San Francisco Chronicle: Sutter Health Settles Antitrust Lawsuit For $228.5 Million
Sutter Health has agreed to pay $228.5 million to settle a long-running class-action lawsuit that accused the health care provider of abusing its market power to drive up prices for insurers, employers and individuals. An agreement to resolve the case was reached in March, but details about the settlement figure were not made public until Friday, when both parties filed a motion for preliminary approval in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. A judge must approve the motion for the agreement to move forward. (Ho, 4/25)

Becker's Hospital Review: Prime Warns Of Employment Offer Scams
Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare has issued a warning about a recent scam whereby “unauthorized individuals” have impersonated the health system by offering fraudulent jobs or have contacted them with fake employment opportunities. ... Prime stressed that all legitimate employment opportunities from the health system are listed on their career page. It also does not conduct interviews or offer employment through messaging apps, third-party platforms or unofficial email addresses. (Ashley, 4/25)

Bay Area News Group: Lafayette Cancer Center Expansion Reflects New Approach To Recovery Care
Dexter Louie gets emotional thinking about the immediate sense of calm he felt visiting the Cancer Support Community for the first time, prodded by his wife and adult children who found the center in a desperate bid to keep him alive. (Lauer, 4/28)

Becker's Hospital Review: 'Pioneering' California Neonatolist Dies
Philip Sunshine, MD, a “founding practitioner of neonatology,” died April 5 at 94, according to an obituary published by Stanford Medicine. Dr. Sunshine began his career at Stanford (Calif.) Medicine in 1956 as a medical resident, according to a Stanford obituary. After completing residencies in pediatrics and gastroenterology, he was hired as a faculty member at the system. He went to serve as chief of pediatrics at University of Southern California and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for several years in the 1980s before returning to Stanford. Dr. Sunshine continued to care for premature babies until he retired in 2022 at 92. (Taylor, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: Can $1,000 A Month Get More Students Into Nursing? L.A. Effort Says Yes
Community colleges play a critical role in addressing California’s persistent demand for healthcare workers, preparing students to become the state’s next generation of nurses, medical assistants and physical therapy aides. But in the Los Angeles Community College District, where more than half of all students report incomes near or below the poverty line, many people struggle to complete their degrees while also holding down jobs to pay rent, buy groceries and cover child-care costs. A pilot program at the L.A. district — the state’s largest, with nine colleges and 194,000 students — aims to address these seemingly intractable challenges with a targeted remedy: $1,000 a month in guaranteed income. (Plevin, 4/28)

Becker's Hospital Review: How Health Systems Are Curbing Pharmacy Costs
Health systems across the U.S. are implementing various strategies to manage pharmaceutical expenses while maintaining high care standards. Below are responses from eight pharmacy leaders [including Rita Shane of Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai] who were asked: As healthcare costs continue to rise, what is one strategy your pharmacy is adopting to help reduce medication expenses while maintaining high quality care? (Murphy, 4/25)

Fierce Healthcare: Here's What For-Profit Health System CEOs, CFOs Made In 2024
The CEOs of HCA Healthcare, Tenet Healthcare, Universal Health Services (UHS), Community Health Systems (CHS) and public market newcomer Ardent Health Services received compensation packages ranging from $6.9 million to $24.7 million, according to annual proxy statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. This was a wider range than the $8.3 million to $21.3 million reported last year. (Muoio, 4/28)

Times of San Diego: Tijuana's Hospital Infantil Delivers World-Class Pediatric Care, Smiles To Border Families
At Hospital Infantil de las Californias in Tijuana, the first thing many visitors notice isn’t the high-tech surgical suites or the impressive roster of volunteer specialists. It’s the smiles. “The hospital is famous for making kids smile,” said Leonard Kornreich, MD, a longtime board member and pediatrician. “They make them smile by physically correcting their teeth and palates, and also give them a positive spirit. They are all treated like royalty regardless of their circumstances.” (Ireland, 4/25)

