Sacramento Bee: Lawsuit Says CA School District Secretly Transitioned Child 
A conservative legal group has filed a lawsuit against the superintendent and school board members for the Chico Unified School District, alleging that a district employee helped a fifth grade student transition their gender identity without informing the child’s parent. (Sheeler, 1/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: These Two Major Shifts Sparked A Mental Health Crisis Among LGBTQ Youth In California
The day after his 14th birthday in November 2019, Ryan Nelson came out to his parents as transgender. Ryan was still coming to terms with his identity, and now he had to watch his parents struggle with it as well. “They said they couldn’t see it,” Ryan recalled. “That made it feel like they couldn’t see me.” Four months later, the COVID-19 pandemic began — and Ryan, like students across the country, was thrown into a new reality. (Miolene, 1/17)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Truth Or A Simple Dream? Lawsuit By Man Claiming He Awoke During Surgery At UCSD Goes To Trial 
The dreams that began haunting Randy Dalo almost as soon as he recovered from neck surgery in January 2017 went on trial in a downtown San Diego courtroom Tuesday. Are they the hazy evidence revealing the harrowing truth that he awakened during his operation? Or are they just that — nothing other than dreams — of an otherwise routine event at the end of a successful surgery? (Moran, 1/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: Lady Gaga's Foundation Gets A $350,000 Boost From Oakland's Kaiser Permanente
The money will go toward the foundation’s Kindness in Community Fund, which bolsters community organizations “rooted in practices of inclusion, access, and equity,” according to the Born This Way Foundation’s website. Officials at Kaiser Permanente said the grant allows the nonprofit to increase the number of organizations in California that will receive funding this year. (Vaziri, 1/17)

Sacramento Business Journal: New Health Care Leaders To Watch In 2023 
In our Executives to Watch project, we're introducing you to some newly minted leaders in the local business community. (Hamann, 1/16)

Sacramento Bee: As More Shooters Wear Body Armor, A California Bill Would Ban Most Bullet-Proof Vest Ownership
Most Californians would be banned from purchasing or taking possession of body armor, such as a bulletproof vest, under a bill now being considered by state lawmakers. Assembly Bill 92, introduced by Assemblyman Damon Connolly, D-San Rafael, comes as a response to many high-profile mass shootings where the shooter wore body armor. That includes the 2015 massacre in San Bernardino, where two people wearing tactical gear killed 14 people at a holiday gathering. (Sheeler, 1/17)

Los Angeles Daily News: Most Cities Still Falling Behind Affordable Housing Mandate, State Numbers Show 
When it comes to fostering new housing, the city of Norwalk is one of California’s superstars. The Los Angeles County town got an A-plus in the Southern California News Group’s latest housing scorecard for exceeding state-mandated housing goals at all income levels. Just three miles up the 105 freeway, however, neighboring Lynwood ranked among 84 California cities and counties at the opposite end of the spectrum. Lynwood earned an F because state data shows it missed all four of its housing targets, permitting zero new affordable homes during the eight years ending in 2021. (Collins and Johnson, 1/16)

Los Angeles Daily News: What Will LA City Council Do About End Of Renter Protections On Feb. 1? 
Jesica Santiago’s dad had lost his job, and the family learned that the rent for their Echo Park apartment was increasing about $1,000 per month. Her family might have been left homeless had it not been for the city of Los Angeles’ eviction moratorium, which has allowed her family to stay put. In the meantime, landlord Ky Trang Ho estimates she’s lost more than $70,000 in unpaid rent, including from tenants she said posted images or stories on social media of themselves on vacations or purchasing a car or other expensive items while claiming they couldn’t afford to pay rent. (Tat, 1/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: Court Orders Officials To Reconsider Mentally Ill Homeless Man’s Application For SSI Benefits
Thirty-one-year-old Darryl Finney has been homeless since age 19, living on the streets, occasionally in shelters and jail cells, in Oakland and Berkeley. He has held a few jobs, but not for long, because of what his lawyer describes as severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder and depression. He tried to kill himself when he was 11 and again at 13, according to court filings. But when Finney applied in 2018 for Supplemental Security Income, the federal benefit for poor people unable to work because of age or disability, the government said he should have gotten mental health treatment and then looked for work. (Egelko, 1/17)

