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.

Paragraph: We’ll rule this not applicable because, in general, most people have ballpark knowledge of how much chocolate costs. The story did not mention that dark chocolate is typically more expensive than milk chocolate — especially for the premium brands with very high concentrations of cocoa solids. A brief explanation would have been helpful. The story went the extra mile here, providing the absolute rates of stroke seen in the groups consuming the lowest and highest quantities of chocolate. “Among those with the highest weekly chocolate intake — more than 45 grams — there were 2.5 strokes per 1,000 women per year. That figure was 7.8 per 1,000 among women who ate the least (less than 8.9 grams per week).” These statistics weren’t provided in the study text, suggesting that the writer made the calculations based on data contained in one of the study tables. We applaud the extra effort made to provide meaningful statistics to readers! Close call here, but the story goes a step further than WebMD when discussing the possible adverse effects of consuming too much chocolate. In addition to warning that chocolate has a lot of fat, sugar and calories, it explicitly notes that eating too much of it “could be counterproductive.” WebMD offers no comparable warning and suggests that eating more chocolate than was consumed in this study would result in similar health benefits. This story was much more cautious in its depiction of the findings than the competing WebMD coverage. Most important, it was careful to explain high up that the study found only a correlation between chocolate intake and lower stroke risk. As one of the study authors explains: “Given the observational design of the study, findings from this study cannot prove that it’s chocolate that lowers the risk of stroke.” We also appreciate the story’s more nuanced language regarding which constituents of chocolate might be responsible for possible benefits. Whereas WebMD states unequivocally that flavonoids and antioxidants “deserve the credit” for these benefits, Reuters says more judiciously that  flavonoids “may be responsible for chocolate’s apparent effects on health.” [Emphasis ours.] “Whether that theoretical benefit translates into real-life benefits remains to be proven by rigorous studies, however,” Reuters appropriately adds. There was no disease-mongering. This was the only major shortcoming — no independent perspective. An expert in epidemiology might have pointed out, for example, that the data on chocolate consumption were collected from subject self-reports, and therefore should be viewed cautiously. The availability of chocolate is not in question. The story appropriately notes that there is a stronger statistical association with dark chocolate as opposed to milk chocolate. The story notes that previous research has linked higher levels of chocolate consumption with improved heart health. The story includes comments attributed to a direct email from one of the study authors, so we can confirm our overall impression that this story wasn’t based on a press release. Claim: Chocolate lovers have fewer strokes, study finds
Starting with the headline, this story is careful to explain that the study observed fewer strokes in those who ate more chocolate; it doesn’t suggest that the chocolate prevented strokes. It also features excellent use of statistics, a more explicit description of potential harms, and mentions alternative approaches to prevention. The only major shortcoming was a lack of an independent perspective on the findings. Some journalists may balk at our insistence that stories about observational studies include appropriate discussion of the limitations of the evidence. In only 378 words, this story provides another example that this can be done – and it doesn’t require the length of a full medical journal article to do so.

Paragraph: The story quotes one price estimate of about $250 for the testing. We would have liked more detail about whether new details on accuracy of the tests might change their status in the marketplace, or whether insurability status might change. Parents who fear their child may inherit gender-linked disorders, such as hemophilia, could use this test earlier in pregnancy and possibly avoid more invasive procedures, such as amniocentesis. Amniocentesis carries a risk of miscarriage. We would have liked some numbers about how many women in the US are facing this dilemma; the situations that carry benefit are few. The average gestational “age” at enrollment in prenatal care in the US is after the window in which most of these tests are marketed. So that means if a couple did not know that they needed to think about X-linked mental retardation “fragile X” (which affect males) or hemophilia, the use of the test would not really be integrated into their care. Could have been more skeptical of why they are really being marketed – closer to entertainment ultrasounds than medical care. Yes, the story lists potential harms. These range from inaccuracy, because the tests are unregulated and the laboratories don’t have to meet medical standards, to the potential for abortions based on fetal gender. This story does not evaluate the quality of the evidence in the new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which prompted the headlines. We applaud some of the details, giving consumers information about the lawsuit about one consumer product, but the discussion leaves readers confused about how to evaluate reliability. We’re surprised that the story didn’t point out in absolute terms that 5 of every 100 tests of girls and 1 of every 100 boys will be wrong – 6 out of a hundred multiplied by millions of pregnancies a year! That’s a lot of errors even if uptake is minimal. This story balances the potential for danger in giving parents early information about the sex of a fetus and the genuine benefit for some in avoiding more invasive testing when a condition is ruled out by knowing the gender information. The story quoted four sources, in addition to