Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
Robotic Surgical Tool, Not Medical Evidence, Drives Free Hernia Screenings
Hospitals around the country are promoting free hernia screenings that tout their robotic surgery tools. But some experts warn such screenings could lead people to get potentially harmful operations that they don’t need. (Mary Chris Jaklevic, )
Good morning! A judge has been asked to block California’s new law requiring background checks to anyone buying ammunition. Read more on that below, but first here are your top California health stories of the day.
As Many As One Out Of Three Community Water Systems In California May Be At High Risk Of Failing To Deliver Potable Water: The California districts with the compromised systems often operate in mostly poor areas on thin budgets. With little oversight, they face problems ranging from bankruptcy to sudden interruptions in water capacity, to harmful toxins being delivered through taps. California has one of the most byzantine drinking water systems in the country, and even in urban parts of the state some water systems are so small they struggle to sustain their maintenance budgets. The hodgepodge of small districts are overseen by local boards — often with little to no expertise in water management — making it difficult for the state to keep track of them. Already, more than 300 public water systems in the state are out of compliance with federal drinking water safety standards, according to publicly available data, and an estimated one million Californians are exposed to unsafe drinking water each year. Those are the ones the state knows about because their water quality has already been tested as unsafe. Read more from Jose A. Del Real of The New York Times.
California’s Board of Pharmacy Wants To Suspend License For Drug Distributor For Failing To Notice Painkiller Prescription Red Flags: AmerisourceBergen, which is based in Sacramento, sold large quantities of such medicines as Norco, which is a mixture of acetaminophen and hydrocodone; oxycodone; and promethazine with codeine syrup to four different pharmacies, according to the board’s complaint. At issue is whether the medicines were purchased by the pharmacies for a legitimate medical purpose, given the large volume of sales. The disclosure emerged as part of massive litigation filed in federal court in Cleveland, where some 2,000 lawsuits brought by cities, counties, and states have accused drug makers of downplaying the risks of opioids and improperly marketing the pills. Read more from Ed Silverman of Stat.
Advocates Warn California It Must Act Soon To Control Wasteful Health Spending: Researchers noted that the state of California paid out $1.22 on education, public health, environmental protections and social services for every dollar it spent on health care in 2007 but 11 years later, only 68 cents went toward those four areas for each dollar spent on health care. When it comes to health, those four areas of social care matter as much as access to medical treatment. If more money is spent on public health, on education, on environmental protections and on social services, then the state will spend less money downstream on medical treatment. The report suggested that the governor and Legislature find a way to reward health care companies that invest in improving community conditions — affordable housing or helping to make neighborhoods more walkable, for instance. Read more from Cathie Anderson of the Sacramento Bee.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
San Francisco Chronicle:
Court Orders Consultation With Patients Or Reps In End-Of-Life And Psychiatric Drug Decisions
Doctors and staff at nursing homes can administer psychiatric drugs and make end-of-life decisions for patients who have been found mentally incompetent, as long as the patients or their representatives have a say in the decision. That was the verdict Monday from a state appeals court in San Francisco about a 1992 California law that allowed nursing home physicians to make decisions affecting the health and lives of incapacitated residents with no close friends or relatives to make decisions for them. (Egelko, 7/23)
Capital Public Radio:
California Is Withholding Millions Of Dollars From Counties For Being Short On Mental Health Providers
The state is withholding funding from 10 California counties because their mental health workforces aren’t meeting federal requirements. But providers disagree with the way the state rolled out the standards, and worry it could make care more difficult to access in smaller, more rural counties affected by the sanctions. (Caiola, 7/23)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Valley Fever Institute Celebrates Additional $2 Million In Funding With Assemblyman Salas
[Ashley] Villegas was among several people Tuesday morning happy to see the Valley Fever Institute receive $2 million in funding from the 2019-20 state budget to support valley fever research. Assemblyman Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield, who pushed for the funding, said valley fever is a statewide issue, not just in the Central Valley. ...Valley fever research has been taking place at Kern Medical Center since the 1950s and 2015 was the birth of the institute, according to Dr. Royce Johnson, medical director for the Valley Fever Institute. The funding the institute received from the state budget will "allow us to have a bigger mission and bigger scope in terms of numbers and quality." (Sasic, 7/23)
Ventura County Star:
Medi-Cal Commission OKs Budget In Fight Against $43 Million Deficit
Faced with a projected deficit of more than $43 million, the Gold Coast Health Plan's governing board approved a budget Monday designed to claw the publicly funded Medi-Cal insurance plan out of the hole. The $776 million budget for the fiscal year that began July 1 includes a 12% state payment rate increase and planned contract rate changes with hospitals and clinics. If budget projections hold up, the hole would be replaced by a slight surplus — about $1.5 million more in revenue than in expenses. (Kisken, 7/23)
The Associated Press:
Gun Group Wants Judge To Block Ammunition Background Checks
A California affiliate of the National Rifle Association has asked a U.S. judge to block a new law requiring background checks for anyone buying ammunition. The California Rifle & Pistol Association asked San Diego-based U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez to halt the checks and related restrictions on ammunition sales. Voters approved tightening California's already strict firearms laws in 2016. The restrictions took effect July 1. (7/23)
KPCC:
Life After Driving: How California Seniors Are Rethinking Getting Around
Innovations in transportation technology such as app-based ride-hailing and autonomous vehicles offer great promise. But they leave many questions about how individuals and public agencies can make transportation options more accessible to the state’s diverse population of baby boomers. As this group ages, seniors have become the fastest growing demographic in California. (McCarty Carino, 7/24)
