CalMatters: More Sick Days And Family Leave? California Lawmakers Push To Improve Work-Life Balance
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, California’s three days of paid sick leave for full-time workers was not enough to cover quarantines or vaccine side effects. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law requiring companies to offer as much as 80 hours of supplemental sick leave for employees. The temporary measure was restored in early 2022 due to the Omicron surge, but expired at the end of the year. Now, advocates are urging state lawmakers to increase paid sick leave and expand who can receive it to promote public health and equity. (Jetha, 7/11)

CalMatters: California Spent $600 Million To House And Rehab Former Prisoners — But Can’t Say Whether It Helped
As Gov. Gavin Newsom retools the state’s prison system to emphasize rehabilitation, his administration has little evidence that a privately run program for parolees costing taxpayers $100 million a year works to prevent future crime. (Lyons, 7/10)

CalMatters: Street Medicine: California Teams Tend To Homeless Encampments
It’s not healthy to be homeless. California’s more than 170,000 unhoused people often lack the means and mobility to locate and visit a doctor who will accept them — so conditions fester until they need emergency treatment. That’s inhumane and inefficient: More than half of the state’s $133 billion Medi-Cal budget is spent on the top 5% of high-needs users. Trying to change things, the state’s Health Care Services Department is throwing its support behind street medicine teams. (Valenzuela, 7/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Homeless People Find Room For Improvement At San Diego's New Safe Sleeping Site 
The city of San Diego’s first safe-sleeping site has gotten mixed reviews from a few of the clients who have checked in since its June 30 opening. (Warth, 7/10)

Sacramento Bee: White House Plan To Address Xylazine Drug In CA Fentanyl
The White House says it has a plan to curb the use of a veterinary tranquilizer that, when combined with the already-deadly fentanyl, only heightens the danger of fatal overdose. Xylazine laced with fentanyl — a powerful synthetic opioid drug used in medical settings for severe pain relief — has emerged in major California cities, according to local officials. Sacramento County reported 10 cases where xylazine was mixed with fentanyl in 2022, according to the California Department of Public Health. (Brassil, 7/11)

Los Angeles Daily News: Construction Begins On Massive Retirement Community At Warner Center
A sprawling retirement complex is coming to Warner Center. Spieker Senior Development Partners broke ground earlier this year on Wisteria at Warner Center, which includes 480 units and stretches across 17 acres just north of the 101 Freeway. (Grigoryants, 7/10)

Science: Rare Link Between Coronavirus Vaccines And Long Covid–Like Illness Starts To Gain Acceptance
COVID-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives, and the world is gearing up for a new round of boosters. But like all vaccines, those targeting the coronavirus can cause side effects in some people, including rare cases of abnormal blood clotting and heart inflammation. Another apparent complication, a debilitating suite of symptoms that resembles Long Covid, has been more elusive, its link to vaccination unclear and its diagnostic features ill-defined. But in recent months, what some call Long Vax has gained wider acceptance among doctors and scientists, and some are now working to better understand and treat its symptoms. (Vogel and Couzin-Frankel, 7/3)

Forbes: Is ‘Long Vax Syndrome’ A Rare Covid-19 Vaccine Side Effect? Here’s What’s Known
Long Covid has long been a problem that has not gotten enough attention throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. And now researchers are longing to better understand “Long Vax Syndrome,” a potential rare condition in which people’s immune systems may be overreacting to the Covid-19 vaccine. It’s being called “Long Vax” not because they’ve gotten vaccinated with a particularly long needle but because the symptoms have resembled long Covid. (Lee, 7/8)

NPR: Doxy-PEP, A Dose Of Doxycycline Taken After Sex, May Prevent Some STDs
A promising line of attack against sexually transmitted infections puts a cheap and widely available medication to a new use. The treatment – a form of post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP – is a dose of the antibiotic doxycycline taken in the hours immediately after sex which works to extinguish an STI before it leads to symptoms or spreads to others. (Stone, 7/11)

The Washington Post: 1.3 Billion People Worldwide Projected To Have Diabetes By 2050 
The number of people worldwide with diabetes is projected to more than double in the next three decades, reaching 1.3 billion by 2050, according to research published in the Lancet. The researchers found that 529 million people had diabetes in 2021 and that the climb in diabetes numbers would increase the prevalence of the disease from 6 percent of the world’s population to nearly 10 percent by 2050. The study’s findings are based on the analysis of data from more than 27,000 sources in 204 countries and territories. (Searing, 7/10)

Bloomberg: FDA Allows More Cancer Drug Imports From China Amid Shortage
US regulators are allowing imports of additional supplies of a cancer drug from China amid a nationwide shortage that has forced doctors to ration care, putting patients’ lives at risk. The Food and Drug Administration has allowed distribution of 10 more lots of cisplatin, an essential chemotherapy drug, from Qilu Pharmaceutical Co., an agency spokesperson said Monday. The FDA previously cleared four lots of Qilu’s version of the drug, which is unapproved in the US, but similar to approved cisplatin sold there. (Swetlitz, 7/10)

Bloomberg: Ozempic, Weight-Loss Drugs Are Being Investigated For Suicide Risks
The European Medicines Agency is looking at adverse events noted by the Icelandic Medicines Agency, including two cases of suicidal thoughts linked to the drugs Saxenda and Ozempic, the EMA said in a statement Monday. One additional case relating to thoughts of self-injury has been raised in connection with Saxenda. The EMA did not report any cases of suicide, and suicidal behavior is not currently listed as a side effect in the EU product information of the drugs. (Ring, 7/10)

Axios: Alzheimer's Drug Leqembi May Not Work As Well On Women
Some experts are questioning whether a newly approved Alzheimer's drug was shown in clinical trials to be less effective on women — even though the FDA didn't flag any such concerns when it was authorized last week. Nearly two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer's disease are female, according to the Alzheimer's Association. The $26,500 drug, Leqembi, also can cause significant side effects, and some experts question whether the benefits outweigh the risks even without accounting for any gender disparities. (Owens and Gonzalez, 7/11)