instruction:
Given a paragraph, generate a claim that is supported by the given paragraph. 1) The claim must contain information from within the paragraph. 2) A sentence within the paragraph can be used as a claim. 3) The claim should not have contradictions within the paragraph. 4) The claim should be at most one sentence long.
question:
The story does not talk about costs, which was disappointing. The costs of intensive medical therapy can easily be identified. Using an online pharmacy we calculated the costs to be about $1,500 to $2,000 annually for medical therapy, using generic drugs. Using the Health CareBlue Book, we found the average cost of coronary artery bypass sugery and hospitalization to be about $62,000. We think that this is important information for readers that should have been included. The quantification here was presented in such a way to make it clear to readers that there was no significant benefit found to surgical intervention, which is a fair conclusion to draw from the study. The story says, "In the Stich study, 41% of patients assigned to treatment with drugs alone died during the follow-up period, which averaged five years. That compared with a mortality rate of 36% among patients who received bypass surgery plus medication. Although the relative reduction in risk of death was 14%, the result didn't meet tests for statistical significance, meaning it could have resulted from chance alone."That's a great way to describe the lack of statistical significance. It would have been even more powerful to show readers the actual number of patients who died in each group. The story provides great information about the study itself and about the overall state of the evidence supporting heart surgery. "How best to treat these patients has been fraught with uncertainty," is one of the more notable phrases from the story. It also says, "Many patients aren't evaluated for heart surgery to treat diseased arteries because they don't suffer classic chest pain or because doctors worry that hearts weakened by heart failure won't benefit from the procedure. Other doctors recommend immediate bypass surgery despite a lack of vigorous studies to support that strategy." The story does not engage in disease-mongering and takes a very careful approach to describing the types of patients who would be affected by this study's results. We also like the way they provided snapshots of patients who were in both arms of the study surgery and non-surgery at the end of the story, making it clear, as the study did, that both routes can be equally successful. The story brings in some strong independent voices who help make sense of this complicated study: James Fang, a cardiologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, who wrote an editorial accompanying the study, Raymond Gibbons, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, and Clyde Yancy, chief of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Rarely do you see a story that spends as much time with independent experts as it does with the authors of the study. The story does a great job showing how the standard interventions for heart disease stacked up against each other in this study. We wish that some mention had been made of diet and exercise and that at least a sentence had been included about whether there might be differences in outcomes seen as a result of different medication patterns. The story doesn't make it clear what exactly the patients were taking. The story makes it clear that the range of treatments studied by the authors are widely available. The story makes it clear that there is a great need for more evidence in this field and that this study will be surprising to many clinicians because of a long-held assumption that surgery is the superior option. tudies published in the early 1990s supported the view that bypass surgery provided a better long term outcome. The story does not rely on a news release.
answer:
More Options Before Bypass Surgery, Study Finds

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The new rules, which have been opened to the public for consultation, will involve the establishment of a comprehensive "management system" covering the production, sale, utilization and recycling of thin plastic film in the countryside. Chinese farmers, mostly in the arid north and west, cover fields with vast amounts of "plastic mulch" to help maintain soil moisture and protect against pests. The technique has played an important role in boosting yields and raising the quality of crops, the agriculture ministry said in a notice. "But because of excessive use and inadequate recycling, agricultural-use plastic film pollution in some regions has been getting worse and worse, and it has already become a major environmental problem holding back the green development of agriculture," the ministry said. In areas of northwest China that made use of plastic mulch, contamination rates stood at an average of 36 kilograms per hectare, with the figure as high as 138 kilograms in some regions, it said. The new rules would force farmers to use only film that meets quality standards, and they must also collect plastic waste from fields before its expiry date and deliver to approved recycling outlets. They will also be encouraged to reuse old film. China is said to use about 2 million tonnes of plastic film every year to cover around 200,000 square kilometers of farmland, an area the size of Belarus. But government researchers say the recycling rate stands at just 180,000 tonnes. If uncollected, the plastic waste eventually degrades the soil and could also infiltrate crops, with one parliamentary delegate from Shandong warning in March that some of the province's exports of ginger and spinach had been contaminated. Beijing is aiming to make around 90% of its total farmland safe for agriculture by the end of next year, part of its efforts to guarantee food security.
answer:
China drafts new rules to control rural plastic pollution.

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According to the website of the American Stroke Association (ASA) this eRumor is true. The American Stroke Association is a division of the American Heart Association. In an article published in February of 2003, the ASA says that a 60-second test can help determine whether someone may be experiencing a stroke. The three question test has been used by health care professionals as an initial way of determining whether someone may be experiencing a stroke. But a research project by North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, N.C. looked into the question of whether non-medical professionals could administer the short test and correctly identify the symptoms of a possible stroke. The conclusions was yes, that bystanders could be helpful in determining whether a person is experiencing a stroke. One of the reasons they looked into it was to see whether bystanders could be helpful to a 9-1-1 dispatcher in helping narrow down what is happening to a potential patient. The three questions given to the suspected stroke sufferers were: Can you raise your arms and keep them up?Can you smile?Can you repeat a simple sentence? The study found that when non-medical volunteers were asked by a telephone dispatcher to administer the test, they correctly identified the symptoms 96 percent of the timeespecially the raising of the arms and the speaking of a simple sentence. They were less effective in evaluating whether there was facial weakness in a smile, probably because of not knowing what the person's normal smile looked like. Doctors caution that this does not mean that citizens should try to diagnose stroke symptoms themselves.This study focused on citizens who were being given instruction over the telephone by emergency dispatchers. Any sign of weakness in the face, slurred speech, or weakness or numbness in the limbs should be evaluated by medical professionals immediately. If stroke victims are given proper help within 3 hours of the stroke, the ability to recover is greatly increased. CLICK HERE for more information posted on the the American Stroke Association website. updated 02/02/10 Comments
answer:
The eRumor says that the American Stroke Associations suggests a simple three question test to give to someone who may be experiencing the symptoms of a stroke.