Becker's Hospital Review: Bacteria In Hospital Ice Machines Spurred Outbreaks: CDC Case Study
At four hospitals, 46 patients experienced Burkholderia multivorans infections from contaminations within ice machines, the CDC said in its Oct. 3 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Three California hospitals and one in Colorado owned the same brand of ice machine and brands of filters, descaling and sanitizing products. Twenty-three B. multivorans cases were originally reported at two hospitals, and the CDC discovered 23 more at two others. (Twenter, 10/4)

CalMatters: Some California Stem Cell Clinics Use Unproven Therapies. A New Court Ruling Cracks Down 
Stem cell clinics have popped up throughout California, promising cures and relief for arthritis, Alzheimer’s and other conditions through cutting-edge technologies. Some, however, are offering services that have not been approved by federal health regulators. (Ibarra, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Proposes Stricter Exchange Broker Oversight
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to take a firmer hand against health insurance marketers that fraudulenty switch exchange enrollees' plans without their consent. On Friday, the agency issued a proposed rule updating the regulations that govern the health insurance exchange marketplaces next year, including provisions to strengthen its authority to suspend dishonest agents and brokers and to prevent low-income people from losing coverage when they fall behind on premium payments. (Early, 10/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Private Equity And Healthcare: Renewed Questions Amid Mounting Scrutiny
For the past decade, private equity firms have invested more than $1 trillion into U.S. healthcare. This meteoric rise in corporate investing in healthcare over the past 10 years may now be hitting its first real speed bump. Last year brought a decline in private equity deals in healthcare for the second year in a row — down 16% from the year before. According to the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, this is partly due to broad economic challenges and staffing shortages. But mostly, according to industry experts, private equity firms are facing increased scrutiny from state and federal regulators. The recent collapse of Dallas-based Steward Health Care, backed by private equity, has brought even more attention to the sector's risks. (Asin, 10/6)

Modern Healthcare: Hospital-At-Home Lowers Medicare Costs, But Extends Stays: Study
Hospital-at-home patients were more likely to be white, had longer lengths of stay and cost Medicare less money than patients receiving in-facility care, according to a new report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In the 79-page report released Monday, CMS evaluated home-based acute care delivered at 332 hospitals nationwide as a requirement of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. (Eastabrook, 10/4)

Modern Healthcare: Here's Where Healthcare Hiring Is Rising And Falling In 2024
Employment gains in healthcare have been slightly weaker this year than last but the overall numbers mask some dramatic swings in different parts of the industry, particularly in hospitals. The average monthly increase in overall healthcare hiring during the first nine months of the year was 53,977 jobs added, slightly less than 2023's 55,378 positions. In hospitals, the gains have been robust. (Broderick, 10/4)

Bay Area News Group: Santa Clara County Officials Hope Harm Reduction Efforts Can Continue Stemming Overdose Deaths, But Critics Want More Outreach 
While Santa Clara County continues combatting drug overdose deaths by providing overdose-reversing medicine and continuous community outreach, some say that more still can be done to address disparities in deaths related to substance use. (Delacruz, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Overdose Deaths Decline Sharply After Years Of Fentanyl-Fueled Surges 
Overdose deaths appear to be declining sharply in the United States, a sign that efforts to combat the scourge of lethal fentanyl may be paying off even as experts caution that the toll remains unacceptably high and could rise again. Preliminary data compiled by states and released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 10 percent drop in deaths during the 12-month period ending in April 2024, with about 101,000 people succumbing to overdoses. (Ovalle, 10/7)

Modern Healthcare: Telehealth Opioid Treatment Companies Urge DEA For Leniency
Telehealth companies that focus on opioid addiction treatment say not all controlled substances should be regulated equally by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The legal authority allowing clinicians to prescribe DEA-regulated medications virtually, without an office visit, expires Dec. 31 and a draft version released last year triggered protests from providers and telehealth companies. (Perna, 10/4)

WHYY: How Opioid Prescriptions Are Tracked And Monitored By Law Enforcement And Health Care Providers
Medical sociologist Liz Chiarello discusses the effects of prescription drug monitoring programs on both patients and physicians. (Kotch, 10/7)

The New York Times: How Cannabis And Opium Poppies Became National Security Issues 
After supply chain disruptions that made critical medicines scarce, a federal effort is underway to ensure domestic stocks of pharmaceutical ingredients. (Goodman, 10/7)

Tradeoffs: A Meth And Cocaine Addiction Treatment Trades Gift Cards For Negative Drug Tests
Unlike opioid addiction, there are no FDA-approved medications for the more than 3 million Americans addicted to stimulants like meth and cocaine. Instead, the most effective treatment is low-tech — and more controversial: Give people retail gift cards usually worth less than $30 in exchange for negative drug tests. Research shows that it works, and after more than three decades of resistance, policymakers are finally giving that strategy a chance. (Levi, 10/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: As Newsom Seeks Ban On Intoxicating Hemp Products, An Industry Revolts
Jana Adams had fought this battle before. Seven years ago, she was pressing a public school district in Santa Rosa to allow her daughter, Brooke Adams, to enroll. Brooke suffers from Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. Cannabis oils helped control her seizures. Officials at the Rincon Valley Union School District refused to allow such medication on campus — until an administrative law judge overruled them in 2018. (Swan, 10/6)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Your Guide To Proposition 34, Which Would Curb Health Provider Spending Beyond Patient Care 
Proposition 34 is a response to Prop. 33 from its chief opponent and stems from the battle over rent control. If passed, Prop. 34 would require certain California health care providers that participate in a federal drug-discount program to spend at least 98 percent of their revenue from it on direct patient care. (Fozi and Harter, 10/6)

