The San Diego Union-Tribune: Flu Kills 34 More People, Including A 1-Year-Old, In San Diego 
The number of deaths associated with this year’s severe flu season has quadrupled in a week, according to the latest update from the county Health and Human Services Agency. An additional 34 deaths were added to the tally Wednesday, including a one-year-old boy, as influenza raged throughout the region in what experts say is the fiercest battle with the rapidly-mutating virus they’ve experienced since 2009, when a pandemic filled emergency rooms from Oceanside to Chula Vista. (Sisson, 1/3)

KPBS: Flu Deaths Rise To 45 In San Diego County, Including Infant 
A 12-month-old child died on New Year's Eve after contracting influenza, bringing the total flu deaths in San Diego County this season to 45, health officials reported Wednesday. The baby, like all of the others who died from the flu this season and for whom information is available, had underlying medical conditions, according to county health officials. (Hoffman, 1/3)

KPCC: Audio: Cover Your Mouth, Wash Your Hands, There's Lots Of Flu Around
It’s been a bad flu season so far, according to the California Department of Public Health. The virus is widespread and testing the capacity of clinics and hospitals. (Faust, 1/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Effort Under Way To Make Naloxone Opioid Antidote More Accessible In State
Bay Area public health officials have begun receiving shipments of naloxone — the drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose — in the first state-funded effort to get the emergency antidote to local health departments across California. The distribution of the drug, funded by a one-time $3 million grant approved by state legislators in 2016, marks a ramp-up in the state’s response to deadly overdoses of prescription painkillers, heroin and the synthetic opioid fentanyl. (Ho, 1/3)

California Healthline: Drug Overdose Deaths Plateau In California, Soar Nationally
Even as the opioid crisis fueled overdose deaths across the nation, the number of Californians who succumbed to these and other drugs has remained stable, new federal data show. Deaths from opiates, cocaine and methamphetamines shot up by 35 percent in the United States between the year ending in May 2015 and that ending in May 2017, according to a Kaiser Health News analysis of statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Bartolone, 1/4)

In other public health news —

Los Angeles Times: A Popular Sugar Additive May Have Fueled The Spread Of Not One But Two Superbugs
Two bacterial strains that have plagued hospitals around the country may have been at least partly fueled by a sugar additive in our food products, scientists say. Trehalose, a sugar that is added to a wide range of food products, could have allowed certain strains of Clostridium difficile to become far more virulent than they were before, a new study finds. The results, described in the journal Nature, highlight the unintended consequences of introducing otherwise harmless additives to the food supply. (Khan, 1/3)

The Bakersfield Californian: Hold Your Breath: Lingering Smog, And Spike In ER Visits, Should Ease Up Soon
Driven by a lingering high-pressure system, a thick blanket of smog, smoke and pollution has been hanging over the valley for roughly three weeks, sending fine particulate matter to its unhealthiest monitored level and driving up emergency room visits. Meteorologists from the National Weather Service in Hanford, however, said that the smog should start clearing up when the high-pressure system — which has trapped pollution in the valley since mid-December — begins to move out of the area. (Pierce, 1/4)

The Associated Press: Price Tag On Gene Therapy For Rare Form Of Blindness: $850K
A first-of-its kind genetic treatment for blindness will cost $850,000 per patient, making it one of the most expensive medicines in the world and raising questions about the affordability of a coming wave of similar gene-targeting therapies. The injectable treatment from Spark Therapeutics can improve the eyesight of patients with a rare genetic mutation that affects just a few thousand people in the U.S. Previously there has been no treatment for the condition, which eventually causes complete blindness by adulthood. (1/3)

The Washington Post: Gene Therapy For Inherited Blindness Sets Precedent: $850,000 Price Tag
The drug, called Luxturna, is the realization of a long-sought scientific dream: The one-time treatment corrects a faulty gene to improve vision, allowing patients to see the stars or their parents' faces. Only 1,000 to 2,000 people in the United States are thought to have deteriorating vision caused by this errant gene, called RPE65, but Luxturna is widely expected to be the first in a wave of cutting-edge treatments that are targeted at fixing the causes of a wide range of genetic diseases — while also raising difficult questions about how to pay for them. (Johnson, 1/3)

The Wall Street Journal: Drug Firm Spark Therapeutics Will Charge $850,000 For Vision-Loss Gene Therapy
To address concerns about the cost of the drug, Luxturna, Spark said it is offering alternative payment arrangements to health insurers, including partial refunds if a patient’s vision doesn’t improve significantly after treatment. The company also is seeking U.S. government clearance to allow insurers to spread out payments for Luxturna in installments. U.S. regulators approved Luxturna last month, making it the first therapy in the U.S. to deliver a functional gene to replace a faulty disease-causing one. (Loftus, 1/3)

Los Angeles Times: In A Turf Battle For Organs, A Policy Review Rattles The National Transplant System
Tethered to a breathing machine at a Manhattan hospital, 21-year-old Miriam Holman would die without a lung transplant. But her odds of finding a suitable organ were especially low in New York, where waiting times are among the longest in the country. Just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, patients in far better condition routinely receive lungs much more quickly. Pockets of the South and Midwest also have dramatically shorter waiting times. The disparities stem from a principle that has always guided the national transplant system: local first. Most organs stay in the areas where they are donated, even if sicker patients are waiting elsewhere. (Zarembo, 1/3)

Politico: Washington's Growing Obsession: The 25th Amendment
Lawmakers concerned about President Donald Trump’s mental state summoned Yale University psychiatry professor Dr. Bandy X. Lee to Capitol Hill last month for two days of briefings about his recent behavior. In private meetings with more than a dozen members of Congress held on Dec. 5 and 6, Lee briefed lawmakers — all Democrats except for one Republican senator, whom Lee declined to identify. Her professional warning to Capitol Hill: “He’s going to unravel, and we are seeing the signs.” (Karni, 1/3)

In other news on the president, advocates are worried Trump's decision to fire his AIDS advisory council will result in a backslide on progress that's been made —

Politico: Trump's Firing Sets Back AIDS Prevention Efforts
President Donald Trump’s decision to fire his HIV/AIDS advisory panel and refusal to fill other key policy positions puts the U.S. at risk of slipping backward on prevention just as the opioid epidemic threatens to spread the virus among intravenous drug users. The advisory panel, which has existed in some form since the Reagan years, sits empty after Trump removed all 16 of its remaining members last week. (Ehley, 1/3)