the study’s lead author. The story explains how parents who fear a sex-linked genetic problem for their fetus must balance risk against benefit in existing alternatives.It did not do a very detailed job of comparing how the new approach could compare, especially considering there is a risk of inaccurate results in the new approach. The hypothetical target group for these tests is much, much smaller than the broader use is and might become. It did do a better job than the Reuters story in describing other tests (urine tests) that have been developed. Yes, the story explains there are a variety of tests that have been widely available to consumers. But the story could have done a better job of connecting the dots for readers. Exactly how does one get a blood test done for a home test kit? Raises questions like: do I go to a lab? Finger stick? Are their costs other than the test? Shipping? Do I do this at home myself? Working with my medical care team? How soon do I get the results?, etc. Process of using several common kits could have been better described. The new research was on testing that is not novel, but by surveying 57 other studies, they reached a new conclusion about overall accuracy and how early in pregnancy it could predict gender. The story did not rely on a release. Claim: Test Can Tell Fetal Sex at 7 Weeks, Study Says
The story outlines how new research about an existing family of consumer blood tests shows accuracy at seven weeks into pregnancy for determining the sex of a fetus. What the story also tells is the complicated weighing of risks and benefits that parents may need to use, since the consumer tests and their laboratories are not regulated by the FDA. We would have liked more information in here about which precise forms of testing among the 57 studies analyzed were most reliable and the quality of the evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association survey. Earlier sex-determination in pregnancy could lead to parents choosing (or trying to choose) the gender they prefer. Internationally, it is already clear that some parents in China and India are deliberately choosing male babies, and aborting female fetuses. The research reported on, a survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association, does not directly address these larger ethical implications. But the study’s lead author, Diana Bianchi, does stress that she wants to examine “why people are buying these things” and the consequences of consumer access to over-the-counter testing for fetal gender. The New York Times story goes a bit further than the competing Reuters story in exploring how consumers may use the testing.

Paragraph: This article discussed the potential implications of a case that was, at the time of writing, undecided by the Supreme Court. On 17 June 2019 the Supreme Court decided that case, rejecting arguments that could have resulted in a stronger presidential pardon. Far from Kavanaugh’s being a deciding vote on the case, the court ruled 7-2 against the notion that Federal and State prosecution for the same crime violates the so-called “double jeopardy clause” of the Constitution. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented. On 29 November 2015, a motorist named Terance Gamble, who had been convicted of second degree robbery seven years earlier, was pulled over by an Alabama police officer because of a faulty headlight on his vehicle. Upon searching the car, the officer found a handgun, among other items. It is illegal under both Alabama law and United States law for convicted felons to possess firearms, and Gamble was eventually sentenced to one year in prison on that charge by the state of Alabama. During Gamble’s prosecution under Alabama law for possession of a firearm as a felon, the Federal Government also charged him with the same crime. Gamble’s lawyers argued that this second conviction was a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “double jeopardy,” which is intended to protect people from being prosecuted for the same crime more than once. The double jeopardy clause is found in Fifth Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which states (in part) that “No person shall … be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Specifically, the clause has been interpreted to be a prohibition on: Gamble has been in federal prison since entering a guilty plea on 18 October 2016 that allowed him to appeal his case. In June 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to hear his argument that he has been unconstitutionally punished multiple times for the same crime. While the case is about the constitutionality of a man being charged twice for the same gun possession incident in a narrow sense, the case more broadly has the potential to significantly alter 150 years of Supreme Court precedent. Since the 1850s, the Supreme Court has allowed for one explicit exception to the Constitution’s double jeopardy protections: cases of dual sovereignty (or “separate sovereigns”) which stem from view that the federal government and state governments are distinct entities with occasionally overlapping jurisdictions. (Exceptions to this exception exist which seek to limit double prosecutions at the federal level, but as this case shows they do not always have that effect.) This ”separate sovereigns” exception to double jeopardy, though built on several previous rulings, was made most explicit in a 1920s bootlegging case, United States v. Lanza, which allowed a man to be charged with bootlegging crimes by both the state of Washington and the federal government. With respect to that case, Chief Justice William Howard Taft argued: We have here two sovereignties, deriving power from different sources, capable of dealing with the same subject matter within the same territory. Each may, without interference by the other, enact laws to secure prohibition, with the limitation that no legislation can give validity to acts prohibited by the amendment. Each government, in determining what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity, is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other. The