Bird flu, breast cancer, and Barbie

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I’m Brittany Trang, STAT well being tech reporter and your new Friday morning host.

One yr in the past at this time, a number of of us from STAT dressed up in pink and noticed the Barbie film collectively. I’m nonetheless excited about the anomaly of the film’s final line, and as you’ll see beneath, medical researchers are too.

Hen flu circumstances in people now whole 13 in U.S.

The variety of confirmed human infections with the chicken flu virus related to the continued outbreak in dairy cattle has risen to 13, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention introduced Thursday, because it confirmed three further circumstances in Colorado. They’re at present designated merely as H5 and never H5N1 as a result of CDC labs are nonetheless engaged on typing the neuraminidase, the N quantity within the virus’ title, STAT’s Helen Branswell studies.

The circumstances — one among which Colorado had beforehand introduced as a “presumptive constructive” — are in individuals who had been culling contaminated poultry on a farm within the state. Genetic evaluation of the virus in that poultry outbreak reveals that it’s much like the virus circulating in cows; it’s believed that is one among a number of cases the place H5N1 in cow herds has spilled over into close by poultry operations. Of the 13 human circumstances, 10 have been detected in Colorado, which additionally has the very best variety of reported contaminated dairy herds — 51, in line with the state’s Division of Agriculture. Michigan and Texas have reported two and one human case, respectively.

A paradox of mastectomy for breast most cancers sufferers

Weighing therapy choices for breast most cancers is an agonizing alternative. New analysis printed in JAMA Oncology affirms the prevailing data that excising the cancerous lump, getting a single mastectomy, or a double mastectomy all return about the identical price of survival: over 80% over 20 years of followup.

Nonetheless, STAT’s most cancers reporter Angus Chen writes, the brand new research turns up a puzzling discovering: Survivors who ended up creating a second breast most cancers of their reverse, or contralateral, breast had the next danger of dying from breast most cancers, despite the fact that individuals who obtained a double mastectomy died on the identical total charges.

“That looks like a paradox,” stated Steven Narod, a breast most cancers researcher and doctor at Ladies’s School Hospital in Toronto and the lead writer on the research. “When you get a contralateral breast most cancers, your danger of dying goes up. However stopping it doesn’t enhance your survival.”

Learn extra from Angus, together with attainable explanations for the conundrum.

The hanging enhance in suicides amongst Asian-People

Latest U.S. knowledge confirmed that whereas suicide charges decreased for younger white individuals in 2018 and 2019, charges went up for Asian-American or Pacific Islander youths. In a current JAMA Community Open research, researchers examined suicide developments in Asian-People ages 10 to 19 years outdated extra intently.

codes for causes of dying in a knowledge set starting from 1999 to 2021, researchers discovered that suicide charges began rising for women in 2004, peaking at practically 3 per 100,000 individuals in 2020. For boys, the charges started rising in 2009 and peaked at 8 per 100,000 individuals in 2019.

The authors couldn’t clarify what was responsible for the will increase, however instructed this upward pattern might need stemmed from financial hardships in Asian-American households through the Nice Recession, in addition to elevated publicity to sexism and racism — particularly for Asian-American ladies and ladies — with the proliferation of social media.

When you or somebody you understand could also be contemplating suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Disaster Lifeline: name or textual content 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. For TTY customers: Use your most well-liked relay service or dial 711 then 988.

How Kamala Harris’ late mother formed her well being care views

This previous Mom’s Day, Kamala Harris posted an image of herself and her sister in brightly coloured coats, standing subsequent to their mom on a sidewalk. “My mom, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, had two objectives in life: to treatment breast most cancers and to lift my sister and me,” she wrote.

Gopalan was greatest recognized for her analysis on the connection between progesterone receptors and breast most cancers. She labored at establishments together with McGill and Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Lab, served on the President’s Particular Fee on Breast Most cancers below Clinton, and peer reviewed for the NIH earlier than her dying in 2009 from colon most cancers.

It’s unsure what the way forward for Biden’s Most cancers Moonshot and the NIH may be below an administration change. With Harris because the probably Democratic presidential nominee, it’s attention-grabbing to see what she has stated about her mother, well being care, and pondering like a scientist, whilst a policymaker. Go deeper with this story from STAT’s Rohan Rajeev.

Barbie, the search engine optimisation queen of gynecology

Final summer time’s Barbie film spawned infinite memes (that even the American Medical Affiliation obtained in on), songs of the summer time from Billie Eilish and Dua Lipa, and a scarcity of sizzling pink paint. However did the long-lasting final scene — Barbie’s very enthusiastic declaration, “I’m right here to see my gynecologist” — delivery a renewed curiosity in getting Pap smears?

Different high-profile medical mentions — corresponding to Katie Couric’s televised colonoscopy and Angelina Jolie’s breast most cancers essay within the New York Occasions — led to will increase in colonoscopies and genetic testing, so researchers in JAMA Community Open puzzled if Barbie did the identical factor.

on-line search developments, researchers reported that whereas searches for “gynecologist” and “gynecologist definition” spiked 51% and 154%, respectively, on the time of the Barbie film’s launch, there was no change in searches for gynecologist appointments. It wasn’t clear to researchers whether or not individuals needing the definition of a gyno had been the identical individuals who require gynecologic care, however the pattern total instructed that an elevated consciousness didn’t translate to a rise in individuals in search of out appointments.

Scorching mice unlock the mind’s secret to ache placebos

The placebo impact is mysterious and sometimes pesky in medical trials, however new analysis in Nature provides new proof for which mind circuit is chargeable for the placebo impact in treating ache.

A crew led by researchers from the College of North Carolina conditioned mice to anticipate ache reduction by placing them in a chamber with two rooms: one with a sizzling flooring and one with a comfortably heat flooring. They induced the placebo impact by making each chambers sizzling, however mice saved crossing into the one they’d been conditioned to anticipate to be much less sizzling. By learning their brains, researchers pinned down which particular neurons appeared to be chargeable for convincing the mice that they had been experiencing ache reduction. Injecting the mice with naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, removed the placebo impact, suggesting the mind’s pure opioid system is concerned with modulating these neurons.

Although there’s nonetheless extra work to be performed, researchers famous that their outcomes point out that the pathway they recognized may very well be tackled by new pain-relieving interventions like medication or cognitive behavioral therapies.

What we’re studying

With out federal oversight, nursing properties will put revenue forward of care, STAT

The miseducation of America’s nurse practitioners, Businessweek
Do medical errors creep up at hospitals when interns arrive? Sure, however the ‘July impact’ is minimal, Boston Globe

We purchased every part wanted to make $3 million price of fentanyl. All it took was $3,600 and an internet browser, Reuters

The plastic business’s $30 million lie, Heated
You don’t have to fret about poisonous metals in your tampons, Slate