Latest From California Healthline:
California Healthline Original Stories
As Medicare Enrollment Nears, Popular Price Comparison Tool Missing Key Details
For more than a decade, customers used the online plan finder to compare dozens of policies. Yet after a redesign of the website, the search results no longer list which plan offers a customer the best value. Federal officials say it will be fixed before enrollment begins next week. (Susan Jaffe, )
Good morning! Should peanut butter come with a cancer warning label? The fight over that question is heating up now that the California Chamber of Commerce has sued to block the requirement. More on that below, but first here are some of your other top California health stories for the day.
California To Allow Patients To Get HIV Prevention Pills Without Having To Get Doctor's Prescription: California will expand access to HIV prevention drugs by allowing pharmacies to offer the medications without a prescription under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday. Senate Bill 159 by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) allows pharmacists to dispense pre-exposure prophylaxis, known as PrEP, and post-exposure prophylaxis, known as PEP, in a way similar to birth control and emergency contraceptives. The law will also bar insurance companies from requiring prior authorization before the HIV prevention drugs are provided. Supporters of the legislation say PrEP significantly reduces the risk of infection, but only if started within 72 hours of exposure to the virus. Not everyone can get to a doctor within that time frame, they say. The California Medical Association was initially opposed to the legislation but became neutral on it after it was amended to limit the number of PrEP pills patients can get without a physician’s note to 60 days. Read more from Melody Gutierrez of the Los Angeles Times; Sam Metz of the Palm Springs Desert Sun; and The Associated Press.
Thousands Of Water Sources Located On And Near Military Bases Polluted With Chemicals From Firefighting Foam: Defense Department officials know that the chemicals, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have seeped into the groundwater underneath nearly two dozen military bases throughout the state. California has the most of any state, with contamination at 21 bases, including six where the chemicals threaten the water supply in nearby communities, according to a review of hundreds of pages of Defense Department records by the Los Angeles Times. In Riverside County, Barstow, Orange County and Sacramento, PFAS have been detected in private wells or public water systems outside the boundaries of military installations, records show. One military contractor warned in September that residents “using groundwater for drinking water” near Los Alamitos “may potentially be exposed to migrating PFAS contamination.” Another contractor said in March that five wells west of the Fresno airfield could be affected. Read more from David S. Cloud, Anna M. Phillips and Tony Barboza of the Los Angeles Times.
With Transparency Law Fully In Effect, Pharma’s Increases On Drugs’ Prices On Display: The law requires pharmaceutical companies to report any price hikes over 16 percent that occurred during the past five years. State data released last month show a median increase of 26 percent over the last three years. The new law also requires drugmakers to give purchasers a 60-day heads up about price increases in the future. Some experts are calling it the most comprehensive drug pricing transparency bill in the nation. Mary Ellen Grant, spokesperson for the California Association of Health Plans, said the new requirements could incentivize drug companies to keep costs down. “Year after year drug prices kept skyrocketing, and the entire health care industry and lawmakers needed to come together to find solutions for bringing down these costs,” she said. Read more from Sammy Caiola of Capital Public Radio.
Below, check out the full round-up of California Healthline original stories, state coverage and the best of the rest of the national news for the day.
More News From Across The State
Sacramento Bee:
CA Chamber Of Commerce Sues To Prevent Prop 65 Warning
Should potato chips and peanut butter come with a cancer warning? The California Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the state from putting a warning on food products containing the chemical acrylamide, which could apply to the popular snacks. Acrylamide is a chemical that forms when certain plant-based foods are cooked at high temperatures, such as baked goods, French fries, peanut butter or potato chips. “Exposure to acrylamide may increase the risk of cancer,” according to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. (Sheeler, 10/7)
Los Angeles Times:
Racial Profiling Analysis: LAPD Searches Blacks And Latinos More Often
Los Angeles police officers search blacks and Latinos far more often than whites during traffic stops, even though whites are more likely to be found with illegal items, a Times analysis has found. The analysis, the first in a decade to calculate racial breakdowns of searches and other actions by LAPD officers after they pull over vehicles, comes amid growing nationwide scrutiny over racial disparities in policing. (Poston and Chang, 10/8)
Los Angeles Times:
Mice Who ‘Vaped’ Nicotine For A Year Had Big Spike In Tumor Growth
New research in mice suggests that long-term exposure to vaping liquids that contain nicotine greatly increases the risk of cancer. After breathing in the vapor for 20 hours a week for more than a year, 22.5% of the mice had cancerous tumors in the lining of the lungs, and 57.5% developed growths in their bladder tissue that can be precursors to cancer. Meanwhile, only 5.6% of mice in a control group that breathed only filtered air wound up with lung tumors, and none of them had growths in their bladders. (Baumgaertner, 10/7)
Fresno Bee:
Death Due To Vaping In Kings County, California
A person has died in Kings County due to vaping, the county department of public health reported Monday. The person was not identified. It’s the second death related to the use of electronic cigarettes in the region. Last month, a resident in Tulare County died of similar complications. (Tehee, 10/7)
The New York Times:
Juul Is Sued By School Districts That Say Vaping Is A Dangerous Drain On Their Resources
With school districts across the United States scrambling to reverse the rise of vaping among teenagers, three of them on Monday filed suit against Juul, the e-cigarette manufacturer, accusing it of endangering students and forcing educators to divert time and money to fight an epidemic of nicotine addiction. The school systems in St. Charles, Mo., Olathe, Kan., and on Long Island were believed to be the first in the United States to sue Juul, which dominates the e-cigarette market with devices that look like thumb drives and that have become wildly popular with American teenagers. (Hassan, 10/7)
