The Roundup contains information about all of the latest news, commentary, reports, surveys, issue briefs, charts, and fact sheets related to boys' issues collected by our staff during the preceding week.

News Clips

• Safety of Vaccines Used for Routine Immunization in the United States
  This report conducts a systematic review of the literature on the safety of vaccines recommended for routine immunization of children, adolescents, and adults in the United States.
  Agency For Healthcare Research and Quality
  July 2014

• HIV Prevention Drug Truvada Might Lower Genital Herpes Risk, Too
  A combination drug used to treat and prevent HIV -- Truvada -- may have an additional benefit: lowering the risk of a genital herpes infection, a new study suggests.Researchers found that African heterosexuals who were at risk of getting HIV from their partners were about 30 percent less likely to get infected with genital herpes if they took the drug tenofovir alone or with emtricitabine. Truvada is made from the combination of these two drugs.The study isn't likely to lead physicians to use tenofovir -- alone or in combination with emtricitabine -- solely to prevent herpes, one infectious-disease specialist said.
  Medline Plus
  June 30, 2014

• AAP recommends STI screening for adolescents and young adults
  1. Prevalence rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are higher among adolescents and young adults than other age groups. Males who have sex with males (MSM) and non-white ethnicities carry a high proportion of the disease burden in this population.
  2. All sexually active adolescent females should be screened for chlamydia (≤ 25 years) and gonorrhea (< 25 years) annually, and adolescent MSM should be screened for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis annually.
  Two Minute Medicine
  June 30, 2014

• Boys as young as five report clear and unrealistic perceptions of the male body
  Schools are being urged to include both girls and boys in body image awareness, following a new Flinders University study which reveals boys believe they need to be big, strong and muscular to be a man.
  Medical Xpress
  June 27, 2014

• Giving Boys A Bigger Emotional Toolbox
  Is America's dominant "man up" ethos a hypermasculine cultural construct, a tenet rooted in biological gender difference or something in between? Educator Ashanti Branch doesn't much care or, more accurately, doesn't have time to care. He's too busy trying to make a difference in boys' lives.
  NPR
  June 28, 2014

• Three Myths Hurting Young Black Men and Boys
  In America today, there are three myths, three fundamentally misguided beliefs that are hurting our young black men and boys -- bright young people that I have been fortunate to meet in my time as Mayor of Philadelphia. These myths chip away at the opportunities of these young men of color. As a result, we're putting an entire generation at a severe disadvantage and wasting the lives of millions of people who, with reasonable investment, could become vital contributors to our economy and society.
  Huffington Post
  June 25, 2014

International News

FRANCE

• France Retreats on Teaching Boy-Girl Equality
  France is scrapping a plan to teach children the "ABCD of equality" between boys and girls after protests by some parents who feared it was a stealth effort to erase gender differences � a new example of the Socialist government's failure to stick to its promises and a growing ability of conservative Catholics to weigh on policy.
  ABC News
  June 30, 2014

IRELAND

• Boys who self-harm at much higher risk of suicide
  The National Suicide Research Foundation study shows wide gender differences between boys and girls around self-harm and suicide, with boys who self-harm at a far higher risk of killing themselves later.The study, of 15-17-year-olds, found that for every 16 boys that are hospitalised for self-harming, one will die by suicide later. In contrast, one in every 162 girls who present at hospital after self-harming will later kill themselves.
  Irish Examiner
  June 28, 2014

UK

• Young men in crisis may not be crying out for help. But it's desperately needed
  Boys don't cry, or at least they're not supposed to. Yes, the old, unreconstructed machismo that was once all too synonymous with being a man has been partly driven back; men are more likely to open up and talk about their feelings. But discussing anxiety, depression and mental distress is still seen as weak or unmanly; the pressure to "man up" and "stop being such a woman" remains pervasive. And let's be frank: these expectations are killing all too many men.
  The Guardian, July 2, 2014

• Helping boys by making them think differently about girls
  Hannah Marsh meets the male volunteers working with teenage boys to challenge negative gender stereotypes and potentially damaging ideas of masculinity
  We're in a three-hour workshop, part of the Great Initiative's Great Men project, set up to challenge traditional masculine stereotypes and engage men and boys on gender issues.
  The Telegraph
  June 27, 2014

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The Boys Initiative is a groundbreaking national nonprofit campaign to shed light on documented trends in recent years pertaining to boys' underachievement and young men's failure to launch. For more information about The Boys Initiative, visit www.theboysinitiative.org.