Orange County Register: Wealthy? Educated? You’re Primed To Live Through COVID-19 
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the California Department of Public Health reveal a disturbing, if predictable, pattern: Vaccination status goes hand-in-hand with education and income, in near lock-step. (Sforza, 3/26)

Reuters: California Supreme Court To Offer Guidance For COVID-19 Coverage Cases 
Courts at the state and federal levels continue grappling with the application of California insurance law to COVID-19 business interruption claims. Much uncertainty remains as to how California law applies in a number of scenarios presented by the pandemic. After three years of insurance claims and litigation, the California Supreme Court has agreed to provide guidance on one of the main arguments that insurers make when rejecting COVID-19 business interruption claims. In Another Planet Entertainment, LLC v. Vigilant Insurance Co., the state's highest court will address the question of whether under California law the actual or potential presence of SARS-CoV-2 on insured property can qualify as physical loss of or damage to property. (Jordan and Bowman, 3/24)

The New York Times: Should You Get Another Covid Booster? 
Roughly 300 people in the United States are still dying from Covid-related causes each day, a vast majority of them adults over 70 and people who are medically frail or have impaired immune systems. So should they get another booster shot now? That’s the thorny question facing federal health officials. About 53 million adults 65 and older live in the United States, accounting for about 16 percent of the population, according to the Census Bureau. And seven million Americans have weak immune systems because of an illness or a medication. (Mandavilli, 3/24)

CIDRAP: COVID Exploited US Political Divisions Along With Racial And Health Disparities
Researchers who examined what drove variations in state response to the pandemic published their findings yesterday in The Lancet. ... For deaths, they found a fourfold difference in rates across states, with fatalities lowest in Hawaii and New Hampshire and highest in Arizona and Washington, DC. Overall, they found that states with higher poverty, lower levels of education, less access to quality healthcare, and less trust in others had disproportionately higher rates of COVID infections and deaths. These factors were common denominators in states with the highest Black populations and those that voted for the Republican candidate in the 2020 election. (Schnirring, 3/24)

CIDRAP: Nirmatrelvir Tied To 26% Lower Risk Of Long COVID, 47% Lower Risk Of Death
The antiviral drug nirmatrelvir (one of the components of Paxlovid) lowered the risk of long COVID in patients who had at least one risk factor for severe illness, finds a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 3/23)

San Diego Union-Tribune: North County Senior Care Nonprofit Dedicates Resources Toward Behavioral Health By Hiring New Director 
Because of several health conditions including asthma, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, 76-year-old Alexis White was encouraged by her doctor several years ago to move to Southern California so her lungs could benefit from the region’s warmer weather. (Mapp, 3/21)

KQED: A War Of Compassion: Debate Over Forced Treatment Of Mental Illness Splits California Liberals
Half a century after California policymakers shuttered state psychiatric institutions, denouncing them as inhumane, today’s progressive leaders are now reconsidering involuntary commitments, saying not helping people who are seriously ill, and living in squalor on the streets, is inhumane. The shift is pitting liberals against liberals over the very meaning of compassion. Disability rights advocates say the renewed push for forced treatment violates people’s civil rights, while Democratic leaders and doctors counter that doing nothing violates people’s right to medical care, particularly when the nature of their illness prevents them from recognizing they need help. (Dembosky, 3/27)

AP: U.S. Bishops' New Guidelines Aim To Limit Trans Health Care
United States Catholic bishops have issued guidelines that seek to stop Catholic hospitals from providing gender transition care, a move LGBTQ advocates say could harm the physical and emotional health of transgender people within the church. The 14-page doctrinal note, titled “Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” sets forth guidelines for changing a person’s sex, specifically with youth. The document, issued Monday, says Catholic hospitals “must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex, or take part in the development of such procedures.” (Bharath, 3/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Genentech Closing South San Francisco Production Facility
Biotech giant Genentech said it plans to close its South San Francisco production facility and lay off 265 workers there, the company confirmed. The drugmaker said the move is part of a long-term plan and is unrelated to the current economic downturn. (DiFeliciantonio, 3/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Biden Administration Will Not Pursue Action To Lower Cancer Drug Price
The Biden administration has denied a petition that would have reduced the price of Xtandi, a drug developed at the University of California, Los Angeles, to treat prostate cancer. The drug's development was funded by taxpayers through the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health, according to the Los Angeles Times. Since its market approval, Xtandi's manufacturing license has been obtained by pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Japanese drugmaker Astellas. (Hollowell, 3/24)

