CRISPRcon Attendees Wade Through Ethical Morass Of Designer Babies And Colonialism

Stat: At CRISPRCon, Talk Of Designer Babies, IP Fights, And Scientific Colonialism
While lacking the costuming of Comic-Con or revelry of SantaCon, CRISPR’s second annual geek-out dealt with a concept weightier than superheroes or public drunkenness: How should society deal with a technology that can literally reshape the world? CRISPRcon brought hundreds of academics, industry scientists, and public health officials to Boston this week to answer just that question, moving past the beaker-and-pipette specifics of gene-editing to tackle the ethical, cultural, and democratic implications of science’s favorite new toy. The event runs through Tuesday. (Garde, 6/5)

Stat: New Calculator Could Change Aspirin, Statin, And Blood Pressure Prescribing
More than 11 million people may need to reconsider taking medications to avoid heart attack and stroke, according to new research that says current guidelines overestimate risk for some people, but underestimate risk for others, especially African-Americans. Right now, doctors can consult a calculator found online or in electronic health records to decide whether patients might benefit from aspirin, statins, or blood pressure medications. Those estimates of 10-year risk for cardiovascular disease were derived in 2013 and endorsed by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. They were based on statistical analyses that combined data from large studies such as the original Framingham Heart Study, whose participants were 30 to 62 years old in 1948. (Cooney, 6/4)

McClatchy: GOP's Solutions To Santa Fe, Sutherland Springs Come From Gun Lobby
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott last week proposed giving a $1 million grant to a gun storage education program run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation — a trade association based in Newtown, site of the Sandy Hook shootings, that represents the firearms industry. (Drusch, 6/4)

Boston Globe: Nine To 12 Percent Of Mental Health Professionals Have Had Sexual Contact With Patients
If it shocked you to read, in today’s story about a psychologist accused of sexual misconduct, that 9 percent to 12 percent of mental health professionals admitted in surveys they’d had sexual contact with a patient, consider this: Those percentages could be an underestimate. The numbers reflect only those therapists who responded to the surveys and who acknowledged the conduct. (Freyer, 6/4)

The Washington Post: New Report Finds No Evidence That Having Sex With Robots Is Healthy
Sex sells, and robots are no exception. One of the most expensive consumer robots under development, a machine named Harmony, is a $15,000 union of silicone curves and silicon chips. Part of an estimated $30 billion industry, Harmony has software that remembers birthdays and can quote Shakespeare, per the Guardian. Harmony is also equipped for intimate human-robot relations. Sex doll maker Realbotix, in its marketing materials, bills Harmony as “the perfect companion.” But healthy companionship is too bold a claim to make about sex robots, warn a pair of doctors in a report published Monday in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health. (Guarino, 6/4)

The New York Times: The Ideal Subjects For A Salt Study? Maybe Prisoners.
Suppose you wanted to do a study of diet and nutrition, with thousands of participants randomly assigned to follow one meal plan or another for years as their health was monitored? In the real world, studies like these are nearly impossible. That’s why there remain so many unanswered questions about what’s best for people to eat. And one of the biggest of those mysteries concerns salt and its relationship to health. (Kolata, 6/4)

The New York Times: That Time Of The Month Can Be Fun, Too
When it comes to periods, every woman has a story about “that time” — that time she first saw the blood in her underwear and thought death was knocking; that time she tied a sweatshirt around her waist to hide a stain on her white paints; that time her cycle made its presence known at the most inopportune moment. “We’re making out like crazy, and I remember feeling extra wet,” said Njambi Morgan, a spoken word performer and poet, sharing her own “that time” story with a crowd of several dozen listeners. “I thought, that’s how it is in the movies. I got this. One thing led to another, and then he jumped up. I’ve never seen a face like that.” The audience of mostly women groaned in sympathy, knowing where the story was headed. Ms. Morgan imitated the voice of a teenage boy: “OH. You bled all over my mom’s couch!” (Safronova, 6/4)

Reveal: Immigrant Families Face New Threat To Children’s Health: Uncertainty
Physicians and researchers warn that some of the most significant changes are invisible. What we can’t conspicuously see – yet – is that chronic fear amounts to more than a mindset: It actually can erode families’ health. (Rubenstein, 6/4)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Need A Little Extra Money? You'll Soon Be Able To Sell And Rent Your DNA 
Feel like earning a little extra money and maybe improving your health at the same time? Consumers will soon be able to sell or rent their DNA to scientists who are trying to fight diseases as different as dementia, lupus and leukemia. Bio-brokers want to collect everything from someone’s 23andMe and Ancestry.com gene data to fully sequenced genomes. (Robbins, 6/3)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: New Study On Supplemental Vitamins Proves They're Useless And A Waste Of Money
Published this month in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers from a network of universities throughout Canada compiled data from a host of studies performed over the last five years in an effort to update the findings originally published by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2013. The authors focused mainly on cardiovascular diseases and concluded that there was no benefit from taking multivitamins, including vitamins C, D, beta-carotene, calcium, and selenium, and in fact, there may be harm from taking supplemental niacin. (Litman, 6/5)