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California Healthline Original Stories
Health Officials’ Plug For Next FDA Chief: Go Big On E-Cig Regulation
With Scott Gottlieb making his exit from the Food and Drug Administration’s top spot, city and country health officials call for backup in the fight to curb teen use of e-cigarettes. (Shefali Luthra, )
Good morning! Republican lawmakers are still reeling from President Donald Trump’s surprise pivot on the health law. More on that, and the driving force behind the decision, below, but first here are you top California health stories for the day.
Jury Finds Monsanto Liable For California Man's Cancer Because There Was No Product Warning For Weedkiller: The plaintiff, Edwin Hardeman, 70, used Roundup to control weeds and poison oak on his property for 26 years. In determining that Monsanto was responsible, the jury awarded Hardeman $75 million in punitive damages and about $5 million for past and future suffering. The verdict, delivered in United States District Court in San Francisco, is a milestone in the continuing public debate over the health effects of Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, the world’s most widely used weedkiller. Monsanto is currently defending itself against thousands of similar claims. Wednesday’s verdict ended the second of two phases in the trial. Last week, the jury issued an initial verdict saying that the weedkiller was a “substantial factor” in causing Mr. Hardeman’s cancer. The jury then started deliberating on Tuesday afternoon about whether Monsanto demonstrated negligence and should be held liable.
Read more from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and The Associated Press.
How San Francisco Is Poised To End HIV Transmissions And Become A Model The Rest Of The Nation Can Follow: In the peak of the HIV epidemic in 1992, more than 2,300 new, full-blown AIDS cases were diagnosed in San Francisco. In 2017, the most recent official statistics available, 221 people were diagnosed with HIV, and that number is only expected to drop. The immediate goal of the city’s ambitious Getting to Zero campaign is to reduce new HIV diagnoses by 90 percent between 2013, when there were 394 cases, and 2020. San Francisco is only about halfway there but is moving faster than the nation as a whole and any other big city. The city is taking a three-pronged approach: rapid testing; widespread use of PReP; and building a network of outreach workers find people who have stopped regular HIV testing and work to get them back into care. Although there is still a ways to go—for example, the city has had a hard time finding success in reaching African-American men—San Francisco is poised to beat the nation to President Donald Trump’s goal of eradicating the epidemic. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
California Lawmakers Mull Ban On Flavored Tobacco, But What Happens To Those Who Use It To Quit Smoking?: Researchers conducted interviews of Californians aged 15 to 25 and found that nearly three-quarters of their subjects, 74 percent, had gone from smoking to vaping. “I think we, as public health professionals, need to take a step back to consider whether our approaches to e-cigarettes have been shaped in way that will ultimately benefit the health of all young people,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Tamar Antin. Read more in the Sacramento Bee.
More News From Across The State
The California Health Report:
Funds From Ballot Initiative Help Newly Released Prisoners Find A Home In Los Angeles
As California’s prison population shrank as a result of the reforms, the state’s incarceration costs dropped. In 2017, $103 million in savings was granted by the California Board of State and Community Corrections to counties across the state. The funds support job placement programs, treatment for mental health and substance use disorder and other services. The grants run through next year, although the board intends to provide more grants in the future. Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services received the largest individual sum, $20 million, and has raised another $10 million from philanthropic organizations to perform outreach to the formerly incarcerated. (Shinkman, 3/27)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Opponents To Navigation Center On SF’s Embarcadero Gearing Up For Legal Fight
San Francisco waterfront residents opposed to Mayor London Breed’s plan to build a 200-bed Navigation Center on an Embarcadero parking lot are gearing up for a legal fight if the city moves forward. In less than a week, a loose coalition of residents from Rincon Hill, South Beach, Mission Bay and other neighborhoods calling themselves “Safe Embarcadero for All” has raised nearly $35,000 to hire lawyers to contest the center’s construction. (Fracassa, 3/27)
The Mercury News:
A Home You Can Afford, Brought To You By...Facebook?
