KQED: San Francisco Will Use Opioid Settlement To Also Expand Treatment For Meth, Cocaine Use
Fentanyl and other opioids dominate discussions about the overdose crisis on the West Coast. But stimulants, like methamphetamine and cocaine, are often involved in fatal drug overdoses, too, especially when they are mixed with opioids like fentanyl, intentionally or not. That’s why San Francisco city leaders are looking to increase access to treatment for stimulant use with the help of the millions of dollars the city is receiving through settlements with opioid manufacturers and pharmacies. (Johnson, 7/5)

Santa Cruz Sentinel: Woman Dies Of Illicit ‘Tranq’ Overdose, First Known In Santa Cruz County  
An animal tranquilizer increasingly used to boost the effects of illegal opioid drug use is behind the recent death of a Santa Cruz County woman. The 35-year-old woman’s death, recorded in early June, has since been determined to be the county’s first known fatal xylazine poisoning case, according to the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency. The woman, found unresponsive, tested positive for drugs including xylazine and fentanyl in postmortem toxicology testing, the agency said in a release Wednesday. (York, 7/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Bankrupt Jenny Craig Diet Company Gets A New Owner 
Jenny Craig, the Carlsbad weight loss company that closed its doors more than two months ago, will soon be revived exclusively as an e-commerce business, its new owners announced on Wednesday. (Weisberg, 7/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Stanford, VA May Build Joint Cancer Center In Northern California
Leaders from Stanford Medicine and the Department of Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System are looking to build a National Cancer Institute-designated joint cancer care and research center, according to a June 30 Stanford Medicine news release. The two entities signed a memorandum of understanding June 30 to discuss collaborating on a state-of-the-art facility that would be located at the Veterans Affairs Health Care System's Palo Alto campus. (Dean, 7/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's DermTech Trims Staff To Conserve Cash As It Pushes Scalpel-Free Diagnostic Test For Melanoma 
San Diego’s DermTech has cut about 40 jobs and shelved certain research programs to focus on its main product — a non-invasive, genomics-based diagnostic test for melanoma. (Freeman, 7/5)

CalMatters: Medi-Cal Mental Health Reform Likely To Mean Service Cuts
Cynthia Garcia Williams was 30 years old and six months sober when the state let her bring her three kids home from foster care. She had been addicted to drugs on-and-off for 17 years and didn’t know how to begin caring for her children, Garcia Williams said. “The last I had the kids, I was totally in my addiction. When they came home I didn’t know what to do. I felt like these little kids were looking at me like ‘do something,’” Garcia Williams said. “I had lost all of my skills.” (Hwang, 7/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass Is Trying To Get Homeless People Off The Street Fast 
As Mayor Karen Bass was delivering the news Thursday that this city’s homeless population rose 10% last year, outreach workers were trying to convince Imani Muhammad to come out of her tent and accept shelter. “Come on, girl, you’ve been here too long,” one worker said, peering into Muhammad’s tent in a city park in South Los Angeles. (Mai-Duc, 7/5)

Los Angeles Times: In Dissent, 9th Circuit Say Homelessness Is 'Paralyzing Local Communities' In West
Some of the most powerful conservative judges in the United States took collective aim Wednesday at the idea that homeless people with nowhere else to go have a right to sleep in public, excoriating their liberal colleagues for ruling as much. Their scathing comments came in a set of responses to a decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not to rehear a case in which a smaller three-judge panel affirmed such rights in September. (Rector, 7/6)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Hundreds Of Sonoma County Residents Kept From Homelessness Due To Year-Old Local Program Funded By COVID-Relief Dollars
As fall of 2022 arrived, Laura Romero was living in Windsor in her car with her then-3-month old son. The 23-year-old Oregon native had moved to Santa Rosa to be near her father’s family and her son’s father, but living arrangements had fallen through and, jobless, she was out of luck. (Hay, 7/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF’s Bob Wachter Hosts Final COVID Forum, Taking Stock Of Pandemic
It’s the end of an era for Dr. Bob Wachter. Or, more accurately, a turning point. Wachter bid farewell to his COVID-specific Grand Rounds forum after a three-year run, leaving a lasting impact. Having amassed over 4 million YouTube views and 274,000 followers on Twitter with his diligent pandemic updates, the chair of medicine at UCSF said last week that he plans to revisit the subject as needed in the next academic year. However, he anticipates delving into other pressing medical topics as more Americans strive to resume their normal lives. (Vaziri, 7/3)

The New York Times: Federal Officials Hatch A Three-Pronged Defense Against Another ‘Tripledemic’ 
To prevent a repeat of last winter’s “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses, Americans will be encouraged to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots but for two other vaccines, one of them entirely new. Federal health officials have already asked manufacturers to produce reformulated Covid vaccines to be distributed later this year. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an additional step, endorsing two new vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus for older Americans. (Mandavilli, 7/5)

The New York Times: Three Vaccines For Fall: What You Need To Know 
Here’s who should get the flu, Covid and R.S.V. vaccines, and when. (Mandavilli, 7/5)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Inflammatory Response Not Tied To Long COVID
A post-infection inflammatory response has been a popular hypothesis used to explain long COVID, a condition defined as significant lingering COVID-19 symptoms present weeks and months following the initial infection. A new UK study, however, suggests that those suffering from severe long COVID symptoms did not have signs of higher cellular immune activation or pro-inflammatory cytokines after adjusting for age, sex, and disease severity. The results are published in the journal eLife. (Soucheray, 7/5)

