The Guardian: ‘Can’t Afford To Live’: California Heatwave Leaves Older Adults Teetering On Edge
When temperatures soar over 100F in Fresno, California, Kathleen Dortland sometimes has to choose: the air conditioner or the oxygen machine?The small AC unit in the bedroom of the fifth-wheel trailer she shares with her four cats doesn’t cool much of the house, but without it her home is uninhabitable. She also needs the oxygen that she has relied on since cancer weakened her lungs. This week as California faced a punishing heatwave, Dortland had to run both devices at the same time and she was painfully aware of what that would cost her. (Anguiano, 9/10)

CNN: Air Quality Worsens As 94 Fires Burn Across Western US, Kay Weakens
There are currently 94 large, active fires burning across eight states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center: Idaho (34), Montana (23), Washington (12), California (11), Oregon (11), Utah (1), Wyoming (1) and Colorado (1). ... California firefighters battling the destructive flames got help from a post-tropical cyclone's lingering showers Saturday. (Salahieh, 9/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mosquito Fire: Smoke Creates Hazardous Air Quality As Crews Start To Corral Blaze In Sierra Foothills
Firefighters made progress early Sunday against the Mosquito Fire in the Sierra foothills, aided by lower temperatures and increased humidity — though the pall of smoke also helping to reduce fire activity pushed air quality to hazardous levels north and east of the fire past the Nevada border. (Buchmann and Flores, 9/11)

Financial Times: Scientists Discover How Air Pollution Causes Lung Cancer 
An international team of scientists has made a breakthrough in identifying how air pollution causes lung cancer in people who have never smoked, a development that could help medical experts prevent and treat tumors. Researchers found the fine particles in polluted air cause inflammation in the lungs, which activates pre-existing cancer genes that had been dormant. It was previously believed that air pollution triggered genetic mutations that lead to cancer. (Cookson, 9/10)

BBC News: Air Pollution Cancer Breakthrough Will Rewrite The Rules 
The team at the Francis Crick Institute in London showed that rather than causing damage, air pollution was waking up old damaged cells. One of the world's leading experts, Prof Charles Swanton, said the breakthrough marked a "new era." And it may now be possible to develop drugs that stop cancers forming. (Gallagher, 9/10)

The Hill: The 10 Most Polluted States In The US
How clean are the air and water in your state? Using 2021 data, U.S. News and World Reports’ feature on the “Best States” has ranked U.S. states on several metrics, including economics, education and health care. The listing also measures natural environment, which is based on a state’s air/water quality and pollution levels. Pollution was determined based on air and water emissions from industry and utilities, and overall measures to long-term human health effects, using information from the Environmental Protection Agency. (Falcon and Nexstar Media Wire, 9/10)

Los Angeles Times: Even In 2022, L.A. COVID Death Rate Is Worse Than Car Crashes. Here's Why
The Omicron coronavirus variant killed Angelenos at a higher rate than both the flu and car crashes during the early part of 2022, according to county health officials. (Lin II and Money, 9/9)

The Wall Street Journal: Covid-19 Is Still Killing Hundreds Of Americans Daily
Mark Pfundheller promptly got his first two Covid-19 shots and a booster, his family said, knowing the disease was a threat related to treatment for an inflammatory disorder that compromised his immune system. The 66-year-old former aviation consultant for Wisconsin’s Transportation Department caught the virus in April at a family wedding near his home in southern Wisconsin, where many guests were infected. Mr. Pfundheller died in a Madison, Wis., hospital on July 2 after an illness including time on a ventilator. (Kamp, 9/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: When’s The Best Time To Get The New COVID Booster Shot? Here’s What Experts Say
Millions of Americans became eligible late last week to get a reformulated COVID booster shot that targets both the ancestral and omicron strains of the virus — a step that health officials hope will help mitigate a potential fall or winter surge. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that anyone 12 and older get a booster at least two months after their last COVID shot or three months after recovering from a COVID infection. (Ho, 9/10)

CIDRAP: Long COVID Tied To Loss Of Smell That May Be Permanent 
An observational study of 219 unvaccinated long-COVID patients with neurologic symptoms in the Amazon concludes that 64% had a persistently impaired sense of smell, which the authors said could be permanent. (Van Beusekom, 9/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID in California: ‘Extreme’ epidemics more likely as planet warms, study finds
Climate change is likely to increase the likelihood of an “extreme” or a pandemic similar to COVID-19 by about threefold over the next several decades, according to a new study. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reviewed 400 years worth of available information on epidemics to conclude that, in addition to more frequent, extreme epidemics, the average person was 38% more likely to experience a COVID-like pandemic in their lifetime. (Fracassa, 9/12)

USA Today: 'Guardrails' Needed? Telehealth Fraud Cost Medicare $128M In First Year Of COVID Pandemic, Feds Say
A report by government investigators last week found that more-permissive remote care has come at a price. During the first year of the pandemic, 1,714 doctors and health providers billed Medicare nearly $128 million in “high risk” claims, according to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. (Alltucker, 9/11)

