- California Healthline Original Stories 1
- Providers Walk ‘Fine Line’ Between Informing And Scaring Immigrant Patients
- Sacramento Watch 1
- Some Experts Skeptical That Newsom's Ambitious Drug Pricing Plan Will Significantly Reduce Spending
- Public Health and Education 3
- Kaiser Permanente To Purchase Apartment Building As Part Of Aggressive Efforts To Help Homeless
- California Food Banks Brace For Increased Demand As Shutdown Continues
- Haven't Gotten Your Flu Shot Yet? Don't Worry, It's Not Too Late
Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Providers Walk ‘Fine Line’ Between Informing And Scaring Immigrant Patients
Some doctors and clinics are proactively informing patients about a proposed policy that could jeopardize the legal status of immigrants who use public benefit programs such as Medicaid. Others argue that because this “public charge” proposal isn’t final — and may never be adopted — disseminating too much information could create unnecessary alarm and cause some patients to drop benefits. (Ana B. Ibarra, )
More News From Across The State
Some Experts Skeptical That Newsom's Ambitious Drug Pricing Plan Will Significantly Reduce Spending
Gov. Gavin Newson's plan involves allowing for negotiations with Medi-Cal, but experts say California might not wield enough leverage to make a difference.
Sacramento Bee:
Will California Gavin Newsom Drug Pricing Plan Save Money?
Gov. Gavin Newson wants to deliver lower drug prices by harnessing the full weight of the state against the pharmaceutical industry, but it’s unclear whether his team can get a better deal without giving up something Californians want. In his first act as governor, Newsom issued an executive order creating the largest single purchaser of prescription drugs in the country. (Finch, 1/16)
Meanwhile —
The California Health Report:
Supporters Cheer Focus On Child Health And Wellbeing In Newsom's Budget
Efforts to improve the health and education of California’s children would get a giant funding boost under Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget, a prospect that’s generating a swell of excitement among child advocacy groups. The governor’s first budget proposal, released Jan. 10, offers numerous supports aimed directly at bolstering childhood health, including $105 million to pay for developmental and mental health screenings for low-income children, almost $110 million to expand home visiting programs that support new moms and their babies, and $260 million to extend full Medi-Cal coverage to undocumented young people ages 19 through 25. (Boyd-Barrett, 1/15)
Kaiser Permanente To Purchase Apartment Building As Part Of Aggressive Efforts To Help Homeless
“The idea that someone would have to go to bed on the streets of America as their home is unacceptable,” Kaiser CEO Bernard Tyson said at a news conference in Oakland City Hall.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Kaiser Funding Helps Keep Oakland Apartments Affordable For 50 Residents
Kaiser Permanente said Tuesday it spent $5.2 million to help acquire a 41-unit apartment complex in East Oakland as part of the health care giant’s new effort to keep and expand affordable housing. The company, based in Oakland, said it also plans to house more than 500 homeless people in the city and create a $100 million loan fund to preserve affordable housing projects in places across the country where Kaiser operates. (Veklerov, 1/15)
The Mercury News:
Kaiser Permanente To Spend $5.2 Million To House Homeless In Oakland
“Kaiser Permanente believes that in the 21st century there are certain things we should resolve and certain principles we should stand for,” company CEO Bernard Tyson said Tuesday. Homeless residents living on the streets, he said, “is unacceptable.” The health care company kicked off a $200 million, multi-year effort to tackle homelessness in May. It views the investment in housing as a vital component to improving the health of the Bay Area’s most vulnerable. (Hansen and Debolt, 1/15)
California Food Banks Brace For Increased Demand As Shutdown Continues
"There have been a lot of phone calls, a lot of meetings about ... how we're going to absorb more people," said Mark Seelig, a spokesman for the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.
KQED:
Bay Area Food Banks Prepare To Help Feed Local Furloughed Federal Workers
Two Bay Area food banks are working to help some of the thousands of federal employees who are not receiving paychecks because of the partial government shutdown. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is preparing to provide aid to dozens of U.S. Coast Guard workers and their families in Novato's Hamilton neighborhood, totaling about 400 people, said food bank spokesman Mark Seelig. (Golberg, 1/15)
LAist:
SoCal Food Banks Are Getting Ready To Feed Unpaid Federal Workers
In what has become the longest government shutdown on record, federal workers missed their first paycheck last week. Now Southern California food banks are getting ready to feed them. (Wagner, 1/16)
Haven't Gotten Your Flu Shot Yet? Don't Worry, It's Not Too Late
Health officials say there are benefits to getting your flu shot year-round, and that there isn't a deadline for when it will be helpful.
