Explanation: This news release describes a recently published journal article on a study that evaluated a blood test that was designed to detect concussions or traumatic brain injury in children. The study reports that head injury causes the release of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) from the brain into the bloodstream, and that the levels of GFAP in the blood correspond to the severity of the head injury. According to the release, the blood test correctly identified the presence of concussion or traumatic brain injury in 94 percent of the cases. But the release fails to mention that many positive results from the test would be false-positives, which would result in additional testing and may pose additional health risks. The release notes that concussion and traumatic brain injury are usually diagnosed based on symptoms — such as perceived balance problems or reports of headaches or grogginess — and that the blood test provides an objective test that can be used for diagnosis. However, the release fails to speak to a more important aspect of the marker, that is it’s potential negative predictive value. As noted in the study the biomarker has a 98% negative predictive value. That means that a negative result, if the biomarker holds up to additional testing, would rule out concussion. According to the CDC, approximately 248,000 children were treated for concussions or traumatic brain injuries in U.S. emergency departments in 2009. And that number doesn’t include children who were taken to a family physician or who went misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. Concussions can have significant impacts on a child’s health and well-being, with symptoms ranging from headaches and dizziness to memory problems and behavioral changes. What’s more, the Mayo Clinic notes that having one concussion increases the risk of a child’s having a second concussion — and repeated concussions can have a multiplier effect. The development of an objective test that can accurately diagnose concussions in children without the use of CT scans, would certainly be a significant advance. However, it’s important to recognize the limitations of the current study and to address issues such as potential misdiagnosis.

Diagnostic tests,Independent research center news release

The release doesn’t address cost at all. The release makes clear that the blood test is not ready for clinical use, stating that researchers “hope it will be commercially available within the next five years.” However, if the release is going to discuss what such a diagnostic tool would look like (e.g., “mobile devices that could diagnose concussions on the spot”), it should also provide a ballpark figure on what such a diagnostic tool might cost. The release tells readers that the study correctly identified the presence of traumatic brain injuries 94 percent of the time, and that the levels of GFAP in the blood corresponded to the severity of the injuries. However, the release emphasizes only one side of the biomarker story, focusing entirely on the positive predictive value. While important, we think that the other side of the coin should have been addressed as well. Another presumed benefit of an easy-to-use biomarker blood test to detect concussion would be eliminating the necessity of a CT scan if, in fact, the biomarker had a high negative predictive value. The study notes a 98% negative predictive value. That means if the test comes back negative, there is a very low likelihood that the person has suffered a concussion. This could eliminate the need for a CT scan and any additional treatments. In reality, it is unlikely that a positive test would obviate the need for a CT scan. In fact, one could argue that the presence of a positive result would require a CT scan. The 94% accuracy notation in the press release is incorrect. It should have noted a 94% sensitivity (true positive) and a 47% specificity (true negative). The low specificity means that many positive results will be wrong (see more below under “Harms”). The release is silent on the potential harms that could result from an easy-to-use biomarker test, especially one that has a 47% specificity (the ability of the test to correctly identify those without the condition). A test with only 47% specificity means that more than half of positive results will be “false positives.” The release does not address these “false positives” at all — meaning instances in which the test diagnosed a patient as having brain injury when there was no injury. A false positive could result in additional testing, which may create a financial burden, and — in the case of a CT scan — poses health risks of its own. Second, the release refers to the possibility of using the blood test to make brain injury diagnoses “on the spot.” Quoting one of the researchers who did the study, the release says: “The idea is to get a point-of-care test that could be used on the field to help the coaches, the trainers and the athletic directors, make a decision then and there about whether the child should go back to play.” However, the journal article the release is reporting on notes that GFAP is detectable in the bloodstream “within one hour of injury.” The release does note that such a tool should only be used to “help” adults make decisions about a child’s health, but this still raises some significant questions. What if a coach, for example, takes a blood test before the GFAP has had time to become detectable in the blood stream? Would that give the coach a false sense of confidence that the child is fine and can re-enter the game? The release does not provide many important aspects of the study, The release says that researchers performed CT scans on 152 children and compared the results of those scans with results from the blood test. In fact, the study was of 257 children, of which 197 had blunt head trauma and 60 were trauma controls. Of the 152 children who received CT scans, 18 were found to have traumatic intracranial lesions. That means that 1-out-of 11 of the children scanned has evidence of a concussion. So the results in the story are really only based on 18 children out of the 152 with presumed traumatic head injury. The study authors note in the paper that “a much larger number of children will be required to test the precision of the biomarker.” No disease mongering here. The release notes that the journal article’s lead author receives funding from NIH. The study itself was partially funded by the NIH, a subtle but potentially important distinction. Further, the journal article notes that the lead author is a scientific consultant for Banyan Biomarkers, Inc. — a company that has intellectual property rights to GFAP testing. The journal article also states that the relevant author “receives no stocks or royalties from the company and will not benefit financially from this publication” — but that potential conflict of interest is still worth mentioning in the release. The story provides information on the routine use of CT scanning as the standard for traumatic head injury. Since there are a host of biomarkers under study at the present time to detect concussion, we would have liked to have seen a couple of words on the other research taking place. For example, Banyan Biomarkers has one additional biomarker under study at the present time. The release makes clear that the GFAP test is not available for clinical use, and that the researchers hope to develop a test for clinical applications within the next five years. There is a robust body of literature on GFAP and brain injury, but the release does not mention that research at all. The journal article notes that “To the best of our knowledge this is among the largest published studies to date assessing GFAP in children and youth with mild and moderate [traumatic brain injury] in an [emergency department] setting.” That’s useful context, and the release should have included it. Even better, it could have told readers how this research fits into that existing body of work — is it consistent with previous findings? Does it expand on previous findings? That would be great to know. The release calls the test “simple” in several places whereas our review shows that it would be anything but. Some other examples of hyperbole: “Concussions in kids are detectable by blood test,” “Blood test is 94 percent reliable in detecting concussions in kids, confirmed by CT scans.”  The story backs off in the last line that states “Researchers plan to do more studies with the blood test, but they hope it will be commercially available within the next 5 years.”  That’s not quite good enough, however. In the published results, the authors stated more appropriately, “Further study is required to validate these findings before clinical application.”


More cases of rabies in skunks confirmed in Detroit area.

Explanation: Officials have confirmed two new cases of rabies in skunks found in suburban Detroit communities.

Animals, Rabies, Health, General News, Detroit, Bats, Michigan

Oakland County’s health division says Wednesday that the skunks were in Southfield and Farmington Hills and that rabies has been verified so far this year in eight skunks and four bats in the county. Several cases of rabies in skunks have been confirmed in Southfield. Other cases also have been confirmed in Rochester Hills and Troy. Health officials say bats and skunks are the most common carriers of rabies in Michigan. Symptoms in animals include general sickness, swallowing problems and excessive drooling, slow and unusual movement, no apparent fear of humans and aggression. Rabies can be fatal to humans after symptoms begin to occur. Deaths can be prevented with a vaccine administered immediately after exposure.


There’s not one public study, and by public study I mean a study available to the public, that has looked at using the product Kaput to poison feral hogs.