Berkeleyside: After Years Of Unmet Goals, Berkeley Hands Behavioral Crisis Response To County
Beset by slow recruitment and lagging response times, and with no dedicated funding available to keep its own local mobile crisis response team up and running, Berkeley will begin relying on Alameda County for behavioral health calls later this year. City Manager Paul Buddenhagen announced in a memo Tuesday that Berkeley “is transitioning the services offered” by the Specialized Care Unit (SCU) to Alameda County Behavioral Health Services. (Gecan, 4/25)

San Diego Union-Tribune: First-Responder Drone Approved For Oceanside Police
An airborne drone will carry the first eyes responding to 911 emergency calls under a 13-month pilot program approved Wednesday for the Oceanside Police Department. (Diehl, 4/27)

Bay Area News Group: DOGE Cuts Hit San Jose State, UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco. Researcher Says: 'I Don't Know That They Understood What I Was Doing'
Dr. Seth Holmes, a UC Berkeley professor, was organizing a conference to generate research findings to improve public health, with a focus on minorities. Oakland-based UC San Francisco professor Diana Foster was leading research into effects of state-level abortion bans on women. UCSF ophthalmology professor Nisha Acharya was studying the effects of a shingles vaccine on shingles of the eye. (Baron, 4/28)

The Boston Globe: Amid Trump Cuts, How Will Labs Make Up For Lost Research Funding?
The funding geyser that propelled US medical advances for much of the past century may be drying up as the Trump administration pulls back federal research money from Harvard University and other New England institutions that have been reliable engines of discovery and innovation. Yet as labs scramble for alternative funding sources — from foundations, industry, even their university hosts — there’s little hope, in the short term, that those players can fill the gaps resulting from White House rollbacks. (Gokee, Saltzman and Weisman, 4/28)

Bloomberg: Global Race To Lure US Researchers Intensifies After Trump Funding Cuts
A global race to recruit US scientists is heating up as President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to research funding and federal agencies trigger an exodus from the country’s research institutions. Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Australia are among nations offering incentives — including funding, streamlined immigration pathways and competitive relocation packages — to entice scientists facing mounting uncertainty at home. (Gale, 4/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: Sudden Trump Cuts Leave Bay Area Violence Prevention Groups Reeling
The Department of Justice has summarily cut hundreds of federal grants that channeled $811 million to community organizations doing violence prevention work and helping victims of domestic and sexual violence. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the funds were an example of “wasteful spending.” Advocates say that among the 365 recipients whose funding was cut are Youth Alive, a violence prevention organization in Oakland that lost a $2 million grant and the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco, which lost $500,000 in funding for an Arab Women’s Services program outreach. (Garofoli, 4/26)

San Francisco Chronicle: MS Therapy By UCSF Researcher Transforms Treatment For Millions
Dr. Stephen Hauser was a young resident at Harvard when he met his first patient with multiple sclerosis, a woman with a thriving professional life who’d been completely wiped out by her condition, paralyzed on one side and unable to speak. It was heartbreaking, he recalled. He was struck by how cruel the disease seemed, how it could crush the lives of young patients. He pledged to tackle a disease that at the time had almost no treatment options. (Allday, 4/26)

San Diego Union-Tribune: A 10-Foot Microscope Reveals Big Lessons About The Tiniest Threats To The Human Body 
We’ll understand if you’re puzzled by the eerie image below. It’s a tiny piece of the Lassa virus, which can double a person over in pain, make their head swell and, in some cases, quickly result in death. But that image, created at Scripps Research in La Jolla, also represents hope. (Robbins, 4/27)

San Francisco Chronicle: How To Preserve Brain Health And Prevent Cognitive Decline At Any Age
Many people think of preserving brain health as preventing or delaying dementia. But there are many other causes of memory and attention impairment that are unrelated to dementia, but whose symptoms can mimic dementia, such as depression or mood disorders, sleep deprivation, and drug or alcohol intoxication. These factors can affect our cognition at any stage in life, though many people don’t start worrying about cognitive decline until midlife or later. (Ho, 4/27)

