Sacramento Bee: California’s Lowest-Paid Health Workers Rally In Sacramento
California’s lowest-paid healthcare workers are expressing outrage over wages that they say don’t allow them to cover their basic needs, rallying in cities around the state to demand sizable increases in their minimum wages. On Tuesday in Sacramento, home care providers chastised the Sacramento County board of supervisors for approving a 36% raise for themselves while doing nothing to ensure that those who care for region’s elderly and disabled have a livable wage. Represented by SEIU Local 2015, they want a minimum wage of $20 without compromising healthcare benefits. (Anderson and Nanguneri, 7/25)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: SEIU-UHW Pickets Planned For Kaiser Permanente, Decrying Workload, Lack Of Bonus Pay
The pandemic is over but the frenzied workload continues for Kaiser Permanente staff in Sonoma County and elsewhere, according to health care workers planning to picket Wednesday in front of Kaiser medical offices in Santa Rosa. (Espinoza, 7/25)

CapRadio: Sacramento Kaiser Health Care Workers Picket Amid Contract Negotiations
As bargaining on a new contract continues, over 100 unionized health care workers took to the street in Sacramento Monday, picketing outside the Kaiser Permanente hospital and medical center on Morse Avenue in the Arden-Arcade area. The action helped kick off a statewide picketing campaign that is slated to be held at facilities across California this week. All facilities will be open and operational during the events. (Wolffe, 7/25)

CapRadio: Thousands Dropped From Medi-Cal In First Eligibility Check Since The Start Of The Pandemic
New data shows Sacramento County disenrolled 9,650 people from Medi-Cal in June. It was the first time in three years it and all other California counties have checked for eligibility. The majority of people who were dropped did not return the renewal packets that were sent to the last address the county had on file. The same is true on the state level. Of the 225,000 California residents who were disenrolled in June, almost 9 in 10 were dropped because they didn’t complete the renewal paperwork. (Wolffe, 7/25)

CBS News: SF COVID-19 Response Led To One Of Lowest Death Rates About U.S. Cities, Study Finds
San Francisco's response to the COVID-19 crisis resulted in one of the lowest coronavirus-related death tolls among U.S. metropolitan cities, a study has found. According to the study conducted by University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) researchers and the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), the city implemented "one of the most intensive, inclusive and multi-pronged" COVID responses in the U.S., leading to one of the lowest fatality rates among U.S. cities across all ages and ethnicities. (7/25)

Fresno Bee: Long COVID Can Cause Mental Decline, New Study Says 
Those with long COVID symptoms for months or years after becoming infected may also face significant cognitive decline, a new study suggests. (Wright, 7/24)

Los Angeles Daily News: At What Levels Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ In Drinking Water? LA County Supervisors Want Answers 
In response to a new study that identified Southern California as a hot spot for manmade “forever chemicals” in drinking water, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors asked for an inventory of water districts in the county that are not testing for polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). (Scauzillo, 7/25)

VC Star: Santa Paula Homeless Shelter Will Stay Open With County And City Money
Two months ago, the Spirit of Santa Paula homeless shelter put out word that it was facing a funding crisis and would have to shut down if it didn’t find a solution soon. (Biasotti, 7/25)

Fresno Bee: Inmates At Chowchilla Women’s Prison Say They’re Sweltering 
With an unprecedented heat wave baking much of the West, inmates at California’s largest female-only prison say they have been suffering in recent weeks because of faulty cooling systems that have left them sweltering. (Stanton, 7/25)

AP: The Biden Administration Proposes New Rules To Push Insurers To Boost Mental Health Coverage
“I don’t know what the difference between breaking your arm and having a mental breakdown is — it’s health,” Biden said in an East Room event highlighting the announcement. “We must fulfill the promise of true mental health parity for all Americans now.” (Miller and Megerian, 7/26)

Modern Healthcare: Cigna Lawsuit Over Algorithm Allegations Could Be First Of Many
"PXDX is a simple tool to accelerate physician payments that has been grossly mischaracterized in the press," a Cigna spokesperson wrote in response to a request for comment. "The facts speak for themselves and we will continue to set the record straight." As alleged in court documents, Kisting-Leung’s doctors recommended she receive ultrasound screenings for ovarian cancer twice last year, and Cigna denied both claims by arguing they lacked medical necessity, leaving Kisting-Leung to pay nearly $750 out-of-pocket. Kisting-Leung appealed the denials but has yet to hear back from Cigna about the status of the bills, the complaint alleges. (Tepper, 7/25)

