Sacramento Bee: CA Judge Orders Penalty Over Johnson & Johnson Pelvic Mesh
Johnson & Johnson must pay nearly $344 million after a San Diego Superior Court judge ruled that the company “deceptively marketed their pelvic mesh products” in California. Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a statement said that Thursday’s court decision “achieved justice for the women and families forever scarred by Johnson & Johnson’s dishonesty.” Johnson & Johnson intentionally concealed the risks of its pelvic mesh implant devices. It robbed women and their doctors of their ability to make informed decisions about whether to permanently implant the products in patients’ bodies,” Becerra said in a statement. (Sheeler, 1/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: California, Several Other States Sue Over New Abortion Billing Rule 
The Trump administration’s new rule requiring insurers under the federal health law to send separate bills for abortion and non-abortion coverage was challenged in court Thursday by California and other states, which said the requirement was an illegal assault on reproductive care and could deprive millions of families of health coverage. The rule, scheduled to take full effect June 27, is “an onerous and unnecessary regulation designed to restrict women’s constitutionally protected reproductive rights,” the states said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court. (Egelko, 1/30)

Sacramento Bee: New UC Program Will Add 300 Mental Health Clinicians By 2025
Three nursing schools within the University of California system announced they are teaming up with the California Health Care Foundation to train and certify 300 nurse practitioners to work in the psychiatric mental health field through an online program aimed at addressing a shortage of providers. The new program, which launches later this year, would nearly double the number of psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners currently in the pipeline, according to UC officials. UC Davis, UCSF and UCLA would graduate roughly 300 psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners by 2025. Like psychiatrists, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners can prescribe medications to individuals who have behavioral health issues. (Anderson, 1/30)

The Associated Press: US Reports 1st Case Of Person-To-Person Spread Of New Virus
For the first time in the U.S., the new virus from China has spread from one person to another, health officials said Thursday. The latest case — the sixth in the country — is the husband of a Chicago woman who got sick from the virus after she returned from the epicenter of an outbreak in China. There have been previous cases in China and elsewhere of the virus spreading between people in a household or workplace. (1/30)

Politico: Trump Sticks Embattled Health Chief With Coronavirus Response
In the span of a day, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar suddenly became the face of the Trump White House’s public response to the Wuhan coronavirus. He could just as easily become the fall guy if the president grows unhappy with the speed or nature of the virus’ transmission, or the increasingly intense media coverage surrounding the administration’s actions. (Cook and Diamond, 1/30)

The Washington Post: Trump Under Growing Pressure On U.S. Response To Growing Coronavirus Threat
President Trump, a leading critic of the Obama White House’s handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, is under increasing political pressure to mount a coordinated federal response to the threat of the new strain of coronavirus — amid fears of a global health crisis with economic ramifications in an election year. The White House has sought to tamp down criticism from Democrats in recent days by projecting an air of confidence and competence, with Trump presiding late Wednesday over an interagency briefing in the Situation Room. (Nakamura, Abutaleb and Dawsey, 1/30)

The New York Times: Inside A Coronavirus Evacuation: How 195 Americans Got Out Of Wuhan
This week, a group of strangers came together under a warm Southern California sun. They played ball with their children. They took jogs down tree-lined paths. They watched movies in the afternoon. They also had their temperatures taken several times a day by medical personnel. And they are not allowed to leave the premises. (Jordan, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Americans Who Fled China's Coronavirus Being Monitored In California 
There have been only a handful of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the U.S., with one each in Los Angeles County, Orange County, Chicago, Arizona and Washington state. Yet the rapid spread of the virus in China has sparked alarm in the United States. (Vega and Cosgrove, 1/30)

The New York Times: W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency As Wuhan Coronavirus Spreads
The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China, where it emerged last month. The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several other countries, including the United States. All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s emergency committee, officials said. (Wee, McNeil and Hernandez, 1/30)

