San Francisco Chronicle: Another Change Is Coming To S.F. And Some Doctors Are Worried
Another San Francisco institution is changing, fading away into a very different future, another example of how the city is becoming a very different place. UCSF Health is planning to acquire two San Francisco hospitals, St. Francis Memorial and St. Mary’s Medical Center. (Nolte, 8/12)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: A $25 Minimum Wage For California's Health Care Workers Could Increase Retention, But At What Cost?
As the health care workforce continues to be short-staffed, state legislators are considering a bill to increase the minimum wage across the industry. Senate Bill 525, which the Senate passed in June, will head to the Assembly later this month when legislators return from summer recess. (Mapp, 8/13)

Los Angeles Daily News: Calling 988 To Talk To Someone About Suicide? The Connection Could Be Way Off 
Since July 2022, anyone experiencing emotional distress or suicidal thoughts can dial 988, a new national hotline that connects callers to local crisis centers. But the nationwide mental health phone line has experienced some bad connections. And some can be the difference between life and death. (Scauzillo, 8/12)

Los Angeles Times: Reeling From The Deadliest Wildfire In A Century, Maui Sees Ghosts From California’s Past
As Hawaii begins to tally the damage and assess how to improve its safety procedures to address extreme fire weather, California can offer many lessons. A series of deadly natural disasters — historic fires in Paradise, Malibu and wine country and landslides in Santa Barbara County — exposed major weaknesses in local, state and federal emergency responses and outmoded evacuation and alerting procedures. (Lin II, Dolan and Gauthier, 8/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Climate Change Is Pushing Valley Fever Northward In California
Valley fever, a respiratory disease spread by fungal spores that grow in soil, has long been concentrated mostly in the Arizona desert and California’s lower San Joaquin Valley. But a growing body of research suggests the disease is gaining a foothold farther north, driven by warming temperatures and extreme swings in rainfall and drought tied to climate change. (Castro-Root, 8/13)

Orange County Register: August Is Peak Mosquito Season, And California’s In A Fight Against Disease Some Carry
In California, there are approximately 50 kinds of mosquitoes with about six that carry harmful diseases such as West Nile virus, Zika, dengue and yellow fever viruses. Some infect horses, birds and house pets. (Snibbe, 8/13)

Bay Nature: New Map Offers Glimpses Of San Francisco Bay Algae Blooms
For those who like to swim, fish, or boat in San Francisco Bay, but not when it is suffused with thick, soupy, potentially hazardous algae — the California Water Boards now has a map for that. Just in time, since algae season’s heating up. A recent glance at the map showed a rainbow spreading across the Bay, indicating a widespread bloom. In Berkeley and in Richardson Bay, near Sausalito, water sampling has confirmed it and determined the culprit is Heterosigma akashiwo—the same phytoplankton, dubbed the “flying potato” by researchers, that caused last summer’s first-ever Bay-wide harmful algal bloom, or HAB, leaving countless dead fish in its wake. (Golden, 8/11)

Fresno Bee: Would Fresno Be Hurt By Composting Human Sewage? City Pauses Study Of Treatment Options
A study of the practicality of composting “biosolids” sludge from Fresno’s sewage-treatment plant has been put on hold after a City Council member raised concerns over potential odor and environmental effects for the West Fresno community. (Sheehan, 8/13)

Los Angeles Times: City Of Hope Researchers Develop Promising New Therapy For Advanced Ovarian Cancer
Researchers with City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the nation, have published preclinical research in Nature Communications demonstrating that a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered T cell therapy worked against ovarian cancer in the laboratory and in preclinical models. (8/11)

AP: Popular Weight-Loss Drugs Like Wegovy May Raise Risk Of Complications Under Anesthesia 
Patients who take blockbuster drugs like Wegovy or Ozempic for weight loss may face life-threatening complications if they need surgery or other procedures that require empty stomachs for anesthesia. This summer’s guidance to halt the medication for up to a week may not go far enough, either. Some anesthesiologists in the U.S. and Canada say they’ve seen growing numbers of patients on the weight-loss drugs who inhaled food and liquid into their lungs while sedated because their stomachs were still full — even after following standard instructions to stop eating for six to eight hours in advance. (Aleccia, 8/13)

