Health
A Federal Lab That Tracked Rising S.T.I.s Has Been Shuttered
Drug-resistant gonorrhea, a form of the widespread sexually transmitted infection, is considered an urgent health threat worldwide. The United States has just lost its ability to detect it.
Among the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees fired on Tuesday were 77 scientists who, among other work, gathered samples of gonorrhea and other S.T.I.s from labs nationwide, analyzed the genetic information for signs of drug resistance, and readied the samples for storage at a secure facility.
No other researchers at the agency have the expertise, or the software, to continue this work. The abrupt halt has stranded about 1,000 samples of gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted pathogens that had not yet been processed, and perhaps dozens more headed to the agency.
There are as many as 30 freezers full of samples that now have no custodians, said one senior C.D.C. official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
“We were just really shut down midair, like there was no warning,” the official said. “It was just completely unplanned and chaotic.”
The C.D.C.’s work on S.T.I.s had taken on greater urgency in the past few years as rates of new infections soared. More than 2.4 million new S.T.I.s were diagnosed in 2023, about one million more than 20 years ago.
Nearly 4,000 babies were born with congenital syphilis in 2023. About 280 were stillborn or died soon after.
“Whoever got rid of the lab just doesn’t understand how important the lab is,” said another senior C.D.C. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
About 600,000 new gonorrhea cases were diagnosed in the United States in 2023. The bacteria that cause gonorrhea, called Neisseria gonorrhoeae, spread through sexual contact to the genitals, rectum and throat. Left untreated, it can cause infertility and sterility, blindness in infants or even death.
Gonorrhea has become resistant to nearly every available antibiotic, leaving a single class that still snuffs it out. The most powerful defense combines a shot of ceftriaxone with azithromycin, but some evidence hints that gonorrhea is evolving to sidestep even that treatment.
Over more than 25 years, the C.D.C. lab archived about 50,000 gonorrhea samples — the largest collection in the world — which allow scientists to track how the pathogen has changed over time. It’s not clear what will happen to the samples.
One new public health strategy makes it even more important for the nation to track gonorrhea, said Dr. Jenell Stewart, an infectious diseases physician at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.
In a bid to combat resurgent syphilis and chlamydia, the C.D.C. recommended last year that gay and bisexual men and transgender women take doxycycline, a widely used antibiotic, within 72 hours of unprotected sex.
Cities like San Francisco and Seattle that had earlier endorsed the practice, called doxy-PEP, have already seen drastic drops in the rates of those infections.
But researchers are worried that widespread use of doxycycline might increase resistance to the entire class of antibiotics, called tetracyclines. A few studies suggest there may be reason to worry.
Harvard University researchers last month analyzed more than 14,000 genetic sequences generated by C.D.C. researchers and found that the proportion of gonorrhea bacteria with antibiotic resistance increased to more than 35 percent last year, from less than 10 percent in 2020.
The federal scientists who produced that data and made it publicly available have all been fired. “Without public health money and infrastructure, I’m not sure who if anyone will take up the torch to monitor gonorrhea resistance,” Dr. Stewart said.
“This is a huge loss,” she added.
Dr. Stewart and a colleague spent two years preparing the protocol and an app to study doxy-PEP in cisgender women and monitor gonorrhea resistance.
The study was supported by the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network, whose funding was slashed last month.
At least five other grants to study doxy-PEP have been terminated, along with a variety of grants at the National Institutes of Health aimed at preventing S.T.I.s, including H.I.V.
Any lab can test for S.T.I.s, but commercial tests cannot determine whether gonorrhea will respond to available treatments. C.D.C. scientists developed the only such test, and provided funding and training to a few dozen labs on the sophisticated testing.
Samples were sent to the agency for confirmation. Without the agency scientists, testing for drug sensitivity will most likely cease, several experts said.
“We cannot have a national surveillance system without a national lab,” said one scientist who leads a C.D.C.-funded lab but did not wish to be identified without authorization to speak to the media.
C.D.C. scientists were also helping to develop alternatives to the nation’s outdated syphilis test. It cannot identify an active infection, only whether someone was ever infected. The agency has three large contracts to develop new rapid syphilis tests.
But without expertise and the samples from C.D.C. scientists, it’s unclear whether that work can continue, said a senior official with knowledge of the situation.
The fired scientists had about 1,400 years of field experience between them. The official said, “These were highly trained people that are not replaceable easily.”
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The key to feeling better in a fast, overstimulated world might be surprisingly simple: Live a little more like your grandparents.
A growing social media trend, dubbed “nonnamaxxing,” draws inspiration from the slower, more intentional rhythms associated with an Italian grandmother.
The lifestyle is often linked to activities like preparing home-cooked meals, spending time outdoors and making meaningful connections.
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“Nonnamaxxing is a 2026 trend that embraces the slower, more intentional lifestyle of an Italian grandmother (a Nonna). Think cooking from scratch, long family meals, daily walks, gardening and less screen time,” Erin Palinski-Wade, a New Jersey-based registered dietitian, told Fox News Digital.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
Stepping away from screens and toward real-world interaction can have measurable benefits, according to California-based psychotherapist Laurie Singer.
“We know that interacting with others in person, rather than spending time on screens, significantly improves mental health,” she told Fox News Digital, adding that social media often fuels comparison and lowers self-esteem.
