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: We’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt for again leaning on an independent expert who says the technology is likely prohibitively expensive. While no dollar estimate is given, we think this is good enough for now. As with the harms, the story does quantify the benefits in one way. It says, “It could help avoid up to 98% of these screening procedures, according to the study, which appears in BMJ.” It also says, “The new study included 753 pregnant women who were at high risk for having a child with Down syndrome. Of these, 86 women were determined to be pregnant with a child with Down syndrome.” The story does quantify potential harms in one way by noting, “There were no false-negative results with the new test.” We wish the story also spoke about false positives. False positives are certainly part of the stress and harms from any screening test that need to be considered. In this case, it appears the false positives were low but not negligible. The story adequately describes the study design. The story does avoid disease monitoring, but we wish it had included some of the data from the paper about the frequency of Down syndrome and even some of the other disorders. The LA Times blog piece managed to do this in much less space. The story provides a wealth of outside experts who provide great commentary and context about the study’s findings. We wish more stories about screenings had quotes like these: “In a year or two, this test may be available, but it won’t replace existing technologies, it will nudge its way into our armamentarium of available methodologies,” says Mark I. Evans, MD,  director of Comprehensive Genetics in New York City, and an obstetrician/gynecologist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, also in New York City. “The bad news is that prenatal diagnosis is not just about Down syndrome…Down syndrome represents about 50% of what we find, and this new test can help with that, but it may also give women a false sense of reassurance.” The story tries to do a good thing by explaining at the very end that the new test is not a diagnostic test, as amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling are. Rather, it’s a screening test. The distinction – and the significance of that – could have been made more clearly, but we give the story the benefit of the doubt. The story leans on an independent expert to say that the test is “not ready for prime time….in a year or two, this test may be available.” The story does not establish the test’s novelty, and this is largely because it does not provide the proper context. The study itself says, “In the past 20 years maternal age has been combined with ultrasonographic examination of the fetus and biochemical measurement of various proteins or hormones in the maternal circulation to improve identification of high risk pregnancies. This combined approach of screening can now identify more than 90% of affected fetuses, but there is still a need for invasive testing in 3–5% of the population.” This means that as many as 95% of all women would not need invasive testing to begin with, so this test is only potentially a breakthrough for a small minority of women. BMJ actually makes the novelty question easy to answer by breaking it down this way:  What is already known on this topic: Non-invasive prenatal detection of fetal trisomy 21 is achievable by massively parallel sequencing of maternal plasma DNA Its diagnostic performance and practical feasibility in the clinical setting has not been tested on a large scale. What this study adds: Among high risk pregnancies clinically indicated for invasive prenatal diagnosis, non-invasive detection of fetal trisomy 21 can be achieved with the use of multiplexed massively parallel sequencing of maternal plasma DNA at 100% sensitivity and 97.9% specificity, giving a 96.6% positive predictive value and 100% negative predictive value. The sequencing test could be used to rule out trisomy 21 among high risk pregnancies before proceeding to invasive diagnostic testing to reduce the number of cases requiring amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling.” The story does not rely on a news release. Claim: Progress Toward Blood Test for Down Syndrome
answer:
This thoroughly reported and carefully written story avoids giving pregnant women false hope of an easier way to detect genetic anomalies while still presenting some compelling information about a new blood test. Pregnancy can be anxiety inducing because of the sheer number of tests already required of women: frequent blood tests, ultrasounds, and amniocentesis in many cases. Add to that the barrage of stories about the way diet and environmental conditions may be affecting in utero development at any given point and one can understand why women might want a simpler solution to find out whether their child might have a genetic disorder. Overall, we think if more stories approached screening the way this story did there would be fewer people demanding the latest over-hyped test from their doctor. This is a “hope for the future” level test that may be inching its way to market. It’s not available now and won’t be in the immediate future – and the story makes that clear.


