Sacramento Bee: Camp Fire Death Toll Increases To 56; Names Of Missing People Released
Some are missing. Some aren’t. Some, nobody knows. As the death toll from the Camp Fire increased to at least 56 Wednesday, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office released a list of 103 people who have been reported missing since the blaze erupted last week, part of an effort to determine how many area residents actually are still unaccounted for and should be the subject of law enforcement searches. (Lillis, Yoon-Hendricks, Sullivan and Stanton, 11/14)

The New York Times: A ‘Perfectly Imperfect’ Life: The Victims Of The California Wildfires
In many ways, the story of Ernie Foss runs right alongside the narrative of the state he loved, California. He was a surfer and skateboarder as a young man. He grew up in San Francisco and worked at a store in the hippie heyday of Haight-Ashbury, selling candles and crystals, a job that allowed him to pursue his passion of music. And then tech money flooded the city, his neighborhood was gentrified, and like so many others he was priced out. (Arango, 11/14)

The Washington Post: Camp Fire: Toyota Offers To Replace Burned Truck Of California Nurse Who Helped Save Lives
By the time Allyn Pierce arrived at his job last Thursday morning, the sky in Paradise, Calif., was an eerie shade of burnt orange, choked with haze. A wildfire had exploded in the area hours before, and the flames were cutting through the Butte County town at an alarming pace. Now, at 8 a.m., they were threatening the Adventist Health Feather River hospital, where Pierce worked as a registered nurse and ICU manager. Pierce and his team quickly scrambled to help the hospital’s few dozen patients evacuate by ambulance. By 9:30 a.m., he and two colleagues were among the last to evacuate. They piled into his white Toyota Tundra and headed south for less than a mile, then east on wooded Pearson Road. (Wang, 11/14)

Los Angeles Times: Third Body Found Among Wreckage Of Woolsey Fire As Residents Blast Officials About Emergency Response
As a third body was discovered among the ashes of a home in Agoura Hills, residents in nearby Malibu questioned fire officials about the division of resources and rushed evacuation notices during the Woolsey fire’s devastating march through Los Angeles and Ventura counties. (Hamilton, Fry, Winton and Panzar, 11/14)

Sacramento Bee: Norovirus Hits Shelter For Fire Evacuees In Chico, Second Shelter May Be Affected
Norovirus has broken out at a Butte County shelter housing Camp Fire evacuees, and an outbreak is suspected at a second shelter.Fifteen to 20 people staying at Neighborhood Church of Chico have become ill, and lab tests have confirmed they have norovirus, said Lisa Almaguer, spokeswoman for the Butte County Public Health Department. (Kasler and Clift, 11/14)

The Mercury News: Norovirus Outbreak Reported At Camp Fire Evacuation Center
“Norovirus is not uncommon, especially this time of year, and it’s especially not uncommon for a shelter situation where you have hundreds of people living in very close quarters,” Almaguer said. Norovirus is a very contagious virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Green, 11/14)

Sacramento Bee: No Easy Breathing: The Smoke In Sacramento Hasn’t Been This Bad In Nearly A Decade
Air quality related to fine particulate matter was expected to hit “unhealthy” or “very unhealthy” levels for the seventh time this year in the Sacramento region on Wednesday, more “code red” or worse days than any other year since at least 2009, according to the latest data from local air districts. (Reese and Finch, 11/14)

California Healthline: For Wildfire Safety, Only Particular Masks Guard Against Toxic Particulate Matter
Toby Lewsadder stepped outside an Ace Hardware store wearing a simple one-strap dust mask. He knew it wasn’t the right defense against the wildfire smoke lingering in the air, but it was all he could find. The local hardware stores he checked Tuesday didn’t have the more substantial respirator mask that public health officials recommend to defend against the harmful wildfire smoke that is blanketing communities across the state. One pharmacy he contacted was selling surgical masks for only a quarter. (Young and Ibarra, 11/15)

KQED: Rising Heat Is Making Workers Sick, Even Indoors
Excessive heat is already a health risk for millions of Californians at work, and it’s only getting worse. Over the last 30 years, warming nights and longer heat waves have become more frequent in the state. Four of the last five years were the hottest on record; 2018 could soon make it five out of six. This July and August, in Southern California, several daily and overnight temperature records toppled. One day this summer, the temperature hit 98 degrees at the coast. As [Jose] Rodriguez worked inside containers, a sensor measuring temperature and humidity found that the heat index – what it felt like to his body – was 115 degrees. (Peterson, 11/14)

