The Wall Street Journal: Theranos Hires Compliance, Regulatory Executives
Theranos Inc. said Thursday it hired two executives and formed a new board committee focused on quality and regulatory control, as the blood-testing startup contends with heavy regulatory sanctions and a criminal probe. Earlier this month, regulators decided to revoke Theranos’s license to operate a lab in California because of unsafe practices and to ban founder and Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes from the blood-testing business for at least two years. The most serious sanctions, such as the ban of Ms. Holmes, won’t go into effect for at least another month. Theranos has said it is seeking to resolve its issues with the regulator and could also appeal the sanctions to an administrative judge. (Hufford, 7/21)

inewsource: When Hospitals Post Doctor Ratings, Who Benefits?
When Scripps Health started using patients’ reviews to give online ratings to hundreds of its doctors last August, the San Diego health system became the second in California to do so and one of a dozen nationally. Today, about 50 systems score their doctors with one to five stars, with 16 launches since Jan. 1. The transparency trend is taking off. It appears to be a bold move, one that could expose mediocre providers in a way that could hurt their bottom line and send savvy patients looking elsewhere for a doctor who is not so rude. (Clark, 7/21)

San Francisco Business Times: Peninsula Biotech's $1.5 Billion Buyout Nearly Triple IPO Price
Nine months after Relypsa Inc. won FDA approval for a kidney disease drug, it has grabbed a Swiss company's $1.5 billion buyout offer, the companies said late Wednesday. The $32-per-share deal between Berne-based Galencia Group and Relypsa is nearly triple the price of the Redwood City company's late 2013 IPO. The all-cash deal, expected to close in the third quarter, will give Galencia's Vifor Pharma unit worldwide control of Veltassa, a drug designed for chronic kidney disease patients with hyperkalemia, a potentially fatal level of potassium. (Leuty, 7/21)

Los Angeles Times: Woman Accused Of Trafficking Fentanyl To Sacramento County Following Wave Of Overdose Deaths
Federal authorities have arrested a woman who they say was trafficking the powerful opiate fentanyl into Sacramento County, where earlier this year officials linked 14 overdose deaths to the drug. Mildred Dossman, 50, of Sacramento was arrested Tuesday after a grand jury returned a three-count indictment charging her with possession with intent to distribute hydrocodone and fentanyl, distribution of both drugs and using a cellphone to facilitate a drug trafficking offense, federal prosecutors said in a statement. (Serna, 7/20)

Meanwhile, a Marin County doctor is sentenced for illegally distributing painkillers —

Marin Independent Journal: Marin Doctor Sentenced To 3 Years In Prison In Federal Painkiller Case
A suspended Marin County physician was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison for illegally distributing prescription painkillers, the Department of Justice announced. Michael Roger Chiarottino, who specialized in pain and addiction treatment, was indicted in 2014 on 15 counts of distributing controlled substances, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, oxymorphone, hydromorphone and methadone, federal prosecutors said. The indictment covered the period from February 2013 to March 2014. (Klien, 7/19)

Modesto Bee: West Nile Virus Prompts Valley Warnings
Vector control officials are reminding the public to take precautions against mosquito bites after a recent upswing in the number of mosquito samples testing positive for West Nile virus locally and statewide. Turlock Mosquito Abatement District and San Joaquin County Mosquito Vector Control District are both reporting steep increases in mosquito samples that have tested positive for West Nile Virus. Plus, Merced County officials said they recently found that area’s first positive West Nile virus mosquito samples of the year, in addition to a sentinel chicken that tested positive for the virus in Los Banos. (Patton, 7/20)

LA Daily News: Echo Park Man Struck With West Nile Virus Is First In LA County, Sparking Warnings
A man from Echo Park is the first person to be infected with West Nile virus this year in Los Angeles County and public health officials warned Wednesday this could be an active season for the mosquito borne-virus. ...Although the Zika virus has garnered more attention, 53 people died in California last year as a result of contracting West Nile virus, setting a state record. That’s the most since the California Department of Public Health began recording cases in 2003, and the most in any U.S. state. Of the those deaths in California, 24 were from Los Angeles County. (Abram, 7/20)

KPCC: Beware Of Corn Dogs — Your Latest Food Recall
Those delicious deep-fried and battered meat tubes known as corn dogs have a little problem. Well, 372,684 pounds of them do. The USDA on Tuesday announced the recall of several varieties of ready-to-eat chicken and pork hot dogs and corn dogs manufactured by Bar-S Foods Company, an Altus, Okla. establishment. Federal regulators say they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. (Shatkin, 7/20)

