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.

The story does include a discussion of price, reporting that a fluoride varnish treatment can cost $23 to $55, while a filling can cost $86 to $606. That’s enough to be rated Satisfactory. However, the story also should have stated that those numbers aren’t a head-to-head comparison, since the varnish treatment must be repeated many times over many years–which would add up. In fact, a cost-effectiveness analysis done by one of the quoted experts concluded the “Caries Management System” he advocates costs almost $1,800 for every cavity or lost tooth prevented. While the story includes links to some studies that report specific results, the only number reported in the story is a reduction in adult tooth fillings of 30 to 50 percent. But without any absolute numbers, this number isn’t useful. Is it a cavity a year? A cavity a decade? The story refers to people at “high risk” for cavities, but does not define what that term means. Without some anchoring in absolute numbers, all readers are left with is a vague sense that preventive treatment is “better” for some people, without pinning down how much better or for whom. Fluoride for dental health has been extensively studied for decades and is considered safe, so we’ll file this rating as not applicable to the story. But, as some dentists might point out, there is an argument to be made for discussing one known–though minor–risk: Some people living in areas with naturally high levels of fluoride in their water may experience tooth discoloration or other issues if they are given additional fluoride treatment. The story portrays the evidence for fluoride treatments as clear and convincing, when there are actually just a few studies, and a lot of expert opinion. That’s not to say the experts quoted in the story are wrong, but the story elevates beliefs to the level of evidence-based conclusions. Cavities in adults can cause serious health problems if left untreated, and any new effective treatment or trends in this area is worthy of press coverage. However, the studies discussed in the story focused on a relatively small group of people with unusually high risk of tooth decay–and so these results may not apply to the adult population at large, which this piece implies. The story quotes a number of sources discussing this trend in dentistry, instead of just relying on one dentist. But the piece would be more balanced had it included at least one source pointing out that some of the techniques advocated in the story could be overkill or wasteful for many people who are at just average risk for tooth decay. As the piece was written, all the sources are very rosy about more aggressive preventive dental care. We also found via an internet search that source John Featherstone has accepted consultation fees from dental companies that make products for these purposes. However, since he wasn’t specifically endorsing one of these products in this story, we’ll give this a pass. The story does not quantify the benefits of these new preventive treatments, or similar approaches, so it fails to give readers a useful comparison with standard dental care or advice for most adults–such as fluoride toothpastes, community water fluoridation, flossing, and mouthwashes. It is clear that the treatments mentioned in the story are widely available, and we were pleased to see the story went a step further and let us know how insurance impacts availability. The story reports that the concepts are not new, and that fluoride varnishes have normally been the purview of pediatric dentistry, but are now catching on among adult dentists. However, it never really explains why practice would be changing now–did research spur this change? There is a reference to “more effective preventive techniques,” but it’s not clear what that means, and how a reader might act on that. This piece doesn’t appear to rely on a news release; the reporter interviewed a number of experts and referred to several publications.
