The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County’s Emergency Department For Psychiatric Patients Reopens After Months Of Mold Remediation 
Sonoma County’s Crisis Stabilization Unit, a secure, overnight emergency department for psychiatric patients, reopened this month, roughly six months after it was shut down due to a severe mold infestation. (Espinoza, 2/21)

Los Angeles Times: Nude Pics Of Beverly Hills Patients Exposed In Hack, Lawsuit Alleges
A celebrity Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, who has appeared on television shows including “Botched” and “The Doctors,” is being sued by patients who allege that their nude photos were published online after he was hacked — twice — and that he waited months to inform them of the data breaches. Eight patients filed a class-action lawsuit earlier this month alleging that Dr. Jaime Schwartz had failed to maintain adequate cybersecurity despite multiple warnings, resulting in highly sensitive information being stolen and posted online. (Harter, 2/22)

The Hill: Ozempic And Wegovy Officially Moved Off FDA's Drug Shortage List
Ozempic and Wegovy, the widely popular forms of semaglutide sold to treat diabetes and obesity, have officially been removed from the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug shortage list nearly four months after the agency found the drugs to be available. The FDA’s drug shortage list now states that as of Feb. 21, 2025, the shortages of Ozempic and Wegovy injections are over. The shortages were first declared in August 2022. (Choi, 2/21)

Los Angeles Times: Fire Debris Is Washing Up On L.A.’s Beaches. County Officials Warn The Public To Steer Clear
The gunk has turned up on shorelines from Malibu to Redondo Beach: ghostly lines of charred black bits and melted debris left behind by retreating waves. It’s a mix of ash, sand and pulverized flecks of burned wood and plastic, material destroyed during January’s fires and then washed into the sea by recent rains. (Purtill, 2/24)

Los Angeles Times: Lawmakers Try To Tackle The Mental And Emotional Effects Of Wildfires
Insurance providers in California would be required to reimburse patients who seek mental health care after a natural disaster under proposed legislation to address the emotional and mental trauma of wildfire victims. The Eaton and Palisades fires starting on Jan. 7 burned through large swaths of Los Angeles County, destroying over 11,000 buildings, resulting in 29 deaths and around $30 billion in property damage. Experts and legislators anticipate that the devastation will likely leave lasting emotional and physical scars on residents whose lives were upended by the tragedies. (Sosa, 2/21)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Had A New Emergency Alert System. Did That Hurt West Altadena?
Genasys, a leading provider of emergency alert software, had a tempting pitch for California counties looking for a seamless way to send evacuations orders with a click of a button. Lured by a better price and shinier features, Riverside, Inyo and Monterey counties made the switch to Genasys after spending about a year testing, debugging and training staff on the software. Los Angeles County, on the other hand, waited just three weeks before deploying Genasys in early December, according to metadata from archived alerts. One month later, the system was put to the ultimate test as devastating wildfires erupted across the county on Jan. 7. (Ellis, 2/22)

Stat: Some FDA Employees Fired By The Trump Administration Are Rehired
The Trump administration has started quietly rehiring some of the Food and Drug Administration employees it fired last week, according to nine agency sources, shortly after letting them go in a process that insiders described as abrupt and haphazard. The total number of employees rehired is unclear, but in at least some cases the reinstatements appeared to be broad. (Lawrence, 2/23)

NPR: Trump To Put 4,700 USAID Employees On Leave, Eliminate 1,600 Jobs
The Trump administration is putting nearly all of USAID's 4,700 full-time employees on paid administrative leave at midnight Sunday and will subsequently terminate 1,600 of those positions as part of a "reduction in force," according to a memo that was widely distributed to agency staff Sunday afternoon and later published on the USAID website. The memo says that the terminated positions will be U.S.-based. (Tanis and Schreiber, 2/23)

CBS News: Mental Health Agency Loses 1 In 10 Staffers To DOGE Cuts, 988 Hotline Team Impacted
More than 10% of the staff working for the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were fired this month as part of the government-wide cuts to recently hired federal workers ordered by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force. The cuts amounted to around 100 probationary workers, multiple current and former federal health officials told CBS News, and affected multiple teams around the department, ranging from recently hired directors of SAMHSA's regional offices to staff working on projects related to the 988 hotline for people facing mental health crises, which the agency oversees. (Tin, 2/22)

The Washington Post: HUD Cuts Expected To Worsen America’s Housing Crisis, Staffers Say
Sharp cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban Development are likely to upend housing markets, make homes less affordable and roil mortgage transactions, according to current and former employees, contractors and housing experts. (Siegel, 2/23)

