Check 21
Claim:  After the implementation of "Check 21" on 28 October 2004, consumers will no longer be able to "float" checks. Status:  Multiple  see below. Example:  [Collected on the Internet, 2004] "Check 21" starting in late October You've probably bought something in a store with a check even though you don't have the money in your account at the time. You figure you have a few days for the check to clear, and by then the money will be there. It's called the "float." Well, the float is slowly becoming a thing of the past. Because of a new law going into effect in October, money will be drafted from your account immediately when you write a check. It's called "Check 21," and it allows retailers to scan your check through a machine that deducts the cash within minutes. It's essentially the end of the paper check system, as well, because the check will eventually be destroyed. There will be an image of the check online and that will serve as proof if you need it. But everything is becoming electronic, and a bank will know if a check is good right away. So, be prepared to move to an electronic bill pay system. It's the smart way to go. What about checks that you deposit? Well, the float is no longer available to you, the customer. But the bank still will hold a deposit for a few days to make sure it clears. It's not fair, but it's the way it's happening. What are the main effects of "Check 21" on consumers? You won't be able to get your original paper checks back, because your bank will no longer have them. Checks you write will clear sooner, increasing the risk that a check will bounce if funds are not in the account when you write the check. Don't write a check unless the funds are already in the account to cover it.  You may not get access to the funds from checks you deposit any sooner, because the new law does not shorten check hold times. After 30 months, there must be a study on whether banks are making funds available to consumers earlier than the allowable hold periods. Banks will save money on processing checks, but banks are not required to share these savings with consumers. Different kinds of copies of a check will have different rights attached. Check 21 creates a new kind of paper copy of an electronic image of a check. This special kind of copy is called a "substitute check." Only a substitute check can be the legal equivalent of the original check, and only a substitute check triggers your right to recredit of disputed funds. A regular copy of a check does not carry these same protections. If you ask for a copy of a check, your bank may send you an ordinary copy insteadof this special kind of copy which triggers legal rights and protections unless you ask for a substitute check. A bank other than your bank will have your original check, and will decide whether to destroy it. Neither Check 21 nor other law requires a bank to keep your original check for any period of time. Before Check 21, your own bank decided how long to keep your original checks, if you didn't get them returned with your statement. Under Check 21, the bank of the person you wrote the check to may decide when to destroy your check. Consumers will get new rights for some electronically processed checks, but not for others. When a so-called "substitute check" is provided to a consumer, Check 21 gives the consumer a right to have funds of up to $2,500 recredited to the consumer's account in 10 business days if the check is paid twice, paid for the wrong amount, or otherwise paid in error. The statute is ambiguous about whether this new right applies when a paper substitute check is used in the processing of the check but is not returned to the consumer. The regulations restrict the right of recredit only to checks where the consumer was provided with a substitute check. If a check is processed electronically by all the banks it is routed through without the use of a substitute check and the consumer is not providedwith a substitute check, then the check remains under state check law. In that case, the consumer does not receive a 10 day right of recredit even if the electronic image of the check is paid twice, paid for the wrong amount, or if both the electronic image and the paper check are paid. Consumers who want to maximize their consumer rights should ask for return of "substitute checks" with their checking account statements. Watch out for fees associated with a substitute check-returning account. Look for another bank if your bank charges a high fee to get copies of all your checks as substitute checks.  Only the special "substitute check" can be legally equivalent to the original check to prove payment. The copies that a bank sends to consumers under a so-called "voluntary truncation" agreement, where the consumer agrees not to get the checks back, do not prove that a payment has beenmade, and do not trigger your Check 21 recredit right. When do these changes go into effect? Check 21 becomes effective October 28, 2004. Origins:  On 28 October 2004, the provisions of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (commonly known as   "Check 21") will go into effect.  The intent of the act is to eliminate check-clearing delays, primarily by removing the requirement that checks must be physically transported to the banks that issued them in order to be cleared for payment.  After 28 October 2004, banks will be allowed to transmit and clear checks by electronic facsimile, a practice that should avoid any clearing delays caused by circumstances that make the physical transportation of checks difficult or impossible (e.g., severe weather, power failures, terrorism). Check 21 Of course, one result of faster check processing will be a much shorter gap between the time consumers issue checks for payment and the time the covering funds are withdrawn from their accounts (usually referred to as the "float" time).  After Check 21 goes into effect checks may be processed in a matter of hours or even minutes, so consumers can no longer safely assume they have a grace period after writing checks before the funds are actually tapped from their accounts.  Check 21 does not, however, change the rules affecting how long banks can hold for clearance checks deposited by their customers.  Generally, banks can hold local checks for up to two days, out-of-town checks for up to five days, and other types of checks (e.g., checks over $5,000, checks drawn on new accounts, checks written against consistently overdrawn accounts) for up to thirty days.  The bottom line is that consumers will have to be more careful than ever to ensure that adequate funds are always available to cover the checks they  write. Also, under Check 21 banks will no longer be required to return canceled checks to their customers; they may return photographic images of the checks instead.  Banks will be able to issue certified photocopies of checks known as "substitute checks," and these copies will have the same evidentiary standing in courts of law as the originals.  (Although banks may allow customers to view and print out images of their checks over the Internet, those self-printed copies will not technically be considered substitute checks even though most courts will likely still accept them as evidence of payment.)  Check 21 will not explicitly require banks to provide substitute checks, so consumers may want to check with their banks to ensure they receive substitute checks with their statements.  Another provision of Check 21 will speed up resolution of customer claims regarding fraud and error.  Currently banks do not need to credit the accounts of customers who complain of error or fraud until their investigations are complete. After Check 21 banks must prove within ten days that disputed transactions were not their fault; if they do not provide such proof, they must credit their customers' accounts for the disputed amounts even if they have not completed their investigations. Although the Check 21 act goes into effect on 28 October 2004, banks do not have to begin electronically clearing checks on that date  Check 21 merely authorizes banks to begin use of electronic check clearing.  Most major banks already have imaging technology in place, but not all banks do, and some banks may therefore continue to process checks the "old" way until they upgrade their processing systems. Additonal information:       Frequently Asked Questions About "Check 21"   (Federal Reserve Board)     Questions and Answers About "Check 21"   (Consumers Union)   Last updated:  28 October 2004    Sources:   Kristof, Kathy M.  "Checks About to Be Put on Fast Track."   Los Angeles Times.  5 September 2004.    Associated Press.  "Banks Implement Check 21 Starting Thursday."    28 October 2004.
