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.

Paragraph: The lawsuits were the latest by states and local governments against drugmaker Purdue Pharma as the country grapples with an opioid epidemic. About a dozen states have also targeted Richard Sackler, the company's former leader, or members of his family. "Purdue and the Sacklers traded the health and well-being of Californians for profit and created an unprecedented national public health crisis in the process," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said at a news conference announcing the legal action by his state. "We will hold them accountable." Becerra, echoing allegations lodged against Purdue Pharma by others attorneys general across the country, said the company falsely introduced OxyContin in the 1990s as a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain. However, the California's lawsuit alleges that Purdue and Sackler knew in 1997 that drugs containing oxycodone, such as OxyContin, were widely abused. Still, company representatives marketed it as not being addictive and downplayed the potential for abuse, the suit states. In a statement Monday, Purdue Pharma and former directors of the company denied the allegations and vowed to defend against the "misleading attacks." It noted that OxyContin represents less than 2% of total opioid prescriptions and is still approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its intended use as a painkiller as prescribed by doctors and dispensed by pharmacists. "Such allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described," spokesman Robert Josephson said in a statement. "But we believe the state fails to show such causation and offers little evidence to support its sweeping legal claims." A spokesman for Sackler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The family has faced a backlash in recent years amid a growing public outcry around opioid addiction. In addition, activists have targeted institutions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that the family has supported through large contributions. The museum has said it will no longer take money from members of the family linked to the drugmaker. Purdue stopped marketing OxyContin to doctors last year. It settled a lawsuit by the state of Oklahoma in March for $270 million. The company previously said it is pursuing several options, including bankruptcy, which could upend pending litigation by states as well as about 2,000 local and tribal governments across the country. The lawsuits filed Monday allege that Purdue Pharma pushed doctors to prescribe opioids for longer periods of time at higher doses. "Our complaint alleges that their unrelenting sales visits to doctors and deceptive practices led to a marked increase in opioid prescriptions, and a corresponding increase in the number of Mainers suffering from opioid use disorder," Maine Attorney General Aaron M. Frey said. Maine's lawsuit names Richard Sackler, Jonathan Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Kathe Sackler all of whom have served on the board of Stamford, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma. States have also cracked down on doctors who overprescribe the drug. Hawaii Attorney General Clare Connors said in a statement Monday that she has filed lawsuits alleging violations of Hawaii's Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices Law. One complaint alleges Purdue deceptively marketed OxyContin and other opioids. Another says manufacturers and distributors sold more opioids than could be "legitimately prescribed." Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said opioids are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 47,600 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2017, according to the agency. In 2017, it says, prescription opioids were involved in 1,172 overdose deaths in California; 100 overdose deaths in Maine; and 58 in the District of Columbia. Maine set a state record for total drug overdose deaths in 2017 with 417. Jordan Basileu joined Becerra in announcing California's lawsuit. He said he was prescribed opioid painkillers at 18 following a car crash and became addicted. "People think, 'it's from a doctor. How bad can it be?'" Basileu said of the drug. Basileu said he overdosed four times before getting sober three years ago. "I'm still cleaning up the mess that opioids got me in to," he said. ___ Associated Press reporters Adam Beam and Caleb Jones contributed to this story. Jones reported from Honolulu. Claim: More states sue opioid maker alleging deceptive marketing.
California, Hawaii, Maine and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits Monday against the maker of OxyContin and the company's former president, alleging the firm falsely promoted the drug by downplaying the risk of addiction while it emerged as one of the most widely abused opioids in the U.S.

