instruction:
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.
question:
One student was diagnosed with a variant of the disease on Oct. 24, and a second was diagnosed this past weekend. Both students are in stable condition and health workers are contacting people who may have been in touch with the infected students. Meningitis, which can cause inflammation around the brain and spinal cord, is typically caused by one of five variants — one of which had no vaccine until recently and isn’t covered under standard college vaccinations. UMass is offering the vaccination by appointment. University health officials are advising students to avoid contact with saliva, which can spread the disease.
answer:
UMass Amherst officials say 2 students have meningitis.


question:
“This pandemic is not only a public health crisis, it is also fueling an economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression,” Hancock said at a news conference. Denver has seen steep declines in sales, lodging and other taxes since the pandemic hit Colorado two months ago, and the state is still under a safer-at-home order that has placed restrictions on businesses. City leaders say the drop in tax revenue is affecting the fund that pays for police and fire services, as well as street maintenance. American cities, from Puyallup, Washington, to Miramar, Florida, have also furloughed employees to save money in the face of dire economic forecasts. In April, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti released a spending plan he called “a document of our pain” that includes service cuts and furloughs for nearly 16,000 workers. Under the proposal, city employees would take 26 furlough days, the equivalent of a 10% pay cut, in the coming year. The spending reductions in Los Angeles are likely to be a sign of what’s to come at city halls across the nation, as jobless lines grow and local treasuries see steep drops in tax revenue. Denver’s planned furloughs, which do not apply to uniformed employees like firefighters, police officers and sheriff’s deputies, will save the city about $16 million. The city also is reducing travel, hiring and purchases, and it is asking departments to cut 7.5% from their budgets. About 3,000 of Denver’s 12,000 employees are uniformed workers. “I want everyone to know that we have worked to exhaust every other tool we had before taking this step,” said Hancock, who repeated his call for lawmakers to include cities in the next federal stimulus package. “The reality is this: If cities can’t recover, there will be no national recovery,” he said. Brendan Hanlon, the city’s chief financial officer, said he thought the fallout from the 2008-2009 Great Recession was astonishing, but the current crisis will be harder to address. “I could have never imagined seeing the numbers that we’re seeing right now and the gravity that it means to the services that we provide to the public every day here in Denver,” he said. The city last instituted furloughs in 2011. A survey by the National League of Cities found nearly universal agreement that cities would be hit hard by revenue shortfalls caused by the coronavirus outbreak, and in many cases furloughs and layoffs would be used to close budget gaps.
answer:
Denver to furlough thousands of workers amid coronavirus.


question:
Breastfeeding is not an option for all mothers, whether because of medical/physical limitations or because of socioeconomic ones. However, breastfeeding is also not a medical intervention that one can easily place a price tag on. This is a tough one to call. The release clearly lays out the research findings that breastfeeding is associated with reductions in stroke risk, even breaking it down by subgroups. That’s good. However, the release only tells readers about relative reductions in risk, as opposed to absolute reductions in risk. What does that mean? Well, let’s say that the women in a study have a 0.25% risk of getting Disease X. If the study reports that a specific behavior doubles the risk of Disease X, that sounds like a big deal — a 100% increase in risk! But that’s a 100%  relative increase in risk. The absolute risk would go from 0.25% to 0.5%. The difference between relative and absolute risk is something HealthNewsReview.org has written about, and it is a key distinction that we feel is important. So, when the release tells us that breastfeeding was associated with a 23% decrease in stroke risk, readers still don’t know what that means in terms of absolute risk. And because the baseline absolute risk numbers aren’t mentioned, savvy readers can’t even do the calculation for themselves. Breastfeeding may be “natural,” but it’s not effortless. Breastfeeding can be time-consuming and exhausting, and carries risks of dehydration and breast pain. That said, these are not necessarily medical issues that rise to the level of discussion in a news release about an observational study like this one. As such, we’ll rate this criterion as not applicable. The release does a pretty solid job here, describing the study fairly well and acknowledging its limitations. But there are a couple of things that could have been slightly better. For example, the release describes the study in the fifth paragraph. It is not until the 10th paragraph that the release explicitly tells readers that “Because the study was observational, it couldn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship between breastfeeding and lower stroke risk, meaning that it is possible some other characteristic that distinguishes between women who breastfeed and those who don’t is the factor changing the stroke risk.” For example, it’s possible that women who did not breastfeed had higher levels of stress than women who did breastfeed, which may be a contributing factor to stroke. And it is not until the 12th paragraph that the release tells readers that “The study was also limited by the relatively small number of strokes that occurred during the follow-up period (just 3.4 percent of the women experienced a stroke during the study period and 1.6 percent reported having had a stroke prior to the study) and by the Women’s Health Initiative’s exclusion of women who had already had severe strokes at the time of recruitment.” To be clear, we are very glad that the release includes these valuable qualifiers. However, we think the release would have been stronger if they had not been buried at the bottom of the piece. No disease mongering here. The release offers context on the incidence of U.S. stroke mortality rates. The release clearly discloses the source of research funding. The release also notes that “author disclosures [regarding potential conflicts of interest] are on the manuscript.” It would have been much better to simply disclose the conflicts on the release itself by saying: “The authors report no potential conflicts of interest.” The release does a nice job here, stating: “Breastfeeding is only one of many factors that could potentially protect against stroke. Others include getting adequate exercise, choosing healthy foods, not smoking and seeking treatment if needed to keep your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar in the normal range.” Not all of the alternatives have been proven to protect against stroke but listing them is a worthwhile reminder that lifestyle changes might reduce their risk. The release requests that pregnant women make breastfeeding part of their “birthing plan” and to breastfeed for at least six months to receive the most benefits. It’s assumed readers know that breastfeeding is an available option unless there are medical or lifestyle barriers. The release notes that “This is among the first studies to examine breastfeeding and a possible relationship to stroke risk for mothers.” It would have been helpful to briefly note what the other studies found and whether the results were different or had similar conclusions. The release uses responsible, cautious language. The recommendation to breastfeed to prevent stroke based on observational research may be an overreach, however.
answer:

Breastfeeding may help protect mothers against stroke