Los Angeles Times: Bird Flu Reportedly Prompts Another Raw Milk Recall 
State agriculture officials Saturday announced a raw milk recall from Stanislaus County producer Valley Milk Simply Bottled, a news report said. (Rust, 12/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Reports First Flu Death Of The Respiratory Virus Season
San Francisco health officials Friday reported the first flu-related death this respiratory virus season, an adult older than 65 who had not gotten the annual influenza vaccine. Each respiratory virus season, which generally runs from November through February and peaks around late December, the flu kills thousands of Americans. During the 2023-24 season, 579 people in California died from the virus, according to state data. (Ho, 12/13)

CIDRAP: Indicators Show US Flu And COVID Activity Rising 
Flu activity continues to rise, and COVID-19 indicators are also starting to rise from very low levels, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today in its weekly respiratory virus illness updates. ... "We predict COVID-19 illness to increase in the coming weeks, as it usually does in the winter," the CDC said. Wastewater detections are still in the low range and are highest in the Midwest, followed by the West and the South. (Schnirring, 12/13)

CIDRAP: About 8% Of US Adults Have Ever Had Long COVID, Survey Finds 
A study today demonstrates that last year, about 8% of US adults reported that they ever had long COVID, and those who currently had the condition or currently had activity-limiting long COVID were both under 4%, but a leading US expert on long COVID explains the limitations of such data and why estimates of the prevalence of the condition can vary so widely. Long COVID—also known as post-COVID condition (PCC)—is generally defined as having symptoms 3 months or longer after an acute COVID-19 infection. (Wappes, 12/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Escondido Declares Local Emergency Over Impacts From Creek Homeless Encampments
Escondido’s city manager on Sunday declared a local emergency and announced plans to clear homeless encampments from a section of Escondido Creek after recent water quality tests showed elevated bacteria levels. (Sisson, 12/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Mayor Todd Gloria’s Massive Warehouse Shelter Will Again Be Debated, But Behind Closed Doors 
Five months after a brutal, hourslong, late-into-the-night hearing where few residents or elected leaders could find positive things to say about the prospect of turning an empty Middletown warehouse into one of the nation’s largest homeless shelters, the proposal is back before the San Diego City Council. But details about the re-negotiated plan will, at least for the moment, stay hidden. (Nelson, 12/15)

Sacramento Bee: Book Of Dreams: Sacramento HIV-Positive Homeless Need Fridge
After a long series of stretches living in homelessness, Jade, 47, of Sacramento, has found the perfect place to get her health and well-being back on track. She participates in a program called Open Arms in a small shelter run by Volunteers of America that serves individuals who are HIV-positive or living with AIDS. (Macht, 12/16)

Orange County Register: Fixer-Upper In Santa Ana Offers Lifeline To Homeless, Health-Challenged Kids 
Statistics about homeless kids in Orange County and their often precarious health situations are grim, which is why advocates for the unhoused are encouraged about a recently renovated, six-bed, three-bath home in Santa Ana. (Mouchard, 12/15)

Bay Area News Group: Drug Overdose Deaths Fall In California, Bay Area After Pandemic Explosion
For nine straight months, overdose deaths in California have been on a rapid decline, a remarkable reversal following an explosion of drug fatalities during the pandemic. (Varian, 12/16)

Bay Area News Group: California Clubhouse Helps Adults With Mental Illness Find Their Way Back
At California Clubhouse, a San Carlos-based sanctuary where those with serious mental illness can be people, not patients, Roberts is responsible for planning, shopping and cooking daily meals for 20 other members. (Krieger, 12/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here’s How S.F. Wants To Spend Gavin Newsom’s Mental Health Bond
San Francisco has asked state officials for $144 million to create 175 more beds for people experiencing mental illness and addiction. The Department of Public Health submitted an application to the state this month in hopes of securing a portion of the $6.4 billion mental health bond passed by California voters in March. (Angst, 12/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Nancy Pelosi Is Recovering From Hip Surgery In Germany
House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi underwent successful hip replacement surgery in Germany after suffering an injury during a congressional trip to Luxembourg, her spokesperson confirmed Saturday. Ian Krager, Pelosi’s spokesperson, said in a statement that the former speaker is “well on the mend” and expressed gratitude to the U.S. military staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the medical team at Hospital Kirchberg for their “excellent care and kindness.” (Vaziri, 12/14)

