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: An early barrage of illness in the South has begun to spread more broadly, and there’s a decent chance flu season could peak much earlier than normal, health officials say. The last flu season to rev up this early was in 2003-2004 — a bad one. Some experts think the early start may mean a lot of suffering is in store, but others say it’s too early to tell. “It really depends on what viruses are circulating. There’s not a predictable trend as far as if it’s early it’s going to be more severe, or later, less severe,” said Scott Epperson, who tracks flu-like illnesses for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are different types of flu viruses, and the one causing illnesses in most parts of the country is a surprise. It’s a version that normally doesn’t abound until March or April. That virus generally isn’t as dangerous to older people — good news, since most flu hospitalizations and deaths each winter occur in the elderly. However, such viruses can be hard on children and people younger than 50. Louisiana was the first state to really get hit hard, with doctors there saying they began seeing large numbers of flu-like illnesses in October. Children’s Hospital New Orleans has already seen more flu cases this fall than it saw all of last winter, said Dr. Toni Gross, the hospital’s chief of emergency medicine. Last month was the busiest ever at the hospital’s emergency department. Officials had to set up a triage system and add extra shifts, Gross said. “It is definitely causing symptoms that will put you in bed for a week,” including fever, vomiting and diarrhea. But the hospital has not had any deaths and is not seeing many serious complications, she said. Health officials tend to consider a flu season to be officially underway when — for at least three weeks in a row — a significant percentage of U.S. doctor’s office visits are due to flu-like illnesses. That’s now happened, CDC officials said this week. The agency on Friday estimated that there have already been 1.7 million flu illnesses, 16,000 hospitalizations, and 900 flu-related deaths nationally. The most intense patient traffic had been occurring in a six states stretching from Texas to Georgia. But in new numbers released Friday, CDC officials said the number of states with intense activity rose last week to 12. Flu is widespread in 16 states, though not necessarily at intense levels in each, the CDC said. Last flu season started off as a mild one but turned out to be the longest in 10 years. It ended with around 49,000 flu-related deaths and 590,000 hospitalizations, according to preliminary estimates. It was bad, but not as bad as the one before it, when flu caused an estimated 61,000 deaths and 810,000 hospitalizations. Those 2017-2018 estimates are new: The CDC last month revised them down from previous estimates as more data — including actual death certificates — came in. In both of the previous two flu seasons, the flu vaccine performed poorly against the nasty predominant virus. It’s too early to say how well the vaccine is performing right now, Epperson said. Epperson said there’s a chance the flu season will peak this month, which would be unusually early. Flu season usually doesn’t hit fever pitch until around February. The early start suggests a lot Americans may be sick at the same time, said Dave Osthus, a statistician who does flu forecasting at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “This could be a precursor to something pretty bad. But we don’t know,” he said. Gross is pessimistic. “I, personally, am preparing for the worst,” she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Claim: US flu season arrives early, driven by an unexpected virus.
answer:
The U.S. winter flu season is off to its earliest start in more than 15 years.


