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: "On Nov. 27, 2013, a Madison-based liberal advocacy group used a mass email to promote protests that were planned against Walmart stores for two days later -- Black Friday. The demonstrations aimed to ""expose Wal-Mart’s shameful labor practices and support workers,"" according to One Wisconsin Now, which then made this claim: ""The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."" That reminded us of a March 2011 claim by filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore. He said in a Madison speech that 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Based on online hits, it became one of our most popular fact-checks ever. So we wondered about the Walmart claim. Wealth, not income In the days before and after Black Friday, leaders no less prominent than President Barack Obama and Pope Francis decried the extent of income disparity in the United States and around the world. Obama called the growing income gap a ""defining challenge of our time."" The pope said that while the earnings of a minority ""are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."" Walmart, of course, is a big target. According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as Mostly  a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies. But let’s be clear up front: Although income and wealth are related, they’re not the same. Wealth is commonly measured in terms of net worth -- the value of a person’s assets minus liabilities. So, things like savings and retirement accounts, minus what is owed on a home mortgage, credit cards, etc. That means a person with heavy debt can have little wealth, or negative wealth, even while earning a six-figure income. One more point before we get to the wealth figures. Walmart was founded by the late Sam Walton, who opened the first store in Arkansas in 1962. Walmart incorporated in 1969 and became a publicly traded company a year later. So, Wal-Mart is not family owned, but rather owned by its stockholders; on the other hand, according to Bloomberg and other news reports, the Walton family members still have control of the company, owning about half of the shares. Group's evidence Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now's executive director, told us his evidence to back his group’s claim is a July 2012 article by economist Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the liberal Economics Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Bivens wrote that in 2010, the wealth of six Walton family heirs was $89.5 billion, 22 percent higher than in 2007. Meanwhile, the median wealth of American families in 2010 was $77,300, nearly 39 percent lower than three years earlier. (Median wealth refers to the American family that is exactly wealthier than half of all families and less wealthy than half.) As for measuring one against the other, Bivens said the Walton family wealth in 2010 was as large as the wealth of the bottom 48.8 million families in the United States, or 41.5 percent of all American families. Rounded up, 41.5 percent would be 42 percent, the figure One Wisconsin Now claims. But let's keep shopping around a little. Similar claim It turns out that a statement nearly identical to the one made by One Wisconsin Now was uttered in July 2012 by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. Sanders said the Walton family owns ""more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America,"" a claim PolitiFact National rated . Our colleagues found that Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, compared the Waltons’ cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. That survey was published in August 2012. Allegretto found that the Waltons’ wealth in 2010 was valued at $89.5 billion -- equal to the entire bottom 41.5 percent of American families. The 2010 figures are the latest available for doing comparisons with the net worth of the overall population. But we found, using the Forbes 400 list for 2013, that the wealth of six of Sam Walton’s descendants has continued to grow. Here are their rankings and their wealth: No. 6 Christy Walton (daughter-in-law), $35.4 billion No. 7: Jim Walton (son), $33.8 billion No. 8: Alice Walton (daughter), $33.5 billion No. 9: S. Robson Walton (son), $33.3 billion No. 95: Ann Walton Kroenke (niece), $4.7 billion No. 110: Nancy Walton Laurie (niece), $4 billion Total Walton family wealth: $144.7 billion. A note before we close: Allegretto told us the housing crisis is a key reason that the gap between the Walton family wealth and the wealth of other American families has grown. More Americans were left with ""negative wealth"" because they lost their biggest asset -- their home -- and often significant amounts of their savings, as well, she said. Our rating One Wisconsin Now wrote: ""The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."" For comparison purposes, the latest data available, for 2010, the figure is 41.5 percent. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's website."

SOLUTION: The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined.