The Washington Post:
E-Cigarettes Add To Fire Dangers On Planes, And FAA Has Little Direction
When an e-cigarette battery started smoldering on a flight to Los Angeles in July 2017, a SkyWest flight attendant threw it into an ice bucket before shoving it into a fire containment bag. In Denver, two months later, a carry-on bag with four vaping batteries “caught fire on the boarding bridge,” and firefighters were called to put it out, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. In March, Southwest Airlines employees had to pull a smoking suitcase containing e-cigarette batteries from a plane’s cargo hold in San Diego. Adjacent bags were damaged, as was the plane, which was temporarily taken out of service, according to the FAA. (Laris, 10/7)
The Associated Press:
Kroger, Walgreens To Stop Selling E-Cigarettes In US
Two major retailers say they will no longer sell e-cigarettes in the U.S. amid mounting health questions surrounding vaping. Supermarket chain Kroger and drugstore chain Walgreens announced Monday they would discontinue sales of e-cigarettes at their stores nationwide, citing an uncertain regulatory environment. (10/7)
The Associated Press:
Smoking Ban At VA Facilities Has Some Veterans Fuming
Daniel McClain sits at a picnic table outside the Sacramento VA Medical Center. He leans his cane against a bench and tilts his head up toward the military airplanes above. They’re practicing formations for the upcoming California Capital Airshow. He identifies them immediately as Blue Angels.“I was air defense artillery, I shot planes down,” he said. “So, I can hear ’em even before they come.” (Casey, 10/7)
Los Angeles Times:
$600,000 For Homeless Housing? Audit Suggests Spending Money On Shelters Instead
With the costs of building housing on the rise, Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin is recommending that some projects be reevaluated to see if their budgets can be cut to use less of the city’s $1.2-billion homeless housing bond. In an audit that will be released Tuesday, Galperin found that more than 1,000 units of housing approved for funding through Proposition HHH could top $600,000 apiece. (Smith, 10/7)
Los Angeles Times:
Wildfires Vex California's Efforts To Cut Climate Emissions
The wildfires that raged last year from Paradise to Malibu made for California’s deadliest, most destructive fire season on record. But the eruption of blazes marked another distinction for California, as one of the worst for the climate. In 2018, fires released more than 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — the most in a decade and trailing only slightly behind 2008, when the state was also stricken by two of the largest wildfires in modern history. (Barboza, 10/8)
Capital Public Radio/KXJZ:
PG&E Could Cut Power To More Than 600,000 Customers Wednesday Morning As Fire Danger Returns
Pacific Gas and Electric says it could cut off power to more than 600,000 customers Wednesday morning as dry, windy weather could increase the risk of wildfires. The utility says power could be shut off in parts of 30 counties in central and Northern California starting Wednesday and through Thursday, when hot weather and strong winds are forecast. (10/7)
KPBS:
Supreme Court Denies SDG&E Appeal To Have Ratepayers Pay $379M For 2007 Wildfires
San Diego Gas & Electric’s appeal to the nation’s highest court to have ratepayers pay $379 million in claims from the deadly 2007 wildfires was denied Monday. SDG&E went to the U.S. Supreme Court last year after its argument had been repeatedly rejected by state courts and energy regulators since 2012. The utility argues that the deadly 2007 wildfires, which officials have connected to SDG&E, were out of its control, and it shouldn’t be on the hook to pay for it. (Chatlani, 10/7)
The Wall Street Journal:
Sanders’s Heart Attack Brings Age To 2020 Forefront
Bernie Sanders’s recent heart attack and hospitalization are bringing to the forefront an issue the Democratic party’s three leading presidential candidates have actively tried to minimize: their age. At 78, the Vermont senator is the oldest in the party’s field. Former Vice President Joe Biden is 76, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is 70. All three—who have consistently occupied the trio of top slots in public polls of the Democratic contest—are much older than the median age of about 55 years for a U.S. president at inauguration. They are competing to face President Trump, who is 73. (Parti, 10/7)
The Wall Street Journal:
Trump’s Federal Hiring Emphasizes Border Control, Veterans, Military
The White House has reshaped the federal workforce to advance President Trump’s priorities, emphasizing border control, veterans and the military while shrinking the size of the education, labor and housing-and-urban-development agencies, an analysis by The Wall Street Journal shows. Compared with the political difficulties of the federal-budget process, strategic hiring is a quieter way to advance a presidential policy agenda and a practice employed by all White Houses to varying degrees. (Butchireddygari, 10/7)
The Associated Press:
US Official: Research Finds Uranium In Navajo Women, Babies
About a quarter of Navajo women and some infants who were part of a federally funded study on uranium exposure had high levels of the radioactive metal in their systems, decades after mining for Cold War weaponry ended on their reservation, a U.S. health official Monday. The early findings from the University of New Mexico study were shared during a congressional field hearing in Albuquerque. Dr. Loretta Christensen — the chief medical officer on the Navajo Nation for Indian Health Service, a partner in the research — said 781 women were screened during an initial phase of the study that ended last year. (Hudetz, 10/7)
The New York Times:
Players With C.T.E. Doubled Their Risk With Every 5.3 Years In Football
Former tackle football players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits, doubled their risk of developing the worst forms of the disease for each 5.3 years they played, according to a new study. Scientists have known that more years playing tackle football is associated with thinking and memory deficits later in life. This study builds on that research and, for the first time, calculated the number of years played with levels of measurable disease in the brain. (Belson, 10/7)
Modern Healthcare:
Nursing Home Abuse To Be Flagged On Medicare Quality Website
The CMS on Monday announced that it would make it easier for consumers to find out about nursing homes that have violated rules about abuse, neglect or exploitation. The agency's Nursing Home Compare website will add an icon next to nursing homes with reported violations starting on Oct. 23. The website provides detailed information about each Medicare- and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the U.S. (Brady, 10/7)