Politico: California Slavery Reparations Task Force Sends Final Report To Uncertain Fate In Legislature 
A California task force Thursday presented its first-in-the-nation attempt to address the legacy of slavery to lawmakers who must decide whether to pursue a wide range of proposed remedies, including payments to descendants of enslaved people. The recommendations of the reparations task force, the product of months of research and public hearings, face an uncertain fate even in a Legislature with a Democratic supermajority and a governor supportive of the commission’s work. (White and Govindarao, 6/29)

Los Angeles Times: California's Slavery Reparations Plan: Eligibility, Payments And More 
California’s Reparations Task Force on Thursday released its final report, marking a milestone in the state’s historic effort to consider remedies for slavery. The task force has spent the last two years hearing testimony from academics, economists and other experts to gather evidence of the effects of slavery and to prove the ways in which government sanctioned policies continued to discriminate against Black people long after slavery was abolished. (Luna, 6/29)

Stat: Supreme Court Strikes Down Use Of Affirmative Action, A Blow To Efforts To Diversify Medical Schools
Overturning decades of precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down the use of affirmative action, ruling that it is unconstitutional for colleges, universities — and professional schools for law, medicine, and nursing — to consider race as one factor in deciding who they will admit. The decision comes as a blow to many in the field of medicine, which has been unable to appreciably increase the numbers of Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous doctors in recent decades. Many medical schools have turned to using race as one factor among many in admissions decisions to try to boost the numbers of students from underrepresented groups and help overcome obstacles to entry like MCAT testing that favor students from wealthier backgrounds. (McFarling, 6/29)

NBC News: Medical Schools Will Be Even Less Diverse After Affirmative Action Ruling, Experts Say
The Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling will have far-reaching consequences for Black and Latino students hoping to attend medical school and, in turn, only worsen the health disparities among people of color across the country, experts said. After the high court’s ruling Thursday struck down affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard, many fear that medical and nursing schools and other professional institutions will no longer be able to foster diversity by considering race in their admissions processes. The decision will result in fewer Black physicians and more racial bias in the medical field, said Dr. Uché Blackstock, a physician who is the founder of Advancing Health Equity. (Adams, 6/29)

Stat: Medical Leaders Decry Supreme Court Decision On Affirmative Action
Medical leaders on Thursday reacted swiftly to the Supreme Court’s decision to severely restrict the use of race in college admissions, saying the ruling could reverse decades of progress toward diversifying the nation’s physician workforce — something seen as key to helping end the country’s widespread and deeply entrenched health disparities. “This ruling will make it even more difficult for the nation’s colleges and universities to help create future health experts and workers that reflect the diversity of our great nation. The health and wellbeing of Americans will suffer as a result,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement released almost immediately after the ruling, noting that people of color had been excluded from attending medical school and joining medical organizations for generations. “We need more health workers, especially those who look like and share the experiences of the people they serve,” the statement said. (McFarling, 6/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gov. Gavin Newsom Doubles State Police In S.F. Fentanyl Crackdown
Gov. Gavin Newsom will double the number of state police officers helping crack down on fentanyl dealing in San Francisco, he told The Chronicle on Wednesday. The move doubles down on an approach Newsom began in May, when he deployed California Highway Patrol officers to assist local police in the Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. (Bollag, 6/29)

inewsource: San Diego Authorities Seize Record Amount Of Fentanyl In 2023
Authorities seized nearly 3,000 pounds of fentanyl in San Diego County between March and May, marking a 300% increase from the same time last year in an “unprecedented two-month fentanyl-enforcement surge” along the southwest border, officials announced last month. That means San Diego County, called an “epicenter” for fentanyl trafficking, could be dealing with more of the drug in local communities than ever before. (Mejías-Pascoe, 6/29)

