Was it suggested by Senator Tom Cotton that drug testing should be required for individuals receiving Social Security benefits?
Amid tense talks between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over the 2018 federal budget, the attention of many observers turned to each side's record on government spending, benefits and entitlements, and fiscal priorities.  In that vein, a widely-shared Facebook meme took aim at Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, accusing him of supporting a modified version of a long-standing liberal bte noire  drug-testing for welfare recipients.  On 21 January 2018, Facebook user Ken Stanley wrote: wrote Tom Cotton calls for every person who receives Social Security to be drug tested those who test positive will lose benefits.     This claim is false. We searched Cotton's speeches, op-eds, and press releases, as well as the Congressional Record and news archives, and found no evidence of the Senator ever having advocated such a policy. In an e-mail, a spokesperson for Cotton told us the meme was "completely false": Senator Cotton does not support (nor has he ever supported) drug testing for Social Security recipients.  Indeed, even those who call for drug-testing for welfare recipients do not typically propose the same policy for Social Security. This is because Social Security is more widely regarded as an earned benefit (workers contribute to it through payroll taxes), while programs such as housing assistance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as food stamps) are regarded as welfare. Senator Cotton does, however, have a record of making statements and advocating policies around welfare assistance which have raised eyebrows.  In 2015, Salon and Raw Story headlines accused Cotton of "blaming" drug addiction on Social Security benefits, and claiming that receiving Social Security disability benefits causes individuals to "spiral" into drug addiction. The articles, as well as Cotton's actually comments were more nuanced.  blaming spiral In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think thank, Cotton advocated for reform of the Social Security disability system, and drew a link between population decline and social ills (including drug addiction) in certain counties and regions, and rates of Social Security disability insurance uptake:  It's hard to say what came first or caused the other: population decline or increased disability usage. Or maybe economic stagnation caused both. Regardless, there seems to be  at least at the county and regional level  something like a disability tipping point. When a county hits a certain level of disability usage, disability becomes a norm. It becomes an acceptable way of life and an alternative source of income to a good-paying, full-time job...After a certain point, when disability keeps climbing and becomes endemic, employers will struggle to find employees, or begin  or continue  to move out of the area.  Population continues to fall, and a downward spiral kicks in, driving once-thriving communities into further decline. Not only that, but once this kind of spiral begins, communities could begin to suffer other social plagues as well, such as heroin or meth addiction and associated crime. In 2014, while running for the Senate, a Huffington Post writer accused Cotton of "calling food stamp recipients addicts." Again, his comments were much more nuanced than that description.  accused According to a Huffington Post transcript of a virtual town hall hosted by Cotton in July 2014, the then-Congressman defended voting down a Democratic bill relating to agricultural payments and federal food aid, on the basis that it did not sufficiently reform the food stamps program, including by requiring drug testing for applicants: voting I dont think that we should be using farmers as a way to pack more welfare spending into Barack Obamas government, Cotton said. Nor should we have a food stamp program that isnt reformed, that doesnt have job training and work requirements, that doesnt have drug testing requirements, so we can get people who are addicted the help they need. Or make sure that long-term addicts or recidivists are not abusing taxpayer dollars. In March 2017, Cotton joined with Republican Senate colleagues in voting to nullify an Obama-era Department of Labor rule which limited the circumstances under which states could conduct drug-testing for individuals applying for unemployment insurance.  voting rule President Donald Trump later formally reversed the guideline, effectively giving states greater powers in conducting drug screening for jobless benefits. So Senator Cotton has certainly supported drug testing for welfare programs  but never for Social Security.  reversed Gauthier, Brendan. "Tom Cotton Blames Social Security for 'Heroin and Meth Addiction' Because Reasons."
 Salon. 10 November 2015. Edwards, David. "Sen. Tom Cotton: Social Security Benefits Cause People to 'Spiral Downward' Into Heroin Addiction."
 Raw Story. 9 November 2015. Lachman, Samantha. "GOP Senate Candidate Tom Cotton Calls Food Stamp Recipients 'Addicts.'"
 Huffington Post. 17 July 2014. Brady, Rep. Kevin. "House Joint Resolution 42 -- Disapproving the Rule Submitted by the Department of Labor Relating to Drug Testing of Unemployment Compensation Applicants."
 Congressional Record. 31 March 2017. U.S. Department of Labor. "Final Rule --Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program; Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 Provision on Establishing Appropriate Occupations for Drug Testing of Unemployment Compensation Applicants."
 Federal Register. 1 August 2016. U.S. Department of Labor. "President Trump Nullifies Drug Testing Rule."
 U.S. Department of Labor. 31 March 2017.
