INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
Common lung function test often misses emphysema in Black men

By HealthDay News

Investigators found that many Black men who were considered to have normal results after race-specific interpretations of a common lung function test called spirometry actually had emphysema when assessed using computed tomography (CT). Photo by Hosse/Wikimedia Commons



Emphysema is missed more often in Black Americans than in White Americans, and now researchers report they have figured out why.

The investigators found that many Black men who were considered to have normal results after race-specific interpretations of a common lung function test called spirometry actually had emphysema when assessed using computed tomography (CT).

Emphysema involves the gradual destruction of lung tissue and is often associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Spirometry measures how much air a person can exhale and inhale. It's standard practice to interpret spirometry results using race-specific norms, resulting in a predicted lower limit of normal for FEV1 and FVC for Black patients, the study authors explained. FEV1 (forced expiratory volume in the first second) is the maximum amount of air a person can exhale in one second and FVC (forced vital capacity) is the maximum amount exhaled after breathing in deeply.

Race-based correction of spirometry has no biological basis and comes from an old mistaken belief that Black people have smaller lungs, the study authors pointed out.

For the study, the researchers examined the results from more than 2,600 Black and White men who had lung CT scans at an average age of 50 and spirometry at an average age of 55.

The study showed that nearly 15% of the Black men with above-normal spirometry results based on race-based adjustments were found to have emphysema on CT scans, compared with just under 2% of White men.

"We found that significant racial disparities in emphysema prevalence occur predominantly among those with FEV1 between 80% and 120% of that predicted," said study author Dr. Gabrielle Liu. She is a pulmonary and critical care fellow at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

"This suggests that the greatest potential for misclassification using race-specific equations occurs among Black adults who are at risk for disease and who could potentially benefit from risk factor modification," said Liu, who was scheduled to present the findings May 15 at the American Thoracic Society annual meeting in San Francisco. Such findings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

"We feel these findings support reconsidering the use of race-specific spirometry reference equations in favor of race-neutral reference equations, and support further research into the utility and implications of incorporating CT imaging into the evaluation of those with suspected impaired respiratory health and normal spirometry," Liu said in a meeting news release.

More information

There's more on emphysema at the American Lung Association.

Eliminating air pollution would save 50,000 lives annually in US, study estimates

Eliminating air pollution could save more than 50,000 lives in the United States annually, a new study estimates. File photo by akiyoko/Shutterstock.

May 16 (UPI) -- Completely eliminating air pollution from energy production in the United States could prevent more than 50,000 early deaths each year, a study published Monday estimates.

It would also save the country more than $600 billion annually, thanks to fewer pollution-related illnesses and deaths, the data published Monday by the journal GeoHealth showed.

About 70% of the benefits sustained by bringing air pollution levels to zero remain in the region in which this has been accomplished, the researchers said.

The findings suggest that shifting to clean energy sources would potentially benefit public health while also helping to mitigate the effects of climate change, they said.

RELATED Improved air quality slows brain function decline in women, study finds

"Transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner sources of energy production can produce health benefits from improved air quality in the near-term while also providing climate benefits in the longer term," study co-author Dr. Jonathan Patz told UPI in an email.

"My hope is that our research findings might spur decision-makers grappling with the necessary move away from fossil fuels, to shift their thinking from burdens to benefits," said Patz, who is director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

The findings are based on the removal of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which is a mixture of microscopic solid substances and liquid droplets found in the air, including dust, dirt, soot and smoke, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

These pollutants are generated by electricity generation, transportation, industrial activities and building functions such heating and cooking, all of which rely on burning fossil fuels, including coal, oil and natural gas, Patz and his colleagues said.

The researchers derived their estimates from national data on emissions, chemical processes, weather patterns and population health, using a tool developed by the EPA that can predict air pollution at the county level, they said.

Previous studies have linked air pollution in cities with 1.8 million deaths globally each year.

RELATED Air pollution in cities causes 1.8 million deaths globally each year, studies find

Exposure to high levels of air pollution may increase a person's risk for heart and lung diseases as well as dementia and arthritis, research suggests.

About 99% of the worldwide population live in regions with poor air quality, according to the World Health Organization.

Based on the estimates from this study, complete removal of PM2.5 pollutants would save about 53,200 lives and $608 billion in healthcare costs and loss of life annually, the data showed.

"Decarbonizing the U.S. energy system would provide enormous health benefits from improved air quality," study co-author Nick Mailloux told UPI in an email.

"There are clear pathways to a nearly emission-free electricity sector, for example, but emissions from other sources such as aviation will be harder to abate," said Mailloux, a graduate student at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at the University of Wisconsin.

Study: Survivors of wildfires face greater risk of cancer
By Denise Mann, HealthDay News

"We saw a consistent signal for lung and brain cancer risk among people who live near wildfires," study author Scott Weichenthal said. 

File Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

Wildfires, like the one raging in New Mexico, are known to cause upticks in breathing issues and heart attacks in their immediate wake for folks who live nearby.