No-Drill Dentistry: Fluoride Treatments Can Prevent Cavities In Adults

Monsoon rains and rising rivers submerged a dozen districts in the greater Jakarta area starting Wednesday after extreme torrential rains hit on New Year’s Eve, causing landslides in hilly areas on the outskirts of the capital that buried scores of people. It’s the worst flooding in the area since 2007, when 80 people were killed over 10 days. More than a thousand soldiers and health workers sprayed disinfectant in hard-hit areas on Sunday to anticipate possible diseases spread by flooding, such as dengue and leptospirosis, a potentially fatal disease spread by rat’s urine, said Ridwan Carman, who is in charge of emergency response and recovery for the Indonesian Red Cross. About 11,000 health workers were deployed to provide medical care for people affected by the flooding, Health Minister Terawan Agus Putranto said in a statement. He said there had been no recorded cases of leptospirosis, tetanus or serious waterborne diseases. In Lebak, a district in neighboring Banten province, where flash floods and mudslides swept away more than 1,700 houses and destroyed several villages, rescuers were still searching for a 7-year-old boy reportedly dragged away by flash flooding that killed at least nine people, said Zainal Arifin, a local search and rescue agency chief. He said mudslides that covered much of the area, blackouts and lack of telecommunications were hampering the search efforts. Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Sunday failed to meet survivors in the devastated village of Sukajaya, where the highest number of deaths were reported, as his helicopter was unable to land due to bad weather, the presidential secretariat said in a statement. The village is in the hardest-hit district of Bogor, where 16 people were killed by flash floods and landslides. Waters have receded in most parts of greater Jakarta, allowing many residents to return and clean up, but scores of tightly packed settlements close to rivers that often suffer from floods during the rainy season remained inundated or covered in mud and debris. Tens of thousands of people remained crammed in damp shelters, mostly in western Jakarta and its satellite city of Bekasi. Government data on Sunday showed that some 92,200 people were still unable to return home as the filthy waters submerged their houses up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) high. In a cramped and damp emergency shelter at a sports center in south Jakarta, mothers breast fed their babies near piles of smelly wet garbage. “My baby is not sleeping as the rain comes in, the wind comes in,” Yuyun Yuniarti said while holding her 7-month-old baby in a sling. “It is disgusting here, but we are stuck.” Yuniarti said food and medicine appeared to be sufficient, with most shelters visited in recent days by authorities and private organizations delivering regular supplies of food. A temporary clinic was treating patients close to where Yuniarti was sleeping, including many suffering from respiratory illnesses. Save the Children, an international child rights organization, expressed its concern about the dire situation for children. At least six kids have died from the floods and tens of thousands have had to leave their homes in Jakarta. “We call on all involved to make sure children are kept safe and have a roof over their heads, and food to eat,” Dino Satria, Save the Children’s humanitarian director in Indonesia, said in a statement. He said his organization would provide school kits, tents and hygiene kits to prevent the outbreak of diseases. Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency said that more downpours were forecast for the capital in the coming days, and that the potential for extreme rainfall would continue until next month across the vast archipelago nation. The government on Friday started cloud seeding in an attempt to divert rain clouds from reaching greater Jakarta to prevent possible flooding, the agency said. Indonesia is hit by deadly floods each year, and Jakarta, the capital of Southeast Asia’s largest economy, is not immune. But this year’s floods have been particularly bad, with nearly 400,000 people seeking refuge in some 270 shelters across the greater metropolitan area as floodwaters reached up to 6 meters (19 feet) in some places.
Indonesia’s flooded capital disinfected to fend off disease.

"There’s a new sheriff in charge of the U.S. Senate, and he’s eager to show how he’s shaking up the law of the land. We’re talking, of course, about new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who took over the Senate’s top slot after the midterm elections bounced Democrats from power. And in this new world, Republicans are touting an eye-catching factoid as evidence of a functional Senate, one they say runs on fairness and order under GOP control. ""Amazing fact: Senate has already voted on more amendments in 2015 than Reid allowed ALL YEAR last year,"" tweeted Phil Kerpen, opinion-writer and president of conservative 501(c)(4) American Commitment, on Jan. 22, 2015. Kerpen, formerly of Americans for Prosperity, the Club for Growth and the libertarian Cato Institute, told us he heard the statistic from McConnell himself. We wanted to know if it was true that the Senate has already allowed more votes on amendments in less than one month than all of 2014. And why? On Senate stoppage and filled ‘trees’ The simple answer on the number of votes is that Kerpen is correct. But the reason behind it varies depending on your particular political lens. A simple search of Senate roll call votes on amendments in 2014 and 2015 backs up Kerpen’s statement. In 2014, there were 15 roll call votes on amendments. As of Jan. 22, 2015, the date of Kerpen's tweet, there were 16 roll call