Los Angeles Times: With Transplant Patients Waiting, Lawmakers Fast-Track Bill Allowing Organ Donations By HIV-Positive People
With a seriously ill patient waiting for a new liver, the Legislature took the extraordinary action Friday of having both houses — within an hour — approve a bill that would allow HIV-positive people to donate organs to others who are HIV-positive. Gov. Jerry Brown later Friday signed the bill, which becomes effective immediately. "This is a life-saving matter that aligns California with federal law," said Deborah Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Brown. (McGreevy, 5/27)

The Associated Press: California Rushes To Allow HIV-Infected Organ Transplants
California lawmakers approved emergency legislation Friday to allow a man with HIV to receive part of his HIV-positive husband's liver before the surgery becomes too dangerous, possibly within weeks. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown promptly signed the bill, which takes effect immediately. The federal government recently authorized transplants of HIV-infected organs to patients who have the disease, but it remained illegal under California law and in more than a dozen other states, a leftover fear from the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s. (Cooper, 5/27)

The Sacramento Bee: California To Allow Transplants Between HIV-Infected People
A San Francisco surgeon seeking to perform a liver transplant between two patients infected with HIV will be able to proceed after legislators this week rushed through changes to state law. (Koseff, 5/27)

The San Francisco Chronicle: Legislature OKs Bill To Allow Transplants From Donors With HIV
California could have its first life-saving organ transplant from an HIV-positive donor to an HIV-positive patient within a month, a San Francisco surgeon said Friday, shortly after Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill repealing a previous ban on the procedure. (Gutierrez, 5/27)

The San Jose Mercury News: End Of Life Option Act: Lessons From Two States With Similar Aid-In-Dying Laws
For 13 years, Dr. David Grube, an Oregon family physician, helped 30 terminally ill people die. He says the experience taught him some fundamental lessons that California doctors will begin learning on June 9, when the state's controversial End of Life Option Act takes effect. The law will allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to patients who have six months or less to live. (Seipel, 5/28)

Bay Area News Group: How Will California's New Right-To-Die Law Work?
Under California's right-to-die law, which takes effect on June 9, terminally ill patients must take numerous steps before they're prescribed a lethal drug. (Krieger, 5/28)

Bloomberg: Pfizer And Merck Join $500 Million California Ballot Stampede
As California voters prepare to consider the most ballot measures in almost two decades, companies such as Merck & Co. Inc. and Pfizer Inc. and other interests have already plowed $160 million to sway the outcomes, a sum that could more than triple before the Nov. 8 election. Proposals to cap prescription-drug costs, raise cigarette taxes, limit gun ammunition sales, legalize recreational marijuana and overturn a ban on plastic bags are among those likely to draw big-money donations. (Vekshin, 5/31)

KPCC: Medical Groups Join Fight Against Drug Pricing Ballot Measure
The pharmaceutical industry-backed effort to defeat a statewide ballot initiative intended to lower prescription drug costs has garnered the endorsements of the associations representing California's doctors, psychiatrists and other providers, as well as of groups fighting specific diseases. (Plevin, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: A Question Of Timing: A Lawsuit Claims Gilead Sciences Could Have Developed A Less-Harmful Version Of Its HIV Treatment Sooner
More than a decade ago, researchers at Gilead Sciences thought they had a breakthrough: a new version of the company’s key HIV medicine that was less toxic to kidneys and bones. Clinical trials of the new compound on HIV-positive patients in Los Angeles and several other cities seemed to support their optimism. Patients needed just a fraction of the dose, creating the chance of far fewer dangerous side effects. But in 2004, just as the Foster City biotech firm was preparing for a second and larger round of patient studies, Gilead executives stopped the research. ... More than six years later, though, in 2010, Gilead restarted those trials. The new version of the drug, which the company says is safer, was approved in November under the brand name Genvoya. ... critics believe the new, less harmful form of the drug could have been developed sooner – and wasn’t because the company wanted to extend its patent-protected profits. (Petersen, 5/29)

The Sacramento Bee: The Silas Project: Can Experimental Marijuana Treatments Save A Young Boy’S Life?
The first seizure struck when he was 3. Soon, Silas Hurd was having hundreds a month. Doctors would tell his parents, Forrest and Nicole, that their son had a rare and life-threatening form of epilepsy. The diagnosis set the family on a years-long journey to find a cure, one that has tested their courage, stretched their definition of medicine and put them on the front lines of a county fighting over its marijuana use. A three-part series. (Hect, 5/31)

