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 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.

Ex Output:
Folic acid might be losing its sheen


Ex Input:
Helicopters whirred above the turbid, red-brown flood waters searching for people to ferry back to the port city of Beira, headquarters of the huge rescue operation in Mozambique. The death toll in that country was now 242, Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said, adding that the number of dead was rising as rescue workers found bodies that had been hidden by Cyclone Idai’s now-receding floodwaters. Correia told a news conference that around 15,000 people, many of them very ill, still needed to be rescued. “Our biggest fight is against the clock,” he said, adding that 3,000 had been rescued so far. In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the confirmed death toll jumped to 139. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, declaring two days of national mourning from Saturday, described scenes of “unmitigated despair” in Rusitu, near the border with Mozambique. In Malawi, 56 people were confirmed dead. “This is a human catastrophe of the highest order,” businessman Graham Taylor told Reuters, saying he had seen “hundreds of bodies that had been washed up by the floodwater” while trying to return home after visiting his son in Beira. “What struck me first was the number of people on the rooftops and in trees. You could hear communities shouting for help - for hours, for days,” said Taylor, who also described meeting people on the badly damaged highways heading towards the devastated areas in search of family members. “It was a humbling experience,” he said. “I saw no sign of government assistance.”  Even when people are safely out of the floods, the situation is dire. Some 30 percent of the 88 centres set up by the Mozambican government for displaced people still have no food, Environment Minister Correia said. Idai lashed Beira with winds of up to 170 km per hour (105 miles per hour) a week ago, then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening buildings. The storm’s torrential rains caused the Buzi and Pungue rivers, whose mouths are in the Beira area, to burst their banks. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), which is coordinating food drops, said as many as 1.7 million people in Mozambique would need food aid in the next three months. The scale of the flooding is huge - the U.N. satellite agency says floodwaters covered 2,165 sq km (835 sq miles) on March 20. Some 90 percent of the city of Beira was damaged, the WFP said, while aerial assessments over the Buzi valley showed “entire villages wiped out”. Mozambique’s National Disasters Management Institute (INGC) said some 358,000 hectares (885,000 acres) of crops had been destroyed. Thirty-nine hospitals had been damaged, it said. With more rain forecast for Beira on Thursday, Christian worshippers sang hymns on an empty patch of land where a pulpit was all that remained of their Pentecostal church. “Here in Beira, all the churches have collapsed from this cyclone ... Oh my dear brothers, please pray for us,” said Pastor Luis Semente. “Only God can restore this.”   A priority for Thursday was pushing into flooded areas that had not yet been surveyed, said Connor Hartnady, leader of a South African rescue task force. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it was sending two emergency units to Beira that would provide drinking water for up to 15,000 people and sanitation facilities for 20,000, as well as shelter kits. “More help is needed, and we are continuing to do all we can to bring in more resources and to reach more people,” said Jamie LeSueur, the IFRC’s operations head in Mozambique. The WFP stepped up airdrops of high-energy biscuits and water purification tablets to isolated pockets of people stranded by the floodwaters. Mnangagwa said in a televised address that in Rusitu he had seen big boulders strewn over what had been a settlement, a banana market and a police post. Floods had washed away police officers and prisoners, he said. The Christian charity Tearfund said the timing of the floods was disastrous, with harvesting due to start in coming weeks. Even before the floods, 5.3 million people had been experiencing food shortages, said its Zimbabwe director, Earnest Maswera. Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi has said the eventual death toll from the cyclone and ensuing floods could be more than 1,000. Mozambique’s tiny $13 billion (£9.9 billion) economy is still recovering from a currency collapse and debt default. The cyclone knocked out Mozambican electricity exports to South Africa, exacerbating power cuts that were already straining businesses in Africa’s most industrialised economy.

Ex Output:
Aid workers rush to rescue African cyclone victims amid mounting death toll.


