TASK DEFINITION: Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Sen. Barack Obama, speaking to veterans, lashed into his opponent for poor military judgment, alleging Sen. John McCain had fixated on Iraq immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. ""Sen. McCain was already turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, and he became a leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and that as despicable as Saddam Hussein was posed no imminent threat to the American people,"" Obama said on Aug. 19, 2008. ""Two of the biggest beneficiaries of that decision were al-Qaida's leadership, which no longer faced the pressure of America's focused attention; and Iran, which has advanced its nuclear program, continued its support for terror, and increased its influence in Iraq and the region."" Obama's analysis of the war's consequences aside, we checked the record to see whether he had fairly characterized McCain's views about Iraq after 9/11 and in the run-up to the war. As a military veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, McCain was a prominent voice in late 2001 as the nation grappled with how to respond to the attacks. On Sept. 12, 2001, he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews, where Matthews asked whether the appropriate response should be ""a legal matter or a military matter."" ""I think it's both,"" McCain replied. ""As as we stated, the a nation has the right to defend itself, No. 1. But No. 2, these organizations could not flourish effectively unless they had the help and assistance and safe harbor of these nations. And it isn't just Afghanistan we're talking about Syria, Iraq, Iran, perhaps North Korea, Libya and others."" That comment was not particularly specific to Iraq. But in an Oct. 18, 2001, appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, with the nation on edge about the anthrax mailings and in the early stages of the campaign in Afganistan, McCain singled out Iraq. After sharing his views about how events were unfolding in Afghanistan, McCain told Letterman: ""I think we'll do fine. The second phase if I could just make one, very quickly the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may and I emphasize may have come from Iraq."" In January 2002, while touring the flight bridge of an aircraft carrier on the Arabian Sea, McCain shouted: ""Next up: Baghdad!"" He fleshed out his views in a speech at a NATO security policy conference in Munich on Feb. 2, 2002. ""Terrorist training camps exist on Iraqi soil, and Iraqi officials are known to have had a number of contacts with al-Qaida. These were probably not courtesy calls,"" he said. ""Americans have internalized the mantra that Afghanistan represents only the first front in our global war on terror. The next front is apparent, and we should not shrink from acknowledging it. A terrorist resides in Baghdad, with the resources of an entire state at his disposal, flush with cash from illicit oil revenues and proud of a decade-long record of defying the international community's demands that he come clean on his programs to develop weapons of mass destruction."" We should note that McCain suggested on several occasions that he would prefer alternatives to full-on invasion and occupation as a means of displacing Saddam Hussein, such as on Meet the Press on July 14, 2002: ""I have always strongly felt that you must try the option of opposition from within arming, training, equipping and helping oppositions from within; the Kurds in the North, the Shiites in the South,"" McCain told the late Tim Russert. ""At least try that option before we send Americans into harm's way."" But two days later on Face the Nation, he made clear that if it took war to remove Hussein, he was all for it. ""Look, we need a regime change in Iraq,"" he said. ""If we can do it on the cheap by having operations involving just Special Forces and some air power and opponents within, either the Kurds in the south, Shiites in the north [sic], then that's fine. But we have to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to bring about this regime change. I think we also ought to prepare the American public in in by way of informing them that Saddam Hussein has these weapons, continues to attempt to improve the their capability and would not be reluctant to export them to other countries."" He continued, ""So we need to keep telling the American people that as well, as well as basically if I may be so blunt frightening them frightening and scaring them every day."" In early 2003, with calls for invasion of Iraq growing more insistent, McCain's was among the most fervent voices. ""Sept. 11, 2001 showed that al-Qaida is a grave threat,"" he wrote in a Feb. 14, 2003 opinion piece in USA Today. ""Saddam Hussein has the ability to make a far worse day of infamy by turning Iraq into a weapons assembly line for al-Qaida's network. ... Saddam is an international felon who has repeatedly violated the terms of his parole and is planning further crimes with his terrorist accomplices. He must be brought to justice once and for all."" The record clearly supports the contention that McCain ""was already turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11"" indeed he singled out Iraq on Letterman and became a ""leading supporter"" of the war, as Obama said. We find his claim to be ." Claim: Sen. McCain was already turning his sights to Iraq just days after 9/11, and he became a leading supporter of an invasion and occupation of (Iraq).

