More than 200 Eastern Oklahoma VA employees and Veterans participated in the first Whole Health Veterans Week in November with a walk.

The Whole Health team at Eastern Oklahoma VA, who organized and hosted events with support of fellow staff, invited employees to put on their walking shoes, sport their best yellow and celebrate Veterans.

The walks, held in Muskogee, Tulsa, Vinita, and McAlester, focused on honoring Veterans while also promoting the benefits of exercise and self-care.

Whole Health Clinical Director Dr. Nathan Williams was excited to see the level of participation from throughout the health care system and grateful for everyone involved. “We had such a wonderful turnout. It was a meaningful time for our facility to be able to focus on those who have given so much for our nation,” Williams said.

Mayors proclaim Veterans Appreciation Week

Both Tulsa and Muskogee city mayors supported the initiative by proclaiming the week “Veterans Appreciation Week.” The Muskogee mayor also walked in the event.

Goal: Awareness of the impact of obesity on Veterans’ health

There were remarks by Whole Health experts, guest speakers and special demonstrations. Then a two-kilometer walk commenced for everyone who wished to join the celebration and get some steps in.

In addition, snacks and refreshments were available along with yellow ribbons for employees and Veterans.

One of the guest speakers in Tulsa, Dr. Uma Koduri, worked closely with the Whole Health team to hold the event at the Ernest Childers VA Outpatient Clinic.

Yellow stands for hope and happiness

“We promoted ‘Wear Yellow’ for Whole Health and obesity awareness,” said Koduri. “We chose the color yellow as it stands for hope, optimism, energy, motivation, joy and happiness.”

Koduri had previously organized similar walks with much success and brought the idea for a Veteran Walk to the Whole Health team. The goal was to bring awareness about the impact of obesity on Veterans’ health.

Whole Health Coordinator Joan McWilliams says the team is looking forward to doing more in the future. “This year was just the beginning. We are looking forward to expanding these types of Whole Health-focused events. Veterans Appreciation Week will be held every year now and we are already working to build an even greater event next year. Thanks to everyone who participated. Hopefully, this event was as meaningful for them as it was for the Whole Health team.”

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Condoms have been used to prevent pregnancy since the Middle Ages, with the rubber version arriving in the industrial mid-1800s. Over the years, they’ve become more effective and comfortable to use.

But it was the invention of birth control pills, followed by IUDs in the 1960s, that created a seismic shift in humans’ ability to control reproduction. A growing range of pills, patches and implants became available to women. And yet, a stretchy sheath that covers the penis remains the only medically approved form of contraception for men, short of vasectomy.

But now, researchers are looking into both hormonal and non-hormonal contraceptives for sperm bearers. The hope is that couples will begin to treat contraception more as a shared responsibility.

“We would like to create a menu of options for men similar to what women have available to them,” says Stephanie Page, a researcher and endocrinologist at the University of Washington.

(Note: The studies mentioned here are typically done on cisgender males between 18 and 50, so this story refers to the medications as “male contraception,” and their target demographic as “men,” or “males” though people of other genders can produce sperm.)

Hormonal methods get renewed research

Dr. Page’s lab is conducting a clinical trial along with researchers at 15 other sites across the globe, testing out a topical gel that a man applies to his shoulders every day. The gel contains synthetic hormones – a combination of testosterone and progestin – that signal the brain to lower testosterone levels in the body. And since testosterone is necessary for sperm to reach maturation, the testes then produce fewer and fewer sperm.

Dr. Page’s study enrolls couples – nearly 450 of them worldwide. Having the woman involved too means “she’s taking on consent as well as him, and they’re really both participants,” Page says.

The trial run in phases. In the first phase, the man applies the gel every day, but the couple still uses another form of contraception when they have intercourse. During this phase, researchers are periodically monitoring the man’s sperm count. Then when the count is low enough to prevent pregnancy, the couple enters the second phase: they stop using other contraceptive methods, while the man continues to use the gel daily.

In the third and final phase, the man stops using the gel, and researchers begin to monitor his sperm count once again. Researchers hope their results will demonstrate that the effect on fertility is reversible – just as women can regain their fertility when they stop taking birth control pills.

Brian Nguyen, an Ob-Gyn and professor at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, who also researches male contraception says he’s encouraged by what he’s hearing from some of the men in the gel trial, especially those “who really just want to support their female partners.”

