CBS News: Investigation Uncovers High Measles Risk At 350 Southern California Schools With Low Vaccination Rates
Concerns are heightened across the United States as the East Coast experiences an unexpected outbreak of measles. A CBS News investigation revealed that at least 8,500 American schools are at risk of similar outbreaks as vaccination rates drop below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended 95% for student bodies, hundreds of which are located in California. (Palombo, 1/30)

The Baltimore Sun: The U.S. Has Had 23 Measles Cases In The Past Month
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging health care providers to be “on alert” for patients with symptoms of measles — a virus declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 — after nearly two dozen cases have been reported across the country in the past month. (Roberts, 1/30)

The Guardian: Measles Making A Comeback In US Due To Vaccine Skepticism, Says CDC
Taylor Nelson, a University of Missouri healthcare center infectious disease physician, said to the news station KRCG that measles would probably spread to the Midwest and the West Coast given the situation laid out by the CDC. If measles cases are discovered, healthcare workers are asked to isolate patients, immediately notify local and state health departments, test patients with nose or throat swabs, and ensure all patients are vaccinated against the disease, especially if traveling internationally. (Salam, 1/30)

The Hill: Can You Get Measles As An Adult? What To Know Amid Uptick In Cases
As we saw with COVID-19, there are essentially two ways to be considered “protected,” either through a vaccine or recovering from a case of the virus. More specifically, the CDC says you’re protected if at least one of the following is true: you’ve had two doses of a measles-containing vaccine, you’ve had one dose if you won’t be in a high-risk setting for measles transmission, you’ve already had measles, a laboratory has confirmed you’re immune or you were born before 1957.Measles vaccines have been available since the 1960s, and states have largely required children to have them before attending school. That means there’s a good chance you’ve already been vaccinated against measles, and because those vaccines are more than 90% effective at preventing the disease — 97% if you got two doses of an MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine, 93% if you got one, according to the CDC — you are, most likely, safe from it. (Bink, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Cops Find Explosives, Guns At Home Of California Teen Who Made Threats 
The investigation started with reports of a student making threats. Then officers found what appeared to be a stockpile of explosives and other deadly weapons. San Diego police took a Poway high schooler into custody Friday after fellow students alleged that the teen threatened to shoot up their school. But the teen’s father also became entangled in the criminal investigation soon after, when officers found illegal explosives, untraceable guns and other weapons at the family’s home, police said. (Toohey, 1/30)

Times Of San Diego: Teen, Father Arrested After Threats Made Against Rancho Bernardo High School 
A Rancho Bernardo man was arrested Tuesday after police raided his home — allegedly finding ghost guns and explosives, including rocket-propelled grenades — in response to his teenage son’s purported threats to shoot up his high school, authorities said. Neal James Anders, 45, was jailed on suspicion of possession of illegal firearms, manufacturing assault weapons and possession of destructive devices, according to the San Diego Police Department. (Sklar, 1/30)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Community Groups On Grant High School Shooting
Berry Accius of the Sacramento community advocacy group Voice of the Youth was busy on the phone Tuesday as news spread of a shooting at Grant Union High School. He was frantically calling Grant High students who are in his group’s mentorship program. “I was on the phone hitting up my kids, my kids hitting me up, telling me what was going on,” Accius said. “And you get fearful because you don’t want it to be your kid. And secondly, you get frustrated because it’s like, ‘It’s happening again?’” (Ahumada and Byer, 1/30)

The Mercury News: Following Expansion Of MediCal, Officials Call On Santa Clara County Residents To Apply And Renew Coverage
With the state expanding full MediCal coverage this month to include all Californians regardless of immigration status, Santa Clara county officials and health providers are urging county residents to enroll in and renew their MediCal coverage. ... Officials met at the Social Services Agency in Gilroy to push the coverage at a news conference on Tuesday. ... “Healthcare is a human right,” said Arenas. “If we can help everyone now eligible for Medi-Cal coverage take action, this can be a huge step forward towards our goal of health coverage for all in Santa Clara County.” (Melecio-Zambrano, 1/30)

