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: Three of the other five patients are in either a serious or a critical condition in hospital, while the remaining two have mild symptoms, the United Nations health agency said in a disease outbreak update. H7N9 bird flu emerged last year in China and has infected around 150 people so far there and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, killing at least 46 of them. The latest death was a 38-year-old man from China’s Fujian Province who became ill with H7N9 on January 3, was admitted to hospital on January 8 but died 2 days later. He had underlying illnesses, including tuberculosis and pneumoconiosis. China’s state news agency Xinhua reported another death from H7N9 in the southwestern Guizhou province on Monday, but this has yet to be confirmed by the WHO. A 65-year-old man infected with H7N9 also died in Hong Kong, the government said on Monday. The WHO reiterated there is no evidence as yet of any easy or sustained person-to-person transmission of the strain, and that the source of the human infections is still under investigation. Researchers in the United States said last month that while it is not impossible that H7N9 could become easily transmissible between people, it would need to undergo multiple mutations to do that. Scientists around the world are keeping a watchful eye, on alert for any sign the virus might develop that potential and start to spread rapidly. Claim: Death toll from new China bird flu rises: WHO.

Output: Six more people in China have been confirmed as infected with the new H7N9 strain of bird flu and one of them has died, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: Unions and professional groups for such employees say those jobs often are lower priority when budgets are tight, but their absence can have profound effects on student learning and teachers’ work. They contend support staff is vital to properly address everyday student issues such as physical and mental health problems or homelessness. In Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, the teachers who have been out on strike since last Thursday are seeking commitments for support staff hiring alongside other demands including higher pay and affordable housing citywide. The demands are part of the union’s “social justice” agenda. Bridget Nelson, a social sciences teacher at a magnet high school in Chicago, said her school is lucky to have a nurse most days but a social worker still is responsible for more than 2,000 students. “Adolescence is a challenging time, and we worry about depression and stress like a lot of educators,” Nelson said. “Some students have support at home, but others don’t. They should have support at school to help give them what they need.” The support-staff issue has come up elsewhere in spring protests by thousands of educators in North Carolina and South Carolina; in Minnesota, where a state survey recently found an increase in students’ mental and emotional health concerns; and in strikes in California, where teachers won promises for hundreds of additional nurses and more counselors in Los Angeles schools and more psychologists and special education instructors in Oakland. Shortages are causing problems in schools across the country, said Melissa Cropper, president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. While discussing labor unions on a visit this month to a government class in an urban Ohio high school, Cropper said she asked the students what they would want prioritized in negotiations. A girl who had attempted suicide answered first: a counselor. Another student wanted a nurse. “We’ve got kids who are dealing with thinking about committing suicide or coming to school hungry or watched a domestic abuse situation over the weekend,” Cropper said. “We can’t possibly begin to think that we’re going to teach them something that’s going to stick with them until we’ve dealt with these other issues.” Most teachers don’t have specific training to tackle those sorts of concerns, so they’re advocating for schools to add more colleagues who do, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said. The American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor for every 250 students but has found the average ratio to be nearly double that. The National School Nurses Association’s most recent estimates, from a study published early last year, indicated less than 40% of schools had a full-time nurse and about a quarter didn’t employ one at all. In those cases, teachers may have to assess and address issues such as gym class injuries, and preventive care can dwindle, said Donna Mazyck, the executive director of the nurses association. At John Tartan Elementary School in North Las Vegas, an assistant trained in basic first aid often handles minor injuries and distributes basic medications because the nurse splits duty at multiple schools, said Marie Neisess, a veteran teacher and reading specialist there. The school of 400-plus students also has a counselor, a social worker and a psychologist, but they struggle to keep up with the needs of the student body, which includes children facing challenges such as severe behavioral problems, foster care or a parent’s incarceration, she said. “We’re all kind of putting Band-Aids on the very big problem that we have here,” Neisess said. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot had campaigned with an education plan that included staffing schools with full-time nurses, social workers and librarians, and enabling students to get mental health services. The district has committed to hiring more nurses, social workers and support staff but objected to making that part of the teachers’ contract. The union also has expressed concern about the various roles counselors are expected to fill, including as substitute teachers and lunchroom help, and asked for contract language that spells out that people will only be asked to do the jobs for which they are hired. Pushing for something enforceable in writing makes sense to Matt Mandel, a middle-school English teacher in the Philadelphia School District, who said the local union there has fought to have a nurse and counselor at each school. “In these urban districts like Philadelphia and Chicago, our kids need more,” Mandel said, “and we always find ways to justify giving them less.” ___ Associated Press reporter Kathleen Foody in Chicago contributed to this report. Claim: Chicago teachers’ strike highlights support staff shortages.

Output: Demands by striking Chicago teachers for more nurses, librarians and social workers are highlighting concerns that resonate in high-poverty school districts nationwide, where shortages of support staff leave educators feeling stretched.