“I hear stories about how men are really tired of hearing about their partner suffering from hormonal side effects or in some cases, complications related to IUDs or implants,” he says. “And they want to do something.”

Nguyen’s lab is also working on a hormonal pill that would work similarly to the gel, and Page’s lab is hoping to eventually develop an injectable hormone solution.

In the 1990s, the World Health Organization sponsored trials for male hormonal contraceptive — where men were given high doses of testosterone — but those drugs never came to market. Researchers thought they weren’t effective enough to sell, and side effects were serious, including toxicity for the heart, liver and kidney, and a potential increased risk of prostate cancer.

The University of Washington’s Stephanie Page says the gels and pills being tested now don’t come with the same risks.

“We have worked really hard to develop methods that don’t impact those other physiologic parameters,” says Page, “So we don’t see any impacts on kidney function, liver function and the like.”

As for side effects, some participants report weight gain, changes in libido, acne, or mood swings.” Those, she points out, are “very similar to those that some women experience using female hormonal contraceptives.”

Promising non-hormonal approaches

Another area of research targets precise points in the sperm’s life cycle, including its ability to swim, or to fertilize an egg. These drugs are a bit more precise than hormonal ones, says Logan Nickels, research director at the Male Contraceptive Initiative, which supports researchers working on non-hormonal contraceptives.

“They target a very specific link in the chain of the generation or lifetime of a sperm and … if you were to break that link, there aren’t any other bodily functions or any sort of broad signals that you’re interrupting.” In other words, someone using these methods would likely experience few to no side effects, he says.

“The male reproductive system is really cool in that there’s hundreds and hundreds of links in this chain, [so] that if you take out any one of them, you end up with effectively an infertile man,” Logan says.

Another non-hormonal method undergoing trials in Australia is a gel that’s injected into the vas deferens– the tube that carries sperm to the urethra in preparation for ejaculation– and blocks the transport of sperm. Logan says it could be like a reversible alternative to a vasectomy.

Why is it taking so long?

Page estimates it will be another seven to ten years before any of these new methods can be sold. So why have women had to shoulder so much of the responsibility for contraception for so long?

“Women bear the life threatening burden of pregnancy,” Page says. “And so the initial energy went into ensuring that women had control of their own reproduction.”

And, she says, developing male contraception is more complicated. Women typically release an egg or two a month. Men produce millions of sperm a day — a single ejaculation contains roughly 15 million to 200 million sperm per milliliter of semen. Researchers had to figure out how low the count should be to reliably prevent pregnancy. They’ve now determined it needs to be less than 1 million sperm per milliliter of semen, Page says.

And the FDA criteria for approving male contraceptives is vague.

The pharmaceutical industry and the FDA use data from trials to weigh benefits and risks to the patient. But Dr. Page says in this case, the risk calculation should be different.

“When we think about risks, what are we protecting the man from? In the case of female contraception, the woman is being protected from the risk of pregnancy and of potentially unsafe abortion. But with men, they’re really using a contraceptive to protect their partner. If we just think about the man as a single unit, there should be obviously no side effects and no risk. But I think we really need to move to thinking about couples as a dyad and this is a shared risk,” she says.

Another barrier to bringing male contraceptives to market is the rate of efficacy. Female contraceptive implants and IUDs are 99% effective, and birth control pills are 93% effective, according to Planned Parenthood. Male contraceptives may have to be just as good at preventing pregnancy in order to sell.

“Drug companies invest millions and millions and millions of dollars into a drug before they ever see a dime of profit,” says Nickels. “And so when they take those calculated risks, those calculated investments, they try to make sure that they’re going to see their money at the end of it,” he says.

Nickels, Page, and Nguyen all expressed optimism that a male contraceptive will come to market in the next decade, though funding could be a limiting factor.

Logan predicts that either the injectable non-hormonal gel, or the topical hormonal gel will be the first to reach the market.

For male contraception drugs to succeed on the market, says Brian Nguyen, it’s important for men to become better educated on what women go through.

“Men are often shielded from discussions about menstruation, pregnancy, labor, infertility. There’s somewhat of a feeling of invulnerability among most men because they don’t have to think about the need for contraception. And the only way to remedy that is by having more and more open conversations with men about reproduction, and their responsibility in a process that is not just a women’s issue.”

Women have been waiting for that mindset shift for a long time. But even if it doesn’t happen right away for most heterosexual men, perhaps the freedom to skip the sheath will be motivation enough.