Now, new Canadian research shows that these fires may also increase the risk for lung and brain cancer over time.

People who lived within about 30 miles of wildfires over the prior 10 years were 10% more likely to develop brain cancer and had a 5% higher risk for lung cancer, compared to folks living further away from these fires.

"We saw a consistent signal for lung and brain cancer risk among people who live near wildfires," said study author Scott Weichenthal, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University in Montreal.

"We know that a whole range of carcinogens are released during wildfires that may increase the risk for these cancers."

Wildfires typically begin in forests, grassland or prairies, and are often caused by campfires left unattended, still-lit discarded cigarette butts, sparks from power lines, or arson.

These fires tend to occur in similar parts of the country, so people living in these areas can be continuously exposed to the potentially cancer-causing wildfire pollutants, the study authors noted.

RELATED Worsening drought fuels 'catastrophic' wildfires in New Mexico

Making matters worse, "wildfires are occurring more frequently, covering larger parts of the country, and wildfire season is starting earlier," Weichenthal said. These changes are likely due to global warming and climate change, he believes.

For the study, Weichenthal and his colleagues (including doctoral student Jill Korsiak, who led the analysis), tracked 20 years of data on more than 2 million Canadians to learn more about how wildfires affect people's risk for certain cancers.

The study wasn't designed to look at specific toxins in smoke that may increase cancer risks. "There's still a lot to learn about the kind of pollution that sticks around after the fire," Weichenthal said.

RELATED New Mexico wildfire exceeds 176,000 acres officials urge residents to evacuate

It's not just about outdoor air pollution: "Wildfires also pollute water, soil and indoor air," he noted.

Dr. Mary Prunicki, who reviewed the new study, stressed that "we know more about the short-term effects of wildfires than we do about their long-term impact." She directs air pollution and health research at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

On the day of and days immediately following a wildfire, there's an uptick in hospital visits for asthma attacks, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations, and other lung conditions, Prunicki said.

"There is a strong literature showing an increase in heart attacks, cardiac arrests and strokes among people who have been exposed to wildfire smoke, especially those who have a pre-existing condition," she explained.

Anyone living near wildfire smoke may have burning eyes, a runny nose, cough and/or difficulty breathing.

Exactly what's in the smoke depends on what is burning, Prunicki said, but "in general, wildfires contain small particulate matter that can penetrate deep into the lungs and cause health problems.

"There are various toxins that could be in the smoke that have already been associated independently with increases in lung cancer, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs]," she added.

There are steps you can take to protect your health if you live in a part of the country where wildfires are common.

According to Prunicki, these including understanding your indoor air quality, and if it's poor, using an air purifier or a high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter in your central air conditioning or heating unit. These filters can help remove pollutants from the air you breathe.

Also, "if you have underlying heart or lung conditions, make sure you have your medication at the ready, too," Prunicki said.

It's important as well to reduce the risk of wildfires when you're enjoying the great outdoors, including dousing your campfire with water until it's cold to make sure it is really out.

The study was published in the May 2022 issue of The Lancet Planetary Health.

More information

Sign up for local air quality notices via the Environmental Protection Agency.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Buffalo shooting: Police say 18-year-old gunman planned longer rampage


A man writes in the street on Monday near the site of Saturday's mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. Ten people were killed and three were injured. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- The 18-year-old man who was arrested over the weekend for killing 10 people in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., would have continued his rampage if he hadn't been stopped by authorities, the city's police commissioner said on Monday.

The accused shooter, Payton Gendron, has been charged with murder in the attack Saturday that police say was "racially motivated." Eleven of the 13 victims were Black.

Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told Good Morning America on Monday that Gendron was planning to continue the gunfire at another store nearby.

"It appeared that his plans were to drive out of here and continue driving down Jefferson Avenue looking to shoot more Black people as he could and possibly go to another store location," Gramaglia said.

Officials have said that Gendron traveled about 200 miles to Buffalo on Friday and "did some reconnaissance on the area and the store" before committing the "absolute racist hate crime."

In a lengthy manifesto that's been attributed to Gendron, he details plans for the attack and makes numerous racist and anti-immigrant remarks. Some outlets have reported that Gendron was fueled by a far-right conspiracy theory known as the "Great Replacement" -- which claims that American leaders are seeking to replace White people with communities of color.

The Tops Grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., is seen on Sunday -- one day after a mass shooting there killed 10 people. The accused shooter is an 18-year-old White man who police believe specifically targeted Black victims.

 Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI

Gramaglia told reporters Sunday that Gendron had contact with police last year after he'd made "generalized threats" at his high school in Conklin, N.Y.

Students at Susquehanna Valley High School also told The New York Times that he'd exhibited odd behavior before graduation last year, which included wearing a full Hazmat suit when in-person classes resumed -- which was interpreted as a dramatic display against COVID-19 safety measures and restrictions.

One described Gendron as intelligent, but said he'd become increasingly less social since elementary school.

"He was always very quiet and never much said anything," Cassaundra Williams said according to the Times.

