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 story does not talk about costs, which was disappointing. The costs of intensive medical therapy can easily be identified. Using an online pharmacy we calculated the costs to be about $1,500 to $2,000 annually for medical therapy, using generic drugs. Using the Health Care Blue Book, we found the average cost of coronary artery bypass sugery and hospitalization to be about $62,000. We think that this is important information for readers that should have been included. The quantification here was presented in such a way to make it clear to readers that there was no significant benefit found to surgical intervention, which is a fair conclusion to draw from the study. The story says, “In the Stich study, 41% of patients assigned to treatment with drugs alone died during the follow-up period, which averaged five years. That compared with a mortality rate of 36% among patients who received bypass surgery plus medication. Although the relative reduction in risk of death was 14%, the result didn’t meet tests for statistical significance, meaning it could have resulted from chance alone.” That’s a great way to describe the lack of statistical significance. It would have been even more powerful to show readers the actual number of patients who died in each group. The story provides great information about the study itself and about the overall state of the evidence supporting heart surgery. “How best to treat these patients has been fraught with uncertainty,” is one of the more notable phrases from the story. It also says, “Many patients aren’t evaluated for heart surgery to treat diseased arteries because they don’t suffer classic chest pain or because doctors worry that hearts weakened by heart failure won’t benefit from the procedure. Other doctors recommend immediate bypass surgery despite a lack of vigorous studies to support that strategy.” The story does not engage in disease-mongering and takes a very careful approach to describing the types of patients who would be affected by this study’s results. We also like the way they provided snapshots of patients who were in both arms of the study — surgery and non-surgery — at the end of the story, making it clear, as the study did, that both routes can be equally successful. The story brings in some strong independent voices who help make sense of this complicated study: James Fang, a cardiologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, Raymond Gibbons, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, and Clyde Yancy, chief of cardiology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Rarely do you see a story that spends as much time with independent experts as it does with the authors of the study. The story does a great job showing how the standard interventions for heart disease stacked up against each other in this study. We wish that some mention had been made of diet and exercise and that at least a sentence had been included about whether there might be differences in outcomes seen as a result of different medication patterns. The story doesn’t make it clear what exactly the patients were taking. The story makes it clear that the range of treatments studied by the authors are widely available. The story makes it clear that there is a great need for more evidence in this field and that this study will be surprising to many clinicians because of a long-held assumption that surgery is the superior option. tudies published in the early 1990s supported the view that bypass surgery provided a better long term outcome. The story does not rely on a news release. Claim: More Options Before Bypass Surgery, Study Finds
The piece gave readers some powerful information to help them sort through the range of factors that should be considered for any medical intervention. The only weakness our reviewers found with the story is the lack of comment about cost. Too often stories present medical options as false choices of best versus worst. They don’t take into consideration the very real differences between patients’ medical histories, diagnoses and expectations. This story should be applauded for giving readers a clear understanding of the complexities of shared decision-making between providers and patients. As noted by one of the experts quoted in the story, “You don’t have a good therapy and a bad therapy, you have a choice.” This is a message that the story gets across very well and is an important one for readers.

