Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
California Assembly OKs $90M Funding Bills For Planned Parenthood Clinics
Both chambers of the California Legislature voted Monday to send a $90 million grant package for womens health clinics to Gov. Gavin Newsoms desk, moving quickly to shore up the states reproductive health programs against cuts pushed by President Donald Trumps administration. (Graham, 2/9)
More California news
A new bill proposed by an Orange County assemblymember would make it a crime to steal someones DNA such as collecting genetic material from a discarded cup, straw or strand of hair and submitting it for testing without permission. (Hunt, 2/9)
Two Florida companies that provide computer code and designs for making 3-D printed guns and ammunition magazines are being sued by the state of California and the city of San Francisco, who say its products are allowing people to create illegal ghost guns. (Bernstein, 2/9)
Comparing social media platforms to casinos and addictive drugs, lawyer Mark Lanier delivered opening statements Monday in a landmark trial in Los Angeles that seeks to hold Instagram owner Meta and Googles YouTube responsible for harms to children who use their products. Instagrams parent company Meta and Googles YouTube face claims that their platforms addict children through deliberate design choices that keep kids glued to their screens. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums. (Huamani and Ortutay, 2/10)
She begged California's CARE Court to help her son. He died 10 days after it dismissed his case. (Bollag, 2/9)
Other health news from across the U.S.
Colorado Medicaid officials are pausing a few proposed cuts that would have affected children and adults with severe disabilities who are cared for at home by family members after state lawmakers found the cuts too painful to support. (Brown, 2/9)
When a patient expresses a mental health concern to their primary care provider, that typically generates a referral to a behavioral health specialist. Then that specialist contacts the patient to schedule an appointment. It can take multiple tries to get the appointment scheduled, and then the first available slot is sometimes weeks away. By then, the opportune moment to engage with the patient has likely passed, or their mental health issue may have escalated into a crisis. (Knopf, 2/10)
Its been months since Tonya Henderson has felt her hands. Originally from California, Henderson has been in St. Louis for about a year, sometimes sleeping on church porches and sometimes in a tent near the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood. These freeze bites are no joke, these burns are no joke, Henderson said. It hurts, it hurts! My toes hurt. Nothing else is cold but my toes and my fingers. (Fentem, 2/9)
From her home in Donaldsonville, La., less than three miles from the worlds largest ammonia plant, Ashley Gaignard says the air itself carries a chemical edge. The odor, she said, is sharp and lingering. Years ago, when her son attended an elementary school about a mile from the massive CF Industries ammonia production facility, he would begin wheezing during recess, she recalled. His breathing problems eased only after he transferred to a school several miles farther away. (Alexander, 2/10)
Rhonda Anderson has spent nearly three decades fighting for clean air and water in Detroit. As an environmental justice organizer with the Sierra Club, she led campaigns to raise awareness about lead poisoning of babies and children in the vicinity of steel mills and is part of a Clean Air Act lawsuit against the EES Coke Battery, a local industrial facility.(Kutz, 2/9)