San Diego Union-Tribune: County To Seek Millions In State Mental Health Funds For Three Projects 
San Diego County is getting ready to seek its share of the $6.38 billion in bonds that voters approved when they narrowly passed Proposition 1 in March. However, the project thought to have the biggest potential impact on the region’s mental health care crisis does not yet fit the requirements to file an application. (Sisson, 7/16)

The New York Times: Crisis Hotline Has Answered 10 Million Calls, Texts And Chats
More than 10 million calls, texts and chat messages have been answered by counselors working for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s three-digit hotline in the two years since it debuted, federal officials said on Tuesday. The three-digit number, 988, was introduced in 2022 as a way to simplify emergency calls and help a metastasizing mental health crisis in the United States, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the social environments of younger Americans. The hotline previously used a traditional 10-digit number. (Weiland, 7/16)

Axios: Suicide Hotline Awareness Lags, Two Years In
Many Americans still don't know about 988, the revamped national suicide hotline, according to new polling from Ipsos on behalf of the National Alliance of Mental Illness. 988 launched two years ago Tuesday, and while 67% of U.S. adults say they've heard of the hotline, only 23% say they're at least somewhat familiar with it. (Goldman, 7/16)

Axios: Top Biden Mental Health Official On 988's Future
Two years in, big questions remain about whether America's revamped 988 suicide hotline is working as envisioned and how funding has been dispersed. (Goldman, 7/16)

CalMatters: California’s Cities Failing To Monitor Homeless Shelters
Now that the Supreme Court has granted cities more power to ban sleeping outside, homeless Californians face a crucial decision: Try to get into a shelter, or risk going to jail. Those able to find a shelter bed will step into a world rife with reports of violence, theft, health hazards — and a lack of accountability. Public records obtained by CalMatters show that most cities and counties have seemingly ignored a recent state law that aimed to reform dangerous conditions in shelters. (Hepler, 7/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. To Increase Street Ambassadors In Tenderloin After Outcry Over Drug Use Outside Homeless Shelter
San Francisco leaders have hatched a plan to bring more community ambassadors to the Tenderloin amid continued concern over street conditions in certain parts of the district. (Toledo, 7/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here's Why Fentanyl Users On S.F.'s Streets Are Bent Over
It’s become a ubiquitous sign of the fentanyl crisis unfolding on San Francisco’s streets: scores of seemingly comatose drug users slumped-over in extreme positions. Examples of the so-called “fentanyl fold” have also been plastered on social media for years as San Francisco continues to try to get a grip on a highly visible opioid epidemic that claimed the lives of more than 800 people last year. (Toledo and Greene, 7/17)

Reuters: US FDA Declines To Approve Orexo's Opioid Overdose Drug
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declined to approve Orexo AB's (ORX.ST) high-dose prescription drug for opioid overdose, the company said on Tuesday. The health regulator, in a so-called complete response letter, has sought an additional Human Factors (HF) study and additional technical data on the final commercial product, the company said. Orexo said the FDA's request for additional technical data was unexpected, and added that it will work with the agency to enable a resubmission of the drug's marketing application. (7/16)

Stat: Freshpaint Raises $30 Million To Help Providers With Data Privacy
Federal guidance restricting hospital websites’ use of third-party trackers along with the proliferation of direct-to-consumer health services is spawning a new crop of health tech startups promising to help beleaguered providers stay on the right side of the law. (Ravindranath, 7/17)

Stat: Digital Therapeutics Clinical Trials Get A New Dose Of Rigor
Faced with widespread skepticism about the value of digital therapies, Swing Therapeutics in early 2022 set out to make the strongest case possible for its app-based treatment for fibromyalgia. (Aguilar, 7/17)

Modesto Bee: Stanislaus Student Attends Medical School Via Sutter Program
Anaissa Medina of Salida had childhood dreams of becoming a doctor but didn’t have financial resources to see a clear path to achieving her goal. Medina began medical school last week thanks to a collaboration between a Sutter Health equity program and Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Southern California. (Carlson, 7/17)

Axios: Health Care Warms To Reusable PPE
Four years after health workers were forced to reuse masks and other supplies to get through the dark days of the pandemic, the idea of recycling personal protective equipment is going mainstream. (Goldman, 7/17)

