TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: """We're No. 23"" may not sound like a stirring claim, but Gov. John Kasich has been using one version of it to lead cheers for Ohio. ""We jumped 11 spaces since beginning this year in terms of being job-friendly,"" he said in an interview July 12, 2011, with former Fox News colleague Sean Hannity, crediting the improvement to ""probably the most massive comprehensive piece of legislation passed in modern times in Ohio."" He was referring to the recently passed state budget, which he signed into law June 30. He cited more accomplishments and some sources of information when he repeated the claim the next day with former House colleague Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC: ""My state was dying. It is my job to get us out of this. We jumped, according to CNBC, 11 places since I've become governor as business friendly in America."" And Kasich got a third chance to tout Ohio July 17, 2001, on NBC's ""Meet the Press,"" telling host David Gregory: ""Ohio was dying, and we are beginning to really become business-friendly. ... In Ohio, because we faced our $8 billion budget deficit and provide tax relief, what's happened? CNBC says we've jumped 11 points, 11 places in terms of business-friendly."" PolitiFact Ohio decided to take a look at the claim. The governor’s office confirmed he was talking about CNBC's annual rating of ""America's top states for business,"" which the business channel released in June. Ohio ranked 23rd. That is, in fact, an advance of 11 spots from last year’s list, which made Ohio the most improved state (followed by Florida and Pennsylvania). CNBC said its study used input from business groups including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Council on Competitiveness to rank states in 10 categories: cost of doing business; workforce; quality of life; economy; transportation and infrastructure; technology and innovation; education; business friendliness; access to capital, and cost of living. Ohio's biggest improvement came in the ""cost of doing business"" category, based on tax burden, including individual income and property taxes, and business taxes, particularly as they apply to new investments. Utilities, wages and rental space were also figured. That specific improvement was hailed by the Ohio Business Development Coalition, which said, ""Ohio improved to 5th place from 29th place last year due to a multi-year effort to reform the state's tax structure, which took full effect in 2010."" In April, the coalition noted, a report from Ernst & Young with the Council On State Taxation ranked Ohio as having the third friendliest tax environment in the nation. Those tax reforms came before Kasich's watch, however; they started two administrations ago, under Republican Gov. Bob Taft and a GOP-controlled legislature in 2005. Kasich can claim some credit in the category of economy, where the study measured each state’s fiscal health by looking at projected budget gaps or surpluses for the coming fiscal year. Ohio moved up 10 spots to 24th. We think it's fair to allow the governor some license for salesmanship, but we don't think it's splitting hairs to note that the CNBC study did not give Ohio high marks for being ""job friendly"" or ""business friendly"" as he stated. His underlying meaning is that Ohio’s business climate has improved, and his wording is similar to the name of the study, ""America’s top states for business."" But Ohio did not fare as well in some of the study’s 10 categories as it did overall. One category specifically graded states ""on the perceived 'friendliness' of their legal and regulatory frameworks to business."" Ohio ranked 42nd in it. The state was dead last in the ""workforce"" category. CNBC says states were rated ""on the education level of their workforce, as well as the numbers of available workers. We also considered union membership. While organized labor contends that a union workforce is a quality workforce, that argument, more often than not, doesn’t resonate with business. We also looked at the relative success of each state’s worker training programs in placing their participants in jobs."" CNBC's list is one of many. Chief Executive magazine annually rates the ""best/worst states for business,"" using input on ""overall business-friendliness"" from 550 CEOs. Ohio this year ranked 41st -- improved two places from last year but down 19 places from 2006, making the state one of the biggest losers over five years (with Illinois, Washington, Maryland and Pennsylvania). The conservative-leaning Tax Foundation ranked Ohio 46th in its state business tax rankings for 2011. But the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, a trade group that represents small businesses and advocates for less government regulation, annually issues a rigorous ""Business Tax Index"" that pulls together 18 different tax measures to rank the states from best to worst in terms of the costs of their tax systems on entrepreneurship and small business. The index for 2011, published in April, ranked Ohio 9th. The SBE Council also has a ""Small Business Survival Index"" that evaluates states in 36 categories including  corporate and income taxes, gas and diesel taxes, government spending, health care and energy costs, inheritance taxes, and workers compensation costs. The latest, released in December, rated Ohio 9th in the nation, up from 11th a year earlier. So where does that leave the governor’s claim? He was correct that Ohio jumped 11 places in a study from CNBC, although he misstated the name of the study. The state didn’t fare as well in some catagories of that study, including one that specifically looked at perceived friendliness to business. There also are several other rankings for business climate and tax burdens out there. In some of those, Ohio has shown improvement. Others, however, still have the state low in their rankings. And some of the tax changes that boosted the state were put in place by previous administrations. Kasich was trying to show progress in Ohio, selling both the state and his stewardship. In his claim, he was citing only one study. On that study his statement was accurate, but these other points help clarify the picture. On the Truth-O-Meter, that gets a rating of ."

SOLUTION: We jumped 11 places since beginning this year in terms of being job-friendly.