Reuters: U.S. Starts Enrollment In Trial Testing Siga's Antiviral For Monkeypox
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Friday it had started enrolling monkeypox patients in a late-stage study testing Siga Technologies Inc's antiviral pill Tpoxx against the disease. The oral and intravenous formulations of Tpoxx are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of smallpox, but does not yet have clearance to treat monkeypox. (9/9)

CIDRAP: Tpoxx Found To Be Well-Tolerated, Safe In US Monkeypox Patients
Today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided data on safety outcomes on 369 patients who receiving the monkeypox antiviral drug tecovirimat (Tpoxx), noting that few adverse events were reported. (Soucheray, 9/9)

The New York Times: Can You Get Reinfected With Monkeypox? 
The good news is that experts believe you are not likely to become reinfected with monkeypox after you’ve been infected or vaccinated. Based on what scientists know of other orthopox infections — such as smallpox, monkeypox’s close cousin — immunity to the disease should be lifelong. (Sheikh, 9/8)

NPR: 8 Questions With The Doctor In Charge Of Stopping The U.S. Monkeypox Outbreak
NPR caught up with Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, one month into his job as deputy coordinator for the White House Monkeypox Response, to talk about where the outbreak is headed, and what it's like to go from being an HIV doctor and queer health activist to being the out-and-proud face of the government's monkeypox response. (Huang, 9/12)

Los Angeles Times: California Politics: A Sleeper Bill On Newsom's Desk To Keep An Eye On
AB 2236 would expand what procedures an optometrist can perform in California with additional training. It’s one of 571 bills currently on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. The governor has until Sept. 30 to sign or veto those bills, which also includes a doctor transparency measure that had previously struggled to gain traction the last two years. More on that bill later. (Gutierrez, 9/9)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County’s Newest VA Clinic To Expand Services To Growing Veterans Population
Despite a few pandemic-related construction delays, Sonoma County’s newest full-service, outpatient medical clinic — aimed at serving North Coast military veterans — opened last month, on time and as projected. (Espinoza, 9/11)

Palm Springs Desert Sun: Free Conference On Aging And HIV/AIDS Set For Sept. 17
The seventh annual Positively Aging Project Conference will bring together researchers, advocates and people living and aging with HIV/AIDS on Sept. 17. (Sasic, 9/9)

The Imprint: Antipsychotic Drug Use On California Foster Kids Drops 58%, Study Finds
California has dramatically curbed its use of antipsychotic medication to control emotionally troubled foster children, according to a new study, raising hopes of a changing culture in the years since a Bay Area News Group investigation exposed the rampant use of those powerful drugs. (Loudenback and Fitzgerald, 9/11)

KQED: Advocacy Or Exploitation? The Ethical Concerns Around Posting Images Of Poverty And Addiction In The Tenderloin
Local, national, and international media have documented unhoused people using drugs in San Francisco's Tenderloin for decades, and residents critical of how the city is addressing drug use regularly share images of people using on social media. Those images tend to swell in number as discussion of the Tenderloin and public drug use grow, like the public debate surrounding the supervised injection site bill recently vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Recent videos of people living on the streets were shared by Michael Shellenberger, a frequent critic of the city, who wrote a book called "San Fransicko," racked up millions of views. (McDede, 9/11)

Stat: Providers Urged To Be Alert For Rare Polio-Like Syndrome In Kids
Pediatricians and top health officials are warning about an uptick in activity of a common virus that in rare cases can cause a polio-like syndrome in young children. (Joseph and Branswell, 9/12)

Sacramento Bee: 8 Homeless People Froze To Death In Sacramento Last Year
Eight homeless people froze to death in Sacramento last year – the highest number in at least two decades. The seven men and one woman ranged in age from 41 to 63. All of them began experiencing hypothermia while outside. One died across the street from City Hall. Another near Arden Fair mall. And another next to an elementary school. (Clift, 9/12)

KQED: Residents, Activists Decry Evictions At Oakland's Largest Homeless Encampment
Emotions ran hot Thursday as Caltrans began evicting residents from Oakland’s largest encampment of unhoused people. Some residents of the Wood Street encampment, with help from volunteers and activists, erected a makeshift barricade to block the only access road to the site. Woody Guthrie’s folk anthem “This Land is Your Land” blared from a wind-up amplifier as Oakland police and California Highway Patrol officers faced off with residents and supporters. (Baldasari and LaBerge, 9/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: 'These People Do Heroic Work.' Outreach Workers Refuse To Give Up On The Homeless 
It’s a Friday morning along Pacific Highway, just north of Old Town. Alejandro Pulido is rummaging through the trunk of his black Ford C-Max, filling up a backpack with bottled water and ziplock bags containing personal hygiene items. (Davis, 9/12)