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.

Input: Consider Input: Both warnings are true. On September 18, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded its warning about spinach, telling consumers not to eat any raw spinach, not just pre-packaged spinach as had initially been announced. The FDA also announced that it’s probe into the sources of spinach contaminated with a strain of E.coli bacterium had been expanded to other companies. On September 15, 2006, the FDA had announced that Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, California was recalling all of its products that contain spinach that have “best if used by” dates of August 17, 2006 through October 1, 2006 The FDA is continuing to investigate whether any other brands are involved. According to an FDA release, “Natural Selection Foods, LLC brands include: Natural Selection Foods, Pride of San Juan, Earthbound Farm, Bellissima, Dole, Rave Spinach, Emeril, Sysco, O Organic, Fresh Point, River Ranch, Superior, Nature’s Basket, Pro-Mark, Compliments, Trader Joe’s, Ready Pac, Jansal Valley, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, D’Arrigo Brothers, Green Harvest, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Pro*Act, Premium Fresh, Snoboy, The Farmer’s Market, Tanimura & Antle, President’s Choice, Cross Valley, and Riverside Farms. These products include spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend, both retail and food service products. Products that do not contain spinach are not part of this recall.” The FDA said that 109 cases of illness had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control including one death and 14 cases of what is called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a form of kidney failure. States included in the warning include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The FDA said the affected products were also distributed to Canada and Mexico. The other story was focused on Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Dateline show aired in April, 2006. When more than 10 cases of sick people with similar symptoms showed up within three days in September, 2005, a public health investigation was launched. The Minnesota Department of Public Health speculated that the sicknesses were food-related. One of the investigators suspected E.coli because of the symptoms of abdominal cramps and severe, bloody diarrhea. The problem was that E.coli poisoning was more commonly associated with eating contaminated and improperly cooked meat. One of the foods that most of the sick people had eaten was salads made from bagged lettuce. When a public health warning was issued about the salads, one of the victims called investigators from his hospital room and said he still had a partially-eaten bag in his refrigerator. That lettuce was tested and became the first evidence that the E.coli had come from the pre-packaged salads. The odd thing was that the bacterium was found in the lettuce, not just on it. As a result of that 2005 outbreak, the Dole company issued a voluntary recall for the “American Blend” and “Classic Romaine” packaged salads. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also issued a nationwide health alert in October, 2005, about the particular Dole salads implicated in the outbreak. According to Dateline, 26 people from three states got ill, some of them seriously. There were no known deaths and there have not been any repeats of the problem. Updated 9/18/06 Comments

Output:  There are a couple of stories about this. One warning says that a documentary on Dateline TV showed that E.coli bacteria were found in pre-packaged bags of salad and that the Dole company has issued a recall on some bags. The other from September of 2006 says the Food and Drug Administration has issued an alert that a strain of E.coli bacterium has been found in several U.S. states and that pre-packaged bags of spinach are suspect.  


Input: Consider Input: The government said in a friend of the court brief filed on Friday that glyphosate, the weed killer’s active ingredient, is not a carcinogen and as a result a warning on the label was not required as California state law demands. The backing by the EPA and Justice Department comes days after Bayer asked a U.S. federal appeals court to throw out a $25 million judgment it was ordered to pay Edwin Hardeman. Bayer had denied its Roundup weed killer causes cancer. In April, the EPA reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Farmers spray glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, on fields of soybeans and other crops that are genetically engineered to resist it. Roundup is also used by consumers on lawns, golf courses and elsewhere. Hardeman’s lawyers previously accused Roundup maker Monsanto, which Bayer acquired last year in a $63 billion deal, of having failed to warn consumers about the herbicide’s cancer risk. Bayer stock has lost about 23% in value since the first Roundup verdict for plaintiffs in August 2018. Bayer argued it would be impossible to comply with the Hardeman verdict, a lawsuit brought under state law, because any warning label would be in conflict with guidance from a federal agency. The EPA and Justice Department agreed in their Friday filing. “It is unlawful for manufacturers and sellers to make claims on their labels that differ from what EPA approves,” the U.S. government said.