SOLUTION: McCain's record on Iraq: eager to attack

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The company earned $728 million, or 67 cents per share, in the fourth quarter. That compared with $827 million, or 74 cents per share, in the year-earlier quarter, when Lilly took charges for asset impairments and restructuring. "Company sales were stronger than thought, but a lot of that upside came from drugs that are already off patent or about to lose patent protection," said Edward Jones analyst Judson Clark. Excluding special items, Lilly earned 74 cents per share, matching analysts' average forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Shares in the company dropped 1.4 percent to 53.21, after earlier reaching their lowest in two weeks at $53.05. Lilly's global sales fell 2 percent to $5.81 billion, but topped Wall Street forecasts of $5.46 billion. Sales would have been flat if not for the stronger dollar, which lowers the value of sales in overseas markets. Sales of Cymbalta, which lost U.S. patent protection last month, fell 38 percent to $883 million. But they came in about $100 million higher than Wall Street expected, analysts said. Lilly's sales, earnings, and its share price, have been badly hurt since late 2011, when its Zyprexa schizophrenia drug lost U.S. patent protection. Once Lilly's biggest product, with annual sales of $5 billion, it now has sales of only $1.5 billion. The situation worsened last month, when Cymbalta - which also had $5 billion in annual sales at its peak - began facing cheaper generics in the United States. The company's "patent cliff" will become more daunting in March, when $1 billion-a-year osteoporosis drug Evista faces U.S. generics. "We haven't wasted the crisis," Chief Executive John Lechleiter said Thursday in a conference call with industry analysts. "We're more agile, we're leaner and I believe we're better operators today." Lilly has cut more than 5,000 employees from its workforce in order to reduce annual costs by $1 billion over the last three years to deal with patent expirations on its drugs. It has also restructured itself to focus on cancer and diabetes - lucrative specialties that are two of the company's longstanding strengths. Clark said sales of Cymbalta could eventually decline 80 percent, which has been the case for many other blockbuster medicines in recent years. He questioned whether gains for other products seen in the fourth quarter will be sustainable. Sales of many products over the quarter showed double-digit sales increases, including Lilly's Humalog insulin, Cialis anti-impotence treatment, Forteo and Evista osteoporosis drugs, and Straterra for attention deficit disorder. But price increases in the United States accounted for much of those sales gains. The Indianapolis drugmaker is expecting a return to company sales growth next year, from increased sales of drugs that still have patent protection and from launches of new treatments for cancer and diabetes. It hopes to launch three new drugs this year: ramucirumab for stomach cancer, and dulaglutide and empagliflozin for type 2 diabetes - the most common form of the disease, which is closely linked to obesity. Although analysts have forecast annual sales of more than $650 million for ramucirumab, they are concerned the new diabetes drugs may have a hard time competing with similar drugs already on the market. The company has introduced no new products in recent years. In a recent interview, Lechleiter said it was time for Lilly "to go back on offense", helped by a pipeline of nearly 40 medicines in mid- and late-stage studies, compared with only seven in those stages of development a decade ago. Claim: Lilly's quarterly sales largely offset Cymbalta slide.

