U researchers work on male birth control

Researchers at the University of Minnesota created a birth control pill for male mice, which proved 99% effective in preventing pregnancy. The contraceptive targets a protein in the body that receives a form of vitamin A, which is involved with sperm production and fertility. Researchers gave this compound, referred to as YCT529, to male mice for four weeks; the animals showed drastically lower sperm counts. Four to six weeks after they stopped receiving the contraceptive, the mice could impregnate a female mouse again.

Since the 1970s, scientists have been researching ways to create a male birth control pill. While the team behind this new study is encouraged by their promising results, others are skeptical, and see it as just another intriguing advancement that may not actually make it to market.

"I would be very skeptical until I see human data," Dr. Amin Herati, director of the male infertility and men's health program within Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins, said about the study. There are key differences between how human and mice genes interact, he said, and in the reproductive systems.

"These are novel compounds," said Dr. Christina Wang, an expert on contraceptives at the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. "You really don't know what they do unless you do toxicology studies." The researchers have conducted toxicology studies in mice, but Wang stressed that human trials are needed to assess the safety of the pill.

However, even if this pill fails in future trials, now that researchers have discovered the compound, they may be able to create backup options for the pill, said Md Abdullah Al Noman, a graduate student at the University of Minnesota who presented the findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society on Wednesday. "This is a trailblazer of non-hormonal birth control."

Clue to long COVID may be found in feces

COVID-19 patients can harbor the coronavirus in their feces for months after infection, researchers found, stoking concern that its persistence can aggravate the immune system and cause long COVID symptoms.

In the largest study tracking SARS-CoV-2 RNA in feces and COVID-19 symptoms, scientists at California's Stanford University found that about half of infected patients shed traces of the virus in their waste in the week after infection and almost 4% of patients still emit them seven months later. The researchers also linked coronavirus RNA in feces to gastric upsets, and concluded that SARS-CoV-2 likely directly infects the gastrointestinal tract, where it may hide out.

"It raises the question that ongoing infections in hidden parts of the body may be important for long COVID," said Ami Bhatt, a senior author on the study published online in the journal Med, and an associate professor of medicine and genetics at Stanford. Lingering virus might directly invade cells and damage tissues or produce proteins that are provoking the immune system, she said.

Sexually transmitted infections are rising

Rates of many sexually transmitted infections continued to climb during the first year of the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement posted to its website earlier this month. While overall there were 2.4 million infections recorded in 2020, down from a record high of 2.6 million in 2019, diagnosed cases of certain sexually transmitted diseases surged.

Cases of congenital syphilis, which occurs in newborns who contract the disease from their mothers, reached the highest numbers in 26 years, rising by 235% since 2016. Rates of primary and secondary syphilis rose by 7% from 2019 to 2020; gonorrhea cases rose by 10% in the same time period.

People ages 15 to 24 contracted about half of the reported 2020 infections. Racial and ethnic minority groups, and gay and bisexual men, also experienced disproportionately higher rates of disease.

The CDC data also showed that rates of chlamydia declined by 13%, although the agency cautioned that many cases of the disease are asymptomatic and that reductions in routine screening during the pandemic likely contributed to that decrease.

Like human health care workers, vets burn out

Across the country, about 23 million families adopted a pet in the first year of the pandemic. Other pet owners, working from home, started paying more attention to their animals' daily routines, noticing symptoms like vomiting or coughing. The resulting spike in pet health concerns has been straining a corner of the medical world that doesn't get as much attention as doctors and nurses: veterinarians.

The overwork and staffing shortages of the pandemic have affected veterinarians as much as other doctors and nurses, and dealing with the constant moral dilemmas and emotional output was driving many to burn out even before 2020. The mean salary for vets is about $110,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about half that of physicians catering to people.

At the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' veterinary hospital in San Francisco, so many vets and technicians have left that the clinic has had to cut back its hours, said veterinarian Kathy Gervais.

Dog owners say they've had to wait months for vet appointments or drive to vets far from home to get care.

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