San Francisco Chronicle: Air Quality Plummets Due To Smoke From Point Fire Near Lake Sonoma
A wind-driven fire west of Geyserville, dubbed the Point Fire, quickly spread Sunday afternoon, reaching 550 acres by 7 p.m. Smoke from the fire was pushed southeast throughout the North Bay, where air quality readings locally exceeded the “unhealthy for all” category. ... As a result, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued an air quality advisory for Sonoma, Napa and Marin counties. (Edwards, 6/16)

The New York Times: These Common Medications Can Make Heat Waves More Dangerous 
A major heat wave is expected to hit much of the eastern United States this week. And millions of people across the country are taking medications that may make them more susceptible to heat-related illnesses. Taking certain drugs — including some used to treat mental health conditions, high blood pressure and allergies — can make it even more difficult to stay hydrated or efficiently cool your body when it’s hot outside. Here’s what to know, and how to stay safe during scorching temperatures. (Mogg, 6/15)

Los Angeles Times: Why Do We Get Weather-Related Headaches? Explaining Weather Whiplash
Alanna Santini’s friends call her the “human weather vane.” On cloudy days, the 42-year-old advertising executive from Silver Lake invariably comes down with a bad headache. It’s an experience she grew accustomed to in her home state of New York and something she was happy to escape when she moved west five years ago. But this year, as an unusually dark and stormy Los Angeles winter segued into a rainy, overcast spring, her weather-induced headaches returned with a vengeance — adding a whole new dimension to the term June gloom. (Manning-Schaffel, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: Judge Slams California System As Safety-Net Hospitals 'Fall Into Disrepair'
Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holdings has come under fire for the alleged mismanagement of two of its safety-net hospitals in Providence, R.I. Prospect, a for-profit health system, owns and operates 278-bed Roger Williams Medical Center and 220-bed Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, which allegedly are dealing with several hazards and patient safety issues, according to court documents obtained by Becker's. (Condon, 6/14)

Fierce Healthcare: The Top 10 Nonprofit Health Systems By 2023 Operating Revenue
2023 was a year of checked recovery for a hospital sector coming off its lowest point of pandemic financial pressures. Providers welcomed back a stream of patients that remained below pre-pandemic levels but generally helped strengthen operating margins over the course of the year. Kaiser Permanente is secure in its place as the country’s largest nonprofit health system. (Muoio, 6/17)

Fresno Bee: $6-$8 An Hour For On-Call Nursing? Lawsuit Against Valley Children's Claims Wage Theft
An employee is suing Valley Children’s Healthcare for wage theft, accusing the Madera County nonprofit of intentionally paying nurses less than the minimum wage for their “mandatory on-call shifts.” (Galicia, 6/15)

The Washington Post: Study: Subbing Lower-Paid Staff For RNs Could Cause Patient Deaths 
If hospitals substitute lower-wage staff for registered nurses, patients may suffer, a new analysis suggests. Published in the journal Medical Care, the study coincides with a nationwide RN shortage and reports of widespread burnout among RNs. To fill the gap, many hospitals have turned to “team nursing,” a model that uses fewer RNs as supervisors of a team of lower-wage health-care workers such as licensed practical nurses and nurse assistants. (Blakemore, 6/15)

Stat: Inside Anthony Fauci’s ‘On Call’: 9 Health And Science Takeaways From The Memoir Of America’s Most Famous Doctor
Anthony Fauci spent 40 years in the top echelons of government. It was no accident. To read the forthcoming memoir by the country’s former top infectious disease expert, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” a copy of which was obtained by STAT, is to get a sense of his finesse while advising seven presidents. He strove, he writes, to speak with complete candor and stay out of politics, while remaining strategic in pushing for policies he considered vital to public health. (Mast, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: Alzheimer's Drug Has Potentially Fatal Side Effects
Seventy-nine-year-old Genevieve Lane volunteered to take the Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi in a clinical trial because she was forgetting words and misplacing her keys. Infusions of the drug gave her headaches so severe they sent her to bed. A week after the third dose, she was at a restaurant with her best friend when her speech slurred and she had a seizure. Five days later she was dead. An autopsy found that Lane died of a mysterious side effect that has a name that sounds like it might be part of an Italian opera, but has doctors on edge. (Petersen, 6/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: Mark Cuban: Pharma Has Been 'Easiest Industry' To Disrupt
It's unclear how much Mark Cuban can or will disrupt the pharmaceutical industry, but he told The Athletic he's in the business for the long haul. For the foreseeable future, he's willing to deficit spend for his startup Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., according to the June 14 report. "We're not losing that much money," he told The Athletic, which is part of The New York Times. "And if we keep going the way we're going, I'll make a little money. And we'll use it to add more drugs to our factories, so we can make more." (Twenter, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Can A Food Insecurity Czar Fix The State’s Flawed CalFresh System?
It is shameful enough that a little more than one in five Californians regularly go to bed hungry in the nation’s top agricultural state. What’s inexcusable is that California is among the worst states in the nation at connecting its poorest residents to federal benefits that would help them get something to eat. (Garofoli, 6/17)