Claim:  Protest against federal spending encourages Americans to mail tea bags to the White House.  Example:  [Collected via e-mail, March 2009] Mailing Tea Bags to Washington, DC What a wonderful idea, I just wish it had been mine. I have a feeling that USPS is going to have a hell of a lot of tea to contend with, after all it only costs 42 cents to send a message, hopefully heard round the world!!! So please mark your Calendars There's a storm abrewin'. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us. We don't work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO's over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes. I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budget and I don't ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No one listened. They voted for it, pork and all. O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won't make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the reckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and "stimulate" without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall. So, here's the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington, D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, "New American Tea Party", several sites will come up. If you aren't the 'protester' type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes. This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the 'New American Tea Party' and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will. Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington, D.C. 20500. Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the website for more information about the 'New American Tea Party'. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can't guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.. What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent. We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late. Of course, if you agree with the way things are being done now, just delete!!!!! Origins:   On the evening of 16 December 1773, a group of American colonists who called themselves "The Sons of Liberty" furtively boarded the ship Dartmouth, which was docked in Boston harbor with a load of East India Company tea.  Working  through the night, the colonists dumped over 45 tons of tea into the waters of the harbor as a protest against the Tea Act passed by the British government.  The event, which came to be known as "The Boston Tea Party," was one of the seminal events of the American Revolution and remains one of the most iconic moments in all of U.S. history. In 2009, the iconic status of that event was referenced in the name of the New American Tea Party, described as a "coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government" who have begun coordinating events around the U.S. with the announced goal of protesting largesse in federal spending.   The item quoted above seeks to take up the "Tea Party" spirit by encouraging Americans to mail tea bags to the White House on 1 April 2009 (in order to arrive by 15 April, the day on which income tax filings are due) as a form of symbolic protest against "the way Washington is handling our taxes."  (The concept is vaguely reminiscent of a 1955 campaign that had citizens mailing small bags of wheat to President Eisenhower to encourage the U.S. to provide surplus food to flood victims in China.) New American Tea Party events wheat Of course, everyone is free to choose whether or not to participate in symbolic protests, so such actions don't have much in the way of verifiable "true" or "false" aspects  the only issue is how effective the chosen form of protest is likely to be.  With that in mind, we offer a few caveats for those inclined to participate:  An entry in the New American Tea Party blog states that they don't endorse the effort: entry We have received hundreds of questions about an email circulating that urges folks to send tea to Washington on April 1st or April 15th.  This effort is not endorsed by the New American Tea Party, so we can't answer any questions about it.  Given the more stringent security procedures for mail handling enacted after 9/11, there are no guarantees envelopes containing mailed teabags will get through to the White House without being discarded or significantly delayed, something also noted in the New American Tea Party blog: It is a neat idea, but things like that will likely either be held up getting scanned or end up getting thrown away due to security precautions. (A subsequent New American Tea Party blog entry suggested that just mailing the labels from tea bags might be a way of avoiding this potential pitfall.) entry  Envelopes that cannot be run through USPS sorting machines are subject to an additional 20 postage surcharge. A mailed item is considered  nonmachinable if: nonmachinable  It is a square letter (the minimum size for a square envelope is 5 x 5 inches) It is too rigid  does not bend easily It has clasps, string, buttons, or similar closure devices It has an address parallel to the shorter dimension of the letter It contains items that cause the surface to be uneven The length divided by height is less than 1.3 or more than 2.5  The specific aims of the tea bag protest are not clearly articulated in the e-mail quoted above, so senders might wish to include explanatory notes with their envelopes stating the desired outcome, such as: "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that provide money to businesses without provisions for strict transparency and accountability in how that money is to be spent" or  "I enclose this teabag as a protest against the passage of any further economic stimulus packages that include earmarks." Last updated:  12 March 2009    Idaho Statesman.  "Local Group Stages 'Reckless Federal Spending' Protest."   27 February 2009.    WJXT-TV [Jacksonville, FL].  "'Tea Party' Protests Wasteful Spending."   MSNBC.  2 March 2009. In late 2019, concerned readers asked us about a series of widely shared Facebook posts that claimed to include photographic evidence of a new tactic being employed by sex traffickers in the state of Florida, and in the city of Tampa, in particular.  The earliest example of the post that we found was published on Nov. 19. It included three photographs that appeared to show a road at night, with a car pulled over and a person lying on his or her back in the middle of the road. The message read: read "This Shit Happened To My Lil Brother Last Night In Tampa, Sex Trafficking Is Real, These People Lay In The Middle Of The Road And Act Like Their Car Broke Down Or Play Hurt For You To Stop. When U Get Out The Car They Attack. If Yall See Anything Like This, Dont Hesitate To Run Their Ass Over. If U Scared Then Try Your Best To Go Around, But Whatever You Do, Dont Get Out Of Your Car, Lock Your Doors And Keep It Moving....!!!!!!!!!!!"   Over the course of the following days and weeks, the same or similar messages, using the same photographs, were shared hundreds of thousands of times. In some cases, the "lying in the road" method was identified as a sex trafficking ruse specific to Tampa, and in other cases specific to the state of Florida. In still other instances, no geographic marker was provided, giving many readers the impression that sex traffickers all across the United States were using the same ruse. In each case, the Facebook post claimed that the photographs were merely one illustration of a broader trend of incidents, and that the purported "lying-in-the-road" ruse was a prevalent sex trafficking tactic.  some cases Tampa Florida still other In reality, we found no evidence to support or corroborate the claim that a pattern of incidents existed, in Tampa, in Florida, or anywhere in the United States, in which sex traffickers attempted to kidnap unsuspecting motorists by tricking them into stopping their cars by lying in the middle of the road. Nor did we find any evidence that the photographs included in the November and December 2019 Facebook posts showed a specific incident of attempted sex trafficking.  