CalMatters: This California Ballot Measure Promises Money For Health Care. Its Critics Warn It Could Backfire 
Prop. 35 would take an existing tax on health insurance plans and use the money to increase payment to doctors and other providers who see Medi-Cal patients. Its supporters have raised $50 million, drawing from groups representing hospitals, doctors and insurers. (Hwang, 10/8)

Los Angeles Times: California Officials Announce Settlements With L.A. Care Health Plan Over Fines
California officials announced Tuesday that they had reached settlements totaling $55 million with L.A. Care, a publicly operated health plan serving Medi-Cal patients in Los Angeles County. L.A. Care had been facing $55 million in fines for what one state official had described in 2022 as “deep-rooted, systemic failures that threaten the health and safety of its members.” State regulators said such failures were jeopardizing timely access to medical care for vulnerable patients. (Alpert Reyes, 10/8)

Los Angeles Times: Measure A Homeless Sales Tax Edges Closer To The 50% Majority Needed For Passage 
A measure on the November ballot that would double the county’s quarter-percent homeless sales tax is edging closer to the majority it would need to pass in a new poll of likely Los Angeles County voters. Those saying they would vote for the measure outnumbered those opposing by 49% to 33% in a survey taken in late September, widening its lead by 5 percentage points over responses to an earlier poll. In August, 47% of likely voters said they would vote yes and 36% no. The percentage of voters who were undecided remained at 17%. (Smith, 10/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Harris Wants To Help Families Pay For In-Home Health Care
 Kamala Harris wants to expand home care services for seniors if she wins the White House, a position that is politically popular but would require the support of what will likely be a divided Congress. Harris announced her efforts to ease the burden on seniors and their families in an interview Tuesday on “The View.” She also highlighted her plan to assist families with the high costs of raising children. (Stein, 10/8)

Modern Healthcare: Medicare Advantage Insurers Bank On Special Needs Plans In 2025
Investing in products for individuals with complex medical needs has emerged as a key tactic for health insurers endeavoring to revive Medicare Advantage margins. Leading insurance companies pulled back slightly from Medicare Advantage for the coming plan year amid financial strains but are continuing a big push into the market for Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans, or D-SNPs, which cover people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, according to analyses of preliminary data about the 2025 Medicare Advantage marketplace. (Berryman, 10/9)

Axios: Scoop: Medicare Pilot Aims For $2 Generic Drugs
The Biden administration on Wednesday will release a preliminary list of generic drugs that would be made available to Medicare recipients under a pilot program for no more than $2 out of pocket. The initiative — which covers common drugs for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions — aims to test whether offering low-cost generics can boost seniors' medication adherence and health outcomes, while giving them more certainty on out-of-pocket costs. (Goldman, 10/9)

The New York Times: On Drug Prices, Harris Pushes For Deeper Cuts While Trump Offers Few Specifics
Insulin for $35 a month. A limit of $2,000 a year in out-of-pocket drug costs for older Americans. Billions of dollars in savings for Medicare resulting from drug negotiations. Whether these policies expand or, in the case of the negotiations, survive at all may be determined by the election in November. (Abelson and Robbins, 10/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: Cedars-Sinai Joins Asian American Cancer Initiative
Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai is participating in the National Cancer Institute's first long-term national study of cancer among Asian Americans. Led by the University of California San Francisco, the study aims to learn why Asian Americans experience higher rates of cancer compared to other groups. (Gregerson, 10/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: ChatGPT Overprescribed Emergency Treatment: UCSF Study
ChatGPT is more likely to overprescribe medications and imaging and is less effective than a resident in emergency department care, a University of California San Francisco study found. The study, published Oct. 8 in Nature Communications, compiled a set of 1,000 of UCSF Health's ED visits with the same ratio of "yes" to "no" responses for decision on admission, radiology and antibiotics. Researchers entered the physician's notes on each patient's symptoms and examination findings into ChatGPT-3.5 and ChatGPT-4. (Taylor, 10/8)

The Washington Post: 2 New Alzheimer’s Drugs May Help Early Stage Patients Manage The Disease
When Dennis Carr learned he had early Alzheimer’s disease, he immediately thought of his older brother who had died of the illness in 2023. “There was not much anyone could do,” Carr said of his brother’s long decline. “You could see him diminishing.” Today, Carr is trying a new treatment called Leqembi that has been shown to modestly slow the disease for people in the initial stages of Alzheimer’s. Carr knows it is not a cure but he wants to buy time — to be with his family, to work and to give scientists a chance to find more solutions. (McGinley, 10/8)

AP: Nobel Prize In Chemistry Awarded To 3 Scientists For Work On Proteins, Building Blocks Of Life
The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to three scientists for their breakthrough work predicting and even designing the structure of proteins, the building blocks of life. The prize was awarded to David Baker, who works at the University of Washington in Seattle, and to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, who both work at Google DeepMind, a British-American artificial intelligence research laboratory based in London. (Niemann and Corder, 10/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Rady Children’s Hospital Lands Spot On U.S. News Honor Roll For Second Year 
For the second consecutive year, U.S. News and World Report has named Rady Children’s Hospital to its annual honor roll, designating the San Diego facility among the 10 best of its kind nationwide. (Sisson, 10/8)

Politico: Agreeing To Disagree On Safeguarding Health Info
Providers, health IT groups and reproductive health care advocates largely support a proposed HHS rule to make health data, including public health information, easier to share while protecting patient privacy. But they disagree on the specific wording needed to protect reproductive health care data. Background: The rule, proposed in July, would standardize how public health departments transmit data among each other and to the CDC via certified protocols. (Cirruzzo and Leonard, 10/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: Feds Warn Of 'Double Extortion' Hackers Targeting Healthcare
Federal authorities are warning of a new ransomware gang that has already claimed at least one healthcare victim in the U.S. Trinity ransomware, which was first detected around May, uses tactics such as phishing emails, malicious websites and software vulnerabilities to hack organizations then employs "double extortion," according to an Oct. 4 notice from HHS' Office of Information Security and Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center. (Bruce, 10/8)