PROBLEM: The furor, which erupted in Ireland last month and then spread quickly across Europe, has led to ready meals being pulled from supermarket shelves and damaged people’s confidence in the food on their plate. It also raised concerns over food labeling and the complex supply chain across the European Union, putting pressure on governments to explain lapses in quality control. A fifth of adults said they had started buying less meat after traces of horse DNA were found in some products, according to the poll conducted by Consumer Intelligence research company. “Our findings show that this scandal has really hit consumers hard, be it through having to change their shopping habits or altering the fundamentals of their diet,” David Black, a spokesman for Consumer Intelligence, said. The online poll, conducted on February 14-15, questioned more than 2,200 adults on their spending habits following the horsemeat scandal. It gave no specific figures on how much meat people were buying, focusing only on broader trends. More than 65 percent of respondents said they trusted food labels less as a result. “(Brands) will have to put in place really stringent ways of checking that what’s being delivered and what’s on the label is indeed what’s in there,” Black said. In the month since horsemeat was first identified in Irish beefburgers, no one is yet reported to have fallen ill from eating horse but many supermarkets and fast food chains are already struggling to save their reputations. Governments across Europe have stressed that horsemeat poses little or no health risk, although some carcasses have been found tainted with a painkiller given to racehorses but banned for human consumption. Environment secretary Owen Paterson, who met British retailers earlier in the day for talks on how to restore consumer confidence, said Britain was closely cooperating with European countries to investigate what happened. “Looking ahead, there was absolute determination in the industry to restore confidence in their products,” he said in televised remarks. “We look forward to meeting on a regular basis to absolutely make it clear that when consumers buy a product they get what they bought.”  British retailers now expect the vast majority of tests on processed beef products to be completed by February 22, according to the British Retail Consortium. More than 60 percent of adults surveyed said they would now buy meat from their local butchers, the poll said, while a quarter of adults said they would now buy more joints, chops or steaks instead of processed meat. Michael Suleyman, who owns a family-run butchers’ shop in Brixton, London, said more customers appeared concerned although for now there had not been any difference in sales figures. “We have seen people panicking and asking us lots of questions like ‘where do you get your meat from?’,” Suleyman, 51, told Reuters. “We assure our customers by showing them the meat and mincing it for them in front of their eyes.”  But with inflation running above central bank targets and an uncertain job market, the spending power of British consumers has been eroded in recent years and, for some, buying more expensive meat is not an option. Nearly a fifth of respondents said they wanted buy less processed meat such as ready-meals, but could not afford to. At a London branch of Britain’s biggest retailer, Tesco, which found horse DNA in some of its own-brand frozen spaghetti bolognese meals last week, consumers were still buying meat products. “I’ve got nothing against horse meat,” said Sean Cosgrove, 39, a local government employee. “I think you’re being ambitious if you expect top quality meat in those products anyway.”

SOLUTION: British shoppers saying nay to meat after horse scandal.

PROBLEM: The CAR T-cell therapy is currently available only in clinical trials, where costs presumably aren’t an issue (a point the story might have made for readers who aren’t familiar with clinical trials). That leaves the question of how much this therapy may cost if it becomes more widely available. And this is where the story offers some valuable insight: “It is also far from clear that such a personalized approach — possibly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars — is economically viable on a large scale.” In other words, to quote the story again: “big questions surround the therapy.” The story provides a broad overview of multiple trials, rather than spending a lot of time on any specific study. That can be dicey, given variability between trial results. However, the story still manages to offer some real numbers — and grounds the benefits with qualifiers. For example, in referring to multiple trials in both adults and children, the story says that some trials have reported “remission rates of up to 90 percent.” The story then notes that “rates in other trials are considerably lower, and many patients relapse.” Elsewhere, the story quotes one researcher as saying “The treatment is great about getting people into remission but not at keeping everyone in remission.” The story then offers some information on one study by the same researcher, stating “39 of 42 patients went into complete remission. By a year, about half had relapsed.” That combination of real numbers, with a sobering qualifier, is important. What we would have liked to have seen: Along with remission discussion, some extra assessment of what the research shows on overall survival rates, and how long people on the drug can be expected to live. The story addresses potential harms. Early on, the it notes that “complications can be lethal,” and refers to a study in which several patients died due to brain swelling. Much lower down, the story refers to one patient’s “intense immune reaction that followed treatment,” involving a fever of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Those aren’t all the risks, but it’s some of the major ones. The story makes clear that immunotherapies in general, and CAR T-cell therapies in particular, are garnering a great deal of attention in the medical research community. However, while we understand that the story is trying to get its arms around a large and growing number of clinical trials related to the therapy, it doesn’t offer much information about those trials. Readers learn that trials involve adults and children (which is an excellent point, and we’re glad the story makes it). And readers learn a little bit about the number of participants in one particular trial (as noted above, under Quantify Benefits). But readers don’t know how many relevant trials have been completed or how many are underway — much less any real detail about any given trial. The story is focused more on providing human faces to the fight against the disease. That can make for good storytelling, but it makes the story less valuable for those trying to learn more about the treatment itself, and what the limitations are of research like this where children’s lives are at stake. No disease mongering here. This is a tricky one. There are multiple sources in the article who speak to the research itself, and most of them are clearly identified as being involved with the research in some way. There appears to be at least one expert source who is not affiliated with any of the clinical trials, but that is inferred, rather than explicitly stated. What makes this tricky is that the story discusses multiple trials, without clearly identifying most of them. That makes it difficult to provide a judgment call here. When it’s a toss-up, we try to err on the side of the story, so we’ll give this a Satisfactory. The story makes a point of noting that, at present, CAR T-cell therapy is used only when all other courses of action — chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, etc. — have failed. It’s clear from the story that this therapy is experimental, and currently available only in trials. The story is basically all about what makes this particular form of therapy novel. This story definitely involved a great deal of reporting, and does not appear to be based on a news release.

SOLUTION:
This 8-year-old is free of cancer — for now — after a ‘breakthrough’ treatment