Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

Example Input: Tuberculosis is North Korea’s biggest public health problem. With this American-made machine, his lab would be able to complete a TB test in just two hours, instead of two months. It took years, but Dr. O got the machines, only to discover that GeneXpert needs cartridges he can’t replace. It’s not entirely clear what about the cartridges would violate international sanctions. For a long time, the producer refused to disclose what agents were inside because that was patented information. But it doesn’t really matter. No one, it seems, is willing to help him procure them from abroad and run the risk of angering Washington. Despite a budding mood of detente on the Korean Peninsula since the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month in Singapore, ongoing sanctions championed by the U.S. and Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy continue to generate an atmosphere of hesitation and the fear of even unintentional violations. And that is keeping lifesaving medicines and supplies from thousands of North Korean tuberculosis patients. Dr. O’s laboratory, built with help from Stanford University and Christian Friends of Korea aid group, has essentially been running on empty since April. But the idle GeneXperts may soon be the least of his troubles. ___ Tuberculosis kills more than 1.6 million people a year. When left untreated it will be fatal in half of those it infects. It’s the world’s most deadly infectious disease and is so contagious that each case can be expected to lead to 10 to 20 more. In developed countries, it has largely been brought under control. There’s a vaccine that prevents it and a cocktail of drugs that can be used to treat, and often cure, it in a matter of months. But it’s a major scourge in less affluent places, including North Korea and sub-Saharan Africa. To help North Korea control its tuberculosis problem, a Geneva-based international aid organization called the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has dispersed more than $100 million in grants since 2010. Last year it supported the treatment of about 190,000 North Korean TB patients. But, two weeks ago, Global Fund ended all of its North Korea-related grants, saying it could no longer accept the North’s “unique operating conditions.” Spokesman Seth Faison said the fund informed Pyongyang in February so it would have time to look for alternative funding sources. He said Global Fund is providing buffer stocks of medicines and health products to help support the treatment of tuberculosis patients through June next year. Faison said Global Fund welcomes the “positive diplomatic efforts underway” between Pyongyang and its neighbors. But the fund’s position stands. The decision shocked the doctors at the Pyongyang tuberculosis lab, who praised Global Fund for the work it had done but accused it of bowing to political pressure from the United States and Trump’s vow to keep the pressure on and not ease sanctions until the North makes major steps toward denuclearization. The United States government, which has pledged $1.4 billion this year, is one of Global Fund’s biggest donors. The fund’s retreat sparked outrage outside of North Korea as well. In an open letter published in the medical journal Lancet, Harvard physician Kee Park, director of North Korea programs for the Korean American Association, warned the fund’s withdrawal could create a “humanitarian and public health crisis” and called the move “a cataclysmic betrayal of the people of the DPRK.” Whatever the reason, its departure is valid cause for concern. When tuberculosis patients reduce or go off their medications prematurely, or begin taking lower quality ones, the bacteria that causes their disease can develop a resistance to the two most powerful anti-TB drugs, making the condition harder and much more expensive to treat. This kind of multi-drug resistant TB is most often found in China, India and Russia. And it’s a big problem in North Korea. ___ North Korea’s health system is fragile and strapped for resources. But in keeping with Kim’s directives to lift the nation’s standard of living, officials are looking for ways to improve. “We have been waging a vigorous struggle with a highly ambitious plan to increase the average life expectancy of the population and bring other health indices in line with those of the world’s most advanced countries,” explained Ri Jong Chang, who is the director of the Central Tuberculosis Prevention Institute and has worked with TB patients for the past 25 years. Ri explained that at the most basic level, the country maintains a network of about 7,000 clinics and a system initiated decades ago that focuses on “household doctors.” Each doctor is responsible for the care of 150 households within their administrative area. Along with primary care, they keep their patients informed and educated about health issues and conduct activities to prevent diseases. If a suspected case of tuberculosis is found, the patient is sent to a county-level hospital for testing. Aware of its needs and vulnerabilities, North Korea, which is generally secretive and deeply suspicious of anything that smacks of foreign “meddling,” has demonstrated a surprising willingness to accept help, allow access and share information with United Nations’ agencies and foreign aid organizations. Along with Global Fund, the most established group treating TB patients in the North is the Eugene Bell Foundation, which supports the treatment of more than 1,000 patients at 12 centers across the country. Unlike Global Fund, since 2008 the Eugene Bell Foundation has been solely focused on fighting multi drug-resistant tuberculosis, which typically takes about 18 months to treat and costs nearly $5,000 per patient. Stephen Linton, who founded the group in 1995, has a grim assessment of the situation. “We are probably only covering about one-tenth of the MDR-TB patients in the country right now,” he told The Associated Press. He said about half of his patients are in Pyongyang, a city of 3 million and the place where most of the North’s elites reside. The reason is straightforward — MDR-TB develops after exposure to medications that failed. In rural areas, fewer people have access to those medicines to begin with. “If you are living in the countryside in North Korea, you are much less likely to get MDR-TB than if you live in Pyongyang. It’s horrendous,” he said. “We can’t get to the bottom of it, even though we focus a lot of resources there.” What really worries him, and the North Korean government, is what will happen if the patients who relied on Global Fund support run out of medications, stop getting help or turn to cheaper, less effective treatments. Many will die. But not before infecting many others. “This is an airborne infection,” he said. “Every time you are in a closed space with a TB patient, you are at risk. So for all the people that travel to North Korea, all the tourists, all the diplomats — they are a risk to everyone who comes near them.” ___ This was supposed to be the year Eugene Bell began to really up its game in North Korea, tripling to 3,000 the number of patients it treats. Many of the sanatoria where TB patients are treated in the North were built 30 or 40 years ago. They have poor insulation, are overcrowded and are often fire hazards. To address those problems and the sort of transparency issues Global Fund was concerned about, Eugene Bell has developed pre-fabricated wards tailor-made to meet the North’s conditions. They are simple, single-story duplexes. Each can be put up quickly by three or four people, meaning the entire process can be monitored while Linton and other Eugene Bell people are in the country on their bi-annual medical team visits. The wards are already paid for when they are shipped from China, so the money isn’t going into the pockets of government officials or funding Kim Jong Un’s missile programs. The idea was to begin putting up 80-100 wards to create large centers in each of North Korea’s nine provinces. A pilot project with 10 wards is now operating on the outskirts of Pyongyang, not far from the airport. Linton said everything was going well until last December. “Then we ran into this sanctions problem,” he said. “It’s officially approved. The design is approved. And it’s not that we can’t send anything in. But these buildings have a metal roof — a panel that has metal in it, aluminum — and that’s the issue.” Linton said Eugene Bell has a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of them “rotting in monsoon weather” in a dockyard outside of Seoul. He believes that until Washington makes it clear it is not against humanitarian aid, other countries and aid organizations will be reluctant to act — or even approve the shipment of items like Dr. O’s GeneXpert cartridges or Eugene Bell’s patient wards that are clearly intended for humanitarian use. As an American, Linton says, he is concerned the U.S. will be held responsible for whatever bad happens with TB in North Korea since no country is as seen as “owning” the sanctions as much as America. “Unless something is done and done soon, this medical emergency will become known in Korea as the ‘Sanctions TB Epidemic,’” he said. “And it will haunt the peninsula for generations.” ___ Talmadge is the AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter: @EricTalmadge
Example Output: Despite detente, sanctions on North Korea fan TB epidemic.