Environment, Animals, Texas, Will Herring,

A Texas meat processor who questions a government-approved bait that kills feral hogs charges there’s no public research on the product. Will Herring, owner of the Hubbard-based Wild Boar Meat Company, which makes hog meat into pet food, has said he fears the product’s active ingredient--warfarin, long known as a rat poison and human blood thinner--will damage his business. Also, Herring said: "There’s not one public study, and by public study I mean a study available to the public, that has looked at using the product Kaput to poison feral hogs," a comment we spotted in a March 6, 2017, news story in the San Antonio Express-News. A note: Public studies of particular pesticides don’t appear to be mandatory. An Environmental Protection Agency web page about registering pesticides says only that the "company that wants to produce the pesticide must provide data from studies  that comply with our testing guidelines" without mention of whether the studies must be public or, say, conducted independently. That web page also says that before registering a product, EPA develops risk assessments evaluating the potential harms to humans, wildlife, fish, and plants, including endangered species and non-target organisms plus any possible contamination of surface water or groundwater from leaching, runoff and "spray drift." Still, Herring persuaded a state district judge to issue a temporary order putting a hold on state rules approving Kaput’s use by state-licensed pesticide applicators and state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, filed a proposal barring the state from registering any lethal pesticide, including warfarin, for feral hog control unless a state agency or university performs and publishes a scientific study weighing the pesticide’s environmental and economic effects. Both moves happened after Sid Miller, the Republican state agriculture commissioner, announced the Texas Department of Agriculture would issue rules limiting Kaput’s sale and use to licensed individuals. When we inquired, the state agency emailed us a spreadsheet indicating that Colorado-based Scimetrics, the company poised to vend Kaput, fielded $136,854 in research grants from TDA from 2013 into 2017. All told in 2016-17, the sheet indicates, the agency awarded $802,500 to fight feral hogs; that counts funds awarded to counties, universities and other agencies. Feral hogs can be fearsome nuisances. Nationally, as many as 750,000 are harvested annually, yet how they ravage rural and suburban lands remains a problem--and Texas is home to more than 2 million of them. No public study? We asked Herring how he reached his conclusion about no public studies. By phone, he told us that he didn’t find specific studies of the product in online searches nor, he said, did Genesis Laboratories, the Colorado-based company that developed the product, provide a study at his firm's inquiry. We also reached Richard Poché, Genesis Labs' president, who conceded that no Kaput study has been formally published. He said, though, the company completed a study in Texas in 2015 submitted under the title "Field efficacy of a warfarin bait used to control feral hog populations" for consideration by the Wiley-published Wildlife Society Bulletin, which describes itself as a journal for wildlife practitioners that effectively integrates cutting-edge science with management and conservation, and also covers important policy issues, particularly those that focus on the integration of science and policy. By email, the bulletin’s editor, Kansas State University’s David Haukos, confirmed that study was submitted. In March 2017, Haukos told us: "The manuscript is currently undergoing peer-review; therefore, no decision has been made concerning publication." Poché said by phone the 2015 study was followed up by another in 2016 with a third study underway in 2017, each one based on feeding the Kaput product to feral hogs. Both of the first two studies, he said, decimated exposed hog populations in North Texas study areas; he noted too the bait uses only one-fifth of the warfarin found in conventional rat and mouse baits. We asked for a copy of the 2015 study. By email, Poché said that remains "confidential business information," and that releasing it before publication would leave his company with no control of where it ends up. Poché otherwise provided two of his own March 2017 PowerPoint presentations on Kaput along with the printed program for the April 2016 International Wild Pig Conference program in Myrtle Beach, S.C. A section of the program, "Feral hog control using a new bait," evidently describes a Scimetric study. It opens: "An EPA Experimental Use Permit was obtained to conduct a field trial using a novel bait to control feral hogs. The product, 12-years under development, was used to determine the efficacy against feral hogs on test sites 50 miles east of Plainview, Texas. Two paraffin bait formulations were tested, containing 0.005% and 0.01% warfarin. Hog activity was monitored pre- and post-treatment using trail cameras near feeders, VHF and GPS transmitting equipment, and bait consumption." Next, the summary says: "Bait was applied in modified commercial feeders with heavy lids. Baiting initiated on June 1 and terminated June 30, 2015. After the 30-day exposure period efficacy on the 5-km treatment plot baited with 0.005% warfarin was 100%, 98.6%, and 97.8% using radio-tracking, trail camera images, and bait consumption. Efficacy on the 0.01% warfarin bait plot was not as effective. Ninety-seven non-target searches were conducted during the treatment and post-treatment phases to examine for mortality, for which none were found," an indication other animals weren’t killed by the bait. The text closes: "The low warfarin concentrate bait proved effective in eliminating wild hogs while posing minimal exposure to non-target wildlife." The longer of the PowerPoint presentations includes a slide stating that warfarin was approved as a rodent-killer in 1948 and as a human drug six years later. The presentation also has several slides titled: "Field Efficacy of a Feral Hog Bait Containing 0.005% Warfarin," with a subtitle indicating the slides refer to research in North Texas from 2015 into 2017. Images include feral hogs wearing GPS collars or tagged for tracking by radio. One slide summarizes the research results by different methods of making hog counts:          SOURCE: Presentation, "Where we’ve been and where we’re going with Warfarin for controlling wild pigs," March 1, 2017, Richard Poché, Genesis Labs (received by email from Poché, March 9, 2017) Company: No independent research ‘necessary’ Poché, asked if independent research makes sense before Kaput goes commercial, emailed: "Not necessary. We do research under what is called Good Laboratory Practices, which is required by the EPA. No one can match the quality and integrity of the work." According to an EPA web page, the agency conducts audits to ensure companies developing pesticide products comply with those practices. EPA registration Our search of EPA’s web site led us to a Jan. 3, 2017, agency document indicating that on Jan. 3, 2017, Kaput Feral Hog Bait was registered with the agency under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. "Registration is in no way to be construed as an endorsement or recommendation of this product by the Agency," the document further states. "In order to protect health and the environment, the Administrator, on his motion, may at any time suspend or cancel the registration of a pesticide in accordance with the Act." Also, the document says, the product is "conditionally registered" in accord with section 3(c)(7)(a) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act; the section says the EPA administrator may conditionally register a pesticide if the pesticide is "identical or substantially similar" to a registered pesticide and approving the registration wouldn’t "significantly increase the risk of any unreasonable adverse effect on the environment." Another agency web page says: "If EPA finds that the pesticide meets the standard for registration, but there are outstanding data requirements, the Agency may, under certain circumstances, grant a ‘conditional’ registration pursuant to FIFRA section 3(c)(7). However, before granting a conditional registration, EPA must determine that, although an application lacks some of the required data, use of the pesticide would not significantly increase the risk of unreasonable adverse effects on people or the environment during the time needed to generate the necessary data." We asked Poché about "outstanding data requirements" with Kaput, as mentioned generally by the EPA. By email, Poché said a "1-year storage stability study" for Kaput has been submitted to the EPA. Poché unpacked: "An EPA-registered pesticide requires stability of the chemical in the formula available to the public. The product is stored in the marketing container on the shelf at room temperature over a one-year period. The bait is analyzed every 3 months for the warfarin concentration. That analysis is done at the beginning and at 3, 5, 9, and 12 months after manufacturing. The goal is to ensure the bait is good after 1 year and the concentration of warfarin is plus or minus 10% of what the EPA label requires. In our case the concentrations were within 1% of the label requirements," Poché said. Over a couple days, we did not draw an EPA response to Herring’s claim. Otherwise the National Pesticide Information Center, which partners Oregon State University with the EPA, responded to our inquiry by pointing out a 1991 EPA "fact sheet" on warfarin that states the EPA evaluates pesticides by obtaining from producers a "complete set of studies showing the human health and environmental effects of each pesticide. The Agency imposes any regulatory controls that are needed to effectively manage each pesticide's risks," the sheet says. State intends limits Miller, the state agriculture commissioner, is a former legislator who authored the Texas law enabling hunters to shoot at feral hogs from helicopters. At the TDA, spokeswoman Jennifer Dorsett responded to our inquiry about the absence of public studies of Kaput. Dorsett said by email: "Kaput is an entirely proprietary product, so studies on the Kaput Feral Hog Bait are owned by the company and you would have to contact them directly to see if they will release them to you." Also by email, TDA spokesman Mark Loeffler stressed that while the state agency helped fund Kaput research, its role is generally limited to cataloging pesticides approved by EPA, including Kaput, though Miller applied his authority to make Kaput "state limited use," to be sold by licensed dealers and used by licensed applicators, Loeffler said. "We do not do state-paid studies of proposed pesticides," Loeffler wrote. "We are not required to do lengthy study of a product because we have little discretion to reject or deny" registrations, he said. Dorsett otherwise provided a document listing a dozen reports on poisoning feral hogs, issued from 1987 through 2002, including seven titles specifying "warfarin," we tallied. Dorsett said the agency’s toxicologist, Michael Hare, used the reports as references in evaluating Kaput as a state-limited-use pesticide. Dorsett told us relevant research also has involved the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, which says it has officials in nearly every county demonstrating "the latest technology and best practices to improve the state’s food and fiber system." We didn't hear back from the service. Loeffler added that Miller has personally drawn on a 1995 post about warfarin’s history as a rat poison and its toxicity to animals put out by universities teamed in the Extension Toxicology Network. Excerpt: "Warfarin is only slightly dangerous to humans and domestic animals when used as directed, but care must be taken with young pigs, which are especially susceptible." Also, the post says, warfarin--which is insoluble in water--poses no threat to aquatic organisms and is "practically non-toxic" to game birds, with chickens "relatively resistant." Our ruling Herring said there’s no public study of Kaput, the product that might soon be available in Texas to attack feral hogs. There’s no public study of that EPA-registered product, we confirmed. But a 2015 study submitted to a science journal would become public if it’s accepted for publication. Also, the effects on feral hogs of warfarin, Kaput’s active ingredient, has been explored in published studies. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information.


President Barack Obama "said over 20 times he did not have the legal authority" to act as he did on immigration.