Paragraph: But COVID-19 is shaking her views. The woman who would identify herself only as Stephanie, citing a fear of reprisals from committed anti-vaxxers, says she is now 50:50 on taking a vaccine should one be discovered for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. “I’ve definitely thought about it,” she told Reuters by phone from the United States, also expressing frustration at what she considers the anti-vax community’s downplaying of the pandemic’s seriousness. “We’re all being affected by this virus, schools closing, young people in hospital, and they still say it’s a hoax.”  As the world’s scientists and pharmaceutical companies seek a cure for the coronavirus, other anti-vaxxers are gearing up for a fight against any potential new vaccine. “Refuse, demonstrate,” said a Briton on Facebook in response to a post asking people how they would react if a vaccine was made mandatory. But some virologists say the quest for a vaccine is so widely supported that resistance will be eroded. The latest national surveys by pollster ORB International for the Vaccine Confidence Project (VCP), which monitors attitudes to immunisation, appear to support this idea. In France, where a 2018 poll showed one in three people did not view vaccines as safe, just 18% would refuse a coronavirus vaccine now, according to the VCP poll of around 1,000 people on March 18, a day after France locked down. In Australia, the VCP’s figure was also 7%, while Britain, where about 2,000 people were polled, and Austria registered 5% opposition in polls there a week later. “If a vaccine were made available tomorrow, everyone would jump to get it,” said Laurent-Henri Vignaud, who co-authored a history of France’s anti-vax movement. That view was challenged by Mary Holland, vice-chair of American non-profit group Children’s Health Defense, which is critical of vaccination in the United States. “I don’t think this virus fundamentally changes people’s deeply held concerns about vaccines,” she told Reuters. Although the term “anti-vax” is sometimes associated with conspiracy theories, many people are simply concerned about side-effects or industry ethics. Globally, one person in five does not view vaccines as safe or is unsure, according to a 2018 survey by the Wellcome Trust health fund. reut.rs/2JTb27q  In China, where the COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus originated, surveys by VCP researchers show safety is an important cause of concern. Several scandals eroded trust, including in 2018 when a unit of China’s vaccine maker Changsheng Bio-technology Co Ltd was heavily fined for falsifying data for a rabies vaccine. The company said it was “deeply sorry” for the incident. Online discussions tracked by Reuters - including closed Facebook pages with more than 200,000 members, Twitter feeds such as the Children’s Health Defense and YouTube videos totalling over 700,000 views - showed considerable mistrust that a rushed vaccine would be improperly tested. VCP director Heidi Larson said that was also the main reason for concern around the vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009. A quickly produced swine flu vaccine in 1976 led to about one in 100,000 people developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a paralyzing immune-system disorder, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Some 115 coronavirus vaccine candidates are being developed by institutes and drugmakers, according to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, a global alliance financing and coordinating the development of vaccines. “I will not be injected with anything, especially a fast-tracked vaccine,” added American Vicki Barneck, 67, who believes a strong immune system is enough to combat the disease. Holland, of the Children’s Health Defense, said: “Some react fine to vaccines, others are paralysed or killed.”   However, a 2015 paper by CDC epidemiologists said “multiple studies and scientific reviews have found no association between vaccination and deaths except in rare cases.”  The VCP is running an 18-month study tracking conversation online about the coronavirus and conducting global polls to measure attitudes towards social distancing, isolation, hand-washing and anticipating a vaccine. From analysing more than 3 million posts a day between January and mid-March 2020, director Dr Heidi Larson said the vast majority were eager for a treatment, fast. “People are hungry for a vaccine,” she said. In Italy, which has been hit badly by COVID-19, the anti-vax movement has “virtually disappeared” in the discussion on the coronavirus, according to virologist Dr Roberto Burioni. For a coronavirus vaccine to be effective, wide uptake and annual vaccination is likely to be required, said George Kassianos, immunisation lead at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London. There is also the question of how to distribute fast enough to people lining up for the vaccine. “Essential workers will be the priority. Police officers, hospital workers, cleaners. Then at-risk groups,” said Douglas L. Hatch, a physician specialised in pandemic preparedness working on the COVID-19 response in San Francisco. “By the time you get to the anti-vaxxers, they’ll have trouble getting it even if they wanted to.”  (Corrects French poll data in eighth paragraph) Claim: Could the new coronavirus weaken 'anti-vaxxers'?.
An American mother-of-three is a long-time member of “anti-vaxxer” groups online: a small but vocal global community that believes vaccines are a dangerous con and refuse to immunize themselves or their children.

Paragraph: The practice, also known as microbirthing, involves wiping the swab over the baby’s mouth, eyes, face and skin to bring it into contact with bacteria from the birth canal. The hope is this may boost their gut bacteria, and reduce risk of conditions such as allergies or obesity, experts explained in a report in the BMJ British Medical Journal - yet scientific evidence to support it is severely lacking. “Demand for this process has increased among women attending hospitals in the UK – but this has outstripped professional awareness and guidance,” said Aubrey Cunnington, an honorary consultant in paediatric infectious diseases at Imperial College London, who co-wrote the BMJ report. “There is simply no evidence to suggest it has benefits - and it may carry potential risks.”  Some studies suggest that babies born by C-section have a different microbiome  - the collection of millions of bacteria living in the gut - to those born vaginally. Around one in four babies in Britain are born via caesarean section, according to the BMJ report, co-written by Cunningham and five other doctors. Research also shows that C-section babies have slightly increased risk of developing conditions such as obesity, allergies and autoimmune diseases later in life. Cunnington said a theory has developed that this may be because the bacteria the baby is exposed to in the birth canal during a vaginal birth colonise the baby’s gut, so exposing those who miss out on it might help protect them. “People have made a leap of logic that gut bacteria must be the link between caesarean section and risk of these diseases,” Cunningham said. “But we just don’t know this for sure - or whether we can even influence this by transferring bacteria on a swab from mum to baby.”  He added that while there is no evidence of benefits from “vaginal seeding”, the practice has potential risks such as transferring harmful bacteria to the baby. “Doctors, nurses, midwives and parents need to be aware they are doing something with a potential risk that currently doesn’t have any evidence of benefit,” Cunnington said. He added that evidence-based interventions, such as encouraging breast feeding and avoiding unnecessary antibiotics, could be “more important to a baby’s gut bacteria than worrying about transferring vaginal fluid on a swab”. Claim: Doctors warn of demand for 'vaginal seeding' despite thin evidence.

British doctors say more parents are requesting so-called “vaginal seeding”, when a swab from the mother’s vagina is wiped into a newborn’s mouth after caesarean-section birth, despite a lack of evidence for its medical benefits.