Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.

This release doesn’t discuss costs in its comparison of influenza shots versus nasal sprays, although both modes of immunization have been around for a long while and the costs for both are easily known. While flu immunizations are often free through public health clinics and such, some people receive their immunizations from their family physicians and carry a specific cost. Knowing the difference in costs between the two types is useful information both for people and public health officials. The release reports similar rates of vaccine uptake for intranasal vaccine and standard flu shots. But it does not quantify benefits for the main outcome of the study, that is, rates of influenza in communities vaccinated with nasal vs injected vaccine over the course of the study. These rates were statistically no different: 5.2% for the standard vs 5.3% for the nasal vaccine. This release makes no mention of possible harms that my follow the use of either the influenza vaccine injections or nasal spray, even though there are well-known restrictions on whom should and should not receive the nasal spray, and potential negative reactions to the injections among some people. The release points out that the study was the “first blinded randomized controlled trial” done in children within largely closed communities and it found similar efficacy in using the two modes of immunization. However, we do wish the release had addressed limitations, as well as some of the complexity of making these results generalizable to a larger population, as we saw with NPR’s take on the news. While media attention is routinely heightened leading up to and during flu season, this release does not appear to reach the level of disease mongering. The release does identify the chief funder of the study, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, although it offers no information on possible conflicts of interest among any of the researchers. The abstract of the study does state that two of the researchers do have links to pharmaceutical firms, but not in relation this study. Since the study looked a two forms of influenza vaccine administration, it obviously addresses the question of comparing alternatives. Both forms of immunization — shots and nasal spray — have been around for some time, their availability is widely known, earning the release a Satisfactory in this category. The release makes clear that the novelty of this study is its ability to examine both indirect effects of vaccination on the community as well as direct effects for persons receiving the vaccine. The release does not use any unjustifiable language.
Flu nasal spray provides similar protection against influenza as flu shot: Study

Montreal Canadiens Max Pacioretty lies on the ice after being hit into a glass stanchion by Boston Bruins Zdeno Chara during the second period of NHL hockey play in Montreal, March 8, 2011. REUTERS/Shaun Best With the National Hockey League playoffs under way after a season where jarring head shots grabbed headlines, researchers said the number of concussions was leveling off. But the ice time a player loses more than doubles with each subsequent concussion, so there were more absences. “Either concussions are becoming more severe or physicians are becoming more conservative with their management decisions,” said Brian Benson, a physician at the University of Calgary’s faculty of kinesiology and the lead author of the report. “We’re uncertain of the exact reason but it’s certainly an observation of the study.”   The report now goes to the NHL’s concussion working group, which will examine ways to prevent concussions, or work out how to respond when they do happen. “The goal in hockey in general is to reduce the risk of this potentially devastating injury without necessarily changing the nature of the game that millions love and enjoy watching,” Benson said. “You don’t want to make haphazard decisions but you certainly want to base it on evidence and try to reduce this foreseeable, predictable risk.”   The league has faced many calls for tougher penalties for potentially career-ending hits to the head, including some this season after a March incident in which Max Pacioretty of the Montreal Canadiens was injured after a body check that sent his head into a stanchion. He suffered a concussion and fractured vertebra. Sidney Crosby, Canada’s gold-medal goal-scorer in the 2010 Winter Olympics, has been off the ice since suffering a concussion in January. The researchers worked with the NHL and NHL Players’ Association to analyze 559 doctors’ reports of concussions suffered by players between 1997 and 2004. Their findings are published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The researchers estimated that there were 1.8 concussions per 1,000 player hours, a number that leveled off through the study period. The most-often reported symptom was headache at 71 percent. But players also reported dizziness, nausea, neck pain, fatigue, blurred vision or amnesia. Some 18 percent lost consciousness. For each recurrent concussion, the typical number of days lost increased by 2.25 times. Benson has worked with the NHL and its players union since 1997 studying the medical science behind brain injury.
Concussions keep hockey players off ice for longer.

After more than three hours of debate, lawmakers in parliament’s upper house voted on Tuesday for a change in the law to allow the treatments, echoing a positive vote in the lower house earlier this month. The treatment, called mitochondrial transfer, is known as “three-parent” in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor. Although the techniques are still at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, experts say that now legal hurdles have been overcome, Britain’s first 3-parent baby could be born as early as 2016. Mitochondrial transfer involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and around 1 in 6,000 babies around the world are born with serious mitochondrial disorders. Responding to the vote, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust medical charity commended lawmakers for a “considered and compassionate decision”. “Families who know what it is like to care for a child with a devastating disease are the people best placed to decide whether mitochondrial donation is the right option,” he said. Mark Downs, chief executive of the Society of Biology, hailed “a great day for UK science” and said the landmark decision “will ensure mothers who carry faulty mitochondria can have healthy children free from the devastating conditions.”  But Marcy Darnovsky, director of the campaign group The Center for Genetics and Society, called the move a “historic mistake” which turns children into biological experiments and will “forever alter the human germline”. “The techniques ... are relatively crude and will not in and of themselves create so-called designer babies,” she said. “However, they will result in children with DNA from three different people in every cell of their bodies, which will impact a large range of traits in unknowable ways and introduce genetic changes that will be passed down to future generations.”

Britain becomes first nation to legalize three-parent babies.