Bay Area News Group: Biotech Companies Slash Hundreds Of East Bay Jobs In Jolt To Industry
Lonza Biologics, a unit of a Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company, provides customized manufacturing services to help commercialize an array of pharmaceutical, biotech and nutrition products. Personalis provides advanced testing technologies related to cancer treatment. (Avalos, 1/16)

Reuters: ResMed Says Its Masks To Remain On Market Despite FDA Classification 
ResMed said its respiratory masks containing magnets will remain on the market even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified a recall of the product as most serious as their use could cause major injuries or death. The California-based medical device maker, which started the recall process on Nov. 20, said the classification was due to a correction in the labeling and is not a product removal. (1/16)

The Guardian: Majority Of Debtors To US Hospitals Now People With Health Insurance 
People with health insurance may now represent the majority of debtors American hospitals struggle to collect from, according to medical billing analysts. This marks a sea change from just a few years ago, when people with health insurance represented only about one in 10 bills hospitals considered “bad debt”, analysts said. “We always used to consider bad debt, especially bad debt write-offs from a hospital perspective, those [patients] that have the ability to pay but don’t,” said Colleen Hall, senior vice-president for Kodiak Solutions, a billing, accounting and consulting firm that works closely with hospitals and performed the analysis. (Glenza, 1/11)

Axios: Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Into Workers' Wages
Families with workplace health insurance may have missed out on $125,000 in earnings over the past three decades as a result of rising premiums eating into their pay, according to a new JAMA Network Open study. (Owens, 1/17)

NPR: 2024's Drug Price Hikes Are Rolling In — And Some Decreases
Drug companies often increase prices at the start of the new year, and 2024 seems to be no exception. There have been about 600 price hikes so far in January, according to the drug price nonprofit 46Brooklyn Research. But the increases haven't been as steep as they were in some previous years. In the 2010s, drug price hikes were typically much bigger — up to 10% on average (Lupkin, 1/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Social Scientist Nancy Adler, Public Health Pioneer, Dies At 77
It’s well known these days that the more we worry about paying bills and handling everyday anxieties, the more likely we are to need a doctor, perhaps for high blood pressure or heart disease. That crucial connection between social stress and physical health is understood today in large part due to the pioneering work of Nancy Elinor Adler, a UCSF health psychologist who died of pancreatic cancer on Jan. 4. She was 77. (Asimov, 1/12)

Times Of San Diego: UCSD Study Finds Masking, Proper Ventilation Helped Prevent COVID-19 Cases 
Infection preventative measures, including high ventilation standards and universal masking, prevented many SARS-CoV-2 transmissions during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a UC San Diego-led study published Tuesday revealed. The study, published in Tuesday’s online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases, is touted as the first-of-its-kind to use information from electronic health and contact tracing records to closely analyze the genetic makeup of the virus combined with the comparison of how the diverse strains were physically being spread among patients and health care workers in the hospital. (Sklar, 1/16)

CBS News: Doctors Say We're Not In The Clear From COVID, Flu, RSV Surge
"While rates of infections have been coming down - visits to emergency departments and so forth - we are seeing increased hospitalization rates for influenza, as well as for COVID," said Dr. Sharon F. Welbel, an infectious disease physician with Cook County Health. Dr. Larry Kociolek, an infectious diseases physician and the medical director for infection prevention and control at Lurie Children's Hospital, said it is not time right now to let down our guard. (Gonzalez, 1/16)

Axios: "Good News For Health Care": RSV Shots Are Driving Seniors Back To Checkups
One side effect of the new RSV shots for older Americans: More are winding up getting other preventative tests and services during their vaccine appointments. That tidbit came from UnitedHealth Group's year-end earnings report that showed use of medical services were up, prompting health insurer stocks to dip on Friday. (Reed, 1/16)

CIDRAP: More Evidence Vaccination Reduces Risk Of Long COVID 
A large staggered cohort study from primary care patients in the UK, Spain, and Estonia finds that COVID-19 vaccination consistently reduced the risk of long-COVID symptoms. The study is published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. The study used the World Health Organization’s (WHO) definition of post COVID condition, or long COVID, as new or persisting symptoms 3 months after infection that cannot be explained by alternative causes. The WHO recognizes 25 long COVID symptoms, including fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction. (Soucheray, 1/12)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Learn How To Reduce Fentanyl Overdoses At Community Event In San Ysidro
The District Attorney’s Office and the San Ysidro School District will be hosting a community event on the dangers of fentanyl Wednesday evening. The presentation aims to educate the public about the drug in an effort to reduce overdoses and save lives, district attorney officials said. (Winkley, 1/16)

