Viewpoints: Breathing Easier In California After Big Anti-Smoking Week
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
The Sacramento Bee:
Jerry Brown Signs Tobacco Control Bills, Lets Us Breathe Easier
California has one of the nation’s most smoke-free reputations. But that image has always been more hard-won than it seems. Tobacco companies lavish hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to politicians each election cycle. Not coincidentally, efforts to curb the lethal consequences of smoking die every year in one or another legislative committee. There’s a price to be paid for crossing the industry and a reward for currying its favor, and even here, legislators know that. (5/4)
San Jose Mercury News:
California's Historic Anti-Smoking Week
The tobacco industry is having its worst week since 1990, when Congress banned smoking on all domestic airline flights lasting six hours or less. And "worst" for Big Tobacco is good for the rest of us. On Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a sweeping package of anti-smoking bills that will regulate the manufacture and sale of e-cigarettes in California and increase the legal smoking age from 18 to 21. Then the Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it would extend federal regulatory authority to e-cigarettes, a $3.5 billion industry that attracted an estimated 450,000 middle and high school students to start the habit in 2014. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, tobacco lobby. (5/5)
The Sacramento Bee:
A Tipping Point On Vaping And E-Cigarettes, At Last
With the Food and Drug Administration’s publication of sweeping new e-cigarette and vaping regulations, a tipping point finally appears to have been reached. Thursday’s new rules, which the e-cigarette and tobacco companies have fought ferociously since 2011, came less than a day after Gov. Jerry Brown signed similar restrictions in California and a high court cleared the way for tough e-cigarette regulation in the European Union. They’re not a moment too soon. (5/5)
Los Angeles Times:
New Vaping Rules Are A Mixed Bag
Long-awaited federal rules to keep electronic cigarettes out of the hands of children finally arrived Thursday, and not a moment too soon. Use of the nicotine delivery devices has been growing rapidly among middle- and high-school-aged teens in the last few years. The rules, in the works since 2010, put the regulation of all tobacco products — including “novel and future” ones — under the authority of the Food and Drug Administration for the first time. This is a profoundly important step in reining in e-cigarettes, a popular product with unknown long-term health effects that has been virtually unsupervised by government until now. (5/6)
Los Angeles Times:
Will Hospitals Reject California's Assisted Suicide Law?
Medical leaders at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena voted behind closed doors this week for the facility's hundreds of doctors and affiliated personnel to opt out of California's assisted suicide law, which goes into effect June 9. If the proposed amendment to the hospital's medical rules is approved by the board of directors this month, Huntington will become one of the largest non-religious medical institutions statewide to turn its back on a law that Gov. Jerry Brown called "a comfort" to anyone "dying in prolonged and excruciating pain." (David Lazarus, 5/6)
The San Jose Mercury News:
California Extends Coverage To Kids; More Docs Needed
Sunday marks a bright day in the struggle to provide health insurance for every child in California. It's the day all children, regardless of immigration status, will have access to checkups and other basic preventive care as part of the state's Medi-Cal expansion signed into law last year by Gov. Jerry Brown. The dark cloud looming on the horizon is the state's failure to offer adequate compensation for doctors treating millions of low-income patients. It's meaningless to give insurance to the needy if there aren't enough doctors willing to accept them as patients. Even before this, many Medi-Cal patients have had to resort to the emergency room because they couldn't find a doctor to see them. (4/30)
Los Angeles Times:
Will The Cancer Moonshot Work? Cancer Experts Cite Need For Money And Data
In calling for "a new national effort to ... cure cancer" during his State of the Union speech in January and labeling it a "cancer moonshot," President Obama deliberately evoked John F. Kennedy's 1961 commitment to "achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." But are the two efforts comparable? President Kennedy cited NASA's need for a $5.4-billion budget aimed at a very specific goal; Obama is hoping Congress will heed his call for a $1-billion launching fund for a much more nebulous and complicated goal. (Michael Hiltzik, 5/2)
The Sacramento Bee:
While Our Focus Is On Zika, Don’t Forget About Syphilis
High-profile efforts are underway to prepare for a potential sharp rise in the transmission of the Zika virus – either through mosquito bites or from Zika-infected males to their sexual partners. While this work is critical, we can’t lose sight of an existing public health crisis. In recent years, California has seen an alarming increase in the rate of sexually transmitted diseases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently ranked California first among all states for the total number of cases for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. (Julie Rabinovitz, 5/4)
The Ventura County Star:
Cancer Care
The recent government proposal to “experiment” with cancer treatments will harm patients and the doctors who treat them. Proposed changes to Medicare’s drug program will force physicians to take a cookie-cutter approach to treating cancer patients. There are more than 200 different types of cancers, and every patient responds differently to the care they receive. The ability to personalize treatment has led to unprecedented survival rates for Americans battling cancer, which would be in jeopardy if Medicare switches to a more impersonal approach. (Marissa Rivera, 4/30)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Opioids, 'Pill Mills' And The Ongoing War On Drugs
When President Obama recently chose to highlight the national opioid addiction crisis, I couldn’t help but think that folks in this community hardly need a lecture on opioid addiction. Heroin has been a plague in parts of Kern County going back over a hundred years. The current crisis is driven by prescription opioids, and the statistics, as the president noted, are beyond staggering. (Ronald Beerman, 5/2)