LAist 89.3: FDA Greenlights Over-The-Counter Use Of Opioid Reversal Drug Naloxone
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved selling overdose antidote naloxone over-the-counter, marking the first time an opioid treatment drug will be available without a prescription. Wednesday's approval is for Narcan, a name-brand version of naloxone sold by Emergent BioSolutions. How much this will impact a nationwide overdose crisis is not clear, even though better access to naloxone is a priority. The decision means Narcan can be available at convenience and grocery stores, but its price isn't clear. For many people who use drugs, naloxone is already available from community groups - and that's not expected to change. Joining us today on AirTalk to discuss the new approval and what it means is Julie Wernau, reporter for The Wall Street Journal. (LAist 89.3, 3/29)

NPR: Narcan, Overdose-Reversing Drug, Is Approved For OTC Sales By The FDA
Emergent BioSolutions, the drug company that produces Narcan, said on Wednesday that it hoped to make the nasal spray available on store shelves and at online retailers by late summer. It did not immediately say how much it would cost. "Today's landmark FDA OTC approval for Narcan Nasal Spray marks a historic milestone as we have delivered on our commitment to make this important emergency treatment widely accessible, given the alarming rates of opioid overdoses occurring across the country," Emergent BioSolutions CEO Robert G. Kramer said in a statement. (Hernandez, 3/29)

Bay Area News Group: FDA Approves Narcan, But Many Barriers Remain As California Considers New Laws
“The cost barrier is still very real,” said Rachel Sussman, who practices primary care and addiction medicine at O’Connor Hospital in San Jose. “How many families are going to be able to afford this is a real problem. But I think the fact that it is now possible (to get it over-the-counter) does start to shift the conversation about who should have naloxone available, who can have it, and how easy it is to get.” (Nickerson, 3/29)

The New York Times: 10 Questions About Narcan
Think of Narcan or any naloxone nasal spray as a fire extinguisher, said Corey Davis, director of the Harm Reduction Legal Project at the Network for Public Health Law. “Hopefully you’ll never need it,” he said. “But at some point maybe the kitchen’s going to catch on fire and you won’t have time to run to the fire extinguisher store.” Here is some guidance for using Narcan correctly. (Hoffman, 3/29)

Los Angeles Times: California Kills Bills That Would Punish Fentanyl Dealers 
As thousands of Californians die each year from drug overdoses fueled by fentanyl, a bitter fight has emerged in Sacramento over how lawmakers can hold dealers accountable without refilling state prisons and waging another “war on drugs.” On one side of the debate are Republicans and moderate Democrats calling for stronger criminal penalties for dealers who sell the deadly drug, which is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and contributed to nearly 6,000 overdose deaths in California in 2021. (Wiley, 3/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Jose Police Union Director Charged In Opioid Distribution Case
The executive director of the San Jose Police Officers Association, Joanne Marian Segovia, has been charged with trying to illegally import synthetic opioid drugs and distribute them for more than seven years, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. Segovia, 64, has led the staff of the police union since July 2003. Prosecutors said that between October 2015 and January 2023, she had at least 61 drug shipments mailed to her home in San Jose from foreign lands such as Hong Kong, Hungary, India and Singapore. (Egelko, 3/29)

Los Angeles Times: San Jose Police Union Director Imported Opioids, Prosecutors Say 
The executive director of the San Jose police union imported opioids from overseas in a scheme to distribute the drugs in the U.S., federal prosecutors say. Joanne Marian Segovia was charged Tuesday with attempting to import a controlled substance in a scheme that took place from 2015 to 2023. (Martinez, 3/29)

The Washington Post: Fentanyl Is ‘Single Greatest Challenge’ U.S. Faces, DHS Secretary Says 
The record number of Americans dying of fentanyl overdoses is now the “single greatest challenge we face as a country,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told a Senate panel Wednesday. The statement appeared to be the first time Mayorkas or any other Cabinet-level member of the Biden administration has described the deadly synthetic opioid in those terms. Appearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee, Mayorkas cited the deaths of more than 70,000 Americans in 2021 tied to fentanyl overdoses. (Miroff, 3/29)

