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: "It is less surprising that neither story discussed costs, given that so few stories do. But sample costs could have been obtained by calling any of the numerous medical marijuana outlets in states where it is legal. Both stories did a decent job of quantifying the benefits.This story provided more details, though, including the differences in patient experiences between the three different concentrations of marijuana. It also repeated this important bit of information: ""There was also no difference in the quality of life or mood scores that participants reported when they were on any of the four treatments."" The story also does a great job of pointing out that the treatment duration of five days in each dosage phase is too short to judge utility for chronic pain, which is a long-term affliction. Neither story actually quantified the harms, but they both noted there were side effects. This story did a better job, though, by noting that the only dose that seemed to work also seemed to produce the most side effects and by raising the issue of long-term safety concerns. It also was the only story to answer the question that readers surely would have when reading about an illegal narcotic being used as medicine. Did these patients feel high as a result? This story says that most did not. Because of the additional information and context, the rating here is satisfactory. This story, unlike the competing WebMD piece, establishes in the first sentence — even in the first three words — that this was ""a small study."" It then discusses the limitations of the study at several points. The second sentence says, ""The pain reduction was ""modest"" – less than 1 point on an 11-point scale for the strongest marijuana – and patients reported no overall difference in their quality of life based on what they smoked."" The writer elegantly and succinctly described the study design — a complex randomized cross-over trial with double blinding and delved into an important feature of the study, that the subjects in retrospect may have been able to detect during which phase of their experience they inhaled placebo versus the most potent drug. This story avoids disease mongering, and, in fact, goes beyond that to note how few people actually suffer from the type of chronic pain that was the subject of the study: ""About 1 to 2 percent of adults in the U.S."" The story quotes two outside experts, one of whom is completely independent from the study and the journal, Dr Andrea Hohmann. Beyond that, we would bet that the reporter spent more time interviewing Dr. Mark Ware, the lead researcher, or at least asked tougher questions. Because Ware is more measured in this story than in the WebMD story. He even goes so far as to say, ""What about long-term safety issues?"" he asked. ""These need to be considered before the drug becomes prescribable."" As with the WebMD story, it would have been nice to see who funded the research. Unlike the WebMD story, this one did not point out the conflicts of interest of Dr. Henry McQuay. This story talks about a range of treatment options and even has the study’s lead author suggesting, that ""these patients should also be getting behavioral and physical therapy."" Strangely, neither story we reviewed pointed out that marijuana is illegal in most states and in Canada, where the study took place. The story could have, at a minimum, mentioned which states have medical marijuana laws or talked about whether any other countries currently allow cannabis to be sold in pill form the way it was used in this study. The story alludes to the fact that this study ""supports a limited number of trials that have suggested marijuana may be helpful for people suffering from chronic pain,"" indicating that the treatment is not very novel at all. It would have been nice to see more context around that. The WebMD story provides a little more information in this regard. If the news release is to be believed, ""This is the first trial to be conducted where patients have been allowed to smoke cannabis at home and to monitor their responses, daily"". That could have been made clear. The story goes well beyond the release. Here’s the release." Claim: Pot may provide some chronic pain relief: study

SOLUTION: The story did a great job evaluating the evidence, providing outside voices, discussing alternatives to marijuana smoking, and presenting both the benefits and the potential harms. It could have done a better job discussing possible costs, availability and conflicts of interest. From the headline to the last sentence, this report avoided overstatement of the applicability of the potential benefit and used clear incisive language that left the reader with a good understanding of the study and its implications. This topic lends itself to jokey, pun-filled writing, but this story played it straight. Chronic pain can ruin lives, and a breakthrough with an alternative approach would be important news. As this story makes clear, until some larger studies with fewer limitations are undertaken, we are far from the point where marijuana can be considered a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: The significant costs of both drugs were mentioned. Nice job. Good job describing the benefits reported in the two drug studies. The two papers present a bewildering array of statistics. This story did a nice job distilling the information into a couple of very understandable sentences. Good job explaining signifcant potential harms of both drugs – something competitors didn’t do at all. Nice job, including linking (in the online version) to the papers in the New England Journal of Medicine. No disease-mongering of melanoma. Several independent sources cited. The story adequately explained the comparisons between both new drugs and the older dacarbazine chemo drug. Vemurafenib was described as experimental and as “expected to be approved by the FDA within a few months.”  Ipilimumab was explained to be approved in March and already on the market. The relative novelty of both drugs was well explained. It’s clear that the story did not rely on a news release. Claim: Drugs Show Promise Slowing Advanced Melanoma

