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.

Paragraph: The article states that acupuncture costs $45 to $100 per session. It does not say how this compares to other treatments and whether the cost of care is the same, more or less than alternatives. The story states the proportion of patients who successfully responded to each therapy, and clearly explains that “real” acupuncture was no better than sham needling. But it does not define success or otherwise quantify how much people improved clinically in either relative or absolute terms. For a treatment to be considered successful, a patient must have reported either a 33% improvement in pain or as little as a 12% improvement in function during an interview conducted over the telephone 6 months after enrollment. Nonethless we’ll grade this criterion as satisfactory. The story did not mention harms from any of the treatments patients received. Previous research suggests that acupuncture poses few risks when performed with sterile, disposable needles. The article describes the largest randomized controlled trial to date investigating the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating chronic low back pain, and reports its published results. It discusses the three treatment groups studied and potential reasons for the outcomes observed. There are no obvious elements of disease mongering. The story explains that the study participants were people with chronic low back pain. These results wouldn’t apply to other back pain conditions. The article cites one of the study’s coauthors and two physicians who appear to be users and/or proponents of complementary therapies. It would have been interesting to hear from a skeptical observer. The story lists the therapies received by patients assigned to the conventional medicine group. The literature suggests that these treatments generally provide very modest benefits. The article does not mention other therapies that may be effective for managing chronic pain and improving flexibility and strength. These include cognitive therapy alone or in combination with intensive exercise and strengthening. Acupuncture is estimated to be the third most popular complementary therapy for chronic low back pain. Though the article does not say much about its availability, readers are likely to be familiar with it. The story notes that this is the largest study yet of acupuncture for chronic back pain, suggesting that the treatment is not new. There is no obvious use of text from a press release. Claim: Acupuncture, real or fake, called best for lower back pain
This article reports on the largest randomized controlled trial to date investigating the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating chronic low back pain. It explains that both acupuncture and sham needling are more effective than conventional medical therapies, but that “fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing.”       In addition to describing the quality of the evidence, the story mentions several other treatment options, tells the reader the cost of acupuncture, and hints at its novelty. The story neglects to mention harms. (A recent systematic review reinforces the study’s finding that acupuncture poses few risks; see Spine 2005;30:944-63). And it also provides an incomplete picture of the treatment’s apparent benefits. Although it notes the proportion of patients who improved with each therapy, it does not define success or otherwise quantify how much people improved clinically–in either relative or absolute terms. For a treatment to be considered successful, for example, a patient could have reported as little as a 12% improvement in function during an interview conducted over the telephone 6 months after enrollment. This is important information if people are to weigh the apparent benefit of a therapy against its cost. The article cites one of the study’s coauthors and two physicians who appear to be users and/or proponents of complementary therapies. They attempt to explain why needling seems to work. To provide some balance, the study’s coauthor suggests that the apparent benefit could merely be the result of patients’ expectations of improvement from acupuncture, on the one hand, and of poor results from conventional medicine on the other. (Unfortunately, the researchers did not measure patients’ expectations.) It would have been interesting to hear from others. Some might point out that the new study shows that acupuncture and sham needling are only more effective than treatments that are not themselves very effective. Others might make the case that acupuncture provides no specific treatment effect and is unethical to use—because it could be construed as prescribing a placebo. People with chronic low back pain are desperate for anything that will help. When a large new study provides apparently strong evidence to buttress a therapy that previously had little high-quality evidence to support it, readers might also benefit from more context. A major systematic review that analyzed 35 randomized trials involving 2861 patients recently concluded that acupuncture appears to confer modest, short-term pain relief, but that the quality of the studies was not very good. The reviewers were careful not to overstate the benefits of acupuncture (Spine 2005;30:944-63). Overall, this was a good article that would have been helped by some more context.