The Washington Post: Facebook Cracks Down On Coronavirus Fake Cures
Facebook will remove posts, photos and videos that peddle harmful misinformation about the coronavirus, the company announced Thursday, seeking to crack down on a wave of content pitching false cures to the fast-spreading global health crisis. The social-networking giant said in a blog post that its efforts, building off its policies that prohibit users from causing real-world harm, would result in the removal of dangerous claims, such as those that suggest drinking bleach cures the coronavirus, as well as hashtags that promote falsehoods on its photo-sharing site Instagram. (Romm, 1/30)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Treatment And Vaccine Research Races Against Outbreak
In a suburb south of Boston, robots have already started manufacturing a potential vaccine against the fast-spreading coronavirus. Another candidate vaccine — developed when a similar virus terrified the world — sits in deep freeze in a repository in Houston, ready to be thawed and formulated into thousands of vials for further testing. Yet another is being put together at facilities in San Diego and Houston, with projections that it could be tested in people by summer. (Johnson, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Why China Can't Recover Quickly From The Coronavirus Outbreak Like It Did With SARS
Buoyed by Lunar New Year bonuses, Chinese consumers are supposed to be spendthrift this time of year — splurging on gifts, trips to the movies and lavish foreign vacations. But the spread of a deadly coronavirus in recent days has brought the world’s No. 2 economy to a virtual standstill, raising fears of a serious economic slowdown that could ripple across the globe. (Pierson and Chang, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Outbreak Is Now A 'Public Health Emergency,' WHO Says
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization is not recommending any measures that would limit travel or international trade. Those are some of the most potent tools at his agency’s disposal, but they are not necessary at this time, he told reporters in Geneva. Health experts who have been tracking the virus’ spread said the WHO’s declaration was more than justified. (Healy, 1/30)

KQED: Coronavirus: From Symptoms To Beer, Know Your Facts From Fiction 
The World Health Organization declared the current coronavirus outbreak a global health emergency on Thursday. This comes as officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the first person-to-person transfer of the coronavirus in the United States. But while concern over the fast-spreading nature of the disease is understandable, misinformation seems to be spreading even faster than the disease itself. (Wiley, 1/30)

Modesto Bee: After Oroville Crisis, CA Dams Still Lack Emergency Plans
The vast majority of California’s major dams aren’t adequately prepared for an emergency.Three years after the near-disaster at Oroville Dam, only 22 state-regulated dams have finalized emergency plans — out of 650 major dams that are required by law to have plans in place — according to a report issued Thursday by State Auditor Elaine Howle. (Kasler, 1/30)

The New York Times: Trump Administration Unveils A Major Shift In Medicaid
The Trump administration said on Thursday that it would allow states to cap Medicaid spending for many poor adults, a major shift long sought by conservatives that gives states the option of reducing health benefits for millions who gained coverage through the program under the Affordable Care Act. Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said states that sought the arrangement — an approach often referred to as block grants — would have broad flexibility to design coverage for the affected group under Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor that was created more than 50 years ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. (Goodnough, 1/30)

The New York Times: Altria Takes A $4.1 Billion Hit On Juul Stake
Altria reported a $4.1 billion write-down on its Juul Labs investment on Thursday, another sizable charge as the vaping crisis continues to roil the e-cigarette industry. The company now values its 35 percent stake in the e-cigarette company at $4.2 billion, a significant drop from the $12.8 billion it paid in December 2018. Three months ago, Altria, one of the world’s largest tobacco sellers, devalued its investment in Juul by $4.5 billion. (Robertson, 1/30)

The New York Times: ‘It’s Rampant’: Disposable Flavor Pods Are The New Thing In Vaping
The Food and Drug Administration is banning most flavored e-cigarettes, but that isn’t keeping banana ice, sour gummy or cool mint out of the hands of McCracken County High School students. Blame a policy loophole. When the Trump administration decided to prohibit fruit, mint and dessert flavors in refillable cartridge-based e-cigarettes like Juul, it carved out a few exceptions to mollify the vape shop owners and adult consumers who complained. The much-publicized exemption allows menthol and tobacco flavors. (Kaplan, 1/31)

ProPublica: 'Women To One Side, Men To The Other': How The Border Patrol’s New Powers And Old Carelessness Separated A Family
Mirza had a sense of foreboding soon after she crossed into the U.S. with her two children and their father, David. A Border Patrol agent ordered the family from Honduras and the rest of their group to divide into two lines: “Women to one side, men to the other.”Mirza held 19-month-old Lia and joined the women’s line. David took their 6-year-old son Sebastian and lined up with the men. An agent told them not to worry, everyone was going to the same place. A bus took them in two trips to a collection of tents and trailers where they would be processed. (Lind, 1/31)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Offers The Wrong Fix For Medicaid's Shortcomings
Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor, is one of the costliest, if not the costliest, program that states operate. Total Medicaid spending by states and the federal government, which covers more than 60% of the claims, neared $600 billion in fiscal 2018; in California alone last year, Medicaid spending topped $100 billion. (1/31)