Reuters: GSK RSV Shot 43% Effective Against Severe Disease In Third Year
GSK said on Tuesday that its Arexvy respiratory syncytial virus vaccine was 43.3% effective in preventing severe illness in its third season after patients received the shot. That compares with 94.1% effectiveness in preventing severe RSV in the first season and 64.2% a year later, according to data from GSK's Phase 3 clinical trial. The trial initially enrolled about 25,000 volunteers in 17 countries. Arexvy is one of three RSV vaccines approved for use, alongside shots made by Pfizer and Moderna, with GSK's shot so far dominating the market. (10/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Exclusive | Abortion Pill Maker Is Seeking To Expand Its Use To Miscarriage
The drugmaker responsible for bringing the controversial abortion pill to the U.S. is now pursuing a new use that could widen women’s access: treating miscarriages. Danco Laboratories is preparing scientific data and taking other steps to ask the Food and Drug Administration to approve use of the abortion pill regimen Mifeprex for management of miscarriages, according to people familiar with the matter. (Essley Whyte, 10/8)

The Hill: Pharmacies Sue FDA Over Ending Mounjaro, Zepbound Shortage
A trade organization representing compounding pharmacies that make unbranded versions of the weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound has filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for declaring an end to the shortage, effectively halting the sale of “copycat” versions of these drugs. On Oct. 2, the FDA announced that the nearly two-year-long shortage of tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound, had ended. (Choi, 10/8)

Reuters: WeightWatchers To Offer Compounded Version Of Novo Nordisk's Weight-Loss Drug
WeightWatchers said on Tuesday it would offer a compounded version of Novo Nordisk's popular obesity drug Wegovy as part of its weight-management programs, sending its shares nearly 47% higher to an over two-month closing high. Soaring demand for weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound, shown to help patients lose as much as 20% of weight on average, has led to shortages that allowed drug compounders to produce them under U.S. regulations. (10/8)

Los Angeles Times: Severe COVID Raised Heart Attack, Stroke Risk, Study Found
People hospitalized for COVID-19 early in the pandemic suffered an increased risk of serious “cardiac events” such as heart attacks and strokes that was akin to people with a history of heart disease, a newly released study has found. Researchers from USC, UCLA and the Cleveland Clinic analyzed more than 10,000 COVID cases tracked by the UK Biobank to examine how COVID affected the risk of heart attacks and other cardiac threats. (Alpert Reyes, 10/9)

CIDRAP: FDA Authorizes Sale Of First Home COVID/Flu Combo Test Outside Of Emergency Use
As the country heads into the respiratory illness season, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced yesterday its marketing authorization of the first over-the-counter (OTC) rapid-antigen COVID-19/flu combination test outside of emergency use authorization. The Healgen Rapid Check COVID-19/Flu A&B Antigen Test takes 15 minutes to detect proteins from both COVID-19 and influenza A and B in nasal swabs. (Van Beusekom, 10/8)

AP: States Sue TikTok For Harming Children's Mental, Physical Health
More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia filed lawsuits against TikTok on Tuesday, saying that the popular short-form video app is designed to be addictive to kids and harms their mental health. The lawsuits stem from a national investigation into TikTok, which was launched in March 2022 by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from many states, including New York, California, Kentucky and New Jersey. All of the complaints were filed in state courts. (Hadero and Ortutay, 10/8)

The New York Times: 3% Of American High Schoolers Identify As Transgender, First National Survey Finds
About 3.3 percent of high school students identify as transgender and another 2.2 percent are questioning their gender identity, according to the first nationally representative survey on these groups, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday. Transgender and gender-questioning teenagers reported alarmingly higher rates of bullying at school, persistent sadness and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, according to the survey, which was carried out in 2023. (Ghorayshi, 10/8)

NPR: 250 Companies, Schools And Organizations Pledge To Provide Overdose Antidote Naloxone
White House officials say more than 250 companies, universities, labor groups and other organizations have joined a national effort to reduce drug overdose deaths. They’ve agreed to stock free doses of the medication naloxone, also known as Narcan, that quickly reverses most fentanyl-opioid overdoses. The list of participants joining the national naloxone push includes major corporations like Amazon, the National Hockey League, and United Airlines as well as some universities. Labor and contractor organizations have also signed on, along with restaurant and hospitality trade groups. (Mann, 10/8)

NPR: LGBTQ+ Women Face High Rates Of Trauma, Other Mental Health Issues, Report Finds
A leading national survey finds that 22% of LGBTQ+ women respondents have attempted suicide, and 66% reported seeking treatment for trauma. “The trauma burden in this community is enormous,” said Jaime Grant, one of the researchers who conducted the survey. (Roldan, 10/8)

Newsweek: Your Toothbrush Is Teeming With Unknown Viruses, Say Microbiologists
In a new study published in Frontiers in Microbiomes, researchers from Northwestern University collected samples from 32 toothbrushes and 92 showerheads across the United States and found hundreds of different viruses on their surfaces, many of which had never been seen before. "We may think of our toothbrushes and showerheads in one way, but in another sense, they are a habitat for microbes, a place where microbial ecology happens," the study's lead author, Erica Hartmann, told Newsweek. "It's a microbial world; we just live in it." (Dewan, 10/9)