Los Angeles Times: How The Street Vet Came To Care For Homeless Pets
Kilo, a muscular gray pit bull, stood staunchly by his homeless owner in the middle of 6th Street on L.A.'s skid row. His tongue lolled out, and his wide, square jaw was open as if he was grinning ear to ear. “Is this your boy?” Dr. Kwane Stewart asked as he walked toward the pair. Hector Abadin yanked on Kilo’s chain leash and turned to walk away without saying a word. “I’m a veterinarian,” Stewart said. (Hernandez, 1/18)

Voice Of San Diego: San Diego Already Plans To Make Gas Stoves Obsolete 
Congress feuded over a mere suggestion last week that gas-powered stovetops could be banned in the United States, but the city of San Diego has already committed itself to gutting almost all buildings of gas-powered everything — stoves included. The dispute in the capital erupted after a new study linked  the methane-powered devices to 13 percent of childhood asthma cases nationwide. The Biden Administration isn’t actually proposing a ban, as Politico reported, but the mention of a hypothetical one by a member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission sparked swift backlash from Republicans and a wave of media coverage over whether it was time to retire the natural gas-powered stovetops of America. (Elmer, 1/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: Which Bay Area City Is Best To Live In? This Tool Lets You Decide
What’s the best city to live in the Bay Area? The answer is different for everyone. For some people entertainment options are paramount, while others care more about diversity. In 2022, The Chronicle ranked 25 largest Bay Area cities by quality of life based on 11 metrics, and the city of Alameda came out on top. For our 2023 ranking, we decided to up our game to include 16 metrics and let readers create their own ranking based on their priorities. These metrics don’t include everything a resident might care about, but they hit on many of the factors that contribute to a pleasant city life. (Darwiche and Sumida, 1/17)

CNBC: Moderna: RSV Vaccine Effective In Preventing Disease In Older Adults
Moderna on Tuesday said its vaccine that targets respiratory syncytial virus is effective at preventing disease in older adults. The vaccine was 83.7% effective at preventing lower respiratory tract disease, defined as two or more symptoms, in people ages 60 and older, according to the Boston biotech company. It was 82.4% effective at preventing lower respiratory tract disease with three or more symptoms. (Kimball, 1/17)

ABC News: Moderna Says Its RSV Vaccine For Older Adults Is 84% Effective At Preventing Serious Illness
Adult patients in the clinical trial appeared to tolerate the vaccine well and there were no safety concerns identified, the data showed. The company said it will ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval in the first half of 2023. (Salzman and Kekatos, 1/17)

Stat: Moderna’s RSV Vaccine Reduces Rate Of Disease In People Over 60
Moderna’s vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, reduced the rate of lower respiratory disease in people over 60 in a Phase 3 trial, the company said Tuesday. (Herper, 1/17)

The Wall Street Journal: Moderna Reports RSV Vaccine Cuts Risk Of Respiratory Diseases In Older Adults
Citing the results, the Cambridge, Mass., company said Tuesday it would apply in the coming months for U.S. regulatory approval to sell its vaccine against RSV, which stands for respiratory syncytial virus. If regulators approve the vaccine, it could become available by early 2024, the company said. (Loftus, 1/17)

Bloomberg: Covid Measures Helped Families Pay Medical Bills, Study Shows
Fewer American families struggled to pay their medical bills in 2021, according to a new report, a sign that efforts to broaden access to health care and insurance are succeeding. About 11% of people belonged to families that had trouble paying medical bills in 2021 — down from 14% in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, according to a study of thousands of US households by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. (Meghjani, 1/18)

Axios: Pandemic Years Saw A Reduction In Medical Debt
Medical debt may still plague millions of American families, but the pandemic years brought a marked decline in the number of people struggling to cover their health costs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today. (Bettelheim, 1/18)

Modern Healthcare: Gallup: More Patients Delayed Healthcare Over Costs In 2022
A record number of patients delayed medical care because of high costs last year, according to survey results Gallup published Tuesday. Gallup found that 38% of respondents or a family member delayed treatment over costs in 2022, a 12 percentage point increase compared to 2020 and 2021. The upswing coincided with economywide inflation reaching a 40-year high. (Berryman, 1/17)

