Los Angeles Times: Riverside County Confirms 2 Flu-Related Deaths; L.A. County Reports 1 
With flu season in full swing, Riverside County public health officials are urging residents to get their vaccines and to take other precautions against respiratory viruses after reporting the county’s first two flu-related deaths this winter. The deaths include a 73-year-old man and a 79-year-old woman from mid- and western Riverside County, respectively. Both had underlying health issues and died at local hospitals, according to county officials. No further information was immediately provided. (Vega, 12/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Hospitalizations Rise With COVID, Flu And RSV Increase
California hospitals are seeing increased strain heading into the winter holiday season, with more than three-quarters of inpatient beds occupied and nearly 67% of intensive care beds in use, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But for the first time in three years, the surge is not solely attributed to COVID-19, as various viral and bacterial infections, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, contribute to the burden on the state’s health care system. (Vaziri, 12/8)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County Infectious Disease Experts Recommend Vaccinations Ahead Of Holidays
Last week, Sonoma County public health officials issued a joint press statement with other Bay Area officials, warning of increasing levels of respiratory virus and advising residents to take preventive steps ahead of the holidays. (Espinoza, 12/10)

Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert Healthcare District May Explore Other Hospital Lease Options
Desert Healthcare District officials on Wednesday continued discussions about Tenet Healthcare’s proposed lease for Desert Regional Medical Center, and began to explore other alternatives. After a lengthy discussion about concerns with the proposed lease, followed by public comments, board members unanimously approved a motion to direct staff to seek a consultant who can advise the district "in taking back the hospital." A letter, which outlines concerns and frustrations with Tenet in the negotiating process, was also sent to the company. (Sasic, 12/7)

Voice Of San Diego: Palomar Health CEO Promised Big Financial Gains But Fell Short 
For Palomar Health’s top executive, it wasn’t a question of if it happens, it was a question of when.  That’s what CEO Diane Hansen told the Escondido-Times Advocate in July when asked about Palomar Health’s optimistic financial goals for the 2024 fiscal year, despite a poor financial performance the year before. “We’re looking at a $55 million bottom line for next year,” she told the Times-Advocate. “That would be the best year this organization has ever had.” (Layne, 12/8)

Berkeleyside: One-Of-A-Kind Berkeley Mental Health Program Closed Since August
Bonita House Inc. temporarily shuttered its dual diagnosis residential treatment program — the only one in Alameda County — at the end of August. It plans to reopen by late February or early March. The temporary closure means fewer resources for those in Alameda County simultaneously dealing with mental health diagnoses and substance abuse issues, and no dedicated inpatient dual diagnosis programs at all until it reopens its doors. (Gecan, 12/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: Ransomware Group Takes Credit For California Hospital Attack And Data Leak
Inc. Ransomware has taken credit for the November cyberattack on Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Calif., according to a report from Cyber News. The threat group claimed responsibility on Dec. 7 and posted nine file samples of data on the dark web it says was stolen during the attack. The files include medical records, surgical authorizations and financial records from the hospital. (Dyrda, 12/8)

Los Angeles Times: A Year In, Bass And Her Inside Safe Program Face A Long Road 
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass had been in office for little more than week when she announced the launch of Inside Safe, her signature program to move homeless Angelenos out of the city’s biggest encampments and under a roof. The first place she went was a noisy stretch of Cahuenga Boulevard under the 101 Freeway in Hollywood. Working closely with Councilmember Nithya Raman, city and county agencies found beds for about 30 unhoused residents living at or near the overpass. (Zahniser, Vives and Smith, 12/11)

Bay Area News Group: Is An $800 Million Boost From California’s Homekey Program Helping Solve Homelessness In The Bay Area?
Hillview Court was designed as a place where some of the Bay Area’s most vulnerable homeless residents could gain enough stability to piece their lives back together. But since the Milpitas housing site opened in 2021, the former hotel has experienced hundreds of emergency calls, repeated reports of insect infestations and multiple overdose deaths. Earlier this year, the decomposing body of one tenant went undiscovered for days until a neighbor reported an overpowering odor seeping from the apartment. The coroner’s office determined Ricardo Mendoza, 38, had died of an overdose. (Varian, 12/10)

