Mask rule changes a-comin’

Back on April 2 we told you how there’s both an N95 shortage in hospitals, and an N95 glut in warehouses.

The basic reasons: Small hospitals are low on cash, larger hospitals’ buyers are wary of buying from companies they aren’t familiar with, so millions of NIOSH-approved masks sit in boxes.

Now the feds are changing their policies, and the changes are going to mean more masks demand. Hopefully those smaller, U.S.-based businesses will supply them.

• The FDA will no longer approve of decontaminating N95 masks.
• The CDC will say that N95 masks can be sold to any employers, not just health workers — “a step that should boost overall demand.”

We did it again!

America has set another record for STDs, with cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis hitting a new high in 2019 — the sixth year in a row, according to the CDC. (Expect a dip in 2020, though, as people avoided getting tested, then a ‘catch-up’ effect in 2021.)

Sure, why not pot?

At this point, what doesn’t show promise as a coronavirus treatment or preventative? New on the list — thanks to some presumably very chill Israeli researchers — is cannabis.

Well, a “combination of compounds found in cannabis,” specifically some 30 terpenes, e.g., beta-caryophyllene, citral, and eucalyptol. In the lab, at least, they “exhibited an antiviral effect.”

Kudos to the Forbes reporter who asked the important question: Can it be inhaled?

“It’d be great if we could just sort of smoke our way out of a coronavirus, but I don’t think that this study shows that.”

Older folks are falling down, falling down

Looking at data from 1999 to 2017, pharmacy researchers at the University at Buffalo discovered that prescriptions for drugs that can increase falls in seniors are going up … and, not surprisingly, so are the number of falls.

People receiving at least one potentially fall-increasing drug: 57% in 1999; 94% in 2017.

Increase in age-adjusted mortality due to falls from 1999 to 2017: 115%

Sayeth the lead researcher: “Our hope is it will start more conversations on health care teams about the pros and cons of medications prescribed for vulnerable populations.”

You had as at “mucus”

Those shifty Danes have created a new kind of birth control — an alternative to hormones and barriers that’s based on … mucus. They say it’s as effective as the Pill.

It works by simply reinforcing the natural mucus barrier in the cervix to make it impenetrable to sperm — thereby preventing sperm from passing through the cervix and fertilizing an egg, minutes after application.

Well, not just mucus. There’s a biopolymer involved, too, one “derived from either mushrooms or the shell of crustaceans” because it’s biodegradable and non-toxic — not to mention already in use in medical devices.

In animal studies, it’s 100 percent effective.

Bonus: Includes phrases like “mucus-centric contraception” and “pre-seed financing.”

Everything you wanted to know about vaccine blood clots

What causes them? How frequent are they? How dangerous? On a scale from “going back to sleep” to “running in circles screaming,” how worried should you be?

Forbes’s Leah Rosenbaum tackles it all: “Here’s What Scientists Know About Covid-19 Vaccine Blood Clots”.

If you give a mouse some cocoa…

Who among us hasn’t had a fat mouse with liver disease? Good news out of Penn State, though — slipping the mice some cocoa powder “markedly reduced the severity of their condition.”

[C]ocoa-treated mice gained weight at a 21% lower rate and had smaller spleen weights — indicating less inflammation — than the high-fat-fed control mice. [They also had] 28% less fat in their livers than the control mice […] 56% lower levels of oxidative stress, and 75% lower levels of DNA damage in the liver.

So would it work for humans? The researchers think so, but it would require the equivalent of five cups of hot cocoa a day.

ICYMI

As part of the rollback of Trump-administration health policies, the FDA has lifted the requirement that mifepristone be dispensed in person, and the White House said it would reverse the “Title X Gag Rule”.