NBC News: Senate Democrats Ask Military To Protect Abortion Access For Service Members
Three-quarters of the Senate’s Democrats sent a letter Monday urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to continue to protect access to abortion care for service members and their families and warning that restricting reproductive care harms national security. (Kube, 3/27)

The New York Times: California’s Plan For Cheaper Insulin Collides With Big Pharma’s Price Cuts 
California is moving ahead with its plan to produce state-sponsored insulin, but its goal of offering cheaper medicine than brand-name companies may be much harder to achieve now that those major drug makers have decided to significantly drop sticker prices on some products. So while some experts welcomed the news last weekend that the state had awarded a $50 million contract to Civica, a nonprofit organization, to manufacture low-cost insulin, others wondered if the initiative remained viable given the changing marketplace. Civica’s planned products would still need federal approval, which means it could take at least two years before they become available for sale. (Ryan, 3/24)

Capitol Weekly: Will Third Time Be The Charm For Bill On Diacritical Marks? 
When Nancy Chaires Espinoza and her husband chose the name Nicolás for their newborn son in 2016, they never thought they wouldn’t be able to put it on his birth certificate. But that’s what happened because of an obscure California law prohibiting the use of diacritical marks (accents, tildes and other marks indicating pronunciation) on vital statistics records. The hospital would only record the name as “Nicolas” without the accent over the “a.” Espinoza can’t understand why the state won’t correctly write names. (Renner, 3/25)

Los Angeles Times: What Are California Lawmakers Doing To Fix The Housing Crisis? A Look At 2023’s New Bills
Feeling political pressure to solve California’s severe housing shortage and ballooning homelessness, state lawmakers are pushing new bills to increase production of affordable homes and strengthen tenant protections against evictions and surging rents. Some of the proposals include letting religious organizations quickly build affordable homes on their excess land and lowering the cap on how much landlords can raise rents each year. Others would ask voters to add housing as a human right to the state Constitution and ease barriers homeowners face when building duplexes in their single-family neighborhoods. (Wiley, 3/26)

AP: California Looks To Spend Some Medicaid Money On Housing
At the start of 2022, Thomas Marshall weighed 311 pounds. He had been hospitalized 10 times in five years, including six surgeries. He had an open wound on his left leg that refused to heal — made worse by living in a dirty, moldy house with five other people, two ball pythons, four Chihuahuas and a cage full of rats. More than a year later, Marshall has lost nearly 100 pounds. His wound has healed. His blood pressure has returned to normal levels. His foot, which had nerve damage, has improved to the point he goes on regular walks to the park. (Beam, 3/26)

CapRadio: Sacramento Plans To Debut Hundreds Of Tiny Homes. Will They Help People Move Off The Streets?
The Sacramento region could open more than 600 tiny homes for unhoused residents over the next year, including 350 promised by Governor Gavin Newsom last week, with the goal of moving people from illegal encampments to safe but temporary shelter. Elected leaders and some advocates for people experiencing homelessness say the shed-sized structures offer a stable respite while people search for a permanent place to live. The homes can be set up faster and cheaper than traditional housing and offer a stopgap that responds to the urgency of the growing crisis, they say. (Nichols, 3/27)

Los Angeles Times: Bad Bets, Dysfunction: Inside The Collapse Of The Skid Row Housing Trust
In 2016, hoarding by the tenants of more than two dozen downtown residential buildings had become so pervasive that employees felt it posed a health and safety hazard. The Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit that owned the buildings, hired a specialist — clinical psychologist Danielle Schlichter. Her job was to set up a training program for graduate students who would help tenants overcome the obsessions that set them up for eviction. (Smith and Oreskes, 3/26)

Fox News: California Sea Otters Killed By Rare Parasite That Could Also Threaten Humans
Four sea otters in California died from toxoplasmosis through a rare strain of the Toxoplasma gondii parasite, and researchers warn that the strain could pose a threat to humans. The unusual strain of Toxoplasma gondii that was studied had not been detected in California before. The findings of a study, which was conducted by scientists at California Department of Fish and Wildlife and University of California, Davis, was published in the Frontiers in Marine Science journal this week. (Vacchiano, 3/25)