Los Angeles Times: 31 Pharmacies In Mexico Are Shut As Authorities Crack Down On Fentanyl-Tainted Pills 
Mexican authorities raided dozens of pharmacies in Ensenada and seized thousands of boxes of pills as part of a broader effort to crack down on drugstores suspected of selling counterfeit and fentanyl-tainted medications. ... The raids follow a months-long investigation by the Los Angeles Times, which found that pharmacies in border towns and vacation destinations across the country have been passing off powerful drugs — including fentanyl, heroin and methamphetamine — as legitimate medications commonly sought by American tourists. (Sheets, Blakinger and Mejia, 12/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Most People Dying Of Overdoses In SF Are Using More Than Just Fentanyl
Chi Minie overdosed on fentanyl for the first time four years ago, at age 32. But the near-death experience didn’t stop him from using — or from taking the even riskier step of escalating to speedballs, packing rocks of crack cocaine into a pipe along with the super-powerful opioid fentanyl. It’s pricier to smoke the mixture, because he has to shell out cash for two drugs instead of just one, he said, but the high is “smoother.” Minie overdosed again in April. Still, whenever he gets a few extra dollars — not an easy thing to do, considering he is homeless — he treats himself to a speedball or a goofball, mixing fentanyl with methamphetamine. (Fagan and Leonard, 12/11)

Bay Area News Group: Share The Spirit: How Man Turned Life Around At San Leandro Sobering Center
A 24-hour sobering center operated by Horizon Services, Inc., Cherry Hill is a safe haven for those who hit rock bottom and have nowhere else to go. If they’re too drunk, too high, too sick or too weak, this is the place for them. There’s no insurance needed, no cost, no wait time and it provides a direct line to addict-specific care. (Mastrodonato, 12/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: “Gun Violence Has Altered…Our Daily Lives:” San Diego Joins National Vigil Honoring Those Lost By Gunfire 
Jeff Raya stood up from a Mission Hills church pew Saturday and said the name of his late aunt, Wendy Raya, who was fatally shot in Los Angeles 20 years ago, he said. A bell rang out in her honor and then sounded a dozen more times to commemorate all victims of gun violence.“(Her death) could have been prevented,” said Raya, a San Diego resident among 100 others who gathered at the Mission Hills United Methodist Church for the 11th annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence. (Murga, 12/9)

Bloomberg: UNLV Shooting: Biden Calls Gun Violence An Epidemic
President Joe Biden applauded the courage of law enforcement officers who responded to the deadly shooting on Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and again called for restrictions on assault weapons. Biden, speaking just miles from the campus on Friday, called gun violence an “epidemic” and said “we need Congress to step up.” (Jamrisko, 12/8)

USA Today: Third Victim ID'd In UNLV Shooting As College Professors Decry 'National Menace'
On Wednesday morning, three college professors in Las Vegas got up and went to work in Beam Hall, home of the business school at the University of Nevada. One oversaw Japanese Studies, another taught accounting, a third management of information systems. All were slaughtered, gunned down by a disgruntled former professor who came to campus with a .9 mm handgun, 150 rounds of ammunition and a vendetta. ... The Clark County Coroner's Office identified the final person killed in the shooting as Naoko Takemaru, 69, on Friday. Takemaru lived in Las Vegas and was an associate professor at UNLV, teaching Japanese studies at Beam Hall, according to her staff page on the university's website. (Schermele, Nurse, Collins and Arshad, 12/8)