The audio of this episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Gisèle Grayson and fact-checked by Abē Levine. Tre Watson was the audio engineer.

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No more monoclonal antibody treatments for Covid are available in the U.S.: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday rescinded its authorization of bebtelovimab, a drug previously given to patients who faced a high risk of severe disease.

Over the last two years, the FDA authorized six monoclonal antibody treatments for Covid, but omicron’s many subvariants rendered the drugs less effective so the FDA gradually revoked each of those authorizations. Bebtelovimab, made by Eli Lilly, was the last one standing.

According to the FDA’s announcement, the drug was “not expected to neutralize Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.,” which together now account for the majority of new infections recorded in the U.S. — around 62%, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

“The big problem is that monoclonal antibodies bind to a very small piece of the virus. As the virus changes, we are now in a position in which we lost them all because they don’t bind to the virus anymore,” said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Paxlovid has become the go-to treatment for most people at high risk of severe Covid, given that it continues to be effective in the face of new variants and is easy to administer (it’s a series of three pills taken twice daily for five days). Bebtelovimab, by contrast, was an IV infusion that took about an hour.

But doctors often recommended the monoclonal antibody for people taking certain immunosuppressive medications, such as cancer patients or transplant recipients, since Paxlovid can interact negatively with several of those drugs.

Dr. Rodney Rohde, chair of the Clinical Laboratory Science Program at Texas State University, said he worries about how immunocompromised patients will fare with fewer treatment options.

“There are still segments of the population that have probably very little protection,” he said. “You worry about that last push of this virus this winter and going to the spring, if we see higher mortality or hospital beds being filled.”

In the spring, when the BA.2 omicron subvariant was dominant, research from Raymund Razonable, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, showed that bebtelovimab was as effective as Paxlovid at preventing severe disease among high-risk Covid patients. But Razonable said his hospital switched to Paxlovid as the primary treatment over the summer as new subvariants began to spread.

About two months ago, he said, doctors began asking patients who got bebtelovimab to report back if their symptoms hadn’t improved in one or two days. By the time the FDA revoked the treatment’s authorization, the Mayo Clinic had already stopped administering it, Razonable said, since doctors assumed it was no longer effective against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1.

Razonable said Mayo Clinic patients who are at high risk of severe Covid but can’t take Paxlovid are now offered the antiviral drug remdesivir at the infusion center where the hospital previously gave monoclonal antibodies. But remdesivir infusions are given over three days, so patients need multiple appointments.

Another option for immunocompromised people is convalescent plasma, which is derived from the donated blood of people who have already recovered from Covid. Casadevall said convalescent plasma is an effective alternative to monoclonal antibodies, but it’s more complicated to administer and oversee.

“It has thousands of different antibodies, so convalescent plasma has a lot of breadth that is not found in the monoclonals,” he said.

Pharma companies haven’t given up on the promise of new monoclonal antibody drugs, however.

“We remain strong in our belief that [monoclonal antibodies] have a critical role in the current fight against Covid-19, particularly in high-risk individuals,” said a spokesperson for Vir Biotechnology, the company behind a monoclonal antibody called sotrovimab that was formerly authorized by the FDA.

A spokesperson for Eli Lilly said the company is searching for and evaluating monoclonal antibody candidates. AstraZeneca, meanwhile, is developing a new antibody cocktail that it hopes to make available by the end of next year, a company spokesperson said.

The FDA authorized AstraZeneca’s monoclonal antibody drug Evusheld in December 2021 not as a treatment for Covid, but as a way to prevent infection in immunocompromised people who may not develop a strong antibody response to vaccines. But in October, the FDA announced that Evusheld may not be effective against circulating variants, and Razonable said his hospital is preparing for its authorization to be revoked soon.

“Looking at the distribution of variants currently, Evusheld is effective maybe about 30% of the time,” he said.

Casadevall said new monoclonal antibody drugs are still worth pursuing, since they have proven safe and effective against Covid.

“I would not give up on something like this,” he said. “I think it is possible to find antibodies that will be active with the other variants.”

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Many older Americans in need of long-term care are struggling to afford assisted living facilities, home health aides or nursing homes. Inflation is making these services even more expensive than before. Reporters from The New York Times and Kaiser Health News want to hear from people who are under financial strain because of long-term care.