Echoing the U.S. House speaker, Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin charged President Barack Obama with disregarding many of his own statements by declaring the government would stop deporting millions of unauthorized residents. At a Dec. 2, 2014, hearing, McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson: "The president said over 20 times that he did not have the legal authority to do this, to take this executive action, and that this is not how democracy works. Do you agree with that prior statement?" Johnson replied: "Mr. Chairman, I know from 30 years as a lawyer that when someone paraphrases remarks from somebody, I want to see the full Q-and-A, I want to see the full context to know exactly what the person said. I have looked at various excerpts of remarks by the president concerning his legal authority to act. I do not believe that what we have done is inconsistent with that." Shortly before Obama detailed his 2014 moves, PolitiFact in Washington, D.C., found False the Democratic president’s statement that his position hadn’t changed on using executive authority to address immigration. Notably, the administration in June 2012 demonstrated a willingness to apply its discretionary powers by issuing a "deferred action" directive that immigration officials not deport young immigrants who had not otherwise run afoul of the law. The move potentially shielded hundreds of thousands of residents under age 30. Critics called the move an abuse of authority. Proponents said it was in keeping with the yet-to-pass DREAM Act providing a path to citizenship for children brought to the U.S. by immigrants not legally permitted to live here. So, Obama used to say his ability to take action ended at deferring action against children of unauthorized residents. But he lately has been saying there were additional things he could and would do. In his Nov. 20, 2014, announcement touching off Republican objections, Obama said he would delay deportations of unauthorized immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than five years but have children who are citizens or have green cards. If an applicant can pass a background check and pay a fee, he or she could qualify for a work permit and avoid deportation for three years at a time. More than 4 million people could qualify for the program, which is expected to open for applications this spring. It’s one thing for Obama to attempt revisionist history. But is McCaul right that the president previously forswore his authority to act – and more than 20 times? Boehner’s Obama breakdown By email, McCaul spokesman Mike Rosen pointed out a Nov. 19, 2014, blog post by the Republican House speaker, John Boehner, stating Obama had said 22 times he couldn’t ignore or create his own immigration law. We explored each of Boehner’s citations by establishing what Obama said from original source materials including transcripts and news stories. Upshot: About 15 of the tallied Obama statements suggest Obama didn’t think he had the power to do more on immigration by himself, hence backing up McCaul’s statement. We’ll summarize those statements in this story and greater detail lies in the document here. However, around half a dozen of Boehner’s examples showed Obama saying or hinting otherwise about his executive powers or not talking about his independent ability to affect immigrants. Times Obama was silent or signaled he did have power For instance, Boehner brought up two Obama statements from when he was running for president in 2008 and criticizing "signing statements" like ones employed by President George W. Bush to interpret legislation signed into law; neither of these items showed Obama bringing up immigration. On July 1, 2010, Obama laid out his hopes Congress would reach an immigration law overhaul. In his remarks, he recognized "there are those in the immigrants’ rights community who have argued passionately that we should simply provide those who are (here) illegally with legal status, or at least ignore the laws on the books and put an end to deportation until we have better laws. And often this argument is framed in moral terms: Why should we punish people who are just trying to earn a living?" Obama said such an action would be "unwise and unfair," but he didn’t address whether he thought he had the power to take such action. Boehner’s list also folded in Obama’s reply at an October 2010 MTV/BET event about his position on the military’s since-eclipsed policy of "don’t ask, don’t tell." "I can’t simply ignore laws that are out there," Obama said. But immigration was not part of his reply while to another question, Obama stressed border security and otherwise urged a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws. Boehner also listed Obama’s remarks at an April 2011 event. In that instance, though, the president focused on his desire for bipartisan immigration reform – and didn’t speak explicitly to his executive powers. "I can't solve this problem by myself," Obama said,adding: "We're going to have to change the laws in Congress." At a September 2011 White House roundtable, Obama was asked about granting "administrative relief" enabling students lacking legal residency to stay in the country. His answer seemed to indicate he saw wiggle room for the administration, which makes sense given the soon-to-debut deferred-action mandate. Obama initially said: "I just have to continue to say this notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true." But, he went on, "what we can do is to prioritize enforcement, since there are limited enforcement resources." In a July 2013 Univision interview, which we found excerpted in an NPR news story, Obama was asked if, in the event Congress failed to pass immigration legislation, he could use his power to give amnesty to the estimated 11 million unauthorized U.S. residents. His answer left wiggle room. "Probably not," Obama replied. "I think that it is very important for us to recognize that the way to solve this problem has to be legislative. I can do some things and have done some things that make a difference in the lives of people by determining how our enforcement should focus." A more recent Obama quotation offered by Boehner seemingly contradicts McCaul’s statement. In August 2014, Obama indicated to reporters that he might have room to act on his own. In the face of no congressional movement on immigration legislation, Obama said, "what I can do is scour our authorities to try to make progress. And we’re going to make sure that every time we take one of these steps that we are working within the confines of my executive power. But I promise you the American people don’t want me just standing around twiddling my thumbs and waiting for Congress to get something done." Times Obama said he couldn’t do more on immigration alone Let’s turn next to Obama statements, from Boehner’s list, that seem to support McCaul’s claim that Obama didn’t think he had independent legal authority to act on immigration -- some made before the deferred-action directive came out. In October 2010, Obama told Eddie "Piolin" Sotelo, a radio host on Spanish-speaking Univision, that he couldn’t achieve comprehensive immigration reform without congressional action. "I am president, I am not king," Obama said. "...I’m committed to making it happen, but I’ve got to have some partners to do it." At a Univision event in March 2011, Obama was asked if he could stop deportations of students with an order. That’s "just not the case," Obama said, "because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed... Congress passes the law. The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws." Simply issuing such an order, he said, "would not conform with my appropriate role as president." Yet he also hinted at wiggle room, saying: "That does not mean, though, that we can't make decisions, for example, to emphasize enforcement on those who’ve engaged in criminal activity. In an April 2011 speech in Miami and the next month in El Paso, Obama said he couldn’t bypass Congress and change immigration laws himself, saying that’s not how a democracy works. Addressing the National Council of La Raza in July 2011, Obama drew exhortations to act without waiting for congressional agreement. He called that idea "tempting," then said "that's not how our system works." In September 2012, Obama was asked if he would follow up his recent protective move for students by doing something similar for non-criminal immigrants such as the parents of U.S.-born children. Obama replied that "as the head of the executive branch, there’s a limit to what I can do… we’re still going to, ultimately, have to change the laws in order to avoid some of the heartbreaking stories that you see coming up occasionally," as in parents deported. At a presidential debate the next month, Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney were asked: "What do you plan on doing with immigrants without their green card that are currently living here as productive members of society?" Obama said: "I've done everything that I can on my own." In a January 2013 Telemundo interview, Obama was asked why he couldn’t protect mothers living here without authorization from deportation as he had aided law-abiding students. "I’m not a king," Obama replied, tracking his response the same month to a similar query from Univision and his reply at a February 2013 Google Hangout town hall where he also said "we’ve kind of stretched our administrative flexibility as much as we can." The same year, Obama was asked by Telemundo if he would consider freezing deportations of the parents of students benefiting from the administration’s 2012 action. Obama replied that if he broadened his protective orders, "then essentially I would be ignoring the law in a way that I think would be very difficult to defend legally. So that's not an option." We confirmed similar hitches on Obama’s part in a November 2013 speech in in San Francisco and a March 2014 Univision interview. See more detail on these presidential statements in our document here. White House response By email, White House spokesman Eric Schultz responded to our query about McCaul’s claim by pointing out a Nov. 19, 2014, memo from the federal Office of Legal Counsel stating the president’s 2014 actions fit within the government’s discretionary powers. The office, in the Justice Department, is responsible for providing authoritative legal advice to the president and executive-branch agencies. Our ruling McCaul said Obama "said over 20 times he did not have the legal authority to" act as he did on immigration. The Texan’s count is too high – we see less than 15 solid examples from 2010 into 2014 – but his statement is spot-on about Obama often saying he couldn’t do more absent congressional action.


Explanation: The Food and Drug Administration on  Tuesday approved the first U.S. drug to treat irritable bowel  syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) in adult women, a medicine  marketed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co and its developer, Sucampo  Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The drug, Amitiza, was approved for women over 18 years  old, but not for men, because its effectiveness was not  conclusively demonstrated, the FDA said in a statement. Irritable bowel syndrome is a disorder characterized by  cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. It affects twice as many women as men, the FDA said. “For some people IBS can be quite disabling, making it  difficult for them to fully participate in everyday  activities,” said Dr. Julie Beitz of the FDA’s Center for Drug  Evaluation and Research. “This drug represents an important  step in helping to provide medical relief from their symptoms.”    The safety and effectiveness of Amitiza was established in  two studies involving 1,154 patients diagnosed with IBS-C, the  agency said. More than 90 percent of patients in the studies  were women. The studies showed that more patients treated with Amitiza  reported moderate or significant relief than those who received  a placebo. The safety of long-term treatment was assessed in a  study in which all patients were treated with Amitiza for a  duration that ranged from 9 months to 13 months, the FDA said. The drug was found to have some side effects, such as  nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain, the FDA said. Amitiza is already approved for the treatment of chronic  idiopathic constipation at 24 micrograms twice a day, much  higher than the 8 micrograms twice a day recommended for  treatment of IBS-C.”    The FDA, in its statement, described both Takeda and  Sucampo as manufacturers of Amitiza but a spokesman for Sucampo  said that while both companies market the drug, Sucampo was the  developer. An FDA spokeswoman could not be reached for comment.