Politico: Congress Grapples Over Pre-Christmas Catch-All Deal As Government Shutdown Looms
Congressional leaders were still trading offers Sunday afternoon on a government funding patch attached to a disaster aid package and a slew of other priorities leaders hope to clear before year’s end. Those negotiations between Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and their leadership counterparts are down to the wire, ahead of a Friday night government shutdown deadline and Congress’ scheduled break for the holidays. Since the funding measure is expected to be the last major bill Congress passes this year, lawmakers have been eyeing it as a path to clearing several other major policy priorities, including a package to authorize expiring health care programs, a long-sought bipartisan deal to overhaul rules for permitting energy projects and a measure to restrict U.S. investments to China. (Scholtes, 12/15)

The Washington Post: Over 120 House Democrats Call On Biden To Have Equal Rights Amendment Ratified
More than 120 House Democrats have signed a letter asking President Joe Biden to urge the nation’s archivist to recognize the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment by publishing the amendment first proposed 101 years ago — a move they believe would finally enshrine sex equality into the Constitution. If the president does as the Democrats ask, the publication of the ERA would probably spark legal challenges over the validity of the amendment, which, despite having met all the constitutional requirements, has not been added to the Constitution because not enough states ratified it in time to meet a Congress-mandated deadline. (Alfaro, 12/15)

Stat: Top Health Care Policy Issues To Watch: Medicaid Cuts, Medicare, ACA 
Health care did not play a big role in the election that’s sending President Trump back to the White House and giving Republicans control of Congress. That doesn’t mean Congress will avoid the topic next year. (Wilkerson, 12/16)

The New York Times: Health Protections For Migrant Children In Custody Are Set To Expire 
A court-ordered system for protecting the health of children detained at the southern border, put in place two years ago after several children died in custody, is set to expire nine days after Donald J. Trump takes office with plans to intensify the deportation of migrants. The system, part of a July 2022 legal settlement between the government and lawyers representing migrant children in custody, set detailed protocols for detaining minors at Customs and Border Protection facilities in the Rio Grande Valley and El Paso sectors. It required agents to provide them with access to emergency care and basic hygiene items — showers, toothbrushes and blankets for sleeping, for example. It forbade agents to separate children from their parents for extended periods of time. (Baumgaertner, 12/13)

The Washington Post: NIH Launches Women’s Health Research Website 
Want to know the latest about research funded by the National Institutes of Health on topics including menopause, polycystic ovary syndrome and other conditions affecting women’s health? Discover Women’s Health Research (DiscoverWHR), a recently launched website on federally funded women’s health research across the lifespan, offers answers. The portal is a resource from NIH in support of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, which is focused on closing research gaps and improving prevention, detection and treatment of health issues affecting girls and women. (Blakemore, 12/15)

Stat: Outgoing CDC Director Girds Against An Overhaul, And Tries To Calm Staff Nerves
As her tenure as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention winds down, Mandy Cohen is in persuasion mode — simultaneously trying to convince critics of the CDC in the incoming administration that the agency has re-focused since its pandemic-era missteps, and calm nervous staff about what is to come. (Branswell, 12/16)

The Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr. Has A Battle Plan To Get Senate Confirmation
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to win over Capitol Hill starts this week with a strategy to play down the topic of vaccines, adhere tightly to President-elect Donald Trump’s messaging on abortion and talk up healthy food and preventing chronic disease, according to people familiar with his thinking. ... Kennedy is slated to be on the Hill several days this week, sitting down with over two dozen senators and a team of Republican staffers, people familiar with his plans said. His team is hoping to assuage senators’ concerns about his broad criticism of vaccines, according to people familiar with his strategy. He is likely to tell senators that, if confirmed to lead HHS, he isn’t planning to take anyone’s vaccines away and instead wants to promote transparent, safe, effective vaccines, the people said. (Whyte, Peterson and Andrews, 12/16)

