A letter to the editor suggested that 2007's early start to Daylight Saving Time contributed to global warming.

Explanation: A letter to the editor suggested the early start to Daylight Saving Time worsened the effects of global warming.

Since the first implementation of Daylight Saving Time (DST) in the United State during World War I, jokes have abounded about people who mistakenly believed the springtime adjustment of clocks somehow created an “extra” hour of daylight (when all it did was shift the time of day that daylight hours occurred) or that it had a deleterious effect on crops and farm animals (who are oblivious to humans’ methods of keeping time). Now that stock of humor has been increased with the additional claim that the lengthened Daylight Saving Time period which was implemented in 2007 (when DST began three weeks earlier than in previous years and stayed in effect for an additional week longer in the fall) contributed to record high temperatures recorded across the U.S. in the late winter and early spring by producing a daily extra hour of “warming” daylight. One such item quoted above was indeed published as a letter to the editor by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on 16 April 2007:  You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact, I understand that it was the hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two. This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they? Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects. CONNIE M. MESKIMEN Hot Springs  However, this missive was not intended to be taken literally, as its author, Connie Meskimen, is a Little Rock lawyer known for penning sarcastic letters with tongue planted firmly in cheek, such as the following:  I enjoy Paul Greenberg’s column and regard it as an oasis in a desert of pretty bad writing (and in the case of Philip Martin, very bad writing). I have to take issue with the substance of his Feb. 9 column, however. In this missive, he lambastes the recent film “American Beauty” as being superficial, unduly politically incorrect and, most surprisingly, lacking in spirituality. He says, “There is not one sign of prayer, sacrament, church or any kind of simplicity, especially spiritual.” Perhaps he should review the plot again for spirituality. It goes like this: A middle-aged man abandons his quest for material goods and quits his job. He shows compassion for the social misfits around him, most notably the closet homosexual next door and his misfit son. He is tempted by his daughter’s Lolita-like friend and finds redemption in the end by refusing her advances. He is then killed and speaks to us after his death about salvation (from on high, judging from the camera angle). Hmmm, as Humphrey Bogart would say. Seems like I have read this story somewhere else. Imagine my delight when I opened my paper Dec. 14 to find not one, not two, but — count ’em — three movie reviews by Philip Martin on the same page. Martin has made himself the Ginsu knife of the world of letters (but wait, there’s more), albeit without the cutting edge. In his review of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings,” we are treated to this insight in the form of a sentence fragment, which in fact is an entire paragraph: “Because a movie is not a book.” He favors us with this incisive information after telling us that he saw the movie in Manhattan. It is difficult for one to discern the relevance of this bit of information other than to remind us that Martin was in Manhattan. I guess it wasn’t playing in Paris. In his review of “Not Another Teen Movie,” he provides us with this: “Unfortunately a stupid movie that knows that it is stupid is not the same as a funny movie.” It is an absolute tragedy that Groucho Marx didn’t have Martin to write his straight lines. In his review of “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” Martin finds it necessary to compare the Coen brothers to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Martin states that the Coens “are like that other fellow Minnesotan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, insofar as they have the knack of saying very little very beautifully.” How appropriate. Martin, like some of his fellow Arkansans, has the knack of saying very little very often. Oh, well. I suppose there are those enamored of Martin’s style. As the existentialist philosopher Jean Boyd opined, one man’s weed is another’s flower. Nonetheless, Connie Meskimen’s controversial “Daylight Saving” missive prompted a number of responses from Democrat-Gazette readers, ranging from expressions of incredulity that such a letter could have been written (let alone published) to hopes that it was all meant as a joke:  Re Connie Meskimen’s comments on Daylight Saving Time exacerbating warming: It is hard to believe in this day and time that there are still people who believe that night and day are controlled by human beings. That the world rotates on an axis and moves around the sun is apparently an unknown scientific fact to some people. Whether we put a time frame around this occurrence is a human need. There is no more daylight than usual, regardless of the time. I can’t believe the Democrat-Gazette would even print such drivel. Oh, wait. Maybe it is because it is another attempt to bash liberals. How sad. I am baffled by your accepting, much less featuring, the letter about Daylight Saving Time. Did the editor accept the premise that our warmer March was due to the extra hour of daylight? Or was the intent to show how illogical those opposed to the concept of global warming can be? The bias of the writer is shown by “You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate.” There is later reference to the “liberal Congress.” The notion reminds me of earlier arguments that with Daylight Saving Time, the hens would get confused and not know when to lay their eggs. Nature and weather are, of course, unrelated to our choice of how we divide the day. In fact, it is only in relatively recent times that we divided the day into 24 hours and had clocks. Re the letter from Connie M. Meskimen about Daylight Saving Time: Oh, please, please, please tell me that the date of that submission was April 1. A recent letter to the editor excoriated Congress for changing the start of Daylight Saving Time. The writer said that the abnormally high temperatures in March were due to the effects of the extra hour of daylight. In fact, the letter even insinuated that the change to Daylight Saving Time was a plot by Congress to exacerbate the effects of global warming and make it a bigger political issue. I have some bad news for the letter writer. In March, we had the exact same number of hours of daylight as we do every March. While Congress has the power to change many laws, it cannot change the laws of nature. All the members did was change the time on our clocks. They did not actually add any hours of daylight. Having just read the letter from Connie M. Meskimen of Hot Springs, I’m at a loss to figure out how she thinks Daylight Saving Time, even if it is “another plot by a liberal Congress,” could have any effect on how many hours of daylight or darkness there are in the world. Congress may and does make a lot of dumb moves, but this is one thing it can’t change. All those “legions of bugs and snakes” crawling around don’t have clocks, just natural instinct, which tells them when it’s warm enough and light enough to crawl around. On the other hand, maybe it is I who don’t understand Daylight Saving Time. No doubt mine will not be the only response to letter writer Connie Meskimen. First of all, she is correct to acknowledge the changes we’ve all seen in seasonal patterns. Sadly, though, she apparently doesn’t want to believe that this is indeed a result of global climate change, which will continue to have an impact on our environment until notable measures are taken to slow the damage being done to our atmosphere. To deny that the problem exists is just willful ignorance. With regard to the extension of Daylight Saving Time, I would like to point out that this measure was enacted by a Republican-controlled Congress and signed by a Republican president as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. So much for her vast, left-wing, liberal conspiracy. But perhaps her most bizarre thinking is that somehow Congress has created an extra hour of daylight out of thin air. Anyone with even a basic understanding of reality knows that the number of hours of daylight we have on any given day isn’t altered by simply resetting a clock. We also know that this simple shift of time can help reduce the consumption of energy by delaying the increased need and use of electricity after sundown. Perhaps Meskimen can find an elementary school student to explain it to her. Re the letter from Connie M. Meskimen: I am somewhat confused. She states that we’ve had the “hottest March since the beginning of the last century,” and she goes on to blame Congress for that due to the earlier than normal time change. Well, we did “spring forward” a few weeks earlier than we have in the past. What I am confused about is, no matter whether our clocks are set forward one hour or back one hour, don’t we continue to have the same amount of daylight hours every day? I have decided, though, to be very careful about my voting in 2008. Whether conservative or liberal, I don’t want to be guilty of voting in someone who has that much power over our weather! Evidently Mr. Meskimen received a number of direct inquiries about his bit of satire, as afterwards the voicemail at his office phone presented callers with the following message: “If you are calling about the Daylight Savings Time letter and wish to explain global warming or daylight savings time to me, I would urge you to get a sense of humor and/or a life, in that order. Unless, of course, you want to pay me for an interview; if so, please leave your telephone number and I will expediently return your call.” A few sharp-eyed readers pointed out that another tongue-in-cheek letter similar to Mr. Meskimen’s had appeared in the Aspen Times a month earlier:  Dear Editor: I am sure that if you have been out on the trails of our wonderful mountains lately you have noticed the snow is disappearing rapidly, and there are rocks and trees poking through at levels seemingly unprecedented in the memory of those of us that pay attention to such things. It is heartbreaking to see their majestic finery slipping away so early. Ah, the locals say, global warming is to blame! They have seen the movie by Albert Gore and are convinced, and even our own Aspen Skiing Co. is buying it. But the true culprit is right under their noses, on the faces of their watches, foisted upon us by another sainted Democrat — one Franklin Delano Roosevelt! Yes, my friends, I am speaking of the insidious evil known as daylight-saving time! When we switched our clocks ahead on March 10, we not only lost an hour of sleep for one night, we added an hour of sunlight to every evening until next November. Any fool can tell you that afternoon sun is the hottest sun, as that is the hottest part of the day! Think of the damage an extra hour of solar radiation does to the snow on our mountains. And this year, with a Democrat congress, daylight-saving time was moved up four weeks, adding all that extra melting time. It will be a wonder if there is even a snow bank left to play in when April rolls around. Now is the time for all right thinking Americans to call their congressman to tell them that this madness must stop, before Aspen and its economy melts away.


