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: 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.

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

PROBLEM: The Lewiston Tribune reports health officials and the Nez Perce Tribe have urged people to use caution when spending time in or near the water. A release from Public Health Idaho North Central District states that blue-green algae is a natural part of Idaho’s water bodies. But when temperatures rise, their populations can bloom, and toxic chemical compounds can be released into the water. Those spending time near surface water with a health advisory are urged to avoid swimming, wading or other activities. Health officials say people should not drink or cook with water containing a bloom. ___ Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com

SOLUTION: Advisory in place for Idaho’s Winchester Lake.

PROBLEM: University of Iowa scientists used pigs to mimic the cascade of cartilage damage that can begin with a broken ankle. Wednesday’s study found using some old medications in a new way — rapidly injecting them into the animals’ joints — interrupted that cycle of cell dysfunction to protect against arthritis. The researchers are seeking funds for human studies, part of a growing effort to understand why an aggressive form of arthritis can develop after some common orthopedic injuries — a torn knee ligament, for example, or a broken bone in a joint — seem to have healed. “It’s very promising,” said regenerative medicine specialist Farshid Guilak of Washington University in St. Louis, who wasn’t involved in the new study. “There are no therapies right now, for any form of osteoarthritis, that have been shown to modify the disease.” Osteoarthritis, the most common kind, usually occurs when joint-cushioning cartilage gradually wears away over decades of use. But about 5.6 million people in the U.S. get a subtype that strikes faster — post-traumatic osteoarthritis that’s sparked by injuries to weight-bearing joints. People who’ve experienced knee injuries, for example, are three to six times more likely to develop arthritis in that joint, and to get it a decade or so earlier, than people who’ve never been injured, according to a report last year in the Journal of Athletic Training. And ankle fractures that crack into the cartilage can trigger post-traumatic osteoarthritis even faster, making it ideal to study in the joints of 200-pound pigs that react a lot like human ankles. With funding from the Defense Department and National Institutes of Health, the Iowa team took a closer look. Only some cartilage cells die immediately upon impact. But over the next 48 hours, additional ones die and others become increasingly dysfunctional. Inside cells are tiny power plants, often introduced in middle-school biology as “the mighty mitochondria.” Somehow, the joint injury triggered the mitochondria inside cartilage cells to become wildly overactive and generate substances called oxidants in a damaging cycle. “What’s compelling,” said University of Iowa lead researcher Mitchell Coleman, “is if you can interrupt that early process, whatever is going on with those mitochondria in the first day, you can have a significant benefit to the tissue itself.” That’s just what his team did, using two old drugs — the sedative amobarbital, known to inhibit cellular energy generation, and an antioxidant named N-acetylcysteine — to aim at different parts of that cycle. To act inside the joint without body-wide side effects, the researchers created, and patented, gel formulas of the drugs that are liquid while being injected but solidify at body temperature. They injected one or the other drug into the pigs’ joint fractures, following the injury and a week later. “It will sit there where you injected it,” Coleman explained. A typical liquid drug “will squish right back out.” Each drug separately helped preserve cartilage, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. A year later, the cartilage in the treated animals showed significantly less deterioration than pigs given sham treatment, and the treated animals displayed no signs of pain. It will take lots of additional research to tell if the approach works in people. For now, people who’ve had risky joint injuries should guard against further damage by getting proper treatment for the injury and keeping up appropriate exercise, said Dr. Lisa Cannada, a trauma specialist speaking for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “Maintain strong muscles to minimize the wear and tear on your joints,” she advised.

SOLUTION:
Scientists aim at joint injuries that can trigger arthritis.