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: The two on Thursday toured a Lowndes County neighborhood where residents say the sewage system regularly overflows into their yards and homes. They then held a town hall in Hayneville. Charlie Mae Holcombe, 70, of Hayneville, said heavy rains are always a sign of trouble. Holcombe described the problems she faced as Gore and Barber spoke with her in her driveway. She said the toilets in her house will begin to bubble as a sign the sewage system is about to backup, sometimes filling her yard including the area around a child's swing set and her house with raw sewage. "They have had to come and pump it out of my yard with the pump truck," Holcombe said. "It's backing up, even in my bathtub. The sewage has run over all in the house." Her home in Lowndes County is in an area that has been plagued by sewage problems and concerns about potential illness. "I have heard about it and seen pictures of it for a long time, but it was shocking to see it in person," Gore said of the conditions he saw. Alabama's Black Belt region gets its name for the dark rich soil that once gave rise to cotton plantations. But the type of soil makes it difficult for traditional septic tanks, in which wastewater filters through the ground, to function properly, said Alabama State Health Officer Scott Harris in an interview with The Associated Press. The region's intense poverty and inadequate municipal infrastructure contribute to the problem. "Sewage is typically handled at a local level... These counties haven't always been able to do that," Harris said. Catherine Coleman Flowers, an activist who has worked on rural environmental issues in the county for years, said wastewater sanitation problems are not limited to Alabama's Black Belt. "It's all over the country," Flowers said, adding that climate change, with heavy rains and rising water tables, will make it worse. Holcombe said she's not sure what it means, but when a red light flashes at a sewage treatment lagoon across the street, it is a reliable sign that her yard will flood. In addition to overwhelmed septic and sewage systems, some homes in the rural county are on "straight pipe" systems where sewage runs untreated from home to yard. Harris said a May survey of almost 200 Lowndes County households found that two to three percent of the households were on straight pipe systems. Holcombe's home sits not far from the state highway where voting rights marchers walked from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Barber noted the proximity to the key sites of the civil rights movement and said the environmental issues are about the continued fight for justice. The town hall, held at a community center in Hayneville, focused on a number of environmental issues. Birmingham resident Jimmy Smith described living near a Superfund site in Birmingham. Others described concerns about landfills, straight pipe sewage systems and coal ash disposal in the Black Belt. At the town hall, Gore criticized what he described as the continued resistance from power companies and politicians to switching to renewable forms of energy such as solar energy. "It's really a disgrace that this far Southern state with abundant sunshine is deprived of the advantages of the solar revolution being enjoyed all over the world," Gore said.

A: Environmental justice issues focus of town hall.
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Q: Hookah smoking among Californians jumped more than 40 percent between 2005 and 2008, said Dr. Ron Chapman, the state director of public health, citing a 2011 state tobacco survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. He said the trend was particularly pronounced among college-age adults, with nearly a quarter of men 18 to 24 years old reporting they had used a hookah at least once, according to the same study. Experts say the growing popularity of hookahs has been fueled in part by a perception that the water pipes are more socially acceptable than cigarettes and the erroneous belief that inhaling tobacco smoke drawn through the water filters out some of its toxins. But smoke from hookah tobacco which comes in such flavors as apple, strawberry, honey and mint retains all the carcinogens of cigarette smoke while adding more carbon monoxide and extra carcinogens from the use of burning coals that are used to keep the nicotine flowing, health officials say. During a typical hour-long session, a hookah user inhales 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There is a very, very concerning misperception about the use of hookahs among youth, thinking it's somehow safer. In fact, it puts you at the same risk," Chapman said. The warning came as Chapman announced an anti-smoking advertising campaign aimed at those most likely to light up - low-income, minority youth, especially African-Americans. While California has in many ways led the nation in discouraging smoking, "tobacco use is still the No. 1 cause of death and disease in California," he said. Tobacco kills nearly 34,000 Californians a year and leads to annual healthcare costs of $6.5 billion, or $400 for each state taxpayer, he said. Although pubs and restaurants in California have banned smoking since 1998, hookah bars and cafes are permitted under exemptions for owner-operated tobacco shops or other businesses where no food or beverages are sold without employees or staff, said Corey Egel, a state public health department spokesman. The growing popularity of hookahs among young adults in California mirrors a broader trend nationwide. A study in May by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine of 152 universities nationwide found that over 30 percent of students had smoked tobacco from a hookah during the previous month. Hookah smoking, which originated in Persia and India, has seen a resurgence in Middle Eastern countries and elsewhere, too, with water pipes referred to as narguila in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey and as sheesha in Egypt.

