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:
Scientists said on Wednesday many Tibetans possess a rare variant of a gene involved in carrying oxygen in the blood that they likely inherited from an enigmatic group of extinct humans who interbred with our species tens of thousands of years ago. It enables Tibetans to function well in low oxygen levels at elevations upwards of 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) like the vast high plateau of southwestern China. People without this variant would be apt to develop thick blood, leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, low-birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality. This version of the EPAS1 gene is nearly identical to one found in Denisovans, a lineage related to Neanderthals - but is very different from other people today. Denisovans are known from a single finger bone and two teeth found in a Siberian cave. DNA testing on the 41,000-year-old bone indicated Denisovans were distinct from our species and Neanderthals. “Our finding may suggest that the exchange of genes through mating with extinct species may be more important in human evolution than previously thought,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a computational biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen, whose study appears in the journal Nature. Our genome contains residual genetic fragments from other organisms like viruses as well as species like Neanderthals with which early modern humans interbred. The researchers called their study the first to show that a gene from an archaic human species has helped modern humans adjust to different living conditions. “Such exchange of genes with other species may in fact have helped humans adapt to new environments encountered as they spread out of Africa and into the rest of the world,” said  Nielsen. Asan Ciren, a researcher with China’s BGI genomics center, added, “The genetic relationship or blood relationship between modern humans and archaic hominins is a hot topic of the current paleoanthropology.”  The researchers said early modern humans trekking out of Africa interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia en route to China. Their descendants harbor a tiny percentage of Denisovan DNA. Genetic studies show nearly 90 percent of Tibetans have the high-altitude gene variant, along with a small percentage of Han Chinese, who share a common ancestor with Tibetans. It is seen in no other people. The researchers conducted genetic studies on 40 Tibetans and 40 Han Chinese and performed a statistical analysis showing that the gene variant almost certainly was inherited from the Denisovans. The gene regulates production of hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. It is turned on when blood oxygen levels drop, stimulating more hemoglobin production. At elevations above 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), the common form of the gene boosts hemoglobin and red blood cell production, causing dangerous side effects. The Tibetans’ variant increases hemoglobin and red blood cell levels only modestly, sparing them these effects.
answer:
Gene from extinct human species fortifies high-altitude Tibetans.


question:
Health workers were desperate to persuade him to get vaccinated for Ebola after a friend fell ill with the lethal and highly contagious disease. But within days, Nduhi was dead. His widow and their four young children were given his positive Ebola test result and a chilling warning from a team of health workers: “If you don’t accept vaccination, you can prepare to die.” Deep distrust — along with political instability and deadly violence — has severely undermined efforts by public health authorities in Congo to curb the outbreak by tracing and vaccinating those who may have come into contact with infected people. Health experts agree the experimental Ebola vaccine has saved multitudes in Congo. But after nearly a year and some 171,000 doses given, the epidemic shows few signs of waning. The virus has killed more than 1,700 people and has now arrived in the region’s largest city, Goma. The World Health Organization last week declared the outbreak a global health emergency. During the 2014-16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which left more than 11,300 people dead, health workers could only dream of a vaccine with a 97.5 percent effectiveness rate that could improve the odds of survival even in those already infected. “We have it now and it’s not the miracle we wanted it to be,” said Dr. Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders. “The fact that we’ve used so much vaccine, and the epidemic hasn’t stopped, that shows us that contact tracing is not great.” WHO says as many as 90 percent of those eligible for vaccination have accepted it, but that figure only includes those who gave contact tracers enough information to be included on a list. The success rate excludes those who distrusted health workers and fled, or those who couldn’t be found in the first place. Health workers have been using what is known as a ring vaccination strategy: The vaccine is first given to those who were in close contact with a sick person. Then a second so-called ring is created by giving the vaccine to those who were in contact with those people. Because of the difficulties in making that strategy work, some people didn’t get vaccinated until they had already been infected with the virus, and they developed Ebola anyway. That increased doubts about the vaccine in communities where the public health campaigns led by outsiders already were viewed with suspicion and hostility. “The rumors were if you got vaccinated you would die,” said Liboke Kakule Muhingi, a 43-year-old farmer in Mangina, where the epidemic began last August. His mother was among the first to die. Then, one by one, six of his sisters who had cared for their ailing mother were killed by Ebola. Kakule accepted the vaccine and made sure his wife and eight children got it, too. “If I hadn’t, we’d all be dead,” he said. In some cases, health teams have been unable to reach certain areas because of violence or rebel activity. Earlier this month, the head of the Congolese health ministry’s response efforts in Beni was at one point unable to return from a field visit while the military battled ADF rebels, who are linked to the Islamic State. More often, though, contact lists have fallen apart simply because people have deliberately evaded health workers or did not understand they shouldn’t travel after being exposed. A pastor who became the first confirmed case in Goma had apparently put down fake names at health checkpoints to avoid detection. He had been sickened in the town of Butembo and then took a bus while ill. WHO and the Congolese health ministry have now switched tactics and are offering the vaccine to anyone who wants it. With Ebola’s arrival in Goma, a city of more than 2 million people, some wonder whether there will be enough of the vaccine if the outbreak continues. The vaccine’s manufacturer, Merck, said it has 245,000 1-millileter doses on hand and that could rise to 900,000 over the next 18 months. The dose in Congo also has been reduced to 0.5 mL, effectively doubling the supply. “Whether or not the available doses are sufficient to fulfill the demands depends on the evolution of the outbreak, the access to the communities and the successful expansion of the production of additional doses by Merck in early 2020,” WHO said. There is a second experimental vaccine, produced by Johnson & Johnson, but health officials in Congo have said it will not be used because it needs further testing and would cause too much confusion. It requires two doses given one month apart. It’s unclear how long the Merck vaccine will protect people. Scientists know from early studies that it lasts for at least a year, but the epidemic is approaching that limit. The only study to report longer vaccine durability tracked only a small number of healthy volunteers in Geneva for two years. The new strategy of giving shots to anyone who wants them involves setting up “pop-up” sites in the neighborhoods most affected. Last week a vaccination team headed to the neighborhood in Beni where Nduhi’s wife had stayed after he died. Outside the mud-brick home where his children still lived, a pickup truck full of plastic tables and chairs pulled over. Soon a tent was set up, and vaccination teams donned eye protection and yellow surgical gowns. Neighborhood children climbed the trees to watch. Baraka Kathembo Makasi, a 22-year-old motorbike taxi driver, brought his wife and two children with him. “At first I refused,” he said, “but I started seeing people die and decided to go.” ___ Associated Press writers Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro in Beni, Congo; Lauran Neergaard in Washington; Maria Cheng in London; and Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.
answer:
Ebola vaccine hampered by deep distrust in eastern Congo.


