Datasets:

tingchih

/

EM

like 0

On March 31, 2021, first lady Jill Biden stood in front of a Nazi-inspired flag while giving a speech to farmworkers.

Contradiction

On March 31, 2021, first lady Jill Biden visited the Forty Acres in California, a vaccination site and a National Historic Landmark that became the first headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), a labor union for farm workers across the country. While there, she urged farmworkers to get vaccinated as well. That day, she was also honoring César Chávez, a UFW leader and civil rights activist who died in 1993. During her speech, Biden stood in front of a flag that many on social media claimed was Nazi-inspired. This, we learned, was false. Jill Biden spoke in front of a Nazi-inspired flag yesterday pic.twitter.com/cJEyuZFxJp - Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 1, 2021 Nothing to see here. Just the First Lady speaking in front of a Nazi inspired flag. This administration is incompetent to the point of buffoonery. pic.twitter.com/5tj0wWziv5 - Richard A Harrison (@RAHarrisonPA) April 1, 2021 Yesterday Jill Biden struggled to speech basic Spanish while standing in front of a Nazi flag. Melania Trump speaks 5 languages fluently. - JD Sharp (@imjdsharp) April 1, 2021 The flag behind Biden was the UFW's official flag, which was designed in 1962 by Richard Chávez, César Chávez' younger brother. The flag depicts an eagle and was inspired by Aztec imagery. According to the UFW website: In 1962, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and others founded the National Farm Workers Association, later to become the United Farm Workers. That same year, Richard Chavez designed the UFW Eagle. Cesar told the story of the birth of the eagle. He asked Richard to design the flag, but Richard had problems making an eagle that he liked. Finally, he sketched one on a piece of brown wrapping paper. He then squared off the wing edges so that the eagle would be easier for union members to draw on the handmade red flags that would give courage to the farm workers with their own powerful symbol. Cesar made reference to the flag by stating, 'A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride...When people see it they know it means dignity.' Since that time, the UFW Eagle Mark has become a highly recognizable icon in the union's boycott efforts, legislative, proposition campaigns, and a victorious symbol of its successful contract negotiations. A Smithsonian magazine article by Miriam Chawel, author of 'The Union of Their Dreams,' about the history of the farm workers' movement did point out that César Chávez had 'researched emblems, including cigarette boxes and Nazi flags, and concluded that the most potent color combination was red, black and white.' He then 'picked the eagle and directed his brother to draw the bird so simply that anyone could easily replicate the symbol.' However, another account in 1998's 'The Fight in the Fields' by Susan Ferriss and Ricardo Sandoval, which was a companion book to the PBS documentary of the same name, described a moment that indicated evoking Nazi imagery was not Richard Chávez' intention. The book describes how he came up with the design for the eagle and how César Chávez chose the colors, 'white for hope, black for the plight of the workers, and red for the sacrifice that would be required of them.' The book described the unveiling of their banner at the first National Farm Worker's Association (which would later become the UFW) conference: It was time to unveil the association's banner: a square-edged black eagle in a white circle against a red background. Manuel pulled a cord, tearing aside a sheet of paper that had been covering the flag-and gasps rippled through the crowd. Some people immediately left in protest because they thought the flag looked 'Communist.' Some thought the eagle design was inspired, half in jest, by the label on Gallo's cheapest wine, Thunderbird. To Richard's astonishment, still others thought the colors echoed that of the Nazi flag of the Third Reich. But experts have largely argued that the flag's purported association with the Nazi movement was ridiculous. Lauren Araiza, an associate professor at Denison University, told The Associated Press that in addition to red and black being eye-catching colors, the tone of red used in the flag was inexpensive for printers. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, a professor of history at Fairfield University who specializes in the history of Nazi Germany, also told The Associated Press that the Nazi-inspiration claims were incorrect. 'One source of subtle confusion may be the fact that many Nazi flags featured an eagle with a swastika, the latter being a very geometric shape; the UFW flag also features a very geometrically rendered Aztec-style eagle that could evoke the geometric aspects of a swastika,' Rosenfeld said. 'But of course, there's no swastika on the UFW whatsoever.' In sum, César Chávez may have looked at the colors of the Nazi flag, among other emblems, while doing his research on the movement's banner. But the farmworkers' flag itself is not a Nazi flag, and the logos on it are inspired by Aztec imagery, among other elements. Furthermore, flag designer Richard Chávez had himself indicated he did not take inspiration from the Nazi flags. We thus rate this claim as 'False.'

In sum, César Chávez may have looked at the colors of the Nazi flag, among other emblems, while doing his research on the movement's banner. But the farmworkers' flag itself is not a Nazi flag, and the logos on it are inspired by Aztec imagery, among other elements. Furthermore, flag designer Richard Chávez had himself indicated he did not take inspiration from the Nazi flags. We thus rate this claim as 'False.'

On March 31, 2021, first lady Jill Biden stood in front of a Nazi-inspired flag while giving a speech to farmworkers.

Contradiction

On March 31, 2021, first lady Jill Biden visited the Forty Acres in California, a vaccination site and a National Historic Landmark that became the first headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), a labor union for farm workers across the country. While there, she urged farmworkers to get vaccinated as well. That day, she was also honoring César Chávez, a UFW leader and civil rights activist who died in 1993. During her speech, Biden stood in front of a flag that many on social media claimed was Nazi-inspired. This, we learned, was false. Jill Biden spoke in front of a Nazi-inspired flag yesterday pic.twitter.com/cJEyuZFxJp - Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 1, 2021 Nothing to see here. Just the First Lady speaking in front of a Nazi inspired flag. This administration is incompetent to the point of buffoonery. pic.twitter.com/5tj0wWziv5 - Richard A Harrison (@RAHarrisonPA) April 1, 2021 Yesterday Jill Biden struggled to speech basic Spanish while standing in front of a Nazi flag. Melania Trump speaks 5 languages fluently. - JD Sharp (@imjdsharp) April 1, 2021 The flag behind Biden was the UFW's official flag, which was designed in 1962 by Richard Chávez, César Chávez' younger brother. The flag depicts an eagle and was inspired by Aztec imagery. According to the UFW website: In 1962, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and others founded the National Farm Workers Association, later to become the United Farm Workers. That same year, Richard Chavez designed the UFW Eagle. Cesar told the story of the birth of the eagle. He asked Richard to design the flag, but Richard had problems making an eagle that he liked. Finally, he sketched one on a piece of brown wrapping paper. He then squared off the wing edges so that the eagle would be easier for union members to draw on the handmade red flags that would give courage to the farm workers with their own powerful symbol. Cesar made reference to the flag by stating, 'A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride...When people see it they know it means dignity.' Since that time, the UFW Eagle Mark has become a highly recognizable icon in the union's boycott efforts, legislative, proposition campaigns, and a victorious symbol of its successful contract negotiations. A Smithsonian magazine article by Miriam Chawel, author of 'The Union of Their Dreams,' about the history of the farm workers' movement did point out that César Chávez had 'researched emblems, including cigarette boxes and Nazi flags, and concluded that the most potent color combination was red, black and white.' He then 'picked the eagle and directed his brother to draw the bird so simply that anyone could easily replicate the symbol.' However, another account in 1998's 'The Fight in the Fields' by Susan Ferriss and Ricardo Sandoval, which was a companion book to the PBS documentary of the same name, described a moment that indicated evoking Nazi imagery was not Richard Chávez' intention. The book describes how he came up with the design for the eagle and how César Chávez chose the colors, 'white for hope, black for the plight of the workers, and red for the sacrifice that would be required of them.' The book described the unveiling of their banner at the first National Farm Worker's Association (which would later become the UFW) conference: It was time to unveil the association's banner: a square-edged black eagle in a white circle against a red background. Manuel pulled a cord, tearing aside a sheet of paper that had been covering the flag-and gasps rippled through the crowd. Some people immediately left in protest because they thought the flag looked 'Communist.' Some thought the eagle design was inspired, half in jest, by the label on Gallo's cheapest wine, Thunderbird. To Richard's astonishment, still others thought the colors echoed that of the Nazi flag of the Third Reich. But experts have largely argued that the flag's purported association with the Nazi movement was ridiculous. Lauren Araiza, an associate professor at Denison University, told The Associated Press that in addition to red and black being eye-catching colors, the tone of red used in the flag was inexpensive for printers. Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, a professor of history at Fairfield University who specializes in the history of Nazi Germany, also told The Associated Press that the Nazi-inspiration claims were incorrect. 'One source of subtle confusion may be the fact that many Nazi flags featured an eagle with a swastika, the latter being a very geometric shape; the UFW flag also features a very geometrically rendered Aztec-style eagle that could evoke the geometric aspects of a swastika,' Rosenfeld said. 'But of course, there's no swastika on the UFW whatsoever.' In sum, César Chávez may have looked at the colors of the Nazi flag, among other emblems, while doing his research on the movement's banner. But the farmworkers' flag itself is not a Nazi flag, and the logos on it are inspired by Aztec imagery, among other elements. Furthermore, flag designer Richard Chávez had himself indicated he did not take inspiration from the Nazi flags. We thus rate this claim as 'False.'

In sum, César Chávez may have looked at the colors of the Nazi flag, among other emblems, while doing his research on the movement's banner. But the farmworkers' flag itself is not a Nazi flag, and the logos on it are inspired by Aztec imagery, among other elements. Furthermore, flag designer Richard Chávez had himself indicated he did not take inspiration from the Nazi flags. We thus rate this claim as 'False.'

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus, had been found in toilet paper, and that people should use wet cloths instead.

Contradiction

On March 10, 2020, Now8News published an article positing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, had been found in packages of toilet paper, and that people should start using a wet washcloth to clean themselves instead: COVID-19 Found in Toilet Paper [...] The coronavirus has been found in the one place people never expected, toilet paper. An estimated 6000 more people have contracted the virus in the United States tied to a contamination of toilet paper. Testing by Washington State Health department confirmed the COVID-19 virus particles were present in the samples they took from five separate packages of toilet paper from Big Box stores. The CDC said this strain of deadly virus 'breeds rapidly in tissue fibers.' The CDC is urging people to using a wet washcloth when cleaning themselves after using the bathroom instead of toilet paper. This is not a genuine news article. Now8News is a junk news site that traffics in misinformation. Now8News does not carry a readily available disclaimer labeling its content as 'satire' or 'fake news,' but this website's content is undoubtedly fiction. We've been debunking misinformation from Now8News since at least 2015, including junk news articles about people having sex with pigs at Walmart, a cannibal eating a person at a haunted house in Texas, and a lottery winner who died after dipping his testicles in gold. Those unfamiliar with this site, however, were given no indications that this toilet-paper story was false. It was presented like a traditional news story and even includes fabricated quotes from the CDC. Now 8 News writes: The CDC is urging people to using a wet washcloth when cleaning themselves after using the bathroom instead of toilet paper. 'Use a washcloth to clean yourself after you go to the bathroom, it's not a big deal, that's what we did back in the old days,' said Peter Lendl, who headed the investigation of the contaminated toilet paper. 'Just know which one is yours.' This is not a genuine quote from the CDC. We were unable to find this quote in news articles, social media posts from someone named 'Peter Lendl,' or from a CDC press release. In fact, the only results for this quote pointed back to this junk news article from Now8News. In sum, the CDC did not announce in March 2020 that the new strain of coronavirus was 'rapidly breeding' on toilet paper and that people should use a wet washcloth instead. You can find genuine information about how to deal with the coronavirus on the CDC website.

In sum, the CDC did not announce in March 2020 that the new strain of coronavirus was 'rapidly breeding' on toilet paper and that people should use a wet washcloth instead. You can find genuine information about how to deal with the coronavirus on the CDC website.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that COVID-19, a disease caused by the coronavirus, had been found in toilet paper, and that people should use wet cloths instead.

Contradiction

On March 10, 2020, Now8News published an article positing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, had been found in packages of toilet paper, and that people should start using a wet washcloth to clean themselves instead: COVID-19 Found in Toilet Paper [...] The coronavirus has been found in the one place people never expected, toilet paper. An estimated 6000 more people have contracted the virus in the United States tied to a contamination of toilet paper. Testing by Washington State Health department confirmed the COVID-19 virus particles were present in the samples they took from five separate packages of toilet paper from Big Box stores. The CDC said this strain of deadly virus 'breeds rapidly in tissue fibers.' The CDC is urging people to using a wet washcloth when cleaning themselves after using the bathroom instead of toilet paper. This is not a genuine news article. Now8News is a junk news site that traffics in misinformation. Now8News does not carry a readily available disclaimer labeling its content as 'satire' or 'fake news,' but this website's content is undoubtedly fiction. We've been debunking misinformation from Now8News since at least 2015, including junk news articles about people having sex with pigs at Walmart, a cannibal eating a person at a haunted house in Texas, and a lottery winner who died after dipping his testicles in gold. Those unfamiliar with this site, however, were given no indications that this toilet-paper story was false. It was presented like a traditional news story and even includes fabricated quotes from the CDC. Now 8 News writes: The CDC is urging people to using a wet washcloth when cleaning themselves after using the bathroom instead of toilet paper. 'Use a washcloth to clean yourself after you go to the bathroom, it's not a big deal, that's what we did back in the old days,' said Peter Lendl, who headed the investigation of the contaminated toilet paper. 'Just know which one is yours.' This is not a genuine quote from the CDC. We were unable to find this quote in news articles, social media posts from someone named 'Peter Lendl,' or from a CDC press release. In fact, the only results for this quote pointed back to this junk news article from Now8News. In sum, the CDC did not announce in March 2020 that the new strain of coronavirus was 'rapidly breeding' on toilet paper and that people should use a wet washcloth instead. You can find genuine information about how to deal with the coronavirus on the CDC website.

In sum, the CDC did not announce in March 2020 that the new strain of coronavirus was 'rapidly breeding' on toilet paper and that people should use a wet washcloth instead. You can find genuine information about how to deal with the coronavirus on the CDC website.

As of late January 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump had started a new U.S. political party called the 'Patriot Party.

Contradiction

Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. On Jan. 19, 2021, the day before U.S. President Joe Biden's inauguration, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, had floated the idea of forming a new American political party called the 'Patriot Party.' The report, excerpted below, cited an unknown number of people within Trump's inner circle who told the news outlet he was considering creating an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties to maintain relevancy after his presidency. President Trump has talked in recent days with associates about forming a new political party, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to exert continued influence after he leaves the White House. Mr. Trump discussed the matter with several aides and other people close to him last week, the people said. The president said he would want to call the new party the 'Patriot Party,' the people said. Meanwhile, some Trump supporters were campaigning for the idea on social media sites including Parler, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. An account titled @realPatriot, for example, was selling 'The Patriot Party' T-shirts and MAGA hats, and had amassed more than 123,000 Twitter followers as of this report. One supporter - Michael Joseph Gaul of Georgia - went so far as to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Jan. 22 to establish a formal system for collecting campaign donations to supposedly help the Patriot Party take off, according to FEC documents and multiple reputable news outlets. We will explain more about that effort below. We investigated whether, or to what extent, the former president was behind those third-party efforts and had indeed split from the Republican Party. On the same day as the WSJ story, a New York Times story surfaced about several high-profile Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who condemned Trump for 'provoking' a crowd of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to halt a ceremonial vote affirming Biden's win. The next day, rumors regarding Trump's post-presidency agenda accelerated. Before boarding a flight to Florida in lieu of participating in the inauguration ceremony for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump told a crowd of supporters at Joint Base Andrews 'we will be back in some form.' Hours after that, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham commented on the rumors in a Fox News interview, where he said he hopes Trump does not form a new political party because the GOP needs him to secure a majority of seats in the Senate and House in future elections. 'The one way Democrats can survive is for the Republican Party to crack up,' he said. 'The best way for the Republican Party to crack up is to try to move forward without Donald Trump.' But here's important context: Multiple people credited with knowledge of private conversations with Trump told The Washington Post for a story on Jan. 23 that the third-party threat gave Trump leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during his second impeachment trial, set to begin in February. Questions regarding Trump's official involvement in an alleged third-party scheme were further answered by information that surfaced on Jan. 25. Responding to Gaul's FEC filing - which listed the former president's campaign committee, Donald J Trump for President (DJTFP), as a 'joint fundraising representative' - DJTFP said it had 'no affiliation with Patriot Party' and was not involved in the campaign fundraising effort. 'DJTFP is placing this disavowal notice on the public record out of concern for confusion among the public, which may be mislead to believe that Patriot Party's activities have been authorized by Mr Trump or DJTFP - or that contributions to this unauthorized committee are being made to DJTFP - when that is not true,' the FEC notice read. We reached out to the email address listed on Gaul's FEC filing to learn why, or under what circumstances exactly, he attempted to create the official group to collection donations under the Patriot Party name. We have not heard back, but we will update this report when, or if, that changes. After that statement from Trump's official campaign, Jason Miller, who had served as a senior campaign adviser to Trump, confirmed that Trump was indeed committed to helping the Republican party - at least for now - in at least one media interview and on Twitter. CNN reported: He said that the former President 'has made clear his goal is to win back the House and Senate for Republicans in 2022. There's nothing that's actively being planned regarding an effort outside of that.' But, Miller maintained, 'it's completely up to Republican senators if this is something that becomes more serious' - a reference to Trump's upcoming Senate impeachment trial. In sum, despite news reports citing anonymous sources close to Trump who said he floated the idea of establishing a new 'Patriot Party,' the official statement from his campaign disavowing an effort to solicit campaign donations under the name and Miller's comments prove that he had not established such an organization as of late January 2021.

In sum, despite news reports citing anonymous sources close to Trump who said he floated the idea of establishing a new 'Patriot Party,' the official statement from his campaign disavowing an effort to solicit campaign donations under the name and Miller's comments prove that he had not established such an organization as of late January 2021.

As of late January 2021, former U.S. President Donald Trump had started a new U.S. political party called the 'Patriot Party.

Contradiction

Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. On Jan. 19, 2021, the day before U.S. President Joe Biden's inauguration, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, had floated the idea of forming a new American political party called the 'Patriot Party.' The report, excerpted below, cited an unknown number of people within Trump's inner circle who told the news outlet he was considering creating an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties to maintain relevancy after his presidency. President Trump has talked in recent days with associates about forming a new political party, according to people familiar with the matter, an effort to exert continued influence after he leaves the White House. Mr. Trump discussed the matter with several aides and other people close to him last week, the people said. The president said he would want to call the new party the 'Patriot Party,' the people said. Meanwhile, some Trump supporters were campaigning for the idea on social media sites including Parler, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. An account titled @realPatriot, for example, was selling 'The Patriot Party' T-shirts and MAGA hats, and had amassed more than 123,000 Twitter followers as of this report. One supporter - Michael Joseph Gaul of Georgia - went so far as to file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Jan. 22 to establish a formal system for collecting campaign donations to supposedly help the Patriot Party take off, according to FEC documents and multiple reputable news outlets. We will explain more about that effort below. We investigated whether, or to what extent, the former president was behind those third-party efforts and had indeed split from the Republican Party. On the same day as the WSJ story, a New York Times story surfaced about several high-profile Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who condemned Trump for 'provoking' a crowd of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to halt a ceremonial vote affirming Biden's win. The next day, rumors regarding Trump's post-presidency agenda accelerated. Before boarding a flight to Florida in lieu of participating in the inauguration ceremony for Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump told a crowd of supporters at Joint Base Andrews 'we will be back in some form.' Hours after that, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham commented on the rumors in a Fox News interview, where he said he hopes Trump does not form a new political party because the GOP needs him to secure a majority of seats in the Senate and House in future elections. 'The one way Democrats can survive is for the Republican Party to crack up,' he said. 'The best way for the Republican Party to crack up is to try to move forward without Donald Trump.' But here's important context: Multiple people credited with knowledge of private conversations with Trump told The Washington Post for a story on Jan. 23 that the third-party threat gave Trump leverage to prevent Republican senators from voting to convict him during his second impeachment trial, set to begin in February. Questions regarding Trump's official involvement in an alleged third-party scheme were further answered by information that surfaced on Jan. 25. Responding to Gaul's FEC filing - which listed the former president's campaign committee, Donald J Trump for President (DJTFP), as a 'joint fundraising representative' - DJTFP said it had 'no affiliation with Patriot Party' and was not involved in the campaign fundraising effort. 'DJTFP is placing this disavowal notice on the public record out of concern for confusion among the public, which may be mislead to believe that Patriot Party's activities have been authorized by Mr Trump or DJTFP - or that contributions to this unauthorized committee are being made to DJTFP - when that is not true,' the FEC notice read. We reached out to the email address listed on Gaul's FEC filing to learn why, or under what circumstances exactly, he attempted to create the official group to collection donations under the Patriot Party name. We have not heard back, but we will update this report when, or if, that changes. After that statement from Trump's official campaign, Jason Miller, who had served as a senior campaign adviser to Trump, confirmed that Trump was indeed committed to helping the Republican party - at least for now - in at least one media interview and on Twitter. CNN reported: He said that the former President 'has made clear his goal is to win back the House and Senate for Republicans in 2022. There's nothing that's actively being planned regarding an effort outside of that.' But, Miller maintained, 'it's completely up to Republican senators if this is something that becomes more serious' - a reference to Trump's upcoming Senate impeachment trial. In sum, despite news reports citing anonymous sources close to Trump who said he floated the idea of establishing a new 'Patriot Party,' the official statement from his campaign disavowing an effort to solicit campaign donations under the name and Miller's comments prove that he had not established such an organization as of late January 2021.

In sum, despite news reports citing anonymous sources close to Trump who said he floated the idea of establishing a new 'Patriot Party,' the official statement from his campaign disavowing an effort to solicit campaign donations under the name and Miller's comments prove that he had not established such an organization as of late January 2021.

All businesses in the U.S. are required to accept coins and/or currency as payment.

Contradiction

In July 2020, Mississippi state Sen. Chad McMahan posted a warning to businesses in his state that were declining to handle cash during the COVID-19 pandemic (due to fears of virus transmission via surface contact) that they were breaking the law by refusing to accept payment in legal tender: Notice to businesses not accepting cash, Legal Tender, in Mississippi. I've had several people reach out to me about an issue taking place in our state. Scott, thank you for the email. It is my understanding several companies in Mississippi are refusing to take cash as payment. Take a look at the photos attached. This is a Federal Reserve Note, a $20 bill. This paper money, this note, is Legal Tender for all debts, public and private. Business owners, if you refused to take cash, the debt is paid in full. If you are a business owner and you refuse to take cash, you are breaking the law. Here is an example, if I stop by your store and I purchase $44 worth of fuel, and I try to pay you with a $100 bill and you refuse payment of cash, the debt is paid in full. There is nothing you can do to prosecute me because you have refused payment of Legal Tender, unless the business suspects counterfeit bills. I'm asking residents of Mississippi to make me aware of companies who will not receive or take your cash. They will be receiving a call from my office, the Department of Revenue, and the Attorney General's office. McMahan was wrong in a legal sense, however: No federal law requires all businesses in the U.S. to accept currency or coins as payment for goods and services. The designation of coins and/or currency as 'legal tender' does not mean that all merchants must accept that form of payment for all transactions. In short, when a debt has been incurred by one party to another, and the parties have agreed that cash is to be the medium of exchange, then legal tender must be accepted if it is proffered in satisfaction of that debt. However, otherwise the selling party may set the medium of exchange to be anything they choose: dollars, bananas, precious gems, feathers, whiskey, etc. They may also choose to accept cash payment only via alternative forms (e.g., credit/debit card, check, money order) rather than currency itself. The U.S. Treasury answers this question of legal tender acceptability on their website thusly: Q: I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal? A: The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled 'Legal tender,' which states: 'United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.' This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy. As noted above, however, although no federal regulation requires businesses to accept currency and coins as payment, local regulations may do so. Massachusetts has had such a law in place since 1978, and New Jersey enacted similar legislation in 2019. A few cities (e.g., San Francisco, Philadelphia) have prohibited stores from going cashless as well. But Mississippi has no such requirement on its books, something McMahan seemingly acknowledged when he later said that, 'To meet the needs and demands of Mississippians - the average person that's out here working and going to the grocery store and living their lives - I would like to see every business in Mississippi have a pathway to take cash legal tender.'

In short, when a debt has been incurred by one party to another, and the parties have agreed that cash is to be the medium of exchange, then legal tender must be accepted if it is proffered in satisfaction of that debt. However, otherwise the selling party may set the medium of exchange to be anything they choose: dollars, bananas, precious gems, feathers, whiskey, etc. They may also choose to accept cash payment only via alternative forms (e.g., credit/debit card, check, money order) rather than currency itself. The U.S. Treasury answers this question of legal tender acceptability on their website thusly: Q: I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal? A: The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled 'Legal tender,' which states: 'United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.' This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy. As noted above, however, although no federal regulation requires businesses to accept currency and coins as payment, local regulations may do so. Massachusetts has had such a law in place since 1978, and New Jersey enacted similar legislation in 2019. A few cities (e.g., San Francisco, Philadelphia) have prohibited stores from going cashless as well. But Mississippi has no such requirement on its books, something McMahan seemingly acknowledged when he later said that, 'To meet the needs and demands of Mississippians - the average person that's out here working and going to the grocery store and living their lives - I would like to see every business in Mississippi have a pathway to take cash legal tender.'

All businesses in the U.S. are required to accept coins and/or currency as payment.

Contradiction

In July 2020, Mississippi state Sen. Chad McMahan posted a warning to businesses in his state that were declining to handle cash during the COVID-19 pandemic (due to fears of virus transmission via surface contact) that they were breaking the law by refusing to accept payment in legal tender: Notice to businesses not accepting cash, Legal Tender, in Mississippi. I've had several people reach out to me about an issue taking place in our state. Scott, thank you for the email. It is my understanding several companies in Mississippi are refusing to take cash as payment. Take a look at the photos attached. This is a Federal Reserve Note, a $20 bill. This paper money, this note, is Legal Tender for all debts, public and private. Business owners, if you refused to take cash, the debt is paid in full. If you are a business owner and you refuse to take cash, you are breaking the law. Here is an example, if I stop by your store and I purchase $44 worth of fuel, and I try to pay you with a $100 bill and you refuse payment of cash, the debt is paid in full. There is nothing you can do to prosecute me because you have refused payment of Legal Tender, unless the business suspects counterfeit bills. I'm asking residents of Mississippi to make me aware of companies who will not receive or take your cash. They will be receiving a call from my office, the Department of Revenue, and the Attorney General's office. McMahan was wrong in a legal sense, however: No federal law requires all businesses in the U.S. to accept currency or coins as payment for goods and services. The designation of coins and/or currency as 'legal tender' does not mean that all merchants must accept that form of payment for all transactions. In short, when a debt has been incurred by one party to another, and the parties have agreed that cash is to be the medium of exchange, then legal tender must be accepted if it is proffered in satisfaction of that debt. However, otherwise the selling party may set the medium of exchange to be anything they choose: dollars, bananas, precious gems, feathers, whiskey, etc. They may also choose to accept cash payment only via alternative forms (e.g., credit/debit card, check, money order) rather than currency itself. The U.S. Treasury answers this question of legal tender acceptability on their website thusly: Q: I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal? A: The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled 'Legal tender,' which states: 'United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.' This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy. As noted above, however, although no federal regulation requires businesses to accept currency and coins as payment, local regulations may do so. Massachusetts has had such a law in place since 1978, and New Jersey enacted similar legislation in 2019. A few cities (e.g., San Francisco, Philadelphia) have prohibited stores from going cashless as well. But Mississippi has no such requirement on its books, something McMahan seemingly acknowledged when he later said that, 'To meet the needs and demands of Mississippians - the average person that's out here working and going to the grocery store and living their lives - I would like to see every business in Mississippi have a pathway to take cash legal tender.'

In short, when a debt has been incurred by one party to another, and the parties have agreed that cash is to be the medium of exchange, then legal tender must be accepted if it is proffered in satisfaction of that debt. However, otherwise the selling party may set the medium of exchange to be anything they choose: dollars, bananas, precious gems, feathers, whiskey, etc. They may also choose to accept cash payment only via alternative forms (e.g., credit/debit card, check, money order) rather than currency itself. The U.S. Treasury answers this question of legal tender acceptability on their website thusly: Q: I thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal? A: The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled 'Legal tender,' which states: 'United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.' This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy. As noted above, however, although no federal regulation requires businesses to accept currency and coins as payment, local regulations may do so. Massachusetts has had such a law in place since 1978, and New Jersey enacted similar legislation in 2019. A few cities (e.g., San Francisco, Philadelphia) have prohibited stores from going cashless as well. But Mississippi has no such requirement on its books, something McMahan seemingly acknowledged when he later said that, 'To meet the needs and demands of Mississippians - the average person that's out here working and going to the grocery store and living their lives - I would like to see every business in Mississippi have a pathway to take cash legal tender.'

A video of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul accurately claimed 'masks don't work' to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Contradiction

On Nov. 19, 2020, former Republican U.S. presidential candidate and Texas congressman Ron Paul posted a video on social media that compared a handful of states' COVID-19 cases over time and alleged no significant differences between states with government-sponsored mask mandates and those without such rules. As a result, the video claimed in a caption, 'masks don't work' to curb the spread of the deadly virus. Paul posted the roughly two-minute clip to his official channels including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Parler (displayed below and viewed more than 1.8 million times on that site). It was an edited segment of a recorded discussion via Paul's self-run media project, the Ron Paul Liberty Report, that attempted to discredit government-initiated business shutdowns during the pandemic and misconstrued a research project in Denmark about the effectiveness of masks, among other things. In the short clip on social media, Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams, a former congressional adviser to Paul, presented the below-displayed chart to supposedly show COVID-19 cases per 1 million residents in Texas, California, Florida, and Georgia based on data from The COVID Tracking Project as of November. They framed the data visualization as evidence that case totals in California and Texas, which had mask mandates, were about the same as those in Georgia and Florida without such regulations. (See California's mandatory mask guidance here and Texas' here.) 'It's really incredible how they completely ignore the science,' McAdams said, without explaining to whom exactly he was referencing. 'Texas, masks - high; Florida, no masks - the same; California, masks - about the same; Georgia, no masks - about the same. The trajectory is about the same for all four states, regardless of whether you wear a mask or not a mask.' Next, the video showed charts allegedly depicting COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in France, as well as in Minnesota and Florida, to make the same point: No data allegedly showed government-issued mask mandates helped residents avoid catching the virus, and, because of that, mandatory face coverings were unnecessary during the pandemic. For the purpose of this fact check, we focused on that underlying claim about mask-wearing - not the validity of the data visualizations, nor the numbers they used. Twitter users created at least two charts featured in the video (original posts here and here). We recommend checking the websites of your local health department, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Johns Hopkins, and The COVID Tracking Project to see how the virus spread over time. For example, the Tracking Project, to which government officials and health systems refer for COVID-19 response plans, showed the below-displayed seven-day average of new cases per day between April 1 and Nov. 21. Georgia (no mandatory mask mandate) showed roughly 2,500 new cases each day, as of this report. Florida (no mandatory mask mandate) tallied approximately 7,900 new cases each day, as of this report. Texas (mandatory mask mandate) documented roughly 10,500 new cases each day, as of this report. California (mandatory mask mandate) recorded roughly 11,800 new cases each day, as of this report. So while it was accurate to claim all four states were experiencing a surge in new COVID-19 cases - ranging between roughly 2,500 and 11,800 new cases daily - it was a false interpretation of that data to consider new cases solely the result of statewide mask mandates. That argument did not consider states' differing health care systems or demographics - as well as if, or to what extent, residents were wearing masks voluntarily in states without mandates or disobeying the statewide requirements in California and Texas. All rules by state or local officials to prevent the spread of COVID-19 meant nothing without people following them. Before we proceed, let's be clear about how COVID-19 - which is the disease caused by the coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV-2 - attacks the body. SARS-CoV-2 attacks lung cells, and that assault on a person's respiratory system can greatly exacerbate other preexisting conditions. Per the CDC, here's why public health officials recommended people wear masks (in addition to social distancing and taking other precautions) to avoid that from happening: COVID-19 spreads mainly from person to person through respiratory droplets. Respiratory droplets travel into the air when you cough, sneeze, talk, shout, or sing. These droplets can then land in the mouths or noses of people who are near you or they may breathe these droplets in. Masks are a simple barrier to help prevent your respiratory droplets from reaching others. Studies show that masks reduce the spray of droplets when worn over the nose and mouth. You should wear a mask, even if you do not feel sick. This is because several studies have found that people with COVID-19 who never develop symptoms (asymptomatic) and those who are not yet showing symptoms (pre-symptomatic) can still spread the virus to other people. The main function of wearing a mask is to protect those around you, in case you are infected but not showing symptoms. In other words, when people wear facial coverings, even if they are cloth, they are exposed to a lower dose of droplets containing the virus, which research shows may prevent them from getting really sick. Additionally, mask-wearers are curbing the transmission of the virus if they're COVID-19 positive and don't know it. With that scientific evidence in mind, states and local jurisdictions over months adopted mask mandates - sources of the alleged controversy in the Paul video. Those guidelines, coupled with rules on in-person gatherings, polarized Americans into groups who considered masks and temporary business shutdowns necessary to save lives, and those who believed government officials were exercising too much power, or infringing on people's rights, by telling them what to wear and how to live. Scientists' body of research exploring the effects of such policies were preliminary, as of this report. For example, one study by the CDC and the Kansas Department of Health compared transmission rates in counties with mask mandates and those in counties without such guidelines, and concluded the following: '[The] 7-day rolling average COVID-19 incidence had decreased by 6% to 16 cases per 100,000 among mandated counties and increased by 100% to 12 per 100,000 among nonmandated counties.' Nonetheless, that research showing mask guidelines seemingly did their job was just one county-by-county analysis in one state. Scientists cautioned people from taking one or a few studies out of context to make any conclusive arguments about COVID-19. In sum, it was inaccurate to claim 'masks don't work' to fight the pandemic, based on scientific evidence, and it was a false interpretation of state-by-state data to claim COVID-19 case trends are only a result of state leaders' stance on mandatory masks.