Have you or your relatives run out of money for long-term care? How are you coping financially and ensuring you or your loved ones get the necessary care?

How has inflation made it harder or impossible to afford long-term care? How have higher prices affected how much you or your family can spend on an older person who needs assistance?

Has an older person in your life had to leave a care facility or give up paid in-home care because of the rising costs or lack of funds? If so, how are you managing?

Please fill out the form below, and a reporter may contact you to follow up. We won’t publish any part of your submission without contacting you first.

Thank you for sharing your story with us! We may contact some respondents for a more in-depth conversation in the coming weeks.

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Contact:

Jon Berg
Sanford Health Media Relations
605-366-2432 / Jon.Berg@sanfordhealth.org

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Kila LeGrand, director of nursing and clinical services at Sanford Aberdeen, has been named the new executive director for Sanford Aberdeen. In her new role, Kila will continue to grow and enhance service lines in the Aberdeen area while keeping a strong focus on Sanford’s commitment to patient care in northeast South Dakota.

“I am excited to take on this opportunity to lead Sanford Aberdeen and build on the already outstanding patient care and services we offer in northeast South Dakota,” LeGrand said. “The investment Sanford has made in northeast South Dakota is a true testament to the care we provide patients in Aberdeen and surrounding rural communities.”

A native of Timber Lake, South Dakota, LeGrand graduated from Presentation College in Aberdeen with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She later attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion where she received her master’s degree in business administration.

LeGrand started her career at Sanford Health in 2011 as the director of surgery and transitioned to her current role as director of nursing and clinical services in 2015. She was awarded the 2021 South Dakota Organization of Nurse Leaders Leadership Award for outstanding commitment, professionalism, and leadership. She is also a graduate of the 2020 Leadership Aberdeen class.

For more information about Sanford Aberdeen, visit SanfordHealth.org keyword: Aberdeen.

About Sanford Health
Sanford Health, the largest rural health system in the United States, is dedicated to transforming the health care experience and providing access to world-class health care in America’s heartland. Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the organization serves more than one million patients and 220,000 health plan members across 250,000 square miles. The integrated health system has 47 medical centers, 2,800 Sanford physicians and advanced practice providers, 170 clinical investigators and research scientists, more than 200 Good Samaritan Society senior care locations and world clinics in 8 countries around the globe. Learn more about Sanford Health’s commitment to shaping the future of rural health care across the lifespan at sanfordhealth.org or Sanford Health News.

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Pennsylvania (US): According to a new study by Penn Medicine researchers, ketamine, an established anaesthetic and increasingly popular antidepressant, dramatically reorganises activity in the brain, as if a switch was flipped on its active circuits.

The team described starkly altered neuronal activity patterns in the cerebral cortex of animal models after ketamine administration in a paper published this month in Nature Neuroscience, observing typically active neurons that were silenced and another set that was normally quiet suddenly springing to action.

This ketamine-induced activity switch in key brain regions associated with depression may have implications for our understanding of ketamine’s treatment effects and future neuropsychiatric research.

“Our surprising results reveal two distinct populations of cortical neurons, one engaged in normal awake brain function, the other linked to the ketamine-induced brain state,” said the co-lead and co-senior author Joseph Cichon, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care and Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

“It’s possible that this new network induced by ketamine enables dreams, hypnosis, or some unconscious state. And if that is determined to be true, this could also signal that it is the place where ketamine’s therapeutic effects take place.”
Anesthesiologists routinely administer anaesthetic drugs prior to surgeries to reversibly alter brain activity and induce unconsciousness. Ketamine has been a mainstay in anaesthesia practice since its synthesis in the 1960s due to its consistent physiological effects and safety profile. One of ketamine’s distinguishing features is that it maintains some activity states across the brain’s surface (the cortex).

In contrast, most anaesthetics work by completely suppressing brain activity. These preserved neuronal activities are thought to be important for ketamine’s antidepressant effects in depression-related brain areas. However, the mechanism by which ketamine exerts these clinical effects is still unknown.

In their new study, the researchers analyzed mouse behaviours before and after they were administered ketamine, comparing them to control mice who received placebo saline. One key observation was that that given ketamine, within minutes of injection, exhibited behavioural changes consistent with what is seen in humans on the drug, including reduced mobility, and impaired responses to sensory stimuli, which are collectively termed “dissociation.”

