instruction:
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.
question:
Paragraph: "Explaining why he couldn’t support the Texas Senate’s version of the 2012-13 state budget, Sen. John Whitmire said he didn’t know how state agencies can cope with further budget cuts, singling out the Texas Board of Nursing as an example. ""I asked them for their backlog of investigations,"" he said. ""They’ve got 3,000 complaints against nurses, many of them sexual assaults, malfeasance."" Time to crank up the Truth-O-Meter, starting with the board’s unresolved complaints. Some background: The board investigates and adjudicates complaints about Texas nurses who could be violating the Nursing Practice Act, which imposes regulations on nursing education, licensing and practices in the state including rules against unnecessarily exposing patients to the risk of harm or failing to adequately care for them. At the nursing board, spokesman Bruce Holter told us the senator’s count of 3,000 backlogged complaints is too low, accounting solely for unresolved cases from fiscal years 2009 and 2010. In 2010, the board resolved 14,429 of 16,890 complaints filed against nurses, leaving 2,461 unresolved cases. As of this March, another 511 complaints filed in 2009 remained unresolved, bringing the total backlog to nearly 3,000. There also are several hundred lingering complaints dating back to May 2006, board officials said. As of March, the board had about 11,000 open investigations, including the backlog. What are the complaints about? ""In general,"" Holter said, ""criminal conduct, drug-related conduct and failure to follow the minimum standard of care are the main types of complaints."" That covers malfeasance. But what about Whitmire’s other charge — that a chunk of the backlogged cases are sexual assault complaints? Lara Wendler, Whitmire’s chief of staff, told us the senator based his statement on conversations with administrators at agencies, including the nursing board. She added, though, that Whitmire was referring to all regulatory agencies, not just the nursing board, when he said backlogged cases included ""many"" sexual assaults. That was not clear from Whitmire’s floor remarks. Holter said the board checks all nurses licensed in Texas against state and national databases identifying sex offenders. Currently, the board is investigating complaints against four nurses who appear on the Texas Department of Public Safety’s sex offender database, and 12 nurses who appear on a national sex offender registry kept by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing. ""Sexual assault complaints against nurses make up a small percentage of the overall number of complaints investigated by the board,"" Holter said. But he added that other than the nurses found on the sexual offender databases, ""it would be difficult for staff to ‘pin down’ the number of complaints involving sexual assault."" Why? The board doesn’t categorize complaints by type, though when disciplinary action has been taken, Holter said, the board can run a data mining program to identify specific rule violations. But because the board doesn't track the number of sexual assault cases, it would have to review each resolved complaint individually. Lastly, why have complaints stacked up? Board employees are barred from discussing the details of individual complaints, but the board’s general counsel Dusty Johnston told us that generally, complaints don’t get resolved for a variety of reasons. He offered several examples: The investigator may be under-performing; extensive due process is required; the medical records of the patient involved in the complaint are difficult to obtain. So, the board says it has about 3,000 backlogged complaints, as Whitmire said. According to the board, many of the complaints allege malfeasance by nurses, as Whitmire also said, and a smaller number involve sexual assaults. But no one can determine the precise breakout without access to confidential board information." Claim: "John Whitmire Says the Texas Board of Nursing has a backlog of ""3,000 complaints against nurses, many of them sexual assaults, malfeasance."
answer:
State Sen. John Whitmire says the Texas Board of Nursing has a backlog of 3,000 complaints, including many cases of sexual assault and malfeasance


question:
Paragraph: WTOP-FM reports that the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department is partnering with the National Fire Protection Association Research Foundation on a four-phase study. Part of the focus of the study will be on how chemicals can cling to breathing equipment used by firefighters. Firefighters are exposed to toxic chemicals released into the air by burning buildings and vehicles. According to a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study, firefighters are twice as likely to get skin and testicular cancer and mesothelioma. ___ Information from: WTOP-FM, http://www.wtop.com Claim: Firefighters study carcinogen exposure.
answer:
Firefighters in Virginia are taking part in a study aimed at finding ways to reduce their exposure to carcinogens.