In sum, it was inaccurate to claim 'masks don't work' to fight the pandemic, based on scientific evidence, and it was a false interpretation of state-by-state data to claim COVID-19 case trends are only a result of state leaders' stance on mandatory masks.

Gina Carano replaced Chip Gaines as head of Walt Disney Imagineering.

Contradiction

On March 6, 2021, Uncle Walt's Insider published an article positing that former 'The Mandalorian' actress Gina Carano was replacing HGTV star Chip Gaines as the head of Walt Disney Imagineering: BURBANK, CA - Chip Gaines lasted less than a week as head of Walt Disney Imagineering. Disney (the company) spokesperson Jun Disney (no relation) told Uncle Walt's Insider, 'Officially, Chip is moving on to devote more time with his family.' 'Off the record, though,' Disney (no relation) continued, 'Chip was less interested in coming up with new attractions, and more into completely gutting the Imagineering offices, 'to get them ready to flip.'' [Note to self: look up the meaning of 'off the record' before publication.] A surprising choice Gaines' replacement, actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano, is a surprising choice. (It says so right above this paragraph.) This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: All events, persons, and companies depicted herein, including Disney, Walt Disney, and The Disney Company, are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, or to actual firms, is coincidental. Really. The same goes for any similarities to actual facts. The satire site's Facebook page carries a similar disclaimer: Only the most super-reliable theme park news from the most super-reliable theme park gurus. All stories internally peer-reviewed for minimum 17% accuracy. On Feb. 11, 2021, The Associated Press reported that Carano was fired from her role as Cara Dune on the Disney+ series 'The Mandalorian.' Her departure followed a social media post that 'likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate.' Lucasfilm said at the time that the company had 'no plans' for her to return to the series in the future. In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

Gina Carano replaced Chip Gaines as head of Walt Disney Imagineering.

Contradiction

On March 6, 2021, Uncle Walt's Insider published an article positing that former 'The Mandalorian' actress Gina Carano was replacing HGTV star Chip Gaines as the head of Walt Disney Imagineering: BURBANK, CA - Chip Gaines lasted less than a week as head of Walt Disney Imagineering. Disney (the company) spokesperson Jun Disney (no relation) told Uncle Walt's Insider, 'Officially, Chip is moving on to devote more time with his family.' 'Off the record, though,' Disney (no relation) continued, 'Chip was less interested in coming up with new attractions, and more into completely gutting the Imagineering offices, 'to get them ready to flip.'' [Note to self: look up the meaning of 'off the record' before publication.] A surprising choice Gaines' replacement, actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano, is a surprising choice. (It says so right above this paragraph.) This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: All events, persons, and companies depicted herein, including Disney, Walt Disney, and The Disney Company, are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, or to actual firms, is coincidental. Really. The same goes for any similarities to actual facts. The satire site's Facebook page carries a similar disclaimer: Only the most super-reliable theme park news from the most super-reliable theme park gurus. All stories internally peer-reviewed for minimum 17% accuracy. On Feb. 11, 2021, The Associated Press reported that Carano was fired from her role as Cara Dune on the Disney+ series 'The Mandalorian.' Her departure followed a social media post that 'likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate.' Lucasfilm said at the time that the company had 'no plans' for her to return to the series in the future. In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

Gina Carano replaced Chip Gaines as head of Walt Disney Imagineering.

Contradiction

On March 6, 2021, Uncle Walt's Insider published an article positing that former 'The Mandalorian' actress Gina Carano was replacing HGTV star Chip Gaines as the head of Walt Disney Imagineering: BURBANK, CA - Chip Gaines lasted less than a week as head of Walt Disney Imagineering. Disney (the company) spokesperson Jun Disney (no relation) told Uncle Walt's Insider, 'Officially, Chip is moving on to devote more time with his family.' 'Off the record, though,' Disney (no relation) continued, 'Chip was less interested in coming up with new attractions, and more into completely gutting the Imagineering offices, 'to get them ready to flip.'' [Note to self: look up the meaning of 'off the record' before publication.] A surprising choice Gaines' replacement, actress and former MMA fighter Gina Carano, is a surprising choice. (It says so right above this paragraph.) This item was not a factual recounting of real-life events. The article originated with a website that describes its output as being humorous or satirical in nature, as follows: All events, persons, and companies depicted herein, including Disney, Walt Disney, and The Disney Company, are fictitious, and any similarity to actual persons, living, dead or otherwise, or to actual firms, is coincidental. Really. The same goes for any similarities to actual facts. The satire site's Facebook page carries a similar disclaimer: Only the most super-reliable theme park news from the most super-reliable theme park gurus. All stories internally peer-reviewed for minimum 17% accuracy. On Feb. 11, 2021, The Associated Press reported that Carano was fired from her role as Cara Dune on the Disney+ series 'The Mandalorian.' Her departure followed a social media post that 'likened the experience of Jews during the Holocaust to the U.S. political climate.' Lucasfilm said at the time that the company had 'no plans' for her to return to the series in the future. In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

In sum, the story about Gina Carano, Chip Gaines, and Walt Disney Imagineering was labeled as satire. For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.

A TikTok video shows a crowd yelling 'pack yo shit' at the Trump family.

Contradiction

On Jan. 23, 2021, TikTok user 'german_squishy' uploaded a video titled 'When Trump Leaves the White House.' The video ostensibly shows several members of the departing Trump family waving back at a crowd that is angrily yelling 'pack yo shit' at them: @german_squishy Please don't delete me 🤣 #BoseAllOut #biden2021🇺🇸 #follow #comedy ♬ original sound - bengchase The video captures the Trump family arriving at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House for the final time on Jan. 20, 2021. The original audio for that video, however, documents a fervently pro-Trump crowd and not a rudely jeering one. The audio used to make the Mar-a-Lago crowd appear anti-Trump came from TikTok user 'bengchase' and was recorded at an anti-Trump rally in Washington D.C., held on the night of Jan. 19, 2020. Because the audio is manipulated, claims that a TikTok video show a crowd jeering at the Trump family at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 20, 2021, are 'False.'

On Jan. 23, 2021, TikTok user 'german_squishy' uploaded a video titled 'When Trump Leaves the White House.' The video ostensibly shows several members of the departing Trump family waving back at a crowd that is angrily yelling 'pack yo shit' at them: @german_squishy Please don't delete me 🤣 #BoseAllOut #biden2021🇺🇸 #follow #comedy ♬ original sound - bengchase The video captures the Trump family arriving at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House for the final time on Jan. 20, 2021. The original audio for that video, however, documents a fervently pro-Trump crowd and not a rudely jeering one. The audio used to make the Mar-a-Lago crowd appear anti-Trump came from TikTok user 'bengchase' and was recorded at an anti-Trump rally in Washington D.C., held on the night of Jan. 19, 2020. Because the audio is manipulated, claims that a TikTok video show a crowd jeering at the Trump family at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 20, 2021, are 'False.'

In 2018 or 2019, Brea Olinda Unified School District in California 'taught pedophilia as a sexual orientation.

Contradiction

In the spring of 2019, the Christian conservative website Freedom Project prompted concern among some readers by reporting that a public school district in California was 'teaching pedophilia' as a sexual orientation. On 17 April, the site published an article with the headline 'Pedophilia Being Taught as 'Sexual Orientation' in California Schools.' The article continued: Government school officials in California think it is 'really important' to teach children about pedophilia and pederasty in the classroom because it is a 'sexual orientation.' That is according to a top official for California's Brea Olinda School District, who admitted to parents that it was being done - and that it would continue, despite the outrage. The implications are mind-blowing. The stunning admission came after a parent-information meeting last month for the Brea Olinda Unified School District (BOUSD). Stephanie Yates, founder of Informed Parents of California, asked school officials why they were 'teaching pedophilia in school to 9th graders.' But instead of a denial that such an atrocity was taking place, a top school official confirmed it was happening and acted like there was nothing wrong with it. 'This is done because we are talking about historical perspectives of how gender relations and different types of sexual orientations have existed in history,' said BOUSD Assistant Superintendent of Curricula Kerrie Torres in a matter-of-fact way, sounding almost oblivious to how the bombshell might sound to normal people. The report centered around a short clip showing an exchange between Yates and Torres, which can be viewed below: That clip was taken from a longer video, posted to the 'Informed Parents of California' Facebook group. The 43-minute video was recorded on 21 March at a public information evening for parents in the Brea, California, school district, on the subject of the Healthy Youth Act. The full video can be watched here. Background California lawmakers passed the Healthy Youth Act, as we have outlined previously, in 2015, creating a new K-12, sex-education curriculum that remained in place as of April 2019. The law requires school districts across California to implement instruction for students related to reproductive health, sex education, personal safety, prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, child and adolescent growth, as well as programming on relationships, families, gender identity and sexual orientation. Each school district must devise its own curriculum, including specific reading materials and classroom presentations, provided the content is in keeping with the requirements of the Healthy Youth Act, including the requirement that all instructional material must be 'age-appropriate.' On the subject of sexual orientation, the text of the legislation states: 'Instruction and materials shall affirmatively recognize that people have different sexual orientations and, when discussing or providing examples of relationships and couples, shall be inclusive of same-sex relationships.' The legislation does not mention pedophilia (sexual activity between an adult and child) or pederasty (sexual activity between a man and a boy). What the video shows The full 43-minute video shows a 21 March presentation given by Brea Olinda Unified School District (BOUSD) Assistant Superintendent Kerrie Torres, which provided attending parents with information about how the district was implementing the requirements of the Healthy Youth Act, and what the BOUSD curriculum entailed. Around 25 minutes into the video, Yates interrupted Torres' presentation to ask about the curriculum's component on sexual orientation, and whether parents could withdraw their children from it (a subject we have previously examined in greater detail). Yates said: '... I'm just wondering, because you did give me this Powerpoint presentation that actually goes through the history of the LGBTIQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning], that talks about the practice of pederastery [sic], which is pedophilia specific to boys and men. ... You said you don't teach anything inappropriate, but you're teaching, normalizing pederastery [sic].' Yates' interruption was cut short, but after Torres' presentation, Yates once again confronted the BOUSD official with claims that the curriculum was 'normalizing anal sex' and 'teaching pedophilia in school.' The following exchange ensued: Yates: Answer me why you're teaching pedophilia in school, to ninth-graders. Torres: Teaching what? Yates: Pedophilia. Pederastery [sic]. Right here. Torres: Pederastery [sic]... this is done because we are talking about historical perspectives of how gender relations and different types of sexual orientations have existed in history. So this is something - Unidentified voice: So sex between a man and a boy is a sexual orientation? Torres: - something that's occurred in history and this is really important for us to include.' At no point did Torres state that the school district was endorsing the practice of pederasty or pedophilia, nor even that the curriculum described pederasty as a discrete sexual orientation - the core of the claim made by Freedom Project in its subsequent report, which falsely described Torres' remarks as a 'stunning admission.' Analysis In reality, Yates was referring to an outdated version of the BOUSD Healthy Youth Act curriculum that mentioned pederasty in a section about LGBT history, but neither endorsed the practice nor described or presented it as a discrete, legitimate sexual orientation. BOUSD's ninth-grade, health-education curriculum contains a component (Section 4.8) entitled 'Introduction to Sexual Orientation,' which includes a slideshow that teachers are intended to present to students. One of the slides relates to 'LGBTIQ in History,' and traces prominent milestones in LGBT history, including references to homosexuality in Ancient Rome and China. As of April 2019, the current version of that slide did not contain any reference to pederasty. However, an earlier version contained the following bullet point: 'The practice of pederasty (an older upper class man would make a young free boy his partner and become his mentor) is mentioned in Homer's Iliad [the Ancient Greek epic poem], and is evidenced to have existed at least 4500 years ago in ancient Egypt.' In a statement, a spokesperson for the school district told us that the previous reference to pederasty was removed from Section 4.8 of the ninth-grade, health-education curriculum in the fall of 2018. 'After careful review of the curriculum, the district determined it [the bullet point] posed more questions than answers,' the spokesperson wrote. The description of pederasty in the original BOUSD presentation is accurate, and in tracing the history of same-sex relationships in various societies, it would be perfectly relevant to mention the Ancient Greek custom whereby older men imposed a sexual relationship on much younger males, typically teenage boys. Although modern-day observers would view such a practice as predatory, abusive and criminal, it was widely practiced and accepted in Ancient Greek society. As such, it would appear relevant for inclusion in a brief summary of prominent milestones and trends in LGBT history, while bearing in mind the clear distinction between same-sex relationships, as such, and child sexual abuse. Yates did not make that distinction when she confronted Torres for allegedly 'normalizing anal sex' and 'teaching pedophilia,' suggesting a moral equivalence existed between consensual, same-sex sexual relations and child sexual abuse. Conclusion The BOUSD presentation, which is outdated anyway, did not endorse pederasty or present it approvingly, nor did it describe pederasty or pedophilia as a discrete sexual orientation. Similarly, BOUSD official Torres did not state, in her videotaped exchange with Yates, that pederasty was its own sexual orientation, or that BOUSD endorsed or approved of pederasty or pedophilia or taught students that sexual activity between men and boys was acceptable in any way. Thus Freedom Project author Alex Newman was inaccurate in claiming, during a widely shared Facebook video, that Torres had said of pedophilia 'this is a sexual orientation.' In reality, she said no such thing. In fact, after concerns were raised at an earlier public meeting on 21 March, Torres added a slide to her presentation for that evening that explicitly stated 'We do not teach pedophilia.' Taking the foregoing facts into account, we issue a rating of 'false' for the claim that Brea Olinda Unified School District was 'teaching pedophilia as a sexual orientation.'

Conclusion The BOUSD presentation, which is outdated anyway, did not endorse pederasty or present it approvingly, nor did it describe pederasty or pedophilia as a discrete sexual orientation. Similarly, BOUSD official Torres did not state, in her videotaped exchange with Yates, that pederasty was its own sexual orientation, or that BOUSD endorsed or approved of pederasty or pedophilia or taught students that sexual activity between men and boys was acceptable in any way. Thus Freedom Project author Alex Newman was inaccurate in claiming, during a widely shared Facebook video, that Torres had said of pedophilia 'this is a sexual orientation.' In reality, she said no such thing. In fact, after concerns were raised at an earlier public meeting on 21 March, Torres added a slide to her presentation for that evening that explicitly stated 'We do not teach pedophilia.' Taking the foregoing facts into account, we issue a rating of 'false' for the claim that Brea Olinda Unified School District was 'teaching pedophilia as a sexual orientation.'

In late 2020, scientists published studies that proved presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients do not spread the virus in any setting.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. At the end of 2020, critics of government-imposed lockdowns on U.S. businesses and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 circulated posts alleging a new study found people who tested positive for the virus but did not show symptoms were not contagious. The posts framed the alleged research as evidence that rules on social distancing in public spaces, such as restaurants and schools, were unnecessary given the assumption that symptomatic COVID-19 patients would stay home to rest, regardless of lockdown measures. Around the same time, a website, LifeSiteNews, published the following headline supposedly reporting similar findings of a separate study out of Wuhan, China: 'Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 didn't occur at all, study of 10 million finds.' Numerous Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the validity of the purported research and to determine whether scientists indeed concluded asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 patients did not transmit the virus to others. Firstly, we will summarize the scope and objectives of both research projects. Researchers with doctorate degrees in biostatistics from the University of Florida, University of Washington, and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center authored the Dec. 14 analysis to which conservative commentator Tomi Lahren refers in the above-displayed tweet criticizing lockdown restrictions. Rather than conducting physical experiments or observing themselves, the scientists compiled 54 already-existing studies, including more than 78,000 people for their conclusions. But here's a widely misrepresented element of the research: The studies to which the scientists referred did not look at how the virus spreads from person to person in public settings. Rather, the research interrogated how, or to what severity, members of the same household pass the virus to each other. The report obtained by Snopes via the American Medical Association's JAMA Network read: The World Health Organization China Joint Mission reported human-to-human transmission in China largely occurred within families, accounting for 78% to 85% of clusters in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces. [...] The household secondary attack rate characterizes virus transmissibility. Studies can collect detailed data on type, timing, and duration of contacts and identify risk factors associated with infectiousness of index cases and susceptibility of contacts. Our objective was to estimate the secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 in households and determine factors that modify this parameter. In other words, it was a false characterization of the report, no mater its findings, to frame it as proof of how the virus spreads in any setting other than homes. That mischaracterization aside, however, the claim that no asymptomatic or presymptomatic patient passed the virus on, or that the research proved that only symptomatic COVID-19 patients perpetuated the pandemic, were the most egregious errors in the claim casting doubt on lockdowns. By analyzing the dozens of studies, the scientists concluded symptomatic patients carried the highest risk of spreading the virus to other people, yet a small number of people appeared to have caught the virus from patients without symptoms. The report read: We found significantly higher secondary attack rates from symptomatic index cases than asymptomatic or presymptomatic index cases, although less data were available on the latter. The lack of substantial transmission from observed asymptomatic index cases is notable. However, presymptomatic transmission does occur, with some studies reporting the timing of peak infectiousness at approximately the period of symptom onset. The finding's emphasis on the lack of data on the particular matter (comparing symptomatic transmission spread with the rate of other patients) matched a Nov. 18 analysis by scientist journalist Bianca Nogrady in Nature Communications. It said: Now, evidence suggests that about one in five infected people will experience no symptoms, and they will transmit the virus to significantly fewer people than someone with symptoms. But researchers are divided about whether asymptomatic infections are acting as a 'silent driver' of the pandemic. Nonetheless, public health officials urged all people to wear masks and practice social distancing until scientists learn more about how respiratory droplets containing the virus spread among all types of infected people. The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses on its website that all infected people - regardless of whether they show symptoms - can spread COVID-19. 'While someone who never develops symptoms can pass the virus to others, it is still not clear how frequently this occurs and more research is needed in this area,' WHO stated at the time of this report. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control reported on Nov. 20 that scientists estimated asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients accounted for more than 50% of the virus' transmissions. Now, let us look at the Nov. 20 study cited in the article on LifeSiteNews, which describes itself as a pro-life news site for Catholics. We found the original version of the paper via the scientific journal Nature Communications. Per that edition, two dozen scientists looked at how the virus did or did not impact 9,899,828 Wuhan residents between May 14 and June 1 - more than a month after the government lifted its lockdown to curb the outbreak. According to WHO, the city's restrictions were the strictest in the world, prohibiting all traveling, monitoring out-and-about residents at checkpoints at road junctions, and requiring everyone to self isolate. That said, it was a misrepresentation of the study's findings - no matter what they were - to frame them as applicable to the United States, where a patchwork of county and state governments issued a range of policies to contain the virus. For examples, a portion of local jurisdictions implemented mandatory stay-at-home orders (the closest lockdowns to Wuhan's), while others issued advisories or recommendations for people to avoid unnecessary traveling or did nothing of the sort. Additionally, some of those restrictions remained in effect as of this report. The scientists found that, of Wuhan's roughly 10 million residents, the vast majority did not test positive for COVID-19. Of the approximately 300 people who did test positive, none displayed any symptoms. Then, using tracing technology, the research group analyzed the health conditions of 1,174 people who spent time with the 300 asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients. No one within that group of some 1,200 people tested positive. In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

In late 2020, scientists published studies that proved presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients do not spread the virus in any setting.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. At the end of 2020, critics of government-imposed lockdowns on U.S. businesses and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 circulated posts alleging a new study found people who tested positive for the virus but did not show symptoms were not contagious. The posts framed the alleged research as evidence that rules on social distancing in public spaces, such as restaurants and schools, were unnecessary given the assumption that symptomatic COVID-19 patients would stay home to rest, regardless of lockdown measures. Around the same time, a website, LifeSiteNews, published the following headline supposedly reporting similar findings of a separate study out of Wuhan, China: 'Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 didn't occur at all, study of 10 million finds.' Numerous Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the validity of the purported research and to determine whether scientists indeed concluded asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 patients did not transmit the virus to others. Firstly, we will summarize the scope and objectives of both research projects. Researchers with doctorate degrees in biostatistics from the University of Florida, University of Washington, and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center authored the Dec. 14 analysis to which conservative commentator Tomi Lahren refers in the above-displayed tweet criticizing lockdown restrictions. Rather than conducting physical experiments or observing themselves, the scientists compiled 54 already-existing studies, including more than 78,000 people for their conclusions. But here's a widely misrepresented element of the research: The studies to which the scientists referred did not look at how the virus spreads from person to person in public settings. Rather, the research interrogated how, or to what severity, members of the same household pass the virus to each other. The report obtained by Snopes via the American Medical Association's JAMA Network read: The World Health Organization China Joint Mission reported human-to-human transmission in China largely occurred within families, accounting for 78% to 85% of clusters in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces. [...] The household secondary attack rate characterizes virus transmissibility. Studies can collect detailed data on type, timing, and duration of contacts and identify risk factors associated with infectiousness of index cases and susceptibility of contacts. Our objective was to estimate the secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 in households and determine factors that modify this parameter. In other words, it was a false characterization of the report, no mater its findings, to frame it as proof of how the virus spreads in any setting other than homes. That mischaracterization aside, however, the claim that no asymptomatic or presymptomatic patient passed the virus on, or that the research proved that only symptomatic COVID-19 patients perpetuated the pandemic, were the most egregious errors in the claim casting doubt on lockdowns. By analyzing the dozens of studies, the scientists concluded symptomatic patients carried the highest risk of spreading the virus to other people, yet a small number of people appeared to have caught the virus from patients without symptoms. The report read: We found significantly higher secondary attack rates from symptomatic index cases than asymptomatic or presymptomatic index cases, although less data were available on the latter. The lack of substantial transmission from observed asymptomatic index cases is notable. However, presymptomatic transmission does occur, with some studies reporting the timing of peak infectiousness at approximately the period of symptom onset. The finding's emphasis on the lack of data on the particular matter (comparing symptomatic transmission spread with the rate of other patients) matched a Nov. 18 analysis by scientist journalist Bianca Nogrady in Nature Communications. It said: Now, evidence suggests that about one in five infected people will experience no symptoms, and they will transmit the virus to significantly fewer people than someone with symptoms. But researchers are divided about whether asymptomatic infections are acting as a 'silent driver' of the pandemic. Nonetheless, public health officials urged all people to wear masks and practice social distancing until scientists learn more about how respiratory droplets containing the virus spread among all types of infected people. The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses on its website that all infected people - regardless of whether they show symptoms - can spread COVID-19. 'While someone who never develops symptoms can pass the virus to others, it is still not clear how frequently this occurs and more research is needed in this area,' WHO stated at the time of this report. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control reported on Nov. 20 that scientists estimated asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients accounted for more than 50% of the virus' transmissions. Now, let us look at the Nov. 20 study cited in the article on LifeSiteNews, which describes itself as a pro-life news site for Catholics. We found the original version of the paper via the scientific journal Nature Communications. Per that edition, two dozen scientists looked at how the virus did or did not impact 9,899,828 Wuhan residents between May 14 and June 1 - more than a month after the government lifted its lockdown to curb the outbreak. According to WHO, the city's restrictions were the strictest in the world, prohibiting all traveling, monitoring out-and-about residents at checkpoints at road junctions, and requiring everyone to self isolate. That said, it was a misrepresentation of the study's findings - no matter what they were - to frame them as applicable to the United States, where a patchwork of county and state governments issued a range of policies to contain the virus. For examples, a portion of local jurisdictions implemented mandatory stay-at-home orders (the closest lockdowns to Wuhan's), while others issued advisories or recommendations for people to avoid unnecessary traveling or did nothing of the sort. Additionally, some of those restrictions remained in effect as of this report. The scientists found that, of Wuhan's roughly 10 million residents, the vast majority did not test positive for COVID-19. Of the approximately 300 people who did test positive, none displayed any symptoms. Then, using tracing technology, the research group analyzed the health conditions of 1,174 people who spent time with the 300 asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients. No one within that group of some 1,200 people tested positive. In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

In late 2020, scientists published studies that proved presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients do not spread the virus in any setting.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. At the end of 2020, critics of government-imposed lockdowns on U.S. businesses and schools to prevent the spread of COVID-19 circulated posts alleging a new study found people who tested positive for the virus but did not show symptoms were not contagious. The posts framed the alleged research as evidence that rules on social distancing in public spaces, such as restaurants and schools, were unnecessary given the assumption that symptomatic COVID-19 patients would stay home to rest, regardless of lockdown measures. Around the same time, a website, LifeSiteNews, published the following headline supposedly reporting similar findings of a separate study out of Wuhan, China: 'Asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 didn't occur at all, study of 10 million finds.' Numerous Snopes readers contacted us to investigate the validity of the purported research and to determine whether scientists indeed concluded asymptomatic or presymptomatic COVID-19 patients did not transmit the virus to others. Firstly, we will summarize the scope and objectives of both research projects. Researchers with doctorate degrees in biostatistics from the University of Florida, University of Washington, and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center authored the Dec. 14 analysis to which conservative commentator Tomi Lahren refers in the above-displayed tweet criticizing lockdown restrictions. Rather than conducting physical experiments or observing themselves, the scientists compiled 54 already-existing studies, including more than 78,000 people for their conclusions. But here's a widely misrepresented element of the research: The studies to which the scientists referred did not look at how the virus spreads from person to person in public settings. Rather, the research interrogated how, or to what severity, members of the same household pass the virus to each other. The report obtained by Snopes via the American Medical Association's JAMA Network read: The World Health Organization China Joint Mission reported human-to-human transmission in China largely occurred within families, accounting for 78% to 85% of clusters in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces. [...] The household secondary attack rate characterizes virus transmissibility. Studies can collect detailed data on type, timing, and duration of contacts and identify risk factors associated with infectiousness of index cases and susceptibility of contacts. Our objective was to estimate the secondary attack rate of SARS-CoV-2 in households and determine factors that modify this parameter. In other words, it was a false characterization of the report, no mater its findings, to frame it as proof of how the virus spreads in any setting other than homes. That mischaracterization aside, however, the claim that no asymptomatic or presymptomatic patient passed the virus on, or that the research proved that only symptomatic COVID-19 patients perpetuated the pandemic, were the most egregious errors in the claim casting doubt on lockdowns. By analyzing the dozens of studies, the scientists concluded symptomatic patients carried the highest risk of spreading the virus to other people, yet a small number of people appeared to have caught the virus from patients without symptoms. The report read: We found significantly higher secondary attack rates from symptomatic index cases than asymptomatic or presymptomatic index cases, although less data were available on the latter. The lack of substantial transmission from observed asymptomatic index cases is notable. However, presymptomatic transmission does occur, with some studies reporting the timing of peak infectiousness at approximately the period of symptom onset. The finding's emphasis on the lack of data on the particular matter (comparing symptomatic transmission spread with the rate of other patients) matched a Nov. 18 analysis by scientist journalist Bianca Nogrady in Nature Communications. It said: Now, evidence suggests that about one in five infected people will experience no symptoms, and they will transmit the virus to significantly fewer people than someone with symptoms. But researchers are divided about whether asymptomatic infections are acting as a 'silent driver' of the pandemic. Nonetheless, public health officials urged all people to wear masks and practice social distancing until scientists learn more about how respiratory droplets containing the virus spread among all types of infected people. The World Health Organization (WHO) stresses on its website that all infected people - regardless of whether they show symptoms - can spread COVID-19. 'While someone who never develops symptoms can pass the virus to others, it is still not clear how frequently this occurs and more research is needed in this area,' WHO stated at the time of this report. Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control reported on Nov. 20 that scientists estimated asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients accounted for more than 50% of the virus' transmissions. Now, let us look at the Nov. 20 study cited in the article on LifeSiteNews, which describes itself as a pro-life news site for Catholics. We found the original version of the paper via the scientific journal Nature Communications. Per that edition, two dozen scientists looked at how the virus did or did not impact 9,899,828 Wuhan residents between May 14 and June 1 - more than a month after the government lifted its lockdown to curb the outbreak. According to WHO, the city's restrictions were the strictest in the world, prohibiting all traveling, monitoring out-and-about residents at checkpoints at road junctions, and requiring everyone to self isolate. That said, it was a misrepresentation of the study's findings - no matter what they were - to frame them as applicable to the United States, where a patchwork of county and state governments issued a range of policies to contain the virus. For examples, a portion of local jurisdictions implemented mandatory stay-at-home orders (the closest lockdowns to Wuhan's), while others issued advisories or recommendations for people to avoid unnecessary traveling or did nothing of the sort. Additionally, some of those restrictions remained in effect as of this report. The scientists found that, of Wuhan's roughly 10 million residents, the vast majority did not test positive for COVID-19. Of the approximately 300 people who did test positive, none displayed any symptoms. Then, using tracing technology, the research group analyzed the health conditions of 1,174 people who spent time with the 300 asymptomatic or presymptomatic patients. No one within that group of some 1,200 people tested positive. In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, while the studies proved the rate of transmission between presymptomatic or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients appeared to be lower than that of symptomatic patients, the research did not confirm that infected people carry no risk of spreading the virus. In fact, public health officials say all COVID-19 patients, regardless of whether they show symptoms, are contagious. For those reasons, we rate this claim 'False.'

Walt Disney put a clause in his will requiring that the Walt Disney company remake classic movies every ten years.

Contradiction

A November 2018 tweet by @Samanthapaigeu went viral for appearing to explain the Walt Disney Studios' recent penchant for remaking classic Disney films. The tweet claimed that Walt Disney actually put a provision in his will required the company to remake its movies ever 10 years so that they could continually appeal to a new generation: 'I was today years old when i found out that Walt Disney put in his will that all Disney classics are to be remade every 10 years, so each generation gets to enjoy them': The following day @Samanthapaigeu clarified that she wasn't 100% sure if what she had posted was true. Still, this idea seemed to strike a chord with social media users, and it was shared as fact by thousands of people. The tweet, however, was not factually accurate. For one thing, such a demand would have been highly atypical of Walt Disney, who greatly favored continual innovation over retreading the same entertainment ground. After Disney's 1933 'Three Little Pigs' animated short grossed over ten times its production costs during its initial release, Walt reportedly rebuffed requests for more of the same by retorting, 'You can't top pigs with pigs.' (Although Walt did relent and produce several 'Three Little Pigs' sequels, they were only moderately successful, and the experience cemented his resolve to pursue artistic risks rather than doggedly sticking with what had previously worked.) Also, as we noted in a previous article about another unusual condition supposedly contained in Walt Disney's will, Walt did not own Walt Disney Productions at the time of his death (he was a 14% shareholder), so he had no authority to dictate what that company could or could not do. Finally, Walt Disney's will of March 1966, which was in effect when he passed away in December of that year, contained no unusual provisions. It basically left 45% of his estate to his wife and daughters, another 45% to the Disney Foundation in a charitable trust (most of which was dedicated to CalArts), and the remaining 10% in a trust to be divided among his sister, nieces, and nephews. Even without that evidence, looking at the number of times any classic Disney film has been remade since its original release is sufficient to prove this claim false. Dumbo, for example, was originally released in 1941 and therefore already should have been re-made several times over in the half-century since Walt's passing, but Dumbo's first remake won't see the light of day until 2019. Moreover, many classic Disney films (such as 1940's Pinocchio) have never been remade. So how did this rumor originate? In general, it echoes a marketing strategy the Disney company has utilized for many decades now. Walt Disney Studios periodically re-released (not remade) classic movies such as Bambi to movie theaters every seven years or so in order to introduce them to younger generations: Perhaps apocryphally, [Disney] has been credited with the 'seven-year rule,' in which his features would be shown again in theaters every seven years in order to capitalize on a new audience of youngsters. Bambi earned $1.2 million in 1942; $900,000 in 1948; and $2.7 million in 1957. Obviously, seven years wasn't a hard-and-fast rule, especially after the arrival of television and home video. But the Disney studio has been very protective of its hits because it realizes they still have the ability to make money. As a corollary to the rule, the studio 'retires' [home video] titles, making them unavailable for a set period before reissuing them in 'new' 'deluxe' editions, as it did with Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, and just this month Dumbo. This '7-year-rule' has evolved over the years with the introduction of television, videocassettes, DVDs, and online streaming services. The company currently keeps some of their titles in the 'Disney Vault' and only periodically makes them available for home video purchase. In 1997, Robin Miller, the Head of Worldwide Product Development for Disney's home video division Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE), and Marcelle Abraham, the Executive Director of Public Relations for BVHE, talked to Animation World Magazine in 1997 about the inner workings of the vault: Just as films will not be out in the theaters forever, so Disney videos cannot adorn the shelves of video stores indefinitely. According to Miller, the limited release of the videos is not merely the by-product of a clever marketing campaign, nor is it directly intended to threaten consumers, forcing them to purchase something now rather than later. Instead, the limited release is simply due to the studio's moratorium policy on animated classics. A Disney animated film will make its usual run of theatrical to video and then go into the vault for seven years to be released again when a new generation of two to seven year-olds emerges. 'The Little Mermaid is a great example of this,' cites Abraham. 'It came out on video in the Spring of 1990. Now there's a whole new generation of young people who haven't seen it.' Disney is re-releasing The Little Mermaid this month in theaters in celebration of its tenth theatrical anniversary. Audiences can be sure it will hit the video stores again shortly thereafter. According to Miller, there are a lot of people out there who do not own a copy of this film and can't wait to get their hands on it. While the re-release of The Little Mermaid appears timely and strategically planned, most of the Disney classics are not re-released on a systematic basis. Just recently, consumers had the opportunity to purchase Bambi and Sleeping Beauty in that order. Now The Jungle Book is available. To the average consumer, this seems fairly random, and Miller assures 'there's not a science to it.' In selecting which classic film to make available at any given time, Miller explains that Disney 'looks at the library, the competition, what appeals to audiences. It's not an exact science. We have to examine every factor in the market place. It would be easier if it were more formulaic. A lot of analysis goes into the releases.' While Disney is scheduled to remake a number of their classic movies films the next few years, but this production schedule has nothing to do with a requirement set forth by Walt Disney's will.

in shortly thereafter. According to Miller, there are a lot of people out there who do not own a copy of this film and can't wait to get their hands on it. While the re-release of The Little Mermaid appears timely and strategically planned, most of the Disney classics are not re-released on a systematic basis. Just recently, consumers had the opportunity to purchase Bambi and Sleeping Beauty in that order. Now The Jungle Book is available. To the average consumer, this seems fairly random, and Miller assures 'there's not a science to it.' In selecting which classic film to make available at any given time, Miller explains that Disney 'looks at the library, the competition, what appeals to audiences. It's not an exact science. We have to examine every factor in the market place. It would be easier if it were more formulaic. A lot of analysis goes into the releases.' While Disney is scheduled to remake a number of their classic movies films the next few years, but this production schedule has nothing to do with a requirement set forth by Walt Disney's will.