SOLUTION: Drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co's quarterly revenue fell far less than expected, it reported on Thursday, as plunging sales of its Cymbalta depression treatment were largely offset by higher revenues for most of its other prescription drugs.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The question of cost is cited in the final line of the story, which suggests that the scoring system can "address escalating health care cost issues." But we didn't think that was specific enough to warrant a Satisfactory score. The story doesn't clue readers in to the fact that the financial burden can be measured in billions of dollars a single screening test recommended for millions of Americans can cost thousands of dollars apiece. The other cost issue specific to this test is that it takes valuable time for providers to retrieve a reputable risk calculator when sitting with a patient and enter in the specific data points, including in this case waist circumference, which clinicians often do not measure as a 'vital sign' per se. The story cites a study that credits colonoscopy with reducing the risk of death from colon cancer by about 50 percent, by removing polyps. It would have been helpful for the story to explain what that relative reduction in risk means in absolute terms (e.g. did the rate of cancer death go from 50% to 25% or from 2% to around 1%?) The story also notes that the study found that patients with a low to intermediate risk score "still have a risk between of between 1.9 percent to 9.9 percent of harboring a polyp that can develop into cancer." We'll give credit here for the story's provision of these key statistics, which do give a sense as how well the test accurately identifies truly low-risk individuals. However, we'd note that the benefit here should ideally refer to theability of the algorithm to classify people at all risk levels (including high-risk), and therefore target the highest-risk patients for colonoscopy. The story doesn't really get into discussion of the predictive power of the test, referred to as a likelihood ratio, which is in the study manuscript. However, this is a difficult concept for most health care providers and patients, and we think it's understandable that the story did not include a full discussion of this topic. The harm of a screening test such as this really is "getting it wrong" in terms of predicting someone to be at low risk and finding them to have a higher risk polyp or malignancy. As noted above, the story cautions that "low- to intermediate-risk patients still have a risk between of between 1.9 percent to 9.9 percent of harboring a polyp that can develop into cancer." This story accurately explains that the research was about predictive modeling, and explains the components of the risk score as well as the study design. There are some cautionary notes in the text, including a statement from outside expert that "the data from this study is not strong enough to spur any changes in current screening recommendations," an opinion shared by an editorialist on the study. We think this is sufficient for a Satisfactory rating. The story does not hype the incidence or seriousness of the disease. The prevalence statistics cited are consistent with these National Cancer Institute figures. The story contains two independent voices. The perspective they provide is a particular strengthof the article. We wish that more stories would reach out to experts not affiliated with the studies being reported on for context. The story notes that a variety of screening tests exist, but the relevant alternative here is actually other risk calculators, which the authors of the studydescribe and cite but are not routinely used. The story doesn't mention these other calculators and why they are seldom used context that would have deepened reader understanding of the issue. Although availability isn't explicitly addressed, this risk calculator is now available (implicitly) by virtue of publication of the paper. It is a simple scoring system that can be implemented based on the information in the paper, and the story makes this clear. We'll rate this Satisfactory. The story makes it sound as if this is a first-of-its-kind tool. However, risk calculation tools for colon cancer have been in circulation for many years. We could not find a news release related to this study. But in any case, the comments from two independent experts assure us that the story wasn't based on a news release. Claim: 'Scoring System' May Spot Those in Greatest Need of Colonoscopy; But one expert cautions that even 'low risk' patients can still develop suspicious polyps

SOLUTION:
Can a new scoring system help some people avoid a colonoscopy?This is an important story that touches on all sorts of issues involved in public health, including how to best to screen for a disease that takes a terrible toll, how to determine who is at highest risk and how to get the best use out of a test (colonoscopy) that is both expensive and invasive. The story does a good job summarizing the study authors' efforts to devise a scoring algorithmthat might answer some of those questions, but makes only perfunctory references to cost and doesn't acknowledge the long history of similar calculators that have been developed and never widely used. That's pertinent context for this new effort. Despite leaving some room for improvement, the story makes a strong effort at interpreting a relatively simplealgorithm with complex ramifications, and draws on twooutside experts for perspective something we wish more stories would take the time to do. The concept of "risk stratification" which is what this story and the related research paper address is difficult for physicians and patients alike. Risk prediction tools are often created and then not used by physicians because they are cumbersome or their use historically has not been incorporated into guidelines because they have important limitations, including that even low-risk people still sometimes develop the cancer or condition. Since this new tool appears to suffer from these same limitations, it's not clear if it will fare any differently than previous efforts, but the issue is worth exploring.