A video shows two people waving guns at protesters in front of their home.

Explanation: E-cigarette makers face an existential threat. By May, they must submit applications to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration proving that their products provide a net benefit to public health. If a company fails to make its case, the FDA has the power to order its products off the market.

Fauxtography, George Floyd, George Floyd Protests

The agency will judge that benefit with a two-part test: Are e-cigarettes effective in getting smokers to quit? And, if so, does that benefit outweigh the health damage to new e-cigarette users - including teenagers - who never smoked in the first place? That’s a particularly high hurdle for the largest e-cigarette maker, Juul Labs Inc, according to a Reuters analysis of the latest available data on trends in cigarette and e-cigarette use from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data show that e-cigarettes are having little impact in reducing U.S. cigarette smoking, while growth in vaping since 2015 has come entirely from users under 25 years old, including teenagers. Those trends present a special problem for Juul because of its dominance of the U.S. market and its enormous popularity among teenagers, according to more than a half dozen tobacco researchers and medical experts who assessed the data at Reuters’ request. “I don’t see it as a surmountable hurdle,” Suzanne Colby, a tobacco researcher at Brown University, said of the FDA standard for public health benefits. “The data look like their product differentially attracts youth instead of adults, in such great numbers.”  Between 2017 and 2018 - the period when Juul rapidly grew to become the U.S. market leader - e-cigarette use among U.S. adults grew from 2.8% of the population to 3.2%, according to the CDC. But rates of cigarette smoking among adults barely budged, dropping from 14% to 13.7% - not enough to be statistically significant, according to the CDC. (For a graphic showing vaping trends for various age groups, see: here )  Use of e-cigarettes by high-school students, by contrast, shot up by 78% over the same period – from 11.7% to 20.8% of students, data from the CDC and the FDA show. Juul is by far the most popular e-cigarette among teens, with more than half of high school and middle school students naming it as their favorite brand in surveys by the CDC and the FDA. Moreover, the biggest growth in adult e-cigarette use came among the youngest age cohort of adults, people aged 18 to 24. E-cigarette use among young adults is nearly four times more common than among those aged 45 to 64, the CDC numbers show. Another dynamic that undermines the public-health case for e-cigarettes is the large proportion of “dual users.” The most recent federal data show that 41% of adult e-cigarette users continue to also smoke cigarettes. Some studies show dual use could be more harmful than smoking alone. A study last December found people who used both products tested higher than cigarette smokers for a range of volatile organic compounds and other toxins associated with tobacco-related disease. A separate study last year of heart disease risk among e-cigarette users found that dual use was “more dangerous than using either product alone.”  For the industry as a whole, the usage data cast serious doubts on whether e-cigarettes are providing a clear benefit among adult smokers, said Brian King, a deputy director at the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “When it comes to net public health impact, you have to consider both ends of the scale,” King said. “Right now it does appear the youth initiation is outweighing the adult use.”  Juul declined a request for an interview with executives including CEO K.C. Crosthwaite, a veteran of Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc who took the helm in September, on how it plans to pass the FDA’s regulatory test. As pressure on the company has mounted, Crosthwaite has made the FDA application process a central goal, laying off 650 employees, including many in marketing, last month in an effort to restructure the company to focus on regulatory approval. In written responses to questions from Reuters, Juul said it believes its products “already are playing a critical role in transitioning adult smokers from combustible cigarettes and have the potential to convert tens of millions of smokers in the U.S.” The company cited studies it has commissioned showing that between 30% to 50% of adult smokers who use Juul “switch completely from smoking cigarettes within six months.”  Juul has said its customers are “the world’s 1 billion smokers,” but the company did not directly address questions about the disparity in youth and adult uptake in the United States. Juul acknowledged it must address any potential impact on nonsmokers who start using e-cigarettes. It said it is “committed to working cooperatively with regulators, public health officials and other stakeholders to combat underage use and convert adult smokers.”  In October, Crosthwaite brought on another Altria executive, Joe Murillo, who helped navigate a successful FDA application for IQOS, a Phillip Morris International Inc product that heats up but doesn’t burn packages of ground-up tobacco. Altria has an agreement with Philip Morris to market IQOS in the United States. The IQOS device is one of only two tobacco products that have successfully made it through the FDA process. Juul’s competitors in the U.S. market face the same regulatory challenge. One rival, Japan Tobacco International, says it is confident in the FDA application it filed in August for its Logic products because it contains company data showing the brand - unlike Juul - is used overwhelmingly by older adults. Anthony Hemsley, an executive for Japan Tobacco International’s U.S. division, acknowledged the population-wide trends in e-cigarette and cigarette use. But he pointed out that the FDA’s decision on net public health benefit will be made on a product-by-product basis - not across the entire industry. He added that Juul has “a significant challenge ahead of them, in overcoming the concerns that exist out there.”   The FDA declined requests for an interview with Mitch Zeller, who heads tobacco regulation at the agency, about its oversight of e-cigarettes. In written answers to questions, the agency did not directly address the population-level data on smoking and vaping trends but said it is “tasked with threading a public health needle” in crafting regulations on e-cigarette firms. A Reuters investigation in November detailed how Juul’s developers used tobacco industry research and patents to formulate its smooth but potent “nicotine salts” blend of liquid nicotine, a key factor in its popularity among teenagers. The report showed company leaders were aware of the product’s popularity among teenagers soon after its 2015 launch, contradicting statements that Juul was caught off guard by teenage use last year. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told Reuters that he agreed with public health advocates and tobacco researchers that whatever benefits Juul may be having for cigarette smokers are offset by attracting children who otherwise wouldn’t have tried other tobacco products. Before Gottlieb left the department in April, he and his staff explored the option of halting sales of Juul and similar high-nicotine devices if their popularity continued rising among teens. “We could take these products off the market tomorrow,” he said. “We don’t need the applications.”   (For a graphic tracking the rise of vaping amid regulatory delays, see: here)   Juul and the FDA did not respond to questions on Gottlieb’s assertion that the agency should immediately remove Juul and similar products from the market. E-cigarettes have been available in the United States since at least 2007, but the FDA did not formally get authority over the industry until nine years later, in 2016. The agency initially tried to regulate e-cigarettes as a drug, which would have carried more stringent requirements for e-cigarette firms, such as extensive clinical trials or animal testing. E-cigarette makers sued the FDA and won, leaving the agency to regulate the devices as tobacco products. FDA officials started crafting a rule to regulate e-cigarettes in 2011, but the industry pushed back and successfully delayed the rule until May 2016, in the final months of the administration of President Barack Obama. During that time, Juul and dozens of competitors introduced products that were grandfathered into the market because they were already being sold before the regulation took effect. The rule extended certain cigarette restrictions to e-cigarettes, like requiring health warning labels, setting a minimum sales age of 18 and prohibitions on free samples. A key part of the new rule also required e-cigarette makers to submit applications to the agency by August 2018 - demonstrating why their products provide a net benefit to public health - along with studies and data on potential toxins in the products. When Gottlieb was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the agency in 2017, one of his first moves was to delay that deadline by four years, a decision public health advocates criticized. Just months later, school administrators, parents and politicians raised alarms about the rapid rise of vaping among high schoolers, who were particularly transfixed with the Juul device. Some public health advocates feared the new administration’s commitment to the Obama-era regulations after an initial three-month delay, as the FDA faced litigation from the industry. Gottlieb declined to comment  on whether the some in the administration wanted to kill the regulations but said his effort to push them forward was “not an easy process.” He said he delayed the deadline because the previous administration had not drafted guidelines that companies could follow for the application process, leaving the agency open to a legal challenge from the regulated industries. “They would have sued me, and I would have lost,” he said. But today’s FDA could – and should – pull Juul and other products from the market, Gottlieb said. “I thought that’s where the agency would land,” he said. In March, just before he left the agency, Gottlieb said publicly that the FDA was considering prohibiting sales of cartridge-based e-cigarettes like Juul from the market if teen usage rates went up for a second year in a row. Federal youth tobacco survey data first released in September showed that teenage usage did in fact keep rising, with the percentage of teenagers reporting they used e-cigarettes in the last 30 days growing from nearly 21% to more than 27%. In a statement, the FDA said it has sent more than 1,100 warning letters to retailers selling to minors; issued warning letters to companies marketing teen-friendly e-cigarette products, such as those with sweet flavors; and launched advertising campaigns aimed at e-cigarette prevention in schools. “Taken together, all of these efforts have had a wide-ranging impact on the manufacturing, marketing and selling” of e-cigarettes, the agency said. “FDA’s work is constant in its effort to keep these products out of the hands of kids.”