Input: Consider Input: Paragraph: Excellent job here. The costs of treatment are a core aspect of the story. The opening paragraph describes how the blood test in question could help determine whether patients should receive “costly new-generation drugs or rely on much cheaper traditional chemotherapy,” and the specific costs of different therapies are detailed early in the article. Much less information is given about the cost of the blood test itself, though the writer does make it clear that the price is not yet determined. It would have been useful to note the costs of any comparable tests already in clinical use, and to let the reader know how insurance companies deal with new diagnostic tests. The story says “in a study published last month, patients who tested positive for the anomaly—a variant of the androgen receptor called AR-V7—lived substantially longer if they were treated with chemotherapy than those given the two new drugs.” However, the story doesn’t provide specifics on what that means in number terms. The story does not explain harms. However, diagnostic tests are only as good as their sensitivity and reliability, so it would have been good for readers to get an impression of whether the test catches every case of AR-V7, and the likelihood of false positives or false negatives. Even if that information is not yet available, it is important for readers to be made aware of the issue that a false result could lead to the wrong therapy being given. The story lets us known that this was a relatively small study of 161 patients, and it is described as “retrospective.” We’re also told that the blood test needs validation in large randomized controlled trials. While it may be challenging for readers not well-versed in study design to discern what the limitations of a retrospective study is, and what further information a randomized trial would deliver, these details are sufficient enough to rate Satisfactory. We also appreciated these words of caution: “In the study, a positive test for AR-V7 didn’t assure patients would respond to the chemotherapy, nor did a negative test promise a response to the Xtandi or Zytiga.” Advanced stage prostate cancer is a common, life-threatening disease. The article gives an estimate, albeit from the companies behind the test, that 50,000 U.S. men with advanced prostate cancer would be candidates for the test. No independent expert source is quoted throughout the story. This is problematic not least because representatives of both Epic Sciences and Genomic Health are quoted on the clinical utility of the test, and their claims need to be validated or refuted by experts with no skin in the game. It would also be important to get an independent take on the study itself, the strength of the evidence and whether there were any limitations that should be highlighted. Additionally, next to no information is given about conflicts of interest. While the lead author’s affiliation is given as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the majority of co-authors of the study are employees of Epic Sciences. This surely warrants a mention so readers are not given the false impression that the company had no role in the study. Moreover, the lead author Howard Scher has received research funding, personal fees and non-financial support from all the companies behind the prostate cancer drugs in question. Despite the fact that the blood test would theoretically identify patients who would be better off not receiving the drugs, Scher has highly relevant conflicts of interest, thus increasing the need for independent expert sources. The article does not explicitly describe whether there are other methods of detecting AR-V7, though it is implicit that AR-V7 has not been used clinically as a biomarker before, and two other companies developing a similar test are mentioned. The story is based around whether using AR-V7 as a biomarker could lead to better outcomes than current clinical standards, so the comparison to the “status-quo” alternative is thoroughly explored. It is made clear that the blood test is not currently available, and the article gives a prospective date for when the test will be launched. Since AR-V7 is not currently used as a biomarker for treatment of advanced prostate cancer, it is clear enough to the reader that this is a new approach. An important point that is only mentioned in passing is that the test is a “liquid biopsy.” Liquid biopsies have often been hyped as a revolutionary new approach to diagnosing cancer without invasive procedures. However, due to questions over sensitivity and reliability, they have been controversial and are yet to become commonplace in clinical practice, so readers might have benefited from a little more context on this point. The writer has clearly interviewed his sources and included substantially more information than available from news releases by either Epic Sciences or Genomic Health. Claim: Test Aids Prostate Cancer Treatment


Output: This story describes the upcoming commercialization by Genomic Health and Epic Sciences of a diagnostic blood test which could help determine whether men with advanced prostate cancer should receive new-generation drugs or chemotherapy. The test detects whether the genetic variant AR-V7 is present in tumor cells circulating in the blood stream, and a study in JAMA Oncology found that drugs which target androgen receptors are not as effective as chemotherapy for tumors with the AR-V7 variant. The article does a good job of explaining how this new approach could not only lead to better outcomes for patients by enabling clinicians to tailor treatments to individuals, but could also save money being spent on an expensive class of drugs that would not work for some patients. The story is careful not to overstate how useful the test would be in practice, since there have not yet been randomized clinical trials to quantify the impact on patient survival. However, readers are left somewhat in the dark about how strong the evidence is in favor of the test, and the companies’ claims that there is enough evidence for the test to move into the clinic based on a fairly small retrospective study should have been interrogated. Moreover, readers are not made aware that the lead author has significant ties to the makers of the prostate cancer drugs in question, and the majority of the co-authors are employees of Epic Sciences. A nod to conflicts of interest and the inclusion of independent experts would have provided crucial balance to a story dominated by commercial concerns. Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. While new drugs have significantly extended survival times for men in the late stages of the disease, for some men traditional chemotherapy is a better option, so a diagnostic test that would enable doctors to choose which therapy is best could have a significant impact on patient survival. The need for independent sources matters here because there has been a lot of hype around the potential for non-invasive “liquid biopsy” blood tests to tailor treatments to individual patients, and lots of companies are pushing to develop tests. It’s important for readers to know when to trust in the promise of new tests, and when not to believe the hype.