Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital Weighs Suspending Acute, Emergency Care 
When Kevin Flanigan, MD, began his new role as CEO of Lone Pine, Calif.-based Southern Inyo Healthcare District on Aug. 18, the hospital had just eight days of cash on hand. As of Sept. 25, cash on hand for the hospital had increased to 12 days. “On any given day, it can drop down to two or three days of cash on hand,” Dr, Flanigan told Becker’s. “Payroll is going out, and it will be back down as soon as that goes out the door.” (Ashley, 9/25)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. ‘MAGA Dentist’ Joke About Harming Liberal Patients Goes Viral
A self-proclaimed “MAGA Dentist” is facing backlash after a video of her joking about turning down pain-relieving gas for liberal patients at her Santa Clarita clinic blew up online. Dr. Harleen Grewal of Skyline Smiles made this quip and other wisecracks about her distaste for left-leaning clients during a speech at the Republican Liberty Gala in 2021, comments that recently attracted mass attention after a video of the speech went viral on TikTok. That video has since been taken down, but recorded versions of it and response videos criticizing Grewal continue to circulate. (Harter, 9/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Stanford Chief To Receive American Heart Association Honor
The American Heart Association will honor Fátima Rodriguez, MD, section chief of preventive cardiology at Stanford (Calif.) Medicine, with the Joseph A. Vita Award during its 2025 Scientific Sessions meeting in November. ... The award recognizes one scientist whose research has significantly advanced cardiovascular biology or health in the last five years. (Gregerson, 9/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Texas, California Hospitals Win National Radiology Award
Orange, Calif.-based Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Dallas-based University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center are the inaugural recipients of the American Society of Radiologic Technologists’ 2025 BeRAD Professionalism Award. The award recognizes professionalism, quality, collaboration and patient safety, according to a Sept. 22 news release from Children’s Hospital of Orange County. (Gregerson, 9/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: Immigrants Detained In California City ICE Facility Decry Conditions
Detained immigrants at the newly opened detention center in California City (Kern County) described the facility’s conditions as inhumane, saying many people do not have access to adequate medical care, clean drinking water or unclogged toilets, according to detainees and immigration attorneys. Detainees have reported being denied medication, basic care, essential hygiene items, access to the law library and the ability to pray at the CoreCivic California City Immigration Processing Center, according to the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Some people have reportedly not received medical care until after passing out, said Priya Patel, supervising attorney for the Oakland-based immigration rights group with clients at the facility. (Flores, 9/25)

Richmondside: ICE Deports East Bay Grandmother With No Criminal Record To India
Harjit Kaur, a 73-year-old East Bay woman who was detained for 15 days by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a routine check-in, was deported to her home country of India this week. She had been living and working legally in the United States for more than three decades and had no criminal history. ... What Kaur did share was that she was held in cells without a bed or a chair for hours and made to sleep on the floor. She was refused vegetarian meals in accordance with her religious beliefs (she is Sikh) during the first six days of detention and was only provided with her medicine several days into detention. (Kadah, 9/25)

Oaklandside: ICE Entered An Oakland Courthouse. Court Officials Didn’t Know Agents Were In The Building
The video, taken Sept. 15, shows a man wearing a white T-shirt and black pants, his hands cuffed behind his back. He’s being walked out of the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland. Flanked by three men — presumably U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — in plain clothes, the man is led to an unmarked black SUV. One of the agents appears to have a firearm on his hip. (Romero, 9/25)

CNBC: U.S. To Impose 100% Tariff On Branded, Patented Drugs Unless Firms Build Plants Locally, Trump Says
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will impose a 100% tariff on “any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product” entering the country from Oct. 1. The measure will not apply to companies building drug manufacturing plants in the U.S., Trump said. He added that the exemption covers projects where construction has started, including sites that have broken ground or are under construction. (Jie and Constantino, 9/25)

The New York Times: Trump May Try To Force Drugmakers To Match European Prices
The Trump administration may propose a regulatory process to force drugmakers to cut U.S. prices to the lower levels in other wealthy countries, according to a notice that was posted on a federal website. The notice, which was published, then deleted for several hours Thursday, and then republished, refers to a “proposed rule” and a “global benchmark for efficient drug pricing (GLOBE) model” under the Department of Health and Human Services. (Sanger-Katz and Robbins, 9/25)

The New York Times: Kennedy Says U.S. Rejects Global Health Goals
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday said the United States would reject a United Nations declaration on chronic diseases, because it ignored “the most pressing health issues,” and more broadly because the Trump administration takes issue with policies that he described as promoting abortion and “radical gender ideology.” Mr. Kennedy, who gave his remarks to a U.N. meeting on preventing and combating chronic illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, did not elaborate on the issues he said had been ignored. (Jacobs, 9/25)

Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Mulls Adding Autism Symptoms To Vaccine Injury Program
The Trump administration is considering ways to allow people with autism to seek compensation through a government vaccine injury program, according to an adviser, in a change likely to throw it into disarray. The program, called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, shields companies from most lawsuits and includes a fund that pays people who experience a serious reaction to a covered vaccine. It’s paid out about $5 billion since 1988. (Cohrs Zhang, Muller and Smith, 9/25)