Modern Healthcare: UnitedHealth Reports High Medicaid, Change Healthcare Expenses
Fallout from the Change Healthcare cyberattack continues to affect UnitedHealthGroup, with the healthcare giant nearly doubling its estimates of how much the incident will financially disrupt business operations this year. High Medicaid and Medicare Advantage medical expenses contributed to high costs in the second quarter, executives said during a Tuesday earnings call. (Tepper, 7/16)

Newsweek: US Health Care Now Unaffordable For Nearly Half Of Americans
This is the warning of the latest report from the Healthcare Affordability Index, which tracks how many in the U.S. have been forced to avoid medical care or haven't been able to fill their prescriptions in the last three months—and how many would struggle to pay for care if it was needed. Affordability has fallen six points since 2022, down to a record low of 55 percent since the index was launched back in 2021. (Randall, 7/17)

Fox News: Personalized Meal Delivery Could Be Key To ‘Substantial Savings’ In Health Care Costs, Study Suggests
Meal delivery could be the key to cutting health care costs, nutritional researchers claim. Not just any meals, though. For patients who have certain conditions that require special diets and restrict their ability to perform daily activities, bringing them medically tailored meals (MTMs) could lead to "substantial savings," according to a study by the American Society for Nutrition. (Rudy, 7/16)

AP: An Order Blocking A Rule To Help LGBTQ+ Kids Applies To Hundreds Of Schools. Some Want To Block More
A federal judge’s order blocking a Biden administration rule for protecting LGBTQ+ students from discrimination applies to hundreds of schools and colleges across the U.S., and a group challenging it hopes to extend it further to many major American cities. U.S. District Judge John Broomes’ decision touched off a new legal dispute between the Biden administration and critics of the rule, over how broadly the order should apply. (Hanna, 7/16)

Roll Call: With Roe Overturned, Trump's GOP Turns To Transgender Health Care 
When he ran for office in 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump focused heavily on abortion, vowing to nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade — which he did as president. But this year, with Roe now overturned, the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and the Republican Party have a new health-related social issue: transgender care. (Cohen and Raman, 7/16)

Los Angeles Times: Legal Fight Grips Successful Pasadena Startup Behind COVID Tests
A script for a biopic called “Overnight Billionaire” recounts the extraordinary life of Charles Huang, a Chinese villager who overcomes long odds to educate himself and become a Hong Kong corporate analyst. After immigrating to Los Angeles, Huang builds a COVID-testing company that is key to the United Kingdom weathering the pandemic. The draft concludes on a high note, with a TV host acknowledging to the now-fabulously wealthy Huang that his story is “one in a billion.” (Darmiento, 7/17)

Axios: COVID Didn't Grow Vulnerability To Illness: Study
The COVID-19 pandemic didn't make adults more susceptible to common infections and illnesses like asthma, COPD, pneumonia or the flu, a review of more than 256 million patient records concludes. (Bettelheim, 7/17)

CIDRAP: COVID Tied To Faster Progression From Preclinical To Clinical Type 1 Diabetes In Kids
A study of German youth with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes links COVID-19 infection to accelerated progression to clinical diabetes. For the study, published yesterday in JAMA, researchers in Munich and Dresden followed up with 509 children aged 1 to 16 years with presymptomatic type 1 diabetes participating in a screening program from February 2015 to October 2023. (Van Beusekom, 7/16)

Stat: Long Covid Reported At A Higher Rate Among Disabled Americans
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just released a trove of data on Americans with disabilities that found that more than a quarter of U.S. adults have a disability — over 70 million people, a bump from prior years. This slice of the population was also much more likely to report long Covid symptoms such as chronic fatigue and brain fog. This comorbidity looms large for many disabled communities as another surge in Covid cases sweeps the country. (Broderick, 7/16)

CIDRAP: Paxlovid Led To Better Outcomes In Hospitalized COVID Cohort Than Veklury Or Both Drugs
Hospitalized COVID-19 patients treated with the antiviral drug nirmatrelvir–ritonavir (Paxlovid) are at lower risk for death, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, and need for ventilation than those given a combination of Paxlovid and the antiviral drug remdesivir (Veklury) or Veklury alone, a University of Hong Kong target trial emulation study suggests. For the study, published yesterday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the researchers analyzed the electronic health records of a weighted sample of adults hospitalized for COVID-19. (Van Beusekom, 7/16)

