CalMatters: California Prison Heat Complaints Prompt Cooling Pilot Program
As climate change exacerbates the risks of extreme heat across California, the state’s prison officials plan to embark on a $38 million pilot program to figure out how to keep their prison cells cool. It comes after years of complaints from prisoners about dangerous temperatures during the state’s brutal summer heat waves, warnings by advocates that the problem will only get worse as the planet warms and the death of an incarcerated woman last year during California’s hottest month on record — which officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation insist was unrelated to the heat. (Kuang, 9/4)

Times Of San Diego: Trump’s FEMA Cuts Likely To Harm Disaster Response, Congress’ Watchdog Agency Warns
The Trump administration’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency are putting the country at risk of being unprepared to respond to massive natural disasters this year, Congress’ watchdog agency warned this week. (Kramer, 9/4)

Bay Area News Group: Trump's Cuts To Health Funding Could Endanger Life-Saving Services Around The Bay Area. How One County Is Trying To Save Them.
Across the Bay Area, public hospitals are grappling with fiscal uncertainty as a result of cuts to Medicaid. In the East Bay, the Alameda Health System is considering what CEO James Jackson called the “nuclear option” for its future budget as 70-80% of its funding comes from federal and state health care reimbursements. Santa Clara County, though, is the only Bay Area county currently considering a sales tax measure in November to plug some of the hole. (Hase, 9/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Palomar Health's Marketing Firm Skews Survey Results: Report
The marketing firm for Escondido, Calif.-based Palomar Health attempted to tilt the results of a survey about the health system’s emergency department, the Valley Roadrunner in Valley Center, Calif., reported. In late August, the newspaper posted a survey asking readers to weigh in on their experiences at the Palomar Medical Center Escondido emergency department. (Bruce, 9/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: City Of Hope Brings Disney-Style Immersion To Spiritual Care
Whenever Annette Walker, president of Irvine, Calif.-based City of Hope Orange County, has entered a hospital’s spiritual care center, typically she sees one of two things. “Either they look like a white conference room and they’re so neutral that they don’t offend anybody, but they also don’t inspire anybody,” she told Becker’s. “Or they pick one denomination, but then what happens to all the rest of the people who don’t get the comfort and the opportunity that they should also have?” (Kuchno, 9/4)

Becker's Hospital Review: Fewer Than Half Of Cardiovascular Trial Participants Are Women: 3 Things To Know
Women represent 41% of participants in clinical trials investigating cardiovascular health and disease, according to a study published Aug. 31 in JAMA Network Open. Led by researchers from Los Angeles-based Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, the study analyzed participant data of 1,079 cardiovascular clinical trials from between 2017 and 2023, a Sept. 2 news release from the health system said. (Gregerson, 9/4)

Fierce Healthcare: Trump Administration Expands Access To ACA Catastrophic Plans
The Trump administration unveiled plans to expand access to catastrophic plans on the Affordable Care Act's (ACA's) exchanges as the expiry of enhanced premium tax credits looms. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Thursday that consumers who do not qualify for the advanced subsidies or cost-sharing reductions can apply for a hardship exemption beginning Nov. 1, the first day of open enrollment for the marketplaces. (Minemyer, 9/4)

Modern Healthcare: ACA Enrollment Appeal Forces Insurers To Retool Prices For 2026
A federal court ruling could drive many exchange insurers to scrap their plans for 2026 — again. Perhaps ironically, the latest complication facing health insurance exchange carriers is connected to a legal victory against a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulation that likely would suppress exchange membership. (Tepper, 9/4)

The New York Times: Health Care Costs For Workers Begin To Climb
Employees of large and small companies are likely to face higher health care costs, with increases in premiums, bigger deductibles or co-pays, and will possibly lose some benefits next year, according to a large survey of companies nationwide that was released on Thursday. The survey of 1,700 companies, conducted by Mercer, a benefits consultant, indicated that employers are anticipating the sharpest increases in medical costs in about 15 years. Higher drug costs, rising hospital prices and greater demand for care are all contributing factors, experts said. (Abelson, 9/4)

Los Angeles Times: Defiant RFK Jr. Questions Vaccine Data, Defends Record Under Bipartisan Senate Grilling
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s Health secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, struck a defiant tone Thursday as he faced bipartisan criticism over changes he has made to reorganize federal health agencies and vaccine policies, telling senators that he is determined to “eliminate politics from science.” In the testy appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy repeatedly defended his record in heated exchanges with senators from both parties and questioned data that show the effectiveness of vaccines. In turn, senators accused him of taking actions that contradict his promise seven months earlier that he would do “nothing that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.” (Ceballos, 9/4)

Politico: RFK Jr. Says CDC Director’s Firing Is Just A Start 
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no plans to try to lower the temperature around the upheaval he’s caused at his department. “We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at the CDC. They did not do their job,” Kennedy said. “I need to fire some of those people to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” (Levien, 9/4)

The Guardian: RFK Jr Hints Access To Key Abortion Drug Could Be Cut Back 
The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has suggested that Biden-era regulations expanding access to abortion pills could be rolled back because the Biden administration had “twisted the data” behind the pills. Kennedy made the remark more than an hour into a tense interrogation by members of the US Senate judiciary committee over his chaotic tenure at the health department, which has been marked by thousands of layoffs and the promotion of leaders with little background in public health and medicine. (Sherman, 9/4)

