Sacramento Bee: Venting On Social Media? Yes, You Can, But The First Amendment Won't Save Your Job
Sacramento-area residents recently got a lesson in this after Kaiser Permanente fired nurse Faith Linthicum, who had worked at its Roseville Medical Center, over her Facebook comments. In one of them, she said that Stephon Clark, the unarmed black man killed March 18 by Sacramento police, "deserved it." After losing her job, Linthicum went to the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.com seeking money to help pay her bills. The headline for her campaign was "RN Fired for exercising 1st AMD." Kaiser, however, in its statement noting that it had let an employee go, said free speech only goes so far, stating that it does not tolerate hate or discrimination and has a long history of embracing diversity and inclusion. (Anderson, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: A Personalized Vaccine Helps Patients Fight Back Against Ovarian Cancer
In early research that extends the possibilities of immunotherapy to a killer feared by women, a personalized vaccine helped patients with ovarian cancer mount a stronger defense against their tumors and substantially improved their survival rate. The vaccine was tested in a preliminary clinical trial and used along with standard chemotherapy and an immune-boosting agent. (Healy, 4/12)

In other public health news —

The Mercury News: 6 Health Foods That Are Actually Bad For You
Healthy living can be harder than it sounds. You know you should exercise more and eat more nutritious food, of course, but did you also know that just because a food calls itself “healthy” doesn’t mean it is? Ditto calling something vegan or calling it carb-free. You have to look beyond the labels and check out the ingredients to see which foods are the real deal and which are just a gimmick. (D'Souza, 4/12)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Two Doctors Plead Guilty In $65 Million Prescription Fraud Involving San Diego Marines 
Two physicians in Tennessee pleaded guilty Wednesday in San Diego federal court, admitting to their role in prescribing expensive and unnecessary medications as part of a $65 million fraud against the military’s healthcare system. Carl Lindblad and Susan Vergot, who worked for Choice MD in Cleveland, Tenn., wrote 4,442 total prescriptions in the span of a year and a half as part of the scheme, according to the investigation. According to prosecutors, military members in San Diego were paid to recruit Marines and their family members to participate in a fake medical study, which included speaking to a doctor in a telemedicine session and being prescribed compound medication. (Davis, 4/12)

In other news —

Long Beach Press-Telegram: New Testimony Collected On Community Medical Center Long Beach’s Problems And Potential Future 
Negative consequences following pending closure of Community Medical Center Long Beach would likely affect people living in East Long Beach and nearby Seal Beach neighborhoods, according to a information presented to a Los Angeles County panel on Wednesday. The Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Commission, an advisory body, assembled Wednesday night to gather facts and opinions related to the looming shutdown of the East Long Beach hospital. (Edwards, 4/12)

KQED: S.F. Supervisor Calls For Hearing Into Hunters Point Shipyard Cleanup 
San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen is calling for a hearing into problems plaguing the cleanup of radioactive material from the Hunters Point Shipyard, after a federal report found contractors falsified soil sample data from the site to a much greater degree than previously known. The shipyard, a former nuclear weapons research facility in the southeast section of the city, was designated in 1989 as a Superfund site. (Goldberg, 4/12)

The Washington Post: The Opioid Crisis: Drug Executives To Testify Before Congress About Their Role In Distributing Powerful Painkillers
Current and former executives with the pharmaceutical distributors that are accused of flooding communities with powerful prescription painkillers have been summoned to testify before Congress about their role in the U.S. opioid epidemic. The hearing, scheduled for May 8 before a House Energy and Commerce Committee oversight panel, has the potential to be a defining moment for the pharmaceutical industry, much like when tobacco executives were called to testify before Congress in 1994. The pharmaceutical executives are expected to face tough questions under oath about why their companies pumped so many highly addictive pain pills into West Virginia and other states, fueling what has become the deadliest drug crisis in U.S. history. (Zezima and Higham, 4/12)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Opioid Trials To Begin In 2019 As Settlement Is Also Pushed
A federal judge with an audacious plan to settle hundreds of lawsuits filed by local governments against the drug industry over the destruction wrought by prescription opioid painkillers has altered his course. Cleveland-based Judge Dan Polster issued an order Wednesday scheduling three Ohio trials for 2019 — a shift from his earlier plan to try to work out settlements without also preparing for trials. (4/12)

