Medi-Cal
225,000 Medi-Cal Enrollees Lost Coverage In June: About 225,0000 Californians lost their free or low-cost health coverage as of July 1, in the first round a Medi-Cal renewal process that had been suspended since early in the covid pandemic. That’s approximately 21% of the over 1 million people who were due to reapply for coverage in June, according to preliminary numbers released by state health officials on Thursday. Read more from CalMatters, Los Angeles Times, and the Sacramento Bee.
The New York Times: Millions Of Californians Are Expected To Lose Medi-Cal Coverage
A big change is underway for one of California’s most popular safety net programs. More than 15 million Californians, or 40 percent of the state’s population, are enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, which offers free health care coverage to low-income residents. But federal health care protections enacted during the Covid-19 pandemic expired in March, and this month California began verifying the eligibility of residents currently on Medi-Cal’s rolls. (Karlamangla, 7/17)
Organ Transplants
Organ Recovery Nonprofit In Jeopardy Due To Poor Rankings: One Legacy, the nonprofit at the helm the organ recovery in Southern California for transplants, has been falling so far short of federal regulations that it could eventually be shut down. A measurement system rolled out in recent years found the nonprofit has been recovering organs from possible donors at lower rates than the majority of such organizations across the country. Read more from the Los Angeles Times.
LGBTQ+ Health
The 19th: Gender Dysphoria Is A Protected Disability In Some States. Momentum Could Be Growing
For nearly six months, Kesha Williams was housed with men in a Virginia prison. Williams, a transgender woman, was denied access to her hormone medication, misgendered and harassed by prison deputies, according to a lawsuit she filed against the county sheriff and detention center staff. Her ongoing legal fight has created historic precedent: People with gender dysphoria are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The U.S. Supreme Court recently allowed that precedent, first upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, to stand. Advocates view that as a hopeful sign in the years-long battle to include trans people in federal disability law. (Rummler, 7/20)
Axios: Drug Shortages Squeeze Trans Patients' Access To Hormone Therapy
The worst drug shortage in a decade is disrupting gender-affirming care, as scarce supplies of injectable estrogen prevent some transgender women from obtaining hormone therapy. Shortages of cancer drugs and other life-saving medications have already forced doctors to develop workarounds. A lack of access to estrogen products can affect trans patients in different ways: putting some through early onset menopause, reversing certain physical changes from their transition or causing them to experience anxiety and depression. (Gonzalez, 7/21)
Mental Health
One Year In, 988 Mental Health Crisis Line Proves It’s Worth: California made it easier to call for help a year ago when it launched a simplified mental health crisis hotline: Dial three digits — 988 — and you can get in touch with a counselor immediately. Since then, crisis centers have received more than 280,000 calls. That’s twice as many as any other state, signaling to mental health advocates that the service was badly needed. Read more from the CalMatters.
CNN: 988: One Year After Launch, Mental Health Crisis Line Still Building Awareness And Staffing
Sunday marks the first anniversary of 988’s launch, and there have been nearly 5 million calls, texts and online chat messages answered through 988 in the year since its launch, according to data released Thursday by the US Department of Health and Human Services. “That is well over a million, close to 2 million, more than what we saw in previous similar time frames,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN. “We now have to make sure that we continue to build the end of the pipeline, which means once they’ve called in, we’ve got to make sure they’re getting services as well.” (Howard and Viswanathan, 7/13)
Bloomberg: Suicide Risk Rises For Children And Teens During School Year, Study Says
The risk of suicide for kids and teens rises during the school year, researchers said, reflecting the impact of its social and learning pressures on young people’s mental health. Children from the ages of 10 to 18 are more likely to appear at hospitals for suicidal thoughts or attempts in the spring and fall than during summer vacation, according to a study from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston released Wednesday. The pattern paused in the beginning of 2020, when many schools emptied during the early days of Covid-19. (Griffin, 7/19)
Capital & Main: Proposed Law Would Reduce Barriers To Mental Health Care For California Youth
The height of the pandemic triggered waves of anxiety and emotional stress for isolated young people across the country, including those in California. But long before COVID was a common term, the need for greater access to youth mental health services in the Golden State had been growing. (Kreidler, 7/17)
County Mental Health Services Could Lose Out On Millions: A major proposal from Gov. Gavin Newsom to overhaul the state’s behavioral and mental health system is likely to take nearly $720 million away from services provided by county governments annually, according to a new analysis from the Legislative Analyst’s Office. Read more from CalMatters.