Bloomberg: TikTok Cracks Down On Weight-Loss Drugs Like Ozempic And Wegovy
Ozempic no longer needs an explanation. The drug is a household name, in part thanks to its popularity on social media. TikTok in particular has been flooded with hundreds — if not thousands — of videos touting the medication and other GLP-1 drugs, which are increasingly prescribed off-label to patients looking to slim down. Ozempic, for example, accounted for nearly 40% of GLP-1 prescriptions in people who did not have diabetes in 2022, according to the data analytics firm Komodo Health. That suggests a large number of patients are using it for weight-loss, when the medication is specifically intended to help to lower blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. (Muller, 7/25)

Reuters: Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Can Proceed Despite Potential US Supreme Court Appeal
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma may proceed with a bankruptcy settlement that protects its Sackler family owners from lawsuits, despite a potential U.S. Supreme Court appeal in the case, a U.S. court ruled on Tuesday. The 2nd U.S. Circuit court of appeals approved Purdue's bankruptcy plan in May, ruling that the company can shield its owners from opioid lawsuits in exchange for a $6 billion contribution to the company's broader bankruptcy settlement. (Knauth, 7/25)

Los Angeles Times: The GOP And The NRA Want To Stop Gun Violence Research. California Is A Target
California is the epicenter of American gun violence research, largely because it maintains an extensive repository of firearms data and, unlike other states, has historically made much of the data available to scientists studying the root causes of gun deaths. A lawsuit brought by gun-rights activists now threatens that longstanding data infrastructure. And although the federal government began funding gun-violence research again in 2019, following a two-decades-long drought, that funding is under threat from House Republicans, who have vowed to kill it. (Tucker Smith, 7/25)

AP: 911 Workers Say Centers Are Understaffed, Plagued By Burnout
Emergency call center workers say their centers are understaffed, struggling to fill vacancies and plagued by worker burnout, according to a national survey released Tuesday. (Lauer, 7/25)

California Healthline: A Year With 988: What Worked? What Challenges Lie Ahead?
The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, a national hotline, reached its first-year milestone this month. (DeGuzman, 7/26)

Los Angeles Times: LAUSD Athletes Unlikely To Get Quick Help That Saved Bronny James
But there is a harshly different reality for many athletes in Los Angeles-area public high schools — a glaring example of the ever-widening differential in resources available for students in different socioeconomic pockets of Southern California. (Evans, 7/25)

Fortune: Bronny James' Cardiac Arrest Reignites COVID-19 Vaccine Debate
On Monday, NBA star LeBron James’ son, Bronny James, was hospitalized after experiencing cardiac arrest during basketball practice at the University of Southern California. While the incoming USC freshman has since been released from the intensive care unit and is listed in stable condition, according to a family spokesperson, the incident has renewed public speculation surrounding cardiac arrest and myocarditis related to the COVID-19 vaccine. (Thompson Payton, 7/25)

ABC News: Black Women Saw Fetal Mortality Rates Fall 4% In 2021, But Still Twice As High As National Average: CDC
Fetal mortality rates declined among Black women in 2020 but were much higher than other racial/ethnic groups in the U.S., new federal data shows. A report, published early Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, looked at data from the National Vital Statistics System. Fetal deaths are deaths that occur at 20 weeks' gestation -- about five months of pregnancy -- or later and affect 1% of all pregnancies in the U.S. (Kekatos, 7/26)

Fox News: Tuberculosis At The Border: Doctors Issue Warnings Of ‘Drug-Resistant Strains’
Cases of tuberculosis (TB) — an illness that kills more people than any other infectious disease — rose in the U.S. during 2022, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And some doctors are concerned that limitations of testing at the border could be partly to blame for the surge. (Rudy and Siegel, 7/25)

AP: Cases Of Tick-Borne Illnesses Are On The Rise. Some Experts Believe Climate Change Is The Cause
In 2022, doctors recorded the first confirmed case of tick-borne encephalitis virus acquired in the United Kingdom.It began with a bike ride. A 50-year-old man was mountain biking in the North Yorkshire Moors, a national park in England known for its vast expanses of woodland and purple heather. At some point on his ride, at least one black-legged tick burrowed into his skin. Five days later, the mountain biker developed symptoms commonly associated with a viral infection — fatigue, muscle pain, fever. (Teirstein, 7/25)