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.

[Q]: "Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, campaigning for re-election, tweeted a parody of President Barack Obama promoting his signature health-care law. Around midday Dec. 12, 2013, the official White House Twitter account posted a photo of Obama holding a sign urging Americans to get health coverage because ""nobody should go broke just because they get sick."" Social media denizens started creating versions that rewrote the sign’s text; Dewhurst’s had Obama saying, ""I want more of Texans’ private data."" Some perspective: Texas in 2012 had approximately 19.5 million insured residents and 5.2 million legal residents without insurance according to a March 18, 2013, report by the state Health and Human Services Commission. Does the Obamacare law demand private data on them that wasn't known to the government before? PolitiFact reporters have checked out several claims about how the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplaces will handle personal information. Many of the concerns addressed are about how government agencies will share information they already collect -- and how secure that information will be. As part of a May 2013 fact-check, PolitiFact in Washington, D.C., reported that a federal ""data hub"" resulting from the 2010 law would pull information from government agencies, but not expand federal data collection. For example, the Social Security Administration is asked to verify a person's Social Security number, and the IRS confirms financial data to see if a person is eligible for a subsidy. PolitiFact in D.C. gave a False rating Sept. 19, 2013, to a claim by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey that ""Obamacare will question your sex life,"" finding that nothing in the health care law required such questions. So what information does the government collect under the Obamacare law? If you apply to shop in the federal online insurance marketplace or the marketplace for your state, you’ll supply information on yourself and perhaps family members, some of which the government already has. Healthcare.gov offers a checklist for people preparing to fill out applications, whether online or printed: Social Security number, employer, income, current insurance policy numbers and information about your employer’s insurance plans (if any). Such answers will help determine whether you’re eligible to buy insurance through the marketplaces and if you can get free- or reduced-cost coverage via tax credits, Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. The standardized family application asks for information on you and everyone who lives with you, including whether you are pregnant and how many babies you’re expecting, whether you have a health condition that limits daily activities, whether you live in a nursing home and whether you were in foster care after age 18. Other questions concern employment, military service, sources of income, tax deductions taken and whether you are American Indian or Alaska Native. A Sept. 18, 2013, fact sheet from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said, ""Personal health information (PHI) will be requested only when it is needed to complete the application and make an eligibility determination for health coverage options."" Health privacy expert Deven McGraw told us by email that the applications do collect some information the government did not already have, but said it’s the same type of information gathered when people apply for public coverage such as Medicaid. ""They are questions that are specifically designed to match eligibility criteria. So none of it is extraneous,"" said McGraw, director of the health privacy project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for Internet freedom. And, she said, the data can’t be used for any purposes other than the marketplaces’ functions. More information about you could come, the fact sheet says, from ""common federal data sources including the Social Security Administration (SSA), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS)."" Wait -- Homeland Security? According to the National Immigration Law Center’s website, applicants who are not U.S. citizens will have their status verified through a Homeland/U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service database. Agencies already use the web service, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE), to determine immigrants’ eligibility for benefits including Medicaid, housing loans and unemployment. Via email, Social Security spokeswoman Kia Anderson told us her agency can, when CMS needs the information to determine eligibility, provide applicants’ ID numbers, citizenship data, death or disability indicators and Social Security income and coverage earned. So the application process puts together some information the government already had with some it didn’t have. People who aren’t applying to shop in the marketplaces but are subject to the Obamacare law’s mandate will also be sharing some new information with Uncle Sam. The mandate to have or get insurance applies, according to the immigration law center, to all U.S. citizens, naturalized citizens and legal immigrants. Via email, IRS spokeswoman Lea Crusberg said 2014 tax returns will ask whether you have health