SOLUTION: The story made strong, clear attempts to report in a restrained manner, using terms/phrases such as:  “notable progress” “do not cure” “might add two to several moths to expected lifespans” “To be sure, more than half of patients with metastatic melanoma would not be helped all that much by either drug.”   Stories about cancer – perhaps especially melanoma because of its treatment challenges – should balance promise with realistic context. This story did a better job of that than the competitors’ efforts we reviewed.

PROBLEM: Paragraph: There’s little need to discuss costs of a substance as well known as coffee. The story does a good job of describing groups for comparison: coffee-abstainers, light drinkers (1-6 cups per week), and heavier drinkers (>2 cups per day). However death rates were presented as relative risk. How many of the 18,000-plus subject died during the average 16 years they were followed? What does “18% less likely to have died” look like in absolute numbers? Coffee does have adverse effects, such as insomnia, increasing anxiety, and triggering reflux in certain people. However, the story made no mention of coffee’s downsides. The story makes clear how large the study was, what the methodology was, and that other big risk factors for early death such as smoking were taken into account. Also, the story makes clear that no one is recommending coffee-drinking as a mode to prevent chronic diseases that lead to early death. And it includes a clear caution regarding the limitations of observational studies: “Though the two studies involved hundreds of thousands of people, they weren’t designed to show that drinking more coffee caused people to live longer; that would require a randomized trial.” And yet, it’s important for journalists to avoid language that undercuts this important message. The headline, suggesting that coffee is “good for you” makes a clear cause-and-effect leap. And the use of a hedge like “might” in the following sentence isn’t enough to offset the clear cause-and-effect implication — i.e. that coffee is responsible for “extending” your life. “The best thing about your coffee habit might be that it extends your life by reducing your risk of death from heart disease, diabetes or even cancer.” We’ll rate this a very marginal Satisfactory with room for improvement. Coverage at the BBC, for example, was more successful at capturing the nuances of observational evidence, starting with the headline: “Coffee drinkers live longer – perhaps.” No fear-mongering here. The story includes perspective from an editorial that accompanied the studies in the journal, the Annals of Internal Medicine. And that’s enough for a satisfactory grade. Reaching out to more sources, and actually talking to experts in this field, might have turned up additional insights worth sharing with readers. The story makes clear that the claims of benefit — reduced mortality — are not a reason to drink coffee. Instead the findings suggest there are no long-term effects that should scare coffee-drinkers away from their habit. In any case, the situation does not call for a comparison with alternative methods of living longer. We’ll rate this Not Applicable. Coffee is so widely available that there’s no need to make the point. The story makes clear how the National Cancer Institute study extends previous research on coffee’s health effects from studies of mostly white European-descent subjects to a multi-ethnic population. The story does not appear to rely on a news release. Claim: Two big studies bolster the claim that coffee – even decaf – is good for you

SOLUTION:
This Los Angeles Times story was one of many news outlets to report on a pair of large epidemiological studies on coffee-drinking and mortality. And like many of those other stories, this piece seems to assume that coffee really is healthy, although that is not proven by these or any other observational (association) studies. We think the helpful notes of caution included in the story may get drowned out by the optimistic framing of the headline and lead paragraph. Describing coffee as “good for you” suggests to readers that coffee causes health benefits — not something that these studies were designed to evaluate. We also explored the problems with news coverage about this study in a blog post. As the article states, “2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed” each day around the world. Coffee is widely consumed and many people drink multiple cups per day. The potential health benefits and risks of coffee, like its consumption cousins wine and chocolate, seem to always be of interest to health news readers. And yet, like so many previous studies, these describe an association, not a causal effect. This particular article did not claim that coffee helps you live longer, but it also did not make crystal clear that the associations found in the studies do not really tell us much about whether coffee does anything at all with regard to chronic disease or mortality.