On Jan. 27, 2022, a reader sent in a tip about a Facebook ad (and likely on Instagram as well) that promised $750 in Cash App rewards for free. The Facebook page was named Kjguyrt. It had been created only a few days before: Facebook ad Kjguyrt  The page claimed to be a dry cleaning company. This was not true.  One user who realized it was a scam commented: "Take your stupid f*cking advertising and stick it up your ass." commented After a few seconds of some simple searching on Facebook, we were able to uncover a seemingly endless number of more posts, groups, and events that promoted a similar $750 Cash App scam. Most of them appeared to lead to brief surveys in Google Docs or on sites.google.com pages before ultimately asking users for personal identifiable information (PII). Such scams have a chance of eventually leading to phishing, identity theft, or other harmful outcomes. No one was genuinely giving away $750 on Cash App for free on Facebook or Instagram. This one from a page named Flash Reward had been around since at least May 2021: This one  Many of the scams led to surveys before ultimately asking for personal information.    Meanwhile, some of the pages we found put the scam in the name: $750 Cash App. This one led to scams on WhatsApp: $750 Cash App  Facebook and WhatsApp are both owned by Meta.  One of the Facebook groups we discovered was named Cash App/PAYPAL BLESSINGS. It had more than 13,000 members. In the rules for the group, it said: "This group is for BLESSINGS only no scams." However, we only found scams. Cash App/PAYPAL BLESSINGS One of the posts from a Facebook user named Stash Account, which had nothing to do with the real finance app, posted in the group: "If you haven't gotten Help Drop Tag Names & Check Balance, I am Legit Limited Time." One of the posts  "I am legit" is never a good sign.    The Stash Account person responded to hundreds of people with the scam in a comment that looked like this:  "Let's claim your reward here." No thanks.    This other Facebook group was named CashApp $750 and placed its scam links in the "About" section of the page: CashApp $750  It's unclear why these Facebook groups were allowed to exist seeing as they were so easy to find.  On top of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups all being involved in the $750 Cash App scams, also including Instagram posts, we found well over 600 Facebook events that had been created for the ruse. There were likely many more. However, our Google Chrome browser window couldn't handle loading any further listings, as it was already so much information for the tab to handle at once. well over 600 Facebook events  Here's a sample of what a few of the Facebook events looked like.    We looked into the Facebook events to see if they differed from the way the scam operated on pages and in groups. From what we saw, it looked like they, too, initially led to surveys that eventually ended up asking for PII. We previously reported on similar scams that offered $750 in Cash App that impersonated talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. Some of those accounts appeared to still be active as of late January. reported It's unclear why these $750 Cash App scams were allowed to thrive on Facebook and Instagram when they were so easy to hunt down. We recommend that readers stay far away from any social media posts or ads that promise free money. For further reading, we recently infiltrated a cryptocurrency scam on Facebook. It wasn't difficult to find our way into the scam. However, what was unexpected was the fact that Facebook took no action on the scam despite the fact that we contacted the company's media relations team by email. It, too, was still active at the end of January. infiltrated a cryptocurrency scam President Barack Obama touted the success of Obamacare during his final State of the Union address. He said the Affordable Care Act has led to nearly 18 million more people gaining health insurance and has helped to slow health care cost inflation. He added that the law didnt destroy the job market,despite pessimistic predictionsfrom critics. Our businesses have created jobs every single month since it became law, Obama said on Capitol Hill on Jan. 12, 2016. We hadnt heard that particular Obamacare talking point before, so we decided to take a look. Because Obama referred specifically to our businesses, we looked atprivate-sector employment datafrom the Bureau of Labor Statistics starting in March 2010, when Obama signed theAffordable Care Act. Of the 70 months since, Obama is correct that every single one has seen positive job growth. Thats a record for uninterrupted job growth, according to our friends at theWashington PostFact Checker. This graph from BLS shows monthly change in private-sector job growth (in thousands) since the start of 2010:  From early 2010 on, the data is above the zero line, showing positive job growth. The fact that the country has gained jobs despite the health care law also might not assuage critics argument that job growth, and other aspects of the economy, would have been stronger absent the law. For example, in aJanuary 2015 fact-check, we found that the law might have caused many thousands of employees to have their hours cut from full-time to part-time. But independent studies havent backed up claims that the law would end up reducing employment. In 2011, we rated a claim from former Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., that Obamacare is job killingFalse. Former Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in 2014 that Obamacare is expected to destroy 2.3 million jobs. We rated that claimMostly False. Our ruling Obama said, Our businesses have created jobs every single month since (Obamacare) became law. The private sector has seen job growth every single month since Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010. Theres room for argument over what the growth would have looked like absent the health care law, but Obamas statistic is on target. We rate this claim True. Claim:  The father of a fallen Marine returned a condolence letter from President Obama with a cutting handwritten response.  UNDETERMINED Example:  [Collected via e-mail, January 2015] Fallen marine's father , Steve Hogan, returns letter ofcondolence to president Obama.  ?   Origins:  On 3 January 2014, the website IJReview published an article titled "While Obama Boasts of Ending War in Afghanistan, Marine Family's Letter Puts It In Perspective." The piece was a commentary on President Obama's December 2014 written statement about the end of combat operations in Afghanistan: article For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion. The site highlighted a July 2012 letter of condolence sent by President Obama to Steve Hogan, the father of Lance Corporal Hunter D. Hogan, and the elder Hogan's purported reply. Below the letter sent by the President to Mr. Hogan was a handwritten response that read: Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama, I am deeply saddened that you are the President of the United States. You sir are an embarrassment to the Oval Office. My son, as well as most Marines I know, despise you and your lack of representation for our military. Your ridiculous rules of engagement have caused the massive amount of casualties on your watch in Afghanistan. While we watch your media pander to your administration and clearly sweep things under the rug for you, I fully understand Marines die. You have tied their hands & feet! I am thankful I did not serve under a Comm. in Chief such as you. I am sickened that my son had to. I wonder ... I doubt that you will see this, I hope you do though! Steve Hogan Above the letter was an additional note: "I wonder how many of these get returned to you!" The site did not explain where the putative reply originated, why it had emerged more than two years after Lance Cpl. Hogan's death, or when the reply might have been written. The commentary is not fully out of line with a statement attributed to Steve Hogan and Hunter's widow Brittany, printed on 14 July 2012 in the York News-Times. That statement read in part:  statement We as family and friends of Lance Cpl Hunter and other service members want to know why the media in our country has coddled instead of covered this Teflon coated administration! We listened every night on the news for 8 years with the previous administration the casualty reports. With the present administration nothing is reported! With the news of