A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (akin to the "state police" found in other states) told Snopes that the agency "has not heard of this tactic in Tampa or elsewhere." A spokesperson for the Tampa Police Department told Snopes much the same and emphasized that "No such incident took place in Tampa." The spokesperson added, "We have not heard of this method or tactic being used in our jurisdiction." A spokesperson for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office (the county where Tampa is located) also told Snopes: "No reports have been filed related to this incident or matching what is described in the post, so we can not confirm if it is related to human trafficking or if it is even real." Laura Palumbo, communications director for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, told Snopes in a statement that: "Our organization is not aware of any reports of human trafficking similar to the one described in these viral social media posts ... Although it may be possible that in isolated incidents human trafficking attempts like this have occurred in the past, it is unlikely that this is a common trend." Both Theresa Prichard, associate director of the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence, and Kathleen Kempe, senior director of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, also told Snopes they had never heard of any such sex trafficking tactic.  It's not clear what the origins of the photographs were. We put a series of questions to the Cornelius King Facebook account above where the trafficking post originated, requesting to speak to his brother, who according to the post was a firsthand witness to the alleged incident shown in the photographs. We asked whether he, his brother, or anyone else had reported the alleged incident to any law enforcement agency, the exact time and location of the incident, and we requested any evidence that might corroborate the claim that the alleged incident was connected to sex trafficking. We received no response.  It's also unclear whether the photographs were authentic or staged, perhaps as part of a stunt, prank, advertisement, or film of some kind. If they were authentic, it's not clear what the motives or state of mind were of the person shown lying in the road. The photographs themselves do not contain any elements or features whose presence indicates a connection to sex trafficking, in particular, as opposed to several other explanations. Since we have not yet discovered the origins of, and facts surrounding, the photographs, we cannot definitively rule out the possibility that they show a specific instance of attempted kidnapping or sex trafficking. However, based on the responses provided by several law enforcement agencies and relevant non-profit organizations, we can say that no broader pattern or trend of incidents exists in Tampa, or Florida, or in the United States, whereby motorists are tricked into stopping their cars by a person lying in the middle of the road, as part of a sex trafficking plot.  All of the widely shared Facebook posts cited above claimed that the photographs were an illustration of a broader trend. As a result, we are issuing a rating of On Aug. 26, 2019, the Twitter account Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) posted a photograph that supposedly showed "how Chinese soldiers keep their posture"  by placing a pin or needle in their uniform collars with the point facing toward the neck skin: This is how Chinese soldiers keep their posture. pic.twitter.com/WU8Y9DDLf5 pic.twitter.com/WU8Y9DDLf5  Discover and Know (@myth_vs_facts) August 26, 2019 August 26, 2019  This is a genuine photograph. It was taken in Beijing in February 2012 and shows a Chinese paramilitary policeman preparing for the National People's Congress. The picture is available via Getty Images with the following caption: A pin, used for training purposes, is placed on the collar of a Chinese paramilitary policeman undergoing a drill to prepare for the upcoming National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing on February 28, 2012. China's parliament, the National People's Congress, is set to open its annual session on March 5. CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read STR/AFP/Getty Images) While this is a genuine photograph of a pin being used to correct posture, this is not a training method that all soldiers have to endure. A 2009 article from The New York Times indicated that this is a corrective measure for soldiers whose postures aren't up to standards (emphasis ours): The New York Times The Olympics that dazzled spectators last year showed Chinas knack for meticulous preparation. Participants in the Thursday parade have engaged in similarly intense drills for months, according to reports in the Chinese news media. Soldiers have practiced endless hours to hold their rifles at precisely the same level. Photos show their instructors holding threads as rifle guides, or sticking needles in soldiers shirt collars, pointed at their necks, to correct poor posture. They have trained to stand motionless for a solid hour, to refrain from swaying during the second hour and not to collapse after three hours, reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency. We found one other photograph from Getty Images showing a Chinese officer with a pin being placed in his collar in an attempt to correct posture. The following picture is available with the caption: "An officer sticks a needle in the collar of a paramilitary policeman to correct his posture during a training session in Hefei, Anhui province September 13, 2009.VCP (Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images)." caption   LaFraniere, Sharon.  "No Detail Is Overlooked as China Prepares to Celebrate." 
  The New York Times.  28 September 2009. Canada doesnt often get mentioned in political debates in the United States, but our northern neighbor had a cameo in the vice presidential debate, cited as a bastion of low taxes.Seeking to draw a contrast with the tax policies of President Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin native, said, Where I come from, overseas, which is Lake Superior  the Canadians  they drop their tax rates to 15 percent. The average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent.We wondered whether Canada was really as much of a low-tax haven as Ryan indicated.Canadian corporate taxesWe found two measurements of Canada's corporate tax rate from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced industrialized nations. Over the past 15 years, the trendline for both has been consistently downward. Since 1998, the central government corporate rate has declined from 29.12 percent to 15 percent today; while the combination of the central and provincial corporate tax rates has fallen from 42.94 percent to 26.1 percent today.So Ryan is right that Canadas national rate was recently lowered to 15 percent -- the culmination of policies put forward by both center-left prime ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin and current center-right prime minister Stephen Harper, who took office in 2006. Small businesses today have a special, lower rate of 11 percent.Still, its worth noting that when you take into account average provincial tax rates -- the equivalent of state corporate taxes in the U.S. -- the combined corporate tax rate in Canada rises to 26.1 percent.International comparisonsWhat about Ryans claim that the average tax rate on businesses in  the industrialized world is 25 percent?We can use the same OECD data to check this claim. Averaging the 2012 tax rates for OECD members, we found that the average for the 34 countries studied is just slightly under 25 percent. Thats just as Ryan said.And in case youre wondering, the top U.S. corporate tax rate, including both federal and state taxes, is 39.1 percent. Thats quite a bit higher than Canadas, and since April, it has been the highest corporate tax rate on the books of any OECD nation.Still, the actual tax rate paid by a company will likely be lower than the official rate, due to deductions and exemptions.Our ratingRyan said Canada dropped its corporate tax rates to 15 percent and that the average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25 percent. Hes correct on both counts, though its worth pointing out that provincial taxes boost Canadas rate to 26.1 percent, and that the actual rate paid by specific companies in certain countries, such as the U.S., can be lower than