Research
Stanford Daily: Stanford President Resigns Over Manipulated Research
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign effective Aug. 31, according to communications released by the University Wednesday morning. He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.” (Baker, 7/19)
The New York Times: Stanford President Resigns After Report Finds Flaws In His Research
The review, conducted by an outside panel of scientists, refuted the most serious claim involving Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s work — that an important 2009 Alzheimer’s study was the subject of an investigation that found falsified data and that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had covered it up. The panel concluded that the claims “appear to be mistaken” and that there was no evidence of falsified data or that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had otherwise engaged in fraud. But the review also stated that the 2009 study, conducted while he was an executive at the biotech company Genentech, had “multiple problems” and “fell below customary standards of scientific rigor and process,” especially for such a potentially important paper. (Saul, 7/19)
Children’s Health
CIDRAP: Studies In Kids Shed New Light On Long COVID, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome
Today in JAMA Network Open, two studies detail long COVID and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), with Swedish researchers reporting that long COVID is rare in this group—but hospitalization or having a parent with long COVID dramatically increases the risk—and another finding that a significant proportion of US and Canadian youth who had MIS-C have persistent neurologic and psychological symptoms. (Van Beusekom, 7/19)
San Diego Union-Tribune: Rady Children's Hospital Seeing An Alarming Number Of Children 5 And Under With Cannabis Poisoning
San Diego County’s only children’s hospital reports that it continues to see elevated numbers of young patients arriving in its emergency department with cannabis poisoning, echoing findings from a new analysis released last week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Sisson, 7/16)
AP: Border Patrol Fails To Assess Medical Needs For Children With Preexisting Conditions, Report Says
Border Patrol does not have protocols for assessing medical needs of children with preexisting conditions, according to an independent report made public Tuesday on the death of an 8-year-old girl from Panama who was in federal custody. The girl’s death was “a preventable tragedy that resulted from” failures in “medical and custodial systems for children” within U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the agency that includes the Border Patrol, the report found. (Cruz and Gonzalez, 7/19)
San Francisco Chronicle: California’s Early Childhood Services Hit By Drop In Tobacco Tax Haul
For 25 years, some of California’s best-known early childhood services have been funded by an almost ironic source: Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. That was the deal voters made when they passed Proposition 10 in 1998, levying a tobacco tax and dedicating the money for programs that would help families with young children. The arrangement was never supposed to last forever. Advocates for youth services have known from the beginning that fewer people would smoke over time, and the funding would fall. (Ibarra, 7/18)
CalMatters: Smokers Fund California’s Early Childhood Programs. What Happens When They Quit?
For 25 years, some of California’s best-known early childhood services have been funded by an almost ironic source: Taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. That was the deal voters made when they passed Proposition 10 in 1998, levying a tobacco tax and dedicating the money for programs that would help families with young children. The arrangement was never supposed to last forever. Advocates for youth services have known from the beginning that fewer people would smoke over time, and the funding would fall. (Ibarra, 7/18)
CIDRAP: Study Finds Kids' Obesity Increased During COVID-19
A new study based the body mass indexes (BMIs) of the residents of Monroe County, Indiana, shows the pandemic was tied to increased rates of severe obesity for children, with the greatest increase among those ages 5 to 11. The study is published in JAMA Network Open. (Soucheray, 7/17)
Women’s Health
The Hill: ‘Forever Chemicals’ And Acids Used In Plastic Production Connected To Poor Pregnancy Outcomes: Study
Both cancer-linked “forever chemicals” and certain compounds used in plastic production may be associated with a heightened risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes, a new study from the University of California, San Francisco has found. Exposure to these substances — which are all widespread in the San Francisco region — could carry an increased threat of gestational diabetes, life-threatening preeclampsia and pregnancy hypertension in Bay Area individuals, according to the study, published on Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives. (Udasin, 7/18)