Bloomberg Law: Aetna Must Litigate Doctors’ Group Suit Over Policy Changes
The California Medical Association has standing to sue Aetna Health of California Inc. over the insurer’s alleged threats to doctors who referred patients to out-of-network physicians, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled Monday. The justices agreed with the CMA’s arguments that the trade group devoted substantial resources to dealing with the insurer’s policy and thus had standing to sue for injunctive relief under the state’s unfair competition law. The court held that organizational standing doesn’t depend on whether the group has members also injured by the alleged practices and would also benefit from the requested relief. (Cutler and Yu, 7/17)

The Washington Post: California Nurses Sue State Over Restrictions On Use Of 'Doctor' Title
So last month, [Jacqueline ] Palmer and two other nurses with doctorates of nursing practice sued the California attorney general and leaders of the Medical Board of California and California Board of Registered Nursing, arguing that they have a right to call themselves doctors. The lawsuit seeks to permanently prevent the state from enforcing the law. (Wu, 7/18)

Politico: OSHA Revives Obama-Era Workplace Injury Reporting Requirements
The Labor Department will require large employers in certain high-risk industries to electronically file injury and illness reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, starting next year. The agency intends to use this information for “strategic outreach and enforcement” to reduce harm to workers, OSHA head Doug Parker said in a statement Monday. (Niedzwiadek, 7/17)

Stat: ER Docs Worry Over Extreme Heat As A 'Mass Casualty Event'
In Phoenix, where daytime temperatures are topping 110 degrees Fahrenheit for the third straight week, emergency room doctors think of extreme heat as the public health emergency it has proved itself to be: In 2022, Arizona’s Maricopa County reported a 25% increase in heat-related mortality from the previous year. “Heat is just something we know we need to be really worried about,” said Geoff Comp, an emergency medicine physician at Valleywise Health Medical Center. Protocols developed by Comp, who is also associate program director of the Creighton School of Medicine/Valleywise emergency medicine residency, include treating heat stroke victims with the latest standard of care: immersive cooling in a body bag filled with ice and zipped to about shoulder level. (Pennar, 7/18)

AP: House Republicans Propose Planting A Trillion Trees As They Move Away From Climate Change Denial
As Speaker Kevin McCarthy visited a natural gas drilling site in northeast Ohio to promote House Republicans’ plan to sharply increase domestic production of energy from fossil fuels last month, the signs of rising global temperatures could not be ignored. Smoke from Canadian wildfires hung in the air. When the speaker was asked about climate change and forest fires, he was ready with a response: Plant a trillion trees. (Groves, 7/18)

Los Angeles Times: In-N-Out Bans Employees From Wearing Masks
California fast-food institution In-N-Out Burger announced that it will soon ban employees from wearing masks in five of the seven states in which it operates restaurants, according to an internal memo leaked Friday. The exceptions? Workers in California and Oregon will still be able to mask, if they choose, to protect themselves from COVID-19 and other illnesses. (Olson, 7/17)

Capital & Main: Proposed Law Would Reduce Barriers To Mental Health Care For California Youth
The height of the pandemic triggered waves of anxiety and emotional stress for isolated young people across the country, including those in California. But long before COVID was a common term, the need for greater access to youth mental health services in the Golden State had been growing. (Kreidler, 7/17)

KQED: California's New CARE Courts Prompt Orange County To Weigh Best Practices
In Orange County, officials weigh how to convince people with psychosis to accept care without coercion as the state's new CARE Courts roll out in October. (Dembosky, 7/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Biotech That's Trying To Treat Rare Genetic Diseases Is Acquired By Novartis 
San Diego startup DTx Pharma, which is developing technology for delivering RNA-based therapies to hard-to-treat diseases, has been acquired by drug giant Novartis for $500 million. (Freeman, 7/17)

AP: New Drug To Protect Babies And Toddlers From RSV Gets FDA Approval Ahead Of Cold Season
Beyfortus, which will be marketed in the U.S. by Sanofi, is already approved in Canada, Europe and the U.K. Sanofi did not immediately announce the U.S. price of the treatment. FDA officials approved the drug based on three studies showing Beyfortus reduced the risk of RSV infection between 70% and 75% among infants and children 2 and younger. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet early next month to recommend exactly who should get the drug. (Perrone, 7/17)

