TASK DEFINITION: Given a paragraph and a claim, classify it this way: If the claim contradicts the evidence present in the paragraph, classify the claim as '0'. If the claim has multiple supporting *AND* contradicting evidences, classify the claim as '1'. If the claim has supporting evidence and the paragraph is in overall favor of the claim, then classify the claim as '2'.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: The story attempted to discuss cost by citing the difference in price between shoulder surgery ($13,000) and the PRP treatment ($1,000, in this case for two injections). This is sufficient enough for a Satisfactory rating, but barely. While this does give readers some idea of the possible cost difference in treatments, there is no assurance that the charges in the author’s case are typical for those for the general public. It is simply one single data point which is fairly useless to the public. And, since there is no evidence of benefit or how many shots one might require, cost could be all over the place. The story gives no information on quantified benefits measured in PRP research, and instead focuses only on the author’s experience. The only mention of potential harms in the story comes in this statement:  “The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons — which says PRP ‘holds great promise’ — describes the risk as minimal.”  That’s not acceptable given that there is no explanation of what those risks might be. Readers are left clueless when it comes to questions of potential harms. Simply put, the discussion on the quality of evidence here is at best minimal, just the experience of one patient who happens to be a writer for the Washington Post. The story does cite a “recent pilot study” from a Canadian clinic of just seven rotator cuff injury patients who underwent PRP therapy. It said the study “showed tissue healing in five of seven patients . . . as well as improvements in their pain and function.”  But the story offers no information on how much healing or what degree of pain reduction or function, information readers need to consider a new therapeutic approach. There is no discussion of the growing body of evidence that has yet to show PRP actually improves clinical results. High-quality research, including a Cochrane systematic review, shows no benefit from injecting PRP. As Cochrane’s review noted: “The quality of the evidence is very low, partly because most trials used flawed methods that mean their results may not be reliable….In terms of individual conditions, we were able to pool results from six studies and found no differences in long-term function between those who received PRT during rotator cuff surgery and those who did not.” When it comes to shoulder injuries like rotator cuff tears, the story does not disease monger. However, the author’s claim that a vaccination injection resulted in the shoulder tear was an unusual claim, and one that we’re dubious of. Along with quotes from the author’s physician (who has already posted the story on his website) there are quotes from a researcher who was involved in one small clinical trial on PRP. The inclusion of the researcher just barely squeaks by as sufficient to earn a Satisfactory rating here. However, the story would have been much stronger had the author interviewed an expert who disagrees with these two sources, which wouldn’t be hard to find given the Cochrane review and other systematic reviews that cast a less rosy glow on PRP. The story is basically touting a possible new therapy as an alternative to traditional rotator cuff surgery, but it does a poor job of comparing them in an evidence-based manner. The story explains that platelets are removed from a patient’s blood using a centrifuge, equipment readily available in most practices. It makes the point of advising readers to seek out practitioners who do the procedure frequently. The story suggests that the PRP procedure is becoming more available. The story does not make it clear that PRP is not a new treatment, and that has been studied for many years now, including in rotator cuff tears. This story does not rely on a news release. Claim: I’ll never go through shoulder surgery again, so here’s what I did