Bloomberg: Deaths Linked To Fentanyl Laced With Xylazine Soar, CDC Finds 
The danger from a little-known sedative that’s frequently combined with opioids exploded from 2018 to 2021 as deaths linked to the drug rose by 34 times. (Griffin, 6/30)

Los Angeles Times: Homelessness Grows 10% In The City Of Los Angeles
Homelessness continues to rise dramatically, increasing by 9% in Los Angeles County and 10% in the city of Los Angeles last year, a stark illustration of the challenges faced by officials trying to reduce the number of people living on the streets. Efforts to house people, which include hundreds of millions of dollars spent on shelter, permanent housing and outreach, have failed to stem the growth of street encampments, as reflected in the annual point-in-time count released Thursday by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. (Smith and Vives, 6/29)

Times Of San Diego: San Diego's First 'Safe Sleeping' Legal Camping Location For Homeless To Open Thursday 
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria announced that the city’s first new Safe Sleeping program site in the Golden Hill neighborhood will open Thursday, offering legal camping for those experiencing homelessness. The city’s Central Operations Yard has a capacity to hold 136 tents, each in a space measuring 13 feet by 13 feet. The number of people at the site may be larger than 136, as each tent can accommodate two people and clients may have a partner or caretaker, officials said. (Ireland, 6/28)

CalMatters: A Texas City Shelters Nearly All Homeless Residents In One Place. It’s Turning Heads In California
The Haven for Hope homeless shelter in San Antonio houses most of the Texas city’s unhoused population. Some California leaders admire its scale. (Kendall, 6/28)

Los Angeles Times: Headspace Meditation App Company Lays Off 15% Of Employees
Mental health and meditation app company Headspace Health laid off 15% of its workers in its second round of job cuts since December amid a wave of layoffs that continues to sweep the tech industry and beyond. In an internal memo to employees Thursday morning, Chief Executive Russell Glass said the company had “underestimated” how much the current economic environment would affect consumer behavior but remained “committed to being cash-flow positive in 2024 so that we aren’t reliant on outside funding to serve our members.” (Ding, 6/29)

California Healthline: Need To Get Plan B Or An HIV Test Online? Facebook May Know About It
Looking for an at-home HIV test on CVS’ website is not as private an experience as one might think. An investigation by The Markup and KFF Health News found trackers on CVS.com telling some of the biggest social media and advertising platforms the products customers viewed. And CVS is not the only pharmacy sharing this kind of sensitive data. We found trackers collecting browsing- and purchase-related data on websites of 12 of the U.S.’ biggest drugstores, including grocery store chains with pharmacies, and sharing the sensitive information with companies like Meta (formerly Facebook); Google, through its advertising and analytics products; and Microsoft, through its search engine, Bing. (Tahir and Fondrie-Teitler, 6/30)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Dexcom's New Wearable Device To Help Diabetics Eat Right, Lose Weight 
San Diego’s Dexcom, a maker of continuous glucose monitors, laid out plans for a new wearable device coming in 2024 for people with Type 2 diabetes who don’t need insulin — a move that could help bring wearable health monitors closer to the mainstream. (Freeman, 6/30)

CNN: CDC Approves RSV Vaccines For Older Adults, Expects Availability This Fall
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday gave the green light to two new RSV vaccines for older adults and expects them to be available in the fall. The endorsement from CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky follows recommendations from the agency’s independent vaccine advisory committee and approvals from the US Food and Drug Administration. (McPhillips, 6/29)

The Wall Street Journal: New $2.9 Million Gene Therapy Promises To Remake Hemophilia Treatment 
The FDA approved the new gene therapy, called Roctavian and made by BioMarin Pharmaceutical, for adults with a severe form of the disease. Roctavian is infused just once.  Priced at $2.9 million, the drug now ranks among the most expensive in the world. But the price is in line with the cost of other new gene therapies, a groundbreaking type of treatment that replaces a missing or faulty gene. (Hopkins, 6/29)

