Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: Washington state’s largest metropolis sweated through its hottest June on record, going fortnights without even a drizzle. Seattleites jokingly refer to the month of “Juneuary” for the wet and cold they usually endure before longer, dryer sunny days arrive in July, typically persisting into September. This summer, however, they have shrugged off the rain gear and flannel and taken to drinking “iced” lattes. Many, including Mayor Ed Murray, find themselves oddly yearning for the cloud cover on which Rain City’s identity was forged. Murray said the heat has kept him up at night in his brick Tudor-style house, which he has nicknamed the “little Dutch oven.”  “Obviously people in Seattle love a little more sun but also nothing is built for it,” Murray said. “I miss my rain.”  With an estimated 662,400 residents, the Emerald City, as the city is nicknamed, lies between the brackish Puget Sound and the Cascade Mountains which squeeze moisture out of east-bound fronts moving over the city. It is so dry in the state that a wildfire is burning in a  rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula and Governor Jay Inslee issued a statewide drought emergency in May as the snowpack in the mountains fell to historic lows. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport received just 0.23 inches (0.58 cm) of rain for June, down from the normal 1.57 inches (3.98 cm). To be sure, drought conditions are affecting cities down the U.S. West Coast, which is embroiled in a particularly fierce wildfire season that has prompted water-use and burn restrictions. Seattle’s public utility downgraded the water supply outlook from “good” to “fair” on Wednesday amid higher-than-usual water consumption and record-low stream flows into reservoirs, urging residents to limit plant-watering. Murray said the city had enough water and energy this year but was being pushed to the limit. “A second year with such little snowpack would be a crisis,” he said, referring to the affect on the broader region’s cold, clear salmon rivers and bountiful farms and orchards. While the current situation is “mega extreme in terms of our temperatures,” it is unlikely that it is caused by human-induced global warming because the heat-wave is due to an unusual large-scale air pattern, University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor Clifford Mass said. Relief is forecast heading into the weekend, with a chance of rain on Sunday and cooler temperatures in the week ahead, Mass said. But overall the summer will be warmer than normal as Seattle enters it driest period of the year. Meanwhile, parched lawns have turned beige and the city opened cooling shelters. At local hardware stores, air conditioning units and fans have been flying off the shelves; one Lowes store sold 16 air-conditioning units in a matter of minutes after it opened. “This is Sicily in Seattle, with nearly 16 hours of daylight,” Seattle-born author Timothy Egan wrote in the New York Times on July 3. Some people have embraced the dry skies and sun. “Everybody is a bit nicer. People say ‘Hi’ to each other. It’s not the hanging their head when they walk by each other,” said Nicole Sullivan, a management consultant who has used the heat as an opportunity to take her paddle board on Shilshole Bay on balmy evenings. “How do we re-market ourselves if we are not ‘Rain City’ or the ‘Emerald City,’?” Mayor Murray deadpanned. “If we’re not green anymore, what’s going to be our new color?” Claim: Residents in soggy Seattle rebel against the sun.

Output: Seattle’s mayor is losing sleep over the unusually hot, dry weather that is causing a run on air conditioners and fans in the famously rainy city.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The lawsuit marks the first multi-plaintiff trial in the litigation over whether glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is carcinogenic, and is the first trial outside of California. It is being held in St. Louis, where Monsanto was headquartered before Bayer bought the company in a $63 billion deal in 2018. Three consecutive juries found the company liable for causing cancer with damages of tens of millions of dollars awarded to each plaintiff. Bayer is appealing those verdicts. Court-appointed mediator Ken Feinberg has put the number of Roundup cancer claimants at more than 75,000 while Bayer said the claims it has been served with in court were below 50,000. Bayer’s share price has tumbled since the first verdict in August 2018 but the stock rose 3% on Friday after Bloomberg reported a possible out-of-court settlement with some plaintiffs that could lead to a total payout of about $10 billion. While traders said the market likes the idea of Bayer settling the litigation, some cautioned that the prospect of a comprehensive deal remained uncertain. Analysts have estimated the size of any such settlement at $8-$12 billion. While most plaintiffs’ lawyers have agreed to postpone trials pending negotiations, some have decided to pursue their clients’ day in court. The case in Missouri’s Circuit Court for the 22nd Judicial Circuit of the City of St. Louis is scheduled to last several weeks, with both sides presenting extensive scientific evidence through expert witnesses. Bayer denies all allegations that Roundup or glyphosate causes cancer, saying decades of independent studies have shown the world’s most widely used weed killer to be safe for human use and noting that regulators around the world have approved the product. “At the end of the day, this trial should come down to the weight of the science, and we remain confident in the extensive scientific record and regulatory assessments that support the safety of our glyphosate-based herbicides and that they do not cause cancer,” the company said in a statement. Several court cases have been postponed by both parties in the past to expedite settlement talks. By pursuing the St. Louis trail The Miller Firm LLC, a key player in the litigation, is seeking to increase pressure on Bayer. The case involves the claims of Bryce Batiste from Louisiana, Ann Meeks from Florida, Glen Ashelman from Pennsylvania and Christopher Wade, a St. Louis resident. All four have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a blood cell cancer that plaintiffs in the litigation allege is caused by Roundup. Some legal experts said Bayer could benefit from a home advantage in the St. Louis trial, where Monsanto has century-old roots. But juries in the city are also known to dole out massive damages awards against large corporations. Claim: Bayer faces fourth U.S. Roundup cancer trial in Monsanto's hometown.