LAist:
Yes It's January, But No It's Not Too Late To Get A Flu Shot
Flu season typically runs from October through May with a peak in February. But, much like fire season, Riverside health official Dr. Cameron Kaiser argues it's now year-round. ...Health officials recommend getting the flu shot when it becomes available in October and November, but going later is still vital in mitigating severe illness, Kaiser said. (Adams, 1/15)
In other public health news —
KPBS:
Pedestrian Deaths Increased In 2018 Despite Vision Zero Project
Despite a concerted effort to end pedestrian traffic deaths in the city, the number doubled in 2018 over the previous year. The San Diego Police Department reports 34 pedestrians were killed by cars last year, up from 17 the year before, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. (Cavanaugh and Burke, 1/15)
Los Angeles Times:
Preventing Breast Cancer Just Got Easier. Will More Women Give These Drugs A Try?
Breast cancer will strike 1 in 8 women in her lifetime. But women who face an increased risk of being that one unlucky patient may improve their chances with three prescription medications, according to a new report. If 1,000 women took one of the three medications for roughly five years, somewhere between seven and 18 breast cancers could be prevented, and possibly more. But each of the drugs — two originally used to treat breast cancer and a third that prevents the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis — comes with the possibility of serious side effects, including blood clots and a higher likelihood of uterine or endometrial cancer. (Healy, 1/15)
Election Will Determine If Healthcare Workers’ Union At USC Verdugo Hills Hospital Is Dissolved
Opponents of the union say it has failed to fulfill pay raise promises. “What the union was telling us was lies,” says surgical buyer Andrew Brown, who has been fighting to dissolve the union.
Los Angeles Times:
Fate Of USC Hospital Union Scheduled To Be Decided This Month
An election that will determine the fate of a healthcare workers’ union at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale has been scheduled for Jan. 30 and 31. Members of the union will have the opportunity to cast their vote on whether or not they want to keep in place the third-party representation they fought for just three years ago. (Seidman, 1/15)
In other news from across the state —
Sacramento Bee:
UC Davis Students Aim To Stock Free Menstrual Products
UC Davis students have launched a pilot program to make free menstrual products available to all students. The university chapter of Period, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free menstrual care products, aims to stock all women’s, men’s and gender-neutral bathrooms on campus soon. (Morrar, 1/16)
Native American tribes are facing food and drug shortages as the shutdown stretches on. The tribes are hit harder than others because they rely on federal funding for many of their basic services. In other news, the FDA has restarted some food inspections, and lettuce farmers are anxious to have the agency back on the job for growing season.
The Washington Post:
Tribes Face Food And Medicine Crisis As Shutdown Continues, Lawmakers Are Told
As the partial government shutdown drags on, Native American tribes in urban and rural areas are facing food shortages and a health care crisis because federal funds that stock pantries and provide medicine for diabetes and opioid addiction have been cut off, witnesses told a House committee Tuesday. In addition to the shutdown’s impact on indigenous people, citizen observers at national parks are reporting poaching of wild game such as deer, garbage piled high and trees that have been illegally cut as most park workers remain on furlough, former Interior officials who appeared before the committee said. (Fears, 1/15)
The Washington Post:
FDA Restarts Some Food, Drug Inspections Halted By Shutdown
Hundreds of Food and Drug Administration inspectors and other staff resumed work Tuesday, focusing on facilities that produce higher-risk foods, drugs and devices, according to the agency’s commissioner. Those workers, who had been furloughed because of the government’s partial shutdown, remain unpaid, said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who discussed the move in tweets and a subsequent interview. About 150 of the returning workers are in food safety. Most are inspectors but some work in laboratories and other areas, Gottlieb said. As many as 250 more employees will be resuming work inspecting drugs and devices. (McGinley, 1/15)
The Washington Post:
U.S. Lettuce Industry, Wary Of E. Coli, Wants FDA Back On The Job
It’s the peak of the leafy greens growing season in Yuma, Ariz., where irrigated valleys are lush and verdant amid cactus-covered mountains. This is America’s Salad Paradise, which produces most of the fall and winter lettuce consumed in the United States. Locals credit excellent soil, preposterously abundant sunshine and a steady supply of labor, thanks to Mexicans with work visas who cross the border checkpoint and ride buses to the fields. (Achenbach, 1/15)
Politico:
States Warn Food Stamp Recipients To Budget Early Benefit Payments Due To Shutdown
