Daily Edition: May 31, 2022

Latest From California Healthline:

Taco Bowls and Chicken Curry: Medi-Cal Delivers Ready Meals in Grand Health Care Experiment

California has embarked on an ambitious five-year initiative to improve the health of its sickest Medicaid patients by introducing nontraditional services. In the Inland Empire, where many residents have diabetes, one health plan is diving into the experiment by delivering healthy, prepared meals to those lucky enough to get them. (Heidi de Marco and Angela Hart, 5/31 )

Covid Rears Its Ugly Head In Sacramento: The latest covid-19 surge has hit California state offices, forcing department leaders to decide whether to allow employees to go back to working from home. Read more from The Sacramento Bee. Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Saturday that he has tested positive for covid despite recently receiving his second booster shot. Newsom, who lives and works in Sacramento, will remain in isolation at least through Thursday. Read more from Deadline and the Los Angeles Times.

Hepatitis A Outbreak Linked To Strawberries: A multistate outbreak of hepatitis A infections is likely to have been sparked by contaminated organic strawberries sold in leading grocery stores, the FDA says. Of the 17 cases reported, at least 15 were listed in California. Read more from The Sacramento Bee and The Washington Post.

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

San Francisco Chronicle: California Had Almost 20,000 Extra Pandemic Deaths Through Last Year. Here's Why They're Missing From Official COVID Stats
COVID-19 has officially killed more than 90,000 Californians, roughly equivalent to the populations of Santa Barbara and San Leandro. But research suggests the true toll of the pandemic could be much higher, with more than 20,000 "hidden" excess deaths concentrated in the southernmost counties, plus a handful of rural counties to the north. These deaths, according to researchers, are a combination of uncounted COVID-19 fatalities — some deliberately overlooked for political reasons — and deaths from other pandemic-related causes, like gun violence, traffic accidents, overdoses and strained hospital systems. (Neilson, 5/31)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID Symptoms Charted By New Coronavirus Study
A yearlong study of more than 60,000 people tested for the coronavirus in San Francisco found intriguing shifts in COVID-19 symptoms over three different surges — including fewer reports of loss of smell, once considered a trademark of the illness — probably because of changes in the virus itself as well as individuals' immunity. More people with COVID reported symptoms of upper respiratory infection — including cough, sore throat and congestion — during the omicron surge than earlier waves, researchers found. Patients also experienced fewer instances of systemic issues such as fever and body aches. Loss of smell was reported by 20% of those who tested positive during the delta surge, but only 5% during omicron. (Allday, 5/29)

CIDRAP: Asymptomatic COVID-19 May Not Spread As Easily As Symptomatic
Symptomatic COVID-19 cases are responsible for more viral transmission than asymptomatic infections, suggests an updated systematic review and meta-analysis of 130 studies published yesterday in PLOS Medicine. ... In 46 contact-tracing or outbreak studies, the total share of asymptomatic COVID-19 cases was 19%. Relative to symptomatic infections, the rate of viral spread from asymptomatic index patients to contacts was about two-thirds lower. (5/27)

CIDRAP: Vaccines Lower Risk Of Long COVID 15%, Death By 34%, Data Show
Long COVID-19 symptoms can affect even fully vaccinated people after mild breakthrough infections, but their risk of serious complications such as lung and blood-clotting disorders is much lower than that of their unvaccinated peers, finds a study of more than 13 million US veterans published this week in Nature Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 5/27)

Fortune: Do I Have Long COVID? As Many As 23 Million Americans Want To Know, As More Than 200 Symptoms Emerge
One Long COVID patient complains of fatigue, loss of smell, and a persistent cough weeks after his initial COVID infection. Another experiences hallucinations and an inability to record new memories, and begins speaking unrecognizable words. It gets stranger. Among the 200-plus symptoms identified so far are ear numbness, a sensation of "brain on fire," erectile dysfunction, irregular menstrual periods, constipation, peeling skin, and double vision, according to a landmark July study published in British medical journal The Lancet. (Prater, 5/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: I Spent 2 Years Writing About COVID, And Avoiding It. Omicron Finally Got Me
On May 19, a group of Bay Area doctors and scientists published a preprint study looking at how symptoms of COVID-19 have changed over the course of the three most recent surges. It's an interesting report, and I wrote about it a week later — while isolating at home after finally getting COVID myself. I tested positive the day before that study came out. I was too sick to work that day, or the next, but when I finally caught up with the paper I was fascinated by how well it reflected my own experiences. Omicron, they found (among other results), causes more upper respiratory symptoms among the vaccinated than earlier variants. As I read I checked off my own boxes: Cough? Yes. Congestion? Yes. Fever? A little. Body aches? Nope. (Allday, 5/29)

