Since pharmaceutical companies started funding their FDA drug applications 30 years ago, the agency's reviews have gone much faster — perhaps too fast. (Arthur Allen, )
Otay Mesa Border Crossing Opens Its First Medical 'Fast Lane': A third border booth opened Wednesday for users of the Fast Lane crossing program created for U.S. residents traveling to Tijuana for medical or business purposes. Doctors enrolled in the program can ask for a single-use pass that allows their patients to cross the border back into the U.S. through a special lane where the wait is shorter. It's the first booth at the Otay Mesa crossing. Read more from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
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
Abortion
Los Angeles Times: Temecula Drops Proposed 'Sanctuary City' Abortion Ban After California's attorney general warned Temecula against passing a local abortion ban, the City Council in a heated meeting Tuesday voted not to pursue the measure. The council voted 4 to 1 not to include the antiabortion resolution on a future council agenda. Councilwoman Jessica Alexander, who had proposed the resolution to declare Temecula "a sanctuary city for Temecula's unborn," was the only vote in favor. (Lin, 9/29)
CNN: California Bars Tech Companies From Complying With Other States' Abortion-Related Warrants California is attempting to stymie abortion prosecutions in other states by making it illegal for Silicon Valley giants and other businesses based in the Golden State to hand over the personal information of abortion-seekers to out-of-state authorities. A new law signed Tuesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom forbids California-based businesses from giving up geolocation data, search histories and other personal information in response to out-of-state search warrants, unless those warrants are accompanied by a statement that the evidence sought isn't connected to an abortion investigation. (Fung and Duffy, 9/29)
Axios: California's Abortion-Info Law Ups Stakes In Online War Between States As the partisan divide between Democratic-led and Republican-dominated states grows, states are increasingly passing laws governing the digital realm that put them at direct odds with one another. The new California law, AB1242, "gives [tech companies] a way to protect the privacy of their customers... We have given a tool to our tech companies to be our partner in protecting health privacy," California assembly member Rebecca Bauer-Kahan told Axios. (Gold, 9/29)
San Francisco Chronicle: California Monkeypox Cases Plunge 95%, Outbreak Isn't Over Yet The number of people testing positive for monkeypox has plunged in California, with the seven-day average of new cases down about 95% since the peak of the outbreak in early August. Though health experts caution that the virus threat hasn't disappeared, progress in fending it off so far constitutes a major public health success. (Vaziri, 9/29)
Sacramento Bee: Small CA Pharmacies Can't Get Paid For Monkeypox Vaccines Pucci's Pharmacy co-owner Clint Hopkins heeded his conscience and the Sacramento County public health team's call for help with vaccinating people at high-risk of contracting monkeypox. The county provided Hopkins' independent drugstore with the vaccines at no charge, and his team started giving shots on July 8. (Anderson, 9/30)
Los Angeles Blade: Los Angeles County Supervisors Approve Sick Leave For Monkeypox The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion Tuesday, sponsored by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Sheila Kuehl, which directs County attorneys to report back to the board in three weeks on how the County could implement a paid sick leave policy for people who contract monkeypox, or other new and emerging infectious diseases. (Levesque, 9/29)
Los Angeles Times: Laguna Hills Doctor Pleads Guilty To Defrauding Medi-Cal Of $20 Million A Laguna Hills doctor pleaded guilty to defrauding Medi-Cal of more than $20 million by prescribing unnecessary medications to patients that were later sold on the black market, officials said. Mohamed Waddah El-Nachef, 69, appeared in Orange County Superior Court on Wednesday to plead guilty to one count of insurance fraud and one count of aiding and abetting the unauthorized practice of medicine, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement. (Hernandez, 9/29)
KQED: San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney To Lead California's New Opioid Committee San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney will lead a bipartisan committee of state lawmakers to investigate solutions to the state's opioid crisis, which kills thousands of people each year in California. The 11-member committee named by Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon includes four Republicans and encompasses representatives from rural and urban districts all around the state. (Lagos, 9/29)