The New York Times: After Trump Aid Cuts, Food Banks Scrounge And Scrimp 
Sara Busse needed to make a hot meal for 40 needy seniors. She had promised a main dish, a starch, a vegetable, a fruit and a dessert. In the past, she had gotten many of those ingredients for free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This time, she had dried cranberries, crackers and vegetable soup. “What am I supposed to do?” she said. “What am I supposed to cook?” (Fahrenthold, 4/28)

Politico: White House Wariness Tempers GOP Plans To Share Food-Aid Spending With States 
America’s largest anti-hunger program could be transformed under proposals now being debated by congressional Republicans, with some of the costs for the safety-net program potentially pushed onto states for the first time. But White House officials are urging caution as GOP lawmakers move to finalize their massive domestic policy bill, with concerns mounting about benefit cuts hitting President Donald Trump’s own voters. Lawmakers are discussing more than a dozen iterations of the still-tentative plan to scale back federal spending on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by forcing states to split at least some of the cost, according to five people granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. Governors would have to decide whether to foot the bill or put new limits on who would be eligible for food aid in their states. (Hill, 4/27)

AP: How Bugs And Beet Juice Could Play Roles In The Race To Replace Artificial Dyes In Food
As pressure grows to get artificial colors out of the U.S. food supply, the shift may well start at Abby Tampow’s laboratory desk. On an April afternoon, the scientist hovered over tiny dishes of red dye, each a slightly different ruby hue. Her task? To match the synthetic shade used for years in a commercial bottled raspberry vinaigrette — but by using only natural ingredients. ... Tampow is part of the team at Sensient Technologies Corp., one of the world’s largest dyemakers, that is rushing to help the salad dressing manufacturer — along with thousands of other American businesses — meet demands to overhaul colors used to brighten products from cereals to sports drinks. (Aleccia, 4/28)

CNN: Your Chance Of An Early Death Rises With Every Bite Of Ultraprocessed Food, Study Says 
As you add more ultraprocessed foods to your diet, your risk of a premature death from any cause rises, according to a new meta-analysis of research involving more than 240,000 people. (LaMotte, 4/28)

San Diego Union-Tribune: More Detox Beds Are Opening In East County Amid A Regionwide Shortage
Two dozen detox beds for low-income residents will open in the coming weeks at a renovated East County facility, a needed addition to a region short on spots for those struggling with addiction. (Nelson, 4/26)

The New York Times: Trump Budget Draft Ends Narcan Program And Other Addiction Measures.
The opioid overdose reversal medication commercially known as Narcan saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is routinely praised by public health experts for contributing to the continuing drop in opioid-related deaths. But the Trump administration plans to terminate a $56 million annual grant program that distributes doses and trains emergency responders in communities across the country to administer them, according to a draft budget proposal. In the document, which outlines details of the drastic reorganization and shrinking planned for the Department of Health and Human Services, the grant is among many addiction prevention and treatment programs to be zeroed out. (Hoffman, 4/25)

The 19th: What Rights Do LGBTQ+ Families Have In Trump’s Second Term?
Many LGBTQ+ parents don’t feel safe in the United States, according to a new survey. A third of LGBTQ+ parents in the U.S. recently surveyed by the market research company Kantar, in partnership with DIVA Charitable Trust and The Curve Foundation, don’t feel like they have the same legal rights as other families. Although 63 percent of those parents are legally married, the many benefits of a legal union still don’t outweigh the hurdles that LGBTQ+ parents face when raising a family. (Rummler, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: California Reports Sharp Rise In Valley Fever Cases For First Three Months Of 2025
California is heading toward another record year for cases of valley fever, the disease caused by fungal spores linked to cycles of drought and precipitation. There were 3,123 reported cases of valley fever in the first three months of the year, according to state health officials — roughly double the 10-year average for the first-quarter time period. Cases ranged from a low of 801 in 2016 to 3,011 last year. (Rust, 4/25)

Los Angeles Times: Measles Confirmed In L.A. County Resident Who Had Traveled To Texas 
Measles has been confirmed in a Los Angeles County resident who recently returned from Texas, a state that is in the midst of an outbreak of the highly infectious disease, health officials said Friday. ... This is the third measles case reported by the L.A. County Department of Public Health so far this year. (Lin II, 4/25)