votes on amendments. There have since been 17 more votes on amendments to the bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which passed a week later but will likely face President Barack Obama’s veto pen. Kerpen came at the tally a different way, counting ""real"" votes on amendments, a distinction that also includes roll call votes on motions to table amendments, which effectively kills them. By his math, there were 16 votes allowed on amendments in 2014 and 26 so far in 2015. By either count, the numbers work. What changed? In 2014, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., relied on a funny-sounding procedure called ""filling the amendment tree."" Basically, Reid filled the docket allowed for amendments by adding amendments with inconsequential changes that no one else could override. The procedural tactic prevented Republican-sponsored amendments from being heard on the floor. ""He did that more than any of his predecessors,"" Donald Ritchie, Senate historian, told PunditFact. Reid wasn’t doing this just to be a not-so-nice guy. To Democrats, it was to counter Republican tactics. Unlike the House, the Senate does not have strict rules for the substance of amendments that can be attached to bills (i.e., you could add a health care amendment onto a defense spending bill). And that’s exactly what happened in years past. Republicans began introducing off-topic amendments that, for example, cut off U.S. aid to Egypt or, a favorite of Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to eliminate health care subsidies for Senate staffers. No matter what the topic of the bill. Sometimes this was in effort to force difficult votes for Democrats back home. To Republicans, Reid’s style of blocking amendments emulated an uncooperative and off-the-rails leadership style -- one that is tremendously well-documented -- that stymied policymaking. To Democrats, it was necessary to get anything accomplished. Republicans were filibustering votes on the underlying bills and not committing to a vote in exchange for allowing some amendments, said Steven S. Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. ""Reid saw they were filibustering everything, bringing the place to a standstill,"" Smith told us. ""So he wondered why he should give them votes at all."" Reid’s office does not dispute the number of votes on amendments, but they do take issue with what they deem an ""empty talking point"" that neglects Republican responsibility for the gridlock. His spokesman argues that Republicans blocked their own share of amendments by not compromising on potential amendments to be heard on the floor and refusing to come to an agreement about when a bill should come to a vote. ""(Reid) makes no apologies for blocking what we all consider to be extremely pointless political amendments that were just designed not to improve the bills we were working on but to run 30-second political ads against Democratic senators,"" said spokesman Adam Jentleson. ""Republicans are entirely culpable in that number being what it is."" Reid’s style of blocking amendments irritated Republicans, sure, but it also flared up during the 2014 midterms with Republicans using it to attack Democrats. The GOP pounced on Alaska Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Begich, for instance, for his lack of roll-call votes on his amendments. McConnell, conversely, said he would allow open amendments on the Keystone XL bill, hence the GOP celebrating its ""new management"" style. As political experts told us to expect, there have already been clashes with McConnell’s methods a few days after the initial celebration. During the Keystone debate, Democrats objected to McConnell tabling Democratic amendments and not letting Democrats debate their amendments for a minute. Reid, perhaps ironically, tweeted, ""I've never seen debate shut down as aggressively as when Sen. McConnell refused to allow Dems to debate their own amendments for just 1 min. ... and that’s saying something."" What the experts tell us Bottom line, experts said, voters shouldn’t take the new tactics as evidence that McConnell’s ""return to normal order"" will give the Democrats an easy path to voting on the amendments of their choice. ""It’s not going to happen,"" said Roy Meyers, University of Maryland, Baltimore County affiliate professor of public policy. University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis agreed, saying, ""The overall idea isn’t trivial (‘regular order’), but the exact number isn’t very significant, especially if McConnell, as expected, runs the Senate almost completely to the (Republicans’) advantage."" It’s too early to know whether we have a ""sea change"" of order on our hands in the Senate, said Sarah Binder, George Washington University political science professor. ""In other words, the intense partisanship of the Senate that led Sen. Reid to all-but shut down the amendment process last year has not dissipated,"" Binder said. ""I think the question going forward is whether McConnell can find a way to conduct the Senate such that senators from both parties believe their legislative needs are being met."" Our ruling Kerpen, among others, tweeted, ""Amazing fact: Senate has already voted on more amendments in 2015 than (Harry) Reid allowed ALL YEAR last year."" On the numbers, that is right. But experts cautioned us that the claim falls more in the interesting factoid category than a sign of a different or more cooperative Senate leadership. The statement is accurate but needs clarification and additional information. That meets our definition of . Correction: An earlier version of this fact-check incorrectly described Sen. David Vitter's amendment."

Amazing fact: Senate has already voted on more amendments in 2015 than Reid allowed ALL YEAR last year.