KVPR: Amid Allegations Of Overdoses At Bakersfield-Area High School, Parents Call For Increased Transparency Last week, first responders administered the overdose-reversal medication Narcan to a student at a Bakersfield-area high school. That's according to parents at the school, who are concerned about a possible uptick in youth overdoses. North High School Principal Mark Balch acknowledged an increase in drug use on the Oildale campus during a Tuesday community meeting. "We've seen a recent uptick in cases where kids are getting very sick, sometimes overdosing," he said. "That's why we're here tonight." (Yeager, 9/29)
Around California
San Francisco Chronicle: Oakland School Shooting: Gunmen Hit Students With Banned Firearms At least two gunmen who injured six people in a mass shooting at an Oakland public school fired more than 30 rounds, the city's police chief said Thursday, while revealing that the assailants entered the school building to target specific people before fleeing in a vehicle. "We thank God that many more students were not injured as a result of this action," Chief LeRonne Armstrong told reporters during a video news conference. (Swan and Tucker, 9/29)
San Francisco Chronicle: San Mateo County Advises Residents To Protect Themselves, Pets From Rising Bird Flu Cases San Mateo County Health is advising residents with domestic birds to protect their pets from the risk of spreading bird flu due to an increase of cases in the region, according to the county health department. Although there have been no human cases of bird flu, residents should keep their birds free "from contact with wild birds" and take precautions when handling dead birds , a county press release said. (Umanzor, 9/29)
Bloomberg: Food Waste Startup TGTG Launches In California Too Good To Go (TGTG), a mobile app that connects users with restaurants and stores offering surplus unsold food, is launching in Los Angeles, California, today, its 13th US city. The launch coincides with the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste and comes one day after US President Joe Biden announced more than $8 billion in private- and public-sector commitments to help combat hunger. (Ighodaro, 9/29)
Lou Gehrig's Disease
The Washington Post: FDA Approves First ALS Drug In 5 Years After Pleas From Patients The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday overcame doubts from agency scientists and approved a fiercely debated drug for ALS, a move that heartened patients and advocates who pushed for the medication but raised concerns among some experts about whether treatments for dire conditions receive sufficient scrutiny. "It's a huge deal," said Sunny Brous, 35, who was diagnosed with ALS seven years ago after she had trouble closing her left glove while playing softball. She plans to begin taking the drug as soon as she can. (McGinley, 9/29)
AP: ALS Drug Wins FDA Approval Despite Questionable Data The latest approval followed a remarkably turbulent path, including two negative reviews by the FDA's internal scientists, who called the company's results "borderline" and "not persuasive." A panel of outside advisers backed that negative opinion in March, narrowly voting against the drug. But the FDA has faced intense pressure from ALS patients, advocates and members of Congress. In recent weeks the agency received more than 1,300 written comments from the ALS community supporting the treatment. (Perrone, 9/30)
Stat: FDA Approves Amylyx's ALS Drug, Giving Patients Needed Treatment Option Amylyx did not immediately disclose how much it will charge for Relyvrio. "Amylyx's goal is that every person who is eligible for Relyvrio will have access as quickly and efficiently as possible," the company's co-CEOs said in a statement, "as we know people with ALS and their families have no time to wait." (Garde, 9/29)
Coronavirus
Brisbane Times: Unlike Flu, COVID-19 Attacks DNA In The Heart, New Research Shows Direct research on the hearts of COVID-19 patients who have died from the disease has revealed they sustained DNA damage in a way completely unlike how influenza affects the body. The finding gives researchers clues about exactly how severe COVID-19 is affecting the body, and also a potential way to detect who will be seriously affected by the disease in the future. (Layt, 9/29)
