LA Daily News: Hoping To Save Limbs And Toes, California Moves To Curtail Diabetes
The word “amputation” threw a chill down Michael Rubenstein’s spine. The 67-year-old diabetic from San Mateo still winces at the thought. “They told me I’d need to cut it off right about here,” he said, sawing his hand across his left shin. Two months after that diagnosis, he’s on an exam table at the Center for Limb Preservation at UC San Francisco, his leg still whole, the threat of gangrene and amputation gone and his mood a lot less bleak and fearful. “Yeah, it turns out I didn’t need that,” he said. (Harr, 8/6)

In other public health news —

San Francisco Chronicle: Stanford Researchers Start Concussion Study With High School Athletes 
A Palo Alto company is teaming up with a Stanford health care network and several regional high schools for a study that will use virtual reality headsets to track eye movements to better spot concussions. ...But the four-year study on high school athletes, which begins Monday in partnership with Stanford Children’s Health, will mark the first use of the technology in an area of increasing concern: the health effects of head hits on youths, whose brains are still developing. (Aydin, 8/6)

The Bakersfield Californian: Immunization Clinics Being Held Before School Starts 
With school just around the corner, immunization clinics are being held throughout the county for children going into kindergarten and seventh grade. State law mandates a series of vaccinations for children entering kindergarten. When entering seventh grade, students must receive a booster shot of the whooping cough vaccine and the measles vaccine. ...BCSD offers free vaccinations to children who are uninsured, on Medi-Cal or are American Indian or Native Alaskan, at three of its on-campus healthcare facilities known as wellness centers. (Morgen, 8/6)

Sacramento Bee: Smoke Prompts Sacramento County Health Alert: Limit Outdoor Activity Through Friday
The smoky air blanketing the region from wildfires prompted a statement Monday from Sacramento County air quality and health officials urging residents to take precautions and limit outdoor activities through Friday. (Holzer, 8/6)

Fresno Bee: Fresno, CA Air Quality Unhealthy Spike Monday, Aug. 6 
Air quality in Fresno hit the highest unhealthy level on Monday, fueled by smoke from six fires in California, including the Ferguson Fire that has burned into Yosemite National Park. ... The district’s air monitor in central Fresno recorded a RAAN Level 5 — the most unhealthy level for a one-hour reading. (Anderson, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: Costa Mesa Council To Weigh Local Ban On Needle And Syringe Exchanges
Costa Mesa City Council members Tuesday will discuss whether to adopt an urgency measure prohibiting the establishment or operation of hypodermic needle and syringe exchanges in the city. The proposal — which was added to the council’s meeting agenda Friday afternoon — stems from a special meeting earlier Friday, when the council voted to join Orange County in a lawsuit seeking to halt a mobile needle-exchange service the California Department of Public Health approved last week. (Fry and Money, 8/6)

In other news from across the state —

San Francisco Chronicle: Data Breach At SF’s Institute On Aging May Affect 3,900 Patients, Workers 
A May data breach at San Francisco’s Institute on Aging, a nonprofit that provides home care and other support services for seniors in the Bay Area, may have compromised the personal information of nearly 4,000 clients and employees. The incident was reported to the California attorney general’s office, which is required by state law if a breach affects California residents, and to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights on July 20. (Ho, 8/6)

Capital Public Radio: Sacramento Proposes Marijuana Equity Program To Redress 'Criminalization Of Cannabis' In Communities Of Color 
Joe Devlin, chief of the city’s Cannabis Policy and Enforcement Department, is asking the city council to approve on Tuesday a cannabis-equity program that might serve as restitution for those prosecuted under the war on drugs. ... Applicants approved under the program will be eligible for reduced or waived fees, up to $250,000, and could be prioritized in the lottery for storefront dispensary permits. (Moffitt, 8/6)

Modesto Bee: Health Conditions Cited As Cause Of Crash That Killed Stanislaus Deputy And CSO 
The Stanislaus County sheriff’s deputy who crashed his patrol car last year, killing himself and a community service officer, was determined not to be at fault in the collision due to health-related conditions, according to the California Highway Patrol. (Tracy, 8/6)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco’s Zen Hospice Guest House Closes As Donations Drop
After nearly three decades of helping seriously ill people live out their final days with dignity, the Zen Hospice Project’s guesthouse may be nearing its own demise. The project closed the internationally known guesthouse, at least temporarily, at the end of June while it holds out hope for a deep-pocketed donor — as well as reform in the health insurance industry — to help pay the bills of the beautiful Page Street Victorian, where as many as 100 people a year receive care. (Cabanatuan, 8/6)

The New York Times: Trump’s Short-Term Health Insurance Policies Quickly Run Into Headwinds
The Trump administration’s efforts to allow health insurers to market short-term medical plans as a cheap alternative to the Affordable Care Act are already running into headwinds, with state insurance regulators resisting the sales and state governments moving to restrict them. State insurance regulators, gathered over the past three days for a meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, expressed deep concern that short-term plans were being aggressively marketed in ways likely to mislead consumers. Many said the plans, which need not comply with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandates, were a poor substitute for comprehensive insurance. (Pear, 8/6)

In other national health care news —

The Associated Press: Could Hard-Right Supreme Court Haunt GOP? History Says Maybe
It's of little worry for Republicans or solace for Democrats bracing for battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. Yet history suggests that if President Donald Trump cements an assertively conservative court for a generation, the GOP may ultimately pay a political price. When and how steep? That depends on how momentous the issues and how jolting the decisions, according to legal scholars who've studied the high court's impact on electoral politics. (8/7)

Politico: Dems Zero In On Kavanaugh Ties To Judge In Sexual Harassment Scandal
Senate Democrats are gearing up to press Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his decades-long relationship with former Judge Alex Kozinski, who was forced into retirement last year by a mounting sexual harassment scandal. It’s not just what, if anything, Kavanaugh saw during his time as a Kozinski clerk in the early 1990s that’s on Democratic minds. They also want to know how President Donald Trump’s high court pick would address the judiciary’s ongoing internal reckoning with sexual misconduct that was sparked by Kozinski — one of Kavanaugh’s early mentors who introduced the younger appellate court judge at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2006. (Schor, 8/6)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: Democrats Seize On Cherry-Picked Claim That ‘Medicare-For-All’ Would Save $2 Trillion
As our colleague David Weigel reported, Democrats have latched onto the catchy idea of “Medicare-for-all” (also known as M4A) as a way of expressing their support for universal health care. On July 30, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University released a working paper on the 10-year fiscal impact of the Medicare-for-all plan sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). The report was written by Charles Blahous, a former economic adviser to George W. Bush and a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare from 2010 through 2015. (Kessler, 8/7)