Stat: Medicare Has A New Plan To Address Drug Shortages — But It Could Backfire
Medicare has a new proposal to pay hospitals more to stockpile essential drugs — an idea that comes as doctors report running low on critical chemotherapies and other drugs. But experts caution the policy could cause the very shortages that government officials are trying to avoid. For years most of the solutions for addressing drug shortages have involved giving the Food and Drug Administration more power. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress empowered the FDA to make drug companies create backup plans for manufacturing facility interruptions, and to collect information from drug makers on where they source ingredients. (Wilkerson, 7/18)

Reuters: Lilly Drug Slows Alzheimer's By 60% For Mildly Impaired Patients In Trial
Lilly's study showed that brain swelling, a known side effect of amyloid-clearing antibodies, occurred in more than 40% of patients with a genetic predisposition to develop Alzheimer's. The company had previously reported that 24% of the overall donanemab treatment group had brain swelling. Brain bleeding occurred in 31% of the donanemab group and about 14% of the placebo group. The deaths of three trial patients were linked to the treatment, researchers reported. (Beasley, 7/17)

NPR: Experimental Alzheimer's Drug Donanemab Outperforms Leqembi In Clinical Trial
But experts caution that donanemab is no cure, and that its benefit amounts to only about a seven-month delay in the loss of memory and thinking. "I do think that will make a difference to people," says Dr. Reisa Sperling, who directs the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "But we have to do better." (Hamilton, 7/17)

The Hill: Alzheimer’s Is Most Prevalent In East, Southeast, According To New Research 
Alzheimer’s disease is most prevalent in the east and southeast, according to new research published Monday that seeks to map out the disease on a state and county level. The prevalence of Alzeheimer’s in those regions is closely tied to demographics and age. (Fortinsky, 7/17)

CalMatters: Smokers Fund California’s Early Childhood Programs. What Happens When They Quit?
For 25 years, some of California’s best-known early childhood services have been funded by an almost ironic source: Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. That was the deal voters made when they passed Proposition 10 in 1998, levying a tobacco tax and dedicating the money for programs that would help families with young children. The arrangement was never supposed to last forever. Advocates for youth services have known from the beginning that fewer people would smoke over time, and the funding would fall. (Ibarra, 7/18)

Military Times: VA Lays Groundwork For First Major Survey Of Moral Injury In Veterans
The most familiar moral and ethical dilemmas in warfare have to do with inflicting harm: deciding whether to fire on a person who represents an uncertain threat, for example, or living with the knowledge of civilian collateral damage of battle. Marine veteran Peter Lucier, who served on active duty from 2008 to 2013, has lived through and written about these kinds of quandaries. But as a civilian working with the volunteer-run organization Team America Relief to evacuate former U.S. military interpreters and their families from Afghanistan during and after the U.S. military withdrawal and Taliban takeover in 2021, Lucier experienced another kind of moral conflict: deciding whom to save. (Seck, 7/17)

Patch: Parasitic Stomach Bug Spreads In CA; CDC Probe Continues
The number of people who have been sickened by a parasite linked to different kinds of fresh produce has grown to 581 people in 31 states, including California, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent update of its investigation of the intestinal infection cyclosporiasis. (Karnes, 7/17)

Bay Area News Group: Report Answers Critical Question About Martinez Refinery Exposure, But More Remain Unanswered
Contra Costa Health declared that the dust released into nearby neighborhoods by the Martinez Refining Company last week “does not pose an increased, long-term risk to public health.” (McCarthy, 7/17)

Newsweek: Scientists Discover Link Between Brain And Weight Gain
How does a high-fat diet affect your brain? Researchers from Canada's Memorial University have identified an inflammatory pathway in the brain linking high-fat diets to the activation of appetite-promoting neurons. "Scientists have known for a while that high-fat foods cause a low-intensity inflammation in the brain," Lisa Fang, the study's first author, told Newsweek. (Dewan, 7/17)

Stat: Study: Hearing Aids May Slow Cognitive Decline In Those At Risk
Doctors have long suspected that hearing loss in older adults hastens dementia, the cognitive decline associated with aging. A new study published in The Lancet on Tuesday probes the link between the two conditions further in what could be the first randomized controlled trial of its kind. More than 55 million people have dementia worldwide; a number that continues to grow as more people live longer. Hearing loss has emerged as one of the likely risk factors for dementia for several reasons. (Lawrence, 7/18)

California Healthline: 'Epidemic' Podcast: The Goddess Of Smallpox
To defeat smallpox in South Asia, public health workers had to navigate the region’s layered cultural ideas about the virus. They also dreamed big. In Episode 1, host Céline Gounder wonders how the U.S. might tap into similar “moral imagination” to prepare for the next public health crisis. (7/18)