separate sovereigns exemption has for much of its history been a controversial precedent which critics maintain is not rooted in the original text of the Constitution but is instead cobbled together from different partially relevant Supreme Court decisions — decisions rooted in a time when the federal government was less powerful and whose questions never directly sought to address the explicit matter of double punishment for the same crime in state and federal jurisdictions. This argument is reflected in Gamble’s filing. The government argues in this case that the precedent is well-established through myriad Supreme Court cases and consistent with the Founding Fathers’ vision of state and federal government duality: The dual-sovereignty principle has been “long held”, and “consistently endorsed” by this Court, which has recognized its soundness as a matter of “[p]recedent, experience, and reason alike,” The Court explained the roots of the principle more than 150 years ago. And in 1959, the Court described a challenge to the dual-sovereignty doctrine as “not a new question,” having been “invoked and rejected in over twenty cases” … Each sovereign is entitled to “exercis[e] its own sovereignty” to “determin[e] what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity” and prosecute the offender “without interference by the other.” Under petitioner’s interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause, one sovereign’s efforts (successful or not) to enforce its own laws would vitiate the other sovereign’s similar law-enforcement prerogatives. But that cannot be squared with the Constitution’s bedrock structure of governance. In this case, Gamble has explicitly asked the Supreme Court to rule on a single specific question: “Whether the Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause.” The reason Gamble v. United States is generating buzz from people other than constitutional law scholars is that the separate sovereigns exception also prevents President Trump from pardoning people for state crimes. Under current Supreme Court precedent, a presidential pardon of an individual does not prevent that individual from being prosecuted for the same or similar crimes under state law. “Under the dual sovereignty doctrine,” Adam J. Adler wrote in the Yale Law Review, “as long as two offenses are defined by different jurisdictions, they cannot constitute the ‘same offense.’” The Congressional Research Service issued an August 2018 report on the potential ramifications of the case, and this report included a discussion of its possible effect on the presidential pardon power: The Gamble case may nevertheless have significant collateral legal effects … A win for Gamble could also indirectly strengthen the President’s pardon power, by precluding a state from prosecuting an already-pardoned defendant who has gone to trial on an overlapping offense. Some pundits have speculated that the reason why certain politicians seem to be in a rush to seat Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court is that is that he has a notably strong view of presidential powers and therefore would be a vote in favor of Gamble and for an expansion of presidential pardon powers — and the Supreme Court announced they would be hearing this case the day after Justice Kennedy’s retirement. This temporal proximity has prompted some commenters to opine that the rush might be motivated by a desire to limit the president’s legal liability in the Russia probe and other investigations:  While we cannot speculate on the motives of politicians who are supporting Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, The Atlantic reported that prominent political legal scholars agree in a general sense with the view of this case’s having importance with regard to President Trump’s pardon power: Within the context of the Mueller probe, legal observers have seen the dual-sovereignty doctrine as a check on President Donald Trump’s power: It could discourage him from trying to shut down the Mueller investigation or pardon anyone caught up in the probe, because the pardon wouldn’t be applied to state charges. Under settled law, if Trump were to pardon his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for example — he was convicted in federal court on eight counts of tax and bank fraud — both New York and Virginia state prosecutors could still charge him for any crimes that violated their respective laws … If the dual-sovereignty doctrine were tossed … then Trump’s pardon could theoretically protect Manafort from state action. If Trump were to shut down the investigation or pardon his associates, “the escape hatch, then, is for cases to be farmed out or picked up by state-level attorneys general, who cannot be shut down by Trump and who generally — but with some existing limits –can charge state crimes even after a federal pardon,” explained Elie Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney in New Jersey. The Atlantic also reported that at least one member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who approved Kavanaugh for a floor vote before the full Senate, Orrin Hatch, has publicly weighed in on the topic (unmotivated, he says, by the implications for the pardon power), filing an Amicus Curiae brief in favor of Gamble which argued that “the pervasive federalization of criminal law to cover conduct that traditionally was prosecuted and punished by the states, and that falls within the states’ core legislative interests, threatens to undermine the protections of the Double Jeopardy Clause unless the dual sovereignty doctrine is overruled in this context.” Claim: Judge Kavanaugh, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, could be a deciding vote on a case that has the potential to dramatically increase the power of the presidential pardon.

Oral arguments for the case have not been scheduled but will occur during this Supreme Court term. If confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh could become a deciding vote in the case.