Los Angeles Times: Gavin Newsom Gets Backing From Doctors Group, Despite Differences Over Single-Payer Healthcare
California’s doctors are siding with Gavin Newsom in the governor’s race, even though they don’t see eye-to-eye on a defining issue of the campaign: single-payer healthcare. The California Medical Assn., the state doctors lobby and a political heavyweight, announced its endorsement of the lieutenant governor on Thursday. “Gavin is a lifelong champion for health care in California, and we know he will continue to fight for pragmatic solutions to our most crucial health care challenges, including working to achieve universal access and tackling our state’s physician shortage,” CMA President Theodore M. Mazer said in a statement. (Mason, 4/19)

The Associated Press: California Lawmakers Move To Limit Gay Conversion Therapy
Selling or advertising gay conversion therapy may soon be classified as a fraudulent business practice in California under a bill passed Thursday by the state Assembly. Conversion therapy, the practice of trying to change someone's sexual orientation, has been shown to be ineffective, said Assemblyman Evan Low, who wrote the bill that now heads to the state Senate. (4/19)

Los Angeles Times: Gay 'Conversion Therapy' Services Would Be Banned Under Measure Advancing In California
“It is harmful and it is unnecessary,” Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), the bill’s author and one of the Legislature’s most vocal LGBTQ members, said of the practice. Low, who told Assembly members that he explored conversion therapy as a teenager and suffered depression over his sexual orientation, insisted that the bill would be limited to efforts that involve the exchange of money.“There’s nothing wrong with me,” he said in an emotional speech on the Assembly floor. “There’s nothing that needs to be changed.” (Myers, 4/19)

Sacramento Bee: CA Undocumented Immigrants Closer To Getting Health Care
Bills from state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, D-Fresno, would expand full-scope Medi-Cal to undocumented adults, allowing an estimated 1.3 million eligible residents to use the state's low-income health care program for primary and specialty care. At present, low-income undocumented adults are covered for very limited services – emergencies and pregnancy-related care. (Hart, 4/19)

KQED: San Joaquin County Should Install Independent Medical Examiner, Audit Finds
An audit of San Joaquin County’s sheriff-coroner operations, made public Wednesday, concluded that removing the sheriff from death investigations and instituting a medical examiner's office run by a physician is the best way to ensure the probes remain independent from law enforcement. (Small, 4/19)

In other news from across the state —

Capital Public Radio: Marchers Deliver Thousands Of Petitions Asking District Attorney To Prosecute Officers Who Shot Stephon Clark 
About 80 people marched to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office Thursday to deliver 100,000 signatures from an online campaign to have officers in the Stephon Clark shooting prosecuted. The group marched from the California Attorney General's Office up I Street and down 9th Street to District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert's office. (Moffitt, 4/19)

KQED: Oakland Says Debris Company Still Polluting, Defying Court Order
The city of Oakland reports the operator of a debris-hauling business has refused to halt operations, in violation of a court order. The injunction, issued April 3, ordered Moacir Santos to cease transporting debris to and from his West Oakland warehouse. (Ahmed, 4/19)

Los Angeles Times: Some California Cities Want Amsterdam-Style Pot Lounges, Push Limits Of Marijuana Legalization
The city is poised to allow cannabis lounges where people can consume the once-taboo product in a social setting. West Hollywood will join San Francisco, Oakland and South Lake Tahoe, which earlier this year became some of the first cities in California to open the consumption lounges modeled after those in Amsterdam. Communities in the Coachella Valley are also joining the ranks. (Parvini, 4/20)

Los Angeles Times: Orange County's Needle Exchange Awaits State Approval For Mobile Service
After Santa Ana city officials shut down Orange County's only needle exchange months ago, the program may return as a mobile service in Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange and Costa Mesa. The move — pending state approval — would widen the influence of the Orange County Needle Exchange Program, which formerly operated out of the Santa Ana Civic Center until city officials denied the group's permit application in mid-January, citing an increased number of discarded syringes in the area. (Brazil, 4/19)