Walt Disney put a clause in his will requiring that the Walt Disney company remake classic movies every ten years.

Contradiction

A November 2018 tweet by @Samanthapaigeu went viral for appearing to explain the Walt Disney Studios' recent penchant for remaking classic Disney films. The tweet claimed that Walt Disney actually put a provision in his will required the company to remake its movies ever 10 years so that they could continually appeal to a new generation: 'I was today years old when i found out that Walt Disney put in his will that all Disney classics are to be remade every 10 years, so each generation gets to enjoy them': The following day @Samanthapaigeu clarified that she wasn't 100% sure if what she had posted was true. Still, this idea seemed to strike a chord with social media users, and it was shared as fact by thousands of people. The tweet, however, was not factually accurate. For one thing, such a demand would have been highly atypical of Walt Disney, who greatly favored continual innovation over retreading the same entertainment ground. After Disney's 1933 'Three Little Pigs' animated short grossed over ten times its production costs during its initial release, Walt reportedly rebuffed requests for more of the same by retorting, 'You can't top pigs with pigs.' (Although Walt did relent and produce several 'Three Little Pigs' sequels, they were only moderately successful, and the experience cemented his resolve to pursue artistic risks rather than doggedly sticking with what had previously worked.) Also, as we noted in a previous article about another unusual condition supposedly contained in Walt Disney's will, Walt did not own Walt Disney Productions at the time of his death (he was a 14% shareholder), so he had no authority to dictate what that company could or could not do. Finally, Walt Disney's will of March 1966, which was in effect when he passed away in December of that year, contained no unusual provisions. It basically left 45% of his estate to his wife and daughters, another 45% to the Disney Foundation in a charitable trust (most of which was dedicated to CalArts), and the remaining 10% in a trust to be divided among his sister, nieces, and nephews. Even without that evidence, looking at the number of times any classic Disney film has been remade since its original release is sufficient to prove this claim false. Dumbo, for example, was originally released in 1941 and therefore already should have been re-made several times over in the half-century since Walt's passing, but Dumbo's first remake won't see the light of day until 2019. Moreover, many classic Disney films (such as 1940's Pinocchio) have never been remade. So how did this rumor originate? In general, it echoes a marketing strategy the Disney company has utilized for many decades now. Walt Disney Studios periodically re-released (not remade) classic movies such as Bambi to movie theaters every seven years or so in order to introduce them to younger generations: Perhaps apocryphally, [Disney] has been credited with the 'seven-year rule,' in which his features would be shown again in theaters every seven years in order to capitalize on a new audience of youngsters. Bambi earned $1.2 million in 1942; $900,000 in 1948; and $2.7 million in 1957. Obviously, seven years wasn't a hard-and-fast rule, especially after the arrival of television and home video. But the Disney studio has been very protective of its hits because it realizes they still have the ability to make money. As a corollary to the rule, the studio 'retires' [home video] titles, making them unavailable for a set period before reissuing them in 'new' 'deluxe' editions, as it did with Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, and just this month Dumbo. This '7-year-rule' has evolved over the years with the introduction of television, videocassettes, DVDs, and online streaming services. The company currently keeps some of their titles in the 'Disney Vault' and only periodically makes them available for home video purchase. In 1997, Robin Miller, the Head of Worldwide Product Development for Disney's home video division Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE), and Marcelle Abraham, the Executive Director of Public Relations for BVHE, talked to Animation World Magazine in 1997 about the inner workings of the vault: Just as films will not be out in the theaters forever, so Disney videos cannot adorn the shelves of video stores indefinitely. According to Miller, the limited release of the videos is not merely the by-product of a clever marketing campaign, nor is it directly intended to threaten consumers, forcing them to purchase something now rather than later. Instead, the limited release is simply due to the studio's moratorium policy on animated classics. A Disney animated film will make its usual run of theatrical to video and then go into the vault for seven years to be released again when a new generation of two to seven year-olds emerges. 'The Little Mermaid is a great example of this,' cites Abraham. 'It came out on video in the Spring of 1990. Now there's a whole new generation of young people who haven't seen it.' Disney is re-releasing The Little Mermaid this month in theaters in celebration of its tenth theatrical anniversary. Audiences can be sure it will hit the video stores again shortly thereafter. According to Miller, there are a lot of people out there who do not own a copy of this film and can't wait to get their hands on it. While the re-release of The Little Mermaid appears timely and strategically planned, most of the Disney classics are not re-released on a systematic basis. Just recently, consumers had the opportunity to purchase Bambi and Sleeping Beauty in that order. Now The Jungle Book is available. To the average consumer, this seems fairly random, and Miller assures 'there's not a science to it.' In selecting which classic film to make available at any given time, Miller explains that Disney 'looks at the library, the competition, what appeals to audiences. It's not an exact science. We have to examine every factor in the market place. It would be easier if it were more formulaic. A lot of analysis goes into the releases.' While Disney is scheduled to remake a number of their classic movies films the next few years, but this production schedule has nothing to do with a requirement set forth by Walt Disney's will.

in shortly thereafter. According to Miller, there are a lot of people out there who do not own a copy of this film and can't wait to get their hands on it. While the re-release of The Little Mermaid appears timely and strategically planned, most of the Disney classics are not re-released on a systematic basis. Just recently, consumers had the opportunity to purchase Bambi and Sleeping Beauty in that order. Now The Jungle Book is available. To the average consumer, this seems fairly random, and Miller assures 'there's not a science to it.' In selecting which classic film to make available at any given time, Miller explains that Disney 'looks at the library, the competition, what appeals to audiences. It's not an exact science. We have to examine every factor in the market place. It would be easier if it were more formulaic. A lot of analysis goes into the releases.' While Disney is scheduled to remake a number of their classic movies films the next few years, but this production schedule has nothing to do with a requirement set forth by Walt Disney's will.

The credits for the movie 'Cats' listed dozens of people who died during production.

Contradiction

On Dec. 20, 2019, a still supposedly showing a portion of the credits for 'Cats,' a film version of the popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical of the same name, started to circulate on social media, along with the claim that it listed all of the people who had died during production: This claim reached a larger audience when it was retweeted by @NintenZ with a possible explanation for why so many people purportedly perished during the production of 'Cats': The film's been in development hell for over two decades now but Jesus fucking Christ what did they do to these people This is a genuine still from the film credits of 'Cats.' However, it doesn't list dozens of people who died during the movie's production. This portion of the credits simply lists various crew members who worked on the film. Many of the names that appear in the above-displayed image can also be found on IMDB's list of crew members, where they are presented without any mention of someone's passing. The movie 'Cats' received poor reviews after its release and was widely mocked on social media. It appears that this claim was first posted as a joke by an activist as she live-tweeted her experience while watching 'Cats.' In short, the claim that dozens of people died while making 'Cats' was simply a joke made up out of whole cloth.

In short, the claim that dozens of people died while making 'Cats' was simply a joke made up out of whole cloth.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

Scientific studies demonstrate that the process of adding fluoride to public water reduces the IQ of the individuals in those areas.

Contradiction

Beginning in the mid-1940s, cities in the United States began adding low concentrations of fluoride to public water supplies in an effort prevent tooth decay. As of 2014, 74.4 percent of the United States populace has access to water from a fluoridated source, and this practice is employed by countries and cities all around the world. According to numerous meta-studies, the addition of fluoride (the ionic form of the element fluorine that plays a role in tissue mineralization) to public drinking water significantly reduces the incidence of dental caries. Moderate voices against the practice of water fluoridation point to concerns over the possible negative health effects of fluoride consumption, and a perceived lack of efficacy in terms of dental benefits. More rabid voices, like those of the ever-imaginative Joseph Mercola and Alex Jones, allege widespread conspiracies invoking its (nonexistent) origins in Nazi concentration camps and its use as genocidal chemical weapon employed by the heavy-handed arm of the United States federal government, per Jones' Infowars.com: Fluoride, in whatever amount, is nothing less than a chemical weapon. Considering it is applied to entire populations or certain groups within a population, the definition is chemical warfare- a tool most useful to eugenicists who are intent on depopulation [sic] the planet. These combined efforts have produced myriad confused and self-referential claims that would require multiple posts to debunk. In this particular post, however, we will focus only on the claim that scientific studies have demonstrated that intentional water fluoridation causes neurological damage resulting in a negative effect on a person's intelligence quotient. That claim, which is based on an either willful or negligent misreading of actual science, is effectively illustrated in this statement by Joseph Mercola (emphasis ours): At present [December 2014], a total of 42 human studies have linked moderately high fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence, and over 100 animal studies have shown that fluoride exposure can cause brain damage. The claim that studies have 'linked' fluoride to reduced intelligence is a textbook-ready case of bait-and-switch. In Mercola's (and many others') language, the topic has surreptitiously been shifted from the act of water fluoridation as a public health measure to the broader concept of fluoride toxicity in children. Many otherwise benign chemicals can also be harmful in high concentrations. Thiocyanate, a chemical found in kale, may kill you at high doses, for example. The most famous and commonly cited study (partially because the anti-fluoridation group Fluoride Action Now issued a misleading press release about it that was incorrectly covered as a Reuters report by a number of newspapers) used to link fluoride to reduced IQ was published by a team of Harvard researchers. This paper, a meta-analysis of previously conducted studies that compared populations of children exposed to various levels of naturally occurring fluoride in their water, concluded: Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children's intelligence. Children who lived in areas with high fluoride exposure had lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-exposure or control areas. Scale and context, which are so often ignored by the evangelists of pseudoscience, are crucial when interpreting the results of this analysis, however. First, the issue of scale. As neuroscientist Steven Novella pointed out in his Neurologica blog, most of these studies' 'high fluoride' groups used concentrations many times higher than allowable limits in the United States, and many of the control groups or 'low fluoride' groups had concentrations in the range that is actually targeted as optimal by water fluoridation regulations: There was a lot of variability across the studies, but generally the high fluoride groups were in the 2-10 mg/L range, while the reference low fluoride groups were in the 0.5-1.0 mg/L range [...] In other words - fluoridated water in the US has the same level of fluoride as the control or low fluoride groups in the China studies reviewed in the recent article, and the negative association with IQ was only found where fluoride levels were much higher - generally above EPA limits. Currently, the EPA's maximum allowable limit for fluoride in drinking water is 4 mg/L with a voluntary recommendation of 2 mg/L. When fluoride is added to a public water supply, the target concentration is 0.7 mg/L. Supporters of the notion that this Harvard paper's collection of studies still suggests developmental risks of fluoridation at levels used in public health programs might argue that eight of the studies analyzed in the meta-review focused on concentrations allegedly within this allowable range. This is a factual point that deserves further investigation, as a close look at these eight studies reveals that their contribution to the fluoridation debate is dubious at best. Of those eight studies, half of them co-investigated fluoride and iodine together (Lin et al 1991, Xu et al 1994, Yang et al 1994, Hong et al 2001) making it hard or in some cases impossible to separate out the combined effects, and two of those four studies reached conclusions that are counter to the hypothesis that fluoridation levels alone are the main driver of a lower IQ: Xu et al 1994: When it comes to the parents' level of education, and the children's exposure (or lack thereof) to pre-school education, sIgnificant differences in the intelligence level in the young subjects are shown in both regions affected by thyroid swelling, and their comparative regions. This demonstrates that levels of IQ are not only affected by the amount of trace elements in the environment, but also by social factors such as the education of the subjects, the type of education. and training they are exposed to, etc These social factors most definitely play an important role in this type of research. Hong et al 2001: The IQ results of this study show no significant difference between the average IQs of those children from the high fluoride only areas and the high fluoride/high iodine areas, however the result from the high fluoride/low iodine group show statistically significant differences as compared to that of the low fluoride/low iodine group. In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

In short, it appears that the presence or lack of iodine is a more significant factor in both the prevalence of goiter and average IQ [than fluoride levels alone]. Among the eight studies, two of them (Yao et al 1997, Seraj et al 2006) do not appear to actually measure the water intake of the regions in which they are observing differences in intelligence quotient, or at the very least they do not report the total range of values for each region, or any statistical information regarding those values. Two of those eight studies use a control group with fluoride values that are literally the same or higher than the target range of fluoridation efforts in the United States (Xu et al 1994, Hong et al 2001), seemingly ceding the point that those levels do not affect children's IQ. Finally, four of these eight papers (Yang et al 1994, Lu et al 2000, Hong et al 2001, Xiang et al 2003a) are either published (or republished) in the allegedly peer-reviewed journal Fluoride, a publication of the 'International Society for Fluoride Research Inc.' - an anti-fluoridation group whose editor-in-chief is a psychiatrist in private practice, with no academic background on the topic of fluoride toxicity. Collectively, this demonstrates that most of the IQ variance presented in the Harvard study still stems from exposures to extremely high levels of fluoride that would already be considered dangerous in the US, and those studies finding effects on a smaller scale are not sufficient to demonstrate the effects those groups opposed to fluoridation claim they demonstrate. The next issue is context. Literally none of the studies involved tested populations of individuals exposed to drinking water that was artificially supplemented with fluoride as a public health measure. Instead, all of the studies come from China or Iran, both of which have areas of naturally occurring (endemic) high fluoride pockets of groundwater. That means that studies utilized in its analysis are wholly irrelevant to the question that advocates claim they are answering. This is significant, as the use of these very specific studies introduces a veritable Homerian epic of confounding details, some of which came up in our analysis of the eight low-level fluoride studies discussed above. Among the most pressing of these are a lack of information on other confounding variables and the quality of the studies they utilized. These issues are noted by the authors of the Harvard study themselves: 'Most reports were fairly brief and complete information on covariates was not available' 'Drinking water may contain other neurotoxicants, such as arsenic' 'The studies [used in the meta-analysis] were generally of insufficient quality' The authors also explicitly state that the results cannot be used to estimate the possible limits of fluoride exposure with respect to developmental damage, due to lack of data: Our review cannot be used to derive an exposure limit, because the actual exposures of the individual children are not known. The data could also be complicated by other factors not accounted for, they say, including the notion that the populations of individuals compared may not actually reflect their fluoride intake: Misclassification of children in both high- and low-exposure groups may have occurred if the children were drinking water from other sources [...] Regarding the other neurotoxins that could be in the water, the authors of the Harvard Study make the (unsourced) claim that it is unlikely that other neurotoxicants are present in the groundwater of the areas their studies investigated. As many of the studies did not measure for other compounds, it is impossible to be sure in these specific cases; however, geochemists are not convinced that the same natural processes that lead to high fluoride concentrations don't also yield high concentrations of other dangerous metals. Research has, for example, shown that there is a strong correlation between arsenic and fluoride in drinking water, according to a 2011 study in Applied Geochemistry analyzing groundwater in Yuncheng Basin, China: The strong positive correlation between groundwater F/Cl and As/Cl ratios (r2 = 0.98 and 0.77 in shallow and deep groundwater, respectively) indicates that these elements are mobilized and enriched by common processes. This should not function as a distraction from the larger point that studying naturally occurring pockets of high fluoride and the assessing the risks of supplementing public drinking water in an effort to have it reach a concentration of 0.7 mg/L are two completely different beasts. You might ask if any studies have been completed specifically on the effects of IQ on artificially enhanced drinking water. The most recent analysis of these studies comes from an 2015 evidence review performed by the government of Ireland's Health Research Board, which found only one study sufficient to test that hypothesis: There was only one study carried out in a non-endemic or CWF [community water fluoridation] area that examined fluoride and IQ. This was a prospective cohort study (whose design is appropriate to infer causality) in New Zealand. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a detrimental effect on IQ as a result of exposure to CWF. For these reasons, the claim that there are scientific studies that support the notion that water fluoridation can cause developmental problems in children that result in lower IQs is false. No studies that actually investigate that specific question have reached that conclusion. Studies that have been used to make that argument are weak and rely on data collected that does not directly address those questions in the first place. Update: On 19 September 2017, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a study ('Prenatal Fluoride Exposure and Cognitive Outcomes in Children at 4 and 6-12 Years of Age in Mexico') that found an association between prenatal exposure to fluoride and reduced IQ in mother-offspring pairs in Mexico. While the study is stronger than many used to draw a connection between IQ and fluoride in the past, it is a single study that has yet to be replicated, and it was performed in areas without water fluoridation. As such, it does not change our rating, which specifically concerns the evidence that water fluoridation reduces IQ.Recent Updates Updated [22 September 2017]: Added information about a new study (Bashash et al. 2017). Alex Kasprak Updated 22 September 2017 david avocado wolfe fluoride intelligence quotient Sources cdc.gov. 'Water Fluoridation Data & Statistics.' Rugg-Gunn, A.J., and Do, L. 'Effectiveness of Water Fluoridation in Caries Prevention.' Community Dent Oral Epidemiol.. October 2012. Griffin, S.O., et al. 'Effectiveness of Fluoride in Preventing Caries in Adults.' Journal of Dental Research. May 2007. CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 'Recommendations for Using Fluoride to Prevent and Control Dental Caries in the United States.' 17 August 2001. Maessen, Jurriaan. 'WHO Admits Omitting Fluoride's Damaging Health Effects to 'prevent Controversy' Infowars.com. 23 February 2012. Mercola, Joseph. 'Water Fluoridation Linked to Diabetes and Low IQ.' mercola.com. 6 September 2016. Novella, Steven. 'Anti-Fluoride Propaganda as News.' Neurologica Blog. 27 July 2012. Choi, Anna L., et al. 'Developmental Fluoride Neurotoxicity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis' Environmental Health and Perspectives. 20 July 2012. Currell, Matthew., et al. 'Controls on Elevated Fluoride and Arsenic Concentrations in Groundwater from the Yuncheng Basin, China.' Applied Geochemistry. 7 January 2011. Sutton, Marie., et al. 'Health Effects of Water Fluoridation.' HRB Publication (Ireland). 1 June 2015.

McDonald's has 'permanently banned' the 'McFish' sandwich from their U.S. menus.

Contradiction

On Feb. 4, 2021, Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly became an ephemeral social media star when he tweeted a complaint that he was unable to order a 'McFish' sandwich at 'MacDonald's' and fumed about being called a 'male Karen' while he questioned whether the nonexistent food item had been 'permanently banned': I just went to a MACDONALD'S and there was no MCFISH on the menu. When the hell did that happen? Is it permanently banned? Or is just my 'local' MACDONALD'S. I demanded to see the 'manager' but they accused me of being a 'MALE KAREN' so i walked out. pic.twitter.com/oSpgFqfYGZ - Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) February 4, 2021 Whether or not Kelly was merely being tongue-in-cheek, other Twitter users reveled in seizing on the details of his post, pointing out numerous issues with it - not the least of which is that McDonald's fish patty sandwich is, and always has been, officially listed as a Filet-O-Fish on the company's U.S. restaurant menus: Every part of it is perfect, from the McDonald's misspelling to the punctuation, to not knowing the name of the sandwich, to the implication that there's some sort of conspiracy to deny *specifically him* a fillet-o-fish, to the introduction of 'male Karen' into the lexicon. ♥️ - 💀 damned sinker 💀 (@dansinker) February 4, 2021 'McFish' ended up being one of Twitter's top trending topics of the day as user after user piled on to poke fun at the original tweet: A male Karen walks into a restaurant he can't spell correctly, asks for something that has never been on the menu, asks to see the manager and leaves in a huff. Perhaps he should have gone to McDonalds and asked for a Filet-O-Fish. I'm surprised you didn't pull a gun on them. pic.twitter.com/ReKf9Ugfuu - Skidz (@TA_Skidz) February 4, 2021 In the US it's filet-o-fish sandwich and it's only served after 10:30 AM, so I don't understand why he thought he could get fish during breakfast hours. - Sandy Karasik (@srk908) February 4, 2021 In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

McDonald's has 'permanently banned' the 'McFish' sandwich from their U.S. menus.

Contradiction

On Feb. 4, 2021, Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly became an ephemeral social media star when he tweeted a complaint that he was unable to order a 'McFish' sandwich at 'MacDonald's' and fumed about being called a 'male Karen' while he questioned whether the nonexistent food item had been 'permanently banned': I just went to a MACDONALD'S and there was no MCFISH on the menu. When the hell did that happen? Is it permanently banned? Or is just my 'local' MACDONALD'S. I demanded to see the 'manager' but they accused me of being a 'MALE KAREN' so i walked out. pic.twitter.com/oSpgFqfYGZ - Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) February 4, 2021 Whether or not Kelly was merely being tongue-in-cheek, other Twitter users reveled in seizing on the details of his post, pointing out numerous issues with it - not the least of which is that McDonald's fish patty sandwich is, and always has been, officially listed as a Filet-O-Fish on the company's U.S. restaurant menus: Every part of it is perfect, from the McDonald's misspelling to the punctuation, to not knowing the name of the sandwich, to the implication that there's some sort of conspiracy to deny *specifically him* a fillet-o-fish, to the introduction of 'male Karen' into the lexicon. ♥️ - 💀 damned sinker 💀 (@dansinker) February 4, 2021 'McFish' ended up being one of Twitter's top trending topics of the day as user after user piled on to poke fun at the original tweet: A male Karen walks into a restaurant he can't spell correctly, asks for something that has never been on the menu, asks to see the manager and leaves in a huff. Perhaps he should have gone to McDonalds and asked for a Filet-O-Fish. I'm surprised you didn't pull a gun on them. pic.twitter.com/ReKf9Ugfuu - Skidz (@TA_Skidz) February 4, 2021 In the US it's filet-o-fish sandwich and it's only served after 10:30 AM, so I don't understand why he thought he could get fish during breakfast hours. - Sandy Karasik (@srk908) February 4, 2021 In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

McDonald's has 'permanently banned' the 'McFish' sandwich from their U.S. menus.

Contradiction

On Feb. 4, 2021, Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly became an ephemeral social media star when he tweeted a complaint that he was unable to order a 'McFish' sandwich at 'MacDonald's' and fumed about being called a 'male Karen' while he questioned whether the nonexistent food item had been 'permanently banned': I just went to a MACDONALD'S and there was no MCFISH on the menu. When the hell did that happen? Is it permanently banned? Or is just my 'local' MACDONALD'S. I demanded to see the 'manager' but they accused me of being a 'MALE KAREN' so i walked out. pic.twitter.com/oSpgFqfYGZ - Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) February 4, 2021 Whether or not Kelly was merely being tongue-in-cheek, other Twitter users reveled in seizing on the details of his post, pointing out numerous issues with it - not the least of which is that McDonald's fish patty sandwich is, and always has been, officially listed as a Filet-O-Fish on the company's U.S. restaurant menus: Every part of it is perfect, from the McDonald's misspelling to the punctuation, to not knowing the name of the sandwich, to the implication that there's some sort of conspiracy to deny *specifically him* a fillet-o-fish, to the introduction of 'male Karen' into the lexicon. ♥️ - 💀 damned sinker 💀 (@dansinker) February 4, 2021 'McFish' ended up being one of Twitter's top trending topics of the day as user after user piled on to poke fun at the original tweet: A male Karen walks into a restaurant he can't spell correctly, asks for something that has never been on the menu, asks to see the manager and leaves in a huff. Perhaps he should have gone to McDonalds and asked for a Filet-O-Fish. I'm surprised you didn't pull a gun on them. pic.twitter.com/ReKf9Ugfuu - Skidz (@TA_Skidz) February 4, 2021 In the US it's filet-o-fish sandwich and it's only served after 10:30 AM, so I don't understand why he thought he could get fish during breakfast hours. - Sandy Karasik (@srk908) February 4, 2021 In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

McDonald's has 'permanently banned' the 'McFish' sandwich from their U.S. menus.

Contradiction

On Feb. 4, 2021, Newsmax TV host Greg Kelly became an ephemeral social media star when he tweeted a complaint that he was unable to order a 'McFish' sandwich at 'MacDonald's' and fumed about being called a 'male Karen' while he questioned whether the nonexistent food item had been 'permanently banned': I just went to a MACDONALD'S and there was no MCFISH on the menu. When the hell did that happen? Is it permanently banned? Or is just my 'local' MACDONALD'S. I demanded to see the 'manager' but they accused me of being a 'MALE KAREN' so i walked out. pic.twitter.com/oSpgFqfYGZ - Greg Kelly (@gregkellyusa) February 4, 2021 Whether or not Kelly was merely being tongue-in-cheek, other Twitter users reveled in seizing on the details of his post, pointing out numerous issues with it - not the least of which is that McDonald's fish patty sandwich is, and always has been, officially listed as a Filet-O-Fish on the company's U.S. restaurant menus: Every part of it is perfect, from the McDonald's misspelling to the punctuation, to not knowing the name of the sandwich, to the implication that there's some sort of conspiracy to deny *specifically him* a fillet-o-fish, to the introduction of 'male Karen' into the lexicon. ♥️ - 💀 damned sinker 💀 (@dansinker) February 4, 2021 'McFish' ended up being one of Twitter's top trending topics of the day as user after user piled on to poke fun at the original tweet: A male Karen walks into a restaurant he can't spell correctly, asks for something that has never been on the menu, asks to see the manager and leaves in a huff. Perhaps he should have gone to McDonalds and asked for a Filet-O-Fish. I'm surprised you didn't pull a gun on them. pic.twitter.com/ReKf9Ugfuu - Skidz (@TA_Skidz) February 4, 2021 In the US it's filet-o-fish sandwich and it's only served after 10:30 AM, so I don't understand why he thought he could get fish during breakfast hours. - Sandy Karasik (@srk908) February 4, 2021 In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

In short, McDonald's has not taken 'McFish' off their menu in the U.S., because they didn't sell a product by that name here in the first place. The properly named Filet-O-Fish sandwich remains a popular menu item in nearly every American McDonald's.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

President Obama ordered a Chicago school to either allow a transgender boy use the girls' locker room or else lose its federal funding.

Contradiction

On Nov. 3, 2015 the web site Breitbart published an article titled 'High School Girls Forced to Undress Next to Naked Boys,' reporting that: The federal government declared itself fit for the madhouse by mandating that a Chicago high school allow a full biological male into the girls' locker room for all purposes, including nudity. This biological male, the feds determined, was different because he thinks he is a female. The feds have ruled that the presence of a twig-and-berries in the girls' locker room has been mandated by Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, ladies and gents and non-cisgenders: it turns out that the battle against sexism enshrined in the ill-written Title IX was actually intended to force underage young women to look at the penises and testicles of mentally ill boys. Social media shares of that article were frequently appended with the phrase 'Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room,' wording that appeared neither in the original article nor in the shares generated automatically by Breitbart. Obama Orders Chicago School to Let 'Transgender' Boy Use Girls' Locker Room #RedNationRising #WakeUpAmerica #TCOT https://t.co/RsLiMhDzU5 - Joy Reborn (@RedRising11) November 3, 2015 Will O invite boy who IDs as girl shower w/ HIS daughters? O ORDERS school to allow trannie boy to shower w/ girls. https://t.co/VWfPpv23p6 - GretchenInOK (@GretchenInOK) November 4, 2015 Obama Admin Orders School to Allow Crossdressing Boy to Shower With Your Teen Daughter! https://t.co/l4YmQXYaeT - Sarah E. McRae (@sarah_mcrae) November 5, 2015 On the same date the Daily Caller published a similar article headlined 'Feds Order High School to Allow Boys Who Dress as Girls to Use Girls' Shower, Locker Room,' which more directly articulated a purported link between the President and the school locker room controversy: The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has ordered a taxpayer-funded school district in the suburbs of Chicago to allow a male transgender student who dresses like a girl and otherwise identifies as female to use the girls locker room and shower on school premises. The Department of Education has given the school district one month to let the student use the girls' locker room. If the district does not capitulate, it risks losing federal funding. President Barack Obama's Department of Education - which manifestly is not vested with judicial powers - has taken to applying Title IX, a comprehensive 1972 federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, to transgender cases. Daily Caller cited a Nov. 3, 2015 Chicago Tribune article wherein a more complete (and less editorialized) version of events was described. Noting that the student (whose identity was elided due to her age) had identified as a girl for a 'number of years,' the paper reported that the government investigation began in 2013 after the girl was subjected to locker room segregation involving a special 'privacy curtain': Illinois' largest high school district violated federal law by barring a transgender student from using the girls' locker room, authorities [have] concluded. The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights spent nearly two years investigating Palatine-based Township High School District 211 and found 'a preponderance of evidence' that school officials did not comply with Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The student, who has identified as a girl for a number of years, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights in late 2013 after she was denied unrestricted access to the girls' locker room. District and federal officials negotiated for months, and a solution appeared imminent as recently as last week, when the district put up privacy curtains in the locker room. But talks stalled after school officials said the student would be required to use the private area, as opposed to offering her a choice to use it. Although the student said she intends to use the private area or a locker room bathroom stall to change, the stipulation constitutes 'blatant discrimination,' said John Knight, director of the LGBT and AIDS Project at ACLU of Illinois, which is representing the student. '[Privacy] is not voluntary, it's mandatory for her,' Knight said. 'It's one thing to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted and the district does not see her as girl.' For the student at the center of the federal complaint and all other transgender students at the district's five high schools, the staff changes their names, genders and pronouns on school records. Transgender students also are allowed to use the bathrooms of their identified gender and play on the sports team of that gender, school officials said. But officials drew the line at the locker room, citing the privacy rights of the other 12,000-plus students in the district. As a compromise, the district installed four privacy curtains in unused areas of the locker room and another one around the shower, but because the district would compel the student to use them, federal officials deemed the solution insufficient. The paper further reported that the Office for Civil Rights found the student 'not only received an unequal opportunity to benefit from the District's educational program,' but endured 'an ongoing sense of isolation and ostracism throughout her high school enrollment at the school.' Superintendent Daniel Cates was quoted by the outlet as calling the decision 'a serious overreach with precedent-setting implications': The students in our schools are teenagers, not adults, and one's gender is not the same as one's anatomy. Boys and girls are in separate locker rooms - where there are open changing areas and open shower facilities &mdash for a reason. The New York Times concurred about the 'precedent-setting' nature of the Chicago school controversy and reported that the loss of funding was a potential consequence of non-compliance under Title IX (which covers all gender-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions): Federal education authorities, staking out their firmest position yet on an increasingly contentious issue, found Monday that an Illinois school district violated anti-discrimination laws when it did not allow a transgender student who identifies as a girl and participates on a girls' sports team to change and shower in the girls' locker room without restrictions. The Education Department gave 30 days to the officials of Township High School District 211 to reach a solution or face enforcement, which could include administrative law proceedings or a Justice Department court action. The district could lose some or all of its Title IX funding. Title IX was signed into law in 1972 (though its application to transgender people is a relatively recent development) and applies to all federally funded education programs or activities: On June 23, 1972, the President signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. The principal objective of Title IX is to avoid the use of federal money to support sex discrimination in education programs and to provide individual citizens effective protection against those practices. Title IX applies, with a few specific exceptions, to all aspects of federally funded education programs or activities. In addition to traditional educational institutions such as colleges, universities, and elementary and secondary schools, Title IX also applies to any education or training program operated by a recipient of federal financial assistance. In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

In short, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (not President Obama) investigated the situation and held that a 'preponderance of evidence' demonstrated the school's actions were in violation of Title IX. The issue was not whether the student would be allowed to use the girls' locker room (something which had already been agreed to), but whether the student could be forced to use a 'privacy curtain' while doing so. Under federal law, federally funded institutions can lose some or all of their Title IX funding should they fail to comply with the law's provisions, and the Office of Civil Rights found that the high school in question had discriminated against the student under that law. If the school remains out of compliance, it stands to lose Title IX funding (under a 1972 federal law adopted more than 30 years before President Obama was sworn into office). Application of the law's provisions to the school was neither exceptional nor unexpected, as the investigation had begun as early as 2013 following an impasse between the student's parents and the school district.

Rep. Elijah Cummings sponsored a bill intended to 'keep all of Barack Obama's records sealed.

