instruction:
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.
question:
Paragraph: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics said Thursday that the number of U.S. babies born last year fell 2 percent from 2016 to 3.85 million, also a 30-year low. Births have fallen for three straight years. The fertility rate dropped 3 percent last year to 60.2 births per 1,000 women ages 15 through 44. An aging society has already weighed on economic growth in the United States in the past decade, with the vast baby boom generation retiring and fewer young people replacing them. Thursday’s data suggests that the trend is likely to continue. Economic growth is generally driven by population growth and worker efficiency, both of which have slowed in the past decade in the United States. Kathy Bostjancic, an economist at Oxford Economics, a consulting firm, said that roughly 10 years ago, the number of Americans working or looking for work was growing about 1 percent annually. With birthrates declining, that figure has since fallen to about a 0.3 percent growth rate. That essentially acts as a 0.7 percentage point drag on the United States’ long-run growth. “Demographics have a really powerful impact on the economy,” Bostjancic said. The U.S. economy has grown at a 3 percent average annual rate since World War II. Yet it hasn’t reached that pace for a full calendar year since 2005. The baby boomers first reached retirement age in 2008. The Federal Reserve in March upgraded its short-term economic growth forecast to about 2.7 percent for this year and 2.4 percent in 2019, partly because of the Trump administration’s tax cuts. But the Fed kept its longer-run annual growth forecast at just 1.8 percent, reflecting the demographic headwinds. Aside from fewer workers, an aging society can hold back growth because fewer people are buying homes, cars and other costly purchases. Savings generally rise as people age and prepare for retirement. And as elderly people live longer, they also slow their spending while in retirement, Bostjancic noted. Most economists attribute the low interest rates and low inflation of the past decade, in the United States, Europe and Japan, at least in part to aging. In Japan, where adult diapers outsell those for children, the impact of fewer births has kept growth nearly nonexistent for more than two decades. The economy has picked up recently and enjoyed two straight years of growth, the longest such streak since the late 1980s, before contracting again in the first three months of this year. The U.S. accepts many more immigrants than does Japan, and that influx has boosted population growth. The Labor Department released separate data Thursday showing that last year, there were 27.4 million foreign-born workers in the United States, the most since records began in 2005. Immigrants now make up 17.1 percent of the U.S. workforce. Economic research earlier this year found that U.S. fertility fell sharply roughly nine months before the past three recessions. That suggests that such declines could signal economic downturns. But Kasey Buckles, an economics professor at Notre Dame who conducted the research with two colleagues, said that recent such declines aren’t sharp enough to point to a recession. Instead, she noted that fertility declines over the past three years have occurred mostly among women under 30. Birth rates among older women have risen or held steady. That suggests that the fertility declines largely reflect a drop in unwanted pregnancies since the 2008-2009 recession. Fertility among women of all ages fell sharply in 2008 and 2009, Buckles said, but rebounded quickly for women 30 and over. Separate data from the Guttmacher Institute, a policy organization that tracks reproductive health, shows that unwanted pregnancies have fallen since the Great Recession, Buckles said. “It’s possible that the Great Recession may have been something of a triggering event that caused people to be more intentional about their fertility,” she said. ___ Contact Chris Rugaber on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber . Claim: Lowest US birth rate in 3 decades could pose risk to economy.
answer:
Women in the United States gave birth last year at the lowest rate in 30 years, a trend that could weigh on economic growth in the coming decades.


question:
Paragraph: The article does a good job of noting the cost of the combing salons, as well as cost of the medicinal shampoos and other drug treatments, specifically noting also that insurance may not cover the costs. The article cites data from a recent review article in a medical journal that outlines the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the medicinal treatments. “The medications have been found to be from 68% to 87% effective after one or two applications. Most don’t require combing,” the story says. We do wish they story explained what “67% effective” means for a typical person, however. The careful reader will note that the evidence for the effectiveness of the featured combing salons is mostly anecdotal, and it would have greatly strengthened the article to have been more explicit about this, as well as including more solid proof that standard lice medications are not as effective as they used to be. The article notes that various organizations and experts consider the chemical/medicinal treatments to be highly safe as well as effective. The story needed to be more explicit about the quality of evidence for each of the treatment options mentioned–combing, going to a delousing salon, over-the-counter treatments, prescription treatments. Only the latter are mentioned in the context of research. The story references a review article that compares the different approaches, but it provides no details on what kind of evidence the review is based on. No disease mongering here, and we were glad the story pointed out that there are no adverse physical health effects from lice. The article does a very good job of noting the conflicts of interest of those quoted. The story explored alternatives. Good job on this. It’s clear that businesses that assist with combing are easy to find, and over-the-counter shampoos are even easier. What appears to be “new” is the explosion of combing salons and newer prescription shampoos, as well as the review article published last week that evaluates them. This story doesn’t appear to rely on a news release. Claim: New Ways to Fight Super Lice
answer:
The treatment of childhood cases of head lice infestations is a popular news media perennial at the start of the school year, and this Wall Street Journal story falls into that category. It covers the usual elements — prevalence of the infestations among school age children, over-the-counter and prescription treatments, home remedies (which generally don’t work) and reassurance about the pesky but essentially benign health impact. This story also takes a look at the rise of “lice-combing” salons and newer medications meant to stand in when older medications are ineffective. We were impressed by the depth of the sourcing, along with the details that helped readers assess any potential conflicts of interest among said sources. One thing we wished had been more detailed: How the evidence stacks up for each of the treatments. As the article itself makes clear, head lice infestation is a widespread, unpleasant, and disruptive — albeit relatively benign — condition that costs millions of families money, aggravation and time in efforts to prevent and treat. Adding to the nuisance of ridding scalps, tresses, clothing and home furnishings of the pests, some of the historic over-the-counter medicinal treatments have lost their power owing to drug-resistant mutations in the lice. Newer prescription medicines are effective, but worry an apparently growing number of parents who work hard to avoid what they consider unnecessary chemical exposure. Thus, parents are certain to be looking for the best and latest information about treatments.


