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: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Surgeon General Jerome Adams made the announcement, with Azar calling marijuana "a dangerous drug." Officials said President Donald Trump has donated $100,000 one-quarter of his annual government salary toward a digital campaign to raise awareness of the risks. Trump has forgone his official salary since taking office. The warning comes as legal marijuana has grown into a $10-billion industry in the U.S. with nearly two-thirds of states legalizing it, mainly for medical uses. Possessing small amounts of marijuana for adult recreational use is legal in 11 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list includes California, Colorado, Michigan and Maine. Federal law still treats it as a controlled substance akin to opioids. Adams said science shows that marijuana is harmful to the developing brains of teenagers and to the human fetus. The drug has also gotten stronger, with a three-fold increase in the concentration of the active ingredient THC in cultivated plants over the last 20 years. "This ain't your mother's marijuana," Adams said. The American Medical Association said it strongly supports the government's effort, adding that it for some time it has been recommending against marijuana use by teens, pregnant women and women who are breastfeeding. The surgeon general said his advisory is a direct result of scientific research that runs counter to changing social mores. "Marijuana use is a risk to the developing brain," Adams said. "Over time there has been a change in attitudes about marijuana creating a false sense of security." While the White House has made the opioid epidemic a top policy and political priority, marijuana previously had not gotten such high-level attention. Federal officials say they fear the trend toward legalization may make it more enticing for teenagers to try marijuana. It's a commonly used drug among youths, they said, along with alcohol and e-cigarettes. No states allow recreational marijuana use by teens. States with medical marijuana programs, Illinois among them, generally allow use by minors with consent from a legal guardian and certification from a doctor. Adams said that for teens it carries a risk of affecting brain development, which continues in the 20s. Frequent marijuana use by teenagers is associated with changes in parts of the brain that are involved with attention, memory, decision-making and motivation. Among pregnant women, marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug, with about 7% reporting they had used it within the past month in a 2017 study. Some women use it to help with morning sickness. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics advise women not to use marijuana during pregnancy, and to discontinue the drug if they find out they are pregnant. HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said pregnant women taking marijuana to relieve morning sickness should stop. "If you have morning sickness, talk to your physician," said Giroir. "There are FDA-approved drugs to help with morning sickness. Taking marijuana for morning sickness has never been shown to be safe and effective." The government's National Institute on Drug Abuse is paying for several studies on marijuana use in pregnancy, including one involving women who have chosen to continue using the drug to treat morning sickness despite warnings. While some studies have suggested that marijuana may be harmful to the developing brain, the evidence isn't conclusive, explained NIDA Director Nora Volkow, who said she strongly supports the surgeon general's warning. "We cannot close our eyes and say this is not happening. It's happening," said Volkow. It would be a missed opportunity not to continue the research to find conclusive evidence on how the drug affects the fetus, she said. "My view is that the way that you change things is by providing evidence," she added. ___ Associated Press Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this article.

A: 'This ain't your mother's marijuana,' surgeon general says.