Los Angeles Daily News: Wanted: 8,000 Volunteers To Count Homeless During Annual LA County Survey
It’s been called imprecise, an undercount, an imperfect process that hangs precariously on the accuracy of volunteers. Basically, some have labeled it a questionable way to measure the problem of homelessness in Los Angeles County. (Scauzillo, 1/16)

Stat: Researchers Find A New Way To Test The Quality Of Embryos Used In IVF
Researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine say a new method can better predict the quality of embryos used for in vitro fertilization, potentially raising the odds of a successful pregnancy for those relying on assisted reproductive technology. (Balthazar, 1/17)

Stateline: Experts Worry About At-Risk Women's Access To New Postpartum Depression Pill
The first pill for postpartum depression approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now available, but experts worry that minority and low-income people, who are disproportionately affected by the condition, won’t have easy access to the new medication. (Hassanein, 1/16)

Roll Call: House GOP Plans Pregnancy-Related Bills Before Roe Anniversary 
House Republicans are teeing up two measures that signal their opposition to abortion ahead of the annual March for Life, but for the second year in a row are focusing not on abortion bans but on issues related to unwanted pregnancies in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Raman, 1/16)

East Bay Times: Audit: Oakland Program That Reduced Gun Violence To A Historic Low Could Be Key To Crime Crisis
It might be hard to remember that gun violence in Oakland reached a historic low in 2019, given the devastating spike in shootings that has followed. But a new audit suggests the city was already abandoning the core strategies of its once-lauded Ceasefire program, which seeks to negotiate de-escalations between warring residents or gangs, during those more peaceful years before the pandemic. (Mukherjee, 1/16)

NPR: Anonymous Tip Lines In Schools Prevent Some Gun Violence, Study Finds
"If you see something, say something." ... A concept embraced by the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System, started by the non-profit Sandy Hook Promise Foundation. ... A new study, published in the journal Pediatrics Wednesday, evaluated the tip line as it was used by one southeastern state — North Carolina — to see how successful it was at catching firearm-related threats. Researchers found there were more than 18,000 tips submitted during the four years studied, from 2019 to 2023. "What we found is that 10% of tips contain reference to a firearm." (Chatterjee, 1/17)

Modern Healthcare: Congress' Latest Funding Plan Leaves Hospitals Uncertain
Congressional leaders have made another tentative deal to keep the government open and fund key health programs into March, but hospitals and other healthcare industries continue to await action on vital matters. Congress will act this week to advance a third stopgap appropriations bill, which would prevent a partial government shutdown from commencing Friday and fund operations until March 8. The legislation offers only short-term relief for a healthcare sector that needs Congress to approve funding for the rest of fiscal 2024. (McAuliff, 1/16)

The New York Times: Senate Advances Stopgap Bill To Avert A Partial Shutdown
The Senate on Tuesday took the first step in advancing a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, buying time to enact a broader bipartisan funding agreement for the remainder of the year. By a 68-to-13 vote, senators voted to take up the legislation, which would temporarily extend funding for some federal agencies until March 1 and for others through March 8. It would keep spending levels flat while lawmakers and aides hammer out the details of a $1.66 trillion deal reached between Speaker Mike Johnson, the Louisiana Republican, and Democrats. (Edmondson, 1/16)

The Washington Post: Memory-Care And Assisted-Living Industry Will Be Investigated By Senate
The chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging is launching a review of safety lapses in the assisted-living industry, saying an investigation by The Washington Post into the deaths of dementia-care residents who have wandered from facilities had revealed “horrific” neglect and a “violation of trust.” In response to The Post’s finding that nearly 100 seniors have died over the past five years after leaving facilities unnoticed or being left unattended outside, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) sent letters Tuesday to the nation’s three largest assisted-living chain owners seeking information about their practices. The Post’s report is the first nationwide accounting of such deaths. (Rowland, 1/16)

Military.com: Free Surgeries And Prescriptions: Trump White House Staff Got Access To Military Health Care Despite Being Ineligible 
Under the Trump administration, the White House Medical Unit -- a joint Defense Department team that provides medical care for the president, vice president and family members and also manages health services for certain high-level officials -- sent ineligible staff members to military hospitals for specialty care and surgeries, the DoD inspector general has found. The medical unit also dispensed hundreds of free prescriptions, including controlled substances, to people in the White House, the DoD inspector general said in a report released Jan. 8. (Kime, 1/16)