Becker's Hospital Review: Strike Set At MarinHealth Medical Center
Members of the California Nurses Association are set to strike March 28 at MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, Calif. The union represents about 600 nurses at the hospital, which is part of MarinHealth, according to a March 17 CNA news release. MarinHealth Medical Center is a 327-bed independent organization owned by Marin Healthcare District. (Goch, 3/21)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Women's Health Company, Evofem, Cuts CEO Salary 40% And Other Staff Pay By 20% 
Evofem Biosciences, a San Diego-based contraceptive maker, Tuesday announced a cost-cutting plan that includes layoffs and reducing its CEO’s pay by 40 percent and other staff pay by 20 percent. (Rocha, 3/21)

Becker's Hospital Review: Hazel Hawkins Withdraws Closure Notice
Hollister, Calif.-based Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital is withdrawing its Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act notice, first issued in December 2022, after the hospital has improved its financial situation. WARN notices are typically issued when a closure is imminent. The hospital beat its cash projections by more than $11 million between November 2022 and February 2023, according to a March 21 Hazel Hawkins news release. (Schwartz, 3/21)

Sacramento Business Journal: CVS Closing Midtown Store At Site Eyed For Six-Story Hotel 
Earlier this year, the city of Sacramento received a request for estimated fees for a six-story, 155-room hotel at 1701 K St. (van der Meer, 3/21)

CBS News: Eye Drop Recalls: Death Toll Climbs In People Affected By Pseudomonas Aeruginosa 
News of the outbreak's growing toll comes as the CDC says researchers at the University of California at San Diego have identified a bacteriophage that might work to treat the extensively drug-resistant bacteria. The university's Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics has previously touted so-called "phage" therapies that it developed to save patients with infections caused by drug-resistant bacteria. (Tin, 3/21)

Bay Area Reporter: Wiener Bill Would Protect LGBTQ Foster Youth From Non-Affirming Homes
A California lawmaker announced a bill Friday would limit the ability of prospective foster parents who aren't affirming of LGBTQ youth identity to become resource families. Senate Bill 407, introduced by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is seeking to clarify section 16519.61 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code, which governs how counties or departments can deny or refuse someone's ability to become a foster parent. (Ferrannini, 3/17)

KQED: Newsom Doubles Down On Naloxone Distribution In New 'Master Plan' To Curb Overdose Deaths
On the heels of his statewide tour introducing proposals aimed at tackling California’s homelessness, mental health and substance use disorder crises, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced a plan to earmark just shy of $100 million in next year’s state budget for overdose prevention services. Under the governor’s “Master Plan for Tackling the Fentanyl and Opioid Crisis” (PDF), the brunt of funding — $79 million — would go toward distributing naloxone, a nasal spray or injectable that can reverse opioid overdoses. An additional $3.5 million would be used to distribute the medicine in middle and high schools, where overdoses have increased in recent years. (Johnson, 3/21)

KQED: These Affordable Housing Projects Are Affected By Silicon Valley Bank’s Collapse
Silicon Valley Bank is best known for its relationships with the tech industry. But the bank also had billions out in loans to developers working on affordable housing projects in the Bay Area. Unlike larger banks, regional banks like SVB are more likely to fund local affordable housing projects. But now that the bank has collapsed, the future of these projects is precarious, and calls into question how these much-needed affordable housing projects are funded in the first place. (Guevarra, Montecillo, Esquinca and Herdman, 3/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. estimate to end street homelessness drops to $1 billion as officials clash over best way forward
San Francisco’s homelessness department would need almost $1 billion more funding and more than 6,000 new permanent supportive housing units and shelter beds to end unsheltered homelessness over the next three years — a reduced estimate from the agency’s initial projections last year, but still a huge cost on top of what the city already annually spends on the crisis. The updated price tag of $992 million was revealed at a Tuesday Board of Supervisors hearing, where the elected officials lambasted the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) for saying it was “not feasible” to end unsheltered homelessness in the next three years under the current fiscal and political environment in San Francisco. (Thadani, 3/21)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA Clears California Company’s Lab-Grown Chicken As Safe To Eat 
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it considered cultivated chicken made by Good Meat Inc. safe to eat, making it the second company in the growing industry to have cleared a key regulatory hurdle. Good Meat, based in Alameda, Calif., is the cultivated-meat arm of food-technology company Eat Just Inc. It is now the only company selling its chicken to consumers—but that is just in Singapore, the only country so far to permit the sale to consumers of meat grown from cells, outside of an animal. (Peterson and Newman, 3/21)

Sacramento Business Journal: Former Yolo Food Bank Exec Bisch Sues Yolo County, City Officials 
Former Yolo Food Bank Executive Director Michael Bisch is suing a number of officials from the city and county governments in Yolo County, alleging that they threatened to withhold funding from the food bank and pressured the food bank board of directors to fire him in retaliation for his whistleblowing on their implementation of a state food security law. (Hamann, 3/21)

The Bakersfield Californian: 'We Can Be A Bit Healthier': BC Pivots To Provide Free Farmers Market 
Leonardo Ayala, assistant director of BC Student Life, estimated that the farmers market with free fruits and vegetables would serve about 500 on a first-come, first-served basis. This is the third farmers market that the BC Renegade Nexus and Pantry have held after teaming up with Community Action Partnership of Kern. (Virgen, 3/21)

