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: One new study found that heart attack survivors benefited from a medicine long used to treat gout. Several experimental drugs also showed early promise for interfering with heart-harmful genes without modifying the genes themselves — in one case, with treatment just twice a year. The research was featured at an American Heart Association conference ending Monday in Philadelphia. “There’s a lot of excitement” about the new gene-targeting medicines, especially because they seem to last so long, said Dr. Karol Watson, of the University of California, Los Angeles. Scientists have been exploring gene therapy — altering DNA — to attack the root cause of many diseases. The new drugs essentially accomplish the same thing without tampering with genes, said the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Daniel Rader, who has consulted for some makers of these drugs. The medicines work by silencing or blocking messages that genes give to cells to make proteins that can do harm, such as allowing cholesterol to accumulate. The first few of these “RNA-interference” drugs recently were approved for other conditions, and research is also targeting heart disease. Farthest along is inclisiran, tested in 1,561 people with heart disease from clogged arteries who still had high LDL, the bad form of cholesterol, despite taking standard drugs. They were given a shot of inclisiran or a dummy drug when they joined the study, three months later and then every six months. The drug lowered LDL by 56% without serious side effects. More testing will show whether it also lowers heart attacks and other problems, not just cholesterol. Inclisiran’s maker, The Medicines Company, plans to seek federal approval for it later this year. Two other RNA interference drugs aim at a different target — triglycerides, another fat in the blood that’s elevated in one quarter of Americans. Treatments include very low-fat diets, weight loss, fish oil and drugs, but doctors say more and better therapies are needed. Each RNA interference drug was tested at various doses in 40 people. A single shot lowered triglycerides by 30% to 67%, and the benefit lasted for at least four months. The studies were just intended to show safety; Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals is developing both drugs. Other research found new benefits from older drugs. AstraZeneca’s Farxiga, originally developed to treat diabetes, also lowered the risk of heart problems in heart failure patients who did not have diabetes. Among 2,605 of such patients treated for 18 months, about 9% of those on Farxiga had worsening heart failure or heart-related death versus nearly 13% of those not given the drug. That worked out to a 27% lower risk, without extra serious side effects. Surprising benefits also were seen in a Canadian study of the decades-old gout drug. The anti-inflammatory drug colchicine — sold as Colcrys, Mitigare and in generic form — was tested in 4,745 people who recently had a heart attack. After about two years, colchicine users had a 23% lower risk of suffering a new heart attack, heart-related death, stroke, cardiac arrest or urgent need for an artery-opening procedure compared with a group given dummy pills. The benefit came mostly from preventing strokes and artery-opening procedures, and some heart doctors would rather have seen more difference in heart attacks and deaths. Colchicine is being tested in several other studies, and more evidence is needed before using it routinely to lower heart risks, Dr. L. Kristin Newby of Duke University wrote in a commentary published with the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, a Northwestern University cardiologist and program chief for the heart conference, was more supportive. “When you have a safe drug that’s easily available, it’s going to be hard to hold this one back,” he said. ___ Marilynn Marchione can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP ___ 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.

SOLUTION: New, old drugs may offer fresh ways to fight heart disease.

