Los Angeles Times: Blue Shield Has Been Hacked. What Should You Do? 
Some Blue Shield of California members were recently notified that their personal data may have been compromised by a global cybersecurity breach this spring. A third-party vendor that provides vision benefits for many of Blue Shield’s customers was one of “thousands of companies and governmental agencies” that were swept up in a global data security breach earlier this year that impacted more than 60 million individuals worldwide, said Mark Seelig, a spokesperson for Blue Shield. (Garcia, 12/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Sleep Apnea Device Maker ResMed Cuts Workforce, Restructures Executive Team 
Local medical device maker ResMed is adjusting its executive leadership assignments and cutting back its workforce to accommodate a shift in strategy. The San Diego-based company is pushing to improve its current product marketing and digital health offerings for the future. (Rocha, 12/4)

CalMatters: California Threw A $50 Million Lifeline To A Bankrupt Hospital. It’s Scrambling To Reopen
California’s special emergency fund for financially distressed hospitals probably would not have passed the Legislature this year had it not been for the failure of a rural hospital off Highway 99 in the San Joaquin Valley. The bankruptcy and closure of Madera Community Hospital spurred lawmakers to allocate $300 million in loans for it and other troubled medical facilities. The state began doling out the money this fall, earmarking up to $57 million for Madera alone. (Ibarra, 12/5)

KFF Health News and CBS News: Patients Expected Profemur Artificial Hips To Last. Then They Snapped In Half.
The FDA and the manufacturer were alerted to Profemur titanium hips breaking inside U.S. patients as of 2005. It took 15 years to recall the devices. Many fractures could have been avoided. (Kelman and Werner, 12/5)

Modern Healthcare: CMS Medicaid Unwinding Enforcement Rule Issued
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services outlined its plans to get Medicaid redeterminations disenrollments under control in an interim final rule published Monday. States that fail to comply with federal Medicaid policies as they review their benefit rolls for ineligible enrollees risk reduced federal funding under the regulation, which comes after 11.8 million Medicaid beneficiaries have been removed from the program since April, according to CMS data compiled by KFF. (Bennett, 12/4)

Modern Healthcare: Biden's Nursing Home Staffing Rule Finds Scant Political Support
President Joe Biden’s high-profile plan to improve nursing home quality by setting staffing minimums has attracted intense resistance and lukewarm support, regulatory comments and public statements reveal. The nursing home industry strenuously opposes the policy, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed Sept. 1. And as a growing number of congressional Republicans have spoken against it, Biden and CMS have gotten little support, and even resistance, from a cadre of Democrats and patient advocates. (Benett, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: COVID, Flu, RSV Rise In California. Is A 'Tripledemic' Coming? 
Respiratory virus season is ramping up in California, prompting health officials to renew their calls for residents to get vaccinated in hopes of reducing potential pressure on health systems across the state. While conditions so far are nowhere near as daunting as last autumn — when hospitals labored under the strain of a “tripledemic” spawned by wide simultaneous circulation of COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus — the transmittable trio is on the rise. (Lin II, 12/5)

CBS News: Study: Slow COVID-19 Booster Rollout Cost Thousands Of Lives
Thousands of lives could have been saved if the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved COVID-19 boosters sooner, along with stronger public health messaging, according to a new study. The Northwestern University study used Israel as a counterfactual or a "what if" scenario to see the possible outcomes that could have happened in the United States. (Price, 12/4)

CIDRAP: Small Study Finds Brain Alterations After COVID Omicron Infection 
Researchers in China report thinning of the gray matter and other changes in certain parts of the brain in 61 men after COVID-19 Omicron infection. For the study, published late last week in JAMA Network Open, the researchers evaluated 61 men before and after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in January 2023. The men had been part of a larger cohort who had undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropsychiatric screenings before infection in August and September 2022. Average age was 43 years. (Van Beuskom, 12/4)

The Wall Street Journal: Exclusive: CVS Plans To Overhaul How Much Drugs Cost 
CVS Health, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, will move away from the complex formulas used to set the prices of the prescription drugs it sells, shifting to a simpler model that could upend how American pharmacies are paid. Under the plan, CVS’s roughly 9,500 retail pharmacies will get reimbursed by pharmacy-benefit managers and other payers based on the amount that CVS paid for the drugs, in addition to a limited markup and a flat fee to cover the services involved in handling and dispensing the prescriptions. Today, pharmacies are generally paid using complex measures that aren’t directly based on what they spent to purchase specific drugs. (Mathews, 12/5)