In other public health news —

San Francisco Chronicle: State Can Label Widely Used Herbicide As Possible Carcinogen
A state appeals court on Thursday backed California’s listing of the widely used herbicide glyphosate as a possible cause of cancer and the state’s prohibition against discharging it into public waterways. ...Citing new findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, state health officials added glyphosate to their list of potential carcinogens in July 2017 under Proposition 65, a 1986 initiative that requires warnings of exposure to products that pose a risk of cancer or reproductive harm. (Egelko, 4/19)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Mounting Toll Of Alzheimer's In Lives, Dollars In San Diego Spelled Out In Reports 
More than 84,000 people in San Diego County are living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, a figure that will reach 115,000 by 2030, according to two reports released by the county Friday. The lifetime cost of care for San Diegans with these dementias now exceeds $38 billion and is expected to surpass $52 billion by 2030. The reports update a 2015 report on an ambitious county program to cope with the rising toll of dementia. One report focuses on the prevalence of these diseases. The other examines the cost. (Fikes, 4/20)

The Washington Post: Abortion Battles Are Heating Up Ahead Of November Midterms
Mississippi’s governor just signed a law, more restrictive than in any state, banning abortions after 15 weeks. Iowa’s state Senate is trying to go even further and stop abortions at around six weeks. And 20 Ohio legislators have proposed outlawing all abortions, even if the woman’s life is in danger. In many state capitols, Republican lawmakers are backing unusually strict antiabortion laws. Many are emboldened by President Trump, who has been more supportive of their agenda than any president in decades. Conservative lawmakers also are eager to get more restrictions on the books in case November’s elections bring a surge of Democrats hostile to them. (Jordan, 4/19)

In other national health care news —

The Hill: Judge Rules Against Trump Administration In Teen Pregnancy Prevention Case 
A federal judge in D.C. ruled Thursday that the Trump administration's cuts to the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program were unlawful. Last summer, the administration notified 81 organizations that their five-year grants through the program would end in 2018, rather than in 2020, prompting multiple lawsuits. (Hellmann, 4/19)

The Hill: GOP In Retreat On ObamaCare
Republicans are retreating from calls to repeal ObamaCare ahead of this year’s midterm elections. Less than a year after the GOP gave up on its legislative effort to repeal the law, Democrats are going on offense on this issue, attacking Republicans for their votes as they hope to retake the House majority. (Sullivan, 4/20)

The Washington Post: ‘He Knows How To Read A Room Really, Really Well’: How White House Physician Ronny L. Jackson Became Trump’s Nominee To Lead VA
As a White House physician under three presidents, Ronny L. Jackson often went to extra lengths to win over the officials he was on hand to assist. He helped George W. Bush clear brush at his Texas ranch. He supplied Barack Obama with Nicorette gum even as he urged him to quit the nicotine substitute. He once was so eager to deliver a sling to Vice President Richard B. Cheney for a sore arm that his sprint toward the presidential helicopter caught the attention of Secret Service agents, a friend said. That kind of enthusiasm drew ridicule in January, when Jackson said at a news conference that President Trump “might live to be 200 years old” if he had a more healthful diet. But his performance received lavish praise from the president, who shocked Washington a few months later by tapping the former combat surgeon to run the Department of Veterans Affairs — one of the federal government’s largest and most fraught bureaucracies. (Gardner and Crites, 4/19)

Stat: U.S. Spending On Prescription Drugs Rose Less Than 1 Percent Last Year
Amid national turmoil over rising drug costs, a new report finds that spending on prescription medicines in the U.S. last year grew a modest 0.6 percent, to $324 billion, after accounting for rebates and discounts that are paid by drug makers. And real net per-capita spending fell by 2.2 percent, when adjusted for those allowances, as well as for population and economic growth. The rebates and discounts mean that drug makers are realizing less revenue than the stated list prices for their medicines. The difference last year was $130 billion, up from $74 billion, according to data from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, which is part of the IQVIA market research firm. List prices, meanwhile, rose a modest 1.4 percent. (Silverman, 4/19)