SOLUTION: 1

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "On Nov. 27, 2013, a Madison-based liberal advocacy group used a mass email to promote protests that were planned against Walmart stores for two days later -- Black Friday. The demonstrations aimed to ""expose Wal-Mart’s shameful labor practices and support workers,"" according to One Wisconsin Now, which then made this claim: ""The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."" That reminded us of a March 2011 claim by filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore. He said in a Madison speech that 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Based on online hits, it became one of our most popular fact-checks ever. So we wondered about the Walmart claim. Wealth, not income In the days before and after Black Friday, leaders no less prominent than President Barack Obama and Pope Francis decried the extent of income disparity in the United States and around the world. Obama called the growing income gap a ""defining challenge of our time."" The pope said that while the earnings of a minority ""are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."" Walmart, of course, is a big target. According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as Mostly  a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies. But let’s be clear up front: Although income and wealth are related, they’re not the same. Wealth is commonly measured in terms of net worth -- the value of a person’s assets minus liabilities. So, things like savings and retirement accounts, minus what is owed on a home mortgage, credit cards, etc. That means a person with heavy debt can have little wealth, or negative wealth, even while earning a six-figure income. One more point before we get to the wealth figures. Walmart was founded by the late Sam Walton, who opened the first store in Arkansas in 1962. Walmart incorporated in 1969 and became a publicly traded company a year later. So, Wal-Mart is not family owned, but rather owned by its stockholders; on the other hand, according to Bloomberg and other news reports, the Walton family members still have control of the company, owning about half of the shares. Group's evidence Scot Ross, One Wisconsin Now's executive director, told us his evidence to back his group’s claim is a July 2012 article by economist Josh Bivens, research and policy director of the liberal Economics Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Bivens wrote that in 2010, the wealth of six Walton family heirs was $89.5 billion, 22 percent higher than in 2007. Meanwhile, the median wealth of American families in 2010 was $77,300, nearly 39 percent lower than three years earlier. (Median wealth refers to the American family that is exactly wealthier than half of all families and less wealthy than half.) As for measuring one against the other, Bivens said the Walton family wealth in 2010 was as large as the wealth of the bottom 48.8 million families in the United States, or 41.5 percent of all American families. Rounded up, 41.5 percent would be 42 percent, the figure One Wisconsin Now claims. But let's keep shopping around a little. Similar claim It turns out that a statement nearly identical to the one made by One Wisconsin Now was uttered in July 2012 by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats. Sanders said the Walton family owns ""more wealth than the bottom 40 percent of America,"" a claim PolitiFact National rated . Our colleagues found that Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, compared the Waltons’ cumulative net worth with that of the overall population, as cited in the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. That survey was published in August 2012. Allegretto found that the Waltons’ wealth in 2010 was valued at $89.5 billion -- equal to the entire bottom 41.5 percent of American families. The 2010 figures are the latest available for doing comparisons with the net worth of the overall population. But we found, using the Forbes 400 list for 2013, that the wealth of six of Sam Walton’s descendants has continued to grow. Here are their rankings and their wealth: No. 6 Christy Walton (daughter-in-law), $35.4 billion No. 7: Jim Walton (son), $33.8 billion No. 8: Alice Walton (daughter), $33.5 billion No. 9: S. Robson Walton (son), $33.3 billion No. 95: Ann Walton Kroenke (niece), $4.7 billion No. 110: Nancy Walton Laurie (niece), $4 billion Total Walton family wealth: $144.7 billion. A note before we close: Allegretto told us the housing crisis is a key reason that the gap between the Walton family wealth and the wealth of other American families has grown. More Americans were left with ""negative wealth"" because they lost their biggest asset -- their home -- and often significant amounts of their savings, as well, she said. Our rating One Wisconsin Now wrote: ""The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."" For comparison purposes, the latest data available, for 2010, the figure is 41.5 percent. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's website." Claim: The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined.