Bay Area News Group: Why Don't California Parental Leave Laws Protect Pregnant Elected Officials?
Like many soon-to-be mothers, the cost of child care, the potential health risks and the impact on her career darted through Sunnyvale City Councilmember Alysa Cisneros’ mind when she considered having a second child. But serving in public office, she felt an additional weight on her decision — the court of public opinion, and the potential sexism that she might face as a pregnant elected official. (Hase, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County COVID Cases Rise Amid FLiRT Variants Summer Uptick
Los Angeles County’s COVID cases and hospitalizations are continuing to increase as a new subvariant of the coronavirus makes further gains across the state. For the seven-day period that ended Sunday, there were an average of 121 new cases per day in L.A. County, up from 106 a day the prior week, according to the most recent data available. Reported cases are certainly an undercount, as they generally measure only lab-confirmed infections where tests are done at medical facilities and not those who test at home or don’t test at all. (Lin II, 6/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: COVID-19 Cases Rising In San Diego 
Test results, case totals and wastewater analysis all show that San Diego County, like much of the country, is experiencing an increase in coronavirus activity. But experts say the trend looks like the typical summer uptick that has occurred, to one extent or another, since COVID-19 arrived in 2020. (Sisson, 6/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Finally Agreed To Set Aside Money For 2 New Homelessness Projects. What Happens Now? 
After hours of testimony, multiple press conferences, marathon closed-door meetings and angry protests from residents, the San Diego City Council finally agreed with the mayor to direct millions of dollars toward a pair of projects that could offer varying levels of shelter for the region’s growing homeless population. (Nelson, 6/14)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Lawsuit Says Homeless People’s Belongings Are Being Illegally Trashed In East County 
Early one morning in 2022, Christy Gillette was woken by sheriff’s deputies. The officers told her to move or face arrest. Gillette, who’s now 51, had been sleeping outside near the Santee Drive-In and responded that she couldn’t leave without her walker. The deputies instead threw the walker away, along with the cremated ashes of her husband and son. (Nelson, 6/16)

KQED: How A Repurposed Oakland Hotel Is Saving Lives And Easing Hospital ER Overcrowding
Vera Salido nearly died on the streets in the Tenderloin at 46 years old. To hear her tell it, she developed bed sores from the pressure of sitting in a wheelchair day and night. The injury progressed to sepsis, a life-threatening complication that led to poor organ function. She spent nearly a month recovering at Highland Hospital in Oakland. (McClurg, 6/17)

Bay Area News Group: Are Tiny Homes A Cost-Effective Solution For Homelessness? This Bay Area Nonprofit Thinks So
DignityMoves CEO Elizabeth Funk thinks that for the most part, the public agencies and nonprofits tasked with solving homelessness are going about it all wrong. (Varian, 6/14)

Berkeleyside: Here's What UC Berkeley Plans To Build On People's Park
UC Berkeley plans to build a 1,100-bed student housing project, about 100 apartments for formerly homeless residents, a park and a monument on the 3-acre plot in Southside known for more than five decades as People’s Park. The embattled, $400 million project has been in the works for about three years, when the UC Regents first approved a 12-story student building and a 6-story supportive housing building on the 2.8-acre park, with 1.7 acres for public park space. Protests and lawsuits against development on the historic site, a symbol of Berkeley’s counterculture, held up the plans for three years. (Yelimeli, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: Dianne Feinstein Oversaw S.F.’s First Big Homeless Camp Sweep. It Would Be Impossible Today
It’s an iconic moment captured in black and white: A smiling San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein walking in heels and a suit through a sprawling homeless camp of hand-built shacks. One of her aides stares tight-lipped at the ground. The dozens of homeless people scattered behind her on the packed-dirt pathway look on curiously. There are no social workers in sight. No public works crews, no police officers. (Fagan, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: Judge Halts Ban On Syringe Programs In El Dorado County
El Dorado County cannot enforce its ban on programs that hand out clean syringes as a legal battle continues between the county and the California Department of Public Health, a Superior Court judge has ruled. Judge Gary S. Slossberg granted a preliminary injunction to prevent El Dorado County from enforcing an ordinance that makes it unlawful to operate syringe programs in its unincorporated areas. (Alpert Reyes, 6/15)

Stat: Ambitious Federal Study Did Not Curb Opioid Overdose Deaths
In 2019, amid an ever-worsening drug crisis, the federal government launched a research study with an ambitious goal: to lower opioid overdoses in participating communities by 40% using evidence-based interventions like distributing naloxone and providing access to addiction medications. (Facher, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: Older Men Die By Suicide At Steep Rates. Here’s How The VA Is Trying To Change That
It was a Friday morning and George McCune had roused himself to make the 2.4-mile trip from his Northridge home to the Veterans Affairs campus in North Hills. The 77-year-old was greeted there that March day by the usual crew training for the Golden Age Games: There was Roger, 82, who had piled up medals in javelin, discus and shot put. Bob, who had just gotten his cochlear implant. Becky, 71, bent on defeating her “nemesis” — a guy just six days her junior — in pingpong. (Reyes, 6/15)