coverage that meets the new standards or an exemption, whether you got coverage through an Obamacare marketplace and whether you got a tax credit to help defray the cost. The law’s new tax payments and credits will also be on returns, of course. In 2015, Crusberg said, the IRS will start collecting coverage information from insurance providers. Employers who insure their own workers in-house will report which employees are enrolled and give enough information so the IRS can tell if those workers are due a tax credit. Self-insuring employers will also put the cost of the plan they’re providing on W-2 forms so workers can see it. Is the new data ""private"" information? Per the CMS fact sheet, Obamacare applicants could be asked to cough up some personal health information. But the fact sheet also says the marketplaces’ systems ""will not store this information"" -- which casts some doubt on whether the government is really ""collecting"" it, but serves as an indication that it’s considered sensitive. How about when the IRS asks where your insurance comes from, whether you got a tax credit for it and whether it meets the Obamacare law’s standards? Generally, the IRS regards what you put on your tax return as private. For example, tax preparers who disclose such information without your consent can face criminal charges. Final IRS regulations governing who can disclose what tax return information to HHS under the Obamacare law were issued Aug. 13, 2013. An FAQ posted by the IRS that day said that ""officers and employees of the IRS will disclose to HHS, the Marketplace, and state agencies only, upon written request and subject to strict privacy and security rules, certain return information ... for the purpose of determining eligibility for certain health care affordability programs."" Our ruling Dewhurst said Obama wants ""more of Texans’ private data."" The subset of Texans shopping for coverage through the online marketplace are providing additional private data for a reason: to ensure they’re qualified. Dewhurst's statement overlooks these aspects. Regardless, many more Texans will be asked to give the IRS information about their health coverage that was previously not requested. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
[A]: "In altered photo, says Barack Obama wants ""more of Texans’ private data"" via health care."


[Q]: The Associated Press has learned that the attorneys general in Illinois and the District of Columbia are examining how Juul’s blockbuster vaping device became so popular with underage teens. The company’s rapid rise to the top of the multi-billion dollar U.S. e-cigarette market has been accompanied by accusations from parents, politicians and public health advocates that Juul fueled a vaping craze among high schoolers. In addition to the ongoing inquiries in Illinois and the district, which had not been publicly disclosed before, four other state attorneys general are probing or suing Juul. Juul’s top executives have disputed allegations that they’ve marketed their products to teens, declaring that they’ve taken unprecedented steps to combat underage use of its e-cigarettes. The company has shut down its Facebook and Instagram pages and pulled several of its flavored products out of retail stores. Juul also backs federal legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, to 21 nationwide. Juul spokesman Ted Kwong declined to answer specific questions about the investigations in an emailed statement but reiterated past company steps to prevent youth use. Juul announced Thursday that 50 retail chains have pledged to adopt the company’s age-verification system, which requires sellers to scan a customer’s ID before selling Juul products. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a statement Friday the Trump administration “will continue using every regulatory and enforcement power we have to stop the epidemic of youth e-cigarette use.” A senior Illinois law enforcement official described to AP a wide-ranging inquiry being conducted by the office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul that is centered on whether Juul violated state consumer fraud laws and other statutes by designing and marketing its products to appeal to underage teens. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity. Marrisa Geller, a spokeswoman for District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, confirmed in an emailed statement an investigation of Juul is underway. She said Racine is concerned about “the dramatic increase in the use of vaping products by district youth” as well as the policies and practices employed by e-cigarette manufacturers to prevent minors from using their products. The attorneys general in Colorado, Connecticut and Massachusetts have announced investigations of Juul related to concerns over underage use of its products. North Carolina’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against Juul in May, asking a court to limit the company’s sales and marketing in the state. All six attorneys general are Democrats. The Food and Drug Administration said last October it seized thousands of documents from Juul’s San Francisco headquarters relating to the company’s marketing. The agency has been investigating whether the company targeted youth with the flavors, design and ingredients of its products. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Juul’s early marketing campaign and use of social media to promote its products. The FTC declined to comment. Juul has repeatedly stated that it understands the concerns about youth vaping and has taken “the most aggressive actions” of any company in the industry to combat the problem. It has spent millions of dollars on newspaper, radio and online advertisements pledging to keep its products out of the hands of young people. The company also has denied it ever marketed to anyone underage. Kwong said Juul’s earliest marketing campaign, in 2015, was aimed at adults between 25 and 34. Based on the sales and revenue, he said, “there is no evidence that it drove use, youth or otherwise.” Kwong said the company’s paid social media “influencer” program was as a small, short-lived program that ended in 2018. Electronic cigarettes, which have been available in the U.S. since about 2007 and have grown into a more than $6 billion-a-year industry, are battery-powered devices that typically heat a flavored nicotine solution into an inhalable aerosol. Juul, which launched in 2015, now controls roughly three-quarters of the U.S. retail market for e-cigarettes. Last year, one in five U.S. high school students reported vaping in the previous month, according to government survey figures. Most experts agree the aerosol is less harmful than cigarette smoke since it doesn’t contain most of the cancer-causing byproducts of burning tobacco. But there is virtually no research on the long-term effects of the vaping chemicals, some of which are toxic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that 215 teens and adults in 25 states including Illinois have contracted severe respiratory illnesses after vaping. However, the agency said a clear-cut common cause of the illnesses hasn’t been identified and they are being called “potential cases” that are still under investigation. The CDC said in many of the cases patients had acknowledged they’d recently vaped a substance containing THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana. The agency did not say how many of the patients were teens. Kevin Burns, Juul’s chief executive officer, told “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday the illnesses are “worrisome” for the industry and for Juul “if we contributed to it.” He said the company is in close contact with the CDC to get as much information as it can “so if there’s any issue that was ... associated with us, that we can get to the root cause and understand that.” In Illinois, the state’s Department of Public Health has called e-cigarette use among teens an “epidemic” and said there is an alarming lack of understanding about the risk for nicotine addiction. Other areas being investigated by Raoul’s office include: how Juul verifies the ages of people who make online purchases from the company’s website; the amount of nicotine in the flavored solution and how safe those levels are; and whether Juul has improperly advertised its e-cigarette as a smoking-cessation tool. Kwong said the Juul system is designed to help adult smokers switch from combustible cigarettes and is not intended to be used as a cessation product. Neither Juul nor any other e-cigarette has yet been approved by the FDA to help people who smoke traditional paper-and-tobacco cigarettes quit. The Illinois probe began in the spring. Raoul’s office is not coordinating its investigation with other attorneys general, the official said. Geller, the spokeswoman for Racine, declined to discuss the scope of the district’s inquiry. However, a senior official in Racine’s office wrote to a Juul representative in early February and asked for a trove of information about how district residents purchase the company’s products. Among the data sought by Benjamin Wiseman, director of consumer protection, was a list of authorized retail stores and third-party online retailers that failed to comply with Juul’s rules for preventing minors from buying and using its products. Wiseman also asked that the company “describe in detail the nature of the retailer’s failure to comply” and what action Juul took in response. Racine’s office, Wiseman wrote, learned from news reports and conversations with community members and other government officials that use of Juul’s products by young teenagers in the district has increased dramatically in recent years. “Remarkably, one district high school principal estimates that half of the juniors and seniors at her school are using e-cigarettes, many of which we believe are Juul’s products,” Wiseman told Patrick Lynch, a former attorney general of Rhode Island who runs a lobbying and consulting firm that represents Juul. Lynch’s firm arranged for a meeting in the attorney general’s office last November that included himself, Juul chief administrative officer Ashley Gould, Wiseman and Assistant DC Attorney General Brian Caldwell, according to emails obtained through an open records request. Lynch is not registered as a lobbyist in the District of Columbia. The agenda for the meeting isn’t described in the records, although one email from Lynch said they discussed Juul’s efforts “to dramatically diminish youth access to their product.”
[A]: Juul Labs facing scrutiny from federal and state officials.