In other public health news —

Capital Public Radio/KXJZ: San Joaquin Food Banks Asking For Thanksgiving Donations At 'Stuff The Bus' Event
Thanksgiving and Christmas are fast approaching and so too the need for turkeys at food banks. The Stockton Emergency Food Bank is hoping for enough donations to put a Thanksgiving meal on the table for 2,000 families this Thanksgiving. Second Harvest Food Bank in Manteca needs 3,200 turkeys for this Thanksgiving and Christmas to supply food pantries, low-income families, and homeless shelters in the Mother Lode, and San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties. (Ibarra, 11/14)

KQED: Judge Orders Investigation Of Possible Fraud In Prisoner Psychiatric Care Case
A federal judge overseeing improvements to psychiatric care in California’s prisons plans to appoint an experienced fraud investigator to look into allegations that state officials gave her inaccurate or misleading data in a long-running civil lawsuit. In an eight-page order issued late Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller said the investigation would focus first on whether prison leaders committed fraud upon the court. (Small, 11/14)

In other news from across the state —

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area’s Biotech Sector Is Booming — But Wages May Be Topping Out
Average wages for workers in the Bay Area’s life sciences sector — which includes employees of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies — dipped slightly after years of growth, according to a report set to be released by the California Life Sciences Association on Wednesday. (Ho, 11/14)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: Some Pharmacies Thwart Efforts To Improve Access To The Opioid Overdose Reversal Drug
In response to the opioid crisis, all 50 states have changed their laws to make naloxone, the overdose reversal drug, easier to get and use. Many states, including Pennsylvania and New Jersey, have issued standing medication orders so pharmacists can dispense the lifesaving antidote without a prescription. Cities such as Philadelphia have campaigns encouraging family and friends of people at risk of overdose to carry naloxone. (McCullough, 11/14)

The Hill: ObamaCare Enrollment Down Compared To Last Year
Fewer people are signing up for ObamaCare plans this year compared to a similar period last year, according to data released Wednesday by the Trump administration. About 1.2 million people signed up for ObamaCare plans in the first ten days of this year's sign up period, which began Nov. 1. In the first nine days of last year's enrollment period, 1.5 million people signed up for plans — a different of more than 300,000. (Hellmann, 11/14)

In other national health care news —

The Hill: Incoming Dem Chairman: Medicare Negotiating Drug Prices Is A Priority 
Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), who is slated to be the next chairman of a House committee overseeing drug prices, said Wednesday that his top priorities on the issue are allowing Medicare to negotiate prices and speeding the approval of cheaper generic drugs. Pallone, who is set to become chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in January, pointed to President Trump’s support for those two policies in expressing hope for a bipartisan deal. (Sullivan, 11/14)

The Wall Street Journal: To Curb Wasteful Health Spending, Walmart To Send Employees Traveling For Spine Surgery
Walmart Inc. said it will require its employees to use certain hospitals for costly spine surgeries, an effort to weed out unnecessary procedures and lower its health-care spending. The retailer has been trying since 2013 to encourage employees to undergo the surgeries at hospital systems known for their quality by offering to pay the full cost of the procedures and travel. But not all workers took Walmart up on the offer, and the retailer continued to pay for surgery elsewhere. (Evans, 11/14)

The Wall Street Journal: Big Tobacco Warns It May Fight FDA Over A Menthol Ban
The possibility of a nationwide ban on menthol cigarettes puts the tobacco industry into an all-too-familiar spot: having to defend the minty smokes, which are popular among younger smokers and African-Americans. Menthol-flavored cigarettes account for nearly a third of the roughly 250 billion cigarettes sold annually in the U.S., and the industry has a long history of marketing them to blacks and in minority neighborhoods. More than a dozen municipalities have adopted bans on menthols but cigarette makers have so far avoided federal restrictions. (Maloney and McGinty, 11/15)

Modern Healthcare: CMS May Allow Hospitals To Pay For Housing Through Medicaid 
HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday said Medicaid may soon allow hospitals and health systems to directly pay for housing, healthy food or other solutions for the "whole person." In a speech supported by the Hatch Foundation for Civility and Solutions and Intermountain Healthcare in Washington, Azar said Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation officials are looking to move beyond existing efforts to partner with social services groups and try to manage social determinants of health as they see appropriate. (Barr and Dickson, 11/14)