AP: Cheaper Competition For Humira Is Hitting The Market, But Savings Will Depend On Your Insurance
Patients who take the autoimmune disease treatment Humira may see some price relief when several lower-cost, biosimilar versions of the AbbVie drug reach the U.S. market in July. But lower pharmacy bills may not happen right away — or at all — for some patients. That’ll depend largely on your insurance coverage. Here’s a closer look. (Murphy, 6/29)

NPR: Hepatitis C Treatment Underused Because Of High Cost And Insurance Restrictions
Ten years ago, safe and effective treatments for hepatitis C became available. These pills are easy-to-take oral antivirals with few side effects. They cure 95% of patients who take them. The treatments are also expensive, coming in at $20 to 25,000 dollars a course. (Huang, 6/29)

Stat: Anesthesiologist Group: Stop Taking Ozempic Before Surgery
Patients fast before surgery to prevent food from getting into their lungs while they’re under — a serious concern that can lead to lung infection. But for those taking a class of treatments that include the widely popular Ozempic and Wegovy, fasting may not be enough to ensure an empty stomach. The American Society of Anesthesiologists issued guidance Thursday recommending that patients stop taking this class of treatments, called GLP-1 drugs, before undergoing surgery. (Chen, 6/29)

Pink News: Average Age Of Gender Dysphoria Diagnosis Falls From 31 To 26
Findings of the study included the average age of gender dysphoria diagnosis dropping from 31 in 2017 to 26 in 2021. The researchers also discovered that the average age for gender dysphoria diagnosis was 27 for people whose biological sex at birth was female, and 30 for those born male. For those assigned female at birth, the highest prevalence of gender dysphoria diagnosis was at the age of 19, compared with 23 for people assigned male at birth. (Perry, 6/29)

Fox News: Gender Dysphoria Growing Among Younger Adults Amid ‘Increasing Acceptance,’ Study Finds 
Individuals are receiving diagnoses of gender dysphoria (GD) — also known as gender identity disorder — at younger ages, according to a new study published in General Psychiatry, an open access journal that covers mental health issues and more. "Gender dysphoria" is defined as "psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity," per the American Psychiatric Association. (Rudy, 6/29)

The Hill: Biden’s Promise To Safeguard Gender-Affirming Care Falls Short Amid Red-State Attacks 
One year ago this month, President Biden in an executive order promised to safeguard access to gender-affirming health care for transgender Americans, charging the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with promoting “expanded access” to care in every state. Today, 20 states and counting have passed laws that heavily restrict or ban gender-affirming medical care, including 17 that have done so this year. Most of these laws regulate the administration of puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to transgender minors, but measures adopted in some states, including Florida and Missouri, threaten to limit access to care for adults, too. (Migdon, 6/30)

The Washington Post: States And CDC To Track Cronobacter Cases Like Other Infectious Diseases
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will start collecting data from state and local health departments about infections caused by cronobacter, the pathogen at the center of last year’s infant formula crisis. The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, which makes recommendations to the CDC about illnesses it should track, made the recommendation at a conference Thursday. The CDC has said it will adopt the recommendation starting next year. CSTE members worked closely with CDC experts and representatives of the Food and Drug Administration and the Association of Public Health Laboratories to come to this decision. (Reiley, 6/29)

Medical Xpress: Researchers Find Unsafe Feeding Methods Spiked During Infant Formula Shortage
Nearly half of parents who relied on formula to feed their babies during the infant formula shortage last year resorted to potentially harmful feeding methods, according to a survey from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study was published in the journal BMC Pediatrics. In an online anonymous survey of U.S. parents, the number of individuals that used at least one unsafe feeding practice increased from 8% before the formula shortage to nearly 50% during the shortage. Unsafe practices included watering down formula, using expired or homemade formula, or using human milk from informal sharing. (Quinton, 6/27)