our recent loss of  HD and others in his battalion, many people have made statements like, "I didn't think anything was going on there anymore." "I thought the Marines were leaving there," etc. Here are the statistics in Afghanistan for the 8 years of George Bush. The total killed in action under him is 660. Barrack Obama in 3 years and 5 months the total killed in action is 1,398. Wounded under George Bush is 2,637 in 8 years. Wounded under Obama up to Jan. 31st of this year is 11,529. Why isn't the media covering this instead of covering the protestors of these brave service men and women's funerals? The policies of this current administration and the rules of engagement are a huge factor with these casualty reports. The limited air and artillery support our men received. The limited company level support such as mortars, as well as the approval to return fire are hampering and adding to the danger they are in daily. Not to mention the severely limited night operations, that are approved, because they scare the Afghan people. Let the military run the war, they are the professionals, or get our people out of there. How many more black walls full of names are we going to build? The response attributed to Steve Hogan circulated heavily in January 2015, but few mentions of it on the internet exist before the article linked above. Hogan criticized the Obama administration's handling of combat operations in Afghanistan in a published editorial in July of 2012, but the wording is not the same as the above reply with which he has been credited. If the reply is genuine, it's not clear where the site obtained it or why it was not uncovered until more than two years after the original letter from President Obama was sent.  Last updated:  9 January 2015 In 1969, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began collecting nationwide data on the numbers of abortions, the abortion ratio (abortions versus live births), and the abortion rate (abortions versus the US population of women aged 15-44 years old). collecting While these data are not perfect due to inconsistent (and sometimes non-existent) reporting from different states, they can be used to analyze relative changes in abortion rates during the presidencies of different presidential parties, as we will do here using numbers from the CDCs annual abortion surveillance study. Red portions of the lines show the ratio and rates of abortions occurring under Republican administrations, and blue under Democratic administrations: not perfect numbers  Before delving into the specific relationship between abortions and the political party affiliation of the President, the complete data set should be analyzed as a whole to provide context. This is how the CDC describes the overall trend in their data: describes Following nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the total number, rate (number of abortions per 1,000 women aged 1544 years), and ratio (number of abortions per 1,000 live births) of reported abortions increased rapidly, reaching the highest levels in the 1980s before decreasing at a slow yet steady pace. However, the incidence of abortion has varied considerably across demographic subpopulations. Moreover, during 20062008, a break occurred in the previously sustained pattern of decrease, but in all subsequent years has been followed by even greater decreases. The large uptick in legal abortions though the 70s is related to the the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that a womans right to an abortion is protected under the right to privacy of the Due Process Clause of the 14th amendment. Roe v. Wade It is plain to see that abortion rates have risen (prior to their peaking in the mid-1980s) and fallen under both Democratic and Republican administration, suggesting little to no correlation with whichever political party controls the White House. The overall trend since the 1980s has been a fairly consistent decline across through administrations of both parties. It would be easy to demonstrate that abortion rates have not risen under Democratic administrations in the last several decades, but it would be false to argue that declines in abortion rates are an exclusive feature of Democratic presidencies. The claim that abortion rates fall under Democrats, while true, ignores the fact that rates have also continued to decline through Republican administrations as well. The claim, then, that abortion rates (at least since their mid-1980s peak) have risen when Republicans have held the White House is therefore equally false. At most, one can argue that the rate of decline appeared to slow during the presidency of George W. Bush before increasing under President Barack Obama's administration, but such an observation would be based on a comparison between only two administrations and would do nothing to demonstrate causation. In fact, causation between the presidency and abortion rates would be difficult to demonstrate in any case because it is hard to draw a straight line between federal government policy (let alone presidential policy) and abortion procurement. Nearly all challenges to open access to abortion have come at the state, and not the federal, level. According to a 2013 report by the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute: report Twenty-two states enacted 70 abortion restrictions during 2013. This makes 2013 second only to 2011 in the number of new abortion restrictions enacted in a single year. To put recent trends in even sharper relief, 205 abortion restrictions were enacted over the past three years (20112013), but just 189 were enacted during the entire previous decade (20012010). At the federal level, legislators have had more trouble passing abortion restrictions into law, making it difficult to argue that any presidential policy, specifically, has had an effect on abortion rates. The only relevant federal legislation that has been signed into law are the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal money from funding (most) abortions, and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which criminalized abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy and was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in 2007. 1976 Hyde Amendment Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 What one can say, though, is that federal or myriad state-level regulations put in place do not appear to produce much of a change in abortion rates, according to a 2014 study by the Guttmacher Institute: study Forty-four laws intended to restrict access to abortion were implemented in 18 states between 2008 and 2010; an additional 62 were implemented in 2011 in 21 states. Some of these laws, such as those that added information to existing counseling requirements, would not necessarily be expected to have a measurable impact. In turn, we found no indication that they affected state-specific trends in abortion incidence. [...] Finally, a number of states that did not enact any new abortion restrictions and that are generally supportive of abortion rightsfor example, by allowing state Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for eligible womenexperienced declines in their abortion rates comparable to, and sometimes greater than, the national decline (e.g., California, New Jersey and New York). That these states also experienced a slight drop in the number of clinics offering abortion services may reflect a decline in demand as opposed to the imposition of legal barriers. According to the CDC, multiple factors can affect abortion rates, including those such as contraception and demographic changes that have an effect on the demand for (as opposed to availability of) abortions: CDC Multiple factors influence the incidence of abortion including the availability of abortion providers; state regulations, such as mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement laws, and legal restrictions on abortion providers; increasing acceptance of nonmarital childbearing; shifts in the racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population; and changes in the economy and the resulting impact on fertility preferences and access to health care services, including contraception. Claim: A real-life tour guide for inner city children compiled their humorous observations for a blog called Ghetto Hikes.  