official rates due to deductions and exemptions. We rate Ryans claim Mostly True. During the 2021 holiday season, internet users enthusiastically shared articles and posts that described a fascinating episode from the history of a classic American Christmas movie, "It's a Wonderful Life." On Dec. 21, for example, the London Independent reported that: "'It's a Wonderful Life' was once considered communist propaganda by the FBI," while various outlets shared their own accounts of the story. Independent reported that shared own accounts Those accounts were broadly accurate, and based on high-quality primary documentary evidence. Although the FBI did not ever formally, as an institution, declare "It's a Wonderful Life" to be communist propaganda, FBI agents and informants investigated the movie, and the people behind it, as such. As part of a sweeping investigation ordered by bureau director J. Edgar Hoover, a special agent in 1949 included the film in a list of "motion pictures disclosing communist propaganda therein." We are issuing a rating of "true." That description of the movie, which was released in December 1946, can be found in an archived and redacted copy of the FBI report on "Communist infiltration into the motion picture industry, available here. Specifically, it can be found on Page 12 in the ninth of 15 dossiers released under the Freedom of Information Act at some point in the ensuing decades. available here The sender of this 1949 update to the report is listed as one "H.B. Fletcher," but it's not clear who specifically wrote the "It's a Wonderful Life" entry: listed   Although the FBI does not appear to have ever "officially" declared or designated the film as communist propaganda, it's quite clear those agents involved in the investigation of Hollywood (codenamed "COMPIC") were far from agnostic on the socialist, even Soviet inspiration behind the Christmas classic. Indeed, Hoover instructed Richard Hood, special agent in charge at the Los Angeles field office, to limit his team's criticism and reviews to films "which are obviously communist propaganda in nature." instructed The entry on "It's a Wonderful Life" appears in the fourth section of the report ("Communist Influence in Motion Pictures"), under a sub-section entitled "Analysis of Motion Pictures Disclosing Communist Propaganda Therein." entitled According to the author(s) of the briefing, Frank Capra's movie is noteworthy because: the two credited screenwriters, husband-and-wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, were supposedly close associates of known communists; the film negatively portrays the villainous local businessman Mr. Potter, which is "a common trick used by communists"; and the storyline appears to have been borrowed from a putative earlier Russian film entitled "The Letter." The first two sections of the briefing can be read in full below: According to the Informants [redacted] and [redacted] in this picture the screen credits again fail to reflect the Communist support given to the screen writers. According to [redacted] the writers Frances Goodrick and Albert Hackett were very close to known Communists and on one occasion in the recent past while these two writers were doing a picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Goodrick and Hackett practically lived with known Communists and were observed eating luncheon daily with such Communists as Lester Cole, screen writer, and Earl Robinson, screen writer. Both of these individuals are identified in Section I of this memorandum as Communists. With regard to the picture Its A Wonderful Life, [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented a rather obvious attempt to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a scrooge-type so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. In addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. [Redacted] related that if he had made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiners in connection with making loans. Further, [redacted] stated that the scene wouldn't have suffered at all in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, [redacted] stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and I would never have done it that way. Magazine, Smithsonian, and Kat Eschner. The Weird Story of the FBI and Its a Wonderful Life. Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/weird-story-fbi-and-its-wonderful-life-180967587/. Accessed 22 Dec. 2021. A number of members of the U.S. Congress have been accused of sexual misconduct over the years, but as a viral Facebook message suggests, have at least 260 of those members really settled sexual assault charges? accused settled   Certainly one reason that this bit of congressional trivia is "little known" is because it is factually inaccurate. This meme refers to a report released by Office of Compliance Director Susan Tsui Grundmann in November 2017, which compiled the amount of money that was paid out between 1997 and 2017 to cover 264 settlements in connection with conduct prohibited under the Congress Accountability Act: report Congress Accountability Act   That report did not state that all 264 settlements involved sexual assault charges, that all 264 settlements involved members of Congress, or that the settlements involved 264 different individuals. The Congressional Accountability Act (CAA) established a Treasury Department fund "to settle workplace harassment and discrimination claims." Although this fund has been used to pay out settlements related to sexual harassment, the CAA also applies to "thirteen civil rights, labor, and workplace safety and health laws." established According to Grundmann, a "large portion" of the aforementioned settlements stemmed from offices outside of the House of Representatives and the Senate and involved everything from overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards act to violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act: A large portion of cases originate from employing offices in the legislative branch other than the House of Representatives or the Senate, and involve various statutory provisions incorporated by the CAA, such as the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The statistics on payments are not further broken down into specific claims because settlements may involve cases that allege violations of more than one of the 13 statutes incorporated by the CAA. Although the details of these payments are typically confidential, outrage over the revelation that congress was using taxpayer funds to pay sexual assault settlements persuaded the House Administration Committee to release more details about the settlements. In December 2017, the committee released additional statistics which broke these settlements down into distinct categories. released statistics settlements Those categorized statistics showed that 13 settlements involving claims of sexual harassment or sex discrimination, totaling nearly $300,000, were paid out from the fund between 2003 and 2017: In total, between 2003 and 2017, taxpayers spent $292,652 on 13 settlements involving claims of sexual harassment or sex discrimination, the committee's data shows. This figure does not include settlements agreed to privately between members and their employees, which are sometimes paid in the form of severance out of congressional office budgets. The viral Facebook message incorrectly proclaimed that 260 members of congress had settled sexual assault charges, while in reality some 264 different settlements related to a wide range of workplace violations were paid out between 1997 and 2017. Only a small proportion of those settlements totaling were related to sexual misconduct or discrimination. MacFarlane, Scott.  "264 Congressional Accountability Act Settlements in 20 Years."
  NBC News.  16 November 2017. USA Today.  "Sexual Harassment Fund Exposes Congress."
  27 November 2017. Paige, Leslie.  "When Will the Senate Start Holding Congressional Sexual Harassers Accountable?"
  USA Today.  26 April 2018. PBS.  "$300k in Taxpayer Funds Has Been Spent Settling Sexual Harassment Claims Against Congress, Report Says."
  12 January 2018.
 Przybyla, Heidi.  "House Admin. Committee Reports $342K in Discrimination and Harassment Payouts from 2008 to 2012."