Stat: Purchasers Predict New Therapies Will Keep Driving Drug Price Hikes
More than two dozen big buyers of prescription medicines expect that prices will rise by an average of 8% annually over the next three years, a slight uptick from a year ago. And 19% believe that a “substantial portion” of the anticipated increases can be attributed to a shift to newer, pricier therapies, which is up from 8% a year ago, a new survey found. (Silverman, 1/17)

Stat: Large Health Insurers Lowered Barriers To Fair Access To Some Drugs
Most of the largest health plans in the U.S. generally provide “fair access” to 19 treatments for a handful of serious diseases, although transparent coverage information is often lacking for some medicines, a new analysis found. (Silverman, 1/17)

CNN: When Young Children Test Positive For Covid-19 And Another Respiratory Virus, Their Illness Is Much More Severe, A New Study Suggests
When Covid-19 patients younger than 5 also test positive for another respiratory virus, they tend to become sicker and develop more severe disease, a new study suggests. Among hospitalized children younger than 5, testing positive for both Covid-19 and another respiratory virus at the same time is associated with about twice the odds of severe respiratory illness than those who tested negative for other viruses, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics. (Howard and Chavez, 1/18)

Bloomberg: Anti-Covid Gadget Creates Air Shield In Plane Cabins, But Coming Too Late
A Covid-era invention that protects plane passengers from the virus with a curtain of fast-flowing air is proving redundant, underscoring how little travelers care about the risk of infection in the rush back to the skies. (Whitley, 1/18)

Axios: Looming Pandemic Deadline Threatens Access To Some Prescription Drugs Via Telehealth
The anticipated end of the COVID public health emergency will bring a massive change in how patients receive prescriptions for drugs like Adderall, Xanax and hormone therapies, by requiring them to see a doctor in person. (Owens, 1/18)

USA Today: 'A Red Flag': Biden Administration Targets Antipsychotic Drugs Dispensed In Nursing Homes
The Biden administration this month will begin spot audits of nursing home use of antipsychotic drugs in an effort to cut down on inappropriate prescriptions. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will conduct "targeted, off-site audits" to check whether nursing home patients who are prescribed the drugs have a schizophrenia diagnosis. (Alltucker, 1/18)

AP: Feds To Investigate Nursing Home Abuse Of Antipsychotics 
The federal government says it will begin a targeted crackdown on nursing homes’ abuse of antipsychotic drugs and misdiagnoses of schizophrenia in patients. ... Some facilities may be dodging increased scrutiny around gratuitous use of antipsychotic medications by coding residents as having schizophrenia, even when they do not show signs of the extremely rare disorder, a government report last year found. Less than 1% of the population is believed to have schizophrenia, which is marked by delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking. (Seitz, 1/18)

NPR: Social Isolation Linked To Increased Risk Of Dementia, New Study Finds
Socially isolated older adults have a 27% higher chance of developing dementia than older adults who aren't, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers found. "Social connections matter for our cognitive health, and it is potentially easily modifiable for older adults without the use of medication," Dr. Thomas Cudjoe, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and a senior author of the study, said in a news release. (Radde, 1/17)

The Washington Post: The Most Contaminated Things In Your Kitchen Might Be Your Spice Jars 
If you had to guess the germiest spot in your kitchen, you might think of the refrigerator handle, the cutting board or maybe the inside of your sink. But a new study shows that icky bacteria could be more likely to be lurking in an unexpected spot: your spice drawer. Researchers in a recent study commissioned by the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service examined how people preparing turkey burgers cross-contaminated various surfaces in a kitchen. (Heil, 1/17)

CBS News: MSG: Chefs On Why The Controversial Seasoning Is Making A Comeback
While it is associated with being found in Asian dishes, it is also a common ingredient in American foods. It also occurs naturally in foods such as tomatoes and cheese, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The safety of MSG first came into question in 1968 when a doctor wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome," said chef and author J. Kenji López-Alt. The study was not based on science but on symptoms, Alt said, and soon started an MSG backlash. (George and Novak, 1/17)

The Washington Post: Do Mocktails Really Help You Drink Less Alcohol? 
For people who have moderate to severe alcohol use disorder (AUD), defined by the National Institutes of Health as the inability “to stop or control alcohol use” despite the consequences, these nonalcoholic drinks are generally discouraged because they might actually create a craving for alcohol, not cut it. “It really is, basically, a no,” said George Koob, the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The cues created by a mocktail can “trigger relapse and re-engagement in excessive drinking.” (Amenabar, 1/17)