Los Angeles Times: These L.A. Health Teams Go Door To Door Asking: What Do You Need? 
In Los Angeles County, the public health department is trying to — quite literally — meet people where they are. This year, it has launched a pilot project that sends teams to knock on doors in neighborhoods like Watts, Pacoima and Lincoln Heights to ask residents what they need. (Reyes, 7/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Drug Overdose Deaths Fell To Nearly 2-Year Low In June
In what could be a glimmer of hope in San Francisco’s intractable fentanyl crisis, the number of people who died from accidental drug overdoses fell in June to 48 — the lowest monthly number in nearly two years, according to preliminary figures released Monday from the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The last time the death count dropped below 50 was in July 2022, when 43 people died from overdoses. Most months, that number is in the 50s or 60s. (Ho, 7/15)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Treats Meth Addiction By Paying- And Supporting- Those In Recovery
Dimitri Clark had been using drugs for 35 years, but in just three months he managed to kick his addiction to methamphetamine through an addiction treatment program at a city-funded health clinic in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. (Greene, 7/16)

Los Angeles Times: Teens Aren't Coping Nearly As Well As Their Parents Think, Study Finds
Most U.S. teens aren’t always getting the social and emotional support they need, and most of their parents have no idea, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In a nationwide survey conducted after the most isolating period of the COVID-19 pandemic, only 28% of adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 said they “always” received the social and emotional support they needed. However, 77% of their parents who responded to a related survey said they thought their children “always” had that support. (Kaplan, 7/16)

Los Angeles Times: Rising COVID Clashes With Carefree California Summer
COVID is continuing to rise this summer, and its spread is being aided by people who are still going to work or traveling while sick. “Certainly, people are trying to get back to whatever life was like before the pandemic,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “We’re in a different place than we were before. ... However, good common sense shouldn’t go out the window.” (Lin II, 7/16)

The Washington Post: Study: Nearly 18 Million U.S. Adults Had Long Covid As Of Early 2023
About 7 percent of U.S. adults — nearly 18 million people — had suffered from long covid as of early last year, according to a recent report in JAMA Data Brief. The paper, published in June, drew on 2023 data gathered in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), an analysis sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (McMahan, 7/15)

Reuters: US CDC Sends Field Team To Aid Colorado's Bird Flu Response
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has deployed a nine-member field team to Colorado to help the state manage a bird flu outbreak in humans and poultry. Colorado confirmed four infections and a suspected fifth case on Sunday.The CDC, in a statement dated July 14, said its team of epidemiologists, veterinarians, clinicians and an industrial hygienist was working to support Colorado's assessment of the outbreak and the human cases. (7/15)

Voice of San Diego: Advocates Call For Shorter Time In Immigration Custody For Pregnant Migrants
In December 2023, a Colombian woman who was four-months pregnant crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with her husband into Arizona, where Border Patrol agents apprehended the couple, according to Monika Langarica, senior staff attorney at the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at University of California Los Angeles School of Law. (Morrissey, 7/15)

The New York Times: Promised Cures, Tainted Cells: How Cord Blood Banks Mislead Parents
Millions of pregnant women get the pitch through their OB-GYN: Put a bit of your newborn’s umbilical cord on ice, as a biological insurance policy. If your child one day faces cancer, diabetes or even autism, the precious stem cells in the cord blood could become a tailor-made cure. Many families are happy to pay for the assurance of a healthy future. ... But the leading banks have consistently misled customers and doctors about the technology’s promise, an investigation by The New York Times found. (Kliff and Ghorayshi, 7/15)

The Hill: Donald Trump Says Project 2025 Goes 'Way Too Far' On Abortion As RNC Convention Kicks Off In Milwaukee
Former President Trump says Project 2025 goes “way too far” in its abortion policy recommendations, his latest attempt to distance himself from the plan drafted by many former members of his administration. In an interview with Fox News’s Harris Faulkner that aired Monday, as the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee, Trump said Project 2025 was written by “a group of extremely conservative people” with whom he disagrees. (Weixel, 7/15)

NBC News: Corporate Landlords’ Actions Affect Tenants’ Health, Report Says
Miriam de Santiago says she worries about the rent on her home every day, doing the math to make sure she can meet her obligations without compromising the health of her son, who has epilepsy. “Epilepsy medication costs between $780 and $1,000 [a month], and we have to have it at home and at school. With the rent increases, I have to decide which medicine to request first, see which one is more urgent and find a balance,” De Santiago said in an interview. (Linares, 7/16)

Newsweek: Mystery Of Gulf War Syndrome Finally Solved By Immunologists
In a study published in the journal PLOS One, the research team said that molecules involved in transporting calcium into our cells were defective in veterans with Gulf War Illness. Calcium plays a crucial role in cellular signalling, helping to regulate a range of essential functions, including muscle contraction, nerve function and hormone secretion. (Dewan, 7/15)

AP: Celebrities Are Getting $2,000 MRI Scans To Learn About Their Health. Should You?
What if there was a way to peer into your body and spot early signs of cancer and other life-threatening ailments before they became serious? ... These whole-body MRI scans aren’t cheap. Startup companies like Prenuvo charge between $1,000 to $2,500 for various scanning options, none of which are currently covered by insurance. Proponents say consumer-driven medical scans are the next logical step in preventive medicine. (Perrone, 7/15)

The Wall Street Journal: Why Curing Sleep Apnea Would Push Insurers To Pay For Weight-Loss Drugs
Whether millions of people will be able to afford one of the hot new weight-loss drugs could hinge on whether they cure the sleep apnea of people like Damon Sedgwick. Sedgwick, a technology business analyst in Sydney, enrolled in a clinical trial in 2022 to test whether taking weekly injections of Eli Lilly’s anti-obesity drug Zepbound would alleviate the sleep apnea that had plagued his nights for years. (Loftus, 7/15)

CNN: Mediterranean Diet Found To Improve Children’s Heart Health, Study Finds
The Mediterranean diet has been linked to many health benefits for adults. Now, a new study suggests it could be beneficial to children’s heart health as well. An analysis of nine earlier studies including 577 participants from the ages of 3 to 18 has found incorporating the Mediterranean diet for at least eight weeks had a significant association with lowering blood pressure and total cholesterol, according to the study published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open. (Nicioli, 7/15)

AP: Tuskegee Syphilis Study Whistleblower Peter Buxtun Has Died At Age 86
Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the U.S. government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun died May 18 of Alzheimer’s disease in Rocklin, California, according to his attorney, Minna Fernan. Buxtun is revered as a hero to public health scholars and ethicists for his role in bringing to light the most notorious medical research scandal in U.S. history. (Stobbe, 7/15)