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: There was no discussion of costs. Costs would include treating the double digit rates of incontinence and erectile dysfunction in these younger men who do have surgery. The surgery may help them live longer, but many, especially since younger at time of surgery, live decades with these potential harms and folllowup costs of the surgical choice. This should get at least a line in such stories. While describing some of the differences observed in general terms without quantification, the story provided absolute percentage of men dying from prostate cancer in the two study groups. The story then went on to explain that the difference was in the men who were less 65 years of age at the time of diagnosis. The story would have been better if it had more clearly explained this important caveat about the benefit seen. The potential harms associated with various approaches to treating prostate cancer as well as the increased risk of prostate cancer progression and death seen in the cohort of men who followed the watchful waiting approach were discussed. The story did a laudable job of providing information about the study reported on including the fact that the results most recently published basically expand the timeframe of followup on these men which have previously been published. It provided insight about the number of men involved in the study, how their prostate cancer was detected and that the men had been randomly assigned to their treatment group. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. Two clinicians who were not involved in the study provided quotes which were used in the story. The story included a list of the commonly available treatment options for early stage prostate cancer. But we must give an unsatisfactory score because the story included a factually incorrect statement indicating that watchful waiting is synonymous with active surveillance. It is not. The story went on to misinform readers by indicating “watchful waiting is often recommended when a man is not expected to die of the cancer” by failing to complete the thought by explaining that the reason they are not expected to die of the cancer is because their advanced age makes it unlikely that the cancer will have sufficient time to progress to lethality OR because they have other diseases from which they are likely to succumb before there is time for the prostate cancer to be deadly. An important caveat about how the prostate cancer in the study differed from the way in which prostate cancer is most commonly detected today in the US was explained. The story provided a reasonable view of the novelty of the treatment options detailed in the study along with the critically important caveat that the majority of the men in the study had their prostate cancer first detected at a later state than is seen with the current screening practices in the US. The story did not rely on a news release.

SOLUTION: Aggressive Treatment May Be Beneficial for Early Prostate Cancer

PROBLEM: The company’s forecast implies a potential $3 billion upgrade to the consensus estimate from analysts and marks an attempt to call a bottom to a sales decline driven by the loss of exclusivity on several top-selling medicines. Britain’s second-biggest drugmaker is already suffering from generic competition to its antipsychotic Seroquel, while its Nexium treatment for excess stomach acid loses U.S. patent cover this year. Top-selling Crestor, for high cholesterol, faces competition from cheap copycat drugs in 2016. The patent expiries leave AstraZeneca’s sales on a near-term downward spiral at a time when most of its rivals have put their biggest patent losses behind them. Shares in the group rose 1.6 percent by 1215 GMT on the more upbeat outlook, against a 0.3 percent decline for the European healthcare sector. Chief Executive Pascal Soriot, who has been leading the company for a little more than a year, will set out the new revenue guidance in a presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference in San Francisco later on Tuesday. The company will then give a more detailed update on its progress in full-year results on February 6. The consensus of analyst forecasts compiled by Thomson Reuters is for 2017 revenue of $22.5 billion, down from the $25.8 billion estimated for 2013. However, a number of the 2017 forecasts pre-date the diabetes drug deal struck last month that is already expected to add some $1 billion to $2 billion to annual revenue. Citigroup analyst Andrew Baum said the positive medium-term outlook reinforced his “more constructive thesis” for the stock, adding that he expects Soriot to strike more earnings-boosting deals this year. Panmure Gordon’s Savvas Neophytou remains more wary, pointing out that Soriot’s predecessor, David Brennan, had made a similar attempt to talk up AstraZeneca’s longer-term prospects. “In our view, management is stepping onto thin ice with this same sort of guidance,” Neophytou said, pointing out the previous management’s failure to hit its forecasts. AstraZeneca has become more confident about its revenue outlook after the $4 billion deal last month to buy Bristol-Myers Squibb’s share of a diabetes joint venture. The acquisition is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2014 and will boost sales immediately. Mark Clark of Deutsche Bank said this was set to lift analysts’ revenue forecasts significantly, suggesting that a more realistic “adjusted consensus” for 2017 was around $24.3 billion rather than $22.5 billion. Soriot has been striking a number of bolt-on deals to refill the company’s thin pipeline of new medicines and accelerating in-house research programs. The group now has 11 new-drug programs in late-stage Phase III testing, almost double the number a year ago, and 27 in Phase II. Hopes are particularly high for its cancer research, where it has started trials for immunotherapy combination treatments for which the first results are anticipated in 2014/15. AstraZeneca is behind the likes of Bristol-Myers, Roche and Merck & Co in the race to develop immunotherapies - a hot new area of cancer research - but it is betting on combination treatments to help it to catch up. Immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer, has shown great promise in clinical trials and analysts believe that the treatments may extend patients’ lives significantly and generate tens of billions of dollars in annual sales.

SOLUTION: Drugmaker AstraZeneca forecasts faster return to growth.