Other students described Gendron as a loner who sometimes made them feel "uncomfortable" -- while another said she was close to the accused shooter and described him as "sweet" and "kind."

Since the attack on Saturday, relatives have since started to come forward to identify victims.

Of those killed in the attack, six were shoppers and four were employees of the grocery store -- including Aaron Salter Jr., a retired Buffalo police officer who worked there as a security guard.

The family of an autistic employee who was injured, Zaire Goodman, told The Buffalo News that he was shot at close range before Gendron killed a woman he was helping with her cart.

"A couple inches to the left or the right and he wouldn't be here," said Goodman's mom, Zeneta Everhart, according to the News.

"I know his life was spared for a reason, and he has to find out what that reason is."

A Buffalo SWAT team member stands guard at the site of a mass shooting on Saturday at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI

Everhart, director of diversity and inclusion in state Sen. Tim Kennedy's office, said her son has returned home after he was treated at a hospital.

The family of 86-year-old victim Ruth Elizabeth Whitfield has retained renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump in anticipation of a possible lawsuit, he said in a statement posted to Twitter.

"We witnessed the deadliest mass shooting of 2022, perpetrated by a self-proclaimed white supremacist who set out to do one thing: kill Black people," Crump wrote.

Crump said he's partnered with other attorneys to thoroughly investigate the shooting.

"These grieving families deserve to know how a white supremacist, so vocal about his hatred, was able to carry out a premeditated and targeted act of terrorism against Black people - all while armed with an assault rifle fitted with a high-capacity magazine," he added.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the shooting that the Justice Department would investigate the shooting as a hate crime and an "act of racially-motivated violent extremism."

President Joe Biden condemned the attack after it occurred Saturday and will travel to Buffalo with first lady Jill Biden on Tuesday to meet with families of the victims and the community, the White House said.

Officials with Tops Markets told The Buffalo News that the site of the shooting will remain closed, but will reopen when investigators are finished and the company has provided counseling and support to employees.

The store's closure means that some residents might have difficulty getting groceries, as they don't have any way to get to a store that's farther away. Tops Markets told the News that it's working to arrange a free bus shuttle to help those residents


Buffalo mourns mass shooting at grocery store

A group prays in the street on Sunday near the site of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

 Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo 

ALL PHOTOS 

Buffalo shooting: Police say 18-year-old Payton Gendron planned longer rampage - UPI.com

Livestreamed carnage: Tech’s hard lessons from mass killings'

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, HALELUYA HADERO and MATT O'BRIEN


1 of 5

A person pays his respects outside the scene of a shooting at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., Sunday, May 15, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

These days, mass shooters like the one now held in the Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket attack don’t stop with planning out their brutal attacks. They also create marketing plans while arranging to livestream their massacres on social platforms in hopes of fomenting more violence.

Sites like Twitter, Facebook and now the game-streaming platform Twitch have learned painful lessons from dealing with the violent videos that now often accompany such shootings. But experts are calling for a broader discussion around livestreams, including whether they should exist at all, since once such videos go online, they’re almost impossible to erase completely.

The self-described white supremacist gunman who police say killed 10 people, most of them Black, at a Buffalo supermarket Saturday had mounted a GoPro camera to his helmet to stream his assault live on Twitch, the video game streaming platform used by another shooter in 2019 who killed two people at a synagogue in Halle, Germany.

He had previously outlined his plan in a detailed but rambling set of online diary entries that were apparently posted publicly ahead of the attack, although it’s not clear how may people might have seen them. His goal: to inspire copycats and spread his racist beliefs. After all, he was a copycat himself.

He decided against streaming on Facebook, as yet another mass shooter did when he killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, three years ago. Unlike Twitch, Facebook requires users to sign up for an account in order to watch livestreams.

Still, not everything went according to plan. By most accounts the platforms responded more quickly to halt the spread of the Buffalo video than they did after the 2019 Christchurch shooting, said Megan Squire, a senior fellow and technology expert at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Another Twitch user watching the live video likely flagged it to the attention of Twitch’s content moderators, she said, which would have helped Twitch pull down the stream less than two minutes after the first gunshots per a company spokesperson. Twitch has not said how the video was flagged.

“In this case, they did pretty well,” Squire said. “The fact that the video is so hard to find right now is proof of that.”

In 2019, the Christchurch shooting was streamed live on Facebook for 17 minutes and quickly spread to other platforms. This time, the platforms generally seemed to coordinate better, particularly by sharing digital “signatures” of the video used to detect and remove copies.

But platform algorithms can have a harder time identifying a copycat video if someone has edited it. That’s created problems, such as when some internet forums users remade the Buffalo video with twisted attempts at humor. Tech companies would have needed to use “more fancy algorithms” to detect those partial matches, Squire said.

“It seems darker and more cynical,” she said of the attempts to spread the shooting video in recent days.