Stat: CMS Will Use Outcomes-Based Agreements In Bid To Help Medicaid Pay For Sickle Cell Gene Therapies
In response to concerns over multimillion-dollar price tags for new gene therapies for sickle cell disease, the U.S. government on Tuesday announced a long-awaited “access model” designed to blunt the cost that state Medicaid programs would pay for these curative treatments. (Silverman, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Democrats And Republicans Find Middle Ground On California’s Prop. 1 To Fund Mental Health Care
Gov. Gavin Newsom has an unusual ally in his Proposition 1 ballot measure to boost funding for mental health: an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and Kern County lawmaker who co-chaired the committee that led the failed 2021 recall effort against the governor. State Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) in September voted to place Newsom’s plan on the March 5 primary ballot. She recently wrote an opinion piece arguing in favor of his proposal to address the state’s mental health crisis and supported the California Republican Party’s decision to stay neutral on Proposition 1. (Luna, 1/31)

CalMatters: California May Expand Who Can Issue Psychiatric 5150 Holds
A mother’s hug was on California Sen. Aisha Wahab’s mind when she authored a controversial state bill that would allow social workers and therapists to decide when to confine someone against their will so they can be treated for mental illness. Wahab was once a member of the Hayward City Council, and she’d just voted to create a local program that would send medical and mental health professionals to certain 911 calls, in an effort to reduce police officers interacting as much with mentally ill people. (Sabalow, 1/30)

Orange County Register: What Is Prop 1, California’s Mental Health And Homelessness Ballot Measure? 
There is only one statewide ballot measure before California’s primary voters this year — and it’s an effort meant to increase mental and behavioral health services, particularly for the state’s homeless population. (Scallhorn, 1/30)

Orange County Register: CVS Closing 25 MinuteClinics In Southern California 
CVS Health said it is closing 25 MinuteClinics in Southern California by late February. (Gowen, 1/30)

Los Angeles Daily News: UCLA Health Is Acquiring West Hills Hospital In San Fernando Valley 
A West Hills hospital is being acquired by UCLA Health following the approval from the UC Board of Regents, according to a UCLA spokesperson. (Grigoryants, 1/30)

LAist 89.3 FM: 23andMe Data Breach Turns Into Class Action Lawsuit For Failing To Notify Users
Back in October, personal data from nearly one million 23andMe users was leaked on forums used by cyber criminals. Now, a new class action lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco accuses the company of not notifying users that they had been specifically targeted. While the company had disclosed the threat back in the fall, they neglected to tell Jewish and Chinese customers specifically that their information appeared on specifically targeted lists. (LAist, 1/30)

Fox News: Americans Trust Nurses The Most Out Of 23 Major Professions, New Poll Finds
In nurses, Americans trust — even more so than doctors. That’s according to Gallup’s 2023 Honesty and Ethics poll, which ranked 23 major professions by the level of trust U.S. adults place in them. Nurses hold the top spot as the most trusted profession, with 78% of Americans who took part stating that they adhere to "very high" or "high" standards for honesty and ethics, according to a press release from Gallup. This is the 22nd consecutive year that nurses have been ranked as the most trustworthy. Overall, nurses’ trust ranking has dipped by 7 percentage points since 2019, but is still higher than dentists (59% trust rating in 2023) and medical doctors (56% trust ranking). (Rudy, 1/31)

Axios: Good Vibes For Hospitals On Wall Street
The stepped-up demand for medical care that's left health insurers nervous is bringing good vibes to the hospital industry, whose outlook was buoyed Tuesday by HCA Healthcare's better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings. (Reed, 1/31)

CIDRAP: US Government Failure To Protect Frontline Workers From COVID Led To Thousands Of Deaths, Scientists Say 
Thousands of frontline workers may have survived the COVID-19 pandemic if the US regulatory system had better protected them, report the authors of an analysis published yesterday in BMJ. The study is the first in a series that discusses the lessons learned from COVID-19 and the steps needed to avert deaths in the next pandemic and improve public health. Frontline workers are those who couldn't work from home and thus were at higher risk of exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Black and Hispanic workers and immigrants make up high proportions of "essential" workers, or those in healthcare, meatpacking plants, agricultural production, and public transportation. (Van Beusekom, 1/30)