PROBLEM: "There’s a meaty political campaign going on across the nation with slimy accusations being hurled -- and it has nothing to do with the race for the White House. It began in earnest April 2, when the governor and lieutenant governor of Iowa sent letters to their colleagues in other states to fight against what they said are media misperceptions about a form of ground beef maliciously maligned as ""pink slime."" Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black quickly joined the effort to defend this form of beef, holding a news conference two days afterward. ""Lean, finely textured beef is the proper name, and it is a safe, widely used product,"" Black told reporters. Officials in Kansas and Texas have begun their own public relations campaigns in support of the beef that is a cash cow, pardon the pun, in those states. So, too, has U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor. Proponents say beef prices would rise with less meat on the market. Although the Department of Agriculture maintains the meat is safe, the federal agency announced in March that it would give schools more beef choices in the wake of public concerns about children eating ""pink slime."" McDonald’s and some major grocery stores have said they will no longer sell the meat. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver last year showed how the meat is made to horrify a studio audience. ""Everything about this process is about no respect for food or people or children,"" he said. So is it really safe? First, let’s explain how it is made. The meat is taken from slaughterhouse trimmings with high fat content that are more susceptible to contamination because the meat is often close to the hide, which is highly exposed to fecal matter. The trimmings are warmed to about 100 degrees Fahrenheit  in equipment that looks like a large, high-speed mixing bowl that spins these trimmings to separate meat from the fat that has been liquefied. Ammonium hydroxide is mixed in to destroy bacteria and E. coli that could make someone ill if a raw product is not cooked thoroughly. It is then mixed with regular ground beef. The federal government has approved the practice for slightly more than a decade. The use of this meat gained national attention in recent months when a blogger who writes about kids’ food began an online petition to urge federal officials to remove it from school cafeterias. It may sound disgusting to know that beef contains ammonia, but the companies that produce the beef and experts say ammonia hydroxide is used in other foods such as cheese and chocolate to reduce acidity and kill bacteria. The beef is produced by a handful of companies nationwide. Federal officials inspect the process daily. Because this type of beef is not mentioned in packaging, there’s been little discussion about it or its safety. The New York Times, however, reported in late 2009 that E. coli was detected three times and salmonella 48 times, including back-to-back incidents in August in which two 27,000-pound batches were found to be contaminated. The meat in question, produced by the nation’s largest distributor of the product, Beef Products Inc., was caught before reaching lunchroom trays. BPI told the Times it found E. coli in what was described as a low 0.06 percent of samples that year. The Times also reported that from 2005 to 2009, BPI had a rate of 36 positive results for salmonella per 1,000 tests, compared with a rate of nine positive results per 1,000 tests for the other suppliers, according to statistics from the program. BPI said its testing regime was more likely to detect contamination. Some federal officials were concerned that the beef hadn’t been studied enough before it was approved. The Times reported that one federal microbiologist, Gerald Zirnstein, called the processed beef ""pink slime"" in a 2002 email to colleagues. A University of Arkansas student did a study of the beef last year. The student, Courtney Moon, found the beef held up better than regular ground beef. ""I was surprised,"" Jason Apple, a meat science professor at the school, said in a news release sent by the university. ""I just assumed the lean beef trim would negatively impact the quality of the burgers, but it actually made them better in this study."" Researchers at other colleges have come forward in recent days offering similar conclusions. We were curious whether this beef was sold in other parts of the globe. A Canadian government health spokeswoman told PolitiFact Georgia that the country does not allow ammonia to be used in ground beef during production nor does it allow such food to be sold there. Ammonium hydroxide would be considered a food additive and require a safety evaluation, the official said. ""Only if a safety evaluation identified no safety concerns would the requested use be considered for approval,"" Olivia Caron, a media relations official for Health Canada, said via email. Interestingly, Caron used ""pink slime"" in the subject line of her email. Several food safety experts we interviewed were well-versed on the beef treating process and didn’t have what one of them called ""the ick factor"" that many Americans are feeling about it. For the most part, they consider it safe to eat. The main problem, they said, was the lack of information about the beef provided by manufacturers and the federal government, particularly at a time when Americans want fewer chemicals and preservatives in their food. ""Right now, we’re in a situation where you don’t know, and that’s why people are so infuriated,"" said Michael Batz, executive director of the Food Safety Research Consortium. ""The lack of disclosure and the lack of transparency is very troubling."" The USDA recently gave meat processors and supermarkets the option to put labels on ground beef packages identifying it as ""lean finely textured beef."" So where does this leave us? It is correct that the meat is called lean, finely textured beef and it has been widely used in fast-food restaurants and school cafeterias, and is sold in stores. But is it safe? The federal government says it’s safe. So do some state officials. Some research has concluded it is safe. Still, there are reasons for concern, such as those listed in the 2009 New York Times report. We also find it interesting that our neighbor to the north, Canada, has not permitted the beef to be sold there."

SOLUTION:
Lean, finely textured beef is the proper name [not pink slime], and it is a safe, widely used product.