TASK DEFINITION: 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'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: On 31 January 2018, an Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat struck a garbage truck that was on the tracks at 11:20 a.m. in Crozet, Virginia, killing one person. The tragic loss of life did not give even brief pause, however, to conspiracy trolls who made it their latest fodder. Although there is no evidence the collision was anything more than a horrific accident, disreputable web sites like TheGatewayPundit.com, YourNewsWire and InfoWars.com latched on, reporting with no evidence that the incident was the result of a nefarious “Deep State” plot to either scare Republicans into falling in line or assassinate them, depending on which crank web site or social media feed one happened to be looking at. For example, InfoWars asked: Was [sic] the safety signals for the train carrying GOP leaders outside Charlottesville, Va., hacked to ensure the train would crash – or was the incident completely accidental? Was the Deep State trying to send a message to globalist Republicans to get back in line – to jump off the Trump train – after the president’s unifying message during the State of the Union? Of course, the train crash might have been a complete accident, but nevertheless here’s some of the weird circumstances surrounding it so far. This is demonstrably false, as WVIR reporter Matt Talhelm, who was at the scene reported, the arms of the crossing guard appeared functional and were down when the accident occurred: Now that the #train has pulled away headed to #Charlottesville @Amtrak station, I can confirm the track crossing IS signalized with the arms DOWN. pic.twitter.com/9Ghrp6LZSM — Matt Talhelm (@MattTalhelm) January 31, 2018  YourNewsWire tried to link the accident to a raging controversy over a memo containing classified information compiled by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California) about surveillance. Republicans, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are clashing with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over making the memo public. (Trump, and since his election increasingly Republicans, have placed themselves at odds with the U.S. intelligence community.) YourNewsWire reported: The timing could not be more auspicious. Trump aide’s [sic] have been warning that the Deep State could attempt a False Flag this week, as they desperately try to distract from the release of the FISA Abuse memo. Less than twelve hours after President Trump was caught on a hot mic telling a colleague that the memo would “100%” be released, the Deep State killing machine whirred into life and attempted to cause mass carnage on the Amtrak rails. Remarkably, these sites claimed to have this highly sensitive trove of (conflicting, unsourced, unattributed) information hours before the lead investigative agency on the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board, had made any public comments about the collision. Disreputable sites and conspiratorial social media users alike pushed the idea that the Deep State, a pejorative term for an alleged amorphous amalgam of U.S. intelligence agencies and illuminati operatives, plotted against Republican members of Congress in the wake of a relatively uneventful State of the Union address delivered by President Trump one day earlier. They claimed that U.S. spies and secret power brokers feared the address would rally the country behind Trump. Worth noting: None of the GOP members of Congress on the train were seriously hurt. According to witnesses, including lawmakers who were on board the train headed to a retreat in West Virginia, the train hit a garbage truck that was on the tracks. Images posted to social media show the damaged locomotive on the tracks and the obliterated remains of the truck. BREAKING: White House: 1 death and 1 serious injury after crash involving a train with GOP lawmakers and a truck, but “there are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff.”https://t.co/l1iAPNzniZ pic.twitter.com/Jj7VNVFrIa — NBC News (@NBCNews) January 31, 2018  Although the identity of the deceased person has not been released, Rep. Marshall Rogers (R-Kansas), who is a medical doctor, got out of the train and performed CPR on the garbage truck driver, according to posts written by his wife Laina on his official Twitter feed. The University of Virginia Health System reported that six people had been transported to UVA Medical Center, one in critical condition. Per a statement sent out by Amtrak, accidents at grade-level rail crossings are common: This is an opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of exercising caution around railroad rights-of-way. Amtrak continues to work closely with Operation Lifesaver to communicate the dangers of grade crossings. Each year, about 2,000 people are killed or injured in grade crossing and trespassing incidents nationwide. Although the exact cause of the accident isn’t known, there’s no evidence to support claims being made by notoriously unreliable web sites that there was any foul play, let alone a massive Deep State conspiracy to harm Republican legislators. These sites have misled readers numerous times before. Their modus operandi appears to involve seizing on the early moments of American tragedies to publish unvetted claims and outright lies during the time when real journalists are still working to report and verify facts. In the past YourNewsWire, for instance, posted a viral story that falsely reported that a second gunman had opened fire on a music festival crowd during the 1 October 2017 mass shooting. Gateway Pundit named the wrong person as the Las Vegas shooter. InfoWars helped spread false information about the identity of a man accused of starting recent California wildfires. Claim: The train carrying GOP members of Congress to a West Virginia retreat crashed due to a Deep State plot.