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Living more like previous generations isn’t purely driven by nostalgia. Cooking meals from scratch, for example, has been linked to better nutrition and more mindful eating patterns.
Adopting traditional mealtime habits can improve diet quality and support both physical and mental health, especially when meals are shared regularly with others, Palinski-Wade noted.
One longevity expert stresses that staying healthy isn’t just about food — it’s also about joy and community. (iStock)
There’s also a psychological benefit to slowing down and focusing on one task at a time. Anxiety often stems from unfinished or avoided tasks, Singer noted, and engaging in hands-on activities can counteract that.
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“Nonnamaxxing encourages us to be present around a task, like gardening, baking or knitting, or just taking a mindful walk, that delivers something ‘real,’” she said.
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Palinski-Wade cautions against turning the trend into another source of pressure, noting that a traditional “nonna” lifestyle often assumes a different pace of life.
The key, she said, is adapting the mindset, not replicating it perfectly.
Nonnamaxxing, derived from the name for an Italian grandmother, is a trend that incorporates lifestyle habits hundreds of years in the making. (iStock)
The goal is to reintroduce small, intentional moments that make you feel better.
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That might mean prioritizing a few shared meals each week, taking a walk without your phone or setting aside time for a simple hobby, the expert recommended.
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Singer added, “Having a positive place to escape to, through whatever activities speak to us and make us happy, isn’t generational – it’s human.”
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Feeling lonely may take a toll on older adults’ memory — but it may not speed up cognitive decline, according to a new study.
Researchers from Colombia, Spain and Sweden analyzed data from more than 10,000 adults ages 65 to 94 across 12 European countries and found those who reported higher levels of loneliness did worse on memory tests at the start of the study, according to research published this month in the journal Aging & Mental Health.
Over a seven-year period, however, memory decline occurred at a similar rate regardless of how lonely participants felt.
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“The finding that loneliness significantly impacted memory, but not the speed of decline in memory over time was a surprising outcome,” lead author Dr. Luis Carlos Venegas-Sanabria of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario said in a statement.
Loneliness may be linked to memory performance in older adults, a new study suggests. (iStock)
“It suggests that loneliness may play a more prominent role in the initial state of memory than in its progressive decline,” Venegas-Sanabria said, adding that the findings highlight the importance of addressing loneliness as a factor in cognitive performance.
The findings add to debate about whether loneliness contributes to dementia risk. While loneliness and social isolation are often considered risk factors for cognitive decline, research results have been mixed.
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The study looked at data from the long-running Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracked 10,217 older adults between 2012 and 2019. Participants were asked to recall words immediately and after a delay to measure memory performance.
Social isolation and loneliness could play a surprising role in cognitive health among seniors. (iStock)
Loneliness was assessed using three questions about how often participants felt isolated, left out or lacking companionship.
About 8% of participants reported high levels of loneliness at the outset. That group tended to be older, more likely to be female and more likely to have conditions such as depression.
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Researchers found that those with higher loneliness had lower scores on both immediate and delayed memory tests at baseline. Still, all groups — regardless of loneliness level — experienced similar declines in memory over time.
The results suggest loneliness may not directly accelerate the progression of memory loss, though it remains linked to poorer cognitive performance overall.
Researchers look at a brain scan at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Experts warn, however, that the findings should not be interpreted to mean loneliness is harmless.
“The finding that lonely older adults start with worse memory but don’t decline faster is actually the most interesting part of the paper, and I think it’s easy to misread,” said Jordan Weiss, Ph.D., a scientific advisor and aging expert at Assisted Living Magazine and a professor at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
“It likely means loneliness does its damage earlier in life, well before people show up in a study like this at 65-plus,” Weiss told Fox News Digital.
By older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold, an aging expert says. (iStock)
He suggested that by older age, long-term social patterns may already be established, making it harder to detect when the effects of loneliness first took hold.
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“By the time you’re measuring someone in their late 60s, decades of social connection patterns are already baked in,” he said.
Weiss, who was not involved in the research, added that loneliness may coincide with other health conditions, and noted that participants who felt more isolated also had higher rates of depression, high-blood pressure and diabetes. The link, he said, may reflect a cluster of health risks rather than a direct cause.
“While they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia,” a psychotherapist says. (iStock)
Amy Morin, a Florida-based psychotherapist and author, said the findings reflect a broader pattern in research on loneliness and brain health, and that the relationship may be more complex than it appears.
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“The evidence shows there’s a link between loneliness and cognitive decline but there’s no direct evidence of a cause and effect relationship,” she said. “So while they can go hand-in-hand, it’s not clear that loneliness contributes to dementia.”
Morin added that loneliness, which can fluctuate, may not be the root of the problem, but rather a symptom of other underlying mental or physical health issues.
Researchers suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging. (iStock)
She said staying socially and mentally engaged is crucial for overall brain health.
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“It’s important to be proactive about social activities,” Morin said. “Joining a book club, having coffee with a friend, or attending faith-based services can be a powerful way to maintain connections in older age.”
The researchers also suggested screening for loneliness be incorporated into routine cognitive assessments as one way to support healthy aging.
Fox News Digital reached out to the researchers for comment.
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