Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Agrees To Review FDA Rules On Abortion Pills
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will decide whether to put stricter limits on abortion pills that are now the most common method for ending early pregnancies. The justices voted to hear the Biden administration’s appeal and reconsider rulings by conservative judges in Texas who disagreed with the Food and Drug Administration’s view that mifepristone is safe and effective and may be dispensed widely. (Savage, 12/13)

The North Bay Business Journal: Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital Receives High-Performance Ranking In Maternity Care From U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report has named Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital a “2024 High Performing Hospital for Maternity Care (Uncomplicated Pregnancy),” the hospital announced in a Dec. 5 news release. (Sarfaty, 12/12)

The Bakersfield Californian: Dignity Health Distributes $460,250 To Help Meet Local Needs 
Dignity Health Mercy and Memorial Hospitals partnered again this giving season to donate money for grants that will be distributed among eight Kern County nonprofits. The goal is to fund health and social initiatives identified by the Mercy and Memorial Community Health Needs Assessment. (Friend, 12/12)

The Bakersfield Californian: Mercy Hospital Southwest Raises Highest Beam For New Hardt Foundation Tower 
Leaders and staff of Dignity Health Mercy Hospital Southwest and the Friends of Mercy Foundation gathered Tuesday as the final beam was placed on the highest point of the new Hardt Foundation Tower. It represents progress on the significant hospital expansion, expected to be complete in 2025, and bears the signatures of employees, donors and board members. (Friend, 12/12)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Rehab Hospital Names CEO
Alla "Al" Wazwaz was appointed CEO of Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Modesto (Calif.). Mr. Wazwaz, who stepped into the role in August, oversees the day-to-day operations of the 50-bed inpatient rehab hospital, according to a system news release. Previously, he served as a CEO with ScionHealth in Las Vegas, according to his LinkedIn page. (Taylor, 12/12)

Fierce Healthcare: TEFCA Goes Live In 'Big Bang' For Nationwide Health Data Sharing
Seven years in the making, a nationwide network to exchange patient data called the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement is now operational, marking a critical step in establishing universal connectivity across providers. The interoperability framework, called TEFCA, was mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act back in 2016 and was designed to create an infrastructure to enable data sharing between health information networks. (Landi, 12/12)

Axios: Sanofi Scraps $750 Million Drug Deal, After FTC Sues On Antitrust Grounds
French pharma company Sanofi scrapped a $750 million drug licensing deal with California-based Maze Therapeutics, just hours after the FTC sued to block the arrangement. This is a significant, and de facto successful, expansion of the Biden administration's "killer acquisition" theory, to a drug that's still in the early stages of development. (Primack, 12/13)

Axios: SmileDirectClub Shutdown Leaves Patients Stranded With No Plan In Sight
The sudden collapse of SmileDirectClub has stranded users of its clear-plastic, removable teeth aligners — in some cases just weeks after they were given a discount for paying up front. Customers experiencing problems with their treatment will not be able to get new aligners, treatment, or other support from the company. (Bomey, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: DeSantis' Debate Boast About COVID Study: Wrong, Author Says 
Ron DeSantis cited a scientific journal as evidence Florida had a lower COVID death rate than California. The study's author says that's not the whole story. (Lin II, 12/13)

CIDRAP: COVID Study: 40% Of Children Still Infectious After Symptom Resolution 
A study today of viral shedding dynamics in 101 children who had COVID-19 during the Omicron surge in Toronto shows that 40% were still infectious on the day after their symptoms resolved. Moreover, rapid antigen tests (RATs) were often negative early in the course of illness, and thus cannot be relied on to exclude infection, they authors say. The study is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. (Soucheray, 12/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. DA Brooke Jenkins Faces Blowback After Saying Homeless People Should Be Made 'Uncomfortable’
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins is taking heat for recent controversial comments that homeless people “have to be made to be uncomfortable,” a reference to the idea that regularly sweeping encampments encourages unhoused people to accept offers of shelter. (Angst, 12/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Supervisor Dean Preston Blames Capitalism For San Francisco’s Homelessness And Drug Crises
Supervisor Dean Preston argues in a new documentary that capitalism is to blame for San Francisco’s ills including rampant drug use, homelessness and crime in the Tenderloin, prompting critics to question the logic of the supervisor, who’s the only Democratic Socialist on the board. The new investigative documentary by the British outlet UnHerd — founded by British Conservative Party political activist Tim Montgomerie — explores how San Francisco has failed to deal with its homelessness, drug use and crime problems and how the Tenderloin is ground zero for the city’s ills. (Toledo, 12/12)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: As Temperatures Drop, Focus Turns To Warming Centers For People Who Are Homeless 
As colder nights make themselves felt, advocates are urging authorities to team up earlier with service providers to inform people who are homeless about Sonoma County’s emergency plans for when temperatures drop into dangerous territory. (Hay, 12/12)