ABC News: Gerber Powdered Infant Formula Voluntarily Recalled Due To Possible Bacteria Exposure
Some of Gerber's powdered infant formula products that were manufactured at a facility in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, have been voluntarily recalled due to possible bacterial contamination. The infant formulas are "being recalled out of an abundance of caution due to potential presence of cronobacter sakazakii," Perrigo Company, which makes the recalled formulas, announced Friday. (Yu, 3/21)

Bay Area Reporter: HIV Confab Highlights SF Research 
The recent Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections featured the work of San Francisco experts, including studies of long-acting injectable HIV treatment and antibiotics to prevent sexually transmitted infections. Highlights from CROI were discussed at the March 9 meeting of the San Francisco Getting to Zero consortium. Though primarily an HIV meeting, CROI, which took place last month in Seattle, also includes breaking research on new infectious diseases, which this year included COVID-19 and mpox. Mpox has declined dramatically in the Bay Area and across the country, but it still poses a threat to vulnerable people, including those with untreated HIV. (Highleyman, 3/16)

Los Angeles Blade: National AIDS Policy Office: Congress Must Increase Funding
Harold Phillips, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP), said Monday that Congress must increase funding to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including for programs designed around the lives and needs of Americans who are living with the disease. “We have the support of the Biden Harris administration, and we have the support at HHS, but without Congressional funding we can’t get there,” said Phillips, who delivered his remarks during the AIDS United annual AIDSWatch conference in Washington, D.C. (Kane, 3/20)

The Pink News: HIV Drug PrEP’s Popularity Soars – But Only Among White Men
PrEP has become extremely popular in the US with gay and bisexual men – but only among those who are white, according to new findings. ... The research has also found that although long-acting injectable forms of PrEP are now available, few are actually receiving it. This is despite injectable forms of the anti-HIV drug being massively more effective compared to its oral counterpart. (Ali, 3/19)

NBC News: Grindr Joins Major Public Health Push To Distribute Free At-Home HIV Tests
The world’s most popular gay dating app, Grindr, is participating in a nationwide effort to distribute free at-home HIV testing kits to populations most affected by the virus. “If you’ve got a way that you are testing, and it’s really working for you, then that’s great, and you should stick with that,” Jack Harrison-Quintana, director of the app’s social justice division, Grindr for Equality, told NBC News. “If you don’t, this is an additional way for you to get tested in a way that’s just about as easy as doing an at-home Covid test.” (Valle, 3/21)

Orange County Register: Carson Company Fined $838,000 For Failing To Protect Workers From Cancer-Causing Gas 
A Carson company that sterilizes medical devices has received 18 citations and civil penalties totaling $838,800 for failing to protect employees from overexposure to the cancer-causing chemical ethylene oxide, state officials announced Tuesday, March 21. (Schwebke, 3/21)

KQED: 'A Life-And-Death Difference': Essential Workers Push For Cantonese Language Access In San Francisco
In San Francisco, a city where about 1/10th of the population speaks Cantonese, essential workers are beginning to realize that their ability to communicate in Cantonese can have life-or-death consequences. Medical professionals, social service providers and community volunteers are learning the language to better serve Cantonese-speaking residents. (Selig, 3/22)

The Wall Street Journal: FDA May Authorize Additional Covid-19 Booster Shots
Federal health regulators are nearing a decision on whether to authorize a second round of the Omicron-targeted booster shots for the elderly and other people at high-risk of severe Covid-19, people familiar with the agency’s deliberations said. Food and Drug Administration officials could make the decision within a few weeks, the people said. (Armour and Whyte, 3/21)

CNBC: If You Had Covid Before You Were Vaccinated, You Might Have Less Immunity Than You Think, Study Says
People who caught Covid-19 before they were vaccinated had a weaker immune response to the shots than those who never had the virus, potentially leaving them less protected against reinfection, new research shows. Co-funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study released Monday challenges older research that suggested a prior Covid infection enhanced a vaccinated individual’s immune response — a phenomenon known as hybrid immunity, which some scientists believe provides the best protection against reinfection. (Constantino, 3/21)

The New York Times: Wuhan Market Samples Contained Covid and Animal Mixtures, Report Says
On Jan. 12, 2020, Chinese investigators combing a market for clues about the outbreak of a mysterious new illness in the city of Wuhan swabbed a cart. It was the kind typically used for transporting animal cages, and it came back positive for the coronavirus. Three years later, a team of international experts has sifted through the genetic contents of that swab, which were quietly uploaded to an international database and made public only this year. In a report released on Monday night, the scientists described in detail for the first time evidence from the swab that they say strengthens the case that illegally traded wild animals ignited the coronavirus pandemic. (Mueller, 3/21)

The Guardian: Newly Released Chinese Covid Data Points To Infected Animals In Wuhan
What is significant about the new research is that it identifies high levels of DNA from several species that were not identified as having been tested during the original sampling. That includes racoon dogs, which it is speculated may have been present at the market before it was cleared early in the outbreak as part of the Chinese health authorities’ immediate intervention. Although some of the material was leaked last week, the new report adds more detail about other animals present at the market, as well as showing that some of the Sars-CoV-2 positive environmental samples had more animal than human genetic material in them, which the researchers said was consistent with the animals being infected. (Beaumont, 3/21)

The New York Times: ‘We Were Helpless’: Despair At The CDC As The Covid Pandemic Erupted 
In early March 2020, as the nation succumbed to a pandemic, a group of young scientists walked out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. They left quietly, one or two at a time, through the building’s front doors, flashing their badges at guards, instead of through side exits where their departures would be recorded. Gathering in a small park across the street, they stood with their coffees in hand and agonized over some shocking developments. (Mandavilli, 3/21)