Not Kidding: Childless Couples Happier

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Parents in the United States are not quite as happy as their childless peers, a new report reveals.

The analysis of 22 industrialized countries found that the largest “happiness gap” between those who have kids and those who don’t can be found in America.

That’s thanks to the dearth of workplace policies enabling employees of U.S. companies to have a more flexible schedule or take paid time off for illness, vacations or the birth of a child, the researchers said.

“The United States, without any standard paid leave available to mothers or parents — or any standard vacation or sick leave to support raising a dependent child — falls strikingly behind all the other countries we examined in terms of providing for parents’ happiness and overall well-being,” said researcher Matthew Andersson. He is an assistant professor of sociology at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas.

For the report, researchers from Baylor, the University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., compared data from the United States, European countries, Australia, New Zealand and Russia.

The research revealed that countries with government-mandated paid leave policies have a smaller “happiness gap” between parents and couples who don’t have kids.

“In fact, in those places [with leave policies], parents might be slightly happier,” Andersson said in a Baylor news release.

After considering each country’s economy and fertility rate and testing theories that could take a toll on parents’ happiness — such as unexpected births or large families — the researchers found these variables were insignificant.

“Another striking finding was that giving money to parents in child allowances or monthly payments had less effect on parental happiness than giving them the tools such as flexible work time,” the researchers said in the report.

The researchers said programs like subsidized child care actually improve the happiness of society as a whole, “with an extra happiness bonus for parents of minor children.”

The findings were published June 22 in the American Journal of Sociology.

More information

The U.S. Department of Labor provides more information on the Family and Medical Leave Act.

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The Older the Drinking Age, the Lower the Illness Rates?

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — States typically raised the minimum drinking age to lower drunk driving rates, but a new study suggests the move could have other health benefits.

Researchers say states that prevent people younger than 21 from buying alcohol may also curb deaths from chronic alcohol-related health issues, such as liver disease and certain cancers.

The finding wasn’t a surprise for one expert in substance abuse treatment.

“We in the treatment field are acutely aware that those who have alcohol and substance abuse problems in adolescence and late adolescence remain at high risk of lifelong problems,” said Bruce Goldman, who directs substance abuse services at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, N.Y.

The new study was led by Dr. Richard Grucza, an associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis. His team noted that prior research has shown that boosting the minimum drinking age to 21 has been tied to a lowering of alcoholism rates.

A 1984 federal law set 21 as the minimum age to buy alcohol.

Did that translate to better health in other ways? To find out, Grucza’s research team analyzed data on U.S. adults who turned 18 years old between 1967 and 1990.

During this time period, the minimum drinking age varied from state to state. The study’s authors examined if young people who were legally able to drink before their 21st birthday had any higher risk of death from an alcohol-related disease than people who couldn’t legally drink until they turned 21.

Using Census and community population data, the study found that among people who did not attend college, a minimum legal drinking age of 21 was tied to a lower risk of death from these conditions over the course of a lifetime. The study couldn’t prove cause-and effect, however, only an association.

But, the benefit did not seem to apply to college graduates: Their rates of alcohol-related health issues were the same, regardless of whether the drinking age was set at 21 or lower.

College campuses are notorious for high levels of binge drinking, Grucza’s team noted, and that might make college kids more resistant to public policy, such as state drinking laws.

Goldman believes societal norms help perpetuate that trend.

“Our accepted, cultural norm that college students ‘drink a lot’ needs to radically change if we are to reduce the short- and long-term serious consequences of college age binge drinking,” he said.

The study was published June 24 in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides statistics on the minimum legal drinking age of 21.

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Arthritis Possible Side Effect of Certain Cancer Drugs: Study

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Certain cancer immunotherapy drugs may increase risk for joint and tissue disease, including arthritis, new research suggests.

“We keep having referrals coming in from our oncologists as more patients are treated with these drugs,” said Dr. Clifton Bingham, director of the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center in Baltimore.

“In particular, as more patients are treated with combinations of multiple immunotherapies, we expect the rate to go up,” he said in a Hopkins news release.

Drugs like ipilimumab and nivolumab are called checkpoint inhibitor drugs. Between 2012 and 2016, 13 patients given these drugs at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center (1.3 percent of the total using them) developed new-onset arthritis, or autoimmune disorders that cause dry eyes and mouth, the researchers said.

