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.
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Question: An influenza virus vaccine vial sits on the counter of medical center in Great Neck, New York, October 22, 2004. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton SS  But they said school closings would create significant  hardships for working parents, who might be forced to create  informal daycare arrangements that would undo efforts to  contain the spread of flu. “We find school closings would be less effective than some  studies have suggested,” said Dr. Simon Cauchemez of Imperial  College London, whose study appears in the journal Nature. “The main effect would be to slow and flatten the outbreak  — so the numbers becoming ill in the worst week of the  outbreak might be reduced by up to 40 percent, reducing peak  demand on health-care systems,” Cauchemez said in an e-mail. Health experts almost universally agree that a global  epidemic — a pandemic — of influenza is overdue. The most  likely cause now is H5N1 avian influenza, which could evolve  into a form that passes easily from person to person. Government estimates suggest vaccines and drugs will not be  enough to slow or prevent a flu pandemic. The U.S. pandemic  plan recommends closing schools and implementing strategies to  limit social contact as a way to limit transmission. If done quickly, such widespread measures combined with  drugs and vaccines might reduce transmission in a large city by  as much as 80 percent, by one estimate. But such estimates are often based on widely varying  assumptions, Cauchemez said. He and colleagues instead used  public health data from France that compared flu transmission  when school was in session and during school holidays. They found school holidays prevent 16 to 18 percent of  seasonal influenza cases. When extrapolated to a pandemic, they  said prolonged school closure might reduce the cumulative  number of cases by 13 to 17 percent, and peak attack rates by  39 to 45 percent. But that impact would be reduced if it proved too difficult  to keep children apart. “If we want the policy to have an  impact, children must be kept relatively isolated and not cared  for in groups,” Cauchemez said. U.S. cities that quickly closed schools and discouraged  public gatherings during the great flu pandemic of 1918 —  which killed tens of millions of people globally — had as many  as 50 percent fewer deaths than cities that took less decisive  measures, according to a recent study. Cauchemez said an especially deadly pandemic might provide  strong incentives for people to keep their children at home. “It might nonetheless be difficult for a lot of working parents  to be absent from their work for months to look after their  kids,” he said. Cauchemez said a prolonged outbreak might force working  parents to put their children into informal daycare settings, a  risk governments need to consider when they formulate pandemic  flu plans. “We can’t predict how people will behave, but we need to be  aware that if this happens, school closings might have no  effect at all on flu transmission,” he said. H5N1 bird flu only rarely infects people now. It has killed  239 out of 379 infected, according to the World Health  Organization, but could easily mutate into a form that one  person could pass to another, and governments around the world  are preparing for the possibility.

Answer: School closings may be no holiday for flu pandemic.


