San Diego Union-Tribune: Scripps Chula Vista Closed Its Maternity Ward. Why Are Pregnant Women Still Showing Up? 
Shutting down maternity services at Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista has not stopped pregnant women from showing up in its emergency department in need of obstetric services. Scripps said last week that since closing Scripps Chula Vista’s labor and delivery unit on June 23, a total of 37 obstetrics patients — about one per day — have turned up despite the fact the medical provider spent three months publicizing the closure. (Sisson, 8/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Doctor Opens First West Coast Clinic For LGBTQ Patients With IBD
When UCSF gastroenterologist Dr. Justin Field was doing his medical training at a New York City hospital in 2020, he remembers one patient with ulcerative colitis kept resisting doctors’ recommendations to surgically remove his colon, which they believed would be the next best treatment after his serious autoimmune disease wasn’t responding to medication. Doctors worried the patient didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of his condition. It wasn’t until they learned that as a gay man he considered his sexuality an important part of his identity — and was concerned the procedure might affect his ability to have anal intercourse — that they better understood his reluctance. The surgery, which creates an internal “pouch” to act as a rectum, can make it challenging but not impossible to have sex afterward. “Having that open dialogue enabled the patient to get the care he needed,” Field said. “He had the colectomy that was ultimately lifesaving.” (Ho, 8/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: AI Developed In La Jolla Is Being Tested For ‘Instantaneous’ Cancer Screening 
In an effort to find new tools that can complement or replace expensive and time-consuming genomic testing that is now required to determine the best cancer treatment for each patient, a team led by engineers and medical researchers at UC San Diego in La Jolla has developed a new artificial intelligence program that is being tested for use in precision oncology, a field that uses a patient’s DNA signature to select treatments. (Solomon, 8/4)

Reuters: US FDA Says All Doses Of Lilly's Weight-Loss And Diabetes Drug Are Now Available 
ll doses of Eli Lilly's weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes drug Mounjaro are now available, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's updated shortage list showed on Friday. However, the regulator has not yet removed the drugs off its shortage list. (Satija and K, 8/2)

NBC News: Nearly Half Of Online Pharmacies Selling Weight Loss Drugs Are Operating Illegally, Study Finds
Consumers who try to buy popular weight loss drugs online without a prescription risk being scammed or receiving unsafe products, a new study shows. About 42% of online pharmacies that sell semaglutide, the active ingredient in Novo Nordisk’s anti-obesity drug Wegovy, are illegal, operating without a valid license and selling medications without prescriptions, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. (Szabo, 8/2)

Becker's Hospital Review: Hospitals Aren't Over The Pandemic
More than four years have passed since COVID-19 first emerged in the United States, triggering a federal public health emergency that persisted until May 11, 2023. Yet, many hospitals are still grappling with the lingering effects of the pandemic. The financial impact has been severe, with many hospitals facing devastating losses. Although average margins have shown some improvement in recent months, they remain significantly lower than pre-pandemic levels. According to Kaufman Hall, 40% of U.S. hospitals are still operating at a loss, and the disparity between the best and worst-performing hospitals is growing. In its June "National Hospital Flash Report," the ratings firm revealed that top-performing hospitals reported margins around 30%, while the lowest performers were at -16.1%. (Dyrda, 8/5)

Reveal: The COVID Tracking Project Part 1
The United States has 4% of the world’s population but more than 16% of COVID-19 deaths. Back in February 2020, reporters Rob Meyer and Alexis Madrigal from The Atlantic were trying to find solid data about the rising pandemic. They published a story that revealed a scary truth: The U.S. didn’t know where COVID-19 was spreading because few tests were available. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also didn’t have public data to tell citizens or federal agencies how many people were infected or where the outbreaks were happening. (Curiskis and Oehler, 8/3)