However, further research is needed to confirm a cause-and-effect relationship, the researchers said.

Still, “I don’t think anyone is particularly surprised that rheumatologic disorders might be a complication of drugs that boost the immune system,” said study author Dr. Laura Cappelli. She is a rheumatologist at the university’s School of Medicine.

It’s likely that the rate of rheumatologic diseases in patients taking immune checkpoint inhibitor drugs in this study is likely lower than the actual rate, Cappelli said.

That’s because patients with only mild joint pain or those with already deteriorating health from their cancers may not have been referred to the rheumatology clinic for symptoms related to the drugs, she explained.

This report is intended to raise awareness of these possible side effects, Cappelli said.

“It is important when weighing the risk-benefit ratio of prescribing these drugs,” she said. “And it’s important for people to be on the lookout for symptoms so they can see a rheumatologist early in an effort to prevent or limit joint damage.”

The study was published online recently in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about immune inhibitor checkpoint drugs.

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Sudden Heart Death More Common in Male Minority Athletes

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — It’s always surprising and heartbreaking to hear about a young athlete dying suddenly. Now a new study finds that in many of these cases, an underlying heart problem was already present.

The researchers found that about one-third of sudden cardiac deaths were caused by the heart condition hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. This condition causes a portion of the heart’s wall to grow abnormally thick, which hinders the heart’s performance. There are often no symptoms, study authors said.

This heart condition is often inherited, according to the American Heart Association.

About 40 percent of sudden deaths in males were caused by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. More than 50 percent of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy occurred in minority males. Just 1 percent of these cases were found in minority females, the study published in The American Journal of Medicine found.

“We have established that hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in male athletes and is an underappreciated cause of sudden death in male African-American and minority athletes, but is a rare cause of death in female athletes,” lead investigator Dr. Barry Maron said in a journal news release. Maron is from Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

The study identified more than 2,400 sudden deaths between 1980 and 2011. The deaths occurred among competitive athletes while engaged in 29 different sports. The athletes were between the ages of 13 and 25. More than 840 of those deaths were heart-related, the study showed.

The researchers found that:

• Male athletes were 6.5 times more likely to die from sudden cardiac death than females.
• Blacks and other minorities had death rates nearly five times higher from sudden cardiac death than whites.
• Sudden cardiac death was three times more likely among minority male and female basketball players than white players.
• Less than 5 percent of athletes who died had structurally normal hearts.

Certain heart problems were more common in female athletes who died suddenly. These included defects in the heart’s arteries present from birth and conditions that cause potentially dangerous irregular heartbeats, the study found.

The new findings highlight the potential value of the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology’s recommendations to screen minorities and others for heart conditions before participation in athletics, Maron said.

More information

The American Heart Association has more on heart screening for young athletes.

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Antidepressant No Help to Heart Failure Patients: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The antidepressant Lexapro may not help heart failure patients suffering from depression, German researchers report.

“Depression in heart failure may not be the same depression patients without heart failure get and who respond well to antidepressants,” said lead researcher Dr. Christiane Angermann, a professor of cardiology at University Hospital Wurzburg.

Heart failure is associated with biological changes that also cause depressive symptoms, she explained, “so it might be that an antidepressant is not the right drug to treat this depression.” Heart failure occurs when the heart is weakened and cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs.

Among patients suffering from heart failure, 10 percent to 40 percent suffer from depression. Depression among these patients is an independent predictor of death and hospitalization, Angermann said.

Lexapro is part of the drug family called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). They’re the most widely used antidepressants in the general population, but it hasn’t been clear if they work in patients with heart failure, she added.

Angermann said that treating heart failure can help relieve depression. “When we treat the heart failure very well, depression improves,” she said. “It may be that improving the systemic disorder heart failure takes away some of these depressive symptoms.”

Antidepressants may just not be the right medications for heart failure patients, Angermann added, since other trials using the antidepressants Zoloft (another SSRI) and Remeron also showed no benefit.

“The sicker you are, the more inflammation you have in your body, the less you may respond to an antidepressant that addresses the depression rather than your illness — that’s our speculation,” she said.