California Healthline: More States Drop Sales Tax On Disposable Diapers To Boost Affordability
Last month, Florida joined a growing number of states like California in banning sales taxes on diapers to make them more affordable for older adults and families with young children. Though diapers are essential for many, they are not covered by food stamps. Nor are incontinence products for older adults typically covered by Medicare. The cost can easily add up on a fixed income. (Critchfield, 6/29)

Fox News: US Catholic Bishops Issue Sharp Rebuke To Pro-Abortion Catholic Members Of Congress
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a sharp rebuke to 31 Catholic Democratic members of Congress who have used their faith as a defense for their pro-abortion views. "Members of Congress who recently invoked teachings of the Catholic faith itself as justifying abortion or supporting a supposed right to abortion grievously distort the faith," said the June 28th statement, which was entitled, "U.S. Bishops' President and Chairmen Rebuke Distortion of Church Teaching in Abortion Statement by Members of Congress." (Rousselle, 6/29)

AP: Drone Deployed To Fight Mosquitoes In Southern California
A drone flies over a peaceful Southern California marsh and unleashes a rain of larvae-killing bacterial spore pellets. Its target: a surging population of mosquitoes that can spread diseases to humans. The drone is the latest technology deployed by the Orange County Mosquito and Vector Control District to attack mosquito development in marshes, large ponds and parks. (Garcia, 6/29)

San Diego Union-Tribune: He Had No Heartbeat For 70 Minutes. CPR Saved Vista Retiree's Life 
When David Mills of Vista went into cardiac arrest on April 8, it took 70 minutes of CPR to restore his regular heartbeat. (Sisson, 6/27)

East Bay Times: If Lab Leak Led To COVID, There Are Truths We Must Not Ignore
Since 2019 when COVID-19 emerged in China, scientists worldwide have been trying to ascertain the origin of the virus. The two major theories are a natural spillover from bats to an animal source and then to humans or a laboratory accident. A related question is whether the virus emerged from nature or was the result of human-made genetic manipulation. (Dr. Cory Franklin and Dr. Robert Weinstein, 6/29)

Fresno Bee: San Joaquin Valley Sheriffs Do Poor Job Of Monitoring, Reporting Covid Date
California’s sheriffs are reluctant to disclose data on COVID-19 in their jails and no state authority has mandated that they do so. To date, there is little to no transparency on the pandemic’s impact on roughly 80,000 people who shuffle in and out of the 114 county jails in the state. (Aparna Komarla and Suzanne Stitt, 6/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gavin Newsom’s New California Homelessness Plan Has Fatal Flaws
In November, Gov. Gavin Newsom made an abrupt announcement that shocked the state’s cities and counties: He would withhold $1 billion in state homelessness funding because of local governments’ “unacceptable” plans to collectively reduce homelessness by just 2% by 2024. (6/24)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Takes Its Most Promising Step Yet On Homelessness 
The persistent growth of homelessness in San Diego in recent years has mostly ended the glib promises politicians used to make that they would “end” homelessness — that they could solve the housing shortage and the intertwined mental health and addiction crises. (6/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why Sensationalizing S.F.’s Fentanyl Crisis Won’t Help Solve It
On Wednesday, Mayor London Breed’s office sent out a news release updating the public on efforts to disrupt drug dealing in San Francisco’s Tenderloin and South of Market neighborhoods. The statement noted that San Francisco Police Department had seized “over 60 kilos of fentanyl year to date, amounting to over 30 million lethal doses of the deadly drug.” That’s enough to kill over three-quarters of the people living in California — a sensational claim. It’s also one that echoes a growing trend of likening fentanyl to a weapon of mass destruction, a tried-and-true tactic of right-wing media. (Nuala Bishari, 6/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: How California Can Protect Abortion And Gender-Affirming Care Seekers
With the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling on Saturday, a bill to protect people seeking and providing abortions or gender-affirming care in California has come under fire from the state’s powerful law enforcement lobby. (Hayley Tsukayama, 6/24)