Axios: Study Finds Sharp Drop In FDA Inspections Since Pandemic Began
Food and Drug Administration inspections of drug manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and abroad dropped well below pre-pandemic levels between 2020 and 2022, according to a new study in Health Affairs. The findings are further evidence of a fragile global drug supply chain at a time when some critical medicines are in short supply. Some of the squeeze was due to inspections that took overseas facilities offline because of safety concerns. (Reed, 12/5)

Stat: Chemotherapy Shortages Won’t Get Better Under Biden’s Latest Plan
President Biden’s new plan to curb drug shortages by boosting domestic drug production won’t expand the supply of the chemotherapies that are currently in shortage, an administration official confirmed. The limited scope surprised experts, who told STAT Biden could have included those drugs in the effort. (Wilkerson, 12/5)

Axios: House Oversight Committee Investigating FDA's Handling Of Phenylephrine
Republicans on a House oversight panel will investigate the Food and Drug Administration's handling of a common decongestant ingredient that the agency recently concluded was ineffective, the committee told Axios first. The inquiry, the latest in an aggressive investigative agenda by House Republicans, seeks to understand why the FDA didn't take earlier action against a wide range of over-the-counter cough and cold drugs that accounted for nearly $1.8 billion in sales last year. (Reed, 12/4)

Bloomberg: The Pentagon Wants to Root Out Shoddy Drugs. The FDA Is In Its Way.
One morning in October, US Army Colonel Victor Suarez finished his usual morning workout — a 32-mile bike ride — and then sat down in his home office in Frederick, Maryland. When he opened his email, his stomach dropped. Suarez spent his career getting medicines to military hospitals and combat troops, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had recently sought out an independent lab to assess the quality of those drugs, in large part because he doubted the US Food and Drug Administration’s ability to police a supply chain now dominated by low-cost manufacturers in India and China. His inbox offered a glimpse of the first batch of test results. (Edney and Griffin, 12/5)

Stat: FDA Needs Staff Influx To Meet Gene Therapy Needs, Marks Says
The Food and Drug Administration needs dozens more reviewers if it wants its so-called Operation Warp Speed for rare disease therapies to take off, the agency’s biologics chief said Monday. (Owermohle, 12/4)

The Washington Post: Supreme Court Appears Torn During Purdue Opioid Settlement Arguments
The Supreme Court on Monday seemed torn about both the merits and the legality of a proposed Purdue Pharma bankruptcy plan that would allocate billions of dollars to help ease the nation’s opioid crisis, but also shield the family that owns the company from future lawsuits. Justices across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions of lawyers from the Justice Department, which opposes the plan, and attorneys for Purdue and the vast number of parties that agreed to the deal — seeing it as the best hope of ending years of legal disputes and recovering at least a portion of their claims against Purdue and its owners, the Sackler family. (Barnes and Ovalle, 12/4)

Stat: Broad Opioid Addiction Bill To Go Before Senate Committee
The Senate health care committee will consider a sweeping bill next week meant to combat the opioid epidemic, according to four lobbyists and a congressional aide familiar with the legislation. The proposal would reauthorize a number of programs first created by the SUPPORT Act, an addiction-focused bill that Congress first passed in 2018. Many of those programs’ authorizations expired earlier this year, however, leading addiction treatment advocates to fret that lawmakers — and specifically the committee’s chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — no longer view the issue as a priority. (Facher and Cohrs, 12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gun Advocates Challenge California Concealed Carry Rules — Again
Gun advocates filed another suit Monday against California’s upcoming rules for concealed carry of firearms, challenging their authority to allow local governments to require a psychological exam for applicants and the state’s refusal to recognize gun-carry permits from other states. A law scheduled to take effect in January will “make it extremely difficult, if not outright impossible or impermissibly time-consuming, for (applicants) to obtain permits to carry a concealed firearm in public and therefore to exercise their right to be armed in public,” attorneys for Gun Owners of America, the National Rifle Association-affiliated California Rifle & Pistol Association, other groups and individual gun owners said in a lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles. (Egelko, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: Redondo 10th-Grader Brings Loaded Gun, High-Capacity Magazine To School 
A sophomore at Redondo Union High School started the week by carrying a loaded firearm and a high-capacity magazine onto campus, police say. Officers arrested the 15-year-old male student at the school after he brought the firearm onto campus. They said he did not appear to have plans for shooting the weapon at the school. (Childs, 12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: There's 16 New Laws In California For 2024. Here's What To Know
Here are 16 new laws that will kick in next year, including health-related issues such as paid sick leave, gender-neutral toy sections, protections for cannabis users, and more. (Libby and Bollag, 12/4)