Origins: In March 2015, social media sharing sites including the Meta Picture and DumpADay published articles curating content from an older blog called Ghetto Hikes, which was a set of social media accounts that was briefly popular in 2012 before its creators suddenly stopped updating it. published articles  Ghetto Hikes was initially described as a blog inspired by the comments of inner city children during trips to the country. The site's creator, who identified himself as "Cory," described the children as "urban" and explained: I'm 28. I have a full time job leading urban kids on nature hikes. I simply write down shit they say. email: ghettohikes@gmail.com The description was later updated to include the modifier "of all races" following "urban kids" after readers opined that "urban" was a code word for black. A Twitter account for Ghetto Hikes was last updated on 22 February 2012 and its final tweets were representative of humor many readers likened to a minstrel show: account "E.J. back there havin' a starin' contest with da sun, slowin' down the whole pack ... homeboy shoulda gone to Space Camp." "Mr. Cody, I ain't no snitch or nuffin' but Denny back there shovin' colored rocks in his pockets. Homie lootin' the forest!" "Is rabbits eatable? Or you just s'posed to cuddle the fuck outta them?" "Yo Mr. Cody, how many these mushrooms I gotta eat fo' I Super Mario da fuck outta dis place?" "I thought Lamar done snuck his puppy Jason on da trip ... turns out that crazy ass just makin' shadow puppets." Ghetto Hikes was briefly popular in the online world throughout January and February of 2012, but readers quickly became suspicious about the veracity of its content. Several critics observed that the premise of Ghetto Hikes (i.e., inner city youth outreach) created a convenient excuse for readers to laugh at thinly-veiled racist jokes that would otherwise be deemed offensive or unacceptable. observed The sudden interest generated by Ghetto Hikes brought with it scrutiny of who was behind the briefly popular social media phenomenon. The cessation of those accounts on or around 22 February 2012 coincided with at least two articles that revealed its connection to other humor sites, Lamebook and MensHumor, as explained by the Daily Dot: @HumorForMens tweeted a screenshot of the domain-name registration for MensHumor.com, an apparently related site. The man behind the account? Jonathan Standefer. According to the domain search conducted by @HumorForMens, Standefer registered the MensHumor.com domain name and most likely tweets from the corresponding Twitter account. We used the Whois search tool on InterNIC's domain-name registry also, but it now comes up as private. But the date Standefer registered the website is the same in the screenshot: Aug. 15, 2011. He also registered GhettoHikes.com, which has a Twitter account of the same name. @GhettoHikes is an offensive, racist account from "Cody" who leads hikes for "urban kids." The tweets are essentially the 21st century version of the racist "blackface" films produced during the Jim Crow era. Some screenshots of the purported domain registration were circulated before it was amended in order to conceal information about the site's registrant to new queries. Ghetto Hikes hasn't been updated since those details came to light in early 2012, but the site's content has been intermittently revived on Twitter and Facebook by users newly discovering it. screenshots Despite its continued circulation, Ghetto Hikes was just a hoax consisting of fabricated quotes based upon things that some people believed inner city children might say.    Last updated:  3 February 2016   Valinsky, Jordan.  "The Hater: Exposing the Man Behind @MensHumor"   Daily Dot.  22 February 2012. Claim:  John McCain would not be eligible to draw a pension after serving two terms as president. Status:  False. Example:   [Collected via e-mail, August 2008] Retirement - Mr. President A point to ponder ... A president's pension currently is $191,300 per year, until he is 80 years old. Assuming the next president lives to age 80. Sen. McCain would receive ZERO pension as he would reach 80 at the end of two terms as president. Sen. Obama would be retired for 26 years after two terms and would receive $4,973,800 in pension. Therefore it would certainly make economic sense to elect McCain in November. How's that for non partisan thinking? Origins:  We're not sure whether the above-quoted bit of electioneering about presidential pensions was meant to be taken seriously, or whether it was intended to be light-hearted or sardonic, but regardless its basic premise is incorrect. It is true in broad terms that since John McCain is twenty-five years older than Barack Obama (they'll be 72 and 47 years old, respectively, at the time of the next  presidential inauguration), the former would probably draw a smaller aggregate pension as a former president than the latter would.  (There are no guarantees, of course, since we never know what Fate might have in store for anyone.)  It is not true, however, that if John McCain served two terms as president, he would draw no pension at all due to his having reached the maximum age limit (80) by then.  The pension payments allocated to former presidents are lifetime benefits and do not end or expire once a recipient reaches a particular age. Under the terms of the Former Presidents Act (FPA), former presidents are entitled to "a taxable pension that is equal to the annual rate of basic pay for the head of an executive department" (currently $191,300).  This pension is a lifetime benefit that begins "immediately upon a President's departure from office at noon on Inauguration Day."  (Presidential widows receive lifetime pensions of $20,000 per year.) FPA In fact, pensions constitute a relatively small fraction of the federal funds that are provided for the maintenance of former presidents, who also receive Secret Service protection, free mailing privileges, travel funds, and allowances to maintain and staff their offices.  (Secret Service protection for presidents who began serving after 1 January 1997 is no longer a lifetime benefit and is now limited to ten years.)  As the chart below indicates, these additional benefits typically add up to far more than the base pension amount:  All of these expenditures on former presidents are but a drop in the bucket of the overall U.S. federal budget, which currently totals about $3 trillion per year. budget Since both John McCain and Barack Obama are members of the U.S. Senate, whichever one doesn't win the upcoming presidential election will still have a congressional pension to look forward to. Last updated:  14 August 2008    Sources:   Alexander-Bloch, Benjamin.  "Former Presidents Cost U.S. Taxpayers Big Bucks."   The [Toledo] Blade.  7 January 2007.    Smith, Stephanie.  "Former Presidents: Federal Pension and Retirement Benefits."   Congressional Research Service.  18 March 2008. Claim:  A Marathon service station owner in Pontiac, Illinois, refused to do business with U.S. soldiers. Status:  False. Example:  [Collected via e-mail, 2006] THIS HAPPENED IN PONTIAC, IL I have a good friend who used to ride the van with me to work. Her brother is a friend and is in the military over in Bagdad. I've always told her she's my hero and I wish I had a tiny bit of her nerve. Read what she did last night (below)...and I can honestly see her doing this. She doesn't take cr@p off anyone. Feel free to pass this on...maybe this guy's business will go under!  As some of you may know the Marathon gas station in front of what use to be Underdogs and across from the Pawn shop (in Pontiac) is owned by a Pakistani. I've heard some rumors the last 6 months or so that a couple of our soldiers have stopped in, dressed in fatigues, after drill and he would not allow them to purchase anything in the store. They were asked to leave and told their business is not wanted or needed. Apparently this happened again on Sunday. You don't know how much of what you hear is actually true so I stopped in last night on the way to the B & G club. I don't really know why, I'm not sure what I thought I was going to say or do but I had to check this guy out. Luckily he was working. I took my water up to the counter and waited while he played with the tape roll on the machine. I had my wallet out so I could pay him when he was done.. Right there in my wallet was my standard military picture of my brother in front of the flag (most of you know he is serving outside Baghdad right now). He finished what he was working on and was extremely friendly to me as he rang up the water. I placed my wallet on the table and pointed to my brother and asked what he would do if he came in for a water (I couldn't help myself). As uncomfortable as it was with only the two of us in that small store he told me in what was a poor attempt of English that "I give no water, no nothing to him, he may leave", his attitude completely changed. I was taken back, I couldn't believe what just happened. I closed my wallet and left my water on the counter and told him that if he must leave then I must leave too. I could not believe it. I sat in my car and didn't know whether to laugh at him or cry.  