CIDRAP: Three Fourths Of Adults Have Hidden Infectious Illness To Work, Travel, Or Socialize, Surveys Suggest 
Up to 75% of adults have concealed an infectious disease from others in order not to miss work, travel, or social events, according to a new study in Psychological Science. The article, by researchers at the University of Michigan, is based on four studies and surveys given to 4,110 survey participants. All surveys were given after March 2020, when the COVID-10 pandemic began, and initial survey participants included 399 university healthcare employees. Only 5% of participants across all studies said they had concealed a COVID-19 infection. (Soucheray, 1/30)

Modern Healthcare: SAVE Act Aims To Prevent Violence Against Healthcare Workers
Congress could actually pass a bill to crack down on violence against healthcare workers this year, lawmakers and advocates said at a Capitol Hill briefing Tuesday. The Safety from Violence for Healthcare Employees Act of 2023, or SAVE Act, would make it a federal crime to attack healthcare workers in the process of doing their jobs and authorize penalties up to 10 or 20 years in jail, on a par with laws protecting airline workers. The American Hospital Association-endorsed measure also would supply $25 million in grants for hospital safety initiatives. (McAuliff, 1/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: This S.F. Program Only Helped 4 Homeless People Get Treatment
Four years ago, San Francisco officials heralded a state law that they hoped would help force more unhoused people struggling with mental illness and addiction into treatment instead of leaving them to languish on the city’s streets. The law paved the way for San Francisco to launch a pilot program, called Housing Conservatorship, that they estimated could funnel up to 100 people a year into court-ordered treatment. But when the program wrapped up last month, the city had little to show for it. Only four people entered the program over the course of more than four years, offering a stark reminder of the challenges the city faces in helping those on the streets. (Angst, 1/30)

CalMatters: L.A. Area Guaranteed Income Program Pays $1,000 Monthly
For years, Kipp Kahlia felt stuck. The Long Beach guitarist used to tour the country with reggae artists. But 20 years ago, after contracting intestinal parasites on a trip abroad, Kahlia had to take a step back from gigging. Her health deteriorated and visits to doctors drained her savings. Recently she decided to start a business performing social justice songs at events. But with no extra funds or time, she had to pause the venture. (Reyes-Velarde, 1/30)

The New York Times: Can San Francisco Solve Its Drug Crisis? Five Things To Consider. 
San Francisco is in the middle of a drug crisis. Overdose deaths reached a record high last year, topping 800. Public drug use is widespread in some neighborhoods. How did San Francisco get to this point? In part, it follows the national story: The rise of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and a destabilizing pandemic caused a spike in addiction and overdose deaths. But San Francisco’s drug crisis has outpaced the country’s. (Lopez, 1/31)

Military.com: VA Set To Expand Fertility Treatment To Single Veterans And Same-Sex Couples Following Defense Department Shift 
The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to give more veterans who use the VA for medical care broader access to advanced fertility treatments, including those who require in vitro fertilization to conceive and who need egg or sperm donations as part of their efforts to start a family. The revised policy, based on a change required at the Defense Department by ongoing litigation, is expected to expand availability of the benefit to single veterans, same-sex couples and married couples unable to use their own gametes. (Kime, 1/30)

AP: The US Hasn't Seen Syphilis Numbers This High Since 1950. Other STD Rates Are Down Or Flat 
The U.S. syphilis epidemic isn’t abating, with the rate of infectious cases rising 9% in 2022, according to a new federal government report on sexually transmitted diseases in adults. But there’s some unexpected good news: The rate of new gonorrhea cases fell for the first time in a decade. It’s not clear why infectious cases of syphilis rose 9% while gonorrhea dropped 9%, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said, adding that it’s too soon to know whether a new downward trend is emerging for the latter. (Stobbe, 1/30)