Medical Xpress: WHO Chief Mulls Calling Emergency Committee On Mpox
The World Health Organization's chief said Sunday he was considering convening an expert committee to advise on whether the growing mpox outbreak in Africa should be declared an international emergency. (8/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: California Anti-Abortion Group Sues To Protect Access To ‘Abortion Pill Reversal’
A San Diego-based Catholic nonprofit filed a lawsuit this week against California Attorney General Rob Bonta that seeks to protect access to a treatment that’s said to reverse medication-induced abortions if taken quickly enough. (Riggins, 8/5)

NBC News: Finding Cheap Birth Control Is Becoming Harder For Many In States With Abortion Bans
A renewed spotlight on protecting access to birth control may not help women who are already struggling to find affordable contraception in some states with the strictest abortion laws. At a family planning clinic in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, that largely helps low-income women, executive director Robin Marty has to make sure the clinic, WAWC Healthcare, has a variety of contraceptives on hand, including pills, patches, implants and IUDs, so patients can get free or low-cost birth control during their appointments. (Sullivan, 8/3)

NBC News: Fentanyl Misuse During Pregnancy Can Cause Severe Birth Defects
The number of babies born with severe birth defects affecting their growth and development is rising, as researchers now have strong evidence that illicit fentanyl is causing the problems. Hospitals have identified at least 30 newborns with what has been identified as “fetal fentanyl syndrome,” NBC News has learned. The babies were born to mothers who said they’d used street drugs, particularly fentanyl, while pregnant. (Edwards, 8/2)

AP: After The End Of Roe, A New Beginning For Maternity Homes
There has been a nationwide expansion of maternity homes in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the federal right to abortion. “It’s been a significant increase,” said Valerie Harkins, director of the Maternity Housing Coalition, a nonprofit anti-abortion network of 195 maternity homes that has grown 23% since the court’s ruling. There are now more than 450 maternity homes in the U.S., according to Harkins; many of them are faith-based. As abortion restrictions increase, anti-abortion advocates want to open more of these transitional housing facilities, which often have long waitlists. It’s part of what they see as the next step in preventing abortions and providing long-term support for low-income pregnant women and mothers. (Stanley, 8/2)

AP: What Are Maternity Homes? Their Legacy Is Checkered 
Maternity homes have seen a resurgence in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Across the country, homes are sprouting up or expanding. Christian anti-abortion advocates want to open more of these transitional housing facilities, believing they are the next step in helping women who carry pregnancies to term. Maternity homes differ from emergency shelters: They typically provide longer-term housing and wraparound services for pregnant women, sometimes for months or even years after birth. Many of them are faith-based, with founders who are Catholic or evangelical. (Stanley, 8/2)

Los Angeles Times: As San Francisco Clears Homeless Camps, Where Will People Go?
A week into what Mayor London Breed has called a “very aggressive” effort to clear homeless encampments across San Francisco, a key question looms: Where will the people living in those tents go? Outreach workers, backed by law enforcement officers, have fanned out in recent days in targeted efforts to clear some of San Francisco’s most visible encampments, confiscating personal belongings and telling the owners it’s time to pack up and go. (Wiley, 8/3)

VC Star: Homeless Housing At Former Quality Inn In Thousand Oaks Could Get Second Life
One of Ventura County’s leading providers of low-income housing has a plan to turn the former Quality Inn & Suites in Thousand Oaks into housing for the homeless, after an attempt by a different developer dissolved in a mess of lawsuits and foreclosures. (Biasotti, 8/2)

Los Angeles Times: Veterans’ Demands For More Housing On West L.A. VA Campus Go To Trial
After months of hearings, a federal judge last month ruled that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs discriminates against homeless veterans whose disability compensation makes them ineligible for housing being constructed on its West Los Angeles campus. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter had earlier found that the VA has a fiduciary duty to use the 388-acre campus primarily for housing and healthcare for disabled veterans, casting doubt on the legality of leases that have turned over portions of it for sports facilities, oil drilling and two parking lots. (Smith, 8/5)

San Bernardino Sun: California Needs To Do More To Prevent Suicide Among Native Americans, Tribal Leaders Say
In 2020, Assemblymember James C. Ramos, D-San Bernardino, celebrated the creation of the state’s new Office of Suicide Prevention. Four years later, more work remains to be done, he and other Native American leaders say. Despite making up only 3.6% of Californians in 2020, American Indians or Alaskan Natives made up 9.8% of those who killed themselves that same year, according to the California Department of Public Health. (Yarbough, 8/4)