Output: Bayer AG is set to face a fourth U.S. jury trial over allegations that its Roundup weed killer causes cancer, with four cancer patients in the hometown of its agricultural subsidiary Monsanto scheduled to begin making their case on Friday.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The article did not include information about the cost of this medication. According to recent Consumer Reports data, Lexapro at the dosages studied here would cost about $110 a month. This significant cost is something to bear in mind considering the modest benefit the drug confers compared to a sugar pill. The story quantifies the benefits of treatment in appropriate absolute terms. It explains that women taking the antidepressant went from about 10 hot flashes per day to 5.26 hot flashes a day, a decline of 47% or about 4.5 fewer hot flashes a day. By comparison, women taking the placebo reported 6.43 hot flashes a day after treatment, a decline of 33% or about 3 fewer a day. The story also quantifies the severity of the hot flashes in terms that are useful to the reader. The story perhaps could have provided some context regarding the size of the benefit compared with placebo, which was relatively small. It also could have noted noted that symptom reductions were much more modest than those seen with hormone treatment. The story wasn’t thorough enough in its exploration of potential harms. The only adverse effect noted is the potential loss of libido discussed in the last line of the story. At one point, the story seems to dismiss the potential for harm by noting that  “no serious adverse events were reported” in the study. However, minor adverse effects take on greater importance when a drug provides only a modest benefit over placebo — which is the case with this medication. The study should have provided more detail on what harms were observed (even “minor” ones), and how frequently. Lexapro, when used for depression, commonly results in gastrointestinal disturbance such as nausea, vomiting, loose stools, and indigestion. A variety of other adverse effects are possible, including include difficulty sleeping and headaches. It is quite conceivable that an increase in these problems might outweigh the small benefit associated with the reduction in hot flashes, so the story should have provided this information. Another issue not addressed by the story is the potential for uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms when stopping this medication. This point is particularly relevant to make here because Lexapro hasn’t been extensively studied in women who are healthy and don’t have symptoms of depression. We know that some people with depression experience withdrawal symptoms after they stop taking the drug, but we don’t have much evidence on what happens to healthy non-depressed people when they stop taking it. The risk of a discontinuation syndrome increases the longer antidepressant therapy lasts, so an 8-week study may not capture the problems that women may experience with longer-term use of Lexapro for relief of hot flash symptoms. The story could have mentioned that women should never abruptly stop taking an antidepressant medication like Lexapro, as this can increase the risk of more severe withdrawal symptoms. The story includes enough details about how the study was conducted and what the researchers observed to earn a satisfactory. It notes that this was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study — the “gold standard” of medical evidence. It explains that outcomes were based on women’s records of how often and how severe their hot flashes were — a relevant clinical endpoint. Although the story notes that women in the study took the drug for 8 weeks, it could have explained that 8 weeks isn’t long to meet FDA criteria for a hot flash treatment; the FDA requires that benefits be maintained for 12-weeks. The study also should have explained that we have no idea how well these drugs will work over the longer term (menopause symptoms can last for years) or whether problems might occur with longer use (more on this in the Harms criterion). Lastly, it would have been useful to have some discussion of how the treatment affected general health-related quality of life; this would have helped readers understand the importance of the observed benefit on hot flashes when considering overall health/function. Menopause has been the subject of considerable disease mongering over the years — see here for some examples. This story, though, confines the discussion to women whose symptoms are severe enough to disrupt their lives and quality of life. That seems to be a fair basis upon which to identify women who might be candidates for some kind of medical treatment of menopause symptoms. The story could have provided data on how many women suffer from moderate to severe hot flash symptoms, to give a better idea of how widespread the problem is. The story quotes an independent expert who seems generally supportive of antidepressant therapy for hot flashes. While we don’t think it would have been difficult to find someone with a more skeptical take on the results, which would have added value for readers, the story did enough to satisfy this aspect of the criterion. (UPDATED COMMENT INSERTED ON 2/24/11:  We originally but erroneously wrote that this story failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest. But it actually did, when it stated: “The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and other sources. Freeman reports having received research support from Forest Laboratories Inc., and other pharmaceutical companies that make antidepressants. For this study, Forest, which makes escitalopram, provided the drug and placebo pills but no funding.”) The story mentions that hormone therapy is another treatment option for hot flashes, but it doesn’t provide enough information to allow the reader to compare the two approaches. The story should have mentioned that hormone therapy seems to be more effective than antidepressants at reducing hot flash symptoms, although the risks may also be greater. It also could have mentioned that complementary and alternative medicine approaches are often used for hot flashes. Claim: Antidepressant May Help Ease Hot Flashes


Output: In contrast with the poorly sourced blog post, this story includes comments from two experts who provide valuable context about the findings of a recent trial. And while the discussion of harms was still inadequate, this story did at least mention the possibility of harm from the treatment and described one of the most common adverse effects. The story also did a good job of describing the design of the study and reporting the benefits in a way that readers can understand and use. It would have benefited from some cost data, a better comparison of antidepressants with hormone therapy, and more emphasis on the short-term nature of the study (8 weeks) considering that hot flash symptoms can last for years. We need more treatment options for women with disruptive menopausal symptoms. Although hormone treatment is effective, many women are reluctant to take hormones because of the increase in potentially serious adverse effects associated with their use. Emerging research suggests that antidepressants may be an alternate option, but the study discussed in this story found that Lexapro is only slightly more effective than a placebo for reducing hot flashes. In addition, use of antidepressants also may cause a variety of adverse effects which, while less serious than the risks of hormone therapy, can be troublesome enough to cause people to stop taking the medication. Stories should provide this full context to help women make the best possible choice about how to manage their symptoms.