Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.

[Q]: Paragraph: "A hurricane with winds in excess of 180 miles per hour is scary enough. But some corners of the Internet are stirring additional panic -- and attracting additional clicks -- by referring to an extreme hurricane category that doesn’t even exist. The web post appeared as Hurricane Irma was powering through the Caribbean, days ahead of an expected landfall somewhere in Florida. The storm was one of the most powerful to form in the Atlantic Ocean in decades, with sustained winds as high as 185 miles per hour. Into this maelstrom came a website posing as an arm of CNN (spoiler, it’s not) posting a page headlined, ""HURRICANE IRMA could be a Category 6 by the time it hits East Coast."" The advertising-filled page has almost no content of its own -- just an audio recording of a folksy, older-sounding woman rambling, stream-of-consciousness style, about the approach of Irma. At one point, she says, ""The wind speeds are way up there into the category 6 territory."" A flurry of other questionable websites also played with the idea of Irma becoming a Category 6 storm. There is no such thing. The scale used by the National Hurricane Center only goes as high as 5. The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was developed by Herbert Saffir, an engineer in Coral Gables, Fla., and Robert Simpson, who headed the National Hurricane Center from 1967 to 1973. The scale used wind speeds as a guide to predict the extent of structural damage. ""Saffir, an engineer and expert on wind damage who helped write the Dade County, Fla., building code, developed the first version of the scale in 1971 for a United Nations report on construction that could stand up to high winds,"" wrote Jack Williams the founding weather editor of USA Today and co-author of Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth. As for Simpson, Williams wrote, one of his formative experiences at the National Hurricane Center came with the approach of Hurricane Camille to the Mississippi coast on Aug. 16, 1969. The storm was shaping up to be extremely dangerous, but Simpson grappled with the best way to communicate this to residents in the storm’s path. ""Simpson broke the Weather Bureau's rule against using specific wind speed or surge figures in forecasts -- they were supposed to say things such as ‘strong winds and dangerously high water are expected,’ "" Williams wrote. ""After it was all over, despite the success of the evacuations, Simpson felt he needed a better way to communicate what a storm is capable of doing. He correlated Saffir's wind damage rankings with the surge potential to create the scale used today."" While officials at the National Hurricane Center began using Simpson’s new scale internally, it only began releasing it to the public in 1975, amid clamor by the media for an easily understandable metric. Officially, the Saffir-Simpson scale is based on a hurricane's sustained wind speed. ""Hurricanes reaching Category 3 and higher are considered major hurricanes because of their potential for significant loss of life and damage,"" according to the National Hurricane Center. ""Category 1 and 2 storms are still dangerous, however, and require preventative measures."" The now-familiar scale of 1 to 5 breaks down as follows: Category Sustained winds (mph) Types of damage 1 74-95 Very dangerous winds will produce some damage 2 96-110 Extremely dangerous winds will cause extensive damage 3 111-129 Devastating damage will occur 4 130-156 Catastrophic damage will occur 5 157+ Catastrophic damage will occur The scale has changed in one significant way over the years. In 2010, the federal agency removed references to storm surge from the scale after some surge expectations proved to be off-base. (Storm surge refers to how far open waters reach beyond their normal levels on coastal land.) Instead, the center directs people to more specific forecasts about storm surge. Unlike the Fujita scale for tornadoes, which runs from 0 to 5, the Saffir-Simpson scale uses measurements taken before a storm hits land. The Fujita ratings are assigned after a storm has hit and the damage is investigated. From time to time, there has been discussion of whether a new category -- Category 6 -- should be added to the scale. That decision would likely fall to the National Hurricane Center after discussions with scientists in the field, said Jill Trepanier, a hurricane specialist in the Louisiana State University department of geography and anthropology. A simple extrapolation from the existing categories would probably set the threshold for a new Category 6 around 180 mph, making Irma a good candidate for that category if it existed, said James B. Elsner, the chair of geography at Florida State University who also runs a business called Climatek that develops software for hurricane and tornado risk models. The idea of creating a Category 6 is often met with skepticism, however. The most frequently cited reason is that Category 6 would add nothing to the understanding of how destructive the storm would be for buildings and other structures. ""Almost no structures can withstand sustained winds over 155 mph,"" said Michael M. Bell, an associate professor in atmospheric science at Colorado State University. ""At those wind speeds, significant damage or even total destruction of most buildings is expected. By this definition, adding a Category 6 would not add any new information, since the strongest criteria for expected wind damage has already been met."" Bill Read, the former director of the National Hurricane Center, agreed in an email with PolitiFact. And the scale’s co-creator, Simpson, agreed as well, in a 1991 interview. Asked whether the scale should be modified to include categories above 5, he said that above 155 mph, ""it's going to cause rupturing damages (to buildings) that are serious no matter how well it's engineered. … That's the reason why we didn't try to go any higher than that anyway."" In fact, several scientists said that a more useful change, if one had to be made, would be to focus less on wind speed specifically, either by modifying the Saffir-Simpson scale to include other factors or by giving added attention to other measurements. ""I personally believe that we need to work on effectively communicating the other hazards that tropical cyclones bring, including heavy rainfall and storm surge,"" Bell said. Hurricane Harvey, which hit coastal Texas, ""did cause significant wind damage as a Category 4, but much of the devastation in Houston and the surrounding areas was caused by inland flooding from sustained rainfall while Harvey was a tropical storm."" Similarly, ""much of the damage from Hurricane Katrina was caused by storm surge when the winds were Category 3,"" Bell said. ""These multiple hazards may not be well-correlated with the Saffir-Simpson Category at landfall, and therefore it is an incomplete description of the storm's destructive potential."" Trepanier said there’s no reason why a Category 6 is needed to communicate how fearsome Irma is. ""Irma is a beast,"" she said. ""It is safe to say the wind speeds are rare, but I see no benefit in calling it a Category 6. It should be considered catastrophic. And that is how people should refer to it."" So, as of now, there is no such thing as a Category 6 storm. The web post suggesting that Irma is one rates ." Claim: Hurricane Irma could be a Category 6 by the time it hits East Coast.