Contradiction

On 26 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. That bill, sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, was described in a press release as one that 'modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the President's 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records.' A meme that circulated in 2019, during a period of controversy over Congress' attempts to obtain access to some of President Donald Trump's records (such as his tax returns), held that Cummings' bill had been intended to 'keep all of [Barack] Obama's records sealed': First of all, the above meme plays on the false premise that years after the end of Obama's presidency, a number of his key personal records remain 'sealed' - that is, records that would ordinarily be accessible by the public have been restricted via court orders (see example below of such records): In fact, most of Obama's primary personal records have either long been available to the public (e.g., Illinois state Senate records, Selective Service registration); are restricted from public access due to existing federal laws that apply to all Americans (e.g., college records); or simply aren't known to exist (baptismal record, college thesis). Moreover, H.R. 1233 applies only to federal records (i.e., records 'made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business'), and none of the record types listed above - with the exception of Obama's Selective Service registration, which has been public for many years now - is federal in nature. In fact, H.R. 1233 included a number of provisions to facilitate and strengthen the ability of the U.S. government to collect, preserve, and release federal records in a timely fashion, not to promote keeping them 'sealed': Strengthening the Federal Records Act by expanding the definition of Federal records to clearly include electronic records. This is the first change to the definition of a Federal record since the enactment of the act in 1950. Confirming that Federal electronic records will be transferred to the National Archives in electronic form. Granting the Archivist of the United States final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record. Authorizing the early transfer of permanent electronic Federal and Presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the President. Clarifying the responsibilities of Federal government officials when using non-government email systems. Empowering the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal. Codifying procedures by which former and incumbent Presidents review Presidential records for constitutional privileges. Formerly, this process was controlled by an Executive Order subject to change by different administrations. The one tiny grain of truth in this claim is that Cummings' bill included a provision allowing a former or current President 60 days to review and contest potential public disclosure of any 'presidential record not previously made available.' However, that provision applies to all Presidents (former and current); such claims must be made based on grounds of constitutionally based privilege; and privilege claims are subject to being overriden by the incumbent president or by court order: Amends the Presidential Records Act to require the Archivist of the United States, upon determining to make publicly available any presidential record not previously made available, to: (1) promptly provide written notice of such determination to the former President during whose term of office the record was created, to the incumbent President, and to the public; and (2) make such record available to the public within 60 days, except any record with respect to which the Archivist receives notification from a former or incumbent President of a claim of constitutionally-based privilege against disclosure. Prohibits the Archivist from making a record that is subject to such a claim publicly available unless: (1) the incumbent President withdraws a decision upholding the claim, or (2) the Archivist is otherwise directed to do so by a final court order that is not subject to appeal. As the National Coalition for History noted, H.R. 1233 followed from Obama's efforts early in his administration to strengthen public access to presidential records: For over a decade, the National Coalition for History has been a lead advocate for enactment of Presidential Records Act (PRA) reform legislation. The organization was a plaintiff with other historical and archival groups in a federal lawsuit that sought to have an Executive Order (EO) issued by President George W. Bush, which severely limited public access to presidential records, declared invalid. On January 21, 2009, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administration's Executive Order 13233. The language in the Obama Executive Order 13489 is similar to an EO issued by President Reagan in 1989 which was also in effect during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan executive order was revoked when President Bush issued EO 13233 in November 2001. Unfortunately, without the passage of legislation there [was] nothing to prevent a future chief executive from reinstituting onerous restrictions on access or extending the privilege beyond that of the incumbent and former-president as President Bush did. To put this issue to rest, legislation (HR 1233) was introduced in the House in 2013 creating a framework that would enable former presidents to request continued restricted access on a very narrow basis, in essence codifying the Reagan and Obama administration rules. HR 1233 imposes a time limit in which a former president must assert any claim of privilege upon a determination of the Archivist to make available to the public a record of that former president. The bill also establishes processes for managing the disclosure of records upon the assertion of privilege by a former president, and grants to the incumbent president the power to decide whether or not to uphold any privilege claim of a former president, absent a court order to the contrary. In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

Rep. Elijah Cummings sponsored a bill intended to 'keep all of Barack Obama's records sealed.

Contradiction

On 26 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. That bill, sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, was described in a press release as one that 'modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the President's 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records.' A meme that circulated in 2019, during a period of controversy over Congress' attempts to obtain access to some of President Donald Trump's records (such as his tax returns), held that Cummings' bill had been intended to 'keep all of [Barack] Obama's records sealed': First of all, the above meme plays on the false premise that years after the end of Obama's presidency, a number of his key personal records remain 'sealed' - that is, records that would ordinarily be accessible by the public have been restricted via court orders (see example below of such records): In fact, most of Obama's primary personal records have either long been available to the public (e.g., Illinois state Senate records, Selective Service registration); are restricted from public access due to existing federal laws that apply to all Americans (e.g., college records); or simply aren't known to exist (baptismal record, college thesis). Moreover, H.R. 1233 applies only to federal records (i.e., records 'made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business'), and none of the record types listed above - with the exception of Obama's Selective Service registration, which has been public for many years now - is federal in nature. In fact, H.R. 1233 included a number of provisions to facilitate and strengthen the ability of the U.S. government to collect, preserve, and release federal records in a timely fashion, not to promote keeping them 'sealed': Strengthening the Federal Records Act by expanding the definition of Federal records to clearly include electronic records. This is the first change to the definition of a Federal record since the enactment of the act in 1950. Confirming that Federal electronic records will be transferred to the National Archives in electronic form. Granting the Archivist of the United States final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record. Authorizing the early transfer of permanent electronic Federal and Presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the President. Clarifying the responsibilities of Federal government officials when using non-government email systems. Empowering the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal. Codifying procedures by which former and incumbent Presidents review Presidential records for constitutional privileges. Formerly, this process was controlled by an Executive Order subject to change by different administrations. The one tiny grain of truth in this claim is that Cummings' bill included a provision allowing a former or current President 60 days to review and contest potential public disclosure of any 'presidential record not previously made available.' However, that provision applies to all Presidents (former and current); such claims must be made based on grounds of constitutionally based privilege; and privilege claims are subject to being overriden by the incumbent president or by court order: Amends the Presidential Records Act to require the Archivist of the United States, upon determining to make publicly available any presidential record not previously made available, to: (1) promptly provide written notice of such determination to the former President during whose term of office the record was created, to the incumbent President, and to the public; and (2) make such record available to the public within 60 days, except any record with respect to which the Archivist receives notification from a former or incumbent President of a claim of constitutionally-based privilege against disclosure. Prohibits the Archivist from making a record that is subject to such a claim publicly available unless: (1) the incumbent President withdraws a decision upholding the claim, or (2) the Archivist is otherwise directed to do so by a final court order that is not subject to appeal. As the National Coalition for History noted, H.R. 1233 followed from Obama's efforts early in his administration to strengthen public access to presidential records: For over a decade, the National Coalition for History has been a lead advocate for enactment of Presidential Records Act (PRA) reform legislation. The organization was a plaintiff with other historical and archival groups in a federal lawsuit that sought to have an Executive Order (EO) issued by President George W. Bush, which severely limited public access to presidential records, declared invalid. On January 21, 2009, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administration's Executive Order 13233. The language in the Obama Executive Order 13489 is similar to an EO issued by President Reagan in 1989 which was also in effect during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan executive order was revoked when President Bush issued EO 13233 in November 2001. Unfortunately, without the passage of legislation there [was] nothing to prevent a future chief executive from reinstituting onerous restrictions on access or extending the privilege beyond that of the incumbent and former-president as President Bush did. To put this issue to rest, legislation (HR 1233) was introduced in the House in 2013 creating a framework that would enable former presidents to request continued restricted access on a very narrow basis, in essence codifying the Reagan and Obama administration rules. HR 1233 imposes a time limit in which a former president must assert any claim of privilege upon a determination of the Archivist to make available to the public a record of that former president. The bill also establishes processes for managing the disclosure of records upon the assertion of privilege by a former president, and grants to the incumbent president the power to decide whether or not to uphold any privilege claim of a former president, absent a court order to the contrary. In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

Rep. Elijah Cummings sponsored a bill intended to 'keep all of Barack Obama's records sealed.

Contradiction

On 26 November 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 1233, the Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014. That bill, sponsored by Democratic U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, was described in a press release as one that 'modernizes records management by focusing more directly on electronic records, and complements efforts by the National Archives and the Office of Management and Budget to implement the President's 2011 Memorandum on Managing Government Records.' A meme that circulated in 2019, during a period of controversy over Congress' attempts to obtain access to some of President Donald Trump's records (such as his tax returns), held that Cummings' bill had been intended to 'keep all of [Barack] Obama's records sealed': First of all, the above meme plays on the false premise that years after the end of Obama's presidency, a number of his key personal records remain 'sealed' - that is, records that would ordinarily be accessible by the public have been restricted via court orders (see example below of such records): In fact, most of Obama's primary personal records have either long been available to the public (e.g., Illinois state Senate records, Selective Service registration); are restricted from public access due to existing federal laws that apply to all Americans (e.g., college records); or simply aren't known to exist (baptismal record, college thesis). Moreover, H.R. 1233 applies only to federal records (i.e., records 'made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business'), and none of the record types listed above - with the exception of Obama's Selective Service registration, which has been public for many years now - is federal in nature. In fact, H.R. 1233 included a number of provisions to facilitate and strengthen the ability of the U.S. government to collect, preserve, and release federal records in a timely fashion, not to promote keeping them 'sealed': Strengthening the Federal Records Act by expanding the definition of Federal records to clearly include electronic records. This is the first change to the definition of a Federal record since the enactment of the act in 1950. Confirming that Federal electronic records will be transferred to the National Archives in electronic form. Granting the Archivist of the United States final determination as to what constitutes a Federal record. Authorizing the early transfer of permanent electronic Federal and Presidential records to the National Archives, while legal custody remains with the agency or the President. Clarifying the responsibilities of Federal government officials when using non-government email systems. Empowering the National Archives to safeguard original and classified records from unauthorized removal. Codifying procedures by which former and incumbent Presidents review Presidential records for constitutional privileges. Formerly, this process was controlled by an Executive Order subject to change by different administrations. The one tiny grain of truth in this claim is that Cummings' bill included a provision allowing a former or current President 60 days to review and contest potential public disclosure of any 'presidential record not previously made available.' However, that provision applies to all Presidents (former and current); such claims must be made based on grounds of constitutionally based privilege; and privilege claims are subject to being overriden by the incumbent president or by court order: Amends the Presidential Records Act to require the Archivist of the United States, upon determining to make publicly available any presidential record not previously made available, to: (1) promptly provide written notice of such determination to the former President during whose term of office the record was created, to the incumbent President, and to the public; and (2) make such record available to the public within 60 days, except any record with respect to which the Archivist receives notification from a former or incumbent President of a claim of constitutionally-based privilege against disclosure. Prohibits the Archivist from making a record that is subject to such a claim publicly available unless: (1) the incumbent President withdraws a decision upholding the claim, or (2) the Archivist is otherwise directed to do so by a final court order that is not subject to appeal. As the National Coalition for History noted, H.R. 1233 followed from Obama's efforts early in his administration to strengthen public access to presidential records: For over a decade, the National Coalition for History has been a lead advocate for enactment of Presidential Records Act (PRA) reform legislation. The organization was a plaintiff with other historical and archival groups in a federal lawsuit that sought to have an Executive Order (EO) issued by President George W. Bush, which severely limited public access to presidential records, declared invalid. On January 21, 2009, in one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama revoked the Bush administration's Executive Order 13233. The language in the Obama Executive Order 13489 is similar to an EO issued by President Reagan in 1989 which was also in effect during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The Reagan executive order was revoked when President Bush issued EO 13233 in November 2001. Unfortunately, without the passage of legislation there [was] nothing to prevent a future chief executive from reinstituting onerous restrictions on access or extending the privilege beyond that of the incumbent and former-president as President Bush did. To put this issue to rest, legislation (HR 1233) was introduced in the House in 2013 creating a framework that would enable former presidents to request continued restricted access on a very narrow basis, in essence codifying the Reagan and Obama administration rules. HR 1233 imposes a time limit in which a former president must assert any claim of privilege upon a determination of the Archivist to make available to the public a record of that former president. The bill also establishes processes for managing the disclosure of records upon the assertion of privilege by a former president, and grants to the incumbent president the power to decide whether or not to uphold any privilege claim of a former president, absent a court order to the contrary. In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

In short, Cummings introduced legislation intended to improve public access to all presidential records, not to 'keep Obama's records sealed.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

A peer-reviewed study has found evidence that nearly all of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists.

Contradiction

On 9 July 2017, Breitbart News ran a story written by chart enthusiast James Delingpole, which carried a characteristically provocative and demonstrably false headline: 'Nearly All' Recent Global Warming Is Fabricated, Study Finds In it, Delingpole alleges that a 'peer-reviewed' study (first 'exclusively' highlighted by the Daily Caller), written by 'two scientists and a veteran statistician' found evidence that 'much of global warming has been fabricated by climate scientists': The peer-reviewed study by two scientists and a veteran statistician looked at the global average temperature datasets (GAST) which are used by climate alarmists to argue that recent years have been 'the hottest evah' and that the warming of the last 120 years has been dramatic and unprecedented. What they found is that these readings are 'totally inconsistent with published and credible U.S. and other temperature data.' That is, the adjusted data used by alarmist organizations like NASA, NOAA, and the UK Met Office differs so markedly from the original raw data that it cannot be trusted. A Peer-Reviewed Study? Breitbart here lowers the bar for what passes as both 'peer-reviewed' and a 'study'. This report, published on a WordPress blog run by co-author Joseph D'Aleo - a meteorologist who did not complete a PhD, but who prominently advertises his honorary doctorate on the document's cover page - is not published in a scientific journal. Additionally, this study is not (as implied by some coverage) an official publication of the Cato Institute, despite the fact that co-author Craig Idso is an adjunct scientist there. 'This study was not published by the Cato Institute,' a representative of the libertarian think tank told us. The claim of peer review, widely reported by numerous outlets, evidently stems from the second page of the report, in which the names of seven scientists (spanning a wide range of fields including aerospace engineering and economics, despite a complete lack of discussion of these topics in the report) appear under the banner 'The Undersigned Agree with the Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Conclusions of this Report'. We reached out to these scientists to ask if this page was meant to imply that those listed individuals were the peer-reviewers news reports were speaking of. Only one person, George Wolff - a former Environmental Protection Agency atmospheric scientist who is now chief scientist for a company called Air Improvement Resource, Inc. - responded to our request. In a brief response, he simultaneously suggested that their inclusion on the document meant to imply they were the peer-reviewers, and that this process involved merely reading the study carefully: My approach to reviewing the report was the same as I have used for the hundreds of journal articles that I have reviewed. I read the report carefully and critically. I gave it a formal peer-review. Reading a study and saying that you agree with its conclusions is not how peer review works. A formal peer-review is a structured process that by nature requires a third party, usually a journal editor, who oversees an iterative process of critiques and revisions. Given the fact that this study is not published in a journal but on a WordPress blog run by one of the co-authors, it is difficult to see how Wolff's careful and critical reading of the document constitutes a formal peer review. In response to multiple requests for clarification on what Wolff meant by 'formal peer review', he indicated that the conversations were between only himself and the lead author, making the suggestion of peer review more philosophical than an argument rooted in objective reality: I provided critical comments to the lead author. We then discussed them and appropriate changes were made to the report. Breitbart's Coverage of this 'Study' The main argument of the Breitbart article via this 'study' appears to be that if you look at global surface temperature records compiled by a variety of governmental organizations, corrections applied to this data since the 1980s have steadily biased the results toward making current warming appear more dramatic by depressing past temperatures and inflating recent temperatures. Delingpole even picked out his favorite chart that he claims makes this point: This chart shows the difference in the corrected global temperature values, by month, from a National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) record produced in May 2008 compared to one produced with later corrections in June 2017. Importantly, they do not show a comparison between raw data and corrected data. Using the apparently revelatory finding that the addition of more or higher quality data to a record can change and improve it over time, Breitbart cites co-author D'Aleo's analysis to suggest that the chart shows past temperatures are intentionally and nefariously biased to be cooler, while recent temperatures are biased to be warmer: Note how most of the downward adjustments take place in the early twentieth century and most of the upward take place in the late twentieth century. According to meteorologist Joe D'Aleo, who co-authored the study with statistician James Wallace and Cato Institute climate scientist Craig Idso, this has the effect of exaggerating the warming trend. 'Nearly all of the warming they are now showing are in the adjustments,' [D'Aleo said]. This statement implores us to falsely interpret the figure as showing changes to the raw data itself. As previously mentioned, however, this chart (and many similar ones in the 'study') shows changes between two versions of corrected data. To make the point Delingpole thinks D'Aleo is making, you would need to show that corrected records of climate relative to raw data make recent temperatures warmer than the raw data, and older records cooler. Considering the most significant adjustment to the data actually increases early 20th century temperatures without doing the same to the post-1950 data, this argument would be a nearly impossible one to make if burdened by facts. Here's a comparison of a variety of corrected records compared to the raw (uncorrected data), showing that, in fact, the opposite of what D'Aleo is suggesting is the reality: The 'Study' Itself Delingpole and D'Aleo's argument, if it accurately represented the data it claimed to be analyzing, might sound reasonable in the absence of literally any other information, but sprinkle just a pinch of context onto it and the interpretation becomes increasingly unpalatable, even with those grains of salt with which Delingpole implores us to take climate science. To dive into that context, some background is needed. A bit about these records and how they are generated: Maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NCDC and other governmental organizations, these historical records come from myriad disparate, often non-standardized, and difficult to interpret bits of information - things like ship logs, buoy data, and instrument readings from mercury and digital thermometers. Both historical and modern data are continually added to these databases. This heterogeneity of sources means there are a number of elements that, indeed, need to be adjusted if the record is to be internally consistent. One example comes from gradual changes made to the way in which temperature readings have been made since the 1950s, shifting from an evening reading to a morning reading, consequently shifting the raw data to become gradually cooler as morning temperature readings became more common. Another very significant set of corrections that needs to be made stems from multiple shifts in how sea temperatures (which are used to calculate ocean surface air temperatures) have been measured on ships. Prior to the 1940s, buckets were thrown off the side of a boat, pulled up, and measured on the spot with a thermometer. Later, people began to use the intake water temperature in ship's engine rooms. Now, freestanding buoys are typically used, which provide relatively colder readings compared to engine room readings. (It was, in fact, an increased understanding of the difference between buoy data and engine room data that caused the most significant change documented by the figure that Breitbart chose to highlight.) Documenting the direction of these changes to the corrections, without explaining them, makes up a bulk of the main argument of the 'study'. This section, which painstakingly reveals publicly available and well-discussed adjustments to historical climate records reads like a thriller, with the authors taking the reader chronologically step by step, through each mysterious (but also completely documented) correction to these global datasets. Zeke Hausfather is a scientist at Berkeley Earth, an independent non-governmental research group originally skeptical of the correction methods employed in these sorts climate records. He told us these corrections change over time due to increased data and better analytical tools to analyze that data: We have dramatically improved our ability to measure the Earth's climate the last thirty years. And we've also launched a lot of efforts to collect all of the global temperature data. [...] Scientists in the eighties and nineties undertook some pretty big efforts to go around and collect all the weather records from all the stations you can find in various parts of the world. And those sort of efforts have continued up through today. And so, when you look at their, for example, 1980 value from NASA, what that actually came from was about five hundred or so stations on land almost entirely in the northern hemisphere. That's the best they had at the time so they said this is the best we can do for estimating global temperatures as these are all the stations that we have access to. Nowadays we actually have an ocean temperature record back to 1850 or so based on data from ships and more recently from buoys. And you know, two-thirds of the earth is ocean, so if you leave oceans out you're gonna get a fairly incorrect answer. In the 'study', however, without once attempting to explain the reasons for the corrections, the authors boldly (and unconvincingly) conclude: Clearly the historical GAST data adjustments that have been made have been dramatic and invariably have been favorable to Climate Alarmists' views regarding Global Warming. The question now is whether the latest versions of GAST data by NOAA, NASA and Hadley are credible for policy analysis, or even climate modeling, purposes. Ignoring, once again, that adjustments to these records - relative to the raw data - decrease apparent warming across the 20th and 21st century, it is also worth noting that Berkeley Earth has painstakingly reviewed this process with their own independent methodology, concluding that the records produced by NCDC and others accurately represent global temperature trends. Hausfather was the lead author on that 2017 study. The authors of the 'study' Breitbart cites then attempt to make the point that the raw data from 'exceptionally high quality sources' (for which they provide no selection criteria) demonstrate an ambiguously defined 'natural cycle' gradually erased by malicious intent of data adjustments. Almost all of these records are from northern North America and literally all of them are from the Northern Hemisphere. Without acknowledging the geographical limits of their data, the authors conclude: Thus, it seems that beyond any doubt, the U.S. data reflected in the Global Average Surface Temperature data calculation should contain the cyclical patterns shown above. As previously mentioned, data used in the earliest records did indeed show this Northern Hemisphere signal more prominently because - follow us here - the vast majority was from land stations in North America. However, when you add the Southern Hemisphere signal - a crucial element in the 'global' concept inherent to global warming - you are going to dampen the results a bit. This is one of the things that has been happening to that record since its earliest incarnation, says Hausfather: The [1980 NASA record is] only based on about five hundred stations almost entirely from the Northern Hemisphere, you do see a bit more warmth in the '30's and '40's. Again [this is] because you're only looking at Northern Hemisphere lands. But when you add in the oceans, when you add in the Southern Hemisphere, that sort of mid-century warmth doesn't completely go away, but it becomes much smaller. Ultimately, the central argument of this study and its representation by Breitbart and others is one based on a willful misreading of data propelled by a study whose academic rigor has been misrepresented. As such, we rank the claim that climate scientists have created global warming entirely through corrections to raw data as false. While these corrections to raw historical data have shifted over time, the cumulative effect of all corrections applied to the raw data has been to reduce apparent global warming over the industrialized period, not the other way around. 'If scientists were actually cooking the books,' Hausfather told us 'we'd be cooking them in the wrong directions.'

Only 9% of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is related to COVID-19 relief.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. On March 11, 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package to provide relief to Americans who have been struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the days leading up to this bill's passage, a number of Republican lawmakers and pundits criticized the bill, arguing that only 9% of the relief package had anything to do with COVID-19. Conservative author Melisa Tate, for example, wrote on Twitter that the bill 'only gives 9% to the American people' while the rest went to politicians and their cronies. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said that she voted against the 'COVID relief' bill because 'only 9% of this bill is COVID-related' while 'the rest is allocated to liberal pet projects and blue state bailouts.' The claim that only 9% of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan is going to COVID relief is largely false. The vast majority of this bill will provide financial relief to people, businesses, and governments who have struggled during the COVID-19 pandemic. The argument that only 9% of the measure will go to COVID relief appears to be an exaggeration of the fact that the American Rescue Plan will provide approximately $160 billion (about 8.5% of the total) for testing, protective gear, vaccine production and distribution, and other measures to directly combat the virus. While it's true that only about 9% of this bill goes to fighting the virus directly, that figure does not include the vast majority of funds aimed at providing financial relief to those who have struggled through the pandemic. For example, the 9% does not include the most famous part of the American Rescue Plan, the $1,400 stimulus checks for individuals, which is expected to amount to around $400 billion (or about 21% of the total). This 9% figure also doesn't account for items such as unemployment insurance, a child tax care credit, funding for schools to re-open, rent assistance, and other measures aimed at providing relief to Americans. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, told NPR that there were two parts to the American Rescue Plan. The first dealt with combating COVID directly, while the second aimed at dealing with the financial crisis that resulted from the pandemic: 'There are really two pieces to this bill. One is directly related to the health crisis, but the other, and the larger piece, is related to the economic crisis that the health crisis has created.' The vast majority of the American Rescue Plan is concerned with providing relief to people, businesses, and governments that have suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, about $300 billion (or 15% of the bill) 'is spent on long-standing policy priorities that are not directly related to the current crisis.' In other words, about 85% of the bill is related specifically to the impacts of COVID-19. In short: The American Rescue Plan is a multi-faceted, $1.9 trillion to bill that provides financial relief to those struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it's true that only 9% of this funding will be used to directly combat the virus (via vaccine distribution and other health measures), this bill provides relief to Americans in several other ways. The $1,400 COVID-19 relief checks, for example, account for more than 20% of this $1.9 trillion bill.

In short: The American Rescue Plan is a multi-faceted, $1.9 trillion to bill that provides financial relief to those struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. While it's true that only 9% of this funding will be used to directly combat the virus (via vaccine distribution and other health measures), this bill provides relief to Americans in several other ways. The $1,400 COVID-19 relief checks, for example, account for more than 20% of this $1.9 trillion bill.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

An association of pediatricians 'admitted' that HPV vaccine Gardasil causes ovarian 'failure' or cancer.

Contradiction

On 28 January 2016, the web site Truth Kings published an article under the headline 'Pediatricians Association Admits HPV Vaccine Causes Ovarian Failure.' As with many similar 'shocking medical truth' items, the article's headline wasn't supported by the text of the article itself, which linked to entirely unrelated medical information as support for the headline's proclamation: The HPV vaccine is heavily pushed to both teen girls and boys. Even though countries such as Japan won't formally have stated that they don't want to support it, the United States continues to massively push this vaccine despite all the push back world-wide. The HPV money grab by pharmaceutical companies is blatant and unchecked. Well, now things just got a whole lot worse: The American College Of Pediatricians has announced that the HPV vaccine is 'possibly' associated with ovarian cancer. You can view the document here. Clicking through on on the hyperlinked word 'here' led to the web site of the American College of Pediatricians, not the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is the mainstream organization for that particular medical specialty. A 31 July 2005 Boston Globe article reported on the difference between the two groups: The American Academy of Pediatrics, composed of leaders in the field, had found no meaningful difference between children raised by same-sex and heterosexual couples, based on a 2002 report written largely by a Boston pediatrician, Dr. Ellen C. Perrin. [But President George W. Bush]'s statement [to the contrary] was welcomed at a small organization with an august-sounding name, the American College of Pediatricians. The college, which has a small membership, says on its website that it would be 'dangerously irresponsible' to allow same-sex couples to adopt children. The college was formed just three years ago, after the 75-year-old American Academy of Pediatrics issued its paper. The Family Research Institute and the American College of Pediatrics are part of a rapidly growing trend in which small think tanks, researchers, and publicists who are open about their personal beliefs are providing what they portray as medical information on some of the most controversial issues of the day. The tiny American College of Pediatricians has a single employee, yet it has been quoted as a counterpoint to the 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics ... [Roughly 13 dissenting pediatricians] formed a new organization, the American College of Pediatricians. [A founder] declined to give figures for the College's membership, but a fellow board member, Dr. Bose Ravenel, said there are between 150 and 200 members. The College's website said there is scientific evidence that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental illness, substance abuse, and other problems, concluding with a strong warning against same-sex parenting ... The College has been widely quoted in the media, sometimes without an explanation, as saying that it broke away from the Academy, largely over the issue of same-sex parenting. In other words, the American College of Pediatricians is a very small, recently-formed group created in response to a political disagreement over same-sex parenting, whose focus is promoting parenting by married, heterosexual couples: The Mission of the American College of Pediatricians is to enable all children to reach their optimal physical and emotional health and well-being. To this end, we recognize the basic father-mother family unit, within the context of marriage, to be the optimal setting for childhood development, but pledge our support to all children, regardless of their circumstances. The American College of Pediatricians promotes a society where all children, from the moment of their conception, are valued unselfishly. We encourage mothers, fathers and families to advance the needs of their children above their own. We expect societal forces to support the two-parent, father-mother family unit and provide for children role models of ethical character and responsible behavior. By contrast, the American Academy of Pediatrics' mission statement is more concise about their focus of addressing the health needs of children: The mission of the American Academy of Pediatrics is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. To accomplish this, AAP shall support the professional needs of its members. With respect to the Gardasil vaccine, the prevailing science-based medical viewpoint of it issued by the AAP is as follows: HPV vaccine is recommended for children aged 11-12 years so ​that they are protected before exposure to the virus. There are three types of HPV vaccine (Cervarix, Gardasil, and Gardasil-9) that are given as a 3-dose series. Girls should receive 3 doses of any of these vaccines to prevent HPV-related diseases. Boys should receive 3 doses of HPV4 (Gardasil) or HPV9 (Gardasil-9). Teens 13 years and older who either did not get any or did not receive all of the HPV vaccines when they were younger should complete the vaccine series. Adolescents and young adults need all three shots for full protection. The AAP's official policy statement on Gardasil can be read in full here. Organizational scope and purpose aside, the article in question published by the American College of Pediatricians was titled 'New Concerns about the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.' However, that article didn't 'admit' that the vaccine caused cervical cancer (a finding that would be considered newsworthy and widely reported); in fact, the article stated in its opening paragraph that: Adverse events that occur after vaccines are frequently not caused by the vaccine and there has not been a noticeable rise in POF (premature ovarian failure) cases in the last 9 years since HPV4 vaccine has been widely used. Portions of the article that were critical or cautious about Gardasil pertained not to cancer, but to ovarian 'dysfunction.' That term is broad and is most frequently associated with conditions such as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS. And even that caution was expressed as a call for more data, rather than as documentation of specific cause-and-effect relationship between Gardasil and 'ovarian dysfunction': Numerous Gardasil safety studies, including one released recently, have looked at demyelinating and autoimmune diseases and have not found any significant problems. Unfortunately, none of them except clinical safety pre-licensure studies totaling 11,778 vaccinees specifically addressed post-vaccination ovarian dysfunction. Prior to their January 2016 statement, the American College of Pediatricians had released a single policy statement on Gardasil. While the AAP focused on the benefits and safety aspects of the vaccine, the ACP's statement espoused a more morality-focused viewpoint. Nonetheless, the ACP's policy statement still favored Gardasil vaccination over abstention: The debate as to whether vaccinating adolescents against a sexually transmitted infection such as HPV may contribute to an increase in premarital sex is not settled. Given the effectiveness of these vaccines against HPV infection and its morbidities, the American College of Pediatricians favors offering HPV vaccination to all children and young adults even if they are committed to abstinence until marriage. Although abstinence outside of marriage is very effective in preventing all types of STIs, there are potential risk circumstances beyond an individual's control, including sexual assault and the infection of one's future spouse. Parents should closely monitor their children's activities while reinforcing both morally and medically sound values. If parents do not model sexual fidelity or fail to restrict their children's exposure to sexually explicit media, including pornography, then they can expect their children to be at high risk for STI acquisition, and those children should not wait to be vaccinated against HPV. Also, parents should consider that many adolescents will be involved in high-risk activities without their knowledge, and waiting until this is realized may place the child at risk for acquiring HPV. However, the College maintains that use of HPV vaccines should not be mandated by regulatory authorities, but remain a personal decision by parents and their children. In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

In short, Truth Kings's alarmist revelation about Gardasil came not from the long-esablished American Academy of Pediatrics, but from a politically-focused breakaway organization devoted to supporting specific moral stances. Even then, that latter organization didn't take an initial stand against Gardasil, and their January 2016 policy statement merely called for further study about a potential connection between Gardasil and ovarian dysfunction. The word 'cancer' did not appear a single time in that release, nor was the organization 'admitting' anything by any stretch of the imagination. Moreover, Truth Kings's appended image was simply a stock photograph unrelated to Gardasil. Finally, the American College of Pediatricians acknowledged 'there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction' and stopped well short of rescinding their previous advice on HPV vaccination in their concluding remarks: The College is posting this statement so that individuals considering the use of human papillomavirus vaccines could be made aware of these concerns pending further action by the regulatory agencies and manufacturers. While there is no strong evidence of a causal relationship between HPV4 and ovarian dysfunction, this information should be public knowledge for physicians and patients considering these vaccines.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.

Contradiction

The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects - claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, 'invisible' technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We'll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min's approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes... After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min's; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min's the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems' CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article ('Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking') about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you're holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people's brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I'd add to the silliness. Although the names of the article's putative authors ('Suzzanna Decantworthy' and 'Sean McCleanaugh') should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people's attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the 'Example' block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that 'If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.' For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn't necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone's attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo's fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone's power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment - this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers - that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn't say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the 'cook an egg with two cell phones' rumor wasn't technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg's temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.

On March 29, 2021, no one who watched a man kick and repeatedly stomp on Vilma Kari, 65, near Times Square tried to help her - just like witnesses failed to help Kitty Genovese survive a knife-wielding stalker on March 13, 1964.

Contradiction

When surveillance footage surfaced in late March 2021 showing a man attacking a 65-year-old Filipino woman on a busy Manhattan street in broad daylight, social media users likened the alleged hate crime to the notorious murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese more than a half-century earlier. As the legend went, on March 13, 1964, '38 respectable, law‐abiding citizens in Queens watched' a knife-wielding man chase and kill Genovese as she walked to her Kew Gardens apartment after a late-night shift managing a bar. 'Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead,' reported the New York Times at the time. Flash forward 57 years, and the video depicting witnesses' reactions to the assault near Times Square appeared to meet the definitions of what psychologists dubbed 'Genovese syndrome,' or 'the bystander effect,' in light of The New York Times' portrayal of the killing. 'A big man viscously and repeatedly kicked a small Asian woman. He could have killed her. Men inside the building watched it happen,' another post read. 'I remember Kitty Genovese.' Below, we lay out evidence to debunk the flaws in that logic. Namely, it's false to say no one who saw the 2021 Manhattan assault did nothing to help Vilma Kari. According to her daughter, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the surveillance footage successfully distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. Also, numerous investigations over the years have debunked various aspects of the highly popularized, above-mentioned New York Times story about Genovese's death, published on March 27,1964. While no one knows exactly how many bystanders could have feasibly saved her life, criminologists, journalists, and authorities all agree on this: not one person saw the attack in its entirety, and a few people indeed tried to help her. Witnesses To Kari's Attack Near Times Square Kari was walking to church on March 29, 2021, when authorities believe a man randomly approached her in front of a luxury apartment building, shouted, 'You don't belong here,' kicked her to the ground, and repeatedly stomped on her face, per news reports. Days later, police arrested Brandon Elliot, a 38-year-old parolee convicted of killing his mother nearly two decades prior, on suspicion of the violent hate crime. (The Associated Press reported that his lawyers urged the public to 'reserve judgment until all the facts are presented in court,' proceedings for which had not started as of this writing.) Meanwhile, social media users framed the surveillance video from inside the apartment building as evidence of the so-called 'bystander effect.' That is, the presence of people discourages individuals from intervening to help someone in distress. Based on our analysis of the footage, it was true that multiple people were recorded watching the attack from inside the apartment's lobby and did not intervene for reasons that were not made clear. Specifically, at least three witnesses who were identified as workers in the apartment watched glimpses of Kari's assault, looking through glass windows and an open door. About 10 seconds after the attacker fled, one of those workers closed the building's door as Kari remained on the ground. A longer version of the surveillance video, obtained by multiple media outlets, showed the workers waited in the lobby for more than a minute before going outside and approaching Kari. (Per the workers' union, SEIU 32BJ, they made that decision to delay their aid because they thought the suspect had a knife, and they wanted to make sure he was gone, according to The Associated Press.) A police squad car eventually arrived, according to the video's extended cut, and the witnesses and officers were recorded with Kari on the sidewalk for several more minutes. Medics hospitalized Kari with a fractured pelvis and contusions on her body and forehead, according to news reports. On April 6, the apartment building's management company, the Brodsky Organization, announced via the below-displayed Instagram post that it had fired the two doormen who watched the attack following an investigation into their actions. It was unclear to whom the third bystander reported for work, and whether their response to the assault threatened their employment, as well. However, those people were not the only people who witnessed the attack. According to Kari's daughter, Elizabeth Kari, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the footage 'yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention,' and seemingly distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. The daughter shared on a GoFundMe page, which the platform confirmed as an authentic posting from her, the following anecdote: [There] was someone who was standing across the street that witnessed my mom getting attacked who yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention. That is where the video cuts off as the attacker crossed the street to him. To this person, I understand your decision in remaining anonymous during this time. I want to THANK YOU for stepping in and doing the right thing. In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

On March 29, 2021, no one who watched a man kick and repeatedly stomp on Vilma Kari, 65, near Times Square tried to help her - just like witnesses failed to help Kitty Genovese survive a knife-wielding stalker on March 13, 1964.

