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.

Ex Input:
The council, which covers the city’s business center, was “reviewing (its) weed management methods and investigating other technologies”, a spokeswoman told Reuters in an email, a day after a strike by workers at a nearby council pressured it into trialing an alternative weedkiller. The City of Sydney council currently used Roundup “as a last resort ... when non-pesticide methods such as hand-weeding and mulching have been ineffective”, and began testing alternative products in late 2018, the spokeswoman added. Bayer says Roundup is safe and backed by several regulatory bodies, despite research that found its main ingredient glyphosate was probably carcinogenic. The German company has been hit by massive compensation payouts in the United States this year, over claims its product caused cancer, which have seen its shareprice to plummet. The prospect of Sydney council rethinking its ties to Roundup, a flagship product of U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto Co until a buyout from Bayer last year, shows the pressure that grassroots campaigns and lawsuits are putting on governments about the product even as regulators declare it safe. “Because there’s a lot of emotion around it, local agencies may be moved to make a decision that’s made based on placating the general public rather than the available science,” said Ian Musgrave, a molecular pharmacologist and toxicologist at University of Adelaide. “We should be making decisions on safety based on actual science, not based on our fear or dismay of megacorporations.”  Earlier this week, Blacktown City Council in Sydney’s west agreed to trial an alternative to Roundup after a worker strike over the product left 40,000 garbage bins unemptied. Another four councils around Sydney previously quit using Roundup over possible links to cancer. Last month, an Australian gardener filed the country’s first lawsuit against Bayer, accusing Monsanto of causing him harm from exposure to glyphosate via decades of using Roundup. A Bayer spokesman said the company “encourages constructive dialogue with our stakeholders to build a broader trust in science”. The company had published “extensive research which supports our products’ safety” and was “committed to ensuring our customers continue to have access to these critical products as part of their sustainable agricultural activities”.

Ex Output:
Sydney's city council reviews use of Bayer's Roundup weed killer amid cancer fears.


Ex Input:
The study evaluated the combined effect of six lifestyle habits on prostate cancer mortality. Those six factors were, as described in the journal article: “not currently smoking or quit 10 or more years ago, body mass index under 30 kg/m2, high vigorous physical activity, high intake of tomatoes and fatty fish, and low intake of processed meat.” It’s tough to put a price tag on those lifestyle choices. How much does “high vigorous physical activity” cost? How much does it cost to avoid eating processed meat? It would be easy to say this category doesn’t apply. But the release does address the issue, saying the study findings underscore “the ongoing need for more effective prevention measures and policies to increase exercise, improve diet quality and reduce tobacco use in our population….It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” Recognizing the need for policies that support these lifestyle changes is important — and addresses the cost issue in a meaningful way. This is where things get a little tricky. The research described in this journal article looked at data from two different studies: the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) and the Physicians’ Health Study (PHS). The HPFS tracked 42,701 men from 1986-2010. The PHS tracked 20,324 men from 1982-2010. The release (and journal article) explain that the researchers used the HPFS data to develop a “healthy lifestyle score,” and then applied that score to the men in the PHS to see if it predicted whether someone would contract a lethal form of prostate cancer. The researchers identified the number of lethal cases of prostate cancer in each group to calculate benefits. The release states: “Participants with 5 to 6 points [the highest scores] in the HPFS had a 68 percent decreased risk of lethal prostate cancer[,] and a 38 percent decreased risk was observed in the [PHS] for the same comparison.” Several points to make here. First, the ‘healthy’ group appeared to have been compared to the ‘least healthy’ group (score 0-1) and not all the other groups combined. This was noted in the published results but not mentioned in the release. That’s important. Second, the release does not note (but the journal article does) that the 38 percent decreased risk seen in the PHS was not found to be statistically significant. That’s also an important distinction. Third, this is the relative reduced risk, and doesn’t tell readers what the actual, absolute reduction of risk is. The release doesn’t address harms. But the lifestyle choices at issue here are (for the most part) so broadly defined that it would be difficult to say what the harms would be. What harms are associated with eating tomatoes, avoiding processed meats, or not smoking? We’ll rate this one not applicable. The release does a good job of explaining what is a somewhat complicated study design. The study is basically an analysis of data drawn from two large, previous studies — and the release describes the overall sample size, age range, and length of those two studies. But the language used to describe the results is inappropriate. Since this was an analysis of observational study data that’s unable to prove cause and effect, it’s misleading to use active verbs to describe the results. The release does this in several places: It’s more appropriate to state that these habits were “associated with” reduced risk — not that the habits “save lives” or “cut” risk. Another thing that’s not clearly explained to readers (as noted above) is what it means to develop a lifestyle scoring system based on one study’s data set, and then apply that scoring system to a second data set, when the results section is provided for both data sets. It’s confusing. We’d encourage public affairs specialists preparing news releases and reporters using them as their initial sources to focus more on the limitations of this type of research. Sometimes referred to as “data dredging,” it’s basically finding statistically significant results only by chance. In this case it’s a statistic of a statistic (up to 47% of cancer cases could be prevented with these lifestyle interventions). No disease mongering here. Funding sources were clearly identified, and there are no clear conflicts of interest. Things get tricky again here. As the release notes, most prostate cancers don’t metastasize and aren’t life threatening. But some do metastasize and can be fatal. Are there different types of prostate cancer, just like there are different types of flu? Are there genetic factors that affect risk? Readers would have benefited from that information. And we suppose that the release could have also mentioned other dietary or lifestyle factors that might help reduce risk that were not considered in the paper. However, the range of healthy behaviors discussed here is pretty broad, and it seems excessive to expect the release to address an entire laundry list of possibilities. We’ll give this a Satisfactory rating. The study was limited to a relatively high level income group and the interventions may not be attainable for all men, in all socioeconomic groups. Does partaking of vigorous physical exercise on a regular basis require access to a gym or just a high degree of motivation? Are tomatoes and fish attainable year round for all socioeconomic groups? The study addresses this to some extent when it says, “It takes co-operation and effort from multiple areas, like insurance companies, employers, policy makers and city planners, to figure out how to creatively support and encourage more exercise into most busy adults’ working day.” We’ll award a Satisfactory here. There are a lot — a lot — of papers out there on lifestyle choices and prostate cancer. In fact, the opening sentences in the abstract for the journal article says as much, while articulating what sets this research apart: “Several lifestyle factors have been associated with risk of lethal prostate cancer, but little is known about their combined effect. Our objective was to develop and apply a lifestyle score for prevention of lethal prostate cancer.” However, the release does not acknowledge all of the existing work on lifestyle and prostate cancer, and therefore fails to highlight how this paper fits into that broad body of work. Apart from the cause-and-effect statements addressed above, there is no unjustifiable language used here.

Ex Output:
Working up a sweat may protect men from lethal prostate cancer


Ex Input:
Dr. Chris Baumert, a family physician at RiverStone Health, told the Billings Gazette there’s been a steep increase in the number of cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled the threat of antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea one of the nation’s most urgent public health threats. The rate of gonorrhea cases in the United States has increased 75.2 percent since the historic low in 2009. Montana officials are projecting more than 1,000 cases of gonorrhea in the state this year, compared to 867 in 2017. ___ Information from: The Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com

Ex Output:

STD cases increase in Montana.