The New York Times: Overdose Antidote Is Supposed To Be Easy To Get. It’s Not.
In 2015, when they unveiled the city’s plan to battle opioid-related deaths, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, said that from that day on, New Yorkers would be able to get the overdose-reversing drug naloxone at participating pharmacies without a prescription. “Anyone who fears they will one day find their child, spouse or sibling collapsed on the floor and not breathing now has the power to walk into a neighborhood pharmacy and purchase the medication that can reverse that nightmare,” Ms. McCray said, with the mayor by her side. (Correal, 4/12)

The Wall Street Journal: Health Workers’ New Advocate Sees Objection To Abortion As A Civil Right
The Trump administration is pursuing a significant shift toward a more conservative health-care agenda, expanding the use of civil-rights laws to defend health-industry workers who object to medical procedures on religious grounds. Roger Severino, an administration appointee to the Department of Health and Human Services, is heading a new division at the department that will shield health-care workers who object to abortion, assisted suicide, or other procedures they say violate their conscience or deeply held religious beliefs. HHS has proposed rules that would expand the division’s enforcement ability and require many health organizations to inform workers about their federal protections regarding personal faith or convictions. (Armour, 4/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Two Women Spotlight Two Sides Of Abortion Debate
The Trump administration’s push toward a more conservative approach to health policy has sparked a debate over what patients can expect from their health workers, and when health workers can refuse service for reasons of conscience. Both supporters and opponents bolster their arguments with testimonials, such as the two that follow. The first is an example of what conservative activists say is a health worker forced to assist in a procedure that ran counter to her beliefs. The second is an example of what liberal activists say are religious organizations imposing their views on others. (Armour, 4/13)

The Associated Press: $1 Million Federal Grant Will Help Study Of Transgender Kids
The first large-scale, national study of transgender children, including some as young as 3, is poised to expand thanks to a five-year, $1 million grant awarded Thursday by the National Science Foundation to the professor leading the project. University of Washington psychologist Kristina Olson, 36, was named winner of the NSF's annual Alan T. Waterman Award, the government's highest honor for scientists still in the early phases of their careers. The NSF said the choice was unanimous, and noted that pediatricians are already using her findings to raise awareness about gender diversity. (4/12)

The Associated Press: Red Flag Laws May Prevent More Suicides Than Mass Shootings
Before her brother took his own life, Mary Miller-Strobel said she and her father begged every store in town that sold firearms to turn him away. “’If he comes, call me,’” Miller-Strobel said her dad pleaded while waving her brother’s picture at store managers in Charlotte, Michigan, in 2006. “’Just call me. I will come.’” She said the responses were the same: “’Second amendment, sorry.’” Two months later, her brother, Ben, shot himself with a revolver. (Yin, 4/12)

The Associated Press: When To Say When: Study Says Limit Alcohol To 1 Drink A Day
Here's some sobering news: A large international study says adults should average no more than one alcoholic drink per day, and that means drinking guidelines in many countries may be far too loose. The study found that people who down more than seven drinks a week can expect to die sooner than those who drink less. (4/12)

Sacramento Bee: California Needs More Answers On Life-Or-Death Questions
Despite nearly two years of doctor-assisted suicide in California, we know little to nothing about crucial questions: Why are patients selecting it? What quality and duration of health care have they received? Learning these answers could help us improve end-of-life care in California. ... SB 1336 is a necessary step for improving our understanding of end-of-life issues in California. Only those afraid of what the data might show – who don’t care whether the system works as promised or not – could oppose it. (Nicole Shirilla and David Major, 4/6)

Los Angeles Times: Paul Ryan Came In As A 'Young Gun' With Big Ideas. He'll Leave As A Pushover
But when it came to translating ideas into law, many of Ryan's ambitious proposals never made it past the roadmap stage. That's particularly true of his signature issue, entitlement reform. Members of Congress who were ready and willing to vote for nonbinding, conceptual 10-year plans to wind down the federal deficit by slashing tens of billions of dollars from Medicare and safety-net programs weren't quite so eager to take up the legislation necessary to put such changes into law. ... Instead, Ryan's main accomplishments as speaker — slashing tax rates and busting open the budget caps he helped negotiate in 2011 — are the legislative equivalent of skipping dinner and going straight to dessert. Such costly acts of largesse are a piece of cake in comparison to the tough work of overhauling immigration laws or reining in healthcare costs. (4/11)