ProPublica: Anxiety Mounts Among Social Security Recipients as DOGE Troops Settle In
Their first wave of actions — initiating the elimination of 41 jobs and the closing of at least 10 local offices, so far — was largely lost in the rush of headlines. Those first steps might seem restrained compared with the mass firings that DOGE has pursued at other federal agencies. But Social Security recipients rely on in-person service in all 50 states, and the shuttering of offices, reported on DOGE’s website to include locations everywhere from rural West Virginia to Las Vegas, could be hugely consequential. The closures potentially reduce access to Social Security for some of the most vulnerable people in this country — including not just retirees but also individuals with severe physical and intellectual disabilities, as well as children whose parents have died and who’ve been left in poverty. (Hager, 2/22)

The Hill: White House Restores 9/11 Health Program Funding After Uproar
The White House restored funding for the 9/11 first responder survivors’ health program after an uproar from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle ensued following the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) cuts last week. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, one of the eight New York and New Jersey GOP lawmakers who urged President Trump to reverse course, said Thursday night that the legislators “received confirmation from the White House that there will be no cuts to staffing at the World Trade Center Healthcare Program and research grants related to 9/11 illnesses.” (Timotija, 2/21)

Los Angeles Times: Children's Hospital Lifts Limits On Hormonal Therapy For Trans Youth
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles said Friday that it is easing its recent restrictions on hormonal treatment for transgender youth, reversing a move that had set off weekly protests outside the hospital. The hospital earlier this month had paused the initiation of hormonal therapy for “gender affirming care patients” under the age of 19 as hospital officials assessed an executive order issued by President Trump. (Alpert Reyes, 2/21)

The Bay Area Reporter: California LGBTQ Nonprofits Join Lambda Legal Lawsuit Against Trump Administration Over DEI
The CEOs of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the San Francisco Community Health Center acknowledged that they have received stop-work orders or termination notices for federal funds as a result of Republican President Donald Trump's executive orders attacking DEI initiatives and the erasure of transgender people. The two nonprofits are among eight that filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration and three of its executive orders. (Ferrannini and Laird, 2/20)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Groups Challenge Trump’s Anti-Trans Orders In Federal Court
The San Francisco Community Health Center provides care to more than 5,000 of the city’s poorest residents each year, on the streets, in tent camps and at its clinic in the Tenderloin. Close to half of its $10 million annual budget comes from the federal government, and that will be cut off unless the center obeys President Donald Trump’s orders to halt transgender care and other services related to “diversity” or “equity.” (Egelko, 2/21)

Bay Area News Group: An Unconventional Treatment For Meth Addicts - Gift Card Payments - Takes Off In The Bay Area
An intriguing experiment in drug treatment is quietly unfolding in the Bay Area. The idea? Rewarding methamphetamine users who get clean with gift cards to Burger King, Walmart and other stores. (Stringer, 2/24)

Fox News: New Bat Coronavirus Discovered In China Sparks Pandemic Concerns
The discovery of a new bat coronavirus in China has sparked concerns about another pandemic. The virus, named HKU5-CoV-2, is similar to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in that it targets the same human receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE2), according to a report in the South China Morning Post. HKU5-CoV-2 could potentially lead to human-to-human or even cross-species transmission, the researchers found. (Rudy, 2/23)

Los Angeles Times: H5N1 Bird Flu Found In Four Southern California Rats
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has added black rats to the growing list of mammals that have been infected by H5N1 bird flu. The rats were located in Riverside County, and news reports suggest they were living in an area where two infected poultry farms had recently been identified. The discovery of H5N1 in black rats — a typically urban species — provides another route for potential exposure to humans and their pets. The virus can be transmitted via droppings, urine, blood and saliva. The rats also provide a vessel for the virus to move between farms and houses. (Rust, 2/21)

CIDRAP: Can Avian Flu Spread Via The Wind? Can't Be Ruled Out, Experts Say
A non–peer-reviewed study published on the preprint server bioRxiv suggests that highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus shed in poultry droppings can be transmitted by the wind, a possibility that other experts say can't be ruled out but is also very difficult to prove. The report centers on a February 2024 outbreak of H5N1 avian flu among unrelated commercial poultry farms located about 8 kilometers (5 miles) apart in the Czech Republic during the 2023-24 HPAI season. (Van Beusekom, 2/21)

San Diego Union-Tribune: ‘It Feels Like We’re Being Set Up To Fail’: Local Efforts To Fight Pollution Face Federal Funding Uncertainty 
As a single mother raising her son in Barrio Logan nearly 40 years ago, Diane Bolivar Armenta never knew when she might need to pick him up from school early and race him to the doctor. He had asthma, and during the day he would often experience a tightness in his chest, blueness under his eyes and difficulty breathing. (Fox, 2/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Do Melatonin, Magnesium And CBD Really Help You Sleep?
When we put a call out to readers this month to send us their questions and concerns about sleep and aging, one of the most asked-about topics was sleep aids. Indeed, social media and drugstore aisles alike teem with a litany of supplements, gummies and teas that claim to promote sleep. So we posed the question to several sleep doctors and researchers: What’s been proven to work, and what hasn’t? (Ho, 2/23)