The New York Times: A San Diego Doctor Receives A Prison Sentence For Selling A '100%' Cure For COVID-19
A doctor in Southern California who sold "COVID-19 treatment packs" during the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic was sentenced late last week to prison, prosecutors said. The doctor, Jennings Ryan Staley, who owns Skinny Beach Med Spa in San Diego, was sentenced to 30 days in prison and one year of home confinement for trying to smuggle the medication hydroxychloroquine into the United States to sell as a cure for COVID-19, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California said in a statement Friday. (5/30)

CalMatters: Bill Would Allow Lawsuits For Marketing Guns To Kids
The man at the gun show lifted a 2.2 pound rifle and pulled back the stock with an audible "chock," presenting it to the YouTube segment's host. "When we set out to produce a small firearm for children in an AR-looking package, we were pretty sure we needed to have a 'wow factor' in the safety area," Eric Schmid, owner of Wee 1 Tactical, said in a video uploaded in January. (Duara, 5/27)

Bay Area News Group: Guns Overtake Cars As Leading Cause Of Death For U.S. Youth
For decades, the biggest threat kids faced growing up came from the automobiles they happily hopped into every day for a trip to school, the store or soccer practice. Now, it's gunfire. As the country mourns its latest school shooting victims in Uvalde, Texas, it also has reached a grim milestone: Guns now kill more kids and teens in the U.S. than auto accidents do. (Woolfolk and Rowan, 5/30)

EdSource: Counselors Not Part Of One California District's Plan To Tackle Student Mental Health
Faced with escalating student mental health needs, one California school district is trying an unusual new approach – one that does not include counselors. Saugus Union School District in northern Los Angeles County, which in recent years has endured a nearby school shooting, wildfires and increasing political polarization, is eliminating all four of its counselor positions and replacing them with social workers. In the fall, the district will have nine social workers and no counselors. (Jones, 5/31)

CapRadio: Texas Shooting Taxes Students' Mental Health Even More
For many young people, Tuesday's massacre at a Texas elementary school could not have come at a worse time. Emotional scars are lingering from the pandemic, and schools are closing for the summer, cutting off students from their routines and access to campus mental health services. But in some ways, students and schools are better prepared than ever to deal with tragedies like the one at Robb Elementary School. Investment in youth mental health is at an all-time high in California, and some schools' relentless focus on emotional wellness has reduced the stigma and led to a plethora of mental health options that did not exist a few years ago. (Jones, 5/29)

The Hill: Bipartisan Senate Working Group On Gun Violence Will Meet Tuesday
Republican and Democratic senators negotiating over a legislative proposal to respond to mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, will hold a Zoom call Tuesday in hopes of reaching a deal on a basic framework by next week. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who has been tasked by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to negotiate with Democrats, said the talks have been ongoing on the phone and in person. (Bolton, 5/30)

Reveal: Shooting In The Dark: Why Gun Reform Keeps Failing
As the nation reels from the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, we look at why efforts to enact comprehensive laws to reduce gun violence are failing. Reveal's Najib Aminy tells the story of a former lobbyist for the NRA, who explains how another school shooting years ago polarized the political debate about guns and all but eliminated the chances for compromise. (5/28)

Bloomberg: Republicans Push Unfounded Mental Health Claim For US Gun Violence
Republican politicians from Senator Ted Cruz to Texas Governor Greg Abbott have been quick to blame mental illness following a deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two teachers. The problem with that thinking is that the evidence doesn't support it -- even if common sense suggests a mass shooting, especially of children, is not the act of a person who is mentally well. While reporting from Texas following the May 24 shooting makes clear the Uvalde gunman, Salvador Ramos, was a deeply troubled individual, state officials have said he had no documented mental health issues. Research shows that only a very small percentage of violent behavior is connected to mental illness. (Court, 5/27)

