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: Austria has closed schools, restaurants, bars, theatres and other gathering places, including non-essential shops. People have been told to stay at home and work from there if possible. The country has reported 108 deaths and more than 9,000 cases, fewer than its neighbours Italy and Switzerland and within its health system’s capacity so far, but Kurz told a news conference its intensive care capacity could be exceeded by mid-April. “Many cannot imagine what is heading our way within weeks, but the truth is that this is the calm before the storm. And to tell how horrific that storm can be, you can look at our neighbour Italy,” Kurz said, referring to hospitals unable to cope with the number of sick people, and hundreds of dead a day. The rate of infection remains “far too high”, Kurz said, adding that less than medical-grade masks would be distributed this week, probably from Wednesday. “As of the moment, these masks are handed out in front of supermarkets it will be compulsory to wear them in supermarkets,” Kurz said, adding that the aim in the medium-term was for people to wear them in public more generally as well. While the masks would not protect the wearer against infection, they would stop them sneezing or coughing on others and potentially infecting them, he added. The World Health Organization has, however, been sceptical about such measures. “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit,” Dr Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergencies expert, told a news conference later on Monday while adding that he was not aware  of Austria’s measure specifically. “In fact there is some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse or (not) wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly or taking it off and all the other risks that are otherwise associated with that.”  Austria is also carrying out tests on a representative sample of 2,000 people to get a clearer understanding of how much of the population has been exposed to the virus, Kurz said, adding that Austria was one of the first countries in Europe to do so. The results will be available at the end of the week. Claim: Austria to make basic face masks compulsory in supermarkets.
answer:
Austria will require shoppers to wear basic face masks in supermarkets in a bid to slow the still too-rapid spread of the coronavirus, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Monday.


question:
Paragraph: The story does not say how much this new procedure costs or compare it with existing treatments for patients who don’t respond to medication. Deep brain stimulation, the current treatment standard, can run anywhere from $30,000 to $70,000, according to various online cost estimates. There also may be additional costs incurred by those patients who have adverse effects. The story is long on description but short on numbers. Saying the treatment “has had an immense impact on patients’ lives,” the story devotes quite a bit of print along with video footage to show rapid functional and quality-of-life improvements experienced by patients, focusing on one women who said her tremor “has almost disappeared” since she had the procedure in June. Video showing this patient before and after treatment–including her attempts to write her name, trace a spiral and pour water from one cup to another–do a great job of conveying the improvements. This is terrific news for this woman, but we’re not told how representative her experience is of overall outcomes. Is she a best-case scenario? Middle of the road? There are also inspiring quotes from a researcher, including a description of the “remarkable moment” patients experience when they realized the tremor has subsided. “They can write their names again, they can feed themselves, they are not embarrassed about being in public. So it really is extraordinarily helpful for people,” he says. In terms of study data, the story says researchers “found that the severity of essential tremor reduced significantly” in patients who underwent the treatment as well as reported improvements in quality of life. But there are no figures. In fact, according to the study, patients experienced a 47 percent improvement in tremor scores, dropping from 18.1 points on a 32-point scale at baseline to 9.6 points three months after the procedure. That data should have been included. Also, the story should have spelled out that 56 patients received the treatment, versus 20 who experienced a fake procedure. Also worth pointing out: We don’t know the meaning or clinical significance of a reduction of this magnitude in the total score. The story addresses adverse effects, and that’s sufficient for a Satisfactory rating. We do wish the story had quantified the harms that were measured in the study. The fourth paragraph says the procedure “brings lasting side effects in some patients” and later the story quotes a physician who is not involved in the research as saying, “It’s a pretty high incidence of side effects.” But nowhere do exact numbers appear. Rather than citing data from the study, the story quotes the physician as saying that “over a third of patients actually experienced either gait disturbance or paresthesia,” or numbness. This information isn’t very useful because the story does not explain when these rates were measured. According to the study, three months after the procedure 36% of patients had gait disturbance and 38% had numbness. After 12 months, the numbers dropped, to 9 percent and 14 percent respectively. Also worth mentioning is that one patient was reported to have permanent diminished sensation of the dominant thumb and index figure, which was categorized as a serious adverse event. That did not appear in the story. The story clearly spells out that there isn’t data on the long-term efficacy of this procedure, and that more study is needed, so we’ll give this a barely passing Satisfactory. Several important study limitations were not included in the story, such as the fact that the treatment did not provide significant improvement for some types of tremors, and the treatment is not appropriate for people who are unwilling or unable to undergo an MRI. We’re also not told that the sham group was only followed for 3 months, while the experimental group was followed for a year. This is not usually recommended in clinical trials and both groups should be followed for the same length of time. The story cites a figure from the International Essential Tremor Foundation, an advocacy group, that an estimated 10 million people in the United States suffer from the condition. However, a 2014 analysis of existing research put the number of cases at around 7 million as of 2012, or about 2.2% of the U.S. population. While this may not qualify as disease mongering, the story could have pointed out that the exact number of cases isn’t clear. Also, the story should have noted that not all people with essential tremor have symptoms severe enough to require treatment. The story only fulfills part of our criteria. It does use one independent source, a physician who was not involved in the study. It also accurately reports the trial’s funding sources: InSightec, which developed the device; along with Focused Ultrasound Foundation, which is funded by device makers and philanthropic organizations; and the Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation, an Israel-U.S. government partnership that receives corporate support. However, the story falls short because it does not report the fact that nine of the study authors reported conflicts of interest, with most receiving financial compensation of some sort from device makers in the field. Lead researcher G. Rees Cosgrove, M.D. who is quoted in the story, reported receiving consulting fees from InSightec. The story states, “Doctors usually treat essential tremor with medication, but the drugs don’t work well for all patients.” That’s true, and so we’ll give this a Satisfactory rating for at least mentioning alternatives. But it should be noted that other procedural treatment options were not compared or even mentioned in the story and received only a brief mention in one of the videos. The current standard for tremor patients who don’t respond to medication is deep-brain stimulation, in which a probe connected to a pacemaker is implanted in the thalamus to suppress the tremors. Gamma Knife thalamotomy, which delivers precise doses of radiation to the thalamus, is also considered to be a safe and effective therapy for patients who don’t respond to medication. Also, some patients have mild symptoms that can be treated with relaxation techniques and the avoidance of triggers such as caffeine. The story states that the device was approved by the FDA in July. The story could have done readers a service by giving a sense of how many medical centers around the country are geared up to perform the procedure, or will be soon. This is indeed a new treatment option for essential tremor, though the story may leave readers with the false impression that the concept of killing off neurons in the thalamus is new. Rather, it’s the use of focused ultrasound to destroy brain tissue, rather than a probe inserted in the brain, that constitutes an advance. The story does not appear to rely solely on the news release, which we also reviewed. Claim: New treatment offers some hope for an unshakable tremor
answer:
This story describes a recently FDA-approved device to treat essential tremor in patients who have not responded to medication. The ExAblate Neuro, made by Dallas-based InSightec, uses magnetic resonance images taken during the procedure to deliver focused ultrasound that destroys tissue in the thalamus, the part of the brain where tremors are believed to originate. Results of a randomized clinical trial on the device’s safety and efficacy were published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine. The story and accompanying video (seen at right) vividly illustrate rapid symptom improvements, highlighting a 72-year-old woman who says the procedure changed her life by allowing her to “eat like a normal person” and easily perform basic tasks such as signing her name and folding a scarf. This powerful patient anecdote throws the balance off: Imagine how different the story would seem if the video instead showed a patient who had improved, but also was affected by one of the serious adverse effects caused by the treatment. Also, the story needed specific numbers on the measured benefits and harms, along with a discussion of costs and alternative treatment options. Note: We also reviewed the news release that was issued to journalists about this study. While not life threatening, essential tremor can be debilitating, especially affecting people in their advanced years. The ExAblate Neuro, which the FDA calls the first focused ultrasound device to treat essential tremor in patients who have not responded to medication, offers a somewhat less invasive treatment option than traditional surgical approaches. It’s certainly newsworthy. But all of the facts, including long-term efficacy data, are not in. Stories that feature glowing patient anecdotes and positive physician commentary need to be balanced with plenty of data that can help patients and their families decide whether this treatment might be worth seeking out.