Twitch has more than 2.5 million viewers at any given moment; roughly 8 million content creators stream video on the platform each month, according to the company. The site uses a combination of user reports, algorithms and moderators to detect and remove any violence that occurs on the platform. The company said that it quickly removed the gunman’s stream, but hasn’t shared many details about what happened on Saturday — including whether the stream was reported or how many people watched the rampage live.

A Twitch spokesperson said the company shared the livestream with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a nonprofit group set up by tech companies to help others monitor their own platforms for rebroadcasts. But clips from the video still made their way to other platforms, including the site Streamable, where it was available for millions to view. A spokesperson for Hopin, the company that owns Streamable, said Monday that it’s working to remove the videos and terminate the accounts of those who uploaded them.

Looking ahead, platforms may face future moderation complications from a Texas law — reinstated by an appellate court last week — that bans big social media companies from “censoring” users’ viewpoints. The shooter “had a very specific viewpoint” and the law is unclear enough to create a risk for platforms that moderate people like him, said Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy. “It really puts the finger on the scale of keeping up harmful content,” he said.

Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, said there’s been a shift in how tech companies are responding to such events. In particular, Koenig said, coordination between the companies to create fingerprint repositories for extremist videos so they can’t be re-uploaded to other platforms “has been an incredibly important development.”

A Twitch spokesperson said the company will review how it responded to the gunman’s livestream.

Experts suggest that sites such as Twitch could exercise more control over who can livestream and when — for instance, by building in delays or whitelisting valid users while banning rules violators. More broadly, Koenig said, “there’s also a general societal conversation that needs to happen around the utility of livestreaming and when it’s valuable, when it’s not, and how we put safe norms around how it’s used and what happens if you use it.”

Another option, of course, would be to end livestreaming altogether. But that’s almost impossible to imagine given how much tech companies rely on livestreams to attract and keep users engaged in order to bring in money.

Free speech, Koenig said, is often the reason tech platforms give for allowing this form of technology — beyond the unspoken profit component. But that should be balanced “with rights to privacy and some of the other issues that arise in this instance,” Koenig said.

BUFFALO SUPERMARKET SHOOTING


'Like every other day:' 10 lives lost on a trip to the store


In Buffalo, Biden to confront the racism he's vowed to fight


Violent death in America stalks ordinary walks of daily life

Buffalo shooter’s previous threat raises red-flag questions

ABOLISH THE SECOND AMENDMENT

GUNS DON' KILL PEOPLE

PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE USING GUNS

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, MICHAEL TARM and JAMES ANDERSON

 In this July 20, 2012, photo, a row of different AR-15 style rifles are displayed for sale at the Firing-Line indoor range and gun shop in Aurora, Colo. A warning about possible violence last year involving the 18-year-old now being held in the Buffalo, New York, supermarket shooting is turning attention to New York's "red flag" law.

 (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Less than a year before he opened fire and killed 10 people in a racist attack at a Buffalo grocery store, 18-year-old Payton Gendron was investigated for making a threatening statement at his high school.

New York has a “red flag” law designed to keep firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others, but Gendron was still able to legally buy an AR-15-style rifle.

The “general” threat at Susquehanna Valley High School last June, when he was 17, resulted in state police being called and a mental health evaluation at a hospital. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul told Buffalo radio station WKSE-FM that Gendron had talked about murder and suicide when a teacher asked about his plans after school ended, and it was quickly reported but the threat wasn’t considered specific enough to do more. No request was made to remove any firearms from the suspect, New York State police said Monday.

The revelations are raising new questions about why the law wasn’t invoked and how the effectiveness of “red flag laws” passed in 19 states and the District of Columbia can differ based on how they’re implemented.

WHAT ARE RED FLAG LAWS?

Typically, red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove guns from people with potentially violent behavior, usually up to a year. In many cases, family members or law enforcement must petition the court for an order, though New York is a rare state in which educators can also start the proces

Removing weapons for that long, however, requires a hearing in which prosecutors must convince a judge that the person poses a risk. Most states also block the person from buying more guns during that period.

Red-flag laws are often adopted after tragedies. Florida did so after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 students. Law enforcement officials had received numerous complaints about the 19-year-old gunman’s threatening statements.

“This is actually one of the very few policies we have available where it actually builds on this vanishingly small point of common ground between public health people who want to stop gun violence and gun owners and the gun industry,” said Jeffrey Swanson, a professor in psychiatry at Duke University who researches gun violence.

But, Swanson added: “The issue is it’s so easy for people to get guns anyway. ... It’s not a one-thing problem, and there’s not one solution to it either.”

WHAT DOES NEW YORK’S FLAG LAW SAY?

The 2019 law allows family members, prosecutors, police and school officials to ask courts to order the seizure of guns from someone who poses a danger to themselves or others. The subject of the court action is also prohibited from buying guns while the order is in effect.

An explanation of the law on a state government website says the law made New York the first state to give teachers and school administrators the ability “to prevent school shootings by pursuing court intervention.”

The online description, crafted before the Buffalo shooting, expresses optimism about the law’s impact, saying it would both safeguard gun rights “while ensuring that tragedies, like the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, are not repeated.”