“We were hoping to pinpoint exactly what parts of the brain circuit ketamine affects when it’s administered so that we might open the door to better study of it and, down the road, more beneficial therapeutic use of it,” said co-lead and co-senior author Alex Proekt, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn.

Cortical brain tissue was imaged using two-photon microscopy before and after ketamine treatment. They discovered that ketamine activated previously silent neurons while turning off previously active neurons by tracking individual neurons and their activity.

The observed neuronal activity was attributed to ketamine’s ability to inhibit the activity of synaptic receptors called NMDA receptors and ion channels called HCN channels. The researchers discovered that by simply inhibiting these specific receptors and channels in the cortex, they could recreate the effects of ketamine without the medications. Ketamine weakens several sets of inhibitory cortical neurons, which normally suppress other neurons, according to the researchers. This allowed normally quiet neurons, which are normally suppressed when ketamine is not present, to become active.

The study found that this drop in inhibition was required for the activity switch in excitatory neurons, which form communication highways and are the main target of commonly prescribed antidepressants.

More research is needed to determine whether ketamine-driven effects in excitatory and inhibitory neurons are responsible for ketamine’s rapid antidepressant effects.

“While our study directly pertains to basic neuroscience, it does point at the greater potential of ketamine as a quick-acting antidepressant, among other applications,” said co-author Max Kelz, MD, PhD, a distinguished professor of Anesthesiology and vice chair of research in Anesthesiology and Critical Care.

“Further research is needed to fully explore this, but the neuronal switch we found also underlies dissociated, hallucinatory states caused by some psychiatric illnesses.”

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SANTA FE, N.M. (KRQE) – The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) issued a public health emergency order on Thursday. Officials said there is a notable strain on the healthcare system at this time.

NMDOH declared an emergency order due to the spike in pediatric cases and hospitalizations of respiratory viruses.

Taos restaurant featured on Food Network show

One of these viruses is the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which is known to affect small children and babies. RSV is spread through droplets produced by coughing and sneezing.

“We expand our social networks during the holidays, which is an important part of nurturing ourselves as human beings living in a complex world. However, at the same time we create more opportunities for respiratory viruses to spread,” said Acting Department of Health Secretary David Scrase, “It’s important to take steps to reduce the risk for respiratory viruses by practicing the good health and hygiene habits we’ve learned over the past few years as New Mexico nurses, doctors and hospital staff are facing another surge.” 

When do New Mexicans put up their Christmas lights?

The order was issued because hospitals and emergency rooms are being strained as they are seeing a surge in respiratory viruses.

“In light of the increasing numbers of children being hospitalized with RSV, and the number of children presenting to the Emergency Departments statewide, it is really important at this time to take these precautions recommended by the New Mexico Department of Health, especially not exposing our children to others that are currently experiencing respiratory symptoms,” said CHRISTUS St. Vincent Chief Medical Officer David Gonzales.

New Mexico saw RSV cases begin to increase in October and November alongside other respiratory illnesses like COVID-19 and influenza.

The state recommends the following steps to slow the spread of illnesses.

• Keep up with flu and COVID-19 vaccinations
• Stay home if you or your family members are sick
• Wash hands frequently
• Keep common, high-touch areas clean
• Call your healthcare provider if your child needs medical attention; only visit hospitals if there is a serious emergency such as severe illness or troubles breathing

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THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay News) — One in seven U.S. parents have not talked about vaccines with their child’s regular provider in the past two years, according to the results of a survey released by the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health.

Sarah J. Clark, and colleagues from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, asked a national sample of 1,483 parents of children aged 6 to 18 years about discussions with health care providers related to vaccines.

According to the results of the survey, most parents have talked about vaccines with their child’s regular doctor in the past two years, most often about vaccines needed for school (82 percent) and less often about flu vaccines (68 percent) or COVID-19 vaccines (57 percent). Yet, 15 percent of parents said they did not discuss any vaccines with their child’s regular doctor. Some parents reported discussions with other health professionals, such as pharmacists or nurses, about school vaccines (4 percent), flu vaccines (8 percent), or COVID-19 vaccines (14 percent). Among parents who said they talked with their child’s regular doctor about flu and/or COVID-19 vaccines, most reported positive experiences, including that the provider was open to their questions and concerns (81 percent for flu; 82 percent for COVID-19) and offered information that was helpful in making their decision (71 percent for flu; 72 percent for COVID-19).