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Paragraph: The story quotes one price estimate of about $250 for the testing. We would have liked more detail about whether new details on accuracy of the tests might change their status in the marketplace, or whether insurability status might change. Parents who fear their child may inherit gender-linked disorders, such as hemophilia, could use this test earlier in pregnancy and possibly avoid more invasive procedures, such as amniocentesis. Amniocentesis carries a risk of miscarriage. We would have liked some numbers about how many women in the US are facing this dilemma; the situations that carry benefit are few. The average gestational “age” at enrollment in prenatal care in the US is after the window in which most of these tests are marketed. So that means if a couple did not know that they needed to think about X-linked mental retardation “fragile X” (which affect males) or hemophilia, the use of the test would not really be integrated into their care. Could have been more skeptical of why they are really being marketed – closer to entertainment ultrasounds than medical care. Yes, the story lists potential harms. These range from inaccuracy, because the tests are unregulated and the laboratories don’t have to meet medical standards, to the potential for abortions based on fetal gender. This story does not evaluate the quality of the evidence in the new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which prompted the headlines. We applaud some of the details, giving consumers information about the lawsuit about one consumer product, but the discussion leaves readers confused about how to evaluate reliability. We’re surprised that the story didn’t point out in absolute terms that 5 of every 100 tests of girls and 1 of every 100 boys will be wrong – 6 out of a hundred multiplied by millions of pregnancies a year! That’s a lot of errors even if uptake is minimal. This story balances the potential for danger in giving parents early information about the sex of a fetus and the genuine benefit for some in avoiding more invasive testing when a condition is ruled out by knowing the gender information. The story quoted four sources, in addition to the study’s lead author. The story explains how parents who fear a sex-linked genetic problem for their fetus must balance risk against benefit in existing alternatives.It did not do a very detailed job of comparing how the new approach could compare, especially considering there is a risk of inaccurate results in the new approach. The hypothetical target group for these tests is much, much smaller than the broader use is and might become. It did do a better job than the Reuters story in describing other tests (urine tests) that have been developed. Yes, the story explains there are a variety of tests that have been widely available to consumers. But the story could have done a better job of connecting the dots for readers. Exactly how does one get a blood test done for a home test kit? Raises questions like: do I go to a lab? Finger stick? Are their costs other than the test? Shipping? Do I do this at home myself? Working with my medical care team? How soon do I get the results?, etc. Process of using several common kits could have been better described. The new research was on testing that is not novel, but by surveying 57 other studies, they reached a new conclusion about overall accuracy and how early in pregnancy it could predict gender. The story did not rely on a release. Claim: Test Can Tell Fetal Sex at 7 Weeks, Study Says
answer:
The story outlines how new research about an existing family of consumer blood tests shows accuracy at seven weeks into pregnancy for determining the sex of a fetus. What the story also tells is the complicated weighing of risks and benefits that parents may need to use, since the consumer tests and their laboratories are not regulated by the FDA. We would have liked more information in here about which precise forms of testing among the 57 studies analyzed were most reliable and the quality of the evidence in the Journal of the American Medical Association survey. Earlier sex-determination in pregnancy could lead to parents choosing (or trying to choose) the gender they prefer. Internationally, it is already clear that some parents in China and India are deliberately choosing male babies, and aborting female fetuses. The research reported on, a survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association, does not directly address these larger ethical implications. But the study’s lead author, Diana Bianchi, does stress that she wants to examine “why people are buying these things” and the consequences of consumer access to over-the-counter testing for fetal gender. The New York Times story goes a bit further than the competing Reuters story in exploring how consumers may use the testing.


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Paragraph: The range of antimicrobial medicines able to kill the growing number of drug-resistant infections is dwindling and health experts warn that within a generation the death toll from such “superbug” infections could reach 10 billion. Announcing its first funding, a new U.S.-U.K. alliance known as CARB-X, short for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator, said it would invest an initial $24 million in 11 biotech companies pursing various projects to develop antibiotics and diagnostic. Another $24 million will be given in staged payments over three years as projects progress. Added to private funds from the companies, the CARB-X funding could lead to an investment of more than $75 million in projects that show success, it said in a statement. Britain’s Wellcome Trust global health charity is committing 125 million pounds ($155.5 million) over five years. Public health specialists have been warning for years that the world is facing an urgent global health threat from antibiotic-resistant superbug bacteria and that the pipeline of novel therapies to treat them is precariously thin. Drug-resistant infections kill 700,000 people a year worldwide, and the last new antibiotic class to be approved for market was discovered in 1984. With CARB-X funds, three of the 11 projects are working on potential new classes of antibiotics, while four are exploring new ways of targeting and killing bacteria. Tim Jinks, head of drug resistant infection at the Wellcome Trust, said antibiotic resistance is already “a huge global health challenge” and is getting worse. “Without effective drugs, doctors cannot treat patients,” he said in a statement. Kevin Outterson, CARB-X’s executive director and a professor of law at Boston University in the United States, added: “By accelerating promising research, it is our hope that we can speed up the delivery of new effective antibacterials, vaccines, devices and rapid diagnostics to patients who need them.” Claim: U.S.-UK alliance targets the world's deadliest superbugs.
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Eleven biotech companies and research teams in Britain and the United States were awarded up to $48 million in funding on Thursday to speed development of new antibiotics powerful enough to take on the world’s deadliest superbugs.