Certain diabetes drugs found to double bone fracture risk in women

Explanation: At an invitation-only gathering late last year, U.S. regulators and their guests huddled at a hotel near Washington, D.C., to discuss the best way to detect cancer-causing asbestos in talc powders and cosmetics.

The “Asbestos in Talc Symposium,” sponsored by the Food and Drug Administration, was dominated by industry hands: Most of the 21 non-government participants had done work for talc companies, such as testing and serving as expert witnesses and consultants, symposium documents and other records show. Key sessions were led by witnesses for Johnson & Johnson in lawsuits alleging the company failed to warn customers that its Baby Powder was tainted with cancer-causing asbestos, the records show. Others who sought invitations were turned away, including a physician who had testified against J&J in trials that resulted in billions of dollars in damage awards against the company. History was repeating itself. Over the past 50 years, the FDA has relied upon - and often deferred to - industry even as outside experts and consumers repeatedly raised serious health concerns about talc powders and cosmetics, a Reuters investigation found. Again and again since at least the 1970s, the agency has downplayed the risk of asbestos contamination and declined to issue warnings or impose safety standards, according to documents produced in court proceedings and in response to public records requests. The agency said it lacks the authority to require manufacturers to test for asbestos in talc or report any results. And it seldom has ordered its own tests - until recently. Amid heightened scrutiny in Congress, a criminal investigation of J&J and costly jury verdicts against the company, the regulator commissioned tests that found asbestos in 11 talc-based cosmetics, including Johnson’s Baby Powder. J&J recalled 33,000 bottles. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois congressman who chairs a U.S. House subcommittee investigating talc safety, told Reuters it was time for regulators to stop relying on manufacturers’ safety assurances. “When something as serious as cancer or carcinogens are at issue,” Krishnamoorthi said, “self-regulation doesn’t make a lot of sense.”  In written responses to questions from Reuters, the FDA said its resources and authority to regulate the cosmetic industry are limited. The agency said it has no power to ensure the safety of cosmetics before they are put on store shelves, nor to force companies to pull them off when potential hazards are discovered. “We are dependent on manufacturers to take steps to ensure the safety of their products,” the FDA said after announcing a voluntary recall of tainted cosmetics in March. FDA officials declined to comment on the decisions of former employees over the years, saying only that the agency relies on the best information available and that studies “have improved our understanding of how and why asbestos fibers are hazardous.”  The agency said it now recognizes, as the World Health Organization and other public health agencies did years ago, that there is no known safe level of asbestos. FDA officials said their current policy is to act swiftly - and if necessary encourage recalls - even when small amounts are discovered. The regulator has stood by its recent tests of Johnson’s Baby Powder, despite pushback from the company. J&J, the world’s largest producer of talc powders, said in a statement that it recalled the 33,000 bottles of Baby Powder out of an “abundance of caution.” Eleven days later, the company announced that tests by labs it hired had determined that there was no asbestos - other than some contamination it said came from an air conditioner - in samples from the one bottle tested by the FDA and the batch it came from. In written responses to Reuters, J&J said it systematically tests its talc and has always found its powders to be safe and pure. “Throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, the FDA and other regulatory bodies defended talc,” J&J’s Chief Executive Alex Gorsky testified in an Oct. 3 deposition. “FDA agreed overall with the position that we had taken with the safety of our talc.”  The company told Reuters that it “has long cooperated (with) and supported the FDA in its mission to protect the public health,” and that any suggestion it has unduly influenced the agency to reduce regulation or standards is “just false.”  The FDA now is under increasing pressure to ensure talc powders and cosmetics are free from asbestos. The agency’s testing of talc-based cosmetics this year followed jury verdicts totaling more than $5 billion against J&J in cancer lawsuits, as well as a Dec. 14 Reuters report showing that J&J knew its raw talc and powders sometimes tested positive for asbestos from the 1970s into the early 2000s and did not report those findings to the agency. J&J has disputed the Reuters report as “one-sided, false and inflammatory.”  In the wake of the Reuters report, the company announced it was under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to people familiar with the matter, these include a criminal grand jury probe into how forthright J&J has been about the safety of its powders. The FDA began looking into talc safety in 1971 after researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York found what appeared to be asbestos in unnamed brands of talc powder. Two years later, FDA records show, the agency found asbestos in a sample of Shower to Shower, a J&J powder at the time that was made with the same talc as Johnson’s Baby Powder. The FDA never publicly announced the finding. J&J told Reuters the result was not final, citing findings in an FDA table issued in 1976. But that table, reviewed by Reuters, is ambiguous, listing no result for the type of asbestos found in 1973. J&J told Reuters the gap means no asbestos was found. Assured by J&J and other manufacturers that their talc was safe, the FDA eventually ended its inquiry without taking action because “the potential hazard did not warrant a recall,” Heinz J. Eiermann, a former J&J researcher who at the time ran the agency’s cosmetics division, wrote in a March 1976 memo. That same year, J&J, other talc companies and their trade group, the Cosmetic Toiletry and Fragrance Association, persuaded FDA officials that manufacturers could monitor the safety of their own products, according to records J&J and the group produced in litigation. The FDA dropped plans to impose testing and purity standards for talc powders and cosmetics. The trade group published its own test, which was voluntary for companies to use. The written standard for that test acknowledges that it cannot detect most types of asbestos at low levels, nor one common type - chrysotile - at all. In a statement to Reuters, the trade group said it believed that chrysotile was not commonly linked to talc used in cosmetics. Chrysotile is the type of asbestos the FDA-commissioned test found in Baby Powder this year. It also was found in several tests conducted by labs for J&J on its talc from 1972 through 2003, according to records produced in litigation. J&J has said that some of the tests were on industrial talc and that others, on Baby Powder talc, reflected background contamination. Asbestos is a loose term for a group of six minerals that readily separate into needles or fibers. Easily inhaled, they are known to cause lung, ovarian and other types of cancer. While most people exposed never get cancer, for some even small amounts are enough to trigger the disease. Just how small has not been established. Talc safety concerns resurfaced in 1983 when a graduate  student scouring geology journals for a toxicology class came across information he considered disturbing: Talc deposits are commonly laced with asbestos, a similar mineral. Philippe Douillet immediately thought of the talc powder his sister used on her baby, he recalled in an interview with Reuters. He urged her to stop using it. Then he petitioned the FDA to require an asbestos warning on talc powders. “It was really obvious to me there was a big issue there,” said Douillet, who now runs a biotechnology company in Miami. When the FDA began evaluating Douillet’s petition, it looked to J&J for key information, agency records show. The FDA’s June 1985 risk assessment relied upon a decade-old letter from the company for the agency’s estimate of the amount of dust babies were exposed to during diapering. That 1974 letter from J&J to the FDA said that, hypothetically, even if babies were exposed to talc powder with as much as 1% asbestos, it would be a far lower concentration than allowed at the time for industrial workers. J&J told Reuters in a statement that “at no point has Johnson & Johnson taken the position that it would consider talc containing 1% asbestos appropriate for sale to consumers.”   In the end, the FDA decided there was no need for an asbestos warning on talc powders. In a July 1986 letter to Douillet, acting associate FDA commissioner J.W. Swanson wrote that the quality of cosmetic talc had improved “and that even when asbestos was present, the levels were so low that no health hazard existed.”  What’s more, Swanson wrote, agency officials had come to question earlier reported findings of asbestos in talc powders. Those doubts, he wrote, were based in part on a paper published in the proceedings of a 1977 scientific conference. Both of the paper’s authors had worked for J&J, one as an asbestos testing contractor and the other as its longtime talc supply manager. The authors argued that some testing methods were apt to misidentify microscopic lookalike rock splinters as asbestos. The industry’s test, the paper said, was designed to avoid this confusion. Other U.S. and European public health authorities have come to regard such splinters as presumptive toxins because of their similarity to asbestos. The FDA defended its 1986 decision to reject Douillet’s petition. In a statement, it said the graduate student “did not provide persuasive evidence that the cosmetic talc produced at the time contained significant amounts of asbestos minerals.”  Eight years later, the regulator received a new request for a warning label on talc powders. This one came from Dr. Samuel Epstein, a University of Illinois environmental medicine professor who chaired the Cancer Prevention Coalition, an advocacy group. Epstein’s 1994 petition didn’t concern asbestos. It raised the possibility that talc, by itself, was a hazard worthy of a warning label. His petition was based on research showing that talc, when used as an antiperspirant and deodorant in underwear, was associated with ovarian cancer. In a brief July 1995 letter, FDA acting cosmetics chief John Bailey told Epstein’s coalition that the agency had taken no action because it had other priorities. Bailey told Reuters in a statement that he issued this “interim” response because the petition lacked scientific support. In 2002, having taken no action on the petition, Bailey moved to the cosmetic trade group, now known as Personal Care Products Council. The council considered him a “key employee” because of his “former employment with the FDA,” according to a tax filing by the group. Now a consultant, Bailey serves as a litigation expert witness to J&J and other talc companies. In his statement to Reuters, Bailey said he had been hired at the council “as a scientist responsible for applying sound science to decision making.” He disputed Reuters’ finding that the FDA deferred to industry, saying the agency takes potential health concerns seriously and does its own evaluations. In 2006, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified use of talc powder in the perineum area - the pelvic region between the legs - as “possibly carcinogenic.” Two years later, Illinois medical scientist Epstein filed a second petition to the FDA seeking a cancer warning label on talc products. J&J went to work to defeat it. In a May 2008 email to colleagues, J&J executive Kathleen K. Wille wrote: “Our response could be a potential source of data and information on which the FDA can base their response.”  Together, J&J, its talc supplier and the Personal Care Products Council arranged for a pair of scientists to assess the published studies that linked talc and ovarian cancer, according to emails and other records produced in litigation. The scientists concluded that the evidence was too weak to consider talc as a cause. At a May 2009 meeting, Bailey, Wille and other industry representatives briefed FDA officials on the assessment, according to a meeting memo produced in litigation by J&J’s talc supplier. Three days later, Wille told colleagues in an email, “We have every confidence that the FDA will dismiss this petition once they have reviewed our submission.”  J&J told Reuters in a statement that the company had been confident because it believed the agency would be swayed by science, which it said supported J&J’s position that talc does not cause ovarian cancer. Before the FDA ruled on the warning requests, however, concerns about asbestos contamination flared again. This time, the FDA’s South Korean counterpart reported finding asbestos in talc powders. Acting on that 2009 report, the FDA commissioned talc tests for the first time in 40 years, hiring Maryland-based AMA Analytical Services Inc, which analyzed 34 samples of talc powders and cosmetics, including Johnson’s Baby Powder. It found no asbestos in any of them. The lab had no experience testing for asbestos in talc. Its prior work focused on building materials such as vinyl flooring, according to the deposition testimony of AMA lab director Andreas Saldivar. The FDA has said Saldivar’s lab used “the most sensitive techniques available” but cautioned that the results were limited to the 34 talc powders and cosmetics tested. The testing had other limitations as well. Saldivar’s lab looked at less talc per sample than other labs that have found asbestos in talc powders. And it did its work in a fraction of the time typical for such analyses, according to a Reuters review of the lab report and interviews with experts who test talc for asbestos. Saldivar’s lab was recently rehired by the FDA. This time, it found the asbestos that led to the first recall of J&J’s iconic Baby Powder. Saldivar declined to comment. In the first verdict of its kind, a South Dakota jury found in October 2013 that J&J had a duty to warn women that research had linked its talc powder to ovarian cancer. No damages were awarded. Then the FDA weighed in on the issue. In April 2014, 20 years after Epstein first contacted the agency, the FDA rejected both of his petitions for warning labels. Its announcement said the science wasn’t strong enough to support a cancer warning, echoing the assessment J&J and its industry partners had presented to the agency in 2009. In court, such arguments have not always proved convincing. In early 2016, a Missouri jury concluded J&J’s powders caused a woman’s ovarian cancer death and awarded her survivors $72 million. An appellate court later set that verdict aside, ruling that the woman had filed her suit in the wrong state. In the aftermath, the FDA asked J&J for “safety literature and data regarding talc,” correspondence shows. The company submitted a report saying no asbestos had “ever been found during any testing” of its talc. Since then, lawsuits have compelled J&J to produce internal documents that show the company knew its talc and powders had tested positive for asbestos on occasion for decades. The company now faces more than 16,000 lawsuits alleging that its powders caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, an incurable cancer. The vast majority are awaiting trial. In court, there have been mixed verdicts, mistrials and some appellate rulings in J&J’s favor. Last year, in response to renewed asbestos concerns, FDA cosmetics chief Dr Linda Katz began organizing the November 2018 symposium and a public hearing on talc testing, now planned for next year. She reached out to J&J for help. J&J vice president Jethro Ekuta responded by sending Katz a letter in June 2018 recommending a list of three talc testing experts. All three had served as defense witnesses or consultants for J&J. Two of the experts Ekuta recommended, as well as a third J&J defense witness, led sessions at the closed-door “Asbestos in Talc Symposium” on Nov. 28, 2018. None of the sessions were led by medical experts who had questioned the safety of talc powders and cosmetics. J&J said that apart from recommending experts, it did not advise the FDA on the symposium. Ekuta, who has left J&J, declined to comment. In a statement to Reuters, the FDA downplayed its role in the symposium, saying the event was “hosted” by the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN), a research group co-founded by the FDA. “No formal or regulatory recommendations were expected or made,” the agency said. In fact, records show, the FDA initiated and paid for the meeting, set the agenda and chose the participants. The meeting set the stage for formal recommendations on how to test products used every day by millions of people. The FDA said a government committee tasked with proposing a standard test for asbestos in talc powders and cosmetics is “continuing to work through issues discussed at the JIFSAN symposium.”  Many FDA meetings are held in public and invite comment. Details on the talc symposium were hard to come by, however, even after it was over. The FDA declined Reuters’ requests to provide a list of participants or any information on what transpired. After Reuters filed a public records request with JIFSAN, the research group posted meeting information online and released planning emails. The guest list showed that more than half of the 54 participants were employed by or recently retired from FDA and other agencies. Of the 21 non-government participants, 17 had either worked for talc companies, done lab testing or served as expert witnesses for the industry, Reuters found. Five of the participants affiliated with talc companies also have served as expert witnesses for plaintiffs. Most of the non-government participants were experts in geology or minerals testing. In a statement, the FDA said it would ordinarily avoid having sessions led by defense or plaintiff witnesses. However, the agency said there are a “limited number of experts worldwide with scientific knowledge” on asbestos testing, standards and results analysis. Not everyone was welcome. Among those turned away was Dr. David Egilman, a clinical professor of family medicine at Brown University. He testified last year in a trial that ended in a $4.69 billion verdict for women alleging J&J’s talc powders caused their ovarian cancers. Egilman told Reuters he was concerned that if the FDA was guided by geologists and industry consultants, it might overlook fundamental questions about which mineral fibers cause cancer. He wanted to offer his expertise, as a physician and researcher, on what technicians should look for under the microscope. Testing hinges “on the determination of what particles or elements should be tested for,” he wrote in a November 2018 email to organizers asking to be included in the symposium. “This is a medical question and not a technical question.”  Katz took a different view. In an email forwarded to Egilman, she said: “This meeting is not intended to discuss health-related issues or concerns.”  She met with Egilman later. Katz also told Egilman that the symposium was not intended to reach any consensus. At its conclusion, however, session leaders, including three who have served as defense witnesses for J&J, drafted what they called “consensus” or “concurrence” reports. Two of the reports reviewed by Reuters embraced industry positions on what fibers should be counted as hazardous, an issue of fierce contention in courtrooms across the country. The reports discouraged counting fibers that may or may not be asbestos, saying that doing so might exaggerate the hazard. That view runs contrary to the positions of other U.S. and European public health officials, who presume mineral fibers that even look like asbestos are toxic. As Arnold Brody, a professor emeritus at Tulane University Medical School, told jurors in a talc powder trial last year, “The lung doesn’t care” what it’s called. These issues are likely to be aired at the public hearing the FDA said it is planning for next year. The gathering could signal how the agency intends to navigate between industry and consumer interests in coming years. Krishnamoorthi, the congressman heading the House investigation into talc safety, said the agency needs to bring consumers and their advocates into the discussion. “In light of the public interest around this particular issue,” he said, “we need to find out what’s going on.”