Orange County Register: Veggie Jerky, Fresh Produce: Anaheim Grocer Northgate Gonzalez Debuts Healthy Checkout Aisle
On Wednesday, Northgate Gonzalez Markets opened its 14th Orange County store, on Lincoln Avenue in Anaheim, and debuted a mostly sugar-free checkout lane after testing the concept at a store in South Los Angeles since May. The company plans to spread the program to all 41 of its Southern California stores. The healthy checkout aisle is advertised by a large bilingual sign overhead and smaller displays that say, “Botanas Saludables/Healthier Snacks.” (Perkes, 7/20)

Orange County Register: Seal Beach Water Samples 'Pretty Good' After L.A. Sewage Leak
An Orange County health official said ocean samples taken off of the coast here have largely come back clean following Monday’s sewage spill that potentially sent bacteria southbound via the Los Angeles River. The ocean, at sand’s edge in Seal Beach and Long Beach, remained closed Wednesday. “Most of the samples are pretty good,” said Anthony Martinez, a program manager with the OC Health Care Agency’s environmental-health division. “We have one that’s slightly elevated (bacteria-wise).” (Fausto, 7/20)

LA Daily News: Beaches In Long Beach, Seal Beach May Reopen Thursday
Beaches in Long Beach and Seal Beach, closed after a sewage spill Monday in Los Angeles made swimming hazardous, may reopen today. Health officials need to record two consecutive days of clean test results before letting beachgoers back in the water. Water samples taken from Long Beach on Tuesday showed bacteria levels that exceeded California public health standards but still at levels too low to require a closure had the sewage spill not occurred, said Long Beach environmental health operations Keith Allen. (Edwards, 7/20)

Capital Public Radio: Pigeon 'Whisperers' Use Birds To Track Lead Pollution
A study of pigeons in New York City showed that levels of lead in the birds track with neighborhoods where children show high levels of lead exposure. The results were published July 18 in the journal Chemosphere. ... (Rebecca) Calisi says monitoring pigeon biology may provide more understanding of the location and prevalence of lead and other harmful toxins, which could lead to the creation of prevention measures. (Joyce, 7/20)

The Hill: Most Insurers Lost Money In First Year Of ObamaCare: Study
Only about one-third of health insurers came out ahead in their first year in the ObamaCare marketplace, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund released Wednesday. While insurers made nearly twice as much money from healthcare premiums in 2014, overall profits “diminished noticeably” because of higher payouts, according to the expansive new analysis on companies participating in the exchanges. (Ferris, 7/20)

In other national health care news —

The New York Times: Failure Of 2 Health Insurer Mergers Is Unlikely To Stop The Efforts
The Justice Department is expected to block two mergers involving four of the nation’s five largest health insurance companies, on the ground that the deals would harm competition. But don’t expect the action to stop the consolidation in the health care industry anytime soon. No matter the fate of the deals between Anthem and Cigna, and Aetna and Humana, hospitals, doctors’ groups and even insurers are almost certain to continue their scramble to find partners in a rapidly changing environment. Blockbuster deals may slow, but smaller combinations will remain attractive. (Abelson, 7/20)

The New York Times: Updated Brain Map Identifies Nearly 100 New Regions
The brain looks like a featureless expanse of folds and bulges, but it’s actually carved up into invisible territories. Each is specialized: Some groups of neurons become active when we recognize faces, others when we read, others when we raise our hands. On Wednesday, in what many experts are calling a milestone in neuroscience, researchers published a spectacular new map of the brain, detailing nearly 100 previously unknown regions — an unprecedented glimpse into the machinery of the human mind. (Zimmer, 7/20)

Reuters: Your Inhaler's Watching You: Drugmakers Race For Smart Devices
Makers of inhalers to treat asthma and chronic lung disease are racing to develop a new generation of smart devices with sensors to monitor if patients are using their puffers properly. Linked wirelessly to the cloud, the gadgets are part of a medical "Internet of Things" that promises improved adherence, or correct use of the medication, and better health outcomes. They may also hold the key to company profits in an era of increasingly tough competition. (7/20)

The Washington Post: The Real Reason That So Many More Americans Are Using Heroin
President Obama has committed to sign the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which includes among its provisions new policies to reduce inappropriate prescribing of prescription opioids such as Oxycontin and Vicodin. Given the ongoing epidemic of addiction and death caused by opioid painkillers, this seems like sensible public-health policy, but some critics charge that tighter prescribing rules simply cause prescription opioid users to switch to heroin, thereby feeding a second opioid epidemic. The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine recently published the first systematic analysis of this terrifying possibility. (Humphreys, 7/20)