question:
Paragraph: There’s no mention of the cost of these procedures or whether they are covered by insurance. The average cost of gastric bypass surgery is $23,000, the average cost of lap band is $14,500, and the average cost of sleeve gastrectomy surgery $14,900, according to the web site ObesityCoverage. The story states: “Before surgery, only 3 percent of the teens had no cardiac risk factors at all, but three years later, just over half of them (52 percent) had no risk factors. Just 5 percent had all four cardiac risk factors before their surgeries, but none had all of them three years later. In fact, the majority of the participants — 83 percent — had only one or no risk factors three years after their surgeries. The proportion of participants with two or three risk factors also dropped substantially.” This is a useful start, but the story needed to remind readers: Changes in risk factors predicated on lab values are surrogate markers, so they may not actually lead to improved “heart health” as the story states. The story states that the weight-reduction procedures “carry the same risks as any surgical procedure, such as infections, blood clots and bleeding” as well as nutritional and vitamin deficiencies. It also states that gastric banding “has low effectiveness and a risk of the band slipping down the stomach.” Note: The most risky complications (problems arising from general anesthesia) were not mentioned. The story describes how the study was conducted and provides important caveats, stating: “The study’s biggest limitation is its very selective population. Most of the participants were female, most were white, and most received the gastric bypass. Children of color have the greatest risk of obesity, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, but it’s not clear if they would see the same improvement with these procedures.” It also mentions that the study included “only teens with the greatest obesity who were also unsuccessful trying other weight loss methods. Further, it points out the need for longer-term data of 10 or 15 years. The story does not mention one inherent weakness of this study: The lack of a comparison group that did not receive surgery. [Editor’s note: We updated the final sentence in this criterion to strike the phrase “observational studies” and replace it with “this study.”] The story does not engage in disease-mongering. It states that an estimated 4 to 7 percent of teens have severe obesity. The story includes two sources who were not part of the study. The story does a good job here, quoting Geetha Raghuveer, a pediatric cardiologist at Children’s Mercy Kansas City in Missouri who, it reports, was not involved in the study. Raghuveer is quoted saying surgery “would be considered for the highly obese and those not responding to any behavioral modifications, physical activity or calorie restriction.” Further, the story says, Raghuveer endorses public health efforts that “aim for better obesity prevention, including parent education and interventions when children are toddlers and preschoolers.” “The big question is, how do we prevent obese kids from getting to this point where they would need an invasive surgical procedure?” Raghuveer says in the story. The story mentions that 1,600 teens undergo stomach reduction surgeries each year, which suggests that they are widely available. It also mentions the need to seek counseling and “detailed information from well-established bariatric surgery centers that are specifically dedicated to treating adolescents.” However, one big key to availability is insurance coverage–and this was not mentioned. The story mentions that this study includes more patients than some previous studies that looked at the impact of surgery on teens with severe obesity, and it quotes the study’s author saying it “serves to reinforce the benefits of bariatric surgery as a safe and effective treatment strategy that should be considered sooner rather than later.” Also, the the study of cardiac risk factors and how they are affected is novel, as well, and that’s clear in the story. The story does not appear to rely on a news release. Claim: Bariatric Surgery Helps Teens With Severe Obesity Reduce Heart Disease Risk
answer:

This story covers an observational study showing cardiovascular risk factors improved after three years for teens who underwent weight-loss surgery. The story does a good job describing the study, the potential harms of the intervention, and limitations to the findings. One area with room for improvement: it doesn’t mention how much these procedures cost or whether they are covered by insurance. Also, it’s always a good idea to point out when surrogate markers are being used as stand-ins for heart health. Lastly, some readers of the story might have found the photo stigmatizing–here’s our tips for communicating about obesity without promoting stigma. This isn’t the first research to suggest that bariatric surgery might help teens with severe obesity, who are at risk of developing health problems in their 30s and 40s. Yet one recent review asserted that while weight-loss surgeries are increasingly being offered to teens, there’s no data to show what impact these involved procedures will have in the long term. News coverage should remain cautious, stressing the risks and extreme lifestyle changes they entail and the fact that the jury is still out on their ultimate impact.