Fortune: We're Living In An Era Of Daily Trauma: Here's How To Cope
With so much loss running through America's veins today (and for many days to come), one question feels particularly pressing: How do we mourn those lost and cope with the multilayered grief that's become a foundational part of living in the U.S.? Bereavement researcher Mary-Frances O'Connor, Ph.D., has spent more than two decades studying the emotional effects of losing a loved one. Her work has revealed a lesson that's worth remembering as we forge a way forward: "Grieving is a form of learning." (McPhillips, 5/27)

NBC News: Broken Heart Syndrome: What Are The Symptoms And Causes?
Two days after fourth-grade teacher Irma Garcia was killed in the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, her husband, Joe Garcia, suddenly died as well. Family members attributed his death to a broken heart. Irma Garcia's nephew, John Martinez, said Joe collapsed at home on Thursday shortly after delivering flowers for Irma's memorial. Doctors said a sudden death following a tragedy could be evidence of broken heart syndrome, a rare condition that mimics a heart attack. (Bendix, 5/27)

Axios: The Parents Aren't All Right
Parenting is hard. Parenting in a pandemic that has taken 1 million American lives, through an unpredictable economy, in a country where school shootings aren't rare, baby formula is hard to come by and classrooms are political battlegrounds can feel borderline impossible. There are 63 million parents in the U.S. with kids younger than 18 at home. They work; they volunteer; they're raising the next generation of Americans — and stress and strain are hindering them from doing all of those things. "There's almost not a word to express the stress parents are under right now," says Gloria DeGaetano, a parenting expert and founder of the Parent Coaching Institute. "'Overwhelmed' doesn't cut it. It's beyond anything we've ever experienced." (Snyder, Cai and Pandey, 5/31)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. County Buys Baby Formula To Distribute During Shortage
Los Angeles County has purchased $750,000 worth of baby formula that it will soon start handing out at food distribution sites and through outreach programs for new mothers, officials said. The county purchased the formula to help feed babies as the nation grapples with a severe infant formula shortage, Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said in a news release. For weeks now, parents have been scrambling to find formula following supply chain disruptions and a safety recall at the nation's largest formula producer. (Esquivel, 5/28)

NPR: Goat's Milk And Other Baby Formula Product Arrives In U.S.
The U.S. will distribute another 1.25 million cans of baby formula in effort to replenish the country's dire supply in the coming weeks, the Food and Drug Administration says. That stock will bring the total imported supply of baby formula product to the equivalent of 30 million 8-ounce bottles, since the Biden administration began its effort to alleviate the national shortage. During the first week of May, the average out-of-stock rate for baby formula at retailers nationwide was 43%, according to data from Datasembly. (Bowman, 5/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Danone To Fly Formula To The U.S. For Babies With Allergies
Danone SA is to send the equivalent of about five million bottles of specialist infant formula to the U.S. as part of a broader push to alleviate shortages faced by babies with allergies. The French food giant said about half a million cans of specialized medical formula made by its Nutricia business will be flown into the U.S. in the coming weeks. Danone said the formula will come from its factory in Liverpool, England, which makes the Neocate line of amino acid-based products used for babies allergic to cow's milk and other proteins. (Chaudhuri, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Baby-Formula Shortage Worsened By Drop In Breast-Feeding Rates
One of the contributing factors in the U.S. baby-formula shortage is a significant shift in the way parents feed their babies: Breast-feeding declined during the pandemic, reversing a decadeslong trend, health practitioners say. Since 2020, the share of breast-fed one-year-olds has plummeted from an estimated 34% to an estimated 14% this year, according to surveys conducted by Demographic Intelligence, a forecasting firm that specializes in births and works with formula manufacturers including Abbott Laboratories and Nestlé SA. Because of the small sample size, the firm's 2022 estimate has a range of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. (Maloney, 5/29)

NPR: The Baby Formula Shortage Is Prompting Calls To Increase Support For Breastfeeding
Parents are scrambling to find baby formula. Factories are working around the clock to make more. And military cargo planes are airlifting formula from overseas. Often overlooked, though, in the race to fill the gap left when a big formula factory closed due to suspected contamination is the most natural alternative: mother's milk. "If we did more to support breastfeeding, we wouldn't be in this mess," says Dr. Melissa Bartick, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that most babies be fed exclusively with breast milk for the first six months. But in 2018, only about one in four babies born in the U.S. met that target. (Horsley, 5/30)