question:
Paragraph: Dr. Dana Meaney-Delman, who has been leading the inquiry at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, wants to know where that oil came from. The answer will help explain whether these cells play a key role in the vaping-related outbreak that has killed seven people and sickened 530 so far. It may also reveal whether some of these cases have been occurring all along, undetected. “We’re looking to partner with any lab that can assist in the identification of what those lipids (fats) are,” Meaney-Delman said in a telephone interview. A group of researchers who have been studying the long-term effects of vaping told Reuters they have taken up the challenge. They have begun to re-examine lung cell samples they have collected in recent years for evidence of these oil-filled immune cells in people who vaped but didn’t get sick. One possibility: The deposits are residue from inhaling vaping oils, such as those containing the marijuana ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or vitamin E acetate. Both are considered possible contributors to the current illnesses. Some researchers suspect the oils are formed inside the lungs as part of the body’s natural response to chemicals found in many commercial vaping devices. One theory is that vaping these chemicals may impair the immune system, and make people who vape more vulnerable to respiratory distress, they say. A study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation earlier this month has fueled the latter theory. It found that mice exposed to aerosols of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin - common solvents used in conventional nicotine vaping devices - developed these same fat-clogged immune cells even though they were never exposed to vaping oils. These mice also had impaired immune systems compared to mice exposed to room air. The study set off alarm bells for Thomas Eissenberg, co-director of the Center for Tobacco Products at Virginia Commonwealth University. For years, doctors have reported isolated cases of pneumonia-like illnesses in people who vaped. In many cases, patients also had these fat-filled immune cells - called lipid-laden macrophages. Now, these same abnormalities have been found in mice, and in at least some of the people who have fallen ill recently. “For me, the implication is there may be some underlying level of disease, like what we’re seeing in this cluster, that’s been going on all along,” Eissenberg said in a phone interview. Early last week, Eissenberg joined some 25 vaping experts on a hastily arranged conference call. At least three researchers who have already collected lung cell samples from otherwise healthy vapers told Reuters they would see whether these people also had fat-laden pockets within their immune cells. Other researchers, like Eissenberg, are seeking funding to collect new samples of their own. They want to help determine whether these abnormalities have been present for years, and whether they have made vapers generally more vulnerable to severe disease, possibly triggered by some new vaping substance. The group’s members say they have been in regular contact with officials at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health on how they can best help with the multistate investigation. They include Robert Tarran, a physiologist and vaping expert at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and Dr. Peter Shields, a lung cancer specialist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, who has one of the country’s largest sets of lung samples from vapers, smokers and never-smokers. “It could be that we’ll see something in the general, normal population of people who are using e-cigarettes,” Shields said. Investigators at the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have pointed to THC vaping oils or vitamin E, a substance used in some THC products, as a possible cause of these illnesses. But they have not ruled out anything yet, including conventional nicotine liquids. CDC pathologists are examining hundreds of lung cell samples gathered from patients in the outbreak. Meanwhile, forensic chemists at the FDA are testing more than 150 products to determine whether there is a common ingredient that may help explain the illnesses. “We need to parlay what we’re seeing in product samples with what we’re seeing in lung tissue,” Meaney-Delman said. Dr. Laura Crotty Alexander, a lung specialist at the University of California at San Diego, has been studying vaping’s effect on health since 2013. Two years ago, she treated a patient with the same set of symptoms that are now being described across the country, and is now checking her lung cell samples to look for clues. “It’s possible that everybody who is vaping is at risk,” she said. Claim: U.S. scientists join effort to solve mysterious vaping-related illnesses.
answer:

The U.S. investigation into hundreds of cases of life-threatening lung illnesses related to vaping has turned up a curious abnormality: Many of the victims had pockets of oil clogging up cells responsible for removing impurities in the lungs.