MedPage Today: RFK Jr. Botches Basic Facts At Senate Hearing
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly cited inaccurate numbers and gave evasive responses to simple queries from lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Thursday, with one frustrated senator casting the cabinet head as "ignorant." Responding to Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who raised concerns about the overprescription of stimulants and their side effects in kids, Kennedy stated that one in every five children in the U.S. takes these medications. (Firth, 9/4)

Stat: Trump Administration Confirms Plan For PEPFAR To Distribute Gilead's New HIV Prevention Drug 
After months of uncertainty, the Trump administration confirmed that it will work with Gilead Sciences and The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to provide a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug to up to 2 million people in low- and middle-income countries. (Silverman and Mast, 9/4)

Vox: RFK Jr. And Trump Silenced A Groundbreaking Report On Cancer And Alcohol
Scientists provided the Trump administration with evidence of alcohol’s harms. Here’s why you still haven’t seen this new study. (Scott, 9/4)

Bay Area Reporter: SF LGBTQ Health Agency Plans For Future Under Trump
Staff at the San Francisco Community Health Center never stop moving, and certainly haven't since the beginning of the Trump administration's second term in January. Since H.R.1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, was signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4, staff have not only seen an increase in anxiety and uncertainty, but have also had to invest more labor in ensuring their clients continue to be enrolled in their health coverage. (Collins, 9/4)

The Washington Post: DOJ Discusses A Potential Ban On Transgender People Owning Firearms 
Senior Justice Department officials have held multiple meetings since last week’s deadly Minneapolis Catholic school shooting to consider banning transgender people from owning firearms, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The talks — described as in the early stages by the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations — began after a 23-year-old transgender person allegedly carried out the Aug. 27 shooting that killed two children and injured 17 others during a Mass at Annunciation Catholic School. (Stein and Allison, 9/4)

AP: LSD Shows Promise For Reducing Anxiety In Drugmaker's Midstage Study
LSD reduced symptoms of anxiety in a midstage study published Thursday, paving the way for additional testing and possible medical approval of a psychedelic drug that has been banned in the U.S. for more than a half century. The results from drugmaker Mindmed tested several doses of LSD in patients with moderate-to-severe generalized anxiety disorder, with the benefits lasting as long as three months. The company plans to conduct follow-up studies to confirm the results and then apply for Food and Drug Administration approval. (Perrone, 9/4)

The New York Times: A Pill to Heal the Brain Could Revolutionize Neuroscience
Neurologists are exploring medications that would help the brain recover after a stroke or traumatic injury. (Gross, 9/4)

Los Angeles Times: I Got COVID And Can't Smell. But RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Policies Still Stink
It has to be a fever-induced hallucination. There’s no other way to explain why, as COVID surges yet again with another bugger of a strain, the best tool against the virus — vaccine — is under full assault by the Trump administration. They are making it harder, rather than easier, to get medicine recommended by the overwhelming majority of the legitimate, non-crackpot wing of the medical community. (Steve Lopez, 9/2)

Los Angeles Blade: A Call To Act, Not Just Observe, This Suicide Prevention Month: If We Meant It, We Would Fund It
September is Suicide Prevention Month, a time to address often-ignored painful truths and readdress what proactivity looks like. For those of us who have lost someone they love to suicide, prevention is not just another campaign. It is a constant pang that stays. To lose someone you love to suicide is to have the color in your life dimmed. It is beyond language. Nothing one can type, nothing one can say to a therapist, no words can ever convey this new brand of hurting we never imagined before. It is an open cut so deep that it never truly, fully heals. (AJ Sloan, 9/2)

Times of San Diego: California’s Hidden Housing Tax Will Deepen Racial, Economic Inequities
California is home to some of the most diverse and vibrant communities in the nation, but beneath that diversity lies a persistent and growing inequality in housing access. At Two Hundred for Homeownership we fight every day to break down the systemic barriers that keep too many Californians from safe, stable, and affordable housing. We know firsthand that housing is more than a roof over your head. It’s the foundation of health, education, opportunity, and dignity. (Robert Apodaca, 8/31)

San Francisco Chronicle: The Microdosing Mirage: What Science Says About The Bay Area's Latest Wellness Trend
Walk through any San Francisco coffee shop these days and you’ll likely overhear conversations about “microdosing” — taking tiny amounts of LSD or psilocybin mushrooms every few days to boost creativity, focus and mood. Tech executives call it a game changer. Wellness influencers dub it a breakthrough. Your yoga teacher swears it enhanced their downward dog. (Elliot Marseille and Charles Raison, 8/31)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Ending Medi‑Cal Weight‑Loss Drug Coverage Could Cost The State 
California just cut off access to critical anti-obesity drugs for hundreds of thousands of patients. Under the new budget signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, Medi-Cal — the state’s Medicaid program — would no longer cover weight loss drugs, such as Wegovy and Zepbound, unless they’re prescribed to treat diabetes. (Kenneth E. Thorpe, 9/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Is About To Outlaw My Survival With Its Ban On RV Parking
Let’s cut the crap: by enacting strict new limits on recreational vehicle parking, San Francisco’s leaders aren’t “managing” a housing crisis. They’re manufacturing one. (Mike Little, 9/2)