Military Times: A Dental Debacle: Why Veterans Struggle To Navigate VA’s Oral Care
Marine Corps veteran Jeremy Williams was humiliated last summer when his front six teeth fell out of his mouth in the middle of a business meeting. Almost a year later, he’s infuriated that he still can’t get his Veterans Affairs health insurance to correct the problem. (Shane III, 6/17)

NPR: Half Of The U.S. Military Bases Are In 'Health Care Deserts'
For hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and their families, when the Pentagon orders them to find health care off base there is none. An NPR analysis found that 50% of active duty military installations stand within federally designated Healthcare Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA). Those are places where medical services are hard to find — commonly called “health care deserts.” (Lawrence, 6/17)

Reuters: US House Approves Defense Policy Bill With Divisive Provision On Abortion, Transgender Troops 
The U.S. House Of Representatives on Friday passed its version of the annual defense policy bill that included measures taking aim at abortion rights and treatment of transgender service members, divisive social issues which threaten to derail the must-pass legislation. The Senate Armed Services Committee will now work with the House to form a compromise version of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. (Stone and Cowan, 6/14)

The New York Times: Surgeon General Calls For Warning Labels On Social Media Platforms
The United States Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he would push for a warning label on social media platforms advising parents that using the platforms might damage adolescents’ mental health. Warning labels — like those that appear on tobacco and alcohol products — are one of the most powerful tools available to the nation’s top health official, but Dr. Murthy cannot unilaterally require them; the action requires approval by Congress. No such legislation has yet been introduced in either chamber. (Barry, 6/17)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Unified Proposes Student Cellphone Ban Amid Distracted Kids
Los Angeles school officials on Tuesday — fed up with kids distracted by social media and concerned about abuses such as cyberbullying — are poised to join a growing number of school systems across the country that are banning the use of cellphones during the school day. The hope is that a ban would lead to improved learning, less bullying, distraction and anxiety— and more meaningful communication with peers and adults. (Blume, 6/17)

The Washington Post: Stanford’s Top Disinformation Research Group Collapses Under Pressure 
The Stanford Internet Observatory, which published some of the most influential analysis of the spread of false information on social media during elections, has shed most of its staff and may shut down amid political and legal attacks that have cast a pall on efforts to study online misinformation. (Menn, 6/14)

NPR: Here's The Deal On Sunscreen Misinformation Found On TikTok
Tiktok is full of videos with influencers giving advice on health and skin care. But when it comes to sunscreen there’s also a lot of misinformation – false claims that sunscreen is toxic and worse than the sun damage it helps prevent. These kinds of videos are all too common on social media and they’re dangerous, says Dr. Heather Rogers, a dermatologist based in Seattle. She calls some of this information just plain wrong. (Godoy, 6/17)

CIDRAP: Salmonella Linked To Pet Dragons Sickens At Least 15 In 9 States 
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said at least 15 people in nine states have been sickened with Salmonella linked to pet bearded dragons. Four people have required hospitalization, but no deaths have been reported. New York has reported four cases, Ohio and California have each reported three cases, and Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia have each reported a single case. (Soucheray, 6/14)

Los Angeles Times: A New Threat To Cannabis Users: Smuggled Chinese Pesticides
In coordinated raids in September, multiple California agencies stormed a network of illegal cannabis-growing warehouses across Oakland while state cannabis regulators singled out a salmon-colored warehouse complex surrounded by 7,000-volt security fencing. The warehouse building — home to two licensed cannabis operations — was “highly-likely” the conduit that illegal growers used to ship their product into the legal market, a state agent told a judge. Inside the rooms, inspectors found 43,000 plants growing beneath high-intensity lights. None had the tracking tags required to be placed on legal plants. But the surprise was what was found in the men’s room. (St. John, 6/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Ranks 35th In Overall Child Well-Being, Report Finds
California’s children rank in the bottom third of all states in overall well-being, according to a report released this week. The authors of the report, “2024 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-Being,” found that over half of California’s 3- and 4-year-olds are not in school, less than one-fourth of its eighth graders are proficient in math, and a greater number of children and teens per 100,000 died than in previous years. (Rosales, 6/15)

LAist: As Hollywood Spending Drops, Health Care Fears Rise For Many Writers
David Radcliffe always knew trying to make it as a Hollywood writer with good pay and health benefits was a gamble, and especially risky for someone with cerebral palsy. And now, the risks seem higher than ever. (Huang, 6/16)

Los Angeles Times: UC Irvine Renames School After Entrepreneur Donates $50 Million 
UC Irvine will rename its biological sciences school after Orange County biotech pioneer Charlie Dunlop, who recently made a $50-million donation to the school. The university said the money will be used for an endowment fund that will usher in a “new era of discovery,” bolstering academics and research programs within the school. (Ellis, 6/16)