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.

Q: According to the Maine Center for Disease Control, the number of syphilis cases reported in the state increased from 48 in 2016 to 84 last year. The number of national syphilis cases increased by 18 percent in between 2015 and 2016. Maine Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman tells the Bangor Daily News the department isn’t sure why syphilis has increased in recent years. Portland Public Health Center medical director Dr. Christina DeMatteo believes opioid use and waning concerns about HIV have contributed to attitudes about having unprotected sex. Public health advocates say budget cuts resulting in changes in prevention and treatment have also affected rates in the state. ___ Information from: Bangor Daily News, http://www.bangordailynews.com

A: Maine sees increase in reported syphilis cases.
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Q: The story includes one expert’s estimate of the cost of treating brain and spinal cord defects, but it does not discuss those costs may be affected by folic acid fortification or how the cost of fortification affects food prices. Though individuals don’t face a huge cost, the aggregate cost of fortification is substantial. The story could have mentioned this at least briefly. The story highlights the decline in birth defects that is attributed to folic acid supplementation. However, it does not include a source for the statement that “fortification with the vitamin prevents an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 brain and spinal cord defects in both countries.” By contrast, a CDC web page on folic acid supplementation states that each year in the U.S. “[a]n estimated 1,000 more babies are born healthy since fortification.” http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/folicacid/data.html The story performs a service by bringing attention to the complex and difficult balancing of benefits and harms that comes with decisions about adding supplements to food. As mentioned above, the overall thrust of the story adequately captures the basic point that researchers are struggling to determine whether, what, and for whom folic acid supplementation may present potential harm. However, in some cases the comments of Dr. Mason portray a much stronger association between folic acid supplementation and cancer risk than even his own journal publications put forward. By intertwining the researcher’s personal statements with references to published trials and reviews, the story blurs the distinction between speculation and evidence. The story makes clear the complexity of and uncertainty surrounding possible associations between folic acid supplementation and cancer. However, the story exaggerates what is known about potential cancer risk by highlighting comments supporting a potential link with folic acid supplementation, while failing to provide context or contrary information. The story includes an estimate by Dr. Joel Mason that “excess folic acid consumption may cause an extra 15,000 cases of colorectal cancer each year in the U.S. and Canada.” But the story fails to define excess consumption, nor does it note that the are more than 160,000 new cases of colorectal cancer reported in the U.S. and Canada each year. And while the researcher may have told the reporter that he believes supplementation may be boosting cancer rates, a journal article Mason recently co-authored states that “Future studies need to explore whether a causal relationship exists between supraphysiological levels of folate intake and colorectal carcinogenesis.” Also, while the story states that “researchers noticed that rates of colorectal cancer went up in North America around the same time that fortification began,” the reporter should have explained the apparent discrepancy with CDC statements that between 1998 (when mandatory folic acid supplementation began in the U.S.) and 2005 both colorectal cancer incidence and deaths declined. References: Mason article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19057184 Cancer stats: http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/ http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/colorectal/statistics/trends.htm http://www.cancer.ca/Canada-wide/About%20cancer/Cancer%20statistics/Canadian%20Cancer%20Statistics.aspx   A story of this length on a subject that is hotly debated among nutrition researchers should include comments from more than one nutrition researcher. The story fails to note that according to a disclosure statement in one of his recent journal articles, Dr. Mason has been a paid consultant to Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, a manufacturer of multivitamins. Reference: Disclosure statement with Joel B. Mason, Aaron Dickstein, Paul F. Jacques, Paul Haggarty, Jacob Selhub, Gerard Dallal, and Irwin H. Rosenberg A Temporal Association between Folic Acid Fortification and an Increase in Colorectal Cancer Rates May Be Illuminating Important Biological Principles: A Hypothesis Cancer Epidemiol. Biomarkers Prev. 2007 16: 1325-1329. However, because the story does touch on several aspects of the debate, we will give it the benefit of the doubt on this criterion even though we wish other sources had been named or that other nutrition experts had been quoted. The story points out the foods that are fortified with folic acid. However, there is no advice about how individuals could estimate their daily intake of folic acid or alter it, if they desired. The story points out that folic acid supplementation of flour has been required in the U.S. since 1998. It would have been helpful to also discuss whether and how consumers could reduce their intake of folic acid, if desired. Questions about potential harms of folic acid supplementation are indeed a hot topic in nutrition research. However, most of the studies and other reports mentioned in this story were published more than two years ago, so the debate is not as new as the story implies. Given the different aspects of the debate reflected in the story, we think it’s safe to assume this didn’t rely solely or largely on a news release – although we wonder why it relied so heavily on one nutrition expert’s perspectives.

A: Folic acid might be losing its sheen
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Q: PGE and Orsted, the world’s biggest developer of offshore wind, said last month they had started discussions over the sale. “We are hoping to finalize the negotiations - meaning signing the basic terms - by the end of this year,” the chief executive of state-run PGE’s offshore wind subsidiary Monika Morawiecka told Reuters on Tuesday. The projects, which have a total capacity of up to 2.5 gigawatts (GW), are key to developing the offshore wind sector in otherwise coal-reliant Poland. International firms including Orsted, oil and gas company Equinor and Germany’s RWE are looking to Poland as the next big growth market for harnessing wind at sea. “Poland is going to be one of the largest offshore wind markets,” Orsted’s Chief Executive of offshore wind Martin Neubert told Reuters. For coal-reliant Poland, offshore wind, together with other renewables, is seen as an opportunity to put the energy industry on a greener path. “We do struggle with our conventional (coal) assets and we see that in the future this part of PGE’s business is going to suffer, so we need to balance it with, for example, offshore wind,” said Morawiecka. She added that she was confident with regards to securing financing for the two projects and that the 1 GW Baltica 3 project would be ready to start construction by 2023 or 2024. The Polish government has set a target of generating at least 10 GW of offshore wind power by 2040 compared to zero today, and is finalizing the legal framework to support this. “Poland has a government which a lot of people thought until recently was not very interested in renewables,” the CEO of industry group WindEurope Giles Dickson told Reuters. Thousands of Polish workers are already employed in producing goods for the offshore wind industry supply chain, but so far these have only been exported. “I think there is a profound interest in creating a strong home market,” said Orsted’s Neubert.

A:
HPV test beats Pap for cervical cancer screening
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