Question: Licenses for hemp cultivation topped a half-million acres (200,000 hectares) last year, more than 450% above 2018 levels, so there’s intense interest in the rules the U.S. government is creating. Critical comments on the draft have poured in from hemp farmers, processors, retailers and state governments. Growers are concerned the government wants to use a heavy hand that could result in many crops failing required tests and being destroyed. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency writing the rules, estimates 20% of hemp lots would fail under the proposed regulations. “Their business is to support farmers — and not punish farmers — and the rules as they’re written right now punish farmers,” said Dove Oldham, who last year grew an acre (0.40 hectares) of hemp on her family farm in Grants Pass. “There’s just a lot of confusion, and people are just looking for leadership.” The USDA did not respond to the criticism but has taken the unusual step of extending the public comment period by a month, until Jan. 29. The agency told The Associated Press it will analyze information from this year’s growing season before releasing its final rules, which would take effect in 2021. Agricultural officials in states that run pilot hemp cultivation programs under an earlier federal provision are weighing in with formal letters to the USDA. “There are 46 states where hemp is legal, and I’m going to say that every single state has raised concerns to us about something within the rule. They might be coming from different perspectives, but every state has raised concerns,” said Aline DeLucia, director of public policy for the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. Most of the anxiety involves how the federal government plans to test for THC, the high-inducing compound found in marijuana and hemp, both cannabis plants. The federal government and most states consider plants with tiny amounts — 0.3% or less — to be hemp. Anything above that is marijuana and illegal under federal law. Yet another cannabis compound has fueled the explosion in hemp cultivation. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is marketed as a health and wellness aid and infused in everything from food and drinks to lotions, toothpaste and pet treats. Many have credited CBD with helping ease pain, increase sleep and reduce anxiety. But scientists caution not enough is known about its health effects, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year targeted nearly two dozen companies for making CBD health claims. Still, the CBD market is increasing at a triple-digit rate and could have $20 billion in sales by 2024, according to a recent study by BDS Analytics, a marketing analysis firm that tracks cannabis industry trends. About 80% of the 18,000 farmers licensed for hemp cultivation are in the CBD market, said Eric Steenstra, president of the advocacy group Vote Hemp. The remaining 20% grow hemp for its fiber, used in everything from fabric to construction materials, or its grain, which is added to health foods. But hemp is a notoriously fickle crop. Conditions such as sunlight, moisture and soil composition determine its ratio of THC to CBD. Choosing the right harvesting window is critical to ensuring it stays within acceptable THC levels. Under the draft USDA rules, farmers have no wiggle room. They must harvest within 15 days of testing their crop for THC, and the samples must be sent to a lab certified by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Samples must be from the top of the plant, where THC levels are highest, and the final measurement must include not just THC, but also THCA, a nonpsychoactive component. Crops that test above 0.3% for the two combined must be destroyed. Growers with crops above 0.5% would be considered in “negligent violation,” and those with repeated violations could be suspended from farming hemp. In addition, a pilot program for federal crop insurance that would be available to hemp growers in some states specifies that crops lost because of high THC levels won’t be covered. Those provisions are causing alarm among growers and states with pilot hemp programs allowed under the 2014 Farm Bill. Some states allow THC levels above 0.3%, and not all include THCA in that calculation. Many permit more harvesting time for growers after THC testing. Farmers are lobbying for a 1% THC limit and a 30-day harvest window to give them more flexibility while remaining well under THC levels that can get people high. The draft regulations don’t “seem to be informed by the reality of the crop,” said Jesse Richardson, who with his brother sells CBD-infused teas and capsules under the brand The Brothers Apothecary. “If no one can produce (federally) compliant hemp flower, then there will be no CBD oil on the market.” Growers are also worried about the proposed rule requiring that all THC testing be done in a DEA-certified lab because there are so few of them. Some states have only one, which would serve hundreds of growers in a short harvest window. Samantha Ford, a third-generation farmer in North Carolina, waited two weeks to get back THC results from a lab last fall and then spent 45 days harvesting her 1 acre (0.40 hectares) of hemp by hand. “The 15-day window — that’s not feasible, and that was on a small scale,” she said. “I can’t imagine farmers who have acres and acres and acres of it.” Concerns also have emerged about the workload the draft rules would place on states. Many do random sampling for THC levels, but the USDA would require five samples from every hemp lot — a burden for state agricultural departments, said DeLucia, of the national ag agencies group. If federal rules are too onerous and expensive, some states might drop their hemp programs. In those cases, farmers would have to apply for licenses with the USDA, and at this stage it’s unclear how U.S. officials would manage or pay for a nationwide licensing program, DeLucia said. Under the 2018 Farm Bill, the USDA must approve state plans for hemp programs. Louisiana, Ohio and New Jersey last month were the first to get the green light — but those plans might need to be reworked after final rules are written. “What we don’t want to see is states having to write their rules and then have to change the rules again and rewrite them” after 2021, said Steenstra, of Vote Hemp.

Answer: High anxiety: Proposed US hemp rules worry industry .


Question: Social media sites have been tryingto combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines with mixed results. Now searches for “measles,” ″vaccine safety” and related terms will bring up results from such groups as the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net. Pinterest won’t show ads or other users’ posts, as they may contain misinformation. “We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” San Francisco-based Pinterest said in a blog post. Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread more quickly on social media. The misinformation includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. Experts say the spread of such information can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children, leading to a comeback of various diseases. Measles outbreaks have spiked in the U.S. this year to the highest number in more than 25 years. In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed people “listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the internet” for a rising incidence of measles in that country. The government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation, though plans were still being worked out. Facebook said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. The WHO praised Pinterest’s move and encouraged other social media companies to follow. “Misinformation about vaccination has spread far and fast on social media platforms in many different countries,” the statement said. “We see this as a critical issue and one that needs our collective effort to protect people’s health and lives.” ___ This story has been updated to read that the name of the institution is Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Answer:
Pinterest to direct vaccine-related searches to health orgs.