PROBLEM: On January 23 2019, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a screenshot of an unlinked Facebook post, alleging that a man named Jordan Lee Grinnell assaulted an unnamed black middle school student:Above three images (a handcuffed man sitting on steps, presumably the same man in an unrelated photograph, and what looked to be an injured black teenager) was a caption, which read:This 38-yr-old white “man” beats the hell out of a a black 8th grader over a children’s soccer game. The “man” is Jordan Lee Grinnell, a Navy active duty E7, working in Richmond, VA.Let’s make him famous!In the space of a few weeks, the post was shared more than 100,000 times. A search of Facebook revealed an identical post (not in screenshot form) posted in July 2018. That post did not garner many shares or much engagement. The claim dated back at least that far, and an iteration of it appeared on the message board Democratic Underground along with a tweet. The tweet displayed tens of thousands of engagements in the form of shares and discussion.As it happened, there was extensive news coverage of an incident involving a man named Jordan Lee Grinnell from June 2018. On June 15 2018, The Virginian-Pilot reported about an altercation at a soccer game that month, which apparently began when two boys on opposing teams got into a fight.Witnesses at the event said that a conflict between the boys escalated, and an adult male approached the pair. Although parents believed the man intended to “break up” the fight, he instead allegedly “knocked one of them down, jumped on him and began punching him in the face”:Near the end of a sand soccer game [in June 2018] at the Oceanfront, two boys on opposing teams began pursuing the ball.After it went out of bounds, a brawl broke out between the two.What happened next stunned onlookers, and left some of the players who witnessed it feeling fearful and traumatized. It also led to a hospital visit and stitches for one of the teens, and caused police to arrest the father of the other player.Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, of Virginia Beach, was charged with misdemeanor assault, police said. He was released on bond afterward.It happened at the annual North American Sand Soccer Championship. More than 10,000 players, age 8 and up, participated this year, said Lauren Bland, executive director of Hampton Roads Soccer Council.Witnesses said they saw Grinnell knock a boy to the ground and punch him in the face.Timothy Vickerie, 14, of Chester, received four stitches above his right eye and suffered a concussion and bloody lip, according to his mother, Nicole Vickerie. When the eighth-grader returned to the tournament the next day to cheer on his teammates, his eye was swollen shut and bruised.Parents who witnessed the incident said it weighed on them for days, telling the paper that they confronted Grinnell:“I still can’t get it out of my mind,” said Jennifer Moss, who was standing just feet away. “I didn’t sleep for two days and I’m still having trouble sleeping. The kids who witnessed it are all shaken.”[…]Nicole Vickerie said it appeared her son was about to grab the other boy’s shirt when Grinnell ran over and punched him, knocking him off his feet.“It was breathtaking to see that and surreal. It still is,” Nicole Vickerie said. “By the time we got there, people had pulled him off and took him away.”Moss said he [sic?] called police and confronted Grinnell.“I yelled at him, ‘You just beat up a 14-year-old kid,’” Moss said. “He said, ‘That’s my son.’ And I said, ‘They were fighting over a ball. That’s what soccer’s about.’”Nicole Vickerie said she also confronted Grinnell. “I asked him did he feel better now. ‘Does that make you feel like a big man?’ ” she said. “He said, ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry.’”On June 17 2018, KIMT3 published an article confirming Grinnell’s rank and including a statement from the North American Sand Soccer Championships about the incident:Police say a soccer player was assaulted while playing at the North American Sand Soccer Championship on June 9 [2018].Jordan Grinnell, 38, was arrested and has been charged with simple assault.A spokesperson with the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command said Grinnell is active duty Navy. He is a Chief Petty Officer assigned to NAVY RECRUITING DISTRICT RICHMOND, the spokesperson said. […]NASSC released a statement below in response to the incident:“For 25 years, the North American Sand Soccer Championships has promoted a safe, fun and family friendly weekend of competition, attracting more than 200,000 participants over that time. We take very seriously any acts of violence and condemn any bystander from entering the field of play. Our hearts go out to the victim in this unfortunate incident, and we want to assure everyone that we will redouble our efforts to make the 2019 tournament and all future ones even more safe and secure for our athletes, coaches, officials, parents