SOLUTION: 0

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The story attempted to discuss cost by citing the difference in price between shoulder surgery ($13,000) and the PRP treatment ($1,000, in this case for two injections). This is sufficient enough for a Satisfactory rating, but barely. While this does give readers some idea of the possible cost difference in treatments, there is no assurance that the charges in the author’s case are typical for those for the general public. It is simply one single data point which is fairly useless to the public. And, since there is no evidence of benefit or how many shots one might require, cost could be all over the place. The story gives no information on quantified benefits measured in PRP research, and instead focuses only on the author’s experience. The only mention of potential harms in the story comes in this statement:  “The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons — which says PRP ‘holds great promise’ — describes the risk as minimal.”  That’s not acceptable given that there is no explanation of what those risks might be. Readers are left clueless when it comes to questions of potential harms. Simply put, the discussion on the quality of evidence here is at best minimal, just the experience of one patient who happens to be a writer for the Washington Post. The story does cite a “recent pilot study” from a Canadian clinic of just seven rotator cuff injury patients who underwent PRP therapy. It said the study “showed tissue healing in five of seven patients . . . as well as improvements in their pain and function.”  But the story offers no information on how much healing or what degree of pain reduction or function, information readers need to consider a new therapeutic approach. There is no discussion of the growing body of evidence that has yet to show PRP actually improves clinical results. High-quality research, including a Cochrane systematic review, shows no benefit from injecting PRP. As Cochrane’s review noted: “The quality of the evidence is very low, partly because most trials used flawed methods that mean their results may not be reliable….In terms of individual conditions, we were able to pool results from six studies and found no differences in long-term function between those who received PRT during rotator cuff surgery and those who did not.” When it comes to shoulder injuries like rotator cuff tears, the story does not disease monger. However, the author’s claim that a vaccination injection resulted in the shoulder tear was an unusual claim, and one that we’re dubious of. Along with quotes from the author’s physician (who has already posted the story on his website) there are quotes from a researcher who was involved in one small clinical trial on PRP. The inclusion of the researcher just barely squeaks by as sufficient to earn a Satisfactory rating here. However, the story would have been much stronger had the author interviewed an expert who disagrees with these two sources, which wouldn’t be hard to find given the Cochrane review and other systematic reviews that cast a less rosy glow on PRP. The story is basically touting a possible new therapy as an alternative to traditional rotator cuff surgery, but it does a poor job of comparing them in an evidence-based manner. The story explains that platelets are removed from a patient’s blood using a centrifuge, equipment readily available in most practices. It makes the point of advising readers to seek out practitioners who do the procedure frequently. The story suggests that the PRP procedure is becoming more available. The story does not make it clear that PRP is not a new treatment, and that has been studied for many years now, including in rotator cuff tears. This story does not rely on a news release. Claim: I’ll never go through shoulder surgery again, so here’s what I did