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Paragraph: A popular (but completely citation-free) science meme suggests that a pregnant mother’s fetus can send its own stem cells to its mother to repair damaged organs. Although any memes of this nature run the gamut from “nodding acquaintance with truth” to “has never met truth and never will,” this particular one is mostly accurate. While the wording of the meme is problematic for two reasons (first, the meme’s text generally says ‘baby’, which is incorrect as that term implies a birth; second the wording implies a conscious decision on the part of the fetus to send its tissues as a heroic gesture), the science behind the claim is actually fairly solid. The transfer and incorporation of fetal stem cells into a mother’s organs is referred to as fetomaternal microchimerism. A 2016 paper in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology defines the phenomenon thusly: Fetal cell microchimerism is defined as the persistence of fetal cells in the mother for decades after pregnancy without any apparent rejection. Fetal microchimeric cells (fmcs) engraft the maternal bone marrow and are able to migrate through the circulation and to reach tissues. Stem cells are essentially blank slates that have ability to turn into a variety of different tissues and, as such, play a big role in the development of a fetus. The idea with fetomaternal chimerism is that those cells can be transported out of the fetal system and become fully integrated into the mother’s system despite the cells’ distinctly different genetics. Scientists have been aware of fetomaternal microchimerism’s existence (in broad terms) for decades. A 1996 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, found that in humans, genetically distinct cells from a male fetus persisted in the mother’s body as long as 27 years after birth. Later research has demonstrated that these fetal cells can be found in multiple organs in both human and laboratory mice mothers: Fetomaternal transfer probably occurs in all pregnancies and in humans the fetal cells can persist for decades. Microchimeric fetal cells are found in various maternal tissues and organs including blood, bone marrow, skin and liver. A 2015 study published in the journal Circulation Research addressed the issue of fetal stem cells actually healing maternal organs. In this study, researchers mated female mice with transgenic male mice that were tagged with a fluorescent protein that allowed the researchers to trace the flow of the fetus’s stem cells from the mother’s placenta into its heart while they induced cardiac injury to the mother. They found that fetal stem cells directly targeted the damaged cardiac cells and fully integrated themselves into the mother’s heart. This research, the authors state: Points to the presence of precise signals sensed by cells of fetal origin that enable them to target diseased myocardium specifically and to differentiate into diverse cardiac lineages. Most notable is their differentiation into functional cardiomyocytes that are able to beat in syncytium with neighboring cardiomyocytes, thus potentially uncovering an evolutionary mechanism whereby the fetus assists in protecting the mother’s heart during and after pregnancy. Claim: During pregnancy, if the mother suffers organ damage, the baby in the womb sends stem cells to repair the damaged organ.
answer:

While this study was performed on mice, there is a wide body of research that suggests similar phenomena could occur in humans. There is still much research to be done, however, on the overall mechanisms behind this process and the totality of effects it may have on both fetus and mother.