For years, eighth-grade teacher Konstance Kirkendoll spent three hours a day in traffic, commuting between her home in San Leandro — the only place she could afford to live — and her Menlo Park school. For her young daughter, forced to tag along, the car became a second home. It was where she ate breakfast, napped and did homework after school. (Kendall, 3/28)
Los Angeles Times:
O.C. Supervisors Approve Funding For Mental Health Crisis Unit In Costa Mesa
Orange County supervisors authorized funding this week to develop a unit at a Costa Mesa hospital to serve people experiencing a mental health crisis. Tuesday’s vote by the Board of Supervisors approved a three-year, $13.3-million contract for the crisis stabilization center at College Hospital, an acute care facility at 301 Victoria St. (Money, 3/27)
The Mercury News:
Death Of Marine Shot While On Guard Duty At Camp Pendleton Ruled A Suicide
Marine Corps officials have ruled the death of Lance Cpl. Riley Schultz — who died from a gunshot wound to the head while on duty at Camp Pendleton — a suicide. The body of Schultz, 19, was found close to where he was standing guard in the early morning hours Monday, March 15. (Ritchie, 3/28)
Los Angeles Times:
Officials Investigate Legionnaires’ Outbreak After Stockton Inmate’s Death
California officials are investigating cases of Legionnaires’ disease at a prison in the Central Valley after an inmate died of the disease. A prisoner at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton — a state facility for inmates with health issues — died at a hospital recently and was then discovered to have been infected with Legionnaires’, the state corrections department said. (Karlamangla, 3/27)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Kern Medical Center Fined After Leaving Surgical Instrument Inside Patient
Kern Medical Center has been fined $34,650 after leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient's abdomen for 20 days before it was discovered and removed. According to documents issued by the California Department of Public Health, "the hospital failed to ensure the health and safety of a patient when it did not follow established policies and procedures regarding the treatment and care of a patient." The hospital failed to conduct a surgical instrument count during an abdominal hysterectomy on April 3 last year and left a ribbon retractor inside the patient, according to CDPH documents. (3/27)
The New York Times:
Trump Sided With Mulvaney In Push To Nullify Health Law
The Trump administration’s surprise decision to press for a court-ordered demolition of the Affordable Care Act came after a heated meeting in the Oval Office on Monday, where the president’s acting chief of staff and others convinced him that he could do through the courts what he could not do through Congress: repeal his predecessor’s signature achievement. Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff and former South Carolina congressman, had spent years in the House saying that the health law should be repealed, and his handpicked head of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, supported the idea of joining a Republican attorneys general lawsuit to invalidate the entire Affordable Care Act. (Haberman and Pear, 3/27)
The Associated Press:
Trump Turns To Health Care With An Eye On 2020
Buoyed by word that the special counsel didn't find collusion with Russia, President Donald Trump is voicing new interest in policymaking, including a fresh effort to repeal and replace "Obamacare." But Trump has few detailed policy proposals to back up his words, suggesting he's as focused on highlighting issues that appeal to his political base as actually enacting legislation. Trump stressed his desire to revive his failed effort to kill the Affordable Care Act on Wednesday, a pivot to health care that both broadens and complicates the administration's agenda. Many in the GOP remain skeptical that Trump can notch many policy wins in the divided Congress. (3/27)
The Washington Post:
Trump Pressures Wary Republicans To Produce Replacement For Health-Care Law
President Trump is pressuring Republicans to produce a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, a request the GOP considers unrealistic in a divided Congress and politically perilous ahead of the 2020 elections. Hours after meeting with Senate Republicans at the Capitol on Tuesday, Trump spoke on the phone with a handful of senators, urging them to write a new law — even though the party failed to coalesce around a plan when it controlled the House and Senate for two years. The White House has no proposal in the works, according to administration officials, but Trump wants Republicans to pass a bill before his reelection effort that would do what Obamacare does — provide coverage to millions of Americans. (Bade, Dawsey, Kim and Wagner, 3/27)
The Hill:
GOP Senators Blindsided By Trump On ObamaCare
Republican lawmakers were caught completely off guard by President Trump’s renewed push to repeal and replace ObamaCare and privately complain it’s a dumb political strategy heading into the 2020 election. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose panel has jurisdiction over health care, said he received no heads-up from Trump or the White House that the president would call Tuesday for the GOP to become “the party of health care.” (Bolton, 3/27)
Politico:
‘We Need A Plan’: GOP Shaken By Trump’s Healthcare Demands
“We’re going to be involved in health but most of it is going to be very, very bipartisan, unlike the issue you’re bringing up, which would not be very bipartisan,” said Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the leader of the Senate Finance Committee. That could include addressing “surprise” medical bills that hit insured people who end up with an out-of-network doctor even when they’ve chosen an in-network hospital, as well as more steps to address high drug costs and opioids. (Ollstein and Everett, 3/27)
The Hill:
Democrats Aim To Block DOJ Funds Supporting ObamaCare Lawsuit
Senate Democrats are moving to try to block the Department of Justice (DOJ) from using federal funds to support a lawsuit targeting ObamaCare. Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that Democrats are offering an amendment to an unrelated disaster relief bill that would prevent the DOJ from spending money on the case, which is being litigated in an appeals court. (Carney, 3/27)
The New York Times:
Judge Blocks Medicaid Work Requirements In Arkansas And Kentucky
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out Medicaid work requirements in two states, a blow to Republican efforts to profoundly reshape a program that has provided free health insurance to the poorest Americans for more than 50 years. In twin rulings, Judge James E. Boasberg of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia rejected for a second time Kentucky’s attempt to require recipients to work or volunteer as a condition of coverage and blocked a similar rule in Arkansas, which has resulted in more than 18,000 people there losing coverage since last summer. (Goodnough, 3/27)
The New York Times:
Mammogram Centers Must Tell Women If They Have Dense Breasts, F.D.A. Proposes
Centers that provide mammograms to screen for breast cancer will have to tell women whether they have dense breast tissue, which can increase the risk of cancer and mask tumors, the Food and Drug Administration announced in a proposed rule on Wednesday. Dense tissue can hide cancer from X-rays, making mammography less reliable. Women with dense tissue are often advised to have other screening tests in addition to mammograms, such as ultrasound or M.R.I. scans. (Grady, 3/27)
The Associated Press:
US Seeks More Time On How To Address Separated Children
The Trump administration wants more time to say how it will address potentially thousands of children who were separated from their families at the border. U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego had ordered the government to propose next steps by Wednesday on what to do about children who were separated on or after July 1, 2017. His previous order to reunify families applied only to children in custody on June 26, 2018. (3/27)
Politico:
Pushing For 'Heartbeat' Abortion Bills, More States Try To Force Supreme Court To Revisit Roe
More state lawmakers are pushing "heartbeat" bills that ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy in a bid to trigger a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Four states have enacted such prohibitions — nearly all blocked by the courts — and the number is poised to grow in the coming days, with Georgia expected to sign a bill shortly. (Pradhan, 3/27)