TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed has made no secret of wanting to close the homeless shelter at Peachtree and Pine streets. Reed, who has been active in downtown’s post-Recession resurgence, says he’ll push for the city to acquire the property through eminent domain and turn it into a police precinct and fire station. Health concerns are a major reason for closing the Peachtree-Pines shelter, Reed said during a lunchtime speech to Atlanta’s Commerce Club on Tuesday, Aug. 11. ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation,"" he told the crowd. Reed said top officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently asked to meet with him and ""laid out how tuberculosis cases, not in Georgia, but across America, are being traced back to Peachtree and Pine."" Could Peachtree-Pine, billed as the largest homeless shelter in the Southeast, be a leading site for tuberculosis in the nation? PolitiFact decided to do some checking. First a little background. The homeless are prime candidates for tuberculosis because they typically have greater exposure to cold weather, are in crowded conditions when they stay in shelters and lack proper nutrition and medical care. That means shelters, such as Peachtree-Pine, have to be vigilant to avoid becoming breeding grounds for TB, which is spread person to person through the air and caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. TB normally attacks the lungs, but also can strike the kidney, spine, brain or another body part. In most cases, tuberculosis is treatable and curable, although people can die if they don’t receive the proper treatment. Most people live with the bacteria, or latent TB infection, without feeling sick or showing symptoms. In 2014, 9,412 new tuberculosis cases were reported in the U.S., 334 in Georgia, according to the CDC. A new drug-resistant strain of TB was discovered in 2008 at the shelter at Peachtree and Pine, which is run by the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless. The strain was labeled G05625 TB by the CDC. The research To fact check Reed’s statement, we reached out to Fulton County government, the CDC, the mayor’s office and the Georgia Department of Public Health, as well as shelter management. Anita Beaty, Peachtree-Pine’s executive director, rejects Reed’s assessment of the shelter and says it is ""100 percent compliant"" with CDC protocol for spotting, treating and avoiding the spread of TB. She said Reed and the business community have conspired for years to force the shelter to close so they can take over its prime location, just south of Midtown and in sight of the Fox Theatre. Tuberculosis has been a worry at all Atlanta and Fulton County shelters, not just Peachtree-Pine, for years. But alarm bells apparently really started going off after an uptick in TB cases last year. ""At a time when the incidents of tuberculosis has been declining across the metropolitan Atlanta area and the rest of Georgia, it has actually increased in Fulton County,"" Brenda Fitzgerald, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Public Health, wrote Fulton County Commission Chair John Eaves in April. A month later, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were sitting down for the first of two meetings with Reed about the ongoing TB problem generally, and Peachtree-Pine specifically. ""Our inability to control (the Peachtree-Pine) outbreak has led to infections in multiple other states,"" Philip A. LoBue and Jonathan Mermin, doctors with the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, wrote Reed after they met in May. Based on interviews, data and documents that PolitiFact reviewed, here’s a summary of the major points. -- Since 2008, new cases of the drug-resistant strain of TB that originated at the Peachtree-Pine shelter have turned up in metro Atlanta and Georgia as well as eight other states -- Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and South Carolina. (Genotype evidence, similar to a fingerprint, exists for every strain of TB, and that’s how every new case of G05625 in the state and nation can be traced to the Peachtree-Pine shelter. Similarly, that’s how the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 201, was traced back to a 2-year-old from a small village in Guinea who died in 2013 and who became known around the world as Patient Zero.) -- At Fulton County’s four shelters, the number of TB cases rose by 230 percent, from 13 in 2013 to 43 in 2014. Twenty-two of the 43 cases, or slightly more than 50 percent, were at Peachtree-Pine. (The CDC defines a large outbreak as being 10 or more cases, CDC spokesman Brian Katzowitz said.) -- The number of drug-resistant G05625 tuberculosis cases, those linked to Peachtree-Pine, grew 10-fold from 2013 to 2014, from two to 23. -- Fulton County accounted for 82 percent of all cases of that strain of tuberculosis in Georgia and 69 percent of all cases of the strain in the United States. -- At least four clients of the Peachtree-Pine shelter, according to Fitzgerald, have died of tuberculosis since early 2014. In her letter to Eaves, Fitzgerald said, public health researchers identified the homeless shelter at the corner of Peachtree and Pine Streets ""as a major source of the current outbreak. ""If it [tuberculosis]  gains a foothold in the community, then