As detailed in our point-by-point response below, data which address most, if not all, of the concerns that Reviewer 1 raised was already present in the supplemental data portion of the submitted paper.
The Pentagon's portion of the supplemental request includes $51 billion for military operations in Iraq, $11 billion for operations in Afghanistan and $4 billion for domestic security and to support allied efforts.
The Medicare Supplemental Database also includes the portion of the claim paid by Medicare (represented as "Coordination of Benefits Amount," or COB), in addition to the portions paid by the employer-sponsored supplemental plan and the patient.
In contrast, the total grams of dust per square meter behaves as expected, with high values closer to the urbanized portion of Long Island [ Supplemental Material, Tables S-2, S-3 (http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2006/8659/suppl.pdf)].
The Medicare Database contains the claims and enrollment data of approximately three million retirees with Medicare Supplemental insurance paid for by employers; both the Medicare-covered portion of payment and the employer-paid portion are included in the database.
This deletion resulted in a loss of a putative enhancer UGUGGA that has its 3′ portion in a predicted single-stranded conformation (Supplemental Fig. 13c).
Future research should identify effective supplemental intervention strategies and should examine the effect of portion control programs in combination with efforts that create a more "portion-friendly" choice environment.