  USA Today.  19 December 2017. In June 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and ended 50 years of constitutionally protected abortion rights. While many people took to the streets to protest the ruling, others used social media to share fantasy scenarios of protesting by other means. On TikTok, for example, some people fantasized about someone mailing their uterus to the Supreme Court as an act of protest: overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision   While the above-displayed video described a potential future action ("I need to mail" vs. "I mailed"), other TikTok users shared videos claiming that someone had indeed followed through with this action.   While a number of TikTok users claimed that someone literally sent their uterus to the Supreme Court, there's no actual evidence that this happened.  Protests against the Supreme Court in the wake of the Roe v. Wade ruling garnered plenty of coverage by mainstream media outlets. If someone truly had one if their organs removed, put it in a box, sent their innards to the Supreme Court, and there were actual evidence of this, there would certainly be news coverage of the incident. However, no credible news outlets have filed any such reports.  Roe v. Wade While there are plenty of videos on TikTok of people making this claim, none of them contain images of the alleged package or the identity of the alleged sender. In fact, most of the TikTok videos that we viewed involve imagining what it would be like for an employee of the Supreme Court to open such a package.     The claim that someone mailed their uterus to the Supreme Court is part of a larger trend on TikTok involving users claiming that some extreme action was taken by someone to protest the abortion ruling. For example, another string of videos claimed (without evidence) that the several Supreme Court justices had had their credit card numbers leaked. Social media users also claimed (without evidence) that the IP addresses of the justices had been leaked.  another string of videos claimed also claimed (without evidence) that the IP addresses Sources: Fact Check: Posted IP Addresses NOT Linked To 5 Supreme Court Judges -- They Belong To Unrelated Entities | Lead Stories. https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2022/06/fact-check-ip-addresses-not-linked-to-five-supreme-court-justices.html. Accessed 30 June 2022. Sullivan, Becky. With Roe Overturned, State Constitutions Are Now at the Center of the Abortion Fight. NPR, 29 June 2022. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108251712/roe-v-wade-abortion-ruling-state-constitutions. One of the more whimsical messaging options offered by Snapchat  a social media app for mobile devices introduced in 2011  is the ability to personalize selfies in real time and share them instantly with other users, a feature that has at once contributed to the app's immense popularity (Snapchat boasts an estimated 166 million users daily) and raised privacy concerns among some of its customers.  Snapchat's rotating toolbox of image filters, called Lenses, enables users to manipulate photos and videos to humorous effect, as seen in these examples shared publicly on Instagram by celebrity Snapchatter Chrissy Teigen:   Cute and innocent though it may appear, the feature has become the target of conspiracy theorists claiming that Snapchat's corporate owner, Snap Inc., uses it to collect facial recognition data which it allegedly stores and shares with law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and CIA. We've found examples of such rumors dating back to Fall 2015 (soon after the Lenses feature was officially rolled out): you guys are all swooning over the snapchat filters... And The FBI is getting the most extensive facial recognition library ever  TEENWOLF (@TEENWOLFREMIX) October 3, 2015 October 3, 2015  It wasn't until April of the following year that the rumors reached takeoff speed, however, thanks largely to a tweet composed by hip hop artist, songwriter, and unabashed flat-earth theorist B.o.B to his roughly two million followers: tweet flat-earth when you realize all the snap chat filters are really building a facial recognition database ?  B.o.B (@bobatl) April 16, 2016 April 16, 2016 In May 2016, with civil cases already pending against Facebook and Google alleging unauthorized use of facial recognition technology, a class action lawsuit was filed by two Snapchat users in Illinois complaining that the app violated their rights under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by failing to obtain adequate permission before gathering and storing their "biometric identifiers and biometric information". lawsuit BIPA The company flatly denied it: denied Contrary to the claims of this frivolous lawsuit, we are very careful not to collect, store, or obtain any biometric information or identifiers about our community. The class action suit was eventually dismissed in favor of arbitration in September 2016, but as of this writing the case remains unresolved. Crucial to Snapchat's defense is their position, as stated in the Privacy Center of the company's web site, that the app relies on object recognition, not facial recognition, to make Lenses work: arbitration stated Have you ever wondered how Lenses make your eyes well up with tears or rainbows come out your mouth? Some of the magic behind Lenses is object recognition. Object recognition is an algorithm designed to understand the general nature of things that appear in an image. It lets us know that a nose is a nose or an eye is an eye. But object recognition isnt the same as facial recognition. While Lenses can recognize faces in general, they can't recognize a specific face. If it's true that Lenses can't recognize (i.e., identify) specific faces, then the claim that the app produces anything qualifying as a "biometric identifier" under Illinois law is seriously in doubt. (The district judge in Illinois overseeing the Google facial recognition case previously defined "biometric identifier" as "a set of biology-based measurements ... used to identify a person.) case As to the wider claim that Snapchat is building a "facial recognition database," the distinction between object and facial recognition, at minimum, places a burden of proof on those trumpeting the claim to show that the app is capable of identifying specific faces in the first place. If this explanation (provided by the web site Vox) of how the software works is accurate, Snapchat doesn't need to be able to identify specific faces to accomplish the task. It has to recognize a face as a face, and identify the parts of a face as the nose, eyes, ears, chin, etc., but it doesn't have to recognize who the face belongs to: this Moreover, Snapchat's Privacy Policy states that the company neither collects nor permanently stores user-created content (meaning photos and videos) let alone preserves such items in a database: states Snapchat lets you capture what its like to live in the moment. On our end, that means that we