The question is why one wasn’t used in Gendron’s case.

WHAT’S THE PROCESS OF REQUESTING AN ORDER?

Someone seeking an order files a simple, two-page application with the primary county court. It’s considered a civil case, with no criminal charge or penalties involved.

A judge decides whether to issue a temporary order on the same day the application is filed, according to a New York courts website. If it is issued, police take the guns.

A hearing, involving witnesses and evidence, is set within 10 days. If the judge decides to issue a permanent order, it would remain in effect for a year. The petitioner can ask for an extension.

HAS THERE BEEN PUSHBACK TO THE LEGISLATION?

Some opponents of the red-flag legislation in New York feared it could lead to false accusations by family members or others with a grudge against a gun owner.

Legislators in New York and elsewhere were aware of the potential legal pitfalls and drafted laws in such a way to avoid constitutional challenges, said Eric Ruben, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice who also teaches law at SMU Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

Among the safeguards in New York, he said, is a relatively high standard of proof — clear and convincing evidence — required to secure a final, yearlong order, he said. The law also includes penalties for false applications.

DO RED-FLAG LAWS SAVE LIVES?

The law, Ruben said, “poses significant obstacles” for someone under a red-flag order wanting to buy firearms because they are entered in the background check system as long as the order is in effect. “It wouldn’t stop someone from illegal purchases, however.”

Experts in red-flag laws contend that the laws have undoubtedly saved lives, be it in cases involving planned mass shootings, suicides or potentially deadly domestic violence cases.

“Certainly, red-flag laws are more than anything else aimed at trying to stop mass shootings,” said Dave Kopel, research director at the Colorado-based libertarian think tank Independence Institute, which supports gun rights. “But they can be and should be used for more than just that. A handful of killings or suicides is horrific enough.”

Swanson worked on a study that estimated Connecticut prevented one suicide for every 10 to 20 people subjected to gun seizures. A 2019 California study found it was used in mass-shooting threats 21 times. Maryland authorities granted more than 300 petitions in the three months after its law went into effect, including at least four threats of school violence.

That research shows the laws have worked, said Allison Anderman, senior counsel for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, though absolute proof can be tough.

“It’s very hard to prove a law is effective based on things not happening,” she said. “We still have a problem where we have more guns than people in this country, and this patchwork system of laws and our overall weak laws.”

Conspiracy theorists flock to bird flu, spreading falsehoods

By DAVID KLEPPER

A chicken looks in the barn at Honey Brook Farm in Schuylkill Haven, Pa., on April 18, 2022. An outbreak of avian flu is forcing farmers to cull their flocks and leading to concerns about even higher food prices. While it doesn't pose much of a threat to humans, the outbreak is prompting a new wave of some of the same conspiracy theories that emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. 

(Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald via AP, File)

Brad Moline, a fourth-generation Iowa turkey farmer, saw this happen before. In 2015, a virulent avian flu outbreak nearly wiped out his flock.

Barns once filled with chattering birds were suddenly silent. Employees were anguished by having to kill sickened animals. The family business, started in 1924, was at serious risk.

His business recovered, but now the virus is back, again imperiling the nation’s poultry farms. And this time, there’s another pernicious force at work: a potent wave of misinformation that claims the bird flu isn’t real.

“You just want to beat your head against the wall,” Moline said of the Facebook groups in which people insist the flu is fake or, maybe, a bioweapon. “I understand the frustration with how COVID was handled. I understand the lack of trust in the media today. I get it. But this is real.”

While it poses little risk to humans, the global outbreak has led farmers to cull millions of birds and threatens to add to already rising food prices.

It’s also spawning fantastical claims similar to the ones that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring how conspiracy theories often emerge at times of uncertainty, and how the internet and a deepening distrust of science and institutions fuel their spread.

The claims can be found on obscure online message boards and major platforms like Twitter. Some versions claim the flu is fake, a hoax being used to justify reducing the supply of birds in an effort to drive up food prices, either to wreck the global economy or force people into vegetarianism.

“There is no ‘bird flu’ outbreak,” wrote one man on Reddit. “It’s just Covid for chickens.”

Other posters insist the flu is real, but that it was genetically engineered as a weapon, possibly intended to touch off a new round of COVID-style lockdowns. A version of the story popular in India posits that 5G cell towers are somehow to blame for the virus.

As evidence, many of those claiming that the flu is fake note that animal health authorities monitoring the outbreak are using some of the same technology used to test for COVID-19.

“They’re testing the animals for bird flu with PCR tests. That should give you a clue as to what’s going on,” wrote one Twitter user, in a post that’s been liked and retweeted thousands of times.

In truth, PCR tests have been used routinely in medicine, biology and even law enforcement for decades; their creator won a Nobel Prize in 1993.

The reality of the outbreak is far more mundane, if no less devastating to birds and people who depend on them for their livelihood.

Farmers in states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota have already culled millions of fowl to prevent the outbreak from spreading

The first known human case of the H5N1 outbreak in the U.S. was confirmed last month in Colorado in a prison inmate who had been assisting with culling and disposing of poultry at a local farm.