Canadians worried by plan to let Americans import drugs.

Explanation: A Trump administration plan to let Americans legally import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada is causing concern among Canadians who that fear it could cause shortages of some medications — as well as surprise by officials who say they weren’t consulted about a possible influx of U.S. drug-buyers.

Health, Canada, General News, Medication, Prescription drugs

The plan is a “clear and present danger” to the health and well-being of Canadians who need prescription medications, said John Adams, the volunteer chairman of the Best Medicines Coalition, a non-profit organization representing 28 national patient organizations. Adams told The Canadian Press the existing supply of drugs in Canada is not always sufficient to meet the current needs of Canadians, let alone a sudden surge in demand from south of the border. Diabetes Canada is one of more than a dozen organizations that signed a letter urging the Canadian government to safeguard the country’s drug supply. “It’s clear to us that whatever measures need to be put in place to prevent, for example, large-scale importation by online pharmacies or large-scale importation by large U.S. states, has to be put in place because Canada is not structured to produce an amount of medications required for a population that size,” Kimberley Hanson, executive director of Diabetes Canada, told the CBC. The Trump administration’s announcement also came as a surprise to Canadian health officials. Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor’s office said while U.S. and Canadian officials have “mutual interest” in fostering lower drug prices, details of Wednesday’s announcement by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar were not discussed beforehand. “While we’re aware of ongoing state-led initiatives to import Canadian drugs, we weren’t consulted on specifics,” the office said in a statement. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged Thursday that Health Canada will ensure there is a “steady and solid supply” of medications for Canadians regardless of external or international pressures. The Trump administration said Wednesday it will create a way for Americans to legally import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada for the first time, reversing years of refusals by health authorities at a time of public outcry over high prices for life-sustaining medications. The plan still has to go through time-consuming regulatory approval and could face court challenges from drugmakers. “The landscape and the opportunities for safe linkage between drug supply chains has changed,” Azar said. “That is part of why, for the first time in HHS’s history, we are open to importation. We want to see proposals from states, distributors, and pharmacies that can help accomplish our shared goal of safe prescription drugs at lower prices.”


Breast-Feeding Linked to Reduced Risk of Preemie Eye Problem

Explanation: This article consists overall of balanced reporting. There are a few missteps in presenting the quantitative evidence but some very strong points are present as well, including the acknowledgement that the studies under consideration are all observational in nature, and the corresponding reminder that “correlation does not imply causation.”   Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a potentially blinding eye disorder. The article reports on a meta-analysis examining whether human breast milk, compared with formula, is associated with protection against developing ROP.

Cost is not a relevant criterion in this case as the comparison is made between breast milk and formula. Both feeding methods entail costs, both financial and other, that we feel are beyond the scope of the coverage. There are a couple of improvements we recommend here. First, we wish that the drop in odds of ROP had been reported more precisely, as there are many different combinations of variables being compared in the study. To start, the disease ROP is separated into 1) any-stage and 2) severe. (These terms are used here and there in the article but not defined.) For each level of ROP, the study makes the following comparisons: Out of the four comparisons, the drop in odds of ROP (any-stage or severe) of breast milk versus formula is the most eye-catching in the fourth comparison. This also happens to be the comparison reported in the second paragraph of the article. While we do not wish to presume this comparison was cherry-picked, we feel that if word count had been a factor in limiting the reporting of only one comparison above, the second comparison is the one that should have been reported. This is because the sample size is largest for the second comparison, giving more credence (or as statisticians might say, more power) to the numbers. More precision is also warranted regarding the specific comparison being made. The statistics cited in the second paragraph fail to mention that the comparison is between exclusive human milk and exclusive formula. Later in the article, two more statistics, a 75% drop and 46% drop in the odds of ROP, are cited. Here, it would’ve been good to qualify the statistic by stating that these numbers relate to drops in any-stage ROP. Moreover, these are relative risk comparisons, and so it’s unclear if these impressive-sounding drops in risk translate to large absolute numbers. The story could have clarified that. In the framework of our criteria, the intervention in this study is the feeding of human milk. The potential harms of human milk do not seem to warrant a discussion in this article however. Sometimes statisticians sound like broken records with their “correlation is not causation” warnings. The article is one step ahead in this case. We find the following sentences that would make every statistician proud: However, the new analysis only showed an association between breast milk and a reduced risk of ROP. It did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship due to the study’s design. Also, the article shows a good grasp of the evidence quality by reporting some of the limitations of the study, including the limitation that the study looked only at a mother’s own breast milk, not donor milk. The story safely clears our bar here, but it could have done even better to avoid phrases such as this one: “Breast-feeding a premature infant may help reduce the risk of a serious eye problem known as retinopathy of prematurity.” The active verb “help reduce” suggests a cause-and-effect relationship that, as the story tells us, is not appropriate to imply with a study such as this one. We paused to take a second look at the statement that ROP “has become a leading cause of childhood blindness in recent time.” That sounds scary, but the story qualifies things nicely when it notes, “The greater incidence of ROP is likely due to the increasing survival rate of very preterm babies in developed countries.” That’s good context because it explains that the condition is actually a consequence of a positive trend in health care. Thumbs up here for interviewing an independent source, Dr. Adolfo Llanos. Although, we question the choice to end the article with the following quote from Dr. Llanos The takeaway from this study, Llanos said, is to breast-feed as long as possible, if possible. That’s slightly puzzling, since the stated conclusion in the original study is much more tentative Based on current limited evidence, in very preterm newborns, human milk feeding potentially plays a protective role in preventing any-stage ROP and severe ROP. The story would have probably done better to omit this source’s simplistic conclusion. The article does not mention other preventative measures to take against ROP besides breast milk and formula. But neither does the original study, so we’ll leave this criterion as not applicable. We won’t dock points from the story for not discussing the availability of formula and breast milk. Although those topics could certainly sustain such a discussion had the story chosen to address them. The article clearly identifies the underlying study being based on a reanalysis of five previously published studies on ROP (or what is known in the lingo as a meta-analysis). The article might have indicated that this is one of the first such meta-analyses done on ROP. We can be fairly confident that the article did not rely solely on a news release, especially since it has an independent source.


Robotic surgeries costlier but safer: study

Explanation: We don’t think the story conveyed the conclusion of the researchers, nor that of the the editorial writer. The researchers concluded: “While robotic assisted and laparoscopic surgery are associated with fewer deaths, complications, transfusions and shorter length of hospital stay compared to open surgery, robotic assisted laparoscopic surgery is more costly than laparoscopic and open surgery. Additional studies are needed to better delineate the comparative and cost effectivenss of robotic assisted laparoscopic surgery relative to laparoscopic surgery and open surgery.” That conclusion sends a somewhat different message than that delivered in the story – and the difference is important. And the editorial writer stated that the study “failed to capture 3 important elements.” And then he clearly spelled those out. The story didn’t convey the depth/details of those concerns. What are the outcomes that readers/patients should really care about? That’s the question the editorial raised – or that many other independent observers would raise about this study. While the story was functional, it could have helped readers become smarter health care consumers with a bit more context.

Much of the focus of the piece was on costs. The story did an adequate job quantifying the operative mortality, blood transfusion and length-of-stay rates among the three groups studied. (Unfortunately, it did so inconsistently – sometimes giving data for all 3 types of surgery, sometimes providing results for only 2 surgical approaches.) We’ll give it a satisfactory score here. But are these the outcomes that really matter? That’s something we address in the “Evidence” criterion below. As with the benefits criterion above, the details provided were adequate. The story nodded in the direction of the accompanying editorial, but we wish it had captured the important points as written by the editorialist: While this study provides some important information that will help patients, providers and policy makers make these value judgments, it fails to capture 3 important elements. First, as the authors note, the costs estimates do not include the capital investment of purchasing a robotic system or the indirect economic benefits of patients’ early return to work and increased productivity. Second, the analysis fails to capture the human cost of the learning curve. In other words, as providers learn new surgical techniques, outcomes are often worse for patients early in the learning curve as hypothesized by Hu and others. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the study fails to capture patient reported outcomes such as postoperative pain, return to baseline functional status and health related quality of life, all of which are highly germane to the procedures under study here. It is difficult, if not impossible, to assess the costeffectiveness of minimally invasive technologies without including these critical outcomes. Future comparative effectiveness studies of these techniques must include patient reported outcomes as the primary end point if they are to inform the debate regarding the value of our interventions. No disease mongering at play here. The story included some input from the editorial writer – although, as stated above in the “Evidence” criterion – perhaps not to its greatest effectiveness. The focus of the story was on a study comparing robot-assisted surgery with two other surgical techniques. The availability of all 3 surgical approaches studies – while not explicitly described – could be inferred from the study details reported. The story didn’t provide any context on the growing body of literature about comparative effectiveness questions in this field as robotic surgery proliferates. It does not appear that the story relied on a news release.