Axios: Congress Eyes Making "Zombie Drug" Xylazine A Controlled Substance
Congress is moving to designate an animal tranquilizer that's infiltrating the illegal drug trade as a controlled substance, to better allow authorities to track it and prosecute traffickers. Driving the news: Bipartisan legislation introduced Tuesday by Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) reflects the growing alarm over the proliferation of xylazine, a sedative known as "tranq" or "zombie drug" that's often mixed with fentanyl, resists common overdose reversal treatments like naloxone and causes skin-rotting wounds. (Moreno, 3/29)

California Healthline: $50 Billion In Opioid Settlement Cash Is On The Way. We’re Tracking How It’s Spent.
Spending the money effectively and equitably is a tall order for state and local governments, and a lack of transparency in the process is already leading to fears of misuse. (Pattani, 3/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: Antiabortion Activists Must Face Criminal Trial: Top California Court
Two antiabortion activists who posed as fetal researchers in order to enter national meetings of abortion providers and secretly record conversations will go to trial on criminal charges in San Francisco after the state Supreme Court rejected their latest appeal Wednesday. (Egelko, 3/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mayor Breed Tells Jon Stewart Tougher Laws Needed To Compel Mentally Ill Into Treatment
San Francisco Mayor London Breed cut to the heart of a central tension in the city’s struggles to provide lasting care and support for people suffering on the streets with a combination of homelessness, addiction and mental illness in a recent interview with comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart. In an excerpt of an interview released Wednesday morning, Stewart asked Breed whether she was aware of any system – in San Francisco or elsewhere – in which a government could get “people back to a place of function” when they were in dire need of assistance that didn’t involve the criminal justice system. (Fracassa, 3/29)

CalMatters: Democrats Shelve Bill On California Homeless Camps
Despite growing frustration over California’s massive homeless encampments, Republicans didn’t get very far Tuesday in their attempt to crack down on camping in certain public spaces. Senate Bill 31, introduced by Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego, would ban people from sitting, lying or sleeping within 1,000 feet of a school, daycare, park or library. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor or an infraction. (La, 3/29)

Bay Area News Group: Will This Winter's Megastorms End The Bay Area's Toxic Algae Problem?
In recent years, thick layers of cyanobacteria—commonly known as blue-green algae—have closed popular local swimming spots Lake Anza and Lake Temescal for weeks at a time. Last summer, a toxic algae bloom in the San Francisco Bay killed thousands of fish. (McCarthy, 3/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Whole Foods Truck Robbed, Vandalized Prior To Charity Donation
A Whole Foods refrigerated truck that the supermarket operator planned to donate to an East Bay food-delivery charity was robbed and damaged Tuesday, a spokesperson for the charity said.  Whole Foods planned to present the van to White Pony Express on Wednesday afternoon in Oakland’s Temescal neighborhood. But the charity’s representatives were stunned when Whole Foods officials told them someone had broken into the van and damaged it. (Vainshtein, 3/29)

The Desert Sun: Palm Springs Guaranteed Income Program Launching Without State Funding
A planned guaranteed basic income pilot program that will provide regular payments to Palm Springs residents with low incomes will be smaller and more reliant on city funds than those behind the effort had initially hoped after the state opted not to award $2 million to fund it. (Albani-Burgio, 3/29)

NPR: 74 People Have Been Killed Or Injured By Guns At American Schools This Year
On Monday, three children and three staff members were fatally shot at the Covenant School in Nashville, which one expert describes as part of an "astronomical increase" in violence on school campuses in recent years. There is no universal definition of a school shooting, explains Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology and the president of the Violence Project, a non-profit research center. (López Restrepo, 3/29)

