California Won’t Pay For Out-Of-State Abortion Travel: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration won’t spend public money to help people from other states travel to California for the procedure. The decision surprised abortion advocates who have been working with the governor for nearly a year to prepare. California’s operating budget is scheduled for a vote in the state Legislature today. Read more from AP. Keep scrolling for more abortion coverage.
For First Time, Sacramento County Has More Homeless People Than San Francisco: Sacramento County’s homeless population nearly doubled in three years and is now greater than San Francisco’s, according to a new report. The pandemic likely did not cause the increase, the report found. Also, the number of longtime homeless people who suffer from a physical or mental disability or substance use increased a whopping 162% since the 2019 count. Read more from The Sacramento Bee and CapRadio.
Below, check out the roundup of California Healthline’s coverage. For today's national health news, read KHN's Morning Briefing.
More News From Across The State
Los Angeles Times:
California Will See Rush Of Out-Of-State Abortion Seekers, Study Says
California will play a key role in providing abortion services to people living in states where the medical procedure is banned or severely limited after the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, according to a recent report from UCLA. Between 8,000 and 16,100 more people will make the journey to California each year for abortion care, and many will come to Los Angeles County, the UCLA School of Law’s Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy said in a study released this month. (Solis. 6/28)
KQED:
‘We Will Continue To Be Here’: Accessing Abortion Services After Roe
We've known for a minute that, if Roe v. Wade was overturned, California would play a big role in helping Americans access abortion services. Now, it's no longer hypothetical: the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights on Friday, and reproductive justice groups like California-based ACCESS have gotten tons of calls from people both inside and outside the state. (Guevarra, Esquinca and Montecillo)
Los Angeles Times:
What Would California's Constitutional Amendment On Abortion Do?
Senate Constitutional Amendment 10 would, if approved by a majority of voters, further codify the state’s already progressive reproductive rights, which grant anyone of reproductive age “the fundamental right to choose to bear a child or to choose and to obtain an abortion.” Currently, those rights in California are upheld by case law and statutory laws, but Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), who proposed the amendment, said hostile attacks on abortion access convinced her those aren’t enough. (Gutierrez, 6/28)
NBC News:
Pentagon Says Supreme Court's Roe Ruling Won't Affect Abortions On Military Facilities
The Pentagon on Tuesday said that last week's Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade won't impact service members, spouses and dependents who use military treatment facilities. The memo, sent by Gil Cisneros, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, came in response to Friday's Supreme Court ruling that overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that had guaranteed abortion rights under the Constitution. (Kube and Richards, 6/28)
Abortion Pills and Contraception
Bay Area News Group:
How Can I Get California Abortion Pills? Medication Abortion Questions Answered
In the fight over reproductive rights, medication abortion is emerging as the next legal battleground. Medication abortion — a combination of two drugs that end a pregnancy — is the most common form of abortion in the U.S., rising from 39% of all cases in 2017 to 54% in 2020. Last Friday’s stunning ruling by the Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade on a 5-4 vote and ending a constitutional right to abortion, is expected to trigger even greater interest in the pills. (Krieger, 6/28)
Bay Area News Group:
Abortion Pills Will Be Center Of Next Legal Battles
In the fight over reproductive rights, medication abortion is emerging as the next legal battleground. Medication abortion — a combination of two drugs that end a pregnancy — is the most common form of abortion in the U.S., rising from 39% of all cases in 2017 to 54% in 2020. Last Friday’s stunning ruling by the Supreme Court, overturning Roe v. Wade on a 5-4 vote and ending a constitutional right to abortion, is expected to trigger even greater interest in the pills. (Krieger, 6/28)
Roll Call:
Biden Administration Announces Actions To Protect Abortion Rights
The Biden administration is launching a multipronged effort to respond to the Supreme Court decision overturning the 1973 ruling establishing a right to an abortion, with Health and Human Services, the Defense Department and the Office of Personnel Management among the agencies to weigh in. HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, reacting Tuesday to the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said the department will take steps to increase the availability of medication abortion, which involves a combination of mifepristone and misoprostol. (Raman, 6/28)
