TASK DEFINITION: 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.
PROBLEM: Evolocumab met the main goal of a late-stage trial titled RUTHERFORD-2 by lowering “bad” LDL cholesterol levels when tested against a placebo on 329 patients. Amgen, the world’s biggest biotechnology company, is testing evolocumab widely on a variety of subpopulations. The RUTHERFORD-2 study included patients with familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited condition that causes high levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol starting at birth. Specifically, patients in the study had heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, which is one of the most common genetic disorders affecting about one out of every 300 to 500 people worldwide, according to Amgen. The company on Tuesday reported positive results from a fourth late-stage study of evolocumab, for which it plans to begin seeking approvals this year. The drug is intended for people who cannot tolerate widely used statins, or who are unable to get their LDL levels low enough despite using high potency statins, such as AstraZeneca’s Crestor. Amgen’s shares closed at $120.89 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

SOLUTION: Amgen's cholesterol fighter succeeds in fifth late-stage study.

PROBLEM: "Ed Stafford of Leicestershire, England walks in between trees as he walks through the Amazon jungle in Brazil in this undated handout photo. Former British army captain Stafford became on Monday the first known person to walk from the origin of the Amazon river, the world's second-longest river, to its mouth, after withstanding ""50,000"" mosquito bites, scorpion attacks and skin disease in his 859 day odyssey. REUTERS/Handout Ed Stafford, a 34-year-old from Leicestershire, England, dived into the Atlantic Ocean after taking 859 days to walk the length of the world’s second-longest river, starting at the peak of Mount Mismi in Peru in April 2008. “It’s just phenomenal to be here at the end of the journey after 2-1/2 years slogging our way through the jungle,” he told Reuters after arriving at the beach about 90 miles northeast of the Brazilian city of Belem. “It was really difficult to envisage how this was going to feel and I’m completely overwhelmed.”   Stafford briefly collapsed from exhaustion with only 52 miles of the 6,000-mile journey to go, passing out by the roadside after breaking out in a rash. “I feel slightly humbled that my system just decided to shut down so close to the finish,” he wrote on his blog at www.walkingtheamazon.com. Stafford has aimed to use the walk to raise awareness about the threats to the Amazon rain forest and its people, using a portable satellite video to blog about his trek. He had planned to complete the walk in about a year, but the journey was prolonged by floods that forced him to walk a roundabout route that was 2,000 miles longer than the 4,000-mile (6,400-km) length of the Amazon, which is exceeded in length only by Africa’s Nile river. He began the journey with fellow British adventurer Luke Collyer, but the pair had a falling out early in the trek and Stafford continued alone. He was joined in July 2008 by a Peruvian forestry worker, Gadiel Cho Sanchez Rivera, who pledged to walk with him for five days and has been with him on the walk ever since. A statement from Stafford’s media team said that the Briton had been: “wrongly accused of murder on two separate occasions, been imprisoned, had concrete stuffed in his mouth by hostile tribes people, been chased by Ashaninka Indians with bows and arrows, been stung by hundreds of wasps and watched as his guide ‘Cho’ removed a botfly from Ed’s head with superglue and a tree spine.”   It said he had endured “50,000” mosquito bites, lived on a diet of piranha fish, rice and beans, and dodged a variety of snakes, electric eels, scorpions, and ants, as well as contracting a skin-disfiguring disease. Famed British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes was quoted as saying in the statement that Stafford’s feat was “truly extraordinary.”   “No one has ever done this before and the pundits considered the route impossible,” he said."

SOLUTION: British man becomes first to walk Amazon length.

PROBLEM: Max Reiss, the governor’s spokesman, said the Democrat “finds this information important” and believes “the public has the right to know,” including state legislators, who’ve discussed possibly ending a religious exemption from vaccines. Reiss’ comments came a day after Department of Public Health Commissioner Renee Coleman Mitchell said she only planned to release county-by-county immunization data and not school-by-school vaccination rates, noting there have been no new measles cases in Connecticut since April. DPH is expected this week to release the latest statewide vaccination data, including how many students have sought the religious exemption. Reiss said county-by-county data will be released in October and school-by-school numbers sometime afterward, once it’s been verified for accuracy. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, a Democrat from Hartford who has voiced concern about the growing number of vaccine exemptions sought on religious grounds, said it’s important for lawmakers to have the school-by-school data to identify pockets of unvaccinated students. He said county-by-county or statewide data gives people the “false impression” there are no issues with vaccinations. While Connecticut has high statewide vaccination rates, school-by-school information released earlier this year showed more than 100 schools with rates that fell below recommended federal guidelines. A Woodstock couple has sued DPH to stop the agency from publicly releasing additional immunization rate information at private and public schools, arguing their unvaccinated son suffered “mental and emotional distress” after the data released in May showed 18.5% of students at his private school in Meriden claimed the religious exemption.

SOLUTION:
Lamont overrules official, wants more vaccine data released.