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.
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Question: The story does a good job of pointing out one advantage of the pill approach compared to delivery via colonoscopy–the reduced cost. “There was a significant difference in cost. Though the procedures were done in a Canadian hospital, the FMTs delivered by colonoscopy cost nearly $500 USD more than the capsules, which cost about $300.” This was a close call. Early on, it says the pill was 90% effective for treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infections. Later on, the story explains that both were equally successful in treating the Clostridium difficile infections. It would take a bit of deduction to figure out that the 90% treatment rate applies to both the pills and colonoscopies. And the study puts this figure close to 96%. But we’ll give the benefit of the doubt and rate it satisfactory. The story gets a satisfactory here for including the differences between the two methods of delivery: One source is quoted saying, “colonoscopies and the anesthesia required for the procedure can put a lot of stress on a person’s body and can be complicated for the people most at risk for C. difficile infections.”  It could have gone a step further and reminded readers that a colonoscopy is an invasive procedure with the inherent risks of infection and perforation that obviously aren’t there when taking a pill. The story did not mention the other adverse events described in the paper such as nausea and vomiting, though. The story comments on the size of the study and quotes a researcher about strengths (a randomized, controlled trial) and limitations (selection bias) of the study. Selection bias, in this case, means many people were excluded from the clinical trial if they had any number of issues (patients with severe or complicated cases were excluded, for example), potentially biasing the results. In a more real-world setting, the effectiveness rate may drop once it’s tried on a wider range of people. No disease mongering here. The story does include comments from an independent source unaffiliated with the research. But, it doesn’t specify that the source has received research money from a drug company that’s developing microbiome drugs. Standard treatment for C. diff is antibiotics. This should have been mentioned. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t spell out whether the pill form FMT is now, or soon will be, available to the public. The story does mention that numerous other clinical trials are using FMT as a possible treatment for various diseases but it is unclear whether the pill form is an option for physicians at this point. What’s new here is that a pill form for delivery of a fecal transplant is being tested against a colonoscopy. The story established this. It does not appear to rely on a news release.

Answer: Fecal transplant via a pill? Newsweek’s coverage points out possible selection bias of study participants


Question: The council, which covers the city’s business center, was “reviewing (its) weed management methods and investigating other technologies”, a spokeswoman told Reuters in an email, a day after a strike by workers at a nearby council pressured it into trialing an alternative weedkiller. The City of Sydney council currently used Roundup “as a last resort ... when non-pesticide methods such as hand-weeding and mulching have been ineffective”, and began testing alternative products in late 2018, the spokeswoman added. Bayer says Roundup is safe and backed by several regulatory bodies, despite research that found its main ingredient glyphosate was probably carcinogenic. The German company has been hit by massive compensation payouts in the United States this year, over claims its product caused cancer, which have seen its shareprice to plummet. The prospect of Sydney council rethinking its ties to Roundup, a flagship product of U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto Co until a buyout from Bayer last year, shows the pressure that grassroots campaigns and lawsuits are putting on governments about the product even as regulators declare it safe. “Because there’s a lot of emotion around it, local agencies may be moved to make a decision that’s made based on placating the general public rather than the available science,” said Ian Musgrave, a molecular pharmacologist and toxicologist at University of Adelaide. “We should be making decisions on safety based on actual science, not based on our fear or dismay of megacorporations.”  Earlier this week, Blacktown City Council in Sydney’s west agreed to trial an alternative to Roundup after a worker strike over the product left 40,000 garbage bins unemptied. Another four councils around Sydney previously quit using Roundup over possible links to cancer. Last month, an Australian gardener filed the country’s first lawsuit against Bayer, accusing Monsanto of causing him harm from exposure to glyphosate via decades of using Roundup. A Bayer spokesman said the company “encourages constructive dialogue with our stakeholders to build a broader trust in science”. The company had published “extensive research which supports our products’ safety” and was “committed to ensuring our customers continue to have access to these critical products as part of their sustainable agricultural activities”.

Answer: Sydney's city council reviews use of Bayer's Roundup weed killer amid cancer fears.


