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: None of the stories we reviewed gave readers sufficient information on the cost of the research scans used in the study. This story includes a comment from a researcher saying that increased use of this type of brain scan would bring the “high cost” down, but it doesn’t provide an estimate of the current cost or any comparison to alternative methods of assessing reading ability or other features of dyslexia. We will give this story a satisfactory rating because it portrays this research as providing information for researchers seeking to understand dyslexia, rather than offering important direct benefits to individuals. However, most of the story is about what it is like to live with dyslexia. These anecdotes have little or nothing to do with the research. The list of celebrities who may have or had dyslexia also seems irrelevant and distracting. Then the story tosses in discussion of a study that looked at correlations between dyslexia and spatial skills; again, unrelated to the topic of the primary study reported here. The jumble of extraneous personal tales and other research muddles the point of the story. MRI brain scans are generally considered to present little physical risk, so the issue here is really the potential negative effects of the information the test produces. At least the story raises that issue by including comments from parents who worry that this sort of scanning could further stigmatize children who have trouble reading or writing. This story fails to point out that the “children” studied were not beginning readers, but teenagers who were already identified as having dyslexia and may have been involved in special reading programs for many years. It also fails to mention several of the caveats and limitations that the researchers noted in their journal article, including the possibility that misclassification of the participants based on their initial testing could affect the results. In other words, rather than actually improving during the study, it is possible some of the teens were actually better readers from the beginning, but just scored low on the baseline tests. Nevertheless, the story appropriately describes this study as helping researchers to understand the disease, rather than evaluating the clinical usefulness of brain scans. Also, one paragraph deep in the story highlights the preliminary nature of the research; specifically that the study included only 25 participants with dyslexia, “which is too small a sample size to prove anything.” It also notes that the study did not look at whether different varieties or reading instruction or other interventions might have had some effect and it includes a comment from an independent expert about the lack of data on instruction or other factors that could influence reading ability. The story would have been better if the alert to the preliminary nature of the study had been near the top, rather than buried near the end. The story refers to estimates that between 5 percent and 20 percent of the population has dyslexia. Unlike the Reuters story we also reviewed, this story provides a useful definition of dyslexia as “a condition that, broadly speaking, hinders a person’s ability to interpret language.”  The story does include independent experts. Although it does not discuss conflicts of interest, the authors of the main study declared no conflicts and reported that their study was supported by a number of grants from public agencies and foundations, though the baseline assessment of the participants was supported by a company that markets treatment interventions for people with dyslexia. One troubling point: the story describes one person who claims to have been helped by “training at a learning development center.” If this individual was associated with the company that helped sponsor this research, the story should have disclosed that connection. The study authors wrote that although standardized tests did not accurately predict changes in reading ability during the study period, “it is possible that there are behavioral measures not included here that may predict outcome.” Indeed, their journal article specifically referred to other research into clinical testing that did appear to predict how children with poor reading skills responded to teaching. The story fails to make clear that the study reported here did not attempt to make a comprehensive comparison of the predictive power of scans and other methods of assessing children with reading problems. The story notes that the type of scan used in this study is not widely available. The story implies that this study is the first to suggest young people with dyslexia use a certain area of the right hemisphere of their brains more than average readers. Actually, the study authors pointed out that their research provides some additional data to support the findings of many other studies of differences between the brains of people with dyslexia and those who read normally. The story does not appear to rely on a news release.

Answer: Dyslexia: Scanning the brain for clues


Question: 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.

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


Question: "This is the only of the five stories to actually put a dollar figure on the classes. ""Even the cost of a class, which can top $50 a month, is modest compared with the cost of many medications. And unlike drugs, tai chi had no harmful side effects, she says."" Unlike the AP story, which made the mistake of saying that ""symptoms improved significantly for the tai chi group and little for the others,"" this story, at least, presents some numbers. The trouble is, those numbers are in relative terms. So, instead of saying that three months after the classes ended, 27 patients who took tai chi classes felt better and 17 who tried other therapies also felt better, it presents the difference as 82% versus 53%. That seems more dramatic. Absolute data would be more meaningful. Why make the reader do the math? The story is one of the few stories that covered this study to actually point out that ""unlike drugs, tai chi had no harmful side effects."" In the end, because of the comments from Gloria Yeh, the story puts the appropriate caveats on the findings. This sentence does a great job of summarizing some of the problems with the study: ""Yeh notes that researchers don’t know which aspects of tai chi were most helpful: the exercise, deep breathing, relaxation exercise, meeting new friends or learning from a charismatic teacher."" This story actually spends too little time talking about the condition itself. The AP devoted a whole paragraph in an eight paragaph story to the condition, and the LA Times led its piece by describing the disease. USA Today instead went with a very nice description of tai chi, putting the emphasis on the beauty and simiplicity of the therapy rather than the difficulty clinicians have had correctly diagnosing and treating fibromyalgia. This is the only story to include the phrase ""white crane spreads its wings"" or anything like that. The story doesn’t actually quote any of the authors and instead quotes two outside experts, one of whom wrote an accompanying editorial. It fails to fully attribute the comments made by ""Callahan."" It appears that the writer means Leigh F. Callahan, who just completed a study of tai chi for arthritis and was quoted by other reporters. (How did this slip through copy editing? Was this a slip-up only in the online version?) But we can’t give credit to an independent source that the story doesn’t adequately identify. The story does not compare the therapy to existing alternatives or even discuss existing alternatives, aside from a passing reference at the very end to medications. This is the only one of the five stories to note that ""A study in 2007 from the National Institutes of Health found that 2.3 million American adults had used tai chi in the past year."" This doesn’t tell you whether tai chi classes are as readily available in Oklahoma as they are in New Mexico, but it does give you a sense of how popular they are. It is unclear from this story whether tai chi has been studied before for other conditions. It has. It also is unclear what fibromyalgia patients now do for therapy. The LA Times, for example, pointed out that patients in the study stopped taking drugs for treatment, for example. The story does not rely on a news release."

Answer:
Tai chi may ease fibromyalgia pain