Los Angeles Times: UC's Report On Catholic Hospitals Avoids The Hard Answers 
Its goal, as described by UC President Janet Napolitano, was to develop recommendations to “ensure UC’s values are upheld when its academic health systems collaborate with other health systems” and “that UC personnel will remain free, without restriction, to advise patients about all treatment options and that patients will have access to comprehensive services.” The group failed in its task of coming up with a single set of recommendations that all its members could endorse. (Michael Hiltzik, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: One Way To Make Healthcare More Affordable? Give California Nurse Practitioners Autonomy 
There’s an annoying slowing of care because when a nurse practitioner orders a prescription or medical supplies, such as a wheelchair or oxygen, it requires a physician’s signature. Assembly Bill 890 would give nurse practitioners autonomy. They could work on their own without the need of a doc babysitter. (George Skelton, 1/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: There’s A Way To Cut Drug OD Deaths — But S.F. Is Balking
The new statistics showing a devastating doubling of overdose deaths in San Francisco in just a year are grim — but an expert in drug addiction and overdoses warns that they’re going to get worse. Last week, the medical examiner’s office released data showing that 290 people died in 2019 from overdoses of fentanyl, heroin or a combination of the two. That jumped from a total of 134 in 2018. (Heather Knight, 1/28)

Los Angeles Times: Forcing Homeless Into Mental Health Treatment Isn't The Answer
Hoping to solve what some observers consider a root cause of the problem, former California Assemblyman Mike Gatto has proposed a ballot measure that aims to push more homeless people with mental illnesses and addictions into treatment. His proposal would direct law enforcement to strictly enforce so-called public nuisance laws, then sentence offenders not to jail but to time in treatment programs or residential facilities. (1/28)

Sacramento Bee: California Democrats Fail To Address Housing Crisis With SB 50
Do California’s elected leaders truly want to fix California’s housing crisis? It doesn’t seem like it, given the failure of Senate Bill 50, which fell three votes shy of passing last night. The bill lost a floor vote 18-15. Oddly, six senators abstained, apparently refusing to pick sides on a major bill to address the most important issues facing the state: housing and homelessness. The ambitious and controversial bill by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would spur California’s cities to build more housing, increasing affordability by increasing supply. (1/30)

Sacramento Bee: California Must Innovate To Address Housing, Homeless Crisis
We called them “roach motels,” but not for the reason you might think. True, roaches usually infested the seedy motels my family sometimes called home. But the nickname came from the Roach Motel insect traps marketed with the tagline: “Roaches check in but they don’t check out.” See, you didn’t need a deposit to move into a motel, but the rent was high enough to ensure that you never saved up enough money to escape. You got stuck. For better or worse, however, motels saved us from homelessness. They continue to serve as “last-chance housing” for many families today. (Gil Duran, 1/30)

Sacramento Bee: Here’s What Sacramento Leaders Are Doing About Homelessness
For the last few months, Sacramento leaders of government and health care have quietly been laying the groundwork for a campus that would bring comprehensive services and housing to people experiencing homelessness. The proposed “care” campus, like Haven for Hope in Texas or a scaled-up version of our region’s Mather Community Campus, would connect the region’s most vulnerable population to an array of customized services, providing substance abuse and mental illness treatment, transitional supportive housing and even job training. (Steve Hansen, 1/31)

San Francisco Chronicle: The Dirt On What’s Making Californians Sick 
California spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on health care but sees relatively little improvement in health. Amid debate about how to curb these costs, we should be looking at what is making people sick. As a practicing physician married to a farmer, I believe one key to our health is held not by doctors who take care of us when we are sick but by farmers who can keep us healthier. (Rupa Marya, 1/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump Seeks A New Fight With California On Abortion 
California’s state law specifically draws a distinction between employers who self-fund their plans (and could arguably be considered “individual” health care entities) and regulated health insurance providers, which are business entities that provide coverage to pools of people — and act on the request of customers, instead of following an individual conscience. Yet Severino is basing his threat against California on the Weldon Amendment, saying that the state is the recipient of many kinds of health and human service funding that could be pulled if it doesn’t comply within 30 days. (1/27)