Most human cases involve direct contact with infected birds, meaning the risk to a broad population is low, but experts around the country are monitoring the virus closely just to be sure, according to Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, an agency that tracks animal disease in part to protect the state’s agricultural industries.

“I can guarantee you, this is the real deal,” Poulsen told The Associated Press. “We certainly aren’t making this up.”

Poultry farms drive the local economy in some parts of Wisconsin, Poulsen said, adding that a devastating outbreak of avian flu could create real hardships for farmers as well as consumers.

While the details may vary, the conspiracy theories about avian flu all speak to a distrust of authority and institutions, and a suspicion that millions of doctors, scientists, veterinarians, journalists and elected officials around the world can no longer be trusted.

“Americans clearly understand that the federal government and major media have lied to them repeatedly, and are completely corrupted by the pharmaceutical companies,” said Dr. Joseph Mercola, an osteopath whose discredited claims about vaccines, masks and the coronavirus made him a prominent source of COVID-19 misinformation.

Mercola’s interest in the bird flu dates back years A 2009 book for sale on his website, which Mercola uses to sell unproven natural health remedies, is titled “The Great Bird Flu Hoax.”

Polls show trust in many American institutions — including the news media — has fallen in recent years. Trust in science and scientific experts is also down, and along partisan lines.

Moline, the Iowa turkey farmer, said he sympathizes with people who question what they read about viruses, given the last two years and bitter debates about masks, vaccines and lockdowns. But he said anyone who doubts the existence or seriousness of the avian flu doesn’t understand the threat.

The 2015 outbreak was later determined to be the most expensive animal health disaster in U.S. history. Moline’s farm had to cull tens of thousands of turkeys after the flu got into one of his barns. Workers at the farm now abide by a hygiene policy meant to limit the spread of viruses, including using different pairs of boots and clothes for different barns.

Conspiracy theories are bound to flourish during times of social unrest or unease, according to John Jackson, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Before the internet, there were likely just as many people who privately doubted explanations for big events, Jackson said. But they enjoyed limited opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals, few chances to win new converts, and no way to broadcast their views to strangers.

Now, the conspiracy theories that gain wide popularity — such as the QAnon movement or discredited claims about COVID-19 — work because they give believers a sense of control in a rapidly changing, interconnected world, Jackson said. While they can emerge after disasters, assassinations or plane crashes, they can also appear during times of social upheaval or rapid change.

“There isn’t a phenomena on the planet, whether it’s the avian flu or 5G, that isn’t already primed for conspiracists,” Jackson said. “Now we have coronavirus, which has traumatized us so profoundly ... we look at this same idea of bird flu with completely new eyes, and we bring different kinds of conspiracy to it.”

Claims that the avian flu is a hoax used to drive up food prices also highlight real-world concerns about inflation and food shortages. Worries that the flu is somehow linked to 5G towers underscore anxieties about technological change. Suggestions that it will be used to mandate vegetarianism, on the other hand, reflect uncertainties about sustainable agriculture, climate change and animal welfare.

By creating explanations, conspiracy theories can offer the believer a sense of power or control, Jackson said. But he said they also defy common sense in their cinematic fantasies about vast, sprawling conspiracies of millions working with clockwork efficiency to undermine human affairs.

“Conspiracy theories rest on the idea that humans have the capacity for keeping secrets,” Jackson said. “But they underestimate the reality that we aren’t very good at keeping them.”

Cannes' first female president: Iris Knobloch

German manager Iris Knobloch, a longtime Warner Bros. executive, could make the prestigious Cannes Film Festival more corporate and more American.

When German manager Iris Knobloch begins her mandate as the new president of the board of the Cannes Film Festival, she will also become the first woman to hold the top job at the world's most famous and important film festival.

She is taking over from Pierre Lescure, a French former TV journalist and executive, who has been Cannes president since 2015. The 76-year old will be stepping down after this year's edition, the 75th, which runs through May 28.

Festival's first non-French president

Knobloch is a pioneer in more ways than one. She'll not only be Cannes' first female president but the first "foreigner" to run France's most prized cinema event. That's significant.

The Berlin Film Festival has two non-Germans at the helm — artistic director Carlo Chatrian is Italian, executive director Mariette Rissenbeek is Dutch — but to have a non-Gallic boss in Cannes is something of a revolution.  

Not that Knobloch doesn't know the French film industry.

The daughter of Holocaust survivor and former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Charlotte Knobloch, Iris Knobloch studied law in Munich and New York before spending 25 years at various executive positions within the European operations of US film studio Warner Bros., including 15 years as chair of the Warner Bros. France group. She eventually ended up running Warners' operations across France, Germany, Benelux, Austria and Switzerland.

Knobloch seen in 2014 with a former Warner Bros. co-executive Olivier Snanoudj

Promoter of a film that became a critical and commercial hit

In France, Knobloch played a key role in lobbying Cannes to accept Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" for competition in 2011.

