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: The story makes it clear that cost of the test is currently speculative (“could cost about $500”) and goes even further to caution that: “Johns Hopkins holds the patent and has not licensed it as yet to a company that would ultimately set the price.” The story makes the two key results of the test quite clear. First, that the 1,005 people tested already had been diagnosed with one of eight common cancers, and the blood test was able to detect cancer in about 70 percent of them. Second, the test was also given to 812 people without cancer and only a false reading for cancer less than 1 percent of the time. Including the additional finding that the test was only able to detect cancer in about 40 percent of the patients with early cancer (ie. stage I) was a thoughtful way of introducing the relevant issue of falsely negative tests. The story does an excellent job of finding an independent source who explains that one of the potential risks of cancer screening tests is either identifying cancers that are not there, or are benign, and can lead to “pointless and potentially dangerous treatments.” The opposite harm is also mentioned; that is, a screening test that erroneously gives a negative result, leading providers to falsely reassure a patient that cancer is not there. Cautious language is used at many points in the story and it does three things quite well. First, it lists the most important limitation of the study: The screening test studied was unable to identify the type of cancer. Second, the implications of both falsely positive and falsely negative tests were explained succinctly and placed in a clinical context that would matter to those undergoing screening. Finally, we were very encouraged by the inclusion of this sentence: “… the researchers will still have to demonstrate that the test improves and extends the lives of cancer patients.” There is no disease mongering in this story. The two independent sources cited provide important context for understanding the strengths, limitations, and clinical context of the screening test. This was a tough call, but ultimately we felt the story would have been stronger had it mentioned the performance of current screening methods for some of the cancer types, such as Cologuard for colon cancer. That said, we were glad the story included some of the pitfalls of screening for prostate and breast cancer, as well as the long struggle to develop more blood tests for cancer. It’s mentioned the authors of the study are “hoping their idea would eventually lead to a $500 test … but they have a long way to go.” Future studies of the screening test are also discussed, so it seems clear this test is not currently available. It’s made clear that “there have been many attempts over the decades to develop blood tests to screen for cancers … but these methods don’t give reliable results.” It’s also pointed out that what makes this screening test unique is that it combines two previously used methods (screening for proteins and for DNA) into one test. This story does not appear to rely upon a news release.

SOLUTION: Scientists Edge Closer To A Blood Test To Detect Cancers

PROBLEM: Diana Nyad cries as she speaks to reporters and fans after arriving back in Key West, Florida August 9, 2011. An asthma attack, a painful shoulder and battering wind and waves forced 61-year-old swimmer Diana Nyad to abandon early on Tuesday her bid to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. REUTERS/Rob O'Neal/Florida Keys News Bureau/Handout The American, who tried and failed the 103-mile swim more than three decades ago when she was 28, gave up after enduring nearly 30 hours of a crossing expected to last 60, exhausted by her body’s limits and the force of the elements. “I thought this was my time. We set out, thinking the conditions were favorable. They were not. The winds were stronger and the waves were bigger than what I’d expected,” she told Reuters after her escort boat Bellisimo brought her to the Key West Yacht Club on Stock Island. Nyad, a veteran long-distance swimmer, had started out strongly, stroking rhythmically through calm seas after she dived off from the Marina Hemingway on the western outskirts of Cuba’s capital Havana at 7:45 p.m. EDT on Sunday. But, she said in an interview with CNN, she suffered an unexpected bout of asthma that left her gasping for oxygen. An “excruciating pain” also developed in her right shoulder and these physical handicaps combined with contrary winds and seas that pushed her floundering off course. “Last night at midnight, I was trembling, the 11 hours of asthma had taken so much from my body ... I just knew that it wasn’t mind over matter any more, I was absolutely spent,” Nyad, wearing a white bathrobe, told CNN at Stock Island. She said that toward the end she was “limping” and “slapping around” in the water and even resorted to breast stroke instead of her usual crawl. Her doctor joined her in the water at one point to try to give her relief with an inhaler. CNN, which had a producer on one of the boats accompanying Nyad, said she was vomiting when she was brought aboard an escort boat at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT) on Tuesday. Nyad, who later recovered to breakfast on scrambled eggs on her way to Key West, was disappointed but had no regrets about her motives for attempting the swim. She turns 62 this month. She had said her main aim in attempting the Cuba to Florida swim again, without a shark cage, was to help people her age and older realize they can still achieve many things. “I was the best person I could be ... that’s the message. I dug down, I dug deep ... Whatever you’re doing, do your job well,” Nyad, who has the muscled body and the steely resolve of a marathon swimmer, told CNN. Raised in southern Florida, she first tried the crossing from Cuba in 1978, but failed in the face of winds and heavy waves. The same swim was completed successfully in May 1997 by Australian Susan Maroney, who was 22 at the time. But Maroney used a shark cage. Nyad’s flotilla of escort vessels included specially equipped kayaks transmitting an anti-shark shield in the form of an electronic signal that is annoying to the sleek ocean predators that stalk the waters of the Florida Straits. When she was years younger, Nyad put herself into the record books by swimming around Manhattan in 1975 in less than eight hours and by completing a 102.5 mile swim from Bimini in the Bahamas to Florida in 1979. Despite her having to abandon her bid, her fans tweeted their admiration on Tuesday. “That was Diana’s whole point. Rethink old. Sorry she (had) to abandon but my admiration doesn’t waiver. Go Diana,” said one. Asked whether she would attempt the swim again, Nyad told CNN: “You don’t beat Mother Nature ... I think I’m going to have to go to my grave without swimming from Cuba to Florida.”

SOLUTION: Sea defeats body, not spirit, of swimmer, 61.

PROBLEM: Samoa declared a national emergency last month and mandated that all 200,000 people living on the South Pacific island nation get vaccinated. The government has closed all schools and banned children from public gatherings. In all, 53 people have died in the outbreak since late October, including one adult and two older teenagers. Most of those who have died have been babies and young infants, including 23 children aged less than 1 and 25 children aged between 1 and 4. The government said more than 1,100 people have been admitted to hospitals since the outbreak began and about 180 people remain hospitalized. Among those hospitalized are 19 children who are in critical condition. Samoan authorities believe the virus was first spread by a traveler from New Zealand. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday that her country was doing everything it could to help curb the epidemic, including sending more than 50 medical professionals and thousands of vaccines to Samoa. Other countries including Britain have also sent teams and supplies. Ardern said the natural curve of infection rates meant that “sometimes things can be worse before they are better.” Figures from the World Health Organization and UNICEF indicate that fewer than 30% of Samoan infants were immunized last year. That low rate was exacerbated by a medical mishap that killed two babies who were administered a vaccine that had been incorrectly mixed, causing wider delays and distrust in the vaccination program. The government said about 33,000 people were vaccinated before last month and since then, another 58,000 people have been vaccinated. The World Health Organization has set a target of wiping out measles from most of the world by next year. It says the disease is entirely preventable thanks to a safe vaccine that has been in use since the 1960s, and that measles deaths worldwide decreased by 84% between 2000 and 2016 to about 90,000 annually thanks to better immunization.

SOLUTION:
50 children killed by measles in Samoa as outbreak worsens.