[A]: 0


[Q]: Paragraph: Costs are not mentioned at all. The costs of acupuncture treatment can vary widely, but most people can expect to pay at least $60 per session (and often considerably more). Given that this study involved 16 sessions, and that not all health plans would cover acupuncture to treat ASD, the expense could be considerable. According to the news release, the researchers “identified the most positive outcome of the study as the high compliance rate, with all parents of the children ages 3-10 completing the intervention.” While it is good to know that the patients were able to complete the study, most readers probably wanted to know if the patients benefited from the treatment in any way. The release notes that “researchers measured the effects of the intervention on factors such as the children’s behavior, ability to pay attention, sleep, and aspects of parenting stress” — but doesn’t tell readers whether any of those things changed as a result of treatment. The closest the release comes to quantifying a benefit is when it states that “most parents reported that the intervention had a positive impact on their relationship with their child.” It’s not clear what they mean by “most parents,” how much their relationship improved, how it improved, or why it may have improved. In fairness, the release states that the goal of the study was “to determine if young children with autism spectrum disorder and their parents would tolerate and adhere to an office- and home-based acupuncture/acupressure intervention.” However, the release also says “While a small study, the tolerance and adherence with acupressure this pilot [sic] are both hopeful signs for families of those in their care with autism spectrum disorder.” Why should families be hopeful? Who knows? Given that there had been more than a dozen clinical trials involving acupuncture and children with ASD as of 2012, it’s not clear what questions this new study has answered. Potential harms aren’t discussed at all. To be clear, the risks here are low. As the Mayo Clinic notes, “The risks of acupuncture are low if you have a competent, certified acupuncture practitioner.” But, then again, the release also doesn’t mention the importance of finding a certified acupuncture practitioner. And even with certified practitioners, there are risks, from soreness and bruising to infections. In addition, individuals with bleeding disorders are not good candidates for acupuncture. The release offers very little information about the study. For example, while the release refers to it as a “pilot feasibility study,” it doesn’t even tell readers how many patients participated (there were 10). No disease mongering here. The release doesn’t mention who funded the work. In this case, the work was funded by Autism Speaks. Many people have strong feelings about Autism Speaks, one way or the other, making the funding organization particularly worth mentioning here. It also doesn’t mention any conflicts of interest but there don’t appear to be any. The release doesn’t describe potential benefits for ASD patients, so it’s not clear what alternatives are relevant in this context. Alternatives to what? Ergo, we’ll rank this as not applicable. The release doesn’t address availability at all. While many (or most) readers are aware that acupuncture therapy exists, they may be less familiar with how widely available it is. Readers may not be aware of pediatric acupuncture at all, much less pediatric acupuncture for children with ASD. Is there a special certification for pediatric acupuncture therapy? What about for pediatric ASD acupuncture therapy? The release doesn’t tell us. Acupuncture research related to ASD is not new. Here’s a systematic review of the relevant literature from 2011, and another from the same year. The Cochrane review, among the collection of studies included in the reviews above, concludes that: “We need high quality trials of larger size and longer follow-up as the evidence base at present has many limitations.” But the study described here tackles the subject in a new way, that of the feasibility of being able to complete therapy. Prior studies haven’t shown that it’s feasible for families to commit to longer term acupuncture therapy. The release doesn’t rely on sensational language. We do caution that when a news release includes a quote that says a study offers “hopeful signs for families,” it should be obvious why those families should be hopeful. This release doesn’t do that, because it is not clear how or whether these patients were better off at the end of the study than they were at the beginning. It’s not as egregious as releases (or news stories) that claim amazing results based on limited data, but no release (or news story) should leave readers no wiser at the end than they were at the beginning. Claim: New study from KKI shows feasibility of acupuncture in young children with ASD
[A]: 0


