Modesto Bee: Child Dies From Flu Illness In Stanislaus County
A child in Stanislaus County has died from influenza, the county Health Services Agency said. The agency did not report details of the fatal seasonal flu case, out of respect for the family’s privacy. “This tragic loss deeply saddens us, and we extend our heartfelt condolences to the family,” said Dr. Thea Papasozomenos, county public health officer. “ It serves as a stark reminder that influenza can be very dangerous, especially for young children and other high-risk individuals.” (Carlson, 2/27)

CIDRAP: CDC: 13% Of Kids Who Died From Flu This Year Had Brain Damage
Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that 13% of children who have died from seasonal flu this season had influenza-associated encephalopathy or encephalitis (IAE), a severe neurologic complication. (Soucheray, 2/27)

NBC News: Could Flu Shot Supply Fall Short This Year? FDA's Canceled Meeting Sparks Worries
The Food and Drug Administration’s abrupt decision on Wednesday to cancel next month’s vaccine advisory committee meeting — where experts recommend the strains for next season’s flu shot — is raising concerns about whether the U.S. will have enough of the vaccine for the next flu season. Drugmakers already face a tight deadline each year to produce enough doses for distribution in the fall. (Lovelace Jr., 2/27)

Military.Com: Retired 4-Star Officers Join Suit To House Homeless Veterans At California VA Medical Center
Adm. William McRaven, a former Navy SEAL, and two other retired four-star officers have joined a lawsuit to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to build more housing for homeless veterans on the grounds of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. The failure of the VA to address the housing needs of veterans poses "a direct threat to national security" in the long term, according to the brief filed by McRaven, who as head of Joint Special Operations Command oversaw the 2011 raid by SEAL Team 6 that killed Osama Bin Laden. (Sisk, 2/27)

Military Times: Disabled Vets Continue To Struggle Finding Post-Military Employment
Disabled veterans continue to struggle to find jobs despite national efforts to help bring them back into the civilian workforce, according to a new survey released by Wounded Warrior Project on Thursday. The report, based on responses in summer 2023 from nearly 19,000 veterans connected to the program, gives a snapshot of the continued struggles that veterans with serious injuries face years after their military service, even if their medical needs are being addressed. (Shane III, 2/27)

Politico: Republicans Say States Are Pulling A Fast One On Medicaid 
Republicans in Congress see a way around the $880 billion budget shortfall they need to fill to extend President Donald Trump’s tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. States aren’t going to like it. To qualify for federal Medicaid dollars, states must also kick in their own matching funds. GOP lawmakers want to stop states from taxing insurers and health care providers to raise that money, a maneuver that would leave states with a $612 billion hole in their budgets over the next decade. (King, 2/27)

Becker's Hospital Review: Where Medicaid Cuts Would Hit Hardest Through 2034: A State By State Breakdown
Looming federal Medicaid cuts could shift a massive financial burden to state governments, potentially requiring them to make up between $700 billion and $1.1 trillion in funding over the next decade, according to a new analysis from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. On Feb. 25, House Republicans passed a budget resolution that orders the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, to find $880 billion in savings from fiscal years 2025 through 2034. (Emerson, 2/27)

The Washington Post: Pentagon Says Transgender Troops Will Be Removed From U.S. Military
Openly transgender service members will be disqualified from serving in the U.S. military and will soon be removed from the ranks, according to a Pentagon memo that marks a significant shift from previous Defense Department policy that prohibited discrimination based on gender identity. The memo was made public Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by LGBTQ+ rights groups against an executive order signed last month by President Donald Trump, which stated that the “medical, surgical, and mental health constraints on individuals with gender dysphoria” are “inconsistent” with the high standards expected of U.S. troops. (Timsit, 2/27)

Newsweek: Donald Trump Suffers Legal Setback Over Transgender Order 
A Maryland judge has extended a restraining order that prevents President Donald Trump's administration from cutting funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to minors. The temporary restraining order is in place until March 5, but U.S. District Judge Brendan Hurson has said he may decide to grant a preliminary injunction before that date. (2/27)