automatically delete the content of your Snaps (the photo and video messages that you send your friends) from our servers after we detect that a Snap has been opened by all recipients or has expired. And although the policy further acknowledges that Snap Inc. may share users' personal information "to comply with any valid legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation" (and transparency reports show that the company has indeed complied with such requests in the past), they can't grant the FBI (or any other agency) access to a "facial recognition database" that doesn't exist. reports Some rumors die hard, however. An updated variant that cropped up in early 2017 brought two new claims to the mix: one, that the FBI literally created Snapchat's image filtering software (and alleged facial recognition database); and two, that there is a smoking gun to prove it  namely U.S. patent #9396354:   granted According to an analysis by Sophos' Naked Security blogger Alison Booth, the patent proposes using facial recognition software to identify individual subjects in photos, whereupon the latter would be modified and/or their distribution restricted in accordance with the subjects' pre-established privacy settings. analysis There is a catch. Implementation of the process would, of course, require amassing a facial recognition database. "For facial recognition to work," writes Booth, "Snapchat would need to store images of all users that sign up to the feature  as a reference image to compare photos against." So, there it is  a "facial recognition database" of the sort conspiracy theorists have been going on about since 2015, except that Snapchat has not, to date, implemented such a feature (a fact we were able to confirm with the company), nor is there evidence that the FBI (or any other law enforcement agency) was involved in creating it, nor does the patent itself mention sharing facial recognition data with government entities. Despite finding no legitimate basis for the claim that Snapchat is currently engaged in collecting, storing, or sharing facial recognition data on its users, we do not wish to downplay the increasing prevalence of facial recognition technology in both commercial and government applications, nor the privacy issues this raises. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minnesota) articulated some of these issues in a statement announcing the release of a 2015 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the privacy implications of the technology: report The newly released report raises serious concerns about how companies are collecting, using, and storing our most sensitive personal information. I believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, which is why it's important that, at the very least, the tech industry adopts strong, industry-wide standards for facial recognition technology. But what we really need are federal standards that address facial recognition privacy by enhancing our consumer privacy framework. The tech industry has yet to address these concerns to the satisfaction of consumer privacy watchdogs, however, nor has Congress made progress toward establishing the federal standards Franken called for. Thus far, issue has been dealt with primarily in the court system via cases such as the aforementioned BIPA class action lawsuits against Facebook and Google. watchdogs lawsuits One of the ironies of the false alarms about Snapchat's alleged sharing of facial recognition data with the FBI is that the agency already maintains a biometric data network comprising the facial images of more than 117 million Americans (about half the U.S. adult population, and growing), mostly drawn from state DMV databases and other non-criminal sources. A 2016 report by the Georgetown Law Center for Privacy and Technology warned that the technology is both error-prone, with a disproportionate impact on communities of color, and almost totally unregulated. already report disproportionate In testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing chaired by Sen. Franken in 2012, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Jennifer Lynch urged Congress to act sooner rather than later to protect the biometric privacy of all Americans: testimony Face recognition and its accompanying privacy concerns are not going away. Given this, it is imperative that government act now to limit unnecessary biometrics collection; instill proper protections on data collection, transfer, and search; ensure accountability; mandate independent oversight; require appropriate legal process before government collection; and define clear rules for data sharing at all levels. This is important to preserve the democratic and constitutional values that are bedrock to American society. Booth, Alison.  "Snapchat Turns Facial Recognition Technology on Its Head."
 Naked Security.  20 July 2016. Danley-Greiner, Kristin.  "Snapchat Defends Procedures After Facial Recognition Class Action."
 Legal Newsline.  2 September 2016. Garvie, Clare et al.  "The Perpetual Line-up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America."
 Georgetown Law Center on Privacy & Technology.  18 October 2016. Graham, Meg.  "Illinois Biometrics Lawsuits May Help Define Rules for Facebook, Google."
 Chicago Tribune.  13 January 2017. Korte, Amy.  "Federal Court in Illinois Rules Biometric Privacy Lawsuit Against Google Can Proceed."
 Illinois Policy.  8 March 2017. Maass, Dave.  "Memo to the DOJ: Facial Recognition's Threat to Privacy Is Worse than Anyone Thought."
 Electronic Frontier Foundation.  18 October 2016. Mathies, Daven.  "The Incredible Underlying Technology of Snapchat's Selfie Lenses."
 Digital Trends.  1 July 2016. Nelson, Steven.  "Half of U.S. Adults Are in Police Facial Recognition Networks."
 US News & World Report.  18 October 2016. Roberts, Jeff John.  "Tech Industry's Facial Recognition Plan Bashed by Privacy Groups."
 Fortune.  16 June 2016. Thielman, Sam.  "FBI Using Vast Public Photo Data and Iffy Facial Recognition Tech to Find Criminals."
 The Guardian.  15 June 2016. Trujillo, Mario.  "Facial Recognition Quietly Taking Hold."
 The Hill.  1 August 2015. Welinder, Yana.  "EFF Urges Congress to Protect Privacy in Face Recognition."
 Electronic Frontier Foundation.  18 July 2012. Yakowicz, Will.  "Snapchat Sued Under Illinois Biometric Information Usage Law."
  Inc.  18 July 2016. Electronic Frontier Foundation.  "Testimony of Jennifer Lynch to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law."
 18 July 2012. Google.  "Patent: Apparatus and Method for Automated Privacy Protection in Distributed Images - US 9396354 B1."
  19 July 2016. Government Accounting Office.  "Facial Recognition Technology: Commercial Uses, Privacy Issues, and Applicable Federal Law."
 20 June 2015. U.S. Senate.  "Sen. Franken: New Report on Facial Recognition Technology Highlights Lack of Privacy Standards."
 30 July 2015. U.S. Senate.  "Sen. Franken Releases Extensive Report Detailing Concerns with FBI Facial Recognition Program."