Although antidepressants may not be the best treatment for depression in patients with heart failure, other approaches might be worth trying, Angermann said.

“A good approach to the management of depressed heart failure patients could be to combine classical disease management strategies to optimize heart failure therapy, possibly in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy and physical exercise,” she said.

For the study, Angermann and her colleagues randomly assigned 372 patients with chronic heart failure and depression to Lexapro (escitalopram) or a placebo in addition to heart failure treatments.

Over 18 months, 63 percent of the patients taking Lexapro died or needed hospitalization, as did 64 percent of those taking the placebo, the researchers found.

Moreover, no significant improvement in depression symptoms was seen among the patients taking Lexapro, they noted.

Dr. Ami Baxi, director of inpatient and emergency psychiatry at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said, “It is well-known that depression is often associated with heart conditions like heart failure, and that depression can result in adverse clinical outcomes.”

Baxi agreed that the most likely explanation for the ineffectiveness of Lexapro is because the depression suffered by these patients is caused by something related to their heart disease and therefore is not responsive to drugs used to treat other types of depression.

“Given the known extensive benefits of SSRIs in the general population, the results of this study support a possible alternative cause for depression among patients with heart failure,” she said.

The report was published June 28 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on heart failure.

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Zika Infection May Give Future Immunity, Monkey Study Suggests

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Infection with the Zika virus may protect against future infection, but pregnancy seems to extend how long the mosquito-borne virus stays in the body, a new study in monkeys suggests.

“We have good news for most people: If you are not pregnant and not at risk of becoming pregnant, you probably don’t need to be worried about Zika,” said study leader David O’Connor. He is a professor of pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“But my concern for Zika virus in pregnancy is much higher now than it was six months ago,” O’Connor added.

In the study, researchers infected rhesus macaque monkeys with the Zika virus strain that emerged in South America in 2015. The investigators found that those monkeys resisted infection with the same strain 10 weeks later.

“This is good news for vaccine design. It suggests the sort of immunity that occurs naturally is sufficient. If you can mimic that in a vaccine, you’ll likely have a very successful vaccine,” O’Connor said in a university news release.

However, the researchers also found that the virus remained in the blood of pregnant female monkeys for 30 to 70 days after infection, compared with 10 days in non-pregnant females.

That extended period has implications for the severe impacts of Zika infection during pregnancy, according to the scientists. The virus has been linked to a birth defect called microcephaly, in which babies have abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.

“What we’ve shown in the monkey model matches a lot of what people have observed in epidemiological studies of humans,” said study first author Emma Mohr, a pediatric infectious disease fellow at UW-Madison.

“It’s important for us to show in a lab setting what people have expected in humans — that you clear viremia (infection by the Zika virus) within a week, and you are protected from future infections by the same virus,” she explained.

However, experts note that research on animals often fails to produce similar results in humans.

A possible reason why the Zika virus persists longer in pregnancy is that the immune systems of expectant mothers are too weak to clear the virus as quickly, the researchers suggested.

“The other, more provocative hypothesis is that it’s indicative of infection of the fetus, and what we’re observing in the maternal bloodstream is the shedding of virus by the fetus back into the mother’s bloodstream,” O’Connor said.

“If that happens to be the case, it would suggest that there is a prolonged infection of the fetus that lasts much longer than the infection of the mother,” he added.

But it could also offer an opportunity to monitor the risks to a fetus without using invasive and risky tests, said O’Connor.

He explained that “measuring the viral load on a Zika-infected pregnant woman on a weekly or biweekly basis could provide an indication for the likely degree of damage to the fetus. If a pregnant woman comes into a clinic with Zika virus, but a week later shows no more evidence of infection, that could be a good indication that the fetus is unlikely to be affected.”

Assessing Zika virus levels in the blood of pregnant women to determine fetal infection might also help guide researchers trying to develop treatments to protect babies from Zika-related brain damage.

The study was published June 28 in the journal Nature Communications.

As of June 16, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there are 265 cases of pregnant women on the U.S. mainland who have been infected with Zika.

In Latin America, thousands of babies have already been born with microcephaly. And researchers reported last Wednesday that fears of Zika-related birth defects may be driving up abortion rates in Latin American countries affected by the virus.

Zika is typically transmitted via the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. But, transmission of the virus through sex is more common than previously thought, World Health Organization officials have said.

