| | | | |  | | By Erin Schumaker, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne and Ruth Reader | PROGRAMMING NOTE: Future Pulse will not publish from Aug. 26 through Sept. 2. We’ll be back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Sept. 3.
| | |  Boys aren't getting the HPV shot at the same rate as girls. | Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo | There’s a new reason men and boys should consider HPV vaccines. Infection with a high-risk strain of the virus could harm sperm quality and, ultimately, fertility. Human papillomavirus infections are sexually transmitted and common, with an estimated 13 million Americans contracting the disease annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most infections go away on their own within a couple of years, but some can cause disease, including cervix, vaginal, vulvar, penile, anal and throat cancers. What’s new? Researchers in Argentina have identified an additional HPV risk for men. In a study published Friday in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, researchers took semen samples from 205 men at a urology and andrology clinic in Argentina between 2018 and 2021. They analyzed each semen sample twice and found HPV in 19 percent of the samples and high-risk strains in 10 percent of samples. The researchers compared semen quality among participants with high-risk, low-risk and no infections. They found that those with high-risk infections had higher percentages of dead sperm, lower white blood cell counts and elevated levels of reactive oxygen species, a normal byproduct of sperm production that can damage sperm at high levels. The findings suggest that high-risk HPV infections could hurt male fertility. Why it matters: There’s no treatment for HPV, but there’s a near-perfect vaccine. The CDC recommends the HPV vaccine, which is almost 100 percent effective, for children ages 11 or 12, to protect them against the virus and associated cancers later in life. While vaccination rates among teenage boys are rising, they lag rates among girls, perhaps partly because the vaccine was first approved for girls. In 2022, more than 60 percent of 13- to 17-year-old boys were vaccinated, compared to 66 percent of girls that age, according to CDC data.
| | |  Brooklyn, N.Y. | Erin Schumaker/POLITICO | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Imagine being able to recover your lost youth. The sea walnut, an invertebrate that lives in the Atlantic Ocean, seems to do something like that, regressing to a larval form when it’s stressed, Science reports. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  Solomon sees an important role for AI in drug development. | Courtesy of Immunai | Noam Solomon, CEO of biotech company Immunai, thinks that artificial intelligence could revolutionize drug discovery — not so much by identifying targets, but by uncovering how proteins and molecules bind and how the immune system functions. That could help drugmakers predict how their drugs could work, particularly in specific populations. Immunai is working to create a map of the immune system to help drugmakers understand how their drugs will function. “It’s like a domino network. That one domino starts a process, and you need to map the entire process to see what the endgame is,” he said. Why it matters: Solomon says the Food and Drug Administration has been requesting more data about drugs during the approval process, particularly related to how they function in the real world. “[The FDA is] starting to demand data supporting decisions that [we], the pharma companies, are making,” he said. “It’s not enough to have a good clinical outcome, you need to also justify and explain why your drug is better.” That may be especially true with cancer drugs, he said. Solomon points to the agency’s recent initiative to create better guidelines for figuring out the optimal dosage of those drugs for patients.
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Researchers have found a link between popular weight-loss drugs and suicidal ideation, but they're not sure why. | Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP | A small number of people taking popular weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy reported higher-than-expected levels of suicidal ideation, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open. In examining a World Health Organization drug safety database, researchers found 107 reports of patients, out of more than 30,500, who said they thought about killing or hurting themselves after using semaglutide, the key ingredient in the drugs, our European colleagues report. Even so: Stephen Burgess from Cambridge University says there could be more to it, pointing out that many people using these drugs lose up to 20 percent of their body weight. “This is a life-changing intervention that will have largely positive consequences for many,” he said. “For others, the impact of losing a large amount of weight could have negative emotional consequences. If an individual thinks that losing weight is the key to happiness, but losing weight does not bring happiness, could this lead to depression and suicidal ideation?” Other study limitations include incomplete information, the influence of social media and the possibility of drug misuse or off-label use, which could affect the accuracy and completeness of the data analyzed. The European Medicines Agency said earlier this year that there’s no evidence of a link between suicidal thoughts and obesity drugs after Iceland reported three cases. The FDA in the U.S. is also investigating. Still, more research is needed to strengthen the findings and draw more definitive conclusions. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
