Public Health Roundup: California Heat Waves Killed At Least 14, Hospitalized Hundreds Last Summer

KQED: How Hot Was It In California Homes Last Summer? Really Hot. Here's The Data
Heat kills people, even in the cool, coastal regions of California. Our investigation found that last year, two heat waves killed 14 people in the Bay Area, and sent hundreds more to the hospital. By our count, 79 percent of people who died started to experience heat illness at home. This year, a team of reporters and producers, with consulting from scientists, placed sensors inside dozens of homes around the state. (Peterson, 10/29)

Los Angeles Times: Cities In North Orange County Step Up With Housing For Homeless, With Santa Ana Leading The Way 
Following the high-profile removal of an illegal tent city near Angel Stadium, representatives of 13 cities in north Orange County on Monday say they are stepping up to offer a regional solution to temporary housing for the homeless — with Santa Ana leading the way. A shelter with 200 beds is nearly ready to open at an unnamed location in Santa Ana, according to officials. The staff at the nonprofit Mercy House — whose mission is to end homelessness locally — will be contracted to run the facility. The federal judge handling the civil rights lawsuits over the clearance of the homeless encampments called the plan “a role model for the county.” (Do, 10/29)

In other public health news from around the country: genealogical privacy, allergy labeling, doctors who treated the Pittsburgh shooting suspect, c-sections, gun-related injuries and more —

Capital Public Radio: Electronic Frontier Foundation Attorney On Protecting Privacy And Genetic Information
Investigators in the Golden State Killer case identified suspect Joseph James DeAngelo by tracing genetic information one of his relatives submitted to a genealogical website. Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation will discuss the implications of making this material available to investigators for privacy and civil liberties. (Ruyak, 10/29)

The Hill: FDA Takes Step Toward Requiring Allergy Labels For Sesame 
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday took a step to consider requiring sesame to be listed as an allergen on food labels. The request for information came in response to growing concerns about the prevalence of allergies to sesame seeds, which are currently not among the major allergens that are required to be disclosed on food ingredient lists. (Sullivan, 10/29)

The Washington Post: ‘I’m Dr. Cohen’: The Powerful Humanity Of The Jewish Hospital Staff That Treated Robert Bowers
The man accused in the brutal killings of 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh was taken to the hospital after he was apprehended to be treated for the injuries he suffered in a gunfight with the police. In the emergency room when he arrived, he was shouting, “I want to kill all the Jews,” according to hospital’s president. If he only knew then about the identity of the team tasked with keeping him alive: at least three of the doctors and nurses who cared for him at the Allegheny General Hospital were Jewish, according to president Dr. Jeffrey K. Cohen. (Rosenberg, 10/30)

NPR: After C-Section, Does Spreading Mother's Microbes On Baby Improve Health?
The procedure, known as "vaginal seeding," is designed to help babies develop healthy microbiomes — the collection of friendly bacteria that inhabit every person's body. Some people call it a "bacterial baptism." ... The procedure was developed in response to the sharp rise in C-section births in recent years. That increase has been accompanied by more cases of asthma, allergies, eczema, obesity, and other diseases. (Stein, 10/29)

The Associated Press: Guns Send Over 8,000 US Kids To ER Each Year, Analysis Says
Gun injuries, including many from assaults, sent 75,000 U.S. children and teens to emergency rooms over nine years at a cost of almost $3 billion, a first-of-its-kind study found. Researchers called it the first nationally representative study on ER visits for gun injuries among U.S. kids. They found that more than one-third of the wounded children were hospitalized and 6 percent died. Injuries declined during most of the 2006-14 study, but there was an upswing in the final year. The researchers found that 11 of every 100,000 children and teens treated in U.S. emergency rooms have gun-related injuries. That amounts to about 8,300 kids each year. (Tanner, 10/29)

ProPublica: “We Will Keep On Fighting For Him.”
This is Wilson.* His mother, Aline, took the picture to mark a happy and hopeful moment following a traumatic period when Wilson participated in a University of Illinois at Chicago clinical trial that tested whether lithium was effective in treating children with bipolar disorder. ProPublica Illinois reported in April that the UIC psychiatrist who oversaw several federally funded studies, Dr. Mani Pavuluri, violated research rules, failed to alert parents of risks and falsified data to cover up misconduct, and that UIC didn’t properly oversee her work. (Cohen and Jaffe, 10/25)

The Washington Post: How Dogs Could Help Eradicate Malaria 
Steven Lindsay, a public health entomologist at Durham University in England, has been researching malaria control for decades. His preferred approach, he says, is to “sit on the boundaries,” drumming up ideas that others might not. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that his latest project was inspired by the baggage-claim area at Dulles International Airport. If the beagles there could use their noses to detect explosives or contraband in suitcases, he wondered, could they also be trained to sniff out an intractable disease that kills more than 400,000 people each year? (Brulliard, 10/29)

The New York Times: Why Is CBD Everywhere?
It’s hard to say the precise moment when CBD, the voguish cannabis derivative, went from being a fidget spinner alternative for stoners to a mainstream panacea. ... So the question now becomes: Is this the dawning of a new miracle elixir, or does all the hype mean we have already reached Peak CBD? Either way, it would be hard to script a more of-the-moment salve for a nation on edge. (Williams, 10/27)