Viewpoints: Trump’s Proposal To Help Curb High Drug Prices Is A Promising Start
A selection of opinions on health care developments from around the state.
Los Angeles Times:
The Trump Administration Takes On Drug Prices
In his most aggressive response to date to high prescription drug prices, President Trump wants Medicare to obtain better deals by negotiating with pharmaceutical companies — just not directly. The proposal would affect only a limited number of drugs and would come with some potentially harmful side effects, but it’s a promising start. (10/26)
San Francisco Chronicle:
A California Prison Whistle Blower Exposes The State’s Weakness On Mental Health Care
The top psychiatrist in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has accused his prison bosses of misleading the federal court — and opposing lawyers — in a long-running inmate lawsuit about appropriate levels of psychiatric treatment. The judge is weighing whether she should make the psychiatrist’s whistle-blower report public. Meanwhile, the stakes for this surprising court fight include inmate health and safety, taxpayer dollars, and the public’s trust in prison reforms that are already years in the making. (10/26)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento Can Protect Kids, Save Vape Bars, Too
One side says the health of Sacramento’s children is at risk. The other side says the survival of small businesses is at stake. Both sides have dug in their heels, so it’s difficult to find a common ground. But it’s still the City Council’s duty to try, as it debates new limits on tobacco retailers, including a ban on all sales of flavored tobacco to adults, in addition to children. (10/25)
Los Angeles Times:
Jeering Mayor Garcetti Won't Fix Homelessness In Venice
It was billed as a town hall for Venice residents to hear about the shelter for homeless people that city officials had proposed for an unused Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus yard in that coastal community. Mostly, however, it was a three-hour flogging of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, City Councilman Mike Bonin — whose district includes Venice — and Police Chief Michel Moore. People packed into the auditorium of the Westminster Elementary School last Wednesday didn’t want to hear that the project would move at least 154 homeless people off the surrounding sidewalks and into ”bridge,” or interim, housing. (Carla Hall, 10/24)
Sacramento Bee:
Helping Sacramento’s Homeless Is Up To NIMBYs
The day Melanie Gamboa showed up on the campus of Loaves & Fishes — her sister, her boyfriend and their four cats in tow — the staff of Maryhouse women’s shelter didn’t have anywhere to put them. As is typically the case in Sacramento, all of the emergency beds had already been filled by other homeless people. So, having nowhere else to go, the trio and their pets joined the huddled masses across the street. They pitched a tent and that’s where they stayed for weeks, until the night Gamboa fell out of her wheelchair and couldn’t get up. She died right there on the sidewalk, tucked in with a blanket, in the shadow of multiple of shelters, all of them full. She was 39. (Erika D. Smith, 10/22)
San Francisco Chronicle:
LA Is Handing Out Flea Collars To Stem Typhus Among Homeless
The typhus outbreak in Los Angeles County is traced to disease-ridden fleas in areas with concentrated homeless populations, and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors actually approved a plan Tuesday for mobile health teams to distribute flea collars in the Skid Row area. Dogs often have flea collars, too. (Ian McCuaig, 10/21)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Vote 'Yes' On Prop. 11 To Ensure Ambulances Come Quickly
For the past 50 years, private emergency medical technicians and paramedics have been paid to be reachable during their work breaks in case there is a nearby emergency. It is the same way that other essential public safety personnel operate, including police officers, firefighters and public EMTs and paramedics. It is the heart of emergency response. But trial attorneys are trying to end this long-standing practice and require private, but not public, EMTs and paramedics to be completely unreachable during work breaks, putting patient care at risk. (Adam Dougherty, 10/20)
Los Angeles Times:
Take It From A Genetic Counselor: 23andMe's Health Reports Are Dangerously Incomplete
Not only does 23andMe not provide counseling, their results are incomplete. For instance, they report only on BRCA1 and BRCA2 and restrict their findings to the three mutations common among Jewish women. (They do explain this in their printed materials.) While the most common three mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are typically found in women of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, there are more than 1,000 other mutations that can be just as deadly.
Women with Ashkenazi heritage can also have a mutation not associated with being Ashkenazi. There are other genes that can have mutations that substantially increase one’s risk for breast cancer, including PALB2, CHEK2, PTEN, CDH1, TP53 and STK11. 23andMe doesn’t provide test results for any of these mutations. (Sarah C. Hopkins, 10/26)
Los Angeles Times:
Here's Why Trump Thinks It's Still 'Acceptable' To Target Transgender People For Discrimination And Abuse
Back in 2010, I had an emotional conversation with a woman I am proud to call my closest transgender friend. She’s Lynn Conway, one of the most important pioneers in the history of electrical engineering and computer science, whose distinguished career spans industry and academia. She’s also a pioneer and a leader in transgender advocacy, having started her gender transition in the 1960s. (Michael Hiltzik, 10/23)