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.

Input: Consider Input: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services awarded a no-bid contract to the Missouri Primary Care Association. The agreement will pay the organization $125,000 a year to focus on getting more adolescents to receive at least five vaccines, including influenza, hepatitis A and HPV. Contract talks began before health officials warned last week that a hepatitis A outbreak in the state could grow worse if it spreads to urban areas. Health officials say the state has recorded 414 cases of the virus since September 2017. In previous years, only about 10 cases were reported annually.

Output: State awards contract to boost hepatitis A vaccination rate.


Input: Consider Input: The release does not mention cost. The FDA evaluates drugs without consideration of cost, so it’s understandable that they wouldn’t comment on it — and that’s why we’re rating this Not Applicable. But let’s be real here: The value of a new drug is a function not just of how well it works, but its cost-effectiveness. So we look forward to the day when any news release about a new drug — even one from the FDA — will include some mention of cost in its message. This release gives the preliminary results from a single study of 310 patients. Because the drug is experimental, long-term results haven’t been studied. Of the 310 patients enrolled in the lone trial upon which the approval is based, 14.8 percent showed some shrinkage of tumors during the assessment period lasting from 2.1 to about 13.8 months. For a subset of patients who were classified as having a positive response to PD-L1 expression, the response was 26 percent. As noted above, tumor shrinkage doesn’t always lead to improvements in survival or quality of life. It is a surrogate endpoint — a substitute — for the main outcome which is survival. Although this drug looks promising, to be fully transparent about its benefits as currently known, the release should have explained this. As noted in the “Summary,” another larger study is underway to assess the drug’s impact on extending life and improving quality of life. The release includes a description of side effects of this treatment. The most common ones included fatigue, decreased appetite, nausea, urinary tract infection, fever (pyrexia) and constipation. The release also mentions that patients taking the drug have an increased risk of infection and serious side effects that are “immune-mediated.” We would have liked a bit more context on what this term means for patients. The release outlines that this is the very first clinical trial of this compound for safety and efficacy, and under which regulatory paths the drug was assessed, including “breakthrough therapy designation, priority review status and accelerated approval.” We’re giving this release the benefit of the doubt and rating it Satisfactory for its bare bones description of the trial (and since we already addressed the lack of long-term survival data in the “Benefits” section.) As it stands, the results from the small trial were preliminary and short-term and did not reflect long-term survival. We would have liked to see a reference or link to the completed trial where one could look at the results to assess independently or learn more about the outcomes. We think the release should have provided more data on the patient demographics, the treatment regimen (dosing amount and schedule) as well as the range in tumor reduction. There is no disease mongering. This release describes the approval of a new drug by a regulatory agency, but we’d still like to know who sponsored the study that’s the basis for the approval. It’s not enough to state who markets the drug. The release does not give us very much information about alternatives. These patients had already received other therapy and their cancer had recurred, so it is implied that they had no other alternatives. But this isn’t stated very clearly. We can assume (and it seems evident) that the platinum-based therapy that the patients didn’t respond to initially is the usual treatment. The FDA’s approval of a drug clears the way for the drug sponsor to scale up production and begin marketing and selling the product. (The FDA doesn’t state this explicitly but it can be inferred.) A NYT article said the drug would be available in about two months. The release clearly states this product is first of its kind for this type of cancer. We found no unjustifiable language.

Output: FDA approves new, targeted treatment for bladder cancer


Input: Consider Input: A man smokes a cigarette in front of a pub in Bensheim early July 30, 2008. REUTERS/Alex Grimm As might be expected, lung and bronchial cancer accounted for nearly half the cases but cancers of the larynx, mouth and pharynx, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, cervix, as well as acute myelogenous leukemia are also caused by tobacco, the CDC found. “The data in this report provides additional, strong evidence of the serious harm related to tobacco,” said Sherri Stewart of the CDC’s Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, who led the study. Stewart’s team looked at cancer surveys and registries covering 92 percent of the U.S. population. Kentucky had the highest rates of lung cancer among men and women, while Western states with low rates of smoking also had low rates of cancer. Tobacco-related cancers were more common among blacks, non-Hispanic whites and men, reflecting the groups that use tobacco more, the CDC found. “Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States and the most prominent cause of cancer,” said the CDC’s Dr. Matthew McKenna. “The tobacco-use epidemic causes a third of the cancers in America.”   Tobacco use kills 438,000 people prematurely every year, including 38,000 people who breathe only secondhand smoke, the CDC said. “Tobacco use causes more deaths each year than alcohol use, car crashes, suicide, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), homicide, and illegal drug use combined,” the report reads. “In addition, smoking accounts for $167 billion annually in health care expenditures and productivity losses.”   The report is available here


Output: Tobacco caused 2.4 million U.S. cancers: report.