Los Angeles Daily News: Are Gummy Supplements Actually Healthy? 
While gummy supplements are touted for better taste, this can come with unintended consequences if consumed in excess by either children or adults. Overconsumption of gummy supplements can increase one’s risk of mineral and vitamin overdose, especially fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, which can be stored in the body and lead to toxicity. It is important to follow the recommended dosage of supplements, particularly gummies. (Weintraub, 8/13)

CapRadio: That Summer Flu? It’s Probably COVID
Is there a “summer flu” going around? According to Dr. Noha Aboelata of Oakland’s Roots Community Health Center, it’s “highly, highly improbable.” But don’t just take her word for it, she said. Look at wastewater data, which comes from concentrations of viruses, like flu and COVID-19, in sewage — it doesn’t lie, since everyone needs to use the bathroom. “You can see that the SARS-COV-2 is still very much with us, it's increasing,” Aboelata said. “If you look at flu A and B, it's a completely flat line at zero. There's no flu circulating right now, and it’s not flu season.” (Salanga, 8/14)

CIDRAP: US COVID Markers Up Slightly Again 
The two main indicators that federal health officials use to track COVID-19 activity—hospitalizations and deaths—both registered small rises this week, as did other indicators of virus activity, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Starting from very low levels, hospitalizations for COVID rose 12.5% this week compared to last week. Though levels have now risen for the fifth straight week, COVID admissions still make up a small percentage of all hospitalizations. (Schnirring, 8/11)

CIDRAP: No Evidence Athletes At Risk For Cardiac Arrest After COVID Vaccinations 
A study yesterday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine from researchers at the Amsterdam University Medical Centers (UMC) reviews all current literature on athletes, sudden cardiac arrest, and myocarditis following COVID-19 vaccines, and finds that athletes engaged in intensive activity are not at increased risk for heart complications following vaccination. On social media platforms, COVID-19 vaccines have been named the cause of cardiac arrest in young athletes, most recently Bronny James, LeBron James' college basketball-playing son who suffered a sudden heart attack while practicing for the University of Southern California last month. (Soucheray, 8/11)

KQED: College-Bound Californians Prepare For Abortion Bans Out Of State
I’laysia Vital is about to leave Oakland to start college in Texas, where she’s excited to attend a historically Black college. But Texas is also one of more than a dozen states that has banned abortion. KQED’s April Dembosky takes us inside a health clinic at Oakland Technical High School, where staff have been helping college-bound students prepare for the barriers to reproductive health that await them in other states. (Guevarra, Demboxky, Montecillo, Esquinca, 8/14)

The Oaklandside: Bedbugs, Break-Ins Plague Uptown Senior Housing, Tenants Say
Residents at Northgate Terrace, a low-income retirement community located one block off of Telegraph Avenue in Uptown, are speaking out about cockroaches, broken stoves, and break-ins they say they’ve dealt with at their building. Alongside ACCE, a tenant advocacy group, some two dozen residents of the 11-story building held a press conference Friday morning. “The recurring theme is neglect,” said William Albert Jackson, a nine-year resident of Northgate Terrace. (Orenstein, 8/11)

Sacramento Bee: Political Temperatures, Debate Rise About Sacramento’s Homeless
At dawn on a Wednesday, Sacramento police began the first of their raids, responding to citizen complaints that the homeless situation was out of control in the city. Officers and county parks officials targeted 85 encampments, driving dozens of campers from their makeshift homes along the American River Parkway. When the raids were over, the city’s police chief made clear that officials were done ignoring laws against camping in the area. (Stanton, 8/13)