“These findings suggest a change in the role of the primary care provider as the ‘go-to information source’ for vaccines,” the authors of the survey write. “Of note is the lower rate of parent-provider discussion of COVID vaccine compared to school vaccines, despite COVID vaccine being new.”

More Information

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THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay News) — The United States will renew its focus on ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030, with new funding and a five-year strategy, the White House said Thursday.

The Biden administration announced its ambitious plans on World AIDS Day.

Among the plan’s components are requesting $850 million in the 2023 budget for HIV prevention and care programs. Biden also proposed a new $10 billion national PrEP program. This could give access to preexposure prophylaxis and services for people without insurance or low coverage.

Global goals include reaching UNAIDS targets for reducing new infections and reaching targets for all age, gender and population groups. It would also include improving equity for adolescent girls, young women and children, CNN reported.

“Our work is not done. HIV remains a serious threat to global health security and economic development,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in the new strategy. “Our progress can be easily derailed if we lose our focus or conviction, or fail to address the inequities, many fueled by stigma and discrimination and punitive laws, that stand in our way.”

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced Thursday that it has supported antiretroviral treatment for more than 20 million men, women and children as of Sept. 30, CNN reported. That number is up from 18.96 million in 2021.

PEPFAR has provided 64.7 million people with HIV testing services and helped 5.5 million babies from being born with HIV.

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter Thursday, “With bold leadership, we can deliver care for everyone!” The director called for countries to implement global strategies for not only HIV but hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections.

HIV still has no vaccine or cure, even though medications have made it more manageable and have prevented infections. More than 1 million people had HIV in the United States in late 2019.

Access to care varies widely, with HIV affecting disproportionate numbers of Black and Hispanic Americans, CNN reported.

U.S. goals include reducing those inequities while preventing new HIV infections and improving outcomes for those who do have HIV.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on HIV and AIDS.

SOURCES: White House, news release, Dec. 1, 2022; CNN

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THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Two common drugs that veterinarians use to kill parasites on pets could be the solution to getting rid of bed bugs.

Both fluralaner and ivermectin, which are used to kill fleas and ticks on household pets, could also kill bed bugs. The newer, longer-lasting fluralaner showed especially strong potential.

This new research comes from a North Carolina State University (NCSU) study that examined the drugs and their effectiveness in controlling bed bug populations on poultry farms.

Entomologists and veterinary scientists from NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine tested bed bug death rates in different experiments.

One included mixing blood with each of the drugs on a lab bench and letting the bugs eat it. In the other, bed bugs fed off chickens who had received the treatments topically or through ingestion.

“The drugs affect receptors in the insect’s nervous system,” said corresponding author Coby Schal, a professor of entomology.

Both drugs killed most bed bugs on the lab bench. Fluralaner worked even better on bed bugs that showed resistance to common insecticides, the investigators found.

“The bed bug is a globally important insect,” Schal said in a university news release. “The last few decades have seen a resurgence of bed bugs in homes, and now we’re seeing bed bugs return to poultry farms. Since there is no proven method to stop bed bugs in commercial farms, the potential problems on poultry farms could be massive. We’re trying to get ahead of it by developing technologies that can eliminate bed bugs.”

Fluralaner was also highly effective at killing bed bugs that fed on chickens.

Ivermectin did not work in that experiment, possibly because the chickens quickly clear that drug from their systems, the study authors noted.

“We used the recommended dosage of ivermectin, either in a topical form or ingested, but neither was able to kill bed bugs,” said first author Maria González-Morales, a former doctoral student at NCSU.

Though fluralaner is new and mostly used for companion animals, Europe and Australia have approved it for use in the poultry industry. Ivermectin is used on household pets, larger animals and for anti-parasitic purposes in humans, particularly in Africa.

Adding fluralaner to poultry drinking water could be effective against bed bugs on poultry farms, the researchers said, along with monitoring, education and heat treatments.

“The health effects to poultry from bed bug infestation are not well documented, but anecdotally poultry farmers see animal welfare concerns like stress and anemia, which could negatively affect meat or egg production,” González-Morales said.

Schal added that there are other issues as well.

“There are also concerns for workers on these farms considering how easily bed bugs can spread from poultry to people,” he added.

The findings were recently published online in Parasites & Vectors.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on getting rid of bed bugs.

SOURCE: North Carolina State University, news release, Nov. 29, 2022

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