Voice Of San Diego: Palomar Health Turns Up The Heat On Its Own Board Members 
The tension at Palomar Health’s board of directors meeting on Nov. 13 was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Yelling, interrupting and criticism ensued between the board members of Palomar Health. It was so intense, they had to take a short break in the middle of the meeting for everyone to calm down.  (Layne, 11/28)

The Bakersfield Californian: County Caregivers Protest Outside Kern Chambers, Demanding Better Wages 
It’s been seven years since Kern caregivers through the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program have been awarded a new contract. Today, few of Kern’s roughly 10,000 caregivers in the program, according to state social services data, make above the state’s minimum wage. Kern County, alongside the counties of Siskiyou, Tehama, Calaveras and Glenn, offer the lowest IHSS wages in the state. (Donegan, 11/28)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Pharmaceutical Giant Eli Lilly Will Partner With San Diego Biotech Startups At New Gateway Labs 
San Diego’s world-renowned biotech cluster just gained a big investment from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company. The company is opening its first Lilly Gateway Labs in San Diego — a coworking lab and accelerator space for biotech startups — in partnership with Alexandria Real Estate Equities. (Rocha, 11/29)

Los Angeles Times: Suicides Among Older Adults Drove U.S. Tally To Historic High
Rising rates of suicide among older adults drove the number of such deaths to a historic high in the United States last year, even as suicide declined among youth, according to a report released Wednesday by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 49,000 people died by suicide in 2022 across the country, the highest tally recorded for the nation, according to federal figures. It’s the latest evidence of a troubling trend in the U.S., where suicide has been on the rise for much of the 21st century. (Reyes, 11/29)

Politico: Newsom Embraces Controversial Mental Health Policies In Bid To Reform Care 
Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to finish the job Ronald Reagan started more than half a century ago as he seeks to transform California’s mental health system — even if it means forcing some people into treatment. In the last few months, the state established a court intervention program for people with severe mental illness and passed a law making it easier for relatives and first responders to send people to mandatory treatment. (Bluth, 11/29)

Voice of OC: Orange County Continues Funding Santa Ana’s Homeless Services Center Despite Protest
A mental health assistance center will be able to operate in Santa Ana for another year after city officials have long protested it, saying it unfairly endangers working class residents. By the end of that period, however, the Mental Health Association (MHA) of Orange County will have to find a new location for its Homeless Multi Service Center, which refers people to mental health treatment and emergency housing. (Pho, 11/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Surfer Gets Help With High Bay Area Rents And Mental Health Problems
A lifelong surfer, Sean Geary is happiest in the midst of ocean swells that are bigger than buildings. Perhaps that’s because he understands the delicate balancing act that comes with unexpectedly soaring to incredible heights on top of a wave, only to be crushed by it moments later. A few days before Christmas in 1994, Geary’s first trip to Mavericks in Half Moon Bay — a popular surf location that is home to some of the biggest and most challenging waves in the world — ended with Geary riding a 20-foot wave on a bodyboard. (Waxmann, 11/29)

Financial Times: Internet Use Does Not Appear To Harm Mental Health, Study Finds
A study of more than 2 million people’s internet use found no “smoking gun” for widespread harm to mental health from online activities such as browsing social media and gaming, despite widely claimed concerns that mobile apps can cause depression and anxiety. Researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, who said their study was the largest of its kind, said they found no evidence to support “popular ideas that certain groups are more at risk” from the technology. (Bradshaw, 11/27)

New York Post: People Born In The ‘90s Not Recovering From Mental Health Issues As They Age: Study
People born in the 1990s have the worst mental health of any generation before them — and the millennials are not recovering as they age, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Sydney found that there has been a noticeable deterioration in the mental welfare of each successive generation since the 1950s. (Donlevy, 11/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. City Hall Proposal Would Bus More Homeless People Out Of The City
A San Francisco supervisor who’s running for mayor wants to expand the city’s two-decade-old program offering homeless people a fully paid trip back home after the number of people using it dropped precipitously during the pandemic. Started by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, Homeward Bound offers homeless people a way to get back on their feet by reconnecting them with family and friends, whether that’s across the bay or on the other side of the country. (Toledo, 11/28)

San Diego Union-Tribune: World AIDS Day Commemoration At Library With Memorial Quilt On Display 
The free community event raises awareness about the fight against HIV/AIDS and ending stigma. The event will include a time for the public to share experiences along with a moment of remembrance, HIV resources and a display of panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt from the National AIDS Memorial based in San Francisco. (McIntosh, 11/28)