Insider: TikTok Doctors Say DIY Formula Recipes Are 'Dangerous'
Viral social media posts offering supposed alternative recipes for baby formula have spread during the ongoing shortage of the product in the US, but medical experts with online followings are speaking out against the trend, calling the DIY substitutes dangerous. Amateur baby formula recipes have spread across numerous platforms including on Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube, Bloomberg reported. While social media platforms have removed some videos that violate their rules prohibiting medical misinformation, the platforms haven't removed such videos consistently, the report said. (Perrett, 5/28)

Fox News: Breast Milk Bought Online Amid Baby Formula Shortage Could Harm Infant Health, Pediatric Dietitian Warns
A pediatric dietitian cautioned parents against purchasing breast milk from independent sellers online amid the nationwide baby formula shortages and instead recommended going through a milk bank. "This can be very, very risky if it's not found from a reliable source," Katie Boss, a pediatric dietitian at the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Michigan, told Fox News. Abbott Nutrition recalled its baby formula products and closed a plant following a Food and Drug Administration investigation, leading to a nationwide shortage. Abbott and the federal government have taken steps to alleviate the problem, but it could take up to two months before shelves are stocked again, FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said Thursday. (Sahakian, 5/27)

Stat: Biden Administration Won't Lower Seniors' Medicare Premiums This Year
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in January publicly announced he was ordering Medicare to consider dropping older adults' premiums in the middle of this year, which would have been an unprecedented move. But the administration decided against a change due to "legal and operational hurdles," the department said Friday afternoon. The overpayments will instead be factored into next year's premiums. (Cohrs, 5/27)

Modern Healthcare: CMS To Adjust Medicare Premiums In 2023 Due To Lower Aduhelm Costs
Projections for how much Aduhelm, also known as aducanumab, would cost the government in 2022 were the primary reason for a 14.5% Medicare Part B premium hike that brought the monthly cost to $170.10 this year, CMS disclosed in November. Circumstances have changed since then. CMS has limited Aduhelm coverage to beneficiaries enrolled in clinical trials. And Biogen, the drug's manufacturer, halved the original $56,000 yearly price. ... CMS concluded that delaying the adjustment until next year is the only practical method, the agency wrote in a notice. The agency expects Part B premiums to be lower in 2023 because Adulhelm spending won't meet projections this year. (Goldman, 5/27)

AP: Medicare Recipients To See Premium Cut — But Not Until 2023
Medicare recipients will get a premium reduction — but not until next year — reflecting what Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Friday was an overestimate in costs of covering an expensive and controversial new Alzheimer's drug. Becerra's statement said the 2022 premium should be adjusted downward but legal and operational hurdles prevented officials from doing that in the middle of the year. He did not say how much the premium would be adjusted. (5/27)

Capitol Weekly: "Killer Cells" And Conflicts At California's Stem Cell Agency
Call it "The Case of the Killer Cells." It is an $8 million matter involving an effort by California's ambitious stem cell agency to develop cures for particularly tenacious and fatal cancers. The cash is snarled in an "embarrassing" conflict of interest, however, not to mention an irregular vote on the application for research funding from the stem cell agency. The situation has prompted an unusual, mea culpa letter to the state's official watchdog agency that enforces conflict laws involving government spending. (Jensen, 5/25)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Surge Of Fentanyl Deaths, Staffing Shortages Create Backlog In County Medical Examiner's Office
A surge in fatal drug overdoses coupled with staffing vacancies has created a backlog of hundreds of cases in the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office — delaying prosecutions of some homicides and leaving some family members without answers when loved ones die unexpectedly. (Kucher, 5/30)

Fox Business: Disgraced Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Asks Judge To Overturn Convictions
Convicted healthcare tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes is asking a judge to overturn jurors' decision, arguing that there was "insufficient" evidence for them to reach their "guilty" verdicts, according to recent court papers. Holmes, the 38-year-old founder and former CEO of Theranos, was convicted in January on three counts of wire fraud and one counts of conspiracy to commit fraud. But the jury's decision should be thrown out because "the evidence is insufficient to sustain the convictions," Holmes' attorneys argued in a motion on Friday. (Pagones, 5/30)

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