and other visitors who attend this world class event.”Navy Times covered the aftermath of Grinnell’s arrest extensively, reporting on June 24 2018:A Navy chief who allegedly charged into a youth soccer game as his teenage son jostled with his opponent is being charged with assault and battery, the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office told Navy Times.Chief Engineman Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, was arrested by Virginia Beach Police last month after he reportedly knocked Timothy Vickerie, 14, to the ground and began punching him in the face.Vickerie was hospitalized with a concussion and required four stitches, the report said … Grinnell has no prior criminal record, the Pilot reported, and his Navy records show that he’s the recipient of five Good Conduct Medals.The outlet reiterated its reporting three days later. In October 2018, the outlet reported that Grinnell had been convicted and sentenced. The outlet was unable to obtain information regarding whether Grinnell faced additional sanctions from the Navy:A Navy chief who charged into a youth soccer game and beat up a 14-year-old boy made a scheduled court appearance [in October 2018], where he pleaded no contest and was found guilty of assault and battery, the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office told Navy Times.Chief Engineman Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, was sentenced at the Virginia Beach Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court hearing to 12 months in jail, with the entire sentence suspended except for 60 days. He will be allowed to serve out the 60 days in jail over the course of 30 consecutive weekends, starting Oct. 19 [2018]. […]Multiple attempts were made by Navy Times to inquire what punishment, if any, Grinnell received from the Navy but officials would not specify exactly what ramifications he is facing.“The Navy is following our administrative protocols regarding civilian convictions,” Lt. Cmdr. Jessica McNulty, spokesperson for Navy Recruiting Command, told Navy Times.The January 2019 Facebook post claimed that active duty Naval officer Jordan Lee Grinnell “beat the hell out of a black 8th grader at a children’s soccer game.” Grinnell, 38, was found guilty on assault and battery charges stemming from an incident at a June 2018 soccer game in Virginia, resulting in injuries to a 14-year-old boy. However, the incident received extensive news and social media attention when it occurred in June 2018, and Grinnell was arguably already “famous” when the claim was re-shared in early 2019. The story is true.

SOLUTION: Active duty Naval officer Jordan Lee Grinnell assaulted a black middle schooler.

PROBLEM: “This is our freedom on the line,” Haley said. “If they make it Schedule I, technically they’ll be treating it the same as heroin. And that could have me locked up in jail for life.” Less than a week after the DEA’s notice of intent to temporarily place kratom — a product made from the leaves of a southeast Asian tree — on the most restrictive tier of the Controlled Substances Act, the State Department of Environmental Health was at Rocky Mountain Kratom’s door. Haley’s supply was put on a hold order. As a result, his business, which is one of the only kratom storefronts in the nation, was forced to close shop that same day, reported Colorado Public Radio (http://bit.ly/2cUmD3r). “Given the fact that (the DEA) is framing this as pressing public health concern, and given our roles and responsibilities here as a local public health authority, we felt that it was our responsibility to address kratom products in the Denver markets,” said Danica Lee, the director of public health inspections division for the DEH in Denver. Holds have now been placed on the kratom stock of 15 Denver stores. The DEA says the reason behind the emergency scheduling is due to signs that kratom abuse is on the rise. The dried leaves are most commonly crushed into a powder, which can then be mixed with other liquids and drunk. It can also be brewed as a tea, or swallowed in capsule form. Across the U.S. there were 15 kratom-related deaths between 2014 and 2016, including one in Colorado. The Centers for Disease Control reports receiving 660 calls related to kratom exposure between 2010 and 2015. Dr. Jeffrey Brent, a distinguished clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says those numbers don’t seem overly concerning. “Frankly, if they were unambiguous kratom-caused deaths, I’d be a little bit more concerned than these kind of mixed drug overdoses, or mix-drug usage where kratom might not have even been a particularity big player,” Brent said. “And it can be very hard to sort out with people with multiple substances.” He adds that the anecdotal accounts of users, who say it’s helpful for chronic pain management, overcoming depression and anxiety, and even weaning off opioids and alcohol, are just that — not necessarily reliable, since little research has been done. For comparison, the National Center for Health Statistics reports 18,893 deaths from opioid pain relievers in 2014 alone. ″(Kratom) is quite weak though, it doesn’t cause a huge number of problems in most people,” Brent said. “But like anything else, all exposures to anything no matter what we’re talking about is dose-dependent. And if you take enough, anything can make you sick and certainly that is true of kratom.” The DEA’s announcement to officially ban kratom has not been made. Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson with the DEA, acknowledged the hundreds of calls and comments coming from users, adding that the response has been unexpected. The outcry from the community includes a letter from Congress, with the signatures of 51 representatives  ? including 22 Republicans ? addressed to acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg and asking the federal government to delay the scheduling of kratom until further research can be done. Colorado Democratic Rep. Jared Polis helped compose the letter. “It is absolutely ridiculous,” Polis said. “The DEA to add kratom to Schedule I, along with marijuana, and say that both of them need to be controlled even more than opioids is ridiculous —  when opioids are the devastating health crisis that so many families have faced and is causing so many deaths.” He adds that banning kratom could make the opioid crisis worse, and that this decision would be “counterproductive.” “I really worry that if it’s allowed to go to Schedule I, some of those people might turn to opioids or harder drugs,” Polis said. The letter was sent to the DEA on Sept. 28 and Congress has not yet received a response. But the DEA’s silence doesn’t mean there is any change in plans to ban kratom. It simply means it hasn’t happened yet. Until they make the formal announcement, kratom remains legal. Where does that leave Rocky Mountain Kratom? According to Danica Lee with the Department of Environmental Health, most likely right where they are now. “If there was a change in the decision, we would certainly want to evaluate that before making a decision on action,” Lee said. “If the time frame is extended, but the result seems as though it will be the same, we would likely leave those hold orders in place.” For Jeremy Haley, the actions against kratom have only encouraged him to fight for the plant he says saves lives. ‘Kratom Kingpin’ Haley first heard of Kratom while listening to a podcast. The guest of the show briefly mentioned his use of it for pain management. Haley started doing research and tried it for himself, and quickly found his anxiety and depression diminished, along with his cravings for alcohol. “My life has been a 180 since then,” Haley said. “I was working in oil and gas at the time actually, and now I’m advocating for botanicals.” He says it helped him work the 16-hour days in the field, and helped him excel at his job. But in 2012, he was arrested for a DUI after a night of light drinking, and was caught with MDMA ? commonly known as ecstasy ? in his pocket. He lost his job and his right to drive, and moved back to Colorado where he is originally from. “It’s one of my biggest regrets in life, but it did lead me down this road,” Haley said. “And it pushed me towards seriously looking for better ways to live.” He continued to use kratom, and he says it kept away the urges to drink while on probation. That’s when he got the idea to start selling it. “I had a feeling inside that people needed to know about this, and I needed to be the one to at least introduce it to people,” he said. “And to counteract the head shops that were selling it at the time, because a lot of the head shops are also giving kratom a bad name.” He applied for his peddler permit, and was allowed to sell kratom on the street. He set up a website and engineered it to be a top result after searching “opioid withdrawal help in Denver.” “I’d walk out there with my big, goofy peddler’s badge, and there’d be such a diverse group of clientele,” Haley said. “There’d be like, soccer moms and the elderly. I was really shocked by it actually at first. I kind of had my own personal stigma and idea of what kratom users, what the demographic would be.” He admits he looked sketchy, with his brown paper bags and meeting people on corners. But he had to start somewhere. “People were coming to me desperate, in really really rough situations. It was the only way I could figure out to make it work,” Haley said. He was even the subject of an undercover investigation by CBS4, and called a “street dealer.” He was worried what his probation officer might think. “It was just kind of me flying solo there for a bit,” Haley said. “Which was a really cool experience, because it really let me dive in deep and meet a lot of the people and learn their stories and learn how much it’s changed their lives in so many different ways and for so many different conditions, from multiple sclerosis to lupus, you can go on and on.” He continued selling this way for two years when he eventually saved up enough to rent out a space on Broadway. “Things would start looking good, and then you would tell people what you’re selling, Kratom, and then they’d Google it, and that CBS story would come up: ‘Denver Street Dealer.’ And then before you know it, no return phone calls or messages,” he said. But after a year and a half, business was pouring in. “We were about ready to blow up,” Haley said. “We were on the verge of becoming a major business and opening many shops. Especially getting into wholesale was a huge goal of mine, and getting our product as accessible as possible in as many outlets as possible across the country for people to use it.” He said it probably would have taken off even faster if it wasn’t for the legal troubles his business has encountered. “We were on the brink of getting shut down, and that’s with amazing profits,” Haley said. “The profits didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s all the other loopholes, it really felt like playing some weird, twisted game.” Banks would close down his accounts because of what he was selling, and his product started being seized at customs after the FDA put out a notice saying that kratom was a substance of concern. “The customs agencies felt like they needed to take some sort of action, in order to enforce that,” Haley said “And they seized hundreds of kilograms from several different vendors, not just us. And it’s just thousands of dollars down the drain.” Haley had to get creative to keep the kratom coming in; he switched over to a Chinese shipping carrier, and had a lab perform tests on his product before it entered the U.S., to guarantee purity for the FDA. And all of it was labeled “not for human consumption,” something Haley had been doing since he started his business. “It’s pretty unfair, and it’s always felt very gross having to put those disclaimers on there,” Haley said. “Because we obviously all know the deal. We were making like, kratom candles even. Just so we could keep our customers, you know, provide them the relief that they need. Because we’ve had so many that have been depending on this stuff.” He says that with all the troubles he’d already experienced, that he knew the DEA’s announcement was inevitable. “I just didn’t expect it to be this soon, or to happen the way that it did,” Haley said. He now sits in his yet-to-be-open shop on Broadway and Alameda, called Artisans Apothecary. It will focus on natural foods and supplements, and was supposed to be his new spot to sell kratom. It was scheduled to be up and running by Sept. 26, but he and his staff decided to focus their efforts on stopping the ban instead. They flew to Washington to join the protest march on the capital Sept. 13, and they were inspired to put together their own event at the Denver capitol building. About 100 supporters showed up on Sept. 23, holding handmade signs, shouting “Kratom saves lives” and sharing their stories. Many of the speakers at the event were customers of Haley’s, including Jason Delapp ? a veteran from Colorado who was diagnosed with MS in 2005. Delapp found kratom and Haley after suffering from opioid dependency for 10 years. “My wife and I had lost a daughter, 9 years ago,” Delapp said. “After that, we both used that pain even more than just physical pain and really abused prescription opiates.” He admitted that when it was tough to get the pills, it was easier to get meth and heroine, and he did both. “That was probably self-esteem wise, the lowest point of my life ever,” Delapp said. “I drank when I was younger a little bit, teenager stuff. But I never did drugs. That wasn’t me.” He says his wife got tired of their addiction, and found kratom as an option during her search for help. Delapp says he immediately saw a difference in her, and it convinced him to start using kratom himself. He’s now entirely off his medications. ″(Kratom) enables me to be in a good mood, and to think clearly, and to make good decisions with my MS to where I know if I’ve done too much,” Delapp said. “The energy and mood alone makes it possible for me to be part of my family’s life again, and I can remember it.” It’s people like Delapp that keeps Haley in the fight. “I pray that we can all ban together and make our voices heard,” Haley said. “Even if it does get outlawed or made Schedule I, that we keep harping on (the DEA) and we do it the right way. Not angry phone calls or letters, or trying to tear anybody down. Because these guys are just trying to do their jobs too and most of them are good guys. But we really need to make it heard that we’re united, as a people. And we’re not going to let our personal freedoms get taken away unless there’s valid explanation at least for why they’re doing this, and they have yet to do that so far.” ___ Information from: KCFR-FM, http://www.cpr.org/news

SOLUTION:
Business owner ready to fight looming federal ban on Kratom.