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.
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Question: Paragraph: Repeated attacks on treatment centers by armed militiamen and community members who think Ebola is a conspiracy against them have hampered the response to the second-deadliest outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in history. In the latest attack, on a hospital in the city of Butembo, a senior World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist from Cameroon was killed and two others wounded last Friday. At a protest on Wednesday in Butembo, the biggest city to be affected by the current outbreak, dozens of Congolese doctors and nurses marched behind a banner reading “Ebola exists” and urged authorities to take additional security measures. “If our security is not guaranteed, we will go on strike from the first week of May,” Dr. Kalima Nzanzu said, reading from a memo to Butembo’s mayor, Sylvain Kanyamanda. Kanyamanda told Reuters that he understood the health workers’ frustrations and that the government was determined to respond to their demands. The latest outbreak of Ebola, which was declared last August and is Congo’s tenth since the virus was discovered in 1976, is believed to have killed 880 people and infected nearly 500 more in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The military prosecutor’s office in North Kivu said on Wednesday that authorities had captured the suspected ringleader of last week’s attack, as well as about a dozen other suspects. Prosecutors believe the assailants belong to an armed group called the Patriotic Union for the Liberation of Congo (UPLC) based on a tract left at the hospital threatening health workers. Dozens of militia are active in eastern Congo’s borderlands with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, where they run lucrative rackets and fight over land, ethnicity and mineral resources. Claim: Ebola first responders threaten strike if security not improved.

Answer: Health workers in one of the epicenters of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak threatened on Wednesday to go on strike as early as next week if authorities don’t do more to protect them.


Question: Paragraph: "In his August Facebook Live video, Gov. Eric Greitens encouraged viewers to submit their questions. One viewer asked, ""What do we do for our veterans except use them as our reason to get mad when it fits our agenda?"" In response, Greitens touched on providing jobs for veterans, in addition to citing the rate of veterans graduating from treatment courts in Missouri. ""Our veterans in our veterans court, are graduating — 73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts,"" Greitens said. ""By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" We were wondering: Are 73 percent of veterans graduating from treatment courts? While we never heard back from Greitens’ spokesman, a Supreme Court of Missouri spokeswoman pointed us in the direction of where those numbers came from. According to the Missouri Courts website, treatment courts began as a way to battle increasing substance abuse problems. Treatment courts have existed in Missouri for nearly 25 years. The first treatment court was started in 1993 in Jackson County. Legislation in 2013 established the first veterans treatment courts programs, which ""are hybrid drug and mental health court dockets that use the treatment court model to serve veterans struggling with addiction, serious mental illness and/or co-occurring disorders,"" according to a treatment courts fact sheet. As of August 2017, there were 147 treatment court programs throughout the state. Of those, 12 are veterans treatment courts, with the remaining being adult, juvenile, family and DWI courts. Veterans can be accepted into treatment courts for drug-involved offenses and DWI offenses, Beth Riggert, communications counsel for the Supreme Court of Missouri, wrote in an email. According to the treatment courts fact sheet, ""The graduation rate for all programs in fiscal 2017 exceeds 61 percent."" However, the most recent data on veterans treatment courts is from calendar year 2016, Riggert said. In that time frame, there were a total of 247 veterans participating in veterans treatment courts in the state, Riggert said. However, because the program is rolling, only a total of 82 veterans exited the program in 2016. Of those, 60 successfully graduated the program and 22 did not. That translates to a success rate of 73.17 percent, or just about what Greitens said. Since 2011, the graduation rate from veterans treatment courts has steadily been increasing as more veterans have gone through the program. Greitens also said, ""By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent."" Because we were unable to reach Greitens’ spokesman for comment, we are unsure which specific treatment courts program Greitens was referring to when he said ""the very good drug court program."" However, Riggert elaborated on the graduation for other treatment court programs. In the same period, the graduation rate from adult drug courts was 52 percent, and the graduation rate from DWI courts was 90 percent, Riggert said. While Greitens is correct that the veterans treatment courts’ graduation rate was higher than some, such as the adult drug court’s rate, it is still not as high as the DWI court’s graduation rate of 90 percent. However, Riggert said it may not be accurate to compare graduation rates between treatment courts to prove one program’s success. ""The various types of treatment court programs are distinct, and so it is not helpful to try to make a side-by-side comparison,"" Riggert said. While 73 percent of veterans exiting the program did graduate in 2016, it is unclear how many veterans who graduate from the program have to return for additional treatment. ""Because veterans treatment courts are relatively new, we do not yet have sufficient quantifiable data from which to determine recidivism rates for these programs,"" Riggert said. Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected." Claim: Seventy-three percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans.