Output: More Breast Cancer Patients Should Consider Radiation, New Guidelines Say


Input: Consider Input: Costs of either new treatment approach are not discussed, nor whether they might be covered by insurance. Since the first-ever clinical trial of stem cells to regrow cartilage pads is ongoing, benefits cannot be quantified. A similar challenge in reporting benefits of cartilage plugs is that this approach doesn’t appear to have any studies that support its use in cartilage (vs. bone), since this is an off-label use. While benefits aren’t reported, it doesn’t appear that there are any to actually describe just yet. The stem cell technique is quoted by the lead researcher as having “no safety problems.” While this is suspect, since this is the first clinical trial, side effects or harms in humans may not be known. The article could have countered this quote with a statement that no side effects have been reported yet, which is different than that they don’t exist. A potential harm talked about by someone not apparently involved in the research is that too much cartilage may be re-grown and there may not be a mechanism to turn it off, leading to unforeseen problems. For the cartilage plugs, harms of treatment are not discussed, although a question about their benefit–whether they even work in cartilage–is raised. The story describes on-going research using stem cells to re-grow the cartilage pad, or meniscus, in the knee. The ongoing research is described as a clinical trial, with either a “dummy” or active injection given to patients (so there is a placebo or control group and this also implies patients don’t know which one they’ve received, or that they’re “blinded” to the intervention), and that researchers are blinded to which intervention patients have received. What’s described is a randomized, controlled trial, which is the gold-standard in research. The other technique–cartilage plugs–is being used for treatment that doesn’t appear to have any research to support it, or at least not when used in cartilage (vs. bones). But, the article describes these circumstances to readers. The article provides a brief overview of knee injury or disease (arthritis) and the numbers of people who experience this. The article nicely states that the “holy grail” is repairing the cartilage of knee bones associated with arthritis – typically age-related wear and tear. None of the treatments mentioned are anywhere near this. So for current patients suffering from knee pain due to degenerative arthritis, the options are conservative medicines (like ibuprofen) or knee replacement surgery. This article suggests an intermediate, less invasive approach. The current cartilage repair procedures aren’t thought to work very well (thus the search for new ones). These aren’t the first attempts to repair cartilage. Others have been tried, but generally haven’t offered much benefit to patients. For the stem cell research, the article does quote a source who is apparently uninvolved with the research. This source provides some balance in noting that it’s not clear whether this works, and specifically, whether this process can be turned off once enough cartilage is re-grown. For cartilage plugs, the same source comments with skepticism over whether these really work. Currently, the standard treatment option for meniscus tears is surgical removal of jagged edges that don’t heal, which is mentioned in the story. Treatment alternatives for injured or damaged articular cartilage (vs. use of articular plugs) are described and include total knee replacement and surgery to “rough up” the edges to stimulate natural repair. Framing around what these new treatments hope to provide could have been improved, e.g. many of the intermediate procedures talked about in the article are trying to provide an option in the middle of either a very simple approach, like medications, or a pretty aggressive approach, like joint replacement. There are two treatment options discussed in the article. One uses stem cells from donated bone marrow. This technique is reported as part of the first-ever clinical trial using stem cells to regrow a cartilage pad in the knee, so readers know this option is not available yet outside of this research study. The second treatment approach uses cartilage plugs to fill in gaps or injuries to knee cartilage. The story states these cartilage plugs are FDA-approved for use in bones, but not cartilage, so the use described is “off-label.” The article describes the stem cell option as new, which does appear to be true. It also describes the off-label use of cartilage plugs, implying this technique itself may not be new, but is being used in a new capacity. There have been prior attempts to repair cartilage that are not mentioned in the article, but these attempts have not provided much benefit. There is no obvious reliance on press release material.


Output: Doctors Test Ways to Grow Knee Cartilage