Becker's Hospital Review: Pulse Oximeter Flaws May Have Delayed COVID-19 Treatment For Black Patients: Study Black COVID-19 patients may have faced 4.5-hour treatment delays due to pulse oximeters' inability to accurately read their blood oxygen levels, according to researchers at Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health. For 30 years, medical literature has documented that pulse oximeters overestimate blood oxygenation in individuals with darker pigmented skin, according to a study shared with Becker's on Sept. 28. However, the clinical impacts of this discrepancy have not been heavily investigated, a Sutter Health spokesperson said Sept. 28 in a statement shared with Becker's. (Kayser, 9/29)
Mental Health
The Wall Street Journal: U.S. Suicide Rates Rose In 2021 After Two Years Of Decline The U.S. suicide rate rose in 2021 after two consecutive years of declines, federal data showed, underscoring concern about mental health in the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. The suicide rate last year increased 4% compared with the rate in 2020, provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Friday. The rise was driven largely by suicides among men. Males ages 15 to 24 experienced the sharpest increase at 8%, the report found. (Abbott, 9/30)
NBC News: After 2-Year Decline, Suicide Rates Rise Again It's a sign, experts say, that suicide rates are inching back up to levels seen before the pandemic. In 2021, 47,646 people in the United States died by suicide, up from 45,979 in 2020. That's an increase of nearly 4%. (Edwards, 9/30)
The Hill: House Passes Bill Addressing Mental Health Concerns Among Students, Families, Educators The House passed a bill on Thursday that seeks to address mental health concerns among students, families and educators aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which lawmakers say had a "severe impact" on those three groups. The bill, titled the Mental Health Matters Act, passed in a largely party-line 220-205 vote. One Republican, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), joined all Democrats present in supporting it. (Schnell, 9/29)
Fox News 4: Kids With Head Lice Shouldn't Be Sent Home From School, New AAP Guidance Says A head lice diagnosis is neither a health hazard nor a sign of poor hygiene, and children should not miss school because of it, new guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics states. Instead, being sent home from school because of head lice "can result in significant stigma and psychological stress." (Hayes, 9/29)
Los Angeles Times: Now That The CDC Has Dropped Masking, A Plea To Doctors And Hospitals With a one-two punch, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have tossed tens of millions of Americans at high risk of death and disability from COVID into a sea of contagion without any clear guidance for infection prevention and control. After President Biden's thoughtless remark that "the pandemic is over," the CDC announced days later a quiet undermining of COVID protections in hospitals and nursing homes: the end of universal masking recommendations for healthcare settings. (Kathleen Quinn, 9/27)
Los Angeles Times: How I Cope After Losing My Sense Of Smell To COVID Two and a half years ago, my nose stopped working. That's when I realized how often smell comes up in daily conversation: "That Uber smelled weird," or "that woman was wearing way too much perfume," or "someone's definitely smoking weed nearby." (Nicole Kagan, 9/29)
Forbes: What Managers Need Now: 3 Overlooked Ideas Inspired By The Kaiser Permanente Strike The Kaiser nurses strike—and the company's response— deserves national attention from business leaders. This is an opportunity for businesses to assess how their own stewards of mental and physical health—millions of managers—are coping. They are responsible for insuring the psychological and physical safety of employees. Their lives depend on managerial decisions. (Denise Brodey, 9/22)
inewsource: My Reporting On Mental Illness Is Personal I wish this was a chance to tell you about my stepbrother in his own words: How he has this amazing ability to remember little details about people from years ago and a talent for fitting in wherever he goes. I wish I could show his photos, so you could see why many of my friends had childhood crushes on him. I wish I could point out all the ways his personality comes from his father, my stepdad, who passed along to his only son the knack of making a stranger feel like a lifelong friend. (Bowman, 9/29)
East Bay Times: Bill Would Harm California College Students And Patients When parents send their children to a University of California campus, they expect the student to grow academically, to be well-fed and to live in a safe and clean environment. When patients show up at a UC hospital, they trust that the facility will be adequately staffed. (Kristin Olsen and Das Williams, 9/23)
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