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.

The state Health Department says Tuesday that 42 days have passed with no new cases in Rockland. That’s the equivalent of two incubation periods and the timeframe when measles outbreaks are typically declared over. The nation’s worst measles epidemic in 27 years emerged a year ago, with most of the cases centered in Orthodox Jewish communities in Rockland and New York City. Health officials administered nearly 30,000 measles vaccinations in Rockland County as part of efforts to stop the outbreak. Over the summer, the state eliminated non-medical exemptions for measles vaccinations required for school children and tightened rules for granting medical exemptions.
Measles outbreak that sickened 312 in Rockland declared over.

Republicans on the GOP-majority Senate Environment and Public Works Committee mostly had praise for Andrew Wheeler, who has served as the agency’s acting head since Scott Pruitt’s resignation in July amid ethics scandals. The committee chairman, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called Wheeler “very well-qualified” to take the job. But Democrats pressed Wheeler about his work as a lobbyist helping an influential coal magnate meet with Trump administration officials before his nomination to the EPA and his moves on deregulation and on what they said was his inattention to the growing dangers of climate change. “You seem to be consistently doing things that undermine the health and safety of this nation,” Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Wheeler. Markey asked him why he was pulling back on regulations that proponents say protect human health and the environment. “I believe we are moving forward” on protections, Wheeler responded. Wheeler cited changes he had initiated to roll back future mileage standards for cars and autos and to ease Obama-era clampdowns on dirtier-burning coal-fired power plants. He said EPA staff, whom he did not identify, had concluded that those rollbacks would ultimately lead to health gains. Environmental groups and formal assessments from the EPA and other agencies have contested that, saying the changes would increase pollution and increase harm to people and the climate. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said the rollbacks in car mileage standards and toxic mercury emissions under Wheeler were examples of unsafe deregulation and went beyond what industries themselves wanted. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., noted Wheeler had failed to mention climate change in his initial remarks to lawmakers. “Do you agree that climate change is a global crisis?” Sanders asked, shouting at times. “I would not call it the greatest crisis,” Wheeler said. “I would call it a huge issue that has to be addressed globally.” Wheeler told lawmakers that he had yet to read a massive government climate change report released late last year that emphasized man-made climate change was already underway. Wheeler said he had received one staff briefing so far on the climate change report. The work of the EPA and other government agencies, the report stresses the massive economic toll expected from increasingly severe wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather under climate change. Wheeler said the news media had seized upon “worst-case scenarios” of the climate report. “You are a former coal industry lobbyist that is sitting here,” Markey responded. “That’s the worst-case scenario, what you are proposing here” for easing Obama-era rules meant to clamp down on climate-changing fossil fuel emissions. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and other Republican lawmakers, by contrast, praised Wheeler for a move to remove federal protections for millions of miles of wetlands and waterways and other proposals. Republican lawmakers said the protections had burdened farmers and others. The grandson of a coal miner, Wheeler worked for the EPA in the 1990s and later as a longtime Republican Senate staffer. Democrats pressed Wheeler about his lobbying before joining the EPA, saying his work for coal companies should disqualify him from leading an agency that regulates coal. Wheeler’s lobbying clients included coal magnate Bob Murray, who pushed hard on the Trump administration after the 2016 elections to grant a series of breaks for the sagging domestic coal industry. Wheeler accompanied Murray to a March 2017 meeting to pitch Murray’s list of desired rule rollbacks and other breaks for coal to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Wheeler told senators that his main work for Murray had been on health benefits and pensions. “I did not work on the plan. I do not have a copy of it. I saw it briefly,” Wheeler said, referring to Murray’s wish list. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., displayed a blown-up version of a photo taken of the meeting with Perry, showing Wheeler at Murray’s side. A second photo showed Murray’s rollback plan in Wheeler’s hands. Murray had sought some of the coal breaks that the EPA under Wheeler has since acted on. That included Wheeler signing a rule easing federal regulation of toxic coal ash, redoing an Obama rule that pushed electricity providers to move away from dirtier-burning coal plants and targeting an Obama rule limiting emissions of toxic mercury from coal plants. A watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed an ethics complaint Tuesday with the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General alleging that Wheeler’s oversight of those and other rollback proposals at EPA may have violated his government ethics pledge to abstain from regulatory decisions affecting his former lobbying client for at least two years. EPA spokesman John Konkus called the accusation “baseless” and “wrong” and said Wheeler works with EPA ethics officials and follows their guidance.
Democrats hit Trump EPA nominee on coal lobbying, rollbacks.

But the drugmakers and industry analysts said some data in the trial were encouraging and that the medicine could still prove effective in preventing dangerous blood clots in other large trials. “Not good news, but not a death knell either,” said Michael Castor, a portfolio manager with health-care fund Sio Capital Management. He noted that the drug remains in development, including for other uses, and did show effectiveness despite missing the trial’s main goal. The stocks of both drugmakers were little changed in after-hours trading. Bristol-Myers closed unchanged at $21.98, while Pfizer fell 23 cents to $19.28, both on the New York Stock Exchange in regular trading. The Phase III trial was designed to show whether twice-daily apixaban was at least as effective as twice-daily injections of Sanofi-Aventis’ Lovenox in preventing dangerous blood clots among patients undergoing knee-replacement surgery. The failure represents another setback for two companies that had hoped apixaban would become a big seller and bolster their earnings in the face of looming generic competition within three years for their best-selling drugs. “Not to say that apixaban is buried, but this initial poor result is another in a string of poor partnering decisions that Pfizer has recently made,” said Damien Conover, an analyst with Morningstar. The drugmakers said 9 percent of knee-surgery patients receiving apixaban developed dangerous clots, versus 8.9 percent of those receiving Lovenox. The new drug, therefore, was not deemed statistically as effective as Lovenox. Bristol-Myers said this was surprising because about 16 percent of patients taking Lovenox had developed dangerous clots in earlier studies. Patients had statistically similar incidents of major bleeding, although the combined incidence of major and non-major bleeding was significantly less in patients given apixaban, the company said. Apixaban has generated excitement because it works through a new mechanism of action, by blocking a protein called Factor Xa that is instrumental in the clotting process. A similar drug, called rivaroxaban, is being co-developed by Bayer AG and Johnson & Johnson and considered slightly farther along in testing. “This would seem to benefit Johnson & Johnson and Bayer,” said Mike Krensavage, a principal of Krensavage Asset Management. “It’s another setback for Pfizer as well,” he said, referring to its string of drug failures in recent years that has driven the company’s stock to 10-year lows. Just weeks ago, Bristol-Myers described apixaban as the most promising of its medicines in late-stage studies. Analysts have said it could become a blockbuster drug, especially if it proves effective in preventing strokes among patients with atrial fibrillation, a form of irregular heartbeat. Despite the setback, the drugmakers said they remain confident in apixaban and will continue other large studies of the medicine. “This is the first of eight Phase III trials for a broad range of indications, including atrial fibrillation, and we view all of them as very significant opportunities,” said Jack Lawrence, a Bristol-Myers research official who heads the apixaban program.

Bristol, Pfizer to delay clot drug after setback.