Los Angeles Times: Male Doctors Are Disappearing From Gynecology. Not Everybody Is Thrilled About It
Some patients wait until Dr. Jerome Chelliah snaps on his gloves to make the request. Others blurt it out as soon as he walks in the exam room.“I’d rather see a female doctor,” they say. Chelliah thinks he can be a sensitive obstetrician-gynecologist even though he’s a man. But he has no choice but to comply. “I’ve been rejected many times over,” he said. “As a person of color, I face discrimination in other ways, but it’s not so blatant.… People have no problem saying they don’t want you.” (Karlamangla, 3/7)

Capital Public Radio: Are Most Sacramento Public Restrooms Closed At Night? The City And Homelessness Advocates Disagree.
The Sacramento Regional Coalition To End Homelessness says it recently visited about three dozen city parks at night — and found none of the restrooms were open. Executive director Bob Erlenbush says his group checked out a total of 38 city parks. "Seven never had bathrooms. Seven are closed — they're locked — which leaves 24 bathrooms that are open to the public, including people experiencing homelessness,” he said. But he added that “none of them are [open] 24-seven; they're just from sunrise to sunset,” and he claimed that the closed restrooms are in the areas with the highest populations of homeless. (Moffitt, 3/6)

In other news from across the state —

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: New Santa Rosa Health Center With Services For Developmentally Disabled Opens
There is nothing else like it in the state — a new community clinic offering comprehensive medical, dental and mental health services that is fully equipped to serve people with developmental disabilities. The newest addition to Santa Rosa Community Health’s array of health center facilities, the Dutton Campus at 1300 N. Dutton Ave., opened this week. But unlike SRCH’s other clinics, the $11.5 million Dutton Campus received $4 million in state funding to care for residents displaced next year by the closing of Sonoma Developmental Center. (Espinoza, 3/7)

Sacramento Bee: Evacuations Lifted At UC Davis Medical Center After Reports Of Gas Odor
Fire and hazardous materials crews determined diesel exhaust from a generator at the UC Davis Medical was the source of a gaseous odor that prompted the evacuation of the facility Wednesday morning, said Chris Harvey, a Sacramento Fire Department spokesman. No one was injured in the incident, though two people initially complained of headaches. They later declined transportation to the emergency room after reporting feeling better. (Sorci and Chavez, 3/7)

NPR: Human Brains Unable To Add Neurons After Adolescence
A major study is challenging the widely held view that adult human brains make new neurons. The study of brain samples from 59 people of various ages found no immature neurons in anyone older than 13, scientists report online Wednesday in the journal Nature. "In all of the adult samples we looked at, we couldn't find any evidence of a young neuron," says Shawn Sorrells, the study's lead author and a senior researcher in the lab of Arturo Alvarez-Buylla at the University of California, San Francisco. (Hamilton, 3/7)

Stat: Adult Brains Do Not Make New Neurons, Controversial New Study Claims
Neuroscientists at the University of California, San Francisco, had a hunch their findings would be controversial, as tends to happen when you challenge popular, world-changing brain research. They were right. Their study, published in Nature on Wednesday, concludes that the adult human brain does not produce any detectable new neurons in the area that’s supposedly ground zero for neuronal creation, contrary to dozens of experiments over the last 20 years. (Begley, 3/7)

The Mercury News: The Fight Against Fake Service Dogs, Emotional Support Pets
The final straw might actually have been a colorful feather — attached to a peacock. A woman who tried to board a United Airlines flight in late January with a peacock, claiming it was an emotional support animal (ESA), set off a bunch of alarm bells. And not all of them were at the security check point. United told her “no” three times before she even arrived at Newark International Airport, but the encounter earned her 15 minutes of fame and spurred new travel guidelines by the airlines. It’s part of a crackdown on suspected phony ESAs and service animals — a problem that people with legitimate, highly-trained service animals have been complaining about for quite a while. (Morris, 3/7)

In other public health news —

The Mercury News: Stanford Students Protest Apple Over Smartphone Addiction
Stanford students concerned about smartphone addiction decided to take advantage of their proximity to the world’s largest smartphone company to send it a message. Four Stanford students — Sanjay Kannan, Evan Sabri Eyuboglu, Divyahans Gupta, and Cameron Ramos — who formed a group called “Stanford Students Against Addictive Devices” (SSAAD) protested outside Infinite Loop headquarters in Cupertino and at the Apple Store in Palo Alto last week, holding picket signs and handing leaflets to Apple employees walking out after work. (Lee, 3/7)

The New York Times: Amazon Offers Prime Discount For Medicaid Recipients
Amazon has had no problem getting affluent households to buy from its online store. But people with low incomes have been less loyal to the retailer. Now, Amazon is taking another step to persuade them to spend their money on the site. Starting Tuesday, the company will offer a discount on its Prime membership program to the millions of recipients of Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income Americans. They can receive the benefits of Prime — including free fast shipping and video streaming — for $5.99 a month, less than half the standard monthly fee of $12.99. (Wingfield, 3/7)

