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: A bill that would allow trained pharmacists to administer the influenza vaccine to children 12 years and older cleared the General Assembly’s Public Health Committee in a 17-7 vote this year, but it later died on the Senate calendar due to inaction. Bill supporter, Nathan Tinker, CEO of the Connecticut Pharmacists Association, said his organization doesn’t plan to push hard for it again in the next regular legislative session because he is worried the debate over the General Assembly’s efforts to scrap a religious exemption for some vaccines will ultimately spill over into discussions about the flu shot and likely doom the bill in the short, three-month session. “There is a community of people who are concerned about the impact or potential impact, whether real or perceived, about vaccines,” Tinker said. “And they get a lot of attention from legislators and that can make it difficult.” When the new legislative session opens in February, lawmakers are expected to consider ending the state’s longstanding religious exemption after newly released data showed a continued decline in immunization rates for measles, mumps and rubella among kindergarteners. That proposal has already met resistance and some of the concerns raised are like the ones voiced during this year’s discussion of the flu vaccine bill. Legislators were flooded with testimony earlier this year from parents with concerns about whether making the vaccine more convenient could lead to injuries that pharmacists might not be trained recognize. Others questioned the motives of the pharmaceutical industry and necessity of flu shots. Dr. Sandra Carbonari, a primary care pediatrician in Waterbury and the medical director of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, also opposed the bill, but for different reasons. She questioned whether state regulations for providing the flu vaccine to children who receive Medicaid benefits might ultimately make the shot too expensive, and whether DPH’s vaccine program can handle a large increase in the number of providers. She also noted that immunizing a child can be complicated. “Determining the appropriate vaccine for a pediatric age patient is not simple and requires accurate information about the medical history and current state of health,” she said in written testimony. Supporters of the flu shot bill argue that allowing parents to drop by a pharmacy, rather than make an appointment with a pediatrician, would ultimately lead to higher flu immunization rates. The bill had the support of the state’s Department of Public Health, which noted three children in Connecticut died from flu-related complications during the 2017-18 flu season. Pharmacists in Connecticut are currently allowed to vaccinate people 18 years or older. According to DPH, individuals under 18 can be administered the flu vaccine by advanced practice registered nurses at retail locations, such as a CVS MinuteClinic. Sen. Heather Somers, of Groton, the top Senate Republican on the Public Health Committee who co-sponsored this year’s bill, stressed that the legislation is voluntary and requires the consent of a parent or guardian. Somers contends the legislature just ran out of time to act on the bill earlier this year, and she plans to resurrect it when lawmakers convene again in February for the 2020 session. “This is something that saves lives,” said Somers, who helped to organize a mobile flu clinic in her district last year. “I think accessibility is key in our health care system.” Claim: Bill allowing pharmacists to give kids the flu shot at risk.

SOLUTION: The contentious debate about whether Connecticut lawmakers should scrap a religious exemption for certain childhood vaccinations could inadvertently end up sinking efforts to make the flu vaccine more accessible to children.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: Frates is fighting back from a summer health scare that landed him in the hospital while still trying to be a public face of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a degenerative disease that destroys nerve cells, impairs physical functions and so far has no cure. The former Boston College baseball star, who can no longer speak or move, spent most of July in the hospital battling pneumonia and other infections. In July, a tweet erroneously reporting his demise led to worldwide headlines. Frates wryly countered by posting a short video of himself lying in a hospital bed with Pearl Jam’s “Alive” playing in the background. Using a computer system that lets him type out words through eye movements, Frates has been tweeting about his progress to his nearly 30,000 followers, along with regular musings about his family and friends, living with ALS and Boston sports. “lots of down days as you can imagine with als, sometimes you don’t feel human,” he tweeted Sept. 23. “Today I am definitely feeling sorry for myself, sukxx. but I will bounce back. Eff! you als.. Friggin a hole! !” In the weeks since his July health scare, the 32-year-old has re-emerged to accept honors and accolades across his home state of Massachusetts. Last month, he joined Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, Red Sox officials and the Boston College baseball team on the steps of City Hall to declare Sept. 5 “Pete Frates Day” in Boston. And former Red Sox slugger David Ortiz and other Boston sports legends feted Frates at Fenway Park to mark the release of a new book on his life, “The Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight Against ALS.” Half the proceeds benefit Frates and his family. Frates’ wife, Julie, said it’s been a difficult and busy few months, but she couldn’t persuade her husband to slow things down even if she wanted to. “He’s the one pushing to be out there,” she said. “We take all the lead from him.” The ice bucket challenge had been around for almost a year to benefit various causes. But Frates is credited with helping focus it on ALS specifically and taking it global using his wide network of supporters as an established ALS advocate. The challenge raised roughly $220 million in 2014, of which $115 million went to the ALS Association. A sequel campaign the next summer raised just over $1 million, according to the association. The ALS Association says it has committed more than $89 million of the 2014 windfall to research. “New, exciting research is just starting to pan out, and that’s drawing new talent to ALS research, and a lot of companies are now interested in ALS,” said Dr. Nazem Atassi, a Massachusetts General Hospital neurologist whose ALS research benefited from ice bucket challenge money. “It’s the perfect environment for drug discovery.” Among the most promising developments to come out of research funded by the challenge has been the identification of at least four genes that contribute to the disease, a critical step toward developing new treatments, said Kevin Eggan, a professor at Harvard University who specializes in ALS. Another development that gives the Frates family hope is Radicava, a drug approved in May by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration following testimony from the Frates and other advocates. It’s the first new treatment approved specifically for ALS in 22 years. Frates’ mother, Nancy, said they’re applying to get her son on the drug, even though it’s not clear how it might help, given his advanced condition. The medication, which was developed in Japan without funding from the ice bucket challenge, has been shown to slow the disease in recently diagnosed patients. “You just want it to stop,” Nancy said. “You want someone to say this disease is not tearing through your loved one’s body anymore.” ALS is still finding new ways to attack Frates, said his father, John, a city councilor in Beverly who quit his financial services job to help care for his son after he was diagnosed in 2012. Frates’ bladder stopped working last year, requiring his urine now to be drained with a catheter every three hours, John Frates said. “It’s amazing he’s tolerating all of it. It just shows the courage, will and determination he has to be with us,” Frates’ father said. “He’s as incapacitated as a human being can be. That’s his quality of life.” ___ Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo. His work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/philip%20marcelo Claim: ALS patient behind ice bucket challenge: I will bounce back.