The 19th:
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra Offers Little Insight On Abortion Pill Protections
At Tuesday briefing, Becerra would not say if or when the government plans to challenge those state laws banning medication abortion. “We will absolutely protect Americans’ rights to care under federal law and we will do everything we get to make sure Americans understand what their rights are,” Becerra said. “What exactly that translates into depends on what a state tries to do.” (Luthra, 6/28)
CNBC:
CVS To Remove Purchase Limit On Plan B Pills, Says Sales Have 'Returned To Normal'
CVS is removing the purchase limit it had put on emergency contraceptive pills following last week’s Supreme Court ruling, the chain said Tuesday. The reversal comes as sales have dipped back to normal levels and will be made both in stores and online over the next 24 hours, CVS said. The limit on the emergency contraceptives, commonly known as morning after pills and sold under names including Plan B, had gone into effect on Saturday. (Krietzberg, 6/28)
Bay Area News Group:
Next Fall's New COVID Vaccine Will Be Different
Troubled by waning immune protection against the COVID virus, this fall’s vaccine booster should be a redesigned two-strain version, according to a recommendation by the FDA’s panel of experts on Tuesday. The new recipe – which would contain the genetic code for both the original strain and an omicron strain – would be a better match against the evolving pathogen, they said. (Krieger, 6/28)
Sacramento Bee:
‘Things Are Going To Get Worse’: COVID-19 Positivity In California Keeps Rising As Case Rates Flatten
California’s COVID-19 positivity rate continues to climb, surpassing anything the state has seen this year. The California Department of Public Health on Tuesday reported the statewide positivity rate at 13.2%, up from 11.4% the previous week. The rate has increased tenfold since early April as new, more transmissible variants grow throughout the state. (Davidson, 6/28)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Bay Area Can’t Seem To Move Past Surge In COVID Cases
COVID-19 cases remain stubbornly high across California despite some indicators earlier this week that the state had moved past the peak of its spring surge, with the Bay Area continuing to outpace other regions with its rate of infections. (Vaziri, 6/28)
inewsource:
San Diego COVID Surge Continues As New Variants Gain Ground
Confirmed COVID-19 cases remain high in San Diego county, with more than 7,000 cases reported for the most recent week data is available, and experts fear that new strains of Omicron might create a surge in infections, even among those with natural or vaccine immunity, in the coming weeks. The sub-variants BA.4 and BA.5 are quickly taking hold and, like other iterations of Omicron, are increasingly more contagious and equipped to evade existing antibodies. (Dawson, 6/28)
CIDRAP:
Study: In Most Young Adults, COVID-19 Infectious Period Lasts Only 5 Days
A new study from researchers at Boston University (BU) shows that, for all but 17% of healthy, vaccinated young adults, the infectious period for COVID-19 from the Delta and Omicron variants was 5 days. The study was recently published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The study involved 92 SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR–positive participants who had all been fully vaccinated with an initial series of COVID-19 vaccine. Tests showed 17 (18.5%) were infected with Delta and 75 (81.5%) with Omicron. (6/28)
Palm Springs Desert Sun:
Riverside County Public Health Waiting For Monkeypox Vaccines
Riverside County's public health department is working to secure vaccines to protect those most at risk of monkeypox infection, the director of disease control said Tuesday. (Sasic, 6/28)
Axios:
White House Expands Monkeypox Vaccine Eligibility
Federal officials on Tuesday urged anyone potentially exposed to a confirmed case of monkeypox in the last two weeks to get vaccinated, in hopes of slowing an outbreak that's grown to more than 300 confirmed cases in the United States. Days after some local jurisdictions, like New York City, deployed their own vaccination strategies and ran out of shots, the federal government has committed to distributing 56,000 doses of the JYNNEOS vaccine immediately to jurisdictions where outbreaks are the most severe. (Dreher, 6/28)
Fox News:
WHO Says Monkeypox Risk Assessed As ‘Moderate'
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday that the international monkeypox virus outbreak is assessed as "moderate" – even as the agency noted the actual number of cases "is likely to be underestimated." The United Nations (UN) health agency said in a release that, since June 22. 2022, there have been more than 3,400 laboratory-confirmed cases and one death reported to WHO from 50 countries and territories. The majority of those cases were reported from the WHO European Region, with the region of the Americas making up 11%. (Musto, 6/28)
