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.
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Question: Paragraph: Plastic mulch, basically thin sheeting placed over individual crops, is used throughout China’s arid and dusty north to improve growing conditions and boost yields by retaining moisture for crops and suppressing weeds. The country deploys about 200,000 square km (77,220 square miles) of plastic mulch, an area the size of Belarus. A notice published by several ministries on Wednesday said China would work to improve the recovery rate of plastic mulch to 80% next year and ensure there is “zero growth” in the amount of plastic mulch used. It will aim to bring recovery rates to 100% and start reducing total land coverage by 2025. The notice said China would also work to improve its monitoring capability and include mulch pollution in the performance indicators of local government officials. Manufacturers will also be put under pressure to improve product standards. China uses about 2 million to 3 million tonnes of plastic mulch every year, but waste treatment capacity amounts to just 180,000 tonnes, Yan Changrong, a researcher with the China Rural Science Institute, said at a recent forum. While the use of plastic film can boost yields significantly in the short term, unrecovered remnants eventually degrade the soil and can also contaminate crops, with Chinese exports of spinach and ginger found to contain traces of plastic, said Xu Jingeng, a parliamentary delegate for Shandong province, in a proposal submitted to the National People’s Congress in March. Handling large volumes of plastic waste has become one of China’s pressing challenges. The country’s recycling capacity stands at around 23 million to 25 million tonnes, only half of total annual plastic waste produced, according to data from the Beijing Chemistry University. The city of Shanghai is gradually restricting the use of single-use plastics in catering, and the island province of Hainan has already vowed to completely eliminate single-use plastic by 2025. [nL4N23Y1YE][nL3N20G7K1] Claim: China vows to raise recycling rates of rural plastic mulch.

Answer: China vowed to improve the recycling rates of plastic mulch used in farming, the government said on Wednesday, amid mounting concerns about soil contamination as unrecovered bits of the thin film get left behind, leaving traces in crops.


Question: Paragraph: Depression is one of the most common forms of mental illness, affecting more than 350 million people worldwide. It is ranked by the World Health Organization as the leading cause of disability globally. Treatment usually involves either medication, some form of  psychotherapy or a combination of both. Yet many patients fail to get better and suffer recurring bouts of illness. MBCT was developed to help such people by teaching them skills to recognize and respond constructively to thoughts and feelings associated with relapse, aiming to prevent a downward spiral into depression. In the first large study to compare MBCT and anti-depressants, researchers found little difference in outcomes. In terms of cost, mindfulness training — often viewed as more costly because it requires more time with a trained therapist — was not significantly more pricey, particularly when given in group sessions, the study found. Richard Byng, a professor at Britain’s Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry, said that, while current standard treatment for chronic depression is to keep taking anti-depressants, many people don’t want to take them for long periods and others want to avoid side-effects. In this study, 424 adults with recurrent major depression who were on maintenance anti-depressant drugs were randomly assigned either to come off their anti-depressants slowly and receive MBCT or to stay on their medication. While 212 patients continued taking their anti-depressants, the other 212 attended eight group mindfulness therapy sessions and were given daily home practice as well as an option to have four follow-up sessions over a 12-month period. Study results published in The Lancet medical journal showed that after two years, relapse rates were similar in both groups — at 44 percent in the therapy group versus 47 percent in the anti-depressant drug group. “Whilst this study doesn’t show that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy works any better than maintenance anti-depressant medication in reducing the rate of relapse ... these results suggest a new choice for the millions of people with recurrent depression on repeat prescriptions,” said Willem Kuyken of Oxford University, who worked with Byng on the research. Claim: Mindfulness therapy as good as medication for chronic depression - study.

Answer: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) may be just as effective as anti-depressants in helping prevent people with chronic depression from relapsing, scientists said on Tuesday.


Question: Paragraph: The finding, made by British and Swedish scientists, could pave the way for the development of a new treatment for the estimated 450,000 people worldwide who have multi drug-resistant (MDR) or extensively drug-resistant (XDR) TB. In a study in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal on Thursday, researchers said more than half of 30 drug-resistant TB patients treated with a transfusion of their own bone marrow stem cells were cured of the disease after six months. “The results ... show that the current challenges and difficulties of treating MDR-TB are not insurmountable, and they bring a unique opportunity with a fresh solution to treat hundreds of thousands of people who die unnecessarily,” said TB expert Alimuddin Zumla at University College London, who co-led the study. TB, which infects the lungs and can spread from one person to another through coughing and sneezing, is often falsely thought of as a disease of the past. In recent years, drug-resistant strains of the disease have spread around the world, batting off standard antibiotic drug treatments. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in Eastern Europe, Asia and South Africa 450,000 people have MDR-TB, and around half of these will fail to respond to existing treatments. TB bacteria trigger an inflammatory response in immune cells and surrounding lung tissue that can cause immune dysfunction and tissue damage. Bone-marrow stem cells are known to migrate to areas of lung injury and inflammation and repair damaged tissue. Since they also modify the body’s immune response and could boost the clearance of TB bacteria, Zumla and his colleague, Markus Maeurer from Stockholm’s Karolinska University Hospital, wanted to test them in patients with the disease. In a phase 1 trial, 30 patients with either MDR or XDR TB aged between 21 and 65 who were receiving standard TB antibiotic treatment were also given an infusion of around 10 million of their own stem cells. The cells were obtained from the patient’s own bone marrow, then grown into large numbers in the laboratory before being re-transfused into the same patient, the researchers explained. During six months of follow-up, the researchers found that the infusion treatment was generally safe and well tolerated, with no serious side effects recorded. The most common non-serious side effects were high cholesterol levels, nausea, low white blood cell counts and diarrhea. Although a phase 1 trial is primarily designed only to test a treatment’s safety, the scientists said further analyses of the results showed that 16 patients treated with stem cells were deemed cured at 18 months compared with only five of 30 TB patients not treated with stem cells. Maeurer stressed that further trials with more patients and longer follow-up were needed to better establish how safe and effective the stem cell treatment was. But if future tests were successful, he said, it could become a viable extra new treatment for patients with MDR-TB who do not respond to conventional drug treatment or those with severe lung damage. Claim: Bone marrow stem cells could defeat drug-resistant tuberculosis.

Answer:
Patients with potentially fatal “superbug” forms of tuberculosis (TB) could in future be treated using stem cells taken from their own bone marrow, according to the results of an early-stage trial of the technique.