Los Angeles Times: Valadao Supports Trump Megabill Set To Disrupt Healthcare For Many Of His Constituents
Already a ripe target for Democrats in the next election, Central Valley Rep. David Valadao put his political future in deeper peril this week by voting in favor of legislation that slashes the Medicaid coverage essential to roughly two-thirds of his constituents. (Elizondo and Mehta, 7/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Major Medicaid Cuts Could Devastate California Health Care
Millions of Californians who get health insurance through Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income residents, will probably lose or see major cuts to their health benefits under the Republican tax and spending megabill signed by President Donald Trump on Friday. The tax and policy bill slashes federal Medicaid funding nationwide by about $1 trillion over the next decade, the largest reduction in the program’s history. That could result in nearly 12 million Americans without health insurance by 2034, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. (Ho, 7/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Nonprofit With Ties To Mayor Lurie Seeks To Counter Trump Cuts
The San Francisco nonprofit once led by Mayor Daniel Lurie has pledged to raise more than $1 billion by 2035 — twice as much money as it raised in the past 20 years — in response to the potential loss of federal funds for city services under President Donald Trump. Tipping Point Community on Monday announced the redoubled effort in response to Trump’s sweeping federal spending package that the nonprofit criticized for slashing “$1.6 trillion in direct assistance programs over the next decades.” (Toledo, 7/7)

The Hill: Judge Temporarily Blocks Planned Parenthood ‘Defunding’ In Trump Megabill
A federal judge on Monday granted Planned Parenthood’s request to temporarily halt Medicaid funding cuts to the group’s health centers under a provision of Republicans’ new tax and spending package. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani’s ruling marks the first known instance of a federal judge limiting enforcement of any part of the “big, beautiful” bill, which President Trump signed into law Friday. (Schonfeld, 7/7)

Politico: Megabill Hits Health Care For Immigrants, Including Legal Ones, Hard
As President Donald Trump intensifies his targeting of undocumented immigrants, the GOP megabill passed Thursday takes aim at those here legally by revoking their access to subsidized care. Under current rules, those immigrants — green card holders, refugees, survivors of domestic violence and individuals on work and student visas — can purchase health insurance on the Obamacare marketplace and receive tax credits to offset the cost. (Chu, 7/4)

Axios: Trump Bill's Health Effects Won't Be Felt Until After Midterms
President Trump's tax and spending bill sets in motion nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health policy changes that could loom over the midterm elections. But the real effects likely won't be felt until well after the ballots are cast. (Goldman, 7/7)

Voice of OC: Grand Jury: Orange County Again Fails To Curb Homelessness
Orange County Grand Jurors found the county has spent over $1 billion to address homelessness, yet not much has changed. Now, grand jurors are calling on OC Supervisors and other top officials to overhaul their efforts to get people off the streets – echoing a 2022 OC Grand Jury report. (Biesiada, 7/8)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento’s Homeless Voice Concerns Over Housing Agency
After overcoming homelessness, Kristy Smith became an advocate for others, designing tools to help Sacramento residents get off the street and into permanent shelter. A new bill would shut down her work. Smith, along with 16 homeless and 15 formerly homeless people, signed a letter from the Sacramento Homeless Union last week opposing a bill in the California state Senate that creates a new regional agency for housing and homelessness. Smith worries that the new agency will limit the participation of homeless people in decision making and roll back Sacramento’s progress. (Rodriquez-Vars, 7/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why SF’s ‘Remarkable’ Drop In Fatal Drug Overdoses Proved Short-Lived
After falling almost to a five-year low in 2024, the average number of monthly overdose deaths in San Francisco during the past five months has risen nearly to the levels seen at the beginning of last year. About 60 people died each month, on average, from December to May, up from 43 from June to November 2024, according to reports from the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. (Angst and Leonard, 7/6)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Families Of 2 Men Who Died In Jail Sue San Diego County, Pointing To Their Histories Of Mental Illness
With two new ones filed in recent weeks, San Diego County is now facing dozens of lawsuits over in-custody deaths — most of them alleging broad systemic failures in how it houses and treats people with mental illness. (Davis and McDonald, 7/6)