The Mercury News: New California Law Would Place Incarcerated Parents Closer To Their Children
The first prison Amika Mota entered was in Chino, an agonizingly long 10-hour drive from her children. During her two years in the California Institution for Women, Mota got to see 14-year-old Milo, 11-year-old Soleil and 6-year-old Blossom only once and mostly communicated through letters. Mota would write to her children once a week, but the letters couldn’t capture the joy of being in the same room. A case manager helped Mota get relocated to another women’s prison only two and a half hours away, and she was able to see her kids more frequently. (Stein, 6/5)

CNN: Nearly Half Of The Tap Water In The US Is Contaminated With ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Government Study Finds 
Almost half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with chemicals known as “forever chemicals,” according to a new study from the US Geological Survey. The number of people drinking contaminated water may be even higher than what the study found, however, because the researchers weren’t able to test for all of these per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS, chemicals that are considered dangerous to human health. (Christensen, 7/5)

The Washington Post: Earth Shatters Heat Records, Faces Uncharted Extreme Weather
“We have never seen anything like this before,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. He said any number of charts and graphs on Earth’s climate are showing, quite literally, that “We are in uncharted territory.” (Dance, 7/6)

Stat: Environmental Racism May Speed Black Americans' Aging: Study
Black Americans who live in neighborhoods with lower levels of income and education may age faster than their white neighbors, according to a new study. This can be true even when an individual Black person has a higher income or education level — underscoring the extent to which a person’s surroundings can impact their health. (Castillo, 7/5)

Axios: FDA Weighs First Full Approval For Experimental Alzheimer's Drug
The Food and Drug Administration is set to decide today whether to make a drug shown to have modest success delaying Alzheimer's disease widely available to the public — or whether cost and safety concerns justify limiting its availability. Leqembi, developed by Eisai and Biogen, is expected to cost around $26,500 a year. Full FDA approval would trigger expanded government coverage for it and a class of next-generation drugs that have raised hoped for millions with the condition. (Gonzalez, 7/6)

CNN: Fluctuating Cholesterol Linked With Alzheimer’s, Study Finds
The fact that having high cholesterol can cause health problems is well known. But a total cholesterol level that fluctuates a lot — either up or down within a five-year period — might also be problematic by raising the risk of later dementia, a new study found. (Rogers, 7/5)

Fox News: Surprising Brain Boost: Brushing Your Teeth May Reduce The Risk Of Dementia, New Study Suggests
New research published in the journal Neurology suggests that brushing your teeth boosts the brain — helping to reduce the risk of dementia. People with good dental hygiene had more neurons in the hippocampus, the study found; the hippocampus plays a role in memory. Gum disease and tooth loss were linked with less gray matter and declining mental health. (Mackey, 7/5)

CNN: Overuse Of Marijuana Linked To Surgery Complications And Death, Study Says
Clinical overuse of marijuana is linked to a variety of complications after major elective surgery, including blood clots, stroke, breathing difficulties, kidney issues and even death, a new study found. “Our findings complement previous studies that have identified significant associations between cannabis use disorders and perioperative complications,” the study’s authors wrote in the report. The research team is from the department of anesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine at McGovern Medical School, part of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. (LaMotte, 7/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Don’t Sell Edibles That Look Like Doritos, Federal Officials Tell Companies 
Federal officials warned six companies to stop selling cannabis products in packaging that is “almost identical” to that of popular children’s snacks like Doritos, gummy bears and Nerds candy. The copycat packaging being used to sell Delta-8 THC, a psychoactive substance sourced from hemp, can make it easier for children to accidentally ingest the product, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (Bhattacharya, 7/5)

Politico: Matt Gaetz Proposes End To Cannabis Testing For Military 
A proposed amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) would end cannabis testing for members of the military — both when they’re enlisting and accepting a commission. If the amendment is included in the NDAA, H.R. 2670 (118), it would address a growing issue in the U.S. military: the increasing number of recruits who test positive for marijuana use, particularly in states where it is legal. Nearly 33 percent more recruits tested positive in 2022 than in 2020, according to the New York Times. (Fertig, 7/5)

NBC News: High BMI Is Not Associated With Higher Risk Of Death, Study Finds
A body mass index in the range considered overweight, or even obese, is not necessarily associated with a higher risk of death, a new study has found. The research is the latest addition to a growing body of evidence that suggests BMI alone is not an accurate indicator of a person's health. (Pandey, 7/6)

Stat: Neutralizing Antibodies Against HIV Shows Promise In Children
When children living with HIV are injected with neutralizing antibodies, the treatment can suppress cells that contain the virus and are capable of reactivating, an early-stage trial found. Details of the trial, documented in a study published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, show that broadly neutralizing antibodies can boost the protective effects of antiretroviral drugs. This suggests that antibody drugs can be used as supplements or even as alternative treatments for HIV in children. (Tsanni, 7/5)

NBC News: Depression After TBI Is A Distinct Condition, Study Finds. That Could Change How It's Treated
Depression after a traumatic brain injury, such as a concussion, may be a distinct condition, different from other types of depression, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The findings are a step forward in understanding how depression can be treated differently in people with traumatic brain injury, or TBI, who often do not respond to psychotherapy and medication. The researchers are even proposing a separate name for the condition: TBI affective syndrome. (Sullivan, 7/5)