The Washington Post: ‘We Lose Money Doing This’: Tiny Company Caught In Abortion Debate Takes On Congress
StemExpress, a tiny biomedical company in [Placerville, Calif., a] foothill town east of Sacramento, has emerged at the heart of the contentious national debate over abortion and the scientific use of human fetal tissue. FBI agents say its floor-to-ceiling windows are security hazards, a potential line of sight for snipers. The backdrop of pine trees and hills provides cover, employees say, to strangers who crouch with cameras. Inside, Melanie Rose, a laboratory technician, knows anyone could be watching. One recent May morning, she opened a foam box with fetal tissue packed in ice — a donation for medical research. ... That work, with fetal tissue, has catapulted the small biotech firm out from under the radar. It is now the target of loiterers, protesters and death threats and the subject of a congressional inquiry. (Paquette, 5/27)

San Francisco Business Times: San Francisco-Based Startup Doctor On Demand Is Bringing Urgent Care To Your Phone
Doctors at San Francisco-based telemedicine startup Doctor on Demand use video communication to conduct examinations with their patients, transforming the way people access medical and mental health care. (Lee, 5/27)

San Francisco Business Times: Startup Makes Patient Charts A Snap As It Teams Up With Google
Although it’s now the most prominent Google Glass company, there was a time that Augmedix couldn’t get the time of day from Google. “For the first year, Google pretended like we didn’t exist,” said Augmedix CEO and founder Ian Shakil. (Procter, 5/27)

Los Angeles Times: Fired Hospital Worker's Case Points To A Trail Of Stolen Drugs And Thousands Of Patients At Risk
When a surgical technician named Rocky Elbert Allen was accused in February of stealing drugs from a Denver-area hospital, it was the sort of news that ended up in a police blotter. But as investigators began combing through the 28-year-old former Navy operating-room tech’s past, they say, what emerged was a startling, five-year trail of inside drug thefts at hospitals across the West, the story of a man who was fired repeatedly yet was somehow able to talk his way back into employment – and, authorities say, more drugs. (Anderson, 5/29)

Los Angeles Times: Senator Calls For Investigation Of Purdue Pharma Following Times Story On OxyContin
A U.S. senator on Friday called for federal investigations of OxyContin’s manufacturer in response to a Los Angeles Times report that found the bestselling painkiller wears off early in many patients, exposing them to increased risk of addiction. Sen. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat whose state has been hit hard by prescription drug abuse, urged the Justice Department, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission to launch probes of drugmaker Purdue Pharma. (Ryan, 5/27)

Los Angeles Times: Prince's Death Casts Spotlight On Anti-Opioid Addiction Drug
It was an intervention that never happened, and it featured two stars: Prince, an adored music icon, and buprenorphine, an obscure drug hailed as a revolutionary tool to fight opioid addiction. Prince died before the first scene, when a drug-addiction consultant, a physician and Prince's associates converged on the star's Paisley Park home near Minneapolis, based on official accounts. The plot twist? The consultant, Andrew Kornfeld of the Recovery Without Walls clinic in Mill Valley, Calif., was carrying a small amount of buprenorphine. Nicknamed “bupe,” it is also known by several commercial names including Suboxone. (Mohan, 5/30)

The Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Dermatologist Offers Skin Care For People Of All Tones
April Reding started finding painful, walnut-sized boils on her armpits and in her groin during her teenage years, an outbreak that stressed her out and made it difficult to sleep. Dermatologists gave her confusing diagnoses and ineffective treatments as the lesions continued to grow and burst. That ended when Reding, now 34, started seeing Dr. Oma Agbai, a UC Davis dermatologist who specializes in patients with non-white skin tones. Agbai was able to identify the rare chronic condition hidradenitis suppurativa, which is found more commonly in African American women. She came up with an aggressive treatment plan that includes steroid injections and a new pill prescription called Accutane. (Caiola, 5/30)