Military Times: ‘A New Challenge’: Air Force Vet Becomes Two-Time Living Organ Donor
Lindsay Gutierrez never planned on joining the military. Raised in Oklahoma with dreams of working in special effects makeup, she earned her bachelor’s degree in theater and set her sights on Hollywood. But life rarely follows the script. By 2009, she was living paycheck to paycheck in California, sharing a small space with a former softball teammate and wondering how to build a future out of sporadic freelance gigs. (Beyersdorfer, 7/7)

Times of San Diego: UC San Diego Study Finds Key To Growing Cancer-Fighting Corals
A new study led by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography may pave the way for lab-based production of rare coral compounds called diterpenoids that show promise in treating cancer and inflammation. However, researchers have been unable to study the chemicals in depth because they are produced in tiny amounts by slow-growing, uncommon corals, making it environmentally destructive and impractical to gather enough for testing or drug development. (Ireland, 7/5)

Los Angeles Times: Extreme Heat Is A Big Problem For Parents Of Young Kids — And Schools
According to survey data from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood, families — across all income levels, races, ethnicities and regions — are increasingly considering how extreme weather conditions affect them. More than half of families with young children across the state are worried about its effects, according to data from the center’s RAPID Survey Project, which examines early childhood and family well-being. Heat, in particular, is a significant concern. (Sequeira, 7/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Study: Asian And Pacific Islander Teens Face Higher Prediabetes Risk
Asian and Pacific Islander adolescents who are overweight or obese are twice as likely to have prediabetes compared to their white counterparts, according to new research from Kaiser Permanente. Twenty-seven percent of Asian youths had prediabetes compared to 12% of white youths, according to the study, which was published this week in Diabetes Care. All youths in the study were overweight or obese. (Ho, 7/4)

AP: US Children Are Growing Increasingly Unhealthy, New Study Says
The health of U.S. children has deteriorated over the past 17 years, with kids today more likely to have obesity, chronic diseases and mental health problems like depression, a new study says. Much of what researchers found was already known, but the study paints a comprehensive picture by examining various aspects of children’s physical and mental health at the same time. (Ungar and Aleccia, 7/7)

NBC News: Low Doses Of CBD May Cause Harm To The Liver, FDA Study Finds
A new clinical trial suggests there are still ongoing questions about the safety of even low doses of cannabidiol, even as CBD capsules, gummies, edibles, oils and lotions have become increasingly omnipresent in the United States in recent years. Scientists from the Food and Drug Administration’s Division of Applied Regulatory Science carried out a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial last year to assess how low-dose CBD affects liver function in a group of healthy middle-aged men and women. (Cox, 7/7)

Southern California News Group: Presence Of ICE Inside California Hospital Denounced By Local Leaders, Immigration Activists
Local leaders, immigration activists and a nurse with Dignity Health on Monday, July 7, denounced the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and contractors inside the lobby of Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital while a woman continued to receive treatment for injuries sustained while she was detained in Sherman Oaks last week, authorities said. (Percy, 7/8)

Times of San Diego: MiraCosta College Gets $1.2M To Tackle Nursing Shortage
MiraCosta College was awarded a $1.2 million grant to help ease the nursing shortage in San Diego and California. The San Diego region, like much of the state and the country, is facing a shortage of registered nurses. According to MiraCosta College’s Office of Research, Planning and Institutional Effectiveness, from 2022-2023, there were close to 2,000 nursing job openings, but only about 1,000 nursing program local graduates available. (Wallace, 7/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: The Strategies Healthcare Executives Are Learning From Peers
Hospital and health system leaders are embracing collaboration — both across teams and through mentorship — to improve performance and team engagement. Becker’s connected with seven healthcare executives to learn about the strategies and mindset shifts they have adopted from a peer in the past six months. From listening at scale to deferring to expertise, these approaches are driving stronger integration, resilience and cultural alignment. (Kuchno, 7/3)

