Science
Women May Face Higher Risk of Stroke Following Infertility Treatment
Why It Matters: A contributor to maternal deaths
The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. Strokes account for about 7.5 percent of pregnancy-related deaths.
At the same time, use of assisted reproductive technology has risen dramatically over the past 10 years. About 2 percent of births in the United States involve infertility treatment of some kind, according to the paper.
In the new study, researchers defined these measures to include intrauterine insemination, assisted reproductive technology, use of a surrogate and fertility preservation procedures.
While infertility treatments are generally safe, some studies have linked them to increased risks during pregnancy, including higher rates of pre-eclampsia — a potentially deadly complication involving extremely high blood pressure — as well as placental abnormalities and preterm birth.
Background: The largest study yet
Previous studies of stroke after infertility treatments have yielded mixed results. The new study, published in JAMA Network, is believed to be the largest to examine the risk of hospitalization for stroke among these women.
It analyzed the health outcomes of 31 million patients who had a hospital delivery in 28 states between 2010 and 2018, including 287,813 who had undergone infertility treatments.
The risk of a hemorrhagic stroke — bleeding in the brain — was twice as high among women who had undergone fertility treatment, compared to those who did not, the study found.
The odds of an ischemic stroke, which occurs when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted, was 55 percent greater, compared with women who conceived naturally.
These results are not the final word on the subject, however.
Just a few weeks ago, the journal JAMA Cardiology published a study that examined long-term health outcomes among women in four Scandinavian countries who had received infertility treatments, and found no evidence of an increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
That study was much smaller, however, including only 2.4 million women.
The new research did not include data about important risk factors for stroke, such as smoking, body mass index and hypertension. The scientists took steps to account for the missing data and still found a heightened risk, said the paper’s senior author, Cande V. Ananth, chief of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
What’s Next: A warning for women
In an interview, Dr. Ananth outlined three possible explanations for a link between stroke and infertility treatment.
“We know that women who receive infertility treatment have certain vascular complications, typically an increased risk of pre-eclampsia and placental abruption,” he said.
Second, infertility treatments can bring physiological changes, he said. Patients often receive large amounts of estrogen, for example, which can lead to increased blood clotting, a strong risk factor for stroke, he said.
Third, he added, “is that people who receive the treatment receive it for a reason. Perhaps there are different biological characteristics” among women seeking treatment, he said.
Still, stroke remains very infrequent among women after childbirth, whether they received treatments or not, Dr. Ananth said. “Patients should be aware of the impending risks and counseled appropriately,” he said.
Science
LAX passenger arrested after running onto tarmac, police say
A Los Angeles International Airport passenger was arrested early Saturday morning after he became irate and ran out of Terminal 4 onto the tarmac, according to airport police.
The passenger appeared to be experiencing a mental health crisis, said Capt. Karla Rodriguez. “Police responded and during their attempt in taking the suspect into custody, a use of force occurred,” she said.
The man, who was not identified, was arrested on suspicion of battery against a police officer and trespassing on airport property, she said. He was taken to a nearby hospital for a mental health evaluation.
A video obtained by CBS shows a shirtless man in black shorts running on the tarmac past an American Airlines jetliner with a police officer in pursuit. The officer soon tackles the man and pushes him down on the pavement.
Science
Video: How SpaceX Is Harming Delicate Ecosystems
On at least 19 occasions since 2019, SpaceX’s operations have caused fires, leaks and explosions near its launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. These incidents reflect a broader debate over how to balance technological and economic progress against protections of delicate ecosystems and local communities. The New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton explains.
Science
Live poultry markets may be source of bird flu virus in San Francisco wastewater
Federal officials suspect that live bird markets in San Francisco may be the source of bird flu virus in area wastewater samples.
Days after health monitors reported the discovery of suspected avian flu viral particles in wastewater treatment plants, federal officials announced that they were looking at poultry markets near the treatment facilities.
Last month, San Francisco Public Health Department officials reported that state investigators had detected H5N1 — the avian flu subtype making its way through U.S. cattle, domestic poultry and wild birds — in two chickens at a live market in May. They also noted they had discovered the virus in city wastewater samples collected during that period.
Two new “hits” of the virus were recorded from wastewater samples collected June 18 and June 26 by WastewaterSCAN, an infectious-disease monitoring network run by researchers at Stanford, Emory University and Verily, Alphabet Inc.’s life sciences organization.
Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the source of the virus in those samples has not been determined, live poultry markets were a potential culprit.
Hits of the virus were also discovered in wastewater samples from the Bay Area cities of Palo Alto and Richmond. It is unclear if those cities host live bird markets, stores where customers can take a live bird home or have it processed on-site for food.
Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture, said live bird markets undergo regular testing for avian influenza.
He said that aside from the May 9 detection in San Francisco, there have been no “other positives in Live Bird Markets throughout the state during this present outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian flu.”
San Francisco’s health department referred all questions to the state.
Even if the state or city had missed a few infected birds, John Korslund, a retired U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarian epidemiologist, seemed incredulous that a few birds could cause a positive hit in the city’s wastewater.
“Unless you’ve got huge amounts of infected birds — in which case you ought to have some dead birds, too — it’d take a lot of bird poop” to become detectable in a city’s wastewater system, he said.
“But the question still remains: Has anyone done sequencing?” he said. “It makes me want to tear my hair out.”
He said genetic sequencing would help health officials determine the origin of viral particles — whether they came from dairy milk, or from wild birds. Some epidemiologists have voiced concerns about the spread of H5N1 among dairy cows, because the animals could act as a vessel in which bird and human viruses could interact.
However, Alexandria Boehm, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University and principal investigator and program director for WastewaterSCAN, said her organization is not yet “able to reliably sequence H5 influenza in wastewater. We are working on it, but the methods are not good enough for prime time yet.”
A review of businesses around San Francisco’s southeast wastewater treatment facility indicates a dairy processing plant as well as a warehouse store for a “member-supported community of people that feed raw or cooked fresh food diets to their pets.”
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