Contradiction

When surveillance footage surfaced in late March 2021 showing a man attacking a 65-year-old Filipino woman on a busy Manhattan street in broad daylight, social media users likened the alleged hate crime to the notorious murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese more than a half-century earlier. As the legend went, on March 13, 1964, '38 respectable, law‐abiding citizens in Queens watched' a knife-wielding man chase and kill Genovese as she walked to her Kew Gardens apartment after a late-night shift managing a bar. 'Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead,' reported the New York Times at the time. Flash forward 57 years, and the video depicting witnesses' reactions to the assault near Times Square appeared to meet the definitions of what psychologists dubbed 'Genovese syndrome,' or 'the bystander effect,' in light of The New York Times' portrayal of the killing. 'A big man viscously and repeatedly kicked a small Asian woman. He could have killed her. Men inside the building watched it happen,' another post read. 'I remember Kitty Genovese.' Below, we lay out evidence to debunk the flaws in that logic. Namely, it's false to say no one who saw the 2021 Manhattan assault did nothing to help Vilma Kari. According to her daughter, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the surveillance footage successfully distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. Also, numerous investigations over the years have debunked various aspects of the highly popularized, above-mentioned New York Times story about Genovese's death, published on March 27,1964. While no one knows exactly how many bystanders could have feasibly saved her life, criminologists, journalists, and authorities all agree on this: not one person saw the attack in its entirety, and a few people indeed tried to help her. Witnesses To Kari's Attack Near Times Square Kari was walking to church on March 29, 2021, when authorities believe a man randomly approached her in front of a luxury apartment building, shouted, 'You don't belong here,' kicked her to the ground, and repeatedly stomped on her face, per news reports. Days later, police arrested Brandon Elliot, a 38-year-old parolee convicted of killing his mother nearly two decades prior, on suspicion of the violent hate crime. (The Associated Press reported that his lawyers urged the public to 'reserve judgment until all the facts are presented in court,' proceedings for which had not started as of this writing.) Meanwhile, social media users framed the surveillance video from inside the apartment building as evidence of the so-called 'bystander effect.' That is, the presence of people discourages individuals from intervening to help someone in distress. Based on our analysis of the footage, it was true that multiple people were recorded watching the attack from inside the apartment's lobby and did not intervene for reasons that were not made clear. Specifically, at least three witnesses who were identified as workers in the apartment watched glimpses of Kari's assault, looking through glass windows and an open door. About 10 seconds after the attacker fled, one of those workers closed the building's door as Kari remained on the ground. A longer version of the surveillance video, obtained by multiple media outlets, showed the workers waited in the lobby for more than a minute before going outside and approaching Kari. (Per the workers' union, SEIU 32BJ, they made that decision to delay their aid because they thought the suspect had a knife, and they wanted to make sure he was gone, according to The Associated Press.) A police squad car eventually arrived, according to the video's extended cut, and the witnesses and officers were recorded with Kari on the sidewalk for several more minutes. Medics hospitalized Kari with a fractured pelvis and contusions on her body and forehead, according to news reports. On April 6, the apartment building's management company, the Brodsky Organization, announced via the below-displayed Instagram post that it had fired the two doormen who watched the attack following an investigation into their actions. It was unclear to whom the third bystander reported for work, and whether their response to the assault threatened their employment, as well. However, those people were not the only people who witnessed the attack. According to Kari's daughter, Elizabeth Kari, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the footage 'yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention,' and seemingly distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. The daughter shared on a GoFundMe page, which the platform confirmed as an authentic posting from her, the following anecdote: [There] was someone who was standing across the street that witnessed my mom getting attacked who yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention. That is where the video cuts off as the attacker crossed the street to him. To this person, I understand your decision in remaining anonymous during this time. I want to THANK YOU for stepping in and doing the right thing. In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

On March 29, 2021, no one who watched a man kick and repeatedly stomp on Vilma Kari, 65, near Times Square tried to help her - just like witnesses failed to help Kitty Genovese survive a knife-wielding stalker on March 13, 1964.

Contradiction

When surveillance footage surfaced in late March 2021 showing a man attacking a 65-year-old Filipino woman on a busy Manhattan street in broad daylight, social media users likened the alleged hate crime to the notorious murder of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese more than a half-century earlier. As the legend went, on March 13, 1964, '38 respectable, law‐abiding citizens in Queens watched' a knife-wielding man chase and kill Genovese as she walked to her Kew Gardens apartment after a late-night shift managing a bar. 'Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead,' reported the New York Times at the time. Flash forward 57 years, and the video depicting witnesses' reactions to the assault near Times Square appeared to meet the definitions of what psychologists dubbed 'Genovese syndrome,' or 'the bystander effect,' in light of The New York Times' portrayal of the killing. 'A big man viscously and repeatedly kicked a small Asian woman. He could have killed her. Men inside the building watched it happen,' another post read. 'I remember Kitty Genovese.' Below, we lay out evidence to debunk the flaws in that logic. Namely, it's false to say no one who saw the 2021 Manhattan assault did nothing to help Vilma Kari. According to her daughter, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the surveillance footage successfully distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. Also, numerous investigations over the years have debunked various aspects of the highly popularized, above-mentioned New York Times story about Genovese's death, published on March 27,1964. While no one knows exactly how many bystanders could have feasibly saved her life, criminologists, journalists, and authorities all agree on this: not one person saw the attack in its entirety, and a few people indeed tried to help her. Witnesses To Kari's Attack Near Times Square Kari was walking to church on March 29, 2021, when authorities believe a man randomly approached her in front of a luxury apartment building, shouted, 'You don't belong here,' kicked her to the ground, and repeatedly stomped on her face, per news reports. Days later, police arrested Brandon Elliot, a 38-year-old parolee convicted of killing his mother nearly two decades prior, on suspicion of the violent hate crime. (The Associated Press reported that his lawyers urged the public to 'reserve judgment until all the facts are presented in court,' proceedings for which had not started as of this writing.) Meanwhile, social media users framed the surveillance video from inside the apartment building as evidence of the so-called 'bystander effect.' That is, the presence of people discourages individuals from intervening to help someone in distress. Based on our analysis of the footage, it was true that multiple people were recorded watching the attack from inside the apartment's lobby and did not intervene for reasons that were not made clear. Specifically, at least three witnesses who were identified as workers in the apartment watched glimpses of Kari's assault, looking through glass windows and an open door. About 10 seconds after the attacker fled, one of those workers closed the building's door as Kari remained on the ground. A longer version of the surveillance video, obtained by multiple media outlets, showed the workers waited in the lobby for more than a minute before going outside and approaching Kari. (Per the workers' union, SEIU 32BJ, they made that decision to delay their aid because they thought the suspect had a knife, and they wanted to make sure he was gone, according to The Associated Press.) A police squad car eventually arrived, according to the video's extended cut, and the witnesses and officers were recorded with Kari on the sidewalk for several more minutes. Medics hospitalized Kari with a fractured pelvis and contusions on her body and forehead, according to news reports. On April 6, the apartment building's management company, the Brodsky Organization, announced via the below-displayed Instagram post that it had fired the two doormen who watched the attack following an investigation into their actions. It was unclear to whom the third bystander reported for work, and whether their response to the assault threatened their employment, as well. However, those people were not the only people who witnessed the attack. According to Kari's daughter, Elizabeth Kari, a witness who could not be seen or heard in the footage 'yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention,' and seemingly distracted the attacker so he would leave her mother alone. The daughter shared on a GoFundMe page, which the platform confirmed as an authentic posting from her, the following anecdote: [There] was someone who was standing across the street that witnessed my mom getting attacked who yelled and screamed to get the assailant's attention. That is where the video cuts off as the attacker crossed the street to him. To this person, I understand your decision in remaining anonymous during this time. I want to THANK YOU for stepping in and doing the right thing. In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

In sum, considering that testimony from Kari's daughter, it was false to claim that no one who watched Kari get kicked and stomped on outside a Manhattan apartment did anything to try to help her. Kitty Genovese: The 'Perfect Tabloid Murder' Among The New York Times' errors in its portrayal of Genovese's death were the number of people who allegedly witnessed her final moments, heard her cries for help, or tried to get emergency aid by calling the police. It also omitted key biographical facts about the victim, including the fact that she was survived by her partner, Mary Zielonko, and that they lived together in the apartment where Genovese died. 'It's like the perfect tabloid murder,' Michael Hobbes, of The Huffington Post and the podcast 'You're Wrong About, said in the episode about Genovese's killing. 'You can put the stuff in the paper that fulfills all of these little narrative chapters.' The facts of her 1964 killing are these, based on court documents, newspaper archives, and scholarly journals: Around 3 a.m., a man named Winston Moseley randomly spotted Genovese and chased her with a knife as she attempted to walk a few hundred feet from her vehicle to her apartment building. He told prosecutors he stabbed her twice. When someone called out from an open window, he fled temporarily. We know now that witness was Robert Mozer, a neighbor who later told prosecutors that he heard Genovese's cries for help, and saw her kneeling down with a man bending over her. He yelled: 'Let that girl alone!' Suffering from stabbing wounds, Genovese crawled to the back of the apartment building. (Joseph De May Jr., a lawyer and Kew Gardens resident who thoroughly investigated the crime, believed she was trying to reach a neighborhood bar a few doors away.) Moseley returned to sexually assault and fatally stab her. A 1995 court document citing Moseley's confession to the killing read: During the commission of this brutal attack, Moseley could hear that he had awakened residents of the apartment building. He heard a door open 'at least twice, maybe three times, but when [he] looked up ..., there was nobody up there.' That was likely Karl Ross, a friend and neighbor to Genovese whose behavior among all witnesses most closely matched the New York Times' portrayal of the scene. He coined the bystander effect's slogan: 'I didn't want to get involved.' Based on evidence, however, fear, not apathy, appeared to drive his decision-making that night, potentially because he was gay and worried that his identity could make him a target. Drunk that night, he indeed cracked his door open and saw Genovese lying in the hallway - still alive and attempting to speak, according to History.com. He shut the door and phoned a friend who discouraged him from getting involved. Minutes later, he climbed out of his apartment's window and walked across the building's roof to a friend's unit, where he called police. The Nation reflected in a 2014 story: In the story as told by the 'Times,' it's easy to hear 'I didn't want to get involved' as 'I didn't want to help my suffering neighbor.' But the more one learns about Ross, the easier it gets to hear another translation: 'I didn't want to get involved with the police, who - like The New York Times - view homosexuality as a menace to society.' At least one other person also claimed to have alerted law enforcement to the attack, according to news reports. Around the time of Ross' above-mentioned actions, a woman named Sophie Farrar - who lived on the same floor as Genovese and her partner - rushed to Genovese's aid and screamed for someone to call police. 'I held her head, and I had blood all over my hands,' she later testified in court. In other words, it was false to claim that no witnesses to Genovese's deadly assault attempted to help her, and that no one called police until after she died. In reality, she took her last breaths en route to the hospital, after medics and law enforcement arrived to the apartment to investigate. (See De May Jr.'s analysis of court transcripts and other evidence for more detailed explanations of witnesses' testimonies. A prosecutor told him that 'only about half a dozen people [...] saw anything that could be used in trial,' further discrediting the 1964 reporting by The New York Times). Police arrested Moseley five days after the attack while investigating an unrelated burglary. The Cultivation of Bystander Intervention The year Moseley died in prison, in 2016, Bill Genovese, Kitty's brother, told The Washington Post the family spent decades trying to shield their mother from news stories that framed the violent death as a spectacle for heartless onlookers watching from their apartments or the street. 'It would have made such a difference to my family knowing that Kitty died in the arms of a friend,' he said in a documentary about his investigation into his sister's death, called 'The Witness.' Despite its errors and misconceptions, the widely believed portrayal of Genovese's death, a horrifying scene in which people's diffusion of responsibility prevented them from intervening, took on a life of its own. The narrative inspired the modern-day 911 system, Good Samaritan laws, anti-stalking programs, media projects, literature, and - most relevantly to this report - new research into human behavior. In the late 1960s, American social psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley set the framework for a new field of research by showing via test studies that witnesses do care about individuals in crises but sometimes do not offer help, pending the number of people experiencing the same thing. Britannica Encyclopedia says in its entry about 'bystander intervention,' as of this writing: 'The story of Genovese's murder became a modern parable for the powerful psychological effects of the presence of others. It was an example of how people sometimes fail to react to the needs of others and, more broadly, how behavioral tendencies to act prosocially are greatly influenced by the situation.' Over the years, scientists applied the concept to routine forms of helping, too, and continued to study the evolving psychological theory. Meanwhile, news outlets including The New York Times published multiple articles addressing its errors and mischaracterizations of Genovese's death. A. M. Rosenthal, a former editor at the newspaper who oversaw the 1964 story, was quoted in one of them, referring to the number of people who heard her attack: 'I can't swear to god there were 38 people. Some people say there were more, some people say there were less, but what was true is people all over the world were affected by it,' he said. 'You bet your eye it did something, and I'm glad it did.'Recent Updates This report was updated to note two witnesses to the alleged hate crime in Manhattan were fired from their jobs.

An image shows a melted wind turbine in Texas.

Contradiction

In mid-June 2021, Snopes readers inquired about memes posted to social media that purportedly showed a wind turbine that had melted in scorching Texas heat (some versions sent in by readers claimed the turbine was melted in Nebraska). It's true that states in the Southwest, including Texas, were experiencing a heat wave in summer 2021. It's also true that the turbine in the image above is located in Texas. But the turbine was not melted by the heat wave. National Weather Service Houston tweeted an image of the turbine in question on June 14, 2021. The turbine, located in Wadsworth, a community southwest of Houston, was damaged by powerful winds during a storm in the area. The power of wind. (Damage to a wind turbine near Wadsworth in Matagorda County from a storm that passed through around 340pm). pic.twitter.com/osGB1sAocw - NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) June 15, 2021 Claims about turbines failing during extreme weather events in Texas have been a topic of interest in the past. In February 2021, conservative commentators and legislators falsely claimed that frozen turbines played a major role in the loss of power to millions of Texans as they experienced record cold temperatures. As we reported at that time, half of Texas' wind turbines went offline during the cold snap, but only accounted for a small fraction of the power outage, which was mostly caused by failure of systems producing power from natural gas, coal, and nuclear sources.

in summer 2021. It's also true that the turbine in the image above is located in Texas. But the turbine was not melted by the heat wave. National Weather Service Houston tweeted an image of the turbine in question on June 14, 2021. The turbine, located in Wadsworth, a community southwest of Houston, was damaged by powerful winds during a storm in the area. The power of wind. (Damage to a wind turbine near Wadsworth in Matagorda County from a storm that passed through around 340pm). pic.twitter.com/osGB1sAocw - NWS Houston (@NWSHouston) June 15, 2021 Claims about turbines failing during extreme weather events in Texas have been a topic of interest in the past. In February 2021, conservative commentators and legislators falsely claimed that frozen turbines played a major role in the loss of power to millions of Texans as they experienced record cold temperatures. As we reported at that time, half of Texas' wind turbines went offline during the cold snap, but only accounted for a small fraction of the power outage, which was mostly caused by failure of systems producing power from natural gas, coal, and nuclear sources.

During a visit to South Africa in the 1970s, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden was arrested while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

Contradiction

In February 2020, readers asked us about 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's claims that he was arrested in South Africa during the 1970s during an attempt to visit the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. On Feb. 11, Biden held a campaign rally in Columbia, South Carolina, ahead of that state's primary election on Feb. 29. There, the former vice president said: This day 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested, with our U.N. ambassador, on the streets of Soweto, trying to get to see him on Robbens [sic] Island. When he came to the United States, when he came to the White House - to the Senate, I was chairman of the committee, and he walked in, the most incredible thing I've ever felt in my life. He walked across in that private room with the big table we have in the executive room, and he walked over. And I said 'Mr. President,' and he leaned out and he said 'Thank you, thank you for trying to come and see me.' According to The New York Times, Biden made the 'South Africa arrest' claim a second time on Feb. 16, while speaking at a Nevada Black Legislative Caucus event, adding on that occasion that Mandela had, years later, thanked him specifically for the efforts to visit him in prison: 'After he got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office. He threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you.' I said, 'What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?' He said, 'You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.'' The next day, Feb. 17, Biden appeared at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada. At one point, he spoke in a lighthearted way about the difficulty he had had in persuading Jill Biden to accept his marriage proposal. Eventually she agreed, Biden said, after he returned from a visit to South Africa, where he was 'trying to see Nelson Mandela and getting arrested for trying to see him, on Robbens [sic] Island.' (Relevant section begins around 25:00). After a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina on Feb. 26, Biden's Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield explained to reporters that Biden had been separated from his traveling group at the airport during a visit to South Africa in the 1970s. In doing so, Bedingfield effectively stated that Biden's claim of having been arrested was false. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted 'I wasn't arrested,' claiming that instead, police at an airport in South Africa had stopped him from entering a walkway with his black Congressional colleagues. Even before those admissions, considerable evidence existed to dismiss the veracity of the former U.S. vice president's anecdote. Analysis Firstly, it wasn't clear when his visit to South Africa took place, and when his supposed arrest came. In his recent accounts, Biden didn't specify the year in which he claimed to have been arrested, but he did frame the incident as having taken place during a trip when he was waiting for his future wife Jill to respond to his marriage proposal. Based on accounts provided previously by both Bidens, that would date the trip in question to 1977. In his 2007 book 'Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,' Biden wrote: 'Jill says I must have asked her to marry me five more times, and she kept saying she needed more time. I was as patient as I knew how to be. But in 1977, as I prepared to leave on a ten-day trip to South Africa, I finally broke: 'Look,' I told her, 'I've waited long enough. I'm not going to wait any longer ...'' That account was reflected in Jill Biden's 2019 book 'Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself.' There, she dated the senator's marriage ultimatum to 'one afternoon in the spring of 1977,' and wrote that her then-boyfriend was 'heading out on a congressional delegation to South Africa.' However, we found no evidence that Biden visited South Africa at all in 1977, and it appears that both Bidens might have arrived at a confused timeline of events. According to several contemporaneous news reports, Biden did visit southern Africa in late 1976. In December of that year, he was one of around a dozen members of Congress to attend an African-American Institute conference in the small nation of Lesotho, which is located within the territory of South Africa. If the group did not take a direct flight to Lesotho, it is likely they would have flown to a city in South Africa, potentially Johannesburg, and traveled through South African territory to arrive in Lesotho. Among the members of Congress with whom Biden traveled to Lesotho in 1976 were Rep. Charles Diggs, D-Michigan, and Rep. Andrew Young, D-Georgia. In 2013, Biden spoke after the death of Mandela, and stated that he had traveled to South Africa in 1977, along with Diggs and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. In his February 2020 speech in Columbia, South Carolina, Biden specified that he had been arrested along with 'our U.N. ambassador.' That person was Andrew Young, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1976, but appointed ambassador to the United Nations by President Jimmy Carter after his inauguration in January 1977. Based on those facts, a strong possibility exists that Biden, over the course of the intervening decades, has mistakenly dated his December 1976 Africa trip to 1977. His destination during that trip was actually Lesotho (the location of the African-American Institute conference), but due to that country's unusual geographic situation, the visiting Congress members would likely have traveled through South Africa to get there, and so Biden might also have become confused in his recollection of his destination during the 1976 trip. It's not clear why or how Jill Biden recalled the trip taking place in the spring of 1977, specifically. Young, by then U.N. ambassador, did take a high-profile trip to South Africa in late May 1977, but Biden certainly did not join him, based on several news reports that placed the Delaware senator in the United States at that time. We asked Biden's campaign to clear up those significant discrepancies, but we received no response. Two other details provided by Biden undermined the credibility of his claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela, even before his spokesperson walked it back. Firstly, the former vice president claimed in South Carolina to have been arrested along with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a reference to Young, a Georgia congressman who traveled to Lesotho with Biden in December 1976 before he became U.N. ambassador (and who later served as mayor of Atlanta during the 1980s). In February 2020, Young told both The New York Times and The Washington Post that he himself had never been arrested in South Africa, and he said he did not think Biden was either. Secondly, in the same South Carolina speech, Biden said he was arrested with Young 'on the streets of Soweto' while trying to visit Mandela on Robben Island (Biden repeatedly and mistakenly referred to the place where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years as 'Robbens Island'). On its face, this claim appears utterly implausible since Soweto, a township of South Africa's largest city Johannesburg, is located nearly 900 miles northeast of Robben Island, which is off the coast of Cape Town - the two locations are effectively on opposite ends of the country. It might make more sense if Biden claimed to have been arrested in an airport while attempting to board a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town in an effort to visit Mandela, but an arrest 'on the streets of Soweto' does not stack up. Conclusion Snopes asked Biden's campaign to provide any evidence or documentation that might support his claim of having been arrested in South Africa in the 1970s, and we asked the campaign to clarify significant discrepancies in the timeline presented by both Bidens in their respective books. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response of any kind. On Feb. 26, after a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina, Biden's deputy campaign manager spoke to reporters and fielded a question about the veracity of the arrest anecdote. In response, she effectively admitted that Biden's claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela was false. Slate reported as follows: 'He took a trip with a CODEL [congressional delegation] in the '70s, he was separated from the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] members that he was traveling with at the airport when he landed,' Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, told the reporter. 'When making that remark, he was talking about his long record of fighting apartheid.' So he wasn't arrested? 'He was separated from the group he was with at the airport,' she said. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted in a CNN interview 'I wasn't arrested.' Instead, Biden claimed, he was referring to an incident in which he was separated from his black congressional colleagues at an airport in South Africa, where police stopped him from using the same airport walkway as them. Biden said, 'When I said 'arrested' I meant I was not able to move. Cops, Afrikaaners were not letting me go with them [the Congressional Black Caucus members], made me stay where I was. I guess I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go.' As such, we are issuing a rating of 'False.'Recent Updates Updated [3 March 2020]: Added Feb. 28 remarks by Joe Biden.

Conclusion Snopes asked Biden's campaign to provide any evidence or documentation that might support his claim of having been arrested in South Africa in the 1970s, and we asked the campaign to clarify significant discrepancies in the timeline presented by both Bidens in their respective books. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response of any kind. On Feb. 26, after a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina, Biden's deputy campaign manager spoke to reporters and fielded a question about the veracity of the arrest anecdote. In response, she effectively admitted that Biden's claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela was false. Slate reported as follows: 'He took a trip with a CODEL [congressional delegation] in the '70s, he was separated from the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] members that he was traveling with at the airport when he landed,' Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, told the reporter. 'When making that remark, he was talking about his long record of fighting apartheid.' So he wasn't arrested? 'He was separated from the group he was with at the airport,' she said. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted in a CNN interview 'I wasn't arrested.' Instead, Biden claimed, he was referring to an incident in which he was separated from his black congressional colleagues at an airport in South Africa, where police stopped him from using the same airport walkway as them. Biden said, 'When I said 'arrested' I meant I was not able to move. Cops, Afrikaaners were not letting me go with them [the Congressional Black Caucus members], made me stay where I was. I guess I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go.' As such, we are issuing a rating of 'False.'Recent Updates Updated [3 March 2020]: Added Feb. 28 remarks by Joe Biden.

During a visit to South Africa in the 1970s, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden was arrested while attempting to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

Contradiction

In February 2020, readers asked us about 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's claims that he was arrested in South Africa during the 1970s during an attempt to visit the imprisoned Nelson Mandela. On Feb. 11, Biden held a campaign rally in Columbia, South Carolina, ahead of that state's primary election on Feb. 29. There, the former vice president said: This day 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and entered into discussions about apartheid. I had the great honor of meeting him. I had the great honor of being arrested, with our U.N. ambassador, on the streets of Soweto, trying to get to see him on Robbens [sic] Island. When he came to the United States, when he came to the White House - to the Senate, I was chairman of the committee, and he walked in, the most incredible thing I've ever felt in my life. He walked across in that private room with the big table we have in the executive room, and he walked over. And I said 'Mr. President,' and he leaned out and he said 'Thank you, thank you for trying to come and see me.' According to The New York Times, Biden made the 'South Africa arrest' claim a second time on Feb. 16, while speaking at a Nevada Black Legislative Caucus event, adding on that occasion that Mandela had, years later, thanked him specifically for the efforts to visit him in prison: 'After he got free and became president, he came to Washington and came to my office. He threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you.' I said, 'What are you thanking me for, Mr. President?' He said, 'You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.'' The next day, Feb. 17, Biden appeared at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada. At one point, he spoke in a lighthearted way about the difficulty he had had in persuading Jill Biden to accept his marriage proposal. Eventually she agreed, Biden said, after he returned from a visit to South Africa, where he was 'trying to see Nelson Mandela and getting arrested for trying to see him, on Robbens [sic] Island.' (Relevant section begins around 25:00). After a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina on Feb. 26, Biden's Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield explained to reporters that Biden had been separated from his traveling group at the airport during a visit to South Africa in the 1970s. In doing so, Bedingfield effectively stated that Biden's claim of having been arrested was false. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted 'I wasn't arrested,' claiming that instead, police at an airport in South Africa had stopped him from entering a walkway with his black Congressional colleagues. Even before those admissions, considerable evidence existed to dismiss the veracity of the former U.S. vice president's anecdote. Analysis Firstly, it wasn't clear when his visit to South Africa took place, and when his supposed arrest came. In his recent accounts, Biden didn't specify the year in which he claimed to have been arrested, but he did frame the incident as having taken place during a trip when he was waiting for his future wife Jill to respond to his marriage proposal. Based on accounts provided previously by both Bidens, that would date the trip in question to 1977. In his 2007 book 'Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics,' Biden wrote: 'Jill says I must have asked her to marry me five more times, and she kept saying she needed more time. I was as patient as I knew how to be. But in 1977, as I prepared to leave on a ten-day trip to South Africa, I finally broke: 'Look,' I told her, 'I've waited long enough. I'm not going to wait any longer ...'' That account was reflected in Jill Biden's 2019 book 'Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself.' There, she dated the senator's marriage ultimatum to 'one afternoon in the spring of 1977,' and wrote that her then-boyfriend was 'heading out on a congressional delegation to South Africa.' However, we found no evidence that Biden visited South Africa at all in 1977, and it appears that both Bidens might have arrived at a confused timeline of events. According to several contemporaneous news reports, Biden did visit southern Africa in late 1976. In December of that year, he was one of around a dozen members of Congress to attend an African-American Institute conference in the small nation of Lesotho, which is located within the territory of South Africa. If the group did not take a direct flight to Lesotho, it is likely they would have flown to a city in South Africa, potentially Johannesburg, and traveled through South African territory to arrive in Lesotho. Among the members of Congress with whom Biden traveled to Lesotho in 1976 were Rep. Charles Diggs, D-Michigan, and Rep. Andrew Young, D-Georgia. In 2013, Biden spoke after the death of Mandela, and stated that he had traveled to South Africa in 1977, along with Diggs and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. In his February 2020 speech in Columbia, South Carolina, Biden specified that he had been arrested along with 'our U.N. ambassador.' That person was Andrew Young, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1976, but appointed ambassador to the United Nations by President Jimmy Carter after his inauguration in January 1977. Based on those facts, a strong possibility exists that Biden, over the course of the intervening decades, has mistakenly dated his December 1976 Africa trip to 1977. His destination during that trip was actually Lesotho (the location of the African-American Institute conference), but due to that country's unusual geographic situation, the visiting Congress members would likely have traveled through South Africa to get there, and so Biden might also have become confused in his recollection of his destination during the 1976 trip. It's not clear why or how Jill Biden recalled the trip taking place in the spring of 1977, specifically. Young, by then U.N. ambassador, did take a high-profile trip to South Africa in late May 1977, but Biden certainly did not join him, based on several news reports that placed the Delaware senator in the United States at that time. We asked Biden's campaign to clear up those significant discrepancies, but we received no response. Two other details provided by Biden undermined the credibility of his claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela, even before his spokesperson walked it back. Firstly, the former vice president claimed in South Carolina to have been arrested along with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a reference to Young, a Georgia congressman who traveled to Lesotho with Biden in December 1976 before he became U.N. ambassador (and who later served as mayor of Atlanta during the 1980s). In February 2020, Young told both The New York Times and The Washington Post that he himself had never been arrested in South Africa, and he said he did not think Biden was either. Secondly, in the same South Carolina speech, Biden said he was arrested with Young 'on the streets of Soweto' while trying to visit Mandela on Robben Island (Biden repeatedly and mistakenly referred to the place where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years as 'Robbens Island'). On its face, this claim appears utterly implausible since Soweto, a township of South Africa's largest city Johannesburg, is located nearly 900 miles northeast of Robben Island, which is off the coast of Cape Town - the two locations are effectively on opposite ends of the country. It might make more sense if Biden claimed to have been arrested in an airport while attempting to board a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town in an effort to visit Mandela, but an arrest 'on the streets of Soweto' does not stack up. Conclusion Snopes asked Biden's campaign to provide any evidence or documentation that might support his claim of having been arrested in South Africa in the 1970s, and we asked the campaign to clarify significant discrepancies in the timeline presented by both Bidens in their respective books. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response of any kind. On Feb. 26, after a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina, Biden's deputy campaign manager spoke to reporters and fielded a question about the veracity of the arrest anecdote. In response, she effectively admitted that Biden's claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela was false. Slate reported as follows: 'He took a trip with a CODEL [congressional delegation] in the '70s, he was separated from the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] members that he was traveling with at the airport when he landed,' Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, told the reporter. 'When making that remark, he was talking about his long record of fighting apartheid.' So he wasn't arrested? 'He was separated from the group he was with at the airport,' she said. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted in a CNN interview 'I wasn't arrested.' Instead, Biden claimed, he was referring to an incident in which he was separated from his black congressional colleagues at an airport in South Africa, where police stopped him from using the same airport walkway as them. Biden said, 'When I said 'arrested' I meant I was not able to move. Cops, Afrikaaners were not letting me go with them [the Congressional Black Caucus members], made me stay where I was. I guess I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go.' As such, we are issuing a rating of 'False.'Recent Updates Updated [3 March 2020]: Added Feb. 28 remarks by Joe Biden.

Conclusion Snopes asked Biden's campaign to provide any evidence or documentation that might support his claim of having been arrested in South Africa in the 1970s, and we asked the campaign to clarify significant discrepancies in the timeline presented by both Bidens in their respective books. Unfortunately, we did not receive a response of any kind. On Feb. 26, after a Democratic primary debate in South Carolina, Biden's deputy campaign manager spoke to reporters and fielded a question about the veracity of the arrest anecdote. In response, she effectively admitted that Biden's claim that he was arrested while trying to visit Mandela was false. Slate reported as follows: 'He took a trip with a CODEL [congressional delegation] in the '70s, he was separated from the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus] members that he was traveling with at the airport when he landed,' Biden's deputy campaign manager and communications director, Kate Bedingfield, told the reporter. 'When making that remark, he was talking about his long record of fighting apartheid.' So he wasn't arrested? 'He was separated from the group he was with at the airport,' she said. On Feb. 28, Biden himself admitted in a CNN interview 'I wasn't arrested.' Instead, Biden claimed, he was referring to an incident in which he was separated from his black congressional colleagues at an airport in South Africa, where police stopped him from using the same airport walkway as them. Biden said, 'When I said 'arrested' I meant I was not able to move. Cops, Afrikaaners were not letting me go with them [the Congressional Black Caucus members], made me stay where I was. I guess I wasn't arrested, I was stopped. I was not able to move where I wanted to go.' As such, we are issuing a rating of 'False.'Recent Updates Updated [3 March 2020]: Added Feb. 28 remarks by Joe Biden.

A video shows a man demonstrating an invisibility cloak.