The Guardian: Gun Violence Rate Higher In Gentrified Neighborhoods, Study Finds 
City dwellers have long noticed that gentrifying neighborhoods report more gun violence. Now, a study, published in Jama Surgery earlier this year and conducted by a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School with Brigham and Women’s hospital, shows just how much – and could suggest new ways to combat gun violence. The report found that the firearm injury incidence rate was 62% higher in neighborhoods that had gentrified between 2014 and 2019 than in non-gentrifying neighborhoods with similar sociodemographic characteristics. On top of that, it found that the gunshot injury rate was an additional 26% higher in neighborhoods that were actively gentrifying. (The study didn’t specify who was committing the violence.) (Nowell, 12/8)

The New York Times: New Sickle Cell Therapies Will Be Out Of Reach Where They Are Needed Most 
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Friday of two groundbreaking gene therapy treatments for sickle cell disease has brought a rare moment of hope and celebration to people with the agonizing blood disorder. But there is no clear path for the new therapies — one-time treatments so effective in clinical trials that they have been hailed as cures — to reach the countries where the vast majority of people with sickle cell live. Shortly after the approval their manufacturers announced sticker prices in the millions of dollars: $3.1 million for Lyfgenia, made by Bluebird Bio, and $2.2 million for Casgevy, made by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. *Robbins and Nolen, 12/8)

Axios: New Sickle Cell Gene Therapies Pose Cost And Access Questions
The Food and Drug Administration took a big step toward ending the most common inherited blood disorder on Friday by approving a pair of gene therapies for sickle cell disease. The one-time treatments are both grueling and could cost millions of dollars, raising questions about equity and access. (Bettelheim, 12/9)

Stat: Experts At ASH Cautiously Optimistic About Sickle Cell Gene Therapies
News of the Food and Drug Administration’s historic approval of the first gene therapies for sickle cell disease sparked discussion, debate, and, above all, measured optimism at this year’s meeting of the American Society of Hematology. (Wosen, 12/9)

NBC News: Supreme Court Justices Discuss Whether To Hear Abortion Pill Showdown
Supreme Court justices were scheduled on Friday to discuss whether to take up a high-stakes legal fight that could result in a definitive decision on federal approval of the drug most commonly used for medication abortion. ... The court later on Friday announced it was hearing one new case but the abortion cases were not mentioned. The court could next act on Monday or later next week. (Hurley, 12/8)

AP: It's Taking Longer To Get An Abortion In The US. Doctors Fear Riskier, More Complex Procedures
A woman whose fetus was unlikely to survive called more than a dozen abortion clinics before finding one that would take her, only to be put on weekslong waiting lists. A teen waited seven weeks for an abortion because it took her mother that long to get her an appointment. Others seeking the procedure faced waits because they struggled to travel hundreds of miles for care. Such obstacles have grown more common since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, doctors and researchers say, causing delays that can lead to abortions that are more complex, costly and in some cases riskier — especially as pregnancies get further along. (Ungar, 12/9)

KQED: California Regulators To Vote On Emergency Rules For Stonecutters' Safety
Jorge Estrella Moreno remembers the day he arrived at the studio apartment he shares with his wife and collapsed on the bed, weighed down by sadness and worry. His wife asked him what was wrong. “I have bad news,” he recalled telling her as he cried. That day nearly a year ago, a doctor had diagnosed him with silicosis, an often fatal lung disease. Estrella Moreno, who lives in San Francisco, had unknowingly inhaled toxic silica dust for years while power-cutting slabs of engineered stone to make kitchen countertops and floor panelings. (Romero, 12/11)

Sacramento Bee: California Farmworker Family Grieves One Cancer Death. Now, They Worry About Second Diagnosis
Eduardo Martinez has tried to push forward after his wife, Margarita, died last month following a 14-year battle with breast cancer. Martinez, a farmworker of 28 years, continues to head to his worksite each morning. He feeds the chickens that live at their modest home on the Madison Pheasant Farm, a rural plot of land in an unincorporated part of Yolo County. Most nights, Martinez is charged with making dinner — a responsibility previously taken on by his wife — for the family. (Miranda, 12/11)