Many, particularly in the French industry, thought the crowd-pleasing black-and-white silent film was too mainstream to get a Cannes berth. But Knobloch prevailed.

"The Artist" was Cannes' hottest ticket that year.

The film's French star, Jean Dujardin, won the best actor award at Cannes, and critical raves sent the movie on an historic awards run, ending at the 2011 Oscars where the movie won five awards including for best picture, best actor and best director.

Jean Dujardin in 'The Artist'

It also became that rarest of beasts: a French global box office hit, earning more than $130 million (€124 million) worldwide.

Coincidentally, Hazanavicius is back in Cannes this year. His zombie comedy, "Final Cut," will open Cannes' 75th anniversary edition on May 17.

Combining red carpet glam and art house cinema

Knobloch's mainstream instincts, and her Hollywood connections — she only stepped down from WarnerMedia last summer — could be a major asset for Cannes, which has long struggled in trying to balance its imprimatur as the world's leading showcase of art house and avant-garde cinema with the necessity of bringing in big American movies and stars to pack its famed red carpet, attract paparazzi and generate buzz in the form of blogs and social media posts.

The Venice Film Festival, which last year featured the world premiere of Warner Bros. sci-fi epic "Dune," and included crowds of Italian fans screaming themselves raw over the sight of stars Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya, has arguably done a much better job of bringing in the Hollywood glam.

Getting two big studio films to France this year — Tom Cruise's long-awaited "Top Gun 2: Maverick" and Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis," a biopic of Elvis Presley featuring Tom Hanks as Presley's mercurial manager Colonel Tom Parker — was a major coup for the festival.

With Knobloch's Hollywood Rolodex, Cannes will be hoping to make it a regular occurrence.

Baz Luhrmann's anticipated rock'n'roll biopic 'Elvis' will debut at Cannes

Artistic director remains Thierry Fremaux

When she takes over as president, Knobloch won't be directly picking Cannes' future lineup. That will still be the purview of artistic director and general delegate Thierry Fremaux.

But as Cannes president, she'll act as a go-between, balancing Fremaux's artistic demands with Cannes' deep-pocketed sponsors, who want as much glamour and bulb-flashing paparazzi moments as they can get.

There, too, Knobloch has an in. When she resigned from Warner last year, ahead of the company's merger with television giant Discovery, she launched a €250 million ($260 million) media investment company, I2PO, together with Artemis, the investment firm backed by French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault.

Pinault, in addition to being the husband of Hollywood star Salma Hayek, is also the owner of luxury goods giant Kering, one of the Cannes festival's official sponsors. Many believe the Kering-Pinault link was key in convincing the Cannes board to vote for Knobloch.

Knobloch's corporate connections have raised hackles in the French film industry, with some suggesting it would be a conflict of interest to have a Cannes president who is also an investor in film companies. Knobloch has pledged that I2PO will not invest in any film company with a connection to Cannes.

Those concerns aside, critics and fans agree that Iris Knobloch brings to her new job a deep knowledge of the entire movie business, from the corporate suite to the red carpet.

As Cannes' first female president, she's more than qualified to prepare the world's most important film festival for an uncertain future.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

Macron appoints Elisabeth Borne as France's new prime minister

She is the first woman to hold the position in over 30 years. French President Emmanuel Macron and Borne were expected to appoint the full government within days.

Borne was named France's new prime minister following the resignation of Jean Castex

French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Elisabeth Borne as France's new prime minister on Monday.

She is only the second woman to hold the position, and the first to head the French government since 1992.

Borne succeeds Jean Castex, whose resignation paved the way for a cabinet overhaul after Macron's re-election last month.

She will seek to make a greater impact than France's first female prime minister, Edith Cresson, who lasted less than a year under President Francois Mitterrand and quit amid a corruption scandal.

At the transition of power ceremony, Castex called Borne "Madame la Premiere Ministre" with a broad smile, before warning:

"The role [of prime minister] is not exempted from public exposure and criticism, dear Elisabeth, people even say that's what it had been created for," Castex said of what the French often refer to as the "job from hell," working to implement plans on behalf of an ever-present president.

Macron's high expectations

Macron most likely hopes Borne's profile could help him appeal to radical-left voters who backed Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round of the presidential election in April, while avoiding alienating supporters right-wing supporters of Marine Le Pen.

Her first task would be to steer Macron's centrist grouping in the upcoming parliamentary election.

Despite being historically close to the Socialist Party, Borne proved her loyalty to the president during his first term when she served as transport, environment and finally, labor minister from 2020.

On her watch, unemployment fell to its lowest level in 15 years and youth unemployment to its lowest level in 40 years.

Melenchon attacks her record as labor minister

However, as labor minister, she also oversaw negotiations with unions that resulted in a cut to unemployment benefits for some job seekers and reduced monthly payments for some unemployed people.

Those negotiating skills could come in handy when she'll be charged with pushing through Macron's unpopular plans to raise the pension age from 62 to 65. Macron had hoped to do this in his first term, but had to delay his plans amid widespread strikes and public protests, and then later as the COVID pandemic turned the last years of his first term into more of a damage limitation exercise.

