instruction:
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.
question:
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.
answer:
Flu nasal spray provides similar protection against influenza as flu shot: Study


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An influenza virus vaccine vial sits on the counter of medical center in Great Neck, New York, October 22, 2004. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton SS  But they said school closings would create significant  hardships for working parents, who might be forced to create  informal daycare arrangements that would undo efforts to  contain the spread of flu. “We find school closings would be less effective than some  studies have suggested,” said Dr. Simon Cauchemez of Imperial  College London, whose study appears in the journal Nature. “The main effect would be to slow and flatten the outbreak  — so the numbers becoming ill in the worst week of the  outbreak might be reduced by up to 40 percent, reducing peak  demand on health-care systems,” Cauchemez said in an e-mail. Health experts almost universally agree that a global  epidemic — a pandemic — of influenza is overdue. The most  likely cause now is H5N1 avian influenza, which could evolve  into a form that passes easily from person to person. Government estimates suggest vaccines and drugs will not be  enough to slow or prevent a flu pandemic. The U.S. pandemic  plan recommends closing schools and implementing strategies to  limit social contact as a way to limit transmission. If done quickly, such widespread measures combined with  drugs and vaccines might reduce transmission in a large city by  as much as 80 percent, by one estimate. But such estimates are often based on widely varying  assumptions, Cauchemez said. He and colleagues instead used  public health data from France that compared flu transmission  when school was in session and during school holidays. They found school holidays prevent 16 to 18 percent of  seasonal influenza cases. When extrapolated to a pandemic, they  said prolonged school closure might reduce the cumulative  number of cases by 13 to 17 percent, and peak attack rates by  39 to 45 percent. But that impact would be reduced if it proved too difficult  to keep children apart. “If we want the policy to have an  impact, children must be kept relatively isolated and not cared  for in groups,” Cauchemez said. U.S. cities that quickly closed schools and discouraged  public gatherings during the great flu pandemic of 1918 —  which killed tens of millions of people globally — had as many  as 50 percent fewer deaths than cities that took less decisive  measures, according to a recent study. Cauchemez said an especially deadly pandemic might provide  strong incentives for people to keep their children at home. “It might nonetheless be difficult for a lot of working parents  to be absent from their work for months to look after their  kids,” he said. Cauchemez said a prolonged outbreak might force working  parents to put their children into informal daycare settings, a  risk governments need to consider when they formulate pandemic  flu plans. “We can’t predict how people will behave, but we need to be  aware that if this happens, school closings might have no  effect at all on flu transmission,” he said. H5N1 bird flu only rarely infects people now. It has killed  239 out of 379 infected, according to the World Health  Organization, but could easily mutate into a form that one  person could pass to another, and governments around the world  are preparing for the possibility.
answer:
School closings may be no holiday for flu pandemic.


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The Alaska Section of Epidemiology said in an update this week that it has requested help with response efforts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, KTVA-TV reported Wednesday. The number of cases is the highest reported in the state since at least the 1970s, said Susan Jones, a program manager with the state Division of Public Health. “It actually can be before that but that’s as far back as we have saved data,” Jones said. Out of the 75 cases, 64 occurred in Anchorage and 66 were men, according to the state. Of the nine women, two were pregnant at the time of diagnosis. The ages of people infected ranged from 18 to 76, with 20 cases recorded in the 25 to 29 age group. Health officials also found a probable case of congenital syphilis in an infant born in March whose mother had been diagnosed last year. Symptoms of the sexually transmitted infection in its early stages include genital sores, skin rash, swollen lymph nodes, and fever, according to the CDC. The disease in the tertiary stage can damage internal organs and result in death. According to the CDC, most people with untreated syphilis do not develop symptoms of the last stage, but tertiary syphilis could develop decades after infection. “It’s easy to acquire syphilis by having sex with somebody with infection, it’s easy to have the disease and not be aware of it, and it’s also easy to treat if we catch it early,” Jones said. Syphilis can be treated with an antibiotic injection. ___ Information from: KTVA-TV, http://www.ktva.com
answer:

Alaska hit with largest syphilis outbreak in 40 years.