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Q: Trump even suggested Thursday that the release could have been intentional. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the clearinghouse for the web of U.S. spy agencies, said it had ruled out the virus being man-made but was still investigating the precise source of the global pandemic, which has killed more than 220,000 people worldwide. Though scientists suggest the likeliest origin of the pandemic remains natural, that it spread from an infected animal to a human, Trump claimed to have seen evidence to support the theory that the origin was an infectious disease lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Chinese outbreak. He said the U.S. now "is finding how it came out." "It's a terrible thing that happened," the president said. "Whether they made a mistake or whether it started off as a mistake and then they made another one, or did somebody do something on purpose." The intel statement said the federal agencies concur "with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified." "The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan." In recent days the Trump administration has sharpened its rhetoric on China, accusing the geopolitical foe and vital trading partner of failing to act swiftly enough to sound the alarm about the outbreak or to stop the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. U.S. officials have said the Chinese government should "pay a price" for its handling of the pandemic. This all comes as the pace of Trump's own original response continues to come under scrutiny, questioned as too meager and too slow. Earlier Thursday, before Trump's comments, the Chinese government said that any claims that the coronavirus was released from a laboratory are "unfounded and purely fabricated out of nothing." Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang cited the institute's director, Yuan Zhiming, as saying the lab strictly implements bio-security procedures that would prevent the release of any pathogen. "I would like to point out again that the origin of the virus is a complex scientific issue, and it should be studied by scientists and professionals," Geng said. He also criticized those in the U.S. who say China should be held accountable for the global pandemic, saying they should spend their time on "better controlling the epidemic situation at home." At the White House, Trump repeatedly blamed China for its handling of the outbreak, criticizing the country for restricting domestic travel to slow the virus but not international travel to keep it from spreading abroad. "Certainly it could have been stopped," Trump said during an event in the East Room on his administration's efforts to aid seniors during the outbreak. "They either couldn't do it from a competence standpoint, or they let it spread." "It got loose, let's say, and they could have capped it." Earlier this month, Trump addressed the lab theory saying, "More and more, we're hearing the story." Secretary of State Mike Pompeo added at the time, "The mere fact that we don't know the answers that China hasn't shared the answers I think is very, very telling." Pompeo also pressed China to let outside experts into the lab "so that we can determine precisely where this virus began." While Trump and Pompeo have made their feelings clear, a U.S. intelligence official disputed the notion that there was pressure on agencies to bolster a particular theory. The intelligence official was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue and spoke only on condition of anonymity. Scientists say the virus arose naturally in bats. Even so, Pompeo and others have pointed fingers at an institute that is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It has done groundbreaking research tracing the likely origins of the SARS virus, finding new bat viruses and discovering how they could jump to people. "We know that there is the Wuhan Institute of Virology just a handful of miles away from where the wet market was," Pompeo said two weeks ago. The institute has an address 8 miles, or 13 kilometers, from the market that is considered a possible source. U.S. officials say the American Embassy in Beijing flagged concerns about potential safety issues at the lab in Wuhan in 2018, but they have yet to find any evidence the virus originated there nearly two years later. Scientists studying the virus for months have made clear they believe it wasn't man-made but are still working to determine a point at which it may have jumped from animals to humans. Early attention focused on the live-animal market in Wuhan where the first cases were reported in December. But the first person identified with the disease had no known connection to that market. Kristian Andersen, who studies the virus at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, puts the odds of it being accidentally released by the Wuhan lab at "a million to one," far less likely than an infection in nature. But virus expert David O'Connor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison said he thinks too little is known to rule out any source, except the idea the virus was man-made. Finding the source is important, he said, because it may harbor the next pandemic virus. The U.S. was providing funding to the Wuhan lab for its research on coronaviruses, Michael Morell, former acting director and deputy director of the CIA, said Thursday. He said State Department cables indicate that there have been concerns in past years among U.S. officials about the safety protocols at that lab. If the virus did escape from a Chinese lab, it not only reflects negatively on China but also on the United States for providing research funding to a lab that has safety concerns, Morell said during an online forum hosted by the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy and International Security at George Mason University. "So if it did escape, we're all in this together," Morell said. "This is not a gotcha for China. This is a gotcha for both of us." ___ Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann in Washington and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report.

A: Trump speculates that China released virus in lab 'mistake'.