 15 June 2016. On 26 July 2016, Michigan cherry farmer Marc Santucci shared a post on Facebook asserting that he was forced to destroy 14 percent of his tart cherry crop in order to protect the market for cherries imported from overseas: shared These cherries are beautiful! But, we have to dump 14% of our tart cherry crop on the ground to rot. Why? So we can allow the import of 200 million pounds of cherries from overseas! It just doesn't seem right. What do you think? Please share this on your Facebook page???. Just to let everyone know we are not allowed to donate or in any way use diverted cherries. I have people who would buy them if I could sell them. Also these are tart cherries with a very short shelf life  Santucci's post slowly circulated on the social network, attracting the attention of blogs and health-conscious social media users through September 2016. As presented, Santucci's tale sounded like an unbelievable level of bureaucratic interference with the farm industry and left readers wondering whether his report about having to destroy 40,000 pounds of edible cherries in order to "make room" for imported cherries (and was "not allowed to donate or in any way use diverted cherries") was accurate.  Online articles pinned blame for the cherry-chucking on the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), citing a 29 July 2016 Detroit Free Press article about the social media controversy that referenced the federal Agricultural Agreement Act of 1937.  The Detroit Free Press article only briefly mentioned the USDA as a starting point for a very complex cherry charter, noting that cherries were originally not regulated under the Agricultural Agreement Act, but the cherry industry opted into its provisions in 1995.  pinned blame article regulated The act in question was introduced in 1937 due to tumultuous agricultural conditions that exacerbated the Great Depression and aimed to facilitate "orderly marketing conditions for agricultural commodities in interstate commerce" for the express purpose of stabilizing farmers' income. Cherry industry experts stressed that the 1995 extension of the regulation to include the tart cherry market was voluntary and had been desired by many cherry farmers: introduced At issue is a marketing order imposed through the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of the federal Agricultural Agreement Act of 1937. But that law only applies to the tart cherry industry because growers and processors opted into the order in 1995. "It was created at the industry's behest. It was voted in by growers and processors. It's not an imposition from outside," said Perry Hedin, executive director of the DeWitt-based Cherry Industry Administrative Board [CIAB], which oversees the marketing order not only in Michigan but in all states across the country that produce commercial crops of red tart cherries, including New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. Tart cherries are one of the most volatile crops grown in the U.S., with yields that can vary dramatically year to year, Hedin said. "This whole concept of the marketing order has two goals: to inject a better stability into our markets and improve grower returns," he said. "The growers have been paid far better prices under the marketing order over the past 20 years than they were before the order was in place." A 29 July 2016 editorial published  in the Michigan Farm News also addressed what it framed as multiple misrepresentations in Santucci's viral post, starting with the reason cherry crops were thusly regulated. A horticulture specialist noted that the cherry farmers themselves (not the USDA) had sought market regulation after experiencing damaging price fluctuations: addressed In a classic example of what happens on social media when people form opinions based on emotion instead of fact, a Northwestern Michigan tart cherry grower's Facebook posting has gone viral, but with faulty information to back up the posting's claims ... The problem, however, said Kevin Robson, horticulture specialist with Michigan Farm Bureau, is that the information posted shows either shallow understanding of the federal marketing order or a deliberate attempt to change the order because of political disagreement. "It's also enforced by the growers themselves," he said. "It is for the betterment of the industry as a whole, and a great number of cherry growers have benefited, even those who voted against it." Administered by the Cherry Industry Administrative Board (CIAB), the order this year required tart cherry processors to keep 29 percent (the farmer's posting said he was ordered to dump only 14 percent) of the crop they handle off traditional markets (pies, sweetened desserts, etc.) in an attempt to stabilize both prices and supply, which in cherries has been notoriously volatile. "For example," Reposing said, "in 1988, when the entity was called the Cherry Administrative Board, growers voted to eliminate the marketing order. Prices began to follow a rollercoaster that led, within 10 years, to tart cherry prices that fell into single figures. Some growers went out of business." In response to prices that were below costs of production, tart cherry growers in seven states petitioned the USDA to put a new order and administrative board in place, and prices began to stabilize. Still, some growers, such as the one who posted the photo of a small pile of cherries, took exception to the order. Generally, the Agricultural Agreement Act ensures relatively stable income for tart cherry farmers in the face of a volatile market, with one of the drawbacks of that stability being that in boom crop years (as 2016 was), farmers may end up with a good deal of product they are precluded from selling on the open market.  However, although some outlets claim CIAB heavies visited farms to ensure every cherry lies unchomped, tart cherry farmers have options beyond leaving their surplus crop to "rot in the sun": visited farms Processors' options in times of surplus include holding the restricted cherries in surplus  frozen, dried or concentrated  for a later slow year. Farmers also can attempt to sell the surplus cherries in overseas markets or sell them domestically in a newly created market, either as a new product or by convincing a supermarket chain or other end user currently supplied by imported cherries to switch to U.S.-grown, he said. Hedin said Santucci could have worked with the [Cherry Industry Administrative] board to find a place to donate the surplus cherries, which typically aren't eaten raw like sweet cherries because of their very short shelf-life, but are instead used in products such as pie filling and jams. Likewise, the Michigan Farm News piece stated that: Another misstatement on the Facebook posting, [horticulture specialist Kevin] Robson said, is that growers are not allowed to donate or use the dumped cherries "in any way." "That's just not true," Robson said. "Farmers can use the cherries for research and development, and they could make thousands of cherry pies and donate them to charity if they want. Remember these are tart cherries. They need to be processed  and quickly  to make a viable product. They aren't sweets that you just eat by the handful." The Facebook posting wrongly puts the blame for cherry dumping on the marketing order, Robson said, when it is the processor who makes the decision to ask farmers to dump cherries. Santucci himself told Grand Rapids television station WXMI that the dumping of surplus cherries wasn't expressly mandatory, but their short shelf life makes it difficult to find alternative uses for them: told "I was just notified when we started shaking the trees that 14 percent would have to be kept off the market, so it didn't give me time to find any alternative action," he said, adding that tart cherries only have a two-day shelf life. It was true that Santucci's 2016 crop was (as with that of all other cherry growers) subject to a growers' agreement barring surplus cherries from the marketplace, and Santucci asserted he had insufficient time to properly divert his surplus cherries to other uses or markets. But the agreement under which the tart cherry market is regulated doesn't mandate surplus cherries be destroyed, nor does the protocol exist to protect foreign imports. Cherry growers in several states voluntarily opted in to a USDA marketing agreement (rather than being forcibly regulated) following a period of instability in the cherry industry, and agriculture experts widely agree the provision provides more protection than harm to cherry growers.  Jackson, Paul W.  "Social Media Post Botches Cherry Program Reality."
