McClatchy (8/16, Magness) reports that “exposure to DDE, which forms after the now-banned pesticide DDT breaks down, can as much as double the chance that a woman gives birth to” a child with autism, research indicated.

Newsweek (8/16, Gander) reports that researchers arrived at this conclusion after assessing “the blood taken from pregnant women to identify birth defects of 750 children with autism.” The findings were published online Aug. 16 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a publication of the American Psychiatric Association.

MedPage Today (8/16, Monaco) reports, “Offspring of mothers who fell into the highest 75th percentile of environmental exposure to p, p’-dichlorodiphenyl dichloroethylene (p, p’-DDE) – a metabolite of the insecticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) – had 32% higher odds of autism following adjustment for maternal psychiatric history, age, and parity,” the study found. But, “this association only applied to male offspring (OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.02-1.80, P=0.04); it wasn’t significant among female offspring although the point estimate was not markedly lower (OR 1.19, 95% CI 0.67-2.13, P=0.55),” investigators found.

Psychiatric News (8/16) reports, “The authors proposed two reasons for why DDT appeared to be linked with autism.” The first reason is that “DDT exposure is also known to increase the risk of both premature birth and small birthweight – two known autism risk factors.” The second reason is that “DDT can reduce the production of androgen receptors, another autism risk factor.”

Also covering the study are the ABC News (8/16, Kalra) website, Nature (8/16, Reardon), HealthDay (8/16, Gordon), Medscape (8/16, Brooks, Subscription Publication), Healio (8/16, Demko), and MD Magazine (8/16, Gingerich).

Related Links:

— “This banned pesticide may double the chance women have a baby with autism, study says, “Josh Magness, The Miami Herald, August 16, 2018.

STAT (8/15, Begley) reports that despite an analysis that found there are “literally zero” experimental Alzheimer’s medications being tested in late stage trials to treat moderate to severe cases, thus far, “no patient advocacy groups uttered a peep in protest.” STAT explains, “For more than 20 years drug makers and academic scientists pursued treatments to slow or reverse dementia by targeting amyloid plaques in the brain,” but “every last one failed.” Companies are now focusing on preventing the disease in younger people or trying to address behavioral symptoms such as agitation.

Related Links:

— “As Alzheimer’s drug developers give up on today’s patients, where is the outrage?, “Sharon Begley, STAT, August 15, 2018.

In a front-page story, the New York Times (8/15, A1, Sanger-Katz) reports that drug overdoses killed more than 72,000 Americans in 2017, a rise of about 10 percent from the year prior, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. The rising death toll “reflects two major factors: A growing number of Americans are using opioids, and those drugs are becoming more deadly.” Experts who are monitoring the epidemic point to the increase in synthetic opioids like fentanyl “most likely explains the bulk of the increased number of overdoses last year.” According to the CDC estimates, “overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids rose sharply, while deaths from heroin, prescription opioid pills and methadone fell.”

The Washington Post (8/15, Ingraham) reports the CDC “cautions that these figures are early estimates based on monthly death records processed by the agency.” The deaths are geographically distributed similarly to how they have been in past years, with Appalachia and New England showing the highest mortality rates. The highest rates were “seen in West Virginia, with 58.7 overdose deaths for every 100,000 residents. The District of Columbia (50.4), Pennsylvania (44.1), Ohio (44.0) and Maryland (37.9) rounded out the top five.” The CDC data also show, despite the nationwide increase, “overdose rates fell in a number of states, including North Dakota and Wyoming, compared with the prior year. Particularly significant were the decreases in Vermont and Massachusetts, two states with relatively high rates of overdose mortality.”

Fortune (8/15, Mukherjee) reports the nearly 72,000 overdose deaths “outpaced fatalities from suicide, or from influenza and pneumonia, which claimed about 44,000 and 57,000 lives, respectively, in 2016.”

Related Links:

— “Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017, ” Margot Sanger-Katz, The New York Times, August 15, 2018.

The AP (8/14) reports Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signed a bill Tuesday “aimed at helping curb the state’s opioid addiction crisis.” The new law requires hospital employees to “either admit a patient battling opioid addiction into an inpatient service or provide a referral to an internal or community-based treatment program when the patient expresses interest.” Additionally, the law “creates a commission to make recommendations about the credentialing of recovery coaches, who help those trying to remain drug-free. It also requires all prescribers to convert to electronic prescriptions by 2020.”

WBUR-FM Boston (8/14) reports on its website that this is the second major bill Baker “has signed to fight the crisis that claimed an estimated 2,016 lives in 2017. He marked the occasion Tuesday with a ceremonial signing at a Roxbury recovery center.”

Related Links:

— “Massachusetts Governor Touts Bill Aimed at Opioid Addiction, AP, August 14, 2018.

The Washington Post (8/14, Nutt) “To Your Health” blog reports researchers found that traumatic brain injury may increase the risk of suicide. The findings were published Aug. 14 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Reuters (8/14, Rapaport) reports the researchers found that “people who have traumatic brain injuries may be nearly twice as likely to die by suicide as individuals who don’t have a history of injuries like concussions and skull fractures.”

Healio (8/14, Miller) reports the authors of an accompanying editorial wrote, “Among the main questions stimulated by this research is the mechanism. How exactly do TBIs increase suicide risk? … The answers are undoubtedly multifactorial and complex.”

According to Psychiatric News (8/14), the “retrospective cohort study” used “nationwide registers that included more than 7.4 million people aged 10 years and older living in Denmark in 1980.” All of “these individuals were followed up until their dates of death or emigration from Denmark or December 31, 2014, whichever came first.”

Also covering the story are HealthDay (8/14, Mozes), MD Magazine (8/14, Kunzmann), and MedPage Today (8/14, George).

Related Links:

— “A traumatic brain injury may increase the risk of suicide, study says, “Amy Ellis Nutt, The Washington Post, August 14, 2018.