Sacramento Bee: Hundreds To Count Sacramento Homeless Next Month
Hundreds of volunteers will spread across Sacramento County next month to determine how much the homeless population has changed in the last two years. On the nights of Jan. 24 and 25, the federally-mandated point-in-time count will again be conducted by homeless nonprofit Sacramento Steps Forward. But there will be one significant change this year — Sacramento State will not be involved. (Clift, 12/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Why It Took 17 Years To Build 49 Housing Units In Los Angeles 
A Los Angeles nonprofit was given government land in January 2007 to build a few dozen units of affordable housing. They’re finally hoping to open the building next year. The 17 years of false starts and delays are an extreme instance of how difficult it has long been to build affordable housing in California—for both the homeless as well as lower and middle-income workers—and in other states with complex regulations and high costs. (Parker and Mai-Duc, 12/12)

The Hill: Nearly Half Of 5 Million Veterans Screened Found To Have Potential Toxic Substance Exposure
Nearly half of the 5 million veterans that have been screened by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) under a new law have reported at least one possible exposure to toxic substances during their military service. Announcing the 5 million screening milestone, the VA revealed that 2.1 million veterans — or 43 percent of those screened — were potentially exposed to such substances during their service. A variety of toxic exposures can come up in these screenings, but the most common were exposures to burn pits and Agent Orange. (Frazin, 12/12)

Military Times: Lawmakers Press For More Outside Help In Stopping Veteran Suicides
Lawmakers frustrated with federal officials’ lack of progress in preventing veterans suicides suggested on Tuesday that more of the $16 billion allotted for those outreach efforts be given to outside community groups, saying that increased urgency is needed in addressing the problem. “We’ve been parked on more than 6,000 veteran deaths for 20 years now, and that’s way too many,” said Rep. Morgan Luttrell, R-Texas, and a Navy veteran, during a House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing. “We’ve known the underlying factors. So why is it, 20 years later, we’re just now trying some new approaches?” (Shane III, 12/12)

Military.com: Military Testing Reveals Hundreds Of Drinking Water Wells Contaminated With PFAS In Washington
Hundreds of drinking water wells near military bases or other facilities in Washington have been contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, according to a Seattle Times analysis of the past two years of test results published by the military. So far, the military has confirmed the release of these "forever chemicals," named for their pervasiveness in the environment, at 10 military installments in the state, many of them near the Salish Sea. (Villa, 12/12)

The Washington Post: FDA To Review MDMA-Assisted Therapy, A Milestone For Psychedelics
MAPS Public Benefit Corp. filed an application on Tuesday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the psychedelic drug MDMA — also known as Ecstasy — in combination with therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, in what would be the first treatment of its kind. The filing is a milestone in researchers’ quest to move psychedelic drugs from tightly restricted substances into mainstream medical treatments that are widely accessible to patients. It comes after decades of studies have demonstrated the promise of psychedelics — including psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, and ketamine — to treat mental health disorders. (Gilbert and Ovalle, 12/12)

Bay Area News Group: New Psychedelic-Like Drugs: All Treatment, No 'Trip'?
“Our goal is to make medicines that are derived from psychedelics that are safer and gentler, more effective and more accessible,” said Matthew Baggott, former director of data science and engineering at Genentech, whose Palo Alto-based startup Tactogen has patented several novel MDMA, or “Ecstasy,” molecules that offer spiritual and personal insights with less heart-racing anxiety and euphoria. (Krieger, 12/12)

The Mercury News: Psychedelic Drugs: Follow The Biotech, Venture Capital Money
A recent report from Data Bridge Market Research projects that the global market for pharmaceutical psychedelics will reach $6.4 billion by 2030. Some companies merely tinker with existing agents, aiming to fine-tune them. But others are developing entirely new chemical entities. Using computers, scientists model their structure. Then they send instructions overseas, usually to India, where the molecules are produced. Once returned to the U.S., they are tested with so-called screening assays to identify any promise. (Krieger, 12/12)

Los Angeles Times: State Regulators Find Mold, Broken Toilets, Missing Fire Safety Records In L.A. County Jails 
When state regulators showed up to inspect Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles in September they found broken toilets, moldy towels, rodent droppings and cell gates that wouldn’t lock. It appeared that guards weren’t doing their required hourly checks, and, according to state records, the facility had no proof of monthly fire inspections. After the visit, regulators from the Board of State and Community Corrections, which oversees several hundred detention facilities across the state, marked the aging jail as “noncompliant,” with a variety of safety and sanitation violations. They directed county officials to fix the problems. (Blakinger, 12/12)

Reuters: US Panel Recommends Children With Obesity Start Counseling From Age 6 
Children with obesity should receive intensive counseling to promote healthy diet and exercise habits starting at age 6, according to a draft recommendation issued by a panel of U.S. experts on Wednesday. The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) had recommended in 2017 that screening for obesity start at age 6.Research since then has shown the effectiveness of intensive behavioral interventions - defined as at least 26 hours of counseling with one or more health professionals - for achieving a healthy weight and improving the quality of life for children and adolescents, the panel said. The recommendation did not specify a timeframe. (Lapid, 12/12)

NBC News: Marijuana Use During Pregnancy Linked To Low Birth Weight, Study Finds
Women who use marijuana during pregnancy may be putting their babies’ health at risk, with risk increasing as use goes up, a new study suggests. An analysis of data from more than 9,000 moms-to-be from across the U.S. revealed that cannabis exposure during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of unhealthy outcomes, especially low birth weight. Moreover, the more cannabis moms-to-be consumed, the higher the risk, according to the report, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Carroll, 12/12)