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.

"Like its competitors, the Times did not discuss costsanomissionwhich perhaps is more acceptable in this story since it clearly indicated that this is not very close to being a marketable product. Nevertheless, we would have liked to have seen some mention of the financial impact. Many patients with type 1 diabetes are not using currently available pumps and sensors because of the high cost of these devices. It seems likely that this new treatment, if it ever becomes widely available, will be as expensive or more so than the current pump and sensor technology. We applaud the Times for avoiding the term ""artificial pancreas"" in the headline and using it sparingly in the body of the story. The competing stories couldn't resist it. We can understand whymarketers and media relations people would favor this term because of its promotional value, but we don't think it's agood way to describe this technology in an objective piece of journalism. ""Artificial pancreas"" is misleading because we're not really anywhere close tobeing able to replicate what the normal human pancreasdoes through artificial technology. Forgetting for a momentthat the pancreas does much morethan simply dispense insulin (it alsoproduces a number of other hormones anddigestive enzymes that aren't impacted by diabetes),what's more important is how the pancreas worksin concert withthe brain and other systems to regulateglucose in a very tight range. The normal human pancreas starts releasinginsulin beforewe eat in response to complex environmental cues, whereas any artificial system would need tobe told thatmeal is coming or react to therise in glucose after thefact. Plus,insulinproduced by the bodystarts acting rightaway, whereas insulin analogues take about 20 minutes to takeeffect. Put this all together and we see that the ""artificial pancreas"" will, for the foreseeable future, require human intervention to predictpost-mealinsulin needs and dosing or else patients will be at risk of post-meal blood sugar spikes. And it's not at all clear that such a systemwill improve overall bloodsugar management compared with existing methods. The term""artificial pancreas"" conjures up a vision of totally automated glucose management and essentially a ""cure"" for type 1 diabetes. This isoverselling what the technology can do. The Times waited until the last 3 paragraphs of an 1,100-word story to hintthat an automated system could deliver unsafe doses of insulin. It isn't until the last sentence thatwe learn that the system would need to be ""exquisitely reliable"" in order to be safe. We feel the story should have raised these issues earlier and that it could have done more to emphasize just how difficult itwill befor any device to calculate insulin requirements on the fly. Insulin dosingis affected byfactorsranging from how much aperson has exercised to whatand how much they have eaten. It's conceivable that technology can account for all of these variables,but there are a lot ways thingscould go wrong, with potentially deadly results. It's a close call, butwe don't feel thestorydid enough to call attention to these issues. In contrast to its competitors, which allled readersto believe there had been a fully automated system sensing glucose levels and dispensing insulin to the participants in this study, the Times noted thatthe insulin was dispensed by a nurse based oncalculations made by a computer algorithm. The Times clearly indicated that the significance of this test was as a ""proof of concept"" that the algorithm works and is safe, not as a test of any specific device. It noted that a fully automated system combining glucosemonitoring and insulin delivery was still ""hypothetical."" In addition,the Times story wasthe only one to draw attention to the small size of this study and the fact the findings were not statistically significant for the primary outcomes. This noteofcaution was completely lacking from the competingcoverage. The story did not exaggerate the effects of type 1 diabetes. The story includes quotesfrom interviews with one of the study investigators and another researcher, and identifies both as having ties to diabetes products manufacturers. It also quotes an analyst at an investment firm. It would have been better had theyincluded one more source who didn't have commercial ties to specific products. The story describes currently available technology for glucose monitoring and insulin infusion. It describes the limitations of current approaches for managing insulin, especially during the overnight period. The story is a bit misleading in that it leaves the impression that all type 1 diabetics are currently using pumps at night. This is not actually the case. Most people are doing self monitoring of blood glucose and making judgement calls on whether and how much insulin to administer. However, the story does enough for a satisfactory in our view. The Times did a good job of describing the system used in this study and how close it is to being commercially available. It called the system ""experimental""and said that it was ""notfully automated."" It said that a fullyautomated glucose monitor/insulindelivery system was still ""hypothetical"" and would face regulatory hurdles before it could be marketed to the public. The story describes the progression from skin prick glucose testing to continuous monitoring and insulin pumps. It places the new developments in this field on this continuum. There could have beenmore discussion of many of the recent advances that have made daytime hyper- and hypoglycemia less of a problem such asthe newer short-acting insulins. The story did not rely on any news release."
Insulin Study Could Lead to New Dosage Devices

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

The release notes that casting instead of surgery as an initial treatment would result in "reduced intervention costs" but that's not very helpful if you're unsure of the base cost of surgery. Estimates of a cost differential would have been helpful. Close contact casting would be much cheaper than open surgery for these fractures. The release includes a list of benefits of the modified casting method, with some quantification, mostly in terms of reduced complications. It says, "At 6 months, casting resulted in measures of ankle function equivalent to that with surgery. Infection and wound breakdown were more common with surgery (10 percent vs 1 percent), as were additional operating room procedures (6 percent vs 1 percent)." A release devotes a fair amount of space to harms from casting as compared with surgery: "Radiologic malunion (abnormal healing of a fracture) was more common in the casting group (15 percent vs 3 percent for surgery). Casting required less operating room time compared with surgery. There were no significant differences in other secondary outcomes: quality of life, pain, ankle motion, mobility, and patient satisfaction." This large randomized study with high rates of completion suggests a high quality of evidence, all noted in the news release. The release would have been better if it had noted that the outcome was blinded, a very important marker of quality as it is likely to reduce the risk of bias. No signs of disease mongering. These fractures are actually quite common, especially in the elderly, so it would have been appropriate to discuss the high disease burden from these fractures. No funding sources and conflicts are mentioned in the news release. Instead, readers are referred to the published study for details on "financial disclosures, funding and support." However, the study is only available to JAMA subscribers. The release aptly compares this new treatment with traditional surgery, which has largely been abandoned due to high rates of malunion resulting in functional deficits in displaced ankle fractures. The release also briefly mentions traditional "hard" casting. The release quotes an accompanying editorial stating that "close contact casting may be unfamiliar to some orthopedic surgeons." Although that's a vague statement, we can assume it's not in widespread use. In the U.S., most orthopedists are not trained in close contact casting nor do they feel comfortable using it. Most patients will not be offered this treatment as an option for their fracture care. This treatment is not novel, but the results of this study are new. It appears to be the first to compare these treatments and show the results in a well done randomized study. The release does not rely on sensational or exaggerated language.
Modified cast instead of surgery results in similar functional outcomes for ankle fracture in older adults