I guess the reason I'm telling you this is so you can make a decision on whether or not to give him your business. I guess that is why it's America, he is able to come to this country, own a small business taxfree, and refuse business to anyone he wants. It is also our right to stop every person we know from EVER going there again and running his sorry a** out of town. Origins:  The years since the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq in 2003 have brought us a panoply of (false) rumors about business owners and employees in the U.S. who have supposedly openly celebrated terrorist attacks on America and/or refused to do business with U.S. servicemen. Most often the businesses targeted by such rumors are gas stations, convenience stores, or other small shops, since those types of businesses are frequently owned, operated, or staffed by immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, or by persons mistakenly assumed by Americans to be Mid-East immigrants).  (See, for example, "The Hole in the Middle," "This Bud's Not for You," "Leatherneck Cold Shouldered," "The Shunned Serviceman" and "Shell Game.") The Hole in the Middle This Bud's Not for You Leatherneck Cold Shouldered The Shunned Serviceman Shell Game The  item quoted at the head of this page began circulating in February 2006 and fits into this same genre of rumor type (i.e., the shunning of U.S. servicemen by Arab/Muslim business owners) by claiming that the "Pakistani" owner of a service station and convenience mart  in Pontiac, Illinois, recently refused to sell goods to U.S. servicemen, brusquely sending the soldiers away empty-handed, as well as openly proclaiming to a civilian customer (one whose money he would readily accept) that he would similarly decline to do business with her serviceman brother.  The account specifically identifies a Marathon gas station at 922 W. Custer Avenue in Pontiac, and as is typical of such accounts, it errs in its details and has proved to be unverifiable.  The Marathon service station referred to has been owned since November 2003 by Satvinder Singh, who wasn't present on the day of the alleged incident, and who is neither a native of Pakistan nor a citizen of that country. (He's a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India and has been a resident of the U.S. since 1989.) Mr. Singh himself denies that any such incident took place: Nothing in that e-mail is true. I respect everybody. I wouldn't refuse service to anyone. I am so mad because this is my business. I don't want to lose any of my business. All people are welcome at my store. I don't know why this happened. Mr. Singh's wife, Rupinder Kaur (also a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in India), elaborated for the Pontiac Daily Leader:  Kaur pointed out that neither she nor her husband is Muslim, and said they appreciate the service of members of the Armed Forces. "They go there, they don't know if they're going to come back," she said of members of the military serving in places like Iraq. "My blessings will go always for them. We are depending upon them. They're fighting for us. They're saving us, and why would we want to do such a thing like don't serve them." She said neither she nor her husband was involved in politics. "All customers are welcome. We will never discriminate against anybody," Kaur said. "All the customers, to me, are angels ... We respect all of our customers." The only persons they won't sell to, she added, are minors trying to illegally buy cigarettes or alcohol. "We card them, and we card them hard, because we don't want them to get into trouble." Kaur said that she and her husband are just "normal people" who are trying to make a success of their business, Super Petroleum. "We invested in Pontiac knowing that Pontiac is a good community," she said, noting that the business employs two local persons, generates property and other taxes, and contributes to the city's economy. The station was one of two Pontiac businesses robbed on the same day in December, and one of the two American flags Singh put up was stolen. Moreover, attempts by the Central Illinois Pantagraph to verify any element of the account have proved fruitless: The Pantagraph has been unable to find anyone with a firsthand account of the incidents described in the e-mail, several versions of which have circulated widely throughout Central Illinois. The woman whose name appears as the sender of the e-mail learned of the e-mail on Wednesday. When The Pantagraph contacted her Thursday evening, she declined to comment. Members of the Pontiac National Guard have been unable to find any soldiers within their unit who have experienced such discrimination. "To my knowledge, there hasn't been anyone in the store," National Guard public information officer Capt. Bud Roberts said. "It is not an issue. We don't dwell on rumors." The Livingston County Veterans Assistance Commission also has been unable to confirm information in the e-mail. Other evidence attests to the falsity of the claim: Singh said he spends very little time in the store and didn't work Sunday, when the incident is said to have occurred. "He is one of the nicest people you will ever meet," said Alec Durousseau, who works evenings at the station. "Everything in that e-mail is untrue. It's a complete lie." Tory Zarwell, another employee, and Durousseau said they have never seen Singh express anti-American feelings. They both pointed out an American flag flies in front of the station. Unfortunately, the result of the opprobrious e-mail  whether motivated by racism or some other form of spite  has been to cause undeserved harm to the reputation of the couple's business: The matter of the e-mails was brought to the owners' attention Wednesday evening by the employee who had been getting phone calls, including a caller who asked if he would be welcome if he came to the station because he had "heard" that someone had been refused service. Someone brought a printout of the e-mail to the station to find out if it were true.  On Thursday, every customer was asking about the Internet allegations about refusal to sell to soldiers in uniform. [Kaur] and her husband told their two employees to tell everyone who asked that the allegations were not true. Last updated:  27 February 2006    Sources:   Faddoul, John.  "Internet E-Mail Charges False, Business Owners Say."   The [Pontiac] Daily Leader.  24 February 2006.    Walters, Karen.  "Station Owner Taken Aback by Rumor Spread in E-Mail."   The [Bloomington-Normal] Pantagraph.  25 February 2006. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont loves to boast about hisindependence from super PACsand billionaires, saying his campaign relies on the support of small donors. Recently, the Democratic presidential hopeful extended his small donor claim to Russ Feingold. Sanders sent out a news release May 26, 2016 that said he would be raising money for Feingold, a former U.S. senator who is aiming to unseat Republican incumbent Ron Johnson in a rematch of their 2010 contest. Sanders also sent an email to his national fundraising list. We are going to have to elect candidates up and down the ballot who recognize that it is too late for establishment politics and economics, Sanders wrote. Candidates like my friend, former U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold. Sanders continued: Russ led the fight with me to make the Affordable Care Act much stronger in 2009. He voted against the USA PATRIOT Act and the war in Iraq. He authored and passed landmark campaign finance reform legislation and his campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. That last accolade caught our eyes. Sanderss record-breakinglevelof small-contribution support has been well noted. We wondered if small donors were also powering Feingolds campaign. Sanders backup Typically, small donors are considered those who give $200 or less over an