Example Input: The settlements with the patient assistance charities Good Days and Patient Access Network Foundation were the first with foundations linked to an industry-wide probe that has resulted in $840 million in settlements with drugmakers. Both foundations provide assistance to patients seeking to pay out-of-pocket costs for medications. Good Days agreed to pay $2 million while PAN Foundation agreed to pay $4 million. Neither admitted wrongdoing. Good Days in a statement said the settlement will allow it to concentrate on providing help to people in need of life-saving medications. PAN said the settlement involved “legacy matters” rather than its current operations. Drug companies are prohibited from subsidizing co-payments for patients enrolled in the government’s Medicare healthcare program for those aged 65 and older. Companies may donate to non-profits providing co-pay assistance as long as they are independent. But the government has alleged that various drugmakers have used charities like Good Days and PAN as means to improperly pay the co-pay obligations of Medicare patients using their drugs, in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute. The department said Good Days, previously known as the Chronic Disease Fund, from 2010 to 2014 conspired with companies including Novartis AG, Astellas and Questcor, now owned by Mallinckrodt Plc, to pay kickbacks to Medicare patients using their drugs. Those drugs included H.P. Acthar Gel, an expensive treatment for a rare infant seizure disorder and multiple sclerosis that is subject of a related lawsuit by the government against Mallinckrodt over Questcor’s donations to the charity. The Justice Department said Questcor from 2010 to 2014 used the charity as a conduit to improperly subsidize patients’ copays, allowing it to keep raising prices for Acthar, whose price increased from $50 per vial in 2001 to $32,200 in 2014. Mallinckrodt declined to comment. It has said it believed its actions were lawful. PAN similarly permitted Bayer AG, Astellas, Dendreon Pharmaceuticals and Amgen Inc to use it as a conduit to pay patients kickbacks, according to the government’s allegations. Astellas and Amgen in April agreed to pay $100 million and $24.75 million, respectively, to resolve related claims. Dendreon said it takes compliance seriously. Novartis declined to comment. The other companies’ representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Example Output: Two charities to pay $6 million to resolve U.S. pharma kickback probe.

Example Input: Nice job on this. The story states: “For uncomplicated cases of appendicitis, in which the appendix is still intact, the tabs for the two surgeries came out about the same, at just over $7,800. …When the appendix had burst, however, the open surgery racked up a considerably higher bill. On average, it cost $17,594, compared to $12,125 for the laparoscopic surgery.”  As already noted, the story did a good job comparing death rate, readmission rate and hospital stays between the two procedures. Good job comparing death rate, readmission rate and hospital stays between the two procedures. The story quotes the lead researcher’s own caveats about limitations of the research: “he acknowledged that the study has major limitations. First, it looks only at academic medical centers. And second, it’s not a randomized controlled trial, which means the patients being compared could be different in important ways, explaining at least part of the outcomes of the two types of surgery.Indeed, those who had laparoscopy were younger and usually had less severe disease, which could have biased the results in favor of the minimally invasive procedure.” No disease mongering at play here. There was no independent perspective offered. So, even though the lead researcher offered his own caveats about the limitations of the research, we always wish for an independent expert’s voice to be heard in such stories. The focus of the story was the comparison between two surgical approaches. The widespread use of laparascopic appendectomy was clear in the story. The story offered this helpful context: “…experiments comparing the two kinds of procedure have yielded mixed outcomes, and some experts remain unconvinced that laparoscopy is worth its higher upfront cost.The new study, in the Annals of Surgery, doesn’t settle that question. But it does suggest that laparoscopy could actually save thousands of dollars for some patients, when all costs — including physician fees, hospital fees and readmissions — are considered.” It’s clear that the story didn’t rely on a news release.
Example Output:
Less-invasive appendix surgery shines in new study