Bloomberg: Syphilis US Cases Rose 17% Amid Pfizer Drug Shortage 
But even when patients are identified, they currently face a hurdle to treatment. The best medicine for syphilis is penicillin G benzathine, which is sold by Pfizer Inc. in the US under the brand Bicillin L-A, and it’s been in short supply since April because of high demand. Pfizer has increased production and expects supply to normalize by June. The Food and Drug Administration also greenlit the importation of a version of penicillin G benzathine that’s approved in Europe but not the US. About 50,000 doses are available, said Pavel Svintozelskiy, medical affairs manager for Provepharm, a company involved in the importation. (Swetlitz, 1/30)

The Guardian: Rate Of US Babies Born Prematurely Has Grown 12%, Analysis Says 
The rate of babies born prematurely in the US grew 12% from 2014 to 2022 to nearly 8.7%, with pronounced racial and age disparities among the mothers, a new analysis from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) found. Black mothers were almost twice as likely as white mothers to give birth before babies reached full term, 12.5% versus 7.6% respectively. Similarly, women older than 40 had a greater risk of preterm birth compared to women aged 20-29, 12.5% versus 8.23%. (Glenza, 1/31)

CBS News: ACLU Warns Supreme Court That Lower Court Abortion Pill Decisions Relied On "Patently Unreliable Witnesses"
The American Civil Liberties Union is warning the Supreme Court that lower court decisions in a closely watched battle over a widely used abortion pill relied on "patently unreliable witnesses" and "ideologically tainted junk science." In a friend-of-the-court brief the ACLU filed with the Center for Reproductive Rights and The Lawyering Project, the groups argued the lower courts that have ruled in the case involving the drug mifepristone supplanted the Food and Drug Administration's scientific judgment with unproven assertions from anti-abortion rights medical associations and doctors about the alleged harms of medication abortion. (Quinn, 1/30)

The 19th: What A Second Trump Term Could Mean For Abortion Restrictions
Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, has cast abortion to the background of his campaign and declined calls to champion a national abortion ban. But, if reelected, Trump’s tune could change: Without the aid of Congress, the former president would have tools to quickly curtail access to the procedure — and the pressure on him to wield them has already started. (Luthra and Barclay, 1/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: Big Tech CEOs To Face Senate Grilling Over Child Safety Issues
Members of the Senate will interrogate CEOs of five social media giants Wednesday about their efforts to address child sexual exploitation. ... The grilling will take place amid growing concerns about social media’s impact on young users’ mental health. And as a recent episode involving AI-generated, sexually explicit images of pop star Taylor Swift — distributed without her knowledge or consent — drives home, artificial intelligence is amplifying the dangers of online platforms. (Stein, 1/30)

KPBS: For The First Time, California Law Will Protect Students’ Right To Recess
A new California law is set to protect young students’ right to recess for the first time in state history. That law, Senate Bill 291, defines what “recess” really means: free, unstructured time to play and socialize. It also requires that elementary students receive at least 30 minutes every day and makes it illegal for educators to take that time away as punishment. The law will go into effect next school year. But San Diego Unified and other local districts were not yet ready to talk about their plans to meet these requirements. (Suzuki, 1/30)

Los Angeles Times: Fire Within Castaic Landfill Raises Worry Over Toxic Air
As operators struggle to contain a smoldering fire and pressure buildup deep within Chiquita Canyon Landfill, air quality regulators are raising alarms over the potential health risks posed by the toxic fumes escaping the Castaic facility. Environmental regulators say that the local air and water samples have contained elevated levels of benzene, a cancer-causing chemical that evaporates easily. They also have reprimanded Waste Connections, the landfill’s owner, for failing to report the leaks when they first occurred and for not providing area residents with air quality data. (Briscoe,, 1/30)

Capitol Weekly: Competing Values At Play In Addressing Sex Trafficking
Almost a year ago, San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen made headlines for introducing a resolution asking state lawmakers to introduce their own bill to legalize sex work in California. The supervisor’s controversial proposal came in response to complaints about an increase in sex workers strolling on Capp Street. Barricades were erected in February 2023 in the hopes that it would discourage johns from soliciting prostitutes in the Mission District. (Joseph and Ehisen, 1/29)