Women of child-bearing age who live in an active Zika region should protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, using mosquito repellent when outside, and staying indoors as much as possible, according to the CDC.

U.S. health officials have said they expect to see Zika infections in Gulf Coast states such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas as mosquito season ramps up.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the Zika virus.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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Boston’s Subways Packed With Germs

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Boston’s subway system is swarming with microbes, and while that might send a shiver down your spine, the study’s authors said that most of these bugs are harmless and won’t make you sick.

Researchers collected and studied 100 samples from all over the subway system. Samples were taken from the hanging grips; horizontal and vertical poles; seats; seat backs; walls of subway cars; and the touch-screens and sides of ticketing machines in stations.

The highest levels of microbes were found on hanging grips and seats in subway cars, and on the touch-screens in stations. On all surfaces tested, most of the microbes were from human skin and unable to cause disease.

The study was published June 28 in the journal mSystems.

Levels of microbes that affect antibiotic resistance were “much lower than what you’d find in a normal human gut. They’re exactly what you’d run into shaking somebody’s hand,” senior author Curtis Huttenhower, said in a journal news release. He’s an associate professor of computational biology and bioinformatics at Harvard University in Boston.

“We were surprised by how normal a lot of the samples looked,” he added. “Even when we looked closely, there was nothing unusual or dangerous about the microbes we found. It shows that, in the absence of something like flu season, all of the germs you run into, even in a crowded environment like the (subway), are normal.”

The study authors said further research is needed to understand whether the microbes found in the subway are dormant or actively growing, and under what circumstances they can be transferred from one person to another.

A follow-up study will examine whether the microbes identified on the subway system are from living or dead organisms.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains how to stop the spread of germs.

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Basketball Legend Pat Summitt’s Death Points to Ravages of Early Alzheimer’s

By Margaret Steele
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Legendary coach Pat Summitt stared down myriad challenges as she thrust women’s college basketball onto the world stage. But her greatest foe wasn’t on the court — it was Alzheimer’s disease.

Summitt died Tuesday at age 64, after a remarkable coaching record, winning eight NCAA titles and nearly 1,100 games with the University of Tennessee Lady Vols.

The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s before her 60th birthday foretold the decline of her brilliant career and thrust Summitt into a new role: as chronicler of the ravages of this incurable brain disease.

“Since 2011, my mother has battled her toughest opponent, early onset dementia, ‘Alzheimer’s Type,’ and she did so with bravely fierce determination just as she did with every opponent she ever faced,” said her son, Tyler Summitt, the Associated Press reported.

“Even though it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms that she is no longer with us, we can all find peace in knowing she no longer carries the heavy burden of this disease,” he added.

Summitt, the winningest coach in Division I college basketball history, died peacefully in Knoxville due to complications from the disease, her son said.

She was 59 when she announced in 2011 that she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia. She coached one more season before retiring, and detailed her struggle with dementia in a co-written book released in March 2013.

“It’s hard to pinpoint the exact day that I first noticed something wrong,” Summitt wrote. “Over the course of a year, from 2010 to 2011, I began to experience a troubling series of lapses. I had to ask people to remind me of the same things, over and over. I’d ask three times in the space of an hour, ‘What time is my meeting again?’ — and then be late.”

In 2011, Summitt started a foundation in her name to fight Alzheimer’s, and it has raised millions of dollars, according to published reports.

The overwhelming majority of the 5.4 million Americans with Alzheimer’s are 65 and older. But approximately 200,000 of them are younger than 65, which is termed early onset Alzheimer’s, says the Alzheimer’s Association.

Like Summitt, many with early onset Alzheimer’s are in their 40s and 50s when the progressive brain disease strikes. Doctors don’t understand the cause of the disease in younger people, but researchers have begun to suspect genetics.

Because doctors aren’t looking for signs of Alzheimer’s in middle-aged people, the disorder may progress undetected, the Alzheimer’s Association notes. Patients often receive different diagnoses from different physicians, or they’re told symptoms such as memory loss are due to stress, the foundation adds.

Symptoms can vary, but the Alzheimer’s Association says key signs to watch for include: memory loss that disrupts daily life; challenges in planning or solving problems; difficulty completing familiar tasks; confusion with time or place; trouble understanding visual images; or new problems speaking or writing.

