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.

Q: Paragraph: Given that this is an illegal substance banned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, cost as a therapeutic would be difficult to ascertain. We liked that the story took pains to explain that approval of this drug faces many hurdles. This is a tough one. While the story tells us what percentage of patients benefited from treatment, it does not, in fact, quantify the extent of those benefitswhich is precisely what this category is designed to assess. However, the story does do a goodand thoroughjob of describing the benefits in qualitative terms. That said, if the story had only chosen one or two examples of changes in the standardized measures of depression or anxiety, this would have received an enthusiastic "Satisfactory" rating. One strong word of caution though: The story cites one source as saying that psilocybin may one day be used to treat a wide range of mental health issues ranging from drug addiction to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The story offers no evidence to support these claims, which were made by a source associated with an organization that exists specifically to promote research on hallucinogens. Substantial claims require substantial evidence. The story would have been much stronger if it had eliminated the unsubstantiated remarks from the source particularly since they had no bearing on the subject of the story. The story addresses this issue thoroughly. Well done. The story does a good job of both describing the design of the studies and explaining why the study design is relevant. For example, the story notes: "But both [studies] were considered to be double-blind placebo trials the gold-standard of medical research in which subjects are left to guess whether they have gotten the active study drug or an inactive lookalike." This is the sort of thing we like to see. However, we did want to note that in the NYU study, researchers did state in the limitations section that there was "limited blinding" how did that possibly affect the outcomes? No disease mongering here. However, the story should have been more cautious about claims of benefit for conditions ranging far beyond the scope of the research at hand, which focused on mental health problems among people with advanced cancer. The story clearly states who funded the studies, and what that organization's long-term goals are. Further, the story clearly identified individuals quoted in the story who have ties to the studies or the funding organization. Lastly, the story incorporates input from an independent expert. However, the story would have been stronger if there had been a skeptical take on the research, which sawin some other coverage, such as this New York Times piece. The story does not address other treatment options for anxiety or depression, such as talk therapy or other pharmaceutical interventions. The story does a good job here. For example, the story notes: "[F]inding drugs like psilocybin effective is by no means the final hurdle to their widespread availability. None are currently in production, and no for-profit pharmaceutical company would likely invest millions of dollars to bring to market a pill intended effectively for one-time use." Well done. This is a close call. The story does do a good job of placing the work in context in regard to overall research involving hallucinogens. That's enough to earn it a "Satisfactory" rating. However, the story doesn't mention any of the work done in the past 10 years on the use of psilocybin specifically to address anxiety in cancer patients, such as this 2007 study, this one from 2011, or this one from 2013. Are the results from the two new studies consistent with these earlier findings? Do they differ in a meaningful way? That would be good to know. The story does not appear to rely on a news release. Claim: Ingredient in magic mushrooms is shown to ease anxiety and depression in cancer patients in one dose

A: The story focuses on two recent studies that find a single application of the hallucinogen psilocybin is effective at providing meaningful relief to cancer patients suffering from severe depression or anxiety. The studies were published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, and can be found here and here. In some ways, the story is thorough, addressing potential side effects and conflicts of interest very well. The story discusses the potential benefits in depth, which is good, but fails to quantify those benefits which is problematic. The story also does a good job of placing the work in context, highlighting the increasing profile of research into the use of hallucinogens as therapeutic tools for mental health problems. However, the story would have been even stronger if it had discussed the existing literature on the use of psilocybin to address anxiety in cancer patients. We also reviewed twonews releases related to the research: Depression and other mental health struggles are common and significant among people with cancer, especially terminal cancer. This makes it especially important for reporters to write responsibly about studies like those discussed in this story. You want to give readers enough information to help them make informed decisions. You don't want to raise false hopes, or sensationalize the work. Overall, this story does a nice job of handling a delicate subject well.
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Q: 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.

