Becker's Hospital Review: Workers At Providence California Hospital Vote To Unionize
Workers at Providence’s Healdsburg Hospital in California have voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers. The vote covers nearly 200 workers at the 43-bed hospital, including registered nurses, nursing assistants, respiratory therapists, housekeepers and medical technicians, according to a union news release shared with Becker’s. Of 193 eligible voters, 104 voted for unionization March 25 and 27 voted against it, results from the National Labor Relations Board show. (Gooch, 4/3)

Capital & Main: Have Skilled Nursing Facilities Become Dumping Grounds For The Mentally Ill?
A couple of years ago, the trickle became a flood. Christina Lockyer-White had long known that the skilled nursing facility where she worked in Bakersfield was receiving more mental health patients than it previously housed but, after the pandemic, those numbers appeared to skyrocket. ... These new patients require a different level of care, claims Lockyer-White, who adds that their mental health issues are often intertwined with drug addiction. They act out, sometimes violently: “We began to come to work every day knowing we were going to get verbally abused. I’ve seen nurses get hit.” (Kreidler, 4/3)

Becker's Hospital Review: Fitch Upgrades Prime Healthcare's Credit Rating
Fitch upgraded Ontario-based Prime Healthcare’s rating to “A-” from “BBB+.”The upgrade is based on Prime’s continued improvement in operating results in 2024 and “very strong unrestricted balance sheet resources compared to its debt position,” Fitch said in an April 2 report. Fitch expects operations to remain positive over time, which should support further liquidity growth. (Cass, 4/3)

CalMatters: No More Calling 'Shotgun?' California Could Ban Teens From Riding In The Front Seat
Calling “shotgun” to ride in the front seat may no longer be an option for small-sized California middle and high schoolers. (Sabalow, 4/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: ‘We Watched Her Suffer And Begged For Answers, But None Came’
Senate Bill 29, for which [Erica] Cole testified in Sacramento this week, seeks to extend the right to sue for pain and suffering damages on behalf of a deceased loved one beyond its scheduled expiration at the end of the year. (Sisson, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Gives Schools 10 Days To Eliminate DEI Or Lose Federal Funding
The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on K-12 schools in California and across the nation to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion practices by giving districts and states a deadline of 10 days to certify their compliance or risk losing all federal funding. Although federal funding for education is challenging to calculate and arrives through multiple channels, some tallies put the figure at $16.3 billion per year in California — including money for school meals, students with disabilities and early education Head Start programs. (Blume, 4/3)

Stat: Senate Confirms Oz To Run Medicare And Medicaid 
In a party-line vote of 53-45, the Senate on Thursday confirmed Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz’s confirmation was expected; he is not as controversial as Health and Human Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or some other Trump picks to run health agencies within the HHS. (Wilkerson, 4/3)

The Hill: Kennedy Suggests 20 Percent Of HHS Cuts May Be Reversed
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that he expects about 20 percent of fired employees to be reinstated as the agency backtracks after making cuts directed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “Some programs that were cut, they’re being reinstated,” Kennedy told reporters Thursday. “Personnel that should not have been cut were cut. We’re reinstating them.” (Irwin, 4/3)

The New York Times: Entire Staff Is Fired at Office That Helps Poorer Americans Pay for Heating
The Trump administration has abruptly laid off the entire staff running a $4.1 billion program to help low-income households across the United States pay their heating and cooling bills. The firings threaten to paralyze the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which was created by Congress in 1981 and helps to offset high utility bills for roughly 6.2 million people from Maine to Texas during frigid winters and hot summers. (Plumer, 4/2)

Modern Healthcare: FTC Chair To Join CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, OptumRx Case
Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson said he will get involved in the agency’s legal action against the leading pharmacy benefit managers. In a post shared Thursday on the social media platform X, Ferguson said he no longer is recusing himself from the matter. (Berryman, 4/3)

Stat: Advisory Panel On Ethical, Legal Issues In Human Health Research Disbanded
A committee of experts that advises the Department of Health and Human Services on emerging ethical and legal issues in human health research has been disbanded, according to an email obtained by STAT. (Molteni and Silverman, 4/3)

Stat: Trump's Drug Policy: Fentanyl Test Strips And 'Harshest' Penalties
The Trump administration vows to emphasize addiction treatment alongside an enforcement-first drug policy, according to a not-yet-public strategy document obtained by STAT. In an effort to reduce overdose deaths caused by fentanyl and other illicit substances, the administration plans to “disrupt the supply chain from tooth to tail,” according to the document, known as the Statement of Drug Policy Priorities. (Facher, 4/3)

MedPage Today: Over 350K Health Workers Face Deportation Risk
More than 350,000 noncitizen healthcare workers in the U.S. may be at risk of deportation as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, researchers estimated. Based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) from March 2024, there were over 20 million individuals making up the workforce across formal and informal healthcare settings nationwide, of whom an estimated 16.7 million were U.S.-born citizens, 2.3 million naturalized citizens, nearly 700,000 documented noncitizens, and over 366,500 undocumented immigrants. (Lou, 4/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Hep B's Impact On Asian Americans A Concern Amid HHS Layoffs
When Wendy Lo was pregnant with her first child, she lost sleep over whether she would transmit her chronic Hepatitis B infection to him. Her doctor reassured her that if they vaccinated him within 24 hours of birth, the risk was extremely low. Born in China’s southern Guangdong province in the 1970s, Lo had contracted the virus at birth from her mother. “As a first-time pregnant woman, there’s a gazillion things already to worry about,” said Lo, now 52. “The challenge as someone living with Hep B is because we don’t have the space to talk about it, you deal with it in silence.” (Lyn Cheang, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: Nearly 3 Months After L.A. Fires, 30th Victim Discovered In Altadena Ruins
Nearly three months after flames engulfed Altadena, the death toll from the Eaton fire climbed to 18 on Wednesday after investigators with the L.A. County Medical Examiner’s Office discovered human remains. A six-person special operations response team responded Wednesday to the 900 block of Boston Street to investigate potential human remains, the Medical Examiner’s Office said in a statement. After conducting an investigation, the team confirmed that the remains were human. (Jarvie, 4/3)

