CDC backs doxy after sex

Back in April we told you how UCSF researchers found doxycycline could be used as a morning-after pill against STIs. Now that’s gone from the lab to the real world as the CDC has a draft recommendation to prescribe doxy for that very use. Well, sort of. “Doxycycline […] would only be recommended for men who have sex with men and transgender women, according to the proposed guidelines.”

Considering that GP of Buzz has prescribed it to keep on hand in case of tick bites, it seems some folks — no matter their orientation or whatever — might want a conversation with their prescribers regardless of the official recommendations.

J&J talc verdict tossed

Back in July we told you how Johnson & Johnson was suing some of the experts that testified at the talc/asbestos trials, claiming their testimony was false and done for their personal gain.

Well. Seems a New Jersey appeals court agrees that there are possible shenanigans going on, and has tossed out the $223.8 million verdict against the company, ordering a new trial.

[A] three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the trial court failed to fulfill its “gatekeeping role” of assessing whether the plaintiffs’ experts based their testimony on sound science.

In their opinion, the judges found that three experts had not explained the facts or methods they used to support their opinions that the plaintiffs got cancer from being exposed to asbestos in talc products.

Why moms need to vaccinate

Moms-to-be who get a Covid vaccine are protecting their newborns — at least for the first few months.

The CDC crunched the numbers based on last year’s vax data and found that “Maternal vaccination was 54% effective against Covid-19 hospitalization in infants younger than 3 months old.”

Put another way, “Getting vaccinated while pregnant cuts your baby’s risk of severe Covid by more than half.”

How C auris sticks around

Candida auris is an annoying fungus to try to clean out of a hospital room — standard cleaning and disinfection often don’t get rid of it. That’s one reason C. auris leads to so many infections in hospitals, no matter how much they scrub.

But now a breakthrough: Researchers at Michigan Medicine have figured out how C. auris is able to stick to everything. It seems that, along among fungi, it uses an adhesin — the same kind of protein that barnacles and mollusks use to stick to … everything.

Called Scf1, they’ve never seen a protein like it. (“[W]e don’t know where it came from evolutionarily.”) And it’s particularly sticky. To get into the chemistry, “The bonds formed by Scf1, they revealed, are cation-pi bonds, which are among the strongest non-covalent chemical bonds in nature.” Oh, and it’s also responsible for helping C. auris form colonies and cause disease.

Now that Scf1 has a huge target on its back, it’s time to develop some weapons.

Come to the light! (But not the artificial light)

A small Dutch study found a couple of interesting tidbits about type 2 diabetes and sunlight. First, “misalignment” of circadian rhythms can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes, so getting out into the sun can actually help prevent it.

But, they claim, it only works for actual sunlight, not artificial light. After some extensive testing (with a small group of subjects) they found that…

Blood glucose levels were within the normal range (4.4–7.8 mmol/L) for longer during the natural daylight intervention than in the artificial light intervention.

There’s a big oversight, though. The artificial light they used was a constant 300 lux — about as bright as a low- to medium-bright desk lamp. Nor did they mention the color temperature of the light. Was it warm white? Cool white? Daylight? So the actual conclusion is “Being in bright sunlight can help control glucose better than sitting in a poorly-lit office.”

Open enrollment opens soon

Just a reminder that Medicare open enrollment begins October 15 and runs through December 7.

The typical person gets to choose from more than 40 plans — traditional Medicare plus a bunch of private Medicare Advantage options. When it comes to prescriptions, it pays to compare those plans and their coverage — the feds offer a handy plan-comparison tool for that.

Is the hygiene hypothesis wrong?

The OG Hygiene Hypothesis: Exposure to bacteria as an infant can reduce the chance of allergies and other autoimmune issues when you’re older.

Hygiene Hypothesis 2.0: Exposure to certain specific bacteria as an infant can reduce the chance of allergies and other autoimmune issues when you’re older.

And now this: Swedish researchers tested the hypothesis on mice and found that “mice with high infectious exposures from birth have the same, if not an even greater ability to develop allergic immune responses than ‘clean’ laboratory mice.” I.e., life is worse for dirty mice.

We await the next twist.