SOLUTION: 1

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The fruit (soursop, guyabano), leaves, and bark of the graviola tree (A. muricata), have long been utilized as a folk remedy in parts of Africa and South America for myriad conditions. Claims of their potential to “cure” cancer, similarly, have long been a fixture in certain regions of the Internet — fringe health websites and supplement hucksters, primarily. In their most exaggerated form, such claims take the form of a widespread conspiracy alleging a pharmaceutical coverup to squash evidence of viable, powerful, and universal cure for cancer in favor of financial gain. The dubious Health Sciences Institute, (promoter of a previously debunked claim that Hillary Clinton has worked to hide a cancer cure dubbed “sour honey”) described the plant’s potential this way: Since the 1970s, the bark, leaves, roots, fruit, and fruit seeds of the Amazonian Graviola tree have been studied in numerous laboratory tests and have shown remarkable results with this deadly disease. Several years ago, a major pharmaceutical company began extensive independent research on it. They learned that certain extracts of the tree actually seek out, attack, and destroy cancer cells. […] After more than seven years of work behind closed doors, researchers at this company realized they couldn’t duplicate the tree’s natural properties with a patentable substance. So they shut down the entire project. It basically came down to this—if they couldn’t make huge profits, they would keep the news of this possible cure a well-guarded secret. But one researcher couldn’t bear that, and decided to risk his job with the hope of saving lives. Indeed, there has been research on many parts of, and chemicals within, the graviola tree with regard to their ability to kill cancerous cells. In terms of a possible mechanism, most ideas revolve around unique chemicals contained within the fruit — annonaceous acetogenins — that may present a novel pathway to kill cancer cells. These chemicals are found only in the family of plants Graviola belongs to (Annonaceae) and some research indicates they may have the ability to inhibit chemicals that aid cellular respiration, which can cause a “programmed death” of cancer cells. Perhaps most notably, this mechanism has been explored using extracts from graviola material against human lung, colorectal, and liver cancer cell lines. Such studies have found that extracts were indeed able to cause programmed cell death as hypothesized. Other studies have shown limited potential in reducing the proliferation of cancer cells in some animals and cell lines as well. It is worth mentioning, however, that many chemicals that show anti-cancer properties in laboratory settings do not translate to viable cures or treatments for cancer. Investigations on laboratory animals, too, have shown limited but somewhat positive results with regard to the plant’s anticancer potential. Studies on rats and mice, respectively, have shown some anti-tumor potential with prostate cancer and breast cancer, and studies on rats have, as well, shown potential preventive effects for colon cancer. Outside of singular case reports from people alleging benefits from the plant, no large scale clinical human studies have been published on its efficacy as a legitimate treatment for cancer (at least one clinical trial has been registered, however). As such, the view of the UK based Cancer Research, and other Cancer groups, is as follows: There have not been any studies [of Graviola] in humans. So we don’t know whether it can work as a cancer treatment or not. Many sites on the internet advertise and promote graviola capsules as a cancer cure but none of them are supported by any reputable scientific cancer organisations. Both the United States Food and Drug administration as well as the United States Federal Trade Commission have issued warnings to groups selling graviola extract with claims of its cancer-curing potential. In 2008, in a press release describing a “sweep” of graviola supplement sellers, the FTC described their products as “bogus“. Outside of overblown claims, there are also legitimate concerns about the safety of these products. Numerous studies have suggested that the potentially active chemicals within the graviola tree may be neurotoxic. Epidemiological studies of cultures that regularly use the plant in traditional medicine have shown associations between the plant’s consumption and Parkinson’s disease: Epidemiological studies, however, linked the consumption of Annonaceae to a high prevalence of atypical parkinsonism, in Guadeloupe, in parts of the Afro-Caribbean and Indian population in London and New Caledonia. In several patients who desisted in their consumption of Annonaceae fruits, the progression of atypical parkinsonism ceased […]. Chemical investigations of active components within the plant reveal strong evidence of its neurotoxicity, as well: The fruit pulp extract of A. muricata revealed the strongest neurotoxic effect, with 67% cell death at a concentration of 1 µg/mL. A high reduction in cell viability coupled with pronounced cell death was found at 0.1 µg/mL for an Annonaceous seed extract. These results demonstrate that the intake of dietary supplements containing plant material from Annonaceae may be hazardous to health in terms of neurotoxicity. Claim: The fruit of the graviola tree (soursop or guyabano), or other components of the plant (A. muricata), are a viable cure for cancer.

SOLUTION:
0