallowed something, so I attempted Heimlich but there was no resistance. She said she’d put part of her fidget spinner in her mouth to clean it and somehow swallowed it. Frantic, I went straight to urgent care where they checked her for choking. They couldn’t discern where the foreign object was located – along the airway or the esophagus. From there we got the red-light treatment via ambulance ? to Texas Children’s Hospital. X-ray showed the spinner bushing lodged in her esophagus. The GI doctor was fascinated…he’d only just learned of fidget spinners that morning when he was at the mall with his son, so it was a surprise to be faced with one in a case a few hours later. He’s also an advocate for related child safety in toys, so he took a special interest in the case. After multiple, very stressful attempts to place an IV, Britton was taken to surgery to endoscopically locate and remove the object. Fortunately we had a positive outcome, but it was pretty scary there for a while…not only because of the initial ingestion, but then the concern about the composition and structure of the object, and finally, the risk with general anesthesia. From this I wish to offer some word of caution to parents. Fidget spinners are the current craze so they are widely distributed. Kids of all ages may be getting them, but not all spinners come with age-appropriate warnings. The bushings pop out easily, so if you have young kids (under 8 yr old) keep in mind that these present a potential choking hazard. [Sidenote: I certainly wasn’t looking for an excuse to tour the brand new Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands but this was a pretty effective way. Staff was great and the facility is very nice…but a little quiet on Saturday afternoons.] A spokesperson for the Texas Children’s Hospital confirmed to us that the basic story is true, and that the image of an x-ray showing the object lodged in the girl’s esophagus is authentic. Kelly Rose Joniec’s daughter Britton was indeed taken to the Texas Children’s Hospital at The Woodlands, near Houston, on Saturday 13 May, and did indeed successfully undergo surgery to remove part of a fidget spinner from her esophagus. However, it’s important to note that this incident was not the result of a property or mechanism intrinsic to the fidget spinner itself. Based on Kelly Rose Joniec’s account, it appears that her daughter Britton separated out a part of the toy, and accidentally swallowed it after putting it in her mouth to clean it. The incident does not appear to have happened while the girl was playing with the fidget spinner. Patty Davis, a spokesperson for the Consumer Product Safety Commission, told us that parents should be aware that choking is a hazard with any small toy:  We know these toys are very new and gaining in popularity, and we would encourage parents to think about how their child interacts with toys. Do they mouth items? If that’s the case, then this may not be a toy for them.