  Michigan Farm News.  29 July 2016. Matheny, Keith.  "Traverse City Farmer: Dumping Perfectly Good Cherries Is Rotten."
  Detroit Free Press.  29 July 2016. Pagan, Gabriella.  "Cherry Dumping Photo Goes Viral, Grower Calls for Change."
  WPBN.  27 July 2016. Shesky, Ty.  "Farmer Explains Why Cherries Were Left to Waste."
  WXMI.  29 July 2016. Sometimes, the circulation of misinformation revives interest in separate, similar, but still inaccurate claims. Thisappeared to be the case with a March 2016 internet rumor alleging that the Food and Drug Administration classified walnuts as drugs. In February and March 2016, the FDA was already the subject of rumors that the agency "outlawed"cannabidiol (CBD) oils. Almost immediately, rumors began to surfaceon social media that walnuts had also recently fallen prey to preposterous reclassification by the FDA. outlawed While the rumors weren't new, interest in whether walnuts were drugs spiked in March 2016. Many social media users linked to a RealFarmacy itemfrom2013. On 23 March 2016, the Facebook page "Living Traditionally" sharedthe 2013 article as if its claims were new: item shared    The 2013 article claimed thatFDA sent letters to walnut distributor Diamond Foods deeming that their "walnut products [were] drugs": Seen any walnuts in your medicine cabinet lately? According to the Food and Drug Administration, that is precisely where you should find them. Because Diamond Foods made truthful claims about the health benefits of consuming walnuts that the FDA didnt approve, it sent the company a letter declaring, Your walnut products are drugs  and new drugs at that  and, therefore, they may not legally be marketed  in the United States without an approved new drug application. The agency even threatened Diamond with seizure if it failed to comply. RealFarmacy alsoclaimedthat manufacturers' First Amendment rights were being infringed by the FDA's regulation of unsubstantiated health claims: Of course, if the Constitution were being followed as intended, none of this would be necessary. The FDA would not exist; but if it did, as a creation of Congress it would have no power to censor any speech whatsoever. If companies are making false claims about their products, the market will quickly punish them for it, and genuine fraud can be handled through the courts. In the absence of a government agency supposedly guaranteeing the safety of their food and drugs and the truthfulness of producers claims, consumers would become more discerning, as indeed they already are becoming despite the FDAs attempts to prevent the dissemination of scientific research. Besides, as [another blog]observed, If anyone still thinks that federal agencies like the FDA protect the public, this proclamation that healthy foods are illegal drugs exposes the governments sordid charade. The site linked to a letter publicly shared on the FDA's website, which wasalready several years old by the time the 2013 article was published,and whichplainly indicated that itsaction was due to health claimsmadeabout walnuts in labeling and marketing: letter The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reviewed the label for your "Diamond of California Shelled Walnuts" products and your website at www.diamondnuts.com. Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR) ... Based on claims made on your firm's website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. The following are examples of the claims made on your firm's website under the heading of a web page stating "OMEGA-3s ... Every time you munch a few walnuts, you're doing your body a big favor.": "Studies indicate that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts may help lower cholesterol; protect against heart disease, stroke and some cancers; ease arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; and even fight depression and other mental illnesses." "[I]n treating major depression, for example, omega-3s seem to work by making it easier for brain cell receptors to process mood-related signals from neighboring neurons." No part of the letter said (or even implied)that walnuts had been subjected to a sweeping reclassificationasdrugs, and inthe ensuing six years, no one was arrested for or charged with possession of walnuts with intent to distribute. Additionally,the FDA didn't ban, regulate, or demand withdrawal of Diamond Foods' walnuts, or any other, from the market, but did go after the company for unauthorizedhealth claims: The back of your product label also bears the following statement: "The omega-3 in walnuts can help you get the proper balance of fatty acids your body needs for promoting and maintaining heart health. In fact, according to the Food and Drug Administration, supportive but not conclusive research shows that eating 1.5 oz of walnuts per day, as part of a low saturated fat and low cholesterol diet, and not resulting in increased caloric intake, may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. Please refer to nutrition information for fat content and other details about the nutritional profile of walnuts." Although FDA exercises enforcement discretion over the last two sentences of this statement, which meet the criteria for a qualified health claim for walnuts and coronary heart disease, the last two sentences read in conjunction with the first sentence makes the entire statement an unauthorized health claim. The statement suggests that the evidence supporting a relationship between walnuts and coronary heart disease is related to the omega-3 fatty acid content of walnuts. There is not sufficient evidence to identify a biologically active substance in walnuts that reduces the risk of CHD. Therefore, the above statement is an unauthorized health claim. This letter is not intended to be an inclusive review of your products and their labeling. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your products comply with the Act and its implementing regulations. As with claims that CBD oils wereoutlawed, blogs and Facebook pages spreading rumors that walnuts had been reclassified as drugs either didn't read or misrepresented the FDA's warning letters. In both instances, manufacturers were warned about use of marketing and labeling language that warranted classification of the products in question as drugs, primarily pertaining to suggestion that the substances or foods were "intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or preventanycondition." Thewarnings werespecifically due an "unauthorized health claim," and products that arenot classified as drugs by the FDA are not legally allowed tomake such claims. However, the letters in no way indicated that walnuts had been classified as drugs. Prior dubious itemsfromRealFarmacyincludedclaims that science disproved a link between sun exposure and skin cancer, and another baselessly accusing unspecifiedpro-GMObioterrorists of sabotaging Chipotle's productsupply with foodborne pathogens. skin cancer bioterrorists