Politico: DOGE Is Now Dramatically Raising The Potential For A Government Shutdown
Senior Republicans are seriously exploring how to include cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an upcoming government funding bill — a move that would skyrocket tensions with Democrats and drastically raise the potential for a government shutdown. Top GOP leaders and President Donald Trump’s team have been discussing the idea, which is far from finalized, according to three people who were granted anonymity to discuss the conversations. (Hill and Bade, 2/27)

Politico: Trump Administration Struggles To Rehire Fired Bird Flu Employees 
agency officials are running into logistical challenges in reinstating its bird flu staff — and convincing them to return to jobs while the president repeatedly attempts to squeeze government workers. (Brown, 2/27)

ABC News: Major Medical Groups Push Back Against Trump Administration's Definition Of Sex And Gender
Some major medical associations are pushing back against the Department of Health and Human Services' updated definitions of biological sex in federal policy in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order. ... "There is extensive scientific research that supports the complexity of sex and gender beyond binary classifications," American Psychological Association CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., Ph.D., told ABC News in a statement. "The new restrictive definition of sex ignores decades of science, increasing harm to youth and families, while undermining critical mental health outcomes." (Vaez, 2/27)

San Diego Union-Times: UC San Diego Expands Faculty Hiring Freeze To Staff Workers
The faculty hiring freeze UC San Diego imposed last week to deal with a campus financial crisis and federal funding uncertainty has been expanded to include staff employees, except those working at the university’s health care facilities. Chancellor Pradeep Khosla announced the expansion Monday while talking to about 200 employees via Zoom. The university has more than 41,000 workers, making it the second-largest employer in San Diego County. (Robbins 2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford Freezes Hiring, Citing Possible Federal Cuts And Tax Increase
Stanford University has announced a staff hiring freeze to ward against “potential financial uncertainties” from the Trump administration’s efforts to cut research funding and to tax endowments. In an open letter Wednesday to the Stanford community, campus President Jonathan Levin said universities across the country are bracing for a double-barreled financial hit if the National Institutes of Health succeeds in slashing funding for scientific research, and if Congress expands the 1.4% endowment tax that large, private universities, including Stanford, already pay. (Asimov, 2/26)

Bay Area News Group: UC Health And Research Workers In Two Unions Stage Statewide Strike
Allen Villanueva sat at the top of a hill of artificial grass in San Francisco with his shih tzu, Gio, looking down at the plaza outside UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Mission Bay. Hundreds of his fellow medical center workers had begun picketing and the longtime member of the University Professional and Technical Employees, Communications Workers of America (UPTE-CWA) Local 9119 union contemplated what he would say to them. (Jung, 2/28)

Becker's Hospital Review: The Tools Sharp HealthCare Plans To Leverage In 2025
The last five years at San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare have been defined by major infrastructure and technology investments, including its systemwide 2024 launch of an Epic EHR system, President and CEO Chris Howard told Becker's. Over the next five years, Sharp will focus on leveraging these tools to drive growth in ambulatory care, expand hospital capacity and strengthen the Sharp Health Plan, he said. (Kuchno, 2/27)

Becker's Hospital Review: Cottage Health Taps New CEO
Scott Wester has been appointed president and CEO of Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Cottage Health, effective April 7. He succeeds Ron Werft, who is retiring after 25 years as CEO and 38 years with the system, according to a Feb. 26 news release from Cottage Health. (Kuchno, 2/27)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Device Recalls Hit 4-Year High In 2024
Medical device recall events in 2024 reached their highest level since 2020 and more than 10% of them involved the most serious type of recall. There were 1,048 medical device recalls in 2024, an increase of almost 25% from the 840 recalls that occurred in 2023, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Class I recalls, the most serious type, accounted for 10.9% of recalls. (Dubinsky, 2/27)