A Twitter user responded to Stephen King's assertion the COVID-19 pandemic was "not like The Stand," sincerely asking King if he "even read" a book he actually wrote.

Explanation: Stephen King ‘Coronavirus Is not Like ‘The Stand’ Response Tweet

On March 11 2020, Facebook page “The Other 98%” shared a screenshot of a popular Twitter exchange between author Stephen King and another Twitter user, during which King denied the COVID-19 global pandemic was “like The Stand,” and a person replied to ask King if he “had even read” that book:Social media users likely encountered comparisons between coronavirus strain COVID-19 and the “superflu,” also known as “Captain Trips,” from Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand (or the subsequent popular miniseries adaptation aired on network television in 1994) during the 2020 pandemic. The Stand was a memorable entry in the horror sub-genre of epidemiological thrillers, although its core virus had a staggering mortality rate of 99.4 percent.On March 8 2020, King — presumably tired of hearing comparisons between COVID-19 and the events of The Stand — tweeted that the spread of the COVID-19 strain of coronavirus was “eminently survivable,” and referenced his novel:No, coronavirus is NOT like THE STAND. It’s not anywhere near as serious. It’s eminently survivable. Keep calm and take all reasonable precautions.— Stephen King (@StephenKing) March 8, 2020King noted that COVID-19 was not “anywhere near as serious” as The Stand‘s superflu; while known information about novel coronavirus was in flux, new research was published on a daily basis in medical journals globally. Research published on March 12 2020 in The Lancet (“Real estimates of mortality following COVID-19 infection”) noted that an often-referenced mortality rate between three and four percent might “underestimate the potential threat of COVID-19 in symptomatic patients.”Researchers further reported that updated knowledge about COVID-19’s trajectory in patients showed that the time between symptom onset and death “ranged from about 2 weeks to 8 weeks”:As of March 1, 2020, 79 968 patients in China and 7169 outside of China had tested positive for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Among Chinese patients, 2873 deaths had occurred, equivalent to a mortality rate of 3·6% (95% CI 3·5–3·7), while 104 deaths from COVID-19 had been reported outside of China (1·5% [1·2–1·7]). However, these mortality rate estimates are based on the number of deaths relative to the number of confirmed cases of infection, which is not representative of the actual death rate; patients who die on any given day were infected much earlier, and thus the denominator of the mortality rate should be the total number of patients infected at the same time as those who died. Notably, the full denominator remains unknown because asymptomatic cases or patients with very mild symptoms might not be tested and will not be identified. Such cases therefore cannot be included in the estimation of actual mortality rates, since actual estimates pertain to clinically apparent COVID-19 cases….The later research proposed a mortality rate possibly between five and six percent — higher than the 3.4 percent case-fatality rate often cited, but significantly lower than the 99.4 percent rate King wrote about in The Stand:We re-estimated mortality rates by dividing the number of deaths on a given day by the number of patients with confirmed COVID-19 infection 14 days before. On this basis, using WHO data on the cumulative number of deaths to March 1, 2020, mortality rates would be 5·6% (95% CI 5·4–5·8) for China and 15·2% (12·5–17·9) outside of China. Global mortality rates over time using a 14-day delay estimate are shown in the figure, with a curve that levels off to a rate of 5·7% (5·5–5·9), converging with the current WHO estimates. Estimates will increase if a longer delay between onset of illness and death is considered. A recent time-delay adjusted estimation indicates that mortality rate of COVID-19 could be as high as 20% in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak. These findings show that the current figures might underestimate the potential threat of COVID-19 in symptomatic patients.Going back to King’s tweet observing that COVID-19 was nothing like the virus in The Stand, a fellow Twitter user responded:And how the hell would you know?! Did you even read that book?Screenshots of the tweets together were popular because, of course, King wrote The Stand. However, the same user’s account appeared to be used exclusively for “trolling” other Twitter users, and responses across that specific timeline were entirely sarcastic in nature — repeatedly further baiting people taking the tweet seriously to clarify the difference between having read something and having written it:But did he READ it? Writing and reading are two entirely different exercises. I think even a Historian like Mr. King would agree!It is true Stephen King tweeted on March 8 2020 that novel coronavirus strain COVID-19 was unlike the virus in his epidemiology horror novel The Stand, and further true that a widely-shared reply concerned whether King had “even read” the book he authored. Most commenters on shares appeared to believe the response was sincere, but it was taken out of context from a troll account devoted solely to baiting Twitter users into silly and pointless debates.


On Syria, "a lot of the allies signed on. At the last minute, Obama backed off.

Foreign Policy, PunditFact, Dick Cheney,

The Republican storyline on the crisis in Crimea ties Russian aggression to foreign policy mistakes by President Barack Obama. Former Vice President Dick Cheney pressed this interpretation of events in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. "We have created an image around the world, not just for the Russians, of weakness, of indecisiveness," Cheney said. "The Syrian situation is a classic. We got all ready to do something. A lot of the allies signed on. At the last minute, Obama backed off." Cheney obviously thought Syria was a telling example, because he came back and said it again a few moments later. International support for military intervention in Syria was a muddy business, and we thought we should look at where America’s allies stood after chemical weapons were used in Syria. Were "a lot of them ready to go"? We reached out to Cheney, via the Republican National Committee, to learn which allies he had in mind. The RNC made an effort but we did not hear back before we published. A quick recap In August 2012, President Obama told reporters that the United States had no plans to use military force against Syria but "a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus." A year later, an attack on an opposition-held suburbs on the outskirts of Damascus brought matters to a head. The bodies brought into hospitals and the illness that struck the doctors and nurses that treated the victims pointed to the use of chemical weapons. The attack took place on Aug. 21 and within a week, the administration was talking about launching air strikes at weapon depots and military command centers in Syria. Under the best of circumstances for the White House, any such military action would come with some sort of endorsement from the United Nations Security Council and the participation of America’s key European and Middle Eastern allies. Who signed on and who didn’t Both France and Britain were early supporters of a limited air strike. French President Francois Hollande said, "France is ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents." British Prime Minister David Cameron said the international response should be legal and proportionate, while a top official was quoted as saying it was "reasonable to assume our armed forces are making contingency plans." But while Cameron was counted among those ready to attack, the British parliament took a different view. At the end of August, dozens of members of Cameron’s own party deserted him, and a motion to back the use of force failed by 13 votes. It was an unprecedented loss for a prime minister, and Cameron said he would cancel a military deployment that had already begun. Support among the other European states was equally hard to find. Italy said it would only go along if the U.N. Security Council approved the use of force. Germany was seen as a pivotal player and was clearly against military action. With opinion polls showing over 60 percent of Germans favoring diplomacy over force, and elections just a few weeks away, the German government stopped well short of endorsing a military response. Germany signed on to a G20 statement that called the use of poisonous gas a war crime and said the Syrian government was the likely culprit. But having said that, the statement added, "The EU underscores at the same time the need to move forward with addressing the Syrian crisis through the U.N. process." The role of the United Nations was critical because the strongest legal justification for an air strike would come through the U.N. Security Council. That was impossible since two permanent members, Russia and China, had made it clear they would veto any such resolution. The strongest support within NATO came from Turkey. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia was the most eager to see an attack on Syria, a long-time political foe. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were also on board. However, the Arab League never approved a military strike. As the White House aimed to muster international backing, it looked for ways to maintain a sense of momentum. On Sept. 6, it released a joint statement from Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The statement called for "a strong international response to this grave violation of the world’s rules and conscience that will send a clear message that this kind of atrocity can never be repeated. Those who perpetrated these crimes must be held accountable." However, the nature of "a strong international response" was left undefined. At one point, the administration said 25 nations had signed on but that did not mean they all endorsed air strikes. Ultimately, even France said it wanted to wait for a final report from U.N. chemical weapons inspectors. By mid September, the United States and Russia had struck a deal that sidelined the use of force in exchange for Syria giving up its chemical weapons. That process is underway but is behind schedule. Our ruling Cheney said a lot of allies "got ready to go" on Syria and "signed on," but Obama backed out. Actually, very few American allies were "ready to go." We counted France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia as countries that were supportive. And France’s support seemed to wane as time went on. Among the "no" crowd were key allies like the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy. In fact, the United Kingdom’s parliament offered an embarrassing rebuke to Cameron when it blocked British participation. The Arab League did not endorse the military action, nor did the United Nations. Obama has said he declined to pursue military action because Syria agreed to weapons inspections. There’s no dispute that for whatever reason, military action was not pursued in Syria. But Cheney was re-writing history when he said "a lot of the allies signed on."