“The CDC may have to stop calling COVID-19 an ‘epidemic’ due to a remarkably low death rate.”

Explanation: Despite a dip in death rates, which are expected to rise again, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still considers COVID-19 an epidemic. Death rates alone don’t determine whether an outbreak is an epidemic.

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

Amid news headlines that the United States set a daily record for the number of new coronavirus cases, an article widely shared on Facebook made a contrarian claim. Referring to the lead federal agency fighting COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the article’s headline said: "The CDC may have to stop calling COVID-19 an ‘epidemic’ due to a remarkably low death rate." The July 9 article was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat  news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The claim is flawed in a number of ways. The article appears on the website of Collective Evolution, which describes itself as a "conscious media company focused on personal transformation." The article claims the CDC might have to stop calling COVID-19 an epidemic because the death rate is becoming so low that it wouldn’t meet the CDC’s definition of epidemic. It does not cite any death rate figures. The article cites a CDC webpage, but that page does not refer to death rates in describing what an epidemic is. The CDC page says: "Epidemic refers to an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in that area." Health officials and leaders have made several official declarations about the novel coronavirus. But the major ones weren’t about declaring an epidemic, and none were made by the CDC: Jan. 30: The World Health Organization declares a global health emergency. Jan. 31: U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declares a public health emergency. March 11: The WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic. March 13: President Donald Trump declares a national emergency. In its weekly summary of COVID-19 activity, the CDC gave no indication that a drop in deaths signaled a turning point. The latest report available when the Facebook post was made was for the week ended June 27. It said about death rates: "Mortality attributed to COVID-19 decreased compared to last week and is currently at the epidemic threshold, but will likely increase as additional death certificates are processed." The same statement was made in the latest report, for the week ended July 4. Here’s what that means, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund told PolitiFact: The epidemic threshold "refers to the point at which the observed proportion of deaths is significantly higher than would be expected at that time of the year in the absence of substantial influenza, and now COVID-related mortality." Deaths are a lagging indicator of COVID-19, partly because of a delay in the processing of death certificates. Death rates alone don’t "have bearing on whether COVID-19 is still an epidemic," given that the extent of the outbreak is the primary factor. An article widely shared on Facebook claimed: "The CDC may have to stop calling COVID-19 an ‘epidemic’ due to a remarkably low death rate." The latest CDC statement made public when the Facebook post was made said deaths attributed to COVID-19 decreased from the previous week, but remained at the epidemic threshold, and were likely to increase. Moreover, death rates alone do not define an epidemic.