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Q: The rate of hospitalizations in New York has slowed in recent days, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, with numbers he called "almost too good to be true." He also hailed the enlistment of 40,000 retired nurses, physicians and other medical professionals signing up for a "surge health care force," but warned much remains to be done. In an ominous sign he and other governors are preparing for the worst, the states of New York, North Carolina and Hawaii requested the Federal Emergency Management Agency send special mortuary teams that can be deployed for mass casualties, FEMA said on Wednesday. New Orleans, where large crowds celebrated Mardi Gras a month ago, was on track to become the next U.S. epicenter, as Louisiana's Gulf Coast metropolis recorded the world's highest growth rate in coronavirus cases. Cuomo announced new steps aimed at containing the virus. New York City - home to over 8 million people - closed some of its largely empty streets to vehicle traffic to allow more room for pedestrians to walk with greater "social distancing." At a news conference, Cuomo said the city also would ban basketball and other contact sports in public parks, while lamenting the challenges posed by dense populations. "Our closeness makes us vulnerable," he said. Nationwide, nearly 68,000 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the highly contagious virus, as the U.S. death toll approached 1,000. Only two other nations - China and Italy - have more cases of the virus, which is particularly perilous to elderly people and those with underlying chronic health conditions. At least 30,800 people have tested positive for the virus in New York state and more than 17,800 in New York City alone. By Wednesday night, the number of coronavirus fatalities had climbed to 280, up 81 from the number reported hours earlier when the statewide death toll stood at 285. An updated toll for the state was not immediately available. New York state as a whole, accounting for roughly half the country's known infections, followed California last week in ordering non-essential businesses to close and to direct residents to stay home as much as possible. As of Wednesday, the governors of at least 21 states, representing more than half the U.S. population of 330 million, have imposed such restrictions, designed to curb transmission of the virus by limiting congregations of people. Even before states began adopting those measures last week, the pandemic paralyzed parts of the U.S. economy and upended daily life as schools and colleges closed and workplaces shuttered voluntarily or under local government orders. The crisis, sparking projections of a global recession amid tumbling stock prices, has put public health authorities at odds with President Donald Trump, who had pointed to a robust economy and stock market in making his case for reelection in November. Trump this week has pushed to reopen commerce by April 12, Easter Sunday, and on Wednesday blamed news outlets for exerting pressure to keep restrictions in place. "The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success," Trump wrote in a tweet. "The real people want to get back to work ASAP." Health experts insist reopening businesses and schools too soon would only risk fueling transmission of the virus, overwhelming a hospital system already facing equipment and personnel shortages, and ultimately worsen the economic fallout. Cuomo cited recent coronavirus hospitalization figures in his state as evidence that social distancing was starting to work. While hospitalizations had been doubling every two days as of Sunday, those numbers were doubling every 3.4 days by Monday, and by Tuesday the rate was every 4.7 days, Cuomo said. "This is a very good sign and a positive sign, again not 100% sure it holds ... but the arrows are headed in the right direction," Cuomo said. Diagnostic testing remained a challenge in New York and around the country. At Elmhurst Hospital Center in New York's Queens borough, scores of people, most wearing surgical masks, lined up on Wednesday to be tested at a tent outside. Dr. Ashley Bray, 27, a general medicine resident interviewed by the New York Times, described the situation inside the 545-bed hospital as "apocalyptic," recounting how she performed chest compressions on at least three coronavirus patients, one after the other, all of whom eventually died. The deteriorating situation in New Orleans dashed hopes that less densely populated cities and those in warmer climates might escape the worst of the pandemic. Local authorities have warned that hospitals in the Mississippi River port city could reach the point of collapse by April 4. Trump issued federal disaster declarations for Louisiana and Iowa late on Tuesday and for Texas and Florida on Wednesday, freeing up federal funds to help states cope. The three states hardest hit so far - New York, California and Washington - were given such status previously. Dr. Rebekah Gee, head of Louisiana State University's healthcare services division, said that Mardi Gras, when 1.4 million tourists descended on New Orleans for celebrations that included tightly packed street parades, fed the city's outbreak. New Orleans restaurant owner Ronnie Evans said everyone in New Orleans was "freaking out." "People don't know what to expect or how long this will last. Everyone is worried about their jobs," said Evans, 32, whose restaurant Blue Oak BBQ is a few steps from the renowned Bourbon Street. The restaurant is offering takeout orders only. "This is as bad as Katrina or worse," he said, referring to the hurricane that devastated the city in 2005.

A:
New York sees glimmer of progress against coronavirus, New Orleans worsens.
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