election cycle. Having a lot of small-dollar contributions can indicate strong grassroots support and an effective online fundraising effort. When asked to back up the statement, Sanders team sent us to anews releaseissued by Feingolds campaign in April 2016. At that time, the release said, 30,000 Wisconsinites had contributed to Feingolds campaign with money coming in from each of the states 72 counties. The release also claimed 96 percent of all contributions in the first quarter were $100 or less. The problem for fact-checkers -- it cannot be independently verified. PolitiFact National explored the issue when presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said our campaign depends on small donations for the majority of our support. Her team provided similar information, saying more than 50 percent of the money raised by the campaign came from online grassroots donations, with 98 percent smaller than $250. Until an individual donor surpasses $200 in contributions, their funds are unitemized on campaign disclosure reports. So the number of donors who give less than $200 is unknown. Numbers reported to the Federal Elections Commission provided weak support for Clintons statement, PolitiFact National found. And small donors accounted for less than 20 percent of Clintons total donations, according to those figures. The claim was ratedMostly False. FEC numbers The Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance research group, tracks money given to candidates from individuals and PACs, as well as those self-financing their campaigns and money contributed from other means. Sanders profile on the groups web site reports that 99 percent of his campaigns more than $200 million in funds has come from individual contributions (as opposed, for instance, to political action committees). Of that, 62 percent -- or more than $129 million -- was from contributions of $200 or less. The other part comes from large individual contributions of up to $2,700. So what about Sanders Wisconsin pal, Feingold? According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Feingold has raised more than $10 million in the race against Johnson. Like Sanders, an overwhelming amount of his funds, 93 percent, come from individual contributions. But, Feingold has received a larger share of donations from large donors than small ones. Feingold received 52 percent of his overall funds from people who gave more than $200. Another 41 percent came from small individual donors. He also received about $600,000 from PAC contributions. So, the majority of Sanders funding -- 62 percent -- comes from these small donors while 41 percent of Feingolds funding came from small donors. The phrase powered by, of course, is open to some interpretation. We took a look at candidates in other competitive Senate races across the country this election cycle. Most candidates received less than 20 percent of all campaign funds from small donors. Some approached 30 percent -- still far below the proportion of funds Feingold has raised from small donors. So, while Feingold is not above 50 percent -- and does not match Sanders level -- we feel like the claim is generally on target. It doesnt factor into this claim, but as a point of reference, Johnson has raised just less than $12 million. Individuals donated about 80 percent of that money. He has gotten a far greater share of his contributions from big spenders -- those donating between $200 and $2,700 this election cycle. Just 15 percent of his funds come people who donate less than $200, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Our rating Sanders said in a fundraising letter that Feingolds campaign is powered by small-dollar contributions like ours. Both the presidential and congressional hopefuls have received the majority of their support from individual donors. While small donors have played a role in Feingolds funding, theyre not as integral as Sanders small donors. We rate the claim Mostly True. On 5 September 2017, the Facebook page "Babies Are Beautiful" (@babofficial) posted a story accompanied by a photograph of a crying doctor. The narrative, purportedly penned by the unnamed doctor, told of a woman who gave birth under highly implausible medical circumstances, only to die after her child was delivered: @babofficial posted Today is the saddest day of my life. As a Doctor, I have handled so many pregnant women in Labour and every time am in the delivery room I always pray to God to bless all mothers. The pain women go through in the delivery room is undescribable and this does not include the 9 months they spent carrying the baby. They go through a lot just to bring forth new life. Today I cried bitterly because I lost a woman, we don't pray for things like this to happen but sometimes God may have other plans. Why is this woman's case so painful? She has been barren for 14 years! We have tried IVF & so many method known to man, the woman went through a lot. Finally God blessed her, it was way beyond science and human knowledge. She just got pregnant despite the fact she has ovarian cyst and huge load of fibroids, brethren she got pregnant. Her fibroid started melting and everything was OK, I know that's God, he will do things just to show off his glory and awesomeness. After 9 months, it was time, her husband rushed her to the hospital and quickly I left everything that I was doing and attended to her. She laboured for hours, after 7 hours, it was so painful so we decided to open her up. We lost her but the baby was alive,. Before her death, she held the baby in her arms and smiled "God is great" and then she gave up the ghost. I was devastated and sad, I went to broke the news to her husband myself, upon hearing the news, her husband fainted, their happy day just turned sour. We lost a live just to deliver a new life today. Please respect women because they pass through the valley of death to bring life. Respect your wife! Carrying your baby for 9 months is no jokes and labouring for hours to give birth to your children is a huge sacrifice. I pray to God to please protect everyone reading this, especially pregnant women, please put them in your prayers. Dear husband, I repeat respect your wife because she is truly the giver of life. May God strengthen all pregnant women, you will all deliver your babies like the women of Hebrew. Don't ignore this post, share to others it is very important because the women in our lives should be worshipped. Please if you are having problems with your mother and you refused to call her, I beg you to CALL HER NOW! she went through hell to give birth to you. Show some love to women, they are super. Please share. GOD BLESS WOMEN ?  In just over 24 hours, the post was shared more than half a million times.  The Facebook page that posted the tale, "Babies Are Beautiful," appeared to be affiliated with an online baby supply shop (babbyy.com) which listed a California phone number and Delaware address as its contact information. However, the babbyy.com domain was registered by an owner in Nigeria. address registered The nature of the story suggested that the tale was fabricated to rack up Facebook likes and shares. (The majority of recent posts on the page were similar "likebait" photographs, sometimes directing users to "type amen.") No details were provided about the name of the doctor or location of the hospital, and commenters who identified themselves as medical professionals were quick to point out weak spots in the story: likes type amen     Those commenters noted that, among other things, the purported patient would have been treated as high-risk and obtained a C-section, that uterine fibroids are not typically fatal, and that details of the account did not align with the actual origins of the photograph. zge Metin Photography was credited for the photograph of the crying doctor (which bears a watermark in Turkish) and posted it to Instagram on 6 September 2017. In the post's comment thread, photographer zge Metin confirmed the "Babies Are Beautiful" post was a hoax, as the father captured in the image was crying tears of joy after the birth of his healthy baby: Instagram confirmed kole.photography [link] Another stolen post. What a beautiful photo! You should get credit. elia_79 Hi is this a sad story or it is just a hoax on internet ozgemetinphotography @elia_79 This Crying Father is photo of mine, i took it. The Father was crying because his baby was born as a healthy baby. Not because his wife died, his wife did not