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: The city school systems in Albertville, Boaz and Guntersville have joined the Cullman County and Marshall County system in shutting down until next week. State statistics show Marshall County is the largest system affected by the illness with 5,468 students in kindergarten through the 12th grade. Marshall County plans to resume classes on Tuesday; the others return on Monday. Gov. Kay Ivey declared a flu emergency earlier this month because of an outbreak of the illness. State Health Department officials have said they are investigating more than 50 deaths potentially linked to a flu outbreak statewide, and the agency has been special clinics to vaccinate people against the disease.
Example Output: 5 Alabama school systems closed because of flu.

Example Input: The study evaluated the combined effect of six lifestyle habits on prostate cancer mortality. Those six factors were, as described in the journal article: “not currently smoking or quit 10 or more years ago, body mass index under 30 kg/m2, high vigorous physical activity, high intake of tomatoes and fatty fish, and low intake of processed meat.” It’s tough to put a price tag on those lifestyle choices. How much does “high vigorous physical activity” cost? How much does it cost to avoid eating processed meat? It would be easy to say this category doesn’t apply. But the release does address the issue, saying the study findings underscore “the ongoing need for more effective prevention measures and policies to increase exercise, improve diet quality and reduce tobacco use in our population….It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” Recognizing the need for policies that support these lifestyle changes is important — and addresses the cost issue in a meaningful way. This is where things get a little tricky. The research described in this journal article looked at data from two different studies: the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) and the Physicians’ Health Study (PHS). The HPFS tracked 42,701 men from 1986-2010. The PHS tracked 20,324 men from 1982-2010. The release (and journal article) explain that the researchers used the HPFS data to develop a “healthy lifestyle score,” and then applied that score to the men in the PHS to see if it predicted whether someone would contract a lethal form of prostate cancer. The researchers identified the number of lethal cases of prostate cancer in each group to calculate benefits. The release states: “Participants with 5 to 6 points [the highest scores] in the HPFS had a 68 percent decreased risk of lethal prostate cancer[,] and a 38 percent decreased risk was observed in the [PHS] for the same comparison.” Several points to make here. First, the ‘healthy’ group appeared to have been compared to the ‘least healthy’ group (score 0-1) and not all the other groups combined. This was noted in the published results but not mentioned in the release. That’s important. Second, the release does not note (but the journal article does) that the 38 percent decreased risk seen in the PHS was not found to be statistically significant. That’s also an important distinction. Third, this is the relative reduced risk, and doesn’t tell readers what the actual, absolute reduction of risk is. The release doesn’t address harms. But the lifestyle choices at issue here are (for the most part) so broadly defined that it would be difficult to say what the harms would be. What harms are associated with eating tomatoes, avoiding processed meats, or not smoking? We’ll rate this one not applicable. The release does a good job of explaining what is a somewhat complicated study design. The study is basically an analysis of data drawn from two large, previous studies — and the release describes the overall sample size, age range, and length of those two studies. But the language used to describe the results is inappropriate. Since this was an analysis of observational study data that’s unable to prove cause and effect, it’s misleading to use active verbs to describe the results. The release does this in several places: It’s more appropriate to state that these habits were “associated with” reduced risk — not that the habits “save lives” or “cut” risk. Another thing that’s not clearly explained to readers (as noted above) is what it means to develop a lifestyle scoring system based on one study’s data set, and then apply that scoring system to a second data set, when the results section is provided for both data sets. It’s confusing. We’d encourage public affairs specialists preparing news releases and reporters using them as their initial sources to focus more on the limitations of this type of research. Sometimes referred to as “data dredging,” it’s basically finding statistically significant results only by chance. In this case it’s a statistic of a statistic (up to 47% of cancer cases could be prevented with these lifestyle interventions). No disease mongering here. Funding sources were clearly identified, and there are no clear conflicts of interest. Things get tricky again here. As the release notes, most prostate cancers don’t metastasize and aren’t life threatening. But some do metastasize and can be fatal. Are there different types of prostate cancer, just like there are different types of flu? Are there genetic factors that affect risk? Readers would have benefited from that information. And we suppose that the release could have also mentioned other dietary or lifestyle factors that might help reduce risk that were not considered in the paper. However, the range of healthy behaviors discussed here is pretty broad, and it seems excessive to expect the release to address an entire laundry list of possibilities. We’ll give this a Satisfactory rating. The study was limited to a relatively high level income group and the interventions may not be attainable for all men, in all socioeconomic groups. Does partaking of vigorous physical exercise on a regular basis require access to a gym or just a high degree of motivation? Are tomatoes and fish attainable year round for all socioeconomic groups? The study addresses this to some extent when it says, “It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” We’ll award a Satisfactory here. There are a lot — a lot — of papers out there on lifestyle choices and prostate cancer. In fact, the opening sentences in the abstract for the journal article says as much, while articulating what sets this research apart: “Several lifestyle factors have been associated with risk of lethal prostate cancer, but little is known about their combined effect. Our objective was to develop and apply a lifestyle score for prevention of lethal prostate cancer.” However, the release does not acknowledge all of the existing work on lifestyle and prostate cancer, and therefore fails to highlight how this paper fits into that broad body of work. Apart from the cause-and-effect statements addressed above, there is no unjustifiable language used here.
Example Output: Working up a sweat may protect men from lethal prostate cancer

Example Input: The costs of antidepressants weren’t discussed, but perhaps that is understandable in this kind of broad overview of a meta-analysis. Fluoxetine (prozac) and venalfaxine (effexor) are now both generic. So costs are pretty low. The story gave detailed breakdowns of percent improvement in scores on depression tests and provided an estimate of the number needed to treat in order for one to benefit. The difference in benefits between older and younger patients was highlighted. There was at least the acknowledgement that these drugs do carry side effects – but none was specified nor quantified. Several of the limitations of the meta-analysis were mentioned in the story. Of course, one key limitation in such cases is how they selected studies for the analyses (ones already available to them from the National Institute of Mental Health and from drug companies). This may not bias the results but may bias the interpretation (the authors say they only know these effects for prozac/effexor and can’t comment on other drugs; that could possibly lead a reader to incorrectly conclude that only prozac/effexor are shown to be effective.) No disease mongering about depression here. The story interviewed Irving Kirsch, frequently cited/quoted on antidepressant research issues. It also did a good job of noting potential conflicts of interest. The story at least noted alternatives including psychotherapy and exercise, but didn’t give information about the effects, pros/cons of these options. The availability of antidepressants was not in question. The story didn’t analyze the novelty claim that the researchers made: “To our knowledge, this is the first research synthesis in this area to use complete longitudinal person-level data from a large set of published and unpublished studies. The results do not support previous findings that antidepressants show little benefit except for severe depression.” The second point was made in the story, but perhaps the story should have explained a bit more about the methodological reasons for why this analysis was – or what made it – different or important. As to the first (questionable) part of the claim, what’s novel is this: more studies than the previous analysis, adolescents/adults/older adults included and analyzed by these groups. The story did not rely on a news release.
Example Output:
Study suggests overall benefit from antidepressants