CNN: Mifepristone: Federal Agencies Are Studying Safety Of Abortion Drug, Driving New Concerns About Limits On Access
The US Food and Drug Administration is reviewing evidence about the safety and efficacy of one of the drugs used in medication abortion to investigate how it can be safely dispensed, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary wrote in a new letter to 22 Republican attorneys general. Kennedy and Makary said the FDA would conduct “its own review of the evidence, including real-world outcomes and evidence, relating to the safety and efficacy” of mifepristone. (Tirrell, McPhillips and Gumbrecht, 9/25)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Democrats Spotlight Their Demand For Restored Health Insurance Subsidies In Budget Stalemate 
With a potential government shutdown just days away, U.S. Rep. Mike Levin and Sen. Adam Schiff held a news conference in Oceanside on Thursday afternoon to draw attention to the condition Democrats have placed on a budget deal: restoration of the enhanced premium tax credits that help millions afford their monthly health insurance premiums. President Donald Trump’s budget bill, signed into law in July, does not technically cut premium tax credits but rather allows them to expire on Dec. 31. Congress faces a deadline of Sept. 30 to pass a new budget and avoid a government shutdown. (Sisson, 9/25)

Stat: How Research Indirect Costs Work, And The Changes That Lie Ahead
For decades, the federal government has supported the infrastructure that makes biomedical breakthroughs possible at universities, academic hospitals, and other research institutions. But recent moves by the Trump administration and Congress reinforce that this system seems headed for a major shake-up. Earlier this month, the House Committee on Appropriations advanced legislation that would limit National Institutes of Health payments for research overhead, also known as indirect costs, to private universities and colleges with large endowments. (Wosen, 9/26)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Releases Investigation Into Botched Eaton Fire Evacuations
Poor communication, understaffing, a lack of adequate planning and chaotic conditions contributed to a failure to issue timely evacuation orders to parts of Altadena as the deadly Eaton fire raced through the community, according to a long-awaited report released Thursday. The report did not assign blame to individuals for the botched alerts, but found Los Angeles County had no clear process for who should issue evacuation orders and called for significant reforms. (Castleman, Ellis and Toohey, 9/25)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: More Affordable Housing Headed To Oceanside
Oceanside has more than 1,100 affordable housing units in the construction pipeline, mostly apartments reserved for very low-income residents, a city official said Tuesday. Most of those units, 667 of them, are in all-affordable buildings planned or nearing completion, Housing and Community Services Director Leilani Hines said in a presentation to the city’s Housing Commission. Most of the rest are included as a percentage of market-rate developments. (Diehl, 9/24)

The Desert Sun: Nursing Street Medicine Program Receives $100k Grant
The Nursing Street Medicine Program at the Cal State San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus has received a $100,000 grant from the Houston Family Foundation to support its mission of delivering compassionate health care to underserved populations in the Coachella Valley. Grant funds will be used to serve 700 unique individuals and 1,200 annual patient contacts, launch three new clinics and train 35 nursing students annually in culturally competent, street-based care. It will also expand behavioral health services. (Singer, 9/26)

The Bakersfield Californian: 'A Generational Impact': Kern High School District Using Hydroponics To Give Students More Access To Fresh Produce 
Is it possible for school districts to grow some of the fresh produce they serve to students in school cafeterias? At the Kern High School District, the answer seems to be an unequivocal yes. On Thursday, district administrators, local supporters and partners in the effort gathered at the KHSD Nutrition Services Central Kitchen in southeast Bakersfield to celebrate the grand opening of its new hydroponics gardens, installed in partnership with Blue Zones Project Bakersfield, Valley Children's Healthcare and Adventist Health Central California Network. (Mayer, 9/25)

Los Angeles Daily News: The American Public Can No Longer Trust The Government On Medicine
Those poor scientists – their federal funding has been taken away, their research programs scrapped, and their rigorous scientific findings ignored in favor of one man’s irrational, uninformed opinion. (Rafael Perez, 9/25)

Capitol Weekly: Political Strategists Don’t Dispense Medicine — Pharmacists Do
As someone who has owned and operated several neighborhood pharmacies for more than 2 decades while serving a large Latino population, I take offense at the claim that SB 41 is “political optics” or that it somehow harms Latino communities. The reality is the exact opposite: SB 41 is the only bill on the table that begins to hold Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) accountable for the damage they are doing to patients, families, and pharmacies across California. (Maria Lopez, 9/22)

Fresno Bee: California Democrat Wants To Fix The Looming Health Crisis. GOP Is Quiet.
About 4 million Californians are about to lose their Medicaid coverage, another 1.7 million Covered California enrollees will see a premium increase of 66% because of expiring tax credits. On top of that, 70 hospitals are on the verge of declaring bankruptcy because of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill. And what are Republicans in Congress doing to keep us from going over a healthcare cliff? Nothing. House Speaker Mike Johnson sent representatives home until Oct. 6. (9/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: Newsom Can Make California A Leader In Menopausal Health
Every woman will experience menopause, but, sadly, our health care system still treats it as an afterthought. I see this gap every day as a physician. Women share stories of relentless hot flashes that interfere with their ability to work, brain fog that makes them question their memory and focus, and painful symptoms that strain even their closest relationships. And yet, too many are dismissed by the very system meant to care for them, told that this is “just part of aging.” This disregard is not only unacceptable — it is harmful. (Jessica Shepherd, 9/23)

Times of San Diego: Changes To California's AI Policy Could Delay Healthcare Innovation
I’ve just become a Dad. For me, healthcare innovation isn’t just a professional interest anymore. Now, it’s personal. Every policy debate about new technology is now a question of whether my daughter will grow up in a system that can keep her, and millions of other Californians and Americans, healthy and safe. (Marc Fischer, 9/23)

Los Angeles Blade: PrEPARING California For The Future And Better Supporting Those Living With HIV
When I learned I was living with HIV nine years ago, there were a lot of questions to be answered: how will I access treatment? Will I feel safe and respected by my care team? What does stigma look like for me in the fourth decade of the HIV epidemic? While I was fortunate to have a wonderful team of case managers and health care providers who guided me through an unfamiliar and complex medical system, I’ve heard countless stories of people fighting tooth and nail just to find appropriate care, let alone treatment. (Kalvin Pugh, 9/25)