CalMatters: Inside California’s Crackdown On Homeless Encampments
It’s been eight months since the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed how cities in California and beyond can respond to homeless encampments, allowing them to clear camps and arrest people for sleeping outside — even when there’s nowhere else to sleep. The July ruling in the case Grants Pass v. Johnson upended six years of protections for unhoused people. It was a radical change, and it came as many Californians, from small business owners to Gov. Gavin Newsom, were fed up with regularly seeing tent camps that stretched for blocks, human feces smeared on sidewalks and people injecting drugs in the open. Once the Supreme Court gave the green light, even liberal strongholds such as San Francisco were quick to start removing camps — despite a collective outcry from activists supporting the rights of homeless Californians. (Kendall and Anastas, 2/27)

Argus-Courier: Nurse Position Among $2 Million In Cuts Approved By Petaluma City Schools Board
Petaluma City Schools joined the ranks of school districts across Sonoma County on Tuesday as its Board of Trustees voted to cut roughly $2 million from next year’s budget – including a school nurse position many parents said was vital to student health. (Richardson, 2/27)

Los Angeles Times: Corona Dump Burdened With Underground Fire Seeks To Accept Debris From L.A. Infernos
The Eaton and Palisades fires had barely broken out when Waste Management offered to accept the inevitable disaster debris at its El Sobrante Landfill in Corona. But even as the company applied Jan. 8 for an emergency waiver to accept the wildfire rubble, landfill staffers had been struggling for months to control a fiery situation of their own. In July, El Sobrante managers informed the South Coast Air Quality Management District that a chemical reaction brewing inside the landfill was causing broiling temperatures and producing toxic sulfur pollution, according to air district records. (Briscoe, 2/28)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Trump Deportation Plans Are Hitting California Hospitals Like Mine
While hospitals were once considered sensitive locations to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials — where they are not allowed to conduct their business, including arrests — the Trump administration has already done away with this federal policy. ... The fear among migrants and their families is pervasive and at an all-time high. As an emergency medicine doctor working in a public, safety-net hospital in San Francisco, I am also afraid. (Theresa Cheng, 2/26)

Los Angeles Blade: Anxiety Doesn’t Always Start The Way We Think It Does
“There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just built different. Like a Ferrari,” said my cardiologist during my latest visit. I laughed. He went on to explain my test results and elaborate on his analogy. But first he asked me a question I thought was completely unrelated. “Are you an anxious person? (Gisselle Palomera, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Two Altadena Residents Who Became Homeless In The Eaton Fire
In a matter of days in early January, some 150,000 Angelenos became homeless as they were displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires. These individuals’ lives did not slowly unravel; they didn’t lose a job and then run out of savings and receive an eviction notice. They fled their homes amid a natural disaster, and afterward many had no home to return to. Some have resources to recover financially. Others are now struggling like the estimated 75,000 Angelenos who were unhoused before the fires. (Robert Karron, 2/25)

CalMatters: In A California Homeless Shelter, My Hope Turned To Despair
In spring 2017, I became homeless. I had been living in Orange for several months while I was working for a temp agency. But in March I had to move since the house I was living in got sold, and I sought refuge near the Santa Ana riverbed. (Patrick Hogan, 2/27)

Times of San Diego: San Diego Must Act Locally To Expand Rental Assistance To Keep Families Housed
San Diego’s housing crisis continues to dominate the headlines. Yet one of the most effective tools for keeping people housed — rental assistance — is not getting the attention it deserves. Too often, policy conversations about affordability center on imposing burdens on landlords instead of recognizing that housing is a shared social responsibility. If our leaders are serious about addressing housing affordability, expanding rental assistance should be top of mind. (Alan Pentico, 2/22)

Orange County Register: Eminent Domain Abuse Not The Way To Address California’s Housing Crisis
Over 1,000 housing units and a new grocery store could be coming to San Francisco’s Fillmore neighborhood – but some San Francisco officials think they have better plans. (Zoe Tishaev, 2/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: 'I'm Afraid For My Patients': How Trump's Deportation Plans Are Hitting California Hospitals 
The fear among migrants and their families is pervasive and at an all-time high. As an emergency medicine doctor working in a public, safety-net hospital in San Francisco, I am also afraid. I am afraid for my patients. (Theresa Cheng, 2/26)