Los Angeles Times: California Vs. Florida Cheat Sheet: What Have Gavin Newsom And Ron DeSantis Actually Done For Their States?
Your guide to understanding Newsom and DeSantis ahead of their Thursday debate — and how they are shaping life in California and Florida, from abortion to guns and more. (11/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mysterious Pneumonia Outbreak In China, But It's Unlike COVID
A worrisome spike in mysterious respiratory illnesses among children across northern China is drawing parallels to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Chinese officials say there’s no need to panic. They attribute the surge of pneumonia-like cases to a convergence of common pathogens during the nation’s first winter without stringent COVID-19 restrictions, rather than to a previously unseen pathogen. (Vaziri, 11/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: Is Novavax, The Latecomer COVID-19 Vaccine, Worth The Wait?
Erin Kissane, a co-founder of the COVID Tracking Project, rolled up her sleeve for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine in mid-October soon after it was finally recommended in the United States. Like many people with autoimmune diseases, she wants to protect herself from a potentially devastating COVID infection. Kissane’s autoimmune arthritis seems to make her susceptible to unusual vaccine side effects. After getting an mRNA booster last year, her joints ached so painfully that her doctor prescribed steroids to dampen the inflammation. She still considers the mRNA vaccines “miraculous,” knowing COVID could be far worse than temporary aches. (Waxmen, 11/27)

Reuters: White House Urges RSV Immunization Makers To Meet Demand 
Senior Biden administration officials met with the makers of RSV immunizations for children this week to underscore the need for manufacturers such as Sanofi (SASY.PA) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) to urgently meet demand as winter approaches, the White House said on Tuesday. At a meeting at the White House on Monday, officials and manufacturers also agreed to plan now to meet next year's demand for the immunizations targeting respiratory syncytial virus, which generally causes mild, cold-like symptoms but can develop into severe illness in infants and older adults. (Heavey and Aboulenein, 11/28)

The Oaklandside: Oakland Woman To Host Dance-A-Thon For Ovarian Cancer Awareness
Oakland-based dancer, yoga instructor, and writer Nina Schnall received a shock in June 2020 when she was diagnosed with stage-four ovarian cancer. Schnall, 53, had just undergone a full pelvic exam and a check-up that came back normal, and she’d never really heard about the disease. “Very few women talk about ovarian or gynecological cancers publicly. I think there’s usually a lot of taboo and a lot of shame around talking about it, and I think that’s one of the reasons we don’t see more change or better treatments,” Schnall said. “I feel really strongly about talking about it and raising awareness.” (Burnett, 11/28)

Los Angeles Times: What Do Day Laborers Do? Dangerous, Gross, Sometimes Illegal Jobs
They were not what you’d call the usual day laborer gigs. No yard work. No installing doors. No laying down roof tiles on a hot summer day. There was the person who paid several workers to stand in line for concert tickets. The one who wanted to hire a few men to just sit around with him, drink and watch some porn. And then there was the company that contracted day laborers to clean a former brothel, complete with a stripper pole, used needles and the scent of dead body. (Mejia, 11/29)

CNN: US Life Expectancy Rebounded In 2022 But Not Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels 
Life expectancy in the United States has started to rebound after historic drops earlier in the Covid-19 pandemic, but it’s far from recovering. In 2022, a 1.1-year increase brought overall life expectancy at birth to 77.5 years, according to provisional data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that offsets less than half of the 2.4 years of life lost in the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, and life expectancy is still lower than it’s been in about 20 years. (McPhillips, 11/29)

WTTW: Senate Judiciary Committee Weighs Whether Gun Violence Is A Public Health Emergency
As America grapples with gun violence, members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee grappled with whether that violence has become such a crisis that it should be a considered a public health emergency, with emergency room doctors and other health care professionals on the front lines. “In cities like Chicago dealing with the constant drumbeat of gun violence, it has turned these public health officials into battlefield experts,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), who chairs the committee. “They’ve seen the aftermath of bullets tearing through bone like it’s tissue paper.” With “132 Americans every day dying from gun violence,” he said, “gun violence is a public health epidemic, plain and simple.” (Vinicky, 11/28)

NBC News: How Fast Should You Walk To Lower Your Diabetes Risk?
The American Diabetes Association recommends taking 10,000 steps per day or walking daily for at least 30 minutes to reduce your diabetes risk. Walking at a faster pace can improve that benefit, but researchers haven't identified an ideal speed — until now. An analysis published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine suggests that, independent of distance or step count, walking at least 2.5 mph can significantly lower the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. That's the equivalent of a brisk walk — around 87 steps per minute for men and 100 steps per minute for women. (Bendix, 11/28)

Reuters: Biden Campaign Taps Pelosi On Obamacare After Trump Threatens Health Law 
President Joe Biden's re-election campaign enlisted former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday to warn about threats to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare, after former President Donald Trump pledged new efforts to replace the law if he wins a second term. (Bose, 11/28)

Bloomberg: Biden Campaign Attacks Trump’s Obamacare Threat With Help From Nancy Pelosi
Joe Biden’s campaign seized on Donald Trump’s call to overturn Obamacare, using it to cast the Republican as a threat to Americans’ health benefits ahead of a likely rematch with the president. “The former president reminded us that he is hellbent on destroying the Affordable Care Act,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday on a call organized by Biden’s campaign. “When he says he’s going after our health care, believe him because he’s done it before.” (Woodhouse and Korte, 11/28)

Stat: Gottlieb, Trump FDA Chief, Questions GOP’s Health Strategy
One of the Republican Party’s most prominent health care thinkers doesn’t know what the GOP’s current health care strategy actually is. Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Tuesday evening that the party’s previous health care focus — on technocratic strategies like increasing competition in drug markets or supporting private Medicare plans — have largely fallen off platforms and out of stump speeches. (Florko, 11/28)