Los Angeles Times: Long Beach Food Bank Closes Amid Investigation Into Misuse Of Public Funds
The Foodbank of Southern California — a grocery-and-meal distribution hub serving hundreds of food pantries in Long Beach and South Los Angeles — has closed its doors amid a state investigation into a possible multimillion-dollar fraud and embezzlement scheme, according to state officials and a nonprofit executive. The closure is expected to severely affect thousands of low-income families, seniors and homeless people who rely on food distribution sites for their nutritional needs. (Vives, 10/5)

Los Angeles Times: CDC To Conduct A Health Survey In San Diego County
San Diego County residents will have an opportunity to share their pollution concerns about the Tijuana River when officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention arrive later this month to conduct a health survey. This is the first time that a federal agency is investigating the potential harm caused by millions of gallons of raw sewage pouring through the Tijuana River that have caused beach closures of more than 1,000 days. Residents living near the river say they have been suffering unexplained illnesses, including gastrointestinal issues and chronic breathing problems, because of the stench of hydrogen sulfide. (Deng, 10/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Asian Health Center In Oakland Tries Novel Approach To Counseling
In her first months as a community health worker, Jee Hyo Kim helped violent crime survivors access supportive services and resources. When a client with post-traumatic stress disorder sought a therapist, she linked him to one that fit his needs. She helped clients afraid to leave their homes obtain food delivery vouchers. As one client described her, Kim was a “connector.” Then, Kim learned to go further. Through a training program, she gained the know-how and confidence to provide emotional support. She learned evidence-based mental health counseling skills such as asking open-ended questions. (Kwon, 10/6)

Los Angeles Times: Some Forms Of Air Pollution May Prolong Postpartum Depression, Researchers Say
Exposure to unhealthy levels of air pollution during pregnancy may prolong postpartum depression symptoms in new mothers, according to new research. A team of researchers from the University of Southern California assessed the air quality in the communities of more than 350 pregnant women across Greater Los Angeles from 2015 to 2023. The researchers then tracked the women’s mental health for up to three years after they gave birth. Scientists found that the women who were exposed to higher levels of nitrogen dioxide and inhalable particulate pollution — two prevalent forms of air pollution — during their second trimester were nearly four times as likely to experience depression up to 3 years after their pregnancy. (Briscoe, 10/5)

CalMatters: Woman Sterilized In CA Prison: 'I Would Have Been A Great Mom'
Geynna Buffington knew she had little time to become pregnant once she was released from prison at age 40. For over a year, she tried to have a baby. She didn’t know pregnancy would be unlikely because of a procedure she had nearly a decade earlier. In 1998, while Buffington was incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, she underwent an “endometrial ablation” in order to treat what a prison doctor had told her was an abnormal pap smear. The procedure destroys the uterine lining and should not be done for people who have any desire for future childbearing, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (Mihalovich, 10/7)

The Washington Post: Vance Says Trump Administration Would End Funding To Planned Parenthood
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), former president Donald Trump’s running mate, said that Trump, if elected, would seek to end federal money for Planned Parenthood. “We don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance told RealClearPolitics on Saturday night. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around, it will remain a consistent view.” Vance’s comments on Saturday against one of the biggest reproductive health care providers in the nation stand in stark contrast to recent positioning by himself, Trump and other Republicans on the issue of reproductive rights. (Alfaro and Cha, 10/6)

Stat: Trump Policy On Drug Pricing: Abandons Most Favored Nations Idea
Former President Trump is backing off his support for a controversial drug pricing plan that struck fear into the hearts of pharmaceutical executives during his first term. Trump in 2020 signed an executive order to make sure that Medicare didn’t pay more for prescription drugs than other developed countries. The aggressive policy could have slashed more than $10 billion per year from the pharmaceutical industry’s bottom line. The Biden administration ultimately rescinded the policy following a court order that stopped the program from going into effect. (Zhang, 10/4)

The New York Times: Melinda French Gates’s New Life: Abortion Politics And Kamala Harris 
After her divorce from Bill Gates, Ms. French Gates came into her own billions of dollars, with which she could do whatever she chose. She used to insist on appearing nonpartisan, but no more. (Schleifer, 10/6)

The New York Times: Supreme Court ‘Ghost Guns’ Case Has Major Implications For An Industry In Flux
The number of untraceable homemade guns recovered at crime scenes has fallen since the enactment of rules restricting the sale of the weapons, according to law enforcement statistics. (Thrush, 10/7)

Politico: The Supreme Court’s Back. These 2024 Election Cases Could Land On Its Docket. 
Heading into the court’s opening session on Monday, the justices have agreed to hear 40 cases this term. None of those cases is nearly as consequential as the high court’s forays in recent years into abortion, affirmative action and gun rights. The cases on tap do include some politically sensitive disputes, like a fight over a Tennessee law banning hormone treatments for transgender minors. There’s also an argument set for Tuesday on the Biden administration’s effort to ban so-called “ghost guns,” which are assembled from kits purchased over the internet and are often untraceable. Another case tests a new Texas law that requires visitors to porn websites to provide identification proving they’re over 18. (Gerstein,10/7)

CNN: Nobel Prize In Medicine Goes To Victor Ambros And Gary Ruvkun For Work On The Discovery Of MicroRNA
This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor, seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement, in Sweden on Monday. It praised the American biologists’ “groundbreaking discovery,” which the committee said “revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation.” Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted the research that earned him the prize at Harvard University. Ruvkun conducted his research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. (Edwards, 10/7)

CNN: 5 Nobel-Worthy Discoveries That Haven’t Won The Prize
There is no shortage of Nobel-worthy discoveries: Here are five breakthroughs that haven’t resulted in a life-changing call from Stockholm — at least not yet. (Hunt, 10/7)