A photograph shows the Arch of Baal erected on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Explanation: This isn’t the first time that the EndOfTheAmericanDream.com has fretted over this replica. In 2016, when the arch was momentarily displayed in New York City, the apocalyptic web site reported that the “Temple of Baal (would) be erected in Times Square in New York City” and asserted that “a lot of people are quite disturbed by this.”

Fauxtography, abortion, arch of baal, brett kavanaugh

On 26 September 2018, the Institute for Digital Archaeology unveiled a replica of Palmyra, Syria’s iconic Triumphal Arch on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The following day, Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about sexual assault allegations stemming from their time in high school. Although these two events had little connection to one another (other than taking place in the same city), web sites such as EndOfTheAmericanDream.com published articles which questioned the coincidental timing of the arch’s appearance in Washington:   Is it just a coincidence that the “Arch of Baal” has been erected in Washington D.C. on the exact same week that Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford are testifying before Congress? The future of the U.S. Supreme Court is literally hanging in the balance, and many believe that it is quite odd that this ancient pagan symbol has been put up at this precise moment in time. According to the official website of the Institute for Digital Archaeology, the Arch of Palmyra was unveiled on the National Mall on September 26th, and it will remain there until September 29th. You can view a photograph of the arch standing directly in front of the U.S. Capitol building right here. Just one day after this arch was put up, Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress. Perhaps this is all just a “giant coincidence”, but things of this importance usually don’t happen by accident. The elite deeply understand that symbols have power, and the fact that the Arch of Baal has been placed directly across from the U.S. Capitol is highly significant. The article went on to connect the Triumphal Arch, or Monumental Arch, which was built around 200 A.D. and served as an entrance way to the Temple of Bel, to ritualistic Baal worship and the sacrificing of children. It’s appearance just before Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee was more than coincidental, the article argued, as Kavanaugh could be instrumental in making abortion illegal: In the end, the debate over whether or not to confirm Brett Kavanaugh comes down to the issue of abortion, and this vote in the Senate is going to have tremendous implications for the future of our country … We have murdered far more children than they ever did in the ancient Middle East, and our fate will be the same as theirs if we don’t turn things around as a society. And now an ancient symbol of child sacrifice has been erected directly across from the U.S. Capitol at the precise moment when the future of the U.S. Supreme Court is hanging in the balance. Is this just a coincidence? While the author of this article may see the Triumphal Arch as some sort of symbol related to abortion laws and a seat on the Supreme Court, American politics aren’t the focus of the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA). The IDA uses state-of-the-art technology to replicate ancient structures as part of their mission to preserve our collective cultural heritage. When the Monumental Arch in Syria was destroyed by Islamic State extremists in August 2015, the IDA set off to recreate a portion of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. IDA founder Roger Michel said that his intention for recreating this famous arch was to show the Islamic State that anything they blew up could be rebuilt: Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology is the creation of American lawyer/archaeologist Roger Michel, with help from Harvard and Dubai. Michel is currently using similar technology to Rutelli’s — better, he claims — to build a 3D facsimile arch from Palmyra’s destroyed Temple of Bel. It is to be unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square on 19 April and will then travel on to New York. “My intention,” declares Michel, “is to show Islamic State that anything they can blow up we can rebuild exactly as it was before, and rebuild it again and again. We will use technology to disempower Isis.” A replica of the famous arch has already been displayed in New York, London, Florence, and Dubai. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce and Ranking Member Eliot Engel were both on hand to unveil the monument in Washington, D.C., in September 2018: The Institute for Digital Archaeology, together with its principal partner, the Dubai Future Foundation, documents, preserves and reconstructs heritage objects at sites throughout the Middle East and Europe around the world. It works closely with the United Nations, UNESCO, the British Council and major universities. IDA Director, Roger Michel said of today’s unveiling: It is fitting that the arch has made its way to the place that symbolizes Roman-style representative democracy, an historical legacy that is reflected as much in the classical buildings of Washington as in the design of Palmyra’s monumental classical arch.” Mr Engel summed up the proceedings by declaring that “today we stand shoulder to shoulder, our voices as one, we will not let the terrorists erase history, we are in solidarity with the people of Syria, who have been subjected to such unimaginable horror by ISIS and the Assad Regime. We need to stay committed to ending this barbarity. Projects like this recreation of the Arch of Palmyra are a critical way to celebrate these iconic pieces and keep them very much alive and present in our collective consciousness.” The arch will remain on the Mall at 6th St (opposite the National Gallery of Art) through September 29th.


There is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people.

Explanation: Stossel said "there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people." His definition of good obviously differs with the vast majority of scientists and researchers studying the effects of secondhand smoke. They say the data does show that secondhand smoke kills people. And that the data is indeed solid. Stossel’s claim rates False.

Public Health, Science, PunditFact, John Stossel,

All those warnings you heard about secondhand smoke from your mother, federal government PSAs and school D.A.R.E. instructors? Bogus, a Fox Business host claimed recently. In a discussion about waning personal freedom in the free world, pundit John Stossel went off about the onslaught of government rules and regulations telling Americans what they can do and when, where and how they can do it. He used cigarette-smoking as an example, arguing that business owners should have the right to allow smoking in their bars or restaurants even where ordinances or laws ban the practice. "Yeah, they kill smokers," Stossel said on Fox & Friends of cigarettes. "But there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people." A Fox spokeswoman did not return our inquiry, and Stossel, who has long questioned the lethal nature of secondhand smoke, did not reply to emails and tweets. (The exchange in question was a follow-up to a Dec. 4 segment on his Thursday show, when he said, "the secondhand smoke scare turns out to be bunk. But the smokers still take it.") Stossel’s definition of "good" might be different than ours, but there is plenty of scientific research and consensus that secondhand smoke does indeed kill people. Secondhand smoke is a mixture of smoke emitted from the burning end of a cigarette or other tobacco products and what’s exhaled by smokers. It’s regarded as a cancer-causing agent, a "known human carcinogen" (a healthful classification, that is not). The government has campaigned for tough anti-smoking policies in public places and workplaces as a way to protect Americans from secondhand smoke, saying there is no safe level of exposure. Reports from the country’s top doctors say these laws are reducing risk. The U.S. surgeon general has released 31 reports about the effects of smoking since 1964. These reports are extremely detailed, summarizing the latest research on smoking and peer-reviewed by dozens of the nation’s top scientists. Consensus on secondhand smoke really began to form in the 1980s, even as the tobacco industry’s"doubt-creation machine" spun opposing talking points, said Dr. Jonathan Samet, senior scientific editor of the 2014 surgeon general report and director of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Global Health. The surgeon general’s 2006 report stated rather bluntly that inhaling secondhand smoke "causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in nonsmoking adults." Involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke killed more than 49,000 nonsmokers in 2005, plus 430 newborns who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the report said. In 2014, the acting surgeon general released a new report, one that factored in input from more than 80 contributing authors and 150 reviewers who are experts in medicine and public health. Secondhand smoke can also increase risk of stroke, the new report found. Beyond that, involuntary exposure poses significant problems for children, worsening asthma and leading to other respiratory conditions. Since 1964, the report said, 2.46 million non-smokers have died from exposure to secondhand smoke. How does the government calculate its numbers? Scientists don’t keep a count of deaths by secondhand smoke as recorded in death certificates. (Death certificates don’t list "secondhand smoke" as a cause of death.) Instead, they rely on statistical methods used by epidemiologists, who are experts in disease patterns within populations. To figure out lung cancer deaths from secondhand smoke, for instance, the individual risk of lung cancer is analyzed next to the proportion of people exposed to secondhand smoke. It’s a complicated statistical analysis (page 659 explains more), one with which Stossel obviously finds fault. But it’s not unusual. The same method is used to attribute the number of deaths from obesity through diabetes, for example, Samet said. "This is the basic way to use to understand how the disease is exposed to this risk," Samet said. "We understand that there are uncertainties that go with this, but this is a very basic tool. ... The approach here is embedded in science and policy and understanding how much a disease is caused by something." The surgeon general is not alone in major scientific organizations linking secondhand smoke with deadly diseases. There’s also the World Health Organization’s International Center for Research on Cancer, the Environmental Protection Agency, the American Cancer Society, and the National Academy of Sciences. "At this point, the evidence is firm and very powerful, and important conclusions have been reached," Samet said. You can quibble over specific numbers since they’re approximations, said Gary Giovino, a professor of health behavior at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. But not that secondhand smoke kills, he said. "Chronic exposure produces disease and death," Giovino said. How do folks such as Stossel respond? The libertarian Cato Institute published a response to the 2006 surgeon general’s report on secondhand smoke that highlighted testimony before a committee of the British Parliament by Oxford epidemiologist Richard Peto. Peto, who has studied the causes of cancer and the effects of smoking, testified that he could not quantify deaths from secondhand smoke because "these hazards cannot be directly measured." (The story was written by Gio Gori, an epidemiologist who wrote publications on behalf of the industry-backed Tobacco Institute refuting studies about nicotine’s harmful effects.) Conversely, some scientists say the government is actually undercounting secondhand smoke-related deaths. "The criticism … is not that they overestimate the risk, it’s that they’re underestimating it,"  said Stanton Glantz, a University of California San Francisco medicine professor and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. And dog lovers, beware: New evidence shows secondhand smoke can also kill pets, including lung and nasal cancer in dogs and malignant lymphoma in cats. Our ruling Stossel said "there is no good data showing secondhand smoke kills people." His definition of good obviously differs with the vast majority of scientists and researchers studying the effects of secondhand smoke. They say the data does show that secondhand smoke kills people. And that the data is indeed solid. Stossel’s claim rates .