A: 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."
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Q: Paragraph: The story did not discuss cost. There are dozens of fish oil supplements on the market and their cost varies widely. The story could have given some sense of the financial impact that this regimen would have. This was a strong point of the story, giving us both absolute and relative risk figures up front in the second paragraph: Among children whose mothers took fish-oil capsules, 16.9 percent had asthma by age 3, compared with 23.7 percent whose mothers were given placebos. The difference, nearly 7 percentage points, translates to a risk reduction of about 31 percent. Too often, even when stories do provide absolute risk figures, they highlight relative risks high up in the story and bury the absolute risk information far down in the text where it's less likely to be read. The story explains that no adverse events were associated with the intervention. However, the harms assessed by the researchers were things like maternal or infant death, emergency caesarean delivery, and preterm birth. They didn't assess (and the story didn't mention) less serious harms like fishy taste, nausea, belching, and heartburn that are commonly associated with fish oil capsules and which might make this regimen burdensome for pregnant women. Moreover, it would have been useful if the story had also noted that the reason researchers want to replicate the results in a larger group of women is to make sure these very high doses of fish oil are indeed safe. The story gives us details of the studyhow many women were enrolled, that there was a placebo group, and that the children were followed for seven years. An independent source also explains that the study was "well designed and carefully performed." The story does not disease mongerchildhood asthma is a common and often exasperating condition that many parents grapple with. The story clearly explains who funded the study, and includes an independent source. But it doesn't note the extensive conflicts of interest reported by the lead author who's quoted in the piece: Dr. Bisgaard reports receiving consulting fees from Chiesi Pharmaceuticals and Boehringer Ingelheim, and Drs. Bisgaard and Bnnelykke report being named on a pending patent related to the prevention of childhood asthma through FADS genotyping and the assessment of blood levels of eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid in pregnant mothers. The patent filing related to genetic testing is particularly relevant, given that the researcher advocates genetic testing and testing of fish oil levels in pregnant women to determine who might benefit most from supplementation. Aside from avoidance of maternal smoking, there are no known ways to reduce the risk of developing asthma in childhood. The story explains this is why doctors are testing this method, and excited by the findings. The story explains that the"capsules were an over-the-counter product called Incromega TG33/22, a fish extract made by the British chemical company Croda Health Care." And in regard to whether women should start taking the supplement to lower asthma risk in their babies, the story lets us know researchers "are not ready to recommend that pregnant women routinely take fish oil" due to the very high dose used in this study. Further research is needed firstto establish safety and confirm benefit. We learn that previous studies on this topic were inconclusive, and so the inference is that this is the first time more conclusive results were seen, especially regarding the benefit in women who had lower-than-normal levels of the fatty acids in their blood. This story did not rely on the news release. Claim: Taking Fish Oil During Pregnancy Is Found to Lower Child's Asthma Risk

A:
This New York Times story looks at a new study showing a reduced risk of asthma inthe children of mothers who took high doses of fish oil during the last trimester of pregnancy. The story was strongit did a lot of things well. We were especially pleased to see the Times use both absolute and relative risk numbers when conveying the measured benefit. We learn, for example, that fish oil reduced the risk of asthma 31 percent, the relative risk benefit. That is tempered by inclusion of the absolute risk reduction16.9% of mothers who supplemented had children with asthma, compared to 23.7 of mothers taking a placebo. This helps readers keep expectations in check. The main shortcoming is the story's failure to disclose relevant conflicts of interest. One of the researchers has a financial interest in the genetic testing he advocates in the story and readers should be aware of that interest as they consider his recommendations. Other than avoidance of smoking by the mother, there is currently no known way to prevent asthma from developing in a child, and the World Health Organization defines its global healthand economic impact as "severe." Given how common this disease is, news coverage on this study will be highly read, making it vital to distillthe results accurately. This story did so, and provided important context to let parents know that researchers aren't yet ready to recommend high-dose fish oil supplementation to pregnant women.
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