die. This story is not true. elia_79 @ozgemetinphotography ughh thank you so much. Yes I saw that it had your picture on it that's why I looked you up in Instagram thank you so much. Great pictureozgemetinphotography@elia_79    We contacted babbyy.com and reached the owner, Alex Onyia, who told us that the photograph was not meant to depict the events in the story, which he said had been sent in by a fan of the Facebook page. He claimed that the company had reached out to photographer zge Metin on Instagram and had secured permission to use her photographs, but given the Metin's comments on Instagram, we doubt that this is the case. Onyia also maintained that the story was genuine, although he had not verified that the person who wrote it was an actual doctor: "We have featured so many similar stories over the years and all are genuine." Although sharing the false story and misused photograph posed little danger to Facebook users, it did bolster the reach of a dubious Facebook page attached to a retail outlet of unknown reliability. Every flu season sees an increase in viral web stories making largely unsubstantiated allegations about the health risks of the flu shot that include claims about their scary-sounding ingredients, connections to a variety of diseases (including Alzheimer's), and their supposed lack of efficacy in general: The pharmaceutical industry, medical experts and the mainstream media are candid in telling us that flu vaccines contain strains of the flu virus. What they are less likely to reveal though is the long list of other ingredients that come with the vaccine. It is now a known fact that flu vaccines contain mercury, a heavy metal known to be hazardous for human health. Mercury toxicity can cause depression, memory loss, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory problems, ADD, oral health problems, digestive imbalances and other serious health issues. The article quoted above, which is representative of the text and claims that appear nearly identically in hundreds of Facebook posts, makes a number of claims that need to be investigated on their own merits: identically  Claim: The flu shot makes you sick to begin with.  Flu shots work by introducing dead (inactivated) strains of influenza virus, which trigger your immune system to create antibodies to fight those strains. These antibodies make your body more prepared to fight if should it be exposed to an active strain in the future. Because the strains are inactive, any sickness you develop after the shot is not caused by influenza, according to the Harvard Medical School: according The vaccine is made from an inactivated virus that can't transmit infection. So people who get sick after receiving a flu vaccination were going to get sick anyway. It takes a week or two to get protection from the vaccine. But people assume that because they got sick after getting the vaccine, the shot caused their illness. It is, of course, possible that feelings of sickness come from some of the side effects of the injection, but the vaccine itself is not infecting you in any way. side effects Claim: Flu vaccines contain other dangerous ingredients such as mercury. false Flu shots administered from multi-use vials may contain a preservative called thimerosal, which breaks down into ethylmercury in the body. Mercury is an element and as such it can be found in many different chemical forms. But when people are concerned about mercury toxicity, they are concerned about methylmercury, which is indeed toxic at high levels and could cause some of the problems listed above. may contain methylmercury Ethylmercury, on the other hand, passes through your body quickly, and numerous studies have found it safe for use in vaccines (though there is some evidence that its use could be problematic for infants  a population that CDC does not  recommend for flu shots anyway). Saying ethylmercury is dangerous because is contains mercury is like saying that your table salt is at risk of spontaneous combustion because it contains sodium. passes for infants  recommend spontaneous combustion Thimerosal, additionally, has been used for decades by the anti-vaccine movement to stoke vaccination fear by suggesting it causes by suggesting it causes autism. This link has been discredited over, and over, and over, and over, and over again and is further compromised by the fact that autism rates are still climbing despite the fact that childhood vaccines no longer contain this ingredient. over over over over over climbing contain  Claim: The flu shot can give you Alzheimer's disease. false The leading immunogeneticist Dr. Hugh Fudenberg, whom the article cites as the authority on this claim, had his medical license revoked in 1995 for ethical misconduct and was an outspoken proponent of the widely discredited MMR-autism link. His claim of the link between Alzheimer's and vaccines, though hard to trace, may or may not come from a talk he gave at the 1997 NVIC International Vaccine Conference. The statement has not been backed up by any published peer-reviewed research since then. In fact, a 2001 study found that adults exposed to vaccines were at a lower risk of Alzheimers. revoked in 1995 may or may not study Claim: The very people pushing flu vaccinations are making billions of dollars each year.  Pharmaceutical companies (sometimes) profit from vaccines, but the fact that a company makes a profit is an appeal to emotion and is not evidence to support the claim of a faulty product or of nefarious intent. It also may not be accurate. A recent Atlantic article covered this question extensively, stating: article Not only do pediatricians and doctors often lose money on vaccine administration, it wasn't too long ago that the vaccine industry was struggling with slim profit margins and shortages. The Economist wrote that "for decades vaccines were a neglected corner of the drugs business, with old technology, little investment and abysmal profit margins. Many firms sold their vaccine divisions to concentrate on more profitable drugs." The suggestion of massive profits from flu shots ignores the fact that profits margins are generally much higher for other drugs than for flu vaccines, as well. The same Atlantic article cites one estimate that puts the vaccine market at around $24 billion. This sounds like a large number, but it would, in fact, account for only two to three percent of the pharmaceutical market worldwide. article Claim: There is a lack of real evidence that young children even benefit fromflu shots.  Many anti-vaccine articles parrot the claim that "51 studies involving 260,000 children showed no benefit compared to a placebo for children under the age of two". This stems from a 2008 meta-analysis that did indeed conclude that there is less efficacy for children under the age of two, something the CDC already recognizes on their website. However, of the 51 studies analyzed and the 260,000 observations those studies included, only one study (at the time) was performed on children below the age of two using inactive strains (the kind found in flu shots). A later study in 2011 that reviewed over 5,000 research articles concluded that flu shots consistently show highest efficacy in young children (aged 6 months to 7 years), categorically rejecting the claim that there is a lack of real evidence that young children benefit from the shot. 2008 meta-analysis recognizes study Claim: The flu shot makes you more susceptible to pneumonia and other contagious diseases. false People with compromised immune systems are at higher risk of complications from vaccines when those vaccines contain live strains (which, again, the flu shot does not), and some skin reactions are possible immediately following an injection. risk possible However, the notion that the flu shot weakens the immune system is false. According to a review paper in the journal Pediatrics: paper Vaccines may cause temporary suppression of delayed-type hypersensitivity skin reactions or alter certain lymphocyte function tests in vitro. However, the short-lived immunosuppression caused by certain vaccines does not result in an increased risk of infections with other pathogens soon after vaccination. Claim: The flu shot causes vascular disorders such as fever, jaw pain, muscle aches, pain and stiffness in the neck, upper arms, shoulder and hips and headache. MISLEADING While the term vascular disorder is fear-inducing, it merely describes anything having to do with veins and arteries. The flu shot does not, de facto, cause any of these problems, but all the complications listed above are listed by the CDC as possible side effects. It is worth noting, however, that the flu will almost certainly give you some or all of these symptomsand with a much greater intensity than the symptoms resulting from a flu shot. CDC almost certainly give you some or all Claim: Children under the age of 1 are at risk of a neurotoxic breach of the blood-brain barrier.  