Contradiction

A video purportedly showing a man demonstrating the abilities of his new invisibility cloak went viral in December 2017. Most English speaking internet users encountered this footage after it was shared on Facebook by 'Shotded,' where it gained more than 22 million views within two days of its initial posting. However, this video originally gained traction when it was posted to the Chinese social media site Weibo on 4 December 2017 by 陈士渠 (Chen Shiqu), an internet user who claimed to be the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security: [Translation Via Google Translate] Quantum cloak is composed of quantum stealth material made into clothing, which reflects the light waves around the wearer, allowing people wearing such clothes to achieve an 'invisible' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. But if criminals use stealth clothing, what are police supposed to do!? The convincing video and the seemingly authoritative source led many to believe that this was an authentic invisibility cloak. Although Chen Shiqu does appear to truly be the Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China, this video does not appear on the official government web site (nor its Facebook page) and our search for a 'quantum cloak' and 'quantum steal material' yielded no results on the CIB web site. In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

A video shows a man demonstrating an invisibility cloak.

Contradiction

A video purportedly showing a man demonstrating the abilities of his new invisibility cloak went viral in December 2017. Most English speaking internet users encountered this footage after it was shared on Facebook by 'Shotded,' where it gained more than 22 million views within two days of its initial posting. However, this video originally gained traction when it was posted to the Chinese social media site Weibo on 4 December 2017 by 陈士渠 (Chen Shiqu), an internet user who claimed to be the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security: [Translation Via Google Translate] Quantum cloak is composed of quantum stealth material made into clothing, which reflects the light waves around the wearer, allowing people wearing such clothes to achieve an 'invisible' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. But if criminals use stealth clothing, what are police supposed to do!? The convincing video and the seemingly authoritative source led many to believe that this was an authentic invisibility cloak. Although Chen Shiqu does appear to truly be the Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China, this video does not appear on the official government web site (nor its Facebook page) and our search for a 'quantum cloak' and 'quantum steal material' yielded no results on the CIB web site. In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

A video shows a man demonstrating an invisibility cloak.

Contradiction

A video purportedly showing a man demonstrating the abilities of his new invisibility cloak went viral in December 2017. Most English speaking internet users encountered this footage after it was shared on Facebook by 'Shotded,' where it gained more than 22 million views within two days of its initial posting. However, this video originally gained traction when it was posted to the Chinese social media site Weibo on 4 December 2017 by 陈士渠 (Chen Shiqu), an internet user who claimed to be the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security: [Translation Via Google Translate] Quantum cloak is composed of quantum stealth material made into clothing, which reflects the light waves around the wearer, allowing people wearing such clothes to achieve an 'invisible' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. But if criminals use stealth clothing, what are police supposed to do!? The convincing video and the seemingly authoritative source led many to believe that this was an authentic invisibility cloak. Although Chen Shiqu does appear to truly be the Deputy Director of the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China, this video does not appear on the official government web site (nor its Facebook page) and our search for a 'quantum cloak' and 'quantum steal material' yielded no results on the CIB web site. In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

In short, the Criminal Investigation Bureau in China did not officially endorse this footage. Furthermore, Chen Shiqu did not create this footage. YouTube user 瞭望亞太 (Looking Asia Pacific) posted this video on 3 December 2017, a day before the supposed Deputy Director of China's Criminal Investigation Bureau's post. And although they claimed that this material was 'Made in China,' this YouTuber didn't provide any information about where or when this video was taken or who developed this groundbreaking material: 【国产量子隐身衣】量子隐身衣是通过量子隐形材料制作成衣服，透过反射穿衣者身边的光波，可以使得穿着这种衣服的人达到'隐形'的效果。此技术更可用于军事上，让士兵像穿上'隐形军衣'，还可以避过夜视镜。 【Made in China Quantum Invisibility Clinics】 Quantum stealth clothing is composed of quantum invisible materials made into clothing, which through the reflection of the light waves around the wearer can make people wearing such clothes achieve an 'invisibility' effect. This technology can be employed by the military for soldiers to use as 'stealth military uniforms' and avoid detection by night-vision goggles. Despite these audacious claims, the actual footage contains several clues that this invisibility cloak is nothing more than the result of video editing. At the 38-second mark, for instance, the presenter accidentally touches a plant with his leg. This creates two visuals that conflict with how we'd expect a real invisibility cloak to work. First, we see the plant 'double' as the real plant (which was knocked by the man's leg) moves and the digital plant remains in place: A few moments later this plant can be seen shaking. But as the invisibility cloak covers it up, it instantaneously becomes motionless again. The motion of the plant resumes once it is no longer hidden behind the invisibility cloak: This indicates that this invisibility cloak is actually some sort of green screen. The filmmaker shot footage of the background and then projected that image onto the green sheet in order to make it appear as if the man disappeared behind an invisibility cloak. When the man touches the plant, however, the background footage and the invisibility footage no longer match up, which causes the odd visuals seen above. Zhu Zhen Song, a producer for the Star Orange Quantum video production company, came to a similar conclusion. Song explained to the Shanghai Observer that this video was likely made with a blue or green cloth and a computer software program such as After Effect: 星橙量子视频制作公司的监制竺桢淞看完这段视频后向记者表示，这应该是用蓝色或绿色塑料布来拍摄，再通过后期抠像技术编辑而成的，有不少视频后期合成软件可以做出这样的效果，比如我们熟知的After Effect，以及Nuke和Fusion等软件。 竺桢淞解释了这段视频的大概制作原理。第一遍，先拍摄无人纯背景。第二遍，人物拿着蓝布再拍一遍。然后，用软件把蓝布部分抠除，把两次的视频合成，就出来了'隐形衣'这种效果。类似技术在电影上已经普遍使用，如各类科幻电影。 Star Orange Quantum video production company producer Zhu Zhen Song, after watching this video, told reporters that it was likely shot with blue or green plastic cloth, and then edited using one of many video effects software platforms, such as the well-known After Effect or Nuke and Fusion software. Zhu Zhen Song explained the principle behind this type of video production. The figure is shot against a solid blue background while holding a blue cloth. Then, software is used to replace the blue areas with other footage, creating an 'invisible clothing' effect. Similar technologies are commonly used in movies, such as various science fiction films. Another indication that this video was digitally edited can be spotted just after the one-minute mark when the man's fingers disappear despite being in front of the green screen: Dozens of similar amateur videos can be found on YouTube. Although the following footage may not be as convincing as the viral invisibility cloak video, they both use similar editing techniques:Dan Evon Sources Hui, Song. '大爷瞬间消失！量子隐身衣问世？浙大老师发明？专业人士揭秘视频真相.' Shanghai Observer. 4 December 2017.

The research and development of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which proved to be 90% effective against SARS-CoV-2 in November 2020, was funded by U.S. President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In the final months of 2020, scientists around the world raced to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, which at that point had reached more than 50 million cases and resulted in the deaths of at least 1.2 million people. On Nov. 9, the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer announced in a news release - not a peer-reviewed journal -that interim results testing the efficacy of vaccine candidate BNT162b2 showed a 90% success rate in protecting against COVID-19 infection, making it one of the first and most promising immunization potentials to date. And politicians were quick to weigh in. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in a tweet that the public-private partnership between U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Pfizer led to the success of the vaccine: HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers. - Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) November 9, 2020 While former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, whose policies closely align with Trump, furthered the notion that the vaccine was a part of the president's Operation Warp Speed (OWS), an effort led by the Trump Administration to accelerate the testing of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics: The news about the @pfizer vaccine being 90% effective is great news for the American people! Many thanks to @realDonaldTrump and Operation Warp Speed. This will be one of the most important action items done by the administration in response to this pandemic. ❤️🇺🇸#USStrong - Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) November 9, 2020 These claims are half-truths and misrepresent the role that OWS played in developing this particular vaccine candidate. Although the very preliminary findings of the vaccine look promising, a detailed look at the reported findings revealed that there is cause to be cautious about its availability and timeliness. What Is Operation Warp Speed? A deal between OWS and Pfizer was announced in a July news release that outlined a bid by the U.S. government to receive 100 million doses (with the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses) of a vaccine - pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - for $1.95 billion. 'Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine's ability to prevent COVID-19,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO. 'We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With today's news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis.' OWS is a joint effort by the Trump administration and the U.S. departments of Defense (DOD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, launched on May 15 to 'accelerate the testing, supply, development, and distribution of safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics' by January 2021. Part of its mission is to also accelerate the vaccine approval process from the typical 73 months to just 13 months. Generally, receiving approval for a new drug or therapy is a long and tenuous process that can sometimes last years. Department of Defense OWS offered $456 million to vaccine research and development projects by Johnson & Johnson for its Phase 1 clinical trials, as well as a total of $955 million to Moderna for late-stage clinical testing. However, the $1.95 billion allocated to Pfizer was for large-scale manufacturing and nationwide distribution. In short, the government intended to buy doses of a vaccine from Pfizer once an effective vaccine was made available, but it did not fund the research and development of Pfizer's vaccine. 'Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,' Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. 'While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk.' Technically, the work conducted by Pfizer and its partner, German drugmaker BioNTech, is an expansion of OWS and was operating under an agreement to meet the goal of OWS to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine in 2021. As part of the agreement, the U.S. government would receive 100 million doses after the successful manufacturing of the vaccine and its approval by the FDA. However, that is not to say that the government had any hand in the research or development of the vaccine. Rather, it just agreed to buy the vaccines from the companies once they had gone through final approval. 'We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, at the time. Pfizer and BioNTech have similar agreements with the European Union. What Do We Know About the Vaccine? The specific details about the Pfizer vaccine are not readily available. What we do know is that BNT162b2 is an mRNA-based vaccine that contained SARS-CoV-2 spike protein - the same protein that nearly all vaccination studies are targeting - that allows the virus to enter human cells and elicits an immune response from its host. The first doses administered to U.S. study participants, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo, were done so in May via intramuscular injection, which is similar to the flu shot. As part of a randomized placebo trial, two doses were each given three weeks apart with the vaccine not taking full effect until at least a week after the final dose. That means that a person couldn't expect protection until about a month after they were immunized. A three-dimensional simulation of the coronavirus spike protein just before binding to the human cell receptor. University of Arkansas An analysis of the interim results suggested that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease in study volunteers who did not have evidence of a prior COVID-19 infection - a rate that is similar to the measles vaccine administered in early childhood. No safety concerns were observed, but as the trial continues those findings could change. That's because the results are based on limited data from an early clinical trial, and it's unclear whether the vaccine prevents infection or just reduces symptoms. 'This is a very timely and encouraging development in the race to get an effective vaccine. It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against COVID-19 disease,' said Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School. 'The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission. This additional data will be generated as further confirmed cases are identified and analyzed.' The 'promising' results were met with both encouragement and skepticism by the broader scientific community, which by and large said that it remains 'cautiously optimistic.' First and foremost, the results are interim and still await full trial results, meaning that these are non-peer-reviewed findings that were published midway through the clinical trial. Releasing the findings in the middle of a trial may further influence the integrity of the study, potentially biasing how future study participants respond or how their observations are reported. That could in turn make long-term follow-up with adequate randomization more challenging. There are other important limitations to the research that must be considered. Snopes read through the a 123-page study protocol document and found that while researchers describe the more than 43,000 participants as 'ethnically diverse,' they do not specify other characteristics that may make an individual's infection more extreme, such as age or co-morbidities. And while it is written that study participants were between the ages of 18 and 85, their exact demographics were not known. Furthermore, individuals with a high risk of severe infection were excluded from the first phase of testing and the preliminary findings did not determine how long the vaccination lasts. NurPhoto / Contributor When Will the Vaccine Be Available? Even after addressing the limitations, the results of an effective vaccine will not be felt immediately. 'With the best will in the world, this vaccine - or any other vaccine currently in trials - isn't going to change things for the majority of us this winter,' said Elenor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. 'So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer. But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021.' If the vaccine is proven to be robustly effective at the wider community level, experts warn that there must still be public trust and buy-in - a challenge given some political leaders have been quick to dismiss the severity of the outbreak. Then there is the logistical challenge of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally. First doses must be prioritized for health care workers and vulnerable populations. And a logistical challenge lies in manufacturing and rolling out a vaccine that needs to be stored and maintained at very low temperatures (-94 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit). As the world waits, experts warn that the promise of a vaccine cannot allow the findings to 'seed complacency' and cause people to shy away from public health guidance. On the cusp of the vaccine candidate announcement, most nations in the world saw massive upticks in new coronavirus cases reported each day in October and November, according to data published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. On Nov. 4, 5, and 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day What Happens Next? Pfizer applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) of the two-dose vaccine with the FDA on Nov. 20. At this point, researchers had collected two months of safety data required to use the drug in some cases. However, that does not constitute full approval of the drug. At the time of this writing, just 94 of the nearly 44,000 trial participants had contracted COVID-19 and the study is expected to continue until at least 164 people test positive. Though the long-term safety and efficacy data remains to be seen, it is estimated that the manufacturers could produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021 to be distributed on an as-needed basis if a EUA is granted. The Pfizer study is estimated to be completed by Dec. 11, 2022.Recent Updates Update [Nov. 20, 2020]: This article was updated to reflect Pfizer's official filing of a EUA on Nov. 20.

In short, the government intended to buy doses of a vaccine from Pfizer once an effective vaccine was made available, but it did not fund the research and development of Pfizer's vaccine. 'Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,' Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. 'While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk.' Technically, the work conducted by Pfizer and its partner, German drugmaker BioNTech, is an expansion of OWS and was operating under an agreement to meet the goal of OWS to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine in 2021. As part of the agreement, the U.S. government would receive 100 million doses after the successful manufacturing of the vaccine and its approval by the FDA. However, that is not to say that the government had any hand in the research or development of the vaccine. Rather, it just agreed to buy the vaccines from the companies once they had gone through final approval. 'We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, at the time. Pfizer and BioNTech have similar agreements with the European Union. What Do We Know About the Vaccine? The specific details about the Pfizer vaccine are not readily available. What we do know is that BNT162b2 is an mRNA-based vaccine that contained SARS-CoV-2 spike protein - the same protein that nearly all vaccination studies are targeting - that allows the virus to enter human cells and elicits an immune response from its host. The first doses administered to U.S. study participants, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo, were done so in May via intramuscular injection, which is similar to the flu shot. As part of a randomized placebo trial, two doses were each given three weeks apart with the vaccine not taking full effect until at least a week after the final dose. That means that a person couldn't expect protection until about a month after they were immunized. A three-dimensional simulation of the coronavirus spike protein just before binding to the human cell receptor. University of Arkansas An analysis of the interim results suggested that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease in study volunteers who did not have evidence of a prior COVID-19 infection - a rate that is similar to the measles vaccine administered in early childhood. No safety concerns were observed, but as the trial continues those findings could change. That's because the results are based on limited data from an early clinical trial, and it's unclear whether the vaccine prevents infection or just reduces symptoms. 'This is a very timely and encouraging development in the race to get an effective vaccine. It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against COVID-19 disease,' said Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School. 'The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission. This additional data will be generated as further confirmed cases are identified and analyzed.' The 'promising' results were met with both encouragement and skepticism by the broader scientific community, which by and large said that it remains 'cautiously optimistic.' First and foremost, the results are interim and still await full trial results, meaning that these are non-peer-reviewed findings that were published midway through the clinical trial. Releasing the findings in the middle of a trial may further influence the integrity of the study, potentially biasing how future study participants respond or how their observations are reported. That could in turn make long-term follow-up with adequate randomization more challenging. There are other important limitations to the research that must be considered. Snopes read through the a 123-page study protocol document and found that while researchers describe the more than 43,000 participants as 'ethnically diverse,' they do not specify other characteristics that may make an individual's infection more extreme, such as age or co-morbidities. And while it is written that study participants were between the ages of 18 and 85, their exact demographics were not known. Furthermore, individuals with a high risk of severe infection were excluded from the first phase of testing and the preliminary findings did not determine how long the vaccination lasts. NurPhoto / Contributor When Will the Vaccine Be Available? Even after addressing the limitations, the results of an effective vaccine will not be felt immediately. 'With the best will in the world, this vaccine - or any other vaccine currently in trials - isn't going to change things for the majority of us this winter,' said Elenor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. 'So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer. But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021.' If the vaccine is proven to be robustly effective at the wider community level, experts warn that there must still be public trust and buy-in - a challenge given some political leaders have been quick to dismiss the severity of the outbreak. Then there is the logistical challenge of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally. First doses must be prioritized for health care workers and vulnerable populations. And a logistical challenge lies in manufacturing and rolling out a vaccine that needs to be stored and maintained at very low temperatures (-94 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit). As the world waits, experts warn that the promise of a vaccine cannot allow the findings to 'seed complacency' and cause people to shy away from public health guidance. On the cusp of the vaccine candidate announcement, most nations in the world saw massive upticks in new coronavirus cases reported each day in October and November, according to data published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. On Nov. 4, 5, and 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day What Happens Next? Pfizer applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) of the two-dose vaccine with the FDA on Nov. 20. At this point, researchers had collected two months of safety data required to use the drug in some cases. However, that does not constitute full approval of the drug. At the time of this writing, just 94 of the nearly 44,000 trial participants had contracted COVID-19 and the study is expected to continue until at least 164 people test positive. Though the long-term safety and efficacy data remains to be seen, it is estimated that the manufacturers could produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021 to be distributed on an as-needed basis if a EUA is granted. The Pfizer study is estimated to be completed by Dec. 11, 2022.Recent Updates Update [Nov. 20, 2020]: This article was updated to reflect Pfizer's official filing of a EUA on Nov. 20.

The research and development of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, which proved to be 90% effective against SARS-CoV-2 in November 2020, was funded by U.S. President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In the final months of 2020, scientists around the world raced to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, which at that point had reached more than 50 million cases and resulted in the deaths of at least 1.2 million people. On Nov. 9, the biopharmaceutical company Pfizer announced in a news release - not a peer-reviewed journal -that interim results testing the efficacy of vaccine candidate BNT162b2 showed a 90% success rate in protecting against COVID-19 infection, making it one of the first and most promising immunization potentials to date. And politicians were quick to weigh in. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said in a tweet that the public-private partnership between U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Pfizer led to the success of the vaccine: HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President @realDonaldTrump, @pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers. - Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) November 9, 2020 While former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, whose policies closely align with Trump, furthered the notion that the vaccine was a part of the president's Operation Warp Speed (OWS), an effort led by the Trump Administration to accelerate the testing of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics: The news about the @pfizer vaccine being 90% effective is great news for the American people! Many thanks to @realDonaldTrump and Operation Warp Speed. This will be one of the most important action items done by the administration in response to this pandemic. ❤️🇺🇸#USStrong - Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) November 9, 2020 These claims are half-truths and misrepresent the role that OWS played in developing this particular vaccine candidate. Although the very preliminary findings of the vaccine look promising, a detailed look at the reported findings revealed that there is cause to be cautious about its availability and timeliness. What Is Operation Warp Speed? A deal between OWS and Pfizer was announced in a July news release that outlined a bid by the U.S. government to receive 100 million doses (with the option to acquire up to 500 million more doses) of a vaccine - pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - for $1.95 billion. 'Today is a great day for science and humanity. The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine's ability to prevent COVID-19,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer Chairman and CEO. 'We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With today's news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis.' OWS is a joint effort by the Trump administration and the U.S. departments of Defense (DOD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, launched on May 15 to 'accelerate the testing, supply, development, and distribution of safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics' by January 2021. Part of its mission is to also accelerate the vaccine approval process from the typical 73 months to just 13 months. Generally, receiving approval for a new drug or therapy is a long and tenuous process that can sometimes last years. Department of Defense OWS offered $456 million to vaccine research and development projects by Johnson & Johnson for its Phase 1 clinical trials, as well as a total of $955 million to Moderna for late-stage clinical testing. However, the $1.95 billion allocated to Pfizer was for large-scale manufacturing and nationwide distribution. In short, the government intended to buy doses of a vaccine from Pfizer once an effective vaccine was made available, but it did not fund the research and development of Pfizer's vaccine. 'Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,' Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. 'While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk.' Technically, the work conducted by Pfizer and its partner, German drugmaker BioNTech, is an expansion of OWS and was operating under an agreement to meet the goal of OWS to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine in 2021. As part of the agreement, the U.S. government would receive 100 million doses after the successful manufacturing of the vaccine and its approval by the FDA. However, that is not to say that the government had any hand in the research or development of the vaccine. Rather, it just agreed to buy the vaccines from the companies once they had gone through final approval. 'We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, at the time. Pfizer and BioNTech have similar agreements with the European Union. What Do We Know About the Vaccine? The specific details about the Pfizer vaccine are not readily available. What we do know is that BNT162b2 is an mRNA-based vaccine that contained SARS-CoV-2 spike protein - the same protein that nearly all vaccination studies are targeting - that allows the virus to enter human cells and elicits an immune response from its host. The first doses administered to U.S. study participants, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo, were done so in May via intramuscular injection, which is similar to the flu shot. As part of a randomized placebo trial, two doses were each given three weeks apart with the vaccine not taking full effect until at least a week after the final dose. That means that a person couldn't expect protection until about a month after they were immunized. A three-dimensional simulation of the coronavirus spike protein just before binding to the human cell receptor. University of Arkansas An analysis of the interim results suggested that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease in study volunteers who did not have evidence of a prior COVID-19 infection - a rate that is similar to the measles vaccine administered in early childhood. No safety concerns were observed, but as the trial continues those findings could change. That's because the results are based on limited data from an early clinical trial, and it's unclear whether the vaccine prevents infection or just reduces symptoms. 'This is a very timely and encouraging development in the race to get an effective vaccine. It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against COVID-19 disease,' said Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School. 'The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission. This additional data will be generated as further confirmed cases are identified and analyzed.' The 'promising' results were met with both encouragement and skepticism by the broader scientific community, which by and large said that it remains 'cautiously optimistic.' First and foremost, the results are interim and still await full trial results, meaning that these are non-peer-reviewed findings that were published midway through the clinical trial. Releasing the findings in the middle of a trial may further influence the integrity of the study, potentially biasing how future study participants respond or how their observations are reported. That could in turn make long-term follow-up with adequate randomization more challenging. There are other important limitations to the research that must be considered. Snopes read through the a 123-page study protocol document and found that while researchers describe the more than 43,000 participants as 'ethnically diverse,' they do not specify other characteristics that may make an individual's infection more extreme, such as age or co-morbidities. And while it is written that study participants were between the ages of 18 and 85, their exact demographics were not known. Furthermore, individuals with a high risk of severe infection were excluded from the first phase of testing and the preliminary findings did not determine how long the vaccination lasts. NurPhoto / Contributor When Will the Vaccine Be Available? Even after addressing the limitations, the results of an effective vaccine will not be felt immediately. 'With the best will in the world, this vaccine - or any other vaccine currently in trials - isn't going to change things for the majority of us this winter,' said Elenor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. 'So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer. But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021.' If the vaccine is proven to be robustly effective at the wider community level, experts warn that there must still be public trust and buy-in - a challenge given some political leaders have been quick to dismiss the severity of the outbreak. Then there is the logistical challenge of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally. First doses must be prioritized for health care workers and vulnerable populations. And a logistical challenge lies in manufacturing and rolling out a vaccine that needs to be stored and maintained at very low temperatures (-94 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit). As the world waits, experts warn that the promise of a vaccine cannot allow the findings to 'seed complacency' and cause people to shy away from public health guidance. On the cusp of the vaccine candidate announcement, most nations in the world saw massive upticks in new coronavirus cases reported each day in October and November, according to data published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. On Nov. 4, 5, and 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day What Happens Next? Pfizer applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) of the two-dose vaccine with the FDA on Nov. 20. At this point, researchers had collected two months of safety data required to use the drug in some cases. However, that does not constitute full approval of the drug. At the time of this writing, just 94 of the nearly 44,000 trial participants had contracted COVID-19 and the study is expected to continue until at least 164 people test positive. Though the long-term safety and efficacy data remains to be seen, it is estimated that the manufacturers could produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021 to be distributed on an as-needed basis if a EUA is granted. The Pfizer study is estimated to be completed by Dec. 11, 2022.Recent Updates Update [Nov. 20, 2020]: This article was updated to reflect Pfizer's official filing of a EUA on Nov. 20.

In short, the government intended to buy doses of a vaccine from Pfizer once an effective vaccine was made available, but it did not fund the research and development of Pfizer's vaccine. 'Pfizer is proud to be one of various vaccine manufacturers participating in Operation Warp Speed as a supplier of a potential COVID-19 vaccine,' Sharon Castillo, a Pfizer spokesperson, told Snopes in an email. 'While Pfizer did reach an advanced purchase agreement with the U.S. government, the company did not accept the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) funding for the research and development process. All the investment for R&D and manufacturing has been made by Pfizer at risk.' Technically, the work conducted by Pfizer and its partner, German drugmaker BioNTech, is an expansion of OWS and was operating under an agreement to meet the goal of OWS to deliver 300 million doses of a vaccine in 2021. As part of the agreement, the U.S. government would receive 100 million doses after the successful manufacturing of the vaccine and its approval by the FDA. However, that is not to say that the government had any hand in the research or development of the vaccine. Rather, it just agreed to buy the vaccines from the companies once they had gone through final approval. 'We made the early decision to begin clinical work and large-scale manufacturing at our own risk to ensure that product would be available immediately if our clinical trials prove successful and an Emergency Use Authorization is granted. We are honored to be a part of this effort to provide Americans access to protection from this deadly virus,' said Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, at the time. Pfizer and BioNTech have similar agreements with the European Union. What Do We Know About the Vaccine? The specific details about the Pfizer vaccine are not readily available. What we do know is that BNT162b2 is an mRNA-based vaccine that contained SARS-CoV-2 spike protein - the same protein that nearly all vaccination studies are targeting - that allows the virus to enter human cells and elicits an immune response from its host. The first doses administered to U.S. study participants, half of whom received the vaccine and the other half a placebo, were done so in May via intramuscular injection, which is similar to the flu shot. As part of a randomized placebo trial, two doses were each given three weeks apart with the vaccine not taking full effect until at least a week after the final dose. That means that a person couldn't expect protection until about a month after they were immunized. A three-dimensional simulation of the coronavirus spike protein just before binding to the human cell receptor. University of Arkansas An analysis of the interim results suggested that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease in study volunteers who did not have evidence of a prior COVID-19 infection - a rate that is similar to the measles vaccine administered in early childhood. No safety concerns were observed, but as the trial continues those findings could change. That's because the results are based on limited data from an early clinical trial, and it's unclear whether the vaccine prevents infection or just reduces symptoms. 'This is a very timely and encouraging development in the race to get an effective vaccine. It is difficult to fully evaluate the interim data without more information but it appears that the vaccine is able to protect against COVID-19 disease,' said Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology at Warwick Medical School. 'The big question is whether the vaccine can block virus infection and subsequent transmission. This additional data will be generated as further confirmed cases are identified and analyzed.' The 'promising' results were met with both encouragement and skepticism by the broader scientific community, which by and large said that it remains 'cautiously optimistic.' First and foremost, the results are interim and still await full trial results, meaning that these are non-peer-reviewed findings that were published midway through the clinical trial. Releasing the findings in the middle of a trial may further influence the integrity of the study, potentially biasing how future study participants respond or how their observations are reported. That could in turn make long-term follow-up with adequate randomization more challenging. There are other important limitations to the research that must be considered. Snopes read through the a 123-page study protocol document and found that while researchers describe the more than 43,000 participants as 'ethnically diverse,' they do not specify other characteristics that may make an individual's infection more extreme, such as age or co-morbidities. And while it is written that study participants were between the ages of 18 and 85, their exact demographics were not known. Furthermore, individuals with a high risk of severe infection were excluded from the first phase of testing and the preliminary findings did not determine how long the vaccination lasts. NurPhoto / Contributor When Will the Vaccine Be Available? Even after addressing the limitations, the results of an effective vaccine will not be felt immediately. 'With the best will in the world, this vaccine - or any other vaccine currently in trials - isn't going to change things for the majority of us this winter,' said Elenor Riley, a professor of immunology and infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh. 'So, we all need to accept that the current public health measures are going to remain in place at least until the end of the winter, possibly longer. But if this vaccine lives up to this early promise, and other vaccines work equally well, we may be able to look forward to a much better summer and autumn in 2021.' If the vaccine is proven to be robustly effective at the wider community level, experts warn that there must still be public trust and buy-in - a challenge given some political leaders have been quick to dismiss the severity of the outbreak. Then there is the logistical challenge of manufacturing and distributing vaccines globally. First doses must be prioritized for health care workers and vulnerable populations. And a logistical challenge lies in manufacturing and rolling out a vaccine that needs to be stored and maintained at very low temperatures (-94 to -112 degrees Fahrenheit). As the world waits, experts warn that the promise of a vaccine cannot allow the findings to 'seed complacency' and cause people to shy away from public health guidance. On the cusp of the vaccine candidate announcement, most nations in the world saw massive upticks in new coronavirus cases reported each day in October and November, according to data published by Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. On Nov. 4, 5, and 6, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported over 100,000 new coronavirus cases each day What Happens Next? Pfizer applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) of the two-dose vaccine with the FDA on Nov. 20. At this point, researchers had collected two months of safety data required to use the drug in some cases. However, that does not constitute full approval of the drug. At the time of this writing, just 94 of the nearly 44,000 trial participants had contracted COVID-19 and the study is expected to continue until at least 164 people test positive. Though the long-term safety and efficacy data remains to be seen, it is estimated that the manufacturers could produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021 to be distributed on an as-needed basis if a EUA is granted. The Pfizer study is estimated to be completed by Dec. 11, 2022.Recent Updates Update [Nov. 20, 2020]: This article was updated to reflect Pfizer's official filing of a EUA on Nov. 20.

Pfizer is developing an oral COVID-19 drug that is just a clone of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In September 2021, a number of news outlets reported on a new oral drug that was being developed by Pfizer to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As these reports circulated online, some social media users jokingly dubbed the new drug 'Pfizermectin,' a combination of the company's name and the drug ivermectin - a medication that was developed to treat parasite infections that has been the source of both confusion and controversy - and claimed that Pfizer was copying or cloning the drug. Why Is Ivermectin Controversial? Before we get to 'Pfizermectin,' let's look at why ivermectin has become controversial. Ivermectin is used to treat parasitic worms in both humans and farm animals. The developers of this drug won the Nobel Prize in 2015 after the drug was found to be quite successful at fighting River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. While this drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for parasite infections, it has not been approved as a treatment for COVID-19. Some studies, however, have suggested that ivermectin may have potential as a treatment for COVID-19, but those studies have largely been inconclusive. This has still led some people to try to self-medicate with the drug, and in some cases, for people to self-medicate with the horse version of the drug. In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

Pfizer is developing an oral COVID-19 drug that is just a clone of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In September 2021, a number of news outlets reported on a new oral drug that was being developed by Pfizer to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As these reports circulated online, some social media users jokingly dubbed the new drug 'Pfizermectin,' a combination of the company's name and the drug ivermectin - a medication that was developed to treat parasite infections that has been the source of both confusion and controversy - and claimed that Pfizer was copying or cloning the drug. Why Is Ivermectin Controversial? Before we get to 'Pfizermectin,' let's look at why ivermectin has become controversial. Ivermectin is used to treat parasitic worms in both humans and farm animals. The developers of this drug won the Nobel Prize in 2015 after the drug was found to be quite successful at fighting River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. While this drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for parasite infections, it has not been approved as a treatment for COVID-19. Some studies, however, have suggested that ivermectin may have potential as a treatment for COVID-19, but those studies have largely been inconclusive. This has still led some people to try to self-medicate with the drug, and in some cases, for people to self-medicate with the horse version of the drug. In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

Pfizer is developing an oral COVID-19 drug that is just a clone of the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In September 2021, a number of news outlets reported on a new oral drug that was being developed by Pfizer to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. As these reports circulated online, some social media users jokingly dubbed the new drug 'Pfizermectin,' a combination of the company's name and the drug ivermectin - a medication that was developed to treat parasite infections that has been the source of both confusion and controversy - and claimed that Pfizer was copying or cloning the drug. Why Is Ivermectin Controversial? Before we get to 'Pfizermectin,' let's look at why ivermectin has become controversial. Ivermectin is used to treat parasitic worms in both humans and farm animals. The developers of this drug won the Nobel Prize in 2015 after the drug was found to be quite successful at fighting River Blindness and Lymphatic Filariasis. While this drug has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for parasite infections, it has not been approved as a treatment for COVID-19. Some studies, however, have suggested that ivermectin may have potential as a treatment for COVID-19, but those studies have largely been inconclusive. This has still led some people to try to self-medicate with the drug, and in some cases, for people to self-medicate with the horse version of the drug. In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

In short, ivermectin is not (yet) an approved treatment for COVID-19. Is Pfizer's New Drug Just Repackaged Ivermectin? No. The above-displayed tweet claims that Pfizer's new drug, PF-07321332, is simply ivermectin with a new name. That is not true. The tweet then claims that Pfizer is rebranding this drug so that it can make the medication more expensive. That's nonsensical. Those spreading this claim appear to be under the belief that 'Big Pharma' is stealing an independently produced drug, partnering with government agencies to get the drug quickly approved, and then hiking up the price as it goes to market. But there are a few problems with this theory. For one, ivermectin is already produced by the 'Big Pharma' company Merck. If Pfizer was truly copying this drug, it seems plausible that Merck would be pushing back in the press or in lawsuits. But that hasn't been the case. Furthermore, ivermectin is already an approved drug by the FDA for its originally intended use: to treat parasite infections. The drug has not been approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19 because the drug has not been proven to be an effective treatment against COVID-19. But Ivermectin and Pfizer's New Drug Are Both 'Potent Protease Inhibitors,' Right? A more nuanced version of the 'Pfizermectin' rumor claims that both Pfizer's new drug and ivermectin act as 'potent protease inhibitors,' which, according to social media users, basically makes them the same drug. But that's not the case. Ivermectin was not developed as a protease inhibitor. This claim comes from a March 2021 study that investigated the efficacy of ivermectin as an antiviral drug. That study found that ivermectin was a 'blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2.' But protease inhibitors are a class of antiviral drugs that have been used to treat HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. In other words, there are several different drugs that act as a protease inhibitors ('Protease is an enzyme in the body,' according to Healthline, and 'Protease inhibitor drugs block the action of protease enzymes'). Just because two drugs may perform a similar function does not mean that they interchangeable or identical. A spokesperson for Pfizer told us: Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism. In the past, protease inhibitors revolutionized the treatment of HIV and Hepatitis C. Applying this powerful and potent mechanism of action to COVID-19 could alter the course of the pandemic. For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening. Dr. Stephen Griffin, a virologist and associate professor at Leeds Institute of Medical Research, told Full Fact that Pfizer's new drug was 'nothing like' ivermectin, and that the two drugs were 'extremely structurally different.' What's Pfizer's New Drug? Pfizer is currently conducting trials on a new oral drug, currently known as PF-07321332, to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The company said in a statement that the 'novel oral antiviral candidate PF-07321332' would be co-administered with a 'low dose of ritonavir,' another antiretroviral protease inhibitor, to prevent COVID-19 infections. Pfizer said in a statement: 'Protease inhibitors, like PF-07321332, are designed to block the activity of the main protease enzyme that the coronavirus needs to replicate.' Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer's chief scientific officer and president for Worldwide Research, Development, said: 'If successful, we believe this therapy could help stop the virus early - before it has had a chance to replicate extensively - potentially preventing symptomatic disease in those who have been exposed and inhibiting the onset of infection in others ... Given the continued emergence and evolution of SARS-CoV-2 variants and their immense impact, we continue to work diligently to develop and study new ways that our investigational oral antiviral candidate could potentially lower the impact of COVID-19, not only on patients' lives, but also the lives of their families and household members.'