Question: They’ve stopped companies that quickly launched home-testing kits until they can show their products can accurately detect the virus. For now, the only way Americans can get tested is at hospitals, clinics or drive-thru sites, with a doctor’s order. After a botched rollout, testing in the U.S. has ramped up thanks to high-volume testing machines and new rapid tests. Last week, federal officials said total tests topped 1.4 million, and labs are processing nearly 100,000 tests daily. That’s the threshold many experts say is needed to track the virus. Still, testing continues to be constrained by shortages of medical supplies like gloves, masks and swabs. And the widespread drive-thru testing proposed for parking lots at chains like Walmart, Walgreens and Target has barely gotten off the ground. Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration is aggressively pushing new options onto the market. FASTER RESULTS Genetic tests are the gold standard for detecting COVID-19 infections. New, quicker ones are replacing the original laboratory tests that have to be manually mixed and developed. The idea behind both tests is the same: chemical solutions are used to isolate the virus from the patient sample, grab its genetic material and then reproduce it millions of times until it’s detectable with a computer. New rapid tests such as the one by Abbott Laboratories automate the process, cutting the time from four to six hours to about 15 minutes. “Essentially all of the reactions are squeezed into a little cartridge, so it’s a very nice, self-contained system.” said Dr. Bobbi Pritt, lab director at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota The cartridges from Abbott and other companies run on small, portable electronic machines found in thousands of U.S. hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices. That’s expected to increase testing beyond large universities, government and commercial labs. Abbott said it plans to begin shipping 50,000 tests per day this month. U.S. officials said they’d go first to remote areas with less access to labs. For now, only a health care professional can order a coronavirus test. Under current guidelines, priority is given to people with COVID-19 symptoms who fall into several high-risk groups, including hospitalized patients, health care workers and the elderly. “If you’re not sick, you don’t need to be tested,” has been the mantra for weeks. DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME Accurately testing for coronavirus involves several steps, including carefully swabbing the nose or throat to collect a sample, placing it in a sterile tube, storing it below 46 degrees Fahrenheit and then shipping it to a lab within three days. Health officials warn a number of things could go wrong if consumers try to swab, store and ship their own samples, potentially resulting in testing errors and undetected infections. The FDA is talking to companies working on at-home kits, but they’ll be required to show that their results are comparable to those of people under professional care, agency spokesman Jeremy Kahn said in a statement. Many of the proposed at-home tests aren’t like home pregnancy tests — they won’t provide instant results. The samples still need to go to a lab. After several companies began shipping test kits last month, the FDA quickly intervened. No home tests have been approved and the products sent to U.S. consumers were frauds, regulators said. Several companies were caught off guard including San Francisco startup Nurx, which initially built its business around prescribing birth control drugs via brief online consultations. On March 20, the company announced plans to ship 10,000 testing kits to customers for $181 each. Within 24 hours, the FDA warning went out and Nurx’s plan was off. UPCOMING OPTIONS Simpler, cheaper blood tests could also have a role in tracking the virus — and possibly expanding testing to the home. The FDA is permitting companies  to launch certain types of finger-prick tests that can detect whether people may have recently been infected. Instead of detecting the virus itself, these tests detect proteins called antibodies that the immune system generates to fight COVID-19. Public health experts hope that mass screening with antibody tests could eventually help track how the virus spreads and who might have built up immunity. “We have this massive epidemic on our hands and if we really want to control it through testing we need to have it more readily available and on a repeated basis — potentially every week to know who is truly positive and negative,” said Harvard University’s Dr. Michael Mina. Because the blood test is easy to perform and can be developed in 15 minutes — without laboratory equipment — some companies think it could become a viable home-testing option. Scanwell Health is seeking approval for a home test using one developed by Chinese manufacturer Innovita and deployed by the Chinese government. People who meet criteria through an online questionnaire would receive a test kit in the mail, take a blood sample and scan the test with a smartphone app. Next is an online consultation with a health professional who will deliver and interpret the results. “The entire testing process happens within the home— nothing needs to be shipped back,” said Scanwell executive Dr. Jack Jeng. ___ AP business writers Tom Murphy in Indianapolis and Anne D’innocenzio in New York contributed to this report. ___ Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Answer:
No COVID-19 testing at home yet but quicker options coming.