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: The local money will be added to $56 million already appropriated for the new clinic, which will be part of the VA’s Nebraska/Western Iowa Health Care System. The $86 million facility will be built on the campus of the current VA hospital in Omaha. “This project will lay the groundwork for future public-private partnerships aimed at providing veterans access to state-of-the-art facilities and will significantly improve the quality of care we are able to provide to our nation’s veterans,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin in a news release. President Barack Obama in December signed a measure, dubbed the Chip In for Vets Act, that allows the public-private partnership. It was sponsored by U.S. Rep Brad Ashford, who represented Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District until losing his bid for re-election in November. VA officials have said the clinic that will be called the Veterans Affairs Ambulatory Center will offer primary, specialty and ambulatory care and operate radiological and surgical facilities. The current hospital will remain standing, and once the ambulatory care center is built, the hospital will be used primarily for administrative operations with some medical services, said Nebraska/Western Iowa Health Care System spokesman William Ackerman. He couldn’t immediately say where the four other pilot projects will occur. VA officials in Washington didn’t immediately return messages. Design work on the Omaha project will continue through 2017, and officials anticipate site work and construction will begin in early 2018, said Sue Morris, president of Heritage Services, a nonprofit civic group involved in the project. A 2007 study found the current Omaha hospital was plagued by problems in its electrical, heating and cooling systems. In 2011, the VA unveiled plans for a $560 million replacement. Congress approved $56 million to start the project planning, and the new structure tentatively was scheduled to open in 2018. But the plans and work were delayed by funding shortages and changing VA priorities. The public-private project had been projected to cost $136 million — $56 million from federal sources, $80 million from local benefactors. But Ackerman said the figure was decreased after details were refined since the number was discussed after Obama signed the legislation. The local corporation, the Veterans Ambulatory Center Development Corp., which will oversee design, construction and fundraising, was created by Heritage Services. Heritage Services was instrumental in creating major Omaha projects such as the Holland Performing Arts Center and TD Ameritrade Park, where the College World Series is held. ___ Information from: Omaha World-Herald, http://www.omaha.com

SOLUTION: Nonprofit group commits $30M for new Omaha VA facility.

PROBLEM: This year’s National Health Interview Survey was the first to ask about sexual orientation in addition to health habits in its 57-year history, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Bisexual women were twice as likely to experience serious anxiety while bisexual men were more likely to indulge in binge drinking than others, according to the survey. In the survey of more than 34,500 Americans age 18 and above, 1.6 percent reported that they were gay and 0.7 percent reported that they were bisexual. A total of 96.6 percent reported being straight and 1.1 percent either said they were “something else,” did not know or declined to answer. Roughly twice as many women than men identified as bisexual, with 0.9 percent of female respondents saying they were attracted to both sexes. Bisexual women were twice as likely to report having serious anxiety than any other group, with almost 11 percent saying they had been distressed in the past month. Among bisexual men, almost 52 percent said they had five drinks or more in a night during the past year compared with only 31 percent of straight men. Gays and bisexuals fared as well or better than their straight peers in some areas, like exercising, taking HIV tests and receiving flu vaccines. “The differences went both ways, and it depends on the specific indicator that you were looking at,” said Brian Ward, a lead author on the survey and health statistician for the CDC’s statistical arm. The CDC said the survey findings were in line with other  research on health and sexual orientation, though a smaller proportion of people in this survey identified as bisexual than in other studies.

SOLUTION: Government report finds 2.3 percent of Americans gay or bisexual.

PROBLEM: The story takes the rare step of talking about costs from three different angles. The cost to the physician. The cost to the patient. And the cost to insursers. “Doctors will pay a one-time fee of $7,500 to lease and receive training on the device. Patients will pay $150 out of pocket for a MelaFind scan, which analysts say may limit use to more affluent patients who are willing to pay extra for the latest medical care. Mela Sciences does not plan to ask insurers to cover the device until several years from now, after it is more widely used. The story shows that the device is fairly effective at finding cancerous lesions. “In a company-sponsored study published last year involving around 1,300 patients, some with multiple growths, doctors reported that MelaFind correctly suggested biopsies on 125 of 127 melanomas that doctors had removed.” It’s a bit confusing, but the story explains that the device also makes the wrong call too often, giving too many false positives. “However, the device did not raise an alarm about non-melanoma growths only about 10 percent of the time; that was still better than doctors in the study who correctly ruled out melanoma in less than 4 percent of such cases, on average.” Just presenting the false positive and false negative rates would have been more helpful to readers. We would have liked to have seen a little more about the latest study of the device, but there was enough information in the story to let readers know that this is the case where the evidence is still not quite settled. It says, for example, “MelaFind underwent a contentious, years-long review by the Food and Drug Administration, which initially rejected the device and concluded it could ‘potentially cause more harm than good. '” And later it says that “an FDA-required follow-up study would help determine how much of a benefit MelaFind represents for patients.” The story both gives the broader context about melanoma while taking care to pinpoint the appropriate patient population. It says in the second paragraph, “The device is approved only for dermatologists and only for use on growths that don’t have obvious signs of cancer but still have one or two worrisome traits.” It also says, “Nearly all patients diagnosed with early-stage melanoma can be treated and cured, but 85 percent of patients with late-stage melanoma die from it within five years.” The story could have more clearly stated that while many are diagnosed with melanoma only a small number actually will die from it. The late stage cases are a small fraction of the total. The story does not use a truly independent source because everyone appears to have some sort of conflict, but this is also one of the stories strengths. Rarely have we seen conflicts presented with this kind of detail. For example, the story says describes Dr. Leonard Goldberg as “a dermatologist at the Texas Medical Center and vice president of the Skin Cancer Foundation, a disease awareness group that accepts donations from makers of sunscreen.” The story compares the device to clinicians throughout, and shows clearly that dermatologists are still the ones with the best authority in this area. The story says clearly that the devices are not currently available in most areas. “But don’t expect to see a MelaFind machine at your next doctor’s appointment. The company plans a limited rollout next year of just 200 dermatologists on the East coast, all of whom must undergo company training before they can begin using the device.” The story calls the device a “first of its kind,” but it also explains that it is only approved for use in a subset of patients and that much more work needs to be done. The story does not rely on a news release.

SOLUTION:
New device uses light to screen for melanoma