Ex Input:
The first Democrat-only televised debate is Wednesday, a natural forum for the three candidates to tout their agendas to a broader audience after several weeks of unveiling fresh items. Gretchen Whitmer, Shri Thanedar and Abdul El-Sayed agree on many issues, like raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, spending much more on roads and other infrastructure, shutting down twin oil pipelines in a waterway linking two of the Great Lakes and repealing the state’s emergency manager law. But there are some differences that are being emphasized more in the stretch to the Aug. 7 election. El-Sayed, Detroit’s former health director, has proposed a plan to provide all Michigan residents with government-financed “Michicare” until they reach Medicare age, including 600,000 who have no insurance. He hopes to make it a “wedge issue,” especially with Whitmer, who has not embraced the single-payer concept and whom he has criticized for accepting campaign donations from the political action committee of Blue Cross Blue Shield, the state’s dominant insurer. “Health care is a human right,” he said, contending that raising taxes to fund the Medicare-for-all-style system while eliminating premiums, deductibles and copays would save both residents and businesses overall. Whitmer is expected to announce her own health care plan before the primary and most recently has rolled out education and economic proposals while also focusing on her mantra to “fix the damn roads.” The former Senate minority leader frequently points to her role in the bipartisan expansion of Medicaid to more than 600,000 adults, including in a TV ad that is airing. “She’s the only candidate in the race who has actually expanded coverage for Michiganders,” said spokesman Zack Pohl. El-Sayed, who is courting the party’s liberal wing and in recent days outlined a plan to address high auto insurance premiums, proposes paying for Michicare with a 2 percent or 2.25 percent gross receipts tax on businesses, depending on their size, with the first $2 million exempt from taxation. He also would effectively raise the state’s 4.25 percent personal income tax to between 5 percent and 8 percent, via a graduated payroll tax. Thanedar, a multimillionaire businessman, also supports a universal, single-payer system but has not elaborated. He is recommending tax increases to fund signature facets of his economic plan — expanding child care subsidies to cover 345,000 additional low-income children, ten times more than now, and paying for 78,000 more 3- and 4-year-olds to attend preschool. He says the moves would allow thousands of women to re-enter the workforce and improve students’ educational outcomes. He wants to boost the 6 percent corporate income tax to 7.5 percent for businesses with at least $350,000 in gross receipts and assess a 10 percent tax on the portion of receipts exceeding $1 million. He also would assess an 8.85 percent personal income tax for individuals earning at least $200,000 and a 10 percent rate for millionaires. Households with less than $50,000 income would pay no income tax. “We are one big family. We need to chip in to make it helpful to the ones who need help,” Thanedar said during a recent joint Democratic-Republican debate on Mackinac Island. Both he and El-Sayed, if elected, would face steep obstacles, including a Republican-led Legislature — unless power shifts — and the constitutional requirement that voters approve a graduated income tax. Whitmer, with an eye toward the general election, has been more pragmatic — focusing on what her camp says is actually achievable in the current budget and political environment. While not ruling anything out, she has not called for changes to business or income taxes and has proposed repealing the taxation of retirement income that was enacted as part of a GOP-written tax overhaul. She pledges to work with lawmakers to fund an infrastructure bank to upgrade roads through user fees such as higher fuel taxes or, if that is unsuccessful, to ask voters to approve bonding. Thanedar wants to borrow money, while El-Sayed also proposes an infrastructure bank funded with increased fuel taxes and other revenue-raising mechanisms. The centerpiece of Whitmer’s jobs plan is providing a two-year maximum $3,040 annual scholarship to high school graduates who attend an in-state university, community college or receive technical training, as long as they do community service, maintain a certain grade point average and have a good attendance record. The estimated cost is $100 million a year. “It’s about creating a path for everyone in to a high-wage skill,” she said. ___ Online: Policy plans for — El-Sayed: https://abdulformichigan.com/issues — Thanedar: https://www.shri2018.com/ — Whitmer: https://www.gretchenwhitmer.com/issues/ ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/David%20Eggert

Ex Output:

Democrats unveil new policies before gubernatorial primary.