Melenchon was quick to dismiss Borne's appointment, referring to her as "my predecessor," indicating a belief the he would be able to usurp the position as prime minister following parliamentary elections in the summer.

"Borne: reduction in the allowances for 1 million unemployed people, abolition of regulated gas prices, postponement of the end of nuclear power by 10 years, opening up to competition of [publicly-owned rail companies] SNCF and RATP. Very in favor of retirement at 65. Forward for a new season of social abuse," Melenchon wrote, listing what he perceived to be some of her main achievements in politics to date.

Macron also promised that the new prime minister would be directly in charge of "green planning,'' seeking to accelerate France's implementation of climate-related policies.

lo/msh (AP, AFP, Reuters)

UK PM Johnson visits Northern Ireland amid Brexit-based deadlock

Boris Johnson has again threatened to break post-Brexit agreements with the EU as victorious Sinn Fein accuses him of pandering to the DUP, which is blocking the formation of a government after recent elections.

Johnson has reiterated threats to renege on parts of the Brexit deal to placate DUP hard-liners

Boris Johnson traveled to Belfast on Monday, trying to convince local politicians to form a government in the wake of recent elections. Not for the first time in the past seven years or so, Johnson's push for Brexit — and the terms he ultimately agreed with the EU for Northern Ireland's status — have unsettled the always fragile politics in Northern Ireland.

He met with all the five largest parties, but the talks with the leaders of the Catholic nationalist Sinn Fein party and the Protestant pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to urge them to form a government were the most anticipated. These are the two parties required in order to set up any government in Northern Ireland, with only one of them currently saying it is willing to do so.

Sinn Fein was the clear winner of Northern Ireland's May 5 parliamentary elections, but the DUP has blocked the formation of a power-sharing government as stipulated in the Good Friday Agreement, a 1998 peace deal, citing issues with the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement signed by the UK and the EU when the UK left the bloc in 2020.

Post-Brexit tensions in Northern Ireland

"There is no disguising the fact that the delicate balance created [by the peace agreement] in 1998 has been upset," Johnson wrote in an article published in the Belfast Telegraph newspaper ahead of the meetings. "One part of the political community in Northern Ireland feels like its aspirations and identity are threatened by the working of the Protocol.''
DUP and Johnson dislike EU accord, Sinn Fein approves of it

However, while the DUP does object to the Northern Ireland Protocol, saying it has created friction in trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, Sinn Fein largely approves of the accord, which also ensured Ireland's internal border could remain open.

Johnson's proposed solution at present, unilaterally scrapping parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol without consulting Brussels, is unacceptable to Sinn Fein.

"We have said directly to him that the proposed unilateral act of legislating at Westminster is wrong. It seems to us absolutely extraordinary that the British government would propose to legislate to break the law," said Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the opposition in the Republic of Ireland, following her meeting with Johnson.

"We've had no straight answers really from the British prime minister," McDonald said.

Prior to the meeting, Sinn Fein Northern Ireland leader and First Minister-elect Michelle O'Neill said the UK government was, "playing a game of chicken with the [European] Commission right now, and we're caught in the middle."

O'Neill said the DUP was holding Northern Ireland "ransom" and that Johnson needed to stop pandering to them.

EU also warns against unilateral action

Brussels has already said the treaty can't be renegotiated, but it is willing to act flexibly to ease the burden of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the UK.

"Any unilateral action by Great Britain on Protocol — which would undermine its international legal obligations — clearly [is] not welcome, all the more so in these difficult geopolitical times," European Council President Charles Michel said Monday.

"Northern Ireland is about compromise and trying to find middle-ground positions that everybody can live with, to maintain political stability," Simon Coveney, the Republic of Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister, said in Brussels.

"That's the approach we need to take at the moment, not a unilateral action or threats of unilateral action, which I think is deeply unhelpful. To act unilaterally to break international law, to not respect the democratic decisions in Northern Ireland would make matters significantly worse, not better, in terms of trying to solve the problems of the protocol," Coveney said.

Johnson says would prefer 'consensual' change, but needs 'insurance'

Speaking to reporters in Belfast on Monday, Johnson said his government would prefer not to tear up the accord unilaterally, but said that the threat of doing so was necessary.

"We would love for this to be done in a consensual way with our friends and partners, ironing out some of these problems," he said. "But to get that done, we need to proceed with a legislative solution at the same time."

The Protocol, and the checks on some goods going between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK that come along with it, was the trade-off for ensuring that Northern Ireland could effectively remain with its open border to the EU's single market and customs unions.

Ireland's open border, and the rights of people on either side of it to seek whichever citizenship they prefer and to move freely between the two sides, were core components of the Good Friday peace accord.

"We will set out a more detailed assessment and next steps to parliament in the coming days, once I return from discussions with the local parties," Johnson promised Monday, saying Foreign Secretary Liz Truss would lay out the case to Parliament on Tuesday.

js/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)