There is a meaningful link between terrorist attacks and the 22nd day of the month

Contradiction

By our nature, humans look for patterns to help us understand and explain seemingly random and chaotic events and phenomena. Consider, for example, the old superstition that 'deaths come in threes.' Faced with horrific and seemingly incomprehensible events like the slaughter of children in a suicide bombing at a pop concert, the impulse to find patterns becomes even stronger. On 23 May 2017, a number of memes pointing out that a handful of high-profile terrorist attacks had taken place on the 22nd day of certain months gained popularity on social media. The latest of these was the suicide bomb attack in Manchester, England, on 22 May 2017. This tweet accurately states that: The terrorist murder of British soldier Lee Rigby took place in London on 22 May 2013. Three bombings at an airport and metro station in Brussels, Belgium, occured on 22 March 2016, killing 32 people. A shooting rampage left nine people dead in Munich, Germany, on 22 July 2016. A car and knife attack near the British Houses of Parliament in Westminster killed four people on 22 March 2017. On 23 May 2017, the Daily Mail joined the chorus, publishing an article whose lengthy headline begins 'Another jihadist attack on the 22nd.' The article, like many tweets and Facebook posts in the days following the Manchester bombing, outlines some significant recent attacks on the 22nd day of various months. The story claimed that 'Security agencies are understood to be examining the possibility that the date - the 22nd of the month - is significant,' before adding, 'Initial indications suggest there is no link.' The next day, the Men'sXP web site also published an article pointing to a 'dark and scary theory' about the timing of terrorist attacks: For some reason, the number 22 holds a lot of significance and seems to have a rather sinister link to the events of previous attacks... Others accurately pointed out that the Utoya massacre, in which Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage in and near Oslo, Norway, took place on 22 July 2011, and that a suicide bomb attack on a Christian church killed more than 120 people in Peshawar, Pakistan on 22 September 2013. Is there a pattern here? Sure - all these events took place on the 22nd day of a month. But there are patterns everywhere, if you look for them. For example, here's a selective list of prominent transport disasters and crashes that took place on the 23rd day of the month: 23 January 1909: The RMS Republic ocean liner collides with the SS Florida, and sinks 23 March 1994: A mid-air collision at Pope Air Force Base in Fayettefille, North Carolina kills 23 Air Force members 23 March 1994: Aeroflot Flight 593 crashed into a mountainside on its way from Moscow to Hong Kong, killing all 75 people on board 23 August 1944: A US Air Force Liberator bomber aircraft crashed in the village of Freckleton, in the north of England, killing 61 people in total 23 August 2000: Gulf Air Flight 072 from Egypt to Bahrain crashed after a failed attempt to land, killing all 143 people on board 23 August 2012: A hot-air balloon crash near Ljubljana, Slovenia kills four passengers. This is just a small selection of similar events that have taken place on the same day of different months, in different years. Some even took place on the same day of the same month (the final three in our list), and two took place on the same day of the same month in the same year. Spooky, right? Not really. All this list illustrates is that patterns can be found almost anywhere, if you go looking for them. Whether a pattern has any greater meaning, or a common factor that is anything more than coincidental, is the real question. Choice vs Coincidence Plane crashes are not like terrorist attacks, however. They are (generally) accidental, and therefore the date on which they occur is not chosen in advance. Are terrorists choosing their attacks for the 22nd day of various months, because it's the 22nd day of the month? Not exactly. We know that some terrorist attacks are timed for specific dates because they mark the anniversary of another attack or significant event. For example, Timothy McVeigh planned the Oklahoma City bombing for 19 April 1995 because it marked the second anniversary of the violent end of the FBI's siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas - which McVeigh had witnessed firsthand. And in December 2015, Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan were convicted of planning a thwarted bomb attack in London on 7 July that year, specifically to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7 July 2005 '7/7' attacks, which killed 52 people. We don't often get such clear confirmation of 'anniversary' plots, though. German police suggested Ali David Sonboly's 22 July 2016 shooting rampage in Munich may have been inspired by Anders Behring Breivik's Utoya massacre, exactly five years earlier. The country's Interior Minister said investigators had discovered that the 18-year-old had been researching Breivik's attacks. However, Sonboly killed himself after the attack and so did not face police questioning or a trial, during which the reasoning behind the date might have emerged more definitively. Similarly, Khalid Masood was shot dead by police after killing four people at Westminster in London on 22 March 2017, a year to the day after three terrorist bombings in Brussels. Julian King, the European Union's Security Commissioner, told a European Parliament committee: 'I don't think it was a complete accident that this attack took place on the first anniversary of the Brussels attacks...' It is also possible that Salman Abedi, the suspected Manchester Arena attacker, timed the bombing to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of British soldier Lee Rigby, who was brutally murdered in an Islamic extremist attack in London on 22 May 2013. But Abedi was killed in the suicide bombing on 22 May 2017, and so far, such a motive for the date of the attack hasn't been established, and may not have been present at all. Conclusion There are three essential points to bear in mind if you see a meme highlighting terrorist attacks that took place on the 22nd of the month: The whole date matters: When a terrorist attack is planned for a symbolically significant date, it's for a specific day in a specific month. It wasn't the number '7' that was important to Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan, in their 2015 bomb plot, it was the full date - 7 July, the 10-year-anniversary of the 2005 London bomb attacks. Likewise, Timothy McVeigh didn't invest huge symbolic weight in the 19th day of every month, just the 19th day of April. It's possible the Manchester Arena attack was timed to mark the anniversary of Lee Rigby's death, but even if it was, it wouldn't have been the number '22' that mattered to the bomber, but rather the specific date - 22 May.So focusing on the day of the month - whether it's the 22nd or not - entirely misses the point about 'anniversary' attacks, which are a real, though far from ubiquitous, part of global terrorism. Terrorists consider a variety of factors when planning an attack: Sometimes terrorists target specific events (for example, the Bastille Day truck attack that killed 86 people in Nice, France on 14 July 2016). Sometimes they target days of the week when public places are likely to be busy (for example, the 8 April 2017 truck attack on a shopping street in Stockholm, Sweden, which took place on a Friday afternoon). Sometimes their attacks are brought forward or pushed back for logistical reasons, or because law enforcement investigators are perceived to be 'closing in' on them. Terrorists are no more likely to attack on the 22nd than any other day: We analyzed the dates of 1,327 confirmed or suspected terrorist incidents in Western Europe and North America between 2010 and 2015, drawn from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database and found that the 22nd does not appear statistically more prone to incidents than any other day.In other words, the attacks listed in the May 2017 memes are blatantly cherry-picked from the hundreds of terrorist incidents that have taken place over the past four years.In the six years between 2010 and 2015, 31 incidents took place on the 22nd day of the month, which was actually the lowest number of any day (not that you should attach any particular significance to that). You can check out the data for yourself by downloading this spreadsheet. It's true that terrorists do sometimes choose the date of their attack to commemorate an event that's important to them - often a previous attack. So as time passes, it could become more likely that certain dates might see an exponential growth in the number of incidents planned or carried out. Of course, police and security agencies around the world are also very aware of these dates, and so the increased prevention and enforcement that comes on dates like 7 July and 11 September may mean such plots are more likely to be thwarted before being executed. But where a date has significance, it is the full date that matters - not the day of the month. There is no symbolic significance, mystical power, or terrorist conspiracy surrounding the number 22.

Conclusion There are three essential points to bear in mind if you see a meme highlighting terrorist attacks that took place on the 22nd of the month: The whole date matters: When a terrorist attack is planned for a symbolically significant date, it's for a specific day in a specific month. It wasn't the number '7' that was important to Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan, in their 2015 bomb plot, it was the full date - 7 July, the 10-year-anniversary of the 2005 London bomb attacks. Likewise, Timothy McVeigh didn't invest huge symbolic weight in the 19th day of every month, just the 19th day of April. It's possible the Manchester Arena attack was timed to mark the anniversary of Lee Rigby's death, but even if it was, it wouldn't have been the number '22' that mattered to the bomber, but rather the specific date - 22 May.So focusing on the day of the month - whether it's the 22nd or not - entirely misses the point about 'anniversary' attacks, which are a real, though far from ubiquitous, part of global terrorism. Terrorists consider a variety of factors when planning an attack: Sometimes terrorists target specific events (for example, the Bastille Day truck attack that killed 86 people in Nice, France on 14 July 2016). Sometimes they target days of the week when public places are likely to be busy (for example, the 8 April 2017 truck attack on a shopping street in Stockholm, Sweden, which took place on a Friday afternoon). Sometimes their attacks are brought forward or pushed back for logistical reasons, or because law enforcement investigators are perceived to be 'closing in' on them. Terrorists are no more likely to attack on the 22nd than any other day: We analyzed the dates of 1,327 confirmed or suspected terrorist incidents in Western Europe and North America between 2010 and 2015, drawn from the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database and found that the 22nd does not appear statistically more prone to incidents than any other day.In other words, the attacks listed in the May 2017 memes are blatantly cherry-picked from the hundreds of terrorist incidents that have taken place over the past four years.In the six years between 2010 and 2015, 31 incidents took place on the 22nd day of the month, which was actually the lowest number of any day (not that you should attach any particular significance to that). You can check out the data for yourself by downloading this spreadsheet. It's true that terrorists do sometimes choose the date of their attack to commemorate an event that's important to them - often a previous attack. So as time passes, it could become more likely that certain dates might see an exponential growth in the number of incidents planned or carried out. Of course, police and security agencies around the world are also very aware of these dates, and so the increased prevention and enforcement that comes on dates like 7 July and 11 September may mean such plots are more likely to be thwarted before being executed. But where a date has significance, it is the full date that matters - not the day of the month. There is no symbolic significance, mystical power, or terrorist conspiracy surrounding the number 22.

President Obama has started confiscating guns 'by force.

Contradiction

On 27 December 2015 the web site American Column published the misleadingly named article 'BREAKING: Obama Begins Confiscating Guns By Force.' The headline began with the word 'BREAKING,' suggesting that whatever followed was an extremely recent development. It continued: California has just submitted to Obama in a truly sickening way by launching an unconstitutional gun-grabbing plan. California has officially launched its most unconstitutional program yet, calling it the Armed Prohibited Persons System. The once supported system is gaining negativity as its true intentions are being played out and acted upon in the name of safety. The initial intent of the program was to disarm dangerous felons and people with serious mental illness but has since been modified. The state of California has generalized these categories to include anyone who has committed a felony and anyone who has needed a psychiatrist or taken drugs that benefit your mental state. They then took these generalizations one step further by including anyone involved in a domestic dispute and anyone convicted of a minor misdemeanor. We were unable to locate any developments pertaining to broad gun policy in California in December 2015, much less any suggesting President Obama was 'confiscating' guns 'by force.' The words 'gun-grabbing plan' linked to a separate article off-site. That article was titled 'Forceful Gun Confiscation Begins In California,' and published by the web site Mr. Conservative on 28 December 2013. Notably, in the intervening two years between those iterations, no 'gun grab' executed 'by force' transpired in California. The Mr. Conservative article contained much of the same text verbatim, down to a photograph of a purported firearm confiscation victim and an excerpt from the web site Downtrend. Neither article provided links to their source material. The Downtrend article, published on 23 August 2013, held that: Earlier this year, the state legislature expanded the list of what they call 'prohibited persons' - people who have legally registered a firearm but, for various reasons, are no longer allowed their Second Amendment rights. These reasons were expanded to include people who are behind on state taxes, did not pay toll fees in a 'timely' manner and a wide range of other minor misdemeanors or reported mental health concerns. In preparation for the crackdown, the state authorized $24 million to hire additional officers to track down 20,000 people on the list. One person on this list was Joe Mendez. A police officer came to the door and lured Mendez out of his house with a story of a hit and run report. Once outside, he had M16s pointed within inches of his face, was taken into custody and had all weapons removed from his house. While American Column's rehash was published on 27 December 2015, the Washington Times ran an article a few days later that noted: Gun-safety legislation going into effect in California will allow authorities to seize a person's weapons for 21 days if a judge determines there's potential for violence. Proposed in the wake of a deadly May 2014 shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger, the bill provides family members with a means of having an emergency 'gun violence restraining order' imposed against a loved one if they can convince a judge that allowing that person to possess a firearm 'poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself or another by having in his or her custody or control.' 'The law gives us a vehicle to cause the person to surrender their weapons, to have a time out, if you will,' Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michael Moore told a local NPR affiliate. 'It allows further examination of the person's mental state.' It appeared coincidental that material originally written prior to Rodgers' 2014 rampage (the 2013 articles published by Downtrend and Mr. Conservative and lifted for republishing by American Column) circulated at the same time. Nevertheless, social media users expressed concern that some sort of a gun-grabbing spree was underway in California, at the direction of President Obama. Those articles referenced California's 'Armed & Prohibited Persons System (APPS),' which was not novel legislation [PDF], and which came into existence in 2001, nearly eight years prior to the inauguration of President Obama. Even by Washington Times' description, the gun surrender described was not indiscriminate but something triggered by family member concerns that were reported to authorities. It simply allowed for an 'emergency 'gun violence restraining order'' option with respect to individuals armed with guns who were behaving erratically. In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

President Obama has started confiscating guns 'by force.

Contradiction

On 27 December 2015 the web site American Column published the misleadingly named article 'BREAKING: Obama Begins Confiscating Guns By Force.' The headline began with the word 'BREAKING,' suggesting that whatever followed was an extremely recent development. It continued: California has just submitted to Obama in a truly sickening way by launching an unconstitutional gun-grabbing plan. California has officially launched its most unconstitutional program yet, calling it the Armed Prohibited Persons System. The once supported system is gaining negativity as its true intentions are being played out and acted upon in the name of safety. The initial intent of the program was to disarm dangerous felons and people with serious mental illness but has since been modified. The state of California has generalized these categories to include anyone who has committed a felony and anyone who has needed a psychiatrist or taken drugs that benefit your mental state. They then took these generalizations one step further by including anyone involved in a domestic dispute and anyone convicted of a minor misdemeanor. We were unable to locate any developments pertaining to broad gun policy in California in December 2015, much less any suggesting President Obama was 'confiscating' guns 'by force.' The words 'gun-grabbing plan' linked to a separate article off-site. That article was titled 'Forceful Gun Confiscation Begins In California,' and published by the web site Mr. Conservative on 28 December 2013. Notably, in the intervening two years between those iterations, no 'gun grab' executed 'by force' transpired in California. The Mr. Conservative article contained much of the same text verbatim, down to a photograph of a purported firearm confiscation victim and an excerpt from the web site Downtrend. Neither article provided links to their source material. The Downtrend article, published on 23 August 2013, held that: Earlier this year, the state legislature expanded the list of what they call 'prohibited persons' - people who have legally registered a firearm but, for various reasons, are no longer allowed their Second Amendment rights. These reasons were expanded to include people who are behind on state taxes, did not pay toll fees in a 'timely' manner and a wide range of other minor misdemeanors or reported mental health concerns. In preparation for the crackdown, the state authorized $24 million to hire additional officers to track down 20,000 people on the list. One person on this list was Joe Mendez. A police officer came to the door and lured Mendez out of his house with a story of a hit and run report. Once outside, he had M16s pointed within inches of his face, was taken into custody and had all weapons removed from his house. While American Column's rehash was published on 27 December 2015, the Washington Times ran an article a few days later that noted: Gun-safety legislation going into effect in California will allow authorities to seize a person's weapons for 21 days if a judge determines there's potential for violence. Proposed in the wake of a deadly May 2014 shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger, the bill provides family members with a means of having an emergency 'gun violence restraining order' imposed against a loved one if they can convince a judge that allowing that person to possess a firearm 'poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself or another by having in his or her custody or control.' 'The law gives us a vehicle to cause the person to surrender their weapons, to have a time out, if you will,' Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michael Moore told a local NPR affiliate. 'It allows further examination of the person's mental state.' It appeared coincidental that material originally written prior to Rodgers' 2014 rampage (the 2013 articles published by Downtrend and Mr. Conservative and lifted for republishing by American Column) circulated at the same time. Nevertheless, social media users expressed concern that some sort of a gun-grabbing spree was underway in California, at the direction of President Obama. Those articles referenced California's 'Armed & Prohibited Persons System (APPS),' which was not novel legislation [PDF], and which came into existence in 2001, nearly eight years prior to the inauguration of President Obama. Even by Washington Times' description, the gun surrender described was not indiscriminate but something triggered by family member concerns that were reported to authorities. It simply allowed for an 'emergency 'gun violence restraining order'' option with respect to individuals armed with guns who were behaving erratically. In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

President Obama has started confiscating guns 'by force.

Contradiction

On 27 December 2015 the web site American Column published the misleadingly named article 'BREAKING: Obama Begins Confiscating Guns By Force.' The headline began with the word 'BREAKING,' suggesting that whatever followed was an extremely recent development. It continued: California has just submitted to Obama in a truly sickening way by launching an unconstitutional gun-grabbing plan. California has officially launched its most unconstitutional program yet, calling it the Armed Prohibited Persons System. The once supported system is gaining negativity as its true intentions are being played out and acted upon in the name of safety. The initial intent of the program was to disarm dangerous felons and people with serious mental illness but has since been modified. The state of California has generalized these categories to include anyone who has committed a felony and anyone who has needed a psychiatrist or taken drugs that benefit your mental state. They then took these generalizations one step further by including anyone involved in a domestic dispute and anyone convicted of a minor misdemeanor. We were unable to locate any developments pertaining to broad gun policy in California in December 2015, much less any suggesting President Obama was 'confiscating' guns 'by force.' The words 'gun-grabbing plan' linked to a separate article off-site. That article was titled 'Forceful Gun Confiscation Begins In California,' and published by the web site Mr. Conservative on 28 December 2013. Notably, in the intervening two years between those iterations, no 'gun grab' executed 'by force' transpired in California. The Mr. Conservative article contained much of the same text verbatim, down to a photograph of a purported firearm confiscation victim and an excerpt from the web site Downtrend. Neither article provided links to their source material. The Downtrend article, published on 23 August 2013, held that: Earlier this year, the state legislature expanded the list of what they call 'prohibited persons' - people who have legally registered a firearm but, for various reasons, are no longer allowed their Second Amendment rights. These reasons were expanded to include people who are behind on state taxes, did not pay toll fees in a 'timely' manner and a wide range of other minor misdemeanors or reported mental health concerns. In preparation for the crackdown, the state authorized $24 million to hire additional officers to track down 20,000 people on the list. One person on this list was Joe Mendez. A police officer came to the door and lured Mendez out of his house with a story of a hit and run report. Once outside, he had M16s pointed within inches of his face, was taken into custody and had all weapons removed from his house. While American Column's rehash was published on 27 December 2015, the Washington Times ran an article a few days later that noted: Gun-safety legislation going into effect in California will allow authorities to seize a person's weapons for 21 days if a judge determines there's potential for violence. Proposed in the wake of a deadly May 2014 shooting rampage by Elliot Rodger, the bill provides family members with a means of having an emergency 'gun violence restraining order' imposed against a loved one if they can convince a judge that allowing that person to possess a firearm 'poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to himself, herself or another by having in his or her custody or control.' 'The law gives us a vehicle to cause the person to surrender their weapons, to have a time out, if you will,' Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Michael Moore told a local NPR affiliate. 'It allows further examination of the person's mental state.' It appeared coincidental that material originally written prior to Rodgers' 2014 rampage (the 2013 articles published by Downtrend and Mr. Conservative and lifted for republishing by American Column) circulated at the same time. Nevertheless, social media users expressed concern that some sort of a gun-grabbing spree was underway in California, at the direction of President Obama. Those articles referenced California's 'Armed & Prohibited Persons System (APPS),' which was not novel legislation [PDF], and which came into existence in 2001, nearly eight years prior to the inauguration of President Obama. Even by Washington Times' description, the gun surrender described was not indiscriminate but something triggered by family member concerns that were reported to authorities. It simply allowed for an 'emergency 'gun violence restraining order'' option with respect to individuals armed with guns who were behaving erratically. In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

In short, an article claiming that President Obama began confiscating guns (originally published in August 2013, republished without additional information in December 2015) began recirculating in late December 2015. At roughly the same time, news outlets reported a new law involving temporary restrictions on gun possession based upon family reports of an individual's compromised mental state. The former appeared to be purely scarelore, as no wide-scale confiscations occurred between the three appearances of identical articles. The latter was marginally true, but it involved the acquisition of a formal legal injunction based on the ruling of a judge.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an actress playing a congresswoman to push the agenda of Justice Democrats.

Contradiction

In March 2019, our inbox started to fill with queries from readers who had heard that U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was an 'actress' who was playing the role of congresswoman in order to further the agenda of a political group. These questions were based on a popular video entitled 'The Brains Behind AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' by YouTube user 'Mr. Reagan.' The video, which can be viewed at the end of this article, hits on a number of issues in its 23 minutes, but the essential argument is that Ocasio-Cortez was 'cast' by the group Justice Democrats into the 'role' of congresswoman, and that she is merely a figurehead (or 'puppet congresswoman') pushing the group's agenda. Here's the opening statement from Mr. Reagan: Mr. Reagan: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not really the congresswoman of new york's 14th congressional district. She is essentially an actress. She's merely playing the part of a New York Congresswoman. I know this sounds crazy. But bare with me. In 2017, a group called the Justice Democrats held auditions for potential congressional candidates that would run on their platform for various congressional seats throughout the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' brother Gabriel submitted her for the role. Now I've auditioned for many acting roles in my day. I've also cast many of my own projects. I know how this works. If you find somebody with star power, even if they don't 100% fit the part, you go with it. Obviously AOC has star power. Just look at her. She's a superstar. The most famous person in congress, maybe ever. Their casting was perfect. Now I didn't have to go digging for evidence for this, because they freely admit it. They brag about it. Cut to Alexandra Rojas. Executive Director Justice Democrats, saying: Back in 2016, we put out a call for nominations. We got over 10,000 nominations, out of those 10,000 nominations we found Alexandria. Cut to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying: My brother told me that he had sent my nominations in the summer but I was like literally working out of a restaurant and I was like there's no way. Back to Mr. Reagan: A casting call. They had a casting call. They cast Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the role of congresswoman. And they did this so they could promote their own agenda. Mr. Reagan repeatedly used words such as 'role,' 'audition,' 'casting call' and labeled Ocasio-Cortez 'essentially an actress' in this video in an apparent attempt to paint the congresswoman with the same conspiratorial brush used to promote 'crisis actor' and 'paid protester' conspiracy theories. Ironically, the only actor in this scenario is Chris Kohls, who plays the character of Mr. Reagan. Kohls told us in an email that 'the use of the word 'actress' was illustrative.' He continued: 'I did not mean to suggest that this was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's actual profession or an official role. I thought this was clear.' While Kohls admits that the congresswoman was not an actress in the literal sense, he said that he still believes she 'audition(ed) for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats.' Kohls elaborated on this point via email: AOC did, however, audition for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats. I have never heard of an organization holding auditions, open to the public, for congressional seats. Perhaps I am naive about that. I have never heard of this, and the response to my video suggests that most Americans find it inappropriate as well. The 'Brains Behind AOC' video correctly states that Ocasio-Cortez was recruited by the Justice Democrats to run for office. However, this fact is presented in the video as if it were an unprecedented act of political malfeasance. In reality, it is quite common for Political Action Committees (PACs) to recruit candidates for office. The Justice Democrats made no attempt to hide this effort and openly discuss their recruitment process on their website and in videos published to their public YouTube page: PACs, which have been around since the 1940s, are organizations that raise money to help run campaigns for or against political candidates. While these groups may throw their support behind existing candidates who they believe will further their cause, they also recruit like-minded candidates and help them get elected to office. We conducted a brief search for other PACs that publish recruitment material and found numerous of organizations that actively seek candidates for political positions, such as Brand New Congress, Run for Something, Emily's List, BRAT-PAC, The National Federation for Republican Women, Winning for Women, American Possibilities, Elevate-Pac, The Collective Pac, and Principled Pac. In the case of the Justice Democrats, their main platform ideas are Medicare for All, protecting the environment, and racial justice. Mr. Reagan would have viewers believe that Ocasio-Cortez had no interest in politics before she was 'cast' by the Justice Democrats, and that she was only taking up these causes because she was a 'puppet congresswoman.' But that isn't the case. Before Ocasio-Cortez ran for office, she volunteered for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign (a candidate who supports the same issues as the Justice Democrats). She was also involved in the Standing Rock protests and talked about issues such as civil rights, social change, and income equality before receiving support from the Justice Democrats. The fact that she shares these beliefs is not proof that Justice Democrats are 'controlling' her. It's merely evidence that AOC and the Justice Democrats were a good fit. While Mr. Reagan argues in 'The Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez is a 'puppet congresswoman' controlled by the Justice Democrats, Kohls told us, again, that this was pure speculation: My assertion is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is presenting ideas to congress and to the public as of they are her own, but that they are not her own. They are the idea of the Justice Democrats and that this group, in particular Saikat Chakrabarti, are drafting everything for her. When I say 'everything' I mean her official proposals to congress, her answers to questions by the media, her tweets and her unofficial propositions to the public. I also believe that she is directed on how to vote, but this is pure speculation. Mr. Reagan argues in 'Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez 'does not make her own policy decisions... decides which way she votes on legislation' but that 'she defers completely to her team.' In addition to admitting in his email that these claims are based purely on speculation, this argument also appears to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how politicians operate. While the public may be more familiar with the names and faces of senators and representatives, lawmakers have teams of people behind them that help guide them through interviews, debates, public messaging, and other political responsibilities. In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an actress playing a congresswoman to push the agenda of Justice Democrats.

Contradiction

In March 2019, our inbox started to fill with queries from readers who had heard that U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was an 'actress' who was playing the role of congresswoman in order to further the agenda of a political group. These questions were based on a popular video entitled 'The Brains Behind AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' by YouTube user 'Mr. Reagan.' The video, which can be viewed at the end of this article, hits on a number of issues in its 23 minutes, but the essential argument is that Ocasio-Cortez was 'cast' by the group Justice Democrats into the 'role' of congresswoman, and that she is merely a figurehead (or 'puppet congresswoman') pushing the group's agenda. Here's the opening statement from Mr. Reagan: Mr. Reagan: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not really the congresswoman of new york's 14th congressional district. She is essentially an actress. She's merely playing the part of a New York Congresswoman. I know this sounds crazy. But bare with me. In 2017, a group called the Justice Democrats held auditions for potential congressional candidates that would run on their platform for various congressional seats throughout the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' brother Gabriel submitted her for the role. Now I've auditioned for many acting roles in my day. I've also cast many of my own projects. I know how this works. If you find somebody with star power, even if they don't 100% fit the part, you go with it. Obviously AOC has star power. Just look at her. She's a superstar. The most famous person in congress, maybe ever. Their casting was perfect. Now I didn't have to go digging for evidence for this, because they freely admit it. They brag about it. Cut to Alexandra Rojas. Executive Director Justice Democrats, saying: Back in 2016, we put out a call for nominations. We got over 10,000 nominations, out of those 10,000 nominations we found Alexandria. Cut to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying: My brother told me that he had sent my nominations in the summer but I was like literally working out of a restaurant and I was like there's no way. Back to Mr. Reagan: A casting call. They had a casting call. They cast Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the role of congresswoman. And they did this so they could promote their own agenda. Mr. Reagan repeatedly used words such as 'role,' 'audition,' 'casting call' and labeled Ocasio-Cortez 'essentially an actress' in this video in an apparent attempt to paint the congresswoman with the same conspiratorial brush used to promote 'crisis actor' and 'paid protester' conspiracy theories. Ironically, the only actor in this scenario is Chris Kohls, who plays the character of Mr. Reagan. Kohls told us in an email that 'the use of the word 'actress' was illustrative.' He continued: 'I did not mean to suggest that this was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's actual profession or an official role. I thought this was clear.' While Kohls admits that the congresswoman was not an actress in the literal sense, he said that he still believes she 'audition(ed) for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats.' Kohls elaborated on this point via email: AOC did, however, audition for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats. I have never heard of an organization holding auditions, open to the public, for congressional seats. Perhaps I am naive about that. I have never heard of this, and the response to my video suggests that most Americans find it inappropriate as well. The 'Brains Behind AOC' video correctly states that Ocasio-Cortez was recruited by the Justice Democrats to run for office. However, this fact is presented in the video as if it were an unprecedented act of political malfeasance. In reality, it is quite common for Political Action Committees (PACs) to recruit candidates for office. The Justice Democrats made no attempt to hide this effort and openly discuss their recruitment process on their website and in videos published to their public YouTube page: PACs, which have been around since the 1940s, are organizations that raise money to help run campaigns for or against political candidates. While these groups may throw their support behind existing candidates who they believe will further their cause, they also recruit like-minded candidates and help them get elected to office. We conducted a brief search for other PACs that publish recruitment material and found numerous of organizations that actively seek candidates for political positions, such as Brand New Congress, Run for Something, Emily's List, BRAT-PAC, The National Federation for Republican Women, Winning for Women, American Possibilities, Elevate-Pac, The Collective Pac, and Principled Pac. In the case of the Justice Democrats, their main platform ideas are Medicare for All, protecting the environment, and racial justice. Mr. Reagan would have viewers believe that Ocasio-Cortez had no interest in politics before she was 'cast' by the Justice Democrats, and that she was only taking up these causes because she was a 'puppet congresswoman.' But that isn't the case. Before Ocasio-Cortez ran for office, she volunteered for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign (a candidate who supports the same issues as the Justice Democrats). She was also involved in the Standing Rock protests and talked about issues such as civil rights, social change, and income equality before receiving support from the Justice Democrats. The fact that she shares these beliefs is not proof that Justice Democrats are 'controlling' her. It's merely evidence that AOC and the Justice Democrats were a good fit. While Mr. Reagan argues in 'The Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez is a 'puppet congresswoman' controlled by the Justice Democrats, Kohls told us, again, that this was pure speculation: My assertion is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is presenting ideas to congress and to the public as of they are her own, but that they are not her own. They are the idea of the Justice Democrats and that this group, in particular Saikat Chakrabarti, are drafting everything for her. When I say 'everything' I mean her official proposals to congress, her answers to questions by the media, her tweets and her unofficial propositions to the public. I also believe that she is directed on how to vote, but this is pure speculation. Mr. Reagan argues in 'Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez 'does not make her own policy decisions... decides which way she votes on legislation' but that 'she defers completely to her team.' In addition to admitting in his email that these claims are based purely on speculation, this argument also appears to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how politicians operate. While the public may be more familiar with the names and faces of senators and representatives, lawmakers have teams of people behind them that help guide them through interviews, debates, public messaging, and other political responsibilities. In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an actress playing a congresswoman to push the agenda of Justice Democrats.

