instruction:
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.
question:
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
answer:
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.


question:
Paragraph: Researchers around the world are working to develop potential treatments or vaccines against the respiratory disease that has killed nearly 47,000 people and infected almost a million in just a few months. A team at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in the United States said they were able to move quickly in developing a potential COVID-19 vaccine after working on other coronaviruses that cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). “These two viruses, which are closely related to SARS-CoV-2 (the new coronavirus causing the COVID-19 pandemic), teach us that a particular protein, called a spike protein, is important for inducing immunity against the virus,” said Andrea Gambotto, an associate professor at Pittsburgh. “We knew exactly where to fight this new virus.”  When tested in mice, the prototype vaccine - which the researchers have called PittCoVacc - generated what they described as “a surge of antibodies” against the new coronavirus  within two weeks. The Pittsburgh researchers cautioned that because the animals have not been tracked for very long as yet, it is too early to say whether and for how long the immune response against COVID-19 lasts. But they said that in comparable tests in mice with their MERS experimental vaccine, a sufficient level of antibodies was produced to neutralize the virus for at least a year. So far, the antibody levels of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated animals seem to be following the same trend, they said in peer-reviewed study in the journal EBioMedicine. The team said they hope to start testing the vaccine candidate on people in clinical trials in the next few months. The potential vaccine uses a needle patch design, called a microneedle array, to increase its potential potency. This array is a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles made out of sugar and the spike protein, Gambotto explained. It is designed to deliver the spike protein pieces into the skin, where the immune reaction is strongest. Claim: Potential COVID-19 vaccine shows promise in mouse study.
answer:
Initial tests in mice of a potential COVID-19 vaccine delivered via a fingertip-sized patch have shown it can induce an immune response against the new coronavirus at levels that might prevent infection, U.S. scientists said on Thursday.


question:
Paragraph: UIC says in a news release that the money will allow it to continue to serve as the Chicago field office for a study that began in 2008 with the collection of health information from thousands of Hispanics around the United States. The release says participants who have been examined and filled out questionnaires have given researchers a better understanding of health risk factors as well as chronic diseases prevalent in Hispanic communities. Over the next seven years, researchers will re-examine participants in the hopes of identifying associations between lifestyle and cardiovascular disease and other health issues. Claim: U of Illinois at Chicago gets $12M for Hispanic health study.
answer:

The University of Illinois at Chicago is getting $12 million from the National Institute of Health to continue taking part in a national study of health issues facing Hispanics.