Palm Springs Desert Sun:
Betty Ford Center Celebrates New Entrance, Part Of Major Expansion
The Betty Ford Center celebrated the first of many campus transformations Monday with a ribbon-cutting at the drug and alcohol treatment center's new entrance, which center operators hope will make the trip to the facility easier and more welcoming for patients. (Sasic, 6/27)
Bay Area News Group:
Kaiser May Convert Big San Jose Office Building Into Medical Complex
Kaiser Permanente is eyeing the conversion of a big office building in San Jose to medical uses, an effort that could greatly expand the health care titan’s Silicon Valley footprint. The building on Kaiser’s radar screen is at 1600 Technology Drive in North San Jose and totals about 198,000 square feet, according to San Jose city planning documents. (Avalos, 6/28)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
'One Pill Can Kill': Board Of Supervisors Declares Illegal Fentanyl A Public Health Emergency
Citing the historic rise in deaths locally and nationally from fentanyl overdoses, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously agreed to declare illegal fentanyl a public health crisis. Accidental fentanyl overdose deaths in the region jumped from 151 in 2019 to more than 800 by the end of 2021, according to county authorities. In the U.S., opioid overdoses claimed more than 107,000 last year. Fentanyl now is the No. 1 cause of death of people ages 18 to 45 — in the county and and in the country. (Kucher, 6/28)
San Francisco Chronicle:
S.F. Supervisor Calls For Overdose Prevention Plan As City Prepares To Close Controversial Tenderloin Center
A San Francisco supervisor is pushing for the city to develop an overdose prevention plan in the wake of Mayor London Breed’s decision to close at year’s end the controversial Tenderloin Center — a city-run site meant to link people on the street to drug treatment, among other services. Officials allow visitors to use drugs at the site, and city and nonprofit workers have reversed more than 100 overdoses at the facility at U.N. Plaza. Supervisor Dean Preston aims to keep the center’s programs running, or find a suitable replacement. The hearing he requested would go before the Government Audit and Oversight Committee, which Preston chairs. (Swan, 6/28)
San Diego Union-Tribune:
County's $73.6 Billion Budget Highlights Investments In Mental Health, Homelessness
San Diego County’s $7.36 billion budget for the next fiscal year includes hundreds of millions of dollars to tackle behavioral health, homelessness and environmental issues. County supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved the spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and it represents a bump of $200 million over a draft budget released last month. (Brennan, 6/28)
The Bakersfield Californian:
Local Office Uses New Technology To Create Lifelike Prostheses
Geronimo Gonzales’ livelihood consisted of jumping off bridges and dancing through the streets of Disneyland. “I didn’t care how scary it was, I would do it,” he said Tuesday. But these days, Gonzales is more fearful than fearless after an intoxicated driver traveling in excess of 150 mph crashed into him, requiring amputation of both his legs above the knee. That was after nine surgeries, a traumatic brain injury and a litany of broken bones. (Desai, 6/28)
Los Angeles Daily News:
Heart, Liver Transplant Gives Long Beach Man Life
Andrew Solis needed a miracle. Born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a rare condition in which only half of the heart develops, the 21-year-old North Long Beach resident spent eight months in a bed at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. He was waiting, and waiting, to hear about a new heart and liver because if he didn’t get those two organs, doctors told him, he would never see his 22nd birthday. (Metzker, 6/28)
San Gabriel Valley Tribune:
Unwanted Food From Stores Goes To Those In Need, But Issues In LA County Threaten Program
In Los Angeles County, 250,000 people are unsure whether they will have enough food to eat, yet about 1.1 million tons of edible food is thrown away each year in California. While a new state law requiring 20% of edible food tossed out by grocery stores be diverted and distributed to folks in need, making that happen in L.A. County is hampered by problems common among disconnected nonprofit food pantries. These include staff and volunteer shortages, high transportation costs, lack of storage facilities and funding shortfalls, according to a study released by the RAND Corporation of Santa Monica on Tuesday, June 28. (Scauzillo, 6/28)
Sacramento Bee:
Sacramento CA Renters Brace For Evictions As Moratorium Ends
Lenora Jackson came home in South Oak Park from her job as a state worker one day in April to find her property manager standing outside her house, asking for her keys. He was trying to evict her because of a bed bug infestation. She feared that losing her home, where she has rented since 2017, would force her into homelessness and to live in her pick-up truck. (Yoon-Hendricks and Clift, 6/29)