State agencies are warning food stamp recipients to carefully budget their grocery purchases once they receive their February benefits weeks earlier than normal due to the partial government shutdown. The Department of Agriculture's backup plan for paying out Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits amid the lapse in funding means it could be 40 days — or longer, in some cases — before additional money is added to recipients' benefit cards. There is also no guarantee about when nearly 39 million low-income Americans will next receive another payment to help them buy groceries. (Bottemiller Evich, 1/15)
The Washington Post:
Trump Administration Calling Nearly 50,000 Back To Work, Unpaid, As Shutdown Drags On
The Trump administration on Tuesday said it has called back tens of thousands of federal workers to fulfill key government tasks, including disbursing tax refunds, overseeing flight safety and inspecting the nation’s food and drug supply, as it seeks to blunt the impact of the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The nearly 50,000 furloughed federal employees are being brought back to work without pay — part of a group of about 800,000 federal workers who are not receiving paychecks during the shutdown, which is affecting dozens of federal agencies large and small. (Werner, 1/15)
Documents Reveal Just How Involved Sackler Family Was In Aggressive OxyContin Marketing Techniques
Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has drawn blame for its role in igniting the opioid crisis in the country. Now new documents show how the family that owns the company was involved with the decisions to aggressively push opioids on to patients in the years leading up to the epidemic, even though Purdue seeks to portray the family members as removed from day-to-day operations.
The New York Times:
Sacklers Directed Efforts To Mislead Public About OxyContin, New Documents Indicate
Members of the Sackler family, which owns the company that makes OxyContin, directed years of efforts to mislead doctors and patients about the dangers of the powerful opioid painkiller, a court filing citing previously undisclosed documents contends. When evidence of growing abuse of the drug became clear in the early 2000s, one of them, Richard Sackler, advised pushing blame onto people who had become addicted. “We have to hammer on abusers in every way possible,” Mr. Sackler wrote in an email in 2001, when he was president of the company, Purdue Pharma. “They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals.” (Meier, 1/15)
In other national health care news —
The Hill:
Dem Chairman Cummings Meets With Trump Health Chief To Discuss Drug Prices
House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) met with Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on Tuesday to discuss bipartisan ways to work together to lower drug prices. “He pledged that he wants to work with me,” Cummings told reporters after the meeting. “We have similar goals but the main goal is bringing down the price of drugs. We agreed that we would do everything we could to work together.” (Sullivan, 1/15)
NPR:
Veterans Claiming Illness From Burn Pits Lose Court Fight
A decade-long fight ended at the Supreme Court this week, when justices refused to hear an appeal by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who say that toxic smoke from burn pits made them sick. Hundreds of those veterans had sued the military contracting giant KBR, Inc., but lost first in U.S. district court and then again last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The 4th Circuit said KBR was under U.S. military direction when it burned tires and medical waste next to soldiers' barracks, and can't be held liable. (Lawrence, 1/16)
The Wall Street Journal:
Lawsuits Challenge Rules Limiting Who Can Perform Abortions
Abortion-rights activists concerned about the shrinking number of abortion providers are mounting court challenges to longstanding state laws that forbid anybody but doctors to perform the procedure. Lawsuits pending in at least nine states are seeking to strike down statutes that make it a crime for clinicians such as highly trained nurses and midwives to provide early-term abortions. Taken together, the cases represent the strongest push by abortion-rights groups to build upon a recent Supreme Court decision that put more of a burden on states to justify the medical benefit of abortion regulations limiting women’s access. (Gershman, 1/15)
Reuters:
Walmart Opts To Leave CVS Partnerships Over Pricing Dispute
CVS Health Corp said on Tuesday Walmart Inc is leaving its network for commercial and Medicaid prescription drug plans after the two companies failed to agree on pricing. CVS said the dispute would not impact Walmart's presence in its Medicare Part D pharmacy network, which according to Cowen & Co analyst Charles Rhyee was a bright spot as it represented a larger chunk of CVS' scripts. (1/15)
The Associated Press:
Senators Ask FDA To Update Rules On Certain Pot Products
Oregon's two senators on Tuesday urged the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to update federal regulations to permit interstate commerce of food products containing a key non-psychoactive ingredient of cannabis. The appeal by Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley came after Congress legalized the production and sale of industrial hemp and hemp derivatives, including cannabidiols, known as CBD. Wyden and Merkley had been behind a hemp provision that Congress passed and was included in the 2018 Farm Bill. (1/15)