Testosterone gel linked to heart problems.

Explanation: Testosterone treatments may build muscle mass in older men, but they may carry a risk of heart problems in people with poor mobility, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The Massachusetts study, reported online by the New England Journal of Medicine, was halted after six months because the men using a hormone gel were developing so many heart, breathing and skin problems compared to patients applying a placebo gel to their shoulders or upper arms every day. “I think the study raises important questions about the safety of giving testosterone to older individuals,” Dr. Shalender Bhasin of the Boston University School of Medicine said in a telephone interview. Levels of testosterone, the so-called male hormone, decline with age in men. Supplementing it in healthy men can build muscle mass and strength and lower the risk of disability. The new test was the first to assess its effectiveness in men over 65 who already had mobility problems such as difficulty walking two blocks or climbing 10 stairs. The 209 volunteers, with an average age of 74, also tended to suffer from obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol at the start of the test. “One would expect that from a frail, older population,” said Bhasin. Recipients of the testosterone gel, sold under the brand name Testim by Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, became better at walking up stairs and performing chest- and leg-press exercises. But by the time the study was terminated, 23 patients in the testosterone group and five in the placebo group had experienced a bad side effect such as fainting, chest pain or heart attack. One man in the testosterone group died of a suspected heart attack. The numbers were too small to be statistically significant and the side effects encompassed a lot of different diagnoses, which may mean that chance played a role in the results. Yet men receiving testosterone had more serious side effects and more side effects considered to be life-threatening, the researchers said, lasting for three months after the trial ended. “The study was designed to study mobility limitation, a common syndrome with the elderly that predicts disability, poor quality of life and mortality,” Auxilium said in a statement. “We believe these men are not representative of the typical testosterone replacement therapy population.”   Bhasin was surprised by the finding. “Testosterone is not currently approved for older men with age-related decline or mobility problems,” he said. However it is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for other patients. Doctors thinking of prescribing testosterone for their older patients should realize that the treatment may pose a serious risk, Bhasin said. “There may be safety issues that they should weigh in their decision,” he said. Testosterone causes salt and water retention and that could have been a factor, the researchers said. The National Institute on Aging, which paid for the trial, also noted that the men in the study may have been getting exceptionally high doses of testosterone. Auxilium said they were getting double to triple the recommended dose.


During a radio interview, Rosie O'Donnell said, "I'd like to take my period blood and smear it all over Christians' [or pro-life people's] faces.

Explanation: What's true: In a 2015 radio talk show discussion about the period shaming of women, Rosie O'Donnell said, “I’d like to take my period blood I no longer have and write, ‘You’re all assh***s.’ I’d like to smear it all over some people’s faces.” What's false: Her comment wasn't directed specifically at Christians or pro-lifers.

According to various unreliable sources, plainspoken comedian and former The View co-host Rosie O’Donnell said publicly that she’d like to smear her menstrual blood all over either Christians‘ faces or pro-life people‘s faces — depending on which version you read. Both versions are misrepresentations of what O’Donnell actually said. On 12 August 2015, O’Donnell made a call-in appearance on the SiriusXM radio talk show Just Jenny, on which the topic of moment was menstrual blood. Specifically, the show’s host, Jenny Hutt, and another guest had been criticizing marathon runner Kiran Gandhi’s decision to run the London Marathon that year without wearing a tampon. O’Donnell took exception to their critical remarks. “I can’t believe two smart, intelligent women who I love, both named Jenny, are on the radio saying periods are disgusting,” she said, comparing the discussion to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s then-recent comment about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who had questioned him during a televised debate about his misogynistic statements toward women (including O’Donnell herself). “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes,” Trump said of Kelly afterward. “Blood coming out of her wherever.” Trump later tweeted that he had meant “blood coming out of her ‘nose,'” but he was widely understood as having purposely implied that Kelly must be having her period. According to O’Donnell, such demeaning comments are part of a widening “war on women” in America: Bigger than any specific people, there’s a war on women that’s happening in this country, starting with basic abortion rights, freedom to choose, that we fought for in the sixties and seventies, that women died for, bleeding in back alleys from hanger abortions. Women fought for equality in this country, and right now, politically, it’s being taken away from us, and it doesn’t help with you guys thinking, “Oh, that woman who showed the blood, the menstruation blood — ew, that was disgusting, she’s not fun to have dinner with. Come on, ladies. This prompted agreement from host Jenny Hutt, who admitted, “There is still shame associated with periods.” “From men!” O’Donnell replied. “From men, ladies, and it doesn’t help when the women do it!” She continued: If you’ve got a period, you’re gonna bleed. That blood is gonna keep the baby alive in your stomach, and the children that you love. It’s part of being a human. Men get erections and semen comes out. Let’s get off the period talk unless you’re gonna be empowering. I’d like to take my period blood that I no longer have and write, you know, “You’re all assholes.” I’d like to smear it all over some people’s faces. So don’t jump on the bandwagon with the period, please. We all have periods, okay? Based on the context of her remarks, the most reasonable interpretation would seem to be that O’Donnell was targeting people — mainly men, in her eyes — who had engaged in menstrual shaming, not specifically Christians or pro-life advocates.


Waste not, want not: P&G venture aims to squeeze new life out of Italy's dirty diapers.

Explanation: A joint venture between Procter & Gamble and Italian healthcare group Angelini is working to create a sustainable recycling loop that would allow dirty diapers to be turned into plastic bottle caps and viscose clothing.