A woman encountered kidnapping scouts at a Houston Target.

Explanation: Yet another Facebook user claimed she narrowly avoided human trafficking scouts at Target, this time in Houston.

Uncategorized, houston, kidnapping warnings, sex trafficking

On 15 March 2016, a Facebook user published the above anecdote about a Target in Houston, warning fellow users about the dangers of potential kidnappers (or human traffickers) haunting local retail establishments. According to the post’s author, she was in a checkout lane with her toddler daughter and infant son, when two women flanked her (standing “way too close”) at the register. After the older of the two women began initiating conversation about her children, the poster wrote that she became “incredibly uncomfortable” and she felt that “something wasn’t right about this situation.” The poster said she reacted to her discomfort by making “a big deal” of using her shopping cart to barricade the women away from her children, then described the banter taking a sinister turn: I asked them to back up so that I could turn my cart around. I made a rather big deal about turning my cart around in line – because NO WAY was I putting my kid out of arms reach while I unloaded my cart. I kept my daughter next to me and turned the backwards cart at an angle so that I could reach the items to place on the belt. This way, the cart was between me and the women and my child was next to me. Again, the older woman asked my daughter’s name. By now, this was the 4th time one of them had asked her name. I replied and said we were learning about stranger danger and she didn’t have to reply. The younger woman answered this by saying “oh at some point, she will have to talk to strangers. What if she gets lost in this store? Try as we may, you’ll take your eyes off of her at some point.” She stared at me as she said this. WHO SAYS THIS? The older woman again asked my daughter her name, to which I loudly instructed my daughter not to answer her. Readers were presumably supposed to infer here that the two women in the story were kidnappers or traffickers “scouting” the family. The remark attributed to the younger woman neatly “proved” their purported intent, despite the likelihood that criminals of that nature aimed to operate without attracting attention or raising suspicions. But the writer was convinced, possibly before even setting eyes on the women: As I loaded my things and my kids into the car, I watched the door and parking lot. The two women never came out of target. This happened around lunch time. I am a prime candidate for being targeted. I have a child of the “right” age and am “distracted” shopping alone. All that readers knew about the situation was supplied by the poster. All the frightening were assumptions on the part of the poster, and the claim sounded very much like a number of others that circulated on social media warning “distracted” lone female shoppers of a purportedly growing problem involving kidnappings at large chain stores. Despite a spike in such tales in 2015 and 2016 on Facebook, we have yet to track down one instance involving an abduction of the sort repeatedly described in warnings. In May 2015, a Facebook user’s harrowing account of an Oklahoma Hobby Lobby near miss circulated widely; in June, Twitter users panicked over stories of sex slavery rings targeting college kids during summer job interviews; later that same month, an old theme park abduction urban legend resurfaced; a terrifying tale of purported teenaged abductors armed with heroin in the bathroom of a Denton, Texas, Dillards department store spread far and wide; a Hickory, North Carolina woman was convinced human trafficking rings were menacing Walmart parking lots, using gift bags as bait; a Long Island Target was briefly cited as the locale of similar kidnappers in August 2015; and the rumor moved to a Target in Longview, Texas in February 2016. Exposure to even one of those claims would be enough to make many shoppers wary, and the poster appeared to be working under the expectation that it was just a matter of time until her children were spotted and snatched while she was “distracted” by shopping alone. As is generally the case, the events described were inconsistent with known basic facts about kidnapping or sex trafficking. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s FAQ about human trafficking explains the risks and profiles of victims of those crimes. (Abductors of children from public places don’t generally risk calling attention to themselves by directly interacting with their potential victims in an overtly suspicious and hostile manner.) We contacted the Target in question and as expected, a manager was unable to answer questions other than to confirm that Target’s corporate office was aware of the claim and state that the story was “completely overblown.” In addition, we attempted to contact the poster of the item via Facebook to obtain information about her claim but received no response as of this writing. We also contacted police in Houston to find out whether there was any basis to the rumor, and an Investigative First Responder in the area of Houston where this Target is located told us:  I checked every report written from the past week in my district as a part of my daily duties. Lots of car break-ins, thefts, assaults … a pretty typical week, really. Nothing major. Not one suspicious person report at any of our retail stores, including this Target


A viral warning claims that a drug called burundanga on a business card poisoned a woman and advises people to beware of what has become known as “the zombie drug.”

Explanation: Beware of Burundanga on Business Cards

Burundanga is a real drug, but a story about a woman poisoned by burundanga on a business card that has been circulating the web for years is unverified. First, let’s start with what’s true about this viral email warning. Burundanga is derived from trees that grow in the jungles of South America. It’s also called Devil’s Breath, scopolamine or simply “the zombie drug.” It has been used in the medical community to prevent vomiting and motion sickness, but it has become known as “the world’s scariest drug” in the underworld drug trade. In a Vice documentary, a drug dealer in Columbia described how burundanga could be blown into someone’s face and within minutes, “you can guide them wherever you want. It’s like they’re a child.” That’s because the zombie drug blocks the brain’s ability to form memories and strips its victims of free will and reason for days at a time. Reports of burundanga poisoning aren’t uncommon in South America. Criminals often use the drugs to sexually assault or rob their victims. The South American publication El Mundo reported in 2013 that a criminal group had used handwritten notes laced with burundanga to poison four victims — which sounds a lot like burundanga on a business card email warning: (An unknown woman) approached insistently with a small paper with handwritten text while following her as she continued to walk in the company of her two minor children. About 100 meters from the first contact, the affected relates, “I felt something in my head, I began to feel dizzy, legs weighed me while asking me where I was, whether he was married or how many children they had.” We can confirm that burundaga is a real drug used by criminals to leave their victims in a zombie-like trance for days, but we have not been able to verify the specific account of burundanga on a business card poisoning a woman. In fact, we weren’t able to find any accounts of burundanga being used on victims in the U.S. So, many of the details about burundanga from the warning email are true, but we cannot confirm any cases of the drug being used outside of South America. Comments


President Obama was arrested in Japan in connection with the seizure of massive amounts of cocaine on his yacht.

Explanation: Rumors that the former U.S. president was arrested in connection with the seizure of massive amounts of cocaine on his yacht are fake news.

Junk News, benjamin fulford, sorcha faal, whatdoesitmean.com

In April 2017, rumors appeared on social media that former United States President Barack Obama had been arrested in Japan in connection with large quantities of cocaine purportedly found on his yacht:    The arrest rumor appeared to have originated via a 31 March 2017 blog post from Benjamin Fulford (who days earlier had claimed that the Japanese government was trying to kill him) that was further aggregated by other dubious web sites: Former US President Barack Obama, in custody of the US military police, has informed on his drug dealing bosses, according to sources in Japanese military intelligence. As a result of this, an airplane filled with Afghan Heroin and North Korean amphetamines was impounded at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, the sources say. The money raised from this drug flight was intended to be used to finance the operations of Daesh (formerly known as ISIS), the sources say. This impoundment follows the capture of an Obama linked ship containing 4.2 tons of cocaine, the sources note. At the bottom of the post was a citation referencing a 15 March 2017 post on conspiracy site WhatDoesItMean.com about Barack Obama’s supposedly fleeing the scene of a drug bust that took place in the Caribbean on a “fishing vessel named the Lady Michelle” that was linked to the former president:  Obama Flees After Massive Drug Bust Aboard Lady Michelle Vessel In Caribbean An intriguing Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that former President Barack Obama fled Washington D.C. this past Friday (10 March) traveling to New York City, Omaha (Nebraska), San Jose (California) and ending up in Hawaii — all occurring within 36 hours while he sought elite allies to defend him, and keeping him ahead of investigators from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury (DoT) seeking to interview him about one of the largest drug busts in American history occurring in the Caribbean aboard a fishing vessel named the Lady Michelle. 4.2 tons of seized cocaine, worth an estimated $125 million, from the President Barack Obama linked fishing vessel named Lady Michelle on 16 February 2017 According to this report, nearly immediately upon taking office as President Donald Trump’s Attorney General on 9 February, Jeff Sessions, as head of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), was handed a top secret file by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey detailing the nearly two-decade long crimes of 12 current and former security and intelligence officers belonging to the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) who for at least 18 years under both the Bush and Obama regimes had smuggled into the United States at least $100 million worth of cocaine. None this was true, as the “Obama drug bust” story originated with the WhatDoesItMean.com is a fake news conspiracy site, described by RationalWiki as follows: Sorcha Faal is the alleged author of an ongoing series of “reports” published at WhatDoesItMean.com, whose work is of such quality that even other conspiracy nutters don’t think much of it. Each report resembles a news story in its style but usually includes a sensational headline barely related to reality and quotes authoritative high-level Russian sources (such as the Russian Federal Security Service) to support its most outrageous claims. Except for the stuff attributed to unverifiable sources, the reports don’t contain much original material. They are usually based on various news items from the mainstream media and/or whatever the clogosphere is currently hyperventilating about, with each item shoehorned into the conspiracy narrative the report is trying to establish. The image used to illustrate the WhatDoesItMean article was taken from an earlier news report about a 16 February 2017 U.S. Coast Guard drug bust off the coast of Suriname that had nothing to do with Barack Obama or Japan:  The U.S. Coast Guard busted four men suspected of smuggling more than four tons of cocaine worth $125 million in the Atlantic Ocean. Officials said on Feb. 16 they intercepted a suspicious fishing boat off Paramaribo, Suriname. The 70-foot vessel was allegedly carrying numerous bales of cocaine, the Coast Guard said. Officials seized 4.2 tons of the drugs, worth an estimated $125 million in wholesale value.


