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 not only mentions the cost of a scan to individuals ($100 to $500), it also notes that about $50 million dollars was spent on this type of scanning nationwide in 2008. A longer story could have also reported on the costs of additional testing and treatments triggered by screening apparently healthy individuals. As mentioned above, the story notes that while some experts recommend CT screening for coronary artery calcium deposits in order to increase the number of people receiving treatment to reduce the likelihood of a heart, others are skeptical about the real value of this type of screening for apparently health people. The reporter points out that many heart attacks strike people who do not have very high cholesterol levels or other indicators of elevated risk, but also that “no study has linked the use of CT scans with better patient outcomes.”   The potential cancer risk caused by CT screening for signs of heart disease is the point of this story. Also, by highlighting uncertainty about the benefits of the screening and recapping debate over the Texas law mandating coverage of the scans, the story emphasizes the importance of considering potential harms when setting public policy on screening tests. A longer story could have considered other potential harms, including the side effects of treatments prescribed based on screening tests. The story does a good job of summarizing the results of this study of potential cancer risk from CT screening. In addition, it outlines the positions of experts and organizations on the broader body of evidence on the use of CT scans to identify people who may have plaque buildups in their heart arteries. It would have been better if the reporter stated that the estimate was based on several assumptions, that it wasn’t a definitive point estimate, but just the center of a range, and that it was higher than earlier estimates. Readers still got the point that there is a cancer risk which needs to be considered. The story notes that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., but it also points out doubts about whether screening with CT scans for calcium buildup in heart arteries can reduce the toll. The story includes experts and advocates that represent the key perspectives in debate about CT screening for calcium deposits in coronary arteries. However, it does not include information on possible conflicts of interest. Although this story points out that alternative screening techniques are available and it makes reference to cholesterol, it does not include any details about the alternatives. The story says that the CT scanners used for this test are “all over the city” and included an estimate that in 2008 about 200,000 people around the country were scanned for calcium buildups in their coronary arteries. not in question in this story The story includes quotes from independent experts and other information that was not in the news release about the journal article.

SOLUTION: Warning sounded on heart scan law

PROBLEM: "The annual effort to raise public awareness about the environment and inspire actions to clean it up marks its 41st anniversary on Friday, coinciding with the Christian Good Friday and Judaism’s celebration of Passover. In an effort dubbed ""A Billion Acts of Green,"" organizers are encouraging people to observe Earth Day 2011 by pledging online at act.earthday.org/ to do something small but sustainable in their own lives to improve the planet's health -- from switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs to reducing the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. “Millions of people doing small, individual acts can add up to real change,” said Chad Chitwood, a spokesman for the umbrella group coordinating efforts. There will be hundreds of rallies, workshops and other events around the United States, where Earth Day was born, and hundreds more overseas, where it is now celebrated in 192 countries. In the United States the activities range from the premiere of the new film from the director of “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (it’s called “Revenge of the Electric Car”) at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York to a discussion about creating a green economy in 12 cities along the Gulf Coast, where this time last year residents were reeling from the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the years since the first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 the environmentalist movement made great strides with passage of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and other groundbreaking laws. But the bipartisanship that marked the birth of Earth Day — it was sponsored in Congress by a Wisconsin Democrat named Gaylord Nelson and a California Republican named Pete McCloskey — is often missing in discussions about environmental policy today. Efforts to fight climate change by regulating greenhouse gases, for instance, face fierce resistance from many Republicans and members of the business community, who dispute the science supporting global warming and warn new rules to regulate emissions will kill jobs and raise energy costs."

SOLUTION: "Earth Day organizers call for ""a billion acts of green""."

PROBLEM: But experts caution it is premature to say whether the unprecedented double-whammy of storms to hit the southern African nation is a consequence of climate change, and whether these cyclones will become more common. Cyclone Idai, which swamped large parts of central Mozambique last month, killed over 600 people and displaced thousands. Cyclone Kenneth made landfall Thursday evening in the north of the country where no such storm has been recorded since satellite observations began in the 1970s. “There is no record of two storms of such intensity striking Mozambique in the same season,” said Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization. “It is difficult to pronounce on one event like Idai, or even two like Idai and Kenneth. The statistical size of the sample is just too small,” she said. “But one thing is sure: The vulnerability of coastal areas will become worse with the sea-level rise induced by global warming.” Inland areas, too, are at risk because storms are getting wetter. Kenneth, which has weakened to a tropical depression, is expected to bring heavy rainfall to already saturated soil and dams at the end of the rainy season. “While attention is often given to wind speed, we know from experience that it is rainfall — and subsequent flooding and landslides — that can be even more dangerous from a humanitarian perspective,” said Antonio Carabante, an emergency relief delegate with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “This was certainly the case for Cyclone Idai,” Carabante said, adding that many affected areas are prone to flooding and landslides even with normal levels of rainfall. “And this is far from a normal situation.” Such conditions can be particularly devastating for developing countries like Mozambique and neighboring Malawi and Zimbabwe, all hit by Cyclone Idai, where food stores can be quickly depleted in a disaster and the health care system struggles to cope with a sudden disease outbreak like cholera. “Cyclone Kenneth may require a major new humanitarian operation at the same time that the ongoing Cyclone Idai response targeting 3 million people in three countries remains critically underfunded,” said the U.N.’s emergency relief coordinator, Mark Lowcock, who described the situation as a “climate-related disaster.” Abubakr Salih Babiker, a meteorologist at the Nairobi-based Intergovernmental Authority on Development, said there are indications that tropical cyclones are becoming more common off East Africa as rising sea surface temperatures are a key ingredient for cyclones to form. “There’s a pattern here,” he said, citing recent violent storms from Somalia in the Horn of Africa down to Mozambique. “What used to be rare is not rare anymore.” And just as warmer seas are helping spark cyclones, hotter air is feeding the resulting rainfall, Salih Babiker said. “If the air is warmer, it has more ability to hold moisture.” The World Meteorological Organization said this year’s cyclone season in the southwest Indian Ocean has been exceptionally intense, with 15 storms including nine intense cyclones. It is now tied with the record season of 1993-1994. Nullis said the agency is sending an expert delegation to Mozambique to discuss with the government how to improve its resilience to extreme weather. Long and narrow with a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) Indian Ocean coastline, the country is one of the world’s most vulnerable to global warming.

SOLUTION:
Ocean changes affected deadly duo of Mozambique cyclones.