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San Francisco experienced a staggering 70% increase in overdose deaths last year, and 2020 is expected to be even worse as the pandemic disrupts social services, exacerbates drug use and pushes more people toward poverty and isolation. According to a Department of Public Health report released Monday, 441 people died of an overdose in 2019. That is more than one per day for an entire year, and an astronomical jump from the 259 overdoses recorded in 2018. Fifty-four percent of the deaths in 2019 were related to fentanyl, a drug that can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. (Thadani, 8/31)

Vaping companies have just nine days until they must submit formal marketing applications to the Food and Drug Administration, or risk being kicked off the market. Now, small vapor companies are requesting an extension, setting off a flurry of activism in recent days from both vaping advocates and tobacco control groups. (Florko, 9/1)

Orthostatic hypotension — to many people those are unfamiliar words for a relatively common but often unrecognized medical problem that can have devastating consequences, especially for older adults. It refers to a brief but precipitous drop in blood pressure that causes lightheadedness or dizziness when standing up after lying down or sitting, and sometimes even after standing, for a prolonged period. The problem is likely to be familiar to people of all ages who may have been confined to bed for a long time by an injury, illness or surgery. It also often occurs during pregnancy. But middle-aged and older adults are most frequently affected. (Brody, 8/31)

After years of research, the National Cancer Institute was poised Tuesday to finally release a series of papers related to radiation doses and cancer risks resulting from the U.S. government’s detonation of the first atomic bomb during a test at a military outpost in the New Mexico desert in 1945. Government scientists never discounted the potential for radioactive fallout before moving ahead with the Trinity Test, which was the culmination of work done at installations around the country as part of the once-secret Manhattan Project. The detonation forever changed the course of history, ensuring the end of World War II and marking the dawn of the atomic age. (Montoya Bryan, 9/1)