Los Angeles Times: Rent Control Enacted In Southeast L.A. County Cities
The hiked-up rents that have swept over so much of the region are now hitting once-affordable neighborhoods in Southeast Los Angeles County. The combination of higher prices, job losses and economic hits from the pandemic is sending some longtime residents to cheaper areas like the Inland Empire and high desert, or to different states altogether. And local officials are scrambling to keep people in their homes. (Kramon, 8/14)

The Bakersfield Californian: 'Tranq Dope' Is Coming To Kern, If It's Not Already Here 
Days after the death of a Delano resident, law enforcement officials across Kern County are warning the public that xylazine, a common animal tranquilizer, has entered the illicit drug supply and arrived on city streets. (Donegan, 8/12)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Public Health Warns Of Possible Hepatitis A Exposure
Los Angeles County public health officials have issued a warning of possible exposure to hepatitis A at a Panda Express in Lancaster. On Saturday, the Public Health Department issued a notice alerting customers who visited a Panda Express in Lancaster, at 44411 Valley Central Way between July 21 and Aug. 4, after a food handler was found to have the liver infection. (Gomez, 8/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Hepatitis C Is Curable And Efforts Are Ramping Up In San Diego County To Eliminate Deadly Disease 
Free hepatitis C tests were offered Thursday at the Neil Good Day Center, San Diego County’s only drop-in facility for people living on the street, and about 20 people had already signed up by late morning. The event was part of The ElimiNATION Awareness Tour, which has made stops around the country since 2018 and is sponsored by the pharmaceutical company AbbVie. (Sisson and Nelson, 8/11)

Stat: Kim Kardashian Sparks Debate On Benefits Of Full-Body MRI Scans
The last time Kim Kardashian posted about medical imaging, it was to prove her butt was real. Now, she’s praising its ability to find aneurysms and cancers before they turn deadly. Kardashian’s Instagram post this week about Prenuvo, which sells full-body MRI scans that can run in the thousands of dollars, has renewed a long-running debate about whether the tests are actually valuable or just run the risk of clogging hospitals with false positives and unnecessary follow-ups from wealthy and largely healthy patients. (Ravindranath and Lawrence, 8/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Teens Are Taking Over Gyms. The Adults Aren’t Pumped. 
In Orange County, Calif., Taylor Mason, a 33-year-old high-school teacher, relishes her summers without teens. One of her usual happy places is her local Planet Fitness gym. This season, she can’t get away. Adolescents are filling the gym, and she says they leave equipment in the wrong place and wear jeans and Crocs on the treadmill. They take too long to use machines because they are distracted by their phones. (Glickman, 8/13)

Times of San Diego: How Did He Survive WWII, Korea And Vietnam? 'I Ran Fast And Ducked Low' 
Jacob Morgan, 98, who became a captain in the Navy and a colonel during a short stint in the Marines, is one of the veterans who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. ... A physician in Vietnam, Morgan went on to serve as a cardiologist at the San Diego Naval Hospital. He later had a practice in Oceanside. Morgan joined the Navy in 1943, and said he made about 40 discoveries that helped prolong the lives of millions of children. His work was featured in medical journals. (Stone, 8/14)

USA Today: Playing Football May Increase Risk For Parkinson's, New Study Finds
While the risk of concussions from playing tackle football has received considerable attention, a new study indicates the game's repetitive head impacts could also increase participants' risk factors for Parkinson's disease. The study, conducted by Boston University researchers and released Friday, also showed that players who had longer careers or played at higher levels of competition experienced even higher odds of being diagnosed with Parkinson's or having symptoms associated with the disease. (Gardner, 8/11)

The Washington Post: Early MS Treatment May Lead To Less Disability Later 
Starting treatment for multiple sclerosis soon after first experiencing symptoms of the disease may slow its progression. People who start treatment quickly are 45 percent less likely to advance to moderate disability in the next decade or so, compared to those who delay treatment, according to a study published in the journal Neurology. (Searing, 8/13)