question:
Paragraph: The release does not mention cost. The FDA evaluates drugs without consideration of cost, so it’s understandable that they wouldn’t comment on it — and that’s why we’re rating this Not Applicable. But let’s be real here: The value of a new drug is a function not just of how well it works, but its cost-effectiveness. So we look forward to the day when any news release about a new drug — even one from the FDA — will include some mention of cost in its message. This release gives the preliminary results from a single study of 310 patients. Because the drug is experimental, long-term results haven’t been studied. Of the 310 patients enrolled in the lone trial upon which the approval is based, 14.8 percent showed some shrinkage of tumors during the assessment period lasting from 2.1 to about 13.8 months. For a subset of patients who were classified as having a positive response to PD-L1 expression, the response was 26 percent. As noted above, tumor shrinkage doesn’t always lead to improvements in survival or quality of life. It is a surrogate endpoint — a substitute — for the main outcome which is survival. Although this drug looks promising, to be fully transparent about its benefits as currently known, the release should have explained this. As noted in the “Summary,” another larger study is underway to assess the drug’s impact on extending life and improving quality of life. The release includes a description of side effects of this treatment. The most common ones included fatigue, decreased appetite, nausea, urinary tract infection, fever (pyrexia) and constipation. The release also mentions that patients taking the drug have an increased risk of infection and serious side effects that are “immune-mediated.” We would have liked a bit more context on what this term means for patients. The release outlines that this is the very first clinical trial of this compound for safety and efficacy, and under which regulatory paths the drug was assessed, including “breakthrough therapy designation, priority review status and accelerated approval.” We’re giving this release the benefit of the doubt and rating it Satisfactory for its bare bones description of the trial (and since we already addressed the lack of long-term survival data in the “Benefits” section.) As it stands, the results from the small trial were preliminary and short-term and did not reflect long-term survival. We would have liked to see a reference or link to the completed trial where one could look at the results to assess independently or learn more about the outcomes. We think the release should have provided more data on the patient demographics, the treatment regimen (dosing amount and schedule) as well as the range in tumor reduction. There is no disease mongering. This release describes the approval of a new drug by a regulatory agency, but we’d still like to know who sponsored the study that’s the basis for the approval. It’s not enough to state who markets the drug. The release does not give us very much information about alternatives. These patients had already received other therapy and their cancer had recurred, so it is implied that they had no other alternatives. But this isn’t stated very clearly. We can assume (and it seems evident) that the platinum-based therapy that the patients didn’t respond to initially is the usual treatment. The FDA’s approval of a drug clears the way for the drug sponsor to scale up production and begin marketing and selling the product. (The FDA doesn’t state this explicitly but it can be inferred.) A NYT article said the drug would be available in about two months. The release clearly states this product is first of its kind for this type of cancer. We found no unjustifiable language. Claim: FDA approves new, targeted treatment for bladder cancer
answer:
The Food and Drug Administration approved a new immunotherapy drug that acts as a “checkpoint” inhibitor in patients whose bladder cancer (urothelial carcinoma) has not responded to other chemotherapy. The drug, atezolizumab (marketed as Tecentriq), showed effectiveness in about 14 percent of 310 patients in a very preliminary study. The release notes that the trial measured tumor shrinkage as the main outcome. It didn’t note, as a NYT article did, and important for this type of trial, that it is unknown whether the treatment makes a difference in survival. A larger study is being done to examine this. Whether it makes a difference in quality of life is also important and will presumably be examined in the larger trial. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates 76,960 new cases of bladder cancer and 16,390 deaths from this disease in 2016. This approval of a new drug for treating bladder cancer is part of a wider area of research into immunotherapy, in which drugs target mechanisms of the human immune response. Patients with the PD-L1 protein highly expressed in their tumors appear to be responding best to the drug. This drug is an example of targeted chemotherapy which is becoming more important as treatments can be fine-tuned to the cancers of individual patients. In patients with intractable cancers, immunotherapy appears to offer some new hope while also bringing sobering questions about affordability and disparity of access by income. The drugs are typically very expensive — with some estimates putting the treatment cost for a single patient as high as $1 million. When the FDA gives a compound a “breakthrough” designation, some physicians and patients can misunderstand what that means. That’s a topic recently explored in this post.


question:
Paragraph: IndyCar medical director Geoffrey Billows said Thursday a “very limited supply” of vaccines will be available at the medical building near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum. He says most insurance companies will cover the cost. Billows encourages concerned fans to get vaccinated before coming to a race expected to attract in excess of 275,000. Measles was once common in the U.S. but gradually became rare after vaccination campaigns that started in the 1960s. The nation is struggling with a high number of cases this year as some families choose not to get vaccinated despite the recommendations of public health experts. At least 20 confirmed cases of mumps also were reported at Indiana University in Bloomington, about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis. ___ More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/apf-AutoRacing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports Claim: Indianapolis 500 officials to offer measles vaccine at race.
answer:

Some fans attending Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 can get measles vaccines at the track’s infield medical center.