the cost in healthcare and human suffering will be incalculable,"" she wrote. Jessica A. Corbitt-Dominguez, director of external affairs for Fulton County government, said Fulton health workers, in conjunction with officials from the Georgia Department of Public Health and CDC, responded to the outbreak with an aggressive campaign of education, testing and treatment. Anyone with active disease was relocated from the shelters while in treatment under the supervision of Fulton Health and Wellness. The county set up special teams that make daily visits to shelters to perform screenings and administer medicines, Corbitt-Dominguez said. In June 2015, the county health department also signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with four shelters, including Peachtree and Pine. This was considered a significant step since a lack of administrative controls and protocols is considered a likely contributor to the spread of TB. As of this month, the number of 2015 confirmed TB cases at Fulton homeless shelters is 13, Corbitt-Dominguez said. Beaty’s attorney last week provided reporters with a certificate showing the shelter is fully in compliance with the CDC’s TB protocol, and Beaty told PolitiFact ""it’s ludicrous to think we wouldn’t be on it."" Corbitt-Dominguez confirmed that the shelter has never been cited by the county, although Eaves has said there have been concerns about the shelter’s TB safeguards. In a letter to Fitzgerald, he wrote that the shelter’s administration ""routinely exhibits sub-optimal administration of the procedures required to control the spread of this disease."" Beaty said Reed’s statement makes clear he ""is just not getting good information."" ""We have been cleared by Fulton County, which is on site every day to monitor. And we’ve got 100 percent clearance from the CDC’s requirements,"" she said. ""We resent those easy headlines that have no basis in fact and that marginalize homeless people in our facilities."" Tom Andrews, president of the non-profit Mercy Care, which operates 14 clinics, some associated with shelters, said the strain of TB originating at Peachtree-Pine has to be a major concern. Since it is medicine-resistant, it requires a more expensive and longer treatment program, Andrews said. The CDC estimates that the costs of treating a person with TB increases with greater resistance. Direct costs in 2010 U.S. dollars average from $17,000 to treat drug-susceptible TB to $430,000 to treat the most drug-resistant form, according to the agency’s website. So is it a national leader in TB? We asked the mayor’s office for evidence to back up Reed’s statement that Peachtree-Pine ""is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Anne Torres, his spokeswoman, provided us copies of the letters from Fitzgerald and the doctors, as well as a highly technical report from the CDC. We reached out to the CDC. A spokesperson said agency officials would not comment on the mayor’s public statements. CDC officials also would not identify the states where they said the TB strain from Peachtree-Pine had spread. We were able to obtain that list from the Georgia Department of Public Health, as well as the number of cases of G05625 strain TB in each state from 2008 to 2014. The most were in Florida (14), followed by California (8) and North Carolina and Alabama (2 each). New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and South Carolina each reported one case in the five years -- for a total of 30 in the eight states in five years. But do 30 cases over a several-year period raise Peachtree-Pine to a leading site of TB in the nation? We posed that question to Philip Hopewell, a leading tuberculosis expert and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. ""Peachtree and Pine is clearly  a major site for transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and it may be one of the leading sites in the nation,"" Hopewell said. ""However, there are not data from every such facility in the country,"" he added. ""To say that the Atlanta facility is one of the leading sites in the country -- it probably is -- implies that there are data with which to compare the Atlanta facility. Thus, strictly speaking, what he said can't be backed with evidence. Even so, I wouldn't fault the mayor for saying this."" Our ruling Mayor Kasim Reed said ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Thirty cases of a medicine-resistant strain of TB in eight states have been traced back to the shelter at Peachtree and Pine. The shelter also had a large share of the cases in a recent TB outbreak in Fulton County and four TB deaths, according to state data. CDC officials clearly believe it’s a concern, but a leading tuberculosis expert says there’s a dearth of comparative data." Claim: Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation.

SOLUTION: "Mayor Kasim Reed said ""Peachtree and Pine is one of the leading sites for tuberculosis in the nation."" Thirty cases of a medicine-resistant strain of TB in eight states have been traced back to the shelter at Peachtree and Pine. The shelter also had a large share of the cases in a recent TB outbreak in Fulton County and four TB deaths, according to state data. CDC officials clearly believe it’s a concern, but a leading tuberculosis expert says there’s a dearth of comparative data."