Los Angeles Times: If Democrats Sweep The House This Fall, Blame Paul Ryan's Rich-On-Poor Class Warfare
Even more than the tax reform that Congress passed this year, the definitive Paul Ryan achievement was the American Health Care Act, the attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act that the House voted for and the Senate nixed. The AHCA was a reflection of Ryan's worldview so pure it almost reached the level of self-parody. It cut healthcare savagely; the CBO estimated 23 million people would lose their health insurance. The money saved was transferred to, you guessed it, the well-to-do. The AHCA bill reflected Ryan's leadership in other ways too. It was rushed through an undemocratic process, with only three hours of debate and voted on before a public version of the bill was even made available. This is Ryan's legacy: a single-minded campaign of rich-on-poor class warfare. Worse, he aggressively covered up Trump's unprecedented corruption and unfitness for office just to further that agenda. (Scott Lemieux, 4/12)

The Mercury News: Public Health Affected When Pharmacists Work Solo
It’s time for California to get serious about pharmacy safety. SB 1442 is new legislation that would protect the public by ensuring pharmacists aren’t working alone. At the same time, it delivers safety to pharmacists who have become targets because they work alone. (Jim Araby, 4/12)

Los Angeles Times: Walmart And CVS Have 15,000 Combined Stores. Why Are Both Trying To Buy Health Insurance Companies?
The economics of healthcare in America is making for some strange bedfellows. CVS, the behemoth pharmacy chain, plans to buy Aetna, a 22-million member health insurer, for $69 billion. Less than two weeks ago, it became public that Walmart, where one in four Americans shop each week, is considering an acquisition of another insurer, Humana. Why would these two massive retailers want to buy health insurers? Think millions of customers under one roof buying insurance, visiting health clinics and — importantly — filling prescriptions. These merged insurer-retailers could have lots of price-setting leverage in dealing with pharmaceutical companies and hospitals. But consolidation like this also can threaten competition — and in healthcare markets, that is a demonstrated danger. (Dana P. Goldman and Erin E. Trish, 4/10)

The Mercury News: Why San Jose Should Prioritize Suicide Prevention
Every year, between 54 and 75 San Jose residents die by suicide. That is higher than the number of auto-related deaths in the city. That is higher than the murder rate in the city. Every year, nearly 45,000 Americans take their own lives—significantly higher than the 35,000 who die by gun violence annually in America. And when you consider the fact that 62 percent (over 21,000) of those who die by gun are suicides, the urgency and tragic pervasiveness of suicide come into sharp focus. (Paul Escobar, Kathy Tran and Victor Ojakian, 4/13)

Los Angeles Times: Kaiser Permanente Will Start Filling The Vacuum In Gun Research With A $2-Million Study Program
The vacuum in gun violence research in America is slowly being filled by independent organizations. The latest to accept the responsibility for studying one of our most pressing public health crises is Kaiser Permanente, the giant healthcare system, which this week announced a $2-million program to study how to prevent gun injuries and deaths. (Michael Hiltzik, 4/11)

Orange County Register: Coffee Is Not A Carcinogen, Even In California
Medical arguments, informed and otherwise, about whether coffee is somehow bad for its drinkers have been going on for as long as there have been tabloid newspapers in the supermarket checkout line. ... But in a classically California move, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle said late last month that state coffee sellers should have to post cancer warnings about their product under the onerous restrictions of the highly abused Proposition 65, the famously nightmarish, mostly wrong law that essentially says since everything is carcinogenic, signs to that effect should be posted everywhere — or else. (4/6)

Los Angeles Times: Nursing Shortage Is A Sign That Humanity's Vital Signs Are Weak
America has 3 million nurses. That is not enough. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there will be more than 1 million vacancies for registered nurses by 2024. This is twice as bad as the worst previous nursing shortage. If there is no national and international strategy to build a workforce of nurses, we will witness — very soon — crippled healthcare systems across the world. (Christie Watson, 4/9)