Reuters: Amazon Offers Discount Prime Membership To Medicaid Recipients
Any push by Amazon into poorer demographics comes at a time when traditional brick-and-mortar suppliers like Walmart Inc have been fighting the online shopping giant's arrival by seeking to attract more high-spending shoppers. The Medicaid connection may also stir more nerves among healthcare companies worried about tentative moves by Amazon to sell and distribute some medical supplies and drugs. (Mathias, 3/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Amazon Targets Medicaid Recipients As It Widens War For Low-Income Shoppers
Lower-income consumers have been the fastest-growing segment of online shoppers, analysts say, but still face potential impediments. They may lack internet access, banking resources like credit cards—SNAP cards can’t be used to pay online—and safe places to deliver a package. (Stevens, 3/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Fund Potential Game-Changers In Health Tech
Luis F. Romo is chasing the startup dream, developing a device that disinfects operating rooms and stretchers by zapping them with ultraviolet rays. The 30-year-old Mr. Romo has a catchy name for his invention, “PurpleSun,” and a solid but untraditional backer: a hospital. Northwell Health, of New Hyde Park, N.Y., has put about $3 million into Mr. Romo’s idea and may invest more in coming years. As hospital-acquired infections have become the scourge of modern institutions, Northwell officials are eager to put the germ-fighting device to work in their 23 hospitals. They also hope to make back their investment—and more—if other hospitals want to use PurpleSun. (Lagnado, 3/7)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Watchdog Report: Failed VA Leadership Put Patients At Risk
"Failed leadership" at the Department of Veterans Affairs during the Obama years put patients at a major hospital at risk, an internal probe finds — another blow to Secretary David Shulkin, who served at the VA then and is fighting to keep his job. The 150-page report released Wednesday by the VA internal watchdog offers new details to its preliminary finding last April of patient safety issues at the Washington, D.C., medical center. (3/7)

Politico: ‘We Took A Broken System And Just Broke It Completely’
President Donald Trump last year hailed a multibillion-dollar initiative to create a seamless digital health system for active duty military and the VA that he said would deliver “faster, better, and far better quality care.” But the military’s $4.3 billion Cerner medical record system has utterly failed to achieve those goals at the first hospitals that went online. Instead, technical glitches and poor training have caused dangerous errors and reduced the number of patients who can be treated, according to interviews with more than 25 military and VA health IT specialists and doctors, including six who work at the four Pacific Northwest military medical facilities that rolled out the software over the last year. (Allen, 3/8)

Stat: Gottlieb Condemns 'Rigged Payment Scheme' For Biosimilar Drugs
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that it’s not his agency’s job to regulate drug prices — but on Wednesday morning, he used his bully pulpit to condemn a “rigged payment scheme” that he said he fears is keeping some generic drugs out of the market. Speaking to a group of hundreds at a conference run by America’s Health Insurance Plans, Gottlieb spoke about the challenges facing biosimilar manufacturers, which make generic biologic drugs. He called on the audience primarily of insurance professionals to do something, offering a few concrete suggestions. (Swetlitz, 3/7)

The Associated Press: FDA Did Not Issue New Statement On Vaccines And Autism
Some health websites have misrepresented the fine print on an old vaccine label to falsely claim that the "FDA announced that vaccines are causing autism." Vaccines do not cause autism and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not make any new statement this week about the long-debunked claim. Autism was listed as one of many "adverse events" on the 2005 label of Sanofi Pasteur's Tripedia childhood vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. (3/7)

Politico: Planned Parenthood Defunding Threatens Government Spending Package
House Republicans are demanding a series of controversial abortion and health care policies in the annual health spending bill, setting up a showdown with Democrats and threatening passage of an omnibus spending package to keep the government open. Democrats are vowing to block the slew of long-sought conservative priorities. The riders would cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood, eliminate a federal family planning program and ax the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, according to sources on Capitol Hill. Republicans also want to insert a new prohibition on funding research that uses human fetal tissue obtained after an abortion. (Haberkorn and Ferris, 3/7)

The Wall Street Journal: The Federal Government Spends A Lot More On The Elderly Than On Children. Should It?
The U.S. government spends far more on social programs for the elderly than it does on children, even though a growing body of research suggests investments in early childhood can have substantial long-term benefits for individuals and society, according to a new study. The federal government in 2015 spent roughly $35,000 per elderly person, much of it via Social Security and Medicare, and around $5,000 per child through programs like food stamps, Medicaid and tax credits, according to a paper to be presented Thursday at the Brookings Institution. Accounting for spending on public elementary and secondary schools—$11,222 per pupil in the most recent available data, mostly from state and local governments—narrows the gap, but doesn’t close it. (Leubsdorf, 3/8)