Other possible indicators include putting things in unusual places, decreased judgment, and withdrawal from work or social activities.

The Alzheimer’s Association suggests scheduling an appointment with a doctor if you notice any of these signs in yourself or a loved one.

While no one wants to hear a doctor confirm their suspicions, experts say early diagnosis is essential for building supports and making important decisions while you can.

As Summitt told supporters: “You can’t always control what happens, but you can control how you handle it.”

A press release from the Alzheimer’s Association said: “Coach Summitt faced Alzheimer’s disease, as only she could, strongly and publicly. One of the greatest coaches in the history of sports continued to be an educator and coach off the court, educating so many about Alzheimer’s disease and rallying people to take action and become involved in the Alzheimer’s cause,” said Harry Johns, president and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“Coach Summitt was a courageous advocate for this cause. In honor of her struggle and the challenges faced by millions of Americans, we will continue to aggressively pursue greater awareness, support for families and research that will slow, stop and ultimately cure Alzheimer’s disease,” he said.

More information

The Alzheimer’s Association has more about early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

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Doctors Swamped by ‘E-Medicine’ Demands

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Doctors say they’re drowning in electronic paperwork, feeling burned out and dissatisfied with their jobs thanks to countless hours spent filling out computerized medical forms, researchers report.

Electronic health records are a cornerstone in the effort to modernize medicine. But, new systems designed to chart a patient’s progress and instruct their future care have proven to be very time-consuming, the study found.

“While some aspects of electronic records can improve efficiency, computerized physician order entry is a major source of inefficiency and clerical burden for physicians,” explained lead author Dr. Tait Shanafelt, a Mayo Clinic hematologist and oncologist. “Tasks that used to be accomplished with a verbal or written order in less than 30 seconds can now take more than five minutes.”

As a result, physicians using these electronic records reported higher rates of burnout and increased frustration with the amount of computerized paperwork they must do, Shanafelt and his colleagues found.

The survey of more than 6,300 active physicians found self-reported burnout among:

• About 57 percent of doctors using electronic health records, which serve as a computerized version of a patient’s medical history. Only 44 percent of those who didn’t use electronic health records feared burnout.
• Between 56 percent and 59 percent of doctors who use computerized physician order entry (CPOE), an electronic system doctors use to share instructions for patient care. Only 45 percent of doctors not using CPOE suffered from burnout.

The doctors also were more likely to be dissatisfied with their daily amount of clerical work if they used electronic records, the survey revealed.

Patients ultimately are the ones who suffer if doctors are constantly stressed out, Shanafelt said.

“Physician burnout has been linked to decreased quality of care and medical errors, as well as an increase in the likelihood physicians will cut back their work hours or leave the profession,” he said.

Dr. Wanda Filer is president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She said doctors find electronic health records to be a nuisance because the systems often have been designed to help bill insurance, rather than to aid medical care or help doctors manage their workflow.

For example, patients who go to a family doctor often need care for multiple health problems, requiring many different prescriptions, laboratory tests and care recommendations, Filer said.

“The EHR [electronic health record] is often designed for a quick clinical encounter like a head cold and becomes very clunky when you need to document more detailed information,” she said.

“Trying to enter and manage vast amounts of clinical data has become incredibly time-consuming, pulling physicians away from their real purpose, which is patient care,” Filer explained.

Shanafelt added that computerized records are also interfering with the personal lives of physicians.

“These electronic tools also give physicians access to the medical records when at home, which has extended the physician work day,” he said. “Studies suggest physicians spend more than 10 hours per week interacting with the EHR after they go home from the office, on nights and weekends.”

Federal health care reform drove adoption of these computer systems before they had been properly tested, Filer said. Programmers need to redesign the systems so they help doctors provide better care, rather than burden them with forms.

“We spent millions of practice dollars for substandard systems that have slowed down our workflow, reduced the number of people we can see each day and caused even longer delays for visits and in the waiting room,” Filer said.

In addition, regulators need to give doctors some breathing space, since the computerized records are proving to be much less helpful than initially promised, she said.