SOLUTION: 2

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "The release of a video showing NFL running back Ray Rice striking his now-wife in an Atlantic City, N.J., casino elevator revived conversations about domestic violence on the Sunday shows. On the Sept. 14, 2014, edition of CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., shared an anecdote from her time as a prosecutor to illustrate the ills of domestic violence. ""We had a poster outside the door so everyone would see it when they came in. It was a picture of a woman beaten up with a Band-Aid over her nose, holding a little baby boy,"" Klobuchar said. ""And the words read, ‘Beat your wife, and it’s your son that goes to jail.’ "" ""Kids … that have seen it happen,"" Klobuchar said, are ""twice as likely to commit it themselves."" Klobuchar concluded that because the NFL puts ""out their players as role models,"" they have ""to set a different culture."" We were interested in checking Klobuchar’s claim that kids who witness domestic violence are ""twice as likely to commit it themselves."" 90's kids We want to be clear upfront that witnessing domestic violence means witnessing it in a child’s household -- not watching the TMZ.com Rice video. That said, the ""twice as likely"" talking point is fairly popular among advocates against domestic abuse, and suffice to say has been around for a while. The domestic violence literature we’ve seen often cited that claim with a 1990 book called ""Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families."" This book compiled the results of the landmark National Family Violence Surveys of 1975 and 1985, which constituted 60-minute face-to-face interviews and 30-minute phone interviews, respectively, with thousands of American families. Based on those interviews, the book’s authors illustrated how a variety of factors influenced the incidence of domestic violence. Most of the book is about gender differences and roles in domestic violence, but the section on the effects on children crunches the surveys’ numbers on whether abusers said they witnessed abuse as children. That produced the ""twice as likely"" estimate. The experts we talked to told us there hasn’t been any study as definitive or comprehensive since, although other studies have taken stabs at the issue of intergenerational transmission of domestic violence. ""We’ve known for such a long time that the biggest risk factor for being abusive against wives and children is witnessing domestic violence at home or being abused,"" said Jacquelyn Campbell, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing who studies domestic violence. So ""people haven’t repeated the research for a while,"" Campbell said, and ""a lot of stuff is old and mostly cross-sectional."" What the existing literature says Campbell pointed us to a 2010 study about intimate partner violence -- a subset of domestic violence -- which found that children who witnessed any intimate partner violence were 2.6 times as likely to perpetrate it themselves. Children who witnessed any violence were 1.6 times as likely, according to the study, to become abusers as adults. Klobuchar’s claim, then, has grounds in literature both old and new. There are literally dozens of studies on this issue, though, and different studies tell different stories. A 2000 meta-analysis of 39 different studies on this issue found a ""small-to-medium"" correlation between witnessing and perpetrating. The studies in that survey, while a couple decades old, ranged from showing a causal relationship between witnessing and perpetrating to showing no relationship at all. That corroborates Klobuchar’s larger point that parents’ domestic violence has negative outcomes for their children, but that’s not the same as these kids being ""twice as likely to commit it themselves."" Difficulties with measurements Putting numbers on domestic violence is particularly hard, and perhaps even inappropriate, said Ruth Glenn, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. ""I wouldn’t say twice as likely,"" said Glenn. ""So I would say that it is an additional risk factor. I get nervous when we start to assign data, because there’s not enough data to support it. Domestic violence happens in families, and each of those families are individual units."" In other words, there’s enough out there to suggest that children who witness domestic violence are more likely to perpetrate it, but saying something as precise as ""twice as likely"" is difficult. Domestic violence is ""hard to measure for various and sundry reasons,"" said Glenn, from the lack of ""good data"" on who’s charged and convicted of domestic violence to confidentiality issues with its victims. And even when researchers can get affirmative data, there are methodological concerns. The studies about children who witness domestic violence often surveyed clinical populations -- meaning those with family issues, so a non-representative sample -- and ask respondents to self-report and to retroactively report. Extricating domestic violence from other family issues -- like mental health and substance abuse -- is also difficult, according to the studies Campbell referred us to. Our ruling Klobuchar, arguing that the NFL has a responsibility to hold its ""role models"" accountable to a ""different culture,"" said that kids who witness domestic violence in their households are ""twice as likely to commit it themselves."" There are legitimate, peer-reviewed studies that bear Klobuchar’s claim out. But overall, even though there’s a consensus that witnessing domestic violence puts kids at a greater risk for perpetrating it themselves, the precise figures differ. Measuring domestic violence is very difficult for a variety of reasons, and there hasn’t been a recent, comprehensive study. So saying these kids are ""twice as likely to commit"" domestic violence is a little too precise." Claim: "Children who witness domestic violence are ""twice as likely to commit it themselves."

SOLUTION:
2