Stat: Obtaining Abortion Pill From Pharmacies And Online Gains Support Among Women
As debate intensifies in the U.S. over abortion, a new survey finds nearly half of all women support alternatives to visiting a medical facility in order to obtain the abortion medicine to terminate pregnancies. And the findings suggest there is potential to expand access to abortion care, if regulators can be persuaded to loosen regulations governing access to the medicine, according to the researchers. Currently, women in the U.S. must obtain mifepristone at a doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital under a risk management program required by the Food and Drug Administration. The restrictions were imposed when the drug was approved in 2000 and stipulate Mifeprex may not be sold in pharmacies and health care providers must complete a certification process. (Silverman, 11/15)

Stat: FDA Official Hints At A Tough Road Ahead For ‘Right To Try’ 
A top Food and Drug Administration official seemed to suggest that the new “right-to-try” law, which skirts around the FDA’s traditional authority to help patients get access to unapproved therapies, might have harmful consequences. Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said the agency’s experience with stem cell clinics might foreshadow its future with right to try. He pointed to some clinics that purported to treat patients for a variety of conditions and instead ended up blinding them or causing tumors. (Swetlitz, 11/14)

The Hill: Physicians Push Back On Trump Plans To Redefine Gender
The American Medical Association (AMA) is pushing back against a potential new policy from the Trump administration that could eliminate federal protections for transgender individuals. The country's largest physician lobbying group said Tuesday during its interim meeting that it will “oppose efforts to deny an individual’s right to determine their stated sex marker or gender identity.” (Weixel, 11/13)

Stat: Covering Pricey Therapies Like CAR-T Is ‘Not Sustainable,’ Hospital Chief Says 
Hospitals are thrilled that they’re now able to offer cancer patients pioneering CAR-T treatments, but they’re also running into the omnipresent problem surrounding these and other next-generation therapies: cost. In a speech Wednesday at the Personalized Medicine Conference, Dr. Betsy Nabel, the president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said her hospital and others in the Partners HealthCare system are not being reimbursed fully when they treat patients with CAR-T therapies, leaving the providers to subsidize the treatments. (Joseph, 11/14)

PBS NewsHour: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Of Picking Medicare Advantage Plans
Nearly half of all new Medicare enrollees are signing up for Medicare Advantage plans, which now account for about 35 percent of the entire Medicare market. The other 65 percent of Medicare beneficiaries are in what’s called original Medicare, which consists of Part A (hospital, nursing home) and Part B (doctors, equipment, outpatient expenses). Those patients usually have a private Part D drug plan, and a quarter have a private Medigap supplement policy. Anyone can get a Medicare Advantage plan or switch to one during open enrollment.Medicare Advantage (MA) plans must cover everything that original Medicare covers, and they can’t discriminate against people who are ill or have preexisting conditions. Anyone, regardless of their health, can get an MA plan or switch to one during open enrollment, which continues through Dec. 7. (Moeller, 11/14)

The Washington Post: School Shootings Have Fueled A $2.7 Billion School Safety Industry. What Makes Kids Safer?
The expo had finally begun, and now hundreds of school administrators streamed into a sprawling, chandeliered ballroom where entrepreneurs awaited, each eager to explain why their product, above all others, was the one worth buying. Waiters in white button-downs poured glasses of chardonnay and served meatballs wrapped with bacon. In one corner, guests posed with colorful boas and silly hats at a photo booth as a band played Jimmy Buffett covers to the rhythm of a steel drum. For a moment, the festive summer scene, in a hotel 10 miles from Walt Disney World, masked what had brought them all there. (Woodrow Cox and Rich, 11/13)

NPR: How Doctors And Nurses Cope With The Human Toll Of Gun Violence
Gun violence has become a part of everyday life in America and of the work lives of doctors, nurses and first responders, too. After the National Rifle Association told doctors to "stay in their lane" in response to a policy proposal from the American College of Physicians for reducing gun-related injuries and deaths, there was a backlash. Health care professionals shared heart-wrenching stories about treating people harmed by firearms. How do doctors and nurses cope with their regular encounters with the human toll of gun violence? How does exposure to trauma affect them? (Gordon, 11/14)