The New York Times: As Opioid Prescriptions Fall, Prescriptions For Drugs To Treat Addiction Rise
The number of new monthly prescriptions for medications that treat opioid addiction nearly doubled over the past two years, according to new data, while prescriptions for opioid painkillers continued to decline. The changing calculus reflects a stepping up of efforts among policymakers and the medical establishment to address the nation’s opioid epidemic, which is killing more than 115 people every day. But it also underscores questions about whether some pain patients are now being undertreated, and whether tightened prescribing over the last few years has contributed to the surge in overdose deaths from heroin and especially fentanyl. (Goodnough, 4/19)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Panel Recommends Approval Of Cannabis-Based Drug For Epilepsy
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Thursday unanimously recommended approval of an epilepsy medication made with an ingredient found in marijuana. If the agency follows the recommendation, as is expected, the drug would be the first cannabis-derived prescription medicine available in the United States. (Kaplan, 4/19)

The New York Times: When Is It Safe To Eat Salad Again?
For lovers of leafy greens, these are not salad days. A multistate outbreak of E. coli infections has been linked to bags of chopped romaine lettuce, and information from different sources about the risk has been confusing, making many of us scared to eat salad. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the outbreak has grown to 53 cases in 16 states — that’s 18 more sick people since April 13. Fortunately nobody has died, but nearly 70 percent of those infected have been hospitalized with a nasty toxin-producing strain of E. coli, and several have developed kidney failure. (4/19)

The Mercury News: Poizner Is Best Choice For Insurance Commissioner
No state official — outside of the governor — touches the lives of the average Californian more than the insurance commissioner. The person stepping into the office of outgoing Commissioner Dave Jones for the next four years will have a big voice on the future of health, auto and homeowner insurance rates. The job requires a person who understands the need to balance consumer and business interests. Steve Poizner, who would be the first independent to serve in a statewide office, is the best choice for voters on June 5. His record as insurance commissioner from 2007-11 was stellar. He followed through on his promise to keep politics out of the job and worked to make it a non-partisan position, as it should be. Poizner stood up for policy holders while also doing everything in his power to maintain a healthy insurance industry. (4/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Defeat Of California Housing Bill Reveals A Crisis Of Political Courage
Among those who didn’t treat state Sen. Scott Wiener’s transit-friendly housing bill as a latter-day Stamp Act warranting revolution, one popular tactic was to declare sympathy for it in “concept.” It was just the details, countless officials claimed — the precise building heights allowed, the level of affordable-housing set-asides, the strength of displacement protections — that kept them from offering full-throated support. (4/18)

Los Angeles Times: Tax Policy Is A Bore, Until They Take Your Social Security And Medicare Away
Tax cuts do not pay for themselves — not the Trump tax cuts, nor in any other case in modern U.S. practice. So we face only two possible courses of action: Either we tax ourselves more, or we dismantle the social safety net (in particular, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) that protects Americans from destitution or disability. Which is the right direction for our country to pursue? One political movement has its answer at the ready: Slash the safety net. (Edward Klein, 4/15)

Sacramento Bee: San Joaquin Valley Can Replenish Its Groundwater
California’s biggest agricultural region also has the state’s biggest groundwater deficit, which has long-term consequences for the region’s economy and farming. The San Joaquin Valley — where decades of unchecked pumping has depleted reserves, resulting in a long-term deficit of nearly 2 million acre-feet per year — has about a generation to bring its groundwater use into balance to comply with the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. Storing more water underground through “groundwater recharge” can help, reducing the deficit by as much as a quarter. (Ellen Hanak and Sarge Green, 4/18)

Los Angeles Times: Garcetti's Plans For Homeless Shelters Raise As Many Questions As They Answer
In his state of the city speech Monday, Mayor Eric Garcetti eloquently conjured the image of a child who sees a homeless woman sleeping on a bench and asks whether she has someone to take care of her. "The answer is yes," Garcetti said. "The city of Los Angeles is going to take care of her and bring her home." Certainly, the new plans that the mayor laid out in his speech for financing shelters across the city of Los Angeles are a start toward finding at least temporary housing — about 1,500 beds, he estimates. But his plans raised as many concerns as they addressed. (4/17)