[Q]: Paragraph: "Del. Steve Landes says Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s long-sought initiative to expand Medicaid in Virginia is financial quicksand. ""Do you support or oppose Medicaid expansion in Virginia?"" Landes, R-Augusta, asked constituents in a recent survey about issues. ""While expansion would enroll up to 400,000 currently uninsured Virginians in Medicaid, it could cost the Commonwealth of Virginia over $1 billion per year, forcing cuts to other key services like education, mental health and public safety."" Landes is hardly the first Republican to sound the $1 billion-a-year alarm about the potential cost of expanding Medicaid. Others, including House Speaker Bill Howell, also have tossed around the number during the GOP’s successful three-year effort to block expansion. Democrats say the state has a moral obligation to make Medicaid available to all low-income Virginians who are qualified - particularly because the federal government has agreed to pay for the vast majority of the expansion. Republicans counter that Medicaid already is unwieldy and that Uncle Sam, deeply in debt, can’t be relied upon to pay his promised share. The issue is certain to re-emerge this winter when the General Assembly convenes for a 60-day session starting Jan. 13. So it’s a good time to look into the accuracy of the $1 billion-a-year claim. Let’s start with some background. The costs Under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, states have the choice of extending their Medicaid programs to people who earn 138 percent of the U.S. poverty level. The federal government pays all of the expansion costs through this federal fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and gradually will drop its future share to a standing 90 percent after 2019. To date, 31 states have decided to expand Medicaid. Virginia’s Medicaid program is run by the state Department of Medical Assistance Services which, in September, issued annual cost estimates for Medicaid expansion through 2022. They show the expansion would cost a total of $800 million in fiscal 2017, with the state shouldering $32 million of that amount. In 2022, the cost would be $3.1 billion, with the state responsible for $325 million. But these gross figures don’t take into account savings that DMAS says the state would realize by expanding Medicaid. For example, Virginia now covers all the costs of hospitalizing a state prisoner; under Medicaid expansion, the federal government would pay 90 percent of the bills. Virginia pays most of the costs for uninsured low-income residents who receive behavioral health treatment from community service boards; under Medicaid expansion, the federal government again would pay 90 percent of those bills. DMAS concluded that the savings would outweigh the costs of Medicaid expansion through 2020, when Virginia would see a $34 million net gain from joining the program. After that, there would be some - but not much - red ink. DMAS estimated that the bottom-line cost to expand would be $3 million in 2022. Landes’ figure So how does Landes reach his estimate of a potential $1 billion-a-year cost to Virginia taxpayers? His calculation rests on the premise that the federal government, already over-committed, will renege on its legal promise to never pay less than 90 percent of expansion costs. ""If the federal government cut the expansion match rate back to 50/50, it would cost Virginia over $1 billion per year in the out years,"" Landes wrote to us in an email. He pointed out that the bottom-line price of expansion - combining Washington’s share with the state’s net cost - is estimated to exceed $2 billion a year starting in 2018. If the federal government tosses half of the expense back to Virginia that year or later, the state would be shackled with annual bills of at least $1 billion. Craig Markva, a spokesman for DMAS, told us the state has every reason to believe that won’t happen. For one thing, legislation would be required to cut the federal contribution. Edwin Park, the vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, told us there’s no movement afoot in Congress to take such an action. In 2012, the Obama administration proposed a budget-cutting measure that would have changed the formula for how much it pays for Medicaid patients, boosting the federal match for current enrollees and lowering the match for people who became newly insured under the law. But after the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that expansion was an option, not a mandate, the White House dropped that proposal, because it wanted to assure states the match would stay at 90 percent, Park said. It also should be noted that the Obama administration notified states in December 2012 that if they enrolled in expansion, they could drop out of the program at any time. That assurance was repeated in a March 20, 2014 letter that Cindy Mann, then the White House’s top Medicaid official, wrote to Bill Hazel, Virginia’s secretary of health. McAuliffe, a Democrat who has been pushing to broaden Medicaid, has proposed a state law that would require Virginia’s withdrawal if Washington reduced support for expansion. Republicans have been skeptical the state could extricate itself from the expansion once it began. Our ruling Landes, in a constituent survey, said Medicaid expansion ""could cost the Commonwealth of Virginia over $1 billion per year."" That contradicts the latest estimates on expansion. Virginia’s gross cost in 2022 - the furthest out the projections go - would be $324 million. The net cost, after taking into account a variety of savings the expansion offers, would be $3.1 million. That’s light years away from Landes’ figure. Landes’ estimate rests on the eye-popping supposition that the federal government could decide in the future to cut nearly half of its commitment to pay 90 percent of the costs for expansion, leaving states holding the bag. But this is pure speculation of his part. There’s no effort in Congress now to cut the federal share at all, let alone by the proportion Landes suggests. There’s a burden on Landes to prove his statement with facts, and he comes up short." Claim: "Medicaid expansion ""could cost the Commonwealth of Virginia over $1 billion a year..."
[A]:
0