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: Once an illness is added to the list of approved conditions, the board cannot remove it because state law does not give the board authority to do so, according to board spokeswoman Tessie Pollock. Petitions will be reviewed early next year. AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, are among the 21 current approved illnesses, along with cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma and Parkinson’s disease. Earlier this year the board rejected petitions seeking to add anxiety and autism spectrum disorders as qualifying conditions. The board will for the first time open up a public comment period, beginning after its Jan. 8 meeting, said executive director Stephanie Louka. Final decisions on new accepting conditions would come after several months. ___ This story was first published on Dec. 25, 2019. It was updated on Dec. 27, 2019, to correct the name of the State Medical Board of Ohio spokeswoman. She is Tessie Pollock, not Tessa Pollock. It was also updated to clarify that the board says state law does not give it the authority to remove conditions from the list of approved conditions for which doctors can recommend medical marijuana to patients. Claim: Board to consider new conditions for medical marijuana use.

SOLUTION: The state Medical Board is accepting new petitions through the end of the year from those seeking to add illnesses as qualifying conditions for physicians to recommend medical marijuana to Ohio patients, cleveland.com reported.

PROBLEM: 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

SOLUTION: 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.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: China is battling the world’s fastest spreading outbreak of African swine fever, an incurable pig disease that has been confirmed in 28 of its provinces and regions. Livestock shares initially slid on the early outbreaks in August and September. But they have climbed since November, even as outbreaks continued and as transport curbs on infected provinces hit prices and hurt profits at most producers. Shares in Muyuan Foods Co Ltd, the No.2 producer, have doubled in the past six months. No. 4 producer Jiangxi Zhengbang Technology Co has surged more than 200 percent, while rapidly growing Tech-bank Food Co Ltd is up 143 percent. Graphic - Swine Stampede: Listed pork producers in China surge to near record levels as investors bet on tighter supplies & govt support - tmsnrt.rs/2BYgwdC  While listed companies still account for only a modest proportion of China’s annual production of 700 million pigs, they are growing quickly as Beijing promotes modern farm techniques. Muyuan produced 11 million pigs last year. The share price gains come even as most companies have forecast a plunge in earnings for last year. In a preliminary report, Muyuan said its 2018 net profit slid 78 percent to 520.2 million yuan ($77.7 million), after prices fell partly because of African swine fever. But analysts say prices for live pigs have bottomed and could rise from 12 yuan per kilogram currently to as much as 20 yuan in the second half, as supplies plunge and farmers face challenges in restocking farms. “Prices could rise quite high, quite quickly,” said Xiong Kuan, analyst at Cofco Futures, who expects a 20 percent drop in supplies. Others say it could be as much as 30 percent. Large players with low-cost modern farms that are better able to resist disease are expected to reap good profits. They will also win support from the government, already worried about supply. China eats half the world’s pork, by far the country’s most popular meat, but much of the production comes from millions of small farmers whose farms have been most at risk of disease. “The government sees very clearly, among all the cases of African swine fever, less than 20 percent took place on big farms. They are encouraging big farms with good biosecurity measures to expand production,” said Feng Yonghui, chief analyst at Soozhu.com. Last month the agriculture ministry urged farmers to quickly replenish their herds as concerns grew that prices will rise rapidly in the second half of the year. And last week, Beijing issued a draft plan aimed at tackling the disease and shoring up supplies. It called for the promotion of high-quality farming companies in southern areas that need to increase supplies and support for large-scale integrated processors across the country. Many big companies have continued to expand, eyeing future bumper profits. Top 10 producer New Hope Liuhe produced 2.5 million pigs in 2018, up 50 percent on the prior year. Muyuan raised 5 billion yuan in a share placement in December to add new farms for 4.8 million pigs. The expansion would help provide the market with stable supplies and allow the company to “firmly grasp the opportunities from market transformation,” it said. Claim: Pigs fly: China pork producers surge as swine disease cuts supply.

SOLUTION:
Shares in China’s leading pig producers have soared to record levels despite one of the worst disease outbreaks in years, as investors bet on tightening pork supplies and strong government support for leading producers.