Medicare 5-year cancer bill tops $21.1 bln: study.

Explanation: Five years of cancer care for America’s elderly cost Medicare $21.1 billion, a figure that will swell as the baby boomer generation ages, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday.

A clinical supervisor sets up monitoring equipment in a file photo. Five years of cancer care for America's elderly cost Medicare $21.1 billion, a figure that will swell as the baby boomer generation ages, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Lee Celano Researchers at the National Cancer Institute said the cost of cancer care over five years varies widely by tumor type — from less than $20,000 for an elderly patient with breast cancer or melanoma to more than $40,000 for a patient with lymphoma, brain or other nervous system cancers. The figures, based on people diagnosed with cancer in 2004, suggest the highest costs occur within the first 12 months of care, when people are undergoing costly treatments, and in the last 12 months of life, when in-hospital costs spike. The research by Robin Yabroff of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues, which appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is intended to offer policymakers a tool to prepare as the U.S. population expands and ages. Joseph Lipscomb, a health policy researcher at Emory University in Atlanta, said the study is the first to combine cost estimates and survival data to arrive at long-term national estimates for 18 of the most common types of cancers in the elderly. Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older. The researchers based their estimates on 1999-2003 data from more than 700,000 cancer patients covered by Medicare and more than 1.6 million people covered by Medicare who did not have cancer. These per-patient costs were applied to a five-year survival model and extrapolated to the U.S. Medicare population diagnosed with cancer in 2004. Among the 18 cancer types studied, brain and nervous system cancers were by far the costliest for men in each phase of treatment over five years. In women, these cancers were the most expensive in the first year of diagnosis and the last year of life, but ovarian cancer was the most costly overall. Cancers with the highest costs overall across women in the Medicare population were lung ($2 billion), colorectal ($1.6 billion) and breast ($1.4 billion). Among men they were prostate ($2.3 billion), lung ($2.2 billion) and colorectal ($1.5 billion). The estimates reflect Medicare discounts and are reported in 2004 dollars. “Few of these individual findings are startling; yet, taken together they provide the scientifically strongest picture yet of the incidence costs of cancer in aggregate and by tumor type for the elderly in the United States,” Lipscomb wrote in a commentary. The researchers did not include the cost of treating younger cancer patients, as they tend to receive more costly and aggressive therapies. As newer, more expensive treatments become more widely adopted, however, the cancer estimates for treating Medicare beneficiaries are likely to rise, they said. There were about 10 million Americans living with cancer in 2003. The National Cancer Institute has estimated that, overall, the United States spent $72.1 billion in 2004 in direct costs for cancer care.


Hospital closings hit hard on the edge of the Rust Belt.

Explanation: Carrie Jones is looking for work for the first time in two decades. She’s even more worried about what will happen to her psychiatric patients.

Health, General News, Martins Ferry, Ohio, Wheeling, Donald Trump

“Where are they going to go?” Jones said. “We’re honestly like their family.” Jones is among nearly 1,100 employees being laid off at Ohio Valley Medical Center in Wheeling and sister facility East Ohio Regional Hospital in nearby Martins Ferry, Ohio. The layoffs are the latest blow to a region on the edge of the Rust Belt that hasn’t fully benefited from the economic recovery that President Donald Trump — who attended a private campaign fundraiser in Wheeling in July — has touted. The area had managed to hang on after steel mills and other manufacturing plants closed, in part by forging a new identity as a health care hub. But after two years of ownership, Irvine, California-based Alecto Healthcare Services announced both hospitals will close by next month. The company cited several factors, including losses of more than $37 million since taking over, increasing facility improvement needs and the lack of a potential partner or buyer, including a cross-town hospital. Acute and emergency admissions were suspended Wednesday night at OVMC, where workers held an emotional candlelight vigil just before midnight. The Appalachian hilltop region’s economy has steadily eroded in recent decades, a trend forecasters expect to continue. Steel mills farther north were shuttered long ago. Aluminum and other manufacturing plants in Ohio left as well. As the jobs went, so have residents. The population in the three-county area on either side of the river about an hour west of Pittsburgh has fallen steadily since the early 1980s, including a 5.3 percent drop from 2010 to 2018. Powered by a natural gas fracking boom, employment rebounded after the Great Recession. But a 2018 report by West Virginia University researchers said the area would need “a significant positive economic shock” to halt long-term declines. North of Wheeling, a natural gas-fired power plant is planned on a reclaimed coal strip mine but would create only 30 permanent jobs. In Ohio, a petrochemical plant proposed in Belmont County has languished in the planning stages for years. A block away from OVMC, the 166-year-old Centre Market District is filled with restaurants and shops that cater to hospital workers and patients’ families. Some business owners said they will be affected by the hospital closing but are prepared to handle it. A few miles east, Wheeling Hospital is one of the state’s top 10 private employers. In Ohio, three of Belmont County’s top employers are hospitals. Doctors who work at the two hospitals will be forced to go elsewhere. Belmont County’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate of 5.0 percent in July was slightly above the state rate of 4.6 percent but lower than surrounding counties. In Ohio County, where Wheeling is located, the 3.9 percent rate is well below the 4.6 percent state average. West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources spokeswoman Allison Adler said DHHR staff and Gov. Jim Justice have “been striving to ensure that as OVMC leaves the Wheeling market, there is no lapse of quality care for those patients transferred to other facilities, and that services provided by OVMC remain available in the community.” “All parties will continue working together and are hopeful that a plan will be in place very soon to maintain as many of the services previously provided by OVMC and in turn keep as many jobs in the Wheeling community as possible.” Calls to the hospital and the parent company about the welfare of those patients weren’t returned. Jones, an activity therapist in the Wheeling hospital’s psychiatric unit, works daily with adults in yoga, music therapy and nutritional education, and takes children to play outside or to a gymnasium. She said OVMC’s 68-bed acute psychiatric facility is the only one of its type within 75 miles. “It takes them a long time to trust people,” Jones said. “These are people, the doors have been shut on their faces time after time after time. They know they can come to us. Now it’s just one more door.” A 7-year-old girl who was abused and removed from her home has been at the psychiatric facility for a month. “If I could take her home, I would,” Jones said. Other children in the facility struggle with anger, depression, anxiety or suicidal issues. “To shut this psych facility down would be tragic for these patients,” Jones said. Katie Matthews, an OVMC radiation therapist for cancer patients, has applied for a job in Pittsburgh. “Most of us are pretty angry,” Matthews said. “In our department, nobody knows where we’re going to go.”


We’ve got an average of 5,600 soldiers committing suicide. That’s about 20 a day.