Los Angeles Times:
Newport Beach Locals Tell Task Force Homeless Camps Not Good For Anyone — Including Those Who Live In Them
Newport Beach residents told the city’s homelessness task force this week that they’re sympathetic toward the plight of people living on the streets locally — and that’s partly why recently more-visible encampments need enforcement. ...Because Newport real estate is expensive, he said it’s more cost effective to move the needy to a cheaper location far inland for shelter and treatment. (Davis, 7/23)
Sacramento Bee:
Former Sutter Executive Alleges His Firing Was Retaliatory
A former Sutter Health IT executive said the company fired him because he told an investigator that management could have avoided a systemwide computer failure in May 2018 if they had taken his advice to install backup infrastructure for electronic medical records, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court. Stuart James said that Sutter not only wrongfully terminated him in July 2018 but that the health provider also went on to defame him by naming him as one of three information technology executives terminated in the fallout from the outage. (Anderson, 7/23)
Orange County Register:
UCI Medical Center’s Emergency Department Reopens After Evacuation For Nearby Smoke
UCI Medical Center’s emergency department was evacuated and about 75 patients temporarily moved to other parts of the hospital after smoke was reported early Tuesday morning, July 23. At about 2:10 a.m., smoke was noticed in the basement below the emergency department, said UCI Medical Center spokesman John Murray. Facility workers and firefighters determined the smoke was caused by oil that leaked from a vacuum air pump in a maintenance room, Murray said. (Fausto, 7/23)
The New York Times:
9/11 First Responders Fund Clears Senate And Heads To Trump
Thousands of emergency workers who rushed to the rubble of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks will be granted health care and other compensation for the rest of their lives. The Senate on Tuesday gave final approval to legislation that would care permanently for those who have grown deathly ill from the toxins of ground zero. White House officials said President Trump was expected to sign it. Even before the Senate’s 97-to-2 vote was gaveled to a close, retired New York firefighters and police officers, advocates and Jon Stewart, the comedian who championed the legislation, had leapt to their feet in the usually hushed chamber to lead a standing ovation. (Cochrane, 7/23)
The Associated Press:
GOP, Dems Offer Compromise To Reduce Drug Costs For Seniors
Two veteran senators — a Republican and a Democrat — unveiled compromise legislation Tuesday to reduce prescription drug costs for millions of Medicare recipients, while saving money for federal and state health care programs serving seniors and low-income people. Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley and Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden said the bill would for the first time limit drug copays for people with Medicare's "Part D" prescription plan , by capping patients' out-of-pocket costs at $3,100 a year starting in 2022. They're hoping to have it ready soon for votes on the Senate floor. (7/23)
The New York Times:
Were U.S. Diplomats Attacked In Cuba? Brain Study Deepens Mystery
In late 2016, dozens of United States diplomats working in Cuba and China began reporting odd mental symptoms: persistent headaches, vertigo, blurred vision, hearing phantom sounds. Since then, scientists and commentators have groped for plausible explanations. Deliberate physical attacks, involving microwaves or other such technology? Or were psychological factors, subconscious yet mind-altering, the more likely cause? The strangeness of the symptoms, and the spookiness of the proposed causes, have given the story a life of its own in the diplomatic corps, the Pentagon and in assorted pockets of the internet where conspiracy theories thrive. (Carey, 7/23)
The Washington Post:
Newly Unsealed Exhibits In Opioid Case Reveal Inner Workings Of The Drug Industry
Newly unsealed documents in a landmark lawsuit Tuesday in Cleveland show the pressure within drug companies to sell opioids in the face of numerous red flags during the height of the epidemic. The release of the exhibits — sworn depositions of executives, internal corporate emails and experts’ reports — also reveals the ignored concerns of some employees about the huge volume of pain pills streaming across the nation. In one exhibit, emails show that a Purdue Pharma executive received an order from a distributor for 115,200 oxycodone pills, which was nearly twice as large as that distributor’s average order over the previous three months. (Horwitz, Higham, Davis and Rich, 7/23)
The Associated Press:
FDA Warns Top Marijuana Company For Making CBD Health Claims
U.S. regulators warned a leading marijuana company for making unproven health claims about CBD, the trendy ingredient that's turning up in lotions, foods and pet treats. The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday it warned Curaleaf Inc., of Wakefield, Massachusetts, for illegally selling unapproved products. Curaleaf's claims could lead people to delay medical care for serious conditions like cancer, the agency said. (7/23)
Politico:
Crackdown On Food Stamps Could Worsen Hunger, USDA Acknowledges
The Agriculture Department acknowledged Tuesday that its latest push to cut back on who is eligible for food stamp benefits may worsen food insecurity in the U.S. The Trump administration has just released a proposed rule seeking to rein in what's known as broad-based categorical eligibility. That policy has allowed 43 states to expand the number of low-income people who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. (Bottemiller Evich, 7/23)
The New York Times:
Someday, An Arm Implant May Prevent H.I.V. Infection For A Year
In what could eventually become a milestone for H.I.V. prevention, very preliminary tests of an implant containing a new drug suggest that it may protect against infection for a full year. The new implant, by the drug company Merck, was tested in just a dozen subjects for 12 weeks. But experts were quite excited at its potential to revolutionize the long battle against H.I.V. The research was described on Tuesday at an international AIDS conference in Mexico City. (McNeil, 7/23)
The Washington Post:
ICE Detained U.S. Citizen For Nearly A Month Over Paperwork Problem, Attorney Says
An 18-year-old U.S. citizen who was detained in federal immigration custody for nearly a month has been released, his mother confirmed to The Washington Post Tuesday night. Francisco Erwin Galicia, a rising high school senior in Edinburg, Tex., had set off on a Texas road trip on June 27 to attend a college soccer team tryout only to end up accused of lying about his citizenship as authorities questioned the authenticity of his documents, according to his attorney, Claudia Galan. (Flynn, 7/23)