The Washington Post: Polio Survivor Mitch McConnell Criticizes Efforts To Undermine Vaccine 
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), who battled polio as a child, warned on Friday that anyone seeking a Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of associating with any efforts to undermine public confidence in the polio vaccine. “The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease. Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said in a statement. “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.” (Vazquez, 12/13)

Axios: Polio Vax Petition Could Preview More Challenges
Efforts to revoke Food and Drug Administration approval of the polio vaccine could provide a preview of how vaccine skeptics plan to challenge decades of federal health policy during a second Trump administration, experts say. (Reed, 12/16)

The Washington Post: Dave Weldon, Trump’s CDC Pick, Has A Long History Of Vaccine Skepticism 
The world’s most respected infectious-disease agency needed a new leader. Anti-vaccine activists knew just the man: Dave Weldon, a Florida physician and former seven-term Republican congressman who had for years expressed concerns about the safety of vaccines. The year was 2017. Weldon didn’t get the job then, but, seven years later, President-elect Donald Trump has tapped the 71-year-old former Army doctor to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is charged with protecting the United States from health threats at home and abroad. That includes making vaccine recommendations — work that has come under fire from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the longtime vaccine skeptic whom Trump has picked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which has oversight over the CDC. (Sun, Nirappil and Schaffer, 12/15)

The New York Times: Are Childhood Vaccines ‘Overloading’ The Immune System? No.
It’s an idea as popular as it is incorrect: American babies now receive too many vaccines, which overwhelm their immune systems and lead to conditions like autism. This theory has been repeated so often that it has permeated the mainstream, echoed by President-elect Donald J. Trump and his pick to be the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Mandavilli, 12/14)

Bloomberg: Ozempic Craze Appears To Be Curbing US Obesity Epidemic
For the first time in a decade, obesity in the US is declining — and a new study suggests it’s because of wildly popular medications such as Ozempic. The number of obese Americans has been steadily climbing for years, and the country’s average body mass index, or BMI, has been creeping up along with it. But in 2023, something changed: Obesity levels fell to 43.96% from 44.1% the year prior. It’s a small decline, but a meaningful one, researchers say. (Muller, 12/13)

Fox News: Colon Cancer Risk Linked To Seed Oils In Early Study, Tied To Inflammation
Seed oils — which are plant-based cooking oils that are often used in processed, packaged foods — have been linked to an increased risk of colon cancer, according to a new study published this week in the medical journal Gut. Researchers at University of South Florida (USF) Health and Tampa General Hospital Cancer Institute analyzed 162 tumor samples from colon cancer patients, according to a USF press release. (Rudy, 12/13)

Politico: Anti-Slavery Movement Charts Its Path Forward
The national movement to close a so-called slavery loophole in state constitutions was riding a wave of momentum after voters in eight states — including deep-red Alabama and Tennessee — removed exceptions to post-Civil War bans on slavery and involuntary servitude. But the movement was handed an unexpected defeat this year in progressive California, where the failure of a ballot measure explicitly packaged as a ban on forced prison labor has left activists nationwide grappling with how best to draft such constitutional amendments in the up to 14 states where they could appear on ballots in 2026. (Schultheis, 12/14)

Los Angeles Times: Requiem For The Unclaimed Dead 
On a grassy hillside just east of downtown Los Angeles, a few dozen mourners gathered last week to pay respects to 1,865 people whose names they did not know — men, women and children whose ashes recently joined the remains of 100,000 others laid to rest here since 1896. The departed interred at Los Angeles County Cemetery had one thing in common, and one thing separating them from those on the other side of the rusty chain-link fence demarcating the county plot and neighboring Evergreen Cemetery: They had neither the means for a private burial nor family to claim their bodies. (Purtill, 12/15)