Explanation: Not all veteran suicides can be tied to VA care

Georgia, Health Care, Veterans, David Scott,

The controversy over lengthy delays at several of the nation’s Veterans Affairs medical facilities, including the Atlanta VA Medical Center in DeKalb County, has drawn significant criticism that those waits may have contributed to veterans’ deaths. One such voice is U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who represents portions of metro Atlanta. Scott was among lawmakers from both parties calling for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki’s removal before the secretary resigned last Friday. In an interview with WABE just before that resignation, Scott tried to draw attention to the specific concern of mental health treatment in the scandal, which is compounded by allegations of efforts to cover up the delays. "We’ve got an average of 5,600 soldiers committing suicide," Scott said. "That’s about 20 a day." Back-of-a-napkin math shows an immediate miscalculation. That annual rate of suicides would mean 15 daily suicides. But even with the math blunder, those daily rates seemed striking enough for PolitiFact to want to get to the bottom of the matter. A spokesman for the congressman said he was first drawn to the issue of mental health services for veterans after reading an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation last year. In his WABE interview, Scott blamed Shinseki in particular and the VA in general, saying, "Nobody has been held accountable for all of those suicides." The AJC probe of the VA facility in DeKalb found that more than 500 veterans were on a waiting list to receive mental health care in 2010. Sixteen attempted suicide. The Atlanta VA tried to solve the problem by referring more veterans to outside treatment. But by 2012, that decision created long waiting lists at those outside clinics, according to the AJC investigation. Last year, federal audits tied the deaths of three veterans in Atlanta to poor oversight by hospital staff, including some who had been referred to outside facilities. It was later revealed that a fourth veteran committed suicide in a VA hospital bathroom, prompting the replacement of both the head of the hospital and the mental health director. "His big concern is for veterans who need help and can’t get it," said Scott’s chief of staff, Michael Andel. "It’s about the delay, especially in getting care in mental health needs." Andel referred us to an advocacy and support group, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, or IAVA, and a 2013 newspaper story about a VA study on suicide data. Both cite the daily estimate of 22 suicides by veterans. A closer look at the VA study, however, slightly complicates the issue. Based on the most extensive data ever collected by the VA on suicide, the report does calculate that 22 veterans die each day from suicide. But the estimate applies to all veterans, not soldiers who are on active or reserve services as Scott describes. The estimate relies on state data that identify the dead as veterans. It therefore includes those with or without any history of accessing VA care. A spokeswoman for the VA in Washington confirmed that the report also cites recent increases in the rates of suicide in the general population among middle-age adults between 35 and 64 years of age. The report found the majority of veteran suicides, about 70 percent, were by those age 50 and older. The report found that veterans make up a smaller percentage of the country’s suicides than a previous study in 2007. That suggests that an effort to improve suicide prevention programs at the VA had an effect, the report concludes, while also recommending additional improvements. "VA must continue to provide a high level of care, and recognize that there is still much more work to do," according to the study’s executive summary. "As long as Veterans die by suicide, we must continue to improve and provide even better services and care." Andel said Scott’s statement was a part of the congressman’s effort to use the study’s findings to push for change. Scott supports a proposal from U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, a Republican from Indiana, to offer employment incentives to psychiatrists who agree to work for the VA to help with the shortage of services. The IAVA has lobbied for a separate bill, the Senate’s Suicide Prevention for America's Veterans Act. Among other things, it calls for recruiting more health care workers to the VA and Department of Defense and reviewing those agencies’ suicide prevention programs. "We feel the system fails veterans, and that takes us to a point where unfortunately veterans are considering and committing suicide," said Nick McCormick, a legislative associate with the IAVA. "We want to get that information out so there can be change." To sum it up, though Scott is a little off on his math, he’s close enough on the daily rates for us. He has a point to drive home, that a lot of veterans are dying by their own hands. The problem is when he attempts to link the daily suicide rates of all military veterans, who may never have visited a VA center, with the current scandal. The study offers no evidence to back up the implication that blame lies with the VA on those deaths.


Phyllis Schlafly Says broken compact fluorescent light bulbs "allegedly cause migraines and epilepsy attacks.

Explanation: Phyllis Schlafly says broken CFL bulbs allegedly cause migraines and epileptic seizures

Environment, Consumer Safety, Public Health, Texas, Phyllis Schlafly,

National conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, mindful of a federal law that stepped up the required efficiency of light bulbs, recently aired her qualms about the compact fluorescent light bulbs offered to consumers as more efficient alternatives to traditional incandescent bulbs. In a column included in a Feb. 2 e-mail blast by the Texas Eagle Forum, the founder of the national Eagle Forum said: "CFL bulbs do not work well in colder temperatures, and most cannot handle dimmer switches; broken CFL bulbs allegedly cause migraines and epilepsy attacks." We’ve previously looked into CFL-related claims, so we know there are variations on this theme. For this article, we’re spotlighting Schlafly’s health claim, that broken CFL bulbs allegedly cause migraines and epilepsy attacks. Seeking illumination, we requested elaboration from the person who sent the e-mail blast, Pat Carlson, president of the Texas Eagle Forum. Meantime, we found what looked like Schlafly’s original column, posted online Dec. 21 at WorldNetDaily.com. From the site, we also asked Schlafly for back-up information. Next, we searched online for news stories on CFLs touching off migraines and epileptic episodes. Google led us to an opinion column by Nicolas Loris, a research associate for the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation. In the column, posted online Nov. 10 by the Sacramento Bee, Loris writes: "Hospitals and medical charities warn that CFL bulbs cause migraines and epilepsy attacks." Loris told us by e-mail that his source was a November 2009 article published by a British newspaper, The Daily Mail, which quotes "medical charities" saying they have been swamped with complaints that the "flicker of compact fluorescent bulbs can trigger migraines and epilepsy attacks." The article continues: "The charities are lobbying the (national) government to allow an ‘opt out’ for people with health problems so they can continue to use the older bulbs." Stating that about one in 10 people suffers from migraines, the article quotes Lee Tomkins, of the Migraine Action Association, recommending that residents stockpile conventional bulbs and advising people who suffer from migraines to avoid using fluorescent bulbs as reading lights, or in living areas and kitchens. Phew. Who knew? No one in the United States, it initially appeared. With help from the American Academy of Neurology, we reached a national expert on each affliction. Per migraines, Stephen Silberstein, a professor of neurology at the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, said a light flickering at a certain frequency can aggravate a headache. But, Silberstein said, there is no evidence that CFLs cause migraines. "This is bull," he said. Marc Nuwer, a professor of clinical neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said strobe lights--such as those in discotheques--can flicker at a rate that would touch off a seizure in about 1 in 200 people. However, Nower said, CFL bulbs flicker at much higher rates not detectable by the human eye; they don’t cause epileptic seizures. Nuwer speculated: "Someone is talking about some theoretical far-fetched possibility that a broken light would flash" at the 10 times per second that can cause seizures among a few. "Even then, that’s really different from a strobe light, which is really bright, lighting up a room." Nuwer said his online searches for scientific literature connecting CFLs to epileptic seizures or migraines came up empty. On our behalf, though, he contacted Graham Harding, an international expert on photo-sensitive epilepsy, a form of the disorder in which seizures are triggered by visual stimuli. In e-mails to Nuwer, Harding said that among 174 respondents to an online survey by Epilepsy Action, 4 percent -- seven people -- reported epileptic seizures due to CFL bulbs, and 4 percent due to conventional fluorescent lights, compared to less than 1 percent due to conventional incandescent bulbs. Harding’s e-mail says the 4 percent reporting problems with CFLs referred to the lights flashing on start-up or because the bulbs were faulty. Harding’s e-mail closes: "So the risk (of induced seizures) is no greater than with normal fluorescent but is more than ordinary filament light bulbs." All that said, he continued, since conventional bulbs have been phased out, with fluorescents presumably replacing many of them, the United Kingdom’s Epilepsy Action group has not reported any seizure problems to him. Nuwer also passed along a comment from Robert Fisher, a Stanford University neurologist and director of the Stanford Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. Fisher said by e-mail that fluorescent lights in the United States and Europe flicker at a higher frequency "than would be likely to provoke photosensitive seizures." But a "defective light may flicker at a lower frequency" and such flickering "can and has caused seizures in a few susceptible individuals... So it could happen, but it would be expected to be a rare occurrence." Next, we interviewed Mark Rea, director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Center, who said he’s seen no U.S. study demonstrating headaches or epileptic attacks occur because of CFLs. He noted, though, that a 1989 study completed in Great Britain compared the incidence of headaches in an office under different kinds of fluorescent lighting. According to that study, the incidence of eye strain and headaches were cut in half when high-frequency lights were used. Finally, we came across a paper on CFLs’ impact on health adopted by the European Commission’s Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks in September 2008. The paper says: "There is no scientific evidence that fluorescent lamps including CFL(s) induce (epileptic) seizures." While flickering light in general can induce migraines, the paper says, scientific "support for aggravating symptoms by flicker from fluorescent tubes was not found." Similarly, while there’s "evidence showing that flicker can cause seizures in patients with photosensitive epilepsy," the paper says, " there are no reported effects of CFL having such effects." Meanwhile, the Texas Eagle Forum’s Carlson relayed a defense of Schlafly’s statement from Schlafly’s son, John. Schlafly pointed out that his mother’s use of the word "allegedly" signaled that she was "not claiming she had scientific proof CFLs cause migraines or epilepsy. However, it is a fact that some people who suffer from migraines or epilepsy believe that CFLs cause or aggravate those painful and debilitating conditions, he said. Our take: Flickering lights of various origins have been linked to migraines and epileptic seizures. But there appears to be no scientific evidence that CFLs, broken or otherwise, cause either disorder.