Shanafelt said support staff such as medical scribes or nurses might be able to take some of the burden off physicians. These members of the doctor’s medical team could fill out the computerized forms and respond to electronic messages from patients.

However, Filer said, many practices don’t have the cash to hire extra hands to help manage the computerized workload.

“Hiring staff is often not possible due to low margins in primary care and more than 15 years of poor payment for services with no money left to hire additional staff,” she said. “Then factor in the cost of maintaining the EHR system, and it is no wonder physicians and other health care professionals question its value.”

The findings were published June 27 in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

More information

For more on electronic health records, visit the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

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Success in Mice Shows Zika Vaccine ‘Feasible’

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 28, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Studies involving mice support the effectiveness of two vaccine candidates against the Zika virus, scientists say.

This “critical first step” is leading to trials in monkeys and humans, “and gives us early confidence that development of a protective Zika virus vaccine for humans is feasible,” said researcher Col. Nelson Michael.

He is co-leader of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) in Silver Spring, Md., and one member of a team involved in the search for a vaccine against the mosquito-borne virus.

Zika infection during pregnancy can cause a devastating birth defect known as microcephaly, where an infant is born with an abnormally small head and brain. In Latin America, thousands of babies have already been born with microcephaly, and health officials are scrambling to help prevent cases in the United States as the summer mosquito season arrives.

At least 10 pregnant women in the Dallas area have been infected with Zika, Texas officials confirmed last week. All of the women contracted the mosquito-borne virus while traveling abroad.

A vaccine effective against Zika would be invaluable. Reporting June 28 in the journal Nature, researchers said one of the new shots was developed at Harvard Medical School in Boston and is partly based on a Zika strain isolated in Brazil.

The other vaccine, using a strain isolated in Puerto Rico, has been developed by Michael’s team at WRAIR.

Both vaccines shielded mice against Zika infection with just a single shot required, the researchers said.

The two vaccines are similar to other shots already in use against flaviviruses, which include dengue fever, West Nile and others.

“We showed that vaccine-induced antibodies provided protection, similar to existing vaccines for other flaviviruses,” said Dr. Dan Barouch. He directs the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“The effectiveness of these vaccines … provide substantial optimism for a clear path forward for the development of a safe and effective ZIKV vaccine for humans,” Barouch said in a Beth Israel Deaconess news release.

Clinical trials in humans are scheduled to begin later in 2016, the scientists said.

In related news, federal funding the United States needs to help fight the Zika threat could be stalled, according to reports.

According to the Associated Press, President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion for the effort four months ago, and last week a Republican-drafted measure offered $1.1 billion.

But the news agency said Senate Democrats plan to block that proposal, arguing that there are too many spending cuts and restrictions on which groups can provide health care and contraception to women in Zika-endemic Puerto Rico.

A vote is expected Tuesday, the AP said, and if funding is blocked, further action may not occur until after Congress returns from a seven-week hiatus that begins in July.

The Zika threat to the United States is real, according to Dr. Tom Frieden, who directs the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Speaking earlier in June, he warned, “in coming months it’s possible that thousands of pregnant women in Puerto Rico could become infected with Zika. This could lead to dozens or hundreds of infants being born with microcephaly in the coming year.”

So far the CDC says there have been no local transmissions of Zika reported in the United States. However, the number of cases of infection among pregnant women keeps climbing.

As of June 16, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there are 265 cases of pregnant women on the U.S. mainland who have been infected with Zika, which typically involves relatively mild symptoms in most adults. However, it can cause devastating birth defects in babies that include microcephaly.

In Latin America, thousands of babies have already been born with microcephaly. And researchers reported last Wednesday that fears of Zika-related birth defects may be driving up abortion rates in Latin American countries affected by the virus.

No nation has been more affected than Brazil. As a result of the Zika epidemic, almost 5,000 babies have been born with microcephaly there.

Zika is typically transmitted via the bite of the Aedes aegypti mosquito. But, transmission of the virus through sex is more common than previously thought, World Health Organization officials have said.

Women of child-bearing age who live in an active Zika region should protect themselves from mosquitoes by wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants, using mosquito repellent when outside, and staying indoors as much as possible, according to the CDC.

U.S. health officials have said they expect to see Zika infections in Gulf Coast states such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas as mosquito season ramps up.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on the Zika virus.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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