The San Bernadino Sun: San Bernardino County Recovering Slowly But Steadily 6 Months After Terror Attack
Dec. 2, 2015, profoundly changed the county and its response to critical incidents. Peer support took on a whole new meaning after 13 county health inspectors and supervisors and one other person were fatally gunned down by Syed Rizwan Farook at the Inland Regional Center, and another 22 were wounded in the mass shooting. (Joe Nelson, 5/30)

Fresno Bee: After San Bernardino, Counselor Faces Other Side Of Crisis
Nearly six months ago, her boyfriend Shannon Johnson was among the 14 killed in the San Bernardino attack. Grappling with the anguish, she left counseling to mourn, retreating into her Koreatown apartment filled with their photographs. Driving to the LAPD office to meet with her crisis team colleagues, she imagined seeing many friends for the first time since the attack would bring the entire ordeal back. She wanted to return, but she also wondered how she would react. (Armario, 5/31)

KPCC: Email Scandal Leads To Review Of Lead Levels At Jordan Downs
As part of the fallout from a scandal over racially-charged emails, California's Department of Toxic Substances Control is reviewing its two-year-old decision to take no action on lead contamination at the Jordan Downs housing complex in Watts. (Aguilera, 5/31)

In other news from across the state —

KQED: Fresno Teen Promotes Health With Sex Ed
Until last year, public schools in California were not required to teach sex education, although information on HIV/AIDS prevention has been mandatory. At Fresno Unified, the fourth largest school district in the state, students learned about HIV/AIDS prevention and some sex ed. But youth health advocates say the quality and accuracy of that education varied greatly from school to school, leaving many kids without the necessary tools to make informed decisions about their health. (Romero, 5/30)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Encinitas Schools Propose $800K For Yoga Classes
Encinitas Union School District has proposed spending $800,000 to continue a controversial yoga program that made headlines because of legal challenges over its constitutionality. For the past few years, yoga instruction in Encinitas schools was funded by grants, but that funding wasn’t renewed this year. The district’s plan to pick up the tab has angered parents who say the money would be better spent on science, physical education or art. (Brennan, 5/27)

The New York Times: I.R.S. Ruling Is Obstacle To Health Care Networks Promoted By Obama
A ruling by the Internal Revenue Service creates a significant obstacle to a new type of health care network that the Obama administration has promoted as a way to provide better care at lower cost, industry lawyers and providers say. ... In its recent ruling, the I.R.S. denied a tax exemption sought by an accountable care organization that coordinates care for people with commercial insurance. The tax agency said the organization did not meet the test for tax-exempt status because it was not operated exclusively for charitable purposes and it provided private benefits to some doctors in its network. (Pear, 5/29)

The New York Times: In A Secret Meeting, Revelations On The Battle Over Health Care
On Jan. 13, 2014, a team of Internal Revenue Service financial managers piled into government vans and headed to the Old Executive Office Building for what would turn out to be a very unusual meeting. Upon arrival, the I.R.S. officials, some of whom had expressed doubts that the Obama administration had the proper authority to spend billions of dollars on a crucial element of its health care law, were ushered into a conference room. There, they were presented with an Office of Management and Budget memo laying out the administration’s justification for spending $3.9 billion on consumer health insurance subsidies. (Hulse, 5/30)

In other national health care news —

The Washington Post: To Cut Wait Times, VA Wants Nurses To Act Like Doctors. Doctors Say Veterans Will Be Harmed.
The Department of Veterans Affairs would dramatically expand the authority of nurses to treat patients without a doctor’s supervision in a controversial proposal by the country’s largest health-care system. The plan, which would allow nurses with advanced training to broaden their responsibilities for patients, is drawing attention to a bitter debate over the relative roles of doctors and nurses. Because of VA’s high visibility, it is likely to be closely watched. The agency, through amended regulations, wants to give vast new authority to its most trained nurses to order and read diagnostic tests, administer anesthesia, prescribe medications and manage acute and chronic diseases — without a doctor’s oversight. (Rein, 5/27)

The Washington Post/ProPublica: Doctors Fire Back At Bad Yelp Reviews — And Reveal Patients’ Information Online
Burned by negative reviews, some health providers are casting their patients’ privacy aside and sharing intimate details online as they try to rebut criticism. In the course of these arguments -- which have spilled out publicly on ratings sites like Yelp — doctors, dentists, chiropractors and massage therapists, among others, have divulged details of patients’ diagnoses, treatments and idiosyncrasies. (Ornstein, 5/27)