CBS News: Printed Receipts At Most Major Store Chains Contain "Toxic" Chemicals Like BPA, Report Says
About 80% of receipts from 144 major chain stores in 22 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., contained bisphenols, the analysis from the Ecology Center, a nonprofit environmental health organization. BPA, a chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastics, as well as bisphenol S, or BPS, were detected on receipts from retailers such as Walmart and restaurants including McDonald's, the study found. (Pichhi, 3/24)

NBC News: What Causes Eczema Could Be In The Air We Breathe, New Science Suggests
Chemicals that spew from vehicle exhaust and are used to make a variety of common products — from spandex to memory foam mattresses — could cause eczema in infancy, according to research from the National Institutes of Health. (Edwards, 3/26)

NBC News: U.S. And Mexico Weighing Deal For Mexico To Crack Down On Fentanyl Going North While U.S. Cracks Down On Guns Going South
The U.S. is preparing to announce a deal with Mexico to counter fentanyl coming across the southern border, with Mexico cracking down on labs and smuggling while the U.S. does more to stop the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico, two sources familiar with the strategy told NBC News. Mexican military and police, with the help of U.S. law enforcement, will focus on tracking raw materials for fentanyl being shipped to Mexico, finding and shutting down labs that make the deadly synthetic opioid and going after key players in the illicit fentanyl trade, the sources said. (Ainsley, 3/27)

The Hill: As US Fentanyl Deaths Jump, GOP Casts Blame At The Border
As a street drug, fentanyl is largely produced by clandestine labs in Mexico from chemical precursors sourced from China, according to the State Department’s 2022 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report. ... Its path to the U.S. is surprisingly straightforward; data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows 90 percent or more of fentanyl seizures have happened at U.S. ports of entry, while a fraction of fentanyl is captured between ports of entry. (Beitsch and Bernal, 3/27)

The Hill: Teen Overdose Deaths Have Doubled In Three Years. Blame Fentanyl
Teen overdose deaths have doubled in three years, an alarming trend amid a historic decline in drug and alcohol use among high school students.  The main reason is fentanyl. Teens consume the powerful opioid unwittingly, packaged in counterfeit pills tailored to resemble less potent prescription medications. Drug traffickers lace pills with fentanyl to boost the black-market high. Dangerously addictive, fentanyl can be lethal, especially to children experimenting with drugs. (Vise, 3/26)

Stat: New Test Strips Can Detect Lethal Xylazine In Drug Supply
Public health workers will soon have a new tool at their disposal to thwart a spreading danger to users of illicit drugs: xylazine test strips. The new testing kits will allow health departments, grassroots harm-reduction groups, and individual drug users to test substances for the presence of xylazine, a sedative often referred to as “tranq.” (Facher, 3/27)

Reuters: US FDA Seeks To Allow Salt Substitutes In Everyday Foods
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday said it was proposing a rule to allow the use of salt substitutes in everyday foods including cheese, frozen peas and canned tuna, in a bid to cut Americans' salt consumption. The FDA had in 2021 set a new voluntary goal for manufacturers and chain restaurants to cut salt levels by an average of 12% in packaged foods, because excessive salt consumption has been linked to high blood pressure, a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. (3/24)

The Washington Post: Watching Live Sports In Person May Be Good For You, Researchers Say
Feeling dissatisfied and lonely? You might want to snag tickets to a few of your favorite team’s games. New research connects viewing live sporting events with higher levels of life satisfaction and lower levels of loneliness — and researchers say live sporting events could be used to improve public health. (Blakemore, 3/26)

USA Today: Alcohol Cost: More Expensive Booze Could Save Lives, Study Suggests
In 2018, the Scottish government made drinks more expensive if it contained more alcohol. It was an effort to reduce drinking in Scotland, which has the highest rate of death due to alcohol consumption in the United Kingdom. Now in a study published this week, Scottish public health officials reported its minimum unit pricing policy was associated with a 13% reduction in deaths from alcohol consumption since it was implemented. (Rodriguez, 3/25)