Fierce Healthcare: Judge Vacates Trump Administration's Removal Of Health Web Pages
A federal judge ruled that the swift takedown of health information across several government webpages earlier this year was illegal and vacated agencies’ directives to do so. The takedowns were carried out in late January to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump redirecting the federal government’s stance on gender and sex policy. They were restored in part when a plaintiff medical organization, Doctors for America, was granted a temporary restraining order after successfully arguing that the sudden removals impeded their ability to provide time-sensitive care and were likely unlawful. (Muoio, 7/7)

Politico: Trump Admin Asks Staff To Report Cases Of Bias Due To DEI Directives
The Department of Health and Human Services emailed staff a “whistle-blower questionnaire” asking them to report cases of discrimination due to past diversity, equity and inclusion directives, according to an email obtained by POLITICO. The email asks staff five questions about whether they’ve witnessed people nix grants or contracts “with discriminatory language” and if they knew current and former staff who were passed over for promotions or hiring due to “race, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.” (Nguyen, 7/7)

The Washington Post: Veterans Affairs Reverses Course On Large-Scale Layoffs 
The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday that it will no longer be forced to conduct a large reduction in workforce, unlike several other federal agencies that were forced to make mass layoffs because of the Trump administration’s U.S. DOGE Service. In a news release, VA said that it was on pace to reduce its total staff by nearly 30,000 employees by the end of this fiscal year, a push that the department said eliminates the need for a “large-scale reduction-in-force.” The announcement marks a significant reversal for the Trump administration, which had planned for months to cut VA by roughly 83,000 employees, according to plans revealed in an internal memo circulated to agency staffers in March. At the time, VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins said in remarks shared to social media that the cuts were tough but necessary. (Alfaro, Natanson and Kornfield, 7/8)

The New York Times: Trump Administration, Reversing Itself, Won’t Rewrite A Ban On Asbestos 
The Trump administration has withdrawn its plan to rewrite a ban on the last type of asbestos still used in the United States. The Biden-era ban was a victory for health advocates who had long fought to prohibit the carcinogenic mineral in all its forms. Last month the Trump administration said it planned to reconsider the asbestos ban, which would have delayed its implementation by several years. But late Monday, it withdrew that filing. (Tabuchi, 7/7)

Los Angeles Times: NIH Budget Cuts Threaten The Future Of Biomedical Research — And Young Scientists
Over the last several months, a deep sense of unease has settled over laboratories across the United States. Researchers at every stage — from graduate students to senior faculty — have been forced to shelve experiments, rework career plans, and quietly warn each other not to count on long-term funding. Some are even considering leaving the country altogether. This growing anxiety stems from an abrupt shift in how research is funded — and who, if anyone, will receive support moving forward. As grants are being frozen or rescinded with little warning and layoffs begin to ripple through institutions, scientists have been left to confront a troubling question: Is it still possible to build a future in U.S. science? (Ordner, 7/6)

Bloomberg: US Bird Flu Emergency Response Ends As Infections Decline
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its emergency response for bird flu as the outbreak that sickened dozens of people, spread to cattle and drove up egg prices has abated. The emergency designation ended in the last week, according to a person familiar with the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. (Nix, 7/7)

The New York Times: Medical Societies Sue Kennedy And H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice
Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public. The suit, filed in federal court in western Massachusetts, seeks to restore Covid vaccines to the list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women. (Mandavilli, 7/7)

AP: RFK Jr. Promotes A Food Company That Makes Ultraprocessed Meals
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday praised a company that makes $7-a-pop meals that are delivered directly to the homes of Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. He even thanked Mom’s Meals for sending taxpayer-funded meals “without additives” to the homes of sick or elderly Americans. ... But an Associated Press review of Mom’s Meals menu, including the ingredients and nutrition labels, shows that the company’s offerings are the type of heat-and-eat, ultraprocessed foods that Kennedy routinely criticizes for making people sick. (Seitz and Aleccia, 7/7)