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The 60-year-old sports fan, a surgeon who started and sold two pharmaceutical companies for a combined $8.6 billion, told Reuters in an interview this week that he wants to use Anschutz concert tours and sports events, and his NFL team’s players, to encourage L.A. school children to adopt healthier lifestyles. “The NFL can do so much for this city,” said Soon-Shiong in an interview at his west Los Angeles office. “Kids really rally around sports and entertainment and it could be a major catalyst to demonstrate what you can do in life by living better.”  Soon-Shiong grew up in South Africa, where he became a doctor in his early 20s and treated tuberculosis victims. After moving to the United States and becoming a surgeon at UCLA, he developed innovative methods to treat diabetes and cancer patients. The sale of his two companies for $8.6 billion made him the wealthiest person in Los Angeles, according to Forbes magazine, although he still is not a household name in the city. Under his plan, players would serve as mentors, encouraging students to eat better and exercise more. The most sophisticated methods used to deal with sports injuries could be shared with local doctors. “It’s important to motivate students in middle and high school. That’s when you can help reduce diabetes and obesity that cause illness,” he said. “Maybe we can turn that illness to wellness.”  If he’s successful in L.A., Soon-Shiong said he intends to make it a national program. Sources say the billionaire is assembling a group of other Los Angeles business and civic leaders to buy AEG. Soon-Shiong did not discuss details of his bid. Sources also said his buyer group includes private equity firm Guggenheim Partners, which this spring led a group that bought the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team for $2 billion. AEG, which is owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz, said on September 19 it had hired Blackstone Advisory Partners to sell the company. It is expected to fetch $6 billion to $8 billion, according to investment bankers with knowledge of its assets. Separately, Los Angeles for years has wanted to bring back a professional football team, and Soon-Shiong acknowledged that he has met with the NFL to lay out his plan to buy a team. AEG owns the Los Angeles Kings pro hockey franchise, the L.A. Galaxy soccer club and a 20 percent stake in the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. It owns or operates sports and entertainment arenas worldwide, including the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and promotes concerts and other live action events. Soon-Shiong’s family foundation has committed $1 billion to transform healthcare and intends to create a national health superhighway by which doctors can share biotech information and other data to improve diagnosis and care. His foundation gave $135 million to the Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica and $100 million to reopen Martin Luther King Hospital, which serves lower income patients in south Los Angeles. A basketball fan who played in pickup games until tearing his Achilles tendon three years ago, Soon-Shiong owns a 5 percent stake in the Lakers, and he said he has become friends with superstar Kobe Bryant and other players, whom he sees as role models for young fans. In March, he and his actress wife, Michelle Chan, endowed the Chan Soon-Shiong Center for Sports Science at Saint John’s, which will focus on sports medicine, physical therapy and stem cell research to help heal injuries. It works with sports medicine doctors, including the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopedic Clinic that treats the Kings, Lakers and L.A. Dodgers. Saint John’s announced the sports science center at a dinner honoring AEG president Tim Leiweke in March, six months before Soon-Shiong showed his interest in the conglomerate. Claim: LA billionaire covets sports teams to promote health.

SOLUTION: Bio-tech entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong, the richest man in Los Angeles, intends to make a bid for sports and real estate firm Anschutz Entertainment Group and wants to bring a National Football League team back to the second most populous U.S. city.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The company, before releasing fourth quarter earnings on Friday, released favorable data from four additional Phase III studies of its experimental treatment for the liver disease. AbbVie previously had said it expected approval of the treatment in early 2015. “The excellent hepatitis C safety and efficacy data published today is positive for the shares” of AbbVie, Jefferies analyst Jeffrey Holford said. But he noted that expenses for launching the medicines will now be incurred in 2014, which had not been expected. AbbVie’s treatment is a combination of five oral medications that has been shown to knock out the hepatitis C virus in as soon as eight or 12 weeks of treatment, without serious safety issues. AbbVie’s drugs have produced cure rates well above 90 percent in clinical trials, without the need to be taken with older standard drugs that cause harsh side effects and must be taken for longer periods. But the drugs, which are taken together, could face tough competition from a more convenient and highly effective once-daily pill against the hepatitis C virus being developed by Gilead Sciences Inc.  “Overall, the hepatitis C Phase III results are good” for AbbVie’s drugs, “but not as good as Gilead’s,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Alex Arfaei said Friday in a research note. But Arfaei said AbbVie’s drugs could capture peak annual sales of $2.8 billion, even if they only claim a 10 to 13 percent share of the hepatitis C market. AbbVie, spun off early last year from Abbott Laboratories Inc, said it earned $1.13 billion, or 70 cents per share, in the quarter. That compared with $1.54 billion, or 98 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding special items, the company earned 82 cents per share, matching the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Global revenue totaled $5.1 billion and was also in line with Wall Street expectations. AbbVie said it expects full-year earnings of $3.00 to $3.10 per share, excluding special items. That is below the average estimate of $3.16, according to a Thomson Reuters poll. Sales of AbbVie’s rheumatoid arthritis treatment Humira, the world’s biggest-selling drug, jumped 13 percent in the quarter to $3.04 billion - more than offsetting lower sales for most of the company’s other medicines. Sales of AndroGel, a gel that delivers the male hormone testosterone, fell 21 percent to $289 million in the quarter, while sales of HIV treatment Kaletra fell almost 9 percent to $228 million. Combined sales of TriCor and Trilipix, treatments for blood fats called triglycerides that are now facing cheaper generics, plunged 85 percent to $29 million. Humira represented 60 percent of total AbbVie sales in the quarter, underscoring the company’s reliance on the injectable product and its need to introduce big-selling new drugs such as its hepatitis C medicines. Although Humira’s U.S. patent lapses in late 2016, AbbVie officials have predicted it will take years longer for other drugmakers to develop their own biosimilar forms of Humira and win approvals for them. Company shares jumped 57 percent last year, on faith that Humira will not be fettered by generic competition for years, and that AbbVie will successfully develop new medicines for hepatitis C, blood cancers and other diseases that will spur continued earnings growth. Hepatitis C affects an estimated 170 million people worldwide, and if left untreated can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer or the need for a new liver. Current treatments include use of interferon, an injectable drug that causes flu-like symptoms. AbbVie shares were trading at $49.93 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Claim: AbbVie sees 2014 approval of hepatitis drugs, shares rise.

SOLUTION:
AbbVie Inc issued a cautious 2014 profit forecast, but said it expects U.S. approval this year for its potentially lucrative new all-oral treatment for hepatitis C, sending its shares up 3.4 percent.