SOLUTION: Pete Frates was mistakenly written off as dead this summer. Turns out, the man who helped spark the ice bucket challenge that raised millions of dollars for research on Lou Gehrig’s disease hasn’t gone anywhere yet.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: "Raising backyard chickens has been satisfying some foodies’ affection for the uber-local egg and lower-fat meat in urban areas, including metro Atlanta, for about a decade. Now the Centers for Disease Control is warning of a downside to the popular trend: salmonella outbreaks traced to some backyard owners kissing and cuddling their flocks. The CDC findings drew some media attention last month, and a PolitiFact reader who heard the health alert on NPR’s ""Morning Edition"" on July 16 asked us to dig deeper. We went directly to the source, the CDC, which is headquartered in Atlanta and has been investigating four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia, 19 were in Alabama, 5 were in North Carolina, 11 were in South Carolina and 6 were in Tennessee. Fifty of the 218 people have required hospitalization for Salmonella, the major symptoms of which are usually diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain. No deaths have been reported, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said. So how exactly do CDC officials know that some of these cases are due to backyard breeders kissing and cuddling live poultry? Dr. Megin Nichols, a veterinarian with the CDC, told PolitiFact the agency has been tracking upward trends in both the number of outbreaks and people infected in the past five years and has been working to trace their causes. ""We’ve been trying to interview these people to find out how they are getting sick,"" Nichols said. ""We are finding a certain proportion that are due to very close contact -- something that surprised us here at the CDC."" Salmonella is a germ that lives naturally in the intestine of chickens, ducks and many other animals. It doesn’t typically make the birds sick, but they can transmit the germs in their droppings and on their feet, feathers and beaks, even when they look clean and healthy, the CDC says. The germs also can get on their cages, coops, feed, water dishes, hay, plants and the area where they live and roam. In addition, the bacteria can rest on the hands, shoes and clothes of those who work around the birds or play with them. And Nichols told us that among the people who became ill between 2008 and 2014 due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds, she said. Those people, many of whom were young children, became sick through fecal oral contact, Nichols said. Those same interviews also showed that about 46 percent of backyard breeders are keeping live poultry in their homes, she said. Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked the most recent four outbreaks of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from multiple hatcheries. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of those who were recently ill and, 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. Additional interviews to determine whether that contact included snuggling and kissing have yet to be conducted, Nichols said. An increasing number of people around the country are choosing to keep live poultry - mostly chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese as part of a greener, healthier lifestyle. Local governments, including several in metro Atlanta, have changed their zoning ordinances in recent years to accommodate the trend, and groups of backyard poultry buffs meet regularly in the region to talk chicken. Backyard owners have told reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the benefits include fresh eggs and meat, a built-in source of fertilizer for their gardens and ready-made bug-killers. Some say they give their chickens names, the freedom to roam the house and yard and cuddle and coddle them like family pets. The larger problem According to the CDC, salmonella, named for an American scientist who discovered the bacteria, is estimated to cause a million illnesses in the United States a year, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths. Most people develop diarrhea and the other conditions within 12 to 72 hour after infection and recover without treatment in four to seven days. It has the potential to turn deadly if it spreads from the intestines to the bloodstream, and then to other body sites. Prompt treatment with antibiotics is critical, and the elderly, infants, and people with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness. In the largest recent outbreak, which occurred between March 2013 and July 2014, more than 600 people in 29 states and Puerto Rico were infected with seven outbreak strains. The outbreak was associated with one brand of chicken, which led to a company recall of more than 40,000 pounds of chicken products, according to the CDC. To prevent salmonella infections related to backyard farming, the CDC’s Nichols encourages several common-sense rules. These include thorough handwashing after contact with the chicken, keeping live poultry out of the home, and avoiding snuggling, close contact with the birds’ beaks or other close exposure that would allow ingestion of bacteria. She will be one of the experts featured in a webinar on the topic of practicing backyard bird biosecurity at 7p.m. Thursday. Our conclusion The CDC has issued a warning against kissing or snuggling backyard chickens. It follows four recent Salmonella outbreaks that, as of July 29, had infected 218 people in 41 states. Five of them were in Georgia. Interviews have been conducted with 140 of the ill and 117, or 84 percent, reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began, according to the CDC website. The CDC also has evidence from outbreaks between 2008 to 2014. In that period, they found that of the people who became infected with salmonella due to baby poultry exposure, 49 percent, or 196 out of 400 people, reported snuggling and holding baby birds. Another 13 percent, or about 53, reported kissing baby birds.. That’s cause to sound the alarm." Claim: Caution: Kissing and cuddling chickens can be hazardous to your health.

SOLUTION:
CDC: Kissing and cuddling backyard chickens linked to salmonella infections