The blood-brain barrier is the medical term for the chemical and physical adaptations humans and other animals have that prevent pathogens and other chemicals in the body from entering the central nervous system. For this claim about neurotoxic breach be true, an infant would have to have a relatively weaker blood-brain barrier than an adult. The idea that the barrier is weaker in young infants, however, is a long-held but unsubstantiated myth. Numerous studies have refuted the claim, showing that the blood-brain barrier is fully developed in the womb, long before a child is born. blood-brain barrier myth fully developed  Claim: Flu shots carry an increased risk of narcolepsy. false There is a well-documented, though statistically minor, connection between a specific H1N1 flu vaccine (Pandemrix) and narcolepsy. But such reports concerned only that one vaccine, which was produced for a specific flu strain, and have limited relevance to the seasonal flu shot. Pandemrix is available in Europe but not the United States or Canada. well-documented connection not Claim: The flu shot weakens immunological responses.  This claim, from a scientific standpoint, is a repeat of the earlier false claim (above) that suggests your body is more susceptible to infection or disease after a flu shot. Harmful immunological responses is a broad and unhelpful term that, while it may have aided in turning up literally thousands of responses in an academic search, is not really all that surprising as the term would includes the already documented risk of a skin and allergic reactions that come with pretty much any injection. already documented Claim: The flu shot can cause serious neurological disorders. false The neurological disorder specifically associated with flu vaccines is the Guillain-Barr Syndromea terrifying disease that causes nerve damage and sometimes paralysis. A widely cited study on a population of individuals who received the H1N1 vaccine in 1976 showed an increased risk of contracting this disease  whose cause is unknown  compared to those who did not receive the vaccine: Guillain-Barr Syndrome The Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a scientific review of this issue in 2003 and found that people who received the 1976 swine influenza vaccine had an increased risk for developing GBS. The increased risk was approximately one additional case of GBS for every 100,000 people who got the swine flu vaccine. Scientists have several theories about the cause, but the exact reason for this link remains unknown. The link between GBS and flu vaccination in other years is unclear, and if there is any risk for GBS after seasonal flu vaccines it is very small, about one in a million. Studies suggest that it is more likely that a person will get GBS after getting the flu than after vaccination. It is important to keep in mind that severe illness and death are associated with flu, and getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent flu infection and its complications. This topic has been heavily researched for decades, and no specific consensus regarding the link or mechanism behind the flu virus and the disease has been established. What has been established, however, is how small the risk is relative to the risks of contracting complications from flu itself. A 2013 study in The Lancet stated that: study The relative and attributable risks of Guillain-Barr syndrome after seasonal influenza vaccination are lower than those after influenza illness. Patients considering immunisation should be fully informed of the risks of Guillain-Barr syndrome from both influenza vaccines and influenza illness. Current iterations of the seasonal flu shot do not have any live strains in them (though the nasal spray includes weakened strains), nor do they have any mercury (in the United States), detergent, antifreeze, or aluminum. They contain, at most, 50 times less formaldehyde than a pear. nasal spray nor aluminum pear  We, of course, are not healthcare providers and cannot make any medical decisions for you. The purpose of this post is to correct misinformation on the Internet, and there are few topics that lend themselves to as much misinformation as vaccines. All healthcare decisions, however, should be made between you and your doctor. Harvard Medical School.  "10 Flu Myths."
  November 2009. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Possible Side-Effects from Vaccines."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Vaccine Excipient & Media Summary."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Thimerosal in Vaccines."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. World Health Organization.  "Statement on Thimerosal."
  July 2006. Dorea, J.G.  "Low-Dose Mercury Exposure in Early Life: Relevance of Thimerosal to Fetuses, Newborns and Infants."
  Current Medical Chemistry.  2013. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Key Facts About Seasonal Flu Vaccine."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Verreault, Rene et al.  "Past Exposure to Vaccines and Subsequent Risk of Alzheimer's Disease."
  CMAJ.  27 November 2001. Gorski, David.  "Oh, Come On, Superman!: Bill Maher Versus 'Western Medicine.'"
  Science Based Medicine.  7 September 2009. Casewatch.  "Disciplinary Actions Against Herman Hugh Fudenberg, M.D."
  20 April 2005. Pediatrics.  "Joint Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the United States Public Health Service (USPHS)."
  September 1999. Taylor. Luke E. et al.  Vaccines Are Not Associated with Autism: An Evidence-Based Meta-Analysis of Case-Control and Cohort Studies."
  Vaccine.  17 June 2014. Ball, L.K. et al.  An Assessment of Thimerosal Use in Childhood Vaccines."
  Pediatrics.  May 2001. Madsen, Kreesten, M. et al.  A Population-Based Study of Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Autism."
  New England Journal of Medicine.  7 November 2002. Hviid, Anders et al.  Association Between Thimerosal-Containing
Vaccine and Autism."
  New England Journal of Medicine.  October 2003. The National Academies.  "Immunization Safety Review: Vaccines and Autism."
  2004. Vaccine Knowledge Project.  "Vaccine Ingredients."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Vaccines Adjuvants."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Flublok Seasonal Influenza (Flu) Vaccine."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Guillain-Barre Syndrome."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Narcolepsy Following Pandemrix Influenza Vaccination in Europe."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Miller, Elizabeth et al.  Risk of Narcolepsy in Children and Young People Receiving As03 Adjuvanted Pandemic A/h1n1 2009 Influenza Vaccine: Retrospective Analysis."
  BMJ.  26 February 2013. Moretti, Raffella et al.  Blood-Brain Barrier Dysfunction in Disorders of the Developing Brain."
  Frontiers in Neuroscience.  17 February 2015. Volodin, N.N. et al.  Status of the Blood-brain Barrier in Newborn Infants of Various Gestational Ages in the Normal State and in Pathology."
  Pediatriia.  1989. Saunders, Norman R. et al.  The Rights and Wrongs of Blood-brain Barrier Permeability Studies: S Walk Through 100 Years of History."
  Frontiers in Neuroscience.  16 December 2014. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Flu Symptoms & Complications."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Key Facts About Seasonal Flu Vaccine."
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Osterholm, Michael T. et al.  Efficacy and Effectiveness of Influenza Vaccines: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis."
  The Lancet.  January 2012. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  "Vaccine Effectiveness  How Well Does the Flu Vaccine Work?"
  Accessed 8 October 2016. Jefferson, T. et al.  Vaccines for Preventing Influenza in Healthy Children."
  Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.  16 April 2008. Lam, Bourree.  Vaccines Are Profitable, So What?"
  The Atlantic.  10 February 2015.