Bay Area News Group: 'Living In Absolute Squalor': Mental Health Group Homes Go Unregulated In Santa Clara County
“There are folks who are living in absolute squalor,” said Ronda Brown, a behavioral health professional hired by the county in 2022 to lead a review of independent living homes and contribute to a potential oversight strategy at a public meeting. (Varian, 8/5)

The Washington Post: Chronic Pain Patients’ Mental Health Needs Often Go Unrecognized 
People living with chronic pain are more likely than their peers without pain to need mental health treatment, yet less likely to get it, a new analysis suggests. The study, published in the journal PAIN, relied on data from the 2019 National Health Interview Survey, which tracked population-wide health in the United States by surveying a nationally representative sample of about 32,000 adults. (Blakemore, 8/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Ecstasy Drug Trials Missed Suicidal Thoughts Of Subjects
Studies being used to decide whether the U.S. should authorize an ecstasy-based drug for traumatized patients missed serious side effects and were marked by bias. The Food and Drug Administration is expected within days to decide whether to approve the drug, known as MDMA, for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. Approval would be a milestone in decades of efforts to decriminalize the use of psychedelics.  Three people who were subjects in the studies told The Wall Street Journal that their thoughts of suicide worsened during or after testing, but their downward slides weren’t captured in trial data and therefore not reflected in the final results. (Whyte, 8/5)

Vox: MDMA Is On The Brink Of Becoming Medicine
The psychedelic drug is at a make-or-break point, with the FDA scheduled to make an announcement this month on whether it is ready to move forward as a PTSD treatment. In a three-part series, Today, Explained’s Haleema Shah reports on the promise and precarity of MDMA. Starting with the rogue chemist and therapists in the 1980s who believed it could change psychotherapy, the series traces the decades-long effort to make a dance-floor drug medicinal, journeying through the war on drugs, the rave era, and the psychedelic renaissance to explain how a once-maligned drug became an emblem of healing — and how, no matter what the FDA decides, therapy will never be the same. (Shah, 8/2)

Politico: How A 3-Star General Came To Believe In Psychedelic Medicine 
A 77-year-old retired Marine Corps general has emerged as an unlikely advocate for treating veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with the psychedelic drug ecstasy. Jack Bergman flew helicopters in Vietnam, earned three stars, and is now in his fourth term representing a northern Michigan district in the House. A Republican, he sees promise in psychedelics that a group of mostly psychiatry professors who advise the FDA didn’t when they recommended the nation’s drug regulator turn down a pharmaceutical company’s application to offer MDMA along with therapy as a PTSD treatment. (Schumaker, 8/5)

Capital & Main: Lunch At The Library Feeds Needy California Students Despite Slashed Budget
In only its second year as a fully state funded program, Lunch at the Library was on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s list of programs this past May to be cut in the wake of a massive state budget shortfall. But elected officials in Sacramento agreed to fund $3 million, about half its original budget. The strains show. Lunch at the Library is advertised on flyers and signs in and around the library. That may be effective for regular patrons, but there are still young people who might not regularly visit the library and see the advertisements. (Sánchez-Tello, 8/2)

Voice of San Diego: What You Need To Know About The New Gender Identity Law
A new California law prevents school districts from forcing teachers to tell parents if a student changes their gender, name or pronouns. But it doesn’t mean teachers can never inform parents. Since Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill, there’s been confusion about what the law does and doesn’t do. And it’s unclear what it means for a suite of conflicting lawsuits against Southern California schools. (Sullivan Brennan, 8/2)

Fresno Bee: Special Education Is Among The Hardest Cuts In Fresno Unified’s 24-25 Budget 
As the new academic year starts, Fresno Unified kids and teachers from the special education department may find themselves struggling more than before, as special education is among the departments taking the hardest hit in budget cuts. (Zhong, 8/3)