PROBLEM: "Like its competitors, the Times did not discuss costs–an omission which perhaps is more acceptable in this story since it clearly indicated that this is not very close to being a marketable product. Nevertheless, we would have liked to have seen some mention of the financial impact. Many patients with type 1 diabetes are not using currently available pumps and sensors because of the high cost of these devices. It seems likely that this new treatment, if it ever becomes widely available, will be as expensive or more so than the current pump and sensor technology. We applaud the Times for avoiding the term ""artificial pancreas"" in the headline and using it sparingly in the body of the story. The competing stories couldn’t resist it. We can understand why marketers and media relations people would favor this term because of its promotional value, but we don’t think it’s a good way to describe this technology in an objective piece of journalism. ""Artificial pancreas"" is misleading because we’re not really anywhere close to being able to replicate what the normal human pancreas does through artificial technology. Forgetting for a moment that the pancreas does much more than simply dispense insulin (it also produces a number of other hormones and digestive enzymes that aren’t impacted by diabetes), what’s more important is how the pancreas works in concert with the brain and other systems to regulate glucose in a very tight range. The normal human pancreas starts releasing insulin before we eat in response to complex environmental cues, whereas any artificial system would need to be told that meal is coming or react to the rise in glucose after the fact. Plus, insulin produced by the body starts acting right away, whereas insulin analogues take about 20 minutes to take effect. Put this all together and we see that the ""artificial pancreas"" will, for the foreseeable future, require human intervention to predict post-meal insulin needs and dosing or else patients will be at risk of post-meal blood sugar spikes. And it’s not at all clear that such a system will improve overall blood sugar management compared with existing methods. The term ""artificial pancreas"" conjures up a vision of totally automated glucose management and essentially a ""cure"" for type 1 diabetes. This is overselling what the technology can do. The Times waited until the last 3 paragraphs of an 1,100-word story to hint that an automated system could deliver unsafe doses of insulin. It isn’t until the last sentence that we learn that the system would need to be ""exquisitely reliable"" in order to be safe. We feel the story should have raised these issues earlier and that it could have done more to emphasize just how difficult it will be for any device to calculate insulin requirements on the fly. Insulin dosing is affected by factors ranging from how much a person has exercised to what and how much they have eaten. It’s conceivable that technology can account for all of these variables, but there are a lot ways things could go wrong, with potentially deadly results. It’s a close call, but we don’t feel the story did enough to call attention to these issues. In contrast to its competitors, which all led readers to believe there had been a fully automated system sensing glucose levels and dispensing insulin to the participants in this study, the Times noted that the insulin was dispensed by a nurse based on calculations made by a computer algorithm. The Times clearly indicated that the significance of this test was as a ""proof of concept"" that the algorithm works and is safe, not as a test of any specific device. It noted that a fully automated system combining glucose monitoring and insulin delivery was still ""hypothetical."" In addition, the Times story was the only one to draw attention to the small size of this study and the fact the findings were not statistically significant for the primary outcomes. This note of caution was completely lacking from the competing coverage. The story did not exaggerate the effects of type 1 diabetes. The story includes quotes from interviews with one of the study investigators and another researcher, and identifies both as having ties to diabetes products manufacturers. It also quotes an analyst at an investment firm. It would have been better had they included one more source who didn’t have commercial ties to specific products. The story describes currently available technology for glucose monitoring and insulin infusion. It describes the limitations of current approaches for managing insulin, especially during the overnight period. The story is a bit misleading in that it leaves the impression that all type 1 diabetics are currently using pumps at night. This is not actually the case. Most people are doing self monitoring of blood glucose and making judgement calls on whether and how much insulin to administer. However, the story does enough for a satisfactory in our view. The Times did a good job of describing the system used in this study and how close it is to being commercially available. It called the system ""experimental"" and said that it was ""not fully automated."" It said that a fully automated glucose monitor/insulin delivery system was still ""hypothetical"" and would face regulatory hurdles before it could be marketed to the public. The story describes the progression from skin prick glucose testing to continuous monitoring and insulin pumps. It places the new developments in this field on this continuum. There could have been more discussion of many of the recent advances that have made daytime hyper- and hypoglycemia less of a problem such as the newer short-acting insulins. The story did not rely on any news release."