Newsweek: Cancer Breakthrough As Yale Radiologists Develop 'Trojan Horse' Therapy
Yale scientists have discovered a "Trojan horse" method for killing cancer, showing promise against a range of tumor types. By sneaking past the cancer's defenses, the mechanism is able to deliver anticancer therapy without damaging healthy tissue. ... Efforts are now underway to advance this treatment for testing in a clinical trial setting. (Dewan, 7/16)

Stat: Insulin Users Fear Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly Will Move On Without Them
Around the world, patients suddenly can’t find enough of the insulins made by companies they have long relied on to do so. In the U.S., Novo Nordisk’s recent decision to discontinue a product has left patients with fewer options. At the same time, patients are encountering shortages of other products from Novo and Eli Lilly. For months, pharmacies have been running out of vials of certain insulins that patients use to fill the pumps they wear on their body. (Chen, 7/17)

Reuters: US House Panel To Hold Hearing With Pharmacy Benefit Managers On Healthcare Costs
The U.S. House of Representatives oversight panel said on Tuesday it will hold a hearing with executives from U.S. pharmacy benefit managers on the role of the firms in rising healthcare costs. The hearing will include Adam Kautzner, president of Evernorth Care Management and Express Scripts; David Joyner, executive vice president of CVS Health and president of CVS Caremark; and Patrick Conway, CEO of OptumRx, the panel's chair, Representative James Comer, a Republican, said in a statement. (7/16)

Stat: Pharma Lobby Weakened Drug Patent Reform Bill, Some Experts Say
A clutch of headlines last week suggested the U.S. Senate had achieved a breakthrough in the battle to prevent pharmaceutical companies from abusing the patent system, an issue that has been blamed for boosting prescription drug costs for Americans. But while the Senate bill clearly represents a step forward, the impact will not be nearly as great as originally intended by lawmakers due to industry lobbying. (Silverman and Zhang, 7/17)

Reuters: Trump Will Protect Gun Rights Despite Assassination Attempt, Adviser Says
Donald Trump will safeguard gun rights by appointing federal judges who oppose new firearm limits if he is elected in November, despite narrowly surviving an assassination attempt, a senior adviser to his presidential campaign said on Tuesday. "We'll see a continuation of supporting and defending the Second Amendment, and really where that comes into play is, you know, the judiciary," Chris LaCivita said at an event hosted by the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, a gun rights group, at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Reid, Coster and Layne, 7/16)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Penn, Jefferson And Einstein Are Keeping A Closer Eye On New Moms' Blood Pressure
Two Penn Medicine physicians had an unorthodox idea for reducing the number of patients who develop dangerously high blood pressure in the weeks after giving birth: Stop asking them to come into the doctor’s office for blood pressure screenings. Dangerously high blood pressure, is a leading cause of maternal death and hospital-readmission after birth, and is often preventable with routine screening. But many new parents are too overwhelmed in the first days of their baby’s life to get themselves to extra medical appointments. (Gantz, 7/17)

CIDRAP: Officials Probe Heat-Wave Factors In H5N1 Spread To Colorado Poultry Cullers
As the investigation continues into recent avian flu infections in as many as five workers who culled Colorado poultry, officials today said that industrial fans in poultry barns where temperatures exceeded 104°F could have spread the virus through windblown feathers and through the air, potentially reducing the effectiveness of personal protective equipment (PPE). Also, early genetic analysis suggests that the virus that infected the poultry and the workers is the same H5N1 genotype infecting dairy cattle, a useful clue for officials who are examining connections between the farms. (Schnirring, 7/16)

The Washington Post: What Is ‘Teflon Flu’? It’s Linked To A Coating On Some Nonstick Pans
Over the last two decades, poison centers in the United States have received more than 3,600 reports of suspected cases of “polymer fume fever,” a flu-like illness linked to a chemical coating found on some nonstick pans. ... Last year, there were 267 suspected cases of the little-known illness, which is believed to be one of the highest reported totals since 2000, according to America’s Poison Centers, a nonprofit organization that oversees 55 U.S. poison centers. (Amenabar, 7/16)

The Hill: Gen Z Uses TikTok For Health Advice, Survey Reveals
Most of Generation Z is turning to TikTok to seek health advice, citing quick responses and free advice, a recent survey found. The poll, conducted by Zing Coach, found 56 percent of Gen Z respondents use TikTok for wellness, diet and fitness advice and that a large share of them use the platform as their main form of health advice. Among those surveyed, 34 percent said they use TikTok to get most of their health advice, making it more than twice as popular as the other options listed. (Sforza, 7/16)