Answer: "Our ruling Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected."


Question: Paragraph: The story doesn’t mention cost at all. Since Lucentis can cost $2,000 per injection, that’s a significant oversight. It would also be useful to tell readers how Lucentis injections compare with the cost of laser treatment. The benefits are, for the most part, reasonably well explained. But those explanations lack numbers to back them up and are overstated in at least one place. “One benefit discussed in the release is that study participants who received laser treatment were more likely to suffer peripheral vision loss than participants who were treated solely with Lucentis — although this isn’t quantified. A second benefit was that participants who received laser treatment were more likely to require subsequent surgery to remove blood from the eye — and this was quantified. But the release pushes things a bit when it comes to vision, or visual acuity. The release states: “At two years, vision in the Lucentis group improved by an average of about half a line on an eye chart, compared with virtually no change in the laser group.” But here’s how the journal article puts it: “There was no statistically significant visual acuity difference between the ranibizumab and PRP [laser] groups at 2 years. The language in the journal article itself stresses that what was being evaluated was whether Lucentis was at least as good as laser treatment — and they found that, after two years, the visual acuity of patients who took Lucentis (and had no laser treatment) was as good as patients who had the laser treatment. The release could have simply stated this and avoided confusion. In short, this was a close one — but the lack of numbers on peripheral vision and the overstatement of the visual acuity results make this a “Not Satisfactory.” The release mentions that one study volunteer in the Lucentis group developed an eye infection and stated that “serious systemic adverse events,” namely cardiac arrest and stroke, occurred at similar rates among the two groups undergoing the two different procedures. We’ll rate that satisfactory for the disclosure although the release might have gone even further by mentioning the other side effects named in the study including inflammation and elevated intraocular pressure which occurred in both treatment groups. The release does a good job of describing the study design, the number of participants, and the fact that this was a randomized clinical trial. A few words about the limitations of the study — e.g. the investigators and patients could not be masked to which treatment they were getting, would have be useful as well. No disease mongering here. The release does tell readers that the study was funded by the National Eye Institute. However, it does not make clear that Lloyd Paul Aiello — who is quoted in the release — was also a co-author of the journal article. The release also fails to mention that several co-authors receive research funding or consulting fees from Genentech, which developed ranibizumab and markets it in the U.S., and Novartis, which markets the drug outside the U.S. The release does a good job of comparing Lucentis to conventional laser treatment for PDR and we’ll award a Satisfactory rating on that basis. However, we’d note that these are not necessarily the only two options. Lucentis is classed as an “anti-VEGF” (anti- vascular endothelial growth factor) drug — by blocking a protein called VEGF, the drug can reverse abnormal blood vessel growth and decrease fluid in the retina. Other drugs in this category include Avastin and Eylea. Are those drugs under consideration for trials related to PDR treatment? If so, it’s worth mentioning — particularly since Avastin costs around $60 per dose, as compared to Lucentis’s $2,000 per dose. The release notes that Lucentis is already used to treat other diabetes-related eye problems, and “should be considered a viable treatment option for people with PDR.” The clinical trial at issue here appears to be the first to look at the use of Lucentis as a treatment for PDR, particularly in a randomized study with direct comparison to laser treatment. However, the release doesn’t tell readers that. On the other hand, the release does make clear that this is the first significant advance in clinical treatment for PDR since the 1970s — that’s good context. The release does a good job of avoiding hype and explaining what was a complex study. Claim: Lucentis Proves Effective Against Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy

Answer:
This release describes a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on the use of the drug ranibizumab (brand name Lucentis) to treat proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), which can damage eyesight and lead to blindness. The clinical trial at issue found that the use of ranibizumab was at least as effective on vision as laser therapy but with fewer side effects. While the release does a good job explaining a complex trial, it skimps on presenting benefit data, and does not address physician-industry ties or costs, both of which are important factors for consideration with any medical treatment. According to the CDC, 9.3% of the U.S. population  — 29.1 million people — have Type 2 diabetes. The number rises to 16.2% of adults between the ages of 45 and 64. Among them, PDR is an added burden affecting a great many people with diabetes. A 2010 study reported that the prevalence of vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy in diabetic adults over 40 is 4.4%. It has serious implications for quality of life and the ability to function independently. And with diabetes on the rise in the U.S., rates of PDR are unlikely to decline anytime soon. There’s a significant economic component as well. In 2004, the direct medical cost of diabetic retinopathy treatment was $493 million. Because diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of vision impairment and blindness among working-age adults in the U.S., there is likely a significant economic burden associated with the condition’s impact on job performance in the workforce. New research findings on a condition this common — and this pricey — are important and worth paying attention to.