More than 20 million tonnes of disposable diapers are burned or dumped in landfills globally every year - a major environmental problem since their use became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s. Part of the problem is that collecting, cleaning and breaking diapers into their component parts - plastic, cellulose and super absorbent polymer - is tricky and expensive. The other issue is that no-one has been able to establish a market for the recycled output, dooming previous commercial efforts to failure. Fater, a Pescara, Italy-based business that became a joint venture in 1992, believes it will be able to address these issues, backed by governments, consumers and other companies goaded into action by a new global awareness of the looming crisis of plastics pollution. The new Italian government, in particular, has made finding “circular economy” solutions a pillar of its populist agenda. “Nappies are made of the highest quality plastics and we’ve shown they can be recycled to extract high-value building blocks,” says Marcello Somma, Fater’s director of research and development and business development. For P&G, the world’s leading diaper maker and one of the biggest contributors to the problem with nearly 27 percent of the $44 billion diaper market, Fater ticks several boxes. P&G aims to be able to recycle absorbent hygiene products (AHP), as diapers, incontinence pads and feminine hygiene products are known, in 10 cities by 2030, according to its latest sustainability agenda. In the long term, it hopes to use 100 percent renewable or recycled materials for all products and packaging. Roberto Marinucci, P&G’s vice president of global baby wipes, sustainability and the joint venture, said the company had still not established whether consumers would be willing to pay a premium for diapers they know are going to be recycled, but it was clear they want brands to care about the environment. “We believe that the first reason, which is doing the right thing for the consumer, is sufficient enough to convince us to go ahead with the project,” Marinucci said in an interview. Under EU regulations, Fater cannot sell the output of its diaper recycling operation, located near Venice, until it proves there is a market for it. To that end, it has been working on prospective clients and now has 11 letters of intent with businesses like bioplastic manufacturers and paper mills. P&G is also part of an EU-backed group of 13 companies developing end products for the output. They include bioplastic manufacturer, Novamont, which can use the cellulose to make pharmaceutical ingredients. Fater says the plastic from recycled diapers can be used to make school desks and urban playgrounds, cellulose can become viscose fabric or specialty paper, and super-absorbent polymer can be used in gardening and flood barriers. P&G has no plans to use Fater’s output in its diapers, which include Pampers and Luvs, until it completes consumer research on the idea, Marinucci said. In the interim, he said, the company may use the plastics for bottle caps. The biggest delay to the project has been regulatory, Marinucci said, but he predicts it will get the EU green light in the next 12 months. In the meantime, after several years in development, Fater’s plant is operating at about a third of its 10,000-tonne annual capacity to provide samples and build stockpiles. The plant expects to generate annual revenue equal to 50 percent of the cost of its machinery, Marinucci said. “We’re working on well-grounded assumptions, but they’re still assumptions,” he said. If it works, it could be expanded. Government efforts to resolve the problem of plastics pollution gained urgency last year when China announced it would stop importing foreign waste. China in 2016 took in 7.3 million tonnes of waste plastics - 56 percent of world imports. Fater is not the first to attempt diaper recycling. UK-based Knowaste was forced to close its 70,000 tonne-per-year recycling plant in Holland in 2007 after a new incinerator beat it on cost and it was unable to find markets for the final product. Efforts to open another facility have failed so far but Knowaste continues to invest in technology and is now considering a plant in the Middle East. “We were way ahead of the curve and maybe went too soon. But the market is now showing clear signs of maturing,” said company CEO Roy Brown. Fater’s patented process starts with local waste management utility Contarina SpA, which collects used diapers and other AHP from curbside bins or large users like hospitals from more than 50 local towns, trucking them in to the 1,000-sq meter plant. After dry cleaning the diapers using contact steam and disposing of the human waste in waste water treatment plants, one ton of AHP waste can yield 150 kg of cellulose, 75 kg of absorbing material and 75 kg of mixed plastic. Starting at the end of 2020, a small-scale biorefinery in Amsterdam will be able to process the recovered secondary raw materials and convert them into biologically-based products like biodegradable plastics and biofertilizers. Guy Schanschieff, founder of UK-based reusable diaper brand Bambino Mio, says he has seen others try and fail to recycle diapers over the years. For one thing, busy parents can’t always deposit diapers in the required bins, he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a disposable product and it’s going to be thrown away,” said Schanschieff, who is also chairman of the Nappy Alliance trade group. “Not creating the waste in the first place is always going to be the best thing.”


Mike Pence Says Hillary Clinton "wants to increase Syrian refugees to this country by 550 percent.

Explanation: Under pressure to reduce environmental waste from single-use containers, major consumer companies including Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N), Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) and The Body Shop are rolling out more products in refillable form.

Immigration, National, Human Rights, Foreign Policy, Terrorism, Mike Pence,

P&G, with roughly $68 billion in annual revenue, said it has invested millions in creating and testing refills for detergents over the years and is now trying to push in to mainstream beauty and body care refills – which are virtually  unheard of. It recently began offering some Olay face-cream jars with refill pouches on Olay.com, telling Reuters it has plans to expand the sales of the pouches in Europe early next year. “We’re learning on our legs so I don’t know that we’re in a position to say, ‘Hey, here’s the magic to selling refills,’” P&G spokesman Damon Jones said. Beauty products retailer The Body Shop, owned by Brazil’s Natura Cosmeticos SA NATU3.SA, says it plans to roll out “refill stations” in its stores globally next year, allowing shoppers to buy reusable metal containers to fill with Body Shop shower gels or creams. The company had offered refills at its stores in the early 1990s, but discontinued them in 2003, citing a lack of consumer demand. Unilever, which has set targets for reducing and recycling plastic by 2025, in October announced the planned launch of “refill sticks” of deodorants under its Dove line of personal care products on Loopstore.com. The website, operated by recycling company TerraCycle, offers consumers the chance to buy some household products in ultra-durable packaging with refills delivered to their doors, milkman-style. Across the consumer goods industry, results for refillable products have been mixed so far as many shoppers are far too set in their ways to be easily weaned from living in a throwaway culture. While refills are less expensive to purchase - generally priced at 20% to 30% less per item than the containers they are aimed to replenish, according to Unilever - shoppers have so far, for the most part, failed to snap them up, the companies said. SC Johnson & Son Inc, marketer of Windex and Pledge, said refills and concentrates so far have not played well with either Americans or Europeans over the decade they have been offered, with unit sales of such products pretty much flat. It pulled concentrated refills for Shout stain remover off the shelves because they were not selling very well. In 2010, Unilever put 20-liter tanks to dispense detergents in Walmart Inc’s (WMT.N) British supermarket chain Asda, and provided flexible pouches for customers to refill. But with leaky machines, safety and maintenance problems and the high costs of upkeep, Unilever said the tests fell short of expectations. Asda was also unhappy because the tanks occupied a lot of space. “None of them sell very well – it is a convenience issue,” SC Johnson CEO Fisk Johnson told Reuters. Johnson said some people find it painstaking to wash and refill bottles themselves while others worry that smaller bottles filled with concentrates are less “bang-for-your-buck” than the larger ones they have used for years. Still, the privately held company said it was expanding its refill offerings this year to address concerns surrounding plastic waste and is also testing refill stations for cleaning products with UK retailer Waitrose, owned by Britain’s John Lewis [JLPLC.UL]. The Waitrose tests are showing the first signs of progress in refill sales, Johnson said, and the company is now thinking of expanding the project. Even if consumers are comfortable using refills for some household goods, it is more complicated to sell them for products like Pantene shampoo and Olay creams, P&G spokesman Jones said. For instance, with beauty products, the look and feel of packaging is a big factor in creating and maintaining customer loyalty, while delivering an environmental benefit, he said. Some shoppers say they want to buy refillable products, but that the offerings are not available at many stores. Earlier this year, dozens of consumers took to social media to urge The Body Shop to bring back its refill counters. “Refill, refill, refill!” Twitter user @JaiChipperfield said on July 22, joining a thread in which several other shoppers demanded the return of refills. “Seems to me that judging by these comments your customers want to see the return of refills,” @JaiChipperfield added. “Me too, it would be brilliant to see that return.”  The Body Shop eventually responded to those pleas. “Now with the renewed focus on sustainability, we believe it is the right time to return with it,” Body Shop spokeswoman Lucy Muircroft told Reuters this week.


Ohio officials say tick-borne Lyme Disease still a threat.

Explanation: The Ohio Department of Health says hunters and those trekking in wooded areas should use bug spray and take other precautions even in cold weather to prevent being infected with tick-borne Lyme disease.

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The state agency reports that 241 cases of Lyme disease have been reported in 60 of Ohio’s 88 counties this year. The number of cases has risen steadily the last five years, with 160 reported last year after only 93 in 2013. Lyme disease is passed to humans by deer ticks and can cause flu-like illnesses, muscle pain and headaches. A rash shaped like a bull’s-eye is often seen around tick bites. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources recommends people walk in the middle of trails and tuck in clothing to prevent bites.


Missouri faces vaccination hesitancy amid measles case.

Explanation: He was 13 years old and playing in a barn in rural Kansas City when he accidentally scraped himself on a rusty nail. A few days later, he was too weak to walk and began having the excruciating muscle spasms that come with contracting tetanus.