[Q]: Residents in some homes in Montreal, a cosmopolitan city an hour north of the U.S.-Canada border, and Regina, in the flat western prairies, are among those drinking and cooking with tap water with lead levels that exceed Canada’s federal guidelines. The investigation found some schools and day care centers had lead levels so high that researchers noted it could impact children’s health. Exacerbating the problem, many water providers aren’t testing at all. It wasn’t the Canadian government that exposed the scope of this public health concern. A yearlong investigation by more than 120 journalists from nine universities and 10 media organizations, including The Associated Press and the Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal , collected test results that properly measure exposure to lead in 11 cities across Canada. Out of 12,000 tests since 2014, one-third — 33% — exceeded the national safety guideline of 5 parts per billion; 18% exceeded the U.S. limit of 15 ppb. In a country that touts its clean, natural turquoise lakes, sparkling springs and rushing rivers, there are no national mandates to test drinking water for lead. And even if agencies do take a sample, residents are rarely informed of contamination. “I’m surprised,” said Bruce Lanphear, a leading Canadian water safety researcher who studies the impacts of lead exposure on fetuses and young children. “These are quite high given the kind of attention that has been given to Flint, Michigan, as having such extreme problems. Even when I compare this to some of the other hotspots in the United States, like Newark, like Pittsburgh, the levels here are quite high.” Many Canadians who had allowed journalists to sample their water were troubled when they came back with potentially dangerous lead levels. Some private homeowners said they plan to stop drinking from the tap. “It’s a little bit disturbing to see that there’s that much,” said Andrew Keddie, a retired professor who assumed his water was clean after replacing pipes years ago at his home in Edmonton, a city of almost 1 million in western Canada. What he couldn’t do is replace public service lines delivering water to his house. After learning his water lead levels tested at 28 ppb, Keddie said he was “concerned enough that we won’t be drinking and using this water.” Sarah Rana, 18, was one of tens of thousands of students who weren’t alerted when her brick high school in Oakville, a town on the shores of Lake Ontario, found lead levels above national guidelines in dozens of water samples, the highest at 140 ppb. She found out on her own, looking at reports posted online. “I was getting poisoned for four years and did not know about it,” she said. “As a student, I think I should be told.” Leona Peterson learned of the contamination in her water after journalists found excessively high lead levels in 21 of 25 homes tested in her small, northwest port town of Prince Rupert. Peterson, who lives in subsidized housing for Indigenous people, had water that registered at 15.6 ppb. “I was drinking from the tap, directly from the tap, without any knowledge that there was lead in the water,” said Peterson. Her son was as well. Her response: “Hurt, real hurt.” The town of Prince Rupert, where whales, grizzly bears and bald eagles are common sights, is among more than a dozen communities along Canada’s wild west coast where residents — many Indigenous — are living in homes with aging pipes, drinking corrosive rainwater that is likely to draw lead. But their province of British Columbia doesn’t require municipalities to test tap water for lead. Canadian officials where levels were high said they were aware that lead pipes can contaminate drinking water and that they were working to replace aging infrastructure. And some localities are taking action. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante vowed to test 100,000 homes for lead and speed up replacement of lead-lined pipes immediately after journalists sent her an analysis of the city’s internal data revealing high lead levels across the city. The media consortium filed more than 700 Freedom of Information requests and took hundreds of samples in people’s homes to collect more than 79,000 water test results. But the findings are neither comprehensive nor an indication of overall drinking water quality in Canada. That doesn’t exist. “Because there is no federal oversight, everybody does what they want,” said engineering professor Michèle Prévost, who quit working on a government study of school drinking water in frustration over the lack of lead testing. “Most provinces ignore this very serious problem.” The government’s approach to limiting lead in drinking water in Canada is starkly different from the U.S., where the Environmental Protection Agency sets legal standards under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, and every person is supposed to receive an annual Consumer Confidence Report from their water provider by July 1 detailing lead test results. There’s no similar, routine testing or notice in Canada, with the exception of the 14 million-person province of Ontario, bordering the U.S. and the Great Lakes, which post results online. “If that’s not public, that’s a problem,” said Tom Neltner, a chemical engineer at the Environmental Defense Fund, a U.S.