Reuters: Several Companies Must Face Lawsuit Over Tainted Baby Food, US Judge Rules 
A U.S. judge said several companies including Walmart, Beech-Nut and Gerber must face a nationwide lawsuit claiming that toxic heavy metals contaminated their baby food, causing brain and neurodevelopmental damage to children who ate it. In a decision on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley said parents can try to prove that defective manufacturing, negligence and failure to warn about more than 600 baby food products caused their children to suffer autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. (Stempel, 4/3)

ProPublica: Unsanitary Practices Persist at Baby Formula Factory Whose Shutdown Led to Mass Shortages, Workers Say
Workers at one of the nation’s largest baby formula plants say the Abbott Laboratories facility is engaging in unsanitary practices similar to those that led it to temporarily shut down just three years ago, sparking a nationwide formula shortage. Current and former employees told ProPublica that they have seen the plant in Sturgis, Michigan, take shortcuts when cleaning manufacturing equipment and testing for microbes. The employees said leaks in the factory are sometimes not fixed, a dangerous problem that can promote bacterial growth. They also said workers at the facility do not always take required swabs to check for pathogens while performing maintenance during production. Supervisors have urged workers to increase production and have retaliated against workers who complained about problems, the employees said. (Vogell, 4/4)

NBC News: It Doesn't Take Much For Microplastics To Leach Into Food, Researchers Warn
Scientists are finding microplastics everywhere from brain tissue to arteries and warning of the health risks posed by their buildup inside our bodies. They’re also discovering just how easily the tiny particles get there. Microplastics don’t just shed off of plastic items from overuse, like when a water bottle breaks down over weeks or months of being washed and refilled. They also leach into our food and drinks with even the brief use of a product with plastic components, alarming scientists. (Steinberg and Nguyen, 4/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: People In This Rural California Town Are Dying Of Rodent-Borne Virus
Three people in Mammoth Lakes (Mono County) have died of hantavirus, the rodent-borne virus that killed Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, health officials announced Thursday. Human cases of hantavirus — which spreads through contact with infected deer mice — are rare. Fewer than 100 California residents have been diagnosed with the respiratory illness since 1980, according to the state Department of Public Health. “Three cases this early in the year is strikingly unusual,” Mono County spokesperson Justin Caporusso told the Chronicle. (Mishanec, 4/3)

CBS News: RFK Jr. Cuts CDC Labs Investigating Outbreaks Of STDs And Hepatitis
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has eliminated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's laboratories for sexually transmitted diseases and hepatitis, multiple officials tell CBS News, disrupting ongoing work to respond to outbreaks. Lab staff were informed this week of the cuts as part of the 10,000 layoffs done around the Department of Health and Human Services. Within the agency, officials are now warning of delays and disruptions to testing as a result. (Tin, 4/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Veterans Risked Their Lives For The U.S. Now They Risk Losing Benefits
President Trump often proclaimed, “We love our vets,” on the campaign trail. But his professions are hypocritical and hollow: His actions as president hurt those who served this country in uniform — an honorable duty Trump spinelessly shirked and has privately mocked. Activists will rally in San Francisco, Oakland and cities across the nation Saturday to protest Trump’s federal budget cuts, with many demonstrations highlighting the hardships military veterans will face as a result of Trump’s benefit rollbacks. (Garofoli, 4/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Needs Thousands More Nurses But Lacks Space To Train Them
As dean of the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing at UC Irvine, I witness an alarming paradox each year: Thousands of bright, motivated students apply to our undergraduate nursing program. Research shows that nurses who graduate with a bachelor of science degree receive more in-depth education in evidence-based practice, public health and leadership, leading to better patient outcomes, including lower mortality and fewer hospital-acquired infections. (Mark Lazenby, 4/4)

Los Angeles Times: RFK Jr. Tries To Revive An Autism Myth
Given that a hallmark of the Trump administration is the gulf between its appointees’ responsibilities and their qualifications for their jobs, it may be hard to pick out the quintessential example of the wrong person in the wrong place. But the Department of Health and Human Services may have a winner. He’s David A. Geier, a well-known anti-vaccine activist who has reportedly been assigned the job of reviewing the supposed link between vaccination and autism. (Michael Hiltzik, 4/1)

Orange County Register: California Must Fulfill Its Commitments To People With Developmental Disabilities 
As the only developmental disabilities entitlement in the country, the Lanterman Act is a California law that was established in 1967 to ensure that Californians with developmental disabilities and their families have access to services and supports needed that are guaranteed by the law. (Jeff Gonzalez and Amy Westling, 4/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Children With Disabilities Imperiled By SDUSD Retirements 
San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) is considering reconfiguring its budget, and is incentivizing experienced teachers to retire early to do so. This would directly harm students — especially those with disabilities — resulting in a severe impact on their education and lives into adulthood. (James Goldberg and Sam A. Streuli, 4/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Does Harm Reduction Still Have A Future In San Francisco?
As Mayor Daniel Lurie’s administration calls for ending the distribution of fentanyl smoking supplies on city sidewalks, some are asking if harm reduction strategies should continue to play a part in San Francisco’s response to drug addiction. They definitely should, as long as some critical realities are borne in mind. (Keith Humphreys, 3/31)