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Christelle Ilboudo, a pediatrician and pediatric infectious diseases expert at MU Health Care, distinctly remembers the day the boy’s family brought him in to be evaluated. At first the family thought it was just a virus of some kind. His whole body was stiff, and he had a fever. They finally decided to make him an appointment one morning when he tried walking to their bedroom and collapsed to the floor, Ilboudo explained. The boy hadn’t been vaccinated, the Columbia Missourian reported. “He luckily survived, but one vaccination could have prevented that — like so many other diseases we are beginning to see again,” Ilboudo said. The reappearance in the U.S. of diseases that were once thought to be eradicated, specifically, measles, has prompted national alarm and calls for more action by the federal government to urge vaccination. On March 13, a measles case was confirmed in eastern Missouri due to out-of-state exposure. It was not confirmed whether the person had been vaccinated. The World Health Organization announced vaccine hesitancy as one of the 10 threats to global health in 2019. The organization identified complacency, inconvenience in accessing vaccines and lack of confidence as key reasons underlying hesitancy. According to the United Health Foundation, Missouri ranked 21st alongside Alabama for vaccination rates of children ages 19 months to just under age 3. This is the age range when the measles, mumps and rubella vaccination is first administered. Among the recommended vaccinations is the MMR vaccine, which protects against the three viral diseases. They typically affect younger children and can be dangerous due to how fast they spread. Measles can be identified by a pinpoint rash, and if not treated, can lead to pneumonia, brain inflammation, seizures and permanent brain damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In data collected by the CDC, there has been an annual increase in measles cases. Last year, 15 states, Missouri included, reported a total of 372 measles cases. As of March 14, the same states reported 268 cases. The CDC also reported that a majority of the 2018 cases came from international travel. That year had the greatest number of imported cases since measles was eliminated from the U.S. in 2000. Although more cases are being reported nationwide, states are taking stances that vary across the board. In Missouri, two bills were introduced this year that would eliminate the religious belief exemption and allow minors to consent to vaccinations. In response, another two bills were introduced in opposition that would prohibit discrimination against children who are not vaccinated in medical settings and require medical practitioners to provide informational paperwork to parents prior to vaccination. All 50 states allow some K-12 medical vaccination exemptions; 47 states allow religious exemptions; and 17 states allow personal belief exemptions. Missouri allows both medical and religious exemptions but not personal belief exemptions for K-12. However, Missouri law does allow a parental exemption at any preschool, day care or nursery school if the parent or guardian files a written objection with the day care administrator. In the 17 states that allow for personal belief exemptions, it can be as simple as a box check for parents. Meanwhile, measles outbreaks are increasing among unvaccinated children, specifically in Washington and Texas. These are two of 17 states that allow for personal belief exemptions. In late February, an Arizona legislative panel voted to expand its exemption list, making it easier for parents to opt out. In an interview with NPR, Jessica Rigler, branch chief of public health preparedness at Arizona’s department of health services, said more than 5,000 kindergartners in the state could fall sick with measles if there were an outbreak. There is also new, additional evidence that parents’ fear of vaccine safety is unfounded. The results of a 10-year Danish study of 10,000 children, released on March 5, validated the results of a 2002 study that found no relationship between MMR vaccination and autism. The link has been debunked repeatedly since a now discredited and retracted 1998 study published in The Lancet linking the vaccine to autism. The doctor who conducted the study later lost his license for “irresponsible and dishonest” actions. In a phone interview, Anders Peter Hviid, head epidemiologist in the recent study, talked about why his team decided to repeat their earlier research. “Given the worrying trend in vaccine hesitancy, we felt that it was worth revisiting the link in a larger cohort with more follow-up time and also address some of the anti-vaxxer criticisms of our 2002 study,” Hviid said. “I feel passionate about good science and reason,” he said. “Vaccination is the reasonable choice based on the vast majority of scientific evidence.” One of the questions that concerned parents had was related to the age the vaccination was administered and the relationship it appeared to have with the age autism symptoms presented. Parents are told to get their children vaccinated with MMR between 12 and 15 months old. That’s about the time that parents will begin to notice the regression in developmental milestones that might signal autism, Ilboudo said. That prompts parents to make a causal connection, “even though (the study) was discredited, parents accept it as an explanation to a question no one has the answer to,” Ilboudo said. Major websites like Facebook, Pinterest and Google have taken steps toward removing vaccine misinformation online in response to repeated posts that promoted false information about vaccines. On March 4, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Kyle E. Yasuda, called upon the chief executives of Google, Facebook and Pinterest, “to work together to combat the dangerous spread of vaccine misinformation online.” Facebook released a blog post stating its plan of action. For now, the problem persists. Anti-vaccination groups are still appearing in searches, the opposite of what was described in the blog. A spokesperson on behalf of Instagram and Facebook announced on March 21 to the public that this is going to be a “long-term commitment.” The key is getting parents who read misinformation online to stop sharing the content and if there is a concern, to get them off the internet and engaged in an honest conversation with their child’s health care provider. But, it can be tricky. Ultimately, Ilboudo said, building trust between parents and health care providers could reverse the trend. The key is asking the parent what their specific concerns are and addressing them with scientific evidence. “It’s about having an honest conversation with your doctor,” Ilboudo said. “We don’t profit off of vaccinations — we recommend them because we believe it is the best choice to prolong the child’s life.” ___ Information from: Columbia Missourian, http://www.columbiamissourian.com


Southeast Asian nations, among worst ocean polluters, aim to curb plastic debris.

Explanation: Thai zero-waste advocate Thanaboon Somboon never leaves his home without what he calls a full “weaponry” of reusable shopping bags, coffee tumblers and stainless steel straws for his daily battle against single-use plastic.

“I saw news of trash overflowing the world...sea animals dying from eating plastic...I felt I must do something,” says the 48-year-old entrepreneur, who leads an online community of more than 20,000 people seeking to practice a waste-free lifestyle. But individual efforts alone can’t fully stop the 8 million tonnes of plastic that make their way to the ocean each year,  and with four of the five worst ocean polluters in Southeast Asia, the region’s governments must take action, he says. “Policymaking to address the issue must be treated with urgency as well,” said Thanaboon. A summit for leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) being hosted by Thailand this weekend is expected to adopt the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in ASEAN Region. Thailand, the current chair of the group, has lauded the declaration as a “big step” for the region, whose coasts have seen whales and sea turtles wash up dead in recent years with large amounts of plastic rubbish in their stomachs. ASEAN members Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand are among the five countries throwing the most plastic waste into oceans, according to a 2015 report co-authored by  environmental campaigner Ocean Conservancy. China is the worst offender. “Every ASEAN country agrees that marine debris is a common problem that we must address urgently,” Wijarn Simachaya, permanent secretary of Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, told Reuters. Unlike the European Union’s central bans and targets, Wijarn said the ASEAN declaration will outline broad ideas but it will be up to each country what it would take home to implement. The declaration will come ahead of next week’s G20 summit in Japan, which assembles 20 major economies and will also aim to tackle marine plastic pollution. Environmentalists welcomed ASEAN’s move to adopt the joint declaration, but there are worries that implementation will be a challenge, because the group has a code of non-interference that would leave necessary policymaking in the hands of individual member countries. “This declaration will be a new milestone, but it will be just words on paper if there is no change in policies,” Tara Buakamsri, director of Greenpeace Thailand, told Reuters. He said ASEAN countries should urgently all ban single-use plastic first for the declaration to be effective. “There is no other way,” Tara said. Globally, up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used each year, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Of 300 million tonnes of plastic waste the world produces annually, 8 million end up in the oceans, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, it says. According to Ocean Conservancy, 60 percent of the debris comes from China and the four ASEAN nations. “It’s a good step as this is the first time ASEAN formally acknowledges the issue of marine debris,” said marine biologist Thon Thamrongnawasawat. Each year, Thailand generates about 2 million tonnes of plastic waste, only about 25% of which gets recycled. The rest goes to incineration or landfill, where about 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes leaks into the ocean. Environmentalists commend initiatives by some major retailers to cut back on plastic bags, but say most businesses will not take action unless there is a stricter push from policy initiatives. CP All, which operates over 10,000 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country, said it has saved 464 million bags from circulation since December, donating more than 92 million baht saved from the process to public hospitals around the country. Thailand’s largest retail conglomerate Central Group said last month it aimed to reduce plastic bags by 150 million this year by giving customers rewards incentives. Governments should “act more drastically” by introducing immediate bans on single-use plastic so that more businesses follow suit, said Nattapong Nithi-Uthai, who leads volunteer network Trash Hero that cleans up the Gulf of Thailand in southern Pattani province. He also said ASEAN should aim to significantly improve its waste management schemes, as well as hold producers of consumer goods accountable. “There should be designated places for every single item to go. If things are piled up somewhere, they can leak into the ocean,” he said. “Producers should also be made responsible for taking back the single-use plastic they produce ... This might make them think twice about producing single-use packaging.”