-based environmental group. “The public is more sensitive to the risks of lead, especially on children’s development. Where you have transparency you have advocacy, and where you have advocacy you have action.” In the U.S., however, even public water quality reports weren’t enough to prevent the Flint, Michigan, drinking water crisis, brought on by a 2014 decision to temporarily pull water from a river as a cost saver while installing new pipelines. Some doctors raised concerns in Flint after noticing elevated lead levels in children’s blood tests. Flint’s water problems went well beyond lead: Excessive microbes turned the water reddish brown and led to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that caused at least 12 deaths and sickened more than 90 people. The Flint crisis sparked congressional hearings, lawsuits and scrutiny of lead testing across the country. Now officials in Newark, New Jersey, are scrambling to replace about 18,000 lead lines after repeated tests found elevated lead levels in drinking water. Other communities are also responding. Nearly 30 million people in the U.S. were supplied drinking water that had excessively high levels of lead, from Portland, Oregon to Providence, Rhode Island between 2015 and 2018, according to an analysis of EPA data by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Hundreds of people in the U.S. are suing local water authorities over the contamination. Virginia Tech professor Marc Edwards, whose study of the Flint water system helped reveal the dangerous lead levels, reviewed the Canadian media consortium’s findings. “This is a significant health concern, people should be warned,” said Edwards. “Something should be done.” In Canada, where lawsuits are less frequent and provinces — not the federal government — set water safety rules, the main source of lead in drinking water is antiquated pipes. At one government hearing, an expert estimated some 500,000 lead service lines are still delivering water to people in the country. Some cities, like Montreal, are already working to replace them, tearing up streets and sidewalks with massive and expensive construction. But homeowners are almost always responsible for paying the cost of replacing the section of pipe between their property lines to their homes, a cost that can range from about $3,000 to $15,000, according to provincial studies. Several other short-term solutions include having suppliers add anti-corrosives or altering water chemistry so it’s less likely to leach lead from the insides of pipes as it heads for the tap. These are widely used and often mandatory in the U.S., but in Canada only the province of Ontario requires anti-corrosives in communities with older buildings and sewerage. Studies have documented over years that even low levels of lead exposure can affect a child’s IQ and their ability to pay attention. Children who are younger than 7 and pregnant women are most at risk from lead exposure, which can damage brains and kidneys. Yet the consortium’s investigation found day cares and schools are not tested regularly. And when they are tested, those results are also not public. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information laws included a 2017 pilot study of tap water at 150 day cares in the picturesque, lake-laden province of Alberta. It showed 18 had lead levels in drinking water at or above 5 ppb, which the researchers considered risky for the infants and toddlers. The highest was 35.5 ppb. Canada is one of the only developed countries in the world that does not have a nationwide drinking water standard. Even countries that struggle to provide safe drinking water have established acceptable lead levels: India’s is 10 ppb and Mexico and Egypt’s are 5 ppb, according to those country’s government websites. Joe Cotruvo, a D.C.-based environmental and public health consultant active in the World Health Organization’s work on drinking water guidelines, hadn’t realized that some provinces in Canada don’t routinely test tap water for lead. “Really? No kidding,” he said. “In the U.S., if there is a federal regulation, states are required to implicate it. If they don’t, they’re functioning illegally.” Drinking water testing and treatment methods are also inconsistent in Canada. In the U.S., in-home tests are taken first thing in the morning, after water has stagnated in pipes for at least six hours. This provides a worst-case scenario, because after water runs through pipes for a while, lead levels often decline. In Canada, provinces have set their own rules, which range from not testing at all, to requiring a sample to stagnate before testing. Few are treating the drinking water itself to lower lead levels. Maura Allaire, an assistant professor of water economics and policy at University of California, Irvine, was surprised Canada’s major water suppliers aren’t routinely required to add anti-corrosives to drinking water. “Yikes, I could imagine in older cities if they’re not doing corrosion control what can happen when acidic water touches lead pipes in homes,” she said. She recommends Canadian officials start to address the problem by collecting better information. “Once you have better information, there can be targeted efforts, to really try to prevent corrosion,” she said. “The big discussion in the U.S. among politicians is to replace the pipes, but that takes time and is costly. If there’s lead in the water, you’ve got a public health problem that needs to be dealt with now.” ___ The Institute for Investigative Journalism at Concordia University in Montreal members: concordia.ca/watercredits
[A]:
Investigation: Lead in some Canadian water worse than Flint.