Paragraph: The governor, who is also a pediatric neurologist, worked to comfort victims of Friday’s shooting and their families, while helping coordinate the massive government response. He discussed the shooting with President Donald Trump in a private phone call, stood shoulder to shoulder with other elected officials at a news conference and pressed for tighter gun control to national audiences. The subject of widespread mockery after the racist photo from his medical school yearbook surfaced, the Democratic governor appears determined to project that he’s up to the task. “Actions speak a lot louder than words. And I will have the leadership that’s needed,” Northam said in an interview with NPR after the shooting, while discussing potential plans to push for increased gun regulations. Police said 12 people were killed and several others injured when DeWayne Craddock, an engineer with the city’s utilities department, opened fire inside a municipal building Friday afternoon. Northam quickly left Richmond after the shooting and drove to Virginia Beach, speaking to local, state and other officials on the way down to coordinate responses and share information. After a news conference Friday evening, Northam took a call from Trump to discuss the shooting, with the president offering the federal government’s full support. Michael Berlucchi, a Virginia Beach City Council member, praised the governor and other officials for their work to address the shooting’s aftermath from the city’s emergency operations center. “Nobody carried their baggage into that room,” Berlucchi said Sunday. “The only thing I saw was public servants coming together to address the worst tragedy in the history of our city.” On Saturday, Northam attended a vigil at a church where he told those gathered that “God is in control.” He visited a hospital to meet with survivors and thank doctors and staff. In broadcast interviews with national media, Northam stressed the need for action to prevent similar deadly shootings. “We lost 12 lives yesterday. If you look at the commonwealth of Virginia, we lost over 900 lives over the past two years to gun violence, gun-related accidents,” Northam said on CNN. “So I will make decisions in the upcoming days but we need to look at our laws: are they safe, do they keep people protected in the Commonwealth of Virginia?” The governor has long been an advocate for stricter gun control. He made the issue a top priority of his 2017 gubernatorial campaign, drawing from his experience as a pediatrician and Army doctor who has treated children and soldiers wounded by firearms. But a package of bills Northam pushed this year, including legislation to limit gun magazine size and give local governments broader authority to ban guns in city buildings, went nowhere in a staunchly pro-gun Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly. Northam hinted Saturday in media interviews that he may be considering some kind of executive action related to gun control efforts that would bypass the legislature, but his office declined to say what specific actions he may take. Any dramatic moves by the governor would face stiff resistance from his political opponents. Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, said Northam doesn’t have any real power to impose new gun limits and any efforts to do so would be an attempt to deflect attention away his scandal. “He’d be very happy to try and change the focus away from the blackface stuff,” Van Cleave said. Northam has been battling for months to regain a sense of normalcy in office after a picture surfaced in February of man in blackface and another person wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit on his medical school yearbook page. Northam has denied being in the picture, and investigators recently said they can’t conclusively establish the identities of either person in the 35-year-old photo. The governor withstood widespread pressure for him to resign, which weakened after scandal soon enveloped his potential successors . Two women publicly accused Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, which he denies, and Attorney General Mark Herring announced he’d also worn blackface in college, just days after calling on Northam to resign. Both Fairfax and Herring have also resisted calls to resign. Fairfax was also in Virginia Beach after the shooting. He attended a church service Sunday where and pledged to take “serious action” to prevent future mass shootings. “I think that thoughts and prayers from politicians are not enough,” Fairfax said. “We’ve had too many thoughts and prayers over the years and we’ve not acted in the ways to prevent these mass shootings in the future.” ___ This story has been corrected to say pediatrician, not pedestrian. ___ Contributors include Associated Press writer Ben Finley. Claim: Shooting poses Virginia governor’s first test since scandal.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wasted little time getting to Virginia Beach after a gunman killed a dozen people in a city office building, the first major test of his leadership since a blackface scandal almost forced him from office four months ago.

Paragraph: The false claims, ranging from there is an Ebola “outbreak” in Texas to reports of a few confirmed cases, have been circulating since April. The erroneous claims are also spreading at a time when Border Patrol officials said last week there has been a “dramatic” rise in the number of migrants arriving at the Texas border from African countries, although they remain a small fraction of the total number of migrants apprehended. “We do not have any suspected or confirmed cases of Ebola right now in Texas,” said Lara Anton, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also unaware of any Ebola cases nationwide, spokesman Benjamin Haynes said. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is also adding his voice. On Monday, the Republican governor tweeted that the state was working on “health security” He also linked to an April news story that debunked Ebola rumors in the border city of Laredo. He later responded to a pair of tweets surrounding Ebola fears in Texas, referring them to his earlier post. “In addition to border security, my office is working on Health Security. The Dept. of State Health Services is monitoring immigration sites to protect against infectious disease. In the meantime, Congress must secure the border & prevent a health threat,” Abbott tweeted . Border Patrol officials say more than 500 migrants from Africa have come through the Del Rio sector since May 30, a small fraction of the more than 33,000 total apprehensions that the sector has reported so far this year. Officials say the families from Africa are not just from the Democratic Republic of Congo — where the Ebola outbreak has taken hold — but also the Republic of Congo and Angola. Last week, San Antonio officials put out a call for French-speaking volunteers to help with the expected arrival of Congolese immigrants. An Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has killed more than 1,300 people since August and is the second-deadliest in history. ___ This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform. ___ Find all AP Fact Checks here: https://www.apnews.com/tag/APFactCheck ___ Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck Claim: NOT REAL NEWS: Reports of Ebola cases in Texas unfounded.

Texas health officials said Tuesday there are no “suspected or confirmed cases” of Ebola in the state as social media posts have falsely suggested in the wake of immigrants arriving from Africa, including Congo, where an outbreak in has surpassed 2,000 cases.