Just a small fraction of adolescents with opioid addiction will receive medications that can help them quit, new research shows. These medications, usually methadone or suboxone, are prescribed to reduce craving for opiates and ease withdrawal symptoms, and studies show they help opiate users to abstain. In 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised doctors to consider medication-assisted treatment, specifically suboxone, for adolescents with "severe opioid use disorders." To get a "baseline" sense of medication-assisted treatment in adolescents with opiate or heroin addiction, Kenneth Feder of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore and his colleagues looked at data on 139,092 patients receiving treatment at publicly funded programs in the United States in 2013.While 26 percent of adult heroin addicts received medication-assisted treatment, that was true for just 2 percent of adolescents.

Reuters, March 10, 2017

Detail of "Two Couples in a Brothel" (1769-70), by Suzuki Harunobu.   Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

A figure in a translucent kimono coyly holds a fan. Another arranges an iris in a vase. Are they men or women?  As a mind-bending exhibition that opened Friday at the Japan Society illustrates, they are what scholars call a third gender - adolescent males seen as the height of beauty in early modern Japan who were sexually available to both men and women. Known as wakashu, they are one of several examples in the show that reveal how elastic the ideas of gender were before Japan adopted Western sexual mores in the late 1800s.  The show,   "A Third Gender: Beautiful Youths in Japanese Prints,"   arrives at a time of ferment about gender roles in the United States and abroad. Bathroom rights for transgender people have become a cultural flash point. The notion of "gender fluidity" - that it's not necessary to identify as either male or female, that gender can be expressed as a continuum - is roiling traditional definitions.

A pilot project to improve the care of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) led to a reduction in symptoms as well as increased confidence among pediatricians in diagnosing and managing the disorder. At the end of the project, children with ADHD experienced a 12% reduction in symptoms, as measured by parent and teacher assessment. Furthermore, 70% of providers reported increased confidence in diagnosing ADHD and 83% reported increased confidence in managing and treating ADHD.

AAP Gateway, March 9, 2017

The French are reporting that with optimal use of hepatitis C virus (HCV) direct-acting antiviral based treatments, it may be possible to nearly eradicate HIV-HCV coinfection in France within 10 years in most of risk groups. The researchers presented a mathematical model at  CROI 2017  suggesting a new era in terms of these two coinfections. HIV-HCV co-infection is highest among gay males.

Infectious Disease Advisor, March 8, 2017

The number of suicides among boys is much higher than girls, yet ChildLine says young men are six times less likely to seek help.

ChildLine says it delivered 1,934 counselling sessions for boys, compared with 11,463 for girls - however, national figures show the number of suicides among young men is considerably higher. Official figures from across the UK in 2015 show there were 168 deaths attributable to suicide among boys aged 10 to 19, and 63 deaths among girls in the same age range. It is hoped the Tough to Talk campaign will help boys struggling with suicidal feelings to realise they can seek support from ChildLine if they are unable to talk to friends or family.

Sky News, March 7, 2017

Self-persuasion iPad app spurs low-income parents to protect teens against cancer-causing hpv

As health officials struggle to boost the number of teens vaccinated against the deadly human papillomavirus, a new study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, found that self-persuasion works to bring parents on board. The new study follows an earlier SMU study that found guilt, social pressure or acting solely upon a doctor's recommendation was not related to parents' motivation to vaccinate their kids. For the SMU study, the researchers educated parents in a waiting room by providing a custom-designed software application running on an iPad tablet. The program guided the parents in English or Spanish to scroll through audio prompts that help them think through why HPV vaccination is important. The parents verbalized in their own words why it would be important to them to get their child vaccinated. Inability to read or write wasn't a barrier.

Medical Xpress, March 7, 2017

J&J's Janssen taps Japanese digital health company Welby for ADHD app

Japanese digital health company Welby has collaborated with Janssen, a pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson, to develop a mobile app for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. The app will be available on iOS and Android throughout Japan. The app is part of Janssen's Healthy Mind program, an initiative to reduce stigma around mental health in the Asia Pacific region. The app is part of Janssen's Healthy Mind program, an initiative to reduce stigma around mental health in the Asia Pacific region. The pharmaceutical company previously developed apps with Welby for use by patients with prostate cancer and chronic pain, and is looking to expand into more therapeutic areas. The app features medication reminders, goal-setting and schedule management tools. Medication adherence is a big goal of the app.

Mobile Health News, March 6, 2017

Why Didn't Gay Rights Cure Gay Loneliness?

Together Alone - The Epidemic of Gay Loneliness

For years I've noticed the divergence between my straight friends and my gay friends. While one half of my social circle has disappeared into relationships, kids and suburbs, the other has struggled through isolation and anxiety, hard drugs and risky sex. Even as we celebrate the scale and speed of societal acceptance, the rates of depression, loneliness and substance abuse in the gay community remain stuck in the same place they've been for decades. Gay people are now, depending on the study, between   2 and 10 times  more likely than straight people to take their own lives. We're  twice  as likely to have a major depressive episode. And just like the last epidemic we lived through, the trauma appears to be concentrated among men. In a  survey  of gay men who recently arrived in New York City, three-quarters suffered from anxiety or depression, abused drugs or alcohol or were having risky sex-or some combination of the three. Despite all the talk of our  "chosen families,"  gay men have  fewer  close friends than straight people or gay women. In a survey of care-providers at HIV clinics, one respondent  told  researchers: "It's not a question of them not knowing how to save their lives. It's a question of them knowing if their lives are worth saving."

Huffington Post, March 2, 2017

HIV Vaccine Shows 'Positive Signal' in Small Study

Several HIV patients treated with a therapeutic vaccine strategy appear now to be able to control the virus without drugs, a researcher said here.

Five patients in a small trial have been off antiretroviral therapy for between 5 and 27 months without the usual skyrocketing HIV viral load that follows an interruption of treatment, according Beatriz Mothe, MD, PhD, of the Spanish AIDS research institute IrsiCaixa in Barcelona. "They go up, they go down" but their HIV viral load remains relatively low, Mothe told  MedPage Today   during a media briefing at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

Medpage Today, February 17, 2017

Practical Approaches to Optimize Adolescent Immunization

Health care providers must continuously strive to educate their patients and develop skills that can help parents and adolescents overcome vaccine hesitancy. Research on strategies to achieve higher vaccination rates is ongoing, and it is important to increase the knowledge and implementation of these strategies. This clinical report focuses on increasing adherence to the universally recommended vaccines in the annual adolescent immunization schedule of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.  

AAP Gateway, February 2017

The Weekly News Roundup is produced by The Partnership for Male Youth and is released every Monday. 

For more information contact Dennis J. Barbour, JD. News Roundup editor and President/CEO of the Partnership, at [email protected].