text_1: Therapy animals are everywhere. Proof that they help is not.
text_2: The story focuses on the lack of evidence supporting the fundamental concept of “therapy animals” — that interacting with animals can reduce stress or distress in humans. The story includes input from an array of expert sources and offers a broad (if vague) overview of the research literature regarding therapy animals. There are some shortcomings here — for example, not much was said about the costs of pet therapy. However, in sum, the story effectively conveys the lack of scientific consensus regarding how effective therapy animals are at reducing stress. Tackling the efficacy of therapy animals is a challenging subject, given that the story evaluates an absence of conclusive evidence. However, it’s an important subject. For example, therapy dogs can be expensive, which means a family may spend a great deal of money on a therapy animal — with little idea of whether the animal will provide meaningful benefits for a patient. Limited resources are available to help patients dealing with mental health issues, and it is important to ensure that those resources are used to achieve the maximum possible benefit. Resources that are being spent on unproven interventions are, obviously, not being used on interventions that have proven clinical benefits. This is the sort of thoughtful reporting we are always happy to see.