SOLUTION: Insulin Study Could Lead to New Dosage Devices

PROBLEM: "Opposing a proposal to reduce the amount of money that the state puts toward cancer research, Republican state Rep. Jim Keffer of Eastland focused on the financial impact the disease has on Texans. Addressing the measure’s author, GOP Rep. Rob Orr of Burleson, Keffer said in House debate April 3: ""Do you know … that the costs of cancer and all affiliated issues are over $20 billion a year to this state? So that is the reason that this is such a great program. We are having successes, and, really, to tamper with or harm it now … it’d be detrimental."" We wondered whether Keffer was right about cancer costs to Texas. First, some background: In 2007, with the backing of Gov. Rick Perry and bicycling superstar and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, the Legislature voted to ask Texans to approve the sale of $3 billion in bonds over 10 years to finance cancer research grants. Voters gave the OK that fall, and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas was created to dole out the money. Orr’s 2011 measure, which the House rejected, would have reduced the annual sale of the cancer bonds by one-third over the next biennium. In response to our inquiry, Keffer’s chief of staff, Ky Ash, told us that the $20 billion cost statistic was a reference to May 2007 testimony by consultant and lobbyist Billy Hamilton, a former deputy state comptroller, before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. During that hearing, which we reviewed online, Hamilton said he was not speaking for any group or agency in addressing ""the financial aspects"" of cancer in Texas. He pointed to a 2001 study commissioned by the Texas Comprehensive Cancer Control Coalition, a public-private group that is now known as the Cancer Alliance of Texas, and conducted by a research team led by David Warner, a professor of health and social policy at the University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs. The study estimated the total economic impact of cancer on Texas in 1998 as about $14 billion. According to the study, about $5 billion of the total represented ""direct costs,"" including hospitalization and other treatments, cancer screenings and medications, plus spending on research and other cancer-related programs by state agencies, nonprofit groups and private foundations. The remaining $9 billion reflected ""indirect costs"" — in this case, the value of the economic activity lost because someone was sick with or died from cancer. For example, the researchers estimated how much income and other economic benefits people who died of cancer in 1998 would have produced had they lived to their age group’s average life expectancy. So, Hamilton testified, the $14 billion total included numerous costs — including to the government, to families, in lost wages and in insurance — ""rolled together."" He then told the senators that he had drawn on the study to make a conservative estimate for the cost of cancer in Texas in 2008: ""just under $30 billion."" Noted: That’s quite a bit greater than Keffer’s aired figure. In an e-mail, Hamilton told us that he no longer has the original information that supported his analysis, but he said he reached his estimate by updating the 2001 figure using newer data on cancer incidence in Texas, plus demographic and economic figures and information on cancer costs. Hamilton said he believed his estimate was conservative because his price assumptions were closer to the general inflation rate than the increase in the costs of medical care, which is greater. Next, we looked for other research on the costs of cancer in Texas. Christine Mann, an assistant press officer at the Texas Department of State Health Services, pointed us to an analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. It put the 2007 cost number at about $22 billion: $10 billion in direct costs and $12 billion in indirect costs. The March 2009 report, commissioned by the Texas Cancer Registry, says the researchers’ methodology combined an adaptation of a recently published National Cancer Institute approach with methods used by the LBJ School’s Warner in 2001. From 1998 to 2007, the more recent report says, the cost of cancer in Texas increased for several reasons, including an increase in the number of older Texans, rising health care costs and more expensive treatments. For information about cancer trends in Texas, we turned to the Texas Cancer Registry, a collaboration between the Texas Department of State Health Services, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. A February 2010 report says that although cancer rates (the number of new cases per 100,000 people) have been declining in recent years, the number of new cancer cases has been rising because of ""the increasing size and aging of the Texas population."" According to the Cancer Registry, there were 95,607 new cancer cases in Texas in 2007, the most recent data available. That’s an increase of 3.6 percent from the year before. Finally, we found an analysis of the 2010 costs of cancer in the state. Done by the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic analysis firm, the report updates the direct and indirect cost estimate to about $25.3 billion. However, the report, conducted for the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, says Perryman  ""developed a more comprehensive measure of the cost of cancer in terms of Texas business activity,"" including both losses stemming from treatment, illness and death — as the earlier studies measured — and ""spillover effects,"" which it considers ""further reductions in business activity."" Those additional reductions push estimated Texas economic losses to more than $150 billion and nearly 700,000 jobs, the Perryman report says. Finally, we looked for national expertise on the costs of cancer at the state level, finding none. Summing up: Keffer claimed that cancer and its related issues cost Texas upwards of $20 billion a year. Most of that figure is pegged to indirect costs. That said, the most recent research we found consistently pegged the total annual cost at considerably more than $20 billion."

SOLUTION:
The costs of cancer and all affiliated issues are over $20 billion a year to this state.