Contradiction

In March 2019, our inbox started to fill with queries from readers who had heard that U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was an 'actress' who was playing the role of congresswoman in order to further the agenda of a political group. These questions were based on a popular video entitled 'The Brains Behind AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' by YouTube user 'Mr. Reagan.' The video, which can be viewed at the end of this article, hits on a number of issues in its 23 minutes, but the essential argument is that Ocasio-Cortez was 'cast' by the group Justice Democrats into the 'role' of congresswoman, and that she is merely a figurehead (or 'puppet congresswoman') pushing the group's agenda. Here's the opening statement from Mr. Reagan: Mr. Reagan: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not really the congresswoman of new york's 14th congressional district. She is essentially an actress. She's merely playing the part of a New York Congresswoman. I know this sounds crazy. But bare with me. In 2017, a group called the Justice Democrats held auditions for potential congressional candidates that would run on their platform for various congressional seats throughout the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' brother Gabriel submitted her for the role. Now I've auditioned for many acting roles in my day. I've also cast many of my own projects. I know how this works. If you find somebody with star power, even if they don't 100% fit the part, you go with it. Obviously AOC has star power. Just look at her. She's a superstar. The most famous person in congress, maybe ever. Their casting was perfect. Now I didn't have to go digging for evidence for this, because they freely admit it. They brag about it. Cut to Alexandra Rojas. Executive Director Justice Democrats, saying: Back in 2016, we put out a call for nominations. We got over 10,000 nominations, out of those 10,000 nominations we found Alexandria. Cut to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying: My brother told me that he had sent my nominations in the summer but I was like literally working out of a restaurant and I was like there's no way. Back to Mr. Reagan: A casting call. They had a casting call. They cast Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the role of congresswoman. And they did this so they could promote their own agenda. Mr. Reagan repeatedly used words such as 'role,' 'audition,' 'casting call' and labeled Ocasio-Cortez 'essentially an actress' in this video in an apparent attempt to paint the congresswoman with the same conspiratorial brush used to promote 'crisis actor' and 'paid protester' conspiracy theories. Ironically, the only actor in this scenario is Chris Kohls, who plays the character of Mr. Reagan. Kohls told us in an email that 'the use of the word 'actress' was illustrative.' He continued: 'I did not mean to suggest that this was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's actual profession or an official role. I thought this was clear.' While Kohls admits that the congresswoman was not an actress in the literal sense, he said that he still believes she 'audition(ed) for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats.' Kohls elaborated on this point via email: AOC did, however, audition for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats. I have never heard of an organization holding auditions, open to the public, for congressional seats. Perhaps I am naive about that. I have never heard of this, and the response to my video suggests that most Americans find it inappropriate as well. The 'Brains Behind AOC' video correctly states that Ocasio-Cortez was recruited by the Justice Democrats to run for office. However, this fact is presented in the video as if it were an unprecedented act of political malfeasance. In reality, it is quite common for Political Action Committees (PACs) to recruit candidates for office. The Justice Democrats made no attempt to hide this effort and openly discuss their recruitment process on their website and in videos published to their public YouTube page: PACs, which have been around since the 1940s, are organizations that raise money to help run campaigns for or against political candidates. While these groups may throw their support behind existing candidates who they believe will further their cause, they also recruit like-minded candidates and help them get elected to office. We conducted a brief search for other PACs that publish recruitment material and found numerous of organizations that actively seek candidates for political positions, such as Brand New Congress, Run for Something, Emily's List, BRAT-PAC, The National Federation for Republican Women, Winning for Women, American Possibilities, Elevate-Pac, The Collective Pac, and Principled Pac. In the case of the Justice Democrats, their main platform ideas are Medicare for All, protecting the environment, and racial justice. Mr. Reagan would have viewers believe that Ocasio-Cortez had no interest in politics before she was 'cast' by the Justice Democrats, and that she was only taking up these causes because she was a 'puppet congresswoman.' But that isn't the case. Before Ocasio-Cortez ran for office, she volunteered for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign (a candidate who supports the same issues as the Justice Democrats). She was also involved in the Standing Rock protests and talked about issues such as civil rights, social change, and income equality before receiving support from the Justice Democrats. The fact that she shares these beliefs is not proof that Justice Democrats are 'controlling' her. It's merely evidence that AOC and the Justice Democrats were a good fit. While Mr. Reagan argues in 'The Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez is a 'puppet congresswoman' controlled by the Justice Democrats, Kohls told us, again, that this was pure speculation: My assertion is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is presenting ideas to congress and to the public as of they are her own, but that they are not her own. They are the idea of the Justice Democrats and that this group, in particular Saikat Chakrabarti, are drafting everything for her. When I say 'everything' I mean her official proposals to congress, her answers to questions by the media, her tweets and her unofficial propositions to the public. I also believe that she is directed on how to vote, but this is pure speculation. Mr. Reagan argues in 'Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez 'does not make her own policy decisions... decides which way she votes on legislation' but that 'she defers completely to her team.' In addition to admitting in his email that these claims are based purely on speculation, this argument also appears to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how politicians operate. While the public may be more familiar with the names and faces of senators and representatives, lawmakers have teams of people behind them that help guide them through interviews, debates, public messaging, and other political responsibilities. In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is an actress playing a congresswoman to push the agenda of Justice Democrats.

Contradiction

In March 2019, our inbox started to fill with queries from readers who had heard that U. S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was an 'actress' who was playing the role of congresswoman in order to further the agenda of a political group. These questions were based on a popular video entitled 'The Brains Behind AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' by YouTube user 'Mr. Reagan.' The video, which can be viewed at the end of this article, hits on a number of issues in its 23 minutes, but the essential argument is that Ocasio-Cortez was 'cast' by the group Justice Democrats into the 'role' of congresswoman, and that she is merely a figurehead (or 'puppet congresswoman') pushing the group's agenda. Here's the opening statement from Mr. Reagan: Mr. Reagan: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not really the congresswoman of new york's 14th congressional district. She is essentially an actress. She's merely playing the part of a New York Congresswoman. I know this sounds crazy. But bare with me. In 2017, a group called the Justice Democrats held auditions for potential congressional candidates that would run on their platform for various congressional seats throughout the country. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' brother Gabriel submitted her for the role. Now I've auditioned for many acting roles in my day. I've also cast many of my own projects. I know how this works. If you find somebody with star power, even if they don't 100% fit the part, you go with it. Obviously AOC has star power. Just look at her. She's a superstar. The most famous person in congress, maybe ever. Their casting was perfect. Now I didn't have to go digging for evidence for this, because they freely admit it. They brag about it. Cut to Alexandra Rojas. Executive Director Justice Democrats, saying: Back in 2016, we put out a call for nominations. We got over 10,000 nominations, out of those 10,000 nominations we found Alexandria. Cut to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying: My brother told me that he had sent my nominations in the summer but I was like literally working out of a restaurant and I was like there's no way. Back to Mr. Reagan: A casting call. They had a casting call. They cast Alexandria Ocasio Cortez in the role of congresswoman. And they did this so they could promote their own agenda. Mr. Reagan repeatedly used words such as 'role,' 'audition,' 'casting call' and labeled Ocasio-Cortez 'essentially an actress' in this video in an apparent attempt to paint the congresswoman with the same conspiratorial brush used to promote 'crisis actor' and 'paid protester' conspiracy theories. Ironically, the only actor in this scenario is Chris Kohls, who plays the character of Mr. Reagan. Kohls told us in an email that 'the use of the word 'actress' was illustrative.' He continued: 'I did not mean to suggest that this was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's actual profession or an official role. I thought this was clear.' While Kohls admits that the congresswoman was not an actress in the literal sense, he said that he still believes she 'audition(ed) for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats.' Kohls elaborated on this point via email: AOC did, however, audition for the role of congress woman as a response to an open casting call by Justice Democrats. I have never heard of an organization holding auditions, open to the public, for congressional seats. Perhaps I am naive about that. I have never heard of this, and the response to my video suggests that most Americans find it inappropriate as well. The 'Brains Behind AOC' video correctly states that Ocasio-Cortez was recruited by the Justice Democrats to run for office. However, this fact is presented in the video as if it were an unprecedented act of political malfeasance. In reality, it is quite common for Political Action Committees (PACs) to recruit candidates for office. The Justice Democrats made no attempt to hide this effort and openly discuss their recruitment process on their website and in videos published to their public YouTube page: PACs, which have been around since the 1940s, are organizations that raise money to help run campaigns for or against political candidates. While these groups may throw their support behind existing candidates who they believe will further their cause, they also recruit like-minded candidates and help them get elected to office. We conducted a brief search for other PACs that publish recruitment material and found numerous of organizations that actively seek candidates for political positions, such as Brand New Congress, Run for Something, Emily's List, BRAT-PAC, The National Federation for Republican Women, Winning for Women, American Possibilities, Elevate-Pac, The Collective Pac, and Principled Pac. In the case of the Justice Democrats, their main platform ideas are Medicare for All, protecting the environment, and racial justice. Mr. Reagan would have viewers believe that Ocasio-Cortez had no interest in politics before she was 'cast' by the Justice Democrats, and that she was only taking up these causes because she was a 'puppet congresswoman.' But that isn't the case. Before Ocasio-Cortez ran for office, she volunteered for Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign (a candidate who supports the same issues as the Justice Democrats). She was also involved in the Standing Rock protests and talked about issues such as civil rights, social change, and income equality before receiving support from the Justice Democrats. The fact that she shares these beliefs is not proof that Justice Democrats are 'controlling' her. It's merely evidence that AOC and the Justice Democrats were a good fit. While Mr. Reagan argues in 'The Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez is a 'puppet congresswoman' controlled by the Justice Democrats, Kohls told us, again, that this was pure speculation: My assertion is that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is presenting ideas to congress and to the public as of they are her own, but that they are not her own. They are the idea of the Justice Democrats and that this group, in particular Saikat Chakrabarti, are drafting everything for her. When I say 'everything' I mean her official proposals to congress, her answers to questions by the media, her tweets and her unofficial propositions to the public. I also believe that she is directed on how to vote, but this is pure speculation. Mr. Reagan argues in 'Brains Behind AOC' that Ocasio-Cortez 'does not make her own policy decisions... decides which way she votes on legislation' but that 'she defers completely to her team.' In addition to admitting in his email that these claims are based purely on speculation, this argument also appears to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how politicians operate. While the public may be more familiar with the names and faces of senators and representatives, lawmakers have teams of people behind them that help guide them through interviews, debates, public messaging, and other political responsibilities. In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

In short, it is not uncommon for a lawmaker to prepare for an interview or speech with the help of her staff. Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman's chief of staff, pushed back on the 'Brains Behind AOC' video and said that Ocasio-Cortez does more than most lawmakers when it comes to her own messaging: The right-wing actually cannot believe that a working class latina like @AOC is smart, talented, and capable. They are creating entire conspiracy theories to try to disprove her intelligence. So here's some @AOC facts to show y'all just how good she is. 1) @AOC runs her own Twitter/IG. This is VERY rare in Congress. Most politicians have staff come up with what to say/figure out how to frame things. But @AOC's knowledge of issues is so deep that she does the communicating/framing herself. 2) @AOC writes all her own speeches. Though, TBH, most of her 🔥 speeches are off the dome. Just watch Coates interview her. She can talk in depth on policy issues for hours (unlike most politicians) because she REALLY knows what she's talking about. 3) Unlike most MoCs [members of Congress], @AOC sits through full committee hearings and will often improvise on questions based on what she's observing. Nobody prepped her to 'play a game' in the HR1 hearing, and her entire staff watched it live with jaws dropped. 4) @AOC is one of the smartest & hardest working people I've ever known. Right wingers not comprehending this is peak racism/sexism - and also fear. If @AOC can do this, what's to stop other talented working-class women of color from vying for power? Must keep 'em up at night. For those unfamiliar with political action committees or political advisers, 'The Brains Behind AOC' may appear to be a well-produced video featuring a convincing narrative of how a political group 'cast' a 'star' into the role of congresswoman in order to further their agenda. However, the arguments made in this video are pure speculation and seem to largely be based on a misunderstanding of how PACs operate. It's actually rather common for PACs, such as Justice Democrats, to seek out candidates, such as Ocasio-Cortez, who share their core beliefs, and even more commonplace for politicians to seek out the advice of their staff. You can watch the 'Brains Behind AOC' video in full below:

An American diplomat named Melanie Honcharenko was found dead shortly before testifying in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump.

Contradiction

On Dec. 4, 2019, the White House Insider published an article claiming that 'American diplomat Melanie Honcharenko' was found dead in her home shortly before testifying in the impeachment inquiry against U.S. President Donald Trump: American Diplomat Melanie Honcharenko was discovered dead in her North Potomac, MD home early Wednesday morning. No details are known at the moment; Maryland authorities have yet to make a statement of any kind. What is known is that Honcharenko has played an active diplomatic role in Ukraine since 2016, and was an active participant in a number of the incidents described by the witnesses in the Impeachment proceedings of President Donald Trump, and was set to be deposed behind closed doors sometime next week due to the classified nature of her work in Ukraine. This is not a genuine news article, and an American diplomat by that name was not found dead in her home shortly before testifying in the impeachment inquiry into Trump. First, we were unable to find any record of an American diplomat by this name. In fact, we were unable to find any person with this name prior to the publication of White House Insider article. Furthermore, a woman by the name Melanie Honcharenko was never scheduled to deliver testimony during the impeachment inquiry into Trump. The House Intelligence Committee announced the witnesses who would publicly testify in November 2019. The witnesses scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee were announced in early December 2019. The name 'Honcharenko' appeared on no lists. We also performed a reverse-image search on the photograph that White House Insider claimed showed Honcharenko. We found that the person featured in this image was actually a professor at the University of Alberta named Alla Nedashkivska. In short, the White House Insider article took a photograph of an unrelated woman, invented the name of American diplomat, and then claimed without evidence that she was found dead in her home before testifying in Trump's impeachment inquiry.

In short, the White House Insider article took a photograph of an unrelated woman, invented the name of American diplomat, and then claimed without evidence that she was found dead in her home before testifying in Trump's impeachment inquiry.

Photographs of President-elect Joe Biden's earlobes over time shows an individual stands in as him for some public events.

Contradiction

Voting in the 2020 U.S. Election may be over, but the misinformation keeps on ticking. Never stop fact-checking. Follow our post-election coverage here. A rumor holding that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, 78, used a body double for certain public events emerged on social media during his 2020 campaign against incumbent President Donald Trump and his subsequent transition into the White House. Among the examples of the rumor brought to our attention were a series of TikTok videos uploaded by one user in late November that focused on Biden's earlobes and included following narration: 'OK, that's a detached earlobe if I ever saw one. There's clearly two Joe Bidens because when you see this one he has an earlobe that is detached. The other Joe Biden has an earlobe that is straight, it is attached. There's something funky going on here.' In the video, TikTok user @dannycardenasziv apparently recorded a still image of Biden on another media device - perhaps a television or computer monitor. The image showed the incoming president from the neck up, wearing a suit and tie and facing a direction to show his left ear (see screenshot below) in front of a backdrop with his 2020 campaign slogan, 'Build Back Better.' No visual clues, nor the TikTok user's narration, explained when, where or under what circumstances Biden attended the pictured event. These were the video's underlying claims: Another human being who looked nearly identical to the incoming president - except for the earlobes - not only exists but trades places with the original Biden on occasion. Of the (allegedly) two men shown in the video, one had 'unattached' earlobes, meaning his earlobes curved and their lowest points were not attached to the sides of his head. Meanwhile, the 'other' man had earlobes 'attached' directly to his head. The same theory surfaced in tweets and Reddit posts, including a page titled 'Is Joe Biden a clone? Check his earlobes,' that alleged photographic evidence from 2008 and 2020 showed Biden with detached and attached earlobes, respectively. All of those photos showed the president-elect's right, not left, earlobe, just like one of the videos in the TikTok series (screenshot below) alleging the attached look is a sign of a conspiracy. 'Either Biden has different earlobes in 2020 or we have a different Biden [...] or is it an imposter?' one person tweeted.. First, let this be clear: The term cloning, mentioned in one of the claim sources above, refers to human reproductive cloning to produce a genetic copy of an existing person, and that has not been achieved as of this writing, eliminating the possibility that Biden has a literal 'clone' who stands in for him on occasion. Additionally, some arguments by social media posts were flawed in that they only compared alleged changes in Biden's appearance by examining one side of his face, or the posts used one side to make the argument he had attached earlobes (right) and the other side to argue he had unattached earlobes. It's worth noting here: The call of deciding under what category an earlobe fits is subjective, and there is a spectrum of both detached/attached types given the numerous genetic variations of earlobe traits. Also, the angle from which photographers take portraits of people can affect how earlobes appear in photos. As a starting point for investigating the conspiracy theory, Snopes obtained the below-displayed portrait of Biden in 1973, during his first year representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the Library of Congress. His earlobes were unattached from his head, as you can see. We analyzed dozens of images via news reports, Getty Images, government websites and other sources that showed Biden throughout his career, including during his final Senate term (Jan. 2007 to Jan. 2009) and tenure as vice president in former President Barack Obama's administration (Jan. 2009 to Jan. 2017). The photo below, for example, was taken at the Concordia Europe Summit on June 7, 2017, in Athens, Greece. Biden's right earlobe appeared unattached. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Concordia Europe Summit) Considering the feature image on this report showing the president-elect on Dec. 14, 2020, after states certified voter tallies affirming his presidential win over Trump, as well as other photographic evidence in 2020, we can say definitively: Biden's right earlobe looked noticeably different during and after his 2020 presidential campaign compared to eras prior. But that fact aside, alleging that the apparent change in Biden's appearance revealed a secret 'body double' scheme erroneously eliminates other, and potentially more likely, explanations for the change. In other words, advocating the Biden body double theory required ignoring the simple fact that Biden was aging like every other human (and, therefore, his appearance was changing), and the possibility that he had a medical issue that required facial surgery, or that he sought a face-lift for cosmetic reasons, altering at least one of his earlobes. According to Mayo Clinic: 'In general, a face-lift involves elevating the skin and tightening the underlying tissues and muscles. Fat in the face and neck may be sculpted, removed or redistributed. Facial skin is then re-draped over the newly repositioned contours of the face, excess skin is removed, and the wound is stitched or taped closed.' Considering that process, scars or other physical changes to patients' ears are signs of face-lifts, according to Dr. Anthony Youn, a Michigan plastic surgeon, according to CBSNews. While Biden himself has, to date, not commented on if or to what extent he underwent facial cosmetic surgery, rumors that he had had surgery appeared in news reports, including an Oct. 27, 2019, New York magazine profile that read: There, just behind the ear, is where you can supposedly observe the scar from a face-lift, one of many cosmetic procedures Biden is rumored to have had. The dramatic change to Biden's appearance is a matter of preoccupation for Biden-watchers. In the timeline of images from throughout his career, you can observe as he grows older and then younger and then older but somehow more elegant and alert. Roughly one year later at a Trump rally, the sitting president highlighted the unsubstantiated claim in attempt to discredit Biden and his use of masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 'Whatever makes you feel good,' Trump said. 'I mean honestly, what the hell did he spend all that money on the plastic surgery if he's going to cover it up with a mask?' After that comment, a Detroit radio station, WWJ Newsradio 950, interviewed Michigan cosmetic surgeon Dr. Gregory Roche, who claimed Biden indeed had a face-lift and possibly other work done, based on his public appearance. In sum, considering the speculation that Biden may have received facial surgery and that those procedures were the most likely and plausible reasons for any changes in his appearances - as well as the facts that there has been no human reproductive cloning as of this writing and that differences in physical characteristics beyond earlobes would emerge as evidence of the alleged body-double conspiracy - we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, considering the speculation that Biden may have received facial surgery and that those procedures were the most likely and plausible reasons for any changes in his appearances - as well as the facts that there has been no human reproductive cloning as of this writing and that differences in physical characteristics beyond earlobes would emerge as evidence of the alleged body-double conspiracy - we rate this claim 'False.'

While the 'FDA approved version' of COVID-19 vaccinations include three ingredients, people are being injected with shots containing seven.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In Oct. 25, 2021, a Snopes reader alerted us to an alleged conspiracy regarding COVID-19 vaccine ingredients. According to the rumor, vaccine recipients were supposedly being injected with formulas containing more ingredients than what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had 'approved' for the immunizations. 'The FDA approved version of the 'vaccine' had 3 ingredients. The version being injected into the public has 7,' the reader wrote to us, referring to a post supposedly seen on Facebook. The reader's inquiry included other claims, including the false notion that FDA-endorsed formulas by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) did not 'fit the definition' of vaccines but were rather 'experimental treatments' for the coronavirus. (Here's a portal of evidence on the FDA's website outlining the agency's approval of the immunizations, debunking that assertion.) For the purpose of this fact check, however, we will focus on the allegation about the immunizations' amount of ingredients. [See also from Snopes: Does J&J COVID-19 Vaccine Contain Aborted Fetal Cells?] Before we address the crux of the claim, a note on semantics: As of this writing, the FDA had only granted 'full approval' to one type of vaccine - Pfizer's. However, the federal agency gave the formulas by Moderna and J&J 'emergency use authorizations' (EUA), allowing for their mass distribution to help end the deadly pandemic as fast as possible. That endorsement, while it was not a full approval, confirmed the shots' safety and effectiveness after testing them on tens of thousands of people. While the post displayed above used the phrase 'FDA-approved' without specifying which immunization it was referring to, we considered ingredients for all three vaccines, no matter if they had full FDA approval or EUA's. Firstly, here's the FDA's list of ingredients for Pfizer's shot, as outlined via documentation on its website: mRNA, lipids ((4- hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), 2 [(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, and cholesterol), potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and sucrose. In other words, the formula contained mRNA molecules (the messenger ribonucleic acids that help immune systems fight COVID-19), as well as salt, sugar, a variety of fatty acids and a handful of other compounds, for a total of seven ingredients. Next, we considered the FDA's list of elements that make up Moderna and J&J's formulas, respectively. They are as follows, according to FDA records obtained by Snopes: Like Pfizer's shot, those immunizations contain seven or eight ingredients - not three, like the post claimed. Next, we sought evidence to confirm or deny the allegation that vaccine administrators at certified sites across the U.S.- either at clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, etc. - had injected people with fluids that did not contain the above-listed ingredients. We found no reported instances of that happening, whether intentionally or unintentionally. (That's not to say fraudulent vaccines don't exist. Get more information from the FDA on those here.) In sum, we considered the claim that people were receiving COVID-19 vaccinations containing more ingredients than what the FDA had endorsed for the public a baseless conspiracy theory. As such, we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, we considered the claim that people were receiving COVID-19 vaccinations containing more ingredients than what the FDA had endorsed for the public a baseless conspiracy theory. As such, we rate this claim 'False.'

While the 'FDA approved version' of COVID-19 vaccinations include three ingredients, people are being injected with shots containing seven.

Contradiction

Snopes is still fighting an 'infodemic' of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, and you can help. Find out what we've learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and 'advice' you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease. In Oct. 25, 2021, a Snopes reader alerted us to an alleged conspiracy regarding COVID-19 vaccine ingredients. According to the rumor, vaccine recipients were supposedly being injected with formulas containing more ingredients than what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had 'approved' for the immunizations. 'The FDA approved version of the 'vaccine' had 3 ingredients. The version being injected into the public has 7,' the reader wrote to us, referring to a post supposedly seen on Facebook. The reader's inquiry included other claims, including the false notion that FDA-endorsed formulas by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) did not 'fit the definition' of vaccines but were rather 'experimental treatments' for the coronavirus. (Here's a portal of evidence on the FDA's website outlining the agency's approval of the immunizations, debunking that assertion.) For the purpose of this fact check, however, we will focus on the allegation about the immunizations' amount of ingredients. [See also from Snopes: Does J&J COVID-19 Vaccine Contain Aborted Fetal Cells?] Before we address the crux of the claim, a note on semantics: As of this writing, the FDA had only granted 'full approval' to one type of vaccine - Pfizer's. However, the federal agency gave the formulas by Moderna and J&J 'emergency use authorizations' (EUA), allowing for their mass distribution to help end the deadly pandemic as fast as possible. That endorsement, while it was not a full approval, confirmed the shots' safety and effectiveness after testing them on tens of thousands of people. While the post displayed above used the phrase 'FDA-approved' without specifying which immunization it was referring to, we considered ingredients for all three vaccines, no matter if they had full FDA approval or EUA's. Firstly, here's the FDA's list of ingredients for Pfizer's shot, as outlined via documentation on its website: mRNA, lipids ((4- hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate), 2 [(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide, 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, and cholesterol), potassium chloride, monobasic potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate, and sucrose. In other words, the formula contained mRNA molecules (the messenger ribonucleic acids that help immune systems fight COVID-19), as well as salt, sugar, a variety of fatty acids and a handful of other compounds, for a total of seven ingredients. Next, we considered the FDA's list of elements that make up Moderna and J&J's formulas, respectively. They are as follows, according to FDA records obtained by Snopes: Like Pfizer's shot, those immunizations contain seven or eight ingredients - not three, like the post claimed. Next, we sought evidence to confirm or deny the allegation that vaccine administrators at certified sites across the U.S.- either at clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, etc. - had injected people with fluids that did not contain the above-listed ingredients. We found no reported instances of that happening, whether intentionally or unintentionally. (That's not to say fraudulent vaccines don't exist. Get more information from the FDA on those here.) In sum, we considered the claim that people were receiving COVID-19 vaccinations containing more ingredients than what the FDA had endorsed for the public a baseless conspiracy theory. As such, we rate this claim 'False.'

In sum, we considered the claim that people were receiving COVID-19 vaccinations containing more ingredients than what the FDA had endorsed for the public a baseless conspiracy theory. As such, we rate this claim 'False.'

While in Mar-a-Lago, former U.S. President Donald Trump participated in a video conference with the American military to plan a coup so he could retake the White House.

Contradiction

On Feb. 2, 2021, a picture was shared on Facebook that showed former U.S. President Donald Trump sitting at a desk while video conferencing. The Facebook user who shared it hinted that the photograph depicted Trump planning a military coup to take back the White House subsequent to moving to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, after his term in office expired on Jan. 20. The text accompanying the photograph in that Facebook post read: 'This is Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago. Look who he's talking to.' Another commenter said of the picture, 'The military is in control and we know who the real POTUS is and that he'll be back!': Photo via White House On Jan. 17, the same Facebook user also posted that the U.S. military was 'occupying certain cities': He now has all the evidence ... iron clad evidence, and Trump handed control over to the military. Did anyone really think that Trump would just roll over and accept this massive fraud? He's coming for all of them. Notice the military occupying certain cities? Game set. Match. That Facebook user also posted false information about 'election fraud' and said that the former president won in a 'landslide' victory. All of these ominous headlines and comments suggesting hinting that the military would take part in a coup to help get Trump back into the White House were false and misleading, though. The photograph of Trump in Mar-a-Lago had nothing to do with the 2020 election or a 2021 military coup, as it was taken on Christmas Eve in 2017 and captured President Trump's extending Christmas greetings to the U.S. armed forces. The White House tweeted the picture at the time with a caption stating that Trump spoke with 'all five branches of the military': This Christmas Eve, President Trump talked with members of the U.S. military via video teleconference. All five branches of the military are represented during the call with troops from various bases around the world. pic.twitter.com/GN0cqC8asV - The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) December 24, 2017 On the same day, the Associated Press documented the president's 2017 Christmas Eve activities: President Donald Trump's first Christmas Eve in office was a busy one that unfolded like this: tweet against perceived adversaries, cheer U.S. troops spending the holidays overseas, play golf, chat with children anxious to know when Santa will bring their presents, eat dinner with the family and attend a church service. US President Donald J. Trump speaks to the media as he participates in a video teleconference call with military members on Christmas Eve in Palm Beach, Florida on December 24, 2017. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images) 'Today and every day, we're incredibly thankful for you and for your families,' Trump told the troops via video hook-up from his Florida estate, where he is spending the holidays with his family. 'Your families have been tremendous. Always underappreciated, the military families. The greatest people on Earth.' Trump briefly addressed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

While in Mar-a-Lago, former U.S. President Donald Trump participated in a video conference with the American military to plan a coup so he could retake the White House.

Contradiction

On Feb. 2, 2021, a picture was shared on Facebook that showed former U.S. President Donald Trump sitting at a desk while video conferencing. The Facebook user who shared it hinted that the photograph depicted Trump planning a military coup to take back the White House subsequent to moving to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, after his term in office expired on Jan. 20. The text accompanying the photograph in that Facebook post read: 'This is Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago. Look who he's talking to.' Another commenter said of the picture, 'The military is in control and we know who the real POTUS is and that he'll be back!': Photo via White House On Jan. 17, the same Facebook user also posted that the U.S. military was 'occupying certain cities': He now has all the evidence ... iron clad evidence, and Trump handed control over to the military. Did anyone really think that Trump would just roll over and accept this massive fraud? He's coming for all of them. Notice the military occupying certain cities? Game set. Match. That Facebook user also posted false information about 'election fraud' and said that the former president won in a 'landslide' victory. All of these ominous headlines and comments suggesting hinting that the military would take part in a coup to help get Trump back into the White House were false and misleading, though. The photograph of Trump in Mar-a-Lago had nothing to do with the 2020 election or a 2021 military coup, as it was taken on Christmas Eve in 2017 and captured President Trump's extending Christmas greetings to the U.S. armed forces. The White House tweeted the picture at the time with a caption stating that Trump spoke with 'all five branches of the military': This Christmas Eve, President Trump talked with members of the U.S. military via video teleconference. All five branches of the military are represented during the call with troops from various bases around the world. pic.twitter.com/GN0cqC8asV - The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) December 24, 2017 On the same day, the Associated Press documented the president's 2017 Christmas Eve activities: President Donald Trump's first Christmas Eve in office was a busy one that unfolded like this: tweet against perceived adversaries, cheer U.S. troops spending the holidays overseas, play golf, chat with children anxious to know when Santa will bring their presents, eat dinner with the family and attend a church service. US President Donald J. Trump speaks to the media as he participates in a video teleconference call with military members on Christmas Eve in Palm Beach, Florida on December 24, 2017. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images) 'Today and every day, we're incredibly thankful for you and for your families,' Trump told the troops via video hook-up from his Florida estate, where he is spending the holidays with his family. 'Your families have been tremendous. Always underappreciated, the military families. The greatest people on Earth.' Trump briefly addressed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

While in Mar-a-Lago, former U.S. President Donald Trump participated in a video conference with the American military to plan a coup so he could retake the White House.

Contradiction

On Feb. 2, 2021, a picture was shared on Facebook that showed former U.S. President Donald Trump sitting at a desk while video conferencing. The Facebook user who shared it hinted that the photograph depicted Trump planning a military coup to take back the White House subsequent to moving to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, after his term in office expired on Jan. 20. The text accompanying the photograph in that Facebook post read: 'This is Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago. Look who he's talking to.' Another commenter said of the picture, 'The military is in control and we know who the real POTUS is and that he'll be back!': Photo via White House On Jan. 17, the same Facebook user also posted that the U.S. military was 'occupying certain cities': He now has all the evidence ... iron clad evidence, and Trump handed control over to the military. Did anyone really think that Trump would just roll over and accept this massive fraud? He's coming for all of them. Notice the military occupying certain cities? Game set. Match. That Facebook user also posted false information about 'election fraud' and said that the former president won in a 'landslide' victory. All of these ominous headlines and comments suggesting hinting that the military would take part in a coup to help get Trump back into the White House were false and misleading, though. The photograph of Trump in Mar-a-Lago had nothing to do with the 2020 election or a 2021 military coup, as it was taken on Christmas Eve in 2017 and captured President Trump's extending Christmas greetings to the U.S. armed forces. The White House tweeted the picture at the time with a caption stating that Trump spoke with 'all five branches of the military': This Christmas Eve, President Trump talked with members of the U.S. military via video teleconference. All five branches of the military are represented during the call with troops from various bases around the world. pic.twitter.com/GN0cqC8asV - The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) December 24, 2017 On the same day, the Associated Press documented the president's 2017 Christmas Eve activities: President Donald Trump's first Christmas Eve in office was a busy one that unfolded like this: tweet against perceived adversaries, cheer U.S. troops spending the holidays overseas, play golf, chat with children anxious to know when Santa will bring their presents, eat dinner with the family and attend a church service. US President Donald J. Trump speaks to the media as he participates in a video teleconference call with military members on Christmas Eve in Palm Beach, Florida on December 24, 2017. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images) 'Today and every day, we're incredibly thankful for you and for your families,' Trump told the troops via video hook-up from his Florida estate, where he is spending the holidays with his family. 'Your families have been tremendous. Always underappreciated, the military families. The greatest people on Earth.' Trump briefly addressed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

While in Mar-a-Lago, former U.S. President Donald Trump participated in a video conference with the American military to plan a coup so he could retake the White House.

Contradiction

On Feb. 2, 2021, a picture was shared on Facebook that showed former U.S. President Donald Trump sitting at a desk while video conferencing. The Facebook user who shared it hinted that the photograph depicted Trump planning a military coup to take back the White House subsequent to moving to his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, after his term in office expired on Jan. 20. The text accompanying the photograph in that Facebook post read: 'This is Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago. Look who he's talking to.' Another commenter said of the picture, 'The military is in control and we know who the real POTUS is and that he'll be back!': Photo via White House On Jan. 17, the same Facebook user also posted that the U.S. military was 'occupying certain cities': He now has all the evidence ... iron clad evidence, and Trump handed control over to the military. Did anyone really think that Trump would just roll over and accept this massive fraud? He's coming for all of them. Notice the military occupying certain cities? Game set. Match. That Facebook user also posted false information about 'election fraud' and said that the former president won in a 'landslide' victory. All of these ominous headlines and comments suggesting hinting that the military would take part in a coup to help get Trump back into the White House were false and misleading, though. The photograph of Trump in Mar-a-Lago had nothing to do with the 2020 election or a 2021 military coup, as it was taken on Christmas Eve in 2017 and captured President Trump's extending Christmas greetings to the U.S. armed forces. The White House tweeted the picture at the time with a caption stating that Trump spoke with 'all five branches of the military': This Christmas Eve, President Trump talked with members of the U.S. military via video teleconference. All five branches of the military are represented during the call with troops from various bases around the world. pic.twitter.com/GN0cqC8asV - The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) December 24, 2017 On the same day, the Associated Press documented the president's 2017 Christmas Eve activities: President Donald Trump's first Christmas Eve in office was a busy one that unfolded like this: tweet against perceived adversaries, cheer U.S. troops spending the holidays overseas, play golf, chat with children anxious to know when Santa will bring their presents, eat dinner with the family and attend a church service. US President Donald J. Trump speaks to the media as he participates in a video teleconference call with military members on Christmas Eve in Palm Beach, Florida on December 24, 2017. (NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images) 'Today and every day, we're incredibly thankful for you and for your families,' Trump told the troops via video hook-up from his Florida estate, where he is spending the holidays with his family. 'Your families have been tremendous. Always underappreciated, the military families. The greatest people on Earth.' Trump briefly addressed members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard stationed in Qatar, Kuwait and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz in the Middle East. In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.

In sum, a picture taken in 2017 did not show Trump planning a military coup in 2021. For that reason, we rate this claim as being miscaptioned.