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.

Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The overall number of religious exemptions in the state climbed by 25%, from the 2017-18 school year to the 2018-19 school year, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. The agency said the increase from 2% of students to 2.5% represents the largest single year upturn in religious exemptions for vaccinations since it began tracking statewide data 10 years ago. While the immunization rate for kindergarten students remains high in Connecticut, the new information shows it has declined from 96.5% to 95.9%. “It does raise concern,” said Public Health Commissioner Renee D. Coleman-Mitchell, adding how the new numbers warrant releasing more data, including county-by-county and school-by-school. The commissioner originally planned not to release the school-by-school data, but Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont on Wednesday overruled that decision, arguing the public should have the information. A Bristol couple on Thursday asked a court to stop the release of the school-by-school vaccination rates, arguing they’ll suffer “irreparable harm” if the information is released. Their unvaccinated son attends a private school where 18% of the students claimed a religious exemption from vaccinations, according to school-by-school data DPH released in May. The couple has another lawsuit pending. “We believe that out of deference and respect for the authority of the court, no new data should be released during the pendency of this litigation,” the couple said in a written statement. “To do otherwise is to move into the dangerous waters of undermining the separation of powers that is so important to our system of government.” Lamont’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation. Coleman-Mitchell said the resurgence of measles in the U.S. is of great concern and the decline in Connecticut’s vaccination rates, coupled with the increase in religious exemptions, validates the need to release both county-by-county and school-by-school data by Oct. 21. There have been three cases so far in Connecticut this year. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the Festas live in Bristol, not Woodstock. Claim: Data show 25% increase in religious exemptions for vaccines.

Output: New data released Thursday show more Connecticut students are being exempted from vaccinations for measles, mumps and rubella for religious reasons.


Input: Consider Input: 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

Output: 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.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: The English language, like most living languages, is constantly evolving. As such, dictionary editors frequently update their works in order to keep up with the lexicon as it is being used by modern speakers. One such change occurred in 2007, when the Oxford University Press removed dozens of words from their Oxford Junior Dictionary in order to make room for more modern terms. Example: [Collected via Facebook, September 2015]  While it was noted at the time that dozens of nature words had been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary during its most recent revision, the media primarily mainly focused on the fact that terms related to religion and British history such as “bishop” and “monarchy” had been omitted in order to make room for newer technological words such as “blog” and “broadband”: Oxford University Press has removed words like “aisle”, “bishop”, “chapel”, “empire” and “monarch” from its Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog”, “broadband” and “celebrity”. Dozens of words related to the countryside have also been culled. The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a modern, multicultural, multifaith society. But academics and head teachers said that the changes to the 10,000 word Junior Dictionary could mean that children lose touch with Britain’s heritage. “We have a certain Christian narrative which has given meaning to us over the last 2,000 years. To say it is all relative and replaceable is questionable,” said Professor Alan Smithers, the director of the centre for education and employment at Buckingham University. “The word selections are a very interesting reflection of the way childhood is going, moving away from our spiritual background and the natural world and towards the world that information technology creates for us.” Vineeta Gupta, the head of children’s dictionaries at Oxford University Press, responded to the controversy at the time by explaining how the Oxford Junior Dictionary had limited space, and therefore in order to add new words they had to remove some older words: “We are limited by how big the dictionary can be — little hands must be able to handle it — but we produce 17 children’s dictionaries with different selections and numbers of words. “When you look back at older versions of dictionaries, there were lots of examples of flowers for instance. That was because many children lived in semi-rural environments and saw the seasons. Nowadays, the environment has changed. We are also much more multicultural. People don’t go to Church as often as before. Our understanding of religion is within multiculturalism, which is why some words such as “Pentecost” or “Whitsun” would have been in 20 years ago but not now.” These changes, the last of which occurred in 2008, quietly remained in place for several years. But in January 2015, a group of writers led by Margaret Atwood penned a letter to Oxford University Press urging them to reinstate some of the words that had been removed: We the undersigned are profoundly alarmed to learn that the Oxford Junior Dictionary has systematically been stripped of many words associated with nature and the countryside. We write to plead that the next edition sees the reinstatement of words cut since 2007. We base this plea on two considerations. Firstly, the belief that nature and culture have been linked from the beginnings of our history. For the first time ever, that link is in danger of becoming unravelled, to the detriment of society, culture, and the natural environment. Secondly, childhood is undergoing profound change; some of this is negative; and the rapid decline in children’s connections to nature is a major problem. This is not just a romantic desire to reflect the rosy memories of our own childhoods onto today’s youngsters. There is a shocking, proven connection between the decline in natural play and the decline in children’s wellbeing. Compared with a generation ago, when 40% of children regularly played in natural areas, now only 10% do so, while another 40% never play anywhere outdoors. Ever. Obesity, anti-social behaviour, friendlessness and fear are the known consequences. The physical fitness of children is declining by 9% per decade, according to Public Health England. And just as in 2008, Oxford University Press (OUP) released a statement explaining how they decide which words to include and which words to remove from their dictionaries: “Our children’s dictionaries provide a vital tool for helping children to improve their literacy skills and develop a passion for language. “In the last 40 yours our range of children’s dictionaries has incread from two to 17, and as such the total number of words — including those about nature — has significantly increased across the range. The last change to the content of the Oxford Junior Dictionary was in 2008 and it still includes a large number of words focusing on the natural world. Our dictionaries are developed through a rigorous research programme, analyzing how children are currently using language. They also reflect the language thatt children are encourage to use in the classroom, as required by the national curriculum. This ensures they remain relevant and beneficial for children’s education.” OUP offered additional explanation on their web site: Compiling a small dictionary for children is never easy — so many words competing for space in a book with a finite number of pages. Animals and plants, clothing, fruits and vegetables, musical instruments, body parts, animal noises … the list is endless. They can’t all go in. We know that, but it’s still painful to have to exclude some familiar favourites. At the extremes, it’s fairly easy — apple is in and durian fruit is out, piano is in and didgeridoo is out, jumper is in and jeggings is out. It’s always the grey area in between that is difficult: kiwi fruit? French horn? stocking? Claim: Dozens of nature words were removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary in order to make room for modern technology-related words.


Output: To compound the difficulties, the language keeps growing, with new words coming knocking on the door and demanding entry — internet, online, blog, etc. Closing the door on new words and crying, ‘No room!’ is not an option, so the axe has to fall on some of the old ones. Some words are clever and manage to evolve to maintain their slot. Wireless is one which, as a device for listening to BBC radio, was on the verge of being kicked out, until it cunningly managed to reinvent itself as an adjective, so it keeps its place between wire and wise.