Paragraph: In recent decades, laughter has been touted as a possible cure for many ills, including cancer and heart trouble. But could mirth also be deadly, making the phrase "I just about died laughing" as much about accuracy as it is hyperbole? On 24 March 1975, 50-year-old bricklayer Alex Mitchell of King's Lynn in Norfolk, England, kicked the bucket while roaring with laughter at one of his favorite television shows, the comedy program The Goodies. The skit that precipitated Mitchell's fatal fit of glee involved a kilted Scotsman's flailing away with his bagpipe at a vicious black pudding intent upon attacking him. Mitchell was unable to stop laughing, and after twenty-five minutes of uproar gave one last "tremendous belly laugh, slumped on the settee, and died," said his widow, who witnessed his passing. While Mitchell had expired from heart failure, what felled him was not a classic heart attack, but rather the result of an unusual inheritable heart rhythm disorder that routinely takes the lives of even apparently robust 20-somethings. Mitchell had Long QT syndrome, an affliction in which the heart is prone to experiencing long pauses between heart beats, especially after instances of excitement or exertion. After such an incident, the heart resets itself after a few beats, but in some cases (such as this) the person is not so fortunate. An odder account of a "dying laughing" incident was reported in Bangkok in 2003: An ice cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep. Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes yesterday and then stopped breathing, The Nation newspaper reported. Damnoen's wife tried to wake him up but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack. "I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep," said Dr Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department. On the anecdotal side, Schott's Original Miscellany attributes the death of Burmese king Nandabayin in 1599 to his having "laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king." And on the fictional front, one version of the demise of Pecos Bill, the legendary cowboy hero of American folklore, has him dying from laughter after an encounter with a Boston dude: When Bill was gettin' on in years, a Boston man came down to New Mexico for a visit. He fancied himself a bit of a cowboy. Got himself one of them mail-order suits, don't ya know. The ones with the lizard skin boots, a shiny brass belt buckle, a new pair of blue jeans and a huge ten gallon hat with not a speck of dust on it. Well, when Pecos Bill saw him trying to swagger into a bar, he jest lay down on the sidewalk and laughed himself to death! Not enough information was given in the (real) cases cited above to know whether laughter was a coincidental, contributory, or causal element of the deaths, but linguistically we've been tossing about "dying laughing" expressions for centuries; the Oxford English Dictionary records a use of this phrase as far back as 1596 ("Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing"). We also employ similar phrases to indicate intense feelings of humiliation ("I almost died of embarrassment"), and in a more generic sense we use 'dying' to indicate great longing ("I'm just dying to see you") or excellence ("It's to die for"). It therefore comes as a bit of a shocker to realize that there might be at least a smidgen of truth buried deep beneath all this overblown emoting. Claim: People have died laughing.
Yet even if there may have been an occasional death from guffawing, it's still possible merriment is far more healthy than harmful (at least for the ones who survive). Some studies assert laughing produces beneficial effects on physical health, including decreasing the secretion of serum cortisol (a stress hormone) and boosting the blood levels of immunoglobulin A, an antibody that fights bacterial and viral infections in the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. However, not everyone in the scientific community has jumped on this bandwagon: in a study reported upon in 2002 in Current Directions in Psychological Science ("Is Laughter the Best Medicine? Humor, Laughter, and Physical Health) researchers reported that the connection between humor and wellness was "less conclusive than commonly believed" and that "future research in this area needs to be more theoretically driven and methodologically rigorous."

Paragraph: Jean-Claude Shako suffered head and other injuries in the June 25, 2018, collision while he and four other immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo were headed to work at a meatpacking plant in Tama. The collision with a construction vehicle also injured both drivers and a fifth person in the car carrying Shako, according to The Gazette. Shako's severe brain trauma has impaired his mobility, speech and memory. He's well enough to be discharged from the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, doctors have said, but he has no family to move in with, no money for a rehabilitation center and isn't yet eligible for assistance through Medicaid. "I'm getting stronger," Shako told the newspaper through an interpreter last week. "If my family would take me, I would go. But I don't have family here." He has been granted permanent U.S. residency. He carries in his wallet pictures of his wife and five children, who remain in Congo. Hospital officials cite privacy rules in declining to answer questions about Shako and about why the hospital hadn't subsidized a move to a lower-cost skilled nursing facility. In fiscal 2018, the hospital provided free care for 14,548 patients and absorbing costs of $14.2 million, according to Iowa Hospital Association figures. Shako's friend and co-legal guardian Peter Nkumu, of Iowa City, has been scrambling to find help for him, including asking lawmakers to consider waiving a wait rule for legal immigrants wanting access to Medicaid. State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an Ottumwa Republican, said she plans to inquire about Shako's case and said lawmakers might be willing in extreme circumstances to consider exceptions to the five-year wait rule. But Miller-Meeks also said she wants to make sure other avenues and options are considered, such as stringent insurance requirements for legal immigrants. Nkumu and other immigrants have explored trying to bring someone from Congo to support Shako, but visas are tough to come by. Shako received one of 2,664 permanent visas issued to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, according to the U.S. State Department. They fear sending Shako back to Congo, saying the poor conditions there could be prove fatal to him. Geoffrey Lauer, executive director of the Iowa Brain Injury Alliance based in Iowa City, said getting Shako out of the hospital and into a more appropriate setting not only would save state resources, it could accelerate his rehabilitation. And, Lauer said, Shako now is an Iowan, making him "part of our mission." Claim: Immigrant still hospitalized in Iowa, 18 months after crash.
An African man who was trying to build a new life in Cedar Rapids has spent the past 18 months at an Iowa City hospital, recovering from a traffic accident that killed two fellow immigrants.