CNN: Guns Lead As Most Common Cause Of Death For Children And Teens In The US
Guns are the leading cause of death for US children and teens, since surpassing car accidents in 2020. Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to a KFF analysis. (Choi, 3/29)

The New York Times: Shooting Prompts a Shrug in Washington, as G.O.P. Rejects Pleas to Act
The mass shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville this week has generated a broad shrugging of the shoulders in Washington, from President Biden to Republicans in Congress, who seemed to agree on little other than that there was nothing left for them to do to counter the continuing toll of gun violence across the country. But while President Biden’s stark admission on Tuesday that he could do no more on his own to tackle the issue was a statement of fact that aimed to put the burden on Congress to send him legislation, like the ban on assault weapons he has repeatedly championed, Republicans’ expressions of helplessness reflected an unwillingness, rather than an inability, to act. (Karni, 3/29)

The Washington Post: In Congress, Little Urgency To Address Gun Violence With Legislation 
After a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, lawmakers on Capitol Hill once again indicated there was little support for addressing gun violence through legislation. ... “I’m a realist,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, about the possibility of moving gun legislation through his committee without enough Republican support to overcome the 60-vote filibuster. “I know what’s going to happen on the floor.” (Sotomayor and Goodwin, 3/29)

Roll Call: Senate Votes To Overturn COVID-19 National Emergency Order
The Senate voted Wednesday to terminate a COVID-19 pandemic ​national emergency order implemented by former President Donald Trump in 2020 that was due to be terminated in May anyway. The 68-23 vote on the measure came after the House voted 229-197 in February, with 11 Democrats joining 218 Republicans in support. (McIntire and Lesniewski, 3/29)

The New York Times: AstraZeneca’s Covid Vaccine May Have Posed A Higher Heart Risk For Young Women, Study Shows
Young women who received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine made by AstraZeneca might have been more likely to die of a heart problem in the 12 weeks after their vaccination, according to an analysis of immunization and death records in Britain released on Monday. Those findings carry a big caveat: Britain withdrew AstraZeneca’s vaccine use for young people under 30 in April 2021, citing the risk of rare but dangerous blood clots. By that time, the young women who were immunized would have been mainly health care workers or those who were medically vulnerable, because people at high risk of Covid from their age, health or employment were vaccinated first. So the results of the study may not apply to the general population. (Mandavilli, 3/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Heart Attacks Are Killing More Young People. It’s Not Just COVID
The day after Thanksgiving, Shaniya Peterson had just jumped rope with her two young daughters outside their Antioch home when the chest pain began. Peterson, 30, initially thought it was heartburn, or her body’s reaction to having exercised in the cold air. She lay down and stretched out, hoping the pain would subside. She bought Tums. (Ho, 3/29)

USA Today: Misinformation Is Bad For Your Health, Doctors Say In New Poll
Almost three-quarters of doctors say misinformation made it harder to treat patients for COVID-19 and made patient outcomes worse, according to a new poll. Nearly as many flagged a problematic misinformation about weight loss, supplements, mental health and other vaccines. (Weintraub, 3/29)

CIDRAP: Study Bolsters Evidence Of Heightened Heart Attack Risk After Flu 
People who are sick with flu are six times more likely to experience a heart attack the week after they test positive compared to the year before or the year after, researchers from the Netherlands will report at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) meeting in Copenhagen between Apr 15 and Apr 18. (Schnirring, 3/29)

Sacramento Bee: How Xavier Becerra Went From Working Construction In Sacramento To Launching Obamacare 
“Ex-zavey-err Becerra,” an elementary school teacher called out in 1960s Sacramento. It wasn’t the pronunciation that Xavier Becerra a future U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, was expecting as a kid growing up in the shadow of California’s Capitol with three sisters and parents who spoke Spanish. More than a half-century later, it is how Becerra can usually determine when in his life he met a particular person — during his K-12 education or later. (Brassil, 3/29)