question:
"One theme Sen. Bernie Sanders has repeatedly touched on during his run for the Democratic nomination for president has been the high cost of prescription drugs. His comment during the Feb. 11 Democratic debate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was typical as he rattled off a list of problems with the U.S. health care system: ""In America, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs."" We asked the Sanders campaign for the source of his claim. We didn't get a response. So we searched on our own. One organization that tracks such things is the International Federation of Health Plans, based in London. Their latest price report, from 2013, lists eight common drugs. Compared with England, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and Canada, U.S. prices were far higher, sometimes dramatically so. Consider Nexium, the medicine widely used to treat acid reflux. A prescription that would cost $60 or less in other countries costs, on average, $215 in the United States. And that's just the average. Prices vary widely in this country: In 5 percent of the cases, the cost was $395. ""What Bernie says is true. There's nowhere that pays the same price as America,"" said Tom Sackville, the federation's CEO. In addition, ""there is this huge variation in price across America. Anything above the average is quite unjustified. When you get up to the 95th percentile, you're talking grand robbery."" The findings were similar in an April 2013 study published in the journal Health Affairs, which looked at the prices of brand name drugs in the United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, France, Canada and Australia. In each of the three years studied -- 2005, 2007 and 2010 -- U.S. prices were consistently higher. The one exception: Switzerland. In addition, researchers found that, between 2005 and 2010, ""the gap between the United States and other countries seemed to widen."" And it wasn't just new drugs being embraced first in the United States that was driving up costs. They concluded that ""prices for older products rose faster in the United States than in other countries."" But Joel Farley of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Eshelman School of Pharmacy cautioned that the rule doesn't always apply to generic drugs. A 2008 comparison of 19 generic drugs found that some U.S. prices were lower than Canadian prices. ""In some cases it has to do with availability,"" he said. In other cases, a country may set the drug price low and in that fixed-price market ""there's no incentive to go lower."" The Wall Street Journal published an analysis in December that concluded 98 percent of 40 top branded drugs were more expensive in the United States than in England. In Norway, 93 percent of the 40 top branded drugs cost less than in the United States. And in Ontario, a comparison of 30 drugs showed that U.S. prices were also higher for 93 percent of the products. Why are the brand name prices so much lower in other countries, and why is there so much variation in the United States? Big customers can negotiate big discounts. So the countries with socialized medicine have a lot of leverage at the negotiating table, the experts told us. In the United States, hospitals, wholesalers and insurance companies all do their own negotiations. The Veterans Administration can -- and does -- negotiate dramatically lower prices. Under Medicaid, the drug companies are required to provide their medicines at a price that's as low as it is for any of their regular customers. But Medicare has been prohibited by law from negotiating lower prices since 2006, and that's a huge chunk of the U.S. health care industry. (When Barack Obama was first running for president, he promised to repeal that Bush-era restriction, but then backed off in an attempt to get passage of the Affordable Care Act.) The pharmaceutical industry says it needs the extra income to pay for research to keep new, desperately needed drugs coming. But with everyone getting a bargain, Americans are financing that research for the rest of the world, experts told us. Yet there's another way to look at the issue, said Amitava Dasgupta, a clinical toxicologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The tablet that costs a dollar in the United States may only cost 20 cents in India, but that drug is far more expensive to the average person in India because their income is so much lower. ""The U.S. subsidizes research for the world,"" he said. ""But I would look at that as philanthropy."" Our ruling Sanders said, ""In America, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs."" When it comes to brand-name drugs, which yield the highest profit for the pharmaceutical industry, studies support Sanders' claim -- although not always on a drug-by-drug basis. In addition, the differences in price can be dramatic because the U.S. health care system is so splintered, and Medicare is prohibited by law from using its market share to bargain for lower prices. We found one study comparing the United States and Canada that found exceptions for generic drugs, where the profit margin is much lower and which make up a much smaller share of prescription drug spending. But on balance,"
answer:

In America, we pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.