KQED: Maternity Group Care For And By Black People Is Improving Outcomes In Oakland
Things didn’t go as planned when DeAnna Jones, 31, delivered her first child in Oakland three years ago. She wanted to have a natural birth, but early contractions led doctors to medically induce her labor a week earlier than her due date. Her daughter’s birth turned out well, but she wished she had known more going into the experience. (Nguyen, 12/4)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Cannabis Tax Cut Could Impact Children’s Programs 
Cannabis operators in Sacramento want the city to reduce a 4% tax on their gross receipts, but the cut would slash money allocated for youth organizations. The special tax must be paid monthly by all cannabis businesses in Sacramento, and starting next year, 40% of the tax will go to a new entity, the Sacramento Children’s Fund. But cannabis business owners say they can’t afford the 4% tax anymore. (Diamond, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: Biting, Kicking, Hurling Blocks. Preschools Struggle With California Law Limiting Expulsion
California began passing a series of highly lauded laws that restrict state-funded child care centers from suspending or expelling children two years before the pandemic. The legislation was part of a national wave that followed a 2014 Obama administration statement condemning preschool expulsion and clarifying that the practice was banned at federally funded Head Start programs. At least 29 states now have policies restricting or eliminating exclusionary discipline. (Gold, 12/4)

Los Angeles Times: This L.A. Firm Hired Kids To Debone Poultry With Sharp Knives, Drive Fork Lifts, Labor Department Says
A Southern California poultry processor illegally employed children as young as 14 to debone meat with sharp knives and move pallets with power-driven lifts, the Labor Department said. The poultry processor, which supplies grocery stores including Ralphs and Aldi, must pay nearly $3.8 million in fines and back wages after an investigation found the company employing children as young as 14 in dangerous jobs, retaliating against workers who cooperated with investigators and refusing to pay overtime wages, the agency said. (Masunaga, 12/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF's Autism Study Using AI Could Change How To Treat Condition
Researchers at UCSF have mapped the microscopic world of autism spectrum disorder in unprecedented detail, pointing toward possible therapies for a subset of patients who have specific genetic mutations, according to a new study. “This opens up kind of a Goldilocks of potential treatment targets,” said one of the study’s authors, Matthew State, a UCSF child psychiatrist and geneticist. “It’s an opportunity for shots on goal that we just have not had before, because of the complexity of autism.” (Fagone, 12/4)

Voice of OC: Laguna Beach Spills More Sewage Into Ocean Than Anywhere Else In OC
A 95,000-gallon sewage spill that closed 2 miles along Laguna Beach’s iconic, cliffside coastline last week has amplified a major concern for some residents. Over the last 16 years, the city has spilled more sewage than entire water districts, into one of Orange County’s most visually commanding – and visitor packed – landscapes. In response, city leaders have in recent years increased funding toward upgrades to the system.  (Pho, 12/4)

San Diego Union-Tribune: On The Edge Of Interstate 8, Migrants Shelter In Pink Tents As Winter Bears Down 
Set up on a patch of desert land just south of I-8 near Jacumba Hot Springs and the Valley of the Moon wilderness area, the pink tents have offered the most public view yet of a worsening humanitarian situation that’s been simmering for nearly three months along the San Diego County border with Mexico. (Riggins, 12/3)

Bay Area Reporter:  State Of HIV Care Report Finds Workforce Burnout, PrEP Awareness Are Persistent Issues
HealthHIV's annual report on the state of HIV care in America found that the situation is improving but that workforce burnout and the effects of HIV criminalization are persistent challenges. The report also said that PrEP awareness is a top priority; this on the heels of federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers showing wide racial and ethnic disparities in who is taking PrEP, as the Bay Area Reporter reported last month. (Ferrannini, 12/5)