A: California health officials sound alarm over hookah smoking.
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Q: Pfizer shares were up nearly 4 percent on positive findings for the oral treatment, called palbociclib, one of the company's most important experimental drugs that some analysts believe could eventually claim annual sales of more than $5 billion, if approved. The trial tested the pill in post-menopausal patients with locally advanced or newly diagnosed breast cancer that had spread to other parts of the body. "We are delighted with the final data," Pfizer said in a release, adding the company will discuss the successful data on progression-free survival with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "to determine next steps" for palbociclib. A secondary goal of the study is to determine whether palbociclib can prolong overall survival. But Pfizer spokeswoman Sally Beatty said the company does not yet have such data, because it takes longer periods to follow patients and gauge survival trends. Although Pfizer is conducting two larger late-stage trials of palbociclib, ISI Group analyst Mark Schoenebaum noted the company has previously said it might discuss with the FDA the potential to seek approval of the medicine based upon mid-stage trial data, if the data warranted. Palbociclib, which blocks enzymes known as cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) 4 and 6, was taken in combination with a standard treatment called letrozole among women who were estrogen receptor positive - meaning tumors grow in response to estrogen - and HER2-negative, meaning that the HER2 protein is not causing the cancer. Such patients make up about 60 percent of advanced breast cancer cases. Letrozole is the chemical name of Femara, a Novartis AG drug that belongs to a class of treatments called aromatase inhibitors that block production of estrogen. Pfizer on Monday did not present detailed data from the trial results, saying they would be presented at a scientific meeting in San Diego in April. The success of the trial, called Paloma-1, follows highly favorable interim data that Pfizer unveiled in December 2012. At that point in the study, those taking both palbociclib and letrozole went an average of 26.1 months before tumors worsened. That compared with 7.5 months for those taking letrozole, but not palbociclib. The 18.6-month difference was considered statistically significant. Side effects from palbociclib were similar to those previously reported, Pfizer said on Monday. The earlier interim results had shown that patients taking the drug combination experienced anemia, fatigue and neutropenia - a decline in white blood cells called neutrophils that can put patients at higher risk of infection. Palbociclib was designated a "breakthrough" drug by the FDA last April based on initial data from the trial. The FDA grants "breakthrough" status to drugs that may offer substantial improvement over existing treatments for serious or life-threatening diseases. The status helps to speed up the approval process. Pfizer has started two late-stage trials of the drug - Paloma-2 and Paloma-3 - in patients with advanced breast cancer. Paloma-2 will test the same drug combination, palbociclib and letrozole, as an initial treatment for breast cancer. Paloma-3 will evaluate palbociclib in combination with another hormone therapy, fulvestrant, in women whose cancer has progressed after hormonal therapy. The drug, sold under the brand name Faslodex by AstraZeneca Plc, is called an estrogen receptor antagonist. Companies trying to develop treatments similar to palbociclib include Novartis and Eli Lilly & Co. Breast cancer killed more than 508,000 women worldwide in 2011, according to the World Health Organization. Pfizer shares were up 3.7 percent at $31.53 on Monday morning on the New York Stock Exchange.

A:
Pfizer breast cancer drug succeeds in mid-stage trial.
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